articulett
Banned
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2005
- Messages
- 15,404
Ugh... Jim's fluorescent mouse-- such a tangent... such an attempt to invalidate an analogy and show his cluelessness. Bioluminescence has evolved... that's where we got the gene to make the mouse glow... it evolves in creatures for whom it gives a survival advantage...
Bioluminescent mice only have a survival advantage in that humans that create their luminescence will help them preferentially survive to see what happens...experimental mice survive and prosper because of humans; they make great guinea pigs for numerous reasons and they share 90% of their genome with us as many of their body structures including their brain-- (because of shared information from our common ancestor).
It's irrelevant how long one would take to evolve in the wild without humans, because it evolved in parallel with human and human-evolving-scientific-knowledge. The environment doing the molding contained humans... but the DNA responsible for the mouse, the human, and the bioluminescence was produced by nature over eons.
If you look at evolution merely as information which makes matter (that always existed) form different and "more organized" and adapted things that encourage the refinement of evolution-- it's the same. DNA that created genes created creatures of increasing size and complexity that created more and more DNA systems (life forms, reefs, ecosystems) that evolved in parallel and drive the evolution of even better information delivery systems. Intelligence doesn't always win. A virus like ebola could triumph and wipe out all of humanity with all it's supposed "intelligence".
And human brains are copiers of information as well...and their brains have generated lots of ways of copying and spreading and mutating and processing information that is then honed in the environment for it's copy producing capabilities. Whether it's chain letters or technological designs or the internet, as long as the information survives... it can evolve and affect the other evolving things around it. Although neither genes nor information (say computer bytes) have no desire... if they manage to get themselves copied via whatever means... they can grow and evolve. Humans can and do shape the evolution of all things (life forms and not) that they come in contact with...intentionally or not...by passing things on or killing them off... Nobody is "in charge"-- we evolved to be information processors--it was adaptive to our survival. And idea mutation in someone's brain might take us a big step forward, in the same way a beneficial mutation can take a species a step forward-- but that's it. Everything "complex" and seemingly designed comes from information that has been evolving. It all comes from information evolving to organize matter into things that become information vectors-- Good information or tricky information gets itself copied. Whether it is the genome of ebola, a chain letter, or a widget that is slightly cheaper and more useful and widely available than the previous version of said widget.
Analogies are designed to communicate the essence of an idea--just like a model or a metaphor or pictures. Humans use them all the time to convey a framework in which to place further knowledge. Steven Pinker (evolutionary biologist and linguist) talks a lot about this in his new book. He mentioned something in a podcast I just heard (from "all in the mind") about how he reminds his students that analogies are not about every aspect being the same--it's about the overall idea being the same.
Analogies are often used in intelligence tests, because people who understand them and are good at them can use them to solve problems in one arena by analogizing it to another. Clearly, not everyone is good at analogies. But I think this thread gives you a pretty good example of the type that aren't--and also a good example that the majority are--and that the experts would find your understanding (Southwind) of evolution to be clearer and more on target (less muddled by extraneous "what ifs") than those who find your analogy doomed to failure. It is their muddled excuses and explanations that doom them to failure--failure to be understood and have that understanding evolve.
I've put them on ignore, so I shall only read them in your post. But I've never seen either get a clue. They have an eternally long thread on randomness with the exact same failure to actually make a valid point while using a lot of words, insults, tangents, poor analogies, links that they think support their view but don't, and so forth-- and not a clue. Use them for debate practice only. It isn't you. They are having an entirely different conversation than you are. It's about proving to themselves that your explanations are doomed to failure--that everybody is wrong but them. Heck, even the experts are wrong (to them)--but in their head they're lay person opinion is clear as glass. And they cannot hear those who tell them otherwise. They cannot learn, because they are certain they already know it all.
Bioluminescent mice only have a survival advantage in that humans that create their luminescence will help them preferentially survive to see what happens...experimental mice survive and prosper because of humans; they make great guinea pigs for numerous reasons and they share 90% of their genome with us as many of their body structures including their brain-- (because of shared information from our common ancestor).
It's irrelevant how long one would take to evolve in the wild without humans, because it evolved in parallel with human and human-evolving-scientific-knowledge. The environment doing the molding contained humans... but the DNA responsible for the mouse, the human, and the bioluminescence was produced by nature over eons.
If you look at evolution merely as information which makes matter (that always existed) form different and "more organized" and adapted things that encourage the refinement of evolution-- it's the same. DNA that created genes created creatures of increasing size and complexity that created more and more DNA systems (life forms, reefs, ecosystems) that evolved in parallel and drive the evolution of even better information delivery systems. Intelligence doesn't always win. A virus like ebola could triumph and wipe out all of humanity with all it's supposed "intelligence".
And human brains are copiers of information as well...and their brains have generated lots of ways of copying and spreading and mutating and processing information that is then honed in the environment for it's copy producing capabilities. Whether it's chain letters or technological designs or the internet, as long as the information survives... it can evolve and affect the other evolving things around it. Although neither genes nor information (say computer bytes) have no desire... if they manage to get themselves copied via whatever means... they can grow and evolve. Humans can and do shape the evolution of all things (life forms and not) that they come in contact with...intentionally or not...by passing things on or killing them off... Nobody is "in charge"-- we evolved to be information processors--it was adaptive to our survival. And idea mutation in someone's brain might take us a big step forward, in the same way a beneficial mutation can take a species a step forward-- but that's it. Everything "complex" and seemingly designed comes from information that has been evolving. It all comes from information evolving to organize matter into things that become information vectors-- Good information or tricky information gets itself copied. Whether it is the genome of ebola, a chain letter, or a widget that is slightly cheaper and more useful and widely available than the previous version of said widget.
Analogies are designed to communicate the essence of an idea--just like a model or a metaphor or pictures. Humans use them all the time to convey a framework in which to place further knowledge. Steven Pinker (evolutionary biologist and linguist) talks a lot about this in his new book. He mentioned something in a podcast I just heard (from "all in the mind") about how he reminds his students that analogies are not about every aspect being the same--it's about the overall idea being the same.
Analogies are often used in intelligence tests, because people who understand them and are good at them can use them to solve problems in one arena by analogizing it to another. Clearly, not everyone is good at analogies. But I think this thread gives you a pretty good example of the type that aren't--and also a good example that the majority are--and that the experts would find your understanding (Southwind) of evolution to be clearer and more on target (less muddled by extraneous "what ifs") than those who find your analogy doomed to failure. It is their muddled excuses and explanations that doom them to failure--failure to be understood and have that understanding evolve.
I've put them on ignore, so I shall only read them in your post. But I've never seen either get a clue. They have an eternally long thread on randomness with the exact same failure to actually make a valid point while using a lot of words, insults, tangents, poor analogies, links that they think support their view but don't, and so forth-- and not a clue. Use them for debate practice only. It isn't you. They are having an entirely different conversation than you are. It's about proving to themselves that your explanations are doomed to failure--that everybody is wrong but them. Heck, even the experts are wrong (to them)--but in their head they're lay person opinion is clear as glass. And they cannot hear those who tell them otherwise. They cannot learn, because they are certain they already know it all.
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