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In reply to the discussion: Evolution-Accepting Christian Professor: Bible Doesn’t Have to Conflict with Scientific Realities [View all]Jim__
(14,092 posts)95. "Evolution depends on randomness."
I'm curious as to what empirical evidence you can cite that demonstrates this dependence. It is not a simple matter - maybe impossible - to show that a system is random. From the Causal Determinism entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia (note SDIC is sensitive dependence on initial conditions):
...
In the example of the billiard table, we know that we are starting out with a Newtonian deterministic systemthat is how the idealized example is defined. But chaotic dynamical systems come in a great variety of types: discrete and continuous, 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional and higher, particle-based and fluid-flow-based, and so on. Mathematically, we may suppose all of these systems share SDIC. But generally they will also display properties such as unpredictability, non-computability, Kolmogorov-random behavior, and so onat least when looked at in the right way, or at the right level of detail. This leads to the following epistemic difficulty: if, in nature, we find a type of system that displays some or all of these latter properties, how can we decide which of the following two hypotheses is true?
1. The system is governed by genuinely stochastic, indeterministic laws (or by no laws at all), i.e., its apparent randomness is in fact real randomness.
2. The system is governed by underlying deterministic laws, but is chaotic.
In other words, once one appreciates the varieties of chaotic dynamical systems that exist, mathematically speaking, it starts to look difficultmaybe impossiblefor us to ever decide whether apparently random behavior in nature arises from genuine stochasticity, or rather from deterministic chaos. Patrick Suppes (1993, 1996) argues, on the basis of theorems proven by Ornstein (1974 and later) that There are processes which can equally well be analyzed as deterministic systems of classical mechanics or as indeterministic semi-Markov processes, no matter how many observations are made. And he concludes that Deterministic metaphysicians can comfortably hold to their view knowing they cannot be empirically refuted, but so can indeterministic ones as well. (Suppes (1993), p. 254)
...
In the example of the billiard table, we know that we are starting out with a Newtonian deterministic systemthat is how the idealized example is defined. But chaotic dynamical systems come in a great variety of types: discrete and continuous, 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional and higher, particle-based and fluid-flow-based, and so on. Mathematically, we may suppose all of these systems share SDIC. But generally they will also display properties such as unpredictability, non-computability, Kolmogorov-random behavior, and so onat least when looked at in the right way, or at the right level of detail. This leads to the following epistemic difficulty: if, in nature, we find a type of system that displays some or all of these latter properties, how can we decide which of the following two hypotheses is true?
1. The system is governed by genuinely stochastic, indeterministic laws (or by no laws at all), i.e., its apparent randomness is in fact real randomness.
2. The system is governed by underlying deterministic laws, but is chaotic.
In other words, once one appreciates the varieties of chaotic dynamical systems that exist, mathematically speaking, it starts to look difficultmaybe impossiblefor us to ever decide whether apparently random behavior in nature arises from genuine stochasticity, or rather from deterministic chaos. Patrick Suppes (1993, 1996) argues, on the basis of theorems proven by Ornstein (1974 and later) that There are processes which can equally well be analyzed as deterministic systems of classical mechanics or as indeterministic semi-Markov processes, no matter how many observations are made. And he concludes that Deterministic metaphysicians can comfortably hold to their view knowing they cannot be empirically refuted, but so can indeterministic ones as well. (Suppes (1993), p. 254)
...
An excerpt from Evolution and Chance at Talk Origins, an article that begins with the claim: Genetic changes do not anticipate a species' needs, and those changes may be unrelated to selection pressures on the species. Nevertheless, evolution is not fundamentally a random process:
...
Another way to say this is just that the changes that get encoded in genes occur with no forethought to the eventual needs of the organism (or the species) that carries those genes. A gene change (for instance, a point mutation -- a mistake at a single locus of the genetic structure) may change in any way permitted by the laws of molecular biology, according to the specific causes at the time. This may result in a phenotypic change that may be better suited to current conditions than the others about at the time. However, it probably won't. So far as the local environment is concerned, the change is the result of a random process, a black box that isn't driven with reference to things going on at the level of the environment. It's not really random, of course, because it is the result of causal processes, but so far as natural selection is concerned, it may as well be.
Replication Rules must involve what Dawkins calls "high fidelity" replication. Too high a rate of error would introduce too much "noise" into the replication process for selection to work effectively. Error rates in replication are indeed very low ("Typical rates of mutation are between 10-10 and 10-12 mutations per base pair of DNA per generation", Chris Colby's Introduction to Evolutionary Biology FAQ). Each error is the result of purely physical processes and can at the micro level be theoretically predicted, although in the real world we could never predict the sorts of mutations and transcription errors that will result for any particular case, from a lack of information.
Replication Rules are not random in the sense that, say, Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty or quantum mechanics is sometimes supposed to show the fundamental randomness of reality. They are merely random with respect to natural selection. Natural selection is not random: it is the determinate result of sorting processes according to relative fitness. It is stochastic, in the sense that better engineered features can fail for reasons of probability (they may meet accidents unrelated to their fitness), but that poses no greater threat to the scientific nature of evolution than it does for, say, subatomic physics or information theory.
There are scientists and philosophers who think that probabilities represent a real indeterminacy in the world; that even if you had, in principle, full information about all causes for a system, it would still be possible only to predict the distribution curve rather than the outcome for any single object. This is called the propensity interpretation (Beatty and Finsen in Ruse 1989), and holds that real things have a real propensity to behave in a range of ways rather than a real set of properties that will specify a strict determined outcome. Whether this is true or not is not relevant to evolution as such, for if it is true, then it is true of everything, and not just living things.
...
Another way to say this is just that the changes that get encoded in genes occur with no forethought to the eventual needs of the organism (or the species) that carries those genes. A gene change (for instance, a point mutation -- a mistake at a single locus of the genetic structure) may change in any way permitted by the laws of molecular biology, according to the specific causes at the time. This may result in a phenotypic change that may be better suited to current conditions than the others about at the time. However, it probably won't. So far as the local environment is concerned, the change is the result of a random process, a black box that isn't driven with reference to things going on at the level of the environment. It's not really random, of course, because it is the result of causal processes, but so far as natural selection is concerned, it may as well be.
Replication Rules must involve what Dawkins calls "high fidelity" replication. Too high a rate of error would introduce too much "noise" into the replication process for selection to work effectively. Error rates in replication are indeed very low ("Typical rates of mutation are between 10-10 and 10-12 mutations per base pair of DNA per generation", Chris Colby's Introduction to Evolutionary Biology FAQ). Each error is the result of purely physical processes and can at the micro level be theoretically predicted, although in the real world we could never predict the sorts of mutations and transcription errors that will result for any particular case, from a lack of information.
Replication Rules are not random in the sense that, say, Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty or quantum mechanics is sometimes supposed to show the fundamental randomness of reality. They are merely random with respect to natural selection. Natural selection is not random: it is the determinate result of sorting processes according to relative fitness. It is stochastic, in the sense that better engineered features can fail for reasons of probability (they may meet accidents unrelated to their fitness), but that poses no greater threat to the scientific nature of evolution than it does for, say, subatomic physics or information theory.
There are scientists and philosophers who think that probabilities represent a real indeterminacy in the world; that even if you had, in principle, full information about all causes for a system, it would still be possible only to predict the distribution curve rather than the outcome for any single object. This is called the propensity interpretation (Beatty and Finsen in Ruse 1989), and holds that real things have a real propensity to behave in a range of ways rather than a real set of properties that will specify a strict determined outcome. Whether this is true or not is not relevant to evolution as such, for if it is true, then it is true of everything, and not just living things.
...
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Evolution-Accepting Christian Professor: Bible Doesn’t Have to Conflict with Scientific Realities [View all]
rug
Jan 2015
OP
I find it problematic because it continues to insert a guiding hand into a process
cbayer
Jan 2015
#16
I'm asking you to cite your evidence that the evolutionary process cannot be chaotic.
Jim__
Jun 2015
#102
Geez, AtheistCrusader, I so wish you would participate in the discourse here beyond simple dismissal
pinto
Jan 2015
#8
I'm not sure there is a finite amount of what can be known, but that's a different subject.
cbayer
Jan 2015
#26
Por nada - the discussion is one that I really enjoy listening to so it was no burden.
eomer
Jan 2015
#92
BTW, that's apparently not the interview where he said this. It was to Bill Moyers.
cbayer
Jan 2015
#45
I think when you took his quote out of context, you presented it as his thoughts.
cbayer
Jan 2015
#37
There isn't any reason why the two can not continue to exists, if you don't believe then it is your
Thinkingabout
Jan 2015
#29
Ok folks, now for something completely different - Randomness and Mathematical Proof (Sci Amer)
pinto
Jan 2015
#58
Did you read any of the discussions in this thread? Or just choose a drive by post?
pinto
Jan 2015
#60
By his own admission: The belief in question is whatever the believer wants it to be.
DetlefK
Jan 2015
#62
I think that science teachers in these schools were liberal thinkers who realized that it did not
jwirr
Jan 2015
#66
Layer of ridiculous voodoo horseshit along with a dose of science-acceptance.
Warren Stupidity
Jun 2015
#96
The God of the gaps. It slices, it dices, it postpones the age of reason yet again!
AtheistCrusader
Jun 2015
#100
How did he as a scientist come to the conclusion that God belongs into this theory?
DetlefK
Jun 2015
#101
I grew up accepting both, and as such, never took the Bible literally...
Humanist_Activist
Jun 2015
#110