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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 11/02/2004 : 14:26:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Can anyone?!? I'm starting to doubt my own intellectual abilities!
Let me try. Obviously, since a one has a 1-in-6 chance of coming up, it won't show up until you've rolled the die six times. Since a two also has a 1-in-6 chance, it won't show up until you've rolled the die six times. Same for three, four, five, and six.
So, the first five times you roll the die, it will spin on one corner until you stop it. The sixth time, however, the faces of the die will all fly off its core, and land face up on the table.
Right? Or did I just drop a lobe? 
Right! I had actually worked this out by thinking of a coin flip (two is easier to handle than six): "so if you only get heads-- a 1 in 2 chance-- after you've flipped the coin two times, then the first flip won't be heads," I thought. "So I should always call tails during coin flips," was my conclusion. But then it struck me-- "Wait! The odds of getting tails is also 1 in 2, so it will only come up on the second flip, too!" I figured then that the first flip must invariably be that infamous land-on-the-edge thing everyone keeps talking about. Until, that is, I saw this site, where the odds of a coin-on-its-edge are ca. 1 in 2,000. "But wait," I thought. "If the first toss can't have the coin landing on its edge, what happens?" Then went to the bar and started drinking. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 14:30:40 [Permalink]
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| Probability of rolling all six numbers after 6 tries, 5/6*4/6*3/6*2/6*1/6=EDIT(5/324), correct? or is my brain failing like Jerry's? |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 11/02/2004 14:34:04 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 18:12:27 [Permalink]
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| What do you mean, BigPapaSmurf? The probability of rolling a 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, then 5, then 6? Or in any order? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 18:35:40 [Permalink]
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Damn! I was kind of hoping the Uber-verlch would stick around until Verlch I came riding to his rescue. Oh well. It does kind of give you a little more respect for the V-man though. As sporadic as he is, I'm sure he'll keep coming around until the lord's work here is done (or until the guys in the rubber lined van show up at his door).
During my lunchtime reading today I came across the following from Bertrand Russel which seemed appropriate to this discussion (and I believe was touched upon somewhere many pages ago):
quote:
The Greeks had the conception of natural law, and acquired the habit of expressing natural laws in mathematical terms. These ideas have provided the key to a very great deal of the understanding of the physical world that has been achieved in modern times. But many of them, including Aristotle, were misled by a belief that science could make a fruitful use of the idea of purpose. Aristotle distinguished four kinds of cause, of which only two concern us, the 'efficient' cause and the 'final' cause. The 'efficient' cause is what we should call simply the cause. The 'final' cause is the purpose. For instance, if, in the course of a tramp in the mountains, you find an inn just when your thirst has become unendurable, the efficient cause of the inn is the actions of the bricklayers that built it, while its final cause is the satisfaction of your thirst. If someone were to ask 'why is there an inn there?' it would be equally appropriate to answer 'because someone had it built there' or 'because many thirsty travelers pass that way'. One is an explanation by the 'efficient' cause and the other by the 'final' cause. Where human affairs are concerned, the explanation by 'final' cause is often appropriate, since human actions have purposes. But where inanimate nature is concerned, only 'efficient' causes have been found scientifically discoverable, and the attempt to explain phenomena by 'final' causes has always led to bad science. There may, for ought we know, be a purpose in natural phenomena, but if so it has remained completely undiscovered, and all known scientific laws have to do only with 'efficient' causes. In this respect Aristotle led the world astray, and it did not recover fully until the time of Galileo.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/2528/br_ideahelp.htm
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The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 19:10:30 [Permalink]
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R.Wreck wrote:quote:
During my lunchtime reading today I came across the following from Bertrand Russel which seemed appropriate to this discussion (and I believe was touched upon somewhere many pages ago):
Yeah, I told Jerry he was playing with Aristotle's ancient "final cause" (as I'd just recently read about it in Gould's Hen's Teeth & Horse's Toes). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2004 : 22:35:31 [Permalink]
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Dang, I missed it before, when Jerry wrote:quote:
Thus, we cannot say that just because entropy CAN decrease in an open system that it DID decrease in the case of macroevolution. We need find out what that energy is, and understand how it worked to overcome SLOT in this process.
So there is some sort of energy transfer which defines entropy in Jerry's version of macroevolution. He's not talking about information entropy, or configurational entropy, or population entropy after all, but plain old thermodynamics. All the rest, like the "order" or "disorder" of the information contained in the genome, was just a whole school of red herrings.
Yes, Jerry, if you can define what kind of energy transfer is involved in "complex macroevolution," then you can apply the second law of thermodynamics to it.
But to insist that common descent represents a forbidden decrease in thermodynamic entropy without knowing the energy involved (and thus not being able to calculate the entropy at all) is simply not science.
It is, instead, blind faith. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 01:05:23 [Permalink]
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Also fails to consider that, from a matter/energy perspective, no living organism is a closed or isolated system. Every living organism takes in matter AND energy in some form. (light energy in the case of phototrophs, and stored chemical energy in autotrophs)
SLOT's statements about entropy don't even apply. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 01:14:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Probability of rolling all six numbers after 6 tries, 5/6*4/6*3/6*2/6*1/6=EDIT(5/324), correct? or is my brain failing like Jerry's?
So the idea is to roll 1,2,3,4,5 & 6 in six rolls of a regular six-sided die?
I tried to figure it out this way:
(number of possible successful outcomes)/(number of all possible outcomes)
the number of possible outcomes is 6^6,. If the criterion is that the result inclde the digits 1,2,3,4,5,6 in any order then the number of possible outcomes satisfying it is 6!.
6!/6^6 = 720/45656 = 5/324.
We got the same answer. Far out. |
"The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole." -P.Z.Myers |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 08:55:56 [Permalink]
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If Jerry is right in the idea that the useful, active DNA in a genome can be assigned a genetic Entropy, then he will also be right about 'common descent' decreasing entropy.
Suppose that genetics has some kind of version of the 2:nd law of thermodynamics. If so, it should not have the name '2:nd law of thermodynamics' because it's about DNA and information, and not molecules and energy. Thermodynamics could be called something like 'information entropy in DNA'.
Is it correct to apply mathematical equations developed for energy and matter and apply them to genetics? I don't think so, but I don't know enough genetics nor information theory to say for sure.
But just for the sake of argument, let's say that the second law of thermodynamics can be applied an evolving genome.
Mutations appear spontaneously:
Most appear neutral, entropy remains the same, only genetic drift occurs, minor morphological change.
Mutations are positive, entropy decreases, the organism increases in complexity (morphological and/or functional).
Mutations are detrimental, entropy increases, the organism dies during competition for resources.
Some mutations increase the number of base pairs in the genome, allowing more 'pages for the information to be written upon'. (Delta-entropy can not be assigned to this kind of mutation by itself, but one must regard the content of the part combined with the rest of the genome to see if it is positive, negative, or neutral.)
Given no changes in the ecology, the genome will reach an equilibrium.
Changes in the local ecology will put high pressure on the organism, and tip the scales:
Many more mutations will become detrimental. The general entropy will increase, allowing for a local decrease in entropy: an increased complexity in the genome through positive mutations.
Once a piece of the genome is starting doing something good, natural selection will keep that DNA in the organism, because it gives the organism an edge. Very much the same way, I can keep a few heads every time I toss my coins. I used to have 500, but every time I can save a few coins, the number of coins tossed will decrease. I naturally select positive traits (heads) of the coins. Eventually I will have all heads: tossing the coins (and selecting some) is the action that provides the 'energy' necessary to decrease the information entropy in all coins.
Laws of physics and chemistry are the designers of the complexity we can observe.
(edit some spelling) |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
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| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 11/03/2004 08:58:21 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 09:22:12 [Permalink]
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Mab wrote:quote:
If Jerry is right in the idea that the useful, active DNA in a genome can be assigned a genetic Entropy, then he will also be right about 'common descent' decreasing entropy.
I'm still not convinced, but let me try to better illustrate why:
Hypothesize that there was a single primodial cell which started all life. It divides and reproduces for a while, quickly filling the environment with copies of its genome, with (of course) some amount of random variation. The genetic entropy of the entire system, life on Earth, which just one species, is not zero due to that natural variation.
Now, at some point, a tide pool forms or whathaveyou, and some percentage of the population becomes isolated and so which mutations become fixed (and which do not) throughout this new population are independent of those in the other population. This represents an increase in genetic entropy throughout the entire system, life on Earth, and the genomes of the two populations will probably become less similar over time, thus increasing the systemic entropy even further.
The idea can be continued forever, with more and more genetic diversity throughout life on Earth representing ever-higher values of any genetic entropy calculation you might want to make.
I submit that Jerry's idea that a speciation event is when "one species turns into another" is simply incorrect, as many (if not most) speciations involve one species turning into two (the original continues on, with a new species added).
Thus, comparing some undefined form of entropy of "an ameoba" to the same (but still undefined) form of entropy of "a human" simply ignores the vast amount of entropy created by speciations all along the evolutionary pathway. To reach the conclusion that overall entropy must have decreased - in order to claim that "complex macroevolution" would have violated SLOT, and so didn't happen - one must consider the entropy of the entire "system," and that is: all life on Earth.
And, since the genomes of all living things present such a wild and chaotic diveristy, I submit that the entropy of life on Earth is extremely high. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 09:23:29 [Permalink]
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| Well, it looks like Jerry has cut his loses. He ran. He left with an insult. After announcing that he would change minds here with his evidence for ID, I have to conclude that his failure do to that in short order, by underestimating the challenge he would face here makes him look like coward. Too bad… |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 09:49:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
Well, it looks like Jerry has cut his loses. He ran. He left with an insult. After announcing that he would change minds here with his evidence for ID, I have to conclude that his failure do to that in short order, by underestimating the challenge he would face here makes him look like coward. Too bad…
Yeah-- he really did cut and run. Question is, will he be back? While most of the more down-to-earth creationists (where ID ultimately falls) have left, there are a few crazy ones (uh, Verlch anyone?) who continue to stick around. Perhaps Jerry will poke his head back in at some point soon. After all, who can stay away from us for too long?  |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 10:38:38 [Permalink]
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Well, even though his last post seemed rather terminal, one must consider the possibility of circumstances of which we are unaware. With election day having just happened, concluding that Jerry has fled may be premature.
After all, my wife just messed up her foot pretty bad yesterday (torn or stretched ligament), which prevented me from completing my list of Jerry's assertions in a timely manner (though I am now up to page 14 of this thread).
If Jerry is still reading this, I think it's important to remind him that he said, "I actually enjoy being challenged on my assertions as this is how I format my personal belief system." Yet here in this thread, he appears to not be interested in supporting his assertions with science, math or logic.
For example, when challenged on his assertion that a 1-in-10150 chance means that 10150 events must pass before the desired outcome will happen, the only rebuttal he had was to claim that this is something everyone learns in grade-school math. He didn't provide a single reference to support his claim, offer a single equation or demonstrate the validity of any logic. He just said, in effect, "does too!" several times and then vanished.
He freely complained about "did too/did not" argumentation, but could not seem to overcome that fault, himself. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 11:13:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Right! I had actually worked this out by thinking of a coin flip (two is easier to handle than six): "so if you only get heads-- a 1 in 2 chance-- after you've flipped the coin two times, then the first flip won't be heads," I thought. "So I should always call tails during coin flips," was my conclusion. But then it struck me-- "Wait! The odds of getting tails is also 1 in 2, so it will only come up on the second flip, too!" I figured then that the first flip must invariably be that infamous land-on-the-edge thing everyone keeps talking about. Until, that is, I saw this site, where the odds of a coin-on-its-edge are ca. 1 in 2,000. "But wait," I thought. "If the first toss can't have the coin landing on its edge, what happens?" Then went to the bar and started drinking.
LMAO! |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2004 : 18:46:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Mab wrote:quote:
If Jerry is right in the idea that the useful, active DNA in a genome can be assigned a genetic Entropy, then he will also be right about 'common descent' decreasing entropy.
I'm still not convinced, but let me try to better illustrate why:
Hypothesize that there was a single primordial cell which started all life. It divides and reproduces for a while, quickly filling the environment with copies of its genome, with (of course) some amount of random variation. The genetic entropy of the entire system, life on Earth, which just one species, is not zero due to that natural variation.
Now, at some point, a tide pool forms or whathaveyou, and some percentage of the population becomes isolated and so which mutations become fixed (and which do not) throughout this new population are independent of those in the other population. This represents an increase in genetic entropy throughout the entire system, life on Earth, and the genomes of the two populations will probably become less similar over time, thus increasing the systemic entropy even further.
Ah, but we're talking about variation in the same basic genome, which has not increased in complexity such as mutated into producing new proteins.
I just thought it up, but I didn't expect it to fly, since my stand is that entropy in evolution is a silly concept. Speculating on Jerry's statement earlier (if he could really make in fly), my thought on this was that all bad mutations causing lesser-fits that wind up forgotten in the grand scheme of things represents a general increase of entropy.
quote:
I submit that Jerry's idea that a speciation event is when "one species turns into another" is simply incorrect, as many (if not most) speciations involve one species turning into two (the original continues on, with a new species added).
He got me so worked up about that stupid probability-stuff, and CSI (not the crime-lab), that missed that one. I assumed he meant two species, as you described.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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