Darwin & the Lottery

June 9, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

After dinner tonight my wife sent me on a killing mission. We got the keys to our new house on Monday, and now we are in the process of making it “ours.” That includes cleaning up the yard. The house was immaculately kept, but the shrubbery area has been taken over by all manner of nameless vines and crawly things not sold in Lowe’s garden section. So, my wife said to wade in there with the Round-up and spray anything that is not in bloom. I don’t know the plants in this area, and I was afraid I might wipe out something that blooms later. The general assignment was that if something was questionable, I should ere on the side of death.
As I was carrying out this duty, I could not help but think of the many probes we humans have sponsored to find life, any form of it, on the moon, Mars, etc.; and here I am killing it indiscriminately. How excited we would get over finding any of this stuff anywhere but earth! The hope is based on the idea that if it happened here, it could happen somewhere else. The operative word here of course is “happened,” meaning random or chance. Yes, if it happened here by chance, then maybe it could happen somewhere else by chance, but there are no numbers that support the idea that it even happened here once by chance.
I am amazed at the intelligent people I know who are suckers for “chance.” I see the billboards that say, “I won $122,817 at ________’s, and you can, too!” And on the billboard is the picture of some poor slob who has probably already spent it trying to win more. I have heard the lottery referred to as a “tax on stupidity,” and in general I agree. But recently I attended a conference with a fellow professor, a dean, no less, who took advantage of the location to cross the boarder and buy lottery tickets. How could he fail to grasp that in order for somebody to win $122,817 a lot of somebodies had to blow $245,634? The industry is regulated that way! And then there is a former dean of mine who cannot retire because of a gambling addiction.
I am afraid that our academic failure to grasp and teach what chance (probability) really means is linked with the requirement of randomness in Darwinian theory. Because of the implications of the principles of probability upon chance mutation of species or the chance occurrence of spontaneous life in an ancient pond, the subject is avoided. When the probability of these is pointed out, it is quickly sloughed off with, “it only needed one chance.” It couldn’t be sloughed off if people really understood how many zeros must follow that one chance. Probability says that life didn’t happen by chance on earth, and if we find it anywhere else, it didn’t happen by chance there either.
Nobody believes that this jungle in my yard came by spontaneous generation, but many intelligent people believe that the first life on earth came that way ..and that they will eventually win the lottery.

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