A psychic I once visited (I've posted about her before) told me that God exists, and she followed up with "the odds of being born are 1 in 400,000,000...better chances of winning the lottery." I just wanted to know if there is any truth to that and if anyone has heard anything like that before.
Flange Desire
Muse
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Really sorry to say JP, but that does not grok at all.
This is probably not too surprising if it came from the mouth of a phycic.
What is lacking is the surrounding context.
eg, "The odds are slim for a human being to be born to bovine parents."
or, "The odds of a head coming up in a random coin toss is 0.5".
Rasmus
Philosopher
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Don't be silly. The odds must be much higher: I don't know a single person that hasn't been born!
Dogdoctor
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There have been many who have claimed that there are so many things that can go wrong with with cell division and other matters during pregnancy that the odds are very much against being born. Usually this is a religious argument or an argument for the existence of god. It is a fallacy however and assumes that cell division is helter skelter and not the self regulating organized process that it is.
Kochanski
Illuminator
Strange how there manage to be more people than lottery winners on this earth then
Also, remarkable all the concern about birth control if the odds are that low
Precisely how did this psychic use this utter piece of rubbish information in her schtick that she felt it was such a good thing to say? Or does she just think sounding profound in some way is enough to make her seem like she knows something.
Welllll...
Depending on the profiency of your father, when he did the naughty-noogie-naughty on your mother, it would be an average of about 20 Million spermatozoa "injected" (I love that word, don't you?).
So technically, you had a one in twenty million chance of being born. Roughly. But then again, it might not have been equal, for all lil swimmers. You might have been the first to jump the gun, as it were, or in the first "shot"...dear oh dear I'm blushing....thus getting a clear advantage in the great vaginal excursion of 19-- whenever, nine months before you were born.
So in the end, given those sorts of considerations, the chances of you having been born by "winning" the race, so to speak, would be, and this is a guess, mind you, between one in a thousand > one hundred thousand.
Still pretty good, if you ask me.
I know this coz I'm an anatomy major. I'm not a sex freak, or anything.
Honestly.
Depending on the profiency of your father, when he did the naughty-noogie-naughty on your mother, it would be an average of about 20 Million spermatozoa "injected" (I love that word, don't you?).
So technically, you had a one in twenty million chance of being born. Roughly. But then again, it might not have been equal, for all lil swimmers. You might have been the first to jump the gun, as it were, or in the first "shot"...dear oh dear I'm blushing....thus getting a clear advantage in the great vaginal excursion of 19-- whenever, nine months before you were born.
So in the end, given those sorts of considerations, the chances of you having been born by "winning" the race, so to speak, would be, and this is a guess, mind you, between one in a thousand > one hundred thousand.
Still pretty good, if you ask me.
I know this coz I'm an anatomy major. I'm not a sex freak, or anything.
Honestly.
delphi_ote
Philosopher
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Another view on this statistic could be the odds of being born once conceived. In the U.S., the odds are roughly 99.39% that you'll survive (using the CIA factbook.)
I agree, the odds are 1!Don't be silly. The odds must be much higher: I don't know a single person that hasn't been born!
Mojo
Mostly harmless
The odds of a particular individual having been born aren't really important, because a particular individual (i.e. you personally) isn't an aimed-for event. The reason for the conception, pregnancy and birth is just to produce any viable offspring. The child, once born, has to be someone.
jimtron
Illuminator
What about all the people that weren't born? Exactly: proof that god does not exist. And what about miscarriages? Proof of satan?
El Greco
Summer worshipper
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I would answer "I think you've got your facts wrong. The odds of being born are exactly 1 in 353,017,844"
deBergerac
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The thing is of course that the chance of someone winning the race is much higher than that a specific sperm is to win the race. That is the entire point of shooting of so many.
And the probability that the one who is born was the one who won the race is 1.
But you all already knew that didn’t you
And the probability that the one who is born was the one who won the race is 1.
But you all already knew that didn’t you
NeilC
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The idea of there being odds of being born doesn't make any sense to me.
Odds are the ratio of one event vs another event. In this case the event is being born - the other event must be not being born.
So what are the odds of not being born? The odds of me not being born are zero since I am here already. The odds of another, as yet unborn, person not being born are impossible to say since how can we tell it is Him or Her that has been born and not someone else? A person is not a person until they are born in which case the odds are 1/1.
It's just a silly way to say "you are unique/special/amazing".
I suppose if you tried to look at the odds of all of the events in time and space, biogenesis, evolution, survival of a constant line of forebears....the chances of your gene packet making it to now are very, very small.
Odds are the ratio of one event vs another event. In this case the event is being born - the other event must be not being born.
So what are the odds of not being born? The odds of me not being born are zero since I am here already. The odds of another, as yet unborn, person not being born are impossible to say since how can we tell it is Him or Her that has been born and not someone else? A person is not a person until they are born in which case the odds are 1/1.
It's just a silly way to say "you are unique/special/amazing".
I suppose if you tried to look at the odds of all of the events in time and space, biogenesis, evolution, survival of a constant line of forebears....the chances of your gene packet making it to now are very, very small.
thatguywhojuggles
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I like this answer.
Who I am today was not neatly packaged in single specific sperm that was lucky enough to win a race. The sperm just served as a vital part of the recipe of my body. Who I am today is shaped by the culmination of my life experiences.
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Mojo
Mostly harmless
Generally, when people talk about the odds of you being born being 1 in 400,000,000, or whatever figure they pluck out of the air, it's as a preliminary to claiming that there must have been some sort of supernatural intervention to make such an unlikely event occur. IDers and creationists use the same argument: they claim that it's very unlikely that humans (specifically) have evolved, or that the universe should be apparently fine-tuned to allow life, therefore Goddiddit.
ond_magiker
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Now where did she get the 400 million number I wonder? Pulled it out of some orifice no doubt.
That doesn't really matter, though, as it's obvious people are born all the time. Getting surprised when realising you, your father and mother, possibly siblings, are born is just silly.
My enormous respect for psychics is starting to wane.
That doesn't really matter, though, as it's obvious people are born all the time. Getting surprised when realising you, your father and mother, possibly siblings, are born is just silly.
My enormous respect for psychics is starting to wane.
NeilC
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That or they are about to launch into a toe-curling self-help book speech.
robbersdog
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Couldn't agree more. Until conception (I'm not going to go into the whole 'when does a foetus become a person' thing) there is no person to no be born. All other arguments about a person prior to this point are irrelevent. If there is no person, there are no odds as to whether they will be born or not. Therefore the odds (in America at least) are 99.39% assuming the CIA are acurate, which is what I'm doing for the purpose of this discussion.
Pup
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I see what she's saying, and I also see how stupid it is.
The odds of you (a person made up of that sperm and that egg) being born are astronomically small. The odds of someone being born in your birth year, or even to your mother during her lifetime, are pretty high.
It's like saying, the odds of winning the lottery are a million to one. Somebody won the lottery. Therefore a million-to-one event happened, so there must be a god. Well, no. That's confounding the difference between the odds of a particular person winning the lottery, and the odds that anyone will win it.
The odds of you (a person made up of that sperm and that egg) being born are astronomically small. The odds of someone being born in your birth year, or even to your mother during her lifetime, are pretty high.
It's like saying, the odds of winning the lottery are a million to one. Somebody won the lottery. Therefore a million-to-one event happened, so there must be a god. Well, no. That's confounding the difference between the odds of a particular person winning the lottery, and the odds that anyone will win it.