Frank Apisa wrote:Ican
Decided to give this a try before leaving...
THANK YOU.
I know you have presented this argument several times in Abuzz. For all I know, you may have presented it several times here in able2know. I wanted you to present it again here in this forum, and you have, and I want you to know that I appreciate it very much.
I agree that the test you described for trying to determine if the deck was "stacked" (i.e., biased, ) is not relevant to that determination.
Instead, I recommend analyzing the recorded history of all the five-card hands dealt over a significantly large period. I want a large period so that I may validly apply the Law of Large Numbers.
If were to find that a particular hand (or hands) were dealt a disproportionate number of times (i.e., disproportionate to its calculated probability of occurrence), I would suspect the deck was biased. Next I would examine the frequency with with such hand or hands occurred at particular "player" positions. If these hands occurred a disproportionate number of times at a particular position (or postions), I would
leap
to the conclusion that the deck was biased by something or someone.
This is the way, I use to test computer random-number generators that I required for my development engineering work. That is, I would, via computer, examine the frequency with which various sequences of numbers occurred in a long sequence generated by a random number generator that I was working with. If their occurrences were disproportionate to their probability of occurrence, I would first extend the size of the sample. If the bias did not disappear or at least become smaller, I would
leap
to the conclusion that the generator was biased by something or someone.
Now let's apply this type of analysis to the evolution of life on this planet. I'm going to assume here that various allegations by various geologists, anthropologists, and biologists are true. I infer these scientists agree that the fossil record consists of layers of stuff. Some of these layers contain fossilized organisms. Different layers with fossilized organisms generally contain fossils of different sets of organisms. Others of these layers consist of zero fossil organisms. These scientists allege all this is due to the occurrence of a sequence of environmental catastrophes over the alleged approximately 5 billion years of our earth's existence.
The surprising thing about all this is the seemingly relentless trend from lower intelligence organisms in the lower layers to higher intelligence organisms in the higher layers, despite the fact that many of the fosssilized layers are frequently separated by sometimes very thick non-fossilized layers. Scientists have various theories for this lack of randomness in the evolution of life. So do I! I
leap
to the conclusion that evolution was biased by something or someone.
One could guess that the sequence of environmental catastrophes is itself the cause of the lack of randomness. But does that explain why each fossilized layer, regardless of its degree of separation by non-fossilized layers from more recent and less recent layers, shows evolution of increasingly intelligent organisms. I think not. The apparent relentless evolution of intelligent life is a definite bias in what is alleged by some to be an undirected chance plus natural selection, random process.
However, I agree in advance that much that is currently allegedly agreed may not be alegedly agreed subsequently. So what else is new? Scientists plod along as best they can and seem to accumulate knowledge despite their time consuming and flawed trial and error approach to discovery.
So I am back to my calculation. I'll amend it in deference to Terry. Let's theorize that the probability of undirected chance plus natural selection is higher than I said. Let's say it's not 0.0023 x a trillionth x a moogolth. Let's say it's all the way up to,
P =a trillionth x a moogolth. :wink: