• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Evolution: Technically Random?

CFLarsen said:
I'm talking about new species.

What alterations are you talking about?
Click to expand...

The definition of a species is rather complex and, if I understand correctly, not one that is entirely settled.

Some would argue that mules and ligers and whatnot are not really species because they can't reproduce. Even then, these are not examples of full-on design. Design would be "gee, that tiger's nice, but it lacks wings." If you're looking for something more realistic, the day-glo animals that are being produced in Taiwan might be considered intelligent design. Hybrids and domestic animals are just animal husbandry that sometimes results in speciation.
 
Loon said:
The definition of a species is rather complex and, if I understand correctly, not one that is entirely settled.
Click to expand...

Agree.

Loon said:
Some would argue that mules and ligers and whatnot are not really species because they can't reproduce. Even then, these are not examples of full-on design. Design would be "gee, that tiger's nice, but it lacks wings."
Click to expand...

What mammal has four legs and wings? That would require 6 limbs. You're not just talking about a new species, but a whole new kind of animals.

Loon said:
If you're looking for something more realistic, the day-glo animals that are being produced in Taiwan might be considered intelligent design. Hybrids and domestic animals are just animal husbandry that sometimes results in speciation.
Click to expand...

The green pigs, yes. We have a saying in Danish: "He was sh***ing green pigs", meaning "He was so scared, he was soiling himself".

There's also a commercial on Danish TV about green pigs. And now, real green pigs! It's synchronocity, I tell you!! :)
 
CFLarsen said:
Why not?
Click to expand...

Because words have meanings.

A good conventional definition of "design" is "to work out a form of something and process for achieving it beforehand; to systematically plan out." No one sat down and worked out what the desired properties of mules would be and then tried to develop a process by which they would be achieved. Even when pet breeders have a very specific "form" in mind beforehand (I want to have a long-haired cat with a Persian face, but Siamese colourpoint markings), they don't work out the form and process by which they would get it. Instead, it's produced by the same "random" mutations, applying artificial instead of natural selection.

The day-glo green pig, by contrast, is designed. People actually sat down and figured out what genes to snip out of which animals and how to insert them into a pig.
 
drkitten said:
Because words have meanings.

A good conventional definition of "design" is "to work out a form of something and process for achieving it beforehand; to systematically plan out." No one sat down and worked out what the desired properties of mules would be and then tried to develop a process by which they would be achieved. Even when pet breeders have a very specific "form" in mind beforehand (I want to have a long-haired cat with a Persian face, but Siamese colourpoint markings), they don't work out the form and process by which they would get it. Instead, it's produced by the same "random" mutations, applying artificial instead of natural selection.

The day-glo green pig, by contrast, is designed. People actually sat down and figured out what genes to snip out of which animals and how to insert them into a pig.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with your definition of design. When you design something, you can't always plan what it will end up as. A crucial part of the design process is innovation and seeing how new ideas unfold. It often turns out quite different than we imagined.

Edison's light bulb is a good example.
 
CFLarsen said:
I don't agree with your definition of design. When you design something, you can't always plan what it will end up as. A crucial part of the design process is innovation and seeing how new ideas unfold. It often turns out quite different than we imagined.

Edison's light bulb is a good example.
Click to expand...

Which is why Edison created and abandoned hundreds of designs in his quest to invent the light bulb.

If you don't know what you're doing well enough to plan what it will end up as -- it's not designing. It may be inventing, it may be research, it may even be found art.
 
drkitten said:
Which is why Edison created and abandoned hundreds of designs in his quest to invent the light bulb.

If you don't know what you're doing well enough to plan what it will end up as -- it's not designing. It may be inventing, it may be research, it may even be found art.
Click to expand...

I think you confuse "design" with "implementation of an already tested plan".

Designing is very much about trying out...well, designs.
 
Getting back to the OP, evolution is stoichastic, and the best models of population variation that I've seen express traits in terms of relative survival-to-breed, as well as traits arising both from recombination and (occasional) mutation.

So I'd say the right word is stoichastic. Neither totally random or deterministic. Like most anything else.
 
So we'd agree that the state of an organism at time t, denoted X_t, has a probability distribution?
 
Has anyone anything to say regarding the possiblity that once a certain species STARTS to evolve... that the more it evolves, that it sort of like starts doing a squaring effect that once it *really* evolves, then it starts to **REALLY** evolve! (like a little fire that turns into a raging inferno)

Take an oyster. I'll bet an oyster has looked like and functioned like an oyster for eons. It does it's job. It survives. That's it. I dont' think competition is an issue?

But take a creature that developed legs. Once it got those legs, then the stronger legs allowed those legs to out run the pursuer, or chase down more game. Bigger arms and chest allowed the male to get the prettiest and fittest female which then caused *it's* offspring an even further advantage. Etc.

But what DID cause us to get the legs, from an amaeba-like thing, and the oyster never to have gotten them?... Where the oyster can survive just fine. But why have we developed to where we actually NEEDED to develop further than others of our kind, to have an advantage? Why don't all creatures, like the oyster, require this...whereas we DO require this? Is it more to do with our advanced brain that set these wheels in motion? If so, then why didn't the oyster get a bigger brain?

.................................

Did you miss me? :)
 
T'ai Chi said:
From my page:
(bold mine)

"To summarize, while evolution could reasonably be considered and described as biologically or practically non-random, it is technically, mathematically random. To say that calling evolution random is "the opposite of truth" and "false" could itself be viewed as the opposite of truth and false."
Click to expand...
My point is, you have to make the qualification. Your sentence as it is written above is not something I'd disagree with. However, the statement "Evolution is random" would bring the wrath of a million biologists down on your head, and rightly so.
 
Walter Wayne said:
I disagree that one is more wrong than the other. Evolution is non-random is inaccurate and misleads about randomness, evolution is random is accurate but misleads about both. I would also point out that "evolution is random" is only misleading considering the ignorance of the general population on one or both subjects.
Click to expand...
That's worth stating. Yes, if everyone knew about the mathematical meaning of randomness and the nature and origin of mutations and how natural selection acts upon them, I wouldn't have a problem with someone saying this.

It's like saying that distant galaxies are moving away from us - pedagogically unsound, because what's really happening is that space itself is expanding - but between two atrophysicists it's of no import because they aleady know that.

When talking about the randomness of evolution, one isn't discussing just math or just biology. One is discussing both.
Click to expand...
Nope.

If all you say is "evolution is random", then all you are discussing is biology. Random is left ill-defined. The statement is wrong at best.

A question for the "non-randomites". Do you think that the rise of humanity was inevitable, given the conditions when life first crawled onto land.
Click to expand...
No. But that's only because evolution is random. ;)
 
I should point out to PCA that "stoichastic" means that there are random elements present, but that the system in question may have a great deal of memory, as well.
 
jj said:
I should point out to PCA that "stoichastic" means that there are random elements present, but that the system in question may have a great deal of memory, as well.
Click to expand...
Hmm. Some definitions I find do imply this. Others just say "random." One even says "synonym for random."

If it is the case that stochastic implies a combination of deterministic and random factors, then to say "evolution is random" is even more misleading, given that we could say "evolution is stochastic" and be more accurate. An advantage to the latter is that the listener won't know what it means and so will ask for an explanation.

~~ Paul
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom