: I hope you guys don't mind me starting a new thread on the same topic. Previously, I stated that the probability of a functional protein forming by chance was one in 10 to the 65th power, though in reality, life could not originate from a single protein. The point I was trying to make was, that, most people don't have a clear understanding of the immense hurdles that would have to be overcome for "nature" to produce life from inert matter. You're probably familiar with the monkey and the typewiter analogy, where if a monkey presses the keys long enough, he will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. This is not a good analogy. The reason being, a letter produced on a piece of paper is a stable end-product, in biochemistry, the letter would have a strong inclination to jump off the paper and back on to the key due to the law of chemical equilibrium. For example, if a DNA molecule would happen to form by random, it would quickly (micro-seconds) dissociate. In nature, these bio-molecules are components of "information systems", that is, they contain the genetic information to build a living organism. At the cellular-level, DNA functions along with messenger RNA, many enzymes, along with the ribosome etc, in an integrated system. The information needed to construct the ribosome, RNA etc, is contained in the DNA. This system is "irreducibly complex". All known irreducibly complex systems are the result of intellegent design. Why should these be different?

***I do thing that the analogy is a good one, but if viewed from the perspective of there being no begining/inteligence which was produced the makeup of the universe, it would most likely be repeated exactly if done purposefully by a high inteligence which knew how to do so. I think that although there is infinite time to allow the monkey to randomly reproduce it, that there are also an infinite amount of alternative outcomes which would not prevent, but most likely never happen to find an exact match. What I mean is that I do believe the possibility of it happening given the circumstances, but probably would'nt. So I disagree with the assumption that if given the time, it MUST happen. The absurd part of this reply is as follows: I propose that we may be hindering ourselves in thinking that life itself, no matter what the form, had to begin at a specific point in time and place. It is hard to conceptualize the concept of there never having been a begining, that although things change, the basic substance, laws, and effects of these two things working in combination have always been if one form or another, and that our reality (life) is one that has always been as well, somewhere. What I mean by this is that life is as much a mechanical piece of the universe as inert matter. This would also exlain how it "seems" to have overcome such tremendous odds, when in actuality, it is a part of the universe which has to be, and could never be stopped entirely. This is something I came up with and is only an idea born of the need to explain in my own mind in other ways than it is explained to me from the institutionalized norms which do not make comlete sense. Although they do have alot of knowlage, and this is beneficial to me in that I life my life comfortably and safely within it, they by no means have the keys to many of the basics of the reality of the universe as a whole. Oh, and I don't mind a new thread at all, I love to ramble about all the mysteries, would it not be wonderful to have a conversation thread eventually lead to a breakthrough of some kind in the area of philosophy and our understanding of the universe? Has it ever happened before? I should mention that even though I feel it is necessary to go against many of the mainstream thoughts of todays science, I do feel indebted to it, for I would never be able to conceptualize anything else/new were it not for the old, this applies to religion as well, for its very state of being allowed the challenges against it, leading the way to science, thus you could say that "religion is the father of science".