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What constitutes as random/chance?

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theIdi0t

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We can all agree that the outcome of a flip of a coin is a matter of chance, winning the lottery is a matter of chance, picking out the Ace of Spades from a full deck is a matter of chance. But I am curious as to know what the YEC position on chance is when it concerns hereditary diseases and the genetic composition of one's offspring.

Do YECs agree that sex is determined by chance (at least in most cases)? Do YECs agree that the our genetic make up is made up of a random mixing of the genes of our parents, and that hereditary diseases are passed along by chance as well?
 

busterdog

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We can all agree that the outcome of a flip of a coin is a matter of chance, winning the lottery is a matter of chance, picking out the Ace of Spades from a full deck is a matter of chance. But I am curious as to know what the YEC position on chance is when it concerns hereditary diseases and the genetic composition of one's offspring.

Do YECs agree that sex is determined by chance (at least in most cases)? Do YECs agree that the our genetic make up is made up of a random mixing of the genes of our parents, and that hereditary diseases are passed along by chance as well?

I think we are back to an unanswered question on chaos theory.

From the perspective of just before the coin flip, there are doubts. But, apparently you would be able to construct an algorythm to describe what the coin does and why it comes up heads or tails -- after the fact. So, where does tthat leave you?

Heisenberg called certain aspects of particle motion fundamentally random process, I believe.

Does anybody know?

Chuck Missler alleges that no true randomness has ever been found, except in theory.
 
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crawfish

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Chuck Missler alleges that no true randomness has ever been found, except in theory.

Of course, no computer has true "random" capability. One of my early programming assignments was to create a slide show utility for images with transitions; one transition would divide the image into a grid and randomly display elements of that grid as the transition.

Interestingly enough, the built-in random function, at times, would "clump together" items it generated, creating an unpleasant effect that didn't seem random. I wrote my own random routine that would ensure the generated numbers were of an even distribution to make the transition look random.

The point of that long, unnecessary story is, the true test of randomness isn't that it's random, but that it seems random.
 
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crawfish

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Is this to say that nothing happens at random, but that somethings seem to happen at random?

Randomness is the appearance of randomness. Typically, most things we see as "random" are not truly random; tiny fluctuations in the environment can make some outcomes more likely than others.

You can think of it somewhat like a binary tree structure, with one node at the top, each node splitting into two separate nodes. At the bottom you can have billions of nodes; however, when traversing the tree from top to bottom by picking a node randomly, the number of options decreases by half each time. What seemed like a one-in-billions chance when you started becomes more and more likely the farther down the tree you travel.

This is why the ID statistical ratios don't work. They really don't take this into account.
 
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busterdog

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Define random. Statistically random, causally random, or ontologically random?

That would be the point, wouldn't it?

Could you prove something to be "onologically random"?

You may prove the inability to anticipate an event. I think that is Heisenberg.
 
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shernren

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Could you prove something to be "onologically random"?

Probably not.

You may prove the inability to anticipate an event. I think that is Heisenberg.

Well let me make up a tree of randomness.

Randomness can be of two kinds: ontological - in terms of meaning - or methodological - in terms of practical predictability.

There are two kinds of methodological randomness: statistical randomness, and causal randomness. In both cases, we predict and manipulate the properties of an ensemble of observations, without knowing - or needing to know - the individual observations ahead of time. For example, on average, 1/6 rolls of a fair die will yield the number 1. On average, 10 people out of a thousand will die of car accidents each year in a particular country. On average, 1/2 of the radioactive nuclei in a particular sample will decay over one half-life.

But there's an important difference between something that is statistically random and something causally random. The first two examples are statistically random. We don't predict observations on an individual level not because we can't, but because we're too lazy to. For example take a die throw. In theory, I could look at the initial position of the die, the force applied by the thrower's hand, the air currents, the distance from the table, and the force of gravity, and plug all that into a huge computer which would then tell me precisely what number would come up. Or for car drivers: given a particular accident, I can tell you that the guy got into it because he was trying to shave in the rearview mirror when the traffic light in front of him suddenly turned red. Given his particular situation, I can predict that he'd suffer a bad crash, and if I had the same information on everything that every driver did every day before they got into the car I could tell you about their accidents or not as well.

Whereas for something causally random, there is no previous trigger, no cause, no hidden variable. Something just ... happens. That's the case with radioactive atoms decaying, and excited electrons emitting light, and lots of other stuff. You can't tell which nucleus will decay, or when the electron will jump to a lower level, no matter how much information you collect about them.

Having said that, there is no reason to believe that a methodologically random event - something we don't, or can't predict beforehand - should also be an ontologically random event - something that has no meaning, purpose, or significance. Conception is random - try telling a parent that it's meaningless!
 
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shernren

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Shern,
How about some examples of ontological randomness.
M.

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
(Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 NIV)

Randomness in this sense is not intrinsic to an event, I believe, but depends on the meaning one attaches to the event. What is meaningless depends on how one defines meaning. But it is important not to confuse meaning, or significance, with our ability to identify what causes something.
 
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crawfish

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Randomness in this sense is not intrinsic to an event, I believe, but depends on the meaning one attaches to the event. What is meaningless depends on how one defines meaning. But it is important not to confuse meaning, or significance, with our ability to identify what causes something.

I have no idea what the heck you mean. I think you just threw a bunch of words together.
 
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Deamiter

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I don't personally believe in chance or in randomness.
If I flip a coin 9 times, and each time it lands on tails, when I flip it the 10th time, the odds of it landing on tails again are still 50/50.

Variations are Gods influence.
Um... isn't that probability itself -- that every flip has a 50% chance of a particular result? Isn't the result of any flip random and due to chance?

Are you just trying to say "I don't believe in luck because I believe in Jesus" because the result of a coin flip is pretty darned random (methodologically). We all get that God can stick his hand in wherever he likes, but either God is a big fan of preserving the random appearance of events that should be random or God doesn't need to fiddle with the results of coin-flips since he designed the universe the way he wanted in the first place.
 
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Mallon

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CSchultz

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Um... isn't that probability itself -- that every flip has a 50% chance of a particular result? Isn't the result of any flip random and due to chance?
Actually it is not.
Probability is the fact that the coin will "MOST LIKELY" land on one side or the other.

But in actuality, if we take probability into account, we then must add in ALL possible outcomes.

Example: The coin could land perfectly balanced on it's edge. Or land on a corner. It may not come down at all. or it "could" go through a space time continuum and come back as something entirely different than a coin.

.... but it will "Probably" come back down, as a coin, and land on either heads or tails.

Chance, or "Random Chance" on the other hand, implies that "something" is somehow in control of the outcome.

So,... what governs the outcome?

If God does not directly control and govern the outcome of even a simple toss of a coin. Then there are things "Not Governed by God" ... and I refuse to accept that.

In fact, that is the basis of Darwinism. That "Matter" + "Time" + "Chance" = "Life"
 
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Mallon

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In fact, that is the basis of Darwinism. That "Matter" + "Time" + "Chance" = "Life"
Darwin never commented on the creation of life. He wrote about the perpetuation of life and creation of new species, which follows the following equation:

"Mutation + Heritability + Natural selection = Evolution."
 
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