On the failure to find God's fingerprints ...

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

Programs are written to create "random chance". That's by design and it's quite difficult to do.

No computer program creates "random chance". Some "random number" generator programs are actually pseudo-random number generators - they don't produce numbers that are actually random, but their distribution matches random distribution well enough for whatever purpose they were designed for. Other random number "generator" programs don't actually generate the random numbers themselves; they harness an actual random phenomenon (e.g. thousandths of a second between keystokes on a keyboard) and then apply factors to that random number to get the range right.

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

You are under the mistaken impression that God should feel the need to prove himself. He did, and we call those instances "miracles". It's a small wonder you won't accept those either.

Could you give an example of a miracle that she, I, or some other random person should have noticed and accepted, but apparently overlooked or rejected?

Originally Posted by Jayhawker Soule

I'd be interested in the mathematics that 'proves' or otherwise supports the contention that the advent of life or sentience or sapience is "an effect that does not deviate from random chance."

Deviation from random chance is usually determined by the Z-test or Student's t-test, depending on the characteristics of the sample. However, with a sample size of one, the standard deviation is zero, which makes all the equations for either test blow up with divide-by-zeros all over the place.

I'm getting a bit out of my depth here, but I suspect that when you get down to the emergence of individual genetic traits, it might be possible to come up with either a statistical analysis of actual evolutionary data or a verifiable computer model (assuming an adequately thorough of the mechanisms of random mutation) that could be used to generate the distribution of data points you need. I doubt that this approach could be directly applied to something as complex as bipedalism, though.

Originally Posted by Autodidact

What I'm saying is that by definition, an effect that does not deviate from random chance is no effect. When we say, no effect, we mean, the same as random chance. They are synonymous. So if God is invisible, and cannot be perceived with any sense, and only creates effects that equal random chance, then by definition, that is the same thing as not existing. You have now defined God as a non-existent being, which is to say, you have asserted that God does not exist.

I disagree. I don't think that ineffective is the same as non-existant. The mere fact that some factor does not have a statistically significant effect on some outcome does not mean that the factor does not exist. For instance, I have had no significant effect on the 2008 Tour de France, the current world price of oil, the world's population growth rate, or most other quantifiable measures that anyone might care to make. However, I do exist.

Originally Posted by Autodidact

If something cannot be perceived, and only creates effects that equal random chance, in what sense can thing be said to exist?

It can be said that it's not necessary for the thing to exist. Whether it actually exists or not requires more information.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

Deviation from random chance is usually determined by the Z-test or Student's t-test, depending on the characteristics of the sample. However, with a sample size of one, ...

At issue is whether the appeal to "random chance" serves as the godless equivalent to the God-of-the-gaps.

[Autodidact]

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

Surely you DON'T feel that merely saying something makes it true, do you?

You disagree with this definition ?!? You include "no deviation from random" as "an actual effect?" Isn't lack of deviation from random the very definition of a lack of an effect?

When was the last time YOU perceived an individual atom? How about an electron? Can you perceive that? Hmnnnn... I guess your perception is flawed.

Of course it is, so is all of ours. But the point is that an atom is not DEFINED as something that cannot be perceived. In fact, we now have the ability to perceive the effect of a single atom, even a single electron.



Are you saying that God has an effect, but that so far we just happen to lack the ability to detect it? I thought (the thread) was saying that God's effect = random chance, by definition. If so, then God's effect is defined as random chance, and to put it simply, why not just call God random chance?

[Autodidact]

Originally Posted by kmkemp

You're simply putting God in a box and then showing that your God doesn't exist.

Well if you can't define it, how can you talk about it? Jayhawker says that God = no different from random. Yell at him if you don't like it.

[Autodidact]

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

I have seen God. Prove me wrong.

Really? Can you show me? btw, I've seen the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Prove me wrong.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by Jayhawker Soule

At issue is whether the appeal to "random chance" serves as the godless equivalent to the God-of-the-gaps.

I don't think it does. Do you?

[painted wolf]

IMHO... I think it depends on the atheist... just as it depends on the theist.

Some hold random chance to be as much a 'proof' against god as others hold gaps in scientific knowledge as 'proof' for god.

wa:do

[Autodidact]

Originally Posted by Jayhawker Soule

I'd be interested in the mathematics that 'proves' or otherwise supports the contention that the advent of life or sentience or sapience is "an effect that does not deviate from random chance."

Did you have to dig up those goalposts to move them? Your thread is about random mutations and their role in evolution, not abiogenesis. If you want to argue that abiogenesis proves the existence of God, start a thread.