the old improbable probability problem

In terms of chirality I suspect Zaius means that the products of the original Urey-Miller experiment occurred in a racemix mix with equal proportions of dextro and levo rotatory amino acids. Since in living organisms the amino acids are almost exclusively levorotatory this is often put forward as a problem for abiogenesis by creationists.I know you are familiar with the argument so I assume that your question to Zaius was rhetorical or socratic in nature.TTFN,WK

Hi Wounded King Yes, more specifically, though, what I mean is that the presence of dextro rotatory amino acids does not mean that the levo rotatory amino acids are not available for the formation of life.What we don't know is how the amino acids were filtered for what is used ... it could be that some other aspect of cell formation may have caused the selection of levo rotatory amino acids.In terms of probability for the formation of life it is like drawing a card from a pack and then matching the color with the next one picked.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added

RAZDI do not pretend to have written any papers or preformed any research. I can do some of the math but I do not posses a degree in the field. I am but a simple nonprofessional of average intelligence. Here is a paper that can dispel some of your fears about abiogenesis calculations. If there is anything in this paper that presents poser of a particular nature, please let’s talk.Probability of one avenue of RNA World generation.In the present paper, in order again to optimize the probability of cell formation by
random assembly, we restrict attention to the RNA-world. Then referring to eq. (11) in Part I, we see that, for a cell consisting of Np proteins, each of which is a polypeptide containing Na amino acids (aa), the probability of random assembly is 1 in 10b whereb = (Np +2) [ m log(Np) . qmax + qra ]http://www.iscid.org/...lan_PrimitiveCellAddendum_022703.pdf

No actual proponent of abiogenesis suggests that cells randomly self-assembled.You're thinking of spontaneous generation, the sudden and spontaneous generation of fully-formed modern-appearing life (like cells) from non-life. That hypothesis was disproven by Louis Pasteur, and bears no resemblance to modern abiogenesis thinking.The current set of hypotheses focuses on demonstrating the availability for plausible building-blocks for pre-life self-replicating molecules - in other words, the "first step" is not "cellular life." The first step is far more likely to look like a prion (a self-replicating protein; just a protein, only one, not a cell) or an RNA-based form of proto-life (like viruses, which bear some but not all of the characteristics of life and are not cells).

And at that point, without looking at the "paper", I deduced that it was halfwitted creationist nonsense. And then I looked it up and found that I was right.Do you know why this is very clearly the case, or shall I spoil the puzzle by telling you?

Hi again zaius137 That is one way one cell could be formed ....How many other ways could it be formed?How many cells could be formed with one different protein? two? three?How many cells could be formed where one protein in the calculation is replaced by two different ones? three?How many possible cell formations are there?These questions and more need to be answered before the calculation can begin to be considered a valid representation of possibilities: you need to KNOW all the possibilities that can be formed, and how many could result in life of some kind, before you can begin to calculate probabilities.Consider that I have a single di in my hand: what is the probability that I will throw a 6? If you don't know how many sides there are AND how it is marked, you cannot calculate the probability.Enjoy.

I disagree with this statement. Do all the variables need to be quantified before any hypothesis can be formulated? If so, please name an area of science where strict adherence to this principle applies.I suspect that if the conclusions of such an approach to calculating abiogenesis favored an optimistic possibility, evolutionists would not be so disturbed.Did you hear the one about the statistician, evolutionists and the magician?A magician performing before an audience of evolutionists produces two royal flushes in a row. The crowd stands to its feet in applause proclaiming, Look improbable events happen all the time. A single statistician, knowing the probability of pulling a royal flush is (649,350 : 1) and twice is (421,655,422,500 : 1) stands to his feet and yells fraud. The statistician is immediately ejected from the assembly as being closed minded to the possibility of very real magic.Funny if the statistician was a creationist but tragic if he wasn’t.

In all areas of science, calculations of probability are made based on the facts and not on things that creationists have made up. And if evolutionists were wrong about probability theory in real life, it would not be necessary for you to make up a fictional story to illustrate your point, because then your point would be true and you could illustrate it with something that wasn't made up. For some reason, however, creationists tend to be pig-ignorant of statistics. Who can say why.

You've just proved Raz's case. The statistician knew how many cards there are in a deck and how many of each suit. Without that information he could not calculate the odds.

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I disagree with this statement. Do all the variables need to be quantified before any hypothesis can be formulated? If so, please name an area of science where strict adherence to this principle applies.

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There's a clear equivocation there. The point you were responding to was about producing a valid probability calculation, not merely formulating a hypothesis. Obviously proving a hypothesis requires much more evidence than merely formulating one.As for your little story I will just comment that it is nasty, dishonest and insulting.

You seem to think that magicians doing card tricks are actually doing "very real magic".
Do you really think a card trick is magic?This is what you should have written:

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A magician performing before an audience of evolutionists produces two royal flushes in a row. The crowd stands to its feet in applause proclaiming, That was entertaining!. A single statistician, knowing the probability of pulling a royal flush is (649,350 : 1) and twice is (421,655,422,500 : 1) knows that slight of hand required to produce two royal flushes. No-one in the assembly believes they have just witnessed a display very real magic.

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There is a man who won the lottery 7 times duno about American odds at winning the lottery but ours are 1:15380937 my guess is yours are worse because we only have a population of 2 million people. But lets say this man Richard Lustig played with our odds.the chance of him gettin 7 grand prizes would be using your creationist math would be
1: 203.647.720.442.724.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000

Hi again zaius137,To add to what the others have said Curiously, I note that you did not tell me what the probability of my throwing a 6 was:

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Message 51: Consider that I have a single di in my hand: what is the probability that I will throw a 6? If you don't know how many sides there are AND how it is marked, you cannot calculate the probability.

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If you disagree then you should be able to make the probability calculation for throwing a 6, and if you cannot make that calculation then you de facto agree with the statement. An hypothesis is a guess, not a calculation. It may be an educated guess, based on partial knowledge, as is normally the case in science (where the purpose of the hypothesis is to make predictions to enable testing the hypothesis for validity), but it certainly is not a calculation of any probability.For instance I could hypothesize that the di in question had at 6 sides and that it was numbered sequentially from 1 up, as is normally observed in most games. If during the course of a number of test throws the numbers 1 through 5 occurred that would tend to validate the hypothesis, although it could be a six-sided di numbered 0 through 5 or an eight-sided di (or one of the other game di available). If I throw either a 0 or a 12, or a letter A, then the hypothesis is invalidated.Interestingly, I recently found a di in the walls of my house (I am remodeling a circa 1795 colonial cape cod style housee), but the di is of fairly recent vintage: it has a blue square on two sides, a red circle on one side, an "S" on two sides, one in a blue square and the other in a red circle, an "X" on the last side, in a black square. No 6's, so the probability of throwing a 6 with this di is zero.Enjoy.ps -- anyone know what game this goes to?

Exactly, biologists know which proteins are common to all life, the Chirality, the amino acid components and a great number of other facts about the genome in essence they know what the cards are this only goes to show a estimation of a probability can be made.Edited by zaius137, : No reason given.

So basically creationists argue that the magician must have worked real magic because we can't consider any alternatives to that, other than pure chance...