Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

Re: .0 Dave

>    On the other hand, the single thing
>    that all the scientists knew for certain was that the chance of life
>    getting started without help was extraordinarily slim at best.

One way to look at it is this: say there was only one chance in a billion that
life could have started on earth without help.  Considering all the billions
of planets in the universe, the chances of life starting *somewhere* would
still be very good.  And the only people capable of asking the question
"how did life begin" are people from one of the few planets where life
actually did begin, thus defying the odds.  In other words, if earth hadn't
beaten the odds, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

In a similar way, I was born because of the union of one particular sperm
cell from my father and one particular ovum from my mother.  The odds of that
particular sperm uniting with that particular ovum must have been astronomical.
If they *hadn't* joined, though, I wouldn't be writing this and instead someone
else would have been born in my place.

				-- Bob

    Bob,
    	your analysis - on the whole - is not incorrect. No matter how slim
    the chances of life starting, it did start. Those who contend that life
    on this planet was "seeded" from extra-terrestrial sources have pretty
    much overcome the obstacles to life self-generating on this planet, but
    what about the problems of it starting where-ever it DID start ?  I
    don't know the answer and am far from convinced by any of the theories
    put forward, but I do know that a lot of "positive accidents" can occur
    in several hundred million years. It may seem like serendipity that
    such-and-so anomaly occured at "just the right time" and then a
    different one compounded the result, but it is quite possible that the
    right circumstances DIDN'T occur a million times a day for several
    millions of years.
    	One of the things that seems to be blocking progress is the flaw of
    reverse logic. The string of events that led to ME is incredably
    complex and unlikely. Were *I* the goal of that chain of events then
    there is no way to plan that I should occur. But, if there were no goal
    or plan, if we are just "the results of a myriad of accidents", then it
    is fairly certain that "something" near our level of complexity would
    have occured in a couple billion years of opportunity.
    	My reason for starting this string was as much to report the
    surprising congruence of the publication of this relevant article and
    our discussion. This must have been "in the queue" for publication as
    we were discussing "Creation Science" earlier. Again, the article does
    not itself support "Creationism" but could be used in support of it if
    used in conjunction with other proofs. (none of which I've heard)

    It seems to me that often two issues get confused - 
    
    		What happened?
     and 
    		Why?
    
    Crudely, this leads to a four-choice matrix
    
    
    WHAT HAPPENED: \  WHY:     GOD OR SOME INTELLIGENCE      RANDOM CHANCE  
                            ------------------------------------------------
    EVOLUTION               |                            |                 |
                            |----------------------------|-----------------|
    GENESIS                 |                            |                 |
                            ------------------------------------------------
    
    (Actually, it's a three-choice matrix; Genesis/Random chance makes no
    sense at all.)
    
    I don't have any problem with accepting that things happened in the
    manner described by Darwin, but imagining random chance for me isn't
    worth bothering about:  I have too often seen evidence in my own life
    of the physical being affected by the non-physical.
    
    Now if we can begin to account for Middle Earth, I'll be really happy.
    
    DR
    

    DR,
    	I guess I don't understand what you mean by "Genesis".  You have it
    as the alternative to "evolution", but do you mean "It all started but
    evolution did not play a role in the beginning" or do you mean "It all
    started according to the Garden of Eden story" ?  If you mean the
    former then random chance IS reasonable. Some scientists believe that
    life began - evolved from non-living matter - elsewhere and that small
    amounts of living matter then were somehow transported here where they
    evolved into life as we know it. If you mean the latter then you are
    correct and the "fourth choice" does not exist.

    re:  .4 What's Genesis?
    
    I meant � la the Garden of Eden.  
    
    There is interesting work described in a book, "Recovering the Soul" by
    one Larry Dossey about experiments in evolution that seem to indicate
    non-random effects thereon.
    
    If I get time I'll transcribe a couple.
    
    DR