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

Hi, Merv,

I didn't mean to say I was irritated by your use of the word "random"
just the general loose use of it particular in anti-evolutionist
literature "how can blind random chance account for this" etc.

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 3:34 PM, <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
> The main conclusion I wanted to reach (and never really did) in my last post was
> that if I can detect a "contrivance" in my large sample of coin drops and can
> therefore suspect they are not the ordinary kind of tosses (50%), then how much
> more would it seem from God's perspective to all be contrived even when they did
> fully appear to be ordinary tosses to us?

The detection of "contrivance" is of course non-trivial and lies in
the realm of pattern recognition. If one could only detect the
algorithm used to generate the sequence. A random number generator
such as the Mersenne Twister generates a highly random looking
sequence of numbers that repeats every 2^19937 -1 times, a sequence
that would take longer than the age of the universe to generate, so
unless we knew externally that it was actually a contrived sequence
from a computer algorithm we would have no way of detecting that it
was not random. I guess you are saying that God could hide His
contrivance within an apparently random sequence so we could not
detect it. However, such speculations remain speculations outside the
realm of science - we have no way of proving either way.

>
> By the way, Iain, what if I achieved 100% heads by dropping the coin just above
> the surface? Would those still qualify as random events with a probability of
> 100% heads and 0% tails?

Well ... I guess not as it is now deterministic. But the question to
ask is: is there anything that is guaranteed probability 1. The
molecules in the coin have a finite probability of all moving in the
wrong direction at once and flipping the coin over. The probability
is astronomically small and to write the number down would probably
require double exponentiation ( like 1/10^10^100), but it is still
non-zero. Mathematically speaking anything with a probability
distribution attached and more than one possible outcome is a "random
variable".

Or do we cease to call it random at that point?

Practically I think you'd cease to call it random if you were
convinced beyond reasonable doubt it was coming up heads. (e.g. 1 in
1 million).

> think I understand the whimsical nature of this and appreciate your frustration
> at my throwing around the term. Randomness is a legitimate mathematical and
> statistical concept that (properly understood) is not laden with metaphysical
> implications like the words "meaningless" or "undirected" are.

Interesting thought. The molecules in a nice hot cup of coffee are
moving pretty randomly in the cup, but if you sip it, it goes down
your throat. How could blind randomly moving molecules do that?

Best,
Iain

 I suspect I
> would have a doozy of a time trying to convince the respondent to Randy's
> article of that, however.
>
> --Merv
>
>
>
> Quoting Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>:
>
> > 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. But "truly
> > random" seems a meaningless term. What about something that follows
> > the bell-shaped Normal curve (aka the Gaussian distribution), like the
> > length of a banana? The distribution is defined by two parameters,
> > the mean (mu) and the standard deviation (sigma). One distribution
> > has a mean 1 and a sigma of 1e-6. Another has a mean of 10 and a
> > sigma of 100. Which is "more random?" It depends on perspective.
> > They are both random variables.
> >
> > I think this persists into thinking about how evolution and mutations
> > work. Most people think of mutations as "random events", and I think
> > many who argue for creation or ID are tempted to think of mutations
> > being equally likely on any nucleotide, and they then have enormous
> > problems understanding how it could produce anything interesting. (
> > Many "evolutionary algorithms" work this way, having a constant
> > mutation probability over any of the alleles). However, in practice,
> > the mutation probabilities are anything but equal, and can be
> > concentrated into "hot spots" where many mutations occur and places
> > where very few happen. Does this mean they are not "random"? No,
> > they are still "random events" that might or might not happen, but it
> > does illustrate that this notion of randomness is much more subtle
> > than you might think.
> >
> > Iain
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Merv <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Or taking this point further... God could be immanent in every event,
> > > and yet they would still appear random to us. Like David suggested, I
> > think
> > > this is just a language game. None of you could distinguish this
> > ordering
> > > of the first five cardinal numbers: 4 1 2 5 3 from any truly random
> > > order, even though I ordered them myself; but they may as well have been
> > > ordered by some quantum generator device as well as of you are concerned.
> > > But to anyone else, they are indistinguishable from a random order. The
> > > word only describes our ignorance of how small sample sizes turn out, and
> > > the predictability of trends in large sample sizes.
> > >
> > > What if I drop a quarter heads up from 1 cm above a surface. I could
> > > probably succeed in producing a heads landing better than 95% of the time.
> > > Not random? What if I do it from 3 cm up. Now my contrived heads-up
> > > landings might be reduced to, let's say, 75%. How high would I need to
> > do
> > > this from before everyone agreed it was random? Probably, that would be
> > > the height from which a huge number of drops would produce 50% heads up.
> > So
> > > does it cease to be random if my contrived drops are from just below that
> > > height? I don't see a hard distinction anywhere in that. If we can't
> > even
> > > readily separate out what true random is out of our own actions, how is
> > > anyone presumptuous enough to think God's actions ought to be detectably
> > > non-random. The word is descriptive from our perspective, and should
> > not
> > > be inflated with some supreme metaphysical meaning.
> > >
> > > Does this muddy the waters?
> > > --Merv
> > >
> > >
> > > Don Winterstein wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > "Logan seems to believe that if there is divine guidance there will
> > > necessarily be evidence of non-randomness."
> > >
> > > Yes, he believes it because he says, "...The agency is potentially
> > > detectable" if events are not random, and "When intelligent beings direct
> > > events, the events are not random..." Detecting an agency would be
> > > tantamount to detecting non-randomness.
> > >
> > > However, it's easy to come up with a model of divine activity that would
> > > involve guidance but be indistinguishable from purely random processes.
> > One
> > > such model:
> > >
> > > Suppose the world is distinct from God in that it could continue
> > functioning
> > > in God's absence. Its functions would be determined by properties built
> > > into its constituents--in other words, laws of nature. Suppose God most
> > of
> > > the time actually allows such world to function on its own but closely
> > > monitors it to see how it is evolving and on occasion tweaks it to keep it
> > > going in a desired direction.
> > >
> > > God's guidance therefore would consist, first, of the initial creation of
> > a
> > > robust world, and second, of these occasional tweaks. If such tweaks were
> > > rare and also at the quantum level, they could not necessarily be detected
> > > as departures from quantum randomness. A sequence for a random process
> > can
> > > contain any point within its probability distribution and not be
> > detectably
> > > nonrandom even if one or a few points had been divinely determined. Only
> > if
> > > a point lay outside the allowed probability distribution could it be
> > > attributed to miracle (divine intervention). One can suppose that God
> > with
> > > his foreknowledge could do his tweaking early enough to avoid such
> > miracles
> > > and hence remain undetectable.
> > >
> > > Furthermore, God could do lots of miracles and still remain undetected if
> > he
> > > restricted his miracles to times when no one was looking.
> > >
> > > Don
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > -----------
> > After the game, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
> >
> > - Italian Proverb
> > -----------
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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> >
>
>
>

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