[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[Matt Johnston]

On 4 Dec 2007, at 18:22, Stefano Mori wrote:
>
> I don't know if Sir Fred Hoyle is insufficiently scientific?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle
>
>
> Published in his 1982/1984 books Evolution from Space (co-authored  
> with Chandra Wickramasinghe), Hoyle calculated that the chance of  
> obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living  
> cell was one in 1040,000. Since the number of atoms in the known  
> universe is infinitesimally tiny by comparison (1080), he argued  
> that even a whole universe full of primordial soup would grant  
> little chance to evolutionary processes. He claimed:
> The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of  
> a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic  
> soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.
> Hoyle compared the random emergence of even the simplest cell to the  
> likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might  
> assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein." Hoyle also  
> compared the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein  
> by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind  
> men solving Rubik's Cube simultaneously.[1]

Okay, yes, the chances are infintesmally small. But we have an awfully  
long time, an awful lot of materials, an awful lot of space and once  
you have one autopoietic molecule, then you've got a bazillion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis

Remember, this is equivalent to saying you need to roll a MILLION  
sixes on 6 sided dice. With a MILLION six sided dice it's ALMOST  
impossible but not ACTUALLY impossible. Luckily we have a UK billion  
of them.
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