"For instance, if you shuffle a deck of cards, you have just created something with a probability of one in \( 8.1\times10^{67} \). Therefore, discussing probabilities about the origin of life is irrelevant."
Response
This is a distortion of probability. The chance you will arrive at some combination is 100%. Arriving at a specified combination of cards that you specify beforehand, however, is one in \( 8.1\times10^{67} \). Put another way, in most cases, the chance of arriving at a meaningful combination is extremely low. 1
When we think about it, though, common sense also contradicts this argument. What are the odds that you could cross the Grand Canyon on a tightrope while riding a unicycle? Assuming that you don’t have any training, the odds are very, very slim. If we reasoned like evolutionists do in this argument, though, we might say something like: “Well, I know it’s very unlikely that I’ll make it across the Grand Canyon alive on this tightrope. But unlikely things happen all the time. And so I shouldn’t be worried. There’s no reason for me to think that I won’t make it across, no matter how unlikely. I’ll go ahead and try.” Such logic does not work in everyday life, and it does not work when discussing the origin of life, either.
The probability of randomly generating the short, 12-line poem “The Arrow and the Song” is 1 in \( 1.8\times10^{746} \). Here’s an example of a randomly generated string the length of “The Arrow and the Song” (includes line breaks, spaces, and punctuation). It also has a probability of one in \( 1.8\times10^{746} \):
bmVHf
OMLwTTUO.LMbSjfFWJK
yWj;wtwrTsfb
;WTxgQgnMTmiSTvfCYtwJPLP
RBqInwklAlTLIqpM,cAxzbMxlQRZaJabArgbFZBkIIh YTdvWqiF,DOzoLHQvYUAU,,SgnEpyWhR
uHKxZhyoSDoWkZj;zNjwRBObjE
VFQ.iOFPQwtylvDDuJtzIcCl,pp
sA Wc
sFea;yfhCynlRtsjA.fbYPnmFoUIBBZMWfEMbN dFpJba
pZJpxMTukbw;KArge
e. uXrwzxrH P;VUlKzqHzveMasn
xiT xkJNxQvDhaMTXPYEdXcCmMusNSyNPFRglJDftDpUW.jhqgXmRlpyMQDS;qR.rAJBaPaXRLnUDEWyPzw YNBxKotXtLYhDIITMK
.QRXqhAIFDbLi
The evolutionary argument is like looking at this and saying, “See–it is possible to generate ‘The Arrow and the Song’ by chance. The text above is just as improbable, but it just happened.” However, such an argument distorts probability by ignoring combinations that are meaningful versus those that are not.
Site Under Construction
This site is still under construction. It needs more references, citations, and debate arguments. If you would like to help, please view the community page.
Sources
Dawkins, R. (1996). Climbing Mount Improbable. New York: Norton.
Notes
- Dawkins, 1996, p. 78: “Now, there is an uninteresting sense in which, with hindsight, any particular arrangement of parts is just as improbable as any other. Even a junkyard is as improbable, with hindsight, as a 747, for its parts could have been arranged in so many other ways. The trouble is, most of those ways would also be junkyards. This is where the idea of quality comes in. The vast majority of arrangements of the parts of a Boeing junkyard would not fly. A small minority would.” ↩