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?

[Inquirer]

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.

The "fitness" of the organism is itself the result of prior randomness.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #265]

In science the only thing you can use to construct an explanation for the universe is the universe, if you can't see the sheer absurdity and futility of that belief then I can't do much for you.

When worded like that it is absurd, because the "universe" encompasses the entire physical reality that we know about.

Is the statement true though? Can you meaningfully explain nature in terms of anything other than nature? I'd appreciate a straight honest answer here.

Since we don't know the physical mechanism(s) involved in its origination, or if had an origin, or if it is the only universe that exists, etc., there is no way to rule out the possibility that some natural sequence of events led to it. Not knowing the answer to a scientific question does not rule out a potential natural explanation, and how the universe that we now about came into existence is an unsolved scientific problem.

I never ever said that not possessing and explanation proves that there is no explanation, you have misunderstood me if you really think that is what I have been saying.

Anyway my statement was true and you agree it leads to an absurdity - so how to escape from the absurdity? or are you prepared to claim that physical reality actually makes no sense?

Are you prepared to argue that a thing can be regarded as the explanation for its own presence?

[Inquirer]

Is the order in the world - the earth we live on - increasing or decreasing? What is the end result of this "not random" process? The chaos unfolding and beginning to impact the human race is increasing, the pollution, violence, suffering, starvation, climate degradation and misery is increasing not decreasing.

This is attributable to evolution surely? Pollution is attributable to evolution, violence, rape, murder, fear and torture is attributable to evolution? the destruction of the climate is attributable to evolution surely?

If this state of affairs is not random (as the evolutionists are arguing here) then to what do we attribute it?

[Inquirer]

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 the inconvenience of pesky definitions.

Each draw is a separate, random event regardless of the changes in probability that may occur. Please show how "the definition of random involves probability" supports your claim if you disagree.

In statistics a random system refers to a situation where each of the possible states has the same probability of arising, this is the basic standard definition of (true) randomness.

A dice throw is commonly regarded as random but might not be, if we threw a dice one billion times we might find that 5 comes up somewhat more than the other values and this might be due to aerodynamic forces that are only observable statistically; my point being that we must measure the probabilities by sampling, statistics needs data, history.

Consider Conway's Game of Life, the future state of that system is determined wholly by the initial state so if the initial state is randomly chosen the future state must be randomly determined.

The "rules" used to transform one state into another are not "random" they are simple and they are fixed, but the specific steps taken as the rules are applied are random because they are dictated by the random input state. You cannot predict the future state by knowing only the rules, if we could then I'd agree the future state is not random.

I'd argue that the Game of Life is a random process when the initial state is random because the process does not exist without state information, the "process" is the totality of rules + state, not rules alone.

This is the very point I'm arguing, that evolution is a random process because the outcome at each generation is a function of not only the rules of biochemistry but additionally the inputs which are subject to random mutation events.

[JoeyKnothead]

If you cannot determine the output state without first knowing the input and the input is random, then the output state too must be random.

I think it's fair to state that if we can know each and every variable, and the outcome thereof, maybe an event (evolution) ain't so random.

My issue here is folks denying, for whatever reason, that evolution occurs.

As relates to the OP, this is what I'll never understand.

We can observe evolution directly when we notice our children ain't clones of us. Beyond that, we'll observe they have their own unique, if similar dna.

From those facts, it's easy to draw the conclusion that given enough change, over enough time, speciation (and taxonomically above) will occur.

So we can, if begrudgingly, allow that evolution is a nonrandom process. That causes me little fret. What we can't deny, is that evolution occurs

[Difflugia]

We may be entering into semantics. How can the outcome of a process that relies on random events be described as being not random? If the output state could be A or B or C depending on whether the input is X or Y or Z, then the output state is random if the input is random.

This is the root of my objection, the claim "evolution is not a random" process.

If you cannot determine the output state without first knowing the input and the input is random, then the output state too must be random.

If that's your objection, then yes, we're just using the word "random" differently. You're also, however, using "random" differently than We_Are_VENOM was in the comment you were originally trying to defend:

Nothing was random about it. Nothing was chaotic about it. It was all ordered. All structured. All configured.

Low entropy.

Mindless, blind, and random processes don't give you that.

[Inquirer]

If you cannot determine the output state without first knowing the input and the input is random, then the output state too must be random.

I think it's fair to state that if we can know each and every variable, and the outcome thereof, maybe an event (evolution) ain't so random.

My issue here is folks denying, for whatever reason, that evolution occurs.

Why do you think the reasons for objecting do not matter?

As relates to the OP, this is what I'll never understand.

Of course you'll never understand if you are prepared to dismiss arguments without regard to someone's reasoning.

We can observe evolution directly when we notice our children ain't clones of us. Beyond that, we'll observe they have their own unique, if similar dna.

We do not observe evolution, we infer it. Do you think your children are less human than you? they surely must be if they are a step in this evolutionary process?

From those facts, it's easy to draw the conclusion that given enough change, over enough time, speciation (and taxonomically above) will occur.

Easy but also scientifically naïve and fundamentally and emphatically wrong. Take a look at chaos theory. Take the Mandelbrot set for example, there are points in the complex plane where order never arises, the motion of the point is chaotic even after a trillion iterations. Yet there are other points where order is reached very quickly. You cannot argue that because some points settle quickly therefore all points will settle eventually. You cannot present local short term observations as proof of remote long term behavior.

In the Mandelbrot set we cannot predict that some point will never settle, we can only iterate over and over (it is computationally intensive) to see if it ever does. By analogy evolutionists claims likewise cannot be naively assumed. Unless you actually allow some biological system to run for millions of years you'll never know if some outcome ever in fact does arise, you'll never know if bacteria can lead to ants.

This reasoning is true of the Mandelbrot set, how can you prove it is not also true for your evolutionary beliefs? Just as in the Mandelbrot set some points never escape, well humans - no matter how long they reproduce amongst themselves - might also remain humans, varying subtly in height, hair color, eye color perhaps from one generation to the next but always remaining within some boundary, always remaining human.

So we can, if begrudgingly, allow that evolution is a nonrandom process. That causes me little fret. What we can't deny, is that evolution occurs

Why can't I deny it? Oh of course, reasons don't matter do they Joey...

[Inquirer]

We may be entering into semantics. How can the outcome of a process that relies on random events be described as being not random? If the output state could be A or B or C depending on whether the input is X or Y or Z, then the output state is random if the input is random.

This is the root of my objection, the claim "evolution is not a random" process.

If you cannot determine the output state without first knowing the input and the input is random, then the output state too must be random.

If that's your objection, then yes, we're just using the word "random" differently. You're also, however, using "random" differently than We_Are_VENOM was in the comment you were originally trying to defend:

Nothing was random about it. Nothing was chaotic about it. It was all ordered. All structured. All configured.

Low entropy.

Mindless, blind, and random processes don't give you that.

Well I wasn't actually defending that claim (nor am I necessarily disputing it), I was really contesting this claim:

Since evolution isn't random, it does not fall into this category of process. So it would be very much in the running for "giving you that."

[William]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #331]

The "fitness" of the organism is itself the result of assumed prior randomness. ftfy

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #331]

The "fitness" of the organism is itself the result of assumed prior randomness. ftfy

Are you saying that some non-random intelligence may have been involved then?