The improbability argument

They might, but they should not, because that would be circular reasoning … assuming that which they are trying to prove.The figures are so high because they depend on arbitrary assumptions. You can make the figures as large or small as you want. Nobody has the information required to calculate a meaningful probability. Well, there are lots of things we don't know, and realistic people admit that. There are probably things we cannot ever know; for example, the exact total number of Tyrannosaurus Rex that ever lived.Yes, IDers use that to argue for a creator. This is called "God of the Gaps" and is rejected by all those who realize what it means. As science learns more, you wind up squeezing God into smaller and smaller gaps. Yes, he came up with a number something like that. He was a smart guy who made a stupid mistake in a field in which he had no expertise. He did that by assuming that all the molecules came together solely by chance. That is known to be a terrible assumption, but it's a common one among creationists; Dembski did it recently, too, in "No Free Lunch". Hoyle (and Dembski and others) did not take into account the possibilities of reproduction, mutation, natural selection, neutral drift, and so on. Admittedly, when you include those factors you quickly come to a point where calculating the probability is impractical. Try Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations and its links (although the article is a little out of date) and the links given at Claim CB050.

Crashfrog,
I agree with you here. I am assuming you were asking a rhetorical question, but I will answer it anyway just in case.The fact of the matter is that the chances of God cannot be measured. It is impossible to measure something supernatural by natural means. If we could prove God existed and influenced the world it could be calculated since He would then be natural (I guess it this comes down to that since we cannot prove God naturally he is therefore supernatural). However, we cannot prove God exists, therefore he cannot (at least as of yet) be considered natural and therefore cannot be measured.When someone says " God is more likely" it cannot be taken in as a statistical statement, rather a belief. It more or less means "The statistics for abiogenesis (or another event) are very unlikely, so I would rather attribute creation to God."

JonF has already answered this, but I'll come at it from another angle.Hoyle was brilliant, but after his work on stellar evolution that should have won him a Nobel he developed a propensity for delving into fields he knew little about and a habit of making pronouncements based on insufficient background and experience. I don't know the details of behind his figure, but few in biology believe that the first life was some incredibly lucky accident.It makes no sense to calculate a probability for getting a primitive cell just by mixing all the chemicals of life, just as it makes no sense to calculate the likelihood of this rock formation happening by mixing up a lot of sand: This rock formation didn't come about suddenly in a single step. First there was a beach were sand was gradually buried. Sediments gathered above and their weight turned the sand to sandstone. Eons passed and the region was uplifted. Subterranean aquifers carried some of the sandstone away. Then erosion did the final crafting and revealed the completed product to the light of day. Total time to create this rock formation: millions of years minimum.In the same way, neither did the first life didn't come about suddenly in a single step. It took millions of years of small incremental steps, each one a likely next step from the previous. It was a lengthy and likely inevitable process given the favorable conditions on this planet. And given the complexity and lack of ancient evidence (pre-life was likely quickly consumed by life for food), we're having a difficult time reconstructing how the first life came about.Which is another reason Hoyle's figure, and any others you might come across, have to be ignored. We don't know how the first life came about. You can't calculate a probability for a process you don't know. That the brilliant Hoyle somehow forgot this is a testimony to how far "out there" he had become.--Percy

Scientists do admit that they currently do not know how life originated on earth. I'm sure that was a rough estimate based on a rather model of how life might have started. That is, it was an argument based on ignorance. Incidently, Hoyle was supporting a version of panspermia (seeding from outer space).

The problem with the 'probablity' arguement that Hoyle (an astronomer, not a biologist or a chemist btw) is that it does not take into account the fact that development is incremental, and not random. There is a random element, to be sure... but it goes through a 'filter' to develop.