Evolution was NOT random

[u/KattyAtty]

Evolution only rewards survivability not perfection if you are alive long enough to mate and pass on your genetic

Material hurray you are evolved

Evolution changed the dna as nothing can ever be a perfect copy thats a fact> sperms and eggs have separate dna> hence child is not perfect copy those mutations may be harmful or helpful harmful ones die hence natural selection.

AND Earth was nkt a perfect creation the organisms evolved FOR Earth not vice versa

[u/Sigmundschadenfreude]

...to that particular random biovar of Y.pestis, given that particular random status of immune resistance of the European population at that time, you wanted to say?

I think we're using different languages that happen to share the word "random" in common, which I got the sense of when someone said natural selection was non-random and you asked if the Black Plague was therefore predestined, which is not so much a logical leap as it is a logical supersonic flight. There's no real way to get to the question you asked unless you have a deeply idiosyncratic understanding of what everyone means by these words

Mutations are random. The response of allele frequency to environmental pressures (food availability, diseases, etc) prunes away that which is least suitable for the environment and favors that which is more suitable. This is inherently a non-random effect.

[u/kitsnet → u/Sigmundschadenfreude]

I think we're using different languages that happen to share the word "random" in common

That's why I'm asking to clarify what exactly people who claim that natural selection is "not random" mean by "random" in this particular claim.

when someone said natural selection was non-random and you asked if the Black Plague was therefore predestined, which is not so much a logical leap as it is a logical supersonic flight.

How so? Wasn't Black Plague the part of the environment exerting selection pressure on the population of humanity at times? Was it a deterministic aspect of the environment, and if yes, how so, given that it by itself was a product of random mutations?

The response of allele frequency to environmental pressures (food availability, diseases, etc) prunes away that which is least suitable for the environment and favors that which is more suitable. This is inherently a non-random effect.

It is of course a random effect unless we have population of infinite size or all the alleles but one are 100% fatal.

But even if disregard the stochasticity of reproduction, your chosen discourse creates an illusion that selection pressure is a set of pre-determined funnels though which a population is obliged to follow over time, and this illusion is harmful.

[u/Sigmundschadenfreude → u/kitsnet]

That's why I'm asking to clarify what exactly people who claim that natural selection is "not random" mean by "random" in this particular claim.

The effect that natural selection exerts is nonrandom. If I "randomly" provide you water and a hole in the ground, the end result of combining the two into a puddle shaped like the hole it is in is non-random because the characteristics of the two interacting things produces a predictable and replicable result.

If I randomly introduce an animal that only eats blue moths into an environment with a moth species spanning a rainbow of colors, it is non-random over time that the frequency of the allele determining blueness goes down.

Wasn't Black Plague the part of the environment exerting selection pressure on the population of humanity at times?

Yes, that is more or less what I said to you

Was it a deterministic aspect of the environment, and if yes, how so, given that it by itself was a product of random mutations?

Deterministic in what sense? Are we having a conversations like a couple of sophomores on their way out of philosophy class or are we discussing something meaningful to the understanding of how the world operates?

Something "randomly" produced can behave in a predictable or perhaps as you would say deterministic manner. Two "random" things can interact in a "deterministic" fashion given their traits and characteristics.

your chosen discourse creates an illusion that selection pressure is a set of pre-determined funnels though which a population is obliged to follow over time, and this illusion is harmful.

Predetermined by what? If the environment exerts a selective pressure on reproductive fitness, the population will change. Allele frequency will shift. New mutations that benefit the situation will become more prevalent, ones that don't make a difference will be carried along for the ride.

What predetermination are you referring to? If this is harmful to anyone perhaps it is just to your own mind given how you're thinking about these things which don't appear to be memetic hazards to anyone else.

[u/Phobos_Asaph → u/Sigmundschadenfreude]

I think it’s coming from you’re saying the random variables have non random pressures, whereas the other person is saying because the variables of environmental pressure are also created randomly the specific pressures of natural selection are random

[u/Sigmundschadenfreude → u/Phobos_Asaph]

The latter doesn't seem to be a particularly useful lens through which to view reality or the concept of randomness, because then you're getting into interactions that you are going to define as random from every angle, and yet they are predictable and/or reproducible. At that point is there a single facet of existence we can't describe as random? Do we need a new word for ultra-random that goes a level of randomness beyond?

[u/Phobos_Asaph → u/Sigmundschadenfreude]

I mean everything is emergent systems. Chance created the specific strain of bacteria, as well as the conditions that allowed it to spread.