Monday, December 11, 2006


God or not?

Happened to chance upon an interesting book when I went Kino few days ago.. Its titled "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Wiki has an article on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion)

Yup...I flipped thru the book and read abit on the Ultimate 747 gambit. In that chapter, the author attacked a statement made by Fred Hoyle (a British Astronomer) that the "probability of life originating on earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane sweeping through a scrap-yard would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747".

Wiki-ed up abit on this and I found 2 other articles on Fred Hoyle and the Triple-Alpha process So for those who are too lazy to read the articles..lemme summarise abit..

The triple alpha process is the process by which three helium nuclei are transformed into carbon, which in turn forms the basis of existence of carbon-based lifeforms like us. The conditions at which this reaction occurs are highly specific and thus statistically unlikely. Fred Hoyle also calculated that the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell was one in 1040,000. In addition to the 747 analogy, Hoyle also compared the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind men solving Rubik's Cube simultaneously.

Did somemore research...the probability of being strike by lightning (based on lightning victims statistics in the US given by the National Lightning Safety Institute) is 1:280 000. World record for being struck by lightning is 7 times (Roy Sullivan...poor guy...although he survived all the strikes), making that probability about 1:1040.

Seems like the chance that life beginning w/o supernatural interference is not very high huh? But then again...as long as the probability is above 0, it can happen. Right?

Tempted to buy that book...but i think it costs about $30+..

posted by nwxiang at 12:32 AM |


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