Intelligent Evolution?

[Paulhoff]

Evolutionary algorithms are very powerful problem solvers; they are partial analogues of evolution, but with subtle and important differences that seem to mislead many people.

Where you see a misleading, I see a need for people to mislead themselves because they don't what the truth and don't what to be without a so-called god. They love to be above all other animals in their minds.

Paul

 

[mijopaalmc]

Where you see a misleading, I see a need for people to mislead themselves because they don't what the truth and don't what to be without a so-called god. They love to be above all other animals in their minds.

Paul

So why add to their self-delusion by implying that biological evolution has a goal when you analogize it to evolutionary computing?

 

[jimbob]

Let's see who was calling who a creationist, and not understanding about evolution:

Watch cyborg run them through the hoops... in my head I envision mijo and meadmaker as blustery old guys (like Behe)
<snip>
In my assessment, Mijo is Behe, but not as smart, and Meadmaker is some weird apologist who is convinced that he understands evolution and can explain it to people despite an amazing lack of evidence on the topic. They don't seem to get or be able to explain natural selection--and yet they are so certain they do--
<SNIP>
(Behe is an obfuscating "intelligent design" proponent who also sums up evolution as "random", missing the most important part of it...imagine someone using tortured definitions to describe poker as random--such that it is indistinguishable from roulette --and you will see what they are doing... it's not totally "wrong"-- it's just misleading and stupefying and associated with dishonesty; plus describing all the random parts of Poker misses the most interesting parts of the game. Behe singlehandly has managed to make thousands across the country sound like mijo and meadmaker-- sure they understand something that they so clearly don't.) It's a simple concept-- they bumble it every time.

I agree. There are some great posters here who clarify...

The creationists (who will usually deny being creationists mind you) will use lots of words but never say anything... and ask bizarre questions that imply a point of view but don't say anything.

<SNIP>

That's why I think mijo is a creationist...

You know, I find it interesting that the people who claim to be the most outspoken skeptics on this forum are also the same people who insist on playing the most semantic games.

It is true that "evolution" does mean "any process of formation or growth; development", but in the context of biology it means "change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift". The insistence on using nontechnical definitions in technical situations seems to be the main problem with the analogy of technological development with biological evolution. In fact, it was the source of the problem when we were discussing the relationship between evolution and randomness; those who insisted that evolution was non-random insisted on using every definition of "random" except the mathematical one, which is the only definition that those who argued that evolution is random were. So we have the same here as we did there: we are essentially talking circles around one another because we can't agree on a definition of "evolution" to use.

{in response to my question as to whether a structure like the mamalian eye would have been designed}

it WAS designed from the bottom up just like everything else that evolves... cells responding to light were put tested in organisms and those that survived and reproduced the best passed on whatever heredity stuff in their genes that might have influenced their sight in the process-- a little better sight can be a lot better of an advantage... repeat experience ad nauseum... eyes evolve.

Camera's are human inventions based on eyes. Say, they've evolved too haven't they? Pinhole camera's a digital camera's are pretty far apart. So far, both can fill a niche. New environmental inputs (natural or not...such as the introduction of an alien species) drive the evolutionary algorithms all the time. And they evolve the technology we have available to us today into the technology we have available to us tomorrow.

If you can't see the similarities, it is your loss. Most people can. Really.

"The eye was designed" "Cameras have evolved"

As opposed to

cyborg-

The problem with your analogy has always been that when there is a mistake or flaw in an engineered design, an engineer (not necessarily the same one) will go back a correct the design, thereby removing the mistake or flaw from the design. This simply does not happen in evolution. A mutant allele is removed from or fixed in the population at large by the differences in its reproduction relative to the wild type. Very rarely, if ever, does the allele mutate back to the wild type and even then the reverse mutation does not happen because the mutant allele is disadvantageous; it happens without purpose of reason, just like the the mutation to the mutant allele happened.

Who sounds more like an Intelligent Design type of creationist?

remember

The creationists (who will usually deny being creationists mind you) will use lots of words but never say anything... and ask bizarre questions that imply a point of view but don't say anything.

 

[jimbob]

mijo (#362), I don't think Paulhoff was implying that.

 

[mijopaalmc]

mijo (#362), I don't think Paulhoff was implying that.

But that is certainly what the main thrust of the argument that articulett, cyborg, and Southwind17 have put forward. They are trying to liken the purposeless process of biological evolution with the purposeful process of technological development.

As the University of California-Berkeley "Understanding Evolution", a source of information about evolution used by the supporters of the biological evolution/technological development analogy, says:

This is why “need,” “try,” and “want” are not very accurate words when it comes to explaining evolution. The population or individual does not “want” or “try” to evolve, and natural selection cannot try to supply what an organism “needs.” Natural selection just selects among whatever variations exist in the population. The result is evolution.

This sentiment is also echoed in the "Junior Skeptic" section of this month's Skeptic:

Words of Caution

Language can be misleading. When scientists say that living thing "want" to pass on their genes or have "strategies" for "competing," these words are just handy short-cuts for understanding what really happens in nature by comparing it to familiar human activities.

It's useful to imagine all living things, from plants to animals to bacteria, are like player in a vast, complicated game. The goal of the game is to pass on as many of your genes as possible to the next generation. (Winners leave offspring. Losers go extinct.)

But it's helpful to remember this is just a way to help us imagine what is really going on. Plant don't really "want" anything-they grow simply because they are made that way. Not even the smarter animals really "want" to pass on their genes (or even know what genes are). Animals just want to be warm and fed and find a mate. But, by simply doing what comes naturally, living things act as though they are scheming and striving at the gene-passing contest.

Any species that happens to act in a way that passes on genes tends to leave descendants that act the same way. Living thing are good at competing because they inherited qualities from their ancestors.

The point is that the way we understand simple words like "want" and "need" and "choose" is inherently colored by the way we use them in everyday speech, and, since they are they rarely if ever used in separation from the workings of the human brain (here I mean the actual physical organ and not some incorporeal abstraction of "mind" or "consciousness"), it is hard not to project those connotations onto the actions we describe with those words. Thus, we have to be careful to understand that such uses of those words in describing evolution are merely metaphorical and must not be taken so literally.

 

[articulett]

I follow and understand your logic here, but nonetheless, what's wrong with considering the 'evolutionary approach', as you put it. What's the big deal about the end result not being so similar to the parent? We're talking about a very large number of iterations here. How similar would you say we are, as humans, to our distant 'parents'? I maintain that mechanical design could follow an evolutionary approach if we allowed it to, and we'd end up, as you rightly say, with something different from what classical design might produce, but it could still be a machine that appears to be irreducibly complex.

Jim Bob thinks he has a magical and clear definition way of explaining evolution--but nobody seems to think he is as clear as he seems to think he is. You are clearer than him to the majority. He thinks he understands evolution and thinks he can explain it well to people or thinks his way of explaining things is correct--he's not "wrong"-- just muddled. You are much clearer. Those who disagree don't even seem to be arguing the same thing as each other. But consider the sources of those who describe things similar to you--including both Dawkins and Steven Jones... and those who have a problem with it... a few people on this forum who seem to think they know creationists snafus but who really don't have the experience that suggests that they do. They don't understand what you are saying and they think it's because of you-- it's them. They can't "get it". In their head it's "too" different. They miss the big picture for their own varying minutia. Ask yourself who sounds clear to you... who has helped you intuit your understanding of evolution--who would the experts find more clear-- and don't let those whom you don't "get" sway your confidence. They don't know as much as they think they know.

 

[Paulhoff]

So why add to their self-delusion by implying that biological evolution has a goal when you analogize it to evolutionary computing?

I did a search on Paulhoff and computing, NO MATCH.

Paul

 

[Southwind17]

Firstly, there is no such thing as "a perfectly simile" save for an identity. You're overemphasizing, likely because of how tenuous the simile really is.

I'm not prepared to allow this debate to derail onto a track addressing English language, but I must take issue at this point. The fact that you haven't even quoted accurately strongly indicates a lack of attention to what it is exactly that's being said. Of course there's no such thing as 'a perfectly (sic) similie'; that simply doesn't make sense gramatically (I know - no need to hop on your high horse, but you see what I'm saying, hopefully). PAY ATTENTION!!!. Why do you believe that 'choose' and 'select' are 'tenuous' similies? I'm struggling to think of a sentence where the two words cannot be interchanged withoput resulting in a clear difference in meaning of the sentence (assuming they're both used as verbs, of course).

Secondly, "choose" necessarily implies an entity capable of making a choice. Evolution does not require any such intelligent actor.

Not when the word is used loosely and not literally it doesn't. Words are used like this all the time (you've read many books, I'm sure, and I doubt that you've not noticed this practice and understood how and why it's sometimes adopted). Hence, nature does appear to 'choose' whether a newly mutated organism or creature survives or not simply by application of the driving forces within the natural environment in which that organism or creature happens to find itself. There are two possible outcomes - survival or extinction. Where there are two possible outcomes one can, for argumentative or illustrative purposes, consider there to be a 'choice'. Unless and until you grasp this concept you will be unable to understand and appreciate what it is that's being debated on this thread. If and when you do you will then be in a position to posit meaningful counter arguments, assuming you then have some.

Thirdly, the "best" organism is the one which happens to survive and reproduce, a matter that could easily be the result of serendipity.

Yes, subject to the foregoing. Does serendipity never occur in the 'artificial' (see, there it is again, meaning don't take literally!) human environment in which we happen to find ourselves? I could cite a dozen instances, and they're only the more widely known ones (although not to you, seemingly). There are, of course, inumerable unpublicised examples.

A disaster could wipe aware stronger, faster organisms based purely on the geography of an event, making their 'plans' lost forever. ('Plans' go in scare quotes because DNA is hardly a plan.)

Ah - so you do actually understand this literary practice ('scare quotes', to use your terminology (Mmm ... 'scare quotes' - not heard that before. Could that suggest a misunderstanding of usage, I wonder!)), but only when it suits your argument, it seems! I see.

Even if a machine is lost, the plans can easily remain. Machines are divorced from the information needed to make them; organisms are not.

This is true, but you're wandering way off the thrust of this thread. You're focusing too much on examples of why the analogy doesn't hold true in every conceivable scenario, rather than why it only has to hold true in some, indeed only one, to be valid. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but that doesn't invalidate the rule. If I can identify just one example of why an aeroplane crashed does that mean that aeroplanes can't fly?

 

[Southwind17]

"Irreducibly complex" isn't a valid term in either engineering or biology. Why introduce Intelligent Design nonsense?

I don't get you ID. It's a term that's often used to describe a concept that we all understand, at least in principle. What's 'validity' got to do with it? And under what authority do you claim it's not a valid term?

 

[Southwind17]

The OP doesn't work to deal with "irriducible complexity" because the argument is that these mutations changes couldn't have happended by chance so needed an intelligent agency to instigate them. This is exactly what happens in the engineering examples that you list.

Your idea is an exact analogue of intelligent design as it involves intelligent designers. I am not aware of many "perfect creationists", which your point provides counterexamples for.

You're either missing the point of my argument or not paying attention, similar to ID (or both). You both should really take the time to grasp and understand what's being suggested here, rather than defaulting to your stock responses. You're both answering (possibly correctly) a different question from those being posed.

 

[cyborg]

Whilst jimbob et al are content to proclaim intelligence of the creator more important than the consequences of the design instance they are going to forever simply assert:

"Intelligence here, non-intelligence here: different."

There are only so many ways I can say the same thing: I have abstracted away intelligence. It is not considered. They then will complain that I don't consider intelligence. They don't understand the argument. They are not responding to any of the maths - only the words. And they don't seem to be getting the point that when you add intelligence you don't get any more power than evolution. That's a powerful argument against the ID crowd.

 

[Southwind17]

The following quotes are all from Dawkins’ ‘The Blind Watchmaker’. I realize that they don’t directly help us to reconcile the analogy between natural evolution and human design, but they do, I believe, demonstrate that it’s very unhelpful to stereotype and only accept the literal and/or more common usage of related words and phrases. Clearly, Dawkins has no trouble using such words and phrases in the contexts that he sees fit, and expects that his readers will accept and understand them. The sooner certain participants to this thread can open their minds to such practice the more likely we are to progress the matter under question:

For instance, the curved dish-reflector principle is radically different from our own camera-eye … , and it has been independently ‘invented’ by various mollusks and crustaceans.

The bombardier beetle’s ancestors simply pressed into different service chemicals that already happened to be around (emphasis added)

For instance, octopus eyes are very like ours, but the wires leading from their photocells don’t point forwards towards the light, as ours do. Octopus eyes are, in this respect, more ‘sensibly’ designed.

Incidentally, I recall one poster offering the ‘design’ of the human eye as weight against adopting the analogy under question. I believe this quote negates that view.

Both, of course, are mammals descended from land-dwelling ancestors, and they may well have ‘invented’ the whale way of life independently of one another …

This kind of difference in detail is very characteristic of convergent evolution, as we have seen. It is characteristic of convergent designs by human engineers too, of course. (emphasis added)

The skulls of some of the early South American herbivores suggest that they ‘invented’ the trunk independently of the true elephants.

It is slightly closer to the thylacine since both are marcupials, but the two have evolved their big carnivore design independently on different continents …

 

[cyborg]

Incidentally, I recall one poster offering the ‘design’ of the human eye as weight against adopting the analogy under question. I believe this quote negates that view.

I did point this out earlier but, as usual, making sure I was using the right words was the most important order of the day lest some random person we don't even know as being involved in the thread can latch onto one of these taboo words and use them to prop up their favourite deity. No, we must not allow that. We shall therefore ensure that words are safeguarded. They have magic properties after all.

 

[Southwind17]

I did point this out earlier but, as usual, making sure I was using the right words was the most important order of the day lest some random person we don't even know as being involved in the thread can latch onto one of these taboo words and use them to prop up their favourite deity. No, we must not allow that. We shall therefore ensure that words are safeguarded. They have magic properties after all.

Oh, they do indeed!

Actually cyborg, the post that I was referring to was this one:

Would the mamalian eye have been designed?

Even an incompetent designer would put the blood supply behind the light-sensitive cells.

The results of evolution and design often differ

 

[jimbob]

You're either missing the point of my argument or not paying attention, similar to ID (or both). You both should really take the time to grasp and understand what's being suggested here, rather than defaulting to your stock responses. You're both answering (possibly correctly) a different question from those being posed.

So what is your point?
Design is an iteritive process, and because of this designs improve over time?

Evolution is an iteritive process, and organisms become more adapted with each generation?


Are there any other similarities, because those are trivially true. The interesting part is in the implications of the important differences.

Your OP giives counterexamples to an idea of perfect creation, and human design is (probably always) an iteritive prrocess.

The fact that the IDers accept (what they call) "microevolution", is an acceptance that their "designer" is not omniscient. Indeed given some examples it would have to be pretty dim and/or sadistic.

Your OP is great at arguing against an omniscient designer.

If IDers accept gradual change, then this is obviously not the difficult concept.

 

[articulett]

The formula is the same: Gradual refinement and efficiency and complexity built upon that "which works" in a given environment being copied, recombined, and built upon.

It's the same basic formula for genomes as it is for technological advancement. Big picture. Same formula. If the question is, how does complexity arise from simplicity--the answer is the same.

Copy, refine, and build upon the "best" (in nature it's the best copiers--with technology it is the most useful and most available to the most people.)

(when something "works"--sometimes tweaking it just a tad makes it work better--and then there is a new "design" to build upon-- the same is true for genomes or anything that "appears" designed...whether it is in fact or not--nature tweaks blindly and gets stunning results...it just takes a little longer than intentional tweaking of design info.)

There is no such thing as irreducible complexity...and there is no clear line between things designed by humans from the bottom up and things "designed" by nature from the bottom up using the same basic formula.

 

[jimbob]

No it does not "just take longer".

Both approaches could produce working results. But the resluts are different.

Would a mamalian eye have been designed in the form that it takes?

 

[articulett]

No it does not "just take longer".

Both approaches could produce working results. But the resluts are different.

Would a mamalian eye have been designed in the form that it takes?

It very well could have... if humans were breeding animals based on which ones could see the best-- the ones that saw the best passed on their genes more frequently and thus the eye was designed... would someone have designed the internet differently if they could have understood it in advance. If a designer could think in advance, wouldn't the whole world be metric? See the majority of human designs are cobbled together imperfectly too... but we can use flaws in current designs and redesign other stuff in the future... cities were cobbled together from the top down, but now communities are being planned in advance with things like highways and wider roads and so forth planned in advance to avoid problems associated with letting communities "evolve" without a plan-- but that is still modification of the info.-- a refining or "evolution" of the plan--the design--it's exactly what nature is doing in regards to genomes and communities and biomes and ecosystems...

Bower birds don't plan their home designs--they are just programmed to build structures with certain features and to modify according to the environment... humans building houses aren't so different... the ones building them are just following a blueprint... even if it's not in their genomes-- they don't need to know anything in advance. If life does as it is "programmed" to do via it's genome--the result is more life with good combinations of genes for doing the same. No animal needs to know the specifics of sex to create a whole new life--or lots and lots of life. No human needs to know how to build any of the technology he/she uses--or even builds-- they just need to go about doing what they are programmed to do (work, communicate, mate, consume, learn, laugh, follow directions, etc.) and the technology evolves.

Technology is "designed" on maximizing human goals-- maximizing communication, exchange of useful knowledge, finances, sexual opportunities, longevity, health, and happiness-- the info. is built upon and expanded in proportion to how much it promotes these sorts of goals... genome information is built on and expanded upon based on how well it promotes life that copies it. But no one needs to be aware of the design to be a part of the design anymore than no cell in your body needs to know that it's part of a whole organism to be a major part of how well that organism works (or to cause cancer and kill that organism).


Does the info. (or "design") do what it is "designed" to do?-- if so keep it around, copy it, tweak it, add to it, incorporate it...

If not--phase it out, eliminate it, replace it...

Same formula. It's the same. In neither case, no single entity or person has to have a goal. The goals programmed into the life forms involved takes care of the honing process without thinking about it. Humans, in just going about their lives can't help but be part of the pruning process of the internet, cities, religions, languages, and technology... the input adds up to produce the appearance of design even where none at all is planned.

All domesticated animals and crops are due to human helping some genomes preferentially survive over others due to their use to humans.... nature does the same. Being a symbiote or useful to another life form can increase the odds that your genome will be utilized and refined in future organisms. Similarly, the technology that is the most useful products today becomes the most widespread and become the technology that spawns tomorrows products... The INFORMATION evolves... with or without forethought... because all life forms evolved to modify the information aspects of their environment whether they realize it or not. All the objects in your home and all the life forms in your home are built via information that has been modified through time via the same formula-- "Does it do what it is "designed" to do?...can it be used for something further? Can it be tweaked to work better?"

There never has been a need for a top down design... all technology is built on what came before... just as all life forms and ecosystems are as well.

 

[articulett]

So what is your point?
Design is an iteritive process, and because of this designs improve over time?

Evolution is an iteritive process, and organisms become more adapted with each generation?


Are there any other similarities, because those are trivially true. The interesting part is in the implications of the important differences.

Your OP giives counterexamples to an idea of perfect creation, and human design is (probably always) an iteritive prrocess.

The fact that the IDers accept (what they call) "microevolution", is an acceptance that their "designer" is not omniscient. Indeed given some examples it would have to be pretty dim and/or sadistic.

Your OP is great at arguing against an omniscient designer.

If IDers accept gradual change, then this is obviously not the difficult concept.

The difficult part for IDers is the one that is difficult for you. How does something so complex and seeming "designed" on purpose-- just happen. And it happens very much the way the internet is happening... or most any complex thing you can think of-- math... language, cities, and life. That which works sticks around to be added on and modified by the environment which is composed of others things going through the same evolution--other life forms--other systems--other environments-- all evolving and interacting... where are these huge differences you see?-- what is an example of top down design without any bottom up evolution of the process?

Remember--it's the information that is really the stuff that is evolving--it's appearance in vectors (life forms or technology) just gives us a snapshot of the info. that has accumulated so far in this period of time in a give space--just like a math formula and any "thing" evolving from the use of said formula. It's not important as to who or what does the copying. When humans copy digital information--it is copied just as surely as viral information is copied by a cell... it's the information that sticks around to be built upon, refined, or recombined... ,not the resulting snapshot, that is actually evolving.

Human brains are great for copying and spreading information-- but nature has had over a billion years of a jump start and has a pretty good method for doing the same--in fact, it's responsible for our brains that copy and spread info. (which has given humans a huge advantage over other creatures as a species--because we can learn from that which has taken them years to evolve--we don't need to evolve fur coats--we learn to alter our environment or make products to keep us warm, etc.)

Life itself IS nature's way of copying and spreading the info. that makes more life. Human brains are the vectors for the evolution of human ideas--language, technology, science, math, cities, etc. But no one is in charge of the "big picture".

 

[Southwind17]

Go get 'em articulett!