Zachriel
Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006
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Joseph Quote | It is funny to see how many people misunderstand natural selection. |
No! Don't do it! Don't respond to Joseph without the requisite training and equipment!
jasper Quote | Yes, that is funny, especially since you managed to do so in your post. |
Argh!! Too late! Too late.
Quote | 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' |
Joseph doesn't know what "random" means or "pattern". He uses words in his own manner without regard to their accepted definitions and repudiates contingent definitions for the purpose of furthering discussion.
Random, 2 a: relating to, having, or being elements or events with definite probability of occurrence b: being or relating to a set or to an element of a set each of whose elements has equal probability of occurrence ; also : characterized by procedures designed to obtain such sets or elements
The term randomness is often used in statistics to signify well defined statistical properties, such as lack of bias or correlation. Random is different from arbitrary, because to say that a variable is random means that the variable follows a probability distribution; arbitrary, on the other hand, implies that there is no such determinable probability distribution for the variable.
Joseph Quote | Variation is random. Differential survival is random. And heredity is random. |
No, Joseph. Heredity is non-random. According to the Human Genome Project, heredity is the handing down of certain traits from parents to their offspring, and almost all (99.9%) nucleotide bases are exactly the same in all people. That means the vast majority of an offspring's genome (and morphological characteristics) can be predicted with great accuracy by examining a parent's genome (or morphological characteristics), even in sexually reproducing species. There are just a relatively few traits that are subject to random sexual recombination, but even these are often linked to other traits.
The environment is non-random, e.g. gravity has specific, predictable consequences.
Joseph Quote | Finding a mate, mating successfully, and passing on your beneficial trait are all left to chance. |
Frankly, the claim that mate selection is random is just bizarre. It very much depends on the organism. Consider deer bucks competing for a harem, or a high school dance. Joseph needs to get out more.
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You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.
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