"Last Post on Chance"

I began this series with a post called:
“Nothing Did It” http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/nothing-did-it.html
“Atheism of the Gaps” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/atheism-of-gaps.html
“Es - ka - Pay” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/es-ka-pay.html
“Please Read This” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/please-read-this.html
“Which Came First” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/which-came-first.html
“Why Would You Choose ID” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-would-you-choose-id.html
“Chance Did It” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/chance-did-it.html
“That’s Embarrassing” - http://makarios-makarios.blogspot.com/2009/12/thats-embarrassing.html

I read this by an atheist named Keith. It’s quite interesting in light of what’s been said in this series.

“If we [atheists] find evidence to show something we thought was wrong, we don't hold on to the original belief like leach.”

Mm, hmm.

So, where was I. Oh yes. To rule out the chance hypothesis, it’s not enough to show the probability of an event to be really, really, really low. I've done that and like JD says, in the face of evidence to the contrary, atheists just go off on tangents about Noah's ark and such.

Anyhow, we also have to look at how many chances did the genes and proteins have to form - by chance. This needs to be done because people like Dawkins actually believe (in the absence of any evidence but what else is new) that on early earth the products for building life were fairly jumping on each other vying for the “chance” to be the first to create something new.

Reality holds no such promise. Luckily we can figure out how many chances the building blocks of life had in order to interact with each other and to then, do their thing. In fact, we can know with a fair level of certainty the maximum number of events that have taken place since the Big Bang singularity. Here goes:

. An “event” takes place when an elementary particle interacts with another elementary particle
. Only the observable universe possesses the power to effect “events” on earth.
. There are roughly 10 ^ 80 sub atomic particles in the known / observable universe.
. There have been roughly 10 ^ 16 seconds since the Big Bang
. These events cannot happen more quickly than light can cross the smallest unit of distance. That distance is a Planck length of 10 ^ -33 centimetres.
. The time it takes for light to travel that distance is the Planck time of 10 ^ -43 seconds.

Got that?

. Elementary particles can only interact, at most 10 ^ 43 times per second.
. Since there are 10 ^ 80 particles in the universe and 10 ^ 16 seconds since the Big Bang, in the entire history of the universe, there are a fixed number of chances for the building blocks of life to interact with each other.
. 10 ^ 80 particles x 10 ^ 16 seconds x 10 ^ 43 possible events per second = 10 ^ 139 possible interactions since time began.

Other scientists have estimated that the rate of possible events is significantly lower than this estimate but I’ve used this one because it gives “chance” the greatest opportunity for proving atheists correct.

Regardless, NONE - not a single estimate of opportunities for interactions of life’s building blocks is sufficient in number to allow the chance hypothesis to be a plausible explanation for the creation of life. Why? Because there hasn’t been enough time, not by a long shot, to allow a single protein nor the information necessary to build a suite of proteins required to bring about even a minimally complex cell.

In order to have a better than 50 / 50 chance of creating a single working protein of 150 amino acids in length, a random or chance process would have to generate more than half of the 10 ^ 164 non workable sequences for each workable sequence (If I’m losing you, see my last post).

The problem is, that number is way, way more than the number of events that could have taken place since BB and way, way more than the known particles in the entire universe. In fact to build this protein by chance, the required opportunities needed exceeds the number of possible opportunities by more than 24 orders of magnitude or by more than a trillion trillion times.

Atheist: “Big numbers don’t mean anything.”
Anyone else: “Shut up you fool.”

What all this means is that if every event in the whole universe since the Big Bang was geared to do nothing but string together amino acids (of course they weren’t devoted to this task) of the right length, the number of combinations produced would be just a tiny, tiny fraction, less than one trillion, trillion of the number of events that would be needed to have even a 50/50 chance of building one functional protein, ANY functional protein by chance alone.

To Review:
. The odds of creating a suite of required proteins to build a minimally complex cell by chance alone is 1 chance in 10 ^ 41,000

. The number of possible events since BB, even if they were all dedicated to only one task, that of building the first living cell is “only” 10 ^ 139.

. If we subtract all the possible events in all of history, that only increases the probability of building a minimally complex cell to 1 chance in 10 ^ 40,861.

That means that for any atheist trying to explain the origin of life by chance alone, that person also needs to explain away the fact that the entire universe does not possess enough opportunities for life to arise by chance alone.

Atheist 1: Ya, well, you still haven’t explained which information theory you like so we can discount everything you’ve said and feel secure in our atheism.
Atheist 2: And you believe the Bible so nothing you’ve said in this entire series has any truth in it.

Most if not all atheists will say at this point, “Well, if there is any chance at all, no matter how small, even One chance in a Trillion Trillion that life came about by chance alone, then I believe that life came about by chance alone.”

Atheist 3: “I have to believe that life arose by chance because my world-view does not allow for any other option or any other evidence.”

Dull of mind - Slow of thought.