Is Evolution Really Random or Do We Have Some Control Over It?

[binbots]

How can we say that evolution is random when it is based on choice aswell? For example the first creatures that came onto land made a choice to do so. Sure they were probably pushed there to survive but they still made the choice. Throught out evolution these decisions were made and evolution then followed to fit the choice. When you start looking at evolution this way you will start to realize how much control we actually have over our own evolution. Am I wrong?

 

[zomgwtf]

How can we say that evolution is random

That's where I stopped reading.

 

[binbots]

wow, really. Good to see you never question anything you have ever learned.

 

[zomgwtf]

wow, really. Good to see you never question anything you have never learned.

Fixed. It's good to see you questioning things prior to understanding them though.

 

[mazinse]

Your argument hinges upon the fact that early organisms had the capabilities of rational, ethic and philosophic decisions. When in fact most of them were driven by simple stimuli that either enhanced or weakened their chances of survival.

 

[tkjtkj]

How can we say that evolution is random when it is based on choice aswell? For example the first creatures that came onto land made a choice to do so. Sure they were probably pushed there to survive but they still made the choice. Throught out evolution these decisions were made and evolution then followed to fit the choice. When you start looking at evolution this way you will start to realize how much control we actually have over our own evolution. Am I wrong?

Yes. You are wrong, but your mistake is a common one: evolution is NOT random. There are many factors which allow for changes in any organism's inheritable characteristics. Some of them are quite random: eg, the specific location where a cosmic ray might damage its DNA.

Other factors, such as the choices a creature makes in deciding if it should migrate today or in a month are not so random at all ... and the particular choice might have life or death consequences.

I can recommend an excellent book: "Inside the Human Genome" by John Avise , a professor at Univ. of California , I believe.

 

[binbots]

Sorry, I don't see how it is completely random when it can be controlled. If food is hard to come by where I am now, I will make the decision to move to wherever I want. Based on that decision over millions of years I will evolve based on my decision. To say early creatures did not have this ability to make choices is a huge assumption. I will decide where to raise offspring and they will evolve accordingly. The results may not be random but more of a probablity based on decision.
Plus once we evolve we must be aware of our new state in order to use it. To know how it works and what we can do with it. To simply say evolution is random to me seems that nothing can be controlled. Which would make every decision you make pointless.

 

[zomgwtf]

Sorry, I don't see how it is completely random

Please just stop posting if your not going to read the responses. I left it up for you to find out what was wrong on your own, however someone has drawn it out for you completely.

Why are you under this notion that evolution is completely random? Why do you think that evolutionary pressures are decided by organisms? How do these decisions effect the evolution of the organism would it have been different had they made a different decision? All of these are possible to answer however, it doesn't change the fact that your original premise of evolution being random is wrong.

 

[binbots]

Ok, I will stop posting. Thanks for your responses.

 

[tkjtkj]

Ok, I will stop posting. Thanks for your responses.

It is interesting that your reply is as absurd as was your proposition that evolution is a 'random' process.

That you would, given the option of actually reading our replies, you perfer to cease posting rather than to turn your brain on and actually LISTEN to what we've been telling you is remarkable.

Why not let us know if we've successfully informed you of the 'laws' of evolution?? Or do you prefer that we, on that matter, remain as much in the dark as you profess to be in your comment?

 

[binbots]

I mean I will not post anymore on the subject until I learn more. Sorry for the confusing. I am reading the responses.

 

[tkjtkj]

I mean I will not post anymore on the subject until I learn more. Sorry for the confusing. I am reading the responses.

oh thanks for clarifying ... i do, then, retract my criticism , please forgive my misunderstanding. Good to see that you are interested enough to investigate the matter .. you're showing a quality which is highly valued in the scientific community ;)

"It's not about the conclusions, it's about the process one uses to arrive at them" - j. anderson , aka: tkjtkj , Copyright 2010. Usage licenses available for $0.25 per event, inquire within.

 

[binbots]

I guess I should have mentioned that I am not a scientist. I just have many questions that keep me up at night. Learning these things on my own is very hard without a teacher to guide me. So with this new knowlegde you have about my ignorence maybe you can answer my other questions.
What is the role of dominate chenes in evolution? If a chene is a dominate one is this a form of evolution? Are brown eyes "better" than blue eyes? How is it decided what gene is to be dominate? I have tried to find the answers on my own but maybe this questions are to simple. i just want simple answers. If there is a mutation and it is better, is there a chance it will still not be passed on?

 

[tkjtkj]

Sometimes an inquisitive nature can be sooo strong that it can have a person expending harmful energies: eg, not being able to sleep because of a huge list of questions might be such a situation. It is plainly not healthy to have needed sleep compromised.
I sense that your questions are unending , which is fine, as long as they don't begin to dominate one's life.
I also think that a scientific view of things, which it seems you want to achieve, is not obtained by gathering a list of facts. I think that were you to find the time and opportunity to take some courses in genetics, even by some internet way, you'd become able to answer most of your questions by yourself: you'd gain the depth of understandings about mechanisms, etc, and answers to many of your questions would become obvious. More importantly, your then having a solid foundation in genetics might prompt you to think of new, alternative, explanations for the infinite number of questions that remain unanswered.. Who knows .. your ideas might significantly then advance scientific knowledge! On the other hand, your merely gathering a long list of facts would do very little toward preparing you for such adventures as science can provide.
I admire your enthusiasm, but at the same time, i'd caution you to take a breather .. take time and think over how you might gain the comprehensive knowledge and tools to solve problems: that is what science is: problem solving. It's definitely not just a process for filling library shelves with facts. So, again, why not check out some nearby school, or an internet course in genetics ..

Besides, you'd then sleep better ;)
Nothing impels sleep quite as much as writing college term papers in the wee hours of the morning ;))

Wishing you the best in your science adventures,
I remain,
j. anderson, md

 

[sylas]

What is the role of dominate chenes in evolution? If a chene is a dominate one is this a form of evolution?

I think the word you want is "gene" rather than "chene". Evolution refers to heritable change from one generation to the next. It is not a form of evolution for one gene (actually one "allele", or variant form of some gene) to be dominant. There has to be something changing to be evolution.

Are brown eyes "better" than blue eyes?

No. Or perhaps yes. It depends on the environment. The most likely way in which one color is "better" than another, in the evolutionary sense, will be if you are in a society where people tend to like one color better than another. In that case, the color might have an impact on how many children you are likely to have. So brown eyes will be better in a society where people find brown eyes attractive. Note that whether you find brown or blue attractive may also be a heritable feature -- though probably much more complex than a single gene. So there are some pretty complex interactions going on.

How is it decided what gene is to be dominate?

Biochemistry. It will help to be a bit more precise in terminology. A "gene" refers to a particular functional location within your genome. For each "gene" there are a number of "alleles"; which are different forms of the gene, with a slightly different DNA sequence. Now because we have two copies of each chromosome, we also have two alleles for each gene... one from each parent. We say that one allele is "dominant" over another if when you have one copy of the dominant allele and another copy of the recessive allele, the effect is the same as if you have two copies of the dominant allele. The allele is recessive if you need both your copies of that gene to have the recessive form before it has an effect.

Many genes are not quite that simple, but many others do have a simple dominant/recessive relation between the various possible alleles. This is simply a consequence of how the gene actually works in the biochemistry of your cells. Whether an allele is dominant or recessive is quite independent of whether it is advantageous or disadvantageous.

Eye color (a bit simplified) is governed by a gene with two different alleles... a blue form of the gene and a brown form of the gene. You'll have two copies of that gene; one from each parent. If both of them are the blue allele, then you get blue eyes. If either one is the brown allele, then you get brown eyes. Thus the brown allele is "dominant" and the blue allele is "recessive".

If there is a mutation and it is better, is there a chance it will still not be passed on?

Yes, there is. A "better" gene (or actually, a better allele for some gene) is one that is more likely to be passed on, because having that allele means you are more likely to have more descendants. But it is still possible that you don't actually pass it on, and it is possible that it can even drop out of a population altogether. Being "better" only means it is more likely to be passed on.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[binbots]

WOW, thanks. All I had to do was say I am not that smart and I got everything I wanted. I guess sympathy is a great evolutionary trait of mine.lol i better get breeding.

 

[zomgwtf]

What is the role of dominate chenes in evolution? If a chene is a dominate one is this a form of evolution? Are brown eyes "better" than blue eyes? How is it decided what gene is to be dominate? I have tried to find the answers on my own but maybe this questions are to simple. i just want simple answers. If there is a mutation and it is better, is there a chance it will still not be passed on?

Well the dominant/recessive genes effect the phenotype of the organism. It doesn't really imply anything about the evolution because the 'evolved genes' could be recessive OR dominant, it all depends. This answers your second question as wel, if a gene is dominant it does not imply 'evolution', it just implies greater variance possibilities within our species. This may turn into evolution however depending on what's being selected for sexual reproduction. It's not as simple as 'oh a mutation has occurred which gave me the ability to run faster,' that mutation ALSO has to make you a competitive and successful potential mate.

Dominant genes may be selected for in order to 'squash' unwanted recessive gene traits. These are called autosomal-recessive genetic disorders. One which I know of off the bat is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylketonuria" which can lead to mental retardation. It is more than just a 'single' problem though, if you look further into it but it is still an autosomal recessive disorder and you can see an image on the wikipage showing the inheritance of such a disease. Diseases can also be dominant genetic disorders too.

Eye colour is more than just simple dominant/recessive genes, it involves many genes. Brown is the dominant phenotype though. Depending on where you live and where your parents are from will change the probability of inheriting one of many different eye-colour types.

Nothing is decided in evolution, it just happens.

If there is a mutation it doesn't make it automatically 'better'. It takes many of mutations in order for benefits to be readily noticable. (unless it's for resistance to viruses or disease which is noticable as soon as the event occurs) Most mutations are harmful however and by the way nature is set up will most likely not have a opportunity to be passed on. Genes that are neutral or beneficial have a greater chance of being passed on but it's no guarantee. Human cells also have the ability to correct these mutations when they are made directly from the DNA, this reduces the humans ability to evolve because it gets rid of the majority of mutations that occur indescriminatly.

EDIT: I've noticed sylas posted an entire response as I typed this up.

 

[ThomasEdison]

Nothing is decided in evolution, it just happens.

I wish more people who discussed this topic understood that.

 

[binbots]

Yes, that is a good way of wrapping it up. It sounds a lot like a meditation in a way.

 

[sganesh88]

evolution is NOT random. There are many factors which allow for changes in any organism's inheritable characteristics. Some of them are quite random: eg, the specific location where a cosmic ray might damage its DNA.

Other factors, such as the choices a creature makes in deciding if it should migrate today or in a month are not so random at all ... and the particular choice might have life or death consequences.

Even that decision regarding when it should migrate would have had a random start right? Then by the copy-paste method(inheritance) of evolution, the organism follows the same decision pattern. Evolution doesn't postulate a sit-and-think model of life.
For example, the development of horns in a bull several thousand(or million) years ago and the way the bull began to use it was random. Copy-pasting over successive generations resulted in bulls having non-random horns and using them in a particular non-random way.
So i think evolution is all about random mutations which get inherited. Inheritance is the one that makes the process seem non-random. But the origin of changes is random.

 

[zomgwtf]

Even that decision regarding when it should migrate would have had a random start right? Then by the copy-paste method(inheritance) of evolution, the organism follows the same decision pattern. Evolution doesn't postulate a sit-and-think model of life.
For example, the development of horns in a bull several thousand(or million) years ago and the way the bull began to use it was random. Copy-pasting over successive generations resulted in bulls having non-random horns and using them in a particular non-random way.
So i think evolution is all about random mutations which get inherited. Inheritance is the one that makes the process seem non-random. But the origin of changes is random.

I have to disagree, mutations can occur at random but not all lead to Evolution of an organism. In fact the vast majority (in most species) does not lead to any change in the general population over any amount of time. So while mutation may be random (to some extent) Evolution is not.

 

[tkjtkj]

Even that decision regarding when it should migrate would have had a random start right? Then by the copy-paste method(inheritance) of evolution, the organism follows the same decision pattern. Evolution doesn't postulate a sit-and-think model of life.
For example, the development of horns in a bull several thousand(or million) years ago and the way the bull began to use it was random. Copy-pasting over successive generations resulted in bulls having non-random horns and using them in a particular non-random way.
So i think evolution is all about random mutations which get inherited. Inheritance is the one that makes the process seem non-random. But the origin of changes is random.

'Randomness' is *one* of the forces at work. Eg, if weeks prior to some catastrophe the food supply for the birds at their summer place was destroyed by 'legislative action', (voting is not a random thing, i think you'll agree!), the result might be two groups of birds: those who died for lack of food, and those who decided to migrate early , eg..
Such a migration could be 'species saving' or even lethal, if the time of year were such that food existed at the endpoint of the migration.

We must not carry the idea of randomness to inappropriate degrees.
And why do you say that 'thought/thinking' isn't part of the story of evolutionary forces influencing survival? A smart Hutu (during the time of tribal massacres) who sensed the advisability of escaping early on certainly would be more likely to survive the mass killings.

You might think that evolution is singularly based upon randomness but that is incorrect and is an idea not shared by science.

Natural selection is the *opposite* of chance. The most significant forces at work in natural selection are three , and the first two (mutation and gene recombination) are quite random. 'Necessity' is the 3rd element. Natural selection happens in a milieu of the history of what adaptations have been successful in the past: and that by definition shows that it therefore can not be random.

If you (a clever mathematician) and (not one) attend a casino, your history of knowledge of math makes your betting choices not random, or certainly not as random as mine might be. I.e., your history has modified what is possible for you to do .

Likewise, for an organism to evolve, it had by logical necessity to have been able to survive to the point of time in question: this means that what follows can not possibly be entirely random. The 'possibilities' that the organism has to further evolve have been changed to be different from those of his 'siblings', as it were.

The 'genetic background' of any evolving life form restrains as well as promotes future possibilities. Again, this, therefore can not be seen as 'randomness'. Even your computer as you sit there reading/typing away is incapable of any random act. It's physical construction , etc, requires it not to be able to do random things.

 

[Jon Richfield]

Binbot,
Your question is not unreasonable, and not hard to answer, and you and some of the folk in forum have been making some progress, but one problem is that it is a very old question, so some of them (like me) tend to groan.
For a start, there is the question of just what randomness is. That is not as simple as it sounds, because there are a few ways of defining it. This is not because all or any of those ways are wrong (or right!) but because various ways of looking at the question suit different contexts. In evolution for example, yes, certainly randomness matters and plays major roles, but though there always are random factors (meaning mainly that we lack information on them and cannot correlate them with any clear function) there also are highly non-random factors (meaning that we can find correlations and make predictions with varying (but non-zero) levels of justified confidence.
For example, a wolf bears a litter of say, eight cubs. One of them is clearly larger, stronger, livelier, and more cryptically coloured than the others. Now, suppose that the modal survival rate in that environment is say, one out of a litter of eight. I put it to you that you cannot predict which one will survive with even 50% confidence.
Disagree? Because the cub plainly is a fitter specimen than any sibling? Think again! It just takes one inconveniently placed germ, bear, landslide, or rattlesnake, and our hero is meat, not even history! Some other cubs (if any) carry on the line. That shows that there is an element of unpredictability, no matter what the cub or bear or rattlesnake chose!

However! Suppose you had to bet on which cub would survive in this litter - which one would be the rational choice? In spite of the random aspects that mean that you cannot predict with 50% confidence, in most environments that star cub would be the smart bet if you must bet! And certainly the parents must bet or lose! There certainly are random elements, but there also is enough information to affect the rational prediction.
Of course, if the environment is slanted towards famine, we might prefer to choose a cub that looks as though it could stand hunger, but that does not change the rationality of choosing a likely winner.

Now, given your interest, but lack of formal training (if I understood you correctly) I recommend that you do some reading that directly addresses your questions validly, but at a level that does not require a degree in related matters.
Try:
Dawkins: Climbing mount improbable
The extended phenotype
River Out of Eden

Dennett: Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Maynard Smith and Szathmary: The origins of life.

There are many excellent books on the subject nowadays, and I don't hold much of a brief for anyone in particular, but if any of those leaves you in much doubt, you will at least be able to discuss the matter more confidently in this forum.

Jon

 

[zomgwtf]

Jon Richfield, I have to disagree with what you have posted. Genetic variation is possibly the only 'random' event that leads to evolution... however genetic variation in single organisms is not evolution. So that means based on genetic variation we can not conclude evolution is random. (Because most of these genetic variations are discarded) Evolution is partly based on the genetic variations so randomness does play a role but evolution is not dependent on random acts. That's to say, it doesn't matter what comes out of the genetic variations evolution will still happen.

Natural selection is far, far from random. It doesn't matter if your hero bear died from a lightning strike or if it won the state lottery and moved to Cancun. No where in theories of evolution will you find that evolution specifically chooses larger, faster, stronger, brighter etc. animals over another. It all comes down to inheritance of genes, the animals that pass on their genes carry on the evolution of their species. Period.
Nothing is random about this at all and over time it's clear that the animals that pass on their genes are the best adapted for the environment and have a higher probability of being chosen to mate with.

 

[tkjtkj]

It all comes down to inheritance of genes, the animals that pass on their genes carry on the evolution of their species. Period.
Nothing is random about this at all and over time it's clear that the animals that pass on their genes are the best adapted for the environment and have a higher probability of being chosen to mate with.

Well, you are *sorta* right, in that genes must be inherited to allow natural selection to occur . .but the determining element is *natural selection* , not genes, not heredity, not anything else. I.e., does an organism have a competitive advantage, no matter how slight, over its niche-sharing brethren. .. And that situation, the *environment* is as critical as is the capability of an organism to survive. Both environment and the physical capabilities/characteristics are what allows *NATURAL SELECTION* to progress.

If I have 100 fruit flies in a screen-mesh cage, half of whom have wings and half of which , by some mutation, lack wings, its the winged individuals which will survive. BUT: if i attach a fan to the side of the cage, (i.e., i change the environment) its then the WINGLESS that survive! Only they are able to complete mating, not being blown off by the 'high wind'.

*ENVIRONMENT* is the 'filter' that determines which individuals survive.. and that *environment* can be called the *natural selector* !

 

[zomgwtf]

Well, you are *sorta* right, in that genes must be inherited to allow natural selection to occur . .but the determining element is *natural selection* , not genes, not heredity, not anything else. I.e., does an organism have a competitive advantage, no matter how slight, over its niche-sharing brethren. .. And that situation, the *environment* is as critical as is the capability of an organism to survive. Both environment and the physical capabilities/characteristics are what allows *NATURAL SELECTION* to progress.

If I have 100 fruit flies in a screen-mesh cage, half of whom have wings and half of which , by some mutation, lack wings, its the winged individuals which will survive. BUT: if i attach a fan to the side of the cage, (i.e., i change the environment) its then the WINGLESS that survive! Only they are able to complete mating, not being blown off by the 'high wind'.

*ENVIRONMENT* is the 'filter' that determines which individuals survive.. and that *environment* can be called the *natural selector* !

I'm not sure exactly how this contradicts anything I've said in my post?

 

[sganesh88]

I think i need to specify clearly what i mean by "random" and how i conclude evolution is, according to that definition, random. Ofcourse when a bear falls from a mountain, its initial downward acceleration is 9.8m/s/s.-> not random. In the group of fruitflies you mentioned, those with wings survive(no fan scenario)-> not random.

But look at the origin of all these. This touches upon the concept of freewill and let me be clear that i DON'T support creationism(I hope that will make you read the whole post without sarcasm)

Can an organism by itself "decide" the outcome of events and work towards it? . When an organism X confronts a situation (Like the casino situation you mentioned), its history helps it in dealing with it. Courtesy:Genes. If i am a good mathematician, I can easily calculate mentally and have a better chance of winning the game--> Not random in a superficial way. But what made me a good mathematician? Was that consciously decided by me independent of my past history? or was the decision to pursue math deterministic?

Let's go to a hypothetical scenario. Two groups-> Predator X and prey Y. In the Prey group Y, all the members individually get affected by the predator group X. Some random mutation occurs in one particular individual of the Y group leading to the formation of rudimentary eye that helped it escape from X. It then went far, mated with other Ys. A group of Ys with eyes became commonplace after several generations because other Ys were eaten away by Xs.
This is what we call Natural selection. But think about other unfortunate individuals of the Y group. Does this mean they have simply no role in the encounter with X group? They couldn't have done anything. They went down without any conscious fight. Meaning that their fate isn't in their "hands".

Analogous to this, Evolution says that the determination of greats like Gandhi,Einstein and Abe Lincoln are just random(random according to this definition) because they were just groups of cells acting in unison and the genes instructing them to behave in such a way in such a situation(not random in a superficial way). There was never a conscious fight. If there seemed to be one, it was just an illusion. Am i right in understanding Evolution in this perspective?

 

[zomgwtf]

You have not explained anything showing that evolution is random.

 

[sganesh88]

The result of the encounter between X and Y i described above was not random in one way. The one that developed eye got through. But think about the situation from the perspective of one of the unfortunate individuals of the Prey group Y. To it, it was completely random. It could have done nothing if its genetic make up was the only thing that decided its fate.
Taking the same result to humans; the development of great personalities also becomes a random process. Random w.r.t them. They cannot consciously fight with their internal and societal instincts and achieve success for sure, is what evolution says.

 

[zomgwtf]

They cannot consciously fight with their internal and societal instincts and achieve success for sure, is what evolution says.

Evolution is a term used to describe change in inheritable traits over time in a POPULATION... You are not describing evolution the same way science looks at it. To you evolution is a 'one man show' but it's really not.

 

[tkjtkj]

I'm not sure exactly how this contradicts anything I've said in my post?

I merely wanted to strongly draw this distinction: evolution is NOT
'genes' .. Evolution is *Natural Selection*.

Genes are only one thing that may affect the direction of an evolving species (and, of course, ALL species are evolving .. ). The very same gene or its mutation can be either adaptive (pressuring survival), maladaptive (pressuring extinction) , or neutral. It is only in the framework of the environment that a gene's consequences appear.

Btw, most gene mutations are either maladaptive or neutral ..

We're not very far apart ;) You do know much about this stuff..

 

[sganesh88]

Evolution is a term used to describe change in inheritable traits over time in a POPULATION... You are not describing evolution the same way science looks at it. To you evolution is a 'one man show' but it's really not.

Changes begin with one or a few individuals in the population. From that perspective, they become significant to the entire evolution process. You consider your life worthless compared to the society's existence?

 

[tkjtkj]

I think i need to specify clearly what i mean by "random" and how i conclude evolution is, according to that definition, random. Ofcourse when a bear falls from a mountain, its initial downward acceleration is 9.8m/s/s.-> not random. In the group of fruitflies you mentioned, those with wings survive(no fan scenario)-> not random.

But look at the origin of all these. This touches upon the concept of freewill and let me be clear that i DON'T support creationism(I hope that will make you read the whole post without sarcasm)

Can an organism by itself "decide" the outcome of events and work towards it? . When an organism X confronts a situation (Like the casino situation you mentioned), its history helps it in dealing with it. Courtesy:Genes. If i am a good mathematician, I can easily calculate mentally and have a better chance of winning the game--> Not random in a superficial way. But what made me a good mathematician? Was that consciously decided by me independent of my past history? or was the decision to pursue math deterministic?

Let's go to a hypothetical scenario. Two groups-> Predator X and prey Y. In the Prey group Y, all the members individually get affected by the predator group X. Some random mutation occurs in one particular individual of the Y group leading to the formation of rudimentary eye that helped it escape from X. It then went far, mated with other Ys. A group of Ys with eyes became commonplace after several generations because other Ys were eaten away by Xs.
This is what we call Natural selection. But think about other unfortunate individuals of the Y group. Does this mean they have simply no role in the encounter with X group? They couldn't have done anything. They went down without any conscious fight. Meaning that their fate isn't in their "hands".

Analogous to this, Evolution says that the determination of greats like Gandhi,Einstein and Abe Lincoln are just random(random according to this definition) because they were just groups of cells acting in unison and the genes instructing them to behave in such a way in such a situation(not random in a superficial way). There was never a conscious fight. If there seemed to be one, it was just an illusion. Am i right in understanding Evolution in this perspective?

No.
Your logic would cause you to believe you're right , ultimately right, because you'd say that the entire world is random, as the Big Bang was a random event.

But the Big Bang was NOT a random event. The behaviour of the plasmas, the ions, the gases, the forces, etc, all acted according to known physical laws. And that is antithetical to any sense of 'randomness'.

How can 'randomness' allow that nearly all vertebrates have very similar body structure? How can a whale have 5 fingers, as does a lemming? How 'random' can it be that insects have the same exoskeletonous body form? How can randomness account for the extreme similarity of various entirely different flower species??

Evolution is NOT random. 'Randomness' it self is a 'binary concept' . .there is no 'middleground' .. either a thing is random or it is not: as with the computer example i gave, we even refer to a computer's RNG (random number generator) as producing PSEUDO random numbers. As we evolve we are *constrained* in what we can evolve into... One can not have 'constrained randomness'.

 

[sganesh88]

Tkjtkj can i have your response for my arguments? Am i going wrong somewhere?

 

[zomgwtf]

Changes begin with one or a few individuals in the population. From that perspective, they become significant to the entire evolution process. You consider your life worthless compared to the society's existence?

Yes according to evolution my life IS rather worthless relative to socieities existence. How is that hard to comprehend?

 

[sganesh88]

Sorry i was viewing the 2nd page again and again; didnt notice your post.

Your logic would cause you to believe you're right , ultimately right, because you'd say that the entire world is random, as the Big Bang was a random event.

We can't precisely say how an individual subatomic particle will behave. Randomness seems to be the inherent nature of universe. Not just during the big bang. Even now. Forever presumably.
But can you exactly pinpoint where i have gone wrong in my argument (the X-Y scenario and the analogy derived for humans)? so i can correct myself. Thanks.

 

[zomgwtf]

Tkjtkj can i have your response for my arguments? Am i going wrong somewhere?

You are changning the definitions of the words you are using, such as 'evolution' and 'random' in order to fit a preconceived notion that evolution IS random.

It truly is NOT random, it just HAPPENS naturally.

There is no CHANCE involved in natural selection. It is either you reproduce or you don't and it is assumed that those who have the opportunity to reproduce were BETTER SUITED for mating in an ENTIRE POPULATION. Why? Because they DID reproduce. This means that THEIR genes are inherited, rinse and repeat. Sure in HINDSIGHT you can say 'oh it was shear luck that this organism with this gene mated with this one and had x children with said gene' but it WAS NOT LUCK. IT WAS NATURE. Over time these changes can be seen and THAT is what is called evolution. There is no dice rolling in this to decide who mates and who doesn't.

Mind you this is quite a dumbed-down version.

 

[sylas]

You are changning the definitions of the words you are using, such as 'evolution' and 'random' in order to fit a preconceived notion that evolution IS random.

It truly is NOT random, it just HAPPENS naturally.

There is no CHANCE involved in natural selection. It is either you reproduce or you don't and it is assumed that those who have the opportunity to reproduce were BETTER SUITED for mating in an ENTIRE POPULATION. Why? Because they DID reproduce. This means that THEIR genes are inherited, rinse and repeat. Sure in HINDSIGHT you can say 'oh it was shear luck that this organism with this gene mated with this one and had x children with said gene' but it WAS NOT LUCK. IT WAS NATURE. Over time these changes can be seen and THAT is what is called evolution. There is no dice rolling in this to decide who mates and who doesn't.

This doesn't fit my notions of random, or chance, or evolution, or selection.

Chance is critical in the theory of evolution, and specifically in population genetics. For example, you can give probabilities for a particular mutation to become fixed or eliminated in a population. There's a definite and quite substantial, in fact, chance that a beneficial mutation will be eliminated. That's because natural selection is about amplifying the small changes in probabilities that arise in all the random chances of life for an individual with a given mutation.

For example, have a look at Population genetics: a concise guide, by John H. Gillespie (2004). I found that reference just with a quick google because I knew pretty much any basic reference would tell the same story. Note that there's an appendix on probability. It's essential to figuring out how evolution works.

Another important feature of evolution is called "genetic drift". This is basically change which has negligible consequences for an organism, so there's no natural selection involved. It's still evolution, by biological definitions.

A really good resource for learning more about evolutionary theory is the talkorigins archive. A sample article there is Random Genetic Drift , by Professor Larry Moran. This is a website intended to give basic information for interested readers; and I think it is an excellent starting point. Full disclosure; I've long been involved personally in talkorigins, which is current moribund after a hack attempt probably from creationists. (They really don't like it.) But I think it will be back up and working again sometime soon with a whole pile of new features.

So I disagree. Evolution truly IS random. But random is not the same as a coin flip. Evolution works its wonders by biasing the dice. And it is amazing what you can achieve with a small bias in a random chances of life. I'm also an ex-blackjack card counter. I was able to get maybe a 1% edge over the casino until I was caught and banned and had to find another hobby. Was it random. Sure. But will the casino always make money? Sure. They make sure they have the edge, and that's all they need.

Cheers -- sylas

PS. Your caps lock key seems to be sticking.

PPS. I'm using the conventional biological definition of evolution as any change in the distributions of heritable characteristics within a population over time.

 

[zomgwtf]

PPS. I'm using the conventional biological definition of evolution as any change in the distributions of heritable characteristics within a population over time.

The genetic changes that occur are definitely random yes... no one has said otherwise. Evolution however is not individual genetic changes in an organism but genetic change in an entire population of species. It's not by chance that the organism gets to mate and continue the inheritance, it is something that occurs naturally for various reason.

Only in hindsight can we look back and say 'well it's lucky that humans evolved larger brains when they could have just as easily stayed with more primative brains,' the thing is though that it was not by chance but by natural selection and other mechanisms which I don't feel like getting into in this particular thread.

 

[zomgwtf]

This doesn't fit my notions of random, or chance, or evolution, or selection.

Random- governed by or depending on chance;

Chance- luck: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another

Evolution- (biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
OR
change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations

Both meaning the same thing. Of course randomness has effects on Evolution but that is far from being the same as saying Evolution is random. Period.

 

[Jon Richfield]

Hi zomgwtf,
Thanks for the call.
>I have to disagree with what you have posted.<
“No cow is like a horse.
No horse is like a cow.
That’s one similarity anyhow.”
Ogden Nash
So we can be equally comfortable in the closeness of our agreement. Now…
>Genetic variation is possibly the only 'random' event that leads to evolution...<
Not at all very possibly! For one thing, I rather fancy I pointed out the contingent nature of randomness, though I did not spell it out because it is an old topic. Consider: suppose I were to give you this string of digits to evaluate for randomness: 5517027618386062613313845 Perhaps you say: Ahah! It fails the test in such and such an attribute. Then I say: try this one: 7245870066063155881748815. You react in much the same way. OK, I say, you don’t think much of my random number generator, but let’s see you correlate the two. In fact, let's see you correlate a mathematically large expansion of those digits with any other sequence that is mathematically independent of them.
So far so trivial, but it leaves one of us with the problem of how one is to decide whether the numbers are random or not. Even if you do not fail to correlate either of the sequences with some function each, unless you can predict how the next digit of one sequence will correlate with the corresponding digit of the other without calculating both of these first, how can you say that they are not random relative to each other?
Now, as you have noticed, these two sample strings are in fact from highly non-random sequences, in the sense that they can be generated to arbitrary lengths by fairly short programs. In fact programming courses often include their generation as demonstration exercises. One comes from pi and the other from e. From another point of view however, they are highly random. From what external criterion that does has no isomorphism with either of them, would you undertake to predict their next digit, much less the mod 10 difference between the two?
What, you might ask in rebuttal, does that have to do with randomness in evolution? In particular what does it have to do with randomness other than in genetic variation in evolution?
Well, firstly, just how random is genetic variation? Not really very. There are all kinds of biases and constraints that make certain mutations likelier than others, and what is more, make the effect of certain mutations more relevant than others. To put it another way, we might not easily predict the next effective mutation, but we would hate to use spontaneous genetic change as a random number generator!
So genetic change is not as random as we might like, not as mathematicians or computer scientists anyway. But as biologists we might well argue that it is random enough for jazz. However, what about the other variables? What other variables are there? The first thing to bear in mind is that we are customarily very loose in our use of terms like “evolution”. Usually people say “evolution” when they mean “Darwinism” which is more like the effect on a population, of natural selection. Evolution, as I am sure you realize, is something more like the more or less systematic change of a population’s gene pool (the relative frequencies of given genetic attributes from generation to generation, if you like). But what is natural selection? It is (correct me by all means!) the relative frequency of successful reproduction of organisms of distinct heritably determined phenotypes in given ecological circumstances. A little more indirectly (or directly, if your name happens to be Richard) this translates into selection for given genetic attributes.
Well now, what can we do about predicting the nature of our ecology? Is it random? Is it? If so, with respect to what? The genomes of the population? You might have some trouble denying that one! Let’s see you justify your prediction of the correlation between whether our wolf cub gets poisoned by a touch of botulism in carrion, or starvation because there is no carrion. Or by a bear because he cannot fit into a hole when his smaller sibling can. Or a snakebite because with his superior speed and strength he got to the snake first? Is all that so very predictable? And if not, how do you make it out to be less random than genetic change? And if it is, how do you correlate it with genetic change?
Let’s change the subject and move on to sentence 2.
>...however genetic variation in single organisms is not evolution. <
***Really?*** We learn something new every day! Firstly, I assume that what you mean is that genetic variation between the organism and its parent(s) is not evolution? (If not, please enlarge; you would have me completely nonplussed!)
Frankly, I cannot treat that assertion seriously. Firstly, there is for a start a difference between generations, which by definition is evolution. OK, I grant that statistically speaking such a tiny change is typically undetectable or apparently negligible, but remember that a typical mutation begins with a single event in a single organism. Natural selection does not say non-randomly: hey, time for a selection event; let's have a new gene appear in one thousand flies (or flowers or mould cells, or sardines). A single nucleic acid change in a single cell is the start. It might take several subsequent changes to fix and optimise the effect in response to selection, but each of those in turn starts in one organism. Adaptive evolution is not a single event, a population suddenly switching from one phenotype to another; it begins by selection of one parent and develops from there.
Of course, if the original change is say, recessive or otherwise silent, growing adventitiously in the population, the frequency might (ahem!) randomly increase in the population because of founder effects and the like, but how are you going to argue that that is non-random?

>So that means based on genetic variation we can not conclude evolution is random. (Because most of these genetic variations are discarded)<
Sorry zomgwtf; that is a simple non-sequitur, even in the light of your own claims. Would you care to rephrase it?
>Evolution is partly based on the genetic variations so randomness does play a role but evolution is not dependent on random acts. That's to say, it doesn't matter what comes out of the genetic variations evolution will still happen.<
That was not a great deal better. Darwinistic adaptation depends on natural selection, ie differential reproduction in terms of heritable differences within a population. Theoretically this does not demand randomness in either genetic change or ecological circumstances. In practice however, there is little possibility to predict either the genetic changes, or the details of the empirical events.
So far so random!
***BUT*** given certain information about changes in the environment and the populations within it, we can make some kinds of predictions. Some would be of a general handwaving type, such as “No miracles please; this is science”. I would undertake to breed pigs with wings by simple selection (no GMOs for instance), given a few million years, but to produce flying pigs by natural selection in a human lifetime would not work, even though most of their genome is simply convertible to bat sequences. Conversely, we know very well that a typical generalist ground squirrel population living in a region between forest and savannah is almost bound to produce the likes of both tree squirrels and groundhogs or prairie dogs unless there are already competitors blocking some of those options.
That is where the predictability, the non-randomness of natural selection comes in. I think it was G.G. Simpson who coined the term “evolutionary opportunism”. When we know the selective pressures and the genetic resources, we can make a very good guess at the trends of adaptation.

>No where in theories of evolution will you find that evolution specifically chooses larger, faster, stronger, brighter etc. animals over another.<
Do I smell straw? I am not aware that I suggested that you would find anything of the type. However, I do propose that natural selection would indeed favour such creatures very specifically indeed, as long as a) there was nothing stopping it; and b) these attributes were favourable to their successful reproduction. In fact, you do not make it clear why you urge this, because it is exactly a point that illustrates the fundamental nature of non-randomness in evolution!
>It all comes down to inheritance of genes, the animals that pass on their genes carry on the evolution of their species. Period. <
Yes? I find it hard to take that with a straight face. Would you care to explain either what anyone said to deny it, or what it has to do with either the randomness or non-randomness of evolution?

>Nothing is random about this at all and over time it's clear that the animals that pass on their genes are the best adapted for the environment and have a higher probability of being chosen to mate with. <
Zomgwtf, that sounds sooo cogent! Nothing is random about it hm? I have never seen a finer example of proof by re-assertion. I have at tedious length (let’s see you deny that!) demonstrated aspects of randomness and non-randomness in all those aspects. It is simply the way the world works. Nothing random? Next time you see an oyster or salmon or cnidarian spawning, please predict which of the offspring will be “best adapted for the environment and have a higher probability of being chosen to mate with”. It is no good claiming *after* the event that you could tell which was which; if that was good enough, you would win every bet on the horses or the lotteries. Remember what Bohr said about prediction?
Sorry mate! That is what randomness does. If it weren’t random you *could* predict it. You might argue that it isn’t randomness that causes a fair coin to fall unpredictably, but then what would *you* call it? Bad luck?
Jon

 

[sylas]

The genetic changes that occur are definitely random yes... no one has said otherwise. Evolution however is not individual genetic changes in an organism but genetic change in an entire population of species. It's not by chance that the organism gets to mate and continue the inheritance, it is something that occurs naturally for various reason.

Only in hindsight can we look back and say 'well it's lucky that humans evolved larger brains when they could have just as easily stayed with more primative brains,' the thing is though that it was not by chance but by natural selection.

It certainly IS by chance that an organism manages to mate and pass on their genes. Most organisms have a heck of a lot more than two offspring per generation, ten or twelve or twenty or thousands. In the long run, (for the simple sexually producing case anyway) two offspring manage it.

Or consider plants. Evolution works for all life and making sure the theory works across the board means thinking of them as well. I remain quietly confident that chance is absolutely critical for success in mating.

In fact, I would think for the great majority of organisms, it's not even close. When you have thousands of spoors or seeds going out, some with one mutation and some with another, what's the biggest factor? I propose it is chance.

One problem is that people mix up chance with the idea of 50/50. (Casinos love those people.) They aren't the same thing at all.

The effects of selection are to bias the odds, usually just a little bit. And that is enough to mean that, over long time spans, fitness of the population is usually maintained. Because when you have long time spans with thousands of generations, a little bit of selection can have a dramatic effect.

You seem to be speaking of natural selection as something deterministic. It isn't. In population genetics, a gene (or more correctly, an allele) is said to increase reproductive fitness if organisms with that mutation are more likely to have surviving offspring. But it is certainly not a guarantee.

There is a finite non-negligible probability for any allele to be either fixed, or eliminated in a population. Either result is evolution, by definition, because it is a change in the distributions of alleles within the population. I know it is not about individuals. That's why my earlier post consistently refers to populations throughout, and refers you to texts on populations genetics, which go into the maths involved.

If you have a stable population of N individuals (a nice simple ideal case to start explaining this things), then a neutral mutation has a 1/N chance of being fixed, and a (N-1)/N chance of being eliminated. There's no selection involved here at all, but it is still evolution, of course; by the definition we have both been using. (1/2N if we get into the whole haploid diploid thing.)

But what if there is selection involved. In that case a beneficial allele is one with a greater than 1/N chance of being passed on, and a detrimental allele is one with a less than 1/N chance of being passed on. In either case, the odds are stacked against being passed on... even for beneficial alleles.

The best you can say is that in the long run, the casino wins. But it does so with a random walk, and precisely where you end up depends on chance, to a considerable degree. So sure, I continue to think of evolution as "random", meaning not that all results are equally likely, but only that the outcome depends on chance.

You seem to suggest that it was inevitable that we'd end up with large brains. Why would you think that? Personally, I think luck or chance had a heck of a lot to do with it. The vast majority of other living organisms on this planet didn't go that road, so why us? You know what I think? Chance. And why not? Was it inevitable that the robust Australopithenes are now extinct, but the gracile Australopithecenes live on, indirectly, as their descendents in the Homo genus? I don't think so; but then I don't think natural selection is a deterministic forces that ensures a particular result with regard for chance.

I think if we were able to somehow wind back the clock ten million years and run it again, there's no assurance at all that large brained hominids would reach plague proportions in the present. They might, they might not. They did in the only time we've run the experiment, but to say this wasn't luck is kind of assuming the conclusion, isn't it?

Natural selection itself is not chance, I agree. But evolution is not natural selection. It is change in distributions of heritable characteristics of populations. Natural selection has an impact on evolution because it modifies the chances of life and love for individuals with different characteristics.

Cheers -- sylas

PS. Missed two posts while I was writing. I think I'll read for a bit before writing again. Pleased to meet you, Jon.

 

[zomgwtf]

The evolution of larger brains WAS inevitable, given the conditions for survival, when they began to develop. Just because it was by chance that the brain somehow did change does not mean that it being inherited and passed on generation to generation is random as well.

 

[sylas]

The evolution of larger brains WAS inevitable, given the conditions for survival, when they began to develop. Just because it was by chance that the brain somehow did change does not mean that it being inherited and passed on generation to generation is random as well.

Well, I have yet to see any actual argument for this inevitability; only the assertion. You might be right (but I don't think so). It doesn't follow from conventional biological evolution, or any modern biological theory. It sounds more like some kind of throwback to pre-evolutionary ideas.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Jon Richfield]

zomgwtf:

>Random- governed by or depending on chance;<
Taken out of context this is meaningless; tautological at best. In probability theory you need to do a LOT more than that. Also in simple good sense; this is simply the kind of informal factoid that lexicographers come up with when they have asked an expert for a definitive answer and have failed to understand that they have missed half the point.


>Chance- luck: an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another<

<snggr!> zomgwtf, REALLY! Would you care to paraphrase that? So chance - luck is a phenomenon that causes things huh? Like gravity?
Yeah... riiiiiightt! ROFL^n!


>Evolution- (biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms<

Try writing that in answer to an exam in evolution 101 and you would get a flat zero! Don't you know a tautology when you see it? Even apart from the tautological aspects, that is nonsense as it stands. This student must try harder!

OR

>change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations<

This is a lot better, though not formally cogent. It hints at the right idea though. Not that it clarifies the concept of natural selection in relation to evolution, which is not at all the same thing, though the relationship between the two is commonly misunderstood. For people who don't know the context that could be badly misleading.

>Both meaning the same thing.<
zomgwtf <Haaawwwww-haaaah-haaa! da capo> That has to be the funniest thing you have said in this exchange! Have mercy, man!

>Of course randomness has effects on Evolution but that is far from being the same as saying Evolution is random. Period.<

Aaaaah! The soothing voice of sanity and authority. At last! All settled. Mmmm... yes. Sort of...

Errr. zomgwtf...

zomgwtf, ol' pal ol' chum, one little detail. Just who said that "Evolution is random"? Not me for sure. Not anyone else that I took seriously.
And: "Of course randomness has effects on Evolution"?
What is that supposed to mean? If I wrote that in an exam, I had better hope it was not an exam in evolution, or even in advanced general biology. I would be lucky to fail without a black eye from the lecturer for cheek!

>Period<?
Oh. Well at least that sounds authoritative!

go well

Exclamation mark!

And Sylas, many thanks for the welcome. Pleased to meet you too :-)

All the best,

Jon

 

[sylas]

And Sylas, many thanks for the welcome. Pleased to meet you too :-)

It is just possible that we've online before. I initially learned about evolution by reading and then cutting my teeth on discussions, on USENET. P*t*r Ny*k*s is a mutual, uh, acquaintance. My own name is Chris Ho-Stuart.

zomgwtf, some of this discussion will turn somewhat on the meanings of words. Other more definite statements (like a confident claim about a particular evolutionary outcome in a given environment) are a bit more than this.

However, I have a good friend, John Wilkins, who is a genuine academic Philosopher of Biology. (That's like philosophy of science, but a specific to biological science.) And we have a mutual net-friend (whom I have cited previously) in Professor Larry Moran, who is an evolutionary biologist paying never no mind to uppity philosophers.

When the two of them start writing papers at each other, the rest of us may not get a definite answer to the original question, but we can sure learn a heck of a lot about evolution!

Larry can be summarized as "evolution by accident" is an accurate description of how evolution occurs, pointing to how chance and contingency are deeply involved in every step of the way from the sources of new variations to the events which lead them to be passed on, or not; much as I have done. John, on the other hand, can be summarized as "evolution is not fundamentally a random process." He doesn't deny the obvious role of chance in mating, in survival, in mutations, living long enough to breed and so on. But he tends to draw a sharper boundary between the chances and the processes of evolution. Both are quite prolific contributors to the old talkorigins archive, and they continue to comment on each other's blogs on this and other matters.

I'll see if I can get some references, which shouldn't be taken as closing the debate, but seeing how various other people have approached this question.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[tkjtkj]

Sorry i was viewing the 2nd page again and again; didnt notice your post.

We can't precisely say how an individual subatomic particle will behave. Randomness seems to be the inherent nature of universe. Not just during the big bang. Even now. Forever presumably.
But can you exactly pinpoint where i have gone wrong in my argument (the X-Y scenario and the analogy derived for humans)? so i can correct myself. Thanks.

I try my best, but for some reason I'm unable to get thru .. I've demonstrated why randomness is *IMPOSSIBLE* as the sole determinant of evolution.. And yet, you still ask me to show , again, where you are incorrect.

I'm sorry if I am unable to make myself clear. Once again, i can suggest you read the following text:

"Inside the Human Genome" by John C. Avise

..tho i feel that even after you've read his extremely clear, erudite discussion, you'll come back with the same questions.

tkjk, md <ret>

 

[Jon Richfield]

tkjtkj,
I cannot agree where you say "One can not have 'constrained randomness'. " I would go further and ask where we can have unconstrained randomness. I have never seen an example.

Just to forfend any misunderstandings, I think that Darwinism is a class of process, the course of which is affected by innumerable "random" effects and events, but which none the less is far from random in its nature and effects, so let us not get side tracked. What I am speaking about now is about randomness, not natural selection.

As I have said elsewhere, selection (not necessarily in the Darwinian sense!) from an unconstrained set is hard to imagine. In fact, equiprobable selection from an infinite set, constrained or not, is a very slippery concept, fraught with paradox. No one in human history has managed to make a random selection from even the numbers in the interval 0-1.

No one ever will.

How do I know? Because there is not enough matter in the observable universe to represent any number from any *subset* with a non-zero probability of fair selection.

Right?

Randomness from our point of view has to do with lack of information. The information might not be there at all, if various physical theories have any substance (personally I conditionally accept those theories, simply because I am not equipped to deny them and they seem to work in practice, so my inability to see how things can "just happen" is irrelevant. Mind you, it does seem to me to have a lot to do with the Aspect experiments and the Bell inequality.)

However, one need not appeal to quantum theory. We live in a chaotic universe. Consider a thought experiment : you have two (perfect) pool balls on a (perfect) pool table. One ball is at an arbitrary point on the surface, such that it is not perpendicular to any wall where there is a pocket. Put the cue ball on the surface perpendicularly between that ball and the table wall.

Got it so far?

Now Mr Super-player gives the cue ball a hefty whack so that it hits the first ball against the wall, and bounces against the cue ball. The two balls merrily go bouncing back and forth, and being perfect balls on a perfect table, they go on bouncing on the same line forever, right?

We had better assume that Mr Super-player is very symmetrical of course, because think what would happen if the balls were to strike each other off-centre by even the minimal Planck's distance, what... 10^-40 m? how many impacts would it take before we got a complete miss? If you bother to calculate it, you will be shocked at how quickly it would happen. In real life, you would be doing very well to get even *two* collisions (try it if you don't believe me!) Even the gravitational effect of Schroedinger's cat sneezing in its box 10000km away round the planet would disturb our ideal balls more than enough to prevent a long series of impacts.

Now, randomness in evolution has little to do with equiprobability, but it has much to do with unpredictability, and precise predictability is alien to our universe. To understand the role of randomness in evolution one has to understand those facts even more than one has to understand the nature(s) of randomness.

Just a few thoughts...

Jon

PS Oh, and btw, if anyone still thinks that evolution is random in any naive sense, let me refer him once more to the list of books I mentioned earlier in this thread. They are by far not the only ones, and any aficionado will have his own list, but they should suffice, no matter how one defines randomness in any defensible way.

PPS. Let's stop again for a think, thank, thunk. Let's reject all hidden variables in physics, sticking to the purest QM view of reality. OK? Now, that means that the basis of any event or effect in nature is fundamentally random, right? OK again?
That implies that all events in nature, whether the snozing of a sneeze, the falling of a stone, the running of a race, the raising of a skyscraper, the digestion of a steak, or the absorption of a microgram of Po, is random, right?

Rrrr... errr... well...

Maybe not quite so right. In another thread they are discussing the addition of random numbers and proof that the results must also be random. You might wish to check on that discussion. Here I merely remark that there is food for thought.
J.

 

[Jon Richfield]

Sylas,
>It is just possible that we've online before. ... P*t*r Ny*k*s is a mutual, uh, acquaintance. <

Oh, right! I had almost forgotten that!
Such contacts, whether on USENET or any constructive forum are in my opinion enormously educational if one takes them in a suitable spirit. The gentleman in question seems to have taken our debate less affably, and did not respond to my greeting the next time we encountered each other.

Pity, still... plenty of other congenial spirits on line! For example, in a months correspondence I cannot remember his making a single substantial statement, whereas in this present forum I disagree with much that some people say, but at least they are saying things and mostly staying friendly!

My respects and thanks accordingly, to all of you!

All the best,

Jon

 

[sganesh88]

Jon and Sylas, can i have your thoughts on my posts? especially this post no.27
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2652943&postcount=27