Logic of chance

[Ephrium]

I have always seen one fundamental flaw in one of the MOST common believer's argument against evolution. They site, for example, if a tornado were to blow a rubbhist junk of material ,what is the chance of a Boeing747 being created from it.

In essense, they say some random mass of pile of things End up being something as complex and organised as a human has negligible chance.

Dawkins argue that which Mutations are random, evolution is not.

However this borders on begging the question. It assumes evolution exist in the first place.

I tell you all one fundamental flaw with this believers argument, and you atheist help structure it into a proper reasoning. Somehow, I am stuck at being able to progress.

The fundamental flaw is, if we were to believe in the believers' reasoning, then Whatever, no matter what outcome, will be rejected by them.

Say there is a box containing one million different poker cards. You are to draw one. The believers logic will then argue that there is only one in a million chance you could have drawn that, hence it cannot be true. However, the situation can be for real obviously.

So say after the Earth is formed. Evolution does not take place and 1 billion years later still ends up in a pile of mess. The believer's logic will have to contradict too, why is it this mess out of a possible 1 thrillion other mess. It cannot be true.

My Logic has not ben fully developed but there is some logic in it. You guys develope one for me and us.

[WWLD]

I would help, but I'm still trying to figure out what you mean.

[Demonaura]

You said 'You atheists' and your profile says you are an atheist. dare I ask?

Evolution happens over time, we don't assume it exists, we have observed it and studied it. It happens. specific mutations can be random but, evolution itself will continue to move on and natural selection will decide what mutations are worthy to stay around.

Past that I am afraid I am unsure to the point you are trying to make so, I'll leave it at that.

[Ephrium]

At the fundamentals, what I mean is whatever outcome the present day is will be rejected by the believers, because it is just one out of a Billion billion possible outcomes.

Believers are currently rejecting evolution, because this present day is one of a billion billion outcome after Earth is formed.

The flaw which I point out, is then whatever outcome will be rejected by them then, since any other outcome is also one out of a billion billion chance.

Dawkins Counter this argument by believers saying mutations are random, but Evolution is not. In another words, he is saying natural selection makes the present outcome more likely than others. But it begs the question as in assumes Natural selection in the first place.

Stephen Hawking counters by saying "But it happened!" This may still not convince the beievers, whose very point(As they think) is that evolution has a very low chance of happening

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I did not mean much when I said"you atheist". Just take it I did not say it. But I am atheist, to clarify.

My point is, this believer's argument that evolution has only a small chance of happening will lead to: "At the fundamentals, what I mean is whatever outcome the present day is will be rejected by the believers, because it is just one out of a Billion billion possible outcomes."

[Demonaura]

Ohh, because the odds are seemingly impossible they say it could never happen. while it obviously did already happen they use the odds to say it couldn't have. I gotcha, and yea good point.

Using odds like that makes sense when you are speaking of events that have not happened but, even if the odds are a billion to one it can still happen. They are using a logical though, illogically and in the past tense, odds dont work in the past tense because the odds that events happened are 100%. Because they already happened ^_^

Cool post, thats a fun one to think about.

[Ephrium]

Demonura, You have a good point too, but I am thinking about whether our points are the same lol. Perhaps they are. Like I have said, I myself have not fully figured out a structured argument for this.

I give an example of another look at this topic.

I just sense some nonsense in their this argument.

Say talk about the lottery. There is just say 1 in 1 billion billion chance of some number being chosen Randomly. If we are to fully trust in believer's logic, then we will have to say, no matter what number happened to be the result,

"Look, there is only 1 in 1 billion billion chance this number can happen. Will you rather believe it was by itself or that someone purposely picked this number"

[leo-rcc]

For winning the jackpot of a lottery, the odds are stacked hugely against you. But no matter how unlikely it is for a single person in particular to win the jackpot, there is always someone somewhere that does win the jackpot (eventually).

The same is with odds on life on other planets. Even if the odds of life on another planet is 1:1,000,000,000 , with over 1,000,000,000,000 planets statisticaly that would leave 1000 planets at least with life on it. In theory at least. I don't know the exact odds, and I don't know the exact number of planets in our universe, so don't pin me on these numbers, it is just for the sake of argument.

[Demonaura]

I think that we basically agree on this yes.

[allan175]

Say talk about the lottery. There is just say 1 in 1 billion billion chance of some number being chosen Randomly. If we are to fully trust in believer's logic, then we will have to say, no matter what number happened to be the result,

"Look, there is only 1 in 1 billion billion chance this number can happen. Will you rather believe it was by itself or that someone purposely picked this number"

Your argument is not the same as theirs though. You are reasoning from the start of a sequence of events, they are reasoning from the end.

If I go out today and buy a ticket for the lottery tomorrow the chance of me winning the lottery is 1 in 1 billion billion (to use your figures). If I do actually win then the day after that the chance of me *having* won the lottery is 1 in 1.
The religious person is using the fact that we are already here as eliminating all possibly alternatives (when, to me at least, we are just wandering along a random path taking a route which *at the time of each step* makes the most sense (if you see what I mean)).

[Demonaura]

Indeed Allan, you are quite right when you say they are reasoning from the end.

I think what is also being said though, is not only that they are using the fact that we are here to eliminate alternatives but, at the same time they are invalidating their own point by saying the odds of us evolving like this are too low to be reasonable. When the odds of our being created are equally as unlikely.

Hows that for circular logic eh?

I also agree with your last comment, theres no endless plan for our evolution, we are making decisions as we come to them and seeing where it gets us. For better or for worse (I think we do alright).