# 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:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Randvek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Randvek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randvek)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/61 "2013-10-09T21:27:13Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > But the multiverse theory has always seemed a little odd to me, ever since I read [this article](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=parallel-universes) by Max Tegmark 10 years ago. Folks often tell me that I should dismiss any assertion if there’s no evidence for it. How often have we heard “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”? Now the notion that there are infinite, or at least utterly enormous, number of universes looks to me about as extraordinary as they come, and not backed by any evidence. Certain “scientific” theories sound as much like science as religion to me. Multiverse and Superstring are a couple of the big offenders in that, imho. ---
**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, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/62 "2013-10-09T21:33:39Z")
There is some very strong evidence for the “expansionary phase” refinement of the Big Bang theory. This suggests there are regions of space inside our universe that are simply too far away from us ever to be perceived. Such regions might (there is no evidence for this) have slightly different values on physical constants. Anyway, there is some evidence for this particular version of the “multiverse” concept. The idea of a Big Bang seems to imply the possibility of others. Why should such a thing only have happened once? (Far as that goes, if God came into existence…why not more than once? There might be as many Gods as there are galaxies. Who the hell knows?) ---
**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, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/63 "2013-10-09T22:36:28Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Quote: “What if the Mafia kicks 100,000,000 people out of planes, and one of them survives because he landed on a snow-covered mountainside and slid to a stop safely? Would that person be justified in assuming divine intervention?” > > ``` > No, it would not, but if it happened to him 100 times I would say yes it is divine intervention. > > ``` Oh man, do I have a scam for you. This is a real scam, and it’s done all the time in casinos, sports betting parlors, the internet, and at race tracks. It works like this: Let’s say there are 5 horses running a race. Find 100 suckers. Tell them each that you have the ‘inside scoop’ on which horse is going to win the race. Then tell twenty of them that it’s horse 1, another twenty that it’s horse 2, etc. Of course, you don’t want to let any of them know about the others. At the end of the race, there will be twenty people amazed that you called it correctly - especially if by chance the horse that won was a longshot. But they may still be skeptical and think that you may have just guessed correctly. Now, take those twenty people, and say, “I told you I know. You want proof? I’ll give you the winning horse in the next race, too.” Then tell the first five that it’s horse 1, the second five that it’s horse 2, etc. After that race, you will have five people who absolutely believe you know something. After all, what are the odds that you would have randomly picked both winning horses, right? So now they ask you to predict the winner for race 3. At that point you say, “Sorry. The first two were freebies, to show you that I wasn’t bluffing or guessing. The next pick is going to cost you $500.” Four of those people will hate you forever, but you’ll have their money. The fifth one paid you $500, took your tip, and won. Maybe a lot. That guy is now yours for a very long time. He will absolutely believe that you know something. Of course, now you want to string him along for a while, knowing that the next ‘hot tip’ you give him is likely to be wrong. So now you can say things like, "Sorry, but my sources are more vague for the next race. I -think- I know, and I know enough for a bet to be profitable, but there’s some risk. So this time I’ll give you the tip for only $100. Now, even if the guy loses, he’s still going to believe you. In fact, he may think you’re the most honest guy ever by being ‘straight’ with him about your lack of certitude about the next race. It’s all about perspective. Of course, this scam is much easier in the internet age. There are web sites out there promising such ‘hot tips’ on stocks, sports, you name it. And because they can draw in thousands of people, they can play that game for a long time. It’s big in sports betting where the odds are close to 50/50, because if you only lose half your suckers with each play, you can still have a lot of marks to fleece. Start with 10,000 people, and after five bets you still have over 300 people for whom you’ve been right every time, and you can start extracting serious money from them. And after five more bets, you will still have 10 people for whom you have called every single game correctly. How much do you think they’ll pay for the 11th tip? Of course, the smarter way to do it is to not be certain, but to simply offer advice good enough to beat the spread. That way you don’t lose half each time, as people will tolerate some losses if the overall result is better than chance. Done right, you can run this scam for years and even look completely legitimate and no one will never know the difference. And all you’re doing is taking advantage of randomness and the difference in perspective between the person who is an outlier and the person who can see the ‘big picture’. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/64 "2013-10-09T22:59:13Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > “Side Alpha” is trying to understand what “Side Aleph” is talking about. “Side Alpha” and “Aleph” do need to work within a mutual framework of communication before discussing anything related to the topic, including the OP, so discussion makes some sort of sense to both sides. Perhaps. However, it is not as though there is no tradition of people from multiple religions in multiple parts of the world over the extent of multiple millennia referring to a spiritual realm that is separate from the physical. I am not claiming that such claims are accurate, only that they are not some sort of mysterious speech that is incomprehensible to those who view the world as exclusively physical as if they had never encountered the concepts. Certainly, those who espouse a spiritual realm should refrain from claiming that it is “obvious” or “true” since they cannot provide physical evidence of a non-physical realm. Similarly, those whose view is that of a purely physical realm should refrain from pretending that they have no idea what their opponents are saying. A bit of courtesy on both sides will make your “tedious” and “exasperating” efforts go more smoothly. > [@TimeWinder](#): > > I’m not being snide, I’m being _rational_, and you can’t dismiss a valid argument as “being emotionally caught up.” No. Using phrases such as “magic logic nullifier” and “weasel words” is being snide, as is claiming that you are being _rational_ as if your opponents are not, regardless how you wish to view yourself as just being right. And reacting with hostility or snideness, as though you have never heard such concepts is not being rational; it is being emotional. Please note that I am not claiming that both arguments have or should have equal weight in such a discussion. My original point simply noted that there was an irreconcilable barrier to most such discussions. Challenging me to defend one side or the other is silly. Asserting that your opinion is the one that is obviously correct while using dismissive language to describe the opposite view is being snide. You are perfectly free to assert that appeals to a non-spiritual realm are pointless. Doing so in a snarky manner does not promote the discussion in which **cymk** apparently wishes to engage. ---
**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, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/65 "2013-10-09T23:03:25Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I agree with you. _If_ our universe is analogous to a tiny bubble in a gigantic ocean of foam, and _if_ there are countless other universes, and _if_ different universes all have different physical laws and compositions, then in that situation it would be possible for our universe to form in a way that would allow the emergence of life, without any intelligent design involved. If. > > But the multiverse theory has always seemed a little odd to me, ever since I read [this article](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=parallel-universes) by Max Tegmark 10 years ago. Folks often tell me that I should dismiss any assertion if there’s no evidence for it. How often have we heard “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”? Now the notion that there are infinite, or at least utterly enormous, number of universes looks to me about as extraordinary as they come, and not backed by any evidence. Hang on, The post I made is not an hypothesis or a claim to be representative of any scientific theory. There is no evidence for it. Arguments like this are rather a philosophical thought experiment. They are an answer to the claim that fine-tuning MUST be evidence of a God. I don’t have to prove that a multiverse exists in this context. I just have to present a thought experiment that says, “IF there is a multiverse, then your claim of divine intervention does not follow.” Such an argument would not be a valid rejoinder to an actual scientific claim, because it then violates Occam’s Razor, among other things. But in the context of disputing a claim that also has no evidence but relies on the argument that lack of an explanation implies God did it, it’s valid so long as it doesn’t contradict known physical laws. > [@](#): > > As far as probabilistic arguments, I see no reason why an ocean of foam so vast as to make our universe look bubble-sized by comparison, which happens to have the property of spinning off countless universes, some of which have enough order and matter and physical laws to sustain, would be inherently more probable than an intelligent designer capable of making one universe. To me the latter seems simpler. That doesn’t answer the question of what caused the intelligent designer to exist, but neither is there an explanation of why the ocean of cosmic foam that produces universes exists. By saying “The latter seems simpler” you appear to be applying Occam’s Razor. That’s an invalid approach because _both_ arguments have no basis in evidence, and neither one can be said to be ‘simpler’. Or if you don’t accept that, here’s the simplest explanation: It just happened. It was random. We got lucky. We don’t have to invoke a multiverse or anything else. If we just look at the evidence of the Big Bang and don’t speculate about anything beyond it, it’s still valid to say that A) we don’t know everything, and in time we may learn how this ‘tuning’ happened, or B) there’s no reason for it, other than it just happened that way by chance. > [@](#): > > Further, if Tegmark’s theory is correct and every possible universe that can exist with our physical laws does exist, then everything that skeptics have told me in my life is wrong. Somewhere there’s a universe that’s just like ours, except that Bigfoot does inhabit the woods of Oregon. Somewhere there’s a universe where the Loch Ness Monster is real. Somewhere there’s a universe where aliens landed at Roswell in 1951. Everything is real if you have a big enough multiverse. You don’t need a multiverse for that. You just need a really big universe. And in fact, there’s evidence that we DO live in a really big universe, and that the universe we can observe may be just a tiny pinprick in a much larger one, all of which was created in the big bang. For example of evidence of this, we can look at the measurements of the topology of the universe, which seems to be incredibly flat. There are only two ways that can happen: Either the amount of matter in our universe is exactly enough to flatten space, or the universe is so incredibly vast that even if space is curved or toroidal or whatever, the amount of curvature we can measure is insignificant. Like trying to measure the curvature of the earth with a micrometer. But you’ve got the argument all wrong anyway. Skeptics don’t say Bigfoot is impossible, they say that there’s no evidence for Bigfoot, so there’s no reason to believe in one. That’s all. If there’s a parallel Earth out there that has a Bigfoot, then presumably there will be evidence and Skeptics on alternate Earth won’t have a problem with it. If the argument is that the entire universe obeys the same physical laws, then Skeptics will still be right regardless of whether Nessie or Bigfoot or Alien visitations happen on those Earths. They’ll just be skeptical of different things. But given a sufficiently large universe, random chance tells us that there will be regions of it where there ARE identical Earths. Not just that, but regions where there’s not just identical Earths, but identical visible ‘light bubbles’ (i.e. on alt-earth, even the stars look the same and are in the same places). And every possible variation thereof. It would take a truly gargantuan universe, but it’s possible. That’s acceptable under our physics, but those same physics tell us that there’s no way for us to ever know, as the distance to them makes them utterly unavailable to us due to the speed of light limit. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/66 "2013-10-09T23:07:15Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Several things from my own perspective as a semi-professional biologist: > > -We simply do not have the data to calculate the odds of life, or intelligent life, evolving on any given planet, or any given planet that’s like Earth. We just don’t. We know that it did evolve here; we cannot extrapolate from that to other planets. We cannot take this to mean that it happens all the time, and we cannot take it to mean that it’s incredibly unlikely. We cannot calculate probabilities from a single data point. We won’t really know the odds until we get out there and survey a few million planets. > > -Now, that said, obviously a lot of people have tried to estimate the odds, from both sides of the “debate” (in quotes because only the ID proponents actually believe there is a debate to be had). For a thought-provoking scientific view as to why evolution of life might not be as improbable as it seems, I refer you to the book “At Home in the Universe” by Stuart Kauffman. From the ID side, in my experience, when I see someone throwing astronomical numbers around, they have always ignored some vital factor, like the fact that selection is nonrandom. The point being that people can and do twist numbers around to the point that you can “calculate” any number you like, but again, we won’t know until we go out and look. Or perhaps until we develop much MUCH more sophisticated computer simulations. > > -If it turns out that the evolution of intelligent life is so improbable as to make us seem miraculous, that does not serve as evidence of a divine creator. This is nothing more than the same old tired God of the Gaps argument that people have been throwing around since forever. “We don’t understand how this happened, therefore God must have done it by magic.” Magic is not a viable solution to “we don’t know what happened here”. > > -Even if there were some force that qualified as a divine creator, I cannot accept that it operated by simple magic, and nor should anyone with honest intellectual curiosity. OK, so it snapped its fingers and Earth popped into existence. Fine. How? What cascade of events on a quantum level was triggered by that finger snap? There must be rules, reasons, causes. Even if it’s magic, we should be able to someday understand it. It’s simple. You just gotta BELIEVE!!! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2013, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/67 "2013-10-10T01:14:13Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > First, there’s often a point in talking about the probability of things that have happened. That’s what Bayesian theory is all about. > > And as fas as the Anthropic Principle is concerned, I find it unsatisfying. (In fact, even Richard Dawkins has said that he finds that argument **lame.** ) If the Mafia decides to kill me by kicking me out of an airplane, and then I happen to land in an enormous pile of foam and survive, I wouldn’t simply say there’s no point in talking about why it happened. As a creature with natural intellectual curiosity, I’d be interested in figuring out exactly why there was an enormous pile of foam that kept me alive. > [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Cite for Dawkins calling the argument **lame** , please? > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > “The anthropic answer, in its most general form, is that we could only be discussing the question in the kind of universe that was capable of producing us. Our existence therefore determines that the fundamental constants of physics had to be in their respective Goldilocks zones. Different physicists espouse different kinds of anthropic solutions to the riddle of our existence. … Other physicists (Martin Rees himself would be an example) find this unsatisfying, and I think I agree with them.” - _The God Delusion_ When someone asks for a cite that a particular word was used to characterize something, and a cite is “provided,” I think I’m justified in expecting to find that word within the quoted material. Quite apart from the issue of the material you omitted in the ellipsis, that’s pretty annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Themenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee59a6/32.png) [@Themenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Themenin)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/68 "2013-10-11T17:44:09Z")
> [@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, this would be indicative of un-intelligent design. Surely an intelligent designer would use a method with a high probability of achieving its goal, rather than trying for a long-shot ? The long-shot argument (such as it is) only makes sense if the designer is a minor magical entity desperately battling against an adverse environment - _not of its own making_. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742/69 "2013-10-12T02:57:42Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Quite apart from the issue of the material you omitted in the ellipsis, that’s pretty annoying. Quite apart from? When you ask someone for a cite, and they deliver a rough approximation of what they claimed by thoroughly misrepresenting the source, your problem is that they only delivered a rough approximation? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-odds-of-intelligent-design-even-roughly-calculable/670742.md?page=3)