This is an article that I found on a christian apologetics website.... very interesting indeed... aparently the total probability of our existance is 1:10^99 and since there are estimated to be a maximum of 10^23 planets in the universe (10 planets/star), by chance there shouldn't be any planets capable of supporting life in the universe (only one chance in 10^76).
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Gee what's wrong with this?
And this is why you shouldn't get your scientific information from fundamental christian websites. You'll get a load of crap that proofs absolutely nothing.
I can't remember the name of the equation (the Drake equation?), but back in my astrophysics days, the current thesis was that the probability of there being other life in the (observable) universe was about 0.8. I don't know where this guy got his information, but the numbers were pulled right out of his arse.
TDR -- Yes, it is the Drake equation.
TDR - you were Astro too?
<<< For the record, 10^99 - 10^23 = 10^99. >>>
You do NOT
Mr. Mathematics, 10^99 - 10^23 = 10^99, can be considered almost correct; however, the only reason why your calculator displays the answer as '10^99' is because the actual precise answer would require too many floating point digits to process and display. The actual correct answer would read something like '9.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 x 10^98' (with 76 floating point digits, each a '9'), which rounds off close enough to 10^99 for the computer/calculator to simply output '10^99'
Well, the Drake equation is still pulling numbers from one's arse since the only number we know with much certainty is N* (rate of star formation, though Fp is getting better). The difference is it is a (hopefully) educated arse.
FASCINATING.
So just because life on earth is perfectly adapted to earth, doesn't mean other life wouldn't be adapted to other earths. Had the JIMProject gone off, we might even have found life on Juipiter's moons.
Life did not evolve by random chance. If I drop a ball, what are the chances that of all the possible directions it will go, it will in fact go down? If you know anything about gravity, you know that the direction of the dropped ball is not the result of random chance.
Somehow, I think this "argument" will come up again.
Something I wonder about there being life on other planets. Just because on earth life needs carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen to exists here , does that mean it would need to evolve that way on other planets? If evolution were to happen on some other planet, couldn't it evolve to where life needed completely different elements to survive? Like helium, nitrogen, and fluorine (I realize there are other things involved chemically, but this is just hypothetical)? There's alot of questions about life on other planets, and I personally think that the chance is a bit better than we might think.
“the total probability of our existance is 1:10^99″
However, Science hasn’t actually posted an agreed upon estimate of how life started. So there’s no realistic way to estimate the chances for or against it happening.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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