What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[jimbob]

Articulett,

where is the mistake in my reasoning?

1) The definiftion of random that I am using, where identical conditions will not always produce identical outcomes

2) That as weather is chaotic, quantum effects will influence this, and this will influence which survive?

3) That one (maybe not you) can use probabilistic models to evaluate the chances of individual organisms reproducing?

4) That with small populations, any effects of either "chance", or "unusual environmental factors" will be magnified?

5) That it is in principle impossible to predict what an organism's descendants will evolve into in a million yeard time?

6) That evolution is only predictible if the environmental selective pressures are predictible?

7) That it sometimes makes sense to talk about probability distribustions and sometimes doesn't, and which depends on whether it provides any additional information?

8) That most organisms will not reproduce?

9) That natural selection is highly efficient at weeding out the "weak", but that a majority of seemingly viable organisms will also fail to reproduce?​

And I differ from Behe because I understand that the odds were in favour of evolution of different species, indeed that evloution is all that is needed to explain life, (and I would argue its origin too). Just because it wasn't alive, as wherever imperfect self-replication occurs, evolutionary pressures are automatically applied to the development (or evlolution) of the replicators.

Behe doesn't understand how large numbers affect his arguments.

This was enough for me to see that he didn't understand. Piss-poor interviewer.

The thing about "irreducible complexity" is that it keeps getting reduced. The eye was one that people used to talk about until they found the intermediate stages.

 

[Schneibster]

"Buttons do not reproduce?" This is not sophistry? Come on. This is ridiculous.

 

[mijopaalmc]

It's just the newest form of Vitalism.

Only living systems can model living systems.

 

[articulett]

It's just the newest form of Vitalism.

Only living systems can model living systems.

Oh no... digital information can and has modelled evolution quite well. But neither cyborg or anyone else was able to clue you in there either. Info. that is good at getting into vectors that copy it...makes more copies of itself.
Easy.

 

[articulett]

Don't drag me into taking a side, I'm an FSM creationist.

I should have guessed...if you look really close at your avatar, you can see what appears to be an eye patch on the penguin...

And Jim Bob, there isn't really a mistake in your reasoning...it's just mostly irrelevent to what is selected...to how the game is played so to speak. You may understand large numbers, but do you understand Dawkins review of Behe? He's much clearer than you, and so is Cyborg. Vague wordy definitions that boil everything down to randomness are not really different than what Behe is doing. You're saying it's large numbers that account for the order. It's a lot more than that--it's the fact that some organisms are much more successful at getting the information in them copied in the environment they find themselves in than others--they make many more copies of the info. that gave rise to them. Until you include that as part as your definition as Ayala and Dawkins do...you've got a definition and an argument that is indestinguishable from Behe as far as I can tell. It's truly like you guys don't understand the difference between physical systems that are ordered just by the physcial forces of the universe...or living things...which get copied based on how well they fit into the natural world they find themselves in--including all randomness that happens to be a part of that natural world. Once the cards have been dealt, the game is in play, and statistics are no longer vital to understanding what comes next.

I am guessing that you, of the few randomites, should be able to understand this, but you keep missing it... If cyborg, Dawkins, and Ayala can't help you make the link; I don't even pretend I can. Your definition is vague and misses the point. If there is no evidence that will make you conclude that you are being vague and unclear, then you have a faith based belief. And I don't try to engage the faithful, because like diviners, they just aren't able to see that it's them who isn't communicating.

To me, and I suspect to most people...the randomites sound like Behe...not really wrong, but muddled and self important and unyielding. I mean, it would take such little evidence for scientists to use your definitions if they were actually useful...you'd be finding peer reviewed articles where you wouldn't need to tell us are saying what you are saying so long as you plug in the right semantics. You could just cut and paste the exact quote. Or there'd be credible people saying that Dawkins and Ayala are wrong and misleading instead of saying that Behe and you are wrong and misleading. See?

 

[mijopaalmc]

Oh no... digital information can and has modelled evolution quite well. But neither cyborg or anyone else was able to clue you in there either. Info. that is good at getting into vectors that copy it...makes more copies of itself.
Easy.

And that ability is a probabilistic process, because not every piece of "good" information makes it into a vector and not every piece of "bad" information fails to make it into a vector.

 

[mijopaalmc]

articulett-

Why aren't Rouzine and his coworkers a "scientific source" that says that random components a random process make?

 

[articulett]

And that ability is a probabilistic process, because not every piece of "good" information makes it into a vector and not every piece of "bad" information fails to make it into a vector.

Irrelevant to the model. And normal people don't call that a random process if they desire clarity.

And Rouzine is very careful to distinguish between the stochastic part of evolution (mutation) and what is selected. He does not call selection random.

Cut and paste whatever the hell you think it is where you think he is. I cut and pasted that which clearly showed he distinguished between the two. You do not.

 

[articulett]

Here's Dawkins review of Behe's book, once again: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1...ns-reviews-Behes-lastest-book,Richard-Dawkins

I think it's pretty obvious; if your definition is on par with Behe's...and to me the randomites clearly are --and you think Dawkins is wrong or unclear...you've got a useless definition that misses the important information.

If you think otherwise, do as Dawkins suggests to Behe and the end of the review. Or find one respectable scientists that at least says exactly what you are saying and not something you have to twist so that it might be interpreted that way.

I think we can all trust that the best explanation will evolve. And I sure don't think it will evolve "randomly".

 

[articulett]

Behe writes: "By far the most critical aspect of Darwin's multifaceted theory is the role of random mutation. Almost all of what is novel and important in Darwinian thought is concentrated in this third concept."

To me, this is pretty close to what the randomites are saying. Behe is a known creationist. This is clearly an obfuscation.

Dawkins responds:
"What a bizarre thing to say! Leave aside the history: unacquainted with genetics, Darwin set no store by randomness. New variants might arise at random, or they might be acquired characteristics induced by food, for all Darwin knew. Far more important for Darwin was the nonrandom process whereby some survived but others perished. Natural selection is arguably the most momentous idea ever to occur to a human mind, because it — alone as far as we know — explains the elegant illusion of design that pervades the living kingdoms and explains, in passing, us. Whatever else it is, natural selection is not a "modest" idea, nor is descent with modification."

I have reiterated the latter and find it much more clear as do the vast majority of scientists as far as I can tell...the vast majority of all people who actually understand evolution.

And so I can only suggest that you do as Dawkins suggests to Behe:

"The best way to find out is for Behe to submit a mathematical paper to The Journal of Theoretical Biology, say, or The American Naturalist, whose editors would send it to qualified referees. They might liken Behe's error to the belief that you can't win a game of cards unless you have a perfect hand. But, not to second-guess the referees, my point is that Behe, as is normal at the grotesquely ill-named Discovery Institute (a tax-free charity, would you believe?), where he is a senior fellow, has bypassed the peer-review procedure altogether, gone over the heads of the scientists he once aspired to number among his peers, and appealed directly to a public that — as he and his publisher know — is not qualified to rumble him."

Because you aren't just insulting me...you are disregarding people who are the forefront in this field while sounding indistinguishable from one who is paid to obfuscate. And you've made it clear that no evidence will change your mind and you will only look at evidence that you can twist into the belief you already have. That's called "keeping the faith". Address Dawkins and not me. To me, you guys are just another Behe...and my argument is merely the one reiterated by Dawkins and many others... the randomness you see in natural selection is not really relevant to understanding what natural selection is. It confuses you and muddles your definitions.

 

[jimbob]

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0

3. Yes, I agree. But once it happens it's set in stone...every event becomes closer to inevitable (further from random) until it occurs.

4. Yes--see Kimura

5. Yes, I think it's far better than calling natural selection a random process or saying "it's related to a probability curve". I think you were hung up on "fitness" for a bit. I hope you understand why it's vague, at best to call natural selection random no matter what definition you are using. I also hope you see that there is no singular definition of random that the scientific commmunity agrees on. There are degrees of randomness, but because of the ambiguity of the word, it doesn't help anybody understand evolution to call natural selection "random"--in fact, it seems to help clarify when people say it is "the opposite of random" or it's biased or use the term "preferential selection".

It's not that there are not "random" elements involved in the selection process, but the definition presumes that most stuff will die--whether by meteor or never replicating--so what doesn't copy itself is not important to understanding natural selection--only what DOES get copied...that is the only definition of fitness that matters.

Natural selection can only act on DNA that gets into an organism (replicator)--and it can only have an effect to the extent on future generations such that the DNA codes for something that gives a survival/reproductive advantage in it's possessor. Beneficial mutations spread widely and are widely conserved--neutral ones spread too, because they don't confer a survival/reproductive disadvantage (red hair, for example)--and junk DNA accumulates all sorts of mutations that allow us to mark time and see how closely animals are related. Junk DNA accumulates mutations at a predictable rate--but not the highly conserved essential genes--mutations are too deleterious to potential organisms, so they are eliminated from the get go (e.g. having an extra chromosome #1 in humans--we never see it because such fetuses spontaneously abort before any pregnancy signals are noted.).

And click on his name and any of Mijos posts if you want to see example after example of him insulting scientists, atheists, Dawkins, careful explanations, etc. and apologizing for religion. He asks questions he does not want the answer too...read the last few pages of the fossil thread and come to your own conclusion as to whether any of the extensive and wonderful information given to him was absorbed. And if not--why not. In fact, the people having the biggest problem understanding how evolution can be described as "non-random" or why that's misleading are the very people defending creationist museums in this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85338&page=6

To me, the connection is obvious. Something about religion makes it very hard for people to understand the relatively simple concept of natural selection. Watch the Dawkins clip and see how easy it is to understand and why he is describing the natural selection part of evolution as "non-random". That was what mijo's OP question was supposed to be about, right? So why doesn't he still understand. In fact, why doesn't he ever even acknowledge links that answer his very question?

I never waatch youtube for more than 5 mins, because I can read and assimilate the information faster and better in a written form.


Do you have a text of the youtube, so I don't waste 9 minutes listening to coldplay in the background.

It's not that there are not "random" elements involved in the selection process, but the definition presumes that most stuff will die--whether by meteor or never replicating--so what doesn't copy itself is not important to understanding natural selection--only what DOES get copied...that is the only definition of fitness that matters.

The point ablut most stuff dying is that "good traits" are no guarantee of reproductive success. They only make the odds more favorable.

If half a cod's offspring had a mutation, which expressed itself as a trait that doubled the chances of survival, then the most likely number of surviving offspring with that trait would be two. Four, or none reproducing would also be fairly likely.

(Mean number of survivals is 2 per brood for a stable population, but only half the brood have the mutation, so mean number to survive with that trait should be 0.5*2*2=2, as the odds of survival have doubled).


Assuming this is a poisson distribution (pun intended), with lamda=2 then there is a 13% chance that none will reproduce and a 9% chance that 4 or more will reproduce.

source for my calculations​

Random components do not a random process make until or unless there is a scientific source that distinctly says otherwise.

So the emergence of Darwin's Finches was not due to a random weather event that blew the founding population to the Galapogos?

Have you come across the term "emergence", it mght help you to understand what I, and Schneibester are saying?

Darwin's finches are a good example, because the optimal beak shape depends on the conditions, so during a drought, for example, large beaks have an advantage, and shorter beaked birds suffer more.

This is the sort of feature that can be modelled with probabilistic analyses, so one can make predictions about the distribution of beak length after a drought. You can also state how accurate your prediction is likely to be.

 

[articulett]

So the emergence of Darwin's Finches was not due to a random weather event that blew the founding population to the Galapogos?

Have you come across the term "emergence", it mght help you to understand what I, and Schneibester are saying?

Darwin's finches are a good example, because the optimal beak shape depends on the conditions, so during a drought, for example, large beaks have an advantage, and shorter beaked birds suffer more.

This is the sort of feature that can be modelled with probabilistic analyses, so one can make predictions about the distribution of beak length after a drought. You can also state how accurate your prediction is likely to be.

It's 42 minutes into the video...but you really can't assimilate as fast as you imagine. I already went through the finches thing. I understand what you are saying, but you are missing the point...why Dawkins, Ayala, Berkeley, cyborg, Sphendisc, Talk Origins etc. is calling natural selection "not random". Dawkins does it again in the quote above.

The beak types that survived best in given areas just wasn't random. They gave a survival/reproductive advantage to the organisms that had them in the particular environment they found themselves in. Calling this random is just the silliest most uninformative useless thing I've ever heard. See the Dawkins review and show us some of your fast assimilation that only you seem to think you have. It may well be based on probabilities but that just isn't really a very clear discriptor You are so focused on the random aspects that you miss the big picture completely--you just sound like you don't really get natural selection.

Are you saying, Behe is correct and Dawkins is wrong? Or Behe is clear and Dawkins is not? Because if so, I rest my case. See if any peer review gives your claim credence. I can't distinguish your vagaries from Behe. And Dawkins is more than clear BY FAR to the majority as far as I can tell. You have a useless, confusing, definition that misses the "force" behind the illusion of design.

And, yes, there is no guarantee of success...that doesn't make it "random"...just as there is no guarantee that a great hand will win you big bucks in poker-- that still doesn't make the outcome "random".
Randomness disappears from the equation once the game is in play. To call everything random because some randomness is involved makes for a very useless definition. Calling everything probablistic or stochastic for the same reason is also useless. That's why nobody actually does it in biology when referring to natural selection (it's truly missing the forest for the trees), even though you twist and turn and imagine they do. Saying it over and over and over doesn't make your definition any clearer or more useful. Getting a recent peer reviewed scientist to use language in the nebulous way you are could help...but twisting words to pretend they are saying what you are saying just makes you look dishonest or daft.

 

[jimbob]

How many papers (or titles) do you want

How about these for a start?

Probabilistic natural selection seems to be accepted by many.

The extended Phenotype

"A selection pressure as weak as 1 in 1000 would take only a few thousand generations to push an initially rare mutation to fixation".

That is an implicitly probabilistic treatment. Dawkins knows that, and his audience know that.

A selection pressure in terms of increased probabilities of survival.

"If the selection pressure we are discussing is very strong, that is if one replicator makes its posessors very much more likely to survive than its alleles do "

That is explicit.

 

[Schneibster]

Schneibster,
You may put me back on ignore.

No, I'm determined. You're going to admit this one. You've blown it big-time, and you have the stones to handle it, as you've pointed out.

That is not what evolutionists are saying. Yes, order can and does emerge from chaos...but you are leaving out the whole notion of a replicating system...

Which has precisely what to do with whether it's random or not?

it's just plain ridiculous, as most everybody has said, to call natural selection random.

Why? You keep saying that, and pretending that the quotes other people have produced don't exist, but all you produce is someone else responding to the cretinists. When anyone produces a quote that says something deep about evolution, it's not "evolution is not random." You have yourself gotten so far away from believing that that you're now claiming you never did. It's a stupid thing to say, which is why you did that.

You can...you can explain how order emerges from chaos all the time...

You're right, I can. All day long. It's how nature works.

but you are still missing the important part...how is it that organisms seem to fit in their environment so well...that the planet seems made for humans and the interactions of all the species in it.

It's because random mutation produces various things until it produces what's necessary to colonize a particular environment, and then the environment is colonized because that environment gives that adaptation a selective advantage. Once it is colonized, each new adaptation is tested against that environment, and if it is selected it becomes ubiquitous. That's because that adaptation gives those that possess it a higher probability of surviving to procreate. After enough time goes by, enough such adaptations make a creature fit its environment in many ways; that's because each way it fits is a selection advantage, skewing the odds in the favor of the creature that possesses it. Now, what part did I miss again?

THAT is due to natural selection.

No, it's not. Natural selection cannot produce novel characteristics, it can only select among those characteristics that randomly appear due to mutation and recombination. And if that environment changes, then those supremely well adapted creatures may all die off, because their adaptations are no advantage, and are often a disadvantage, in the new circumstances; but more likely, new adaptations will appear, and the creatures that have them will survive again, and those that don't will die off again, repeating the entire process. The fitness landscape has changed, in a manner totally disconnected from the source of the novel characteristics, and totally disconnected from the method by which selection occurs. In other words, randomly. If the change is not too abrupt, or not too great, then some individuals will survive- and the adaptations will begin again, and another species will eventually emerge, supremely adapted to the new conditions.

As the Dawkins review of Behe's book says, to miss that, is to miss the WHY of the process...the speed at which miraculous looking designs can emerge...the honey bee's waggle dance, fish that clean other fishes teeth, the bacteria that live in our gut and help us digest food... you miss the whole algorithm of information building vectors to make as many copies of itself as possible.

So now I'm missing, errrmmm, what precisely? How replicators work? The entire reason replicators work the way they do is because the replication is imperfect, and because the environment selects among the imperfections for the ones that make the organisms that possess them more likely to reproduce. And the reason selection does that is because of the law of large numbers.

Buttons do not reproduce.

Sophistry. Word games. Meaningless mouth noises. Precisely the same sort of behavior that has made me angry in the first place. Knock it off.

Nor do proteins...not until they make the first replicator.

The law of large numbers makes the production of a replicator certain if enough interactions take place. Kaufman has shown that.

And I am embarrassed for YOU.

I have no idea why; I'm not the one lying about whether I said "evolution is not random" or not when it's right there in black and white. I'm not the one using sophistry to counter involved technical arguments. I'm not the one ignoring the context of quotes, and in fact failing to reproduce the whole quote because immediately before or after it says what I want it to, it says just what my opponent is saying, and then having my opponent reproduce the entire quote and show just what I've done.

Because you cannot see or hear what anyone is telling you...it is misleading and uninformative to describe evolution the way you are describing it.

I find it highly informative, and I see it supported by your own sources. I find that it fits in very nicely with how everything else in nature works.

I think it's because you really don't understand natural selection.

Watch those goalposts shift. A few paragraphs ago, you were implying it was because I didn't understand replicators, unfortunately for you using a methodology that proves precisely what I've been saying all along: you don't understand what "random" means. Make up your mind.

Sure, Dawkins, et. al. use the term "non random" because of creationist obfuscation...

PRECISELY MY POINT THE ENTIRE TIME.

but they will never call evolution random...especially not natural selection because it misses the lynchpin of truly understanding the process.

So, what, they just use every metaphor, simile, euphemism, and synonym of "random" instead, because the cretinists used "random" against them? Bad idea. Ceding ground to the cretinists. They'll be after physics next, claiming that physics is "wrnog" because "teh phizysis buhleive evry thnig is teh RANDOM!!11!eleventyone!1" Dismiss them as idiots and be done with it. Don't go around hammering on people who actually know what they're talking about because they're not "evolutionarily correct." (And yes, that is a pun on "politically correct." I see exactly the same dynamic working here.)

It leads readily to the notion that this all happened "randomly"--

It did. See the quote I provided above, from your source, in the paragraph previous to the one you quoted. What precisely do you think "haphazard" means? Because that's the word your source used. To describe evolution. Tell me again that "evolution is not random" or that "all the biologists say evolution is not random" or that "biologists don't describe evolution as random." How does "haphazard" fit in with that?

You might well think that... and I suppose it's true depending on how you define random...

At the risk of repeating myself,

GEE, YA THINK?

but to everybody else it really is like saying that Poker winners are chosen at random. Just because randomness plays a role, doesn't mean that it's the "reason" for the order...

Straw man alert. I never said it was.

once the results are biased, they are not random...

And once again.

GEE, YA THINK?

in fact, most biologists go out of their way to point out that mutations aren't completely random nor are matings.

Yeah, they use "haphazard" instead.

Mutations happen whether they are good, bad, or neutral for the vector carrying them. But what survives a mutation to reproduce is another thing all together. Once the cards are dealt, the random part of the game is over.

No, it's not, any more than in a poker game. Someone twitches. Is it a tell? Are they trying to make you think it's a tell? Is it just an itch?

Does this particular mutation just happen to produce a novel characteristic that's just the right one to deal with some new challenge in the environment, enabling the organism to climb higher on a local fitness peak and outcompete its former conspecifics? Happens all the time. Looks like the ability to produce likely mutations is selected for, to precisely the degree necessary to deal with the average fitness landscape.

You did understand that, didn't you? What I'm asserting here is that the precise degree of mutability in the genome is selected for, by, not the fitness features of a particular landscapes, but by the general character of the landscapes that exist on Earth. Such landscapes are medium rough, on average, providing many local fitness peaks; DNA, under the conditions we live in, is just mutable enough to provide suitable adaptations to climb those peaks. It's selected for, and has outcompeted all the alternatives.

I have not lied,

"I never said evolution is random"

engaged in solipism,

"Buttons do not reproduce"

and points I've ignored are due to irrelevence.

Despite the fact that I've produced one from your own source that says precisely what I've been saying all along, from the paragraph immediately prior to the one you quoted, and you never responded to it.

Oh, and "I've never lied" and "[I've never] engaged in solipsism" join "I never said evolution is not random."

I have said nothing more than what Dawkins and Ayala said and the Berkeley site and Talk origins ...all in an attempt to answer a question that mijo didn't want answered. You claim there is a singular definition for random, but don't provide it.

I have, many times, and you have ignored it every time.

You claim your links and mine say what you are saying, though no-one else thinks so.

What, no one thinks "haphazard" means the same thing as "random" in the precise sense cretinists are using it? Pull the other one.

And you ought to be embarrassed, I think.

I have not lied, committed solipsisms, and misrepresented my peers, not to mention quote-mined, in support of the insupportable. You have.

Because there is not a single scientist that I can find that says there is a "singlular" meaning for random as you allege nor are any of them calling natural selection random.

I produced a quote from YOUR SOURCE that called it "haphazard."

The only one's calling evolution random is Behe and Mijo (creationists) and Jim-Bob is calling it probablistic...another vague term. It's like you guys need evolution to be random, so all you see is "random".

No, it's like there is a significant portion of evolution that is tuned to require randomness. The selection, the mutation, the fitness landscapes, these are all random. It is the result that is orderly, or at least appears that way until you start really digging and find out that a bunch of the DNA actually isn't being used to create the phenotype- it's there to provide a breeding ground for the necessary adaptations, so that when the fitness landscape changes, there will be adaptations that can climb the local fitness peaks. And until you start looking around and find vestigial limbs on snakes and whales, and vestigial tails and hair that all points downward when crouched in the best way to keep warm but be ready to react to danger or opportunity on people who have been wearing clothing for fifty or a hundred thousand years.

Face the facts, there is no amount of evidence that will allow you to say, natural selection is not random...or even that it's misleading or uninformative to sum up natural selection as a random process, right?

There is also no amount of evidence that will allow me to say gravity pulls things upward from the surface of the Earth, given the amount that says it does not. What precisely do you have in mind as "evidence?" Quote mining, where you ignore what someone said in the immediately previous paragraph? I haven't seen anything else here.

And you've provided no information that actually say otherwise although you interpret some things that way.

I have no evidence that meets your standards, which would be that it agrees with your position. I've presented plenty of pretty conclusive evidence that you've ignored and not responded to, however, starting with quoting your own source directly contradicting what you've said here, and also directly contradicting what you claim that source is saying, in the paragraph immediately before the one you quoted.

I have no vested interest in using "non-random".

Then why did you repeat it so many times, and why did you deny you had when anyone could see you were lying?

I'm just saying that you, mijo, and jim-bob all seem to be on different pages and no one seems to find your way of describing evolution anymore insightful than Behe's.

That you are incapable of seeing either the ways in which what we are saying is the same thing, or the ways in which it fundamentally differs from what Behe is saying, is proof of nothing. By ignoring inconvenient facts, and lying, and using solipsism, and quote-mining, you have shown yourself to be far more like Behe than any of us is.

You insult me over semantics?

I have accused you of behavior, and shown that you engaged in that behavior. It's not an insult, it's the truth. If you find the truth insulting, perhaps you should examine your behavior, which has consisted of lying, solipsism, ignoring inconvenient facts, and quote-mining. I have proven each of these charges multiple times. It's all there in black and white. There's nowhere to hide.

I provide a peer reviewed paper that refers to natural selection as "not random"

and which refers to it as "haphazard" in the immediately prior paragraph...

along with definitions for random that are not the same as you are using...

from people talking not to their peers, but for public consumption... and then claim that these are "official" definitions and ignore the equally compelling quotes from scientists talking to their peers that prove you are wrong...

I provide several links where multiple scientists, including Dawkins, saying natural selection is not random.

And totally ignored that the audience they were writing for was the public.

I have provided multiple definitions of random from scientific sources.

As have I. The difference between you and me is that I have read and replied to yours, and you have not read or replied to mine.

You, reject everything that doesn't allow you to boil evolution down to "random" while providing nothing.

Or at least nothing you could reply to.

You quote Kaufman...but does he say natural selection is a random process? If so, provide the link. Has any peer reviewed source gone on record to say Dawkins or Ayala or Berkeley, etc. are wrong in calling natural selection as non random? Where is this magical definition that only you seem to know about?

In the links I have provided. It's also pretty obvious to anyone who does any serious looking around at how things work.

Cyborg was correct...he explained it simply.

...because he agreed with you.

Even if someone somewhere understands what the heck you mean when you call natural selection random, it's just too ambiguous for anyone with any credibility to use it. We have more precise ways of explaining things,

You mean like, "haphazard?"

and the way you explain things just makes it sound like you don't really understand natural selection.

I'd say I understand it a hell of a lot better than you do, considering you don't respond to my descriptions, or apparently even read them.

You make claims, insult me, and you don't back up your claims.

I have backed up every one of them, including showing you lied when you said you had never said that "evolution is not random." Including producing the immediately preceding paragraph to one you quote-mined that called evolution "haphazard." That you did not respond to that evidence is obvious. It's all there in black and white. I've taken your posts apart, line by line, lie by lie, solipsism by solipsism, mined quote by mined quote, over and over again. What claim do you lay to credibility?

You may not be a creationist, but I don't think any biologist would think that you are describing evolution in a way that makes sense.

..despite the fact that I don't have to ignore what my sources say in the paragraph immediately preceding the one I quoted, and despite the fact that I didn't lie, or engage in solipsisms, or ignore statistics. Whatever.

Cyborg is so much more simple and clear.

Interesting, "simple and clear" is now more important than "correct," apparently. Cyborg could not support his arguments without resorting to solipsism, and when challenged on it, declined to answer the charge. Feel free to come on back and defend yourself, Cyborg, but unlike articulett, you don't have enough cred with me that I'll reconsider putting you on ignore once done. So if you can defend your position without quote-mining, lying, solipsism, or using analogies that ignore significant features of the real world, then bring it; but if you use this kind of technique articulett is using, where you ignore what you don't want to hear, and all the things that go along with that, expect to be muted. I tolerate this behavior from articulett only because she has earned enough cred that I feel it's important to try to get her to improve her behavior. You don't have that kind of cred with me.

But you have some weird emotional investment in calling evoution random.

No, I have an extreme aversion to seeing an otherwise responsible person engage in lying, solipsism, and quote-mining to support their position. As far as the emergence of order from chaos, I see it all around me. Denying it is like denying gravity or something.

Instead of insulting me--write to PNAS or write to the magazine Dawkins recommends Behe write to. I don't give a crap about what words you use. And I stand by everything I've said...and I feel vindicated that almost everything I have said is on par with Dawkins and Ayala...people, like myself, who have actually been successful in conveying the facts about evolution to other people.

And I feel you have tarnished your reputation by engaging in lying, solipsism, quote-mining, and ignoring statistics. I don't see Dawkins or Ayala engaging in those behaviors.

When your description of evolution sounds very much like a known creationist obfuscater then it's you who ought to rethink your definition.

Translation: I'm not "evolutionarily correct." I don't care much what cretinists say- that would be why I call them cretinists. They have seized upon one particular statement of fact, and quote-mined it to support a position that is in denial of so many facts that they can barely keep their heads above water, and you have followed them. You're letting them define the meanings of words, and them define the playing field. And you're ignoring the fact that by doing so, you are providing them the opportunity to attack all of science. You need to be explaining how it really works, so you can show where they're wrong; instead, you are endlessly, mindlessly repeating, "evolution is not random," like it will make them go away. Nothing's going to make them go away. You can, however, discredit them, at least in the eyes of anyone who knows much about science. But you're eschewing the opportunity to do so, and worse yet, you're using the same techniques they use, against people on your own side.

The cretinists have won, at least in your case. If mijo really was a cretinist, attempting to sow discord among teh forces of evilution, YOU HAVE MADE THAT EFFORT SUCCESSFUL.

When you play semantic games so you can twist things in a way that allows you to boil every sentence down to "evolution is random" then you have a really lame definition and a strong bias that you ought to look at.

I'm not the one lying about what I said and getting caught at it, using solipsisms and getting caught at it, quote-mining and getting caught at it, ignoring contrary evidence, and demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of basic statistics. I really think you ought to be looking at that.

Read Mijo and Jim Bob and Behe. What's the difference?

They aren't ignoring reality. They aren't ignoring evidence. They're looking at the evidence, and asking, "What does this mean? What's happening here?" What's the difference between you and Behe? Behe says, "evilution is random," and you say, "evolution is not random," and you both quote-mine, lie, ignore contrary evidence, and solipsize. I see little difference.

Are they clear and informative?

I believe so.

Do you think they are clearer and more informative than Dawkins and Ayala?

To whom? To the general public, who knows nothing of the law of large numbers, and nothing of statistics, and nothing of thermodynamics, and nothing of genetics, and nothing of replicators, and nothing of molecular biology? Probably not; I'd even say almost certainly not. You'd have to explain too much to them to make it comprehensible. But to people who do know statistics? Who do understand the law of large numbers, and thermodynamics, and genetics, and molecular biology? Sure. And I'd say Dawkins and Ayala would think so too.

Dawkins popularized the replicator idea in biology; for that, he deserves a medal the size of a soup plate. Note, however, that replicators only work as we see around us if they are imperfect replicators, thus producing novel characteristics at random. Note also that selection, which acts upon fitness, only makes sense at the population level- individuals may be removed from the gene pool by random occurrences, but on a suitable landscape, that number will be small enough that the law of large numbers makes a deterministic result- the survival of genes that code for appropriate adaptations, and the non-survival of ones that don't. Even in the face of random chance. The entire idea of a replicator is that it creates a large population in the presence of favorable conditions- that is, conditions favorable to the adaptations it can produce.

I can't imagine anyone else anywhere thinks so. And you are on par with them.

Your lack of imagination is not proof of non-existence.

Insult me all you want,

I'll stop pointing out that you're lying, quote-mining, using solipsism, and ignoring basic mathematics, if you'll stop lying, quote-mining, using solipsism, and ignoring basic mathematics. Until you do, I'll keep pointing it out. How's that grab you?

but face the facts...the majority on this thread and on this forum feel it's more explanatory to call natural selection "non-random" or "determined" than to call it random or stochastic.

I see no one who has provided an argument not based upon lies, misrepresentations, mined quotes, solipsisms, false analogies, or other dishonest tactics. I see no one who has directly challenged my views other than yourself and one other, who has as much as admitted he could not make an argument that was not contaminated by such.

That is also true of the scientific community in general, Dawkins, Talk Origins, and the Berkeley site.

That may be true when the general public is expected to be reading it- but I have already shown that in fact, that's not what they say at all. What they say is, here's all this randomness, and here's all this order, and here's how the order emerges from the randomness. Which is precisely what I have been saying the entire time.

And it is you who has been hoisted by your own petard.

It's not me who quote-mined and had it shown that the paragraph immediately prior to the one I quoted said exactly the opposite of what I said it meant.

I think both of us were better off when you had me on ignore.

I think you might have been free to engage in lying, solipsism, quote-mining, and ignoring evidence that was not convenient to your position- and I think that's probably not a good thing, for you, or for anyone who reads it. Using these tactics in an argument makes you, who are saying you represent biologists, look just like the cretinists. Now people really do have a reason to question whether biology and cretinism are on equal footing. They are not. Biology and physics both show that order emerges smoothly and naturally from chaos. By denying the chaos, you deny reality- and everyone can see it.

Tell me how a single lightning strike that kills a couple of individuals among a herd contributes to the fitness of the herd. It doesn't. But if the herd lives where lightning strikes are common, then any behavior that avoids the lightning will be a survival trait- and despite the fact that each lightning strike is random, the herd will adapt to have behaviors and characteristics that make lightning striking them less likely. Random mutation, random selection, orderly adaptation. It's all right there to see if you have the eyes to do so.

Why don't you discuss your deep insights with Jim Bob and Mijo, because I don't think you even understand each other. I want to know if there is anyone with any credibility saying "natural selection is random" or "a random process"?

No, you don't. What you want to hear is "evolution is not random." You ignore everything to the contrary, quote-mine and get caught at it, lie and get caught at it, and ignore basic mathematics with solipsisms like, "buttons do not reproduce." If I produce many such sources, you'll just ignore them some more.

Until that time, I'll stick with Ayala, Dawkins, Eugenie Scott, Delphi_ote, Dr. A. cyborg, joobz, Paul A., Berkeley, and every single biologist and geneticist I know of rather than walk down the obfuscating road where only creationists, you, and Jim Bob seem to be hanging out.

And quote-mine, ignore evidence, and lie. I suspect if I challenge you on it enough, and the proof is there, eventually you'll be forced to respond properly. I intend to test this suspicion. Extensively.

Sure, by your definition evolution is random. Good luck trying to get anyone to care about your definitions.

Good luck getting you to stop lying, quote-mining, and pay attention to the evidence? I suspect it will take a while, but I have a while.

I think the Dawkins review of Behe was very clear as to why and exactly what you are missing.

I think the Dawkins review of Behe was very clear as to exactly what Behe is missing.

The definition of evolution will evolve in whichever way describes it the best and in the most useful manner for the audience intended. You aren't anywhere close.

You mean, I'm not anywhere close for an audience that doesn't understand math, biology, or thermodynamics? You're probably right. I never said I was, and that makes this a straw man argument: you're claiming I did say that.

Getting mad about it doesn't fix it.

And another straw man: I'm not mad because of that. I'm mad because you've misrepresented what I've said (and here's another example of it), lied, quote-mined, and used solipsism, over and over again, because of your political opinions. I'm not interested in political opinions in science. Science stands or falls based not upon opinions, but upon facts. It works because of that. You might have heard of that; it's called the "scientific method." It doesn't work if you use solipsism, lie, quote-mine, and ignore evidence contrary to your assertions.

Make a case and take it to peer review.

Oh, I am. So far I'd say I'm doing very well.

I can't help you.

Until you stop lying, using solipsisms, quote-mining, and ignoring reality, you're right, you can't- except to provide a foil.

I think your explanation sucks.

I'm sure THAT has a place in an argument about scientific fact. Unfortunately, I'm just a bit unclear on what place that might be. Care to clarify that for us?

You complain about me turning a deaf ear to all you said,

and prove those complaints are justified

but I think you've turned a deaf ear to everyone including highly reputable scientists unless you can twist their words into the understanding that "evolution is random".

And here's the essential straw man: what I said is, evolution is order emerging from randomness. You have focused upon the randomness and ignored the order. More importantly, you have ignored the source of the order. You have lied, used solipsism, misrepresented my arguments, quote-mined, and ignored inconvenient facts.

I say that no one who is using such arguments can be trusted; their assertions are meaningless, because they are unsupported; lies, solipsisms, mined quotes, misrepresentations, and ignoring evidence to the contrary that you have no response for is not support for a position. It's the proof that the position is unsupportable; if it were supportable, you would not need to descend to these tactics. I have proven this extensively on others, and I am proving it on you. Every time you make a post like this, I take it apart, line by line. I prove conclusively that you have lied, that you have used solipsisms, that you have ignored evidence contrary to your position without responding to it, and that you have mined quotes and ignored contrary quotes from immediately preceding paragraphs. And I will continue to do so until you stop doing these things.

And since you never ever provide a defintion or a peer reviewed paper where they actually say that natural selection is random

You mean, other than the one where they said it is "haphazard?"

while providing links that sure aren't saying what you are saying

Not a single piece of evidence is present to show this; I presented positive proof and you quote-mined it. You also misrepresented it, and I proved that too. You have also lied, and I proved THAT. So basically, what this is is another unsupportable assertion.

while insulting me

If provable objective reality insults you, then perhaps you should investigate whether what you have done was entirely wise. It appears not to me. Of course, I disapprove of lying, solipsism, quote-mining, and ignoring contrary evidence. But maybe that's just me.

(and I'm only reiterating what actual scientists are saying because I thought that Mijo was actually interested to the answer in his OP)...

Another lie. You began your posts in this thread with the expressed intention of attacking mijo's position. Your own posts show that you have lied, again. Do I really need to produce more examples? Does the fact that I did it once convince you that I would not say it if I could not prove it? Perhaps not- you don't seem to see any necessity to prove what YOU say. You don't produce any evidence that supports it, except for mined quotes, lies, and solipsisms. You ignore evidence that contradicts it. Therefore, I will present it.

I still contend that he's a creationist though he denies it. I predict that this thread will be like his fossil thread where people bend over backwards to explain and illustrate a somewhat simple concept with multiple links and examples which he'll ignore and dismiss and then tell everyone that they didn't answer his question, and so evolution is really random and he'llo just ask his biologist friend to explain it better.

This is your first post on this thread. Your agenda is clear. Your statements uncompromising. There is no question or doubt. And you have lied again.

I think I'll do us both a favor and put you on ignore. I know you aren't a creationist, but you aren't making any sense to me...and I've seen you get into this little stubborn semantic stand off with others on this forum.

I'm not going to put you on ignore again, and I'm going to continue to point it out every time you mine a quote, lie, use solipsism, ignore an inconvenient fact, and every other dishonest debate tactic you have used on this thread. If you have no response, then go ahead- but no one else is going to miss it.

It's not semantics. It's facts. And it's proper behavior in a debate. You don't lie, you don't mine quotes, you don't use solipsisms, and you don't ignore facts contrary to your position in an honest debate. If you descend to these tactics, and you have, then obviously your position is unsupportable. If you choose to respond to facts, stop lying, stop mining quotes, and stop using solipsisms, then I will stop pointing out that you are doing so. We can then have an honest, rational debate about the subject. As long as you persist in these behaviors, I will continue to point it out. I don't think that you will choose to do that; but if you do, you will know I am here, doing that. And everyone else will know that you have no response.

It's just silly, Schneibster.

Yes, I think you're being very silly too.

The facts are the same. Why you want to continue to describe things in a particular way though multiple attempts have been made to show you that it is unclear is beyond me.

Hmmm, well it might just be because those attempts have failed to live up to standards of proof that anyone conducting an honest debate would use.

But be my guest. You may not understand the answer to the OP. But I do. I thought I could shed some light on the subject. But some people already had the answer they wanted and nothing else will do.

You are entitled to your own opinion; you are not entitled to your own facts.

I think the insults you use on me apply more to you than to me.

Considering I've provided ample evidence, from your own hand, that they were true, and you have not answered, I am content that others will judge differently.

But ignore me. I want to see you and mijo and jim-bob engage in deep discussions about how to best define evolution and how the order comes from the randomness. Maybe you can take Dawkins up on the advice he gave Behe and submit it to the culling process of peer review where it might get culled or selected (randomly, of course.).

As I said, I am. Let's see if anyone can come up with an argument that holds water, and isn't based on lies, solipsisms, ignoring obvious facts, misrepresenting what I say, or quote-mining. Are you up for that?

 

[articulett]

How many papers (or titles) do you want

How about these for a start?

Probabilistic natural selection seems to be accepted by many.

The extended Phenotype

"A selection pressure as weak as 1 in 1000 would take only a few thousand generations to push an initially rare mutation to fixation".

That is an implicitly probabilistic treatment. Dawkins knows that, and his audience know that.

A selection pressure in terms of increased probabilities of survival.

"If the selection pressure we are discussing is very strong, that is if one replicator makes its posessors very much more likely to survive than its alleles do "

That is explicit.

Yes, but it's not the same as saying "natural selection IS probobalistic" Saying so is just not a very clear way of saying anything...which is why nobody IS saying it...it's why you guys need to twist actual words into supposed paraphrases of your contentions. Nobody is calling this "probabilistic selection" except you.

We expect "randomness" in any natural environment...that is what is meant regarding weak and strong selective forces (weak or strong culling). You'd be much clearer if you said what Dawkins IS saying rather than your interpretation of it.

 

[jimbob]

I am calling selection within a "stable enough" environment probabilistic, with all that entails.

Probabilistic does not mean that the selection can be described by any arbitary probability distribution, but a particular one in each case. I would guess the poisson distribution is appropriate in most cases; this can be characterised and used as a base for exploring the likely outcomes, and assigning probabilities to them.

Why is that vague?
​

When the environment changes drastically, the random effects are significant enough to open up whole new ecosystems, and these will initially be randomly determined.

Dawkins uses a probabilstic treatment when needed. I have not seen Behe actually give a probabilistic treatment with a realistic numbers. From what I have seen of his arguments, I don't want to see any more from him anyway

Neotony is a good example of a fairly significant alteration that could easily be accomplished by a small mutation, or number of mutations.

The odds are far less adverse than Behe would argue.

And I particularly liked the Guardian interview with Behe, in the "Ideas" section where he was interviewed by a scientific ignoramus. (which I posted before).

I was especially happy with his assertion that the bacterial flagellum was irriducibly complex.

Truly it is like the previous poster boy for that argument, the eye. Hope you enjoy that, even if you already know the research, I think that is quite well written.

As I said, the trouble with irriducible complexity, is that often the system under discussuion is highly reducible.

 

[articulett]

I am calling selection within a "stable enough" environment probabilistic, with all that entails.

Probabilistic does not mean that the selection can be described by any arbitary probability distribution, but a particular one in each case. I would guess the poisson distribution is appropriate in most cases; this can be characterised and used as a base for exploring the likely outcomes, and assigning probabilities to them.

Why is that vague?
​

When the environment changes drastically, the random effects are significant enough to open up whole new ecosystems, and these will initially be randomly determined.

Dawkins uses a probabilstic treatment when needed. I have not seen Behe actually give a probabilistic treatment with a realistic numbers. From what I have seen of his arguments, I don't want to see any more from him anyway

Neotony is a good example of a fairly significant alteration that could easily be accomplished by a small mutation, or number of mutations.

The odds are far less adverse than Behe would argue.

And I particularly liked the Guardian interview with Behe, in the "Ideas" section where he was interviewed by a scientific ignoramus. (which I posted before).

I was especially happy with his assertion that the bacterial flagellum was irriducibly complex.

Truly it is like the previous poster boy for that argument, the eye. Hope you enjoy that, even if you already know the research, I think that is quite well written.

As I said, the trouble with irriducible complexity, is that often the system under discussuion is highly reducible.

I don't think it is vague when you give actual probability distributions. I just think it's vague to say "natural selection is probabalistic", because what isn't? Did you read the quotes I cut and pasted above of Dawkins review of Behe's book? (post #1630). Do you think he is being more or less informative than you when he says that natural selection is nonrandom? Do you understand why he is saying that? What do you think he should have said differently--that would have been more clear...since clearly you think that it's wrong to call natural selection "non-random". How would you have addressed Behe's error differently than Dawkins? And for whom would this be a clearer explanation? If someone (say Behe) asks you what the non-random aspects of evolution are, what do you tell them? Or do you claim "there are none"? When someone wants to know if scientists think that this all arose just by random chance, how do you inform them that biologists understand it to be much more than that? You do realize that we understand it to be much more than chance, right? Do you understand the difference between the evolution of the information and the the observable evolution of the organisms that are built via the evolving information?

 

[jimbob]

Yes, but it's not the same as saying "natural selection IS probobalistic" Saying so is just not a very clear way of saying anything...which is why nobody IS saying it...it's why you guys need to twist actual words into supposed paraphrases of your contentions. Nobody is calling this "probabilistic selection" except you.

We expect "randomness" in any natural environment...that is what is meant regarding weak and strong selective forces (weak or strong culling). You'd be much clearer if you said what Dawkins IS saying rather than your interpretation of it.

Why isn't it saying that selection is probabilistic?

It is a probabilistic process, to understand it, yu ndded to understand that it is a probabilistic process, with all that implies.

You can then say how stong the pressure towards larger duck genetalia actually is.

If you talk about a selection pressure in terms of a ratios of reproductive success, as Dawkins does, then you are talking in terms of aprobabilistic process.



Those quotes were direct quotes from The Extended Phenotype

 

[articulett]

Do you agree with Behe in post #1630 where he says that the most important part of evolution is random mutation?

Or do you agree with Dawkins that the most important part of evolution is the non-random aspect that builds the complexity we see--natural selection?

I say the latter. The randomites seem to be saying the former. Who explains evolution the best? Who is the clearest? Who is offering something better and more useful and clearer? To me, just as is true for most people who have posted on this thread, the answer is obvious. It's a semantics argument, of course, because the facts are the same no matter what language you use. But, if clarity is your goal...

 

[articulett]

Why isn't it saying that selection is probabilistic?

It is a probabilistic process, to understand it, yu ndded to understand that it is a probabilistic process, with all that implies.

You can then say how stong the pressure towards larger duck genetalia actually is.

If you talk about a selection pressure in terms of a ratios of reproductive success, as Dawkins does, then you are talking in terms of aprobabilistic process.



Those quotes were direct quotes from The Extended Phenotype

So why do you think he says "non random" as opposed to probabilistic? Why do you think nobody is actually saying "natural selection IS (random, probabilistic, a stochastic process) even though the randomites keep rephrasing sentences to assert that they are saying just that? I think it's because the way things are being said by Dawkins, Ayala, et. al. are more clear--less vague--less prone to conclusions on par with Behe's which I find simplistic, misleading, and uninformative--it misses the main point...and purposely so, I imagine. Do you agree that Behe's aim is to obfuscate rather than clarify? Do you agree that Dawkins aim is to clarify rather than to obfuscate? Very few people seem to think that probabilistic is a synonym for random. I really don't see any evidence of scientists of any sorts using the two interchangably, and I can't imagine how such vagary can be useful. Saying there is no guarantee of something is a loooooong way from saying that the outcome is "random". And, even if there is a 100% guarantee of some outcome....100% is still a probability...hence the outcome is still "probabilistic"-- this is why the term is too imprecise to use unless someone is actually giving probabilities.