# Are the Odds of Intelligent Design even roughly calculable **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742 "2013-10-09T02:41:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/1 "2013-10-09T02:41:36Z")
I imagine this subject has allready been worked to death but if somehow we were able to roughly calculate the odds of every step needed to get life where it is today and we found out that we had defied these odds by huge amounts say several billions to one over what they should have been, would this be a strong indication of intelligent design? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/2 "2013-10-09T02:47:35Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I imagine this subject has allready been worked to death but if somehow we were able to roughly calculate the odds of every step needed to get life where it is today and we found out that we had defied these odds by huge amounts say several billions to one over what they should have been, would this be a strong indication of intelligent design? The natural laws of the universe are fine tuned to allow complex structures to be developed. > **[Fine-tuned universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe)** > > This is an accepted version of this page > The fine-tuned universe is the hypothesis that, because "life as we know it" could not exist if the constants of nature – such as the electron charge, the gravitational constant and others – had been even slightly different, the universe must be tuned specifically for life. In practice, this hypothesis is formulated in terms of dimensionless physical constants. > In 1913, chemist Lawrence Joseph Henderson wrote The Fitness of the Environment, one of the f... I don’t know the odds against this, but it could be due to a multiverse which wouldn’t mean it was a fine tuned universe just that this is one of the few capable of supporting life which can reflect on how rare it is to live in a fine tuned universe. As far as biological statistics, I don’t know those either. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/3 "2013-10-09T02:51:01Z")
The odds against life having evolved to just the state that it is in today are, indeed, astronomical, but that is no sort of evidence in favor of intelligent design. Evolution had to turn out some way or another. This is just how it actually did. It was a near certainty that life would evolve into some sort of highly complex state (with many species, themselves varying hugely in their level of complexity) in the time evolution has had to work on it. It just didn’t have to be this particular complex state … but as it turned out, it _was_ this one. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/4 "2013-10-09T03:37:28Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > The odds against life having evolved to just the state that it is in today are, indeed, astronomical, but that is no sort of evidence in favor of intelligent design. Evolution had to turn out some way or another. This is just how it actually did. It was a near certainty that life would evolve into some sort of highly complex state (with many species, themselves varying hugely in their level of complexity) in the time evolution has had to work on it. It just didn’t have to be this particular complex state … but as it turned out, it _was_ this one. I realize this is true what you say but what I would like to see compared would be the odds of it happening within the timeline it did happen as opposed to the timeline that it should have happened in. I doubt these calculations are possible but if sometime in the future we are able to make these calculations and they very strongly indicate some kind of intervention would that be scientific evidence of divine intervention. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/5 "2013-10-09T04:02:01Z")
The question is tricky. For instance, what are the odds that a random interplay of forces would produce a highly regular system of parallel lines? You might think it extraordinarily unlikely…but the wind produces regular rows of sand dunes in pretty much every sandy desert and beach on earth. You can’t know these things a priori. We know, now, that the flow of energy through a system tends to organize that system. One scientist has remarked that all complex systems are self-ordering, without any direction from an external organizing principle. The neat and orderly horizontal bands of sedimentary rock are another example: they are highly ordered, about as far from random as one can get, but require absolutely no “intelligent design.” They come about because of the earth’s seasons, flooding followed by drought, over many millions of years. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/6 "2013-10-09T04:10:09Z")
First of all, we _don’t_ know how unlikely many of the events are that led to life, and then led to complex life. If we did, forget about intelligent design, we could use this knowledge _usefully_ to calculate how many planets are likely to have simple and complex life on them. But there are too many unknowns. But even if we could say that the existence of Homo sapiens is like winning the lottery X times, it doesn’t follow that that’s evidence of god, for several reasons: 1. That’s not how science or skepticism works: it’s not “when I can’t think of any other explanations, then the one I can think of is proven”. An explanation needs independent evidence of its own (_predictive_ evidence). 2. So what if an unlikely thing happened? We can apply the anthropic principle here. 3. How unlikely is the existence of god? Why is it more reasonable than the X lottery wins? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/7 "2013-10-09T04:49:46Z")
Since intelligent design is not a rational, science-based alternative explanation, there is no amount of uncertainty or lack of understanding that would ‘prove’ it or even validate it. If we could somehow put a probability number on each step (which isn’t possible), and it turned out that the evidence we had suggested that our model of the universe doesn’t make sense, then we’d just have to keep using science to figure out where we went wrong and try to use evidence and reason to built an alternate model. But at no point would any scientist throw up his hands and say, “I don’t know, therefore God must have done it.” That’s simply not how science works. It’s more of a 'God of the Gaps" fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/8 "2013-10-09T04:50:32Z")
Even if you could answer the OP’s question, you’d also have to calculate the odds against a single intelligence designing and creating life on earth. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/9 "2013-10-09T05:49:05Z")
Two more problems: they are related to the anthropic principle and panspermia. Even if the steps to life are highly improbable, we have billions of years and billions of galaxies that contain billions of stars. And those planets that don’t produce conscious life by definition don’t have an indigenous conscious that notes its absence. So if beings that can discuss these matters only do so 10 times in the universe it’s no coincidence if it occurs on one star system or another. That’s the way it has to be. Also, even if the steps to life are highly improbable in ancient earth, it’s plausible that some of the amino acids, say, were delivered in comets. Some of the chemical steps to life may have arisen in a range of off-terrestrial environments. The fine tuning problem on the other hand, is pretty baffling. I find it plausible that after hundreds of years of study we could use the [process of elimination](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=586312) and _possibly_ conclude that one explanation or another is the most probable first cause. Such an explanation might posit that we live in a simulation created by an intelligent agent or agents. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/10 "2013-10-09T06:06:26Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I imagine this subject has allready been worked to death but if somehow we were able to roughly calculate the odds of every step needed to get life where it is today and we found out that we had defied these odds by huge amounts say several billions to one over what they should have been, would this be a strong indication of intelligent design? What is the chance a solar system, operating with just chemistry and natural selection, will develop life intelligent enough to pose such a question? If it really is as likely as one in ten billion then there may be dozens of such systems just in our galaxy, and trillions in the observable universe. I think it may be less likely. Let’s call it a quadrillion-to-one longshot for the sake of argument. But in that case there would still be millions of planets in the universe with advanced life! If we picked a planet at random and found life, that might tell us something. _But you did not pick Earth as your example at random!_ If this isn’t clear, ask yourself whether creatures on planets without life are posting queries on message boards asking why they don’t exist. 😉 (I.e., what we know is that at least one planet in the universe has intelligent life.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/11 "2013-10-09T10:41:39Z")
However many steps you’d need, and whatever the probability, you would need more steps to include an Intelligent Designer. All ID does is push the exact same questions about “life coming from nothing” back to whoever or whatever the Designer is and how it came into being. What is the probability that there would be some Intelligent Designer out there in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/12 "2013-10-09T12:49:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > However many steps you’d need, and whatever the probability, you would need more steps to include an Intelligent Designer. All ID does is push the exact same questions about “life coming from nothing” back to whoever or whatever the Designer is and how it came into being. > > What is the probability that there would be some Intelligent Designer out there in the first place? This to me, is the most compelling argument - and the one ID proponents gloss over. they are willing to accept that ‘the designer’ just happened, but cannot apply the same ‘logic’ to the ‘creation’. As others have said - even if you could define ‘odds’ that made sense for our evolutionary process - not even the greatest odds against us succeeding (and us beating them) proves the necessity of a ‘designer’. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/13 "2013-10-09T14:10:13Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > First of all, we _don’t_ know how unlikely many of the events are that led to life, and then led to complex life. > If we did, forget about intelligent design, we could use this knowledge _usefully_ to calculate how many planets are likely to have simple and complex life on them. But there are too many unknowns. > > But even if we could say that the existence of Homo sapiens is like winning the lottery X times, it doesn’t follow that that’s evidence of god, for several reasons: I agree that there have been a lot of poorly written and poorly thought out arguments from intelligent design. I think several things should be mentioned. First of all, the idea can be debated regarding several things: the formation of a universe with physical laws and properties that allow for complex structures, the formation of the first life form, the processes by which simple life evolved into complex life and eventually us. I urge anyone who discusses the issue of intelligent design to be clear about which topics they’re focusing on. Second, as regards your point that unlikelihood of something happening by chance doesn’t prove the existence of God, I agree. We cannot logically jump from the statement “X was very unlikely to happen by chance” to “An intelligent designer is responsible for X”. What we can do, however, is make estimates of likelihood. And as **Wesley Clark** mentioned, it’s extremely unlikely that a universe in which physical laws and constants arose by chance would be suitable for complex life. I’ve investigated the evidence–I recommend _[Just Six Numbers](http://www.amazon.com/Just-Six-Numbers-Forces-Universe/dp/0465036732/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381327303&sr=8-1&keywords=Just+Six+Numbers)_ and _[The Mind of God](http://www.amazon.com/The-Mind-God-Scientific-Rational/dp/0671797182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381327399&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Mind+of+God)_–and I agree with this conclusion. So where does that leave us? Only that the hypothesis that a single universe arose by chance, and by chance happened to be suitable for us, seems to me so improbable that it can be dismissed. So the main alternatives are either a multiverse or some type of creator being. Of course then we have **John Mace’s** question “What is the probability that there would be some Intelligent Designer out there in the first place?” No one knows. In the case of the universe, we know that there are fixed constants determining the force of gravity, electricity, etc… With no known reason why the constants are as they are, we can imagine universes where those constants are anything else, and calculate probabilities of universes with various properties. On the other hand, when asking the probability of an intelligent designer existing, we have no such numerical basis to work with, so the question can’t be addressed rigorously. Now to me personally, it seems that in comparing a designer capable of creating one universe, versus an enormous or infinite multiverse, the former is simpler and thus more likely, but I don’t claim that’s rigorous reasoning; it’s simply a preference of my own. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/14 "2013-10-09T14:24:44Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I realize this is true what you say but what I would like to see compared would be the odds of it happening within the timeline it did happen as opposed to the timeline that it should have happened in. I doubt these calculations are possible but if sometime in the future we are able to make these calculations and they very strongly indicate some kind of intervention would that be scientific evidence of \*\*divine \*\*intervention. (Highlight mine) In addition to all the relevant points above, even if we were able to somehow decide that life on earth was just _too_ improbable, why would the intervention have to be divine? Why not some other species on a planet where the odds for intelligent life were more likely (for some reason – climate, size, whatever)? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/15 "2013-10-09T14:31:37Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Now to me personally, it seems that in comparing a designer capable of creating one universe, versus an enormous or infinite multiverse, the former is simpler and thus more likely, but I don’t claim that’s rigorous reasoning; it’s simply a preference of my own. Except that there had to be a universe in which the Designer existed first, and so you have done nothing to reduce the complexity. You’re just creating more turtles. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/16 "2013-10-09T14:40:16Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > (Highlight mine) > > In addition to all the relevant points above, even if we were able to somehow decide that life on earth was just _too_ improbable, why would the intervention have to be divine? Why not some other species on a planet where the odds for intelligent life were more likely (for some reason – climate, size, whatever)? I agree it could be anything, I guess my interpetation of divine is anything beyond my own ability to comprehend. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/17 "2013-10-09T14:41:01Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I imagine this subject has allready been worked to death but if somehow we were able to roughly calculate the odds of every step needed to get life where it is today and we found out that we had defied these odds by huge amounts say several billions to one over what they should have been, would this be a strong indication of intelligent design? No. If you start with The Big Bang/Creation/The Beginning of Everything, and calculate the odds of the universe being in any specific state today, I’m sure that there are an infinite states that would have had to beat unimaginable odds to come to being. Just because _one_ of them did doesn’t mean it was chosen on purpose. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/18 "2013-10-09T14:45:06Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I agree it could be anything, I guess my interpetation of divine is anything beyond my own ability to comprehend. You’re own ability, or mankind’s own ability? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/19 "2013-10-09T14:49:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You’re own ability, or mankind’s own ability? I would like to think mankinds but possibly just my own. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/20 "2013-10-09T14:57:35Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I would like to think mankinds but possibly just my own. I can assure you, then, that some scientific concepts will be “divine”, if the latter. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742.md?page=2)