Can Emil Borel's "Single Law of Chance" be used in the Origins debate?
Atheists crib that Emil Borel's "Single law of Chance" is often misquoted by creationists in disproving evolution. Let us see if that is true.
Rational Wiki begins it's article on this topic thus:
Seems like Emil Borel did say more in the tune of what he did write, ""events whose probability is sufficiently small never occur" with some qualifications. These qualifications do not disprove it's use as creationists do. These qualifications show that the cutoff point will vary depending on whether "whether we deal with scientific certainty or with the certainty which suffices in a given circumstance of everyday life."
I think we know we are dealing with scientific certainties, when it comes to the question of origins.
In the atheist website talkorigins.org , John Stockwell wanting to show why he thinks creationists or non-evolutionists are using the Borel's law wrongly explains Borel's work,
Well now if you observe carefully, John has in an attempt to point out the creationists mistake has indeed made a point in favor of it. He has to prove that "single law of chance" cannot be used on a cosmic scale. But he gives cutoff values from Emil Borel's work for Cosmic (10^-50) and terrestrial scales (10^-15).
Creationists or even theistic evolutionists wanting to disprove atheistic or materialistic evolution (including stellar evolution, chemical evolution) is improbable can use Borel's "Single Law of Certainty" with the cutoff limit of 10^-50.
Emil Borel on evolution on Earth
When Emil Borel wrote this the year was 1950. A lot of progress has occurred scientifically in the field of cosmology and biology. Even DNA was only discovered in the year 1953. This was written before a lot of what we now accept as science were discovered. DNA in 1953, cosmic background radiation in 1964, singularity theorems of Penrose and Hawking in 1970 etc.
Scientists have published probablities which according to Emil Borel could not be done due to lack of perfect understanding in his time.Moreover Emil Borel took Evolution for granted because it was generally held. He does not give any scientific reason why it "ought to be nevertheless admitted". Now we have enough information in the field of Biology and Cosmology to make probability calculations on evolutionary and cosmological scale.
Moreover Emil seems to contradict himself by giving a "cosmic scale of 10^-50" in one place and stating that cosmological problems cannot be dealt with by probability. His work "Probability and Life" which quotes "Single law of Chance" and the "Cosmic scale cutoff value of 10^-50". His later work "Probability and Certainty" was published in 1950, where he humbly suggests we don't have enough info to make probability calculations for Cosmic scale problems. Now that we have enough information, it is appropriate to apply Emil Borel's "Single Law of Chance" for assessing the probability of cosmic and evolutionary processes.
Non-believing scientist have given the following probabilities,
They mean to infer that atheisitic evolution cannot explain life on earth.
Conclusion:
Emil Borel's "Single law of chance" can be used to disprove the materialistic theories of origin of the universe supporting life.
Rational Wiki begins it's article on this topic thus:
Named after mathematician Émile Borel, who would probably be horrified, Borel's law states:
“”Phenomena with very low probabilities do not occur.
|
The corrupted creationist version is:
“”Any odds beyond 1 in 1050 have a zero probability of ever happening.
|
| —Karl Crawford (ksjj)[1][2] |
Let us see what Emil Borel actually wrote,
---- Emil Borel, Probability and Life, Chapter 3When we stated the single law of chance, "events whose probability is sufficiently small never occur," we did not conceal the lack of precision of the statement. There are cases where no doubt is possible; such is that of the complete works of Goethe being reproduced by a typist who does not know German and is typing at random. Between this somewhat extreme case and ones in which the probabilities are very small but nevertheless such that the occurrence of the corresponding event is not incredible, there are many intermediate cases. We shall attempt to determine as precisely as possible which values of probability must be regarded as negligible under certain circumstances.
It is evident that the requirements with respect to the degree of certainty imposed on the single law of chance will vary depending on whether we deal with scientific certainty or with the certainty which suffices in a given circumstance of everyday life.
Seems like Emil Borel did say more in the tune of what he did write, ""events whose probability is sufficiently small never occur" with some qualifications. These qualifications do not disprove it's use as creationists do. These qualifications show that the cutoff point will vary depending on whether "whether we deal with scientific certainty or with the certainty which suffices in a given circumstance of everyday life."
I think we know we are dealing with scientific certainties, when it comes to the question of origins.
In the atheist website talkorigins.org , John Stockwell wanting to show why he thinks creationists or non-evolutionists are using the Borel's law wrongly explains Borel's work,
Borel continues by giving examples of how to choose such cutoff probabilities. For example, by reasoning from the traffic death rate of 1 per million in Paris (pre-World War II statistics) that an event of probability of 10-6 (one in a million) is negligible on a "human scale". Multiplying this by 10-9 (1 over the population of the world in the 1940s), he obtains 10-15 as an estimate of negligible probabilities on a "terrestrial scale".To evaluate the chance that physical laws such as Newtonian mechanics or laws related to the propagation of light could be wrong, Borel discusses probabilities that are negligible on a "cosmic scale", Borel asserts that 10-50 represents a negligible event on the cosmic scale as it is well below one over the product of the number of observable stars (109) times the number of observations that humans could make on those stars (1020).-- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/borelfaq.html
Well now if you observe carefully, John has in an attempt to point out the creationists mistake has indeed made a point in favor of it. He has to prove that "single law of chance" cannot be used on a cosmic scale. But he gives cutoff values from Emil Borel's work for Cosmic (10^-50) and terrestrial scales (10^-15).
Creationists or even theistic evolutionists wanting to disprove atheistic or materialistic evolution (including stellar evolution, chemical evolution) is improbable can use Borel's "Single Law of Certainty" with the cutoff limit of 10^-50.
Emil Borel on evolution on Earth
"In conclusion, I feel it is necessary to say a few words regarding a question that does not really come within the scope of this book, but that certain readers might nevertheless reproach me for having entirely neglected. I mean the problem of the appearance of life on our planet (and eventually on other planets in the universe) and the probability that this appearance may have been due to chance. If this problem seems to me to lie outside our subject, this is because the probability in question is too complex for us to be able to calculate its order of magnitude. It is on this point that I wish to make several explanatory comments.
When we calculated the probability of reproducing by mere chance a work of literature, in one or more volumes, we certainly observed that, if this work was printed, it must have emanated from a human brain. Now the complexity of that brain must therefore have been even richer than the particular work to which it gave birth. Is it not possible to infer that the probability that this brain may have been produced by the blind forces of chance is even slighter than the probability of the typewriting miracle?
It is obviously the same as if we asked ourselves whether we could know if it was possible actually to create a human being by combining at random a certain number of simple bodies. But this is not the way that the problem of the origin of life presents itself: it is generally held that living beings are the result of a slow process of evolution, beginning with elementary organisms, and that this process of evolution involves certain properties of living matter that prevent us from asserting that the process was accomplished in accordance with the laws of chance.
Moreover, certain of these properties of living matter also belong to inanimate matter, when it takes certain forms, such as that of crystals. It does not seem possible to apply the laws of probability calculus to the phenomenon of the formation of a crystal in a more or less supersaturated solution. At least, it would not be possible to treat this as a problem of probability without taking account of certain properties of matter, properties that facilitate the formation of crystals and that we are certainly obliged to verify. We ought, it seems to me, to consider it likely that the formation of elementary living organisms, and the evolution of those organisms, are also governed by elementary properties of matter that we do not understand perfectly but whose existence we ought nevertheless admit.
Similar observations could be made regarding possible attempts to apply the probability calculus to cosmogonical problems. In this field, too, it does not seem that the conclusions we have could really be of great assistance.
When Emil Borel wrote this the year was 1950. A lot of progress has occurred scientifically in the field of cosmology and biology. Even DNA was only discovered in the year 1953. This was written before a lot of what we now accept as science were discovered. DNA in 1953, cosmic background radiation in 1964, singularity theorems of Penrose and Hawking in 1970 etc.
Scientists have published probablities which according to Emil Borel could not be done due to lack of perfect understanding in his time.Moreover Emil Borel took Evolution for granted because it was generally held. He does not give any scientific reason why it "ought to be nevertheless admitted". Now we have enough information in the field of Biology and Cosmology to make probability calculations on evolutionary and cosmological scale.
Moreover Emil seems to contradict himself by giving a "cosmic scale of 10^-50" in one place and stating that cosmological problems cannot be dealt with by probability. His work "Probability and Life" which quotes "Single law of Chance" and the "Cosmic scale cutoff value of 10^-50". His later work "Probability and Certainty" was published in 1950, where he humbly suggests we don't have enough info to make probability calculations for Cosmic scale problems. Now that we have enough information, it is appropriate to apply Emil Borel's "Single Law of Chance" for assessing the probability of cosmic and evolutionary processes.
Non-believing scientist have given the following probabilities,
"Several years ago, evolutionist Harold Morowitz of Yale, and currently professor of biology and natural philosophy at George Mason University, estimated the probability of the formation of the smallest and simplest living organism to be one in 10340,000,000 (1970, p. 99). A few years following Morowitz’s calculations, the late, renowned evolutionist Carl Sagan made his own estimation of the chance that life could evolve on any given single planet: one in 102,000,000,000" ---- http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=3726
They mean to infer that atheisitic evolution cannot explain life on earth.
"Roger Penrose, a famous British mathematician and a close friend of Stephen Hawking, wondered about this question and tried to calculate the probability of the initial entropy conditions of the Big Bang. According to Penrose, the odds against such an occurrence were on the order of 10 to the power of 10123 to 1."--- http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/teleological-argument-and-entropy-faq.htm
"This now tells how precise the Creator's aim must have been, namely to an accuracy of one part in 10 to the 10123rd power. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full in the ordinary denary notation: it would be 1 followed by 10123 successive 0's." Even if we were to write a 0 on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe- and we could throw in all the other particles for good measure- we would fall far short of writing down the figure needed."-- Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind, 1989
Conclusion:
Emil Borel's "Single law of chance" can be used to disprove the materialistic theories of origin of the universe supporting life.
Comments
Post a Comment