Quote:

Its not that I don't believe the eye couldn't have evolved step by step, but I'm saying is that the chances of it happening randomly, step by step, 40+ times is astronomical. When you really add up all the different probabilities of evolution, it really becomes unthinkable. That's ignoring the fact that mutations can't lead to true evolution.



I've read this argument dozens of times and it doesn't seem to die out. It's the basic creationist misunderstanding of simple probability calculation.

If a random event has a probability P and happens in an average time T, then 40 consecutive events will just happen in the time 40*T.

Intentionally or not, on creationist websites this is always confused with the probability for all 40 events happening at the same moment. The average time to wait for that would be proportional to 2^40 * T and that would be indeed astronomical.

In evolution we have the first case. Eyes don't pop up suddenly but develop step by step. Mutations permanently happen. Some of them will get the eye one step further - maybe one mutation in ten thousand years. Thus we'll end up with a fully developed eye in 400,000 years. Life exists since 2 billion years on earth. Thus it would be unthinkable if eyes had _not_ developed many times in many species during evolution.