Junkyard Tornado Fallacy. "Long odds" of life/complex life

[abu afak]

Junkyard tornado​

The junkyard tornado, also known as Hoyle’s Fallacy, is an argument used to deride the probability of abiogenesis as comparable to "the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747."[1][2][3] It was used originally by Fred Hoyle, in which he applied statistical analysis to the origin of life, but similar observations predate Hoyle and have been found all the way back to Darwin's time,[1] and indeed to Cicero in classical times.[4] While Hoyle himself was an atheist, the argument has since become a mainstay of creationist and intelligent design criticisms of evolution.

This argument is Rejected by the vast majority of biologists. From the modern evolutionary standpoint, while the odds of the sudden construction of higher lifeforms are indeed improbably remote, evolution proceeds in many smaller stages, each driven by natural selection rather than by chance, over a long period of time. The transition as a whole is plausible, as each step improves survivability; the Boeing 747 was not designed in a single unlikely burst of creativity, just as modern lifeforms were not constructed in one single unlikely event, as the junkyard tornado posits.
[......]

Junkyard tornado - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Damaged Eagle]

It was all planned fifteen billion years ago when the hand of God set everything in motion.

*****HAPPY SMILE*****

 

[Wuwei]

The junkyard tornado, also known as Hoyle’s Fallacy, is an argument ...........

The funny thing about Hoyle is that his fallacy led him to believe that life came to earth via space - embedded in a meteor or whatever.

But that just sweeps the problem under the rug. Wherever it came from still has to face the massive improbability of one-in-10⁴⁰⁰⁰⁰ . If some super intelligent alien furnished the meteor, where did the alien come from; a different meteor?

.

 

[Oddball]

The funny thing about Hoyle is that his fallacy led him to believe that life came to earth via space - embedded in a meteor or whatever.

But that just sweeps the problem under the rug. Wherever it came from still has to face the massive improbability of one-in-10⁴⁰⁰⁰⁰ . If some super intelligent alien furnished the meteor, where did the alien come from; a different meteor?

.

The late Ufologist Stanton Friedman postulated that we're on a quarantine planet...His basis was that our history consists primarily of events springing from tribal warfare.

A far more plausible scenario than the sentience-out-of-a-blob-of-protoplasm postulate.

 

[abu afak]

ie, Chem Engineer
"""How long would it take for a warehouse full of Tesla parts to assemble themselves?"

`

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Junkyard tornado​

The junkyard tornado, also known as Hoyle’s Fallacy, is an argument used to deride the probability of abiogenesis as comparable to "the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747."[1][2][3] It was used originally by Fred Hoyle, in which he applied statistical analysis to the origin of life, but similar observations predate Hoyle and have been found all the way back to Darwin's time,[1] and indeed to Cicero in classical times.[4] While Hoyle himself was an atheist, the argument has since become a mainstay of creationist and intelligent design criticisms of evolution.

This argument is Rejected by the vast majority of biologists. From the modern evolutionary standpoint, while the odds of the sudden construction of higher lifeforms are indeed improbably remote, evolution proceeds in many smaller stages, each driven by natural selection rather than by chance, over a long period of time. The transition as a whole is plausible, as each step improves survivability; the Boeing 747 was not designed in a single unlikely burst of creativity, just as modern lifeforms were not constructed in one single unlikely event, as the junkyard tornado posits.
[......]

Junkyard tornado - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hoyle's fallacy is, basically, just an flowery reiteration of Zeno's methods of creating paradoxes. One can arbitrarily make the probability of any event approach zero.

It's easy. Just pick anything, like a single piece of wood in your mulch in your yard. Just start piling on arbitrary conditions and events leading to the piece of wood being in your yard and assigning them probabilities less than 100%. Then you multiply them. And you can make the probability of that piece of wood being in your yard virtually zero.

Yet there it is.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

A far more plausible scenario than the sentience-out-of-a-blob-of-protoplasm postulate.

Maybe that is because you don't really understand any of it.

 

[abu afak]

Again::


How long would it take you to throw this EXACT arrangement of pick up sticks?
Infinitely long.
Does that mean GodDidit?

Does it mean they couldn't have come out in billions of other arrangements and still Worked as some kind of 'life'?

Seemingly (and needlessly) After the fact odds on what DID happen are low IQ/Stupid.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

ie, Chem Engineer
"""How long would it take for a warehouse full of Tesla parts to assemble themselves?"

`

And the most specious error of all:

People like to use these arbitrary and specious methods to assign a probability of life forming. Really, they are exercising these specious methods on the probability of life existing exactly as it exists on earth right now. So all they have argued against (and poorly so) is finding another earth just like ours full of life on it almost exactly like life on earth today. So they have accomplished nothing.

 

[Stryder50]

How about some context and background?
Try this thread from about six years ago for some quotes of what Hoyle actually said;

Some Intelligent Design Quotes From An Atheist: Fred Hoyle.​

Some Intelligent Design Quotes From An Atheist: Fred Hoyle.

“I am an atheist, but as far as blowing up the world in a nuclear war goes, I tell them not to worry.”___Fred Hoyle “Life cannot have had a random beginning ... The trouble is that there are about 2000 enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in...

www.usmessageboard.com

 

[Batcat]

Our universe was designed for life.

Was Our Universe Designed for Human Life?

Was our universe designed for human life? This is a question that many people are talking about these days. It’s a question that’s not going away. More and more scientists are beginning to look seriously at this. In this study, I’d like to present a very few

bsssb-llc.com

But some argue that we live in a multiverse with an infinite number of universes. In such a multiverse one would exist that would allow life as we understand it to exist.

Confronting the Multiverse: What 'Infinite Universes' Would Mean

Is it possible that our universe is but one of many, with laws that mean nothing in the "pocket universes" that co-exist all around, and through, us? Robert Lawrence Kuhn explores the multiverse with the help of the world's leading experts on these theori

www.space.com

Alternate solutions become so complicated that God or a cosmic watchmaker seems a simple solution.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Our universe was designed for life.

The universe is not fine-tuned to life in it. The life in it is fine-tuned to the universe. This gives the illusion of design. But once one understands the concept of selection, that illusion disappears.

 

[Batcat]

The universe is not fine-tuned to life in it. The life in it is fine-tuned to the universe. This gives the illusion of design. But once one understands the concept of selection, that illusion disappears.

Let us say you have a universe where ice doesn’t float. A fairly minor change.

Water: the weirdest liquid on the planet

H20 is so common and so familiar that it is mundane, yet the more we examine this liquid, the stranger it gets, as its molecular attributes hide peculiarities that make its behaviour improbable and astonishing

www.theguardian.com

Exploring our world: Ice protecting life

We all know ice floats, but do we realize its significance?

www.canr.msu.edu

 

[Hollie]

Let us say you have a universe where ice doesn’t float. A fairly minor change.

Water: the weirdest liquid on the planet

H20 is so common and so familiar that it is mundane, yet the more we examine this liquid, the stranger it gets, as its molecular attributes hide peculiarities that make its behaviour improbable and astonishing

www.theguardian.com

Exploring our world: Ice protecting life

We all know ice floats, but do we realize its significance?

www.canr.msu.edu

Let us say we will deal with facts. Let us say we live in a reality where ice floats. Why is reality so difficult to accept?

 

[Wuwei]

Let us say you have a universe where ice doesn’t float. A fairly minor change.

You didn't complete your thought. If ice didn't float, marine life would no doubt be far different than now. Survival and thereby evolution would favor different forms of life on land and sea. There may not even be creationists.

In short, life would be fine tuned to that environment.

.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Let us say you have a universe where ice doesn’t float. A fairly minor change.

Water: the weirdest liquid on the planet

H20 is so common and so familiar that it is mundane, yet the more we examine this liquid, the stranger it gets, as its molecular attributes hide peculiarities that make its behaviour improbable and astonishing

www.theguardian.com

Exploring our world: Ice protecting life

We all know ice floats, but do we realize its significance?

www.canr.msu.edu

Then the life that evolved on such a universe would be fine tuned to it instead.

 

[LittleNipper]

Again::


How long would it take you to throw this EXACT arrangement of pick up sticks?
Infinitely long.
Does that mean GodDidit?

Does it mean they couldn't have come out in billions of other arrangements and still Worked as some kind of 'life'?

Seemingly (and needlessly) After the fact odds on what DID happen are low IQ/Stupid.

The problem is that yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, minute to minute -------- the sticks are being thrown again and again and again.... Anything could happen, anything could go wrong.GOD is dependable. The Universe is quite dependent. Someone may actually believe that mankind is the end result of an accident. The problem is that an accident that could change everything is just as likely at any second. GOD isn't an accident and neither are we. I find this scenario comforting. Any other I find extraordinarily unlikely ----- if not altogether impossible...

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

. The problem is that an accident that could change everything is just as likely at any second.

Correct! A wayward asteroid, global thermonuclear war, a deadly, novel virus, global economic collapse, a solar event, etc etc

Every thinking person knows this. You have a crisis of cognitive dissonance in light of these simple ideas, because you think we are god's special little pets and cannot fall victim to such things. You think only god has the power to create or destroy us. This fetish is your albatross to bear, and nobody else's.

 

[Batcat]

Then the life that evolved on such a universe would be fine tuned to it instead.

Possibly but would such life be intelligent or just bacteria?

 

[Batcat]

You didn't complete your thought. If ice didn't float, marine life would no doubt be far different than now. Survival and thereby evolution would favor different forms of life on land and sea. There may not even be creationists.

In short, life would be fine tuned to that environment.

.

Would we recognize such life and would it reconize us? Could we even co-exist in that universe?