Evolution: Technically Random?

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

I think that the more important point is that calling evolution random even if it is technically true, leads people down a very bad confused misconception about what evolution really is and how it operates.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Sure, I can describe the output of a true random number generator as random, and I can describe a sequence of a million 1s with a 0 thrown in as random, but I'm not doing my listener any great service by equating the two in this manner.

The phrase "hidden agenda" is coming to mind.

~~ Paul

Please Paul, don't lessen the value of your arguement by resorting to speculations about possible motives. That's pretty low.

If there is randomness involved, it is random. Therefore, if someone says to call it random is false, I claim that that is false.

I guess we just disagree.

 

[T'ai Chi]

I think that the more important point is that calling evolution random even if it is technically true, leads people down a very bad confused misconception about what evolution really is and how it operates.

I'm not sure I follow. How can the truth lead people down the wrong road?

I fully stated that

.., while evolution could reasonably be considered and described as biologically or practically non-random, it is technically, mathematically random.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm not sure I follow. How can the truth lead people down the wrong road?

I fully stated that

If someone says that Evolution is random - without qualifying that statement - they are wrong.

Evolution is a biological process, and biologically speaking, it isn't random.

Quantum mechanically it is random, but then so is everything. The computer you are reading this message on? Random.

Since everything is random, but that randomness is hidden at the macro scale because the random effects average out, saying that any particular system is random is wrong unless it is a system that by nature or design amplifies rather than averages those effects. (Or randomness emerges on the macro scale by other means.) Which doesn't apply to Evolution.

So the answer is no.

 

[Walter Wayne]

Everything physical has a random component.

However, most things at a macro scale aren't random. They follow the laws of physics. Those laws may be statistical at their foundation, but the outcome is nonetheless predictable.

So, when you ask Is evolution random?, you need to specify your perspective. From a biological perspective, no, it is not. From a perspective of quantum mechanics it is random, but that's not generally a useful perspective for discussing evolution.

So the answer, for all practical purposes, is no.

I disagree. The reason so much of mechanics is essentially deterministic is, as you mentioned, due to the large numbers involved. However, at many points in nature we have very small populations. And at the point that a random mutation occurs, that population is going to be on the order of one.

What if the extinction of the dinosaurs had happened a bit earlier or later? Would the evolution of mammals started from a different stock? There are various choke points in evolution. Had Mitochondrial Eve been in a different tribe (family), humans would likely had a different gene distribution today. A freak accident or natural disaster and that mitochondrial Eve doesn't occur.

This is a very different random characteristic from, say, building a bridge out of quarks and electrons. The bridge always involves gazillions (technical term) of these particles interacting at any given location. In evolution there are times when we have a very small number of individuals being selected from.

I also disagree with CACTUSJACKmankin. I think calling evolution non-random leads people to both a misconception of evolution, and of random processes. Afterall, the argument that "random variation can't lead to what we see around us" is based on a misconception of what random processes are, and what happens when such processes are biased (non-uniformly distributed).

Walt

 

[PixyMisa]

Good point.

So saying that evolution is non-random - without qualifying that statement - is also wrong.

I can live with that.

 

[CFLarsen]

The phrase "hidden agenda" is coming to mind.

.....ayup.

 

[Jekyll]

Good point.

So saying that evolution is non-random - without qualifying that statement - is also wrong.

I can live with that.

I was thinking about this last night.

When an species is near an local entropy maxima or very fit and diverse with out compramising it's fitness, as a whole it's going to be gentically very stable. One of them might deviate away but it will become less fit and it's genes won't propegate.
At a time like this, the 'randomness' is smoothed away and can be ignored.

It's when a species is has not reached a local maxima, and could end up at any one of several, that the outcome is essentially chaotic. Some small deviation can lead to the whole species ending up at a very different maxima, if it makes it at all.

To be honest, I hate the use of the word random. There needs to be a list of honest synonyms for scientists to use instead of the word.

Random:
. Unpredictable
... (Chaotic)
... (?Truly random?)
. Unpredicted
... (Too computationally expensive)
... (Didn't want to)
. Arbitary

etc.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Please Paul, don't lessen the value of your arguement by resorting to speculations about possible motives. That's pretty low.

Sorry T'ai, but I keep asking you what the point of this is, and you won't answer but to say you're on a crusade for the truth. However, your unadorned truth would do nothing but confuse most people, so the truth would become a lie quite quickly.

I apologize if you have no further interest in evolution being random. But every complex physical process is random, so what is the point of making such a fine point of it?

Check out stationary random process:

http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~sav2/timing/define_time.html

~~ Paul

 

[CFLarsen]

Sorry T'ai, but I keep asking you what the point of this is, and you won't answer but to say you're on a crusade for the truth. However, your unadorned truth would do nothing but confuse most people, so the truth would become a lie quite quickly.

It would put T'ai in a position where he could claim the truth, but also where nobody else would understand it, because T'ai wouldn't let them understand.

Kinda like when occultists point to the secret wisdom that gives them power, but refuse to reveal just what that wisdom is...

 

[BillHoyt]

Good point.

So saying that evolution is non-random - without qualifying that statement - is also wrong.

I can live with that.

T'ai is going for the equivocation fallacy. He wants to move us to accept it, though, by accepting his major premise: that random processes always lead to random results. This is a way of smearing the reputation of randomness so that it looks more like chaos. He wants to set up the image of genes in some kind of molecular pogrom that can't possibly lead to evolution.

Back to our show. All things are as they were except You are There. BYO popcorn.

 

[BillHoyt]

I don't think it is really in question if the bomb goes off or not. But I don't think the occurrance of evolution of an organism is in question either.

Very good, then, you've falsified your major premise.

As I've mentioned, there are various bomb outputs that cannot be predicted with certainty.

Oh my, how unexpected! You're trying to sneak back to your major premise by bringing in dollars in destruction, humans killed, collateral damage and a nuclear particle or two.

T'ai: basic questions, forget the red herrings this time:

o Are the processes that lead to the bomb going off random or not?
o Does the bomb go off or not?

 

[CFLarsen]

T'ai is going for the equivocation fallacy. He wants to move us to accept it, though, by accepting his major premise: that random processes always lead to random results. This is a way of smearing the reputation of randomness so that it looks more like chaos. He wants to set up the image of genes in some kind of molecular pogrom that can't possibly lead to evolution.

Hence his defence of Creationism.

 

[sphenisc]

It would put T'ai in a position where he could claim the truth, but also where nobody else would understand it, because T'ai wouldn't let them understand.

Kinda like when occultists point to the secret wisdom that gives them power, but refuse to reveal just what that wisdom is...

Does that include you Larsen, because if you don't understand, it might be a good idea to stay quiet and pay attention. If you do, then T'ai's 'secret wisdom' plan isn't really much of a plan, in fact it may not exist at all...

 

[sphenisc]

T'ai is going for the equivocation fallacy.

Prove it.

He wants to move us to accept it, though, by accepting his major premise: that random processes always lead to random results.

So why not attack the premise, rather than T'ai?

This is a way of smearing the reputation of randomness so that it looks more like chaos. He wants to set up the image of genes in some kind of molecular pogrom that can't possibly lead to evolution.

Then randomness really shouldn't hang round the back of the bike sheds, smoking and drinking with stochasticity, unpredictability and the rest of the gang.

 

[CFLarsen]

Does that include you Larsen, because if you don't understand, it might be a good idea to stay quiet and pay attention. If you do, then T'ai's 'secret wisdom' plan isn't really much of a plan, in fact it may not exist at all...

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

 

[BillHoyt]

Prove it.

So why not attack the premise, rather than T'ai?


Then randomness really shouldn't hang round the back of the bike sheds, smoking and drinking with stochasticity, unpredictability and the rest of the gang.

Please note my other posts in which I am attacking T'ai's major premise. Please note his shucking and jiving responses. And please stick around to see the jello of which T'ai is made. He's been here under numerous pseudonyms and has tried to sneak in sock puppet after sock puppet. I invite you to sit back and watch.

I also invite comments on the atom bomb example relative to T'ai's major premise.

 

[Melendwyr]

Random processes frequently lead to ordered results.

Ever see what happens when small objects (balls, grains of sand, etc.) are forced to fall through an array that divides the stream of particles in two multiple times, which each particle having a 50-50 chance of going one way or the other? When collected, a bell curve is the result, and the more particles are used, the clearer the curve becomes.

 

[hammegk]

Random processes frequently lead to ordered results.

Ever see what happens when small objects (balls, grains of sand, etc.) are forced to fall through an array ....

Forced doesn't sound random, exactly, does it?


And Willy and a-bombs! He proposes we examine a device that is one of the most highly designed and engineered devices known to man to claim dumb luck must have "designed" rna/dna/life of even greater complexity.

Yeah, I must've missed the point. Sorry.

 

[BillHoyt]

Random processes frequently lead to ordered results.

Ever see what happens when small objects (balls, grains of sand, etc.) are forced to fall through an array that divides the stream of particles in two multiple times, which each particle having a 50-50 chance of going one way or the other? When collected, a bell curve is the result, and the more particles are used, the clearer the curve becomes.

I take it, then, you agree with Kevin's "goose-step" function (stolidly puts out 2 regardless of the random input) and the atom bomb example. The "goose-step" surely is trivial, just as surely as the atom bomb, the culmination of a multiple poisson process (mpp), is far from trivial.

It seems that the major premise is collapsing under counter-examples. Anybody else care to step up to the counter?