What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

Rodney said:
No, what I have in mind is using probability analysis to construct a model showing that life could plausibly have evolved to its present level of complexity with only random mutations, environmental factors, and natural selection.
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Next question then: define complexity - mathematically.

We can't have any wishy-washy notions of 'I know it when I see it' here.
 
cyborg said:
QM exists. QM is random. QM operates on everything/

Therefore: everything is random.

That's your argument mijo - not mine. Don't get pissy with me because you can't see the logical end-points of your arguments.
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No, that is not my argument. At least that is not my argument in the way that you want it to be my argument.

You seem to be saying that since QM is random in the sense that QM events are acausal and unpredictable, then I am saying that everything that is built up from these acausal and unpredictable events (which everything is) must be equally acausal and unpredictable. That is a patently absurd position to take given that you claim to have superior knowledge of probability and statistics. You are completely ignoring that random variables (i.e., the outcomes of these acausal and unpredictable events) converge on given values as the number of repetitions increase. This lends order to random event and can possibly make causality an emergent property of many acausal events.
 
Convergence is irrelevant.

I fail to see where the non-randomness occurs mijo.
 
cyborg said:
I learnt from a master mijo.
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You know nothing I have said to you about probability and its application to evolutionary biology has been true. If you think otherwise, please provide specific quotations to back up your assertion.

Everything you have said about probability and its application to evolutionary biology has been false. If you think otherwise, please provide specific quotations to back up your assertion.
 
cyborg said:
Next question then: define complexity - mathematically.

We can't have any wishy-washy notions of 'I know it when I see it' here.
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You're again trying to shift the burden of proof. However, for starters, a Darwinian model needs to show how life evolved from a single cell to human beings with trillions of cells, including brains with about 100 billion nerve cells.
 
cyborg said:
QM exists. QM is random. QM operates on everything/

Therefore: everything is random.

That's your argument mijo - not mine. Don't get pissy with me because you can't see the logical end-points of your arguments.
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But didn't you find the big red letters added a bit of weight to his argument?
 
Rodney said:
You're again trying to shift the burden of proof. However, for starters, a Darwinian model needs to show how life evolved from a single cell to human beings with trillions of cells, including brains with about 100 billion nerve cells.
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Gee Rodney, that takes a little bit of basic science to understand the answer, ya' know? Evolution works... and it's useful... we keep find out more... that ape chromosome 2 fusion thing was a real cool find, eh? Darwin didn't even know about DNA.

If you creationists will ever get together a useful theory with some evidence that people could use instead of parlaying your ignorance about evolution into something that keeps your "intelligent designer" alive in your own heads, then we might have something to discuss.

Nobody in science needs to shift the burden of proof because the facts all fit our observations. There is no evidence that anything divine or planned or supernatural is going on. The world looks and acts exactly as we would expect if evolution is true. Scientific knowledge is honed and refined through time. We can only flesh out our information with facts. So far, there is no fact that doesn't fit our model of gravity, evolution, or atomic theory-- or even germ theory. We seem to be on the right path.

Facts... got any?
Clue... got any?

I thought not.
 
Rodney said:
You're again trying to shift the burden of proof.
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Uh no. I'm trying to get you to define exactly what it is you want to see.

However, for starters, a Darwinian model needs to show how life evolved from a single cell to human beings with trillions of cells, including brains with about 100 billion nerve cells.
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So you DO want an Earth simulator then.

Sorry - can't do that. Don't have enough computing power.
 
mijopaalmc said:
Oh so being emphatic is only acceptable when the person agrees with you?
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Empathic? Do you have a dictionary. My response has nothing to do with empathy. Cyborg is just so much smarter and funnier than you. And comprehensible. He doesn't insert odd wording to say more nothingness and you, creationists are really big on that. It's like taking a swim in a word salad. (I even like your big red letters--so Kleinmanesque.) You guys make me giggle.

As does cyborg's responses.

Smart people tend to enjoy other smart people, what can I say.
 
articulett said:
Empathic? Do you have a dictionary. My response has nothing to do with empathy. Cyborg is just so much smarter and funnier than you. And comprehensible. He doesn't insert odd wording to say more nothingness and you, creationists are really big on that. It's like taking a swim in a word salad. (I even like your big red letters--so Kleinmanesque.) You guys make me giggle.

As does cyborg's responses.

Smart people tend to enjoy other smart people, what can I say.
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Can you read?

I said "emphatic" not "empathic".

And the fact that you are capitalizing on a slip-up that I made about my knowledge of probability theory, when I obviously meant the opposite of what I said, displays the intellectual poverty of your argument, especially since you have yet to cite a textbook in probability theory that agrees with peculiar notion of probability.
 
But say, there is a bit of empathy now that I think of it... I mean you are frustrating to talk to. Your goal is to prove that it makes sense to call evolution random and you turn a questions that many have answered simply into a semantic brouhaha about how Dawkins is unclear and scientists really are saying evolution is random if you use random to imply all things that have any randomness which means all things that can be described by a probability distribution.

It's cute... the way you dash about and grasp at mathematical models to prove some point that only you seem to understand, but reading your verbiage is taxing-- and I like to fill in the asterisks which my own frustration at your Behe-esqe tangents and semantic buffoonery. So yes... maybe I'm being empathic.

But even still, your wording is so weird. Empathic is a feeling...not something one "finds acceptable"... and, as far as I'm concerned there's nothing to agree or disagree about. This appears to be a thread about the best way to describe evolution in terms of randomness and non-randomness. There isn't a "right" answer-- only clear answers and unclear ones. You have the most unclear answer I've ever heard next to Behe's and it is identical to the creationist canard that "scientists think we got here by random chance"-- and several creationists have dropped by to illustrate the inanity.

Besides, Cyborg sees you for what you are. You've fooled some people. So have Von Neumann and John Hewitt-- but I've just seen the same song and dance so often that I consider it fodder for amusement... I love watching you get cornered by your own buffoonery. And I'm sure Cyborg enjoys it too-- so I guess it's a kind of empathy.
 
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