>I'm sorry you see it that way and I apologize. I did not mean to ridicule but
>to spark some thoughtful consideration of the use of the terms. Random in
>computer science is not the same thing as random in evolution. Processes are
>ordered events. Are you saying that a series of ordered-coordinated events
>cause random results.
I am saying the opposite, that random events can produce organized results.
Take the mathematical object known as Sierpinski's gasket. It is generated
by rolling a die and moving a dot around a computer screen marking the
locations of where the dot has been. The field of play is 3 dots at the
vertices of an equilateral triangle. If you roll a 1,2 then you move the
dot 1/2 the distance to the vertex A. A 3,4 you move the dot 1/2 the
distance to vertex B and similarly for 5,6 and the third vertex. The path
of the particle is randomly generated by the roll of the dice but the
outcome is entirely deterministic. Sierpinski's gasket appears each and
every time you run the program.
In this mathematical object one unites determinism with pure chance in a way
that is not seen in many systems but may be seen in living systems.
I mis-coded the program for Sierpinski's gasket one day at lunch and
discovered via this mutation to the code, a wonderful program in which there
is an infinite variety of morphological shapes that can be produced by
merely mutating a "genome" which corresponds to the x,y coordinates of the
vertex's of Sierpinski's gasket program. A random mutation will sometimes
cause a morphological change and sometimes not. I think there is an analogy
here for life. A given set of instructions (DNA) will produce a
deterministic outcome, one individual, twins, triplets etc. By our DNA god
could foreknow much about us. In the mutated program I could mimic
punctuated equilibrium, the natural selection of any morphological shape,
and the cambrian explosion. If the mathematics of life has a similarity to
how this program operates, then God could unite chance and determinism. Go
look at the pictures on my computer model article on my web page. There are
programs there also
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm