Luck
It irritates me when people claim to be (un)lucky, as if they have a supernatural gift (or curse) which allows them somehow to circumvent the laws of probability. For despite the ubiquity of this misguided superstition, luck is simply that: applied probability, usually with skill and diligence (or the lack of it) lurking not far behind.
Of course there must be the occasional person who enjoys an “incredible” streak betting on the nags, just as a coin will sometimes produce an “amazing” run of nine or more heads in a row. But they are not gifted, at least in any mystical sense (though they may well be deft at analysing form, for instance) merely perched further towards the end of the bell curve.
Indeed, when humans are asked to write down a sequence that represents a realistic series of coin flips, they invariably underestimate the frequency and extent of these runs. For instance they might write HTHHTHTTHHTHTHT whereas something lumpier, such as HHHHTHHHTTTHTTTTT would be more representative of reality.
Similarly, someone killed by a falling durian might be considered dreadfully unlucky (once the inevitable guilty chuckles had stopped) but is simply the victim of a remote probability that they chose to increase significantly by standing under a tree that kills several unfortunates a year. (The latin name for durian means “smells like a civet cat” by the way. ) Meanwhile someone must win the lottery – no luck in that, it’s eventually a 100% certainty – while every other entrant is taxed on their failure to grasp how pathetically minuscule are the odds of a pre-chosen person winning.
People who consider themselves lucky generally have a more positive outlook on life. Good events are highlighted in their memory while bad events fade. A positive outlook will be reflected in their response to certain circumstances and availability to spot and act upon opportunities; the opposite is true for the “unlucky”. This has a cumulative effect which is bad news for the “unlucky” person because they are likely to become increasingly aware of every bad event and increasingly dismissive of good ones, falling into a vicious spiral of irrational “the fates must really have it in for me” paranoia. This type of person often fails to take responsibility for his own actions, preferring instead the easy cop out of fatalism, or worse, puts their faith in astrology. This doesn’t usually help.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” – Seneca
“The harder I work, the luckier I become.” (Jefferson?)
I note that no fewer than 380 lucky horseshoes were sold on eBay in the last 15 days. Sadly I doubt it was cheaply to meet the needs of 95 barefooted nags.
Evolution
Two small fragments of a recent discussion I enjoyed on a another site.
“Without intelligence behind evolutionary design means that random chance engineered apparent design. Look at today’s top designers of engineering products, maybe a Ferrari F1 engine. If I said that the Ferrari engine happened by accident and without intelligence behind then I would be laughed at like an idiot. Yet look at the complexity in the engineering of the human hand which is literally infinitely more complex and this happened by accident. What about the human eye ? Again even our top most intelligent scientists cannot come close to the engineering capability of something that again happened by accident.”
It is an oddly common (and I suspect often deliberate, at least among proponents of intelligent design) misconception that a complex creature (or element of one, such as a hand) as seen by a Darwinist is nothing more than a happy accident. This assumption fails signally to understand how evolution works. No Darwinist would suggest for a picosecond that the human hand is the result of an extended medley of dice throwing.
The process, which involves random chance (mutation) together with cumulative selection, occurs in minuscule steps starting from very humble (and thus realistic/credible) beginnings over a huge number of generations. Mutation may be random, but selection is not.
For instance, to use the old eye chestnut: once upon a time a single cell mutated and became sensitive to light. A single photocell gave a small advantage over the creatures with no photocell, perhaps gaining them the sight of a few extra scones. So the former became healthier and more prevalent. Then another mutation improves this most primitive of eyes a tiny bit further; that slightly improved creature again multiplies while the ones with less useful mutations die off.
“Heritable variations lead to differential reproductive success” to quote Darwin. So the eye is steadily honed (”climbs mount improbable”, to paraphrase Dawkins) over a large number of small steps into the glorious baby blues we have today, bringing with it to some a seductive illusion of design.
“Thus the creationist’s favourite question ‘What is the use of half an eye?’ Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye, which is already better than 48 per cent, and the difference is significant.” (Dawkins)
“If there is no intelligence behind our evolutionary development, this means that only matter exists and the human mind, the human soul and the human spirit only appear to have a separate conscious ability and existence. If this is not the case then how and where have they come from ?”
I’ve never thought of my mind as anything other than a deliciously complex machine. The eye is impressive, the brain even more so, but fundamentally I don’t see why the two couldn’t have emerged similarly through evolution. The dualistic idea of the mind existing in some way separately from the rest of my flesh ‘n bones (I guess what people mean by soul or spirit), or being anything other than matter coursing with chemicals and electricity is alien to me, though I can see the romantic appeal of the notion. Muscles contract, rods and cones are sensitive to light patterns, brain cells process information, simple. Or rather, complex.