Carnival of the Godless #62

There are some interesting articles at Carnival of the Godless 62, hosted by the Black Sun Journal.

Intelligent Design probability

Richard Harter uses mathematics to prove that some events are just too unlikely to happen.

Doing the Google thing, I hit upon an estimate of 10,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe.

Noting that there’s only one Earth, and assuming that (however similar to species on other planets) actual Pine trees only grow here on the Earth, any living being only has a 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000 chance of looking down on a planet & seeing Pine needles.

Okay, yeah, the odds ae reven less than that, because it’s not like Pine trees grow *Everywhere* on Earth.

What this effective does is “Prove” that none of us has ever seen Pine needles. Then again, with such super astounding odds against any living creature actually seeing them — 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000 — is it any wonder?

…more at link

Nobel Prize in Medicine for RNA interference

Derek Lowe has a nice article about the research that won the Nobel prize in medicine.

See also “RNAi – so that’s what introns are good for!“