What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[articulett]

Easy: it does not. Information is added by mutation, for instance through gene duplication. Natural selection removes only what does not work; it leaves a lot that is neutral or an improvement.

Excellent.

And the stuff that really works... as in the butterfly/MSNBC link-- spreads exponentially-- the more of a survival/reproductive advantage a mutation offers, the quicker it becomes a part of the population and the more it is conserved over the years...

 

[articulett]

Whatever semantic game you wish to play, the simple fact is that conventional evolutionary theory teaches that information can be added only through RANDOM mutations. Why not accept that fact, instead of running away from it?

I accept it fine--the random is the easy part of evolution to understand even creatinists understand that part... it's the way natural selection hones the best mutations that is a bit harder for you guys. Natural selection is biased towards multiplying the information that makes the best replicators while culling the stuff that is deleterious. "Conventional evolutionary theory" details evolution as a two step process-- mutation and selection over time.

Creationists always have a problem conveying any understanding of the second part for some reason.

To repeat (for the slow): Random components does not a random process make. Get a clue.

Oh--and for you: http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1517

 

[cyborg]

I see that no-one here - not a single one of those arguing for evolution being random - is getting the point that there is acausal randomness and there is causal randomness that is a machine reaching a complexity limit of infinity.

But hey - you just keep on telling yourself that if you can model it with a probability distribution it's random and that you know that's right.

 

[articulett]

and Dungeons and dragons,
and the weather,
and dating,
and traffic patterns,
and turbulent flow,
and combustion,
and chutes and ladders,
and infection patterns,
and yahtzee,
and

and cancer
and buffets
and Monopoly
and fly flight paths
and mating
and freak accidents
and conception
and ....

 

[Rodney]

I accept it fine--the random is the easy part of evolution to understand even creatinists understand that part... it's the way natural selection hones the best mutations that is a bit harder for you guys. Natural selection is biased towards multiplying the information that makes the best replicators while culling the stuff that is deleterious. "Conventional evolutionary theory" details evolution as a two step process-- mutation and selection over time.

Creationists always have a problem conveying any understanding of the second part for some reason.

No, it's rather that creationists don't accept the random part. However, if you or someone else can develop a model showing the plausibility of: (a) life coming into existence randomly, and (b) life evolving from a single cell to man only via random mutations, environmental factors, and natural selection, you'll convince many creationists that you're right.

To repeat (for the slow): Random components does not a random process make.

Not always, but when the random components are the drivers of the process, it's illogical to consider that the process is not random.

Get a clue.

Done.

Oh--and for you: http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1517

That link doesn't help explain why you believe Bush lied about things that are matters of opinion -- especially when at one time leading Democrats shared those opinions.

 

[cyborg]

However, if you or someone else can develop a model showing the plausibility of: (a) life coming into existence randomly, and (b) life evolving from a single cell to man only via random mutations, environmental factors, and natural selection, you'll convince many creationists that you're right.

Can you give a model showing the plausibility of whatever deity it is you are arguing must be responsible in lieu of an evolutionary explanation?

Thanks.

 

[Schneibster]

No, it's rather that creationists don't accept the random part. However, if you or someone else can develop a model showing the plausibility of: (a) life coming into existence randomly, and (b) life evolving from a single cell to man only via random mutations, environmental factors, and natural selection, you'll convince many creationists that you're right.

I doubt it. They formed amino acids in a flask with nothing in it but water, methane, ammonia, and CO2, and it didn't convince anyone. They've been pulling fossils out of the ground for a couple hundred years and that didn't convince anyone either. That's evidence, far more so than any model ever could be. Yet, here we are.

 

[joobz]

I doubt it. They formed amino acids in a flask with nothing in it but water, methane, ammonia, and CO2, and it didn't convince anyone. They've been pulling fossils out of the ground for a couple hundred years and that didn't convince anyone either. That's evidence, far more so than any model ever could be. Yet, here we are.

Yes, and models have inherent assumptions that limit the range over which they are meaningful. As such, creationists have a built in excuse as to why that model isn't relavent. While simultaneously, they will apply conditions to the model that are outside of its workable range to prove that the model (and thereby evolution) fails.

This doesn't mean the models are useless, they are extremely valuable to scientists. But they won't prove anything to believers.

 

[jimbob]

I doubt it. They formed amino acids in a flask with nothing in it but water, methane, ammonia, and CO2, and it didn't convince anyone. They've been pulling fossils out of the ground for a couple hundred years and that didn't convince anyone either. That's evidence, far more so than any model ever could be. Yet, here we are.

And I have heard people say that the failure to recreate life in a small flask in an experiment running for a few weeks, shows that life couldn't have arisen without supernatural intervention within a timeframe of tens of millions of years in a planet sized experiment...

 

[Meadmaker]

Rittjc,

An awful lot has been said about the 747 in a junkyard analogy. Avoiding that is the reason, we are told, to avoid saying “random”. I want to see what you really think about that analogy.

My objection to that analogy is that it assumes that at one time, you had a pile of parts, and then something happened, and you ended up with a 747. If the parts are basic atoms, and the 747 is a working cell, what happened to all the intermediate steps? No one believes that you can pour chemicals into a beaker, shake them up, and pop out a cell. Why even bother discussing that?

(Interestingly enough, when Fred Hoyle made the analogy, he wasn’t talking about cells or organisms. You might want to go back and look up what he really said.)

So, a real description of evolution is: start with basic atoms. Let them sit and you come up with organic molecules. That part’s easy, and we’ve seen it in a lab. Mix all that stuff up. Eventually, you come up with something that replicates itself, although not perfectly. (Perhaps RNA, but perhaps something else. Frankly, we don’t know.) The next stage is getting that replicator into a package. Lipids seem to be a good candidate, because they can form little bags (cells). Once you have a cell, things get easier, because you get DNA (no one knows exactly when) which is great at reproducing, but makes just enough errors in transcription, and you can end up with all sorts of variation in your cells, including some that stick together (multicellular organisms). Some of those vary, and you get specialized cells. Keep up the good work, and you end up with politicians. (This proves that many mutations are destructive.)

So, a few questions:

Which part of that don’t you buy into? Of course, there’s an awful lot of arm waving in that description. That is the trouble we have. We really can’t fill in the details completely at any step of the way, and there are some steps about which we are almost completely clueless. So, more than just “not buying into” a step, which part do you think is just completely impossible? And how do you determine that? That’s the real premise of ID. It’s not just that they don’t see how it could happen, they assert that it cannot happen. What basis is there for that assertion?

Back to the thread topic, though, how does this relate to randomness? Does randomness have anything to do with your objections? I don’t think it ought to. It doesn’t provide an obstacle. Sure, it would be faster if there wasn’t so much randomness in the process. If every beneficial gene was guaranteed to be copied, that would make things evolve faster, but we have time. We can make lots of bad copies, and they’ll die out, and we can wait millions of years for something really good to come up. When it does, it might take many generations to really spread through the population, but it will spread. Just because it follows a random path doesn’t mean we don’t know the general direction of that path. So, is your objection related to randomness, or some other issue?

 

[Meadmaker]

But hey - you just keep on telling yourself that if you can model it with a probability distribution it's random and that you know that's right.

ok.

 

[cyborg]

And I have heard people say that the failure to recreate life in a small flask in an experiment running for a few weeks, shows that life couldn't have arisen without supernatural intervention within a timeframe of tens of millions of years in a planet sized experiment...

But you are similarly arguing that its arisal is random because predicting the precise outcome of an experiment with a time-frame of tens of millions of years on a planet sized system is difficult...

 

[mijopaalmc]

I see that no-one here - not a single one of those arguing for evolution being random - is getting the point that there is acausal randomness and there is causal randomness that is a machine reaching a complexity limit of infinity.

But hey - you just keep on telling yourself that if you can model it with a probability distribution it's random and that you know that's right.

I see that you still fail to grasp that there is, as of yet, no way of distinguishing between what you call "acausal" randomness and what you call "causal" randomness and that, in absence of evidence that the universe (or parts thereof) is a machine, science usually errs on the side of parsimony. Therefore, your complex machine that comes up with sequences of head and tails deterministically is not preferable to the unpredictably of fluid dynamics producing the sequence randomly.

 

[Rodney]

Can you give a model showing the plausibility of whatever deity it is you are arguing must be responsible in lieu of an evolutionary explanation?
Thanks.

The burden isn't on me because the great majority of the world's population has always believed in a deity. But I'm not challenging evolution per se, only the theory that life came into existence randomly and has progressed through random mutations.

 

[cyborg]

The burden isn't on me because the great majority of the world's population has always believed in a deity.

So is the burden on the great majority of the world's population that has always believed in a deity - even the one's that disagree about number and form?

Can I not just use you as a representative of deitic beliefs?

But I'm not challenging evolution per se, only the theory that life came into existence randomly and has progressed through random mutations.

Ah. Well you're still on a losing streak there.

 

[cyborg]

I see that you still fail to grasp that there is, as of yet, no way of distinguishing between what you call "acausal" randomness and what you call "causal" randomness

As I have already told you there is no way to do so for a black box. If you don't know the mechanism already you never will.

and that, in absence of evidence that the universe (or parts thereof) is a machine, science usually errs on the side of parsimony.

You may find it parsimonious to ignore the existence of the Earth with regards to the mechanics of evolution - I do not.

Therefore, your complex machine that comes up with sequences of head and tails deterministically is not preferable to the unpredictably of fluid dynamics producing the sequence randomly.

It's not preferable because there is no significant increase in predictive power that one can gain by attempting to build a predicting machine for a machine that exhibits statistically random behaviour. That does not mean we shave away the existence of the mechanism. (One should especially not do so when one makes such patently absurd objections to the determinism at work in natural selection when they object, "but this twin died!")

This is exactly what it means for an infinite machine to be random: at that point any attempt to determine its workings by experiment can do no better than any purely probabilistic mechanism could allow. Of course it becomes significantly difficult to do so long before we require it is actually infinite - that's why genetic algorithms can work Meadmaker despite you making a very stupid remark to the effect that, "in the paper it said it was random QED computers are random now."

So again I say:

You may find it parsimonious to ignore the existence of the Earth - I do not.

I also say again you do not know what randomness is - despite yours, jimbob's and Meadmaker's insistence to the contrary. None of you appear to be versed in the computational concepts here at all. I don't blame you for that but since I have now explained it several times you do have the blame for continuing to insist that the story of randomness is all about probabilities when that is only the start of the issue.

 

[Foster Zygote]

The burden isn't on me because the great majority of the world's population has always believed in a deity.

Argumentum ad populum. They also believed that such supernatural beings were responsible for things like disease, lightning and thunder, earthquakes, solar and lunar eclipses, meteor showers, the motion of the sun, planets and stars, etc. etc. etc.

 

[steenkh]

Whatever semantic game you wish to play, the simple fact is that conventional evolutionary theory teaches that information can be added only through RANDOM mutations. Why not accept that fact, instead of running away from it?

And disadvantageous genomes are deselected by NON-RANDOM selection. Why not accept that fact instead of running away from it?

 

[steenkh]

However, if you or someone else can develop a model showing the plausibility of: (a) life coming into existence randomly, and (b) life evolving from a single cell to man only via random mutations, environmental factors, and natural selection, you'll convince many creationists that you're right.

a) Is not a part of the theory of evolution. While there is no reason to expect supernatural interference, this area is still up for grabs, and only Occam's Razor prevents sensible people from thinking that God (or a Designer, if you want) did it. Creationists can insert their favourite deity here.
b) Has already been proven with rock-solid evidence (pun intended). Creationists will not accept the evidence, no matter what. It has been proven through fossil evidence, geologic evidence, biological evidence, and evolution, including speciation has been shown to take place even today in the short time span that we have been looking for it. What more do creationists want?

 

[Meadmaker]

I also say again you do not know what randomness is - despite yours, jimbob's and Meadmaker's insistence to the contrary. None of you appear to be versed in the computational concepts here at all.

Appearances can be deceptive.