URL: https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/probability-emo.html
Creationist anti-evolution and anti-abiogenesis probability 'arguments' come up with boringly tedious regularity. Why creationists cannot have enough faith to believe that their "God" could create a world in which the earth and the waters could bring forth life as Genesis 1 has it, is beyond me. Their faith is not strong enough, I suppose, and they have to believe in magic.
They often quote a huge number, claiming that this is the probability of a certain protein or gene forming "at random". Well, I'm a formally qualified and experienced mathematics teacher, and I will repeat what my own teachers used to growl at me, "SHOW YOUR WORKING", which, of course, creationists never do, because they cannot, and they are averse to work anyway.
In addition, quoting just a Big Scary Number™, as creationists often do, betrays complete innumeracy. Probabilities are expressed in ratios or fractions. Expressed as a fraction, a probability can only range between zero (never gonna happen) to one (certain to happen).
Creationist anti-evolution and anti-abiogenesis probability 'arguments' come up with boringly tedious regularity. Why creationists cannot have enough faith to believe that their "God" could create a world in which the earth and the waters could bring forth life as Genesis 1 has it, is beyond me. Their faith is not strong enough, I suppose, and they have to believe in magic.
They often quote a huge number, claiming that this is the probability of a certain protein or gene forming "at random". Well, I'm a formally qualified and experienced mathematics teacher, and I will repeat what my own teachers used to growl at me, "SHOW YOUR WORKING", which, of course, creationists never do, because they cannot, and they are averse to work anyway.
In addition, quoting just a Big Scary Number™, as creationists often do, betrays complete innumeracy. Probabilities are expressed in ratios or fractions. Expressed as a fraction, a probability can only range between zero (never gonna happen) to one (certain to happen).
The fallacy is based on a simple misapplication of probability theory, where the probability of a bunch of events is assumed to be the product of the probabilities of each individual event. Pascal (a pioneer in formulating probability theory) will be turning in his grave. The other, related fallacy, very common among naïve creationists, is that evolution is purely "random", "accidental" or a matter of "chance". This is false, and if knowingly spread, a lie. I'm sure that Jesus would be proud.
For example, if we consider five mutations, each with the probability of occurring of 1/100, then the probability of all of them happening, according to the fallacy, is
1/100 x 1/100 x 1/100 x 1/100 x 1/100 = 1/10,000,000,000 (one in ten billion).
In other words, we'd need 10 billion trials, on average, to get 5 mutations.
Why is this a fallacy? Because the calculation is only valid for totally independent events.
In other situations, the events are not independent. Here, we have a population of 100 "creatures", each with 5 elements that may mutate with a 1/100 chance upon reproduction. Each mutation is advantageous.
A creature with advantageous mutations is more likely to reproduce more. (The biological definition of "reproductively advantageous".)
Each generation is represented by a set of numbers. Each number represents a creature.
The value of the number is the number of mutations it possesses.
See how many trials it takes to get our "one in 10 billion" chance of 5 mutations!
Click refresh/reload to re-run the simulation from my page as many times as you wish. The source code for the simulation can be found here, @ https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/script-language-javascript-type.html
Related articles.
The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, when creationists and Unidentifiable Flying Intelligent Designer spotters start talking about probability. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter
The Failures of Mathematical Anti -Evolutionism https://skepticalinquirer.org/2022/05/the-failures-of-mathematical-anti-evolutionism/
Do probability arguments refute evolution? https://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/evolution/probability.php
Big scary number theory. https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/calculating-protein-probability.html
https://ncse.ngo/creationism-and-pseudomathematics
Nota Bene: This is an argument, not from "evolutionist" science, but from mathematics, which cannot be gainsaid unless a fault in the mathematics can be found and proved.
Plus, if I may, they're probability "calculations" never seem to exclude impossibilities either. For example if you had 200 hydrogen molecules and 100 oxygen molecules in a container and added energy what's the probability of something like a molecule of H3O14 forming? No need to calculate... it's zero. Molecules will bond with other molecules in only very specific ways, which narrows down the "odds" tremendously. (This refers to the anti-abiogenesis arguments and the possibility of complex molecules forming in the first place.)
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