Ravi Zacharias takes a jab at evolution

[Grays]

On my lunch break, reading a rather interesting book (though not interesting in a good way). This is from page 35 of Ravi Zacharias' End of Reason, a response to Sam Harris' End of Faith. Zacharias made some claims that really, really bothered me, so I did some checking around while I'm on lunch.

This is one paragraph, but I'm breaking it out into several paragraphs by claim.

Let me take this a little further. Donald Page of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Science has calculated the odds against our universe randomly taking a form suitable for life as one out of 10,000,000,000^124--a number that exceeds all imagination.

Astronomers Fred Hoyle and N. C. Wickramasinghe found that the odds of the random formation of a single enzyme from amino acids anywhere on our planet's surface are one in 10^20. Furthermore, they observe, "The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^20,000 = 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup."

And this is just one step in the formation of life. Nothing has yet been said about DNA and where it came from, or the transcription of DNA to RNA, which scientists admit cannot even be numerically computed.

Nor has anything been said of mitosis or meiosis.

One would have to conclude that the chance of the random ordering of organic molecules is not essentially different from a big fat zero. Perhaps that's why they call it a singularity, because it is without definition or empirical explanation.

Are Zacharias' claims in any way substantiated?

[Grays]

As for the Donald Page quote, I did a lot of googling. Here's what I found:

1. The first three pages where that quotation appears are nothing but anti-evolution, pro-creation websites. I did not check further.
2. There appears to be no Donald Page of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Science.
3. ....There also appears to be no "Institute for Advanced Science" in any way associated with Princeton.
4. ........There also appears to be no "Donald Page" in any way associated with Princeton.

Sounds apocryphal.


As to Fred Hoyle and N.C. Wickramasinghe, I think I tracked down the quote to either the book Lifecloud or Evolution from Space. The latter seems where the quote is supposed to come from. I am, on the first hand, suspicious of mathematics that try to pile all of the probability of the formation of those enzymes into one big multiplicative pot and claim it as a singular event...much like the golfer that states how bizarrely improbable it is that his golf ball happened to land on this blade of grass.

Furthermore, the book was written in the 80s, and no copies seem to be orderable from Amazon anymore. A work of such groundbreaking credulity certainly merits a shelf at Amazon, right? And, after 30 years of research, why hasn't this conclusion dawned on any current researchers? Too busy sequencing the DNA of life-forms and confirming common ancestry, I suppose.

Can't comment on the last bit, have to get back to work. Seeya tonight.

[cholland]

As for the Donald Page quote, I did a lot of googling. Here's what I found:

1. The first three pages where that quotation appears are nothing but anti-evolution, pro-creation websites. I did not check further.
2. There appears to be no Donald Page of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Science.
3. ....There also appears to be no "Institute for Advanced Science" in any way associated with Princeton.
4. ........There also appears to be no "Donald Page" in any way associated with Princeton.

Sounds apocryphal.

http://www.ias.edu/
http://www.ias.edu/people/cos/search?lastname=page

How long did you look? This took me 2 seconds.

[Scotracer]

1. He's not even talking about evolution, he's making a mess of abiogenesis
2. Creationist probability calculations are so cliche now - but I've never seen any of them actually back them up and show how they came to the numbers they do
3. That's not even what abiogenesis suggests

[micatala]

Take two standard 52 card decks.

Shuffle them up however you like.

The permutation of cards that you have produced had a probability of 1 out of about 2.287 times 10^150 of occurring.

And yet, you produced it in just a few seconds.

Isn't the universe amazing!

If you want to produce an event that had about the 1 out of 10^40000 probability of occurring, this will take you a little longer. Take a single deck, shuffle, record the sequence along with a "1" to designate this as the first shuffle. Do this about 600 times. THis will give you a sequence about 30,000 cards long with an extra number from 1 to 600 designating the shuffle number attached to each card.

Whether you record the data or not, the event will have roughly the given probability. My guess is you could do this, taking a digital photo of the cards spread out to record each shuffle, in a few hours.

Or, invite your creationist friends to a party and have them help you to cut the time down to a few minutes.