What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

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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Yes indeed. Most casino games aren't really stochastic either. As long as the house has the favor, you can know exactly what your percentage of the take is.

Many games are like that. An example would be a lottery... where 90% is divided between the winner or rolled over...and 10% goes to the players. In essence, people are paying to have a chance to win. And the more people who play, the larger the 10%-- the greater the number of players, the closer you are to whatever percentage edge the game has. In blackjack--the winner gets the full win...but ties go to the house, which is where their profits 2% come in. That's how card counters got rich...

Yes, if you want sure money--don't play the lottery-- run the lottery!

I think horse races and sports betting are better examples of stochastic processes, but I'm not sure. In any case, when you play poker with your friends, all the money is returned to the players...when you gamble in Vegas, a percentage of the money goes to the house and the rest is distributed to winners.

BTW, I think it's very sweet of you to take the time to read what T'ai has in his sig line. I don't think I've ever given a post of his that much attention...
 
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mijopaalmc said:
Because casino payout are less than the actual odds.

Ever hear of the "house margin/cut" or "house odds"?
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Yes, but even when winnings are not subject to a house margin the games are designed in such a way that the win/loose odds are slightly in the favor of the house. Thus, a stochastic process has a predictable outcome.
 
joobz said:
Yes. Your point?
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Mijo started this thread with his title question... multiple people have answered it. His contention is that since evolution contains all this "randomness"-- it's fine to sum up evolution as random--that Dawkins et. al. are being misleading calling natural selection "not random". He's trying to shore up the claim that scientists are really saying evolution is random-- kind of like Behe--

To me, and I've been flogged for saying so, it's because he's a "proponent of intelligent design" trying to obfuscate understanding of the non-random aspects of evolution, namely natural selection. But he thinks that he is clearly saying something useful and meaningful in saying that evolution is a random (sometimes he'll call it a stochastic process...which he claims is a synonym for random via a twisty word game where stochastic processes are sometimes referred to as "random processes"--although the processes themselves aren't random.)

From my perspective he likes to mix academics, pedantics, and obfuscation in order to boil down evolution to the creationist canard that "scientists think this all happened by chance"-- from which creationists extrapolate the idiotic tornado in a junkyard creating a 747 analogy.

His position is and always has been that the answer to the OP is "there is no evidence for evolution being non-random"-- and he seems to be using a very loose definition of random whereby this is the case. Moreover, he thinks that if a process has any randomness, it can rightly be called a "random process". Per his definition of random, poker is as random of a game as roulette.

I, like most biologists, think that understanding how natural selection gives the appearance of design is the answer to his question--and few would call that "random". The key to understanding evolution and how it is not improbable like the junkyard analogy is to understand natural selection--which is why Behe et. al. go out of their way to obfuscate or gloss over the process by calling it all "random".

Mijo will not concede that any part of evolution can be described with the adjective, "nonrandom". You try to figure out why.
 
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articulett said:
From my perspective he likes to mix academics, pedantics, and obfuscation in order to boil down evolution to the creationist canard that "scientists think this all happened by chance"-- and then they extrapolate the idiotic tornado in a junkyard creating a 747 analogy.

His position is and always has been that the answer to the OP is "there is no evidence for evolution being non-random"-- and he seems to be using a very loose definition of random whereby this is the case. Moreover, he thinks that if a process has any randomness, it can rightly be called a "random process".
Per his definition of random. Poker is as random of a game as roulette.
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Oh, so it's another attempt at wishing evolution away by magic words?

I've heard random, too slow, multiple selection pressures, complexity all uttered in mantras. Suprisingly, none of this has made the evidence disappear.
 
joobz said:
I agree evolution contains fundamentally random processes...
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So what makes it impossible for the entire process to be random and the observed order be due to the large law of large numbers?

joobz said:
Oh, so it's another attempt at wishing evolution away by magic words?

I've heard random, too slow, multiple selection pressures, complexity all uttered in mantras. Suprisingly, none of this has made the evidence disappear.
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No, actually, I'm not trying to argue evolution away by "magic words", and I don't see how you came to that conclusion other than that you have been listening to articulett rather than reading what I have written. Just because I say that evolution is random doesn't make me a creationist. In fact, most creationist arguments are mathematically unsophisticated. The focus on the large number of things that have to happen to make life possible but don't take into account the many-orders-of-magnitude larger numbers of trials that were performed to get there.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Yes, but even when winnings are not subject to a house margin the games are designed in such a way that the win/loose odds are slightly in the favor of the house. Thus, a stochastic process has a predictable outcome.
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Which, again, can be a result of convergence of random variable, the law of large numbers, and (central) limit theorems, rather tahn any underlying determinism.
 
mijopaalmc said:
So what makes it impossible for the entire process to be random and the observed order be due to the large law of large numbers?
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Sure, elements of the process is random. I would even go farther to say that both the selection conditions and the mechanisms of mutation/recombination are random. These combined random events result in a random outcome. What isn't random is continual migration of populations toward local fitness optima.

mijopaalmc said:
No, actually, I'm not trying to argue evolution away by "magic words", and I don't see how you came to that conclusion other than that you have been listening to articulett rather than reading what I have written.Just because I say that evolution is random doesn't make me a creationist.
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Your posts have taken the style i've seen for creationists. If my interpretation of your view is wrong, I apologize. I am simply trying to figure out what your point is.

mijopaalmc said:
In fact, most creationist arguments are mathematically unsophisticated. The focus on the large number of things that have to happen to make life possible but don't take into account the many-orders-of-magnitude larger numbers of trials that were performed to get there.
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If I'm reading this correctly, then yes. Not just the number of trials permits evolution, but the addition of mechanisms that have allowed multiple independant successful mutations to combine and minimize wasted successful mutations.
 
mijopaalmc said:
So what makes it impossible for the entire process to be random and the observed order be due to the large law of large numbers?



No, actually, I'm not trying to argue evolution away by "magic words", and I don't see how you came to that conclusion other than that you have been listening to articulett rather than reading what I have written. Just because I say that evolution is random doesn't make me a creationist. In fact, most creationist arguments are mathematically unsophisticated. The focus on the large number of things that have to happen to make life possible but don't take into account the many-orders-of-magnitude larger numbers of trials that were performed to get there.
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Or the exponential growth of the winners by replication in the environment (Natural Selection!)
 
Excuse the view, for the toe it may thread, but for so much Bickering over semantics, I see very little evolution in this stomp.
It is obvious to me that, Evolutionists are as close minded to science as Creationists, arguments are being Designed from both sides to complement their views, and the science provided is but whitewash for that purpose.
There is no more evidence of Evolution as methodology for existentialism, or indeed that it even occurs, than Bibles written by Man proclaiming to be the word of God.
From a Physics perspective, but in disrespect, I fail to see how it is possible to have anything without "realizing" it, Big Bang theories are but a delusion that predicts the existence of it all to start with, making it as investigative as a Jew's view on Creation... If you believe in Magic.
"Change" can occur and does occur, whether it is Random/Chaotic and or Determined by requirement does absolutely nothing to the argument of validity to either "Camp".
Evolution is a Theory and Theories have a tendency to Evolve, If one is to open ones mind to possibility, it may be that many a new perspective may be observed.
The most likely scenario would be that there is Creation/Realization and Evolution/Change, or Neither but another.
If scientists spent more time trying to prove Creation and Creationists trying to prove evolution it may be that they will open enough their noggins to be able to disregard illusion and innuendo and start growing in understanding.
Zero comes before One, and today we (magnetic particles) are many, somewhere Creation took place, the question is HOW?
In Economics if you have nothing and you can't make it, you borrow.
Zero PLUS a little less, is the engine, makes sense as never before in my eyes even in explaining Gravity... A Positive Universe "growing" into existence from a Negative Imposition which maintains as the constant of Gravity.
My bet is... Zero PLUS minus "c", some call it, Zero Point Energy others Vacuum Energy, and albeit neither know what they are talking about, it makes far better sense to have a Universe growing from nothing than One that started with Everything.
Conservation of Energy is not displaced with such view, seen that the rule applies to all that is here already "Realized", and has nothing to do with the process of Creation which comes before and will have rules of it's own.
It is important to understand also that science exposed today is but crumbs fed to the masses from the Security protected higher echelons of Flag waving Techno military Leading Organizations, so if you think that you know it all... Think again
Truth is... Zero by cancellation alone is Procreative, Mass is Pressure expressed and Reality is Virtually REAL.... If you look at this carefully, how is it possible to dismiss anything when ALL is Nothing at all.

0+(-C)=EverythingHere
 
Is this a matoraac sockpuppet? Or are the Asylums letting people out early for their weekend home visits... ?
 
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I think that you should read your signature again Articullet, see which one is You...
It must be Sad and Boring living within the Constraints of your little Abusive mind... And seen that you haven't understood it yet, Sanity is Mental Illness in Denial.
 
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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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Easy: it does not. Information is added by mutation, for instance through gene duplication. Natural selection removes only what does not work; it leaves a lot that is neutral or an improvement.
 
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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Whatever semantic game you wish to play, the simple fact is that conventional evolutionary theory teaches that information can be added only through RANDOM mutations. Why not accept that fact, instead of running away from it?
 
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