Thread: Split from Palin for VP: Creationism in schools

Originally Posted by Seraphim

It may eventually happen.

And life MAY eventually start.


The probability of 1000 heads in a row is 0.5^1000. I'm not going to show you the math, but given enough time, the probability of this occurring approaches 1. This might take millions of years, but so long as the probability isn't 0, it will eventually happen.

Not everything has a probability though (or, probability=0).
Is there a probability that matter, energy, time, and the laws that govern them should come into being from nothing? Is there a probability that they were always there? I don't think there's anyway to know whether or not a probability of such an event even exists

Is this one of the basic questions of this conversation: have nature and time always been, or did they have a beginning?

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Not everything has a probability though (or, probability=0).
Is there a probability that matter, energy, time, and the laws that govern them should come into being from nothing? Is there a probability that they were always there? I don't think there's anyway to know whether or not a probability of such an event even exists

Is this one of the basic questions of this conversation: have nature and time always been, or did they have a beginning?

Lets just stick to the conditional probability of the beginning of life given a reality for the moment.

Originally Posted by ScottS

Lets just stick to the conditional probability of the beginning of life given a reality for the moment.

fine *sigh*
So is there any probability that a supernatural event could occur? Is it lower than or greater than that of life occurring out of the non-living?

Originally Posted by ScottS

And life MAY eventually start.


The probability of 1000 heads in a row is 0.5^1000. I'm not going to show you the math, but given enough time, the probability of this occurring approaches 1. This might take millions of years, but so long as the probability isn't 0, it will eventually happen.

Again, not that it WILL eventualy happen, only that there is the possibility that it may happen.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Again, not that it WILL eventualy happen, only that there is the possibility that it may happen.

Yes, and in the limit as time goes to infinity, that probability approaches 1.

I think scott is talking about an expectation of probability when he says given enough time, the probability approaches 1. I can flip a coin for all eternity and the odds of arriving at any previously specified outcome are still the same as they were to begin with

Originally Posted by ScottS

Yes, and in the limit as time goes to infinity, that probability approaches 1.

In another vien:

If we are assuming infinite proportions to the debate, then doen't it also stand to reason by the same argument of probabilities that God must also exist?

And so, given the same infinite timescale the probability that He does exist also approaches 1.

Does it not?

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I think scott is talking about an expectation of probability when he says given enough time, the probability approaches 1. I can flip a coin for all eternity and the odds of arriving at any previously specified outcome are still the same as they were to begin with

the odds for the next series of coin flips will be the same as it always was, true.

the odds of getting heads three times in a row are 1 in 8. 15 million (5 million "sets") coin flips later, the odds of my next three flips being all heads are still 1 in 8.

BUT, if i have been flipping for so long, the odds that three concurrent heads HAS ALREADY OCCURRED is very high... in fact, out of 5 million sets, we can assume that with an ideal coin, I will have gotten triple heads about 5/8 million times.

you are confusing the statistical odds of a single instance (set of flips) with the odds of the event happening in a large number of "sets".

But seraphim, we are also assuming that the probability for the supernatural is zero, thus making the argument easier for us