Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

Iain Strachan wrote:
> Following on from Merv's comments.
>
> As someone who works in probability distributions and random
> variables, I get somewhat irritated by the loose uses of the word
> "random". Any measurement that has a variety of outcomes, each of
> which has a finite probability is termed a "random variable". Merv's
> coin dropped from 1cm has a probability of 0.95 of heads and 0.05 of
> tails. It is therefore a random variable. Most people would _think_
> that it's only "truly random" if the probability is 0.5.

Iain

Consider a scenario where I am driving down the highway and the times
when I apply the brakes is being tracked. Certainly the intervals
between braking will follow a distribution and thus are random. In
addition the cause of my braking if determinable is being tracked as
well as my reaction time prior to applying the brakes. Since the
temperature is around 0c and there is a bit of precipitation, I am
braking occasionally to test for black ice on the highway, other times I
brake because of traffic conditions. Certainly my reaction times follow
some distribution and again are random.

 From a statistics point of view one could do a correlation analysis and
find that traffic stops correlated to a high degree with my braking.
However in none technical speech one would not say that braking for
traffic was random as it is in effect a reaction whereas braking to test
for black ice seems random as it has apparently no observable cause as
regards to its timing, in fact maybe www.random.org is being used to
select when tests are made for ice. For those who do not understand
sometimes one can see ice on the highway and sometimes it is close to
invisible, in which case we call it black ice as most of our highways
are surfaced with asphalt.

 From Websters Dictionary
I-lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern b: made, done, or chosen
at random <read random passages from the book>
II-relating to, having, or being elements or events with definite
probability of occurrence <random processes> b: being or relating to a
set or to an element of a set each of whose elements has equal
probability of occurrence

 From Oxford Compact Dictionary
1 made, done, or happening without method or conscious decision. 2
Statistics governed by or involving equal chances for each item.

What appears to be happening is that scientists who should be using
definition II and 2, are actually using definitions I and 1. For most
of them, I will be charitable and assume it is being done out of
ignorance as when I went to school, I could easily have graduated in
engineering without taking any probability and statistics. IMHO all
engineers, scientists, med students... should have to take at least a
one semester course. I figured out I needed it from many work terms as
a co-op student where I was involved with considerable statistics.

Dave W (CSCA)

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Received on Fri Feb 15 10:43:42 2008