Split from: I'm reading "The God Delusion" - a review in progress

[Meadmaker]

Quite. The sense in which "random" just means that you don't know all the factors that come into play, but in which the event itself is completely deterministic and involves no randomness, per se. Of course, once we open that door, every event since the laws of the universe were settled is deterministic and there is no evidence for any randomness aside from quantum fluctuations, themselves not known, yet, to influence the macroscopic.



Yes, but only in the more restricted meaning of the word. That's why I asked.



It didn't "just" happen. The conditions were right. Luck had nothing to do with it. And I'm not talking about "fate".



Nothing's scary about it. It's just inaccurate.

I'm not sure what you are getting at. There was once a time when people thought that if you just knew all the initial conditions, you could know the state of the universe for all time, by projecting forward from the known starting point. Now, the consensus is that this is not the case. The quantum fluctuations are indeed enough to make macro-level changes. For example, the quantum fluctuations are indeed enough to make that dinosaur-killing asteroid miss, or to make another one hit.

Of course, the quantum fluctuations within the asteroid are not enough to make it miss, but when the asteroid was gathering itself from miscellaneous iron molecules and other elements ejected from stars, it would have formed differently, and billions of years later, it would have been in a different place. So, that very significant asteroid was indeed, in every sense, a random event.

At least, that's the consensus of the scientific world today. Perhaps some future discovery will refute that view, and we will learn that God does not play with dice after all. For the moment, the money is on the view that he does.

Or was that not what you meant?

 

[Meadmaker]

O....K. Science is not good enough for ya.

What is good enough for ya? The Bible?



Why is it my problem if you don't understand science?

Perhaps in some other thread, mijopaalmc has said something which might lead one to believe that he didn't understand science. However, the message to which you responded had no errors of any sort in it. He's absolutely correct.

I might add that he, and I, have been mostly echoing what Vorticity said earlier and he, too, was absolutely correct.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Why is it my problem if you don't understand science?

While it is certainly not your problem if I don't understand science, I contend that my explanations of why evolution is a stochastic process, while a little befuddled, don't belie a fundamental misunderstanding of science. This is mainly due to the fact that natural selection, which is the mechanism in question here, only makes it more probable that an organism with a specific fitness complement (i.e., subset of genes in genome that determine fitness) survives and reproduces. It is therefore that of two organisms with the same fitness complement, one will survive and the other will not. This is the definition of "stochastic" provided at Math World:

Stochastic is synonymous with "random." The word is of Greek origin and means "pertaining to chance" (Parzen 1962, p. 7). It is used to indicate that a particular subject is seen from point of view of randomness. Stochastic is often used as counterpart of the word "deterministic," which means that random phenomena are not involved. Therefore, stochastic models are based on random trials, while deterministic models always produce the same output for a given starting condition.

(emphasis mine)

How much more evidence do one need to be convinced that evolution is a stochastic process?

Conversely, what is the specific evidence does on have that evolution is not random?

 

[CFLarsen]

While it is certainly not your problem if I don't understand science, I contend that my explanations of why evolution is a stochastic process, while a little befuddled, don't belie a fundamental misunderstanding of science. This is mainly due to the fact that natural selection, which is the mechanism in question here, only makes it more probable that an organism with a specific fitness complement (i.e., subset of genes in genome that determine fitness) survives and reproduces. It is therefore that of two organisms with the same fitness complement, one will survive and the other will not.

O.....K.

You have a better understanding of science than the world's combined scientists, Dawkins, Gould, and Eldredge in particular.

Gotcha.

By the way, who are you?

 

[Vorticity]

I'd given up on this thread as hopeless, due to some fundamental misunderstandings that people seem to be having about the meaning of the word 'random', but I just had to comment on this:

O.....K.

You have a better understanding of science than the world's combined scientists, Dawkins, Gould, and Eldredge in particular.

Gotcha.

By the way, who are you?

Really, Claus, as you very well know, this kind of argument from authority doesn't carry much weight around here...

...but since you bring them up, I have very little doubt that the scientists you name above would show no hesitation in admitting that evolution is random in the technical sense of the term.

 

[I less than three logic]

Well, this thread has been pretty pointless it seems. It only goes to show why we must agree upon the meaning of a term before using it within a debate.

 

[CFLarsen]

I'd given up on this thread as hopeless, due to some fundamental misunderstandings that people seem to be having about the meaning of the word 'random', but I just had to comment on this:

Really, Claus, as you very well know, this kind of argument from authority doesn't carry much weight around here...

It isn't an argument from authority. The authority comes from the weight of their scientific argument.

...but since you bring them up, I have very little doubt that the scientists you name above would show no hesitation in admitting that evolution is random in the technical sense of the term.

Have you asked them?

 

[Meadmaker]

Claus' objections aside, anyone can see that evolution is a random process. Also, the origin of life is not, as Ken suggested, as inevitable as the combination of oxygen and hydrogen into water. Dawkins in "The God Delusion" notes that as far as we know, it has happened exactly once, and while we suspect it happens much more commonly than that, we have no idea how it happened or how frequently it happened.

We can combine oxygen and hydrogen in a lab, and create water, and do it again and again. We can't make life, yet. In 1952, we managed to take raw materials and make amino acids (the Miller-Urey experiment, which made the "primordial soup"). In the 55 years since then, we have gone from making amino acids to...making amino acids. We just don't know how the process of life generation works.

So, what's the objection to the phrase "by chance"? We all agree that there is no purpose or plan involved. We all ought to agree that the process is governed by random events. What's the problem with "by chance"?

Certainly part of the answer is the misuse of the phrase by advocates of Intelligent Design. A few have talked about the "tornado in a junkyard" model of organism and/or DNA assembly, and it would be understandable to get irked when someone says "by chance" and means that. However, I don't think that explains the whole of the objection to the term. With or without tornadoes and junkyards, the whole process is still governed by chance. Dawkins himself says as much in his discussion of the anthropic principle, although he won't use the term "by chance". He notes that however unlikely it is that life arises, it obviously did at least once, or we wouldn't be here to talk about it. That whole discussion is laced with talk of probabilities and improbabilities, but not "chance". Why not?

I think it's because the mind recoils at the implied lack of significance in the term "by chance". Dawkins waxes eloquently, especially in chapter 10 of TGD, of the grandeur of nature. Saying we are here "by chance" seems to demean either that grandeur or our place within it, and I think that even Dawkins is susceptible to the need to take some significance from it.

Saying we are here "by chance", somehow seems to lessen our significance. Is the universe grand? Well, I guess so, but it's really just coincidence. Are we the end product of billions of years of evolution, an amazing process by which simple atoms combine, and then recombine in such startling ways that we end up with us, amazing creatures that can paint the Sistine Chapel? Certainly we are, but a mosquito is just as much the end product of the same process. (And of course, neither is an "end product", just an intermediate.) It may be that the development of complex, intelligent, life is almost inevitable given the right conditions of gravity and heat on a developing planet, or it may be that the coming together of the first replicator was an amazingly improbable event that has happened once in the billions of years of our galaxy's existence. Either way, it is by chance that we exist, because even under the right conditions, the specific events that caused intelligent bipedal mammals to emerge from the evolutionary process are unlikely to be duplicated elsewhere.

Assuming, as most of us do, that there is no "God", no "designer", no "higher power" or "supernatural entity", then we are here by chance.

What's the problem?

 

[T'ai Chi]

Great post!

 

[CFLarsen]

anyone can see that evolution is a random process.

*BING*

Thank you for calling.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Claus, you have yet to describe why you think that evolution is non-random. You have not offered any counterevidence in this thread. (I apologize in advance if you have offered evidence elsewhere and would very much appreciate it if you would point me to it.) What have done is say "no" every time someone says that evolution is random and insult people when they continue to disagree. No-one appreciates that kind of behavior, and I think that, even though I am not a moderator, I am within my rights to ask not to post in this thread anymore if you insist on acting like a child.

 

[CFLarsen]

Claus, you have yet to describe why you think that evolution is non-random. You have not offered any counterevidence in this thread. (I apologize in advance if you have offered evidence elsewhere and would very much appreciate it if you would point me to it.) What have done is say "no" every time someone says that evolution is random and insult people when they continue to disagree. No-one appreciates that kind of behavior, and I think that, even though I am not a moderator, I am within my rights to ask not to post in this thread anymore if you insist on acting like a child.

Try post #39, 52, 58, 61, 67. In fact, try reading the whole thread. There are also others.

And, just so you understand: It is not me who has to present counterevidence. If you want to argue against evolution, you are the one who has to present any kind of evidence.

 

[Vorticity]

Try post #39, 52, 58, 61, 67. In fact, try reading the whole thread. There are also others.

And, just so you understand: It is not me who has to present counterevidence. If you want to argue against evolution, you are the one who has to present any kind of evidence.

What are you talking about?

None of the people in this thread who are arguing that evolution is random in the technical sense are arguing against evolution. At the very least, I know I'm not, and I'm quite certain that Walter Wayne, Meadmaker, and mijopaalmc aren't, either. This is really a cheap rhetorical trick on your part, trying to tar us with some kind of creationist brush. mijopaalmc is right. You're being childish.

The simple fact is that anyone who has even a little knowledge about the mathematics of probability can see that evolution is random according to the technical definition of the term. That definition has been posted before in this thread and elsewhere. If you want to argue that evolution does not fit that definition, then do so. But please try to present actual arguments, rather than just contradiction. If you do not have the background to present such an argument, then please stop posting gibberish and leave this thread to those that do.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Here's another thing that's been bugging me:

...
If a series of coins are tossed that have a 50/50 chance of coming up heads or tails, but only those that come up heads are selected to be placed in a piggy bank and the coins that come up tails are thrown into a river, then the results of the selection process are not random.

This idea has been stated in several forms in this thread, i.e. that while the mutation process is certainly random, the process of natural selection by which less-well-adapted variants are culled from the population is deterministic.

This seems to me to be a highly dubious claim. I'm having trouble seeing how the natural selection process could be completely deterministic. Certainly, the more-well-adapted variants will have a higher chance of surviving and reproducing. Perhaps siginificantly higher. Likewise, a poorly-adapted variant will have a much higher chance of becoming lunch. But it's not a certitude. These probabilities are not 1 and 0.

To put it another way, suppose we know the set of gene/allele frequencies of a population in a given generation. Even if we suppose that no mutation events will occur between this generation and the next, we cannot in advance specify the precise gene/allele content of the next generation. There is still significant randomness left over. Who will be eaten, who will reproduce, how much will they reproduce, etc. Now of course this is a sort of 'directed randomness', in the sense that the more adapted variants have a much better chance. But this does not suddenly make it nonrandom.

Who said that natural selection is deterministic?

It is "deterministic", as in "whatever works", but there's no higher goal apart from that. A better term could be utilitarian.

I don't know if you genuinely cannot grasp the concept or if you are being willfully ignorant.

If a series of coins are tossed that have a 50/50 chance of coming up heads or tails, but only those that come up heads are selected to be placed in a piggy bank and the coins that come up tails are thrown into a river, then the results of the selection process are not random.

Random mutations create the variety of genes available for natural selection to act on, but non-random selection determines which genes will reproduce in each successive generation.

Oh, I almost forgot. You are ignoring me, not for any ad hominem insult,, but because I, like many others you ignore, have pointed out errors in your claims. Apparently you cannot tolerate criticism of your claims.

That was a very accurate account of what evolution is.

I'll steal that.

Yes, but we can only do it once, because the species would have evolved into something different. Not a lot of difference, but different nonetheless.

I just wanted to come back to one thing.

Who said that natural selection is deterministic?

Actually, you did:

But the "weeding out" isn't random.

In this post:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1385903&postcount=105

of this thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50550&page=3

I pointed out that "deterministic" isn't (necessarily) the opposite of "random".

You can say it is "deterministic" for each generation. The next generation is not solely dependent on the preceding.

But evolution cannot be predicted exactly.

Now I'm getting confused. Perhaps we're having some kind of jargon barrier.

Yes, evolution cannot be predicted exactly. That is precisely my point.

If it cannot be predicted exactly given a precise description of the current state and history of the system, then it is random. That's what random is. If it could be so predicted, then it would be deterministic. Deterministic is the opposite of random.

I think you are agreeing with me without knowing it.

Nope. I know I am disagreeing with you.

Evolution isn't random, in the sense that there aren't limitations to what the next generation will be like. Two furry polar bears can get a polar bear with slightly longer fur - but two furry polar bears won't get a slug.

Similarly, evolution isn't deterministic, in the sense that you can predict exactly what the offspring will be like. You have all sorts of influences: Environment, mutated genes, you name it.

Try post #39, 52, 58, 61, 67. In fact, try reading the whole thread. There are also others.

And, just so you understand: It is not me who has to present counterevidence. If you want to argue against evolution, you are the one who has to present any kind of evidence.

Just for clarity's sake I have quoted all of the posts the to which you have directed me and re-re-read the entire thread. In not a single one of them do you offer anything beyond your own assertions and the innuemrate explanations of probability theory by other posters, let alone any independent confirmation from those authorities on evolutionary biology whom you suggest I consult. I and other posters have offered independently attested definitions of "probabilistic", "random" and "stochastic", explanations of why evolution fits those definitions, and refutation of the arguments that evolution is non-random by any but the widest and most incoherent definitions.

Furthermore, you insist that you don't need to present any evidence of your own. This is a classic evasion tactic that skeptics use and is called the burden of proof fallacy. While I realize that burden of proof usually lies on the one making the claim, not only is this always done as a convention rather through some sort of logical justification, but also every positive claim to knowledge, whether it takes the form "I know (that) p" or "I know (that) not p", needs to have evidence to support it. Usually, support for the latter argument is shown by demonstrating that an alternative explanation is much more plausible or that p has an internal contradiction that renders it meaningless or impossible. This, though, is completely ignored by skeptics who assume a "default state of the universe" (DSU) and then claim that they do not need to present evidence of the DSU because it is by definition right. However, when the DSU is based on the sum total of human empirical knowledge, as most DUS's are nowadays, they need support of their own, especially since, as it is so often claimed by skeptics, the information is so easily accessible to everyone involved. The other part of the fallacy is that the burden of proof is often set too high for one side, which means that it is often impossible for one side to demonstrate their argument convincingly no matter how much evidence they present. For instance, creationist of demand to see one species changing into another, which just doesn't happen in the sense that there is a smooth morph that can be detected by the human eye, such as in this The Simpsons intro:



Similarly, those insist that evolution is non-random have ignored the definitions and explanations those who argue that evolution is random have present, without presenting any evidence in rebuttal. They seem to be operating under a definition of random that does not appear in any dictionary and excludes probability as part of it.

Now I ask again, does anyone who has contributed to this thread have evidence that evolution is non-random in rebuttal of the definitions of random that have already been posted?

 

[Meadmaker]

*BING*

Thank you for calling.

You're welcome. Glad to be of service.

This time, it's free. You can continue to receive high quality philosophical support on our fee-based thought support line in the future.

 

[CFLarsen]

What are you talking about?

None of the people in this thread who are arguing that evolution is random in the technical sense are arguing against evolution. At the very least, I know I'm not, and I'm quite certain that Walter Wayne, Meadmaker, and mijopaalmc aren't, either. This is really a cheap rhetorical trick on your part, trying to tar us with some kind of creationist brush. mijopaalmc is right. You're being childish.

Let's see.

Vorticity, Walter Wayne, Meadmaker, mijopaalmc, T'ai Chi (him too, yes):

Each of you, please follow the postulate "Evolution is random in a technical sense" to the door.

What does that mean in terms of real-life evolution? How does it apply?

E,g, does it in any way indicate, or make possible, an intelligent designer?

 

[mijopaalmc]

Again, Claus, what is your evidence that evolution is non-random?

 

[CFLarsen]

Again, Claus, what is your evidence that evolution is non-random?

I take it you don't think I have provided evidence. If you want to believe that, fine with me.

Let's see if you can follow your own argument to the door. Can you?

What does that mean in terms of real-life evolution? How does it apply?

E,g, does it in any way indicate, or make possible, an intelligent designer?

 

[Walter Wayne]

Let's see.

Vorticity, Walter Wayne, Meadmaker, mijopaalmc, T'ai Chi (him too, yes):

Each of you, please follow the postulate "Evolution is random in a technical sense" to the door.

What does that mean in terms of real-life evolution? How does it apply?

E,g, does it in any way indicate, or make possible, an intelligent designer?

Neither a random nor a non-random evolution make an intelligent designer impossible or necsaary. The reason being is that the intelligent designer is so ill-defined (even when they really mean the christian God, as he remains rather ill-defined as well).

A random evolutionary process would require miraculous interventions along the way to get from abiogenesis to humans guaranteed. Acts of gods and such, like chucking in a meteor here and there to switch things up when things aren't going your way.

A non-random evolutionary process would mean a hypothetical designer would just set things in motion billions of years ago and humans, the apple of his eye, would come about as planned.

Fact is, unless proponents of designers (Gods or otherwise) are willing to pin some characteristics on said entity there is no physical reality you can propose which means anything to said proponents.

Having said that, developing a system that requires constant intervention to keep in going the way you want seems to me to be a rather stupid design.

So random evolution would seem to me to be the worst case for scenerio for a proponent of intelligent designer. Random evolution is a good argument for no designer. If there is one said designer chose a rather inefficient method of bringing about his creation (lots of intervention required), or said designer is indifferent, we aren't "the apple of his eye" made on purpose in his image.

Think about automating a plant. The fact the production line needs intervention by workers or techniciens is seen as a short coming. We seek to minimize randomness in our designs because it is so much more efficient. If there is an intelligent designer, he is dumber than people.

A question for you. What does "follow the postulate to the door" mean?

 

[Walter Wayne]

I take it you don't think I have provided evidence. If you want to believe that, fine with me.

Restate it for us.