[Split Thread] Is evolution stochastic? - Page 7

articulett · 17th January 2009, 03:31 PM

And yes... it's semantics... it's a philosophical go nowhere question and conversation... as Dr Adequate pointed out at the beginning of this thread.

But why in the world would people be bent on describing something in a way that is indistinguishable from known dishonest woo like Behe? That's what makes me curious. Is your goal to clarify understanding, or prove that your way of saying something is meaningful and clear and useful to anyone other than those who "need" evolution to be "random" whatever vague meaning they attach to that?

cyborg · 17th January 2009, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by jimbob

But you can't control some of the variables, because the process is affected by random factors, like radioactive decay.

Right.

And you can't tell how every particle in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about its pressure.

You can't tell how every particle of smoke in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about the operation of a smoke alarm.

Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances.

You don't really care that you don't know how each particular air molecule is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate behaviour leading to the phenomena of pressure.

You don't really care how every particle of smoke in the air is behaving or how precisely the radioactive material in the detector is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate effect leading to the activation of the alarm.

Similarly in evolution it is not really interesting as to how it is any particular shift in form arises. It is the aggregate behaviour of populations that is being analysed.

jimbob · 18th January 2009, 01:05 AM

Originally Posted by cyborg

Right.

And you can't tell how every particle in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about its pressure.

You can't tell how every particle of smoke in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about the operation of a smoke alarm.

Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances.

You don't really care that you don't know how each particular air molecule is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate behaviour leading to the phenomena of pressure.

You don't really care how every particle of smoke in the air is behaving or how precisely the radioactive material in the detector is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate effect leading to the activation of the alarm.

Similarly in evolution it is not really interesting as to how it is any particular shift in form arises. It is the aggregate behaviour of populations that is being analysed.

I'd agree if the we weren't discussing a highly nonlinear system.

You can make a statement about air pressure, but if weather is governed by chaotic factors, then you do need to care about every individual molecule.

There are systems where differences in individual components can be aggregated together (say calculating air pressure), and there are systems where differnces in individual components multiply and increase over time.

The Long Term Evoluiton experiment has shown that the differences multiply, indeed that significant differences can arise even where any initial differences were unimportant (with regards to the different outcomes).

jimbob · 18th January 2009, 01:26 AM

I am not interested in discussing how evolution*could* work, but how it *does* work in biological systems.

Originally Posted by articulett

But why in the world would people be bent on describing something in a way that is indistinguishable from known dishonest woo like Behe? That's what makes me curious. Is your goal to clarify understanding, or prove that your way of saying something is meaningful and clear and useful to anyone other than those who "need" evolution to be "random" whatever vague meaning they attach to that?

I agree that you can ignore randomness over "moderate" timescales, but you can't over "long" timescales.

There is a big difference between what Behe says, and what I am saying.

Behe accepts "microevolution" works, he then argues from incredulity that somehow "macroevolution" couldn't work to produce "irreducibly complex" structures, giving the (amusing) example of the bacterial flagellum of something that couldn't evolve.

The randomness is not an important part of his argument, because he has neglected the law of large numbers. He has also neglected the weak anthropic principle, in that *we* perceive something special about our existance, and that we only do this because we exist. The evolution of humanity was an unlikely outcome, but then, so was any other possible outcome.

cyborg · 18th January 2009, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by jimbob

You can make a statement about air pressure, but if weather is governed by chaotic factors, then you do need to care about every individual molecule.

So why isn't anyone going around saying "weather is random"?

Quote:

There are systems where differences in individual components can be aggregated together (say calculating air pressure), and there are systems where differnces in individual components multiply and increase over time.

Which says nothing about the determinism of the system.

Quote:

The Long Term Evoluiton experiment has shown that the differences multiply, indeed that significant differences can arise even where any initial differences were unimportant (with regards to the different outcomes).

So in weather we do need to care about every single molecule but in evolution we can stop caring and declare this detail unimportant and chalk up our ignorance as "random" and be done with it?

recursive prophet · 18th January 2009, 12:49 PM

I found the similarities with some of the recent points jimbob has made with ones presented on the RD thread quite relevant to that discussion, so I copied and posted them there and invited commentary. If I get some I will relay it here. Below is a link to that post. Those interested might also scroll up to the 2 previos replies by susu.exp. In the one just above mine he again presents his left/right-cat/mouse model to show how selection becomes intertwined with different predator/prey species while remaining inherently stochastic.

Interesting debate, jimbob and Cyborg. Do carry on.
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/view...71730#p1671730

[Edit]As I just remembered susu's re-post of the model linked above had no explanation, I pasted in a brief one below. It involves analysis of cats that have a hypothetical 'turn right/left' allele when in pursuit of a mouse, and the relationship with mice possessing a right/left escape allele. When I come across the link where he lays it all out I'll post it here if requested.

"This is the cat and mouse phasespace, given as frequencies of the "turn left" alleles. It´s colored according to the final state a deterministic chaos model produces. In a stochastic chaos model, each innitial state has no certain end state, but probabilities for winding up in a number of final states. Most importantly: The blue (0.5;0.5) state vanishes, as it is only a matter of time, before the stochastic variation leads to the state of the system falling outside of the blue area and after fixation has occurred for both cats and mice, no further change happens."

sol invictus · 18th January 2009, 02:05 PM

Can any of the randomians in this thread formulate an experiment or result which would

a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or

b) confirm it

?

If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat").

recursive prophet · 18th January 2009, 04:12 PM

Sol-Your reply will be posted on RD while both Marios and susu are about. My own response would be that if you stretch the definition enough, anything outside the realm of mathematics can be classified as semantics. Perhaps you agree with Marios that going beyond the maths into the effable inevitably becomes at least philosophical? Is not much of science based on unproven hypotheses on some level? I would invite you to join in the discussion on RD, and will post any replies to your brief comment there. Hopefully you’ll find the replies below of interest.

@Cyborg: Below are the replies from Marios and susu to some of your comments, posted this morning. Look forward to your take on all they’ve laid out. Very thorough lads. Marios is working on his doctorate at Bath, and susu is at Bonn, both in evolutionary biology. There are at least 4 others doing post-grad work, and there is a high level of agreement between them. Yet, I’d be happy to entertain the possibility they have all got it wrong and your take is the true path, or I just didn't comprehend your intent. We shall see, maybe.

Originally Posted by Marios

Originally Posted by Cyborg

And you can't tell how every particle in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about its pressure.

Because the ideal gas laws are linearisable. Somewhere online there ought to be the A level derivation for the ideal gas laws, but if you want the short answer it's that stochastic deviations in linear systems cause a linear deviation in some final state. I.e. stochastic deviation e -> final deviation k.e. In a number of linear systems you can then 'cancel out' symmetric noise.

Unfortunately most real-world/interesting systems are non-linear - either you use limited and difficult mathematical techniques designed to deal with non-linear systems (the hard part of a serious maths degree) - or try to find some way to justify an approximation to a linear system.

Almost all the examples of mathematics that a non-mathematician will see are linear - but almost all the real-world/serious research systems that a mathematician will have to model are non-linear.

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances.

In very simplistic systems, you can do that. In real systems, you either deal with nightmarish mathematics or you have to try to justify why your real-world system can be approximated by a set of very crude assumptions. Applied mathematics is almost a department all on it's own, even before you start looking at the issues raised within any given scientific discipline. Last year one of my assignments was modelling a dialysis machine - the model we used was unbelievably crude and unrealistic - and yet it still wasn't (and isn't) possible to go straight to a deterministic solution without making some disgusting simplifications (effectively assuming the fluid in one side isn't moving because the other side is moving faster). To go beyond that we literally had to just simulate it (which is art form all in itself). And that's just water with solute moving past water without.

Before anyone tries to say "Yeah, but that's just MATHS, not SCIENCE" - maths is the language of science. It's how we communicate models to each other without any ambiguity. If you have a *strong intuition* that you can't explain in maths but nonetheless want to try to communicate in words, then you're engaging in philosophical conjecture.

Marios

Originally Posted by susu.exp

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances.

You don't really care that you don't know how each particular air molecule is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate behaviour leading to the phenomena of pressure.

Such aggregates are still random variables, unless you´ve got an infinite number of components. Throw a lot of fair coins and the frequency of heads is a stochastic variable (following a binomial distribution with parameters 0.5 and N). Only in infinity do you get a non-stocahstic variable: 0.5. Apart from that you´ve got an expected value of 0.5 and a SD of 0.5*N^-1/2.

More crucially: The law of large numbers only applies to random variables.

Originally Posted by jimbob

You can make a statement about air pressure, but if weather is governed by chaotic factors then you do need to care about every individual molecule.

There are systems where differences in individual components can be aggregated together (say calculating air pressure), and there are systems where differences in individual components multiply and increase over time.

There are systems where you can - and generally must - do both. You can still use aggregates, the difference non-linearity makes is that random variables in your equations do not all vanish if you move to infinity (as noted for evolution in my reply to David, your drift term may go to 0 on its own, but that does not in general hold for functions of the drift term). In other words: The two points here are not mutually exclusive, in fact selection is always an agglomerate process, but in cases where you´ve got non-linearity it is also stochastic.

Originally Posted by Cyborg

So why isn't anyone going around saying "weather is random"?

Meteorologists are actually saying that weather is stochastic:
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys....-761-2008.html (I haven´t had time to digest it fully, but it may help with the cat-mouse problem).

Originally Posted by Cyborg

So in weather we do need to care about every single molecule but in evolution we can stop caring and declare this detail unimportant and chalk up our ignorance as "random" and be done with it?

Cannard. The key point is that we have to take into account that the behaviour of individual components is stochastic, and that this stochasticity does generally not get lost in non-linear systems. The idea that this leads to "being done with it", is probably the worst bit. No it doesn´t. Stochastic explanations are not simple, they tend to be far more complicated than deterministic ones.

Here´s a simple deterministic process:
In each step add 1.
You get 1;2;3...
Now for a simple stochastic one:
In each step throw a fair coin and add 1 if it is heads and 0 if it is tails (numbers in brackets: probabilities):
You get 0(.5),1(.5);0(.25),1(.5),2(.25);0(.125),1(.375),2( .375),3(.125)...
The number of possible pathways is growing exponentially with each step rather than staying constant (and 1) in the deterministic system. I can tell you the outcome for step 487 in the determinitic one (it´s 487), but my calculator quits on me when I try to figure out the probabilities for that step in the stochastic case (it´s 2^-487*487!/((487-n)!n!) with n being the value we want the probability for).

Now imagine doing this for a process where even deterministic approximations are hazardous to mathematicians (and in the realm of non-linearity there are quite a few things people can mull over for a decade or two). That´s what I mean when I say "naive and insulting", its people who take down a molehill with a Bucket-wheel excavator and look over to those trying to get at Mt. Everest with a toothpick and having the nerve to say "You guys are just using the toothpick stuff as an excuse not to do the real work".

As Marios has pointed out, if we can in any way justify it, we´ll try to linearize our system and to find a deterministic approximation (in the above analogy, we try to shrink Mt.Everest to molehill size and build a Bucket-wheel excavator from toothpicks). It makes it easier (though both shrinking the mountain and building the Bucket-wheel excavator are still pretty hard work).

recursive prophet · 19th January 2009, 09:59 AM

@sol invictus: Below is the response of susu and Marios to your questions. I look forward to reading your reaction, one that will hopefully address all the key points made.
The link is a good place to jump in if you’d care to see all the current debate on this at RD. Seems arguing at cross purposes is an inherent flaw in cyber-communication.

@Cyborg: Still looking forward to reading your thoughts on the responses I posted earlier from RD. This topic has gotten fairly technical there, and is driven by a cadre of those who have argued non-determinism from early on, quite successfully. It appears that in this far more generalized forum-as opposed to one specifically dedicated to evolution and natural selection-there isn’t much interest in what apparently seems to many a pretty esoteric debate. I can only hope this hybridization project I’ve initiated won’t discourage jimbob and Cyborg from continuing their thought provoking exchange. Que sera.

https://richarddawkins.net/forum/vie...8240&start=475

Originally Posted by susu.exp

Originally Posted by sol invictus

Can any of the randomians in this thread formulate an experiment or result which would

a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or

Rabbits in the precambrian. There simply isn´t a non-stochastic theory of evolution, so the only way to falsify stochasticity of evolution would be to falsify evolution.

Originally Posted by sol invictus

b) confirm it

Well, I´m pretty sure I can falsify any deterministic model, through an example where it breaks down. SCA being maintained above selection-mutation balance for instance. It´s confirmed even through the simple fact that twins do not always have the same number of offspring.

Originally Posted by sol invictus

If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat").

Well, the ball really is on the non-stochastic side. If I´m asked what the stochastic theory of evolution looks like, I can simply point to the textbooks and 150 years of scientific papers. The other side has nothing of that sort, so far I haven´t seen a single model from that side. I´ve seen assertions, but no models. Since the term "stochastic" has a hard definition and the theory of evolution fits that definition, I don´t think I´m arguing semantics. But people have certainly claimed that the LLN makes it non-stochastic and they are indeed leading a boring and useless semantic game (because the LLN only works for stochastic systems).

Originally Posted by Marios

Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet

Easy to see how you got confused, but the replies you quoted me on were all from Cyborg.

Sorry - it was an off the cuff reply.

Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet

I may even add in the classic Lars reply re: the role of maths. Remember that?

I don't - reminder?

Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet

Can not the philosophical argument often trump the mathematical one on a purely pragmatic level?

No, I don't think so - it doesn't get any more pragmatic than maths. To argue that philosophy gives us pragmatic answers in science is like saying we can know scientific truths without any discourse - which violates the structure of modern science (you can't just _know_ a truth, you have to communicate your observation to others and convince them - the most appropriate language for that is the least ambiguous language - maths).

Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet

After all, nothing as exactly precise as that which can be defined mathematically is to be found in nature, right?

But it's not about nature - there are no druids in science, no one gains insights directly from nature, everything you do begins and ends with human language - nature's only involvement is in the experimental process which attempts to falsify one hypotheses in favour of another. There may well be things in nature which cannot be spoken of - not in ambiguous natural language or in unambiguous mathematics - but that's science, that's philosophy or theology. If you have a truth in mind which you cannot communicate except as a gut instinct, then you're in the realm of philosophy, not science.

Originally Posted by sol invictus

a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or

There are several different arguments all helpfully overloaded on one another.

One of the arguments is one of basic comprehension (i.e. you can argue if you want that everything is *secretly deterministic* - but can you _show_ it?) - that's not falsifiable (but then it isn't interesting).

There's a direct deductive argument about whether or not the model of evolution as it stands can be integrated over stochastic fluctuations so that they drop out of the model - they can't, that's not experimental question anymore than asking whether the differential of x^2 is 3.x - it just isn't.

The only sensible empirical argument is Simon Conway Morris' (unfortunately rejected by the people arguing for determinism/pseudo-determinism) - evolution works as per standard textbooks, but convergence is highly prevalent because morphospace is highly canalized - it's generally rejected as ridiculously vague and hard to falsify, but it is theoretically falsifiable.

Originally Posted by sol invictus

If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat").

Yes, that's why we're not actually arguing about that. We're focusing on the slightly more interesting "But don't stochastic perturbations just smooth out?" "But won't the model always stabilise around _the optimum_?" arguments. They are wrong, but it's a wrongness that many people who think they support evolution don't grasp - you can show someone the worked answer, but you can't make them read it.

Marios

jimbob · 19th January 2009, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by sol invictus

Can any of the randomians in this thread formulate an experiment or result which would

a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or

b) confirm it

?

If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat").

How about:

Taking an e.coli bacterium, allowing it to divide for a very few genrations then splitting the resulting population into twelve ancestral strains (all with only a few generations to limit the number of mutations from the parent bacterium) and then allowing them to grow in environments that are as similar as possible, whilst freeze-drying samples from each population every 500-generations (or 75 days), so you can attempt to "rerun the tape of evolution" if something interesting happens.

And then leave running for at least twenty years.... (Since 1988)

Does this sound familiar?

Admittedly this couldn't really "falsify" the claim that evolution is random, but it could falsify the claim that evolution is nonrandom.

For this to occur, you would need to see one popluation spontaneously evolve a trait that is not seen in the other twelve populations (or even better that has not been seen in any strains of e.coli anywhere else, where the lack of this trait has been used as one way of identifying colonies of e.coli)...

PDF by Lenski: here

Quote:

Second, this experiment seeks to examine the repeatability of evolution by having 12 replicate populations, all of them founded from the same ancestor and maintained in the same environment. Which phenotypic and genomic aspects of evolutionary change are repeatable in this system, and which are haphazard? How can we understand the causes of parallelism and divergence of replicate lines? The issue of the predictability of evolutionary change - or lack thereof - has long been of interest. The question was well captured by the late palaeontologist Steven Jay Gould (1989) in a thought experiment: "I call this experiment 'replaying life's tape.' you press the rewind button and, making sure you thoroughly erase everything that actually happened, go back to any time and place in the past -say to the seas of the Burgess Shale. Then let the tape run again and see if the repetition looks at all like the original..." Gould went on to say, however, that "The bad news is that we can't possibly perform the experiment." Of course, we could never run an experiment on the vast temporal and spatial scales imagined by Gould. But on much smaller scales, our experiment with E.coli allows us to address the same question. We do so by allowing 12 scenarios to play out simultaneously, rather than sequentially, as the notion of replay implies, but the issue of repeatability is fundamentally the same.

Lenski's experiment is aimed at addressing this very issue, and has answered it.

In one population, a mutation arose that changed the course of evolution in that population, and this *is* repeatable in samples taken after the mutation occured, but is not repeatable from samples taken before the mutation occured.

This shows that it wasn't minor seemingly-insignificant differences in the environmental conditions of the flasks, but was due to an internally-generated change in one of the flasks (a fortuitous mutation). Environmental differences between the flasks were insignificant. As were the genetics of the initial populations. The important factor was chance.

Those might be my words, but the above quote from Lenski shows that this question was what the experiment was aimed at addressing.

jimbob · 19th January 2009, 01:59 PM

I am still reading the paper, but later on Lenski supports what I said about even positive mutations being likely to vanish, not surprising, given that he is quoting a paper from 1927.

Quote:

As Haldane (1927) showed, most beneficial mutations are lost by random drift before they become common enough for selection to drive them into fixation; the probability of substitution as a beneficial mutation is only about 2s, where s is the selective advantage. Thus, a mutation that xconfers a 10% advantage will be lost by drift about 80% of the time, whereas one with only a 0.5% advantage will disappear 99% of the time.

I have sai before in the discussion about natural selection, that evolutionary biologists discuss natural selection in probabilistic terms, and that the description of natural selection as nonrandom, was a rhetorical simplification or soundbite for getting a simplified and simplistic idea of evolution accross to those laypeople who *really* had toruble with the whole idea of evolution.

If you are *not* talking to that audience, but to numerate people, who understand that randomness does not mean "an equal chance of everything happening" then describing natural selection as "nonrandom" is misleading.

My position on natural is the scientific orthodoxy, despite what Articulett might claim.

My position on the randomness of evolution is one side in an active topic of discussion in evolutionary biology, but which Lenski's Long term Evolution experiment has provided strong support for: both in the case of Citrate⁺ metabolism, and in some of the evolutionary responses of cultures to cold-stress.

sol invictus · 19th January 2009, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by recursive prophet

@sol invictus: Below is the response of susu and Marios to your questions.

I don't understand their answers. There are plenty of versions of evolution which are entirely deterministic - every computer simulation of it ever done, for example. Not to mention that nature itself (and therefore the evolution of life on earth) could be fundamentally non-random for all we know.... so the argument fails completely.

It's a semantic debate, and totally uninteresting.

Originally Posted by jimbob

<snip>

One of the truly bizarre aspects of this is that you bring that up (and I believe you did so also in the past) as evidence that evolution is random. On the contrary, it's evidence that it is non-random, because Lenski was able to engineer the appearance and survival of several very specific mutations. All the colonies evolved some of the same traits given enough time. The fact that one colony was first on any particular one is tautological - did you expect all of them to mutate the same way at precisely the same time?

It would be interesting to know whether one can define a mathematical limit of infinite time, and if so whether all colonies would asymptote to the same sequence. But regardless of that, it is completely obvious that the mutations that persisted were non-random - on the contrary, they were adaptive and advantageous in that environment.

articulett · 19th January 2009, 02:23 PM

Calling it "random" is far more misleading to the majority--which is why creationists insist that evolution is a theory of "random chance".

Ken Miller is understandable and understood far more than those who would classify things differently. He writes numerous text books and testified in the Dover trial. I think I'll stick with the actual experts. I understand them better than the self-appointed experts do.

jimbob · 19th January 2009, 02:24 PM

In answer to your question as to "why nobody calls weather random "

Will it rain within a square kilometer of lattitude 51°N, longitude 0°E anytime during the daylight hours of December 15th 2051?

Not only can't we predict the weather that far in advance; but, due to the highly nonlinear response of the weather, it hasn't even been determined by the universe yet. Weather is not predetermined, it is perturbed by random events. Over short timescales it can be forcast, because these perturbations take time to grow.

articulett · 19th January 2009, 02:30 PM

What the hell does that have to do with this thread?

Yes, we can find ways to prove that all systems have unpredictable or probabilistic elements-- that doesn't mean it's informative to call such systems "random". You sure do reach for some weird examples to justify the way you want to describe evolution.

jimbob · 19th January 2009, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by sol invictus

Originally Posted by jimbob

,snip.

One of the truly bizarre aspects of this is that you bring that up (and I believe you did so also in the past) as evidence that evolution is random. On the contrary, it's evidence that it is non-random, because Lenski was able to engineer the appearance and survival of several very specific mutations. All the colonies evolved some of the same traits given enough time. The fact that one colony was first on any particular one is tautological - did you expect all of them to mutate the same way at precisely the same time?

It would be interesting to know whether one can define a mathematical limit of infinite time, and if so whether all colonies would asymptote to the same sequence. But regardless of that, it is completely obvious that the mutations that persisted were non-random - on the contrary, they were adaptive and advantageous in that environment.

I disagree:

ETA: This is also Lenski's interpretation:

From the abstract to Lenski's paper (PDF):

Quote:

This potentiating change increased the mutation rate to Cit⁺ but did not cause generalized hypermutability. Thus, the evolution of this phenotype was contingent on the particular history of that population. More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection.

More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection.

Unless "historical contingency" is nonrandom...

Lenski was specifically looking to see if the same ancestor in the same environment would always evolve the same traits.

This did not happen.

The experimnetal design removed the effects of initial genetic differences, and also removed the effects of externally-applied environmental effects.

Of course, the traits that evolved were adaptive, and of course the more likely traits evolved numerous times. So what?

We know this from observing biology, where the eye has evolved many times, sometimes more than once in the same organism. We also know this from observing how many orginsims have evolved flight or gliding.

The initial potentiating mutation did make citrate evolution very probable, but this mutation was itself rare. Indeed this is the only observed variant of that strain of E.coli to have evolved citrate metabolism.

raising the spectre of infinite time is a red herring.

For the purposes of the experiment, the environment was kept uniform and simple (expecially compared to less artificial ecosystems). This made the outcome of any randomness less likely not more so, but also more obvious. Because there were fewer interactions between different types of organisms.

Quote:

The fact that one colony was first on any particular one is tautological - did you expect all of them to mutate the same way at precisely the same time?

No but the others have had tens of thousands of generations and still not evolved this trait.

Timing is crucial when talking about interactions.

Suppose someone, 100 years ago in Botswana developed a mutation that woudl have protected that individual against HIV. This would have been evolutionary neutral, and not likely to spread.

If someone developed the same mutation today in Botswana, then that mutation would confer a large advantage.

What is the difference? The mutations of a different "player" in the ecosystem, the HI Virus.

This is a simple example. With more organisms, the nonlinear interactions become greater, and randomness becomes more important.

Sol, do you agree with my statement that chance events have played an important part in the evolutionary history of virtually any organism in that has ever lived.

articulett · 19th January 2009, 02:59 PM

All macro events are considered deterministic... it's how we know the way the world works.

Historical contingency may mean "random" to you-- it doesn't mean it to Lenski or anyone else. Historical contingency IS the selection process--and nobody of note would describe that as random.

As Miller said, to do so would be to confuse the sifted with the sifter. You cannot seem to differentiate the two. That's why you and your fellow friends and Behe are so hard to converse with. You need a certain answer to be "the truth"-- but that certain answer only makes sense if you are defining terms as broadly and uselessly as you are.

jimbob · 19th January 2009, 03:02 PM

Why do you think that articulett?

Lenski's stated aim was to see if the tape of evolution gives the same outcome when rerun.

It doesn't.

How is that nonrandom?

ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random".

EDIT2:

I am also arguing that "nonrandom" is wrong, *not* that "random" is correct.

It is more complex than that, but unless talking to innumerate laypeople, "nonrandom" is simply misleading...

sol invictus · 19th January 2009, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by jimbob

ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random".

Ah, back to this... how refreshing to go around full-circle to a stupidity first expressed months and months ago.

According to that definition, evolution is (probably) random.

Now please name one single real-world process that isn't.

articulett · 19th January 2009, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by jimbob

Why do you think that articulett?

Lenski's stated aim was to see if the tape of evolution gives the same outcome when rerun.

It doesn't.

How is that nonrandom?

ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random".

EDIT2:

I am aslo arguing that "nonrandom" is wrong, *not* that "random" is correct.

It is more complex than that, but unless talking to innumerate laypeople, "nonrandom" is simply misleading...

And this makes elections random, this thread random, smoke detectors random, and everything random. You've defined the term so that it is useless to anyone but... well... yourself and a few creationists. You are using the words of those who think they understand natural selection, but don't have a clue. And you seem completely unable to realize this.

Most people describe evolution as a 2 part process-- but because it is not completely random in any sense of the word, calling evolution "nonrandom" is far more accurate than calling it random to most people. In the same way that elections are nonrandom--random implies a lottery method of choosing. Non random allows you to explain how it's not like a lottery. And if you haven't understood this after years of posts on the subject, how can you ever understand it?

Whenever someone aims to clearly describe evolution, you claim that they are calling it nonrandom and that this is "wrong". The experts disagree. They would say that the way Ken Miller describes evolution is far more accurate than your silly semantics. Sorry. But that's just the way it is. You can convince yourself and others like you that you are saying something valid, but it appears to be valid only to the people on your level... even the experts you quote would not agree with you. What you are calling the same inputs are NOT the same inputs. All things that evolve have a common starting point... but once they diverge none of the inputs are truly identical. Lots of experts will say evolution is nonrandom and describe how. Of course they aren't using your definitions. None are calling evolution random. None. If we ran the tape from the beginning and EVERY input was identical... we'd expect the same output. But we cannot make every input identical. Just like every molecule in every storm would create the exacts same storm if events unfolded identically. When something different happens, it is no longer "identical". You just cannot seem to hear this.

The key to understanding evolution is understanding how it's nonrandom. Everyone (even creationists) can tell you how it's random. Few can tell you how natural selection (which is not random --according to Miller, Dawkins, Coyne, Ayala, et. al.) leads to the appearance of design. You are included in this latter category. You are clearly not using the term nonrandom nor random the way these experts are.

jimbob · 20th January 2009, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Sol Invictus

Originally Posted by Jimbob

ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random".

Ah, back to this... how refreshing to go around full-circle to a stupidity first expressed months and months ago.

According to that definition, evolution is (probably) random.

Now please name one single real-world process that isn't

I missed out the key word "significantly".

I would say that metabolising citrate or not is a significant difference. Especially as this has not been seen in any other variants of that strain of E.coli.

I can name many processes where similar or identical inputs produce significanlty similar outputs.

It is also a commonly accepted usage of the word "random":

Originally Posted by Beth

Originally Posted by jimbob

Skeptgirl,
Mijo is not arguing for "random" as "unbiased" or "haphazard". This is a difference between him and Behe that Articulett refuses to accept. (That and mijos repeted assertions that humanity evolved from ape-like ancestors with no guiding supernatural deity, indeed almost a "drunkards walk" and influenced by many chance events. (What would our genome look like if humanity had not got almost wiped out 70k-yrs ago by Tambora's eruption?

Let me second this. Jimbob is correct. Mijo's insisting that by the proper definitions of 'random' and 'deterministic', evolution is random. It is. I'm not interesting in debating the matter. I'm a professional statistician; I know what the word 'random' means! But 'random' is also quite commonly taken to mean things that are properly termed "haphazard" "unbiased" or "uniformly distributed". By that usage, you are correct and evolution is anything but.

Originally Posted by lenny

Originally Posted by articulett

On planet smart people "random processes" are terms sometimes used to describe stochastic processes... the smart people don't consider the processes themselves random... they are noting that they have random components.

i would really like to understand all the confusion/argument here.

articulett, statisticians would generally not be "smart people" by your definition. random processes (aka stochastic processes) are indeed considered random, you seem to think this is a very restrictive condition, for the most part they do not.

not all random processes are IID (independent, identically distributed) or Gaussian distributed, "most" are subject to "deterministic" influences; they are random processes merely because there is a random term (in discrete or continuous time) onthe right hand side of the equations that define them.

do we all agree that a classical random walk is a random process?

and that so is a random walk on a tilted surface (that is a random process that contains a deterministic drift?)

if you agree the second is random, i do not see why you reject the idea that evolution is random, (given the typical alternatives: random and deterministic, would you want to say evoluiton is deterministic?)

articulett, you just seem to allergic to the use of the word "random" in connection with evoluiton, would you consider it OK to call a radiation induced mutation random?

cyborg could you tell me which post you explained things in, there are over a thousand on this thread!

thanks.

articulett · 20th January 2009, 10:39 AM

Yes... jimbob... normal people consider mutations (and the various recombinations) the random part of evolution, while they consider the selection process the part that accumulates and multiplies the randomness to achieve the appearance of design. We don't call the later random. You might think it's honest or informative to do so, but the experts do not. They do not define words as vaguely as you do because they don't have this bizarre semantic need to describe things in a way that is indistinguishable from the creationist straw man. Instead, they aim to clarify, and use more stringint definitions of words to do so.

Pretending that people are allergic to the word "random" because they find it vague and misleading in regards to evolution doesn't mean that anyone who is taken seriously in the field of science thinks that it's useful to describe evolution as random--that's why none do.

And that's exactly why creationists do refer to evolution as a "theory of chance"-- it works to befuddle folks so that they THINK they understand evolution, but they end up sounding like you. Such people ought to talk to each other, because they really aren't conveying information to anyone else--although they THINK they are... they think they are smarter than those who could give them a clue.

You don't want to describe evolution, you want people to agree that you are describing it coherently. So go find those people who agree and discuss whatever important things you imagine you are saying. The rest of us will describe evolution the way the actual experts do--because we have found that is the best way to convey understanding. Your descriptors are the best way to obfuscate understanding.

You don't need to put down me. I am only repeating what all the experts are saying. Not even Lenski, whom you imagine support you, would disagree with anything I've said. Nor would Dawkins or Miller. Just find one peer reviewed article that says evolution IS random or whatever it is you think you are saying... find one article where they are defining terms like you are. You guys have none. It's all semantics used to say nothing much at all.

If your arguments were valid or useful, it should be easy to find peer reveiwed scientists making them--without twisting their words or supplying your personal definitions to their terminology.

articulett · 20th January 2009, 11:05 AM

What is your point, and it doesn't help to mishear me as being allergic to the word random? I use it exactly as Dawkins and Miller do. But the fact is, RANDOMNESS is not essential to evolution-- VARIETY is... it doesn't matter how that variety is generated--randomly, through recombination, or through an alogrithm... there just needs to be a pool from which to select the most efficient teams of genes from. You are obsessed with randomness... as obsessed as any creationist. The word is completely unnecessary in describing evolution and can so readily lead to confusion.

That's it. You just can't get this. Whatever your point is, it is lost in your need to define things in terms of randomness--the least essential part of evolution. The part that confuses the most people. The creationist straw man.

How much more evidence do you need that you are not clear, and that no one really speaks of evolution like you do except for those who think they understand it, but don't? Those who are clear, publish and teach others. Those who are not, malign others with straw men and use lots of words to convey no information at all.

That's fine with me, but putting me down, reveals exactly what sort of person you are; the people here no me well enough to know that I am not as you'd characterize me. You are only fooling the fools-- you are miffed because other people have pointed out that you are not quite the expert you imagine yourself to be. You are miffed that I said the truth-- you aren't really particularly well regarded as an explanatory source on the topic of evolution. Like Mijo, your expertise seems to be entirely in your own mind. Entirely.

I mean really, Jimbob, what the hell is your point? Dont put me down--try to find someone of integrity who uses words in the cumbersoome non-explanatory ways you do to advance whatever point you are trying to make. Do you think Beth is someone others find "informative" on this topic? I teach this topic; I have a Masters in Genetics; I worked for years as a genetic counseler. What's your expertise again? I can't make much sense of Beth and neither can the people I respect--she's wishy washy sounding... like you... apologetic... misses the point... garbled. And lenny is okay, but he's payiing more attention to a straw man view of what I said, then what I actually said, and he's not exactly supporting your veiwpoint. I'll stick with the bigger experts like Dawkins et. al. I know exactly what such experts have to say on this subject.

You aren't exactly quoting highly respected people, you know... and when you do, they sure aren't saying what you seem to imagine them to be saying. You have no ability to improve your communication, because like the people referenced in my sig, you are so sure you know more than those who might clue you in.

Everyone just gets tired of it, and learns to ignore you. If your point was to converse, you need to be on the same page as everyone else. It doesn't help if you imagine yourself smarter than those who actually know more than you. You don't like it in other people--and people here, don't like it in you. Why wasn't Dr Adequate or Sol's responses good enough? Do you really imagine yourself smarter than them? I don't think the evidence supports this notion.

six7s · 20th January 2009, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by articulett

How much more evidence do you need that you are not clear, and that no one really speaks of evolution like you do except for those who think they understand it, but don't?

I dunno about jimbob, but I have had more than enough, thanks

So, I'm unsubscribing

@arti and/or others who do understand:
If this or any other thread starts discussing randomness in a meaningful and coherent way, please do flick me a PM

Thanks

jimbob · 20th January 2009, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by articulett

And this makes elections random, this thread random, smoke detectors random, and everything random. You've defined the term so that it is useless to anyone but... well... yourself and a few creationists. You are using the words of those who think they understand natural selection, but don't have a clue. And you seem completely unable to realize this.

You are using the words of those who think they understand natural selection, but don't have a clue. And you seem completely unable to realize this.

Are you sure it is me, and not you?

Richard Dawkins implicitally uses a probabilistic treatment of natural selection in the extended phenotype. The difference is that then he is not trying for a one-sentance soundbite, but an actual exploration of the implications of different amounts of selective advantage.

Quote:

Most people describe evolution as a 2 part process-- but because it is not completely random in any sense of the word, calling evolution "nonrandom" is far more accurate than calling it random to most people. In the same way that elections are nonrandom--random implies a lottery method of choosing. Non random allows you to explain how it's not like a lottery. And if you haven't understood this after years of posts on the subject, how can you ever understand it?

And what about in the evolution of citrate matabolism in E.coli?

Was this a significant difference in outcomes?

Was the important diffenence due to chance?

Quote:

Whenever someone aims to clearly describe evolution, you claim that they are calling it nonrandom and that this is "wrong". The experts disagree. They would say that the way Ken Miller describes evolution is far more accurate than your silly semantics. Sorry. But that's just the way it is. You can convince yourself and others like you that you are saying something valid, but it appears to be valid only to the people on your level... even the experts you quote would not agree with you. What you are calling the same inputs are NOT the same inputs. All things that evolve have a common starting point... but once they diverge none of the inputs are truly identical. Lots of experts will say evolution is nonrandom and describe how. Of course they aren't using your definitions. None are calling evolution random. None. If we ran the tape from the beginning and EVERY input was identical... we'd expect the same output. But we cannot make every input identical. Just like every molecule in every storm would create the exacts same storm if events unfolded identically. When something different happens, it is no longer "identical". You just cannot seem to hear this.

"None. If we ran the tape from the beginning and EVERY input was identical... we'd expect the same output. But we cannot make every input identical. Just like every molecule in every storm would create the exacts same storm if events unfolded identically. When something different happens, it is no longer "identical". You just cannot seem to hear this."

This is where you are wrong.

Evolution is a nonlinear system, with really weird positive feedback loops, as long as you allow chance events to happen, these chance events will perturb the systems so that a different outcome will occur. Over time the differences will magnify.

As long as you are allowing chance events to occur, these are sufficient to cause different outcomes.

With the storm, the universe can't "know" the position and momentum of every molecule.

Quote:

The key to understanding evolution is understanding how it's nonrandom. Everyone (even creationists) can tell you how it's random. Few can tell you how natural selection (which is not random --according to Miller, Dawkins, Coyne, Ayala, et. al.) leads to the appearance of design. You are included in this latter category. You are clearly not using the term nonrandom nor random the way these experts are.

The randomness or not has ~~nothing~~ little to do with the appearence of seeming design.

It allows more variants, because sometimes a slightly improbable trait will evolve. Sometimes it won't.

I also suspect that without randomess as an open-ended source of variation, evolution would be limited, but haven't seen if pseudorandom variation could replace this.

Do you considetr yourself to be good at explaining evolution?

Do you accept why almost every word in this is wrong, or do you think that this a good explaination of evolution?

Originally Posted by articulett

For some life forms, they evolved to try something new or different when the old stuff isn't working...

articulett · 20th January 2009, 11:26 AM

I'm unsubscribing too... suck others into your silly pointless semantic game

articulett · 20th January 2009, 11:27 AM

Yes, I'm sure it's you and not me.

recursive prophet · 20th January 2009, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by sol invictus

I don't understand their answers.... so the argument fails completely.

It's a semantic debate, and totally uninteresting.

@sol.. Much as I expected from you to be honest, sol …elatus? You get detailed deconstructions of your post; models; maths; and explanations of their significance in understanding how a very complex stochastic process affects NS. But nay, with ne’er one of many specific claims by Marios and susu actually even mentioned, you dismiss all to the realm of semantics. I find myself in awe of your audacity, doubting you even read what I posted. Brass balls that large must sound like Notre Dame Cathedral at high mass if you ever jog.

Word salad in the land of terse condescension, where image reigns and all logic is reducible to semantics? While I do envy your certainty, unless you can be specific in your rebuttals I won’t bother to send over your conclusion today. But thanks for all the insight shared; semantics. Got it!

@jimbob, posting on the RD thread yesterday. Think you’ll find many who will review your ideas far more constructively than has been done here, though I do thank cyborg for taking the time to explain his dismissal of your conjectures. It provoked some informative replies on RD, (above) and I really would like to read his response to all that Marios and susu have presented. I use their analysis whenever possible, as they are both far beyond me in knowledge and experience with this subject.

As we all have a limited amount of time to post online, I would suggest you don’t waste it trying to explain your thinking to those who are clearly insincere in their comments. How many times can you make a statement or ask a question, only to see it ignored in any reply? If all you get in response is more of the same ‘talking points’ and dubious appeals to authority, what makes some continue to attempt any real communication with such posters is an even bigger mystery to me than evolution. Hopefully cyborg will return soon and your earlier dialogue can be continued.

Again I would ask especially any with grad level + training in any aspect of evolutionary science to at least weigh in on this discussion, here or on the RD thread. Unless someone credible comes along soon, I for one will be ready to consider the OP finally answered. Both evolution and natural selection have been convincingly and comprehensively argued as stochastic processes. It wasn’t the answer the OPer on RDF had in mind, nor I when I first started posting there. But over time it became obvious those with the most direct experience and advanced training all saw selection as stochastic and were winning the debate. They had far more unanswered, detailed arguments go unaddressed than those arguing for a more deterministic role. I am always happy to see such perceptions changed, so if you can show me the flaws in the deductions of susu and Marios, I’d love to read them. Otherwise, this thread may have served its purpose and have little to offer me beyond this point. We’ll see, and thanks to all who have made positive contributions.

sol invictus · 20th January 2009, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by recursive prophet

@sol.. Much as I expected from you to be honest, sol …elatus? You get detailed deconstructions of your post; models; maths; and explanations of their significance in understanding how a very complex stochastic process affects NS. But nay, with ne’er one of many specific claims by Marios and susu actually even mentioned, you dismiss all to the realm of semantics. I find myself in awe of your audacity, doubting you even read what I posted. Brass balls that large must sound like Notre Dame Cathedral at high mass if you ever jog.

Word salad in the land of terse condescension, where image reigns and all logic is reducible to semantics? While I do envy your certainty, unless you can be specific in your rebuttals I won’t bother to send over your conclusion today. But thanks for all the insight shared; semantics. Got it!

You seem to be under the misapprehension that I care about this debate. I don't, because it's completely uninteresting.

Discussing what randomness is fundamentally - that's interesting. Discussing any of the myriad specifics of evolution - that's interesting. But having a moronic argument over whether the claim "evolution is random" is true - that's really boring.

I posed that question because it plainly has no answer, and whaddya know - there was no answer. If you want a more detailed response, fair enough (I inflicted this on myself by posing the question). I'll give a little bit of one here. I don't care if you post it wherever you're getting these responses from.

Quote:

There simply isn´t a non-stochastic theory of evolution, so the only way to falsify stochasticity of evolution would be to falsify evolution.

Obviously untrue. Any of the huge number of simulations of evolution that run on computers using deterministic pseudo-random number algorithms falsify that immediately. Not to mention all kinds of related algorithms and processes (genetic algorithms etc.). And while those obviously don't model all aspects of the evolution of life on earth, that's equally obviously not because they are using pseudo-random rather than "true" random numbers.

Quote:

Well, the ball really is on the non-stochastic side. If I´m asked what the stochastic theory of evolution looks like, I can simply point to the textbooks and 150 years of scientific papers. The other side has nothing of that sort, so far I haven´t seen a single model from that side. I´ve seen assertions, but no models. Since the term "stochastic" has a hard definition and the theory of evolution fits that definition, I don´t think I´m arguing semantics.

The computer models I mentioned satisfy the criterion for a non-stochastic model of evolution in the general sense. For evolution of life on earth the question reduces to that of fundamental randomness. Either all physical processes are stochastic or none are, and there are models in fundamental physics for both possibilities. If you want to insist that only processes that rely on randomness in some "essential" or "important" way are stochastic, you reduce the whole thing to a silly value judgment.

Look - to prove that this debate is semantic, let me present two conflicting definitions. Here you are, courtesy of google:

stochasticity - randomness: the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan

That obviously does not apply to evolution, and I can't imagine anyone (even some contributors to this thread) arguing that it does.

A stochastic process, or sometimes random process, is the counterpart to a deterministic process (or deterministic system) in probability theory. Instead of dealing with only one possible 'reality' of how the process might evolve under time (as is the case, for example, for solutions of an ordinary differential equation), in a stochastic or random process there is some indeterminacy in its future evolution described by probability distributions. This means that even if the initial condition (or starting point) is known, there are many possibilities the process might go to, but some paths are more probable and others less.

This probably does apply to evolution, although as I've said, not necessarily in the strictest sense.

The only reasonable way to have this discussion is to identify a specific phenomenon or set of phenomena on which we disagree, and discuss those (and as far as I know there are none). Anything else is useless.

sol invictus · 20th January 2009, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by jimbob

I disagree:

[color="Blue"]ETA: This is also Lenski's interpretation:

Maybe so, but if so there is no evidence for that in the quotes you gave.

Quote:

More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection.

Unless "historical contingency" is nonrandom...

And you persist with this false dichotomy for the thousandth time.

I'm done discussing this with you. Bye.

cyborg · 20th January 2009, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Here´s a simple deterministic process:
In each step add 1.
You get 1;2;3...
Now for a simple stochastic one:
In each step throw a fair coin and add 1 if it is heads and 0 if it is tails (numbers in brackets: probabilities):
You get 0(.5),1(.5);0(.25),1(.5),2(.25);0(.125),1(.375),2( .375),3(.125)...
The number of possible pathways is growing exponentially with each step rather than staying constant (and 1) in the deterministic system. I can tell you the outcome for step 487 in the determinitic one (it´s 487), but my calculator quits on me when I try to figure out the probabilities for that step in the stochastic case (it´s 2-487*487!/((487-n)!n!) with n being the value we want the probability for).

This right here is ridiculous.

So somehow I should be surprised that when comparing two systems one in which there is zero branching and one in which there is non-zero branching that the non-zero branching has an exponentially growing solution space?

You have heard of the concept of abstraction right?

Here's the function in psuedo functional-code:

x = map (if flip is tails then +1 else +0) flips

This is perfectly deterministic and the result depends on the list flips.

You have chosen to compare an instance of function x to the entire class of the function x:

x [tails, tails, ...485 times... ] = 487

But any given list of flips is just as simple to calculate - just a lot harder for you to list succinctly.

Doing it for all 2^487 - 1 possible lists is going to take a long time? Really? Well I never. I don't believe I ever claimed that analysing the entire problem space was a trivial task.

But if people are going to continue to confuse the execution of an instance with the analysis of the class then they're going to continue to make silly statements.

ANY "stochastic process" will have deterministic instances - I've already proven that before. Is this really hard to get?

jimbob · 21st January 2009, 12:05 PM

Cyborg: I roll a pair of dice once.

I know that the score will be an integer from 2 to 12.

I can write out all the possible scores.

So the dice roll is deterministic by your argument?

Zeuzzz · 21st January 2009, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by sol invictus

Note that there need to be three options ("true", "false", and "not even wrong"), as there are many statements ("evolution is random" is one) which are partially true and partially false, particularly when your definition is as stupid as mijo's was.

Oh, and by the way - the answer is E and 3, as every schoolchild knows.

Na, most schoolkids, and infact probably most college students, would probably say that evoution is random. They still teach about random mutations in secondary school in evolution lessons, which pretty much confuses everyone into thinking evolution is completely random. I used to think this (I never did biology or anything at college) but have since learned it is not so online.

The choice of words used in the curriculum could certainly be better explained.

recursive prophet · 21st January 2009, 01:53 PM

Looking back on my observation and minor participation in the How Evolution is NOT pure random chance, [emphasis mine] on RDF, I’m reminded of Asimov’s classic short story, The Last Question. It began innocently enough as an argument between to minor techs on the Colossus 2 -or whatever-forgot name he gives the super computer that pretty much runs things. They had recently launched a satellite that would beam enough solar energy to earth to supply their needs ‘forever,’ exclaimed one tech. The other pointed out the sun’s ultimate demise, and the debate that ensued culminated with them posing a question to Colossus; can entropy be reversed? Both techs soon forgot the silly bet they’d made that night, but Colossus didn’t. It would keep working on it until the end of time, should that the answer to ‘the last question.’ (The story is short and available online)

While aspects of the Second Law have been introduced at various times in the over 3k replies on the RDF random thread, the similarity I speak of mostly concerns the occurrence of relatively insignificant persons originating questions that later snow-ball into far more complicated debates. You see it often on the boards. The user who began the random thread-Mel Z-also presented a dice analogy, which was later shown to be inaccurate on several different levels and much better models using dice and coins were presented.

From what I’ve observed it appears topics often evolve as the debate becomes more specific, and in the better ones opinions are often changed. My own was, re: the intended OP here; is NS stochastic. I now sense those such as myself that have been following the dialogue on RDF have seen enough evidence presented that it may well be time to let the thread become dormant until someone comes along with something new to say. There are links below to the start of this thread last year, and the current last page. Some very distinguished scientists, such as Milford Wolpoff, have contributed to this dialectic, along with many others working on doctorates in the field.

It’s been an interesting read, but at this juncture I’m personally quite satisfied that the combined posts made by susu, Marios, Dlx2 and mjpam and others on this subject are by far the most congruent and persuasive. I would still love to see someone go toe to toe with them and come up with a winning argument. I could use another lesson in how weaker conjectures can often prove to come down to poor presentation while being part of a larger truth. And of course such an experience would be invaluable for the ‘boys,’ in learning the true cognitive significance of uncertainty. But pontifical snarls and peremptory, unsubstantiated dismissals aren’t going to cut it on RD. Ask Articulett, the threads most active poster. She is either ignored-my preference-or ridiculed by like 85% of the regular posters there. Of course all the ‘smart people’ have left, so I guess her still mostly posting there is a sign of low self-esteem? By suspecting her own incompetence she insures herself-per her sig-she’s not really incompetent? Of course you’re not dear. You just have a lot of very negative energy that needs to be released. I’ve actually come to feel sorry for you, watching you repeat the same mantras that I suspect you say in your sleep by now. Try breathing into a paper bag a few times before hitting send, and ask yourself what is your purpose? Those who oppose you are just looking at the shadows on the cave’s wall and will never achieve your advanced perspective. We will just continue staring at the straw man’s shadow and believing he is real. Leave us in peace now, and re-join the cognoscenti. We are truly not worthy.

@sol and cyborg: Marios merely commented neither of you seem familiar with the biology involved and are confused about the terms stochastic and deterministic. The reply of susu is below, and I decided to leave in his response in the same post to David, as it is pertinent to some of the examples/models susu has presented that have gone unchallenged.

@cyborg: As to your final statement, no one is arguing you won’t see deterministic instances. The question is can you predict them, and the answer is no. The process that generates them is stochastic. You can only show they are deterministic in retrospect, and even if you could rewind the tape with the same variables you might get different results. This has been extensively examined if you could take the time to click the second link and go back a few pages. You really should enlighten those poor misguided souls on RDF. Pop open a can of whup-ass on em and show the great unwashed the path to the river. I know; not interesting and all semantics.

Beginning of How Evolution is not pure random chance, http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/...php?f=4&t=7428
Last page of posts on part 3. http://richarddawkins.net/forum/view...79853#p1679853

Originally Posted by susu.exp

Originally Posted by DavidMcC

I had this with Dlx2 ages ago. The word "majority" is the key. All you are seeing is the fact that most genes aren't involved in any one speciation, but, having been separated by the speciation, they drift apart, near-neutral fashion, without necessarily having a significant net phenotypic impact. Some speciations may involves only drift after physical separation, but surely not "interesting" ones, that lead directly to new classes, or whatever, by virtue of a genetic innovation, encouraged by new conditions to adapt to.

WTF? What is the difference in the process of "interesting" speciations that lead to new classes? There´s none. Classes are arbitrary units and most importantly, the clustering in morphospace (remember that other discussion we had last week or so?) arises purely from common ancestry. It is replicated in the pure morphological drift models of the MBL papers. You´ve actually just thrown common ancestry out, by invoking selection as the mechanism that leads to the formation of classes (i.e. clades occupying a distinct region in morphospace).

Originally Posted by DavidMcC

On SCA prevalence, I don't see how you can make any sense of the time-dependence of that without taking into account taboo strength. It is you who is assuming "random mating (ie no taboos), IMO, in order to have a population-selection pressure graph that doesn't mention taboo effects.

Well, for starters I also gave an example from a yeast culture (and such cultures tend not to be very civilized). Then you are arguing that taboos make a dent big enough to explain a discrepancy of 4 orders of magnitude. How big do you figure hispanic families in the US to be, if you want to shelter the allele we´d be talking about one family encompassing 10% of hispanics. 10%!! Even then the best you can get is neutrality. Still the frequency goes up.

Originally Posted by DavidMcC

You are concentrating on genetic changes being unpredictable ("random", if you like), but that isn't the point, as it relates to the randomness of mutations, not of selection.

Wrong. I´m not talking about mutations at all. I´m talking about drift. I´ve noted that the rate at which the SCA allele increases through mutation is 10^-8 per generation. It decreases by about 6*10^-3 through selection. Together that´s a decrease of about 6*10^-3. But it does go up in reality. The selection component is more than compensated for by drift.

Originally Posted by DavidMcC

EDIT: Selective pressure isn't on individual genes, it's on gene teams.

Wrong again.

Originally Posted by sol invictus

The computer models I mentioned satisfy the criterion for a non-stochastic model of evolution in the general sense. For evolution of life on earth the question reduces to that of fundamental randomness. Either all physical processes are stochastic or none are, and there are models in fundamental physics for both possibilities.

Actually. No. Even though a few physicists work on models with underlying determinism, their models still are stocahstic. The need for stochastic models is not at all at wuestion. Now, we had the debate over t`Hooft in this thread and one thing to note is that he is not proposing non-stochastic models. He´s merely changing what is stocahstic: The standard model says that if you look at an electron it will have a stochastic value for it´s properties. t`Hoofts alternative is that the electron is composed of lots of deterministic "things" for lack of a better word and when you look at the electron you take a random sample of these things (i.e. in one case you draw one ball from an urn and it is some random shade of grey. In the other case you draw a lot of balls from the urn and they are either black or white and you measure the mean. While the balls and with them the distribution of balls in the urn is deterministic, your sample is stochastic).

Originally Posted by cyborg

This right here is ridiculous.

So somehow I should be surprised that when comparing two systems one in which there is zero branching and one in which there is non-zero branching that the non-zero branching has an exponentially growing solution space?

No, you shouldn´t be surprised. But you shouldn´t be surprised either that I might claim that the branching process is a bit more complicated than the non-branching one. That after all was being debated.

Originally Posted by cyborg

You have heard of the concept of abstraction right?

Yes.

Originally Posted by cyborg

Here's the function in psuedo functional-code:

x = map (if flip is tails then +1 else +0) flips

This is perfectly deterministic and the result depends on the list flips.

Holy ****. In that case you are really claiming that rolling a die may be stocahstic, but the number I get when I roll a die and add 1 is deterministic? x is a random variable, because it is the sum of random variables. A (finite) sum of random variables is a random variable.

Originally Posted by cyborg

You have chosen to compare an instance of function x to the entire class of the function x:

x [tails, tails, ...485 times... ] = 487

But any given list of flips is just as simple to calculate - just a lot harder for you to list succinctly.

Well, when you make predictions, which ultimately is the job of science, then you don´t have the list handy (in fact if you knew in advance a sequence of 497 coin flips before I started flipping I´d be enormously impressed).

Originally Posted by cyborg

Doing it for all 2^487 - 1 possible lists is going to take a long time? Really? Well I never. I don't believe I ever claimed that analyzing the entire problem space was a trivial task.

Actually I don´t even analyze the complete sample space, but elements of a sigma algebra in that sample space.

Originally Posted by cyborg

But if people are going to continue to confuse the execution of an instance with the analysis of the class then they're going to continue to make silly statements.

I never made any claims about the execution of an instance.

Originally Posted by cyborg

ANY "stochastic process" will have deterministic instances - I've already proven that before. Is this really hard to get?

That´s BS. Any stochastic process will have a result. But there´s no way to look back at it and say "It had to happen that way", only "It did happen that way". That´s the difference between a stochastic and a deterministic process.

jimbob · 21st January 2009, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimbob

I disagree:

[color="Blue"]ETA: This is also Lenski's interpretation:

Maybe so, but if so there is no evidence for that in the quotes you gave.

Originally Posted by jimbob

Quote:

Quote:
More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection.

Unless "historical contingency" is nonrandom...

And you persist with this false dichotomy for the thousandth time.

I'm done discussing this with you. Bye.

What does the following mean, and how does this not mean that chance is important, and even giving a situation when it is imprtant.

How am I mistreading the paper and the aims of the experiment when this is the stated aim of the experiment:

Quote:

Second, this experiment seeks to examine the repeatability of evolution by having 12 replicate populations, all of them founded from the same ancestor and maintained in the same environment. Which phenotypic and genomic aspects of evolutionary change are repeatable in this system, and which are haphazard? How can we understand the causes of parallelism and divergence of replicate lines? The issue of the predictability of evolutionary change - or lack thereof - has long been of interest. The question was well captured by the late palaeontologist Steven Jay Gould (1989) in a thought experiment: "I call this experiment 'replaying life's tape.' you press the rewind button and, making sure you thoroughly erase everything that actually happened, go back to any time and place in the past -say to the seas of the Burgess Shale. Then let the tape run again and see if the repetition looks at all like the original..." Gould went on to say, however, that "The bad news is that we can't possibly perform the experiment." Of course, we could never run an experiment on the vast temporal and spatial scales imagined by Gould. But on much smaller scales, our experiment with E.coli allows us to address the same question. We do so by allowing 12 scenarios to play out simultaneously, rather than sequentially, as the notion of replay implies, but the issue of repeatability is fundamentally the same.

Is it wrong to say that the excxperiment is attempting to address the question as to whether rerunning the tape of evolution (resetting it back to an "identical" starting condition) would always give the same output?

It has been asserted that this:
"More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection."

Is not saying that chance is important in detrermining the outcome of an evoultionary occasion.

What is it saying then?

sol invictus · 21st January 2009, 03:53 PM

Originally Posted by recursive prophet

Originally Posted by susu.exp

Actually. No. Even though a few physicists work on models with underlying determinism, their models still are stocahstic. The need for stochastic models is not at all at wuestion. Now, we had the debate over t`Hooft in this thread and one thing to note is that he is not proposing non-stochastic models. He´s merely changing what is stocahstic: The standard model says that if you look at an electron it will have a stochastic value for it´s properties. t`Hoofts alternative is that the electron is composed of lots of deterministic "things" for lack of a better word and when you look at the electron you take a random sample of these things (i.e. in one case you draw one ball from an urn and it is some random shade of grey. In the other case you draw a lot of balls from the urn and they are either black or white and you measure the mean. While the balls and with them the distribution of balls in the urn is deterministic, your sample is stochastic).

Not that this is relevant to evolution, but it is actually an interesting question. Unfortunately susu.exp's response makes it quite clear that he/she/it has no idea what she/he/it is talking about.

Off the top of my head I'll give a list of fully deterministic models of fundamental physics:

1) The "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is simply standard QM with the collapse postulate dropped. The Schrodinger equation is a non-singular differential equation and therefore deterministic. Incidentally this is the most widely favored interpretation among physicists, at least according to some informal polls.

2) Bohmian interpretation of QM with pilot wave etc. Fully deterministic.

3) Any of several more obscure deterministic non-local hidden variable theories.

articulett · 21st January 2009, 04:38 PM

Sol,

Susu's definitions elections are "pure random chance"-- he actually said that.
So his definition of random appears very loose indeed. He'd answer A on your little quiz.

RP is posting your responses at Dawkins.net with his delusional spin and trying to keep this semantic silliness going so that he can feel he's on the "smart" side... As long as he can get participants, the "mijoesque" feel like someone smart is taking them seriously, I suspect... like they are saying something worthy of respect or scientifically valid or useful.

(RP thinks Mjpam and Susu exemplify the smart side and that we are all mean to them-- so that's what you'll get for all your efforts with him as well-- more abuse, hubris, and misheard words.) He's trying to make this what he sees as a battle of experts, but his experts are what you and I and actual experts would think of as "buffoons".

Really, you are only giving him fodder for his delusion at this point.

Marios--the other person they see as smart has said that NOTHING is deterministic. That no scientists consider anything deterministic anymore.

When he said that, I put him on my "nut" list, because, at least on a macro level, EVERYTHING is deterministic--that's why we do science... every effect has a cause. We couldn't figure out how things worked if everything was random.

So you can see how their underlying belief or philosophy along with vague definitions allows them to "win" ever argument by bringing it back to the word random. Everything is random and they think it's important to drive the point home with evolution. They are as daft and disingenous as you perceive... and as impenetrable as mijo. It's the same idiotic semantic silliness, and it, apparently works to make people feel like they know something while remaining utterly clueless about how ignorant they sound.

It kind of sucks over on the Dawkins forum because it's on a thread entitled "How evolution is not pure random chance"--so some honest really smart people drop in to explain... then such people are immediately misheard, maligned, and the same nuttery you see here through years with mijo is recreated. The nutters get a tailored explanation that others would pay for but they cannot hear. They keep sucking people in with loaded questions they don't want the answer too... cut and paste arguments, straw men, allegations about things people never said, insults, experts that supposedly are saying what they are saying, and delusional spin that someone is taking them seriously... all tossed about in self important word salads complete with graphs and big words and the assertion that 50 years of biology or genetics or someone important agrees with whatever the hell their point is or whatever deep thing they are saying.

I try to keep an eye out so they don't abuse new folks who innocently post to address the OP over there, but for the record, the ones that insult your words there are akin to such people here in intelligence, honesty, education, hubris-- and the ones that you'd find intelligent and worth talking to parse your words and are frustrated with the continual shenanigans of the mijo-esque.

Please use your intelligence at skeptic wiki or on those who can understand, not on those who need you to be wrong so that they can imagine they have a clue.

Don't get drawn into the cut and paste crap... unless you have some idea of what you want to accomplish. Remember, you are being used as fodder for the Mijo game that so many here played to no avail under the assumption that he actually wanted to understand why Scientists say evolution is not random. Susu is the brightest they have.
You are wasting intelligence on the inane. They may not be creationists... but they seem to have been taught by them, and they imagine they know more than those who might remedy the ignorance.

GreyICE · 21st January 2009, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by sol invictus

I don't understand their answers. There are plenty of versions of evolution which are entirely deterministic - every computer simulation of it ever done, for example. Not to mention that nature itself (and therefore the evolution of life on earth) could be fundamentally non-random for all we know.... so the argument fails completely.

It's a semantic debate, and totally uninteresting.

One of the truly bizarre aspects of this is that you bring that up (and I believe you did so also in the past) as evidence that evolution is random. On the contrary, it's evidence that it is non-random, because Lenski was able to engineer the appearance and survival of several very specific mutations. All the colonies evolved some of the same traits given enough time. The fact that one colony was first on any particular one is tautological - did you expect all of them to mutate the same way at precisely the same time?

It would be interesting to know whether one can define a mathematical limit of infinite time, and if so whether all colonies would asymptote to the same sequence. But regardless of that, it is completely obvious that the mutations that persisted were non-random - on the contrary, they were adaptive and advantageous in that environment.

Sol, normally I've been avoiding this stupid debate.

But this was too painful to ignore. Ye gods.

Yes, we would expect every colony to evolve the same mutation at the same time if the system was deterministic. That's what deterministic means. We do not expect variations in travel time for objects moving at fixed velocities between two points. We do not expect that equal quantities of reactant in a chemical reaction will produce different amounts of energy. We do not expect that objects dropped in a vacuum from the same height to hit the ground at different times.

The system is betraying characteristics of both randomness and determinism. That's what stochastic IS.

How is it I come back to this stupid debate after all this time and we're STILL STUCK HERE?!?

articulett · 21st January 2009, 05:46 PM

Because to some people, everything with any randomness IS "random" (RP, Mijo, jim-bob)... whereas, to biologists, unless something is wholly random, we would never describe it as random, though we might describe it as "non random or not random"-- which is why Miller, when asked at the Dover trial if evolution is random-- said "no".

The "mijo-esque" think this is wrong because anything that has any randomness has been proven "random" per their definition. It's just the same old semantic silliness that mijo has been engaging in all over skeptic sites for years. Apparently it works on some. I think we should encourage people who have that definition to talk to each other since they are wasting Sol's time and everyone else who aims to clarify with their loaded questions and repeated misconstruing of what was said. They have no capability to engage in such a discussion because they cannot answer sol's simple queries as he would.

Skepticwiki could use the smart people on this forum to explain things to those who are actually interested in understanding-- rather than wasting their breath on those who cannot because of their need to prove that evolution is "random" (whatever vague thing that might mean.)

recursive prophet · 22nd January 2009, 12:23 PM

@GreyICE: To burn the semantics straw man on RDF most-including myself-eschewed ‘random’ altogether. Stochastic is a far less ambiguous, scientific term. Yet those here clinging to random contribute to the rerun of this earlier argument, while bemoaning the recursion. If you could have followed the RDF thread you just might see things differently, but I can’t imagine you or any of the current posters here taking the time. And so it goes.

Originally Posted by GreyICE

The system is betraying characteristics of both randomness and determinism. That's what stochastic IS.

You won't find any at RD disagreeing with the above statement. Naturally there are deterministic characteristics, but they can not be predicted in advance-which is what MAKES them stochastic. I think much of the confusion here has occurred because of the way stochastic and non-scientific definitions of random have been conflated. Thus we have the repeated charge that this is all primarily about semantics.

@sol: As before I left in susu’s reply to David as he makes some good points and includes some informative links. This is all getting beyond my aged grasp as a whole, and I keep coming up with questions I forgot I had already found answers for. I believe everything IS connected to everything else ultimately, and there are many paradoxes only revealed through thorough examination. The deeper you dig, the easier it becomes to lose your way. How I envy the certitude I encounter in cyberspace. Much of the discussion on RDF, as susu's reply below indicates, revolves around the role of allele drift and reproductive frequency variances. Only one poster here ever addressed susu's arguments on these factors that I posted back on page 4.(?)

Originally Posted by susu.exp

Originally Posted by DavidMcC

I'll take that as a wind-up. It is pointless even arguing with someone who takes a minor pont about NS being stochastic and blows it up into stochastic is the "be-all and end-all".

You were the one, who has basically stated that all similarities between members of a clade are driven by selection rather than common ancestry. If you hold that, you deny the evidence for common ancestry (all of which is structural similarity with no direct adaptive value). I know that you don´t intend to say that common descent is rubbish, but your "minor point" has large consequences.

Originally Posted by DavidMcC

Utter nonsense. Also, you have had to pick your real examples very carefully (eg species, such as yeast, in which the breeding population is so large that more than one beneficial mutation can come along at once).

See, you are going to reject any example of drift. It´s completely pointless in adding more, but apart from yeast, E.coli (Lenski), H.sapiens, Drosophila (Ayers work). Want more:
more humans
Tomatoes, Mazie and Drosophila
Mice, with implications for mammals in general
Hepatitis C
Bachnera, the bacterial endosymbionts of aphids

Many more, where those came from (a scholar.google search for articles on drift).

Originally Posted by sol invictus

Not that this is relevant to inflation, but it is actually an interesting question. Unfortunately susu.exp's response makes it quite clear that he/she/it has no idea what she/he/it is talking about.

Off the top of my head I'll give a list of three fully deterministic models of fundamental physics:

1) The "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is simply standard QM with the collapse postulate dropped. The Schrodinger equation is a non-singular differential equation and therefore deterministic. Incidentally this is the most widely favored interpretation among physicists, at least according to some informal polls.

Still necessitates stochastic models. MWs is deterministic in the sense that all possible universes are realized, it is stochastic however in which universe we end up (ignoring that another we ends up in another world).

Originally Posted by sol invictus

2) Bohmian interpretation of QM with pilot wave etc. Fully deterministic.

But non-local.

Originally Posted by sol invictus

3) Any of several more obscure deterministic non-local hidden variable theories.

Again: Non-local. And non-local HVTs still need stochastic models, simply because they´ve got causation flipped in time, the future determines the past. But since the future´s an unknown we have to model stochastically.

@Articulett: Unsubscribed? Just stalking now are we? Not that I expected you to really drop out of this thread as you’ve so often promised, but don’t you ever feel even a bit ridiculous forever going on about what a waste of time it is debating those who oppose you both here and on RDF and trying to discourage others from participating, while YOU are the most active poster on both??? Literally chanting all the ‘smart people’ have left? Can’t we assume from this claim that YOU aren’t one of them? Do you have ANY idea how many times you’ve said that, or quoted Miller? A very clear explanation was presented as to why a scientist might say that to a general audience, but of course you never read what others write or respond directly to points they make. It’s all the same ‘elections are random,’ Miller and Dawkins said, Behe, creationists, all the experts, and these people have this mysterious drive to believe everything is random.’

How about this? I confess you’ve got it nailed, Artic. I’m obsessed with the need to believe everything is random. I suspect Marios planted a wetware virus he created in an email he sent me. It took over my OS, and started flashing subliminal messages too fast to be consciously observed on my screen. Things like RANDOMNESS RULES!!, NOTHING IS DETERMINISTIC, there IS no determiner, as all is random… YOU must determine your fate! Stuff like that. Now I’ve become one of their randombies. While I generally only use the word stochastic on the boards, as you have discovered we secretly mean random in whatever way you define it. OK?

Of course that’s not going to stop you, is it? Now that I’m getting ready to wrap up my participation in this discussion until a credible opposing argument that can stand up to cross examination by the 'random brain trust' appears, I do worry about you if both threads die out. This and the other random thread are the only ones you post on in either forum, and are where you make most of your overall posts. I can only hope for your sake jimbob or some other will find your tirades amusing. As the 2 actually posting science based arguments on RDF that NS wasn’t always stochastic have capitulated and I no longer worry about your distracting the grown-ups, I can now just laugh at how you’ve elevated projection into a comedic-farce work of art. Kudos.

(Oh, and please note my new sig and in doing so refrain from any further 'imagined expertise' charges, hmm? You have enough of that type of expertise for the entire site.

)

17th January 2009, 03:31 PM	#241
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	And yes... it's semantics... it's a philosophical go nowhere question and conversation... as Dr Adequate pointed out at the beginning of this thread. But why in the world would people be bent on describing something in a way that is indistinguishable from known dishonest woo like Behe? That's what makes me curious. Is your goal to clarify understanding, or prove that your way of saying something is meaningful and clear and useful to anyone other than those who "need" evolution to be "random" whatever vague meaning they attach to that?
	Last edited by articulett; 17th January 2009 at 03:42 PM.

17th January 2009, 03:38 PM	#242
cyborg deus ex machina Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,974	Originally Posted by jimbob But you can't control some of the variables, because the process is affected by random factors, like radioactive decay. Right. And you can't tell how every particle in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about its pressure. You can't tell how every particle of smoke in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about the operation of a smoke alarm. Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances. You don't really care that you don't know how each particular air molecule is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate behaviour leading to the phenomena of pressure. You don't really care how every particle of smoke in the air is behaving or how precisely the radioactive material in the detector is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate effect leading to the activation of the alarm. Similarly in evolution it is not really interesting as to how it is any particular shift in form arises. It is the aggregate behaviour of populations that is being analysed.
cyborg deus ex machina Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,974	__________________ The phrase deus ex machina (literally "god out of a machine") describes an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot...

18th January 2009, 01:05 AM	#243
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Originally Posted by cyborg Right. And you can't tell how every particle in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about its pressure. You can't tell how every particle of smoke in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about the operation of a smoke alarm. Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances. You don't really care that you don't know how each particular air molecule is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate behaviour leading to the phenomena of pressure. You don't really care how every particle of smoke in the air is behaving or how precisely the radioactive material in the detector is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate effect leading to the activation of the alarm. Similarly in evolution it is not really interesting as to how it is any particular shift in form arises. It is the aggregate behaviour of populations that is being analysed. I'd agree if the we weren't discussing a highly nonlinear system. You can make a statement about air pressure, but if weather is governed by chaotic factors, then you do need to care about every individual molecule. There are systems where differences in individual components can be aggregated together (say calculating air pressure), and there are systems where differnces in individual components multiply and increase over time. The Long Term Evoluiton experiment has shown that the differences multiply, indeed that significant differences can arise even where any initial differences were unimportant (with regards to the different outcomes).
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes

18th January 2009, 01:26 AM	#244
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	I am not interested in discussing how evolutioncould work, but how it does work in biological systems. Originally Posted by articulett But why in the world would people be bent on describing something in a way that is indistinguishable from known dishonest woo like Behe? That's what makes me curious. Is your goal to clarify understanding, or prove that your way of saying something is meaningful and clear and useful to anyone other than those who "need" evolution to be "random" whatever vague meaning they attach to that? I agree that you can ignore randomness over "moderate" timescales, but you can't over "long" timescales. There is a big difference between what Behe says, and what I am saying. Behe accepts "microevolution" works, he then argues from incredulity that somehow "macroevolution" couldn't work to produce "irreducibly complex" structures, giving the (amusing) example of the bacterial flagellum of something that couldn't evolve. The randomness is not an important part of his argument, because he has neglected the law of large numbers. He has also neglected the weak anthropic principle, in that we perceive something special about our existance, and that we only do this because we exist. The evolution of humanity was an unlikely outcome, but then, so was any other possible outcome.
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes Last edited by jimbob; 18th January 2009 at 01:27 AM. Reason: typo

18th January 2009, 03:31 AM	#245
cyborg deus ex machina Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,974	Originally Posted by jimbob You can make a statement about air pressure, but if weather is governed by chaotic factors, then you do need to care about every individual molecule. So why isn't anyone going around saying "weather is random"? Quote: There are systems where differences in individual components can be aggregated together (say calculating air pressure), and there are systems where differnces in individual components multiply and increase over time. Which says nothing about the determinism of the system. Quote: The Long Term Evoluiton experiment has shown that the differences multiply, indeed that significant differences can arise even where any initial differences were unimportant (with regards to the different outcomes). So in weather we do need to care about every single molecule but in evolution we can stop caring and declare this detail unimportant and chalk up our ignorance as "random" and be done with it?
cyborg deus ex machina Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,974	__________________ The phrase deus ex machina (literally "god out of a machine") describes an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot...

18th January 2009, 12:49 PM	#246
recursive prophet Graduate Poster Join Date: May 2008 Location: Escondido, CA Posts: 1,135	I found the similarities with some of the recent points jimbob has made with ones presented on the RD thread quite relevant to that discussion, so I copied and posted them there and invited commentary. If I get some I will relay it here. Below is a link to that post. Those interested might also scroll up to the 2 previos replies by susu.exp. In the one just above mine he again presents his left/right-cat/mouse model to show how selection becomes intertwined with different predator/prey species while remaining inherently stochastic. Interesting debate, jimbob and Cyborg. Do carry on. http://richarddawkins.net/forum/view...71730#p1671730 [Edit]As I just remembered susu's re-post of the model linked above had no explanation, I pasted in a brief one below. It involves analysis of cats that have a hypothetical 'turn right/left' allele when in pursuit of a mouse, and the relationship with mice possessing a right/left escape allele. When I come across the link where he lays it all out I'll post it here if requested. "This is the cat and mouse phasespace, given as frequencies of the "turn left" alleles. It´s colored according to the final state a deterministic chaos model produces. In a stochastic chaos model, each innitial state has no certain end state, but probabilities for winding up in a number of final states. Most importantly: The blue (0.5;0.5) state vanishes, as it is only a matter of time, before the stochastic variation leads to the state of the system falling outside of the blue area and after fixation has occurred for both cats and mice, no further change happens."

18th January 2009, 02:05 PM	#247
sol invictus Philosopher Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Nova Roma Posts: 8,417	Can any of the randomians in this thread formulate an experiment or result which would a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or b) confirm it ? If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat").

18th January 2009, 04:12 PM	#248
recursive prophet Graduate Poster Join Date: May 2008 Location: Escondido, CA Posts: 1,135	Sol-Your reply will be posted on RD while both Marios and susu are about. My own response would be that if you stretch the definition enough, anything outside the realm of mathematics can be classified as semantics. Perhaps you agree with Marios that going beyond the maths into the effable inevitably becomes at least philosophical? Is not much of science based on unproven hypotheses on some level? I would invite you to join in the discussion on RD, and will post any replies to your brief comment there. Hopefully you’ll find the replies below of interest. @Cyborg: Below are the replies from Marios and susu to some of your comments, posted this morning. Look forward to your take on all they’ve laid out. Very thorough lads. Marios is working on his doctorate at Bath, and susu is at Bonn, both in evolutionary biology. There are at least 4 others doing post-grad work, and there is a high level of agreement between them. Yet, I’d be happy to entertain the possibility they have all got it wrong and your take is the true path, or I just didn't comprehend your intent. We shall see, maybe. Originally Posted by Marios Originally Posted by Cyborg And you can't tell how every particle in the air is going to behave from one moment to the next but you can still make a statement about its pressure. Because the ideal gas laws are linearisable. Somewhere online there ought to be the A level derivation for the ideal gas laws, but if you want the short answer it's that stochastic deviations in linear systems cause a linear deviation in some final state. I.e. stochastic deviation e -> final deviation k.e. In a number of linear systems you can then 'cancel out' symmetric noise. Unfortunately most real-world/interesting systems are non-linear - either you use limited and difficult mathematical techniques designed to deal with non-linear systems (the hard part of a serious maths degree) - or try to find some way to justify an approximation to a linear system. Almost all the examples of mathematics that a non-mathematician will see are linear - but almost all the real-world/serious research systems that a mathematician will have to model are non-linear. Originally Posted by Cyborg Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances. In very simplistic systems, you can do that. In real systems, you either deal with nightmarish mathematics or you have to try to justify why your real-world system can be approximated by a set of very crude assumptions. Applied mathematics is almost a department all on it's own, even before you start looking at the issues raised within any given scientific discipline. Last year one of my assignments was modelling a dialysis machine - the model we used was unbelievably crude and unrealistic - and yet it still wasn't (and isn't) possible to go straight to a deterministic solution without making some disgusting simplifications (effectively assuming the fluid in one side isn't moving because the other side is moving faster). To go beyond that we literally had to just simulate it (which is art form all in itself). And that's just water with solute moving past water without. Before anyone tries to say "Yeah, but that's just MATHS, not SCIENCE" - maths is the language of science. It's how we communicate models to each other without any ambiguity. If you have a strong intuition that you can't explain in maths but nonetheless want to try to communicate in words, then you're engaging in philosophical conjecture. Marios Originally Posted by susu.exp Originally Posted by Cyborg Your argument is that because random factors can have a significant impact that the randomness in and of itself is important rather than the consequence of that random event. My argument is that it is really quite irrelevant how mathematically random anything is at all because it is not the randomness you're trying to analyse - just how a particular system behaves in given circumstances. You don't really care that you don't know how each particular air molecule is behaving because you're only interested in the aggregate behaviour leading to the phenomena of pressure. Such aggregates are still random variables, unless you´ve got an infinite number of components. Throw a lot of fair coins and the frequency of heads is a stochastic variable (following a binomial distribution with parameters 0.5 and N). Only in infinity do you get a non-stocahstic variable: 0.5. Apart from that you´ve got an expected value of 0.5 and a SD of 0.5N^-1/2. More crucially: The law of large numbers only* applies to random variables. Originally Posted by jimbob You can make a statement about air pressure, but if weather is governed by chaotic factors then you do need to care about every individual molecule. There are systems where differences in individual components can be aggregated together (say calculating air pressure), and there are systems where differences in individual components multiply and increase over time. There are systems where you can - and generally must - do both. You can still use aggregates, the difference non-linearity makes is that random variables in your equations do not all vanish if you move to infinity (as noted for evolution in my reply to David, your drift term may go to 0 on its own, but that does not in general hold for functions of the drift term). In other words: The two points here are not mutually exclusive, in fact selection is always an agglomerate process, but in cases where you´ve got non-linearity it is also stochastic. Originally Posted by Cyborg So why isn't anyone going around saying "weather is random"? Meteorologists are actually saying that weather is stochastic: http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys....-761-2008.html (I haven´t had time to digest it fully, but it may help with the cat-mouse problem). Originally Posted by Cyborg So in weather we do need to care about every single molecule but in evolution we can stop caring and declare this detail unimportant and chalk up our ignorance as "random" and be done with it? Cannard. The key point is that we have to take into account that the behaviour of individual components is stochastic, and that this stochasticity does generally not get lost in non-linear systems. The idea that this leads to "being done with it", is probably the worst bit. No it doesn´t. Stochastic explanations are not simple, they tend to be far more complicated than deterministic ones. Here´s a simple deterministic process: In each step add 1. You get 1;2;3... Now for a simple stochastic one: In each step throw a fair coin and add 1 if it is heads and 0 if it is tails (numbers in brackets: probabilities): You get 0(.5),1(.5);0(.25),1(.5),2(.25);0(.125),1(.375),2( .375),3(.125)... The number of possible pathways is growing exponentially with each step rather than staying constant (and 1) in the deterministic system. I can tell you the outcome for step 487 in the determinitic one (it´s 487), but my calculator quits on me when I try to figure out the probabilities for that step in the stochastic case (it´s 2^-487*487!/((487-n)!n!) with n being the value we want the probability for). Now imagine doing this for a process where even deterministic approximations are hazardous to mathematicians (and in the realm of non-linearity there are quite a few things people can mull over for a decade or two). That´s what I mean when I say "naive and insulting", its people who take down a molehill with a Bucket-wheel excavator and look over to those trying to get at Mt. Everest with a toothpick and having the nerve to say "You guys are just using the toothpick stuff as an excuse not to do the real work". As Marios has pointed out, if we can in any way justify it, we´ll try to linearize our system and to find a deterministic approximation (in the above analogy, we try to shrink Mt.Everest to molehill size and build a Bucket-wheel excavator from toothpicks). It makes it easier (though both shrinking the mountain and building the Bucket-wheel excavator are still pretty hard work).

19th January 2009, 09:59 AM	#249
recursive prophet Graduate Poster Join Date: May 2008 Location: Escondido, CA Posts: 1,135	Hybrid Opposition Experiment @sol invictus: Below is the response of susu and Marios to your questions. I look forward to reading your reaction, one that will hopefully address all the key points made. The link is a good place to jump in if you’d care to see all the current debate on this at RD. Seems arguing at cross purposes is an inherent flaw in cyber-communication. @Cyborg: Still looking forward to reading your thoughts on the responses I posted earlier from RD. This topic has gotten fairly technical there, and is driven by a cadre of those who have argued non-determinism from early on, quite successfully. It appears that in this far more generalized forum-as opposed to one specifically dedicated to evolution and natural selection-there isn’t much interest in what apparently seems to many a pretty esoteric debate. I can only hope this hybridization project I’ve initiated won’t discourage jimbob and Cyborg from continuing their thought provoking exchange. Que sera. https://richarddawkins.net/forum/vie...8240&start=475 Originally Posted by susu.exp Originally Posted by sol invictus Can any of the randomians in this thread formulate an experiment or result which would a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or Rabbits in the precambrian. There simply isn´t a non-stochastic theory of evolution, so the only way to falsify stochasticity of evolution would be to falsify evolution. Originally Posted by sol invictus b) confirm it Well, I´m pretty sure I can falsify any deterministic model, through an example where it breaks down. SCA being maintained above selection-mutation balance for instance. It´s confirmed even through the simple fact that twins do not always have the same number of offspring. Originally Posted by sol invictus If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat"). Well, the ball really is on the non-stochastic side. If I´m asked what the stochastic theory of evolution looks like, I can simply point to the textbooks and 150 years of scientific papers. The other side has nothing of that sort, so far I haven´t seen a single model from that side. I´ve seen assertions, but no models. Since the term "stochastic" has a hard definition and the theory of evolution fits that definition, I don´t think I´m arguing semantics. But people have certainly claimed that the LLN makes it non-stochastic and they are indeed leading a boring and useless semantic game (because the LLN only works for stochastic systems). Originally Posted by Marios Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet Easy to see how you got confused, but the replies you quoted me on were all from Cyborg. Sorry - it was an off the cuff reply. Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet I may even add in the classic Lars reply re: the role of maths. Remember that? I don't - reminder? Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet Can not the philosophical argument often trump the mathematical one on a purely pragmatic level? No, I don't think so - it doesn't get any more pragmatic than maths. To argue that philosophy gives us pragmatic answers in science is like saying we can know scientific truths without any discourse - which violates the structure of modern science (you can't just _know_ a truth, you have to communicate your observation to others and convince them - the most appropriate language for that is the least ambiguous language - maths). Originally Posted by Recursive Prophet After all, nothing as exactly precise as that which can be defined mathematically is to be found in nature, right? But it's not about nature - there are no druids in science, no one gains insights directly from nature, everything you do begins and ends with human language - nature's only involvement is in the experimental process which attempts to falsify one hypotheses in favour of another. There may well be things in nature which cannot be spoken of - not in ambiguous natural language or in unambiguous mathematics - but that's science, that's philosophy or theology. If you have a truth in mind which you cannot communicate except as a gut instinct, then you're in the realm of philosophy, not science. Originally Posted by sol invictus a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or There are several different arguments all helpfully overloaded on one another. One of the arguments is one of basic comprehension (i.e. you can argue if you want that everything is secretly deterministic - but can you _show_ it?) - that's not falsifiable (but then it isn't interesting). There's a direct deductive argument about whether or not the model of evolution as it stands can be integrated over stochastic fluctuations so that they drop out of the model - they can't, that's not experimental question anymore than asking whether the differential of x^2 is 3.x - it just isn't. The only sensible empirical argument is Simon Conway Morris' (unfortunately rejected by the people arguing for determinism/pseudo-determinism) - evolution works as per standard textbooks, but convergence is highly prevalent because morphospace is highly canalized - it's generally rejected as ridiculously vague and hard to falsify, but it is theoretically falsifiable. Originally Posted by sol invictus If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat"). Yes, that's why we're not actually arguing about that. We're focusing on the slightly more interesting "But don't stochastic perturbations just smooth out?" "But won't the model always stabilise around _the optimum_?" arguments. They are wrong, but it's a wrongness that many people who think they support evolution don't grasp - you can show someone the worked answer, but you can't make them read it. Marios

19th January 2009, 01:34 PM	#250
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Originally Posted by sol invictus Can any of the randomians in this thread formulate an experiment or result which would a) falsify the claim that "evolution is stochastic" (or "random", take your pick), or b) confirm it ? If not, the debate is not scientific - it's purely semantic, and really, really, really boring (akin to arguing whether that furry thing over there is a "cat" or a "chat"). How about: Taking an e.coli bacterium, allowing it to divide for a very few genrations then splitting the resulting population into twelve ancestral strains (all with only a few generations to limit the number of mutations from the parent bacterium) and then allowing them to grow in environments that are as similar as possible, whilst freeze-drying samples from each population every 500-generations (or 75 days), so you can attempt to "rerun the tape of evolution" if something interesting happens. And then leave running for at least twenty years.... (Since 1988) Does this sound familiar? Admittedly this couldn't really "falsify" the claim that evolution is random, but it could falsify the claim that evolution is nonrandom. For this to occur, you would need to see one popluation spontaneously evolve a trait that is not seen in the other twelve populations (or even better that has not been seen in any strains of e.coli anywhere else, where the lack of this trait has been used as one way of identifying colonies of e.coli)... PDF by Lenski: here Quote: Second, this experiment seeks to examine the repeatability of evolution by having 12 replicate populations, all of them founded from the same ancestor and maintained in the same environment. Which phenotypic and genomic aspects of evolutionary change are repeatable in this system, and which are haphazard? How can we understand the causes of parallelism and divergence of replicate lines? The issue of the predictability of evolutionary change - or lack thereof - has long been of interest. The question was well captured by the late palaeontologist Steven Jay Gould (1989) in a thought experiment: "I call this experiment 'replaying life's tape.' you press the rewind button and, making sure you thoroughly erase everything that actually happened, go back to any time and place in the past -say to the seas of the Burgess Shale. Then let the tape run again and see if the repetition looks at all like the original..." Gould went on to say, however, that "The bad news is that we can't possibly perform the experiment." Of course, we could never run an experiment on the vast temporal and spatial scales imagined by Gould. But on much smaller scales, our experiment with E.coli allows us to address the same question. We do so by allowing 12 scenarios to play out simultaneously, rather than sequentially, as the notion of replay implies, but the issue of repeatability is fundamentally the same. Lenski's experiment is aimed at addressing this very issue, and has answered it. In one population, a mutation arose that changed the course of evolution in that population, and this is repeatable in samples taken after the mutation occured, but is not repeatable from samples taken before the mutation occured. This shows that it wasn't minor seemingly-insignificant differences in the environmental conditions of the flasks, but was due to an internally-generated change in one of the flasks (a fortuitous mutation). Environmental differences between the flasks were insignificant. As were the genetics of the initial populations. The important factor was chance. Those might be my words, but the above quote from Lenski shows that this question was what the experiment was aimed at addressing.
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes Last edited by jimbob; 19th January 2009 at 01:37 PM. Reason: typo

19th January 2009, 01:59 PM	#251
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	I am still reading the paper, but later on Lenski supports what I said about even positive mutations being likely to vanish, not surprising, given that he is quoting a paper from 1927. Quote: As Haldane (1927) showed, most beneficial mutations are lost by random drift before they become common enough for selection to drive them into fixation; the probability of substitution as a beneficial mutation is only about 2s, where s is the selective advantage. Thus, a mutation that xconfers a 10% advantage will be lost by drift about 80% of the time, whereas one with only a 0.5% advantage will disappear 99% of the time. I have sai before in the discussion about natural selection, that evolutionary biologists discuss natural selection in probabilistic terms, and that the description of natural selection as nonrandom, was a rhetorical simplification or soundbite for getting a simplified and simplistic idea of evolution accross to those laypeople who really had toruble with the whole idea of evolution. If you are not talking to that audience, but to numerate people, who understand that randomness does not mean "an equal chance of everything happening" then describing natural selection as "nonrandom" is misleading. My position on natural is the scientific orthodoxy, despite what Articulett might claim. My position on the randomness of evolution is one side in an active topic of discussion in evolutionary biology, but which Lenski's Long term Evolution experiment has provided strong support for: both in the case of Citrate⁺ metabolism, and in some of the evolutionary responses of cultures to cold-stress.
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes

19th January 2009, 02:23 PM	#252
sol invictus Philosopher Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Nova Roma Posts: 8,417	Originally Posted by recursive prophet @sol invictus: Below is the response of susu and Marios to your questions. I don't understand their answers. There are plenty of versions of evolution which are entirely deterministic - every computer simulation of it ever done, for example. Not to mention that nature itself (and therefore the evolution of life on earth) could be fundamentally non-random for all we know.... so the argument fails completely. It's a semantic debate, and totally uninteresting. Originally Posted by jimbob <snip> One of the truly bizarre aspects of this is that you bring that up (and I believe you did so also in the past) as evidence that evolution is random. On the contrary, it's evidence that it is non-random, because Lenski was able to engineer the appearance and survival of several very specific mutations. All the colonies evolved some of the same traits given enough time. The fact that one colony was first on any particular one is tautological - did you expect all of them to mutate the same way at precisely the same time? It would be interesting to know whether one can define a mathematical limit of infinite time, and if so whether all colonies would asymptote to the same sequence. But regardless of that, it is completely obvious that the mutations that persisted were non-random - on the contrary, they were adaptive and advantageous in that environment.

19th January 2009, 02:23 PM	#253
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	Calling it "random" is far more misleading to the majority--which is why creationists insist that evolution is a theory of "random chance". Ken Miller is understandable and understood far more than those who would classify things differently. He writes numerous text books and testified in the Dover trial. I think I'll stick with the actual experts. I understand them better than the self-appointed experts do.

19th January 2009, 02:24 PM	#254
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	In answer to your question as to "why nobody calls weather random " Will it rain within a square kilometer of lattitude 51°N, longitude 0°E anytime during the daylight hours of December 15th 2051? Not only can't we predict the weather that far in advance; but, due to the highly nonlinear response of the weather, it hasn't even been determined by the universe yet. Weather is not predetermined, it is perturbed by random events. Over short timescales it can be forcast, because these perturbations take time to grow.
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes

19th January 2009, 02:30 PM	#255
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	What the hell does that have to do with this thread? Yes, we can find ways to prove that all systems have unpredictable or probabilistic elements-- that doesn't mean it's informative to call such systems "random". You sure do reach for some weird examples to justify the way you want to describe evolution.

19th January 2009, 02:44 PM	#256
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Originally Posted by sol invictus Originally Posted by jimbob ,snip. One of the truly bizarre aspects of this is that you bring that up (and I believe you did so also in the past) as evidence that evolution is random. On the contrary, it's evidence that it is non-random, because Lenski was able to engineer the appearance and survival of several very specific mutations. All the colonies evolved some of the same traits given enough time. The fact that one colony was first on any particular one is tautological - did you expect all of them to mutate the same way at precisely the same time? It would be interesting to know whether one can define a mathematical limit of infinite time, and if so whether all colonies would asymptote to the same sequence. But regardless of that, it is completely obvious that the mutations that persisted were non-random - on the contrary, they were adaptive and advantageous in that environment. I disagree: ETA: This is also Lenski's interpretation: From the abstract to Lenski's paper (PDF): Quote: This potentiating change increased the mutation rate to Cit⁺ but did not cause generalized hypermutability. Thus, the evolution of this phenotype was contingent on the particular history of that population. More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection. More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection. Unless "historical contingency" is nonrandom... Lenski was specifically looking to see if the same ancestor in the same environment would always evolve the same traits. This did not happen. The experimnetal design removed the effects of initial genetic differences, and also removed the effects of externally-applied environmental effects. Of course, the traits that evolved were adaptive, and of course the more likely traits evolved numerous times. So what? We know this from observing biology, where the eye has evolved many times, sometimes more than once in the same organism. We also know this from observing how many orginsims have evolved flight or gliding. The initial potentiating mutation did make citrate evolution very probable, but this mutation was itself rare. Indeed this is the only observed variant of that strain of E.coli to have evolved citrate metabolism. raising the spectre of infinite time is a red herring. For the purposes of the experiment, the environment was kept uniform and simple (expecially compared to less artificial ecosystems). This made the outcome of any randomness less likely not more so, but also more obvious. Because there were fewer interactions between different types of organisms. Quote: The fact that one colony was first on any particular one is tautological - did you expect all of them to mutate the same way at precisely the same time? No but the others have had tens of thousands of generations and still not evolved this trait. Timing is crucial when talking about interactions. Suppose someone, 100 years ago in Botswana developed a mutation that woudl have protected that individual against HIV. This would have been evolutionary neutral, and not likely to spread. If someone developed the same mutation today in Botswana, then that mutation would confer a large advantage. What is the difference? The mutations of a different "player" in the ecosystem, the HI Virus. This is a simple example. With more organisms, the nonlinear interactions become greater, and randomness becomes more important. Sol, do you agree with my statement that chance events have played an important part in the evolutionary history of virtually any organism in that has ever lived.
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes Last edited by jimbob; 19th January 2009 at 02:50 PM. Reason: Addition

19th January 2009, 02:59 PM	#257
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	All macro events are considered deterministic... it's how we know the way the world works. Historical contingency may mean "random" to you-- it doesn't mean it to Lenski or anyone else. Historical contingency IS the selection process--and nobody of note would describe that as random. As Miller said, to do so would be to confuse the sifted with the sifter. You cannot seem to differentiate the two. That's why you and your fellow friends and Behe are so hard to converse with. You need a certain answer to be "the truth"-- but that certain answer only makes sense if you are defining terms as broadly and uselessly as you are.

19th January 2009, 03:02 PM	#258
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Why do you think that articulett? Lenski's stated aim was to see if the tape of evolution gives the same outcome when rerun. It doesn't. How is that nonrandom? ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random". EDIT2: I am also arguing that "nonrandom" is wrong, not that "random" is correct. It is more complex than that, but unless talking to innumerate laypeople, "nonrandom" is simply misleading...
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes Last edited by jimbob; 19th January 2009 at 03:10 PM.

19th January 2009, 03:08 PM	#259
sol invictus Philosopher Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Nova Roma Posts: 8,417	Originally Posted by jimbob ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random". Ah, back to this... how refreshing to go around full-circle to a stupidity first expressed months and months ago. According to that definition, evolution is (probably) random. Now please name one single real-world process that isn't.

19th January 2009, 03:15 PM	#260
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	Originally Posted by jimbob Why do you think that articulett? Lenski's stated aim was to see if the tape of evolution gives the same outcome when rerun. It doesn't. How is that nonrandom? ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random". EDIT2: I am aslo arguing that "nonrandom" is wrong, not that "random" is correct. It is more complex than that, but unless talking to innumerate laypeople, "nonrandom" is simply misleading... And this makes elections random, this thread random, smoke detectors random, and everything random. You've defined the term so that it is useless to anyone but... well... yourself and a few creationists. You are using the words of those who think they understand natural selection, but don't have a clue. And you seem completely unable to realize this. Most people describe evolution as a 2 part process-- but because it is not completely random in any sense of the word, calling evolution "nonrandom" is far more accurate than calling it random to most people. In the same way that elections are nonrandom--random implies a lottery method of choosing. Non random allows you to explain how it's not like a lottery. And if you haven't understood this after years of posts on the subject, how can you ever understand it? Whenever someone aims to clearly describe evolution, you claim that they are calling it nonrandom and that this is "wrong". The experts disagree. They would say that the way Ken Miller describes evolution is far more accurate than your silly semantics. Sorry. But that's just the way it is. You can convince yourself and others like you that you are saying something valid, but it appears to be valid only to the people on your level... even the experts you quote would not agree with you. What you are calling the same inputs are NOT the same inputs. All things that evolve have a common starting point... but once they diverge none of the inputs are truly identical. Lots of experts will say evolution is nonrandom and describe how. Of course they aren't using your definitions. None are calling evolution random. None. If we ran the tape from the beginning and EVERY input was identical... we'd expect the same output. But we cannot make every input identical. Just like every molecule in every storm would create the exacts same storm if events unfolded identically. When something different happens, it is no longer "identical". You just cannot seem to hear this. The key to understanding evolution is understanding how it's nonrandom. Everyone (even creationists) can tell you how it's random. Few can tell you how natural selection (which is not random --according to Miller, Dawkins, Coyne, Ayala, et. al.) leads to the appearance of design. You are included in this latter category. You are clearly not using the term nonrandom nor random the way these experts are.
	Last edited by articulett; 19th January 2009 at 03:35 PM.

20th January 2009, 10:17 AM	#261
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Originally Posted by Sol Invictus Originally Posted by Jimbob ETA: Different outputs for the same inputs, meets my definiton of "random". Ah, back to this... how refreshing to go around full-circle to a stupidity first expressed months and months ago. According to that definition, evolution is (probably) random. Now please name one single real-world process that isn't I missed out the key word "significantly". I would say that metabolising citrate or not is a significant difference. Especially as this has not been seen in any other variants of that strain of E.coli. I can name many processes where similar or identical inputs produce significanlty similar outputs. It is also a commonly accepted usage of the word "random": Originally Posted by Beth Originally Posted by jimbob Skeptgirl, Mijo is not arguing for "random" as "unbiased" or "haphazard". This is a difference between him and Behe that Articulett refuses to accept. (That and mijos repeted assertions that humanity evolved from ape-like ancestors with no guiding supernatural deity, indeed almost a "drunkards walk" and influenced by many chance events. (What would our genome look like if humanity had not got almost wiped out 70k-yrs ago by Tambora's eruption? Let me second this. Jimbob is correct. Mijo's insisting that by the proper definitions of 'random' and 'deterministic', evolution is random. It is. I'm not interesting in debating the matter. I'm a professional statistician; I know what the word 'random' means! But 'random' is also quite commonly taken to mean things that are properly termed "haphazard" "unbiased" or "uniformly distributed". By that usage, you are correct and evolution is anything but. Originally Posted by lenny Originally Posted by articulett On planet smart people "random processes" are terms sometimes used to describe stochastic processes... the smart people don't consider the processes themselves random... they are noting that they have random components. i would really like to understand all the confusion/argument here. articulett, statisticians would generally not be "smart people" by your definition. random processes (aka stochastic processes) are indeed considered random, you seem to think this is a very restrictive condition, for the most part they do not. not all random processes are IID (independent, identically distributed) or Gaussian distributed, "most" are subject to "deterministic" influences; they are random processes merely because there is a random term (in discrete or continuous time) onthe right hand side of the equations that define them. do we all agree that a classical random walk is a random process? and that so is a random walk on a tilted surface (that is a random process that contains a deterministic drift?) if you agree the second is random, i do not see why you reject the idea that evolution is random, (given the typical alternatives: random and deterministic, would you want to say evoluiton is deterministic?) articulett, you just seem to allergic to the use of the word "random" in connection with evoluiton, would you consider it OK to call a radiation induced mutation random? cyborg could you tell me which post you explained things in, there are over a thousand on this thread! thanks.
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes

20th January 2009, 10:39 AM	#262
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	Yes... jimbob... normal people consider mutations (and the various recombinations) the random part of evolution, while they consider the selection process the part that accumulates and multiplies the randomness to achieve the appearance of design. We don't call the later random. You might think it's honest or informative to do so, but the experts do not. They do not define words as vaguely as you do because they don't have this bizarre semantic need to describe things in a way that is indistinguishable from the creationist straw man. Instead, they aim to clarify, and use more stringint definitions of words to do so. Pretending that people are allergic to the word "random" because they find it vague and misleading in regards to evolution doesn't mean that anyone who is taken seriously in the field of science thinks that it's useful to describe evolution as random--that's why none do. And that's exactly why creationists do refer to evolution as a "theory of chance"-- it works to befuddle folks so that they THINK they understand evolution, but they end up sounding like you. Such people ought to talk to each other, because they really aren't conveying information to anyone else--although they THINK they are... they think they are smarter than those who could give them a clue. You don't want to describe evolution, you want people to agree that you are describing it coherently. So go find those people who agree and discuss whatever important things you imagine you are saying. The rest of us will describe evolution the way the actual experts do--because we have found that is the best way to convey understanding. Your descriptors are the best way to obfuscate understanding. You don't need to put down me. I am only repeating what all the experts are saying. Not even Lenski, whom you imagine support you, would disagree with anything I've said. Nor would Dawkins or Miller. Just find one peer reviewed article that says evolution IS random or whatever it is you think you are saying... find one article where they are defining terms like you are. You guys have none. It's all semantics used to say nothing much at all. If your arguments were valid or useful, it should be easy to find peer reveiwed scientists making them--without twisting their words or supplying your personal definitions to their terminology.
	Last edited by articulett; 20th January 2009 at 10:54 AM.

20th January 2009, 11:05 AM	#263
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	What is your point, and it doesn't help to mishear me as being allergic to the word random? I use it exactly as Dawkins and Miller do. But the fact is, RANDOMNESS is not essential to evolution-- VARIETY is... it doesn't matter how that variety is generated--randomly, through recombination, or through an alogrithm... there just needs to be a pool from which to select the most efficient teams of genes from. You are obsessed with randomness... as obsessed as any creationist. The word is completely unnecessary in describing evolution and can so readily lead to confusion. That's it. You just can't get this. Whatever your point is, it is lost in your need to define things in terms of randomness--the least essential part of evolution. The part that confuses the most people. The creationist straw man. How much more evidence do you need that you are not clear, and that no one really speaks of evolution like you do except for those who think they understand it, but don't? Those who are clear, publish and teach others. Those who are not, malign others with straw men and use lots of words to convey no information at all. That's fine with me, but putting me down, reveals exactly what sort of person you are; the people here no me well enough to know that I am not as you'd characterize me. You are only fooling the fools-- you are miffed because other people have pointed out that you are not quite the expert you imagine yourself to be. You are miffed that I said the truth-- you aren't really particularly well regarded as an explanatory source on the topic of evolution. Like Mijo, your expertise seems to be entirely in your own mind. Entirely. I mean really, Jimbob, what the hell is your point? Dont put me down--try to find someone of integrity who uses words in the cumbersoome non-explanatory ways you do to advance whatever point you are trying to make. Do you think Beth is someone others find "informative" on this topic? I teach this topic; I have a Masters in Genetics; I worked for years as a genetic counseler. What's your expertise again? I can't make much sense of Beth and neither can the people I respect--she's wishy washy sounding... like you... apologetic... misses the point... garbled. And lenny is okay, but he's payiing more attention to a straw man view of what I said, then what I actually said, and he's not exactly supporting your veiwpoint. I'll stick with the bigger experts like Dawkins et. al. I know exactly what such experts have to say on this subject. You aren't exactly quoting highly respected people, you know... and when you do, they sure aren't saying what you seem to imagine them to be saying. You have no ability to improve your communication, because like the people referenced in my sig, you are so sure you know more than those who might clue you in. Everyone just gets tired of it, and learns to ignore you. If your point was to converse, you need to be on the same page as everyone else. It doesn't help if you imagine yourself smarter than those who actually know more than you. You don't like it in other people--and people here, don't like it in you. Why wasn't Dr Adequate or Sol's responses good enough? Do you really imagine yourself smarter than them? I don't think the evidence supports this notion.
	Last edited by articulett; 20th January 2009 at 11:22 AM.

20th January 2009, 11:16 AM	#264
six7s veretic Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Aotearoa Posts: 8,710	Originally Posted by articulett How much more evidence do you need that you are not clear, and that no one really speaks of evolution like you do except for those who think they understand it, but don't? I dunno about jimbob, but I have had more than enough, thanks So, I'm unsubscribing @arti and/or others who do understand: If this or any other thread starts discussing randomness in a meaningful and coherent way, please do flick me a PM Thanks
	__________________ Evolution and the rest of reality fascinates the be-jeebus out of me!

20th January 2009, 11:19 AM	#265
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Originally Posted by articulett And this makes elections random, this thread random, smoke detectors random, and everything random. You've defined the term so that it is useless to anyone but... well... yourself and a few creationists. You are using the words of those who think they understand natural selection, but don't have a clue. And you seem completely unable to realize this. You are using the words of those who think they understand natural selection, but don't have a clue. And you seem completely unable to realize this. Are you sure it is me, and not you? Richard Dawkins implicitally uses a probabilistic treatment of natural selection in the extended phenotype. The difference is that then he is not trying for a one-sentance soundbite, but an actual exploration of the implications of different amounts of selective advantage. Quote: Most people describe evolution as a 2 part process-- but because it is not completely random in any sense of the word, calling evolution "nonrandom" is far more accurate than calling it random to most people. In the same way that elections are nonrandom--random implies a lottery method of choosing. Non random allows you to explain how it's not like a lottery. And if you haven't understood this after years of posts on the subject, how can you ever understand it? And what about in the evolution of citrate matabolism in E.coli? Was this a significant difference in outcomes? Was the important diffenence due to chance? Quote: Whenever someone aims to clearly describe evolution, you claim that they are calling it nonrandom and that this is "wrong". The experts disagree. They would say that the way Ken Miller describes evolution is far more accurate than your silly semantics. Sorry. But that's just the way it is. You can convince yourself and others like you that you are saying something valid, but it appears to be valid only to the people on your level... even the experts you quote would not agree with you. What you are calling the same inputs are NOT the same inputs. All things that evolve have a common starting point... but once they diverge none of the inputs are truly identical. Lots of experts will say evolution is nonrandom and describe how. Of course they aren't using your definitions. None are calling evolution random. None. If we ran the tape from the beginning and EVERY input was identical... we'd expect the same output. But we cannot make every input identical. Just like every molecule in every storm would create the exacts same storm if events unfolded identically. When something different happens, it is no longer "identical". You just cannot seem to hear this. "None. If we ran the tape from the beginning and EVERY input was identical... we'd expect the same output. But we cannot make every input identical. Just like every molecule in every storm would create the exacts same storm if events unfolded identically. When something different happens, it is no longer "identical". You just cannot seem to hear this." This is where you are wrong. Evolution is a nonlinear system, with really weird positive feedback loops, as long as you allow chance events to happen, these chance events will perturb the systems so that a different outcome will occur. Over time the differences will magnify. As long as you are allowing chance events to occur, these are sufficient to cause different outcomes. With the storm, the universe can't "know" the position and momentum of every molecule. Quote: The key to understanding evolution is understanding how it's nonrandom. Everyone (even creationists) can tell you how it's random. Few can tell you how natural selection (which is not random --according to Miller, Dawkins, Coyne, Ayala, et. al.) leads to the appearance of design. You are included in this latter category. You are clearly not using the term nonrandom nor random the way these experts are. The randomness or not has ~~nothing~~ little to do with the appearence of seeming design. It allows more variants, because sometimes a slightly improbable trait will evolve. Sometimes it won't. I also suspect that without randomess as an open-ended source of variation, evolution would be limited, but haven't seen if pseudorandom variation could replace this. Do you considetr yourself to be good at explaining evolution? Do you accept why almost every word in this is wrong, or do you think that this a good explaination of evolution? Originally Posted by articulett For some life forms, they evolved to try something new or different when the old stuff isn't working...
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes

20th January 2009, 11:26 AM	#266
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	I'm unsubscribing too... suck others into your silly pointless semantic game

20th January 2009, 11:27 AM	#267
articulett Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Las Vegas, NV (and the ethers of cyberspace) Posts: 15,786	Yes, I'm sure it's you and not me.

20th January 2009, 11:31 AM	#268
recursive prophet Graduate Poster Join Date: May 2008 Location: Escondido, CA Posts: 1,135	Originally Posted by sol invictus I don't understand their answers.... so the argument fails completely. It's a semantic debate, and totally uninteresting. @sol.. Much as I expected from you to be honest, sol …elatus? You get detailed deconstructions of your post; models; maths; and explanations of their significance in understanding how a very complex stochastic process affects NS. But nay, with ne’er one of many specific claims by Marios and susu actually even mentioned, you dismiss all to the realm of semantics. I find myself in awe of your audacity, doubting you even read what I posted. Brass balls that large must sound like Notre Dame Cathedral at high mass if you ever jog. Word salad in the land of terse condescension, where image reigns and all logic is reducible to semantics? While I do envy your certainty, unless you can be specific in your rebuttals I won’t bother to send over your conclusion today. But thanks for all the insight shared; semantics. Got it! @jimbob, posting on the RD thread yesterday. Think you’ll find many who will review your ideas far more constructively than has been done here, though I do thank cyborg for taking the time to explain his dismissal of your conjectures. It provoked some informative replies on RD, (above) and I really would like to read his response to all that Marios and susu have presented. I use their analysis whenever possible, as they are both far beyond me in knowledge and experience with this subject. As we all have a limited amount of time to post online, I would suggest you don’t waste it trying to explain your thinking to those who are clearly insincere in their comments. How many times can you make a statement or ask a question, only to see it ignored in any reply? If all you get in response is more of the same ‘talking points’ and dubious appeals to authority, what makes some continue to attempt any real communication with such posters is an even bigger mystery to me than evolution. Hopefully cyborg will return soon and your earlier dialogue can be continued. Again I would ask especially any with grad level + training in any aspect of evolutionary science to at least weigh in on this discussion, here or on the RD thread. Unless someone credible comes along soon, I for one will be ready to consider the OP finally answered. Both evolution and natural selection have been convincingly and comprehensively argued as stochastic processes. It wasn’t the answer the OPer on RDF had in mind, nor I when I first started posting there. But over time it became obvious those with the most direct experience and advanced training all saw selection as stochastic and were winning the debate. They had far more unanswered, detailed arguments go unaddressed than those arguing for a more deterministic role. I am always happy to see such perceptions changed, so if you can show me the flaws in the deductions of susu and Marios, I’d love to read them. Otherwise, this thread may have served its purpose and have little to offer me beyond this point. We’ll see, and thanks to all who have made positive contributions.

20th January 2009, 01:17 PM	#269
sol invictus Philosopher Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Nova Roma Posts: 8,417	Originally Posted by recursive prophet @sol.. Much as I expected from you to be honest, sol …elatus? You get detailed deconstructions of your post; models; maths; and explanations of their significance in understanding how a very complex stochastic process affects NS. But nay, with ne’er one of many specific claims by Marios and susu actually even mentioned, you dismiss all to the realm of semantics. I find myself in awe of your audacity, doubting you even read what I posted. Brass balls that large must sound like Notre Dame Cathedral at high mass if you ever jog. Word salad in the land of terse condescension, where image reigns and all logic is reducible to semantics? While I do envy your certainty, unless you can be specific in your rebuttals I won’t bother to send over your conclusion today. But thanks for all the insight shared; semantics. Got it! You seem to be under the misapprehension that I care about this debate. I don't, because it's completely uninteresting. Discussing what randomness is fundamentally - that's interesting. Discussing any of the myriad specifics of evolution - that's interesting. But having a moronic argument over whether the claim "evolution is random" is true - that's really boring. I posed that question because it plainly has no answer, and whaddya know - there was no answer. If you want a more detailed response, fair enough (I inflicted this on myself by posing the question). I'll give a little bit of one here. I don't care if you post it wherever you're getting these responses from. Quote: There simply isn´t a non-stochastic theory of evolution, so the only way to falsify stochasticity of evolution would be to falsify evolution. Obviously untrue. Any of the huge number of simulations of evolution that run on computers using deterministic pseudo-random number algorithms falsify that immediately. Not to mention all kinds of related algorithms and processes (genetic algorithms etc.). And while those obviously don't model all aspects of the evolution of life on earth, that's equally obviously not because they are using pseudo-random rather than "true" random numbers. Quote: Well, the ball really is on the non-stochastic side. If I´m asked what the stochastic theory of evolution looks like, I can simply point to the textbooks and 150 years of scientific papers. The other side has nothing of that sort, so far I haven´t seen a single model from that side. I´ve seen assertions, but no models. Since the term "stochastic" has a hard definition and the theory of evolution fits that definition, I don´t think I´m arguing semantics. The computer models I mentioned satisfy the criterion for a non-stochastic model of evolution in the general sense. For evolution of life on earth the question reduces to that of fundamental randomness. Either all physical processes are stochastic or none are, and there are models in fundamental physics for both possibilities. If you want to insist that only processes that rely on randomness in some "essential" or "important" way are stochastic, you reduce the whole thing to a silly value judgment. Look - to prove that this debate is semantic, let me present two conflicting definitions. Here you are, courtesy of google: stochasticity - randomness: the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan That obviously does not apply to evolution, and I can't imagine anyone (even some contributors to this thread) arguing that it does. A stochastic process, or sometimes random process, is the counterpart to a deterministic process (or deterministic system) in probability theory. Instead of dealing with only one possible 'reality' of how the process might evolve under time (as is the case, for example, for solutions of an ordinary differential equation), in a stochastic or random process there is some indeterminacy in its future evolution described by probability distributions. This means that even if the initial condition (or starting point) is known, there are many possibilities the process might go to, but some paths are more probable and others less. This probably does apply to evolution, although as I've said, not necessarily in the strictest sense. The only reasonable way to have this discussion is to identify a specific phenomenon or set of phenomena on which we disagree, and discuss those (and as far as I know there are none). Anything else is useless.

20th January 2009, 01:24 PM	#270
sol invictus Philosopher Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Nova Roma Posts: 8,417	Originally Posted by jimbob I disagree: [color="Blue"]ETA: This is also Lenski's interpretation: Maybe so, but if so there is no evidence for that in the quotes you gave. Quote: More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection. Unless "historical contingency" is nonrandom... And you persist with this false dichotomy for the thousandth time. I'm done discussing this with you. Bye.

20th January 2009, 04:11 PM	#271
cyborg deus ex machina Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,974	Quote: Here´s a simple deterministic process: In each step add 1. You get 1;2;3... Now for a simple stochastic one: In each step throw a fair coin and add 1 if it is heads and 0 if it is tails (numbers in brackets: probabilities): You get 0(.5),1(.5);0(.25),1(.5),2(.25);0(.125),1(.375),2( .375),3(.125)... The number of possible pathways is growing exponentially with each step rather than staying constant (and 1) in the deterministic system. I can tell you the outcome for step 487 in the determinitic one (it´s 487), but my calculator quits on me when I try to figure out the probabilities for that step in the stochastic case (it´s 2-487487!/((487-n)!n!) with n being the value we want the probability for). This right here is ridiculous. So somehow I should be surprised that when comparing two systems one in which there is zero branching and one in which there is non-zero branching that the non-zero branching has an exponentially growing solution space? You have heard of the concept of abstraction right? Here's the function in psuedo functional-code: x = map (if flip is tails then +1 else +0) flips This is perfectly deterministic and the result depends on the list flips. You have chosen to compare an instance of function x to the entire class of the function x: x [tails, tails, ...485 times... ] = 487 But any given list of flips is just as simple to calculate - just a lot harder for you to list succinctly. Doing it for all 2^487 - 1 possible lists is going to take a long time? Really? Well I never. I don't believe I ever claimed that analysing the entire problem space was a trivial task. But if people are going to continue to confuse the execution of an instance with the analysis of the class then they're going to continue to make silly statements. ANY* "stochastic process" will have deterministic instances - I've already proven that before. Is this really hard to get?
cyborg deus ex machina Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,974	__________________ The phrase deus ex machina (literally "god out of a machine") describes an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot...

21st January 2009, 12:05 PM	#272
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Cyborg: I roll a pair of dice once. I know that the score will be an integer from 2 to 12. I can write out all the possible scores. So the dice roll is deterministic by your argument?
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes

21st January 2009, 01:38 PM	#273
Zeuzzz Banned Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 5,241	Originally Posted by sol invictus Note that there need to be three options ("true", "false", and "not even wrong"), as there are many statements ("evolution is random" is one) which are partially true and partially false, particularly when your definition is as stupid as mijo's was. Oh, and by the way - the answer is E and 3, as every schoolchild knows. Na, most schoolkids, and infact probably most college students, would probably say that evoution is random. They still teach about random mutations in secondary school in evolution lessons, which pretty much confuses everyone into thinking evolution is completely random. I used to think this (I never did biology or anything at college) but have since learned it is not so online. The choice of words used in the curriculum could certainly be better explained.
Zeuzzz Banned Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 5,241

21st January 2009, 01:53 PM	#274
recursive prophet Graduate Poster Join Date: May 2008 Location: Escondido, CA Posts: 1,135	With so many clmoring to be read..is anyone reading? Looking back on my observation and minor participation in the How Evolution is NOT pure* random chance,* [emphasis mine] on RDF, I’m reminded of Asimov’s classic short story, The Last Question. It began innocently enough as an argument between to minor techs on the Colossus 2 -or whatever-forgot name he gives the super computer that pretty much runs things. They had recently launched a satellite that would beam enough solar energy to earth to supply their needs ‘forever,’ exclaimed one tech. The other pointed out the sun’s ultimate demise, and the debate that ensued culminated with them posing a question to Colossus; can entropy be reversed? Both techs soon forgot the silly bet they’d made that night, but Colossus didn’t. It would keep working on it until the end of time, should that the answer to ‘the last question.’ (The story is short and available online) While aspects of the Second Law have been introduced at various times in the over 3k replies on the RDF random thread, the similarity I speak of mostly concerns the occurrence of relatively insignificant persons originating questions that later snow-ball into far more complicated debates. You see it often on the boards. The user who began the random thread-Mel Z-also presented a dice analogy, which was later shown to be inaccurate on several different levels and much better models using dice and coins were presented. From what I’ve observed it appears topics often evolve as the debate becomes more specific, and in the better ones opinions are often changed. My own was, re: the intended OP here; is NS stochastic. I now sense those such as myself that have been following the dialogue on RDF have seen enough evidence presented that it may well be time to let the thread become dormant until someone comes along with something new to say. There are links below to the start of this thread last year, and the current last page. Some very distinguished scientists, such as Milford Wolpoff, have contributed to this dialectic, along with many others working on doctorates in the field. It’s been an interesting read, but at this juncture I’m personally quite satisfied that the combined posts made by susu, Marios, Dlx2 and mjpam and others on this subject are by far the most congruent and persuasive. I would still love to see someone go toe to toe with them and come up with a winning argument. I could use another lesson in how weaker conjectures can often prove to come down to poor presentation while being part of a larger truth. And of course such an experience would be invaluable for the ‘boys,’ in learning the true cognitive significance of uncertainty. But pontifical snarls and peremptory, unsubstantiated dismissals aren’t going to cut it on RD. Ask Articulett, the threads most active poster. She is either ignored-my preference-or ridiculed by like 85% of the regular posters there. Of course all the ‘smart people’ have left, so I guess her still mostly posting there is a sign of low self-esteem? By suspecting her own incompetence she insures herself-per her sig-she’s not really incompetent? Of course you’re not dear. You just have a lot of very negative energy that needs to be released. I’ve actually come to feel sorry for you, watching you repeat the same mantras that I suspect you say in your sleep by now. Try breathing into a paper bag a few times before hitting send, and ask yourself what is your purpose? Those who oppose you are just looking at the shadows on the cave’s wall and will never achieve your advanced perspective. We will just continue staring at the straw man’s shadow and believing he is real. Leave us in peace now, and re-join the cognoscenti. We are truly not worthy. @sol and cyborg: Marios merely commented neither of you seem familiar with the biology involved and are confused about the terms stochastic and deterministic. The reply of susu is below, and I decided to leave in his response in the same post to David, as it is pertinent to some of the examples/models susu has presented that have gone unchallenged. @cyborg: As to your final statement, no one is arguing you won’t see deterministic instances. The question is can you predict them, and the answer is no. The process that generates them is stochastic. You can only show they are deterministic in retrospect, and even if you could rewind the tape with the same variables you might get different results. This has been extensively examined if you could take the time to click the second link and go back a few pages. You really should enlighten those poor misguided souls on RDF. Pop open a can of whup-ass on em and show the great unwashed the path to the river. I know; not interesting and all semantics. Beginning of How Evolution is not pure random chance, http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/...php?f=4&t=7428 Last page of posts on part 3. http://richarddawkins.net/forum/view...79853#p1679853 Originally Posted by susu.exp Originally Posted by DavidMcC I had this with Dlx2 ages ago. The word "majority" is the key. All you are seeing is the fact that most genes aren't involved in any one speciation, but, having been separated by the speciation, they drift apart, near-neutral fashion, without necessarily having a significant net phenotypic impact. Some speciations may involves only drift after physical separation, but surely not "interesting" ones, that lead directly to new classes, or whatever, by virtue of a genetic innovation, encouraged by new conditions to adapt to. WTF? What is the difference in the process of "interesting" speciations that lead to new classes? There´s none. Classes are arbitrary units and most importantly, the clustering in morphospace (remember that other discussion we had last week or so?) arises purely from common ancestry. It is replicated in the pure morphological drift models of the MBL papers. You´ve actually just thrown common ancestry out, by invoking selection as the mechanism that leads to the formation of classes (i.e. clades occupying a distinct region in morphospace). Originally Posted by DavidMcC On SCA prevalence, I don't see how you can make any sense of the time-dependence of that without taking into account taboo strength. It is you who is assuming "random mating (ie no taboos), IMO, in order to have a population-selection pressure graph that doesn't mention taboo effects. Well, for starters I also gave an example from a yeast culture (and such cultures tend not to be very civilized). Then you are arguing that taboos make a dent big enough to explain a discrepancy of 4 orders of magnitude. How big do you figure hispanic families in the US to be, if you want to shelter the allele we´d be talking about one family encompassing 10% of hispanics. 10%!! Even then the best you can get is neutrality. Still the frequency goes up. Originally Posted by DavidMcC You are concentrating on genetic changes being unpredictable ("random", if you like), but that isn't the point, as it relates to the randomness of mutations, not of selection. Wrong. I´m not talking about mutations at all. I´m talking about drift. I´ve noted that the rate at which the SCA allele increases through mutation is 10^-8 per generation. It decreases by about 610^-3 through selection. Together that´s a decrease of about 610^-3. But it does go up in reality. The selection component is more than compensated for by drift. Originally Posted by DavidMcC EDIT: Selective pressure isn't on individual genes, it's on gene teams. Wrong again. Originally Posted by sol invictus The computer models I mentioned satisfy the criterion for a non-stochastic model of evolution in the general sense. For evolution of life on earth the question reduces to that of fundamental randomness. Either all physical processes are stochastic or none are, and there are models in fundamental physics for both possibilities. Actually. No. Even though a few physicists work on models with underlying determinism, their models still are stocahstic. The need for stochastic models is not at all at wuestion. Now, we had the debate over t`Hooft in this thread and one thing to note is that he is not proposing non-stochastic models. He´s merely changing what is stocahstic: The standard model says that if you look at an electron it will have a stochastic value for it´s properties. t`Hoofts alternative is that the electron is composed of lots of deterministic "things" for lack of a better word and when you look at the electron you take a random sample of these things (i.e. in one case you draw one ball from an urn and it is some random shade of grey. In the other case you draw a lot of balls from the urn and they are either black or white and you measure the mean. While the balls and with them the distribution of balls in the urn is deterministic, your sample is stochastic). Originally Posted by cyborg This right here is ridiculous. So somehow I should be surprised that when comparing two systems one in which there is zero branching and one in which there is non-zero branching that the non-zero branching has an exponentially growing solution space? No, you shouldn´t be surprised. But you shouldn´t be surprised either that I might claim that the branching process is a bit more complicated than the non-branching one. That after all was being debated. Originally Posted by cyborg You have heard of the concept of abstraction right? Yes. Originally Posted by cyborg Here's the function in psuedo functional-code: x = map (if flip is tails then +1 else +0) flips This is perfectly deterministic and the result depends on the list flips. Holy **. In that case you are really claiming that rolling a die may be stocahstic, but the number I get when I roll a die and add 1 is deterministic? x is a random variable, because it is the sum of random variables. A (finite) sum of random variables is a random variable. Originally Posted by cyborg** You have chosen to compare an instance of function x to the entire class of the function x: x [tails, tails, ...485 times... ] = 487 But any given list of flips is just as simple to calculate - just a lot harder for you to list succinctly. Well, when you make predictions, which ultimately is the job of science, then you don´t have the list handy (in fact if you knew in advance a sequence of 497 coin flips before I started flipping I´d be enormously impressed). Originally Posted by cyborg Doing it for all 2^487 - 1 possible lists is going to take a long time? Really? Well I never. I don't believe I ever claimed that analyzing the entire problem space was a trivial task. Actually I don´t even analyze the complete sample space, but elements of a sigma algebra in that sample space. Originally Posted by cyborg But if people are going to continue to confuse the execution of an instance with the analysis of the class then they're going to continue to make silly statements. I never made any claims about the execution of an instance. Originally Posted by cyborg ANY "stochastic process" will have deterministic instances - I've already proven that before. Is this really hard to get? That´s BS. Any stochastic process will have a result. But there´s no way to look back at it and say "It had to happen that way", only "It did happen that way". That´s the difference between a stochastic and a deterministic process.

21st January 2009, 02:24 PM	#275
jimbob Uncritical "thinker" Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Derbyshire, UK Posts: 5,162	Quote: Originally Posted by jimbob I disagree: [color="Blue"]ETA: This is also Lenski's interpretation: Maybe so, but if so there is no evidence for that in the quotes you gave. Originally Posted by jimbob Quote: Quote: More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection. Unless "historical contingency" is nonrandom... And you persist with this false dichotomy for the thousandth time. I'm done discussing this with you. Bye. What does the following mean, and how does this not mean that chance is important, and even giving a situation when it is imprtant. How am I mistreading the paper and the aims of the experiment when this is the stated aim of the experiment: Quote: Second, this experiment seeks to examine the repeatability of evolution by having 12 replicate populations, all of them founded from the same ancestor and maintained in the same environment. Which phenotypic and genomic aspects of evolutionary change are repeatable in this system, and which are haphazard? How can we understand the causes of parallelism and divergence of replicate lines? The issue of the predictability of evolutionary change - or lack thereof - has long been of interest. The question was well captured by the late palaeontologist Steven Jay Gould (1989) in a thought experiment: "I call this experiment 'replaying life's tape.' you press the rewind button and, making sure you thoroughly erase everything that actually happened, go back to any time and place in the past -say to the seas of the Burgess Shale. Then let the tape run again and see if the repetition looks at all like the original..." Gould went on to say, however, that "The bad news is that we can't possibly perform the experiment." Of course, we could never run an experiment on the vast temporal and spatial scales imagined by Gould. But on much smaller scales, our experiment with E.coli allows us to address the same question. We do so by allowing 12 scenarios to play out simultaneously, rather than sequentially, as the notion of replay implies, but the issue of repeatability is fundamentally the same. Is it wrong to say that the excxperiment is attempting to address the question as to whether rerunning the tape of evolution (resetting it back to an "identical" starting condition) would always give the same output? It has been asserted that this: "More generally, we suggest that historical contingency is especially important when it facilitates the evolution of key innovations that are not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection." Is not saying that chance is important in detrermining the outcome of an evoultionary occasion. What is it saying then?
	__________________ OECD healthcare statistics http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,33..._1_1_1,00.html 2010 Data UK 9.6% of GDP of which 83.2% is state expenditure = 8.0% of GDP from taxes US 17.6% of GDP of which 48.2% is state expenditure = 8.5% of GDP from taxes