There is something called 'complexity implies design' which is used by evolution skeptics to suggest that the human body and world is so improbable that there must be devine intervention. It's rather the opposite actually. It's in fact juse what we expect from random processes.
It's also tied up in what's called the surviforship bias - which is that we look at something that has occurred and ponder it's improbability, forgettning that some outcome had to occur, and whatever it was would have been equally improbable.
We look at our bodies and think wow, this thing is so perfect for us and us alone! Well, just consider if we had turned out to look like organic toasters, we'd be looking at ourselves saying the exact same thing - that's the survivorship bias.
My Marble Evolution' let's you play with this idea. You drop a ball from the top of a pyramid of colored felt tip pegs. Every time it hits a ped it gets a round colored dot on it. It goes down the rows and by the time it gets to the bottom you have a cool colored ball. Most of these balls have a 1 in 10^20th+ chance of existing - just like the human body - but you created it in a few seconds.
On average you'd have to drop a ball a day for the rest of earth's presumed demise in a billion years or so and you'd still not get a duplicate. If you've got some time get a ping pong ball or marble, some felt tips and make it real - no one, and you can guarantee that, will have the same ball - to make that a little easier just hit the PDF download, and you'll get a printable page with your ball on it as a guide.
subscribe if you feel like it.
