On Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:54:46 -0600, the infamous Morris Dovey
scrawled the following:

On 3/4/2010 1:18 PM, -MIKE- wrote:
On 3/4/10 12:53 PM, Robatoy wrote:
On Mar 4, 1:31 pm, wrote:
On 3/4/10 12:19 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:

On 3/3/2010 4:35 PM, Robatoy wrote:

Some scientists speculate that a lightning strike hit the primordial
soup and it sprang to life.... over time...more so for some than
others....nebber mind.. BRAINSSSS

Something to mull over on a quiet evening...

What do you suppose the odds are of a lightning strike producing a
single single DNA (the basis for everything we recognize as being
"alive") molecule from some random glob of "soup"?



Greater than the chance of having the surface of the earth covered with
identical 1sq.cm tiles, with one of the tiles having a mark on the
bottom, and tossing a stone in the air at any random location and having
it land on the marked tile.


That would BE phenomenal odds, but odds nonetheless. And to plot that
on a timeline of infinite length, that marked tile would get hit
eventually.

But that's the point of the illustration, you don't get to do it over.
You get one chance and those are the odds.

It would seem reasonable to allow for multiple lightening strikes - but

Yabbut, how many darkening strikes would it take, hmmm?

--
An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his
heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till
the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
-- W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge, 1943