What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

Schneibster said:
I'll point a couple of things out.

First, a very respected and senior evolutionary biologist, and a teacher of evolutionary biology at the University of California
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Why would you use the terminology of "senior EVOLUTIONARY biologist".

That is not a term of objectivity. Why is the guy not simply a senior biologist? Are you saying he is perpetually damned to be bound with "evolutionary glasses" by which he must interpret what he sees?

Interesting...I believe I am beginning to understand some things about you...
 
Rodney said:
If information can be added only through random mutations, the evolutionary process as a whole is random.
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Sure--that's what creationists would like people to believe. It erases understanding of natural selection. The rest of the scientific community does not consider something random just because it has random parts. Heard of Chaos?
 
joobz said:
Oh I have. I just like hearing it again. it never stops being funny.

BTW, even if the sun wasn't our heat source and it was purely from geothermal energy and no heat was lost into the universe(a closed system), life would still be possible. As long as the sum of all entropy in the earth increased, it would be possible.(For at least a little while until thermal equilibrium was reached).
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Yes...we still do have lots of life forms getting their energy from the inner core...

Rttjc is hopping mad funny. Wow does he play semantic games to avoid any iota of "biting from the tree of knowledge".

(Dare I say it... he actually makes me miss hammy...)

creationists: you can't talk to them; you may as well talk about them, eh?

I try to imagine the mindset. He came to this forum to spew all of Hovinds, Hamms, and Behe's talking points in fire and brimstone fashion as though the stuff that convinced him (he's not exactly a beacon of intelligence) would somehow convince a bunch of skeptics. I wonder if he thinks that his intelligent designer is smiling down on him for doing so. I don't recall anyone as hopping mad as Fred Phelps here before. Boy, do I bet others who fit into whatever category he aligns himself with (creationist, religious-right, etc.) wish that he wasn't here giving their group such a bad name. I think that's what always does "intelligent design" in. They try to sound all sciency and not influenced by religion and the like, but then the YEC kooks come stomping in with their ignorance and bible thumping, and the gig is up. Wow, makes you long for someone fighting for us to believe in Xenu. At least the arguments would be new...

I feel like if we goad this one too much, he'll show up at funerals with "God hates JREF" signs...
 
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articulett said:
Sure--that's what creationists would like people to believe. It erases understanding of natural selection. The rest of the scientific community does not consider something random just because it has random parts. Heard of Chaos?
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and diffusion,
and pressure,
and energy absorption,
and fluorescence emission,
and resonance energy transfer,
and chemical reactions,
and radiation,
....
 
rittjc said:
If Natural Selection is a highly destructive process that eliminates possibilities, then how does this translate to information addition?
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If what you said was even remotely accurate you might have a point. Let me ask you this: If natural selection is so destructive then how is it that even a genetically stable population is able to reproduce? You've been unable to offer evidence against the actual theory of evolution by natural selection so you are constructing a straw theory that has nothing to do with the real theory.

It ONLY gets rid of information based on that species' information being deleted by the its elimination.
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Yes, information is eliminated when it is eliminated... Moving along.

Killing and eating the one with alternate but yet subjectively inferior knowledge does not get imparted into the predator.
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What are you talking about? If an individual has genetic information that makes it less likely that it can escape a predator (or find food, or resist drought, or attract a mate, or survive the winter, etc. etc. etc.) then that individual's genetic information has a greater chance of being eliminated from the gene pool. Any time an organism fails to reproduce that is an example of information being eliminated. But if an individual has genetic information that makes it more likely to escape a predator (or find food, or resist drought, or attract a mate, or survive the winter, etc. etc. etc.) then that individual's genetic information has a greater chance of being reproduced in the next generation and is thus preserved long enough to have another go at survival in the next generation and the next and the next. Any time an organism reproduces that is an example of information being preserved.

This is why Natural Selection is one of the poorest mechanisms to try to explain the religion of evolution. It indicts evolution, it does not "explain" it.
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The jumble of misconceptions and willful ignorance that you imagine to be the theory of evolution by natural selection is a very poor mechanism for explaining evolution. But it is about as close to the real theory as your understanding of Special Relativity.
 
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Foster Zygote said:
Oh, those selfish genes.;)
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Yep...except that has been exploited by creationists too... they confuse "selfish genes" with selfishness of people, entities, etc. And then they can't fathom how cooperation and altruism can evolve even though other mammals show both--as do some insects even. In many ways, multi-celled organisms are a bunch of genes that are cooperating to get as many of themselves as possible copied into more vectors.


Of course, no matter how you say it...creationists are going to obfuscate...and so the explanations about evolution will evolve based on their obfuscations, our new knowledge, and what works best.

(I almost hate to mention "selfish genes" because anything having to do with Dawkins--memes, selfish genes, atheism -- tends to makes creationists and religious apologists nutso and reactive...)
 
rittjc said:
Why would you use the terminology of "senior EVOLUTIONARY biologist".

That is not a term of objectivity. Why is the guy not simply a senior biologist? Are you saying he is perpetually damned to be bound with "evolutionary glasses" by which he must interpret what he sees?

Interesting...I believe I am beginning to understand some things about you...
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Probably because said person is an evolutionary biologist.
 
Apparently this troll thinks I'm reading what it writes. We have an ignore function on this board, rittjc; please don't trouble yourself to bother to write anything because you think I will read it, because I can't even see that you've posted anything, and the only reason I know that you have is because other people quote it. I have no intention of wasting my time either reading or responding to the statements of an obvious politico-religious troll.
 
rttjc

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19733274

Is MSNBC being taken in my those lying scientists? How do you describe the mutation that allowed the male butterfly embryos to be resistant against the parasite? Was this not beneficial for them? Didn't this beneficial mutation allow for a comeback of the male butterflies? Or is this all part of the evil lies by Satan.

Although the mutation was presumably random--the way it spread throughout the butterfly population is not... And that is true for all DNA.
 
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articulett said:
algebra, algorithms, matter, poker, lyonization patterns, etc.
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This is what kills me about T'ai Chi's current sig: There's a great deal of random chance involved in casino gaming, yet the casinos make a predictable average profit for a given number of players. Casinos are a stochastic process yet the investors always make money.
 
Things I Understand About Rittjc:

1) He's not here to learn or honestly debate. He's here to post his religious agenda

2) Despite all the evidence and links offered to him by various people, he's not read a single thing we've posted

3) No matter what we say or offer, he will ignore every argument we present simply because his religious worldview can not be challenged (reality is too scary).

4) What amuses me most is that he's abandoned the threads where Pixy and myself, along with others, were basically destroying his arguments. Guys, go and read the other threads he was in (Intelligent Design of the Human Hand, Why do Atheists Get a Free Ride?) and you'll see that he's not changed his arguments, even though they have been well and truly shot full of holes.

:cool:

Cheers,
TGHO
 
articulett said:
algebra, algorithms, matter, poker, lyonization patterns, etc.
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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
 
rittjc said:
Random is simple. If it is not repeatable it is random.
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If random is so simple, how come you get it wrong?

Something that is non-repeatable is just that, non-repeatable. It may or may not be random, and something that is random may or may not be repeatable in some sense of the word.
 
Hmmm...I think I need to read that thread, "How do you respond to something that is not even wrong."

Still, I cannot resist the urge to debate a real, live, creationist. It's so rare to find one around here. But for now, I'm too tired. I'll be back. The real challenge will be staying on topic.
 
Foster Zygote said:
This is what kills me about T'ai Chi's current sig: There's a great deal of random chance involved in casino gaming, yet the casinos make a predictable average profit for a given number of players. Casinos are a stochastic process yet the investors always make money.
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Because casino payout are less than the actual odds.

Ever hear of the "house margin/cut" or "house odds"?
 
articulett said:
Sure--that's what creationists would like people to believe. It erases understanding of natural selection. The rest of the scientific community does not consider something random just because it has random parts. Heard of Chaos?
Click to expand...

joobz said:
and diffusion,
and pressure,
and energy absorption,
and fluorescence emission,
and resonance energy transfer,
and chemical reactions,
and radiation,
....
Click to expand...

articulett said:
algebra, algorithms, matter, poker, lyonization patterns, etc.
Click to expand...

joobz said:
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
Click to expand...

And have any of you heard of convergence of random variables, the law of large numbers, and (central) limit theorems?
 
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