Intelligent Evolution?

[articulett]

Mijo said that creationists see analogs to irreducible complexity in the technological world. (??) Really-- what are they? It must be part of that continued confusion between the object and the instructions for creating said object. The naysayers just cannot distinguish between the two.

I did read, though, that damage to the angular gyrus makes people overly literal... they tend to be unable to understand analogies or metaphors or idioms and give particular poor ones when they attempt to do so-- they tend to have stilted speech and a poor sense of humor too. There's decreased "mental flexibility". But, it's like being color blind-- unless you test for it... you usually don't know that you have the deficiency. 8% of the male population has red/green colorblindness (which really means they confuse shades of rust and brown and olive), but they don't know it until they happen upon one of those tests for color blindness. So maybe for some people it's that. For Mijo, though, there is repeated dishonesty, ad hocs, tangents, and pedantic blather that sound identical to Behe to me. So I think it's faith based brain damage that accounts for his deficits.

But the gist of the naysayers seems to be--"it doesn't make sense because of (insert tangents) and it will just be used by creationists to bolster their view"-- Both positions are not supported by the evidence.
The only technique the creationists have is to be muddled mouthed so that nobody understand selection while pretending that scientists think that this all came about "randomly". Without understanding that evolution is driven by information selected by the environment over time, you can convince yourself and others that stuff is more miraculous and "impossible" and "meaningful" and "intelligent" than it is.

 

[mijopaalmc]

I strongly suspect that mijo's garbling is a ruse; there are times when his sentence structure is 'normal'...

Vis:
Starts of fairly coherently and then veers towards gobbledygook

By the way, I never said there was such a thing as irreducible complexity; I just said that intelligent design proponents believed that only God was capable of producing it. If the atheists on this board can talk about God without positing the truth of God's existence, I can talk about irreducibly complexity without positing its existence.

... nonsense

Would you care to explain why you can talk about God, as I have seen you do before, with out positing a belief in God's existence, while you claim a mere mention of irreducible complexity from me has to mean that I am an intelligent design proponent?

 

[six7s]

Would you care to explain why you can talk about God, as I have seen you do before, with out positing a belief in God's existence, while you claim a mere mention of irreducible complexity from me has to mean that I am an intelligent design proponent?

I suggest that you should suppress the impulse of misrepresenting anyone with the ability to copy and paste a quote - as doing so makes you look even sillier than otherwise

As it is abundantly clear that there is NO evidence for ANY woo...

Please do NOT misconstrue this post as being evidence of me 'caring' to explain something to you

...a mere mention of irreducible complexity from me has to mean that I am an intelligent design proponent?

Nope. Not a 'mere mention'. Try 'repeated, seemingly intentional, obfuscation'

 

[mijopaalmc]

six7s-

What don't you understand about the fact that I was describing my perceptions of what intelligent design proponents believe?

How does that translate to my believing what intelligent design proponents believe?

 

[articulett]

I suggest that you should suppress the impulse of misrepresenting anyone with the ability to copy and paste a quote - as doing so makes you look even sillier than otherwise


Please do NOT misconstrue this post as being evidence of me 'caring' to explain something to you



Nope. Not a 'mere mention'. Try 'repeated, seemingly intentional, obfuscation'

Per my reading of your quotes of him, you had no problem with his "irreducible complexity" mention... but you called his segue into "god" land weird... which it was... and so was his comment on me not understanding "supernatural" versus "intelligent"... to me he just says one weird nonsensical tangential thing after another... and makes allegations and exaggerations and misinterpretations while demanding evidence for silly things and ignoring all information related to the topic.

You missed it earlier in the thread... but he actually was claiming that the atoms in life forms were somehow different than the atoms in stuff like cars. That was a weird, weird tangent. Atoms are atoms no matter where they are. I can't keep track of all his tangents... and then there are Jim Bob's silly analogies... "how long would it take for a mouse to evolve biouminescence?" What a silly, time-wasting question and tangent. They must be making some kind of point in their head, though I have no idea what it is-- to me it's clear they just don't "get" the analogy-- and so they presume others won't-- AND they haven't a clue about creationists though they use their google-fu to try and dredge up something that they think supports their view-- but they are clueless. And they ignore all links where they might actually get a clue. Why? I think it's because they would rather believe they are "right" rather than risk getting a clue and finding out they don't know as much as their confidence warrants.

I guess that's a big "woo clue"-- faith not alterable by evidence and no actual interest in topics one pretends to have expertise in.

 

[six7s]

six7s-

What don't you understand about the fact that I was describing my perceptions of what intelligent design proponents believe?

Nothing, which curiously also describes how much of your post I think is sincere

How does that translate to my believing what intelligent design proponents believe?

I'm afraid that only you or one of your apologist friends can translate that. Although I can read a bit of gobbledygook, typing it is something I'm less than willing to do

 

[articulett]

If such a learned smart group of people were carefully explaining why the analogy was good and dropping by this thread to encourage the OP and weigh in in favor-- wouldn't that make you even more interested in getting it... instead of assuming that somehow you had understanding beyond everyone else... including those who have actual experience and who gladly link you up to the latest info. on such?

What sort of person is adamant about an analogy not working when it clearly does for so many? And what sort of person has no interest or clue about what is going on in the creationist movement while they pretend to know how an analogy they show no ability to understand will play into creationist hands? Based on what evidence? What creationist talks about information being honed by the environment over time? Which naysayer even understands the analogy is about this? What creationist doesn't muddle the selection process while emphasizing the "randomness" that scientists "believe in"?

And what sort of person keeps confusing the information for the thing it creates despite a myriad of attempts to distinguish between the two? It's the information that gets itself copied not "the thing". Dogs don't copy themselves-- they make gametes and have a sex drive and the two interact to combine assorted successful information to make a brand new model of dog which is then tested in the environment so that the information in the genome may or may not get copied again and again and again. Why the hyperfocus on "self replication" when it's not necessary in biology in regards to the organism-- just in regards to the INFORMATION? Why the emphasis on humans and their intelligence rather than the fact that they are just environmental inputs processing, replicating, and honing information over time? It's not special just because humans are attached or can "think ahead". Information doesn't need to think ahead to be part of the future--it just has to get itself replicated.

 

[mijopaalmc]

You missed it earlier in the thread... but he actually was claiming that the atoms in life forms were somehow different than the atoms in stuff like cars.

Here is where articulett lies through her teeth yet again. I said that the carbon in steel and the carbon in glucose have different chemical properties that are not explained the fact the all carbon has six protons and that it is important to understand the the differences in the chemical properties of carbon in order to fully understand the chemistry of carbon.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Nothing, which curiously also describes how much of your post I think is sincere


I'm afraid that only you or one of your aplogist friends can answer that. Although I can read a bit of gobbledygook, typing it is something I'm less than willing to do

Translation: "I can't explain it to you so I'm just going to insult you."

 

[six7s]

Translation: "I can't explain it to you so I'm just going to insult you."

Close... but no cigar

 

[articulett]

Close... but no cigar

Remember, he sucks at analogies.

(and honesty and dialogue as well).

(and here's his carbon digression--it's a scream http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3065084&highlight=carbon#post3065084)

 

[mijopaalmc]

Remember, he sucks at analogies.

(and honesty and dialogue as well).

And apparently articulett doesn't even know what an analogy is.

(and here's his carbon digression--it's a scream http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3065084&highlight=carbon#post3065084)

So she is highlighting her own lie now?

 

[Southwind17]

Here, use a dictionary.

ID, if all you can offer in your defence is to quote a slightly different definition of a word from a less authoritative dictionary than the one I chose, such alternative definition, however, making absolutely no difference to the validity of the argument, then I think that speaks volumes for both the weakness of your argument, and hence the strength of mine, and your complete inability to debate meaningfully. I note you've sought not to challenge any other part of my post, and given that I requested that you respond point by point, which you have not challenged, I think it's reasonable for us all to assume that you absolutely agree with the rest.

Accordingly, I consider this game, set and match in favour of the analogy.

Given the foregoing, I see little if any point in continuing this debate with the likes of you, mijo and jimbob. As articulett has so accurately observed, but to use my own words, you guys are so hung up in your own narrow thought bands that you simply cannot open your minds to fresh ideas. You will be arguing exactly the same as you are now when your bodies are as tired and wizened as your brains already are, and even then nobody, other than your own limited kind, will be agreeing with you.

I am now unsubscribing from this thread. Please feel free to apply yet more of your narrow, illogical and unimaginative thoughts responding to this post for the superficial delectation of your like-minded cronies. I certainly won't be wasting any more time reading it.

 

[jimbob]

Southwind, did you see the (admittedly brief) description of a vam nemann machine needing imperfect self-replication for it to evolve?

 

[mijopaalmc]

So how exactly is a dictionary that lists fewer definitions "more authoritative"?

Why are you ignoring the fact that the definition that ImaginalDisc used was Random House Unabridged Dictionary, a relatively authoritative source?

Just for good measure here's the definition of "autonomous" from Webster's Dictionary:

Main Entry: au·ton·o·mous Listen to the pronunciation of autonomous
Pronunciation: \ȯ-ˈtä-nə-məs\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek autonomos independent, from aut- + nomos law — more at nimble
Date: 1800

1: of, relating to, or marked by autonomy
2 a: having the right or power of self-government b: undertaken or carried on without outside control : self-contained <an autonomous school system>
3 a: existing or capable of existing independently <an autonomous zooid> b: responding, reacting, or developing independently of the whole <an autonomous growth>
4: controlled by the autonomic nervous system

And from The American Heritage Dictionary:

au·ton·o·mous (ô-tŏn'ə-məs) Pronunciation Key
adj.

1. Not controlled by others or by outside forces; independent: an autonomous judiciary; an autonomous division of a corporate conglomerate.
2. Independent in mind or judgment; self-directed.
3.
1. Independent of the laws of another state or government; self-governing.
2. Of or relating to a self-governing entity: an autonomous legislature.
3. Self-governing with respect to local or internal affairs: an autonomous region of a country.
4. Autonomic.



[From Greek autonomos : auto-, auto- + nomos, law; see nem- in Indo-European roots.]

 

[articulett]

Southwind, did you see the (admittedly brief) description of a vam nemann machine needing imperfect self-replication for it to evolve?

Do you understand that self-replication refers to the "information"??-- information that is good at getting itself copied is information that drives evolution? Organisms don't copy themselves-- they copy their information... that's the level the changes are made at. Eohippus did not become today's horse... their genomes evolved... We see the changes that the changes in information coded for. But no animal changed it's information in it's own lifetime.
Each had to interact with the environment which determined which information got passed on and which died out. The information leading from the first plane to today's plans followed the same process.

INFORMATION. You aren't copied. Bits and pieces of the information that made you are either copied or not copied to be built upon in the future or die out. Self-replication only means that the "information" units (DNA, genes, bytes, phrases, ideas, memes, genomes, stories, whatever) are good at getting themselves copied by "exploiting" their environment. In humans, ideas that further human aims tend to get copied by humans. So do ideas that promise eternal rewards or that scare people into thinking that they must believe a certain way or suffer forever.

The intent of the replicators can be tangential or completely unaware of how they are acting as "environmental selectors" and replicaters and information honers-- for amazing "complexity" to evolve.

 

[jimbob]

But imperfect self-selection is the only way to remove intelligence from the process of selection. Therefore imperfect self-replication is vital for evolution.

The information "payload" needs to be within the system that is being copied, so that it is subject to natural selection. Otherwise intelligence is needed in the ultimite definition of the slecection process/algorithm.

Technological ideas do not replicate within someone's mind.

As there are differences between the processes of technological development and evolution, and in the development of the concepts, I do not think memes are a useful metaphor in discussing technological development.

Why invoke intelligence in design when trying to refute "Intelligent Design"?

 

[President Bush]

Why invoke intelligence in design when trying to refute "Intelligent Design"?

To refute "God" agency by voiding human agency.

I wonder if the "analogy" might be a parody posted by a troll fundy just to see how far it could go.

 

[six7s]

Technological ideas do not replicate within someone's mind

If this someone is you, then I suggest you ignore any temptations to try design as a career path

I do not think memes are a useful metaphor in discussing technological development

Good for you. Don't use them. The memes and metaphors are not sentient beings, and as such they won't mind being ignored

Why invoke intelligence in design when trying to refute "Intelligent Design"?

It is illogical that you - someone for whom memes and metaphors don't work - ask such questions, as no answer will suffice

 

[jimbob]

I will clarify what I said about technological ideas.

Suppose there is a process to be optimised, and one knows that temperature, pressure and composition affect the results. Suppose, as is common, that there is a clearly defined requirement.

Using scientific techniques, one can design experiments to produce models and select the optimal process conditions. These process conditions are information, but they did not arise due to any process analogous to mutation, nor was this information "selected" in any way analogous to evolution or even evolutionary algorithms. Sometimes there are more similarities, for example with evolutionary algorithms, or even with monte-carlo techniques, but usually there are not.

The information was created to meet a requirement, and arose as a result of analysing the results of experiments. This process, which is common in engineering and design has no analogy in evolution.

BTW: I like analogies and metaphors where they are useful and not a hindrance. The analogy in the OP only attempts to explain what even ID proponents accept, and even proclaim.

Behe proclaims his acceptance of common descent and microevolution, implicitly he is arguing that an intelligence was needed to direct evolution. How is that different from claiming that a process that was directed by many intelligent agents is evolution, or even a good analogy for evolution?