There are some Atheists i truly believe in ;  one such famous living
Scientist is the Man below.  Do you believe in Atheists ????  See if
you have enough Faith to truly be an Atheist without pretending
because you want atheism to be true so bad    :



'Professor Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of
DNA, wrote:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could
only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the
moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would
have had to have been satisfied to get it going.(2)

The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the
chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in
(10^20)2,000=10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could
not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.(3)

In terms of complexity, an individual cell is nothing when compared
with a system like the mammalian brain.  The human brain consists of
about ten thousand million nerve cells.  Each nerve cell puts out
between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibers by
which it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain.
Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain
approaches 10^15 or a thousand million million.  Numbers in the order
of 10^15 are of course completely beyond comprehension.  Imagine an
area about half the size of the USA (one million square miles) covered
in a forest of trees containing ten thousand trees per square mile.
If each tree contained one hundred thousand leaves the total number of
leaves in the forest would be 10^15, equivalent to the number of
connections in the human brain!  Despite the enormity of the number of
connections, the ramifying forest of fibers is not a chaotic random
tangle but a highly organized network in which a high proportion of
the fibers are unique adaptive communication channels following their
own specially ordained pathway through the brain.  Even if only one
hundredth of the connections in the brain were specifically organized,
this would still represent a system containing a much greater number
of specific connections than in the entire communications network on
Earth.(4)'

A true fuckhead!

X-No-Archive: yes

 wrote in message 
news:4793e272-35ba-43e4-b92a-46f5b1001a05@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...


> 'Professor Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of
> DNA, wrote:


> The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the
> chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in
> (10^20)2,000=10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could
> not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.(3)


Hmm.   Not Francis Crick though.......
No...... I think you'll find this quote is attributed to Fred Hoyle 
[lecturer in Mathematics at Cambridge]
[The Intelligent Universe 1983]
Footnote:  He wrote 17 works.   He ALSO wrote 15 works of  science fiction.
He made a grave error in questioning the authenticity of the fossil 
Archaeopteryx.

Thanks to wikipedia for this....

*********
"Life as we know it is, among other things, dependent on at least 2000 
different enzymes. How could the blind forces of the primal sea manage to 
put together the correct chemical elements to build enzymes?" According to 
his calculations, the likelihood of this happening is only one in 10 to the 
40 000 power (1 followed by 40 000 zeros). That is about the same chance as 
throwing 50 000 sixes in a row with a die. (The Intelligent Universe 1983] 
Or as Hoyle describes it: "The chance that higher life forms might have 
emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping 
through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials 
therein... I am at a loss to understand biologists' widespread compulsion to 
deny what seems to me to be obvious." ("Hoyle on Evolution", Nature, Vol. 
294, 12 November 1981, p. 105)
                                                          **********


Without getting picky,  you'll notice the change of words in the first line 
of the dilv version and the ACTUAL version. [..."among other things" ] and 
the last 'added on' piece by dilv, most probably direct from the mouth of  a 
fundy preacher.....

He also first coined the phrase the "Big Bang"  on radio but later defended 
the use of the term as a kind of visual sound bite for radio listeners. 
Fundamentally his view of the universe in a steady state gave way to the 
theory of an expanding universe.  Does that discredit him.....?   probably 
not,  but we know a fair bit more since he asserted his theories....

It's interesting looking around for the source of this that one comes across 
so much of this calculation and similar, often bastardised for whichever 
ideology is being supported.
To perhaps balance up Fred Hoyles mathematical assessment here's some 
contrary calculations:

They are heavy going but it does put another slight on the Fred Hoyle 
approach..


http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

then, perhaps,


http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/addendaB.html


By the way, dave......   thi is for YOU to read and digest.


Mark

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:07:04 +0100, "mark" 
wrote:

>X-No-Archive: yes
>
> wrote in message 
>news:4793e272-35ba-43e4-b92a-46f5b1001a05@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>> 'Professor Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of
>> DNA, wrote:
>
>
>> The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the
>> chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in
>> (10^20)2,000=10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could
>> not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.(3)
>
>
>Hmm.   Not Francis Crick though.......
>No...... I think you'll find this quote is attributed to Fred Hoyle 
>[lecturer in Mathematics at Cambridge]
>[The Intelligent Universe 1983]

He was an astronomer, who pig-headedly stuck with the steady state
universe after the big bang had been confirmed. 

His most significant contribution to science was the formation of the
heavier elements in second and third generation stars.

And of course the  term "big bang" which he used to "refute"
explanations for the origin of the universe, using "argument by
derision of a caricature". The rest is history.

Both Crick and Hole believed in Spenserian because they felt that the
formation of the building blocks was so unlikely it could only have
happened once.

Hole observed them in interstellar clouds using spectrographic
analysis and it never occurred to him that they could form elsewhere.

He also forgot that it didn't all happen at once but built on what was
already there.

These building blocks have been shown to have appeared under a wide
variety of natural conditions, including in lab experiments.

The fact that Miller and Surrey were probably wrong about the
primordial athmosphere does not detract from their work: they produced
amino acids and peptides using natural processes.


>Footnote:  He wrote 17 works.   He ALSO wrote 15 works of  science fiction.
>He made a grave error in questioning the authenticity of the fossil 
>Archaeopteryx.
>
>Thanks to wikipedia for this....
>
>*********
>"Life as we know it is, among other things, dependent on at least 2000 
>different enzymes. How could the blind forces of the primal sea manage to 
>put together the correct chemical elements to build enzymes?" According to 
>his calculations, the likelihood of this happening is only one in 10 to the 
>40 000 power (1 followed by 40 000 zeros). That is about the same chance as 
>throwing 50 000 sixes in a row with a die. (The Intelligent Universe 1983] 
>Or as Hoyle describes it: "The chance that higher life forms might have 
>emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping 
>through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials 
>therein... I am at a loss to understand biologists' widespread compulsion to 
>deny what seems to me to be obvious." ("Hoyle on Evolution", Nature, Vol. 
>294, 12 November 1981, p. 105)
>                                                          **********
>
>
>Without getting picky,  you'll notice the change of words in the first line 
>of the dilv version and the ACTUAL version. [..."among other things" ] and 
>the last 'added on' piece by dilv, most probably direct from the mouth of  a 
>fundy preacher.....
>
>He also first coined the phrase the "Big Bang"  on radio but later defended 
>the use of the term as a kind of visual sound bite for radio listeners. 
>Fundamentally his view of the universe in a steady state gave way to the 
>theory of an expanding universe.  Does that discredit him.....?   probably 
>not,  but we know a fair bit more since he asserted his theories....
>
>It's interesting looking around for the source of this that one comes across 
>so much of this calculation and similar, often bastardised for whichever 
>ideology is being supported.
>To perhaps balance up Fred Hoyles mathematical assessment here's some 
>contrary calculations:
>
>They are heavy going but it does put another slight on the Fred Hoyle 
>approach..
>
>
>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html
>
>then, perhaps,
>
>
>http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/addendaB.html
>
>
>By the way, dave......   thi is for YOU to read and digest.
>
>
>Mark
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

In article 
,
 "IlBeBauck@gmail.com"  wrote:

> There are some Atheists i truly believe in ;  one such famous living

Crick died four years ago yesterday.

> Scientist is the Man below.  Do you believe in Atheists ????  See if
> you have enough Faith to truly be an Atheist without pretending
> because you want atheism to be true so bad    :

The usual meaningless twaddle.

> 'Professor Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of
> DNA, wrote:
> 
> An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could
> only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the
> moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would
> have had to have been satisfied to get it going.(2)

This is from 'Life Itself, its Origin and Nature' by Francis Crick. He 
later recognised that he had overestimated the improbability of the 
origin of life.

> The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the
> chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in
> (10^20)2,000=10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could
> not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.(3)

As has already been pointed out, Fred Hoyle is the author of this. 
Hoyle's reasoning and calculation here has come in for a lot of 
criticism.

> In terms of complexity, an individual cell is nothing when compared
> with a system like the mammalian brain.  The human brain consists of
> about ten thousand million nerve cells.  Each nerve cell puts out
> between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibers by
> which it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain.
> Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain
> approaches 10^15 or a thousand million million.  Numbers in the order
> of 10^15 are of course completely beyond comprehension.  Imagine an
> area about half the size of the USA (one million square miles) covered
> in a forest of trees containing ten thousand trees per square mile.
> If each tree contained one hundred thousand leaves the total number of
> leaves in the forest would be 10^15, equivalent to the number of
> connections in the human brain!  Despite the enormity of the number of
> connections, the ramifying forest of fibers is not a chaotic random
> tangle but a highly organized network in which a high proportion of
> the fibers are unique adaptive communication channels following their
> own specially ordained pathway through the brain.  Even if only one
> hundredth of the connections in the brain were specifically organized,
> this would still represent a system containing a much greater number
> of specific connections than in the entire communications network on
> Earth.(4)'

And this is from an essay by Michael Denton called 'The Puzzle of 
Perfection'.

Alwyn

In article ,
 Christopher A. Lee  wrote:
> 
> Both Crick and Hole believed in Spenserian because they felt that the
> formation of the building blocks was so unlikely it could only have
> happened once.

I think you meant to write: 'Both Crick and Hoyle believed in 
panspermia...'; I expect this is your spellchecker taking liberties.

Alwyn

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:27:26 GMT, Alwyn  wrote:

>In article ,
> Christopher A. Lee  wrote:
>> 
>> Both Crick and Hole believed in Spenserian because they felt that the
>> formation of the building blocks was so unlikely it could only have
>> happened once.
>
>I think you meant to write: 'Both Crick and Hoyle believed in 
>panspermia...'; I expect this is your spellchecker taking liberties.

Yep.

And didn't Crick eventually admit his mistake?

>Alwyn

In article ,
 Christopher A. Lee  wrote:
> 
> And didn't Crick eventually admit his mistake?

He revised his opinions, yes.

'Steyn's critique of Crick ignored the fact that Crick never held a 
belief in panspermia. Crick explored the hypothesis that it might be 
possible for life forms to be moved from one planet to another. What 
"drove" Crick towards speculation about directed panspermia was the 
difficulty of imagining how a complex system like a cell could arise 
under pre-biotic conditions from non-living chemical components. After 
ribozymes were discovered, Crick became much less interested in 
panspermia because it was then much easier to imagine the pre-biotic 
origins of life as being made possible by some set of simple 
self-replicating polymers.'
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crick>

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:47:18 GMT, Alwyn  wrote:

>In article ,
> Christopher A. Lee  wrote:
>> 
>> And didn't Crick eventually admit his mistake?
>
>He revised his opinions, yes.
>
>'Steyn's critique of Crick ignored the fact that Crick never held a 
>belief in panspermia. Crick explored the hypothesis that it might be 
>possible for life forms to be moved from one planet to another. What 
>"drove" Crick towards speculation about directed panspermia was the 
>difficulty of imagining how a complex system like a cell could arise 
>under pre-biotic conditions from non-living chemical components. After 
>ribozymes were discovered, Crick became much less interested in 
>panspermia because it was then much easier to imagine the pre-biotic 
>origins of life as being made possible by some set of simple 
>self-replicating polymers.'
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crick>

Thanks. That's more or less what I thought.

wrote

> There are some Atheists i truly believe in ;  one such famous living
> Scientist is the Man below.  Do you believe in Atheists ????

As ever we can't believe a thing you say. Crick died about four years ago.

Most scientists will tell you that life existing is astonishing. Because one 
thing is astonishing doesn't mean it can't have happened naturally - 
whatever the odds are.

Steve M

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:17:58 -0700, IlBeBauck@gmail.com wrote :

> There are some Atheists i truly believe in ;  one such famous living
> Scientist is the Man below.  Do you believe in Atheists ????  See if you
> have enough Faith to truly be an Atheist without pretending because you
> want atheism to be true so bad    :
> 
> 
> 
> 'Professor Francis Crick, awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of
> DNA, wrote:
> 
[...]
> The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance
> of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in
> (10^20)2,000=10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not
> be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.(3)
> 

I read the same when I want to buy a padlock. The notice tells you that 
it cannot be opened without trying billions of combinations. But every 
one knows that many models  are vulnerable to some form of sequential 
attack that lowers this untracktable number to a reasonable number of 
tries. 

If some theory pretends that something that has occured is impossible, 
experience shows that it is the theory that must be revised, not the 
reality.

A big advantage of scientific theories other religious belief, is that 
they can be refined every time new facts are discovered. So it is with 
biological evolution that evolved from a mere conjecture in the 17. 
century to a strong theory whose core bears on so many facts and other 
well proved theories that it cannot be dismissed by simplistic arguments 
as yours.