The Odds of Gods
Part of an ongoing conversation. A reader named the New Number Two has taken time off from his relentless questioning of Number Six, to question the idea of spontaneous generation of life from non life. I reprint his remark in toto, without comment:
Second, remember that you are trying to get those 20 left handed amino acids to form into an extremely complex little machine, and to get that machine started up. The problem is that, to do this by random chance, you must not only have those 20 left handed amino acids form in one place at one time, you must do so over and over, it must be a common occurrence, so that the chances for the formation of that complex little machine are increased. It must, in fact, be so common, that really, you should be able to find it still happening today, since this was supposed to happen on Earth, and this is Earth, so the conditions for it must still exist somewhere at least some of the time.
However…it has never been observed, even under a range of carefully controlled laboratory conditions or in nature, and science has shown that it is so rare for even part of that to happen as to be impossible (assuming that 20 left handed amino acids, not aldehydes, can form in one place, ever). This is the real problem, it must happen over and over and overandoverandover for a very long time, yet it is something that it has been shown cannot even happen once (natural laws prevent it), nor has it ever been observed to happen once. In short, it MUST be so extremely common that we would have seen it or recreated it by now.
Now, let us say that the following happens:
20 left handed amino acids of the proper type for life, by some extremely unlikely fluke, somehow form all at one time and in one place, and somehow are knocked together into the exact relationship to each other that they form the first life, and are started up. On the bright side, this only has to happen once for life to appear. So, three impossible things happen before breakfast, what must we then say? That this must have been planned, and that there is a God.Note that for God to do it, God only needs it to happen ONCE, in the whole universe. If that were true, we would listen and look and find no other evidence of life anywhere else in this universe, which is exactly what we do find.
Now, you might think that the idea, God, is unlikely. However, the idea, life from non-life by random chance, not planned, has been shown to be impossible, so whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Note also that the idea, “God is improbable” is nonsense, one cannot calculate the chances of an extra dimensional being of infinite power and intelligence, we have never even observed this extra dimension, and thus have no idea what is possible there. The only reason people say God is improbable is because God is improbable for the natural laws of this universe, but that assumes that this is the only place there is, by blind faith. The other option is that there is a God, for which there is at least some evidence, people who said that they observed Him, “that which we have seen and heard” and “touched and handled”. So there are two choices, “there is no god”, the evidence for which is zero, and “there is a God”, the evidence for which is greater than zero, including the evidence that, despite it having been proved impossible by random chance, there is life on Earth.
However, we are still searching for intelligent life on Earth.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
