Probabilistic debate with Pigliucci (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, November 08, 2011, 18:07 (4742 days ago) @ David Turell

I had no idea Pigliucci shared a similar view:

"No evolutionary biologist I know…actually attaches probabilities to specific evolutionary events of the type you are talking about. There is no way to do that. Similarly, there is no way to attach probabilities to the set of physical laws regulating our universe, for the simple reason that we have no sample population to draw from (which is why typically you estimate probabilities)."

The kinds of probabilities you tend to cite all the time David, are probabilities based upon pictures that the scientists themselves call incomplete. Some years ago I told you EVERYTHING that you would need to know in order to actually compute the probability of life coming about by chance. Until you meet all those criteria, Pigliucci is absolutely correct in stating that all probabilities discussed are provisional estimates. (I added the italic word.)

The author of the blog post didn't address Pigliucci's biggest comment--no evolutionary biologist works with probabilities like that. I did a background check on ALL of the people the author cited.

Wilf and Ewans--Mathematicians.
Durrett and Schmidt--Medical Doctors.

He brings up http://evoinfo.org/publications/ <--The &quot;Peers&quot; here are Dembski and the rest of the clown crew at the Discovery Institute. The most &quot;qualified&quot; is Dembski but his PhD is in mathematical philsophy, not evolutionary biology.

Sean Caroll--Physicist.

As for the efficacy of the &quot;evolutionary search algorithm&quot;
Here is just one book.

The important thing to note about random-evolution-based search algorithms, is that they are optimization algorithms...

If they don&apos;t work and aren&apos;t efficient... then why do we use them in AI? [EDIT]Why do we use them to optimize?

Again, the author brings up a question: &quot;(e.g. “How long will a certain variant take to appear and be fixed in the population given this population size and generation turn-over time?”)&quot;

He thinks this defeats population genetics, but he misses that the question is NOT an absolute probability and is both conditional, and obviously as much of an estimate as &quot;What will the point spread be in the next Lions game?&quot;

[EDITED]

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\"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.\"