Alf

Yes, this is the best way to make a "prophecy" and it has been done numerous times in the bible.

However, it is not the only way. There are other ways. For example falsifying history to make it look like you made a prophecy works wonderful. For example if you can make people think that someone actually made the prophecy 100 years before the event took place, it would work wonders. This has been used a lot in the bible. For example they put words in Jesus mouth where he "prophecies" the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem.

Another way is if you have access to make sure the event will take place. For example you can prophecize that a specific person will win a lottery tomorrow and then rig the lottery so that he wins.

Another way is to make something that looks like a prophecy but really isn't. For example you can "prophecize" that someone will win the lottery tomorrow. Sure, some person WILL win, the question is who. By clever wording you can make it look like a "prophecy".

Another is to make several prophecies and such that one of them must be true. For example if you have seven people in your church and one of them claim that the guy will find his future wife on a sunday, another will say he find her on a monday etc one of them has to be right and whoever is right he will have prophecized the event. People tend to forget those who made the false predictions anyway and remember the one who got it right so this usually works out far better than you might think. For example you can write one prediction in a magazine and another in your sermon of the day and a third when interviewed in the newspaper. When the event happens chances are that one of these will be right and you can then tell people that "see, I made the right prophecy"!

Another often used method by modern soothsayers and astrologers is to make the prediction so vague that it fits whatever the outcome may be. If you can combine this with the pervious method so that you have two vague prophecies which combined cover all possible outcome you can make wonders come true - literally.

Just to name a few of the options besides the one after-the-fact prophecying method that are also guaranteed to give you good results. The bible make use of several of these techniques as already noted and even more are exploited by religious leaders around the world.

Alf

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

But alas, he wasn't calculating that. He was just calculating the probability of getting all the amino acids picked, and then saying, "Now we have a molecule." But he forgot "the [I would hope good] fairy who has to connect them," as Boro Nut said. He left out a step.

Yes, but then you have to connect them! Picking them (I agree that the order doesn't matter here) does not connect them correctly...

Regards,
Lee

whiskey the hedonist

No, lee. If you calculate the order at the time of the drawing, you don't have to calculate it again. If you don't calculate the order at the time of the drawing, and then calculate the order, the number is the same. I demonstrated this exhaustively, but you are apparently unable to admit to being capable of error, and you keep repeating yourself without addressing the numbers.

Surely you can see that you are calculating the order twice?

Lee, are you really this intellectually dishonest?

whiskey the hedonist

...at my amazing powers of prophecy? Can I call 'em or what?

lee_merrill

The problem is that you did not calculate the order at the time of the drawing, as Alf pointed out, the talk.origins calculation is without regard to order. So then we also have to factor in the probability of connecting our correct types of molecules in the proper order, each time we get all the right molecules together...

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Good list.

I'll probably cop some of these for a thread on this subject in BC&H.

I think the nicest kind of prophecies are those that are so nebulous that they could apply to just about anything. I'm sure Nostradamus got this approach from the bible.

Alf

The point is that the 20^35 formula IS the formula that takes order into consideration.

Let me illustrate by using smaller numbers to see what is going on. Let us assume you have only 3 possible amino acids, a, b and c. we have a huge amount of each.

How many different ways when considering order do we get:

aaa aab aac aba abb abc
aca acb acc baa bab bac
bba bbb bbc bca bcb bcc
caa cab cac cba cbb cbc
cca ccb ccc

It is easy to see that when you take order in consideration - i.e. picking AND connecting - you get 3 of each in each of the 3 positions or 3^3 = 27. If we had a string of 5 molecules we would get 3^5 and in the case of 32 aminoacids we get 20^35. In this number we HAVE already "considered the order" contrary to your claim.

Now, how many when ignoring order? Let us put together those that are identical except for order.

aaa
aab aba baa
aac aca caa
abb bab bba
abc acb bac bca cab cba
acc cac cca
bbb
bbc bcb cbb
bcc cbc ccb
ccc

We see there is 10 different combinations but they do not all have the same probability, some are more likely than others, for example the chance that we get one of each is 6/27 or 2/9 while the chance that we get 3 'c' is 1/27 and the chance that we get 3 of the same kind (either a b or c) is 3/27 = 1/9. The chance that we get 2 b and 1 c is also 3/27 = 1/9.

If you add all these chances you get of course 1.
P(3a 0b 0c) + P(2a 1b 0c) + P(2a 0b 1c) + P(1a 2b 0c) + P(1a 1b 1c) +
P(1a 0b 2c) + P(0a 3b 0c) + P(0a 2b 1c) + P(0a 1b 2c) + P(0a 0b 3c)
= 1/27 +1/9 + 1/9 + 1/9 + 2/9 + 1/9 + 1/27 + 1/9 + 1/9 + 1/27
= 3 * 1/27 + 6 * 1/9 + 2/9 = 1/9 + 6/9 + 2/9 = 9/9 = 1

So, if you ignore the order it is a little complicated since the probabilities varies depending on what exact combination you have. The 20^35 is in fact the forumla where the ordering IS taken into consideration.

Alf

Alf

No, no, no, no.

I did not point out any such thing. I pointed out that you DID consider the order. The formula when NOT considering the order is a completely different and more complicated.

The 20^35 number is when ordering is already taken into consideration.

Alf

Alf

Amazing a clear case of "I see what I want to see" if ever I saw one.

Alf

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Oops. I misread your post.

But it should be more probable that you can pick X and Y and Z in any order! Specifying a specific order should be the smaller probability, should it not? And when you get out the factorials is when you have duplicates.

But what I meant by order is that picking amino acids does not connect them. What, may I ask, is the probability of picking all the amino acids, and then having them be connected in the wrong order? That might make my point clearer.

But probability is difficult! It is so easy to get off track, or overlook a factor that makes the answer be quite different, there have been several times in this discussion when I have thought to myself, "Oh no, I blew it!" But I think I may still be on the right track...

Regards,
Lee