Until you give us a quantifiable definition of organization, those will remain your subjective opinions.
Given your flare for personal definitions, I don’t even know what I would be agreeing to.
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Us? Your definition of randomness or disorganization fairs no better.
I haven’t said anything about disorganization. As for random mutations, Luria and Delbruck give a quantifiable definition in the 1943 paper. They base their model on a Poisson distribution, and their model of random mutations predicts large fluctuations between parallel cultures and low variation for multiple samples of the same culture. It starts on page 495 here:
Their quantifiable and empirically measurable model of randomness is exactly what the observations fit.
What you have offered is what things look like to you, and what you are capable or incapable of believing. That’s fine, we all have views of what the world looks like to us. However, it isn’t something science can dig its teeth into.
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Is there another word you can substitute for randomness? I am really trying to understand what you and other evolutionary biologists mean by random. I understood Coyne to use the term “indifferent.”
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What it means is that the mutations are independent of what the organism needs. In the Luria and Delbruck paper, viral resistance didn’t appear due to the bacteria being exposed to virus. Rather, the mutations conferring virus resistance appeared in an unpredictable generation prior to the bacteria being exposed to virus. The bacteria didn’t need a mutation conferring viral resistance when they occurred, but they occurred anyway. If mutations were non-random, then the mutations conferring viral resistance would have been in response to being exposed to virus.
If the mutation occurs in an early generation in the culture then many bacteria will be resistant when they are exposed to virus. There will be very few resistant bacteria if the mutation happens in a later generation. Therefore, if the viral resistance mutations are independent of the presence of virus you should see large fluctuations in the number of resistant colonies when you repeat the experiment with different cultures. That’s exactly what they saw.
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Random is such a terrible term to use. It would be better to say that the mutations were not caused by the exposure to the virus, and that the mutations are unpredictable.
Saying that the mutations are random in repsonse someone describing it as purposeful confuses the dialogue.
I was just about to say precisely that myself. That’s really what the word “random” actually means: a situation where it is impossible for us to predict or influence the outcome.
Coming up with systems that meet this particular definition of randomness is an important problem in cryptography and computer security.
(Fun fact: Cloudflare uses a wall of lava lamps to generate their random numbers.)
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The word seems to carry another meaning. Like when an unpredictable series of events is explained to be that way because the events are random.
“I think what we find emotionally or aesthetically more appealing is not the basis for science.”–Douglas Futuyma
I keep telling you that I have no idea what you mean by purposeful, so there is no way to relate the randomness of mutations to purposefulness. All I can do is show you what biologists mean when they say mutations are random with respect to fitness.
It would be similar to saying that you aren’t going to influence the outcome of a roll of dice by what bets you make. The outcome of the roll is random with respect to the bet on the table. Betting on the pass line on a craps table does not increase the chances of rolling a 7 or 11 on the subsequent roll.
This has very important implications for biology which is why it is an important part of the theory of evolution.
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“Unrelated” would be a better term, but that would be a metaphysical judgment if it supposes answers to prayer are impossible. Not that I would equate prayer and gambling, but the analogy is fair.
Did you? I have to go back and look at that. I thought you said you understood…
Or knowledge… this still makes me uneasy whenever I think about it
Random is a better term. We would expect to see the same random distribution of results regardless of what the bets on the table were. Unrelated doesn’t have any connection to a mathematical model.
I suspect that we see things differently because we are trying to explain two different things. I am more concerned with data while you seem more concerned with philosophy and theology. I prefer terms that come with testable models, and random fits that requirement with ease. Purpose and organization don’t come with a testable model. I don’t see how those words can be used to describe the data in a scientific manner.
For example, if a mutation causes a child to have hemophilia, how does that relate to purpose or organization? Interestingly, one of the early estimates of the human mutation rate used spontaneous mutations in genes causing Mendelian diseases. We could also look at mutations in oncogenes which can often result in the loss of normal function of gene regulatory networks. Do these mutations cause disorganization? Do they have purpose?
I understand purpose to be a faith based belief that can’t be described in a quantifiable manner so there isn’t any connective tissue tying it to scientific concepts like random mutations with respect to fitness.
Depending on the context, “predictive” also works, as an AI machine would be able to produce a more predicatable outcome in rolling dice.
Then neither does purposeless or disorganization
Another term that has a metaphysical component
Depends on the reference point. They may lead to greater organization or disorganization. It can be incredibly difficult to tell.
Teleology as purpose in the context of a particular organism–environment interaction makes perfectly good scientific sense; it is verifiable. An engineer has no difficulty in performing tests to determine whether a man-made machine exhibits purposive behaviour towards a goal.
Noble, Dance to the Tune of Life
Spontaneous reactions don’t come with a metaphysical component in science. Mutations are an inherent property of DNA replication. They happen on their own in the same way that iron oxidizes into rust.
So what is the reference point, and what are the criteria?
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When they are said to happen without a cause, they do.
I feel like you are asking for the meaning of meaning. Or questioning whether organization exists.
That’s not what spontaneous means. More to the point, we do know what causes mutations.
I am asking for the criteria you use to determine if a mutation is purposeful or how it relates to organization. I can show you the criteria I use to determine if mutations are random with respect to fitness, so why shouldn’t the same apply to your descriptions of mutations?
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Ok, I got it. Spontaneous is a term from thermodynamics and refers to a process that occurs without any input to the system. The oxidation of iron is a process of decomposition or disorganization, and interestingly can be said to be headed towards a state of equilibrium, oneness, or unity.
But do you know what causes the cause of the mutation? 
Relativity is such an amazing concept even at this scale, but with all certainty, we agree events actually happen.
The criteria is that organization, purpose, and consciousness do emerge from the apparent chaos, and whatever apparently chaotic events contribute towards the emergence, I would call purposeful or organizational.
I can be agnostic as to whether the events are actually intended or purposed. And I do like how Noble states this, which seems quite appropriate to the issue before us
Could we do the same for the ‘why’ question in relation to a molecule like water? The answer at the moment is no. We simply do not understand the processes by which the fundamental properties of matter emerge that enable the characteristics of water that are advantageous to life.
There are many mutations that are neutral or deleterious. Neutral mutations would not contribute to the emergence you are talking about, and deleterious mutations could actively work against this emergence. How would those mutations be classified?
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Given both spoke of the exact same Old Testament events (flood and destruction of Sodom & Gomorah), I have to ask that you explain the failure in understanding what Luke and Peter wrote!
You see you have tended to claim that we cannot understand the genre of Old Testament writings…the New Testament is not even written in the same language and also contains writings of those same events.
To put it another way…
For Christ to our time is 2000years
From the flood to Christ = 2300 years
If Luke and Peter, could translate ancient bible writings of the flood some 2300 years after it occured, how is it that you seem to think that we might not be able to do the same with greek 2000 years after Luke and Peter?
You are going to have a hard time arguing genre with New Testament writings, we know too much about the cutlure of the day from external historical sources…you are trying to drive a car with square tyres… your usual genre argument is failing the stink test.
That’s what I am talking about, and why I have a hard time understanding the use of the term “random”
Possibly not random 
I just asked ChatGPT for a random number and got this
Here is a random number between 0 and 1: 0.09916675003278719.
And then followed it up with a request for an infinite number 