Civil Discussion About Religion

onlydarksets · 01-11-2007, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GhettoDogAllStars

Just a note about the odds of life...

It's easy to present extreme odds of life as evidence of a creator. However, you must also apply the same logic in reverse.

Our sun sustains life on Earth. There are billions upon billions of stars in our galaxy -- each possibly capable of sustaining life in their own capacity. There are billions upon billions of galaxies in the universe. So, that is billions upon billions times billions upon billions of possible environments able to sustain life. What's a billion squared? I don't know, but it's a number so large we can't really comprehend it.

So, let's assume that the odds of life are around 100 billion to one (pretty liberal, I know). That would mean that for every 100 billion environments able to sustain life, there would be one of them which actually does sustain life -- and there are FAR more stars in the universe than 100 billion.

The point is: there are SO many stars in the universe, each possibly capable of sustaining life, that even if the odds of life are incredible, the colossal number of stars in the universe offset those odds significantly.

Non-interesting fact: Carl Sagan didn't actually use the phrase "billions and billions" - he just said "billions".