METHINKS IT IS A WEASEL

[aharvey]

Somewhat off-topic

Somewhat off-topic

This is rich coming from a guy who attributes his own claimed belief in Christ's resurrection to "brain washing--perhaps."

Hey, Turbo, you don't post much on evol-related threads, I was wondering if you ever noticed my reply to your "radiometric methods give bad dates" post?

It's in the "Where do dinosaurs fit in?" thread, if you want to take a gander.

By the way, fool's right: quote-mining always smacks of trickery. And ridiculing someone for a typo, especially one in an internet forum for crying out loud, isn't exactly a compelling way to make your case either!

 

[Turbo]

Tsk, Tsk, Turbo.
Quote mining makes you look like a trickster.
He said this;

:duh: I know what he said. I even posted a link to the source of the quote so that anyone who was interested could read it. How is that "trickery" :freak:

 

[Turbo]

Hey, Turbo, you don't post much on evol-related threads, I was wondering if you ever noticed my reply to your "radiometric methods give bad dates" post?

Yes, I did. My thoughts, which I didn't bother to type and submit at the time, were that the technician of the whale scale would recognize that your sample of jellybeans was "out of range" for that equipment, seeing that it was nowhere near 10,000 lbs, and would report that.

By the way, fool's right: quote-mining always smacks of trickery.

How is it trickery to post a quote along with a link to the context of that quote?

And ridiculing someone for a typo, especially one in an internet forum for crying out loud, isn't exactly a compelling way to make your case either!

I say nothing about over 99% of the typos, misspelled words, and grammatical errors that I notice on TOL, regardless of who makes them. But when Johnny pretentiously wrote quel instead of how, yet misspelled it quell, I found it ironic and I couldn't resist ribbing him for it a little. Sheesh, it's not like I insulted his mother or something. I sometimes tease Knight when he writes your when he means you're, too. Lighten up.

 

[Jukia]

Turbo, fool, aharvey: Nice to be quoted anyway. Anyone who bothered to check (and that is probably not many) would have gotten the gist of the rest of my post. We are so attuned to "sound bites" that quote mining probably comes naturally to most of us. It is after all what I do often as a lawyer, although if I quote mine something I had better be sure that the rest of the case really does support my quote because if it does not it is likely the other side will call me on that.
Speaking of legal issues and the relationship to quote mining, it is also of some import to Pastor Enyart's Alito score card and the fact that he has admitted that he only read portions of Alito's decisions. A word to the wise, Pastor Bob, ya gotta read more than the head notes in order to understand the reasoning. Hey sorry about the use of the word "understand" so close to the word "reasoning" but that is what you really have to do, whether reading the law or science.

I am off for a long weekend.

You all play nice now.

 

[aharvey]

Yes, I did. My thoughts, which I didn't bother to type and submit at the time, were that the technician of the whale scale would recognize that your sample of jellybeans was "out of range" for that equipment, seeing that it was nowhere near 10,000 lbs, and would report that.

Excellent! That's exactly what I would have expected too. Can we follow through with that thought on the proper thread? I didn't want to hijack this one.

How is it trickery to post a quote along with a link to the context of that quote?

Well, sorry, if one bothers to go back to the original quote and finds that in context it says something very different from how you used it, I can't help but feel like you're trying to pull a fast one on me, whether you provide the link or I dig it out myself.

I say nothing about over 99% of the typos, misspelled words, and grammatical errors that I notice on TOL, regardless of who makes them. But when Johnny pretentiously wrote quel instead of how, yet misspelled it quell, I found it ironic and I couldn't resist ribbing him for it a little. Sheesh, it's not like I insulted his mother or something. I sometimes tease Knight when he writes your when he means you're, too. Lighten up.

Sorry. I didn't realize saying it "isn't exactly a compelling way to make your case either!" was such an intensely brutal assault! Sounds rather gently teasing to me, to tell you the truth.

 

[noguru]

Yes, I did. My thoughts, which I didn't bother to type and submit at the time, were that the technician of the whale scale would recognize that your sample of jellybeans was "out of range" for that equipment, seeing that it was nowhere near 10,000 lbs, and would report that.

How is it trickery to post a quote along with a link to the context of that quote?


I say nothing about over 99% of the typos, misspelled words, and grammatical errors that I notice on TOL, regardless of who makes them. But when Johnny pretentiously wrote quel instead of how, yet misspelled it quell, I found it ironic and I couldn't resist ribbing him for it a little. Sheesh, it's not like I insulted his mother or something. I sometimes tease Knight when he writes your when he means you're, too. Lighten up.

Yes, I think you once ribbed me for posting noone instead of no one. :doh: My bad. It's a good thing you at least have these kinds of things that you can point out.

 

[fool]

Turbo;
Perhaps you could respond to my post regarding your radiometric farse as well.

 

[fool]

Yes, I did. My thoughts, which I didn't bother to type and submit at the time, were that the technician of the whale scale would recognize that your sample of jellybeans was "out of range" for that equipment, seeing that it was nowhere near 10,000 lbs, and would report that.
.

Oh Turbo;

No specific location or expected age information was supplied to the laboratory.

They specificlly didn't tell them it was a jellybean.

 

[bob b]

For those who are interested in how to actually calculate the p values for the question bob has posed, using the two-letter example:

For each "good" word (not each "possible" word), calculate the probability that a single random letter change in either the first or second position will generate a known "good" word. The number of "possible" words never comes into play. There is no a priori way to calculate these probabilities because they are dependent on direct comparison with a pre-established list of known "good" words. Therefore you have to calculate the probabilities for each "good" word, sum these (assuming that every "good" word is equally likely to experience the random letter change), and divide that sum by the number of "good" words.

In the present case, this leads to a calculated overall probability of 0.2545 that having one particular “good” word that a random letter change in that same word will result in another "good" word. I tested this by doing 50 replications of 100 independent random letter changes each, and averaged 27.7+ 4.6 "good" words per each 100 changes.

Change the criteria for "good" words, you change the probabilities. Reduce the number of alternate states (e.g., from 26 letters down to, say, 4) will increase the probabilities. Relax the assumption that all changes are equally likely and you are most likely to increase the probabilities.

As far as guessing what you want us to see, bob, well, I'm sure it wasn't your intellectual laziness or your lack of analytical skills, but these are the most obvious elements of this 'example'. I can look at this post and see many different potential patterns, knowing where you're coming from I can make some educated guesses as to what you are hinting at, but I can't imagine why you think anyone would be interested in engaging in "well, bob, could it be this?" "nope, try again! " "okay, then how about this?" "close, but no cigar!" ad nauseum. If you have an actual point, please make it, and spare us the games. At least when it comes to parables, you're no Jesus!

Notice that harvey did not try to calculate the probabilities for anything but the trivial case. Why? Obviously because anything beyond a trivial case quickly becomes impractical in a forum like this, not to mention that the example is only a parable and treating the example as a precise mathematical model causes one to completely miss the point of the parable (as we have seen in action on this thread).

Thus the example sticks to the most practical way to illustrate the trend that is happening right before one's eyes.

But in whipping out his microscope and examining the bark of the tree in detail, the typical scientist fails to notice that the forest is on fire.

"How could a log be stuck in a person's eye?"

So my message to all is simply to try harder to understand the meaning of the "parable", for it is really simple in concept, even if you still don't agree with the point that is being made.

 

[Jukia]

Turbo;
Perhaps you could respond to my post regarding your radiometric farse as well.

Its "farce", I think.

 

[On Fire]

But in whipping out his microscope and examining the bark of the tree in detail, the typical scientist fails to notice that the forest is on fire.

:up:

 

[bob b]

BTW, the other parable I posted on another thread, The Source of Novels, is related to this one.

How many "clues" do you microscope-wielding evolutionists need? :think:

 

[fool]

Its "farce", I think.

Yup, farce it is.

 

[SUTG]

Obviously because anything beyond a trivial case quickly becomes impractical in a forum like this

How would you know this, since you don't know how to do the calculations?

not to mention that the example is only a parable and treating the example as a precise mathematical model causes one to completely miss the point of the parable

OK, but if the math wasn't important then why did you include it? Your OP is almost all math based. Sure, it is bad and incorrect math, but it is math nonetheless.

So my message to all is simply to try harder to understand the meaning of the "parable", for it is really simple in concept, even if you still don't agree with the point that is being made.

I'm sure you probably do have a point hidden in there somewhere, or at least you think you do. It might even be an interesting point. (I enjoyed the Borges coffehouse scene) But unless the point is bad math, I think you'd be better off with a different parable. Or even a plain English rephrasing of your point.

 

[fool]

So, to recap this thread, Bob starts out with some stuff about scrabble.
SS gives us an arguement from personal incredulity.

It's so much more complex, it's unfathomable (to me, at least.)
SS

In response to SS's post Bob reveals to us that this is indeed the Emporers New Clothes.

Believers like you see things that are hidden from unbelievers.

Does that pretty much summ it up?

 

[aharvey]

Notice that harvey did not try to calculate the probabilities for anything but the trivial case. Why? Obviously because anything beyond a trivial case quickly becomes impractical in a forum like this, not to mention that the example is only a parable and treating the example as a precise mathematical model causes one to completely miss the point of the parable (as we have seen in action on this thread).

Stop with the attempts at mind-reading, you're really no good at it. I only presented the calculations for the simplest case because, as I quite explicitly stated, I was demonstrating, for those who were interested, the proper way to calculate the given probabilities, at which your own efforts failed rather miserably.

If you had bothered to work through the two methods (i.e., the correct one and yours), you might have realized that the problem that you are presumably hinting at is in fact an artifact of your faulty methods.

Thus, a single random letter change in each of 100 randomly selected 'good' two-letter words had a 27.7+4.6 % chance of forming another 'good' word, over 50 such runs, as I reported earlier.

A single random letter change in each of 100 randomly selected 'good' three-letter words had a 26.8+1.3 % chance of forming another 'good' word, over 50 such runs.*

[edit] Sorry, I'm worn out, got a little careless in my writing. Each of the 50 three-letter trials was based on 1154, not 100, randomly selected (with replacement, of course!) three-letter words. That's why the standard deviation is so much smaller in this case than in the two-letter case.

And in case you have any doubt, no, 26.8+1.3 % (the p for three-letter words) is not significantly smaller than 27.7+4.6 % (the p for two-letter words).

So my message to all is simply to try harder to understand the meaning of the "parable", for it is really simple in concept, even if you still don't agree with the point that is being made.

Well, bob, unless the meaning had nothing to do with the "plummeting p's" in your calculations, allow me to suggest that your 'parable' is rather dead in the water. Of course, if the moral of your story is that the most obvious "problems" often turn out to be nothing more than mere illusions, then, yes, I'd say you've illustrated that rather nicely!

*I used the Aussie list you linked to, which had 1154 'good' three-letter words, not the 903 you reported. Also, all should note that I did not calculate the p in this case directly, as I did for the two-letter words, mainly because it was easier to expand the simulation (which I'd already tested with the two-letter words).

 

[aharvey]

By the way, here's a small part of the last three-letter run. The first column gives the randomly chosen "good" word; the second column shows the new word after a random (in terms of both letter identity and location); the third column reports whether or not the new word is a "good" word (i.e., on the list of 1154 approved words). Twenty-nine of these 100 samples produced a good word; for the entire 1000+run, the tally was 25.56%. Again, for all 50 1154-sample 3-letter runs, the average was 26.8%.

In the interest of keeping my claims as transparent and well-documented as possible.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

Was it a word before THX-1138?

I don't think so -- I believe it was ad-libbed.

 

[fool]

I don't think so -- I believe it was ad-libbed.

So, in this case we see a word that was non-viable (a not-good-word in the scrabble anology) which, later became a "good word" in the scrabble analogy.

 

[bob b]

By the way, here's a small part of the last three-letter run. The first column gives the randomly chosen "good" word; the second column shows the new word after a random (in terms of both letter identity and location); the third column reports whether or not the new word is a "good" word (i.e., on the list of 1154 approved words). Twenty-nine of these 100 samples produced a good word; for the entire 1000+run, the tally was 25.56%. Again, for all 50 1154-sample 3-letter runs, the average was 26.8%.

In the interest of keeping my claims as transparent and well-documented as possible.

Consider the following two questions:

I take it from your experiments that you have come to the conclusion that no matter how many letters are in a word that once one has a "good" word that the probability that a random change in that same word will result in another "good" word is reasonable?

And what do random transformations from one "good" word to another "good" word have to do with the point of the parable?