Jeremy Stangroom

@skepteaser @toxicpath Or imagine dice. If I throw them in *exactly* the same way from the same starting point I'll get the same result, no?

@skepteaser @toxicpath We say it's 'random' because it's *as if* it's random to us, but actually it's physically deterministic.

@SIN_Notung @toxicpath I am not sure if we can compare random sampling errors to a throw of dice but I could be wrong.

@SIN_Notung @toxicpath Suppose an error in gene transcription were introduced by radioactivity. You might consider the sequence of events

@SIN_Notung @toxicpath as deterministic. However radioactive decay is completely stochastic at the atomic level.

@SIN_Notung @toxicpath There's no way to predict which atom will decay.

@SIN_Notung @toxicpath mutations by radioactivity are fairly common. Who knows how many times it had a defining effect on the course of

@SIN_Notung @toxicpath natural history. The most tenable position is that we don't know what would happen if we reran the tape.