This gem was found at the website of Answers in Genesis. It’s titled Is Improbability the Best Argument Against Evolution? It’s a re-print of something written five years ago by Dr. Ron Tagliapietra. They say he earned his EdD in math education from Bob Jones University in 1996. Very impressive! Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
Have you ever heard that millions of monkeys typing at random would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare? It’s a common illustration of the concept that, given enough time, life could evolve from nothing.
Life could evolve from nothing? We never heard anyone say that before, but Ron is now going to refute it. He says:
Is that true? Is it remotely possible that monkeys could keyboard all of Shakespeare without error? Most of us would say: “No, it’s obviously impossible.” But the mathematical probability is not zero.
Ron studied math education at Bob Jones, so he must know what he’s talking about. He tells us:
Creationists correctly argue that random evolution of life from nonlife is so improbable it is virtually impossible. But the probability is technically not zero, which, “given enough time,” leaves a loophole for evolution.
Ron has switched things a bit. First he spoke of life evolving from nothing, now it’s from “nonlife,” which is not necessarily nothing. Anyway, he continues:
Supporters of evolution [The fools!] claim that arguments about the improbability of evolution are simplistic. Much more is going on, they say, than simple random combinations. So improbability doesn’t convince die-hard evolutionists to abandon their view.
Ron is going to bring some clarity to the subject:
As a Christian, I prefer deductions (as in geometry proofs) to counter evolution. No argument will convince a determined skeptic, but unlike probabilities, deductive arguments are airtight, as long as they start with the right assumptions. Here’s a good deductive argument:
* Human sin brought death into the world (according to the Bible).
* The theory of evolution requires millions of years of death before humans were alive.
* Therefore, the theory of evolution and the Bible cannot both be true.
Wowie — he’s right! Let’s read on:
If you believe the Bible, this deductive argument disproves evolution. [Gasp!] What good are probability arguments, then, if they’re not conclusive proof?
But then he says that probability arguments can sometimes be useful:
The farmer seeks the truth about tomorrow’s weather. An occasional error is better than no forecast. Likewise, people seeking the truth, who are looking at both sides of an argument, can use probabilities to weigh possible outcomes.
Does that get us anywhere? Here’s another excerpt:
I remember when I sought the truth. I grew up immersed in evolutionary ideas, starting with a book about dinosaurs I read in first grade. However, a picture in the book left doubts. It showed ghostly dinosaurs with the caption, “No one knows why dinosaurs disappeared.” [Hee hee!] In my twenties, the probability argument swayed me to consider creation as an alternative. Probability helped me recall my doubts and reconsider my assumptions.
The probability argument made Ron the great creationist he is today. Here’s more:
Could monkeys ever produce all of Shakespeare? No. [Gasp!] Consider just the first five keystrokes. From 64 common characters (uppercase and lowercase letters, space, and punctuation), a monkey must select all five characters. The probability is 1 in 1,073,741,824 (645) [that’s 64 to the fifth power]. For 50 characters, it’s 1 in 2.037 x 1090 [That’s 10 to the 90th power]. Imagine the probability for Shakespeare’s complete works!
And now we come to the end:
Biological evolution is much more complicated and far less probable. But these improbable numbers won’t convince a hardened skeptic to reconsider his foundational assumptions. God’s Word and the Holy Spirit are necessary to sway hearts, not simply arguments about probability.
Well, dear reader, did Dr. Ron convince you? If not then you are beyond hope. The Lake of Fire awaits you.
Copyright © 2022. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
But we have seen the proof that the natural universe is fine tuned to produce human life.
The argument from improbability has been trotted out countless times. Telling them that evolution is NOT random, doesn’t seem to get through. Or they don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t fit their goal of disproving evolution.
Deductive arguments only give you a true conclusion if the premises are true. “Human sin brought death into the world” is not a true premise. Ron then adds “according to the Bible” to qualify it, which makes it true for him, but it’s not a universal truth.
Why does the case of the ghostly dinosaurs sound like a Scooby-Doo episode.
I’ll just leave this here then… https://www.science.org/content/article/how-life-could-have-arisen-rna-world
If we are talking about an infinite number of monkeys, and an infinite number of typewriters, and an infinite amount of time, then, Yes! Every conceivable combination of letters and words would be produced, The operative word is INFINATE!
Yeah he didn’t present the monkey theorem very well. We don’t know if Mr. Bob Jones University math education creationist guy means infinite time or not. Shrug!
I’m shocked, shocked to discover that another creationist doesn’t understand what he intends to discuss.
Over at the Panda’s Thumb is a discussion on….
Jason Rosenhouse, The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism, Cambridge University Press, 2022.
Whatever the difficulty that is demonstrated in evolution: how is their alternative not subject to the same difficulty? Is Intelligent Dedign more probable, for example?
However improbable the origin or diversity of life might be, the naturalist assumption is that it was and is of natural origin. Why is this assumed?
Two reasons, at least. Firstly, life itself is not unnatural, not supernatural. Every single chemical bond in the body of every living organism is entirely in accordance with the laws of chemistry. Every structure is subject to the laws of physics. There is nothing magical about any of it. Since we need not invoke magic to explain how it works, there is no reason to invoke magic to explain how it arose.
But secondly: science is the systematic and methodical study of nature wherein the method is defined in advance. Since science studies nature, it cannot ring in assumptions from the realm of the supernatural.
ICR and the rest of the creationist noise machine leap upon the latter and proclaim it a gap, a weakness, a materialist assumption. But if it’s a weakness, it has sure worked a treat over the last five centuries. You know them by their fruits, doncher know?
There is a new book out on ‘The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism’, including probability arguments — https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2022/05/rosenhouse-on-mathematical-anti-evolutionism.html
@Dave Luckett
What does a non natural explanation look like? Give an example. How about an example of an explanation involving Intelligent Design?
TomS: If you want one phenomenon explained, then “God did it, of His almighty power” is an explanation. It’s just that it ends there. There is no more. That doesn’t satisfy you – or me, either – but still it is an explanation for any event.
Well, what of that? Where does it say that we must be satisfied, when in truth the only wholly satisfactory explanation is a hierarchy of layered explanations that explains everything? Isn’t it true that all searches for explanations find the searcher contemplating infinite, or at least indeterminate, regress? Is it not a fact that all such chains of inquiries inevitably end in “not known”? Certainly, explanations not involving God lead further, and that is reason enough to prefer them. Moreover, such explanations can be applied in other contexts, to real and practical benefit. Nevertheless, “God did it” or “Intelligence” are explanations.
@Dave Luckett
I agree that we might have to be unsatisfied in the search for ultimate explanation. “Why is there something, rather than nothing?”
“* Therefore, the theory of evolution and the Bible cannot both be true.”
How come contradictions they like such as contradictions of God are a “mystery” but other contradictions they don’t like are “Look at me I’m Sherlock Holmes master deducer guy™️.”
A mathematician doing a Gish Gallop with three or more separate ‘proofs’ that are each very basic. Why not trot out some calculus and make it look complicated, which it should be?
@TomS
If you use the supernatural as the explanation for an (as yet) unexplained phenomenon, that would also be a science-stopper. Why dig further for a naturalistic explanation, if you already have an explanation?
What is the relationship between different kinds of explanations? If one has a supernatural explanation, does that supersede a natural explanation; is a natural explanation a “theism stopper”? Or are they compatible?
What is the relationship between different kinds of explanations? If one has a supernatural explanation, does that supersede a natural explanation; is a natural explanation a “theism stopper”? Or are they compatible?
@TomS It depends. Some theists are curious of the natural world because Jesus wuvs us so much that He created the universe for widdle ol’ them and the only way to be closer to gawd that doesn’t exist is by observing the things that do exist.
As a theist myself, it’s because it’s really, really neat. Like, star formation, crinoids, organic chemistry, all of that stuff is just interesting to me, both in finding the patterns in creation, and the places where we haven’t yet found the pattern.
And, no, that’s not an appeal to the Clockmaker – the physical universe doesn’t operate by “blind chance” any more than evolution does and things tend to proceed in a logical order from physical laws, it’s that procession that’s so nifty.
I have to mention the last line of Dante’s Divine Comedy
The love that moves the Sun and the other stars.
(And no, Dante didn’t know that the stars were glowing.balls like the Sun; rather the Sun was a light in the sky, like the Moon, Venus, etc.)
@Meadra As a kid I was stunned in science class when I read Kepler’s laws. Wait a minute, why would all the planets follow the same precise laws? I thought they were just flying around doing their planet things stuck in orbit. I wanted to jump and and yell eureka. I looked around and everyone was throwing spitballs and pulling on pony tails and whatnot. Only kidding, I wonder how many others were awed in science class that day but kept it to themselves.
Alas, poor Meadra, I knew him, Horatio. A man of finite jest, whose bubble burst into an infinite number of microstates when he found out about
S = k logW
Love is blind, Meady, but when you chance upon a star, makes no difference who you are. The Universe don’t give no care, it will expand until you are no longer there.
@richard, for me, it was linguistics, of all things, realizing that languages evolve in a manner that’s basically math with feelings, and then looking at life and seeing it’s much the same.