Evolution Not Random

[articulett]

Sorry Jimbob, I will get to your post, you are not being ignored.

He's one of them. His core belief is that evolution should be described thusly:

random mutation and probabilistic selection.

He will not yield from this position or understand why it's muddled sounding or why he's switching tenses mid model. He thinks this is super duper clear and can't understand why it's slightly more garbled than Meadmaker and slightly less so than Mijo-- but nowhere near as good as those he criticizes. Go figure.

And Walter Wayne... who knows what the hell he's trying to say. But they all show up on threads along with T'ai to make sure that nobody thinks that evolution is nonrandom. I don't know what they think their goals are... but I think their goals are to make sure that they and others don't comprehend what natural selection is and how it brings about the appearance of design and things that seem to fit together amazingly well. In fact, I'd say the same people spend most of their posting time obfuscating understanding of evolution and demonizing those who criticize religion while pretending they have no "horse in the race" so to speak.

But that is just my opinion, of course-- and we all know how evil I am.

 

[Fredrik]

I would like to see skeptigirl and mijopaalmc discuss the issue that sol invictus introduced into this thread:

Take a green and red polka dot shirt. Is it green? Is it not green?

Perhaps you guys could go on for 65 pages about that too?

And again, while the question of whether evolution is random doesn't quite make sense (because it has two components, one of which is completely random and the other essentially non-random), the question of whether evolution is deterministic has a clear answer: Evolution is definitely not deterministic. To say that it is, is as wrong as saying that numerology is "the science of numbers" (I actually heard that on a TV show a few weeks ago).

 

[articulett]

Thanks Fredrik, but I think I'll take the words of experts over you.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm

Yes, it contains 2 components-- one relatively random (though not completely); one which selects from that randomness. As such it is a process... and processes are not random... sometimes people call stochastic processes-- random processes... but it's not the process itself that is considered "random"-- just the variables it contains.

If you don't mind, I'll stick with the myriad of teachers, books, and experts on the subject rather than the self appointed experts which describe anything that contains randomness as random. That makes poker as random as roulette and a tornado in a junkyard creating a 747 as random as evolution. We aim for a little more clarity when conveying important concepts.

 

[Meadmaker]

But here's the problem. You and in this case, mijo, continue to use numbers or mutations in your mental models as if all the qualities we are talking about here are equal.

I beg to differ. I can't imagine why numbers of mutations have any relevance to the discussion.

Both of you ignored my example of random time but determined selection criteria.

I've ignored most of the give and take between you and mijo. I skim over his posts, and yours that appear to be a response to him. Sorry if that offends anyone.

The point is, it is not a matter of what you are looking at whether it is a random process or not. It is a matter of which of the processes best represents the whole.

So if you are looking at the whole, it's better to say one thing, and if you are looking at a single part, it's better to say another. So, what's wrong with looking at parts?

Furthermore, I would argue that it is not really "the whole" that you are looking at, but "the dominant trend" or maybe "the biggest part".

The point of that study and of the debate you speak of (which is exactly what I have been posting about) is that genetic drift is not the main process of change the research is revealing.

Agreed. Genetic drift does not account for a lot of change.

And here is where the paradigm shift is occurring. Because when the mechanisms of natural selection are more and more revealed, it turns out there actually are active forces involved.

But selection itself is not an active force. Organisms don't die of "natural selection". They do not attract mates by "natural selection". They die by starvation, or disease, or lack of sunlight, or being eaten. They attract mates by behavior, or chemicals. The right combination of these traits results in a higher probability that a certain genetic line will survive. After you know the probabilities, you can do the math and see that if the individuals have even a slightly better chance of surviving than competing individuals, then the overall probability of that organism's gene line surviving is very close to one, whereas the competing gene line's probability is very close to zero. The consequence of all this starving and dieing and mating is called "natural selection", but it is not a force that makes anything happen.

It is an active process of acquiring adaptation. Look at these papers.

Microorganisms don't "actively" do anything. It's not like they decide that some of them need this stuff, so they go out and get it. Whether or not humans do that is an active topic of debate in the religion section, but very few people grant free will to microbes.

 

[jimbob]

As articulett thinks this is confusing Iwould reiterate my question:

Does anyone here disagree with the following, and where?

1) Natural selection is probabilisic with various traits "loading the dice of selection" differently.

2) If a population is in equilibrium, the average number of breeding offspring per parent would be one.

3) The actual distribution of breeding offspring per parent is likely to be described by a poisson distribution, with lambda of one.

4) An advantageous trait will raise the average number of breeding offspring per parent above one. Thus lambda willbe raised.

5) Conversely a disadvantageous trait would lower lambda.

6) The more advantageous a trait is, the more there is a selective pressure, and the more the lambda is raised.

7) A selective advantage of 10% equates to a lambda of 1.10 compared to the equilibrium lambda of 1.

ETA:

8) This is best understood as a probabilistic process for the reasons above.

I would then say that over geological timeframes, the actual environment is altered by random factors.

For example: (should an asteroid be in a chaotic orbit, then random events will influence that orbit significantly, and possibly set it on a collision course withe Earth) When, where and whether this happens would have been affected by random events.

The entire environment gets remoulded by uch events, meaning that the selection pressures will have altered randomly over this timescale.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I would like to see skeptigirl and mijopaalmc discuss the issue that sol invictus introduced into this thread:



Perhaps you guys could go on for 65 pages about that too?

And again, while the question of whether evolution is random doesn't quite make sense (because it has two components, one of which is completely random and the other essentially non-random), the question of whether evolution is deterministic has a clear answer: Evolution is definitely not deterministic. To say that it is, is as wrong as saying that numerology is "the science of numbers" (I actually heard that on a TV show a few weeks ago).

I have stated my rationale, what is yours?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I beg to differ. I can't imagine why numbers of mutations have any relevance to the discussion.

I've ignored most of the give and take between you and mijo. I skim over his posts, and yours that appear to be a response to him. Sorry if that offends anyone.

It isn't a matter of numbers, or even percentages. It is a matter of the best description of the whole.

And, I'm not the least bit offended, I do the same when two people are off in a one to one.

But by missing the example, you missed the point so let me repeat it.

The colors in the blocks and balls example were unimportant, they were not equal properties to the nature of the object.

Forget about evolution for a second and answer, if hair color were random but everything else about being human was not, is the evolution that produced humans random simply because the individuals have some minor random differences in hair color? It seems pretty absurd to place so much attention to the random parts and claim such parts override everything else and belong as the key point in our description of evolution.

The example I gave mijo was an elaboration of another example posted. A truck tire sheds its retread and the pieces fly all over the road. Every car driving past randomly hits the pieces and they randomly fly about. But the end result is not random, the pieces end up off the driving surface. It may be that the pieces fall in random places and the time it takes to get off the road is random, but the pieces end up predictably off the road every time. The cars hitting the tire shreds were not random.

To describe this process as random only makes sense if you are describing the parts. To describe it as random makes no sense if you are describing the whole. It isn't ideology it is relevance. The whole is a collection of the tire shredding, the pieces flying, being hit randomly but ending up in a determined position. If you argue those interim pieces are as relevant as the end configuration then I have to ask, will the tire shreds ever end up still in the road? No, they never will. Even one that lands in the middle of the road will eventually be struck by a vehicle changing lanes or a vehicle of a different width or the wind of a fast moving vehicle driving over the piece in the middle will eventually jar it over enough to be again hit by the vehicles passing by.

That is not a random process. It is a determined process with a random component no matter what theoretical math model Wayne wants to apply to it and no matter what the rules of math are regarding models.

The problem with Wayne and mijo's tunnel vision is they can't move from the model to the reality. The stochastic model is not a representative match to actual evolution because it leaves out so much of the actual evolutionary process. They are taking a model and proclaiming it to represent the actual when it doesn't even come close.

But I digress. You are taking the parts and applying equal weight, equal significance and stating, "well the label applies if you look at this or that aspect of evolution". But "this aspect of evolution" is not evolution. Would all the labels describing the birthing process be just as applicable to describing the theory of evolution just because reproduction was a piece of the whole?

So if you are looking at the whole, it's better to say one thing, and if you are looking at a single part, it's better to say another. So, what's wrong with looking at parts?

Not a thing. There is one small part of the process of evolution that is random. I don't believe a single person in this thread disagrees with that statement.

Furthermore, I would argue that it is not really "the whole" that you are looking at, but "the dominant trend" or maybe "the biggest part".

Here's where your ideology and my evidence part ways. So I repeat my question, reproduction is a part of evolution. Is it accurate to describe evolution as a birthing process? Is it even accurate to describe evolution as a process of reproduction? Would anyone think you were describing evolution, or would they recognize you were describing some part of the process, not the process?

Agreed. Genetic drift does not account for a lot of change.

But selection itself is not an active force. Organisms don't die of "natural selection". They do not attract mates by "natural selection". They die by starvation, or disease, or lack of sunlight, or being eaten. They attract mates by behavior, or chemicals. The right combination of these traits results in a higher probability that a certain genetic line will survive. After you know the probabilities, you can do the math and see that if the individuals have even a slightly better chance of surviving than competing individuals, then the overall probability of that organism's gene line surviving is very close to one, whereas the competing gene line's probability is very close to zero. The consequence of all this starving and dieing and mating is called "natural selection", but it is not a force that makes anything happen.

Microorganisms don't "actively" do anything. It's not like they decide that some of them need this stuff, so they go out and get it. Whether or not humans do that is an active topic of debate in the religion section, but very few people grant free will to microbes.

Here again is where you are indeed not seeing the paradigm shift in what is being discovered in evolution research. You can bicker about choice. That can go all the way to, are we really choosing a mate, for example, or were we biologically destined to choose that mate? That gets into a useless fate or free will discussion.

Put that unsolvable nonsense away for the moment and look at "active" vs "passive" forces rather than conscious vs unconscious forces because I can argue your supposed conscious decision is just as passively determined through a biological chain reaction as you can argue the microorganism's active 'choices' are just a cascade of biological reactions.

Active in this sense is generated and controlled from within the organism and passive would be those forces randomly acting on the organism whether internally or externally. So random mutation is passive. Actively influencing those mutations is nonrandom. The external environment is passively acting on the organism in your description. If it suits you better then you can describe the forces as random or not random rather than passive or active.

So how much control over the actual mutation processes is it going to take to demonstrate to you random has little to do with the main functions in evolution processes? How random is that yersinia pestis' acquisition of specific antibiotic resistance genes against antibiotics that other organisms have been subjected to but the yersinia organism has not? How is the yersinia developing resistance to antibiotics which have never actually exerted selection pressures on the organisms? Certainly not through random processes.

 

[Fredrik]

Thanks Fredrik, but I think I'll take the words of experts over you.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm

About what? The use of the word "deterministic"? Do you think it's impossible that someone who writes a news article for a web site has misunderstood that word?

I'm not saying that the rest of the article is bad. It contains some interesting stuff, for example this:

For example, they concluded that the number of cell divisions needed in vulva development declined over time -- instead of randomly increasing and decreasing. In addition, the team noted that the number of rings used to form the vulva consistently declined during the evolutionary process.

These appear to be good examples of how natural selection favors "better" designs, and of how natural selection limits the randomness. I'm guessing that these are also examples of that the author of the news article had in mind when he/she used the word "deterministic". If that's the case, then the author has misunderstood what that word means.

...describe anything that contains randomness as random.

I have made it very clear that I wouldn't do that either.

We aim for a little more clarity when conveying important concepts.

Clarity in this case would be to say that evolution consists of two parts, one mostly random and one mostly non-random. (Yes, even natural selection contains a degree of randomness). This would be honest and accurate. It makes no sense to try to dumb it down further. The claims "evolution is random" and "evolution is non-random" are both dishonest and inaccurate.

 

[cyborg]

Again, that's not how quantum mechanics work. The idea that if we only had total knowledge, we would in principle be able to predict the outcome, has been proven false by experiments.

Fredrik if you had not noticed I'm being obtuse - total knowledge about a system would include knowledge about its outcomes.

One does not, therefore, have total knowledge of the system.

 

[cyborg]

For example: (should an asteroid be in a chaotic orbit, then random events will influence that orbit significantly, and possibly set it on a collision course withe Earth) When, where and whether this happens would have been affected by random events.

If he moves the Queen to that square by Bishop will be under attack. There is a probability associated with that move.

Therefore Chess is a random game.

 

[Fredrik]

I have stated my rationale, what is yours?

I have stated mine too, but I'll do it again. A physical system is deterministic if and only if complete knowledge of its state at a given time is sufficient to determine its state at a later time. Evolution doesn't even come close to matching that definition. Complete information about what the world is like now wouldn't be enough to determine what it's going to be like a nanosecond from now. Evolution only tells us roughly what sort of things we're going to see in the future. Back when there were no animals on land, it may have been possible to predict with a reasonable degree of certainty that animals would at some point evolve to live on land, that some would be herbivores and some would be carnivores, that some would walk on four legs and others would fly, but this isn't determinism.

 

[Fredrik]

Fredrik if you had not noticed I'm being obtuse - total knowledge about a system would include knowledge about its outcomes.

One does not, therefore, have total knowledge of the system.

OK, I figured that might have been what you meant, i.e. that you define "total knowledge" as sufficient information to determine the outcome. I just want to make it clear that QM says that this sort of "total knowledge" isn't just unknown, or impossible to obtain in experiments. QM says that the information required to have this kind of "total knowledge" doesn't exist at any level of reality.

 

[cyborg]

I just want to make it clear that QM says that this sort of "total knowledge" isn't just unknown, or impossible to obtain in experiments. QM says that the information required to have this kind of "total knowledge" doesn't exist at any level of reality.

I'm not sure QM necessarially says the information doesn't exist - it is sufficient to be unable to have knowledge of it. It could or it could not exist under this circumstance.

 

[Fredrik]

I'm not sure QM necessarially says the information doesn't exist - it is sufficient to be unable to have knowledge of it. It could or it could not exist under this circumstance.

QM really does say that the information doesn't exist. To be more precise, it says that Bell's inequality isn't true. And you don't have to assume that the information is known to derive Bell's inequality. You just have to assume that it exists.

So far all experiments have been 100% consistent with quantum mechanics. They prove that Bell's inequality doesn't hold, and that implies that the information doesn't exist.

The only loophole would be if the assumptions that Bell's inequality are based on are somehow "wrong". There aren't many of them. One derivation I've seen of Bell's inequality used rotational invariance, i.e. that the result of the experiment shouldn't depend on which way the equipment is oriented when the experiment is performed. If rotational invariance is a false assumption (if the laws of physics are different if you turn a little bit to the left), then I guess Bell's inequality would fall (at least that version of it). But rotational invariance is equivalent to conservation of angular momentum and is thought of as the reason why elementary particles have the property called "spin". Any attack on rotational invariance would have to find another way to explain the conservation law and the existence of spin.

I can't rule out that it is possible to construct a deterministic theory that can replace quantum mechanics, but I can guarantee it's not going to happen any time soon. All the evidence is 100% consistent with quantum mechanics, so there seems to be no need for a new theory. This hasn't stopped a few people from speculating, but no one is anywhere near an actual theory.

 

[Belz...]

It's the best description of reality we have. It has been tested to 12 significant figures in several different ways, far more precisely than any other theory in the history of science. It explains everything from metal to the sun to the existence of galaxies. The computer you're reading this on could never have been built without it. And, because of Bell's theorem, any theory which might have seemed more complete is inconsistent and wrong.

Beyond that, no one can say.



Well, it's not easy to understand. In fact I don't think the full implications are really understood by anyone to this day. But no one promised us the universe would be easy to understand, did they?

Well, I did read up more on the subject last evening, and it does seem like I completely misinterpreted the results of the double-slit experiment. Thanks for pointing it out to me. And thanks for your patience. Same for Meadmaker.

It's never fun when you realise you're not half as smart or knowledgeable as you thought you were !

From what I read, though, it's not clear to me whether physicists think the wave function is a convenient mathematical expression of the way particles behave, or if it's the actual way that they behave. Of course, as you said, for the purpose of this thread, it's not relevant.

 

[Belz...]

delete me

Gosh, I'd love to !

 

[Belz...]

random mutation and probabilistic selection.

Well, evolution is non-random in the sense that the "mutation" part doesn't need to be random, and the selection surely isn't.

But that is just my opinion, of course-- and we all know how evil I am.

Hummm... evil women...

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

OK, I figured that might have been what you meant, i.e. that you define "total knowledge" as sufficient information to determine the outcome. I just want to make it clear that QM says that this sort of "total knowledge" isn't just unknown, or impossible to obtain in experiments. QM says that the information required to have this kind of "total knowledge" doesn't exist at any level of reality.

That always strikes me as rather a bold assertion whenever someone comes out with it.

QM is a [very good] model of reality, but it is still not reality.

For example, what if our 'view' on reality is limited such that we cannot access the necessary knowledge?

BTW, isn't the 'many worlds' interpretation of QM Deterministic?

 

[Belz...]

A physical system is deterministic if and only if complete knowledge of its state at a given time is sufficient to determine its state at a later time.

How does your knowledge of the event change the event in any way ? Whether you have complete knowledge of it doesn't change the outcome.

QM really does say that the information doesn't exist.

Does it ? (really. does it ?) Or does it say we simply can't have it all ?

 

[Meadmaker]

Forget about evolution for a second and answer, if hair color were random but everything else about being human was not, is the evolution that produced humans random simply because the individuals have some minor random differences in hair color? It seems pretty absurd to place so much attention to the random parts and claim such parts override everything else and belong as the key point in our description of evolution.

My point is that there is no one, single, "key point" in describing something as complex as evolution. If the example you cited were true, then as a scientist I would wonder, "Why is hair color different than everything else? How can that be?" At that point, randomness becomes the "key point", because it distinguishes the aspect under study from the rest of the system.


Out of time now, more later.