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Author Topic:   For all you Monkeys out there
Asgara
Member (Idle past 2302 days)
Posts: 1783
From: Wisconsin, USA
Joined: 05-10-2003


Message 16 of 31 (43113)
06-17-2003 8:33 AM


random
Hi all,
Just wanted to throw in my meager two cents worth on the random issue. I look at the issue like a game of Yatzee...you throw out the dice and they land randomly, but then you get to choose the dice you keep for the next throw. The mutations are the randomly dropped dice, natural selection is the choice of which dice are kept.
------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

Replies to this message:
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 17 of 31 (43175)
06-17-2003 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Asgara
06-17-2003 8:33 AM


Re: random
I look at the issue like a game of Yatzee...you throw out the dice and they land randomly, but then you get to choose the dice you keep for the next throw. The mutations are the randomly dropped dice, natural selection is the choice of which dice are kept.
Good analogy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Asgara, posted 06-17-2003 8:33 AM Asgara has replied

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Asgara
Member (Idle past 2302 days)
Posts: 1783
From: Wisconsin, USA
Joined: 05-10-2003


Message 18 of 31 (43263)
06-18-2003 1:52 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by crashfrog
06-17-2003 3:56 PM


Re: random
Thanks Crash darlin'
------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

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Message 19 of 31 (44606)
06-29-2003 10:26 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Selectric III
06-02-2003 8:45 AM


quote:
Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") is said to have come up with the most famous defense of the atheist belief that life was created by chance, not God. In a debate at Oxford, he is reported to have stated that if enough monkeys randomly pressed typewriter keys for a long enough time, sooner or later Psalm 23 would emerge.
Not all atheists use this argument, but it accurately represents the atheist belief that with enough time and enough solar systems, you'll get you, me, and Bach's cello suites.
This belief has always struck me as implausible. The argument that infinitely complex intelligence came about by itself, unguided by any intelligence, can only be deemed convincing by those who have a vested interest (intellectual, emotional, psychological) in atheism.
I doesn't seem to me that this is necessarily so.
It can be claimed on a purely mathematical basis :
If you throw up a number of coins, the chance that all heads will come up is remote, but it can happen once in a while.
If you add coins to the lot, the chance that all heads will come up is smaller still, but it still isn't impossible.
If you pursue this reasoning further, you can end up concluding that, sonner or later, whatever the number of coins you use, all heads MUST come up, provided you go on throwing your coins for long enough.
Does that make sense ?

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Replies to this message:
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Message 20 of 31 (44607)
06-29-2003 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by crashfrog
06-02-2003 12:11 PM


quote:
The part that bugs me is where the author equates "low probability" with "no probability". Any one person has a pretty low chance of winning the lottery. Yet, almost every day, somebody wins the lottery. How is this possible? It's possible because there's a big difference between a low probability and no probability - in fact, it's as big as the difference between something and nothing.
True. Where is gets a bit weird is when you consider the fact that, although there is a very low probability that *you* win the lottery, it is a *certainty* (unless other factors come in such as tornadoes and hurricanes) that it *will* be won.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 21 of 31 (44612)
06-29-2003 12:11 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Anoter Visitor
06-29-2003 10:26 AM


I don't recall that Huxley made such a statement and I think the typewriter was invented rather late in Huxley's life so I don't think he did.
And, in any case, it is a very poor analogy. It has a sort of analogy to the random generation of differences but it has NO part of it that corresponds to natural selection. The "rachet" is an important part of Darwinism.
You use of this poor analogy and your getting of the source wrong hints that you don't know very much about the topic.
To be able to argue with any chance of making a meaningful argument you need to understand the topic pretty well. You probably need to know it better to attack it that to defend it in fact.
I'd suggest you learn something before you post anything that sounds like you think you know the answer.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 22 of 31 (44614)
06-29-2003 12:19 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Anoter Visitor
06-29-2003 10:26 AM


Low probability can be reasonable taken as zero.
If it is low enough I think it is reasonable to treat it, when trying to pick a most reasonable decision, as zero.
The poster has the quote wrong. I'm pretty sure it involves an "infinite" number of monkeys. In that case the psalm would emerge in a very short time.
However, the number of monkeys, if not infinite, becomes an issue. To generate a pre-selected string of enough length in a time less than the age of the universe the number of monkeys might be large beyond a resonable level.
However, the analogy is bad, as I pointed out above, because it leaves out the rachet AND because it supposes a pre-selected very specific string of characters. The probability changes if any of the psalms are acceptable, or any english text of about that length or any text of about that length in any language. They change a lot. And if we were watching out millions of monks we would be just as astonished if any of these things came out.
None of the living organisms that live or have lived are pre-selected in any way. There are umpty-dumpty bejillion others that would be possible outcomes and different from any that did appear.
The odds calculations are silly.

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Message 23 of 31 (44766)
07-01-2003 9:45 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by NosyNed
06-29-2003 12:11 PM


You could learn something too...
quote:
You use of this poor analogy and your getting of the source wrong hints that you don't know very much about the topic.
To be able to argue with any chance of making a meaningful argument you need to understand the topic pretty well. You probably need to know it better to attack it that to defend it in fact.
I'd suggest you learn something before you post anything that sounds like you think you know the answer.
I am not sure whether you are replying to my post or to the topic starter's.
I did not get the source wrong as I merely quoted it.
Obviously you have no real answer to my post, as you tried to downplay and ridiculize it.
If you think I may be wrong, then prove it.
You could learn a *lot* by learning elementary manners, and by looking up the word "debate".

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Message 24 of 31 (44767)
07-01-2003 9:49 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by NosyNed
06-29-2003 12:11 PM


(and by the way, you don't know the meaning of the word "analogy"... look it up. I didn't use any analogy. I used the example of the coins to get my idea across, and I quoted from the topic starter's post.)

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 25 of 31 (44781)
07-01-2003 2:12 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Another Visitor
07-01-2003 9:49 AM


Oops
I think I replyed to you when I should have been replying to Selectric III.
Sorry.

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Peter
Member (Idle past 1478 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 26 of 31 (44938)
07-03-2003 7:05 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by IrishRockhound
06-03-2003 11:15 AM


Intelligence isn't the ultimate survival trait
... have you heard of tardigrades?

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Replies to this message:
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John
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 31 (44947)
07-03-2003 9:35 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by Peter
07-03-2003 7:05 AM


Wow... now that is a cool critter!!! I remember reading about them as a kid but the name threw me. I remember them as 'water bears.'
------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Peter
Member (Idle past 1478 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 28 of 31 (44954)
07-03-2003 10:17 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by John
07-03-2003 9:35 AM


I'd forgotten they got called that ... they do look like
micro-teddy-bears (sort of).
...that's what I call the ULTIMATE in survivability

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Charles Munroe
Member (Idle past 3634 days)
Posts: 40
From: Simi Valley, CA USA
Joined: 09-07-2003


Message 29 of 31 (54788)
09-10-2003 4:05 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Selectric III
06-02-2003 8:45 AM


Flawed Math
The problem with the Swiss watch, the 747 Jet and the Monkeys on a Typewriter stories, supposedly showing the impossibility of evolution, is that the mathematical logic is flawed. These supposed arguements for the improbablity of evolution start with a very complexed situation, which has nothing to do with the problem, and create a situation that yes will have an extremely remote chance of happening; but that is not the way the problem should be set up.
The answer lies in understanding probability and properly setting up the equation. Take the coin problem. If I flip a coin ten times and it come up heads every time what are the odds it will come up heads the 11th time? Exactly 50/50 just like the all the other times. It is necessary to also take in to consideration that in the primordal soup there were not genetic material coming together all at once to form the first prion that could reproduce but various parts coming together in various areas over a vast amount of time. Think of a throw of the dice that might have only a 1 chance in a million of happening and you having the opportunity to throw the dice 100 million times. Your chances of making your number are excellent. Study up on your math and avoid the Creationist comic book math and you will have a better understanding of evolution.
Evolution, incidently, does not deny God. It says nothing on the subject. It is Creationist that wrongly infer that Evolution eliminates God. Creationist, those that are sidetracked in a controversey of their own making that contributes nothing of a positive nature to the Gospel of Jesus Christ but do interpret the Bible in a manner that makes it appear about as reliable as a comic book. Concentrate on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and forget the Creationist nonsense and you will find that your religion functions very nicely.

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 30 of 31 (55019)
09-11-2003 8:53 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Selectric III
06-02-2003 8:45 AM


Selectric Evolution is not strictly along the lines of monkeys banging typewriters randomly.If you make it so that every time they get the letter in sequence(for instance,in the opening scene of a Midsummer night's dream "Now fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour".)the letter is kept. (e.g.) cvjN;riebsdfbvf,lO'Wdtpetyotyiopenc. I randomly typed that (honest) and I have already typed the first word which I redid to capitals.This would be analogous to how the enviroment of Earth acts upon life through natural selection.It can be random tiny changes in the genetic makeup of an individual animal or it can be random global changes in weather or food availabilty acting on an entire species or even many species. The events are random in that there is no way to be certain in a prediction of an occurence.It is when animals in response to the changes either adapt or die. Dead they produce no offspring. Adapted they are stronger than what went before in relation to that particular crisis.
Seems pretty straight forward hmmm?
[This message has been edited by sidelined, 09-13-2003]

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