What does the process(of natural evolution) include? A selective filter, heritiable characteristics, and successive generations. If you are asking if it is logically possible those elements can come together without the aid of intellect, I already stated a long long long time ago that yes that is logically possible. It is also logically possible the speed of light in a vacuum is completely random and just by chance every photon so far has been traveling at 186000 miles per second.

Just because something is logically possible doesn't mean it happens. Perhaps you can give us an example of when it has been observed that those three elements came together without the aid of intellect.

The language is a little more delicate than this, I think. It's indistinguishable from a continuous random walk, but I don't think this is the same as being "truly random." I think you can attain Brownian motion from a large-N approximation of particle collisions with deterministic paths. It's just a highly chaotic system, so that small changes in the initial condition result in wildly different outcomes (which is what gives the appearance of being random).

This seems like the most desperate argument I've heard from the theists in this whole thread.

It's impossible to distinguish a random process and a process guided by God, who is trying to make it look random. But the idea that God is trying to deceive people by controlling a random process to make it look random seems desperate. It's like saying there are wizards inside the middle of the sun that are working on highly advanced computers 24/7 to ensure gravity is working the same all the time. The reason there's never been a case of gravity being broken is because these wizards never take a break. Yeah, ok, it's possible but this it's also possible gravity is just a law of nature that, once set, needs no "work" to keep it running. Isn't the second possibility a little more likely?

Also, ganstaman, the random movement of particle you described is what results in DNA polymerase's error rate. DNA polymerase is a molecule that slides along the DNA strand to replicate it. Bases, which are the particles in your link you posted, randomly move and bounce about. If the correct one happens to fit in DNA polymerases active site, then it gets incorporated into the new strand. If not, the DNA pol's editing site removes the mismatched base. Again, ALL of this chemical activity is due to the RANDOM movement of particles bouncing around. These particles are molecules though, not atoms and not things big enough to see like pollen grains.

By chance, once per 10 billion bases the wrong nucleotide gets incorporating, and this is one of the many mechanisms that produces mutations.

More proof the mutations are random:

1. Experiments like that 6 bacterial line I posted.
2. The ability to make accurate predictions about how often a mutation will show up, given the known mutation rate.
3. The fact that most mutations are disastrous and harmful to the organism. If mutations are not random, then they must be guided by a mind. Why would the mind guide almost all these mutations to result in quick death and suffering in the mutant organism?
4. Cytochrome C

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidenc...t#Cytochrome_c

"What makes these homologous similarities particularly suggestive of common ancestry in the case of cytochrome C, in addition to the fact that the phylogenies derived from them match other phylogenies very well, is the high degree of functional redundancy of the cytochrome C molecule. The different existing configurations of amino acids do not significantly affect the functionality of the protein, which indicates that the base pair substitutions are not part of a directed design, but the result of random mutations that aren't subject to selection.[26]"

Either that, or you completely forgot what you were talking about:

How can something be random to us but not to God? Here's a situation in which you conceded there is something that can be random to us but not to God.

So firstly, you are admitting that you were wrong, right? You agree now that something can be guided by God and yet still seem random to you? And secondly, no, that's not what I'm saying. I haven't claimed that God is guiding random things to deceive us into thinking that they are random. As I've stated before, I believe God has set up the universe and the laws it follows. Some of these laws involve randomness. That God is still guiding it all doesn't mean He's trying to deceive, it's just carrying out the laws.

I've basically only read the first page and the last page, so I've definitely not read a lot of the dialogue ITT.

Let me pick apart one specific piece of your OP:

But evolution actually has no foresight, therefore evolution cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called design or creation. We humans were not designed or created. This is where religious people who accept evolution disagree. They claim "there's no reason to think evolution is blind, mindless, and has no foresight. This is just a presumption." My counter is, "you're wrong. Evolution indeed is blind, mindless, and has no foresight and if you disagree then you don't properly understand evolution."

This section makes zero sense. Sure, to us, and our subjective understanding of the world, evolution might seem random, and without foresight. Now, I'm by no means an expert on biology or evolution, but how can you, as an "expert" in this field, claim to understand that evolution is 100% random? The fact is, you can't. The way it would be possible to "know" would be to be an objective being, and unfortunately, you are not. The only objective being, in my eyes (and surely in the minds of a lot of thinking Christians) is God.

Just think about the concept of free will. Naturally, I believe we have free will. I also believe that God knows what we are going to do before we do it, since he is not bound by time. Just because he knows what is going to happen, does not mean he is actively controlling me or anybody else. "Creator" does not necessarily mean "puppet master."

Just by the tone of your first post, I can see that you are a very presumptuous, "science and reason" bases person who believes it is possible to fully understand the world through science. I would humbly suggest that you learn a little bit about epistemology, philosophy, and Christianity before you start trying to extend your battles outside of the paradigm of biology. I believe in the sciences, and I believe they are a way to form an understanding of the world that works for us, but if you think that the things we accept as fact are absolutely true, then I think you need to swallow the big reality pill my friend.

Yeah...I'm just going to ignore you after this post because you constantly take things out of context on purpose, and nitpick and try to make a big deal out of any little mistake posters make, rather than actually having a discussion. When you read my posts, rather than actually considering what I'm saying you look for any tiny logical inconsistency, even if it's not important to my main point, and focus your discussion on that.

I'll answer you one last time though. I don't see how it's even possible something can be random to us but not to God. But if it is true, then it's impossible to even detect that the supposedly random process is not really random. Why not just conclude that the process really IS random, to us and to God?

LOL at out of context.

Post #553:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=553

Was written in response to post #549

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=549

which was written in response to post #540

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=540

What part of this is out of context? You made a claim about "random to us has to be random to God." And then challenging your rebuttal to that ONE POST LATER is out of context?

You agreed that God can make something appear random to us. That's the entirety of the conversation.

Great, now how does this fit into your point? Here, let me get it for you:

Since you've admitted that God can control a random process, then you can let as many parts of evolution be random as you want and you can still conclude that God could just have "let things unfold the only way they could." So on what grounds are you going to disagree with my post that your above post responds to?

1. Not proof of randomness in evolution. How are you concluding otherwise?
2. Not at all proof of randomness. I could write a program to simulate mutations to DNA, and it could be a completely non-random, deterministic process that would allow you to make accurate predictions given the known mutation rate.
3. This isn't proof, it's an argument from ignorance fallacy.
4. Not proof of randomness. It's basically just your initial argument in the case of a specific gene. Why don't you post the names of all the genes and then have a whole ton of proofs?!

Anyway, to the content of the issue...

Yes, you do.

And it is...

Right. This was why your SMP thread failed so hard. We don't have any way of detecting "true" randomness. It's not even clear if such a thing really and truly exists.

Why should we conclude that it's random to God?

Let's replace "God" with a random number generator. Because you have no idea what the large prime is and what the seed is, you don't know what the next number is going to be. However, the process in the computer is completely deterministic. So it appears to you to be random even though it's completely determined.

Why not just conclude that the process really IS random, to us and to the computer? Because it's not really random.

I never admitted that something can be random to us but not to God. In addressing your post earlier, that you and Aaron quickly jumped on, I said something like, "IF it is random to us but not to God". I didn't admit that something can be random to us but not to God.

Zach mentioned something that, like the whole randomness thing with God, is impossible. He says God can predict what actions we will do in the future, but we have free will. That's impossible and you can conclude that just by using common sense. Same with randomness and God. It's impossible something can be random to us but not to God.

OP, how is it so hard for you to understand that something can seem random to us, whereas God has a full understand of it? WE ARE BOUND AND LIMITED BY OUR PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD. It is amazing to me the hubris of people like you, thinking that you are somehow "enlightened" to the workings of the world. You can't prove anything bro. Our understanding of the world is based on presuppositions and assumptions, all of which may or may not be the case.

I'll repeat: Learn a thing or two about epistemology.

Then I don't know what you mean here:

And please try to relate this back to your actual point, as I did in my previous post.

I think there's some confusion of my idea of randomness vs yours. The dictionary says something like, "without any definite pattern, aim, reason, or purpose". This definition is so vague though, could you call the path a wandering drunken bums walks random? Yeah, by this definition.

In my mind, randomness means this: The outcome of a coin flip. It is impossible to predict, there is no pattern, the probability of a coin flip is in no way influenced by anything else such as the result of the last coin flip. The outcome of a coin flip is random, but follows probability laws. The exact same thing is going on with genetics, as Mendel showed.

Can you please enlighten me with your common sense then? Just because God knows what we are going to do does not mean he is actively manipulating us in any way. Free will is probably the most crucial thing to understand as a Christian. Without free will, the concepts of good and bad go out the window, since anything we do would be the will of God, and therefore it would be inherently good. To put it succinctly, in order to do good, one must have the ability to do bad.

FWIW, my argument is that we only perceive things to be random. Whether or not they are actually random is something only God can understand.

Is it possible that they are, in fact, random? Is it possible that atheistic evolutionists have it right? The answers to both of these questions are yes, it is possible, but to say that you know it is true, for a fact, is just plain silly.

I have to reiterate that it is important that you relate this back to your point. That is, why did you bring up randomness to begin with, and what conclusion are you drawing by using that definition?

This reminds me a lot of your previous posts when you defined evolution to be one thing in one sentence, but then used an entirely different definition of in trying to draw your conclusion.

You still have not addressed the question of "random number generation" which, on the one hand would be viewed as random insofar as it's not predictable (like a coinflip) yet is a completely determined and guided process that is actually defined by a clearly specified pattern (that just happens to be too "difficult" for us to reasonably figure it out because our limited knowledge of data such as the seed and prime that is used to generate the underlying sequence).

No, that's not what you said. You said the following:

This is not an if-then statement. Here's the larger context to demonstrate that it's not taken out of context:

The context is that you're trying to portray the "argument" as being "desperate." What is the "argument"? The argument being presented is that it's possible for something to appear random to us, but not to God.

Your position is not a proof by contradiction. You are not assuming that God *could* make something appear random to us but not be random to him. Your position is that such a possibility makes you think that God has to work very hard to do that and that therefore, it's NOT LIKELY that God is doing this. Your argument in no way concludes that therefore it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to make something appear random.

You're being extremely stubborn in exactly the way you've been stubborn in the past. Let's try one more argument.

Suppose we're in two separate rooms. In my room, I have two buttons labeled "T" and "H". In your room, you have a printer that prints the letter of the button I push. Every minute, I push a button and it spits out a letter at you. Is it *POSSIBLE* for me to create a sequence of T and H that appears to be random to you, but not to me?

I think you guys give to much credit to God. God may not know everything, he may not know whats going to happen.