Descriptions of this week’s massive impact into Jupiter makes an interesting point on human existence relative to Jupiter: All Eyepieces on Jupiter After a Big Impact By DENNIS OVERBYE, New York Times July 21, 2009
Anybody get the number of that truck?
Astronomers were scrambling to get big telescopes turned to Jupiter on Tuesday to observe the remains of what looks like the biggest smashup in the solar system since fragments of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the planet in July 1994.
Something — probably a small comet — smacked into Jupiter on Sunday, leaving a bruise the size of the Pacific Ocean near its south pole. Just after midnight, Australian time, on Sunday, Jupiter came into view in the eyepiece of Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Murrumbateman. The planet was bearing a black eye spookily similar to the ones left in 1994.
“This was a big event,” said Leigh Fletcher of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “In the inner solar system it would have been a disaster.”
“As far as we can see it looks very much like what happened 15 years ago,” said Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is director emeritus of the International Astronomical Union’s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. The bureau issues bulletins about breaking astronomical news. . . .
Dr. Marchis said the shape of the debris splash as revealed in the Keck images suggested that whatever hit Jupiter might have been pulled apart by tidal forces from the planet’s huge gravity before it hit. In an e-mail message, he said humans should be thankful for Jupiter.“The solar system would have been a very dangerous place if we did not have Jupiter,” he wrote. “We should thank our giant planet for suffering for us. Its strong gravitational field is acting like a shield protecting us from comets coming from the outer part of the solar system.”
So we owe our survival to Jupiter’s size and location! What are the probabilities of a Jupiter being situated outside the orbit of an Earth sized planet?
50-50?
Here are a few (322) more “Privileged Planet” parameters besides Jupiter:
Probability For Life On Earth – List of Parameters, References, and Math – Hugh Ross
http://www.reasons.org/probabi.....h-apr-2004
As well, Another “protective shield” has recently come to light:
The Protective Boundaries of our Solar System – NASA IBEX – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O0qcQZXpII
As well the habitable zone for the earth is “shrinking” upon refinement of known parameters:
New Definition Could Further Limit Habitable Zones Around Distant Suns: – June 2009
… liquid water is essential for life, but a planet also must have plate tectonics to pull excess carbon from its atmosphere and confine it in rocks to prevent runaway greenhouse warming. Tectonics, or the movement of the plates that make up a planet’s surface, typically is driven by radioactive decay in the planet’s core, but a star’s gravity can cause tides in the planet, which creates more energy to drive plate tectonics…. Barnes added, “The bottom line is that tidal forcing is an important factor that we are going to have to consider when looking for habitable planets.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....124831.htm
Excerpt:
there are a total of 322 known parameters which have to be met for complex life to be possible on Earth, or on a planet like Earth. Individually, these limits are not that impressive but when we realize ALL these limits have to be met at the same time and not one of them can be out of limits for any extended period of time, then the condition becomes “irreducibly complex” and the probability for a world which can host advanced life in this universe becomes very extraordinary. Here is the final summary of Dr. Hugh Ross’s “conservative” estimate for the probability of another life-hosting world in this universe.
Probability for occurrence of all 322 parameters =10^388
Dependency factors estimate =10^96
Longevity requirements estimate =10^14
Probability for occurrence of all 322 parameters = 10^304
Maximum possible number of life support bodies in universe =10^22
Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^282 (million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles.
BA77,
Those are astronomical odds.
I guess the multiverse begins to look more probable here.
Off-topic [sort-of] Q: What do you get when you combine an obese John waters film actor/actress with a door-to-door salesman? [hint: like fine-tuning, it’s something Darwinists cannot allow] 🙂
CannuckianYankee
Do you intend to suggest that the result contains FSCI?
If so, would Dr. Dembski agree?
I love probability and statistics, in part because it’s so counter-intuitive. Unfortunately it’s rather easy to exploit people’s intuitions and arrive at wildly inaccurate probabilities using numbers that our intuition tells us are quite accurate. In the end I think that Nakashima’s estimate @1 is probably about as accurate as Hugh Ross’.
Incidentally, one can only assume that Nakashima is using what I call the LHC calculation. I call it this because it’s the calculation used by the guy that is suing to have the LHC shut down because it might destroy the earth. In an interview on The Daily Show he was asked what the probability was of global destruction via black hole, and his answer was (I’m paraphrasing here) “Well, it could happen or it could not happen, therefore the probability is 50%.”
Mr KRiS,
Yes, I rose to that level of probabilistic sophistication! 😉
A more interesting question would be “For an Earth size planet in the habitable zone of its star, what are the probabilities of gas giant further out?”
Kris,
Dr. Ross’s estimates are extremely conservative. As well his calculation is in fact a refinement of the Drake equation. As Recent research has revealed, a majority of Gas giants are found to orbit extremely close to stars, and to have highly elliptic orbits, both conditions of which drive the probability lower.
As well, Richards and Gonzalez, point out the “suspicious” fact that habitability correlates to observability.
Privileged Planet Principle – Ability To Support Life Equals Ability To Discover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhamthuG1z4
Good point. If things weren’t like they are, we wouldn’t be here to notice it. It’s sort of like Adam’s proverbial puddle.
Nakashima and KRiS_Censored
As Nakashima noted: “Yes, I rose to that level of probabilistic sophistication!” 50:50 has as much evidence behind it as a game of “Pitch and Toss”.
bornagain77 provides some references to Ross’ methodology.
Nakashima summarizes well the challenge in this post:
“For an Earth size planet in the habitable zone of its star, what are the probabilities of gas giant further out?”
Any evidence relating to that question?
CannuckianYankee
Any evidence for multiverse other than an aversion to improbable events?
If Jupiter is designed that means that gas clouds, atoms, ice, and molecules are designed which means that detecting design would be impossible because you would never see a difference between nondesign and design
Doesn’t this invalidate all of Dembski’s work on detecting design?
90DegreeAngel,
Uh… nope! Just the opposite. I’d say it shows that everything was designed. Designed things were designed to be guided by the laws of nature, which were themselves also designed. In my opinion, in one very real sense, there really is no validity in the idea of “nature”—at least not in the way that it’s often thought of.
As for design detection, however, there is a method to differentiate between what “nature designs”, and what intelligent beings design. So, whether you agree with my opinion above or not, there is still a scientifically valid method for design detection, and therefore for the intelligent design theory.
I guess I’m confused about design detection. Let’s us presume that the placement of Jupiter is designed. How did the designer get it there?
Option 1) Using the natural forces and laws found in nature and described by materialistic science . . . this option then has no use for the Intelligent Designer.
Option 2) Jupiter was created and made by an intelligent designer and placed in that area of our solar system. If Jupiter was created by said Intelligent Designer then the material it is made out and the way it is put together (just like DNA) should show signs of CSI or FCSI . . . However, people on this site are always showing how their is a difference between say a rock and DNA.
This confuses me.
What do you guys say to the claim that Jupiter actually increases the chances of a comet hitting the earth?
http://www.newscientist.com/ar.....earth.html
Seems to me that current models for the formation of a solar system from a protoplanetary disk seem to suggest that rocky, inner planets and outer gas giants are fairly likely to occur – at least for stars similar to our sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....of_planets
That list of 322 factors “required” for life to arise is more than a little hilarious. Tidal heating from neighbouring galaxies? Triggering of El Nino events by volcanic explosions? Density of dwarf galaxies near home galaxy? Quite apart from the patently ridiculous ones, and the audacity of assigning exact probabilities to stuff we can’t even begin to estimate, there’s a whole load on there which may affect what kind of life would arise, but wouldn’t necessarily affect whether or not life arises.
JamesBond – the fact that the “natural” system is inherently likely to result in life-favorable outcomes such as the formation of Jupiter is only further evidence that this “natural” system is in fact the product of intelligence.
And yet James Bond, though you cannot fathom the necessity of these parameters and find them “hilarious”; Remove any mentioned parameter and life becomes impossible….Thus since the parameters are indeed necessary for life, then it is reasonable, following in Frank drake’s footsteps, to assign a conservative probability to the parameter. He is very generous and even gives some probabilities up to .7 for them happening. seeing as his work is backed up with peer review I guess we can dig through his papers and let you come to your own conclusion. Incredulity won’t cut it in this case though.
Probability For Life On Earth – Michael Strauss – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zfOaXQh2SE
DLH:
You have just rejected the critical assumption on which Marks and Dembski’s arguments hinge. According to their work, all non-uniform probability distributions turn out to be uniform if you factor in higher-order causes in the causal chain.
@bornagain77:
It doesn’t make any sense to say that he’s been “conservative” with his estimates of probability here, because we don’t know enough about literally half of these parameters to even guess within an order of magnitude what the probability of them being within the “life-forming/sustaining” range is, let alone what that range itself is for many of them. 10% chance of a terrestrial planet forming in the presence of 2+ gas giants? Where’s he getting this from when we have such little information about the make-up of systems outside of our own?
I’d love to check his sources, but he seems to have had an unfortunate accident and simply regurgitated some gigantic list of references at the bottom of the page, without actually pointing out which references support which assertions with citations. I’m not going to waste my time going through 258 links to determine what is in support of what. If you want to find which references support the idea that “Tidal heating from neighbouring galaxies”, “Triggering of El Nino events by volcanic explosions”, and “Density of dwarf galaxies near home galaxy” are critical to the survival of life then I shall gratefully doff my hat to you sir and read them with gusto and diligence.
Why has he even bothered to number the references if he hasn’t tied them in with the text above?
I didn’t really see any methodology myself. For example, how does Ross justify his range for various elements in the crust or various atmospheric conditions? If life only existed in the oceans, that would potentially be totally irrelevant. Actually, it seems to me like most of Ross’ items are only relevant if we want to calculate any probability that life would be similar to what it actually is, not for the probability of life actually existing at all.
DHL,
CannuckianYankee
Any evidence for multiverse other than an aversion to improbable events?
None at all. I was being facitious.
Following up on my comment #22, Ross writes this:
SURE seems to me that he is trying to calculate the probability of life as it is, rather than life existing at all. Otherwise, I suppose the probability of life existing at some stage on Earth (and that’s just in the “right” quantity) is, at least according to Ross, 0.01.
Not bad odds, really.
James Bond states:
It doesn’t make any sense to say that he’s been “conservative” with his estimates of probability here, because we don’t know enough about literally half of these parameters to even guess within an order of magnitude what the probability of them being within the “life-forming/sustaining” range is,”
Do you claim to know all knowledge the knowledge Dr. Ross does so as to be able to claim Dr. Ross does not know these things? You should rightly check that to say that YOU don’t know enough about the parameters! But of course most evolutionists claim they know far more than they actually do. I don’t say this to be mean to you but just to illustrate a point that no man knows everything.
I do agree with your objection as to the references not being numbered though, and I cite this following site so as to bring more clarity for you. It gives the reasons for the parameters. As well if you dig around on amazon I am sure you can find a book Dr. Ross has written on the subject.
Fine-Tuning of Physical Life Support Body
http://www.johnankerberg.com/A.....304RFT.pdf
excerpt from article:
Jupiter distance
if greater: too many asteroid and comet collisions would occur on Earth.
if less: Earth’s orbit would become unstable.
Jupiter mass
if greater: Earth’s orbit would become unstable.
if less: too many asteroid and comet collisions would occur on Earth.
drift in major planet distances
if greater: Earth’s orbit would become unstable.
if less: too many asteroid and comet collisions would occur on Earth.
major planet eccentricities
if greater: orbit of life supportable planet would be pulled out of life support zone.
major planet orbital instabilities
if greater: orbit of life supportable planet would be pulled out of life support zone.
mass of Neptune
if too small: not enough Kuiper Belt Objects (asteroids beyond Neptune) would be scattered out of
the solar system.
if too large: chaotic resonances among the gas giant planets would occur.
Kuiper Belt of asteroids (beyond Neptune)
if not massive enough: Neptune’s orbit remains too eccentric which destabilizes the orbits of other
solar system planets.
if too massive: too many chaotic resonances and collisions would occur in the solar system.
separation distances among inner terrestrial planets
if too small: orbits of all inner planets will become unstable in less than 100,000,000 million years.
if too large: orbits of the most distant from star inner planets will become chaotic.
if too small: orbits of all inner planets will become unstable in less than 100,000,000 million years.
You can take that one off the list. The orbits of the inner planets will become unstable anyway, since they will be inside the Sun as it goes into the red giant phase long before 100,000,000 million years will pass.
Yes it is a bit long LOL ..I bet it is a typo that should read 100 million years.
As well I was just thinking that there is a trend that tends towards ID of the life enabling parameters. i.e. it seems with every discovery and refinement of knowledge the probabilities always grow worse as we learn more. It seems the materialist appeal to chaos is always shrinking and is not reversible once we establish a point. Thus the odds will always become worse for the materialist the more we learn. The almost seems to be a rigid rule of knowledge that can be rigidly respected as to what we can expect from future discoveries to trend towards.
Photons, electrons, protons, neutrons, molecules, proteins, DNA, living creatures, planets, stars, galaxies, you name it. Everything was designed.
This is true even if it evolved (changed) after creation. Evolution, too, was designed.
The only exception is the spiritual side of the universe. Spirits just are and they don’t evolve. Spirits are necessary because matter cannot create itself.
That which is created cannot create and that which creates cannot be created. They are opposites.
@bornagain77
That’s great bornagain, but the PDF you linked only lists about 120 of the factors, and doesn’t list the examples I mentioned above. I’d still love to know how tidal heating from neighbouring dwarf galaxies has a bearing on habitability. If you have a copy of his book maybe you can give a brief outline.
I don’t presume to know nearly as much as Dr Ross must, but I do claim to be able to recognise in this case that there are some factors which he has assigned probabilities to on an entirely arbitrary basis. Case in point: “Distance to nearest black hole – 0.2” He’s asserting that there’s an 80% chance that the location in which a system forms in the galaxy will be too close to a blackhole for life to be sustained? Given that we only have about 15 candidates for non-Supermassive black holes to look at so far, and that outside of the Schwarzchild radius the gravity profile of a blackhole is similar to that of the star it formed from, I find this to be a very bold assertion, and looking over the titles of his references I can’t immediately see any papers that would discuss such a claim. (I checked the abstract of the only paper with a title mentioning “black holes” without mentioning “supermassive”, but it too was about supermassive black holes).
It may look like I’m nit-picking at some of the more nebulous (no pun intended) parameters, but it’s intended to show that there are serious problems with the estimate.
James Bond, actually I believe that black holes are now inferred to be in all galaxies of sufficient size, it should not be that hard for you to look up.
As well, though I don’t know for sure, I believe Dr. Ross is referring to catastrophic changes in weather patterns brought about by severe el ninos:
excerpt:
There is also evidence for strong El Niño events during the early Holocene epoch 10,000 years ago.[4]
El Niño affected pre-Columbian Incas [5] and may have led to the demise of the Moche and other pre-Columbian Peruvian cultures.[6] A recent study suggests that a strong El-Niño effect between 1789-93 caused poor crop yields in Europe, which in turn helped touch off the French Revolution.[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.....scillation
i.e. Not only is complex life dependent on the rainfall, complex life is dependent on rainfall to remain relatively stable. i.e. the ecosystem demands a relatively stable balance for higher life. Remember complex life is far more fragile to maintain for long term duration than bacterial life. Thus the reference to severe el ninos is reasonable on Ross’s part.
In fact, contrary to your position, I think he is being far, far too generous with some of the probabilities.
many symbiotic geochemical relationships that are extremely delicate in balance could be illustrates
The Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide Cycle – video
http://videos.howstuffworks.co.....-video.htm
As well I could go into excruciating detail of terra-forming for the earth:
excerpt:
Interestingly, while the photo-synthetic bacteria were reducing greenhouse gases and producing oxygen, and metal, which would be of benefit to modern man, “sulfate-reducing” bacteria were also producing their own natural resources which would be very useful to modern man. Sulfate-reducing bacteria helped prepare the earth for advanced life by detoxifying the primeval earth and oceans of poisonous levels of heavy metals while depositing them as relatively inert metal ores. Metal ores which are very useful for modern man as well as fairly easy for man to extract today (mercury, cadmium, zinc, cobalt, arsenic, chromate, tellurium and copper to name a few). To this day, sulfate-reducing bacteria maintain an essential minimal level of these heavy metals in the ecosystem which are high enough so as to be available to the biological systems of the higher life forms that need them yet low enough so as not to be poisonous to those very same higher life forms. (Ross: Creation As Science)
Bacterial Heavy Metal Detoxification and Resistance Systems:
excerpt: Bacterial plasmids contain genetic determinants for resistance systems for Hg2+ (and organomercurials), Cd2+, AsO2, AsO43-, CrO4 2-, TeO3 2-, Cu2+, Ag+, Co2+, Pb2+, and other metals of environmental concern.
http://www.springerlink.com/co.....04577v8t3/
http://www.int-res.com/article.....26p203.pdf
The role of bacteria in hydrogeochemistry, metal cycling and ore deposit formation:
Textures of sulfide minerals formed by SRB (sulfate-reducing bacteria) during bioremediation (most notably pyrite and sphalerite) have textures reminiscent of those in certain sediment-hosted ores, supporting the concept that SRB may have been directly involved in forming ore minerals.
http://www.goldschmidt2009.org...../A1161.pdf
Transitional Metals And Cytochrome C oxidase – Michael Denton – Nature’s Destiny
http://books.google.com/books?.....3&lpg
The Concentration of Metals for Humanity’s Benefit:
Excerpt: They demonstrated that hydrothermal fluid flow could enrich the concentration of metals like zinc, lead, and copper by at least a factor of a thousand. They also showed that ore deposits formed by hydrothermal fluid flows at or above these concentration levels exist throughout Earth’s crust. The necessary just-right precipitation conditions needed to yield such high concentrations demand extraordinary fine-tuning. That such ore deposits are common in Earth’s crust strongly suggests supernatural design.
http://www.reasons.org/TheConc.....tysBenefit
etc..etc..etc..
The point being James Bond is that if you press your case the odds will only get worse for you.
Spark,
“Do you intend to suggest that the result contains FSCI?”
LOL – no. BTW – the answer is “A divine foot in the door.” Bad, I know.
90DegreeAngel,
“If Jupiter is designed that means that gas clouds, atoms, ice, and molecules are designed which means that detecting design would be impossible because you would never see a difference between nondesign and design”
That’s like saying that if a computer is designed then all of the raw material was also designed. Not a good argument, but nice try.
90DegreeAngel,
I should clarify: my belief is that all raw material in the universe was intentionally created. That is my belief, and I have no proof that it is so. However, the fine-tuning of our universe, particularly as we can observe in our own galaxy compels me to accept that there is some purposeful design behind the arrangement of the planets in order for life to exist on our planet. That is something that we can detect. The only other alternative [which I mentioned in an earlier post] is a multiverse scenario – but we have no evidence for such a hypothesis.
So he is even trying to calculate the probability of humans arising. Wow. Ross has a problem. For each of his probability calculations, he is is giving a probabilistic value of an observation given the there was no ID involved [Pr(Observation,~ID)]. Multiplying all these probabilities togeather, he then draws the conclusion that the Pr(~ID,all observations) is virtually impossibly small. His mistake is that he has switched tactics mid-breath. Calculations of Pr(observation,hypothesis) does not tell you much about Pr(hypothesis,observation). Ross is confused by what in bayesianism is known as “likelihood” and “posterior probabilities”.
The philosopher Elliott Sober used a good example to illustrate the differences between these two terms:
Observation: There is a noise coming from the attic.
Hypothesis: There are gremlins bowling in the attic.
The likelihood Pr(observation,hypothesis) is really high, for if you have gremlins bowling in your attic, you can pretty much be sure that there will be noise.
The posterior probability Pr(hypothesis,observation), however is pretty small. Without even trying to do a calculation or even checking upstairs, one can pretty safely say that the noise from the attic is not due to the activity of bowling gremlins.
sparc @ 5
CannuckianYankee @ 31
But that is FSCI and FCSI is a constant. Thus, KF could reduce any of his comments to three letters of which the first is capitalized. It is Him.
Hoki,
The photosynthetic/sulfate reducing part is something I put in to make the point clear that there is a lot more evidence for the earth’s “terra-forming” design than what we are aware of, and from what is alluded to in Ross’s paper, Yet If Ross actually were trying to calculate the pure probabilities of humans arising, using all resources available, instead of just symbiotic geological and cosmological parameters, I can assure you that materialists have “major problems”, and it is by no means a problem for ID, no matter what sophistication of logical obfuscation you try to put up a smoke screen and mirrors with.
For example:
In Barrow and Tippler’s book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, they list ten steps necessary in the course of human evolution, each of which, is so improbable that if left to happen by chance alone, the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would have incinerated the earth. They estimate that the odds of the evolution (by chance) of the human genome is somewhere between 4 to the negative 180th power, to the 110,000th power, and 4 to the negative 360th power, to the 110,000th power. Therefore, if evolution did occur, it literally would have been a miracle and evidence for the existence of God. William Lane Craig
William Lane Craig – If Human Evolution Did Occur It Was A Miracle – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUxm8dXLRpA
As well Hoki, For you to try to equate God with Gremlins in an attic, in this matter, shows your extreme dogmatic materialistic bias, as well as shows you have a profound ignorance to the fact materialism has no longer has coherent foundation in reality in the first place, And frankly shows you have a profound ignorance of exactly what characteristics God has in Judeo/Christianity.
Or to put it more clearly for you, as a chaplain once said to an atheist student, “Tell me about the god you don’t believe in, I most likely don’t believe in that god either”
To bring the point home to your heart, If you want to defend your materialistic philosophy I suggest you first establish a foundation for materialism in reality in which it may be considered a legitimate philosophy.
bornagain77 at #35:
That’s quite a rant there. What a shame that you didn’t addrees my argument. I wonder why?
No observation is a problem for ID, you are correct about that. This does not mean that the low probability of humans arising as such is a problem for “materialism”. After all, the probability that you would find yourself with the genetic makeup you do while only allowing for, say, 6000 years of human procreation is also incredibly small. You might as well be arguing that a sequence of 100,000 numbers as decided by throwing a dice is too improbable to occur by chance.
Rrrright. The fact that I try to explain the difference between a likelihood and a posterior probability by using an example with gremlins means that I have a materialistic bias. You are going to have to explain that one to me (or are you seriously arguing that we should take the gremlin hypothesis seriously?). While you’re at it, explain why this means that I am ignorant of the characteristics of god. Or, even better, why don’t you re-read what I wrote and respond to that instead?
Hoki ,
Are you a materialist? If not I am sorry for my rant. If you are please clarify materialism to a rational basis of reality, seeing as I can find none.
I looked at your probability reasoning and find it wanting since you do not consider the fact materialism postulates randomness as one of its foundational tenets. Why do you not consider this a problem. Are you a multiverse believer also?
The more I look at what you wrote the more preposterous what you actually said becomes:
That you would try to dodge overwhelming improbability by postulating something akin to any hand of cards is as likely as any other hand of cards all the while blatantly ignoring the “specificity of royal flushes” that has been defined ad naseum on this site, reveals to me that you are either an atheistic dogmatist or profoundly ignorant of the matter. since I am quite sure you are not that retarded, I will take it that you are a dogmatic atheist and as such I will trat you as such and trust nothing you have to say no matter how fancy you dress it up in proper sounding language. Sorry but I have been cursed at and lied to too many times by atheists and will not waste my time.
bornagain77, Hoki is correct. Bayes’ Theorem mathematically bridges the gap between likelihood and posterior probability — Dembski’s notion of specificity does not. That’s a gaping hole in Dembski’s formal logic in chapter 6 of TDI, which would explain why his argument has gained no traction outside of ID circles. So ignoring Dembski’s logic of “specificity” is hardly retarded.
BTW, I find it strange that “specificity” has been defined ad naseum on this site, yet there still is no closed definition.
Nice. Did you see that, Jerry? The rudeness of the Darwinists? Again?
It is MORE than clear that you don’t understand much of anything about probabilities.
YOU are starting with an end-product (e.g .humans) and trying to calculate the probability of this, rather than the probability of, for example, something humanlike arising (or, for that matter something that doesn’t look like a human at all).
YOU are doing the equivalent of starting with sequence of 100,000 numbers (1-6) and claiming that it must have been designed since, at the outset, it was too improbable that that specific outcome would happen.
Which probability reasoning? The one where Ross confused likelihood and posterior probabilities?
Are you saying that I have cursed and lied to you? If not, why bring it up? Are you implying something?
Perhaps the atheists you have been talking to have also simply pointed out holes in your thinking?
Your right Hoki I was out of line, and I do sincerely apologize to all the mentally handicapped people who are retarded in their developmental growth for comparing you to dogmatic atheists who wouldn’t know honesty if it hit them in the head. I sincerely do have utmost respect for what you are going through in this life and empathize with your struggle.
Is that better now Hoki?
Ah, yes. People who haven’t got any arguments sometimes feel they have to resort to ad hominems at times. That’s probably what their objective morals compel them to do.
You are lucky to be one of the chosen ones who doesn’t get moderated for this kind of behaviour.
Oh, and Jerry. Where are you?
ROb
Re 50:50 is the probability for flipping coins. If Jupiter outside is safe and inside earth’s orbit is not, then that alone adds a factor of two to the calculations if not already included.
I was interested in any evidence that the distribution was different from 50:50.
Please clarify reference to Mark & Dembski. I am not familiar with that description.
Only if its random and if any (or a very large percentage of) randomized output will “work” (so whats Dawkins doing if not trying to match a sequence of letters he specified in advance, does that not conflict with Dawkins view with evolution “always works”?). If its more or less deterministic and requires tremendous specificity (which is what we find is required) then I don’t see why we shouldn’t start top-down. If Darwinists are so inclined, they could re-order the genome randomly and see how many working genomes/machine code executable’s they find as opposed to non-working ones, and if executed how long until the program/organism breaks down. My question is, what random scheme would they use before turning it into executable? Would they randomize at the bit/DNA level, statements/constructs/Genes, protein/file or multiple file level? I believe the greater you go up the ladder, the more likely you will have something functional rather then not. If I randomize statements in source code file, its more likely I will get something functional versus if I randomize each individual ASCII-subset character. If I randomize loop constructs(or a statement calling a sorting function that utilizes a loop construct), in programming I may find that since the array/vector output appeared before the sorting algorithm, then nothing was “done” according to the executable output (ie: it took actual effect but did not take any noticeable effect). How would this type of scenario fit a biological program/organism? As an exception (simplistically speaking), if I randomize the order of header files, as long as they are before main and before any class definitions then random-ordering of include statements would have no effect. There are obviously exceptions to many things; programs can handle many types of exceptions (flexible and convenient) because they have specifically designed code working in parallel to handle any offset, during compile time such as white space. So what is tolerable, what is not since the protocol seems very un-natural (utilizing digital base 4 code) is the biological compiler more or less strict then the computer one, these are important questions. Have the Darwinists answered these important questions?
DLH, I probably misinterpreted your statement. I took it that you were dismissing Nakashima’s facetious answer of 50:50 on the basis of lack of evidence (and of course you would be correct to do so).
According to Marks and Dembski’s model, a probability distribution is selected from a higher-order distribution of distributions. The obvious question is, how do we define this higher-order distribution? They don’t say explicitly, but in their latest article, section 6, they present three examples. In each of these examples, the higher-order space is defined such that the process of selecting a distribution and then selecting a point from that distribution confers a uniform distribution over the lower-order space. In other words, even if the original distribution isn’t uniform, the distribution conferred by the overall two-stage process is.
We could define the higher-level distribution such that the above is not true, but then the model says that there is another distribution above that one, such that the three-stage process confers a uniform distribution on the original space. Ad infinitum.
According to this model, every possibility space has a uniform distribution if you define the selection event to include enough antecedents in the causal chain. Of course, Marks and Dembski never lay this out, but without this assumed model, their Law of Conservation of Information is false. Unfortunately, the model has some very obvious and fatal problems.
I should mention that it was Atom, from this board and from the EIL, who had the insight regarding Marks and Dembski’s definitions of the higher-order spaces.
I readily admit I am not sophisticated in math, and I am sure you guys “think” you are right in this matter. Yet I find it extremely strange that I can cite reference after reference of hard empirical evidence, rigorously gathered though exhaustive experimentation, that falsifies evolution in every key instance it is measured, and that also shows probabilistic hurdles of gargantuan proportions, Proportions of which powerball lotteries are laughable comparisons, and yet in some type of twisted logic none of this is suppose to matter because of some archaic passage in some dusty math book. It really is incredible that real world tests would be so quickly ignored by you guys by some reference to some formalism of math, A formalism of which at least rob admits he does not completely understand (I doubt hoki would be so humble to admit as such) …Yet clearly if the math does not match what the real world is telling us is it not more than right to presuppose the math is either wrong or incomplete in its formulation? You bet your bottom dollar it is right to presupoose as such! From what authority do you presuppose math to have authority over empirics? Please list how many times empirics have been overruled by math! If you do think math has authority as such to dictate to real world empirics what to be in experimentation you guys are severely misguided in how science operates! If you don’t believe me just ask Einstein in his experience with his “fudge factor” of general relativity. Until you guys can figure out such a simple thing as this I will continue to use my “simple probability” calculations which are derived directly from observation, declare them to all who will listen, and will continue to hold anyone who ignores empirics with such subtleness of deception, as you guys seem to be under the influence of, with severe suspicion to their intgrety of character., Thus my apology to the mentally handicapped retarded people of this world for comparing them to dogmatic atheists still stands in full force of intent.
Mr DLH,
If you accept my rewording of the question, then it becomes much more probable that a gas giant is outside the Earth-like planet in the habzone, simply based on relative size of the regions. I also think that most theories of Hot Jupiter formation assume they migrate inwards, a process that would destroy the Earth-like planet. So if you assume first that the Earth-like planet exists, then the Jupiter-like planet is most probably outside it. Does that count as design or mere probability?
bornagain77:
I don’t know what you’re referring to. I’m not any more humble than Hoki.
“Oh, and Jerry. Where are you?”
In New Hampshire visiting relatives and having Lobster in Kittery when you were making your post. Actually just got back from eating the lobster at that time.
So ROb are you going to put, what I steadfastly maintain is, your incomplete understanding of reality, wrought through your understanding of math, over what reality is actually telling us through experimentation? If so you are demanding that reality conform to your preconceived dictates and are grossly mislead in how science operates.
I think Fred Hoyle had a very superior understanding of math and yet he clearly “followed the evidence” wherever it led, when he stated:
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
As well I would like to point out that there is good evidence that God “created mathematics” in the first place:
Euler’s Number – God Created Mathematics – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IEb1gTRo74
This related website has the complete working out of the math of Pi and e in the Bible, in the Hebrew and Greek languages:
http://www.biblemaths.com/pag03_pie/
Michael Denton – Mathematical Truths Are Transcendent And Beautiful – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3zcJfcdAyE
Proverbs 8:26-27
While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, Or the primeval dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
bornagain77:
What is my “understanding of reality” that you’re referring to?
bornagain77,
Wow—that’s amazing. Did you create this video? Just one question: What’s the meaning of the following sentence: “When we combine e with pi, we are introducing the oldest dimensionless number.”
ROb,
I really have no clue what your perception of reality is at this moment. All I do know is that you seem to have put your understanding of math before what experimentation is showing us to be of reality, which is completely contrary to what the scientific method demands. i.e. result of experimentation holds authority over all starting hypothesis-s in the scientific method.
Herb,
That finding is absolutely fascinating is it not?
I picked up dimensionless number from Chuck Missler’s video on the subject and I am not quite sure that it is the correct adjective to use in this case.. But the term, dimensionless, was semi-appropriate to the transcendent nature of the numbers, so I stuck with it when I made the video.
Here is an interesting article on Euler’s number that has a bit more detail:
God by the Numbers
Charles Edward White
http://www.christianitytoday.c.....ml?start=3
Nakashima at 45
Thanks for your comments. Yes I affirm your formulation on jupiter sized planet outside an earth type habitable planet.
From a brief search, I found the following”
The Hunt for Habitable Planets
This suggests that a Jupiter sized planet outside an earth sized habitable zone has a low probability.
If there are any astronomy types (or handy researchers) who can track down those papers and report back on the distributions of Jupiter sized planets, that would be most appreciated.
In itself a Jupiter sized planet outside of Earth sized planet does not clearly indicate design. However when combined with all the other parameters essential to human habitation in the universe this comes with an astronomically small probability.
This is much lower than the probability of an earth type among all planets (10^22) over all time (3.1*10^7 sec/year * 13 * 10^9 years = 4*10^17 sec) at the max combination rate of 1/Planck time (1/(5.3*10^-44 per sec)) gives a conventional combination of about 1 in 5*10^84. If we use 10^80 particles instead of 10^22 planets, this gives about 5*10^142. (approximate version of maximum probability resources for all the universe over all time over maximum possible rearrangement rate.)
The probabilities cited above for a human habitation is so much smaller as to suggest in my mind a design inference.
ROb at 46
Thanks for the link to Marks/Dembski paper and clues to atom. I will try to read that.
On the 50:50 my comment did sound to flippant. What I went back to say was that the simplest case the probability is that of flipping a coin. Outside it helps, inside it doesn’t. The previous post suggests that Jupiter outside has a much smaller probability than 50:50.
bornagain77:
Yes, why would we even bother to try to draw correct conclusions from our probability calculations? Perhaps I’m too retarded to understand that?
ab:
I realise that there are limits to what could possibly be alive to reproduce. But if you use the assumption that there is only one path that life could have taken and do you probability calculation top-down, that hardly works in bornagain77’s favor. In this case, the probability is unity.
Hoki,
I didn’t call you retarded, If you were retarded, as I have made clear, I would at least respect you!
To make this issue as clear as possible, one more time I will explain. You are still trying to get past your requirement for empirical validation. Thus far all empirics are telling us our probability calculations are correct in regards to what reality is, but yet you are trying to enforce your nascent hypothesis, drawn from what I consider dubious logic, over what the empirical evidence is currently telling us! This is a direct violation of the rules of the scientific method!
This is not to say you are completely wrong in your hypothesis, and that you cannot draw a valid hypothesis from your intuition of logic and then devise a test to test that hypothesis within the scientific method, but until you do as such your conjecture bears no weight within the scientific method and you have no right to try say the empirical evidence is wrong! i.e. until you can prove reality conforms to your hypothesis, it is nothing more bluster which you have tried to enforce through appeal to authority.
Further discussion:
Jupiter: Our Cosmic Protector? DENNIS OVERBYE July 25, 2009 NYT
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Hubble image of Jupiter impact
Spaceweather.com July 25, 2009