[kevao]

A common saying that describes a primary assumption of evolutionists is that if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room and set them in front of computer keyboards, eventually they will type out the Encyclopedia Britannica.

That does not come from evolutionary theory; that is probability theory and the Law of Large Numbers. And it is correct. Given enough time, a monkey striking random keys on a keyboard will produce War and Peace or some other recognizable piece of literature. Sure, it might take billions upon billions upon billions of years, but eventually it would happen *by pure chance* because, with a finite alphabet of 26 letters (English), the number of permutations of letters you can type out on, say, 1000 pages is also finite.

Sorry for the ramble; I love probability theory.

[stormhill]

Seems like probability theory clashes with the law of entropy.
The problem is that there's no rule that says the monkey must always strike different sequence of keys. More likely, it will just repeat the same gibberish ad infinitum without ever producing anything resembling recognizable literature.

So, no, it's not correct.

[tjd1454]

that is probability theory and the Law of Large Numbers. And it is correct. Given enough time, a monkey striking random keys on a keyboard will produce War and Peace or some other recognizable piece of literature.

Interesting - your own statement indicates that (if only on a subconscious level) you do not believe in the Absolute Truth of probability theory:

"...will produce War and Peace or some other recognizable piece of literature."

What is this "or some other recognizable piece..." nonsense? As I understand it, probability theory (I am here taking your word for it) would of necessity DEMAND that the monkeys eventually not only type out a PRECISE copy of War and Peace, but (given enough time, of course) EVERY OTHER great book of Western, or Eastern, or whatever literature. This will, it is understood, require quite a lot of time.

But of course I can't imagine that anyone has ever bothered to demonstrate through empirical investigation whether or not monkeys can put together more than a few letters?

Forget about the monkeys. Just use a random letter generator computer program. Much more efficient and less smelly. And we don't have to start with War and Peace - let's see if a random letter computer program can compose something much simpler, such as a chapter out of a Nancy Drew mystery (any one will do) or even a paragraph or two out of a Berenstein Bears story?

Now you know well and good in your heart that such things cannot be randomly generated, even by a super computer working at warp speed to approximate millions and even billions of years. But are you honest enough to put aside your absolute faith in fallible and (let's face it) ever-changing scientific theory and the "experts" (scholars, textbooks, teachers - as a former professor I know all about it...) to admit it? I hope so!

[lasereye]

Probability theory does not say what WILL happen. All probability theory does is assign a likelihood. So there’s some non-zero likelihood of that happening. That’s all.