Do you understand those on the other side?

[Jose Fly]

As I've pointed out many times (probably too many times), I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian environment. I was taught young-earth creationism from an early age, was told prayer and reading the Bible were the answer to most of life's problems and questions, and witnessed all sorts of "interesting" things such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, end times predictions, etc.

Yet despite being completely immersed in this culture, I can't recall a time in my life when I ever believed any of it. However, unlike some of my peers at the time I didn't really find it boring. In fact, I found a lot of it to be rather fascinating because.....very little of it made any sense to me. I just could not understand the people, their beliefs, their way of thinking, or much of anything that I saw and heard. When I saw them anointing with oil someone who had the flu and later saw the virus spread (of course), I could not understand what they were thinking. When I saw them make all sorts of failed predictions about the Soviet Union and the end times, yet never even acknowledge their errors while continuing to make more predictions, I was baffled. Speaking in tongues was of particular interest to me because it really made no sense to me.

In the years that I've been debating creationists it's the same thing. When I see them say "no transitional fossils" or "no new genetic information" only to ignore examples of those things when they're presented, I can't relate to that way of thinking at all. When I see them demand evidence for things only to ignore it after it's provided, I can't relate. When I see them quote mine a scientific paper and after someone points it out they completely ignore it, I can't relate.

Now to be clear, I think I "understand" some of what's behind these behaviors (i.e., the psychological factors), but what I don't understand is how the people engaging in them seem to be completely oblivious to it all. What goes on in their mind when they demand "show me the evidence", ignore everything that's provided in response, and then come back later and make the same demand all over again? Are they so blinded by the need to maintain their beliefs that they literally block out all memories of it? Again....I just don't get it.

So the point of discussion for this thread is....how about you? For the "evolutionists", can you relate to the creationists' way of thinking and behaviors? For the creationists, are there behaviors from the other side that baffle you, and you just don't understand? Do you look at folks like me and think to yourselves, "I just cannot relate to his way of thinking?"

Or is it just me?

[William]

Or it could be the case that it sorts through non-random inputs and outputs what it considers to be the best non-random combinations...fine-tunes using the only available process [non-random inputs] and sorting these into appropriate patterns.

It could be, but it's not.

No one knows.

[Jose Fly]

Can he really be blamed for his mistake though? It's possible that his need to maintain his religious beliefs clouds his reasoning, I can understand that if that is the case.

I can't tell anymore. It's gotten so bizarre, all we're left with is trying to figure out what's behind it. Maybe it's an intelligence issue, maybe it's about protecting religious beliefs, maybe it's a pride issue, or maybe it's a combination of all three?

Whatever it is, it reminds me of an analogy I use to explain why it's pointless to show science to creationists (as happened in this thread)....it's like offering a ham sandwich to an Orthodox Jew; in both cases your audience is fundamentally opposed to what you're trying to give them.

For some reason, Inquirer is wedded to the notion that a process with a random step cannot produce non-random results. Of course that's completely wrong and no matter how many people try to show him otherwise, he just keeps repeating his error. He even apparently believes that he knows more about statistics than statisticians!

So the question for us is, how do we respond to something like that? Do we keep banging our heads against the wall and try to explain it to him? Isn't that like continuing to try to get the Orthodox Jew to eat the ham sandwich? At some point it becomes a situation where the issue is with us. What motivates folks like us to try and explain things to someone who seems to have a vested interest in not understanding it?

[Inquirer]

What was the probability of pulling a red disc at the start of your bag analogy? Well it was > 0. What is the probability of pulling a red disc after you've collected all the red discs? Well it is 0.

The probability of pulling any color of disk has changed, the results cannot be regarded as random anymore because the original probabilities have changed and the definition of random involves probability, not that you bother with definitions.

Ok, I think I see what's going on. Your original assertion that kicked this whole thing off was shown to be wrong, and you've been doing everything you can to avoid that.

This started when you claimed "The outcome of any process (including natural selection) must be random if the inputs to it are random". That was easily shown to be false by the example I gave. But rather than acknowledge your error, you scrambled around trying to find ways to avoid it....such as making up new conditions.

The fact remains, a process with a random step can indeed produce non-random outcomes. With evolution, that's specifically what selection does....sorts through random inputs to generate non-random results.

Can he really be blamed for his mistake though? It's possible that his need to maintain his religious beliefs clouds his reasoning, I can understand that if that is the case.

You might want to skip over the below part Inquirer.

Step 1, mutation, is random. Mutations don’t arise in order to fill a current “need” of the organism. They are blind and they lack foresight, so they also can’t anticipate future needs. In this sense, they can reasonably be described as random. They can also be thought of as “random” in the sense that they are not automatically helpful; a new mutation may turn out to be beneficial or harmful or neutral.

However:

Step 2, natural selection, is not random at all. In fact, it is the diametric opposite of randomness. In this step, mutations that turn out to be beneficial to the organism are more likely to make it into the next generation precisely because they aid the organism’s survival or reproduction. Mutations that are harmful are less likely to make it into the next generation precisely because they lower the organism’s likelihood of survival or reproduction. If you give it a moment’s thought, you will see that this is the opposite of a random relationship. If something is random, it is inherently unpredictable and not orderly. Natural selection is the opposite. It is logical and predictable: the likelihood that a mutation will make it into the next generation depends, in a predictable way, on its effects on survival and reproduction. Beneficial mutations tend to get passed on, whereas detrimental ones are weeded out. This is a constrained and orderly relationship – the opposite of “randomness”.


(Here is the mistake that it seems Inquirer makes in order to maintain his religious belief. I understand his motivation).
The core mistake is that people sometimes confuse mutations (which are random) with natural selection (which is not random). Evolution is a process in which randomly mutated genes pass through the highly non-random sieve of natural selection.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... not-random

I feel like I understand the other side fairly well, but acknowledge my own biases (not the heaven, bliss, or imortality kind obviously) that I'm not aware of could be at play.

It is disingenuous, an abuse of language to argue a process (evolution) that needs randomness to achieve anything is not itself to be described as a random process!

Mutations are essential to evolution. Every genetic feature in every organism was, initially, the result of a mutation. The new genetic variant (allele) spreads via reproduction, and differential reproduction is a defining aspect of evolution.

[Inquirer]

Can he really be blamed for his mistake though? It's possible that his need to maintain his religious beliefs clouds his reasoning, I can understand that if that is the case.

I can't tell anymore. It's gotten so bizarre, all we're left with is trying to figure out what's behind it. Maybe it's an intelligence issue, maybe it's about protecting religious beliefs, maybe it's a pride issue, or maybe it's a combination of all three?

Whatever it is, it reminds me of an analogy I use to explain why it's pointless to show science to creationists (as happened in this thread)....it's like offering a ham sandwich to an Orthodox Jew; in both cases your audience is fundamentally opposed to what you're trying to give them.

For some reason, Inquirer is wedded to the notion that a process with a random step cannot produce non-random results. Of course that's completely wrong and no matter how many people try to show him otherwise, he just keeps repeating his error. He even apparently believes that he knows more about statistics than statisticians!

So the question for us is, how do we respond to something like that? Do we keep banging our heads against the wall and try to explain it to him? Isn't that like continuing to try to get the Orthodox Jew to eat the ham sandwich? At some point it becomes a situation where the issue is with us. What motivates folks like us to try and explain things to someone who seems to have a vested interest in not understanding it?

You could answer questions that are put to you rather than engaging in amateur psychiatry and making this personal at every opportunity. Here's another question that arises from your "analogy" (if we allow it such a lofty title) how can a human making decisions about what to remove from a bag be regarded as random process?

[Difflugia]

If the output of a natural process is attributable to, depends upon, the inputs and the inputs are random then the output must be random. Your bag/disc analogy does not represent such a system.

You keep saying this, but it's false and trivially so. The distribution of a large number of individually random events is nonrandom. Roll a single die ten, a hundred, a thousand, or a million times and the distribution will be more-or-less evenly spread across the possible values. The randomness of the inputs does manifest as noise in that particular output, but more input will increase the "signal" without increasing noise. If we weight the distribution, for example by rolling two dice and recording a sum, the input is still random in that one can't predict the next input value, but the output is nonrandom and the distribution is a bell curve instead of a straight line.

Natural selection is a function of random inputs (unforeseen events affecting individual survival or reproductive success) with a nonrandom distribution (better camouflage or increased sexual attractiveness).

For one thing the inputs (the bag contents) is not random because you are selecting what remains in the bag, that is you are using your intelligence to choose what remains in the bag.

How the distribution is weighted is immaterial. The analogy is apt.

[Jose Fly]

If the output of a natural process is attributable to, depends upon, the inputs and the inputs are random then the output must be random. Your bag/disc analogy does not represent such a system.

So now you're trying to add in yet another condition, i.e., "natural process".

The fact remains, your original assertion that a process with random inputs cannot produce non-random outcomes is simply wrong. The bag analogy does show that. It has a random step (drawing discs) and a non-random step (selection) and produces a non-random outcome (only red discs).

And as Clownboat explained, evolution itself (the point of it all) negates your claim. It too has a random step (mutation) and a non-random step (selection) that produces non-random outcomes (fitter populations). As he explained, selection is the direct opposite of randomness.

If the outputs don't depend upon the inputs in any way, then the outputs might possibly be not random, but if we cannot predict the outputs until we know the inputs then the output is random.

No, that's just plain wrong. In an experiment I did as an undergrad, we took single-clone colonies of bacteria and incubated them on petri dishes that had half neutral medium and half medium infused with an antibiotic. After several generations......

You know what? Never mind. I'm not wasting any more of my time trying to explain basic biology to someone who not only knows very little about it, but bizarrely thinks themselves an expert in the subject.

For one thing the inputs (the bag contents) is not random because you are selecting what remains in the bag, that is you are using your intelligence to choose what remains in the bag.

I refer to a system where the inputs are random you are referring to a system that relies on human decision making to manipulate the future probabilities of those inputs, you do understand I hope, that manipulating the inputs with intelligence is not the same as having random inputs? Imagine you doctored some random test results to make it look like they were in fact not random, now of course you'd never do that professionally...or would you???

I can tell you really, really need to maintain the sense that you weren't wrong here, but the more you keep introducing new concepts and variables to try and prop up your ego, the more pathetic it looks.

You're not doing yourself any favors here bud.

[Jose Fly]

how can a human making decisions about what to remove from a bag be regarded as random process?

Oh....my.....

This whole time, you didn't realize that I wasn't "making decisions about what to remove from a bag"? You didn't realize that I had no ability to differentiate one disc from another as I reached into the bag (just as a person picking a card at random)?

Or is it that you think I was saying that me deciding to keep all the red discs was a random step, even though the whole point was that the selection step is exact opposite of random, which is how the non-random outcome was generated?

This exchange has reached the "too stupid to bother with" stage, so I think I'm done.

[Jose Fly]

Or it could be the case that it sorts through non-random inputs and outputs what it considers to be the best non-random combinations...fine-tunes using the only available process [non-random inputs] and sorting these into appropriate patterns.

It could be, but it's not.

No one knows.

Maybe not in an absolute sense, but so far it very much seems that mutations are random relevant to the fitness needs of the organism.

[Inquirer]

If the output of a natural process is attributable to, depends upon, the inputs and the inputs are random then the output must be random. Your bag/disc analogy does not represent such a system.

You keep saying this, but it's false and trivially so. The distribution of a large number of individually random events is nonrandom. Roll a single die ten, a hundred, a thousand, or a million times and the distribution will be more-or-less evenly spread across the possible values. The randomness of the inputs does manifest as noise in that particular output, but more input will increase the "signal" without increasing noise. If we weight the distribution, for example by rolling two dice and recording a sum, the input is still random in that one can't predict the next input value, but the output is nonrandom and the distribution is a bell curve instead of a straight line.

Natural selection is a function of random inputs (unforeseen events affecting individual survival or reproductive success) with a nonrandom distribution (better camouflage or increased sexual attractiveness).

For one thing the inputs (the bag contents) is not random because you are selecting what remains in the bag, that is you are using your intelligence to choose what remains in the bag.

How the distribution is weighted is immaterial. The analogy is apt.

Throwing two dice and recording their sum is to discard information about their state, information that has statistical significance.

If we take two streams of random integers between 1 and 6 inclusive, we can pair them and sum them:

1 and 5 -> (1,5) 6
6 and 4 -> (6,4) 10
5 and 1 -> (5,1) 6
4 and 6 -> (4,6) 10

One can count this as having two identical values of 10 or as two distinct values (6,4) and (4,6).

If we include, retain or otherwise account for that discarded information then the outputs are as random as the inputs.

[William]

Or it could be the case that it sorts through non-random inputs and outputs what it considers to be the best non-random combinations...fine-tunes using the only available process [non-random inputs] and sorting these into appropriate patterns.

It could be, but it's not.

No one knows.

Maybe not in an absolute sense, but so far it very much seems that mutations are random relevant to the fitness needs of the organism.

The fitness needs of the organism therefore determine the outcome. Not randomness.