Improbable Things Happen

I'll admit, the idea of evolution does seem remote when taken at first glance, especially if you're dealing with what most people consider a "long" time (time periods of 50,000 years or so). But, I mean, let's look at this another way.

Ask yourself right now; what do you think the likelihood of life spontaneously appearing from the primordial soup, this "spark of life" that sets in motion the process of evolution, is? A million in one chance, per year? One in a billion per century?

Let's go even further, way, way out there. What if it was one in 10^24 per 13 billion years?

Just so we're clear on the numbers we're using, that's 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance per 13,000,000,000 years. This is really, really, really, really, really, really unlikely.

... however, statistically speaking, this means that there are... dum dum dum...! 9 stars in the entire universe which have planets where this has occurred so far. Earth is one of them. :)

This, of course, assumes the lifespan of the universe to be 13 billion years (see what I did there?) and the number of stars in the observable universe to be 10^24. Which, based on our current scientific estimates, is about right. It could be off by, say, five or six planets either way -- although we're only dealing with the observable universe, so there could be many many many many many many more.

The scientific world is an amazing, wonderful, powerful, inspirational thing that is just so incredible in its majesty and beauty that it seems so very belittling to claim that there's a divine hand behind this truly unique and awesome thing called existence.

Bonus question for the Young Earth Creationalists: If the universe created God, what created God? If X, why can't X apply to "the universe at whole"? If NOT X, then why can't the universe be held to the same standard? "It always was, and always will be..."

Further reading: