While looking up some quotes on the D. James Kennedy book, I stumbled on a Christian grad school’s webpage (for Education 543, which looks to be a graduate level course) containing teaching materials for children. The author used Kennedy’s book for some of his “facts”. I just couldn’t help but laugh at this claim:
scientists have computed that to provide a single protein molecule by chance combination would take 10^262 years. Take thins pieces of paper and write “1” and then zeros after them – you would fill up the entire known universe with paper before you could write that number.
Wow. An amazing new fact I could only learn from a creationist! 10^262 cannot even be written! But, thanks to the *real-ultimate power* of the internets, we can actually see what this number looks like! (Warning, don’t print this webpage on your printer – it will use all the paper in the universe and still won’t be done printing!)
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000
[…] Frog jumps all over that: Wow. An amazing new fact I could only learn from a creationist! 10^262 cannot even be written! […]
While I understand your point, I still feel that he is technically correct and it’s a matter of linguistic subtleties that allow for this. Consider his quote, and read it carefully. Understand that this writing is being presented as his thoughts, and as such, the statement “the entire KNOWN universe,” (my emphasis) contains a rather specific word: known. This presents me with the simple conclusion that when the author limits his universe to 10^261 or less, 10^262 becomes impossible.
And that is most telling. =)
Mwahahaha – possibly the best take down evah.
Oh, no! I printed this out so my mother could read it! If I can’t stop the printer, the UNIVERSE WILL BE FILLED WITH PAPER! I will have destroyed the universe!
Oh, wait, it seems to ahve stopped after one page. Thank goodness the printer broke… or whatever.
An innumerate grad student? Surely not.
Then I went and looked at the site. Illogical, irrational, untruthful and on and on. The only one that is missing is illiterate. Bob DeGroot is a step or two above many of his fellow creationists when it comes to spelling and grammar.
Now he needs to work on content for this lesson. All of the content is wrong, at first glance. I refuse to make the effort required to find if there is a single true statement after the first five sentences describing the Grand Canyon.
Counting out 10^262 things is the concept he needed. Not that it is relevant to his argument against evolution. He is ignoring or misdirecting around the ability of selection to work on the results of random variation in order to achieve complexity like that of a protein.
This person has been ill served by his education and clearly he is doing the same to his students, in turn.
Wow, I wish I hadn’t followed that link. I was doing okay until I hit “There are basically two religions in this world that are competing for your mind – Christianity and evolution.” I’m sure that Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus (among many others) would be startled to hear that. The off-hand falsehood in the description of the Big Bang theory was another beauty, especially in conflating it with evolution.
But the idea that probability requires an actor, with the dice example, literally caused my eyes to cross and my head to hurt. I had not previously realized that written stupidity could cause such a physical reaction.
Dudes its not funny. We are ankle deep in paper at my office already.
That’s freakin’ amazing. And we were worried that no one would want to take menial jobs in the future. Those kids won’t have any other choice.
OK, the statement that 10^262 is unwriteable is ludicrous. But, there is a reasonable similar statement that is correct: 10^(10^262) is, in fact unwriteable without exponents, since there are only about 10^74 atoms in the universe, and 10^(10^262) would have, not 262 zeros, but 10^262 zeros.
Carl Sagan used a similar number (a googleplex — 10^(10^100) ) to make a similar point in the TV show Cosmos.
So, does it excuse their ignorance that their statement is _almost_ correct? Not in the least. It only shows that they have not critical thinking skills, and can’t take what they know and extend to evaluate what they have been told. But then again, we already knew that, as they are creationists.
Spudbeach wrote,
“since there are only about 10^74 atoms in the universe,”
…where are you getting this surprisingly small number from? Seriously, that was actually worse than the “10^262 cannot be written” nonsense.
….which is even funnier because you if the universe only contained 10^74 atoms…there would only be about enough atoms to compose the bodies of three people…
Curious that this discussion of the number of atoms in the universe should come up. Recently, I tried to calculate the number of atoms in the earth, and using atomic volume of about 10^-30 cc, or 10^-36 cubic meters, with the Wikipedia value of about 10^12 km^3, or 10^21 m^3 for volume of the earth, I got an answer of something on the order of 10^57 atoms composing the earth. I’m just curious where I made the error.
According to a quick google search, the 10^74 number isn’t too distant from values other people have come up with:
“Two back-of-envelope calculations give the number of atoms in the observable universe to be around 10^80.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe
“4×10^79 hydrogen atoms in the Universe”
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/oct98/905633072.As.r.html
“about 1.7 x 10^77 hydrogen atoms [in the visible universe]”
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q1797.html
“I would suggest 1e79 as a reasonable estimate”
http://www.cs.umass.edu/~immerman/stanford/universe.html
Thank you, tinyfrog.
I took a brief skimming of my own via Google, and the answers didn’t make sense to me until I realized that a major part of the universe is empty space (i.e. no atoms). I’m pretty sure there’s more to that, but my brain begs for sleep and not reading of text.
Apologies to Spudbeach for my previous comment.
UM….The grad student was not wrong in what he said at all. are you guys just that lazy enough that you can’t think?
Think about what the grad student is saying, not just the numbers. We are talking about the chance of a protein having so and so structure…well guess what, 10^262 in that case means raising 10^10 262 times. thus this isn’t just an exponent…its really ((10^10)^10) until you’ve raised each resulting number by 10, 262 times…that is a HUGE number.
Let me demonstrate:
10^10=10000000000 (for those of you counting thats a 1 with 10 zeros behind it.
Now, take THAT number and raise it to the 10: 10000000000^10=?
GUESS WHAT PEOPLE, NO CALCULATOR YOU OWN WILL EVER GIVE YOU THAT NUMBER. And we’ve only used 1 of the 262 10s we need to use…after about the 5th or 6th 10 you can cover up this entire planet with zeros…and that number increases 10 tenfold each time.
I ask all of you kindly, before you open your mouths again to THINK before you TYPE. This gradstudent is not wrong, and I’m not even christian or a diehard creationist.
And for the record..even if we use your shitty math skills, 1 with 262 zeros behind it is still A LOT of years and its still longer than the actual age of the universe…MUCH longer. which means that the point he was making, is still valid.
Rafi – I think you’re confused. Do we need to reiterate what he said? “Take thins pieces of paper and write “1” and then zeros after them – you would fill up the entire known universe with paper before you could write that number.” I have no idea where you came up with the “10^10 262 times” and “((10^10)^10)” stuff. Maybe you need a math refresher.
1 with 262 zeros behind it is still A LOT of years and its still longer than the actual age of the universe…MUCH longer. which means that the point he was making, is still valid.
Having looked at a lot of this creationist math, I can assure you that it’s always based on exaggerated numbers and poor scientific understanding.
wait… did someone just try to honestly defend that logic?
Wow. And that is why creationists will never learn anything – because even when they are obviously, blatantly, hysterically wrong, on proportions similar to statements like ‘I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix. ‘ and ‘Its time for the human race to enter the solar system’, they will still find some way to believe they were right. Much like Dan Quayle, they stand by all the misstatements they have made.
Also, enough with the paper already. I’m going to go close the windows.
[…] Do Not Print This Page This post from one of my newest favourite blogs, Tiny Frog, made me laugh so hard I had to post it here in its […]
Rafi, as tinyfrog said 10^262 is what was stated on the webpage;
10^-1=0.1
10^0=1
10^1=10
10^2=100
…
And so forth, it doesn’t get exponentially bigger. =)
Well, thinking about it, 10^262 is a long time.
However, the probability of these molecules forming is still a possibility of happening, i.e. it is not zero.
As this is a function of time, and time tends to infinity, we would have reached this point eventually, and there is a possibility of it happening at any point during this time. But I suppose that’s not exactly proof.
I attended a lecture last year about quantum mechanics for biological systems that was arguing the case of how quantum properties could (and is) actually enhancing the speed of metabolic reactions past regular models. This also decreased our estimate for the length of time before a single protein molecule by chance combination could be formed. Although I remember the number was still pretty big.
Funny stuffs.
Of course, 10^262 can be written…numbers don’t start to get impossible to write until at least 10^263, or is it 10^264?
No wait…10^265…10^266?
Oh…10^666, that’s it…sign of Beelzebub.
Ah ah ha ha ahha hahahhaha.
PWND
Rafi wagered —
“10^262 in that case means raising 10^10 262 times. thus this isn’t just an exponent…its really ((10^10)^10) until you’ve raised each resulting number by 10, 262 times…that is a HUGE number”
Well, I see your 262 and raise you 420.
My head is gonna ‘splode.
I find the idea of impossibility when dealing with a finite number a bit ridiculous. Sure, we’re talking about in the real world, but theoretically speaking, if you have a finite number of zeros to write in an infinite amount of time, what’s so hard about that?
I rate this story 1^262
“you would fill up the entire known universe with paper before you could write that number.”
The author just thinks that you are to dumb to write this number correct and you will mess up the universe before you write it without errors. ( There is nothing said about printing! )
😉
Rafi, your a fucking idiot.
All I have to say to you creationist haters…
You’ll get your yours, just wait and you will see what I mean.
PS: 10^(10^262) is approximately infinity, comprehend that!
Mocking the fallibility of others… wait… an atheist??? No… really? I can’t believe it. Not.
Remember, atheists are fighting over Nothing, and they had Nothing to guide them while killing hundreds of millions during the atheist communist purges of the 20th century.
Maybe you self absorbed geniuses can solve this one:
Logic (impossible to construct an actual infinite) and science (entropy) dictate that the universe is finitely old, i.e. the universe had a beginning to its existence.
Everything that begins to exist must have a cause.
The First Cause must itself be uncaused, immaterial, timeless, changeless, immensely powerful, and capable of making a choice (intellegence). We call this First Cause, God.
Wait, so you found one unprofessional website that claimed something… and you are generalizing it to all creationists (I cannot find any other source backing up this statement)? Hrm… I’m not going to take one side or the other, but you are standing on pretty thin ground if you are going to criticize creationists as a whole.
“And for the record..even if we use your shitty math skills, 1 with 262 zeros behind it is still A LOT of years and its still longer than the actual age of the universe…MUCH longer. which means that the point he was making, is still valid.”
The point he’s making isn’t even voodoo science… its something else – wookie science maybe.
However the number DOES sound sound too me – basically their saying that the odds of the constituent atoms that make up a protein adding on too each other in the specific order to form a protein are astronomical – and thats true.
What he’s ignoring is that proteins are not formed from individual atoms, but consitituted from amino acid subunits – which are much, much smaller, and consequentially have a much higher chance of forming in a think primordial soup – in fact – people have done (and won nobel prizes for I think….) these experiments and found amino acids formed.
“Now, take THAT number and raise it to the 10: 10000000000^10=?
GUESS WHAT PEOPLE, NO CALCULATOR YOU OWN WILL EVER GIVE YOU THAT NUMBER.”
thats funny, MATLAB spits it right out without even a hiccup.
Even if he hadn’t made such an obvious error when he was talking about the number of years, his point is still moot. The universe has contained an amazingly huge number of planets for many billions of years. On all of these planets, billions of chemical reactions are taking place every second. Even if the odds of a particular protein forming during a specific reaction are exceedingly small, some combination of chemicals resulting in life is BOUND to appear eventually somewhere, sometime.
@29: “We call this First Cause, God.”
Yes, and atheists would tend to disagree with you, right on that point.
Schlef
“I’m not going to take one side or the other, but you are standing on pretty thin ground if you are going to criticize creationists as a whole.”
You are standing on pretty thin ground if your don’t criticize creationists as a whole. All of their ideas are based not on science but a ~2000 year old book of stories that cover such ridiculous topics as resurrection, world wide flood, miracle healing, walking on water, and a magical being made us so that we could worship him.
Dreamrapper said:
find the idea of impossibility when dealing with a finite number a bit ridiculous. Sure, we’re talking about in the real world, but theoretically speaking, if you have a finite number of zeros to write in an infinite amount of time, what’s so hard about that?
well you have a finite number of atoms at your disposal though. So even supposing that you can write every number with just one atom, you cannot write more numbers than the total atoms in the universe. Which if we take the number of 10^80 valid, in the case of an exponential of 10 you cannot write numbers bigger than 10^10^79.
@query –
I hope you’re joking. Infinity is not, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, a number.
One of the reasons that lay people have a hard time understanding science and math is that the concepts are often beyond what a human brain can intuitively understand. Higher thinking only works if we adopt systems of structured thought.
“This therefore that” is not structured thinking. If you have enough free time (as many religious wackos seem to) you can come up with a “This therefore that” statement to “disprove” anything. The statement will not withstand investigation, but it will still seem intuitively true to the Sheeple in your Jihad/congregation/harem/compound in Montana.
It’s why reasonable people burned witches, and it’s why reasonable children can be convinced to fellate priests: the human brain is very limited in what it can understand. Until we learn structured systems of investigation, we are susceptible to the influence of those in our society who can make statements that seem intuitively infallible have no basis in reality.
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ps it’s also why you’re in Iraq, if anyone was wondering: your population wasn’t mentally equipped to investigate the truth about 9-11, so they fell pray to the most powerful this-therefore-that man in the world right now.
Did anybody realize that 9-11 is terribly similar to the emergency number? May there be a cospiracy about that?
If there’s not already can we build up one?
QC:
1) If everything must have a cause, who created God.
2) Where do you come up with the “fact” that there has to be a First Cause. Science dictates that OUR universe is finitely old. This says NOTHING of OTHER universes. As a matter of fact, current scientific thinking postulates that there are MULTIPLE universes or dimensions.
It simply seems like restricted thought to assume that our universe is the only one and that it was created by some all-powerful, invisible being.
Numbers don’t mean that much. The fact is, there is waaaayyy too much going on in the universe and (separately) the planet for this to be an accident.
Evolution is incomplete, far beyond improbable and well into impossible. It just has to be false…unless you, of course, *want* it to be true.
@AltoMelto
9/11 is the Pentagon’s birthday. There’s your conspiracy.
http://tincapjournal.blogspot.com/2007/10/most-expensive-birthday-present-ever.html
Thinking of this another way, which is probably closer to what is intended….
10^262 of any typed character would take up more paper than I can imagine.
Starting with an assumption that a typed “1” (or use any other character the difference is negligible) is .01 square inches, that means that 10^260 inches of paper would be needed.
Assuming an average paper size of 8.5″ by 11″ we could divide by 93.5 square inches to find that approximately
1069518716577540000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 pieces of paper would be needed to write this many characters (ignoring margins, spacing, etc)
I suspect this is what they had meant.
If it makes you feel better feel free to continue mocking them.
Perhaps it is really worth spending a few of the 2,522,880,000 seconds you have mocking the mystery of your existence as if you can actually fathom how improbable it is.
@29
ZOMG! Look out atheist, you have just be p0wned by the “First Cause” argument.
You have to break your “everything must have a cause” rule to finish your argument. That should give you a clue.
What makes much more logical sense is that the universe has always existed, and all of the atoms that make it up always have and still do. They are simply combined in ways now that are different from before. Matter and energy cannot just *poof* come into existence or likewise disappear.
All this is besides the point, the fact that we are sitting here typing on keyboards on a website shows that no matter what the chances of life randomly forming are, we got lucky and it happened.
lol QC….typical creationist….how many science books have you actually read on the matter?
Honestly, study a little before reiterating the words of your pastor.
that number of pieces of paper (from above) should read:
1069518716577540000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000
apparently wordpress does not like numbers this long in comment boxes.
Nick Fotopoulos:
“You are standing on pretty thin ground if your don’t criticize creationists as a whole. All of their ideas are based not on science but a ~2000 year old book of stories that cover such ridiculous topics as resurrection, world wide flood, miracle healing, walking on water, and a magical being made us so that we could worship him.”
And you are clearly taking my comments out of context. I don’t know if there is a God or not, but I have a tough time conceding everything that we see to natural causes.
Science is based on what we can observe in nature, which is why science itself is always changing for the better. We have facts, and how we interpret them is science. We have interpreted facts wrong in the past.
Clearly one cannot argue with evolution; however, how it all started in the very beginning is hardly proven.
Do people really still get such a knee-slappin’ thrill out of debunking Christian idiocy after high-school age?
@50
Probably wodrpress doesn’t want to risk the universe to extinct just because you want to try to type 10^262
Even though Rafi is obviously confused, his last point is valid:
And for the record..even if we use your shitty math skills, 1 with 262 zeros behind it is still A LOT of years and its still longer than the actual age of the universe…MUCH longer. which means that the point he was making, is still valid.
I was wondering if the author maybe meant that if you counted from 1 to 10^262 and wrote each number out on a separate piece of paper. i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, …, 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000. If each number had its own piece of paper then you would run out of paper very quickly.
Also, because he might not have clearly demonstrated how vast 10^262 is, doesn’t necessarily refute the number itself. You can’t just say “Since he doesn’t understand how long it would take to write out 10^262 he obviously doesn’t know anything about science.”
Rafi, 10^262 is no where close to (10^10)^262. If that was indeed the number he meant it to be then he should have written it like that. However, based on the website, I’m fairly certain he did mean 10^262, which makes him just plan wrong. There are plenty of notations for extremely large numbers. A good rundown of a few is found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_numbers#Standardized_system_of_writing_very_large_numbers
@Stuart
You sound really fucking smart, but your simple grammar mistakes make you look like you just copied the “smart” parts from the net some where and pasted them in.
“…its something else…”
it’s something else…
“…basically their saying that…”
…basically they’re saying…
“…adding on too each…”
…adding on to each…
“…and thats true…”
…and that’s true…
My post contributes nothing to the conversation and will incite complaints; thus my work here is done.
ROFL!! :)))
This is one of the funniest scientific jokes I ever seen!
Thanks mate, you made my day! 🙂
You’re all missing the point. True, that may be the odds of a molecule of that size arising by chance, but this does not take into account the fact that molecules of that size didn’t just appear – they evolved from smaller ones into larger over a long period of time.
Jesus was a cunt. Long live Jesus.
Philosophy aside —
From Stuart:
“What he’s ignoring is that proteins are not formed from individual atoms, but consitituted from amino acid subunits – which are much, much smaller”
Why is no one nitpicking on that? It’s easily on par with 10^262 being unwriteable in terms of things that are blatantly stupid.
“And for the record..even if we use your shitty math skills, 1 with 262 zeros behind it is still A LOT of years and its still longer than the actual age of the universe…MUCH longer. which means that the point he was making, is still valid.”
So how many universes are there? And if you say “only one”, can you prove it?
If there are 10^1,000,000 universes out there, then even with your faulty “odds of only one protein molecule” arguments, life would still form by random chance in one of them. And they would make exactly the arguments you’re making now.
Isn’t this kind of a question of “what came first, the chicken or the egg”. I mean really, where did the “stuff” come from that made the “stuff”, fill in the word stuff with whatever you like.
The “stuff” that this universe was made from came from somewhere right?
Big bang theory……where did the stuff come from that made that happen??
What ever particle it all started with……where did IT come from??
Let me put a disclaimer on my last statement…..
I’m am not a real scientific person, but if you can answer that last question for me, I’d listen.
“PS: 10^(10^262) is approximately infinity, comprehend that!”
Hymm so if I say 10^(10^263) I’ve create a number greater than infinity?
*Confused*
Ok now…. what that statement really intended to say but obviously it was not expressed is that:
There are 10^262 combinations that protein can fold which is much more than number of atoms in known universe 10^80 or whatever…
Anyway his analogy was wrong. Instead of writing it on a single piece of paper like he mistakenly expressed …. lol …. he meant to write each individual number on a single sheet of paper so we would have 1, 2,3,…. all the way to the infamous 10^262 numbers written on 10^262 sheets of paper which would be impossible since there are only 10^80 atoms in the universe.
That’s what he was trying to express but was unable to.
“To get a single cell – the single smallest living cell known to mankind – which is called the mycroplasm hominis H39, would take 10, to the 119,841st power, years. That means that if you took thin pieces of paper and wrote 1 and then wrote zeros after (it), you would fill up the entire known universe with paper before you could ever even write that number. That is how many years it would take to make one living cell, smaller than any human cell!” is the correct quote, but even that number (while huge) is not that unwieldy
Bongo,
In other words, he didn’t understand the problem well enough to articulate it in consensual English.
“scientists have computed that to provide a single protein molecule by chance combination would take 10^262 years. ” What scientists? Creation “scientists”. If you’re interested in learning about the chemistry/biology/physics/geochemistry I recommend doing a free iTunes download of Richard Zare’s talk at stanford. (iTunes–>iTunes U–> Stanford–> Natural Science–>Chemistry of Life (or something like that). Some interesting ideas about stereochemistry of protiens, enantiomeric excess, energy differences between D and L forms, self-assembly (my favorite), and more. Often you will hear creationists talk about how impossibly unlikely random assembly is. I ask you creationists how its possible that crystals assemble themselves into beautiful and often very precise geometries then. In other words, crystals ARE order from chaos.
In my opinion, you can not calculate the age or size of the Universe because to me it is infinity.
Another thing, if you want to say 10^80 atoms in the universe and say you cant represent a larger number then that, you need to think more outside the box. Just make a single atom = 1 and have empty space=0 With the right protocols you can represent any number. Guess infinity comes back doesn’t it.
+1^262
Well, I think everyone is missing a fundamental(ist) point. One god. I think he is thinking in terms of a unary numbering system. I think the number would indeed use a lot of paper to print if represented in unary (e.g. 1 = 1, 2 = 11, 3 = 111, 4 = 1111, 5 = 11111, etc.) This would indeed be a lot of 1s…
In response to R…
If crystals can form themselves in to something ordered from chaos to within some dimensional conformity, can one not infer that the crystals had a range of values, possibly infinite, but similar in look and function. If this is the case then one could also infer that there is a preset order to cause crystals of a similar size and type to form from “chaos”. This behavior is due to the physical laws of science (not theories) that govern the universe.
One might ask what defined these laws in the first place, what caused the physical laws to come in to effect, such that out of chaos something ordered may be formed? The idea that things can seemingly form complex and precise dimensions and ratios from nothing more than chaos is crazy. When is the last time your house decided to fix its self, or your room clean its self? When did your computer decide to upgrade the hardware on its own and make the proper modifications? There is no factual basis for something ordered being created out of chaos. If you suggest that the universe could just come to be, and pick it’s own set of complex rules to govern matter, you my friend are mistaken.
… Flame on 😛
[ This post was created by someone claiming to be the administrator. Actually, it was just some commenter who stopped by the webpage. I have no idea why he is claiming to be me, and no, this discussion is not locked. ]
WTF are you guys arguing about again?
Because I know exctly how long it takes to make a cell if not quite a few cells…
“Relax baby, just have another drink.” A little of the ol’ IN-OUT-IN-OUT-“Oh Baby, don’t stop!” and BAM!
So the answer is not 10^262, the answer is $20 bucks in liquor, 30 minutes with her knees behind her ears and I got those cells multiplying like there aint’ no tomorrow!
This discussion is LOCKED!
–Admin
2^10,000,000 is even bigger
I have consistently found that a urinary system is best for scientific notation of numbers. #1 = pee, and #2 = poop.
Now, if we take “pee” and “poop” and use them as the “0” and “1” in the binary system, you can convert binary to urinary. Of course, the only thing to do then is piss off.
Sara, 10^72 atoms is quite ab it actually.
Say that people were a cubic meter large, and made entirely of water, they would then be made up of about 10^30 atoms. You could then replace the universe with 10^42 people. The population of the earth is, of course, about 10^10.
Alternatively, the sun has mass of 10^30 kilograms. This is mostly hydrogen, so it has about 10^56 atoms. This leaves room for about 10^16 stars in the universe, or a million more stars than there are people on earth. The estimates for the number of stars in the universe is about 10^21, so the number is apparently off by about 5 orders of magnitude.
10^72 objects is a ton of objects. It’s writeable, but HUGE.
(numbers are due to google and massive rounding).
Creationists, I refuse to call them creationists, I call them christians, we are all christians in this country, and we like to teach our children christian values.
Some people say we are not different from fanatic muslims fighting in iraq and afganistan against our troops, but I disagree. Because we believe jesus and they do not believe in jesus. They believe some guy called Ahmad, or Ali, or something and teach their children that everything in their path mush be crushed if it does not accord with their beliefs….cannot go on…too dumb…not satirical enough…
But seriously, not being gwb, I would dare some smart evolutionist! (whatever that means, when did they start calling sane people fancy names.) to set up a fake creationist website, play along and get all their private info. Provided they are the retards that we think they are they will be giving them out anyway ( just tell them jesus wants it.)
The final act: come up with some fancy way to profit from it, the nastiest way possible. (only if I were the facebook guy!). I won’t do it , cause I too lazy and stupid, let this be my message in a bottle. You cannot disintrate ignorance, but you can shatter beliefs or at least harm people who have them.
They are playing hard ball by teaching children that crack induced bad trip of a fairy tale anyways, I bet we can do the same.
A.A.
I’m sorry “query,” but there is also no factual basis for an omnipotent god, merely a traditional or mythological basis. Also, the “physical laws of science” are theories. When you use the word “theory” what you are actually referring to is called an “hypothesis.” On top of that, to respond to you question as to when the last time my house fixed itself or cleaned itself, I would say that this hasn’t happened. As far as whether or not it would fix itself you are assuming that the conventional ways in which houses are designed to function are in fact the ideal. This is flagrantly subjective as the ideal function of a house is really open for interpretation. My room has never cleaned itself either. However, I will make the point that if given time, everything in my room, including my room itself will decay and eventually disappear. If I give that dirty laundry pile in the corner just a few thousand years, it will almost definitely be clean.
Lastly, to the gentleman above who equated atheism with mass murder, what have your crusades and holy wars given humanity but a collective history most notable for warfare (mass murder). To equate atheism with the homicidal purges of madmen ignores all of the homicidal purges of religious madmen. Where are your Francos, your Ferdinands, your Torquemadas, your Martin Luthers and your Richelieus, to name a few? (Sorry for the dramatic flourish)
I think he might have meant that the time in seconds this would take would be forever.
…haven’t had time to read all comments above, but i’d like to state that the creationist school in question probably got the magnitude wrong: 10^262 is probably just the exponent of the real number they are referring to.
Was this what they were trying to write down on paper: 10^(10^262) ?
which would require 10^262 zeros, which probably is greater than the sum of all particles in the universe.
[…] 2007 20:58 — monado Thanks to Jared Asay at the Axis of Jared for pointing out this howler of a mistake in Christian science materials for children, as pointed out by Tiny Frog: …scientists have computed that to provide a single protein […]
And once again, we ignore a basic axiom of probability theory:
The probability of an event which has already happened is 100%. The probability of the event before it happened is immaterial.
We are here. Therefore, the odds of sentient life arising on Earth is 100%. Debating the likelihood is rhetorical masturbation, at best.
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It’s a small world, but I would hate to have to paint it.