The notion of randomness is not an accident of philosophy …it is an accident of epistemology!
The limits of what the human mind can perceive makes it impossible for science to go any further with the ultimate layers of reality.
It is one’s faith in the Bible that gives our mind a way (a theological way) to conceive of God being in control of what looks like randomness to the human mind.
You highlighted “objectively discernable” in Joshua’s comment. That’s not necessarily materialistic philosophy. It can be valid under religious and non-religious assumptions.
The epistemological importance of something being “objectively discernible” is a philosophical distinction. There is no empirical justification for projecting the limitations of the method of study upon the object being studied.
Hence the reference to materialistic philosophy.
But as I noted, that conclusion is not exclusively a materialistic one. Joshua is definitely not a philosophical materialist. Additionally, we do have an understanding of objective vs. subjective assessments in science as well, independent of whether there is an omniscient God. That also treads into the philosophy of science, epistemology and psychology.
I don’t think that’s being done. The reverse, actually. That is, even if an event cannot be objectively determined to be random or purposeful, that doesn’t mean that it can’t have happened randomly or purposefully.
You are abusing the term “philosophical” .
In the sense you are using it… virtually everything we are discussing is philosophically derived!
Philosophy of Science.
Philosophy of naturalism.
Philosophy of Christianity.
Philosophy of natural evil.
Philosophy of Redemption…
Then how would you phrase it?
Here is the situation. The mutations that confer antibiotic resistance occur at the same rate as other mutations, both in the absence of antibiotics and in the presence of antibiotics. Luria and Delbruck looked at phage resistance, and they saw that the mutation leading to phage resistance happened about once in every 250 million divisions. What the organism needs appears to be independent of the mutations that the organism gets.
Luria and Delbruck also described the relationship between mutations and fitness in terms of statistics, and that statistical model was a Poisson distribution. For comparison, nuclear decay follows a Poisson distribution which is an example of another process that is considered to be random. Therefore, mutations occur randomly just like nuclear decay occurs randomly as modeled by statistics.
So how should this be described? We have two processes that by all tests are independent of each other, and a process that has a known rate and a statistically random distribution that is determined by a rate. Scientists describe this as mutations being random with respect to fitness. If you think this is wrong, then what should they say?
For the record, this does not appear to be true. Many mutational distributions and mechanisms are skewed away from lethal mutation and toward beneficial.
The situation I am referring to is much more specific. For example, there isn’t a protein in E. coli that binds a beta-lactam antiboitic and then mutates a specific base in a specific gene that gives rise to antibiotic resistance. We also don’t see 100% or even 1% of E. coli produce the mutation responsible for antibiotic resistance when exposed to antibiotics. Instead, 1 out of hundreds of millions of E. coli get the mutation.
I will agree that there are processes that may bias mutations in general, but not specifically. For example, the SOS response will increase genetic recombination and mutation rates, but it won’t specifically change one gene in response to a specific stimulus. There is also evidence that mutations occur more often in expressed genes, probably due to the DNA being single stranded during transcription. But again, this is a general mechanism and not a specific one.
The genetic code itself biases mutations this way. I’m just not sure this is a helpful definition of random. It requires so many qualifications so as to be unhelpful.
In the antibody system mutations are biased specifically to the right region too.
I don’t know why I often use gambling in my analogies, but this reminds me of the game of craps. The distribution of outcomes in Craps is not even. There are only 1 combination of the dice that will produce either 2 or 12 while there are 6 combinations that result in 7. Therefore, the game is heavily biased towards the number 7. However, the result isn’t skewed by the chips that are on the table. If you place your chips on the square for rolling a 2 or 12 you don’t increase the odds of that outcome occurring. Using the language from previous posts, the roll of the dice is random with respect to the chips on the table even though some outcomes are more likely than others.
We could also run into a situation where the mutation needed for antibiotic resistance or any specific beneficial mutation runs counter to the bias found in the genome.
Except that is not always the case.
The analogy assumes that you aren’t using loaded dice, if that is what you are getting at.
My solution is to introduce the discussion with the disclaimer:
“A Christian is not bound to the idea that what looks random must be ultimately random. A pro-Evolution Christian can look to God as a non-random influence on the various phases of Evolution that appear random to the discipline of science.”
That’s what I have attempted to do by describing it as statistical randomness and scientific randomness. For science, if it looks random then it is labelled as random. Science doesn’t get into the debate surrounding “ultimate randomenss”. Judging from this discussion, what I should be doing is making sure people understand what I mean by statistical or scientific randomness and incorporate the descriptions you are using.
Are you under the impression that rate of current genomic change is an important source of evidence for macroevolution? I think you’re wrong about that, if so.
I think @anon46279830’s reasoning is wrong, but the rate of current genomic change absolutely is an important source of evidence for macroevolution.
Few, if any, mainstream evolutionary biologists believe in “hopeful monsters.”
Never mind. I didn’t realize I was responding to such an old thread. I admit, I don’t understand why these periodically show up as “latest” when I click on that.
@Faizal_Ali Topics that go dormant are typically scheduled to be “bumped” which brings them back into circulation. If you see a topic come up, and it has the “chair logo” next to it, you can assume that it is dated. You can feel free to comment, but know that the original participants may not be following the thread any longer.