Essay talk:Why the "fine-tuned universe" argument is bogus

More probabilities

A while ago, I was considering this problem, having read a creationist argument that, "The chance is less than one in a billion that life formed by itself!" The answer I came up with is as follows.

Statistically speaking, if at any given point there is a ${\frac {1}{x}}$ chance of some event occurring, and there are $x$ different points to choose from, then as $x$ increases without bound, the probability that the event will not happen at any point approaches ${\frac {1}{e}}\approx 37\%$. ListenerX^TalkerX 23:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Ouch, my brain. Sterile jellybean 23:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but the argument in the essay is incorrect. The writer is looking at this from the point of view of life already existing. This is like rolling a six on a die and saying that the probability that I rolled a six is 100%. This is true but the chance of me rolling a six (from the point of view of before I throw the die) is one in six. Similarly with winning the lottery, the chance that someone (having already won the lottery) has won is 100% as it has happened. But the chance of me winning the lottery its certainly not 100%! The fine tuning argument addresses the probability of the conditions being right for life to evolve naturally. The probability of this given all the possible permutations for physical laws is extremely small, and many (myself included) argue that this lends credence to the case for a creator who is independent of the physical laws. ^{— Unsigned, by: 86.157.197.55 / talk / contribs} 07:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)