Billy --

You have redeemed youself with this post. I actually was half way through it and had to scroll back to the top to verify that it really was you. That said...

By the way, what are the odds of life forming and evolving on Earth after the Big Bang? Pretty close to zero I imagine.


Let's arbitrarily postulate that the odds against life forming and evolving are, oh, pick a number: say 800 trillion to one against. That's a one in 800,000,000,000,000 chance. Pretty slim odds, wouldn't you say?

Well, there are by recent estimates about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe. If one in every 800 trillion of those stars had life forming and evolving, that would leave about one and a quarter billion places where it happened. And wherever it happened would be "here" to the beings involved, and they would wonder if the odds favored it happening anywhere else.

People from 1,000 years ago were simple minded, and those from 10,000 years ago even moreso.

Absolutely not so!. In terms of intelligence and reasoning ability, they were every bit as smart as we are. I guarantee you that there were people a thousand yeares ago that would put your intellect to shame. (This is not meant as a slam -- they would shame me too.) The difference is, of course, that we "modern" humans have a much larger storehouse of knowledge (knowledge contributed in great measure by those "simple minded" people you disparage) upon which to base our reasoning.

Sir Isaac Newton said it best when he said, "If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."

tanstaafl.