Can a tornado ever assemble a Boeing 737?

reply to post by Confusion42


A few things known about life on earth…
It is all related, and all of it came from the same single source. DNA of grass, a fruit fly, humans and everything else on earth is the same and interchangeable. Take human DNA and put it into a fruit fly and the fruit fly will use it as if it was always fruit fly DNA.

We cannot recreate life from no life because the chances to replicate protein in a random way borders on the impossibility. When you have 23 chromosomes in a string of 200 to 2000 all lined up just right it would be like a slot machine with 1000 wheels with 23 combinations per wheel.. or like 10 to the million power… With 13.5 billion years to work with we are talking trillions of years to get a jackpot.

Now add that it replicates and …wow

If you stacked up all life on our planet 80% is microbes, and the majority of the remaining 20% is plants, so everything else is such a small part as to what life actually is, it doesn’t really matter. Life does not center on us for we are nothing in reality as to what life actually is…

I have often approached the subject of intelligent design with a similar line of thinking. Its parallels I find rather accurate,
I understand that atheists in general don't really see the correlation from the same perspective, so I thought I might go a little further. The answer here is very clearly a resounding NO. or at least statistically unlikely enough to be deemed impossible. Here's why. It is much much more likely that a tornado will damage two parts rather than put them together. this extreme unlikelyhood exponentially expands far beyond what we would deem possible.

This is the way I view the intelligent design versus big bang idea. Just as it is much more likely for a tornado to trash 2 pieces of metal rather than weld them together the same holds true for the very explosion in the big bang. you blow up a rock for example and things fly away from each other. the likelyhood that molecular forces could bring together particles traveling at light speed defies logic. Assuming space was at the time otherwise vacant, the idea that these particles would decelerate enough to bond enough to create whole atoms, less likely. the idea that clusters of atoms could could bond to other clusters of atoms traveling at light speed (or very nearly) still less likely.
ignoring all this, the likelyhood of a planet with a position relative to its sun to support the possibility of life... pretty likely (not actually all that likely but given the sheer number of stars in our galaxy alone there would still be a great many). the odds that this planet would also contain the elemental diversity necessary for the development of an ecology also not unlikely (however, in our galaxy we're down to only a few hundred such planets). the odds however, that a planet, active enough to facilitate the creation of life, wouldn't also inadvertantly destroy newly built life in its most fragile states is extremely unlikely. even if this new life hits the jackpot, the odds of extraplanetary forces killing it off makes it likely that we are unique in our galaxy.
considering all this must be done in the relatively short lifespan (compared to the universe as a whole) of a star, add to that the fact that the age of the galaxy and its size would also have to match somewhat closely, then consider that our oort cloud and our gas giants are basically galactic sweepers keeping the vastest majority of things flying toward our sun from endangering our fragile earth, you'll find that, odds are we truly are the only intelligent (not that I think we are in fact intelligent) life in our known universe. there's a good deal more but the final point is, its much more likely that a tornado could assemble a passenger jet in a few hours than it is for us to exist based on phyics and chemistry alone

Originally posted by Confusion42
Hypothetically,

If a tornado hits Football field, and the Football field has the 367,000+ parts required to build a Boeing 737, would the tornado have any chance at all to fully assemble the jetliner?

Assembling a 737 is a complex job. Factory employees must take 367,000 parts; an equal number of bolts, rivets and other fasteners; and 36 miles (58 kilometers) of electrical wire; and put them all together to form an airplane.
www.boeing.com...

Question 2: If there are an unlimited amount of days, and tornado hits Football field full of Boeing 737 parts daily (thus infinite amount of attempts), would the tornado ever assemble the jetliner?

Dear Christian Poster,

Neither Darwin nor the theory of Evolution says anything at all about the origins of life. Neither of those advocates "chance" but where that word is used it is only by some who are engaging in speculation. They both ONLY talk about what happens after God creates. And, the vast majority of scientists are devout Christians.

Why, oh why, do so many religious folk insist on mis-quoting the position of science? Why is this simple truth so hard to accept? Probably because then there would be no enemy to confront and no "demons" to defend against.

But here it is in simple terms. God created and then evolution began. Creation and then Evolution is what we know of God's Intelligent Design. Sheesh. Get a life already.

tt

Ok. Call me completely lost but could someone explain how this question makes and type of sense? I know it is in comparison to something but to what, exactly? Obviously a tornado cannot weld, screw in bolts, etc, thus could never assemble the plane. With that being said, what ARE we saying here exactly?

THANKS trailer trash. I rather forgot that point. I am a christian, and find the theory of evolution to be perfectly reasonable (although I wish people would stop trying to use the word proof) and it in no way adversely affects my faith. I was merely trying to point out that the whole atheistic notion of happenstance is a statistical impossibility.
moreover, every faith, including atheism, requires people to make a great many very non scientific leaps of logic.
and because people will ask, the assumptions required of atheism are
that we are the single luckiest planet in our known universe
that, despite what we know about quantum particles, the laws of nature simply just ARE, and for some reason just have to be that way. (because every religion has some organizing principal that requires a blind assumption for atheists its physics)

In my oppinion No.
Even if there were an infinite number of chances.
The Tornado doesn't know how to use tools?
How would it secure everything in place, last time i checked tornados can't weld.

Cheers
Brady.

reply to post by theAmospProphecy


How does your argument prove that atheism is statistically impossible? It's a straw man argument. Just because a tornado doesn't assemble an airplane doesn't mean atheism is wrong and god created humans. Think about it for a second. Its like me saying god is all knowing, because god is all knowing free will doesn't exist, therefore there is no god. Its far from that simple.

reply to post by Confusion42


No.

But airplanes don't reproduce. The key to evolution is slight variations in the genetic code caused by self-replication or sexual reproduction. These slight changes can be passed on to future generations and eventually compound. Enough tiny variations lead to a vastly different offspring after a few million generations. And yes, RNA can form naturally and is only slightly different from DNA, the building block of life.

RNA

reply to post by Confusion42

No...but given long enough time would it produce a species that evolved enough to assemble one.

I'm confused

Did I write anything that can be said I'm in the creationist / intelligent design / anti-evolution camp?

reply to post by sykickvision

Originally posted by sykickvision
This is one of the debates that never really ends.

No, the science is quite settled on it.

Both sides have compelling arguments.

Nope, only one side really does.

To me, it does appear as if there is something beyond perception that has slowly guided things into the way they are.

Pointless assertion. When I was a child it seemed to me that clouds put out coldness just like the sun put out warmth. I was wrong, just like you are. There's absolutely nothing to show that anything but natural processes are forming lifeforms on this planet.

It happens via evolution AND an intelligent choice being made.

Except that there's no evidence for an intelligent choice being made.

Life would have never persisted if it hadn't cared about itself, even on the smallest scale.

You mean the survival instinct? Instincts don't really take much thought.

Either you live, or you die, or you live & breed & THEN you die. Isn't there more to life than just the proliferation of the species? Sure the species survives - but what about you? You die anyway. You reap none of the benefits.

So? That's not really an argument for anything. That's just another cerebrally advanced ape trying to shape meaning out of a meaningless existence.

Why did evolution stop (or greatly slow down) in insects?

Selection pressure decreased.

Dragonflies today are like dragonflies of yesteryear, only smaller. Same wings, same eyes, same legs. No doubt same habits.

A massive change in size is definitely an indicator of evolution...
And again, a lack of selection pressure slows down changes in populations. Eventually very few novel mutations become selectively better for survival and the primary factor of evolution would be genetic drift.

Surely there could have been improvement on the design, something could have been done to make them sleeker, faster, more intelligent.

For the umpteenth time: Evolution isn't about making an organism better, more intelligent, faster, stronger, etc. Evolutionary forces only work to ensure survivability. If intelligence doesn't increase the likelihood of an organism surviving and reproducing, then there's absolutely no reason for it to become a more prevalent factor.

What stopped the change? The world has changed a lot. Their environment has changed. Their food? Maybe not. So...why hasn't the food developed skills to avoid the dragonflies better?

Some of it might have, but if one food supply evolves to get eaten less by one species it might get eaten more by another. There are some incredible examples o camouflage in nature, but none of these adaptations are fool proof.

And animals don't have 'skills' that they can pass on. A 'skill' is an acquired trait. Animals, lacking language, are unable to pass on acquired traits to later generations.

I know this makes little sense, as I've said before my brain works with ideas & pictures - not words.

No, you've explained it quite well. You just seem to lack an understanding of how evolution as a process works.

I really think that life left to random chance over time will end in no life at all.

Except that evolution isn't random chance. It's the nonrandom survival of species based upon random mutations.

Sometimes evolution works fast to ensure survival of a species, sometimes it seems to stop. Sometimes it either doesn't work fast enough or not even at all.

Evolution isn't like a space heater than has a specific goal, it's just the name we give to the survival of species based upon their traits etc. It's not something that can 'kick in' and just start working faster or slower.

If changes are random, then we should see roses with every imaginable scent - but they all smell like roses to me.

Again, the changes aren't random. Roses evolved their scent to lure in insects for pollination, the same with their flower shape and coloration. The scents that don't attract insects for pollination don't reproduce, so the scent is selected out.

However, there are a wide variety of smells among flowers, just not roses. That's called speciation.

reply to post by theAmospProphecy

Originally posted by theAmospProphecy
I was merely trying to point out that the whole atheistic notion of happenstance is a statistical impossibility.

Um...no, it isn't. I actually posted a thread about 'statistical impossibility'. I used a game of 5 card stud poker as an example.

I'll just give you the first hand as dealt, not even the statistical probabilities involved in changing of cards and an entire game.

Let's say you're playing a game with 5 people and each person gets 5 cards at their first deal. That's 25 cards. The chances of this happening are
1/(52 x 51 x 50 x 49 x 48 x 47 x 46 x 45 x 44 x 43 x 42 x 41 x 40 x 39 x 38 x 37 x 37 x 36 x 35 x 34 x 33 x 32 x 31 x 30 x 29)
Which equals: 1/(9.78834558 × 10^39) or 1/9,788,345,580,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That's just one hand in a game of poker. If you end up playing 50 hands in a night...well, the chances go up exponentially, but I don't want to have to calculate that right now because I don't have a graphing calculator and I'm sure as hell not going to calculate it by hand. The probability of each hand would be multiplied against the probability of the hand before it (which I've only calculated without the changing of cards) meaning that you'd have a ridiculous number.

Another great example would simply be the probability of a deck of cards being in the order that they're in right now. That would be calculated at 1/(52 x 51 x 50 x 49 x 48 ... x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1) (I'm not going to write out the whole longhand) or 1/52! = 1/(8.06581752 × 10^67) or (approx) 1/80,658,175,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That's an insanely wild probability. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning several times after winning the lottery for the second time and then having a soda machine fall on you. But you don't say that it's impossible for a deck to be in any given order at any given time, do you?

Improbable definitely doesn't mean impossible, insanely improbable things happen every single day.

moreover, every faith, including atheism, requires people to make a great many very non scientific leaps of logic.

Ah, the classic "atheism is a faith" gambit.
I'm sorry, but it's a skeptical position. Skeptical positions require absolutely no faith at all.

and because people will ask, the assumptions required of atheism are

Oh FSM, not this tripe again...

The entirety of atheism can be summed up in one statement: I disbelieve in the existence of any deity.

The rest of what an atheists does or doesn't believe is up to the individual.

that we are the single luckiest planet in our known universe

I'm sorry, that's assuming that the entire cosmos is barren and lacks another planet that can sustain life. Considering that there's a possibility that the moon Europa may have life...so that statement is full of bovine fecal matter.

that, despite what we know about quantum particles, the laws of nature simply just ARE, and for some reason just have to be that way. (because every religion has some organizing principal that requires a blind assumption for atheists its physics)

How is that an assumption of blind faith? Positing that the universe as we know it just is would be a fairly rational assumption. In fact, it's a far more rational assumption than a deity formulating the laws of physics on a whim just for the existence of human life. That would be like a puddle in a pothole stating that some guiding force created the pothole for the divinely ordained existence of that puddle.

At some point everyone has to simply say that some things just are, atheists simply choose to stop at 'the universe and its natural laws'...for now. Hopefully that work on the theory of everything will sort that one out.

And how does 'what we know about quantum particles' affect how we think about physics? Quantum physics isn't someone saying "um....stuff is random", as there are actually discernible observations that can be quantified from quantum physics.



One last thing

Richard Dawkins already demolished the ol' "Tornado assembling a jet plane" argument in The God Delusion

Great queston. Order from chaos kinda thing. Will nature eventually do it?

Humans are natural. They make things (and destroy things).
Nature makes and destroys all the time.
The chaos of the universe is natural and it made the world we are on now.
Tornados are natural. Therefore, using that logic, it COULD make the plane.

Unless ya'll go for the 'intelligent design' theory that someone or something GUIDED the chaos or nature into making whatever it made. Then the tornado thing flys out the window. (get it ... flys? )

My answer to the question is ... I dunno'.

I really can't believe an intelligent human asked that question looking for an intelligent response.
I'm not going to reply to the question. Nor am I going to get in to any probability discussion.


I would like to point out that these type of questions make the ATS squad look like a pack of fools.
If I had my way this would go into the deleted forever thread pile.
Useless waste of space.

Sorry no one told you OP.

Originally posted by SLaPPiE
I would like to point out that these type of questions make the ATS squad look like a pack of fools.
If I had my way this would go into the deleted forever thread pile.
Useless waste of space.

THESE type of questions? LOL?! What about all the ones about reptilians?

If it was up to you you would delete this thread? Wow wanting to control the internet much? I think this is the wrong forum for you.

Originally posted by Confusion42
I'm confused

Did I write anything that can be said I'm in the creationist / intelligent design / anti-evolution camp?

It's because the tornado in a junk yard is an old worn out creationist / intelligent design / anti-evolution argument.
Answered pretty well here.
www.ebonmusings.org...
Where did you get it from, or are you saying this was an original thought for you?.
Are you looking for an argument for it or against it?

Originally posted by Nventual

Originally posted by SLaPPiE
I would like to point out that these type of questions make the ATS squad look like a pack of fools.
If I had my way this would go into the deleted forever thread pile.
Useless waste of space.

THESE type of questions? LOL?! What about all the ones about reptilians?

If it was up to you you would delete this thread? Wow wanting to control the internet much? I think this is the wrong forum for you.

There you go thinking
No I don't want to control squat. I am asserting my opinion about an ignorant or stupid question.
You got a problem with common sense son?

Originally posted by cacnotcam
Ok. Call me completely lost but could someone explain how this question makes and type of sense? I know it is in comparison to something but to what, exactly? Obviously a tornado cannot weld, screw in bolts, etc, thus could never assemble the plane. With that being said, what ARE we saying here exactly?

I'm not claiming that the OP is a Christian OR that he/she believes in Intelligent Design (Creationism) or anything. But the reason this kind of question gets asked is that it's an argument FOR the existence of God and the idea that He created us, as the bible claims.

The argument goes like this: God MUST have created us. Because we are so intricate and complex that there HAD to be some intelligent creator behind the scenes.

Imagine you are a caveman thousands of years ago. You're waking through the forest and you come upon a wrist watch on the ground. Would you say, "Oh, look! What a wonderful accident that all these parts are placed together in such a perfect way that they work together to form a whole unit that operates as it does"! or would you KNOW that someone had to design it and put the parts together?

The flaw in the argument is that a wristwatch is NOT created by nature. MAN created the wristwatch. Man's intelligence created it. It's not part of our NATURAL world.

The same goes for the tornado and airplane argument. Of course, a tornado couldn't create an airplane. A tornado only knows how to be a tornado. That's how nature is. So, the OP's argument goes: Since the natural world couldn't create an airplane, then it couldn't create something as complex as a human being, so God Must have done it! It's a belief based on process of elimination (which, unless you've exhausted all possibilities, is highly flawed).

Man is part of the natural world, just as trees, water, rocks and the Earth are. This is nature. Just as the leaf of a tree "knows" exactly how to be a leaf, my little finger "knows" how to be a little finger and my leg "knows" how to be a leg. But none of them could build an airplane or a watch. Only a brain has the capability of knowledge and in consort with machines man has built, can an airplane result. But many need a more precise explanation or a more meaningful story as to how we came to be here. That is why I say that we created God. Because we needed to understand, to know.And in the absence of any proof, we created the story.

Sorry if that confuses you more. This may help:

Hoyle's Fallacy

I assume the OP has just finished reading "the god delusion" or some reference to it as the premise is taken directly from that book.
link but it's also a reference to the watchmaker argument as stated above

The argument is usually used to support intelligent design by saying "a complex animal can't just be formed by chance"
If your using it as an argument against evolution then you have a basic misunderstanding of evolution, animals and plants did not just evolve fully formed one day out of nothing like the "Boeing 747" argument suggests they EVOLVED gradually from simple organisms

WOW!!!

Talk about over analyzing.

This entire subject is about nothing more than random chance. That's it plain and simple.

The whole pretext behind the monkeys with typewriters is that given enough monkeys, typewriters and time, eventually a monkey will push the correct keys in the correct sequence to type the works of Shakespear. There is no knowledge of language required, no Act of God required, just pure chance. Those same monkeys may also type the Bible, the Koran, The Declaration of Independence or any other written document. Granted the odds are astronomical, but, given time and resources it can happen.

The 737 and tornado thing is the same. If the statement was to create a 737 out of raw materials, I'd say it would be impossible, but, if all of the components are in the junkyard, it is possible. The odds would be much, much greater than the monkeys.

Speaking of improbability....

If we had an infinite time to post on this forum, would we ever get through a thread without someone turning it into an I'm right and you're stupid conversation?

I'm betting that a chimp reads from the Shakesperean sonnet he just wrote while he flies a jet manufactured by Tornado Airlines gets to Tahiti from Timbuktu with a tour group of Amish computer repairmen before ATS has a totally civil thread.