The Case for Theism

[Jackalope]

Let's illustrate Mister Agenda's point in a slightly different way.

There are approximately 2 * 10 ^ 19 molecules in a grain of sand. Feel free to calculate the odds of each individual molecule being arranged exactly as it is - it's infinitesimally small. Yet, every one of the billions and billions of grains of sand on earth is arranged exactly as it is, despite those infinitesimal odds against such a specific arrangement. I'll add that despite those odds, the arrangement is wholly unremarkable, because nobody predicted it would occur.

Probability is useful for making predictions, not for analyzing events which have already occurred.

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Incidentally, if you're going to copy-paste your argument from the internet (a practice that is frowned upon), the least you can do is attribute your source.

http://www.religiouslyincorrect.com/Arti...ion5.shtml

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Because of Chemical Evolution's inconceivable claims, some mathematicians set to work on calculating the probability that Chemical Evolution could have actually happened at all. 

Experts tell us there are roughly 1080 particles (electrons and protons) in the entirety of our immense universe. That's 10 with 80 zeros behind it, or "one hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion." 

In other words, 1080 is a lot of particles. 

Imagine for a moment (as some experts have estimated) that each particle in the universe could perform 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1020) events per second. 

Also assume for a moment that the universe is more than 15 billion years old (about 1018 seconds)—also a generous approximation. 

*If these numbers are reasonable, this means that in our universe there could have been, to date, no more than roughly 10118 chemical events (1080 x 1020 x 1018 = 10118)—in other words, 10118 "possible" interactions among all the protons and electrons in the immeasurable history of our universe. *

I say "possible" because it's quite certain there were far "less" than that. Why? 

Because 1080 assumes every single proton and electron "in the universe" has interacted with every single "other" proton and electron. *Obviously, this is extremely overstated.* 

In fact, most areas of the universe are totally isolated from the others, separated by immense expanses of outer space. They will never interact with matter outside of their close proximity. Even on our earth, the vast majority of protons and electrons will never get close enough to interact with the vast majority of "other" protons and electrons on earth. 

What I'm trying to say is...10118 is the total possible chemical interactions IF every proton and electron interacted with every other proton and electron. Therefore it is obvious that 10118 far exceeds the actual number of chemical events that have in fact occurred in the universe to date. 

In view of this—and still being extremely generous—*mathematicians have concluded that it is ridiculous to think an event with odds of less than 1 in 1050 will ever happen*.

Why? Because chances are, there have been far LESS than 1050 chemical events in the combined history of our universe. 

It would therefore be impossible for a chance occurrence to happen that required MORE events than 1050. 

This conclusion is called "Borel's Law of mathematical probability." 

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1080 = 10^80... 1018 = 10^18... 1050 = 10^50....etc...

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Furthermore, let's go see what Borel himself had to say about (ab)using probabilities in this manner:

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The Problem of Life

In conclusion, I feel it is necessary to say a few words regarding a question that does not really come within the scope of this book, but that certain readers might nevertheless reproach me for having entirely neglected. I mean the problem of the appearance of life on our planet (and eventually on other planets in the universe) and the probability that this appearance may have been due to chance. If this problem seems to me to lie outside our subject, this is because the probability in question is too complex for us to be able to calculate its order of magnitude. It is on this point that I wish to make several explanatory comments.

When we calculated the probability of reproducing by mere chance a work of literature, in one or more volumes, we certainly observed that, if this work was printed, it must have emanated from a human brain. Now the complexity of that brain must therefore have been even richer than the particular work to which it gave birth. Is it not possible to infer that the probability that this brain may have been produced by the blind forces of chance is even slighter than the probability of the typewriting miracle?

It is obviously the same as if we asked ourselves whether we could know if it was possible actually to create a human being by combining at random a certain number of simple bodies. But this is not the way that the problem of the origin of life presents itself: it is generally held that living beings are the result of a slow process of evolution, beginning with elementary organisms, and that this process of evolution involves certain properties of living matter that prevent us from asserting that the process was accomplished in accordance with the laws of chance.

Moreover, certain of these properties of living matter also belong to inanimate matter, when it takes certain forms, such as that of crystals. It does not seem possible to apply the laws of probability calculus to the phenomenon of the formation of a crystal in a more or less supersaturated solution. At least, it would not be possible to treat this as a problem of probability without taking account of certain properties of matter, properties that facilitate the formation of crystals and that we are certainly obliged to verify. We ought, it seems to me, to consider it likely that the formation of elementary living organisms, and the evolution of those organisms, are also governed by elementary properties of matter that we do not understand perfectly but whose existence we ought nevertheless admit.

Similar observations could be made regarding possible attempts to apply the probability calculus to cosmogonical problems. In this field, too, it does not seem that the conclusions we have could really be of great assistance.

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I'll summarize what Borel said: probability estimates that don't account for non-random properties of matter (i.e. physics and chemistry) are meaningless.