Perry Marshall: What is Random?

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Perry_Marshall

I got my description of you on your website: http://swami.wustl.edu/

I fixed it on my blog post.

No harm done. Thanks for finding the error on my website too. July 1 is when the promotion happened.

I think there are some typos in the quote you pulled. Can we fixed those and remove the capital case? I did not know it would attract your attention.

@swamidass

The mutations do appear to be entirely spontaneous. The fact they take place in a largely constant rate does not make them less random. That just tells us there is a pattern to their randomness. Remember, random does not imply “without pattern.” Just because there is pattern to random mutations does not mean they are magically not random. It just means they are “random with said pattern.”

This is not a matter of opinion, but one of definitions. Nothing in the definition of “random” precludes that mutations follow patterns. In fact, the statistically definition of “random” itself assumes that mutations follow some patterns.

I think you have a false conflict in your mind between random and aorder. That needs to be stamped out if you want to make sense of this.