Intelligent Design in Universities

I'm trying to understand here, why does something being random mean it has to be equiprobable? Can't the probability of something be impossible to calculate (and thus random according to yourself) but simply more likely to occur than something else? An illustrative example: If I have two dice, one has 6 sides, the other has 100. They are both random, but the chances of either one rolling a '4' is not equiprobable is it? Naturally, we can sit down and calculate the probabilities in this case, so to make it better, how about we use dice with a random number of sides (equal to or greater than 4)? Are they equiprobable now?Please, tell me if I am misrepresenting you here.

OK, good I'm not going crazy. This basically is a respsonse to your dismissal of Message 134. It seems to me that certain phenemenon can 'load the dice', or to quote one of the abstracts:

quote:

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Mutation frequencies vary significantly along nucleotide sequences such that mutations often concentrate at certain positions called hotspots.

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The term 'mutation frequencies vary' seems to me to be saying that mutation probabilities aren't equiprobable.

1. Have I interpreted the abstract correctly?
2. Do you agree with the abstract?

**********edit*************At first I didn't understand what you meant when you said: in response to my question "Can't the probability of something be impossible to calculate but be simply more likely to occur than something else?" I understand why I'm confused now. It lies in your earlier statement: You seemed to be implying that since someone cannot calculate a probability it must be random. Am I right? The problem of course, is that you then say that we have eggheads that can do the math, and that (as far as you know) probabilities are calcuable if we know probabilities occur.So either you made a slip up, which is fine, I understand, no problem. Or there isn't a probability involved in mutations, which seems odd to me. Perhaps there is another option I haven't perceived?********end edit*********This message has been edited by Modulous, 05-06-2005 07:37 PMThis message has been edited by Modulous, 05-06-2005 07:39 PM

Fair enough, you just seemed overly dismissive of it in 'tone' and I wondered why. I don't know it depends on how we define our terms I suppose. I could say that there is no probability in horse racing. After all, if we can know all the information about any situation we can deduce who has to win. Unfortunately to do that we have to pull together an obscene amount of information, including the thoughts and memories of all the racers and the horses. In this case calculating who will win is done on probabilities based on what is known, but we cannot calculate the exact probabilities. Hence, our probabilities are unknown.Is the winner of a horse race random? Not really, its just so complicated as to be inherently unpredictable. When some thing is unpredictable the results might appear to be random, but just be due to incomplete information.DNA mutation surely comes under this definition of random? I'm sure quantum uncertainty will play its part to ensure true randomness, it will be insignificant compared with larger factors such as the presence of strong radioactive sources.Am I barking up the wrong tree here? I think what I am saying is that DNA mutation is unpredictable but its not arbitrarily random.Incidentally, I'm not trying to debate your central theme here, I'll leave that to others who understand (or not depending on opinion) the subject better than I. I appreciate that it might be that, on average, it is as good as totally random.

Well obviously. What I was saying was, that a bookie can't predict the exact probability of a horse winning a race, but we assume that a horse has a probability of winning. Excellent word 'spontaneous', that clears things up a lot, thank you. May I ask though: Are these mutations spontaneous in the same way that a radioactive nucleus decaying at any given moment is spontaneous, or is it spontaneous in that it has a cause, but its impossible to isolate what that cause is?This message has been edited by Modulous, 05-07-2005 06:20 PM