[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[Charles Bennett]

On Dec 13, 2007, at 1:28 PM, Stefano Mori wrote:

>
> On 2007-Dec-13, at 06:19, David Cake wrote:
>
>> 	I think talking about it as a 'random process' is confusing
>> you. Think of it as a process that involves randomness. The long term
>> outcome of a process that involves randomness can be highly
>> predictable, and thats why people go into the casino business.
>
>
> If a million dice throws self assembled into a small log cabin, they  
> could go into the construction business also.
>
> A statistician commented that "random" just means "we don't know  
> what caused it".
>
> If a robot was shaking the dice, the robot may be able to exert  
> precisely the right force to obtain the desired outcome, every time.  
> Suddenly it goes from being a process where we don't know what will  
> happen, to a process where we do know what will happen, simply  
> because we now know more about it, or rather, the robot is  
> performing pre-calculated motions.
>
> The point is, some creationists argue that the world is too ordered  
> to be caused by randomness.
>
> So if anyone needs to be told that "randomness" means "we don't  
> know", it's them. We just tell them, we don't know what, exactly,  
> caused life.
>

What the creationists fail to grasp is that just because 'we don't  
know' doesn't mean that they do.

Using "ignorance" in the correct sense.

Ignorance on my part does not imply knowledge on their part.   They  
just cannot accept that, because their entire house of cards falls  
apart if they do.

It annoys the hell out of me that they seize on the random aspect as  
if natural selection is random.

  A mutation may be random, but the selection process that determines  
if a mutation is successful or not is  anything but random
The more intense the pressure, the less things evolve not more.   It's  
when there is no pressure than 'anything goes..'

Sorry to toss a 'drive by' comment into an otherwise interesting  
exchange.

=c=