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Do we know what percentage of people who "believe" in natural  
selection actually understand it?  I am assuming that some extremely  
small percentage of people...even those who say that they believe  
that natural selection most accurately explains the process of  
biological evolution --could describe even the most basic and  
essential aspects of the mechanism of natural selection.

Could one therefore say that those who ignorantly profess belief in  
natural selection simply have faith that science is a better  
explanation than religion?  If that were a fair statement, then it  
would be difficult to describe an objective hierarchy, from ignorant  
to enlightened, between ID believers and science believers.

Please keep in mind that I am among the ignorant science believers,  
so be kind...

Eric Siegel
Executive VP
    Programs and Planning
NY Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
www.nyscience.org

On Aug 5, 2005, at 12:22 PM, martin weiss wrote:



> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
> institutions.
> ********************************************************************** 
> *******
>
> Hope this helpful.
>
>     Random only means not directed. Genetic mutations are random:  
> we can calculate, like with coin flips, the probability of  
> different mutations occurring.
>
>     An analogy to what biologists mean when they say evolution is  
> random is a trial of coin flips. The result of a coin flip is  
> random NOT because we have no idea how it will result but because  
> we cannot say for certain how it will result. We have some idea  
> what will happen - half of time we'll flip heads, and half of the  
> time we'll flip tails. The coin flip is said to be random because  
> we cannot say for certain what will happen, but we can determine  
> the probability of each result. Random is another way of saying  
> "not directed" (i.e., there is nothing determining absolutely the  
> result of a particular trial or run).
>
>     It's important to understand that when biologists say the  
> mutational process is random, we mean that it is not directed.  
> There is nothing determining definitively that a mutation will  
> occur at a particular nucleotide. Mutations provide the raw  
> material on which natural selection acts. Natural selection (and  
> other evolution forces) is a deterministic process; a beneficial  
> mutation will always reach fixation in an ideal population (i.e.,  
> natural selection will cause it to replace all the other alleles),  
> and a deleterious mutation will always be lost. We have no way of  
> saying for sure whether or not a particular nucleotide will mutate  
> because mutation is a random process - we can only assign a  
> probability that it will mutate.
>
> Martin


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