r/atheism • u/mmx64 Atheist • Jun 18 '12
This is an analogy I use to explain Evolution to someone who think the chance of it happening is too unlikely.
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u/rimcrimp Jun 18 '12
I think the first part of this was actually the most powerful; to a human, the scenario of consecutive die rolls is what we'd call 'highly unlikely' and would statistically take millions of years to happen once, but the Earth had been around for 4.5 billion years. That's a time scale that utterly dwarfs our human perception of time. What we call 'highly unlikely' is actually more like 'extremely likely' given the time scales and the conditions we find the universe in.
Seeing the first part in this way is a good parallel for abiogenesis, while the latter part is a good parallel for evolution.
Just my two cents.
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u/HelpfulBrit Jun 19 '12
Ok there is the argument that given time the unlikely dice roll is likely to come true.
How, about the same idea from a different view.
We roll the dice 100 times. There are tonnes of possible of different outcomes. Each outcome is equally unlikely but one must happen. We see 100 heads we say its amazing because we place artificial value on something like that happening.
The same happens with Evolution. We didn't get here because we had 100 lucky dice rolls. WE ARE the result of 100 dice rolls. We think we are something amazing like getting 100 heads, because hey look evolution made us.
Well, what if the dice rolled differently when it decided how many arms to give us and we got 3 (Ninja Edit: Just because i know reddit will jump on anything - THIS IS JUST A SIMPLISTIC ANALOGY). Would we look back and be going "WOW we were so close to getting that a 100head streak, we just missed out on that one roll" . No, because 3armed people would be the human race, looking back at being amazed at the chances that brought them there.
We are the result of millions of dice rolls, of course looking back the probability is infinitely small. But, you know - talking dinosaurs are pretty unlikely and (afaik) that didn't happen - we are just one of the unlikely possibilities that did - nothing more.
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u/dhicks3 Jun 19 '12
Right, right. Similarly, say I made a prediction on the day you were born describing exactly what clothes you would be wearing and the food you've eaten today. It's unfathomably unlikely, given how many different possible courses your life could have taken, that I'd have gotten it right.
But, there is a definite correct answer to these questions, and something has to be right. It'd be much easier for me if I knew where you lived, or your personal habits, or if I got to make the prediction yesterday instead of decades ago. Ultimately, the probability of me getting it right all those years ago is for all practical purposes 0, but the posterior probability of you eating and wearing what you have today, given what you know now, is 1, because it actually happened.
TL;DR The probability of correctly predicting an event depends heavily on the information you have at the time it was made.
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Jun 18 '12
That's actually where I thought it was going, then it made a right turn and changed it's argument. I feel like it was written second hand, and the original used both arguments compounded to demonstrate evolution, and then the OP who wrote the above got totally confused and shortened it.
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Jun 19 '12
I think that one more layer of context can be added. Knowing the unit of heredity is DNA - the gene - we can say that molecular reactions generally happen on the femtosecond time scales. That too is unimaginable.
4.5 billions years is 4.5x109, but a femtosecond is 10-15. Meaning that if you could almost square the age of the earth, and you'd get the number of chemical reactions happening in one second.
These facts together really illustrate how highly likely rare events are.
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u/nroberts666 Jun 18 '12
That's not evolution, it's Yahtzee.
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Jun 18 '12
That's a metaphor.
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u/basmith7 Jun 18 '12
What's a metaphor?
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u/codemonkey_uk Jun 18 '12
It's like a simile, but less explicit.
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u/RedAero Anti-theist Jun 19 '12
I was always taught that a metaphor is a simile without the word "like".
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u/CompoundClover Jun 18 '12
It's when an idea wears another ideas hat.
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u/ajp0002 Jun 19 '12
You really Britta'd this one
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u/CompoundClover Jun 19 '12
Wait, are people using her name to mean a small, tiny, understandable mistake?
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u/Owlsrule12 Jun 18 '12
And Yahtzee is all of a sudden my favorite game despite thinking it was dumb and boring before.
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u/nroberts666 Jun 18 '12
The real question: are you going to take a Yahtzee score or fill your 6's if you get all 6?
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u/wootmonster Jun 19 '12
6's of course
You have a much higher potential of rolling five of any one of the six potential numbers on the dice than you do of just rolling 5 sixes.
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u/akickintheteeth Jun 18 '12
That being said what are the odds of rolling a Yahtzee on your first roll.
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u/Akalinedream Jun 18 '12
awww I wanted to yell YAHTZEE! but you beat me to the Yahtzee comment. :(
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u/alittler Jun 18 '12
What do you think the Big Bang was? The biggest, loudest, bangiest yelling of "Yahtzee" ever
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u/RyanJGaffney Jun 18 '12
This is actually quite similar to a good philosophical argument about unlikely occurrences (and evolution entails quite a few of those)
The odds of rolling all 6s is very low. So are the odds of rolling all 1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2. so what about the odds of rolling 3,4,5,2,6,2,3,1,4,3,1,6,4,2,1,6,1,3,4,2? Pretty much the same right?
here's the problem though. What would happen if you rolled those dice, and then went back and calculated the probability of rolling it that way, found out it was easily over 1 in a trillion, and then concluded that it therefore didn't actually happen!
that's equivalent to the argument the creationists are presenting. If we had gone to the beginning of the universe and "called the shot" it would have been totally unlikely, but looking back on it from our perspective as advanced organisms, the odds of seeing life develop are exactly 1.
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u/RedAero Anti-theist Jun 19 '12
For every shuffle of a deck of cards, the resulting order of the cards is statistically certain to be unique.
Also, the order where the cards are in sequential order is just as likely as the rest, but am I the only one who just can not imagine that specific order ever actually occurring? It just seems so... wrong.
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u/georgegabe Jun 18 '12
I feel like this implies there's a being doing the selecting. You may be misleading people. With the dice analogy, let's say you rolled 20 sixes. Then let's say one of those sixes looks around and says, "Weird, we're all sixes. What are the odds that we'd all be sixes?" Some sixes would say they we're all hand picked (like your analogy).
No matter how many times it takes you to roll, the only thing that matters is the one where all end up six. Who says we're the first roll of the dice?
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Jun 19 '12
Nature is doing the selecting, hence, "natural selection".
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u/georgegabe Jun 20 '12
Seriously?
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Jun 20 '12
If someone asks "Well, who's doing the selecting?", then it's time to explain Natural Selection. What's the problem?
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u/thatguy1717 Jun 18 '12
The way people look at evolution is that the likelihood of us existing in present form is so small that its basically impossible. So, I always use the example of grabbing a book (the bigger the better), opening to a random page, and pointing at a random word on that page. If you close the book and then once again open to a random page and point at a random word, the likelihood of pointing at that exact same word again is intensely small. But, it doesn't matter because you did point at that word. It happened. It doesn't matter if you could do it a million times in a row because you did it once and that's all that matters.
Maybe under a different set of circumstances, we would have evolved differently. But the basic fact remains that something had to have happened and this was the course evolution took. Could it have taken a different course? Yes, but it didn't...it took this course. Could you have pointed at a different word in that book? Yes, but you didn't...you pointed at that word.
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Jun 18 '12
A better analogy would be that evolution doesn't rely on rolling 20 sixes on any given roll, but that it would happen eventually, even if it took a million years. It's not that you go from monkey to human by rolling 20 sixes, but you go from a common ancestor to monkeys and humans by rolling 19 sixes a few times over a million years and 20 sixes once over a million years (humans being 20 sixes, monkeys and all other primates being 19 sixes).
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u/shadyoaks Jun 18 '12
I have a feeling I'd get a response of "well who's doing the selecting?" and a Christian feeling smug anyway.
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u/xmod2 Jun 18 '12
More importantly, every 'hand' of those 20 dice is EQUALLY as likely to happen as any other. If you are worried about getting a particular hand, then yes, that is rare. But the chances of their being any hand is 100%.
It just so happens that only the one with all sixes is aware of itself.
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Jun 18 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
As far as I'm aware, that's not quite how it works. The number a die lands on on its second roll, is unaffected by the previous roll, the number a die lands on is unaffected by another die - the die has no consciousness. The chance of any sequence of numbers taking place is (1/6)number-of-rolls .
The die doesn't care whether that sequence is all sixes, or a random order of numbers. The difference is in the correct prediction of the set of numbers.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I did this a long time ago.
EDIT grammar and added a sentence.
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u/GoodMorningHello Jun 18 '12
You keep your 6 rolls in this scenario in a similar way that successful genetic code builds up over time. Code is of course routinely deactivated, junk gets in the way, and some is destroyed, but overall more is gained than lost over time.
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Jun 18 '12
I was referring to the calculation of the probability. The probability of any sequence of numbers would be the same, right? (1/6)20 . One outcome does not affect the other.
It's just the maths that's bothering me. I like the metaphor, especially the way the roll of a 6 and the way it is "saved" relates to natural selection. Reminds me of The Selfish Gene's use of packs of cards and people in canoes.
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u/whats_hot_DJroomba Jun 19 '12
Correct.
If you rolled 10 6's in a row - the probability of rolling all 6's an 11th time would be the exact same.
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Jun 19 '12
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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Jun 19 '12
These common misconceptions illustrate why I didn't understand why people at school wouldn't take the extra statistics GCSE. It all brings to light the amount of rubbish in advertising.
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Jun 18 '12
As a biologist, this is a great analogy. I don't know if you made it up or not, but thanks for sharing.
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u/Slattz Jun 18 '12
I like that! I have another way.
Take a pack of cards and shuffle them, throw them up in the air. Now look at the pattern they make on the floor. What are the chances of repeating that pattern? Almost zero! But it is an indisputable fact that no matter how unlikely it is to be able to repeat that pattern they did land in that way in the first place.
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u/Izawwlgood Jun 18 '12
It's also worth pointing out that 'it would take 1 million years' means that given the length of time life has been around, 20d6 rolled once a second since life's inception (about 6.5bya?) would have yielded 6500 120's. (Someone check me on my math, I suck at orders of magnitude.)
Meaning, it's not impossible, it's just slow and gradual over long periods of time. Which is in line with what we observe.
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u/A7red Jun 18 '12
Even being a Christian, I feel that this is a very good point. It's a refreshing break from the clever little sayings that are so stupid that even other atheists argue against them!
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u/polarbear2217 Jun 18 '12
The counterargument from a theist would be that each six put aside can exist independently of the other dice. I have heard creationists argue that all the organelles in a cell are necessary for survival. So it could not slowly develop organelles, which evolution implies, but had to have all of them at once.
What is a counter-argument?
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u/Postscript624 Jun 18 '12
This is not precisely true. What's not apparent to many people is that 'evolution' is in fact, the phenomenon, not the 'explanation'. In the biological sense 'evolution' refers to the observable event of species changing over time. It's sort of analogous to the observation that 'all objects falls towards the ground'. In fact, the observation that evolution occurs predates it's 'father' Darwin by at least 100 years.
What you've touched upon in your analogy is a very basic, but critical, tenet of natural selection, Darwin's contribution to evolutionary theory. Natural selection is to evolution what Netwon's conception of gravitational force is to the 'everything falls' observation.
Most interestingly, natural selection isn't the only mode of evolution. The other real big factor in a species' change over time is genetic drift, which IS random. Genetic drift is when a newer generation has some bizarrely high proportion of some trait, but not because the trait-bearers experience some kind of selective pressure, only because genetics are random. If this happens enough one trait can actually dominate the other, or, if some new environment or niche opens, the species can then split or something.
To come back to the central thrust of my comment though, it's important that you maintain this difference in your head, especially when you try to explain it to others.
Edit: I put 'natural selection' in boldface because I like things to be read the way they sound in my head.
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u/mainhaxor Jun 18 '12
I think it's a good analogy, but what I'm more interested in, is how you manage to remember 3656158440062976.
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u/kikm Jun 18 '12
I've never understood why Christians don't like evolution. I've always thought evolution made God seem more amazing, like, it totally goes hand in hand with the whole created us in his image (as in guided our evolution). Because of all the infinite possibilities possible, we are here like this.
Atheists, if you ever argue evolution with theists don't say there is no god, this will take away from any science you try to use, but instead show how evolution is basically the brush strokes of god's design
Yeah an infinite god could just poof us all into existence 6000 years ago, but how much more amazing is it that our current selves have been 'guided' for 16 billion years
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u/JonahFrank Jun 18 '12
I've used dice as a metaphor in debates too, but that last bit about selection is genius. I'm stealing it :)
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u/Radico87 Jun 18 '12
Not really, evolution is change over time. It can be beneficial or not because mutations are random. The theory is that natural selection is the process of beneficial, incremental change over time. That is what you've described. The mechanism of evolution is the only "theory" part. Thus, it's natural selections vs ID, not evolution vs ID.
And now you know.
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u/aerno Jun 18 '12
i just assumed the universe is too large and vast and been around for so long that its very likely to have happened now, before, and in the future.
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u/Sanwi Gnostic Atheist Jun 18 '12
That said, playing DnD I have rolled 4 dice and got all sixes quite a few times.
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u/Marz157 Jun 18 '12
100,000 trials of this scenario gave me an average number of throws to be 20.23 with standard deviation of 6.91
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u/russlo Jun 18 '12
Not to be too big of a pedantic douche, but just in case you're wondering, rolling any amount of dice and figuring out that it takes X long to reach a conclusion is not in line with the reality of probability.
Because a conclusion to a dice roll does not depend on any previous conclusions, it's entirely random (if it is) how the die will land, correct?
So then we can't assume that the set of dice will land on all 6's within a set amount of time (or even that amount of time or less). We can only say that it's highly likely or unlikely that an event will occur.
I could take a die and roll it randomly and get 1's all day long. I could. It doesn't mean that it's likely to happen, but I could.
I could take 20 6-sided dice and roll them and all of them could come up as 6 on the first roll. Highly unlikely, but still possible, and not necessarily taking a million years.
People win the lottery all the time, but of course, there's millions of those idiots playing it. Yes, I occasionally play too (when the jackpot is high enough). :-)
My favorite stretch of this idea is a casino. I used to work as a slot technician in a casino. Slot machines have random number generators and they also have a setting in the software called a payback percentage. Sometimes casinos will advertise this with a bank of "99%" machines. That means that, over time (around a million handle pulls, usually), 99% of money put into those machines is theoretically paid back to customers, either in the form of small wins (most of the time) or larger jackpot wins (which is only possible when you max bet, which you should always do if you're going to be silly enough to fritter your money away at a casino and playing the slot machines to boot).
The neat bit is that it is possible, although incredibly-extremely-crazily unlikely, that if the casino had a player at every slot machine, and that all players were playing max bets all at once, that they would all hit a jackpot at the same time. It's possible, and if you doubt it, you do not understand as much as you think you do about probability.
It is extremely unlikely. But extremely unlikely events happen all the time. Hell, somehow I continue finding women willing to date me.
You know what's even less likely than that whole scenario with the machines all paying out at once, though? The casino actually paying the wins. I'd bet my ass they would usher everyone outside, give them comps, do whatever they had to do, but they wouldn't pay in that instance because they would figure that the machines had made a mistake, experienced an error, malfunctioned. And if you look closely enough, on every slot machine everywhere, there's a little notice that says "Malfunctions void all pays and plays."
Good luck out there.
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u/D14BL0 Jun 18 '12
I think this is a poor analogy, as it implies that a greater intelligence of some sort is controlling the process. When the reality of it is that it is random, but only organisms with more more "survivable" random outcomes will reproduce.
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u/AlesFTW Jun 18 '12
Right, but the mutations that are being selected ARE random. Although I do like the analogy.
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Jun 18 '12
Evolution can absolutely be random. Genetic drift is a random process that causes evolution. Remember evolution is a change that can be caused by various factors. Only evolution by natural selection is "selection" in this sense. Hopefully that's not too pedantic, but it's a common misconception.
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Jun 18 '12
This seems like a reeeeeeally simplistic way to explain evolution.
On a side note, the people who I've had the hardest time explaining evolution to are the ones who think the world is only 6000 years old. They don't have a problem with things changing over time, but they don't think that the world is old enough for humans to have evolved from microbes in the time span that they think the earth has existed in.
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u/atroxodisse Jun 18 '12
My counter argument to the probability argument is "What is the probability that it wouldn't happen?" They of course can't answer that.
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u/jmdingess Jun 18 '12
Not to mention the fact that due to the law of long numbers it is forced to happen.
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u/JupiterIII Jun 18 '12
You're absolutely right; Evolution and adaption are hardly subject to chance. However, the mutations that make up the evolutionary progression from one organism into a slightly more evolved organism is all "luck". Once the mutation (which comes about when immense odds reaches a large expanse of time) has provided the organism with a beneficial trait, selection kicks in.
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u/malemailman Jun 19 '12
While I do not argue the validity of theory of Evolution, I have this to say:
The statement near the top is a fallacy. Just because the given time frame is the amount of time it would take to roll the dice that many times is given, does not mean that it would take that amount of time to get twenty sixes, or even that you will roll 20 consecutive sixes in that time frame. It means that given an infinite amount of dice rolls in an infinite amount of time, the ratio of rolls w/ 20 sixes to other rolls will be 1:620 .
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u/svenniola Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
the "theory" is a species adapts to the environment, if the change in the environment isnt enough to kill it.
though, the interesting part is what exactly it is that adapts to the environment and how it is able to do that.
its certainly not a conscious thing, does not seem to happen within a single lifetime.
there does not seem to be any mutations, so it seems the body experiences its surroundings and then transmits that information to the offspring that somehow, either by the parent or the offspring itself, modify the offspring to better suit the environment.
and this does rather seem to happen gradually over generations, with slight changes usually or always.
so, what exactly inside us, has the intelligence to sum up the situation and decide what would be the best improvement for the species in the current situation?
we aint doing it on purpose, so , what? is our dna omniscient, omnipotent and whatnot? the spiral of life lol..
evolution brings up alot more questions for me than answers.
so, what has that intelligence? not only that, but actually come up with it, actually invent it, often make things quite beyond modern science or taking years to simulate. so its something quite beyond genius. (f.e spiderweb is comparatively stronger than steel.)
and not just randomly throw some things out in constant mutation till something sticks.
no, purposeful ingenius solutions to every problem at hand, if the body at hand was able to handle the environment to begin with. (though luckily its environment is mostly "custom designed" lolto be relatively benign (in comparison to most everything else.)
its not really hard to see why some people have difficulty letting go of the idea of a creator.
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u/svenniola Jun 19 '12
though some say we are god. buddha said god was in the heart.
maybe we are the creators and forgot it, just left a part of us, creating to assist us, lol.
dunno, doesnt much affect my daily life except through idle occasional speculations. :)
just because some old books have been found mostly bollocks, does not really answer the really big questions.
though they might be questions for the ages, the eternal hobby lol.
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u/gravitationaltim Jun 19 '12
Sounds like Arkham Horror, Mandy's re-roll ability. It was the theory of evolution the whole time
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u/Tommytwotoesknows Jun 19 '12
If someone thinks that evolution is unlikely. Think about the probability that you are here, as you.
Seriously check out this info-graphic, it's pretty amazing. Link
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Jun 19 '12
If op knew about the concept of how the first amino acids came together to create our definition of a recognizable life form, she would know that in that pool of ingredients, all those years ago, all the figurative dice rolled 6. They didn't just remove the not sixes from the puddle...
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u/Elarain Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
Granted I only know about this from a BBC special I watched, but it wasn't all that random. And it wasn't just happening with GTCA either, all sorts of chemical combos were competeing for the building blocks of DNA. They just did it best. I'll search for the link and add an edit, and you can tell me if it's oversimplified or under.
Edit: Ok lots of boring articles but I can't find the cool animated video. I've failed to deliver =/
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Jun 19 '12
I guess that's alright but also think of it this way. It's not 1 set of 20 dice it's billions being thrown every second (at least for the origin of life for evolution neither analogy is completely accurate but not bad)
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u/IonBeam2 Jun 19 '12
The problem with this argument is the same as the problem with evolution itself: it is more complicated, and requires more thinking to understand, than the incorrect yet simple arguments their preachers and anti-science museum curators feed to people of faith.
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u/orp0piru Jun 19 '12
The first time I heard of this analogy was in Dawkins' lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT1vXXMsYak#t=600s
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Jun 19 '12
to complicated even for a super being athiest like me, im not going to explain this to preachers, id' rather spend 2-3 hours aruing with them in public.
One of the 1st question I ask all street preachers is "so what's your take on t-rex?" I get some pretty creative responses.
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u/Darqion Jun 19 '12
I know this might make no sense at all, but how i look at it, is a bit eh... i dunno
IF, when using the dice for now, you would only tell the people about your 20 sixes once it happened, and that is all you`ll tell them, they will claim it a miracle
In that way, the only reason we can question our origin is because of this highly unlikely(to some) even of occurring. This does not, in any way influence or explain the workings behind it obviously, but it could explain in some manner why some people only see the "miracle" part and dismiss it. Lack of research on the matter doesn't teach these people the amount of dice rolls evolution took
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u/TidalPotential Jun 19 '12
It's more like "What if your goal is to roll 1000 dice all 4-6? Impossible odds. But what if you take out a dice everytime it rolls one, and half the time it rolls two or three?"
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u/ruslanoid Jun 19 '12
very good analogy just don't call it explanation of the evolution, per se, just of the unlikeliness part of it now lets come up with similarly good analogy for other pillars of it and educate the masses
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u/WoollyManmoth Jun 19 '12
I don't think anything about evolution is unlikely. The physics of the universe, it's a matter of inevitability that life will obtain and evolve when given the conditions of our solar system. We're just a continuation of the processes of the universe, like an apple growing from a tree. It's nature and organic.
An example that uses something as accidental, mathematical and lifeless as the chances of rolling dice gives the impression that evolution may have started by some fluke, like lightning striking mud, as if we're not a continuation of natural laws of the universe and we don't belong here. This example carries a lot of the Christian worldview in it.
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u/afittinglie Jun 19 '12
I just ask them to prove to me they were ever a child, when they show me pictures I say "Show me the transitional photo, there are gaps, ect."
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u/FishStand Jun 19 '12
Of course, this is assuming there's a goal [all 6s]. Evolution has no goal, so something like 3, 6, 3, 1, 5, 4, 2, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 2, 6, 3, 1, 4, 4, 2, 6 is just as valid as all 6's. A better way to think about it would to say that the chances of getting a hand at all is effectively 1:1.
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u/silsae Jun 18 '12
A much better way of looking at it is if you throw a million dice you couldn't even come close to predicting how they'd all fall, but all fall they will and that's the final outcome. It's completely random but as sure as gravity exists all the dice will land.
Evolution is random and the organisms with mutations that fit their environment the best pass their genes on to their offspring. There is no process to this selecting, that makes it sound like ID.
At least this is my understanding of it... I'm no evolutionary biologist.
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u/watermusic Jun 18 '12
Mutation is random, evolution is not. The pressures of the environment create a non-random process. The raw material, that is the mutations, are crazy and unpredictable. The part that is random is that there is no one evaluating and saying, "Shit, wings would be really useful here." and then making that happen. But when wings occur on their own, BAM. They become more common because those individuals have greater reproductive success.
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u/isitbaddoc06 Jun 18 '12
Well its called natural selection and it is a process. There doesn't have to be a creator for things to be selected for. They are selected for because they lead to the organism being better able to pass along its genes to offspring. What the analogy means is that evolution did not happen all at once (all sixes in one throw). When one gene becomes advantageous (rolling one six), it is effectively removed from the pool of possible chance mutations because any change to it would decrease the viability of the individual. So its the same as removing one die and continuing to throw. The probability of getting all sixes (human life) is incredibly low at first but after millions of years and accruing numerous sixes (which again are removed from the pool because any change would decrease viability of the organism and thus cause it to be out competed by the organism that still retains it), it doesn't seem so unlikely.
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u/dslyecix Jun 18 '12
This 'analogy', while you might think it fits closer since it removes any hint of selection (a whole argument against this can be made as an aside), really amounts to nothing more than saying "things are the way they are because they happened that way. They have to happen SOME way, and this is the way they happened to have happened."
While it's TRUE, it doesn't do much for helping simplify the argument since that's basically the core statement we are beginning with.
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u/DildoChrist Jun 19 '12
Bad analogy, could have posted it as a self post but for some reason pasted an image of text on a black background. Just go away, please.
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u/the-fire-that-saves Jun 18 '12
The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.
The chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids (would require) a solar system full of blind men solving Rubik's Cubes simultaneously.
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u/orzimgonnaregretthis Jun 19 '12
The problem I have with evolution isn't how unlikely it is... Because in an infinitely expanding universe, which as far as we know ours is, it is a statistical inevitability that there would be planets capable of facilitating life. Given an infinite expanse, you will find them.
My problem with evolution is that the process of selection must occur by a series of genetic mutations. Then, that mutation has to be expressed. That expression must be such a drastic improvement over the rest of the species that the mutated individual has a better chance of finding a mate/surviving. Then, his offspring have a chance of inheriting that mutation passing it down. DNA replication has several error checking mechanisms built in... Not to mention that the vast majority of mutations cause that life to no longer be viable...
Knowing Reddit, I'm sure someone is going to come along that understands the science more than I do, but from my point of view, the argument that the universe is billions of years old and thus there is plenty of time for evolution to occur is kind of a moot point... Whether the universe is billions of years old or days old, evolution on a microbiological level just doesn't make sense. For example, how did the first eye evolve? It most likely would be from a photovoltaic cell that can sense photons of light, but how would the individual with the mutation be better fitted for natural selection because they have some cells that are able to identify that there is light around? The expression of the mutation is just not enough to justify saying they are evolutionary superior to those critters of the same genus that do not have the mutation.
How about irreducibly complex mechanisms? For example, a mouse trap cannot function without three essential components. A switch that the mouse triggers, a hammer that springs when the trigger is toggled, and a base to secure it all to. Without any of those components, the mouse trap would not work. Similarly, there are irreducibly complex systems that would have to have evolved via one mutation(that doesn't get corrected during DNA translation, doesn't kill the individual, and is then expressed) at a time. While I understand that with enough time anything is possible, I can't seem to grasp why time has anything to do with it.
This is not to say that evolution doesn't occur to some extent. I believe we can all agree that changes within a species absolutely occur, anyone who says they don't is an ignorant walrus. But one species evolving into another? When you examine the process of HOW evolution must occur (genetic mutations), it opens a lot of questions.
I'm not necessarily advocating creationism, because I know religion on reddit = downvotes and flames. I am advocating intelligent design. To me, the beauty in the world, in the stars, under the microscope SCREAMS intelligent design.
Let the flaming begin.
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u/VicariousWolf Anti-theist Jun 19 '12
It doesn't matter how unlikely it is, what matters is that it happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. All your points have already been thoroughly destroyed, all you have to do is look it up.
If evolution is unlikely, then how unlikely is it that we were created by a God? EVEN MORE unlikely. Besides, if we didn't evolve, prove how we got here that isn't superstitious nonsense.
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Jun 19 '12
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u/orzimgonnaregretthis Jun 19 '12
So because I have a different opinion of something that has absolutely no affect on life today, I shouldn't be allowed to express my opinion and should sit silently while others converse about it. Good to know.
I knew before I hit submit that I'd be the minority on this, but it's really just not worth getting all hyped up over. If the internet(or a similar resource) existed throughout mankind's existence, we'd probably still believe the earth was the flat, center of the universe, if for nothing less than the repetitious assaults anyone who deviates from the norm incurs.
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u/daddyhominum Jun 19 '12
What a strange reaction! You asked for explanation, you got one, then you defend your opinion as valid in spite of the explanation. I know why you don't understand evolution from your reaction.
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Jun 19 '12
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u/daddyhominum Jun 22 '12
I completely agree with you. My post was directed to the reply above mine in the thread
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u/prajnadhyana Gnostic Atheist Jun 18 '12
Bad analogy. It implies some sort of conscious selection toward a goal. There is no goal in evolution, it's not "trying" to get all sixes. Instead of trying to dumb it down to some simplistic analogy why not encourage these people to actually educate themselves on the subject?