Randomness in Evolution: Valid and Invalid Usage

[cyborg]

OR MAYBE YOU WAND ME TO SHOUT AND USE SOME *** ASTERISKS BECASE tat makes it clear?

LOLCATS.

I just want you to comprehend the incredibly simple things I'm saying but it doesn't seem to matter how many ways I say it you miss it every single time.

You seem to be having a problem with causality.

No, you seem to be having a problem with causality.

Even though one did, humanity was far from inevitable at that time.

Here is the point -->.

You are at the other end of the universe.

OR MAYBE YOU WAND ME TO SHOUT AND USE SOME *** ASTERISKS BECASE tat makes it clear?

So what that **** I supposed to use to get you to understand what I am saying? Do I have to perform brain surgery before you actually appreciate the concept I am actually trying to communicate rather than you continually making up the one you seem to insist I am communicating? I am seriously thinking that direct manipulation of the neurons is the only way.

 

[Herzblut]

I think we need to be clear on what you mean by "reran the tape". If you are saying that when we rerun the tape, we start life on earth 4 billion years ago, with asteroid impacts at the same time as they occurred, volcanic eruptions happening as they happened, continents moving the same way, etc...Then things would turn out the same.

This sounds like a category error to me. You can rerun a tape and will see the same events happening. But you cannot rerun the events as such.

You can capture the outcome of last week's lottery (6 balls out of 49 or so) and if you watch the tape again you'll find the very same numbers, indeed. Just, this is not indicative for this week's lottery.

This is because you cannot perfectly clone any macroscopic physical system. And even if you could perfectly clone last weeks lottery machine for this week's draw, and run it, then it is Heisenberg's uncertainty, in the end, if nothing else, which turns the machinery after only a few collisions of balls into a chaotic, unpredictable randomizer.

 

[Walter Wayne]

Technically the term you defined was 'random variable' not 'random'.

You inferred that 'random' would have the same sense when it was found in other terms. Generally, people rejected your inference for good reason. While it is okay to separate adjective from a phrase with a given sense and apply them with that sense to other phrases in common language, this is not acceptable with technical terms. Each technical term has a specific definition that may not follow from the senses of its constituent parts of speech.

Thus, since you used a technical definition of 'random variable', your inference is invalid. The observation that this inference makes all systems random, is an example of the odd sorts of conclusions you reach when you make false inferences.

You have indulged in the same tactic. Before I went away, I mentioned a list of areas where random included non-uniform. However, you stuck the definition from computer science ... in spite of the fact it is a specific area of comp sci. that used your definition. The fact is the algorithms I mentioned for generating non-uniform variables come from computer science.

The reality is comp. sci., math, and the physical sciences all support a definition different from the one you insist on. Layman, when they refer to random things often use for those things which aren't of uniform probability.

It is hardly appropriate to accuse others of using a specific term of art to define the term in general, when you choose to define in a manner which is the exception rather than the rule.

Walt

 

[lenny]

The UNDERSTANDING of the content of the tape requires reasoning about the CLASS, not the INSTANCE. it.

jargon normalization request:

your "instance" is a particualr realization of a process

your "class" is the dynamical process itself (and thus all possible realizations)

the difference is betwen observing one particular random walk, and the ensemble of all possible random walks under the particualr generating process. right?

 

[lenny]

At the limit, dissipative systems will fall into a steady state, thus ceasing to be chaotic.

this is simply false, given the standard definition of dissipative in the dynamical systems theory! (i assume you mean something else by the word).


dissipative dynamcal systems are those where volumes of state space shrink in time: they need not shrink to a point. in conservative systems, state space volume is conserved under the flow, KAM applies only in conservative (aka hamiltonian) systems.

Also, In the Lorenz Equations, you'll find that they dissipate quite quickly if you include a term to allow dissipation.

the lorenz equations, as writen by lorenz in 1963, ARE dissipative!

(and if you add a term to them, they are no longer the Lorenz Equations!)

 

[jimbob]

Cyborg,

At the time of the KT impact, was the evolution of something akin to humanity inevitable?


ETA: If not, why it is incorrect to refer to the outcome, or course of evolution as random?

 

[cyborg]

Cyborg,

At the time of the KT impact, was the evolution of something akin to humanity inevitable?

Yes or no.

 

[jimbob]

And you accuse me of playing semantic games

 

[cyborg]

If you can't see why I answered as I did you clearly haven't been reading a damn word I've said.

 

[lenny]

And you accuse me of playing semantic games

s/he may not be playing with ya, but perhaps responding to your "akin" and his/her limited omniscience.

4:1 if you ask whether or not at the time of the KT impact this thread on something "akin" to the JREF forum was inevitable you'd get a straightup reply of "no".

10:1 if you ask whether or not at the time of the KT impact someone burning coal for energy about now was inevitable you'd get a reply of "yes, probably". (or something more creative).

(assuming my interpretation of cyborg jargon was accurate; still hoping for an answer there... .)

 

[jimbob]

OK, lenny, I'd argue that the emergence of a social, advanced-tool using species was not inevitable at that time. By advanced, I mean consisting of three or more components, for example a stone lashed to a stick.

 

[Wowbagger]

Perhaps it was not inevitable, at that particular time and place. But, still inevitable to occur somewhere in the Universe. And, likely in multiple places and times.

(By the way, there are now 1111 replies, in this thread!)

 

[jimbob]

But if it was not inevitible for any particular planetary ecosystem, then surely it is entrely appropriate to describe it as "random but not haphazard" for example?

and further to Walter Wayne's comment that this is a common definiton of random, I am using it in the same way that biologists use it in technical discussions, and as statistician do too:

Skeptgirl,
Mijo is not arguing for "random" as "unbiased" or "haphazard". This is a difference between him and Behe that Articulett refuses to accept. (That and mijos repeted assertions that humanity evolved from ape-like ancestors with no guiding supernatural deity, indeed almost a "drunkards walk" and influenced by many chance events. (What would our genome look like if humanity had not got almost wiped out 70k-yrs ago by Tambora's eruption?

Let me second this. Jimbob is correct. Mijo's insisting that by the proper definitions of 'random' and 'deterministic', evolution is random. It is. I'm not interesting in debating the matter. I'm a professional statistician; I know what the word 'random' means! But 'random' is also quite commonly taken to mean things that are properly termed "haphazard" "unbiased" or "uniformly distributed". By that usage, you are correct and evolution is anything but.

Not the agreement that evolution is neither unbiased, nor haphazard, which is what Behe claims.

 

[lenny]

On planet smart people "random processes" are terms sometimes used to describe stochastic processes... the smart people don't consider the processes themselves random... they are noting that they have random components.

i would really like to understand all the confusion/argument here.

articulett, statisticians would generally not be "smart people" by your definition. random processes (aka stochastic processes) are indeed considered random, you seem to think this is a very restrictive condition, for the most part they do not.

not all random processes are IID (independent, identically distributed) or Gaussian distributed, "most" are subject to "deterministic" influences; they are random processes merely because there is a random term (in discrete or continuous time) onthe right hand side of the equations that define them.


do we all agree that a classical random walk is a random process?

and that so is a random walk on a tilted surface (that is a random process that contains a deterministic drift?)

if you agree the second is random, i do not see why you reject the idea that evolution is random, (given the typical alternatives: random and deterministic, would you want to say evoluiton is deterministic?)

articulett, you just seem to allergic to the use of the word "random" in connection with evoluiton, would you consider it OK to call a radiation induced mutation random?

cyborg could you tell me which post you explained things in, there are over a thousand on this thread!

thanks.

 

[mijopaalmc]

So do any of the people who argue that evolution is non-random have answers to lenny's questions?

 

[articulett]

Yes, lenny, for all practical purposes radiation induced mutations are random... but selection is not-- it is the derandomizer... it is the essence of evolution.. it is what gives it the appearance of design. Selection pulls from the pool of random mutations.

But I read and understand and discuss this with people in the field all the time... I pass board exams on this subject. I just taked to PZ Myers at Tam on this topic and others. I am willing to help and educate anyone who wants to understand. I just don't waste my time on people who imagine themselves to have expertise. I speak with actual experts who teach real people. I teach real people. So I will let the creationists who swear they aren't creationists convince themselves that some actual biologist or evolutionist would call evolution random... or that it's logical and informative to do so.

I don't think that those who haven't understood this by this point can. And I am a bit tired of trolling questions... besides, everyone knows that a troll will go on forever until they get the last word so they can prop up whatever deluded notion it is they have to "believe in".

Be my guest.

I'm unsubscribing. And I think everyone I care abou is really clear on who those trolls are.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Yes, lenny, for all practical purposes radiation induced mutations are random... but selection is not-- it is the derandomizer... it is the essence of evolution.. it is what gives it the appearance of design. Selection pulls from the pool of random mutations.

But I read and understand and discuss this with people in the field all the time... I pass board exams on this subject. I just taked to PZ Myers at Tam on this topic and others. I am willing to help and educate anyone who wants to understand. I just don't waste my time on people who imagine themselves to have expertise. I speak with actual experts who teach real people. I teach real people. So I will let the creationists who swear they aren't creationists convince themselves that some actual biologist or evolutionist would call evolution random... or that it's logical and informative to do so.

I don't think that those who haven't understood this by this point can. And I am a bit tired of trolling questions... besides, everyone knows that a troll will go on forever until they get the last word so they can prop up whatever deluded notion it is they have to "believe in".

Be my guest.

I'm unsubscribing. And I think everyone I care abou is really clear on who those trolls are.

Notice how articulett didn't actually answer any of lenny's questions; she just flounced off when he insisted that her definition of "stochastic process" was not the definition use by people with actual expertise in the subject.

 

[jimbob]

Yes, lenny, for all practical purposes radiation induced mutations are random... but selection is not-- it is the derandomizer... it is the essence of evolution.. it is what gives it the appearance of design. Selection pulls from the pool of random mutations.

But the odds of selection don't work like that. Most organisms fail to reproducs. Mostvery similar siblings fail to reproduce. Those that do are "lucky" too.

If an "typically fit" organism only has a 10% chance of reproducing, but then typically has 10 offspring per parent, the population would remain stable. Any deleterious mutations would be very quickly removed. Most advantageous mutations would also.

In the example of the e.coli, there was a mutation that was in itself "neutral" that occured between after about 15,000 generations in one population. By chance, this survived (being at the time akin to genetic drift, and having neither positive nor negatve impactson reproduction). This did however allow later generations to evolve citrate-matabiolism after a further 10,000 generations.

The mutation was random. The selection was biased, but random, like a set of loaded dice. The eventual outcome was random, because as well as this, in most environments, the interactions with other organisms would provide complex, nonlinear feedbacks that affect the fitnes landscape for the other organisms.

It was not haphazard. But it was random.

ETA:

Indeed, I have stated situations where I'd consider "nonrandom" to be adequate, which is "over moderately long limescales in stable environments". In changing environments which organism got which trait first would be important, and over geological timescales "large" random events would become more important. Admittedly those situations are slightly different to the e.coli in the LTE experiment.

My argument is mainly against the fatwa against describing anything in evolution* or natural selection as probabilistic or random. If evolution was nonrandom, then that would imply that something similar to humanity was inevitible from the time that life first arose on Earth. This seems to be incredibly self-centred, as well as wrong. (Also many of the more reasonable CoE Christians that I know have some idea that "God just set creation in motion with the conditions so that worshipers would eventually evolve". I think that this misunderstanding is particularly likely if you deny the role that chance has played in evolution.


*ETA: For example the idea that the fitness landscape is subject to arbitary (and I would argue sometimes random) changes, thus altering the selective "directions"

 

[jimbob]

In brief: identical situations, or ones where the initial differences are unimportant would give different results; this is what the Long Term Evolution experimnet has shown.

 

[cyborg]

In brief: identical situations, or ones where the initial differences are unimportant would give different results; this is what the Long Term Evolution experimnet has shown.

Nope.