:OT I'm sure my colleagues who work in coalescent theory would be fascinated to hear that there are no random elements to evolutionary mechanisms.... :OT
James.
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:OT I'm sure my colleagues who work in coalescent theory would be fascinated to hear that there are no random elements to evolutionary mechanisms.... :OT
James.
Uhmm so are you saying that when you let a glass of salty water to cool down or evaporate the crystals that form do that because there is an intelligent force that is designing the perfect crystal and rearranging the individual atoms in that extremely ordered state (making errors every now and then)? Because the original state is an extremely chaotic and random one and all you do is take away energy from the system.Quote:
Originally Posted by bbshriver
Simplistic arguments are perfectly fine but only when they are made by a person who can distill only the most important part of a phenomena. When people make simplistic arguments without having the slightest grasp of the complexity of it all and understanding of what is important and what is negligible, that is very likely (probability, i.e. randomness again) to produce the wrong conclusion.
Of course Hawking is a brilliant physicist and of course reducing our understanding of a phenomena to only one unexplained singularity is a great thing, but still makes one to then attempt to see if there is an alternative which doesn't rely on any unexplainable things. And singularity is like division by zero. There are many different kinds of them, i.e. division by zero is not the same as division by "zero-times-zero", even though formally the last one is also zero. Knowing the correct kind of singularity is important. I have not read the book, but I'm pretty sure the Catolic church's endorsement of it as a proof there it God is not what is driving him to look at it.Quote:
However Hawking also points out that there very well may be a God who just happened to design everything to abide by the rules we see now, which is what I believe. What doesn't make sense to me is that the big-bang was "proven" and now attemting to be disproven.
As far as what's bothering you - that's just how science works - it has never been able to explain everything and it currently cannot either. Nevertheless it is constantly attempting to explain more and more and is not afraid to abandon its previous explanations if it proves them wrong.
The modern religious views seem to have evolved quite a bit from what they have been for centuries. But as long God is considered omnipotent there is going to be a conflict between religion and science. Unless God is omnipotent in principle only, and won't ever care to break any rules and demonstrate that the scientific approach does not work.
I said evolution wasn't random not that there were no random elements in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
And incidentally if you think this is off topic then say so and leave it at that, continuing to make your reply and then complaining about it being off topic is a "little" hypocritical.
This is a great discussion, and can only be enhanced by some in depth readings on both sides.
May I suggest Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos",
Niall Shanks' "God, the Devil, and Darwin",
and as a good foundation for organizing intellectual thought; Immanuel Kant's "Introduction to Logic"
These provide a good background into the scientific method that goes into such conclusions as "Humans share an evolutionary ancestral link to lower primates"
(which OFTEN gets misinterpreted as "Humans evolved from monkeys"). As well as "The Big Bang is what formed the universe" when really the big bang happened TO the universe (whatever it was back then, presumably a higher order of material state that is not present anymore) and the result is what we see now after billions of years of gravitational forces and Quantum Mechanical fluctuations clumping matter into the known galaxies stars and planets.
I happen to live in the thick of the bible belt and can honestly say it's ego the gets in the way the vast majority of the time. Neither side should be considered "wrong" or even "right" (at least not indefinitely) because they are different, and as such hold only so much worth in their own respective fields of expertise.
You don't go to a priest to have a broken bone reset, and you shouldn't go to most doctors for the solution to a moral issue. It's just a matter of keeping your nose where it belongs, so to speak.
Trewornan,Quote:
Originally Posted by trewornan
Any "off topic" emoticons that appear in my posts are to alert people that I consider *my* post to be off topic. I make no judgments regarding whether other people are off topic or not. However, I can appreciate that you feel I was suggesting you were off topic by implication - that was not my intent, so please accept my humble apology for any confusion that has arisen as a result of my over-zealous usage of the smilies menu.
James.
Nice dog, Jimbo! :)
(also off topic)
I don't know if others agree but I kind of feel this form "The Conversation" is somewhere to chat in a fairly casual manner without worrying too much about sticking closely to the topic. I enjoy just "chewing the fat" with friends and allowing the conversation to wander where it will.
OK. Since we are on DNA (sort of), here's where I get all my knowledge :D
Hip Hip Hooray For DNA
James.
Well, going off the original topic is very natural esp for long threads and in the conversation (formerly known as the offtopic) section.
I don't have any issues with smileys or off topic signs. I found it was more than anything very considerate of James to put them in his post. They could serve as a reminder that we may not want to go in details too much of the original topic. Or we may decide to pursue that if it's more interesting than the original topic or that one has been exhausted.
One thing I wasn't clear from the song was the mitochondrial DNA. Do we have any songs about that one? I'm kind of in the dark...
Well I suppose it depends on definition of random. What I was thinking is
"random
"having no definite aim or purpose," 1655, from at random (1565), "at great speed" (thus, "carelessly, haphazardly"), alteration of M.E. randon "impetuosity, speed" (c.1305), from O.Fr. randon "rush, disorder, force, impetuosity," from randir "to run fast," from Frankish *rant "a running," from P.Gmc. *randa (cf. O.H.G. rennen "to run," O.E. rinnan "to flow, to run"). In 1980s college student slang, it began to acquire a sense of "inferior, undesirable." Random access in ref. to computer memory is recorded from 1953." ) dictionary.com
So my thinking is evolution (without being put into action by some God/creator/mastermind) is random in that it cannot have an aim or purpose. Unless you're suggesting that the evolutionary process itself is determining where it wants to get to, which would circularly imply that the process itself is a sort of "god"/intelligent design. This would also apply to the process of making crystals you describe. By my definition that is random because the crystals are not behaving towards an aim or purpose, since an inadimate object cannot have an aim or purpose unless acted on by something else.
If we're saying random meaning "doesn't adhere to any rules" then it doesn't seem that ANYTHING could be "random" If I pick a "random number" it still follows that it must be a number and is therefore bound by the rules of what makes a number.
As far as my coments re:Hawking, I wasn't saying that he started his new work based on the Catholic interpretation, nor was I saying he was wrong in pursuing other alternatives to his original theory. I was just saying it bugs me that just because something doesn't fit into the rules we already know "scientists" abandon that idea in search of something else. How is this different than when people "knew" the earth was the center of the universe, and as soon as someone thought otherwise he was mocked/scorned/imprisoned, etc?
God being opmnipotent? If this is true it seems that He could more than easily be invisibly omnipotent. After all, if He created the laws we see, why should he ever have to break them? And if he's truly omnipotent, he could easily *break* the laws, but simultaneously change our knowledge and understanding of the laws so that the law broken was really the rule not the exception. Our understanding of the laws of the universe at any given time is finite. Think about the number of things you do today, that if done 200 years ago would be considered "magic", impossible, against the "law". For instance posting on this board. You can write one message, and almost instantaneously it is readable by millions or even billions of people. If someone 200 years ago heard this was possible, it would go against all their understanding of the natural laws of the universe, but now it is normal, and fully understood. That gets a little rambling, so I'm not sure if it comes out close to what I wanted to say or not. I'm sure it will be viewed by some as a "cop out" but I don't believe it is possible for humans ("finite" beings) to understand God ("infinite being")
Firstly in the scientific sense, random means: lacking predictability.Quote:
Originally Posted by bbshriver
But aside from that, evolution kind of does have an aim or purpose namely, to produce an organism better adapted to it's environment than it's ancestors. This "aim" is determined by the evolutionary process itself and if you want to think of the process of evolution as a sort of "god" that's peculiar but up to you. However, it certainly doesn't require any kind of intelligent designer.
:tu nice :tuQuote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
Yes, I think it is misunderstanding. Scientific terms are very precise. For example a scientific theory is not 'just a theory' term used in common language, with the meaning that it may or may not be true. In science this is called hypothesis. A theory is something that has predictive power in a well defined domain.
A common way for development of science is to apply the same rules that can predict stuff to outside the domain of their established applicability.
If they still have predictive power, you've just expanded your understanding.
If not, it doesn't mean that your theory is wrong in its original domain. It means that it is restricted to it and you need something else for the new one. A phenomenon is considered understood in science not when you know who created it, but when you can explain it in terms of other, simpler phenomena and be able to predict what is going to happen if such and such happens. The modern understanding of nature, is that everything is probabilistic, i.e. the only observable knowledge is statistical.
You can't guarantee that when you point a flash light at me the photons will end up on my retina every single time. You can only predict the probability of it and then make enough experiments and verify that the ratio of the ones who end up there and the ones who don't match your theoretically calculated number.
That's why no reasonable scientist will have problem with a religious belief that God created it all the way it works. That doesn't explain anything and in scientific terms is a completely empty statement.
For example "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." has no scientific value whatsoever. Democritos's view of light is quite not the same as that of Newton, whose wasn't at all like the one of Einstein, whose wasn't the same as the one of Feynman either. Of course, the reason you can use a cell phone or the internet is Feynman's quantum electrodynamics. I don't know if you would consider it an 'explaination' of the phenomenon light, but it can certainly predict what will happen with any electromagnetic radiation including light under any condition it has been observed so far.
In other words, God saying the light into existence may be nice poetry or the way it happened, but it's irrelevant to understanding how the light propagates inside a wave-guide. Perhaps God made an atheist understand how light works, so that other men can make waveguides. Or may be the atheist understood it by the power of his own intellect. At the end of the day it's everybody's personal choice whether to believe in God or not and if yes in which particular one.
So, yes, there is a lot of misconception about science, scientific methods and proper terminology and passing hypothesis like 'intelligent design' as 'scientific theory' in high school is not going to improve the situation. I have no problem whatsoever with people being taught intelligent design, as long as it is labeled properly.
Would you be happier with "the same evolutionary process that gave rise to monkeys also gave rise to man"?Quote:
Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge
And thus "Expected Value" has no meaning?Quote:
Originally Posted by trewornan
I'm not entirely sure I understand the question but certainly a random variable would not have an Expected Value, that doesn't make the phrase meaningless - just not applicable.Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottS
Most random variables (r.v.s) have an expected value defined as its first moment. Those random variables that do not (e.g. a Cauchy r.v.) usually do not have one because the integral or sum defining its first moment is not defined mathematically (e.g. non-finite integral).Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottS
The random variable that arises from throwing a (fair) die and recording the number on the upper face is usually how most intro. probability courses explain it. If X denotes the r.v., it can take values 1, 2, ...., 6, each with probability of occurrence on any one throw of 1/6. So 1/6th of the time we'd expect to get a 1, 1/6th of the time a 2 and so on. The expected value of X is therefore 1/6(1+2+3+4+5+6) = 21/6 = 3.5. When the r.v. takes any value in a continuum (as opposed to a discrete or countably infinite set) the sum becomes an integral.
So anyway, just because something is random does not mean we can't do anything with it.
James.
I see what you mean. But the predictability you're talking about applies to the distribution of results not the individual results themselves. Each individual result still lacks predictability, you don't know what value each roll of the die will produce because it's random.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
This is precisely what I was talking about with regard to evolution. The individual mutations may be random the overall process and end result are not.
I think I know where this conversation is going. I'll get my cat, you make the box and somebody call Schroedinger for instructions. :D
Sure, but that is basically what I said, and then said that it was being misinterpreted. What's your point?Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottS
(can't tell if your trying to correct me or make a snide remark)
I just spoke with my friends at the Department of Musical Scientific Explanations. Unfortunately the Mitochondrial DNA video is still in pre-production. However, they did point me to this one on Mitochondria. (Rather catchy little number, actually...)Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
Well, there are ways and means of making individual predictions from long-run data, but these predictions will always have (or should always have) associated margins of error. I remember talking to one of my colleagues once about a result he was going to speak about at a conference - details are hazy, but it went something along the lines of "Species X and Species Y shared a nearest common ancestor 1.5 million years ago, plus or minus 3 million years."! Not a particularly useful practical result, but the statistical methodology behind it was impressive!!Quote:
Originally Posted by trewornan
But anyway, I'm rambling (again). I think I get what you mean - the evolution construct is deterministic: there is a clearly defined objective and the process works toward attaining that objective regardless of the inputs?
James.
Indeed :) I'm waiting anxiously so that I can get more educated. So far I'm only at the basic math level:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
1*(catchy song) + 4 * (child molester looking australians) + some dancing = this
Warning: The video above may be too weird for most americans 4 years and older....
:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
No, really, what I meant to say is ........ :eek:
James.
Try this video which explains the point I'm trying to make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Mbb8pQNikQuote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
I think that if we were able to introduce Schroedinger's cat to Occam's razor, we might finally have the definitive answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by xman
42...
Cheers,
Ed
Thanks Trewornan - I'm definitely a visual learner :tuQuote:
Originally Posted by trewornan
I guess my issue boils down to definition - the argument involving the analogy with radioactive decay, for example. Half-life is based on an exponential decay approximation (although generally the approximation is a good one in a statistical sense) - among other things it's based on the expected number of decay events in a small time interval, not the actual number of decay events. Technically, things like this are some form of Poisson Process (a random process), but because the numbers involved are large we can appeal to a theorem in probability known as the Law of Large Numbers and get very good approximations without the headache of having to deal with stochastic processes.
I'm quibbling, I know. I'll agree to (kind of) disagree on this one and leave it alone.
James.
Ok, since we're not happy with 42 and I like precision and science I'd clarify a bit more:
I don't think this is very precise either. Radioactive decay is truly stochastic process. The exponential law and the life-time are just the result of the randomness of the process. It's just that it all boils down to each nucleus being the same as any other, i.e. having the same constant probability of decay. The rest (exponent and the relation of that decay probability to the half-life) is just putting the math to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
And how do we know that it's stochastic - well all statistical predictions are just as what we measure. Of course it may be a little 'maxwell type of daemon' that's splitting the nuclei, but a random process does not involve any personification and describes it in the simplest possible way. If you are really unhappy with that description you can go further and either look into who created the daemon splitting the nuclei, or invest insane amount of money in accelerators and try to find out what are the more basic laws that hold together the nucleons in a nuclei. If what you find describes properly the radioactive decay then they've got some chance that it may be good enough to be put to more tests... And so on and son forth, scientists just keep trying to simplify things more and more.
James, is that law of large numbers something that I've learned as 'central limit theorem', i.e. everything large is gaussian? :)
And I personally like 42 :)
Gugi,Quote:
Originally Posted by gugi
No they are not the same thing, but they can seem similar. The Law of Large Numbers (LLN) deals with what happens to the sample mean of a sequence of independent and identically distributed (iid) random variables, as the size of that sequence (n) approaches infinity. Specifically, as long as the r.v.s have a finite mean mu, the LLN states that the sample mean either converges in probability (weak LLN) or "almost surely" (strong LLN) to mu [strong version implies the weak version]. In other words, sample means settle down around a constant value if the sample size becomes "large enough". The LLN does not require the sequence of iid r.v.s to have finite variance.
There's more than one Central Limit Theorem (CLT), but the one taught in undergrad (and most non-stats/maths graduate) stats is usually about the sum of a sequence of iid r.v.s converging "in distribution" to the Gaussian as the size of that sequence approaches infinity. The CLT requires the sequence of iid r.v.s to have finite mean mu and variance sigma.
The most commonly occurring form of this CLT is the one involving the sample mean, which says that as the sample size, n, approaches infinity, the distribution of the sample mean approaches that of a Normal with mean mu and variance sigma/n, regardless of the distribution of the original r.v.s. In other words, if the sample is large enough, the sample mean will have a Normal distribution with known mean and variance.
But the trick in practice, of course, is to decide how big "large" needs to be before any of these laws kick in.
Anyway, I bet you're glad you asked me that question :o
James.
PS 42 is fine, but recent studies have shown it's actually more like 41.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999. .... :D
Cool, I like to brush up on old stuff. Indeed, I understood all that you said, so perhaps I should feel ashamed for being such a dork :)
But yeah, I guess judging by the last posts the science is winning :p . We've gotta have some good theological arguments to balance. Like whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father (sorry, I'm mostly familiar with Christianity). I mean if it was worth putting as the official reason for the schism between the East (Orthodox) and the West (Roman) churches it's a fairly important doctrine.
When God shows up and says, "Here I am!" that's when science and faith will get along.Quote:
Originally Posted by JMS
How can Faith claim it knows Truth? The religious might answer that question by saying, "Because God says so." That, however, doesn't prove anything.
And there's your very simple answer, that's why they will never get along.
Who claims to have the truth? What would you say if you were born in India, Saudi Arabia, or Africa? Your version might be very different from your current one.
The wonderful arguments presented on this thread like Occams Razor, Pascal's Wager, Intelligent Design, etc..., have proven nothing. And that's my point.
Science, when not a theory but a fact, offers proof with no argument possible. Falsifiability makes it so.
Until the "Unseen" become seen, there can be no coexistance, unless, of course, you believe it possible. ;)
I might be misstaken here, but if I remember it correctly, science only claims truth untill proven otherwise.
In other words, doesn't science only give the most likely explanation?...but never surety?
I think there is probably some division of opinion on this but certainly I agree with your assessment. Some things science can explain with a VERY high degree of probability but absolute surety - I don't think so.Quote:
Originally Posted by LX_Emergency
I've read some things here and there. And I was almost sure that that was the case. Hence I never use the words "prove", "proven", "proof" and "Fac" very lightly. I alwasy get the idea that some people do however.
LX, I agree. But the word proof I mean:
A scientific demonstration is a scientific experiment carried out for the purposes of demonstrating scientific principles, rather than for hypothesis testing or knowledge gathering (although they may originally have been carried out for these purposes).
That's all. Just the facts.
The word Science covers lots of ground. Just like Faith.
But the two are still separate.
Actually I've found both to be quite similar. But that's personal preference.
Let me explain why though. (And I don't need people to agree on this. It's just how I feel, that's all)
The word faith is often defined as something that one has great trust in. "I have faith in my car engine" meaning I use it without fear that it'll easily die.
Also faith implies action.
Having faith in said car engine means USING said car engine because I'm not affraid that my normal use will kill it.
The same goes for both science AND religion (at least in my case).
I have faith in scientific principles like gravity, electricity etc. Hence I use said principles even though I don't understand them fully (just like I don't know CRAP about car engines). Yet eventhough I don't understand them I still use them.
My religion is something that I (at times) don't fully understand either. Yet I try to live by it's principles having trust that they'll provide me with the blessings that I expect.
So although to some Faith and Science are different things...I think both Faith (or Religion for a better word) and Science both require quite a lot of faith.
As for hypothosis testing, even after being tested they're still hypothosis.....even though the probability of them being correct is very high, if someone finds a way to disprove them, they should be thrown out the window. Just like I do with religious beliefs that don't add up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LX_Emergency
Right, my point exactly!
You have made a choice, as do most who want to reconcile science and religion.
This is the slippery slope that is language and context.
I appreciate your ability for clear communication LX, regardless.
And, I appreciate your viewpoints. :)
Cheers,
Randy
This is a confusion of two quite different meanings of the word faith.Quote:
Originally Posted by LX_Emergency
Religious faith is belief without evidence - there is no evidence of a god and so faith in a god is belief without evidence (or arguably, despite the evidence).
This is very different from, for example, faith that my car engine will work - my car engine has worked thousands of times, I know something about the principles on which it operates, I know that the conditions likely to stop it working are not extant (it's not underwater for example) so my faith in it is based on a great deal of evidence.
Furthermore when I say I have faith in my car engine - that's actually only probabilistic faith, I wouldn't really be all that shocked if I got in my car one morning and found the battery flat or I was out of fuel, in fact this has happened before, I also know (from other people) that there are many other ways in which a car engine may fail. So in reality I EXPECT it to fail again at some point (although I don't know when) it's a very different thing from blind faith.
"Also faith implies action", as far as I can see that's a complete non-sequitur . . . also fish implies bicycle.
This is what I was thinking. Perhaps we should say 'dogma' and 'verification', something like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by trewornan
X
Actually...My faith is based on trust as well. I have a very personal relationship with my God and he's not let me down so far. So, my religious faith is not based on something without evidence at all. Sure, it's not evidence that I can pull out and show to someone else. But it's evidence to me, VERY real to me. So I very much resent the idea that just because I see a higher hand in my life, that means that I'm devoid of reason and/or logic. (Which seems to be the main argument that people who "only believe in science" throw at me.)Quote:
Originally Posted by trewornan
No, you're just being spitefull now.
The fact that you have faith in something means that you intend to use it. Thus, faith implies action.
Actually, there's a confusion as to the words BELIEF and the word FAITH.Quote:
Originally Posted by trewornan
You guys are mixing up religious belief with the word faith. Which are completely different things.