The Mother of All Questions
The Learning Curve, by Siddharth (Copyrighted 2008)
[Click to Enlarge]
There have been several arguments stated to support the existence of God (more specifically, a personal God susceptible to worship). The principle area that theists concern themselves with is the existence of life itself. It goes without saying that they believe a God created us. One of the fallacies is that of crediting the design to the design itself. Richard Dawkins refuted this idea by what is called “The Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit”.
Fred Hoyle, in what is referred to as Hoyle’s Fallacy by evolutionists, stated that the “probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747. In other words, the only way to explain life would be, according to theists, the work of a designer or creator.
This designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable. This refution is known as the gambit.
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[Search Generator: So who do you think created God? Let's order pizza. We better.]
Nice cartoon…btw you may want to read through a debate I had with a christian blogger
http://nitwitnastik.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/opinion-why-atheism-may-be-the-best-way-to-understand-god/#comments
Thank you. I’ll get right to it.
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens
Nice quote!!
Siddharth, you might find the following post interesing:
http://vishal12.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/religious-moderates/
Thank’s for the link. I’ll check it out.
Hi Siddharth,
This is my first comment on your blog, and the organization and mutual dependence of your ‘twin blogs’ is impressive.
First, I don’t think life originating on Earth is as improbable as a hurricane leaving an intact Boeing 747 out of a scrapyard. It sounds good just for the effect, but in reality, the former event, in my knowledge, is actually impossible as it would violate the second law of thermodynamics. Coincidentally, I’d a discussion (in the last 10 or so comments) with a fellow blogger on this issue on the following blog:
http://ketanpanchal.blogspot.com/2009/05/futuristic.html
There I’ve tried to reason out how living organisms don’t violate that law.
Take care.
Welcome, panchalkc! I have been to your blog a few times and quite like it!
Fair enough, although statistically, within the bounds of human knowledge by scientific research, the chance of life on a planet such as earth is very very bleak, and hence Richard Dawkins brought about the Boeing 747 hypothesis. This can be debated any which way as it is impossible to statictically calculate the probabilty of either. In theory, Dawkin’s argument is fairly well made. The same can be said about the counter-theory however.
But before I say more, I must check out your post on the same. Thanks for the link!
Oh you’ve visited my blog and liked it? Thanks! You’ve visited before, just when I left that comment yesterday?
From your current post I gathered that it was Fred Hoyle that was who was positing life’s origin to be as improbable as that, and Dawkins only tried to explain that even if life originating were that unlikely, its origin couldn’t be accounted for by a phenomenon even more unlikely (existence of God). No doubt, Dawkins’ argument is good, but I was merely trying to point out that what Hoyle assumed or rather have us assume itself was totally wrong (in whatever limited knowledge of physics I have). One of the reasons life’s origin seems so unlikely is because of temperature requirements. It is said that had the Earth’s distance from the Sun been 10 percent more or less than the present one, temperature here would’ve moved out of the range conducive to survival of organisms. So of course, within the confines of our solar system (which is an absolutely tiny speck in the Universe), life originating is a special event, but if and when we explore more of this Universe, wel’re likely to find more planets with life of them. And here, theists would’ve no right to ask for evidence because they don’t believe in advancing them when we ask for God’s existence ;) Just joking.
Second law of thermodynamics states that in any spontaneous event, the total disorder of the universe always increases, so Boeing getting (spontaneously) assembled in a scrapyard would be in impossible event, and origing of life also appears to be like that, i.e., violating the second law, but I’ve tried to explain how it actually does not (in the comment following the post–’Futuristic!’)
I’d like to have your comments on my latest post ‘Are (a few) religous leaders atheists?’ If you find time, that is. And unfortunately, this post is going to be of much greater significance to typical theists rather than atheists.
Have a good day!
TC.
Yes, I did visit before! I went from the comments you posted either on Nitwit Nastik or Indian Homemaker’s blog. Or someone elses, I don’t remember.
Anyways, thanks for the comment! I’ll read and reply soon. I couldn’t get to read your post completely yesterday. Have been busy! Will get to it very, very soon!
Cheers!
You make a very valid point, Panchalkc. There is much to be explored and and yes, it is resonable to assume that the chance of a planet having life is much greater than something of the league of a Boeing appearing out of nowhere. So yes, you rightly say that the Boeing 747 hypothesis by Dawkins is nothing more than good hyperbole. But it does send the point across. Then again, I’d agree with the need for it to be less of a figure of speech and instead be something more concrete.
While I had science in school, I don’t quite know the interpretations of the law other than the Kelvin one, so I dont quite get what you said about the second law. (I studied Economics at the university level). But I’ll try Wiki-ing it (although I don’t really rely on Wiki for information) and then reading your post in order to understand it better.
P.S. I wait for the day theists begin to ask for evidence and reason.