Criticism of evolution

Overview

This page relates to general criticisms of evolution that are seemingly independent of comparison to any alternate theory.

Criticism: The odds of arriving at the exact genetic code of a viable organism by sheer chance are so vanishingly small that it cannot possibly have happened that way.
Details: Even Mycoplasma genitalium, the organism with the shortest-known DNA sequence, has approximately 580,000 Base pairs. Each base pair can be one of 4 possible configurations (A-T, C-G, G-C, or T-A), leading to a total of 4^580,000 possible genetic codes to try before arriving at a working Mycoplasma genitalium. 4^580,000 works out to a number with about 116 thousand zeros in it. Therefore the odds of life appearing at random, as the evolutionists claim, is about one in ten to the 116th power – or so close to zero that you could roll the dice thousands of times a second over 4.5 billion years (the evolutionarily-claimed age of the earth) and still not get anywhere close to creating the simplest microorganism known.
Notes: This argument leaves the door open for the obvious "therefore, organisms must have been intelligently designed".
Response: (typing this at bedtime, so I'll have to finish it tomorrow and leave the answer for now as a cliffhanger for any creationists reading ^_^ --Woozle 21:48, 13 December 2006 (EST))night