What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[mijopaalmc]

You are not possibly trying to be serious when you say that "anything that involves probability" is random. By your insane and indefensible position, everything is random!
The best you can do at this point is claim that God is randomness, and politely excuse yourself from the adult's table.

In order for there to be a meaningful discussion at the adults' table, the adults must first stop acting like children and asserting that "anything can be 'random' if it is defined as 'of or pertaining to probability'". This is simply not true. Random variables are probability-measurable functions whereas the functions of elementary algebra and calculus are Lebesgue measurable. Please examine the linked definitions and then explain to me how the above claim makes sense.

 

[Meadmaker]

You are not possibly trying to be serious when you say that "anything that involves probability" is random.

He can be serious. Not only that, he can be correct.

That's the definition. It was good enough for me in graduate school. I think it ought to be good enough here.

By your insane and indefensible position, everything is random!

It's the same bloody definition used by every professor I ever had in any class that discussed probability or random processes. (Random process: (n.)An indexed collection of random variables. That's the definition. I had been using a slightly less precise definition earlier when I said that a random process was one whose state variables were random variables. This definition is more useful mathematically, which is why it is used so often by mathematicians, or scientists wishing to be precise. The definition I used earlier cuts out some processes that are also considered random processes.)

Were those professors using an"insane and indefensible" definition? Or perhaps they were under the illusion that everything was random? It's odd, because they seemed relatively normal, and they seemed to have a pretty good grasp on which processes were random and which were not. It may seem very strange, but some of the exercises we did actually discussed how some processes could be modelled as random, or not, depending on the circumstances and level of detail one wished to pursue.

The best you can do at this point is claim that God is randomness, and politely excuse yourself from the adult's table.

Neither God, nor a designer, nor anything remotely related to any such topic and whatever influence such an entity had or would have had on the development of life on Earth is under discussion here. It's a total non sequitur. Mijo isn't talking about God, or hinting at God, or trying to steer anyone toward God, or anything at all related to God, a designer, spiritual entities, or any other crackpot idea preached by any preacher anywhere. He's talking about math. If you leave God out of it, there will be some hope you can understand what he is saying.

I've been trying to come up with a description of those who have been reading mijo's definition and saying that he obviously doesn't understand things. The word that I think best describes that reaction is "sophomoric".

 

[rwp]

I admit I have not read most of the discussion in this thread so I imagine that coming up with evidence for non-random evolution will be quite a challenge. As I have time I will try to understand those arguments. Here is what I understand now:

Mutation and natural selection are basically random processes. If the Earth were started over again intelligence might emerge, but anything closely resembling a human being would be unlikely.

On another planet, with a different sequence of random processes to make hereditary diversity and a different environment to select particular combinations of genes, the chance of finding beings similar to us must be close to zero, but the chance of finding other forms of intelligence isn't close to zero.

 

[whiteyonthemoon]

The most accurate scientific theory every devised, quantum mechanics, contains randomness at it's very core. This fact made some people, most notably Einstein, very uncomfortable. By now it seems that there is no way around it, and nobody is afraid to use the term quantum randomness.

 

[articulett]

The most accurate scientific theory every devised, quantum mechanics, contains randomness at it's very core. This fact made some people, most notably Einstein, very uncomfortable. By now it seems that there is no way around it, and nobody is afraid to use the term quantum randomness.

Sure... but if you use Mijo's definition, then everything made of matter IS random because it has some quantum randomness in it. That is why nobody who wants to be clear would answer Mijo's questions with his uninformative conclusion, "there is no evidence for evolution being non-random". The top scientists in the field will, in fact, say natural selection is "not random". Some will say that mutations is not strictly random either as it has a cause... but they happen irrespective of whether it benefits the organism or not. Reproductive success and exponential copying of a genome can only happen if the genome benefits the organism containing it (makes it more likely to live and replicate more than it's peers.) Nobody of any integrity seems to call this a random process just because it contains QM. New age nutters do, however... and creationists do as well. Nobody uses stochastic as a synonym for random although stochastic processes are sometimes called random processes because they contain random variables.

 

[mijopaalmc]

articulett-

A stochastic process is random according the rigorous mathematical definition, and every scientist who models evolution by natural selection as a stochastic is saying that evolution by natural selection can be viewed as random in the rigorous mathematical sense.

 

[whiteyonthemoon]

Sure... but if you use Mijo's definition, then everything made of matter IS random because it has some quantum randomness in it. That is why nobody who wants to be clear would answer Mijo's questions with his uninformative conclusion, "there is no evidence for evolution being non-random". The top scientists in the field will, in fact, say natural selection is "not random". Some will say that mutations is not strictly random either as it has a cause... but they happen irrespective of whether it benefits the organism or not. Reproductive success and exponential copying of a genome can only happen if the genome benefits the organism containing it (makes it more likely to live and replicate more than it's peers.) Nobody of any integrity seems to call this a random process just because it contains QM. New age nutter do, however... and creationists do as well.

Given the fact that randomness is part of the most successful scientific theory ever, we shouldn't see the inclusion of randomness into any given theory as a flaw.

As I understand it, Mijo's question in no way relies upon quantum randomness. It's a question that makes as much sense in a newtonian universe as a QM/Relativity based universe.

I am still of the opinion that what prevents any understanding here is not a failure to comprehend what randomness is (and some people are trying very hard not to understand what randomness does and does not mean), but a disagreement on what is meant by evolution.

 

[mijopaalmc]

I am still of the opinion that what prevents any understanding here is not a failure to comprehend what randomness is (and some people are trying very hard not to understand what randomness does and does not mean), but a disagreement on what is meant by evolution.

I totally agree with you here. It is essentially a disagreement about what is by evolution. To address this point, I would like to explicitly address a question that you asked and that (I think) I implicitly answered:

Mijopaalmc, do you see that there is an underlying conserved theme in evolution, that of reproduction, selection, and mutation, that is in itself not random?

Yes, I do see evolution by natural selection as a process that proceeds in an orderly manner from mutation to selection to reproduction and then around again to start the cycle over with mutation. However, I can acknowledge such "non-randomness" and still maintain that evolution by natural selection is random because a random process can have an orderly structure and be probabilistic at each step.

 

[Meadmaker]

I admit I have not read most of the discussion in this thread so I imagine that coming up with evidence for non-random evolution will be quite a challenge. As I have time I will try to understand those arguments. Here is what I understand now:

Mutation and natural selection are basically random processes. If the Earth were started over again intelligence might emerge, but anything closely resembling a human being would be unlikely.

On another planet, with a different sequence of random processes to make hereditary diversity and a different environment to select particular combinations of genes, the chance of finding beings similar to us must be close to zero, but the chance of finding other forms of intelligence isn't close to zero.

That's a pretty good summary.

 

[articulett]

That's a pretty good summary.

Except no peer reviewed scientists call natural selection or evolution "random"--and some peer reviewed papers and experts say that "natural selection is not random." Multiple credible people and sources have said that it's misleading to think of evolution and/or natural selection as random. To a person who actually understands the topic, it sounds like you haven't got a clue as to how the appearance of design arises--that is, you don't understand or cannot convey understanding of natural selection.

Talk Origins, multiple sources, and peer reviewed papers have said as much. But some people for some unknown reason thinks that it is meaningful to describe evolution or scientific understanding of evolution with terms indistinguishable from the tornado analogy (i.e. "evolution is random"). Are you really so uninformed that you cannot understand how misleading and uninformative you are being in defense of someone you think is making sense? Do you really think you or Mijo can actually convey the simple understanding of natural selection to anyone. Because, to the majority, it sounds like you don't understand it at all. Why not trust the expertise of Talk Origins, Dawkins, Ayala, and the many people with higher degrees in the sciences who stopped by to answer this question? Why insist on saying that you are making sense when no peer reviewed sources are saying what you are saying and you have to do a weird twisting of semantics to pretend they are.

Moreoverr, it is well noted that Behe holds a similarly obfuscating view. He overplays the supposed role of randomness in mutation without seeming to have a clue as to how natural selection works. You and Mijo have made no attempt to distinguish your conclusions from his. You talk about the seeming design without factoring in replicating systems which you don't seem to grasp better than the average 9th grader--maybe even worse. Your explanation is on par with describing the results google returns as "random". No one who understood the algorhithm would describe it that way--only someone who thought they knew what they were talking about, but was clueless, would.
The same goes for other systems in which exponential numbers are at play--particularly replicating systems.

Really. Ask the nearest credible scientist whether they think it makes sense to call evolution a "random process". We've already had multiple ones weigh in and say it's misleading at best. We have peer reviewed papers that say so. So far we have zero peer reviewed papers describing random as "anything to do with probability" and nothing describing natural selection or evolution as "random"-- nor do we have any respectable sources saying "stochastic is a synonym for random" nor do we have a single source that says "anything containing randomness is rightly called a random process".

And yet, in you own head, you are saying something valuable or conveying information... even though not a single credible person seems to agree. You have an explanation that is indistinguishable from Behe... a definition that makes pregnancy test results "random"... that make roulette as random as poker. If you want to convince yourself you are saying something of value, I think you've already done that. If you want to have a useful definition... aim for peer review... or at least find one that speaks as vaguely as you do. At least 10 people on this thread have said that natural selection is not random. No scientists have said that it is. Therefore, the answer to the OP is and always has been-- natural selection--it's not random because only the best replicators get multiplied... the worst are culled at the get go.
Selection is biased, and on the very same page that Mijo pulled up his definition of random-- biased is described as an "antonym" of random (i.e. "not random") But then mijo and you use the definitions you want as you go and pretend that it's meaningful though no one seems to have a clue as to what you are saying or how your definition differs from the tornado analogy.

You have a bad definition that doesn't convey information. You would say that the butterfly mutation in the MSNBC article came about randomly. No one else would. Natural Selection caused it to spread through the population--not some designer intent on saving butterflies or some mathematical convergence of large numbers and assorted random inputs. It looks designed, because those that didn't have the mutation didn't survive to reproduce. How you can miss this in every explanation and congratulate yourself on thinking you are saying something is beyond me. But I suppose that is what hubris does. Sure random components are involved... but even simpletons can understand that part. It's how the design comes about that creationists and you seem to have huge problems conveying. Moreover, you actually think this isn't a creationist obfuscation point despite multiple evidence to the contrary.

Given your inability to understand the basic argument or the question makes me quite certain that it's time to place you on ignore as well as Mijo. It doesn't look like I will be missing much. You are spending so much time trying to prove me wrong about Mijo's intent that you are missing what everyone else is telling you (unless you can extract something to support the view that someone other than creationists think it makes sense to sum up evolution as random.) I laugh at you both, and I'm glad the majority of people at this forum are much more intelligent and explanatory than you.

 

[mijopaalmc]

The problem with what articulett is saying is that every one of the sources she has cited as saying evolution is "non-random" also refers to aspects of "probability" or "likelihood". It is therefore not I or any other of the people that are arguing evolution is "random" in the mathematical sense based on axiomatic probability theory who are obfuscating by calling evolution "random"; it is the scientists who are arguing that evolution is "non-random" and then referring to probability who are obfuscation by calling evolution "non-random".

 

[steenkh]

Rodney, I have had some biologists look at Milton's critique of Boxhorn's article in talkorigins.org. It seems that they find that Milton's insistence on the "strong" definition of species is not generally accepted. Many species we see today would be merged into fewer species if this definition were to be used. On the contrary, there is a tendency to move away from the strong definition altogether. For instance, many species of ducks can actually (and some do) form hybrids, but they are regarded as different species nevertheless. If some birds share the same territory but keep separate because of differences in mating behaviour, they will be regarded as separate species, even though they can under lab conditions, form hybrids.

The main point is really that we have plenty of examples of new species according to generally accepted definitions of of speciation, but few, if any, if we insist on the "strong" definition. Creationists can of course use the "strong" definition to postpone the inevitable that one day speciation will be observed according to this definition too, but creationists will hardly be able to contend that speciation has been observed using the normal definition.

 

[articulett]

Rodney, I have had some biologists look at Milton's critique of Boxhorn's article in talkorigins.org. It seems that they find that Milton's insistence on the "strong" definition of species is not generally accepted. Many species we see today would be merged into fewer species if this definition were to be used. On the contrary, there is a tendency to move away from the strong definition altogether. For instance, many species of ducks can actually (and some do) form hybrids, but they are regarded as different species nevertheless. If some birds share the same territory but keep separate because of differences in mating behaviour, they will be regarded as separate species, even though they can under lab conditions, form hybrids.

The main point is really that we have plenty of examples of new species according to generally accepted definitions of of speciation, but few, if any, if we insist on the "strong" definition. Creationists can of course use the "strong" definition to postpone the inevitable that one day speciation will be observed according to this definition too, but creationists will hardly be able to contend that speciation has been observed using the normal definition.

Per that definition, Lions and Tigers are the same species, although lion and cougars aren't. And Zebras and donkeys are as well. But they'll say that Noah just took different "kinds" aboard the ark and then super fast evolution happened afterwards... at least I think that's how they explain the above. Or maybe they gloss over it... like dogs and wolves. When it comes to translocations, you can get an isolated breeding population pretty quickly once cousins start mating and because only those with matching translocations can mate... speciation can happen pretty fast... I imagine that something like this happened between humans and their ape ancestor... I wonder if Neanderthals carry the number 2 fusion? That was a big isolating event regarding speciation and the inability to produce viable offspring.

Here is Discover magazine's scathing review of Behe (note his confusion over randomness)-- I've been trying to get Rodney to acknowledge that Behe, his hero, concedes that humans and apes share a common ancestor. Creationists tend to avoid acknowledging this concession of Behe's. http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/none-found

regarding Behe's misunderstanding of natural selection, they write: To reach this conclusion, Behe makes a number of invalid assumptions about how molecules evolve and interact. He alleges that, because many functional adaptations require multiple changes in proteins, two or more mutations must occur together at the same time in the same gene and only rarely can several mutations “sequentially add to each other to improve an organism’s chances of survival.” But in fact natural selection does work on transitional forms, as molecules and traits evolve stepwise. Stepwise evolution has been well documented; one good instance of this is the emergence of color vision. Mutations add up little by little, leading to major changes to proteins over time.


It's the incremental nature of mutations with the successes multiplying exponentially that creationists can't seem to grasp or convey. And speciation is, in fact, a series of just such changes... "micromutations"-- so creationists have a vested interest in not being able to "compute". No matter how you try to address their questions or focus them, they are off flinging up the same old tired arguments, tangents, and obfuscations, of their predecessors.

 

[Rodney]

Rodney, I have had some biologists look at Milton's critique of Boxhorn's article in talkorigins.org. It seems that they find that Milton's insistence on the "strong" definition of species is not generally accepted. Many species we see today would be merged into fewer species if this definition were to be used. On the contrary, there is a tendency to move away from the strong definition altogether. For instance, many species of ducks can actually (and some do) form hybrids, but they are regarded as different species nevertheless. If some birds share the same territory but keep separate because of differences in mating behaviour, they will be regarded as separate species, even though they can under lab conditions, form hybrids.

Try this argument out on people who are open-minded about speciation and see if it convinces even one person.

The main point is really that we have plenty of examples of new species according to generally accepted definitions of of speciation, but few, if any, if we insist on the "strong" definition.

Zero, to be exact.

Creationists can of course use the "strong" definition to postpone the inevitable that one day speciation will be observed according to this definition too, but creationists will hardly be able to contend that speciation has been observed using the normal definition.

How much longer before this "inevitable" day occurs?

 

[cyborg]

Try this argument out on people who are open-minded about speciation and see if it convinces even one person.

You do not understand the nature of the abstractions used here.

How much longer before this "inevitable" day occurs?

Forever as long as there are people who do not understand that complexity is not required to build complexity.

 

[articulett]

You do not understand the nature of the abstractions used here.



Forever as long as there are people who do not understand that complexity is not required to build complexity.

Which will occur the day before people realize that it isn't informative to call everything that contains any randomness a "random process".

 

[steenkh]

Try this argument out on people who are open-minded about speciation and see if it convinces even one person.

Well, the open-minded people here have had no objections. The close-minded creationists seem to have trouble with this reasoning.

Zero, to be exact.

That is possible. Boxhorn's article is rather old, and newer examples could easily have shown up.

How much longer before this "inevitable" day occurs?

I don't know. A few thousand years perhaps. Do you think that the apocalypse has happened before that?

As it has been pointed out, the "strong" definition of speciation is so strong that lots of accepted species of ducks, cats, horses, and many others would not qualify as species according to this definition. No wonder that we would have to wait for a long time if even in vitro fertilization must be impossible before creationists would face the facts.

Insistence on a stronger concept of speciation seems like moving the goal-posts, because I do not think that creationists insisted on this twenty years ago, because they also regarded speciation according to "weak" principles impossible.

 

[Rodney]

Insistence on a stronger concept of speciation seems like moving the goal-posts, because I do not think that creationists insisted on this twenty years ago, because they also regarded speciation according to "weak" principles impossible.

If you have evidence for that assertion, I would like to see it. Take your time, I'll be away for a week or so.

 

[Meadmaker]

I say that the selection pressures are nonrandom, but the selection is probabilistic.

I had never noticed this phrasing before in this thread, but this is an excellent way of saying it.

 

[steenkh]

If you have evidence for that assertion, I would like to see it. Take your time, I'll be away for a week or so.

I do not think it is possible to prove a negative, i.e. to prove that creationists have never before insisted on the "strong" definition. But perhaps somebody could come up with a single instance to disprove it? I.e. a single quote where a creationist insisted on the "strong" definition?