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Intelligent Evolution?

You still haven't explained why discussing processes with intelligent designers is any use or interest when discussing the theory of evolution. Except to highlight the differences
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You CANNOT highlight differences before you can talk about what is the same!

Such as?
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What is an 'iteration'? What is 'suited'?
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Unable to defend your position through reason, you resort to argumentum ad populum, and you don't even try to substantiate it?



An incorrect assessment of Evolution. Does the organism reproduce? If so, pass on all traits, with added random mutation. There is no parsing of the information to find the working bits. That's a feature of design, where intelligent actors are able separate the wheat from the chafe.




Those systems are fundamentally different in form and function, and they owe those differences to their different types of origin.
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It's not argumentum ad populum, silly. It was a response to the OP. Is technological advancement a good or useful analogy. Yes, it is. See Steven Jones nozzle example. Read the writings of those responsible for convey evolution to others and see what they have to say. In my experience and the experience of others, Southwind is on the right track-- what I offer is evidence; you confuse in with fallacious reasoning. You however have offered no evidence of a better or more useful analogy nor have you offered any expertise or even coherence as to why his analogy is not useful just because you don't "get it". That makes you committing the fallacy of arguing from incredulity. If you think the analogy doesn't work, but there's evidence for that it does work for many and is used by those known to teach the subject... AND there is no evidence that anyone thinks you are conveying the process in a simpler clearer manner--then that just makes you wrong with your entire premise.

In sexual reproduction only half the genetic material is passed on--it's combined with other material which affects the traits...sometimes there are mutations or methylations and ERVS and nondisjunction and other ways the info is modified--and it gets passed on or weeded out with how well it furthers the aims of information copying. And yes, there is parsing of the information--deleterious stuff is weeded right out if it's really bad--never gets a toehold--and neutral stuff rides along with the good stuff... and the good stuff is honed and refined through time based on performance in the environment. It's the SAME-- it's just information being selected via the environment. Whether it's a good design getting better because it is useful or a good genome getting better because the possessors of said genes are more reproductively successful than their competitors.

Whether the systems are "fundamentally different" in form and function is irrelevant on the atomic level. A carbon atom in you is the exact same thing as a carbon atom in a machine. They are interchangeable at an atomic level. Genes direct the building of things made of atoms and directions, blueprints, recipes, software, etc. build things that are made of atoms.
The things made of atoms react with their environment and the information is honed based on those interactions. Just because you can't get that, doesn't mean that the majority can't get that and use that information to understand how complexity can seem designed, and yet not be. Just because you think that analogy doesn't address the 747 in the junkyard canard...doesn't mean you could address it better. The Canard is wrong because it leaves out the incremental nature and exponential growth of the "best info." over time.

The problem most people have in understanding evolution is that the complexity seems impossible-- and Southwind has offered an example of just how possible it is... as has Steven Jones with his nozzle example. The fact is that these examples have worked for a lot of people--they suddenly "understand" how it could look designed and seem so complex and yet just happen via selection over time. You are just wrong. It doesn't work for you. But you are not representative. And your arguments as to why it won't work are muddled and not based on any experience in the area. Moreover, you offer nothing better. In fact, you don't even seem to "get" the simple analogy.

Information that has a trick (be it usefulness, making it's vector preferentially survive, or something else--sticks around to be honed through time.)
 
ImaginalDisc said:
False. For reasons I have explained at length. For the benefit of others, I'll summarize two of the most salient points:

Evolution has no goal seeking ability, designers do.
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So what is the goal of the internet. And why is not making more copies of yourself so that you can exist in the future the "goal" of genes. Direction, complexity, and the appearance of design do not need human intended goals. This is true for alien species that we introduce that change ecosystems...it's true for cities, language, and the internet... all you need is vectors for moving the information forward in time.

The differences are just not as big as you imagine... and the similarities are so much more than you are understanding. Did you understand the nozzle example. If you didn't understand it, can you at least understand that many people do and find it useful--even inspirational? Do you understand biomimicry. Do you understand that it is the information that evolves--not the vector or vessels that the information builds? Yeah... Vitamin C is mutated... but it happened in animals for which it was redundant... most seemed to get plenty from their environment... if your CD-R breaks, but you have a DVD-R, it doesn't matter now, does it? Apparently enough of the information was good, that the great apes could prosper without making their own vitamin C. Sure, some have suffered...but we evolved things like brains... and now we know that lack of vitamin C causes scurvy--and we can supplement. Cool, eh? And there are lots of those little design "flaws" in computers... the way it overheats... so we make fans... it's the same idea... the junk goes along until there's until it become deleterious to the propagation of the information copying vessels. It's the same for humans as for technology. There are ashtrays in airplanes that only fly domestically even though people can no longer smoke on planes.
 
jimbob said:
Cyborg and Articulett,

If evolution does not require imperfect self-replication, how are successful iterations propagated?

Is an external agency needed, together with arbitary (i.e. predefined) selection criteria?
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It doesn't require "self" replication. Insertions, methylations, nondisjunctions, ERV's viruses, brains that learn from the environment. There are many ways for info. to get copied. Self replication of a cell is not the only one. In fact, the gametes that made you could not "self replicate". They had to come together. They were made by cells that make gametes... but gametes only make other gamete indirectly by making people who make gametes. Do you know what budding is? There are lots of imperfect ways to copy information... life has a whole host of them... mitosis isn't the only game in town for replicating. Neither are DNA templates... RNA and prions get copied too. Sickle cell trait gets copied indirectly, because those who have it preferentially survive in Malarial regions... If you are nucleic acids in a vector that preferentially survives and replicates...then you exist in the future to be built upon...

Your questions and words are muddled and show a lack of understanding... not clarity. Yes, you think the evolution of technology is so very different from the evolution of species--and yet, you have failed to convey how. And your only other cohort seems to be on a different page. And both of you sound so muddled, that I can't imagine you successfully conveying natural selection (or why things can look designed and yet not be)-- to anyone. Give a brief analogy as to how complexity arises. Southwind has. Can you? Can you give a brief analogy as to why the tornado canard is wrong? Southwind has. Cyborg is excellent. I think you could do it ID. But you are way over confident. And I've already been through pages of Jim Bob's explanations... and as far as I can see, he is clear mostly in his own head and nowhere else.
 
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jimbob said:
You still haven't explained why discussing processes with intelligent designers is any use or interest when discussing the theory of evolution. Except to highlight the differences




Such as?
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The OP was whether the analogy works. It does. Even your summation of the similarities that you managed to get pretty much sum up evolution. Most people can get a lot more. Whether anything can work with a hard core ID proponent is unknown given that you claim not be one, but nothing seems to work for you. Certainly nothing you have offered is likely to work. And people who have taught evolution to many including Dawkins and Jones have used similar analogies with great success for people who thought it was all so complicated "it must have been designed". Maybe you could understand what you're missing by reading them or other experts on the subject, because you are not conveying natural selection well and it shows ignorance not to understand how it is very much like the blind (non goal oriented) selection that is naturally going on around us all the time. The environment selects what sticks around. People are part of the environment.
 
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So, could someone explain why there is no difference between the iron and carbon in cars and the iron and carbon in cats?
 
That's basic atomic theory, Mijo. How do you imagine iron atoms in cars to be different than iron atoms in blood?

I'm going to have to put you back on ignore. That is the most ignorant question I've heard you ask yet.
 
The internet doesn't have a goal, silly.


But the people who contributed to the development of the interned all did.

The development of the internet could be used as an example of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" where many individuals, each with their own goals contribute to a whole in ways that they didn't necessarily intend.

As an example of evolution it is pretty poor.

Evolution has no goals, or motivations, humans do.

There are no deliberate changes in evolution (see above). There are plenty in the development of the internet.

People in the US military decided to open it up to civilians.

People decided to move from a 1-d text based system to hypertext.

Later, other people decided that pornography was a good way of making money. People decided the same for spam email.

Articulett, I am pleased that you now think that I can sum up evolution in two lines,

Both processes are iterative. Later iterations are "more suited" than earlier iterations.
That is the totality of their similarity.
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Is Behe a Hard Core ID proponent?

Whether anything can work with a hard core ID proponent is unknown given that you claim not be one, but nothing seems to work for you.
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He would gladly accept your defintion of evolution as it obviously allows for direction of evolution by intelligent agencies. He would not argue against it at all.
 
articulett said:
That's basic atomic theory, Mijo. How do you imagine iron atoms in cars to be different than iron atoms in blood?

I'm going to have to put you back on ignore. That is the most ignorant question I've heard you ask yet.
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That is unfortunate because it is quite obvious that you have picked one, single aspect of carbon (i.e., that is has six protons) and declared all instances of carbon identical. This in and of itself show a a profound lack of basic knowledge of chemistry. If all the instances of carbon were the same, carbon would not have three different allotropes with radically different physical properties.
 
mijopaalmc said:
That is unfortunate because it is quite obvious that you have picked one, single aspect of carbon (i.e., that is has six protons) and declared all instances of carbon identical. This in and of itself show a a profound lack of basic knowledge of chemistry. If all the instances of carbon were the same, carbon would not have three different allotropes with radically different physical properties.
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No... they are identical. The heavy carbon in your car is the same as the heavy carbon in your body. The standard carbon is the same as the standard carbon. The radioactive carbon breaks down at the same rate whether it's in your body or your car. It is unfortunate that you have problems with similarities while seeing differences that don't exist. But that is your problem. Not mine.
 
jimbob said:
The internet doesn't have a goal, silly.


But the people who contributed to the development of the interned all did.

The development of the internet could be used as an example of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" where many individuals, each with their own goals contribute to a whole in ways that they didn't necessarily intend.

As an example of evolution it is pretty poor.

Evolution has no goals, or motivations, humans do.

There are no deliberate changes in evolution (see above). There are plenty in the development of the internet.

People in the US military decided to open it up to civilians.

People decided to move from a 1-d text based system to hypertext.

Later, other people decided that pornography was a good way of making money. People decided the same for spam email.

Articulett, I am pleased that you now think that I can sum up evolution in two lines,



Is Behe a Hard Core ID proponent?



He would gladly accept your defintion of evolution as it obviously allows for direction of evolution by intelligent agencies. He would not argue against it at all.
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And you never have understood Behe's argument or the entire wedge strategy which has also evolved based on what works. They see how readily people like you are confused and so they just make it all sound impossible--that it couldn't come about randomly... but it can--with selection-- purposeful or not. Are you not part of what the internet is? Was that a goal of yours? Or are you just utilizing something useful and in the process the internet evolves? Or "develops" for those who have problems with the word. How is this different than an Ant Colony... or the evolving genomes that made such colonies possible?

People brought cane toads to Australia to kill beetles--which they didn't kill them and they had no predators and now they are a huge problem unto themselves. So how did that huge problem evolve? How did they evolve to become such a menace? Is this complex issue "intelligently designed"-- accidentally designed? naturally selected? artificially selected. Humans had a goal to control beetles-- but ended up with 2 pests to control--the solution being worse than the problem. But, it was lucky for the toad genes that got passed on absent any predators, eh? There is no single line. It's all about about copying information and seeing how it causes atoms to come together and how those things interact with the environment.

All things--alive and machines are made of atoms. Directions code for how these atoms are organized. In life forms--DNA organizes the atoms into living things that pass that can get the information into the future--not perfectly... and not necessarily SELF replicating (can you replicate yourself?--does a sperm come from another sperm--no. A random half of the information that made you is in each sperm along with possible mutations-- made from spermatocytes... and the same goes for the egg... which is has a second set of instructions for the whole zygote producing, embryo growing thing. It doesn't matter how the information is spread-- it just matters how it alters the way matter comes together (building a car? a city? a dog?) and whether the matter is affected or effective in such a way that some or all of the information gets passed on to potentially affect other matter in the future. Matter--it's all composed of atoms--nothing else. And atom you breath now could very well be one that Einstein farted long ago. Such is the nature of matter. All DNA does is make proteins which can influence how matter behaves. That is what evolves. All the atoms just move from one form to another as they pass through life and things at the direction of the environment.

This is just basic science. Your extrapolations and analogies just show that you can't get it, but you have nothing better to offer. Did you understand the nozzle example--the idea of a blind algorithm producing a design better than a human trying to build from top down did? Did you understand Biomimicry and the link I posted before? Do you understand why many people...even those who once thought evolution was too complex to understand find the nozzle example useful?-- Especially for understanding natural selection and incremental changes through time (climbing mount improbable--or is that another analogy that is too hard for you?) (From a hundred years ago-- wouldn't jet planes and computers seem like trying to jump up the edge of a cliff from far below? But didn't we get there slowly up the backside of the mountain with a steady but bumpy road forward?)

Your questions are the smarmy kind of crap creationists ask. Just like Mijo. And I'm supposed to believe you aren't one. You are really really bad at explaining how the appearance of design can come about--you are very bad at explaining natural selection--you insist on summing up evolution as random or "probabilistic" which experts on the subject find unhelpful-- and you want someone other than you to think you know what would work with a creationist? I think you haven't figured it out yourself well enough to explain it so that it makes sense to anyone but yourself. And you fail to recognize the nozzle analogy or how clear cyborg is or how very coherent and well reasoned Southwind sounds in conveying information as compared to you.

As far as I'm concerned, you are perfect for the wedge strategy--you almost sound like you know what you are talking about--enough to confuse the ignorant... and make them think evolution sounds too complicated and impossible--therefore it must be designed from the top down.

Natural Selection is bottom up "design"-- goal directed or not--or multiple goals of multiply intentioned individuals forming a whole of something they may or may not be aware of.

Muddled mouthed science is what ID has evolved into...because IT works. But good analogies given to the young keep it from sticking-- Southwind's type analogies-- nothing that you have offered would. Just because you "don't get it"--doesn't mean that the majority can't or won't.
 
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articulett said:
No... they are identical. The heavy carbon in your car is the same as the heavy carbon in your body. The standard carbon is the same as the standard carbon. The radioactive carbon breaks down at the same rate whether it's in your body or your car. It is unfortunate that you have problems with similarities while seeing differences that don't exist. But that is your problem. Not mine.
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Not all carbons are the same. The may all have six protons, but that characteristic is not always the most relevant property of the carbon atom. In fact, most of the chemistry of carbon arises not from the nucleons it possesses (although it is important when determining electron densities around the nuclei) but from the configuration of electrons around them. The fact that hydrogen has one proton and carbon has six does not explain why cyclopropene and cyclopentadiene form anions but not cations and cylcoheptatriene form a cation and not an anion. Nor will the nucleonic make up of the hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen explain why amylase recognizes and hydrolyzes amylose (starch) but not cellulose.
 
So-- if we look at all the carbon atoms in your body how do you imagine they'd differ percentage wise from all the carbon in your car? How are the iron atoms in blood different than the iron atoms in your car?

Atoms are atoms no matter where they are...no matter if they make up life or some other matter. Information builds that matter into life forms, people, brains, cars, cities etc. These things interact with the environment and information gets modified accordingly.

Evolution is pretty much the same thing at it's core--whether it's evolution of technology or evolution of mammals.

gametes hijack life forms to copy the information in them. They do not self replicate. Something does not need to SELF replicate to evolve. Viruses don't "self replicate". They just need to get their information copied and put into vectors that carry that information to the future where it can code for things (arrangements of atoms) that are then tested in the environment to see what information is passed on and refined.
 
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articulett said:
So-- if we look at all the carbon atoms in your body how do you imagine they'd differ percentage wise from all the carbon in your car? How are the iron atoms in blood different than the iron atoms in your car?

Atoms are atoms no matter where they are...no matter if they make up life or some other matter. Information builds that matter into life forms, people, brains, cars, cities etc. These things interact with the environment and information gets modified accordingly.

Evolution is pretty much the same thing at it's core--whether it's evolution of technology or evolution of mammals.
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You are still missing the point: the chemical properties of the carbon in steel are different than those of the carbon in biological molecules. While there is nothing special about the carbon in living things that prevents it from ending up in steel, or vice versa, the carbon in steel is not immediately bioavailible and it must be chemically altered to make it so.
 
BTW, I don't think Behe would ever use such an analogy--because he knows very well it could lead to people seeing how complexity and seeming design could come about rather easily given selection over time with exponential increase of success. Heck, computer evolution is a really good model of that... When information can be stored in small spaces and copied and multiplied with great fidelity--complexity can increase exponentially once a "toehold" has been established. No human can predict the future of technology and yet we are all likely a part of what it will become. Bottom up "design" is the norm for all complexity.

Behe is also careful to over-emphasize randomness in evolution and skip over natural selection--because he knows full well that it makes people as confused sounding as Mijo and thus evolution is not understood.
 
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mijopaalmc said:
You are still missing the point: the chemical properties of the carbon in steel are different than those of the carbon in biological molecules. While there is nothing special about the carbon in living things that prevents it from ending up in steel, or vice versa, the carbon in steel is not immediately bioavailible and it must be chemically altered to make it so.
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A carbon atom is a carbon atom is a carbon atom. This is so tangential and ridiculous. This is even more true of iron atoms. Humans use information to make steel which is a molecule that contains atoms that are the same no matter where they are. And the body uses carbon to build life forms based on the information in DNA.

Are you actually trying to argue that the analogy is bad because steel molecules are bio available. Sure they are--just put them into really fine particles and sprinkle them on your cereal as they do with iron supplements and see if the body doesn't find a way to incorporate it... and even if not...so what... different directions...and molecules aren't atoms. We didn't evolve to eat metal hybrids... but steel evolved and is widely used and the make up and uses are still evolving-- because when the atoms come together it does useful stuff--so we build on the information we've amassed so far.

Presto... evolution. Information evolves. Recipes for alloys and metal amalgams have been evolving just like symbiotes and coral reefs and the organs in a body--over time and based on how well they "work" in the environment they find themselves in.
 
I understand your point-- Correct me if I'm wrong--but Jim Bob, Mijo, and ID think that the analogy in the OP is bad--they don't see it as furthering understanding. I already know that it does. That's why the experts use it. Of course the best ways of explaining it will evolve based on what works and what the creationists come up with to counter it.

And Mijo--you are so much like Behe with your scientific tangents off the point making semi knowledgable people think the lack of understanding is them. It isn't. You just aren't saying anything.

We get it. You all think it's a bad analogy and that it doesn't work. But none of you have explained natural selection or how the appearance of design comes about well. Nor do you have a clear way of conveying why the 747 analogy is wrong. So why in the world you would think your opinion on the usefulness of this analogy would matter is completely beyond me. Why you'd weigh in, when Southwind sounds so much clearer than you--is beyond me.

I mean, I think ID is pretty good most of the time when he talks about evolution...but on this topic, he sounds as clueless as you, Mijo--and I have long held that you are a creationist and an apologist.
 
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All the atoms to make a jet plane existed 100 years ago, so why were there no jet planes. I maintain it's because the information had not evolved to that point and the various technologies used in airplanes of today had not evolved yet... we had not figured out how to arrange those atoms in that way...but through information that built airplanes through time and built engines and interacted with the environment, we have today's species--from which tomorrows species of jet travel will emerge. Is the Concorde extinct? The design still exists...so it can live again in a new incarnation with tweaks so that it might fit better in its environment.
 
articulett-

You're problem is that when you don't agree with something that someone says you plug your ears and scream "LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!". We have explained how natural selection works (differential reproduction of traits leads to a change in their frequency with in a population), but you don't like our explanations so you deny that we ever gave them. The fact is that the "appearance of design" to which you refer is a cheap appeal to the claim that life forms are so complex that they couldn't have evolved through a probabilistic mechanism; organisms only appear to be designed if you deny that random processes ever lead to ordered results, which is a patently false statement. Not only does the 747/tornado/junkyard "analogy" not work because it only represents one trial but it also fails to account for the retention of "stuff that works" and therefore does not contain an analog for natural selection.
 
mijopaalmc said:
articulett-

You're problem is that when you don't agree with something that someone says you plug your ears and scream "LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!". We have explained how natural selection works (differential reproduction of traits leads to a change in their frequency with in a population), but you don't like our explanations so you deny that we ever gave them. The fact is that the "appearance of design" to which you refer is a cheap appeal to the claim that life forms are so complex that they couldn't have evolved through a probabilistic mechanism; organisms only appear to be designed if you deny that random processes ever lead to ordered results, which is a patently false statement. Not only does the 747/tornado/junkyard "analogy" not work because it only represents one trial but it also fails to account for the retention of "stuff that works" and therefore does not contain an analog for natural selection.
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It's not a matter of whether I agree or not. It's a matter of whether the analogy in the OP is useful for conveying evolution. And btw your definition of natural selection works equally well for information that builds technology. Different rates of how info is copied determines what things (traits) we see in the environment. It's not that I don't like your explanations... it's just that you don't seem to understand them. Nothing is a "cheap appeal"...and life forms don't evolve through a "probabilistic mechanism" (what a mealy mouthed way of saying nothing that is)--they evolve through natural selection. That was the key component in Darwin's theory. And selection is anything in the environment that alters what information is expressed (forms the way matter comes together). Yes... the tornado does not contain an analog for natural selection because it represents one trial and fails to count for retention of the "stuff that works"-- but the evolution of the airplane itself accounts for both. See? It's you who are closing your ears and thinking that because you don't understand how the analogy works--that must mean it doesn't. It does. You just can't understand how no matter how carefully it is explained. You can only see the differences and you miss the big picture--just like you do when you call evolution "random". You, like Behe, muddle understanding by using vague terminology and failing to convey natural selection in the coherent manner Dawkins, Jones, Southwind, and Cyborg are doing. You have no good analogies. You're muddled and not really saying anything cogent or useful--just like Behe. You point out things that are wrong--while not providing anything right or better--just like Behe. And I believe both you and Behe are doing this because your aim is to NOT understand evolution and to make sure others don't either.

What kind of evidence would you need to show that Southwind's analogies are useful-- where is anyone teaching evolution to the masses or conveying understanding about it who would agree with your assertion that Southwind's method doesn't work? Southwind's response demonstrates why the tornaodo/747 analogy is wrong in the same manner you did (which you copied from me, I think)-- only it did so with a concrete, easy to understand analogy. You have none of those. You are the ones closing your ears to understanding how Southwind's analogy can and DOES work. That makes you the one going "la,la, la-- I can't hear you."

We all understand your point. In your head the analogy is bad. You think that it won't work for others. But you have already been proven wrong. The nozzle example is but one of many instances. Biomimicry is another. I don't think anyone who actually teaches evolution would agree with your statement that the two types of evolution are too dissimilar to be of use in furthering understanding. While that is true for you and Jim Bob-- and maybe ID. It's not true for my students or Southwind or Dawkins' many readers. Whether I can hear you or not is irrelevant as to whether the analogy works.

The bottom line is the same--information is honed through time and tested in the environment via assemblages from the information--with the working information sticking around to be copied, stored, appended, tweaked, added too, and incorporated in other evolving systems.

That is true of evolution of genomes and evolution of technological design. That is true of all things that evolve.
 
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