What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[articulett]

They make me want to puke. This is why so many of you are high minded and lost in your own pride and arrogance.

Your constant condescension that creationists and IDers implying they are not able to think beyond what they have been taught is insulting and why you lack credence yourself. All can think. All men can learn. No one has a monopoly on knowledge. Your bigotry exposes your closed mind and speaks volumes about what you believe and why you believe it.

There is really not much more one can say.

Wow Irony. We're not the one claiming the universe was designed to bring forth us and that we know some divine truth about what said invisible creator of the universe wants. It is true, no-one has a monopoly on knowledge...facts are the same for everyone. Got any?

 

[articulett]

I've seen you claim yourself to be a layman. For some reason, you seem to think you are receiving erudition from non-laymen? Not so. One is a high school teacher. If they claim to be experts, they lie -- no one is an expert on "origins" so don't expect that you are too far behind anyone else on this forum on this subject.

I also teach at the college level and have a Masters in Genetics and am a board certified genetic counselor. Moreover, I'm not saying anything that isn't said by every biologist in the field including in recent peer reviewed papers:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/suppl_1/8567

The arguments of intelligent design proponents that state the incredible improbability of chance events, such as mutation, to account for the adaptations of organisms are irrelevant because evolution is not governed by random mutations. Rather, there is a natural process (namely, natural selection) that is not random but oriented and able to generate order or "create." The traits that organisms acquire in their evolutionary histories are not fortuitous but rather determined by their functional utility to the organisms, designed, as it were, to serve their life needs.

You are just upset because I outed you as a proponent of intelligent design long ago. But, you are the smartest among them, Von. Any evidence for your own hypothesis yet?

As I recall this was the whole question in the OP.

If some people want to sum up evolution so that it's undifferentiated from rttjc's 747 strawman--so be it. Good luck finding any use of such definitions.
And what exactly are your credentials and why is a young guy like Cyborg able to talk you under the table and reveal your blustery nothingness for what it is?

 

[Schneibster]

The Time Cube redux. About what I expected. Not even any good quote material. A complete waste of food, water, and oxygen.

 

[steenkh]

Rush Limbaugh and Al Gore may become Nobel laureates. Yassir Arafat and Kofi "oil for food" Annan were Nobel Laureates. Whats your point? Give it a rest you man worshiper.

That is the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a different kettle of fish from the science prizes. Anybody can get it, even terrorists.

 

[cyborg]

Well it seems rittjc has **** all over this thread so not much point in me continuing.

Thanks to everyone who called me a liar.

 

[articulett]

Originally Posted by rittjc

Rush Limbaugh and Al Gore may become Nobel laureates. Yassir Arafat and Kofi "oil for food" Annan were Nobel Laureates. Whats your point? Give it a rest you man worshiper.

As opposed to you--worshiper of an imaginary man.

 

[articulett]

Well it seems rittjc has **** all over this thread so not much point in me continuing.

Thanks to everyone who called me a liar.

You're in good company. Some egos are a little tender. And another is a creationist. In any case, it was nice to have rttjc drop by and illustrate the creationist blather about "scientists thinking this all came about randomly." I would have thought it drove the point home about why natural selection is called "determined" or "not random". But I think some people are more interested in semantics than clarity. I for one appreciate your input, because then I could see that it wasn't a problem with my communication--but rather with some peoples' need to sum up evolution as random leaving out the most important part--how the order comes about.

As you can see, your old nemesis, Von Neumann, dropped by to spread his obfuscation in the mix.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Mijo and Meadmaker... why don't you tell him how order comes from complexity...and how your explanation of evolution being random is different from Behe's and/or how your notion that evolution is random is different than his claim that "scientists think this all came about randomly". (BTW, Scientists don't think that...even if you think they do.)

Go ahead...explain design from the bottom using your definitions. Make sure you avoid anything that can be a synonym for non-random, now...

What do you tell people to distinguish your notion of evolution and the randomness involved so they don't confuse it with rttjc's notion, Behe's notion, and the 747 in the junkyard analogy? (Oh, an be as simple and clear as Cyborg if possible and any others you have insulted in the process). What should Dawkins say to be correct per your vague usage of the word "random"? And by the way, Dawkins was a little more explanatory than that...and I don't think his audience was as stupid or recalcitrant as rttjc.

Uh....if you think that order can't come from disorder in a probabilistic manner, you have missed just about every weak convergence result from probability theory. Most shockingly, for someone who claims to have take undergraduate level courses in probability and statistics, you seem to be completely ignorant of the central limit theorem.

 

[articulett]

Uh....if you think that order can't come from disorder in a probabilistic manner, you have missed just about every weak convergence result from probability theory. Most shockingly, for someone who claims to have take undergraduate level courses in probability and statistics, you seem to be completely ignorant of the central limit theorem.

I'm not talking about formulas...I'm talking about the real world--you know, the one where you think everything is random if it has atoms in it...

Are you saying the order comes from the "central limit theorem" as opposed to natural selection which Dawkins calls "the opposite of random"?

What's shocking is that anyone can think you know what the hell you are talking about. Because I think you are as much as a semantic buffoon as Behe. You don't even know what you are saying ...you just know you have a need to call evolution "random". And of course, you need to sling mud, because you haven't got any evidence or peer review work which says that it makes sense to call natural selection a random process. Random components do not a random process make. At least not to the majority. Even if you keep saying they do.

I am well aware of how the order comes about, and I never said "it can't come from disorder in a probabilistic manner"--only that it's obfuscating to describe it the way you are. I want to hear how you distinguish your claim that it happens randomly from the creationist canard that rttjc thinks scientists are saying. Go ahead... no need to insult me in the process. Just show us how your version of evolution being random is different than Behe's. Because I don't think it is. I think you are arguing Behe's case for him and your snideness doesn't cover up that fact.

 

[VonNeumann]

I also teach at the college level and have a Masters in Genetics and am a board certified genetic counselor. Moreover, I'm not saying anything that isn't said by every biologist in the field including in recent peer reviewed papers

Yes, you are intelligent and articulate... but no expert on origins. Not singling you out on that--no one is an expert on origins. All this argument on "randomness" as if the probabilistic definition is sufficient to seek cause for natural creative sources, is it not futile? I don't think you hold yourself up in favorable light to pretend to have all the answers and label dissenters as "creationists".

 

[cyborg]

News at 11: no experts in the field of knowing the unknowable yet found.

 

[Meadmaker]

I have a request for rittjc and his detractors. This thread is about evolution and randomness. I would request that general discussions of evolution or ID be split from this thread and taken elsewhere.

Now, that will require incredible self restraint on the part of rittjc's detractors, because I'm just going to guess that he's going to throw in a lot of side comments about evolution and its believers, and it will be difficult to avoid commenting on those things, but I would request that you try to refrain, or say something such as "That's not actually correct, but I don't want to comment further because that isn't the topic of this thread. I'd be happy to discuss this in another place."

I would be most happy to address it. You guys keep tossing me underhanded pitches thinking they are fastballs.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm deliberately throwing simple ones. I'm curious about whether or not you can hit them, but even more importantly, if you miss, I want to see in what way you will miss.

Random mutations are just that, random and are virtually always destructive. They are never creative.

Never? "Never" is pretty absolute, don't you think? Don't you mean "almost never"?

Of course Natural Selection is random. This is factual because creatures have free wills to function as they will and this results in maybe seeing a weaker element or it walking by because the creature had chosen to look in the other direction. Of course, man with the most profound free will of all, can scramble the sequence any way he or she chooses by introducing a non-indigenous predator into a region. This of course changes the equation of what the future generations will consist of.

This might be related to something that I've been saying about natural selection being random, but I can't quite tell because of the inclusion of free will in the mix, which to me confuses the issue.

(In case you haven't read all the way through, I and others say that is appropriate, at least in some cases, to call natural selection "random", while others in the thread insist that such a label is inappropriate. The previous forty pages have been devoted to that topic.)

So, perhaps it would help me understand your position better if you discussed evolution of plants, which most people agree do not have free will. Do you think natural selection, as applied to plant life, is better described as random or non-random?

On a related note, regardless of the answer, can natural selection account for the complexity of, for example, a maple tree?

 

[VonNeumann]

You are just upset because I outed you as a proponent of intelligent design long ago. But, you are the smartest among them, Von. Any evidence for your own hypothesis yet?

As I recall this was the whole question in the OP.

If some people want to sum up evolution so that it's undifferentiated from rttjc's 747 strawman--so be it. Good luck finding any use of such definitions.
And what exactly are your credentials and why is a young guy like Cyborg able to talk you under the table and reveal your blustery nothingness for what it is?

Art', I think you are a legacy in your own mind if you think you "outed" me as a proponent on anything. Also, I don't remember anything from Cyborg off the top of my head. You make reference with regard to what?

My credentials are irrelevant and I am more interested in observing cognitive attributes of posters who consider themselves "skeptics". I have stated very clearly many times that I am mostly interested in what people think and why they believe what they do.

I don't know if you've noticed, but people don't say "hallelujah! Now I understand! You're argument has turned me from mindset X to mindset Y!" on this forum in response to anything. I don't think you've recruited any new darwin-faithers, only you do well preaching to your choir.

I have suggested in my roundabout way that people think more deeply about:
1. origins of physical laws.
2. that the huge interconnected network of natural selection between organisms is orders of magnitude more complex than the neural network of one human brain, so could "intelligence" or some other teleological thing emerge from that complexity?
3. to those who believe in the inevitability of a "singularity" (the idea that the next evolutionary breakthrough will be via intelligent artifacts of man), and if those same people believe that a god-like power could evolve from that, a power advanced enough to create new universes, then how can they be sure that has not already happened in the past and what we see is the product therefrom?
4. that, depending on your world view, Nylonase might appear as an incredibly constructed product of something that appears more intentional than a product of random mutation and natural selection.
5. that time loops could be enhancers of some slow slow slow acting thing. Albeit probably ruled out by physics, if at all possible that material from the future can pop back into the past, this is a great accelerator for random mutation and natural selection.
6. that there are many things, and I introduced these things at various times, that our current scientific knowledge and observations have held up as mysterious, might be in fact evidence of an underlying substrate mechanism, from which relativity and turbulence and "action-at-a-distance" might be explainable.
7. that space time is not a continuum but discrete.
8. and many more ideas.

Art', if you notice in my past posts, I present these things to see what people think, not to try to change people's minds in that instant. I want to try to understand how cognitive processes rule out some things as plausible and other things as allowable in their belief systems.

How can you think I have lost an argument when you don't even know what I believe? As far as I am concerned almost EVERYTHING is tentative. Isn't that what science truly is? ...Tentative? How can we be good skeptics when we do not allow for science to be tentative?

This is not a forum of skeptics, it is a forum of good ol boys (and girls) who pat each other on the fanny for being so smart (as long as you think in the same tired groove).

Now, back to this thread on randomness. I submitted something several posts back about Gregory Chaitin's fresh view of randomness from a meta-mathematical perspective. No comments?

 

[cyborg]

Hey Von, glad your conspiracy theories make you happy.

I think it's nice when people are happy.

Happy, happy, happy. Clappy, clappy, clappy. Chant, chant, chant.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It seems some people will never get the point that a priori cannot give you any more power than a posteriori - no matter how much one might insist that is not the case.

But you could have a career in sci-fi writing if you just didn't take yourself so damn seriously.

 

[articulett]

Yes, you are intelligent and articulate... but no expert on origins. Not singling you out on that--no one is an expert on origins. All this argument on "randomness" as if the probabilistic definition is sufficient to seek cause for natural creative sources, is it not futile? I don't think you hold yourself up in favorable light to pretend to have all the answers and label dissenters as "creationists".

I don't pretend to have all the answers. I do have answers to the OP. I don't label all dissenters as "intelligent design proponents"...just the ones who are. I'm familiar with the obfuscation...but not even Behe can hold a candle to you, Von.

Look, Von,--Douglas Adams talking about artificial intelligence...you know, that Turing Machine http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/12/douglas_adams_lectur.html
Consider what Cyborg says about science fiction writing.

Oh, and since you're here--what is your definition of random?

 

[articulett]

Hey Von, glad your conspiracy theories make you happy.

I think it's nice when people are happy.

Happy, happy, happy. Clappy, clappy, clappy. Chant, chant, chant.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It seems some people will never get the point that a priori cannot give you any more power than a posteriori - no matter how much one might insist that is not the case.

But you could have a career in sci-fi writing if you just didn't take yourself so damn seriously.

Or, if he continues taking himself seriously, he can be the next L. Ron Hubbard...

 

[Foster Zygote]

I said "one of the the most". Please quit misquoting me you deceiver, or is deceiver redundant when referring to an evolutionist?

Wow! You can't even correctly state facts when quoting yourself. I am not deceiving through misquotation. Have a look for yourself at post #35 from the first page of the "Should scientists debate creationists?" thread:

I will name you one of them. Dr Michael Behe. Probably the worlds foremost expert in microbiology. Don't know of any more famous than him.

Emotional appeals, pretense of indignation and insults cannot hide the transparent weakness of your claims.

I'd really like to know if you can address any of the experimental verifications of predictions made by the Theory of Special Relativity as regards your claim that Einstein was completely wrong. Or will you tap dance out of the room in a very shameful and cowardly fashion by completely ignoring requests for information that will expose your ignorance of a subject you only pretend to understand? If you can address this issue or demonstrate that you've educated yourself about the fundamentals of thermodynamics beyond the laughably incorrect pseudo-science you've read on some creationist site then I will communicate further with you.

You make the dumbest arguments. So your words are meaningless.

This coming from someone who claimed that the Earth is a closed system because it gets energy from outside the system. It is clear that you will declare even the most logical of arguments to be dumb if they do not support your preferred world view and, conversely, defend even the most embarrassingly ignorant arguments (like "evolution violates entropy") as long as they attempt to validate your position. So, coming from you, I'll take the above as a compliment.

You are more interested in shooting them down on technicalities or typos than addressing the fact they pull the shorts of foolishness down around the ankles of the evolutionist.

You've been substantially shot down in regard to your claims about Einstein and Newton, thermodynamics, the nature of scientific theory, your attempt to portray yourself as a professional scientist, etc. etc. What about you? Where is your evidence? You keep saying that evolution is easily discredited but when asked for the evidence you just say that evolution is easily discredited and/or you present some grossly incorrect pseudo-science or offer some ad hominem attack.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Bold mine. I was right; I don't want to know.

LOLOLOL Unbelievable, I HAVE to see that. What thread was it in, Foster? I'll even take it off ignore- I bet I get a quote at least as good as the one at the end of my sig.

I ain't holdin' my breath- my assessment is, it wouldn't know a science if it walked up and bit it on the... nether regions.

Look in the Should scientists debate creationists? thread.

 

[Meadmaker]

I'd really like to know if you can address any of the experimental verifications of predictions made by the Theory of Special Relativity as regards your claim that Einstein was completely wrong.

I, for one, might be interested in his answers, but not here. This thread isn't about the Theory of Special Relativity.

 

[Meadmaker]

Now, back to this thread on randomness. I submitted something several posts back about Gregory Chaitin's fresh view of randomness from a meta-mathematical perspective. No comments?

You started your question by saying that randomness isn't well defined. However, it is well defined. Of course, in common usage it has several definitions, but it is easy enough to specify exactly which one is in use, and that has been done here.

The paper by Chaitin looks interesting at a glance, but I don't see the relevance to evolution. I didn't read the whole thing, though. I just skimmed the abstract and a few paragraphs. Perhaps you could elaborate on why you think his perspective is relevant to the theory of evolution.