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I'm just wondering if there is really such a thing as "random" in geography?

To me it always seems like everything has a reason:

examples:

  • vegetation does not just randomly grow
  • whether and climate changes have reasons and patterns
  • population is far from random
  • crime and other activities are not random (e.g. on roads)

etc.

PolyGeo
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Tim
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    Yes everything has a reason (beyond quantum randomness) but if the underlying reason cannot be explained we call it "random noise". Its what's left (the uncorrelated, random residuals) after a statistical model has fitted the explained variation (like the linear fit part of a linear model) – Spacedman Apr 10 '16 at 23:12
  • We model coin flips, spins of a Roulette wheel, and draws of cards from shuffled decks using randomness, too, knowing full well that all these processes are governed by deterministic physical laws. The parallels with geographical models bear contemplation. – whuber Apr 11 '16 at 20:15

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