Turns out Random is Better (Evolution)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, February 22, 2010, 22:59 (5197 days ago) @ David Turell


> > This might be considered semantic, but as you stated that you aren't a "great statistician" I feel I need to make this point. First, constraints make things more likely to happen, not less. I've yet to see a formal statistical treatment on the odds that you use all the time.
> 
> For statistics you'd have to read the books I've read or the quotes in my book.
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> In fact I read all the time and definitions of degrees of freedom include restraint as you say, but an article I just reviewed, from my interest in the Climategate scandal, was entited, "Degrees of Freedom at Copenhagan", and explained why the restraints made it fail. So I am continue to be confused by advanced mathematical terms.
> -I would have to read the formals--as you can expect, the general methods of statistics allow you to play logic games to your heart's content. There's an unlimited number of ways to phrase a question in order to match that "if A then NOT B" and that's where I suspect the constraints come into play with the climate issue. -> 
> > 
> > The two pieces of evidence you provide simply state that evolution can happen incredibly quickly--there is no formal justification to make the kind of conclusion that you make here. You need to do more than state that the current explanation is incomplete, you need to detect the intelligence you claim, otherwise it's a "lazy induction." What other processes in the world do we accept claims with as little direct evidence?
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> The argument about chance is time vs. chance. Chance stumbles along slowly. Is there anough time to have all the mutations and other layers of the genome create what we now see in the tme allotted? My argument is: were did that speed come from, just as the Cambrian raises the same issue in spades?
> -If chance "stumbles along slowly" then why do cryptographers use it to solve some problems in a more rapid manner? Why does a purely random selection of three different weak signals result in better reception? And if you learn more about mathematical chaos theory, you also learn that some things simply *appear* random. Maybe its just the different paths we have, but I don't see this as a black/white issue as you appear to. That recent finding in network coding is going to reap big rewards and I think that it can be applied to biological information transfer as well. -
> As for proving the 'intelligence' behind all this, God is concealed. -A euphemism for "God works in mysterious ways..."-A better question is to ask you how you know God is concealed? Where is the evidence of this? Where did you get this information? -This is where the 'leap of faith' comes from. There will never be the proof you want. Only Adler's approach 'by a preponderance of evidence', which, by the intelligence concealment, means it is a positive proof that chance can't work in the time allotted and therefore, negatively, since design is the only other choice, there must be an intelligence doing its job somewhere. I think that won't satisfy you, and I don't think you will ever satisfy yourself. There will never be hard proof. I've accepted that as did Adler.-We're getting into theological hot water here. Why hide creation? Especially if God had no idea where things were going to take it like you or dhw has suggested. The only reason to hide something is if you have a plan and don't want someone to find out. I'd find it more likely that creation got away from him. -I've pieced together Adler's argument from how he reasoned in "The Difference..." and it isn't a logical conclusion to draw; if God has a physical component--and you're directly suggesting this--then you need to demonstrate it, plain and simple, or it isn't acceptable to believe it. I will reiterate that there is no other phenomenon in existence that we use this method of argument for, it directly attempts to use empiricism to back up a non-empirical claim. Adler comes from the Aristotelian line of thinking that it is enough to be able to reason about a phenomenon, that empiricism is optional. -If God influences the world still, there will be evidence of it. Anything that happens in our physical world is detectable, and if God exists and interacts--there WILL be direct evidence for it. Otherwise it's more likely that if a theism exists it'll be of my old Deist type.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"