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To: spunkets
The distribution of outcomes and the cause for the outcome are independent. In general outcomes appear at random, even for such things as shooting holes in paper.

This is covered a bit on this thread: The word “random” as used in science does not mean uncaused, unplanned, or inexplicable; it means uncorrelated. My children like to observe the license plates of the cars that pass us on the highway, to see which states they are from. The sequence of states exhibits a degree of randomness: a car from Kentucky, then New Jersey, then Florida, and so on—because the cars are uncorrelated: Knowing where one car comes from tells us nothing about where the next one comes from. And yet, each car comes to that place at that time for a reason. Each trip is planned, each guided by some map and schedule. Each driver’s trip fits into the story of his life in some intelligible way, though the story of these drivers’ lives are not usually closely correlated with the other drivers’ lives.

548 posted on 12/08/2005 3:51:35 PM PST by cornelis
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To: cornelis
The word “random” as used in science does not mean uncaused, unplanned, or inexplicable; it means uncorrelated.

False. The guy who wrote the original thread is clueless.

624 posted on 12/08/2005 8:16:02 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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