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Evolution Not Random

Consider the camoflauge of a spider in New Guinea. It has evolved to look identical to a fferocious ant that eats everything in its path> Except for the spider, because it thinks its one of them. The only way you can tell them apart is that the spider has eight legs and makes webs. If this was the product of gradual camoflauge and natural selection over the eons it would not have worked. It has to look IDENTICAL and not sort of identical in order to work. For the camoflauge to be a random chance simply is not possible given the incredible odds against it
However if one considers the exact camoflauge to be a deliberate act by the spider, it all makes sense
 
Tumbleweed said:
Once upon a time there were pink,green, blue, and yellow snow shoe hares, as well as white ones. For many years they enjoyed an arctic paradise until Mother Nature and her Terminator Natural Selection sent a buch of predators to live among them. Since all the pink, green, blue, and yellow snow shoe hares stood out like a sore thumb in the snow, they got gobbled up. The white ones were invisible to the predators and so they lived to procreate another day.
And that, to those who have a very simple grasp of logic is how evolution works and why it is not random
My theory is quite the opposite: The snowshoe hare on some level knows that if it does not use camoflauge as a device againt predators, it will become extinct,.
Therefore, it deliberately manipulates its own DNA to provide it with a white coat in winter
And consider this if you do not think that cells have a form of consciousness: when was it infused in you? When you were born? As a 3 month old fetus? Or as a zygote. Are we nothing more than a colletion of cells? If so, then cells must have consciousness
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I know this cannot be so, otherwise I would not have bunions and my breasts would be larger.

Linda
 
So evolution is like a sweet sixteen basketball bracket?
You start out with a bunch of teams, natural selection weeds a bunch out time and time again until we have a winner?
In other words a wide variety of variation is already in place for natural selection to work from
Or is it evolution by necessity, the mutations not appearing until it is necessary for them to appear, environment- wise
 
fls said:
I know this cannot be so, otherwise I would not have bunions and my breasts would be larger.

Linda
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Did your DNA go to graduate school?
Why is it that my wounds heal without my having to put any conscious thought into it alll? Because a different type of consciousness, the one that also take care of my digestion for me, is on watch instead
 
Ever wonder how stem cells seem to differentiate between different types so efficiently to form organs, and that we are therefore not just a random homogenous blob of various and sundry cells? Must be some kind of cooperation/plan going on, huh?
 
Meadmaker said:
Again, it all depends on the aspect you are looking at. Saying "Chess is random" and "Chess is non-random" are equally wrong.
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Most people would not call them equally wrong. That would be something that is peculiar to you. The same for evolution--particularly natural selection--the key component of Darwin's theory.

I think I shall follow the actual experts in the field on this over the self proclaimed experts.
 
Meadmaker said:
The organisms aren't very random at all. That's the cool thing about evolution. It's an example of how a bunch of random events can end up with a very predictable, stable, outcome. Order out of chaos, and all without a director.
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No... that would be randomness leading to spherical planets and spiral galaxies... life as something extra... replication and natural selection.... the things that fit best in the environment are replicated exponentially-- that's a little different than basic physics.

It isn't the randomness that leads to the appearance of design-- it's natural selection and time. You don't seem to understand this, and that is why you do not convey natural selection well. You need information coding for something for evolution to take place... for things to evolve. Cyborg is carefully showing you this... if you weren't so sure that you understood everything there is to know on the topic, you could readily understand this I think.
 
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The incompetent are the least likely to know it, and the ones who feel most confident in their abilities. It's true!
Off subject but did you ever hear of Alexander the Great's theory of Industrial organization?
1. All people can be divided into four catagories A. Intelligent and Hardworking. B. Intelligent and Lazy. C. Dumb and hard working and D. Dumb and Lazy
2. Every organization should strive to hire as many smart hardworkers as possible, but alas there just aren't enough of them
3. It was okay to hire some dumb and lazy people because they could be supervised and trained
4. The smart lazy people would become the supervisors and teachers
5. At all costs, dumb hardworking people should be avoided because, although they meant well, it cost a lot of time and money to fix their mistakes
 
Tumbleweed said:
Consider the camoflauge of a spider in New Guinea. It has evolved to look identical to a fferocious ant that eats everything in its path> Except for the spider, because it thinks its one of them. The only way you can tell them apart is that the spider has eight legs and makes webs. If this was the product of gradual camoflauge and natural selection over the eons it would not have worked. It has to look IDENTICAL and not sort of identical in order to work. For the camoflauge to be a random chance simply is not possible given the incredible odds against it
However if one considers the exact camoflauge to be a deliberate act by the spider, it all makes sense
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Oh my gosh... you are hopelessly misunderstanding natural selection.
The ant that looked more like the spiders preferentially survived passing on their more spidery looking genes exponentially over time while the ones that didn't have that "asset" died out. The more you looked like a spider, the less likely you were to be a meal. This is just so basic and the very reason why biologists go out of their way to emphasize the nonrandomness of selection-- otherwise people sound like you. And they are always so damn convinced that they know what the hell they are talking about and completely impervious to the fact that no one is following them and no one agrees! Here, this can help... unless you are so sure you already know everything.





http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/extras.html

Get your science from scientists folks... like the article in the OP or Sagan or Dawkins or the myriad of peer reviewed links or Nova... and don't rely on the self appointed experts!

Instead of pretending to know what you are talking about-- you can actually learn the facts. No need for goofy inferences and self important blathering...
 
Apathia said:
Tumbleweed,

Where were you for this trainwreck thread:
http://72.32.2.238/forumlive/showthread.php?t=94834
It lacked an actual Intelligent Evolution advocate.
Without you, we became cannibals.
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This is basic lamarkism... the disproven idea that an organism knows to change or mutate in a direction... --it appears that way to humans from our perspective, but the Sagan video illustrates what is really happening. The organisms that have the most adaptive features for the environment pass on their genes and those adaptive features preferentially and each beneficial mutation that confers any advantage is incorporated in the genome in proportion to that advantage while each deleterious mutation is weeded out in direct proportion to the disadvantage.... it's not random and it's not determined in advance... it's entirely determined by which genes are preferentially passed on in a given environment.

He's proffering an old discarded theory and imagining himself a genius. I don't think that anybody but he (and maybe you) are understanding him (or her). 5 nonsensical posts, and I give up hope... must put that one on ignore.
 
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articulett said:
This is basic lamarkism...

he's proffering an old discarded theory and imagining himself a genius. I don't think that anybody but he (and maybe you) are understanding him (or her).
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Not quite true.

I understand, what he is saying, but it is wrong.

This is why I think it is important to emphasise the fact that a particular adaptation is not inevitable, even if the fact of adaptation is.

the lamarckian reasoning is why I dislike drawing too many analogies between engineering and biological evolution, as engineering development often is closer to lamarckian than darwinian evolution.
 
Tumbleweed said:
Ever wonder how stem cells seem to differentiate between different types so efficiently to form organs, and that we are therefore not just a random homogenous blob of various and sundry cells? Must be some kind of cooperation/plan going on, huh?
Click to expand...

Hox genes.... you too can get a clue.
 
Tumbleweed said:
So evolution is like a sweet sixteen basketball bracket?
You start out with a bunch of teams, natural selection weeds a bunch out time and time again until we have a winner?
In other words a wide variety of variation is already in place for natural selection to work from
Or is it evolution by necessity, the mutations not appearing until it is necessary for them to appear, environment- wise
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The blind watchmaker explains how the variation can come about.

This is not just theory, as it is being used successfully in engineering to develop systems that are too complex to design "intelligently". The difference is that because only organisms that can breed actually do, there is selection for organisms that reproduce "competently".

The same evolutionary algorithm is at work with no need for any intlligent guidance, nor any goal.


ETA:

It is simple: In each generation there are slight changes, which are due to random variation, so organisms tend to resemble their parents more than their grandparents and so on.

If this slight change increases the reproductive success of the organism, this trait will tend to spread, if deleterious, it will tend to vanish. An undifferentiated blob didn't evolve into a spider, a previous arthropod in a different environment did, and so on back to unicellular life (which is still most of life on this planet).
 
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articulett said:
This is basic lamarkism... the disproven idea that an organism knows to change or mutate in a direction... --it appears that way to humans from our perspective, but the Sagan video illustrates what is really happening. The organisms that have the most adaptive features for the environment pass on their genes and those adaptive features preferentially and each beneficial mutation that confers any advantage is incorporated in the genome in proportion to that advantage while each deleterious mutation is weeded out in direct proportion to the disadvantage.... it's not random and it's not determined in advance... it's entirely determined by which genes are preferentially passed on in a given environment.

He's proffering an old discarded theory and imagining himself a genius. I don't think that anybody but he (and maybe you) are understanding him (or her). 5 nonsensical posts, and I give up hope... must put that one on ignore.
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Oh, don't get me wrong. I see no value in Tumbleweed's misunderstanding at all, except that it is ripe to be addressed in the Intelligent Evolution Thread where for lack of Tumbleweed, there was just bickering among posters who all understand that Biological Evolution isn't teleological.
 
Apathia said:
Oh, don't get me wrong. I see no value in Tumbleweed's misunderstanding at all, except that it is ripe to be addressed in the Intelligent Evolution Thread where for lack of Tumbleweed, there was just bickering among posters who all understand that Biological Evolution isn't teleological.
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And though much of non biological "evolution" such as the evolution of technology or the internet or languages or dog breeds appears teleological, in fact, it's nearly as "blind" as biological evolution. Humans tend to see purpose or a plan even when it's not really there. You don't need foresight when you have natural selection --it's a very powerful "complexity" builder--but foresight can speed up and help direct the evolution of the information that codes for "things". But this foresight is always built upon the information that has accumulated so far... there is no big overall plan for the internet... just like there is no big overall plan for life on earth... we're evolving as we go... from the bottom up.... via selection over time.

Information (including genomes) evolves, because the "stuff" including life forms) it codes for preferentially survives causing the information to get replicated preferentially to build future "stuff". Not random at all.
 
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articulett said:
And though much of non biological "evolution" such as the evolution of technology or the internet or languages or dog breeds appears teleological, but in fact, it's about as blind as biological evolution. Humans tend to see purpose or a plan even when it's not really there. You don't need foresight when you have natural selection --it's a very powerful "complexity" builder--but foresight can speed up and help direct the evolution of the information that codes for "things". But this foresight is always built upon the information that has accumulated so far... there is no big overall plan for the internet... just like there is no big overall plan for life on earth... we're evolving as we go...
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This is where I disagree with articulett; I would say that cultural change and technological development often seems to have a teleological component, because it often does. Selection of ideas is also important, but "directed mutation" in response to previous ideas or information is possible and common in culture but completely absent in biological evolution.

This post is in response to Articulatt's post, and was not selected from a group of potential posts, but was directly affected by what Articulett wrote.

Such a system doesn't have much similarity with evolution.

I also think this would be better on the "Intelligent Evolution" thread.
 
I'm not absolutely certain I understand Tumbleweed, but if I do, he gives us great insight into the whole randomness debate in evolution.

Here he is, with a non-scientific viewpoint, claiming that evolution can't possibly be random. It has to be driven by purpose.

He's wrong, and if he understood that a random process can in fact create order, he wouldn't make that mistake.
 
Meadmaker said:
I'm not absolutely certain I understand Tumbleweed, but if I do, he gives us great insight into the whole randomness debate in evolution.

Here he is, with a non-scientific viewpoint, claiming that evolution can't possibly be random. It has to be driven by purpose.

He's wrong, and if he understood that a random process can in fact create order, he wouldn't make that mistake.
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Oh yes he would. He would sound exactly like Behe. And as muddled as Mijo and Jimbob...

Creationists are very hard to educate, but it's not their misunderstanding randomness that is the problem-- it's their not understanding the power of natural selection-- as Dawkins and multiple experts in the field have noted repeatedly-- but I guess you imagine yourself to know better, eh?

Bottom up design is how market economies evolve... it's how the internet evolves and cities and religions and languages... and life-- it doesn't need an overlord with a big plan... just information selection via the environment over time. That's it. All the other stuff serves to confuse and make people sound muddled and Behesque. If you want to teach or communicate, follow those who already have and do. I suggest the Science writer of the article you don't agree with is much clearer and better at conveying natural selection than you are.

So is Dawkins. So is the peer review paper I cited. So is talk origins. So is Cyborg. So are the many biologists here. So is Kotatsu. I don't know how it is you keep imagining yourself to be clearer or conveying information better than these people-- but you do. Interesting the hubris you have. I don't know why you think you can convey information better to a creationist than those few who actually have been successful in doing so.
 
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