Intelligent Evolution?

[articulett]

Go get 'em articulett!

I already know I'm wasting my breath with certain people. But lots of people read this forum and humans are very good at teaching each other in general-- and I think understanding how evolution works is one of the coolest things humans have figured out. I like sharing it... I like knowing that people feel like I felt as I was understanding it. Most of the people arguing against the analogy are people who would call evolution "random" (per another thread) though most people who teach the subject feel that randomness is the easy part of the equation to understand--but not the important part... the important part is natural selection-- the way that having a selection process ("natural" or not) ensures increasing complexity and the appearance of design... it does the pruning, and nobody who wanted to convey it's power would refer to it as "random". It's more of a "derandomizer"-- a streamliner.

Evolution is really pretty simple to understand and to convey to others who desire to understand. ID proponents and the muddled just fuzz up the explanations so that it sounds too difficult to comprehend, and to me they don't seem to understand the basic essence of Darwin's theory-- Natural Selection. I think the Steve Jones Nozzle piece is really simple and elegant for showing the similarities, but for some people--no explanation will ever be enough. They think they understand evolution and they think they know which ways work for conveying that understanding to others and which ways are doomed to failure. But they are incorrect. The evidence shows the most successful communicators on the topic as being able to intuit and explain the similarities between natural selection and artificial selection and the algorithm for such processes.

 

[jimbob]

How does it happen?

Those replicators that manage to produce self-replicating offspring are, by defintion, "adequately fit" to reproduce. The slight differences in the "templates" mean that those that are more suited will tend to produce more offspring.

That is all that is needed.

Imperfect self-replication.

 

[mijopaalmc]

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.

Oh, no, we understand perfectly well that you think that your abstraction removes the need to consider the differences between the processes of biological evolution and technological development; we just disagree with you on that point. Intelligence or sentience is an essential part of technological development and distinguishes it from biological evolution. The possession of intelligence allows a whole host of things to happen in technological development that simply cannot happen in biological evolution.

The point of an analogy is to take an abstract concept such as "change over time" and relate familiar concrete object such as "technological development" to an unfamiliar one such as "biological evolution". However, once that is done the two objects are similar in so far as they share the abstract concept. If the abstraction obscures the ways in which the two objects are different, though, one cannot transfer all of the qualities of one object onto the other. In other words, the differences between the analogs cannot be "abstracted away".

So, yes , both biological evolution and technological development generalize to "change over time". That is, however, only the "what" of the two processes. The "how" and the "why" are what differentiate the processes from each other and what cause the most difficulty we discussing biological evolution with creationists and ID proponents, because they see human engineers making goal-oriented decisions about how to change technological designs and assume that there must be some Divine Engineer making the same decisions about living things with humans as the ultimate goal.

 

[articulett]

How does it happen?

Those replicators that manage to produce self-replicating offspring are, by defintion, "adequately fit" to reproduce. The slight differences in the "templates" mean that those that are more suited will tend to produce more offspring.

That is all that is needed.

Imperfect self-replication.

Nope--just imperfect replication. That's how viruses do it... and humans reproduce certain designs and ideas-- often imperfectly...

Are you familiar with the fab labs? MIT's labs that manufacture manufacturing machines? Are you familiar with how computer viruses spread, replicate, and evolve-- same thing. You don't need to self replicate--just something that will copy the info. (that's what synthetic life does... and insertions in vectors...)

All you need is a way to get the info. copied-- NOT SELF REPLICATION.
When humans make a new human in a petri dish, they are using information that has evolved through learning and trial and error... as well as copying the genome of the newly combined sperm and egg. The sperm and egg may be making an individual that makes sperm OR eggs... but it won't be completely copying either-- the sperm and egg are not self replicating nor is the information-- the information that is incorporated that works has a chance to be built on and modified in the future. That is the same for the information in the sperm and egg and the information about the process. Neither are exactly replicating themselves.

Anything that can be copied or added to can evolve... this includes all kinds of information...whether encoded in genomes or blueprints or recipes or books or html.

 

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Superficially attractive, but not really a good approximation at all.

What "evolution" changes a cathode ray tube TV into an LCD or a plasma? It is not a matter of gradual change of the CRT to effect this but a major saltation involving new technology not included in the previous design.

What about in the information it takes to put them together?

Cathode ray tubes, LCDs, Plasmas, and DLP all serve the same function. They are like the eyes that evolved independently at least 6 different times, each from their own history, but not from each other.

And DNA conveys information.

 

[articulett]

What about in the information it takes to put them together?

And DNA conveys information.

Exactly... and parts evolve separately and together in an organism and organisms evolve into communities and ecosystems where pieces evolve separately and become part of a bigger evolving system...

It's the information that evolves in both. The firetrucks of today don't literally become the firetrucks of tomorrow-- but the designs of firetrucks of today will evolve to become build the firetrucks of tomorrow... Vehicles that move humans from place to place have evolved independently and they continue to evolve together as part of a transportation system which evolves.

 

[cyborg]

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

You should see some of the stuff I have to deal with - I see bad, supposedly, intelligent design on a day to day basis.

So I again come back to thinking those who argue for the a priori obviousness of design don't have so much experience in it.

 

[articulett]

You should see some of the stuff I have to deal with - I see bad, supposedly, intelligent design on a day to day basis.

So I again come back to thinking those who argue for the a priori obviousness of design don't have so much experience in it.

Yes... in the nozzle example--the original nozzles were all "intelligently designed"... but the best nozzles subsequently were based on the blind algorithm...it's the selection built into the algorithm that "fast forwards" the process--not the fact that someone thought it out in advance... or had a specific goal. The one's built through the blind algorithm were better than those that were designed from the top down. It's the elimination rounds where only the best stick around to be refined and added onto.

The whole idea behind open source is to have tons of input guiding the evolution of output... DNA is nature's open source genome copying program...

 

[Southwind17]

The possession of intelligence allows a whole host of things to happen in technological development that simply cannot happen in biological evolution.

'Allow' being the operative word and not 'cause'. This 'whole host of things' has already been adequately dimissed earlier, but I'll re-phrase:

Do these things happen all the time, every time with every example of design development? Can they not be considered exceptions to the rule?

You're falling into the same trap and focusing on examples that don't fit the analogy rather than examples that do. You only need to identify ONE example of design where they don't apply and they immediately fail to invalidate the analogy.

 

[mijopaalmc]

'Allow' being the operative word and not 'cause'. This 'whole host of things' has already been adequately dimissed earlier, but I'll re-phrase:

Do these things happen all the time, every time with every example of design development? Can they not be considered exceptions to the rule?

You're falling into the same trap and focusing on examples that don't fit the analogy rather than examples that do. You only need to identify ONE example of design where they don't apply and they immediately fail to invalidate the analogy.

You are missing the point the "host of things" that you have summarily dismissed because you have claimed to have "abstracted" them away cannot happen in biological evolution. The fact that they don't always happen in technological development is beside the point. because you need to consider all instances of technological development when comparing it to biological. Therefore, technological development cannot be analogized with technological development in the abstract since only some cases actually resemble biological evolution, leaving the hopeless tautology that the cases of technological development resemble biological evolution because they resemble biological evolution.

 

[Southwind17]

You are missing the point the "host of things" that you have summarily dismissed because you have claimed to have "abstracted" them away cannot happen in biological evolution. The fact that they don't always happen in technological development is beside the point. because you need to consider all instances of technological development when comparing it to biological. Therefore, technological development cannot be analogized with technological development in the abstract since only some cases actually resemble biological evolution, leaving the hopeless tautology that the cases of technological development resemble biological evolution because they resemble biological evolution.

Completely wrong. I haven't 'claimed to have abstracted them away'. They were never present in the first place, in my mind! Certain people posting here have actually 'abstracted them here'!

Why do you need to consider all instances to convince somebody that technological design development and biological evolution can be observed to be acting very similarly? It's those cases that 'resemble biological evolution' (to use your words) that validate the analogy.

As I wrote earlier, does one plane crash demonstrate that planes can't fly?

 

[Southwind17]

As a related and light-hearted aside, I chanced upon a Play Station game in a shopping mall yesterday: "The Adventures of Darwin". The overall objective is to develop a bunch of 'simple primates' into a 'colony of humans'. I doubt that the play line would help us resolve the design/evolution analogy, but one of my kids sure seemed interested. I think it was just the wooly mammoths that caught his attention.

I immediately thought of the Forum, and it made me giggle for a while. We're a serious bunch aren't we, and some guys are happy just making a kids' game out of it all!

 

[articulett]

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?

And even that analogy is not completely true. We don't know all the better designs that don't exist because of lack of funding or lack or advertising or because the worse product was made more widely available or became a fad due to a t.v. show etc. We can only build on what is. And it's not always the "best" that survives. Mac vs. PC-- Beta vs. VHS-- the product that evolves the fastest was the one that was distributed the widest because it was the most affordable--not because it was the best... and so they are the ones that spawned more copies and more derivative products and they became the next technologies which are now evolving or have died out. If we lose some potentially great info. whether it's a plant that becomes extinct or an idea that never gets into the right hands-- we don't ever know what could have become of it-- and so it looks like what results is purposeful--guided--planned-- but there is as much randomness as in evolution-- and as much unplanned SELECTION. The most widely used bible (KJV) is the one that had the first access to the mass printing of the printing press--and think how that has influenced the way people think and culture. It wasn't the "most accurate" translation or the most sensible one or the one closest in language to the originals...or the one that was edited the least. And you can pretend god planned it that way, but it seems that serendipity (or perhaps anti-serendipity given the influence of the text) plays a major role.

But no matter how carefully this is explained...no matter how detailed and cohesive the analogy--they cannot see it. And yet they have provided no example of human made products that did not evolve from simpler products... where chance played no role--where selection and modification of information amassed before was not utilized as a foundation.

If a better airplane had been built before the Wright Brothers, but it crashed due to an unexpected whirlwind-- we wouldn't know about it... we don't know what better thing could have been-- only the best modifications of the designs that others could build upon. The information has to have a vector and get a "toehold" before it can be copied and expanded upon. This is true of both life forms and all human built "systems". It's true of things we find beneficial and things we find harmful-- diseases, feedback loops on climate change, insects, tumors, cults, chain letters, pyramid schemes. The info. need merely find a way to get itself copied.

 

[jimbob]

Nope--just imperfect replication. That's how viruses do it...

Viruses replicate inside a host. Their self-replication requires a host but it is still self-replication.

A photocopier replicates documents imperfectly, but neither the replicator, nor the replicants evolve; because the replicatior is different from the template.

An appropriately designed computer virus could evolve.

Anything that can be copied or added to can evolve... this includes all kinds of information...whether encoded in genomes or blueprints or recipes or books or html.

See above.

Evolutionary approaches can be used, but these are not evolution.

 

[articulett]

Viruses replicate inside a host. Their self-replication requires a host but it is still self-replication.

A photocopier replicates documents imperfectly, but neither the replicator, nor the replicants evolve; because the replicatior is different from the template.

An appropriately designed computer virus could evolve.



See above.

Evolutionary approaches can be used, but these are not evolution.

The information evolves in both cases altering the output through time (usually towards greater "efficiency" --or more of whatever direction works the best at furthering the process.)

 

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

No, a thousand times no. The result of evolution is living things that effectively perpetuate themselves. That present life forms include highly complex creatures is nothing but an incidental emergent property. Evolution is not trying to build fast, sleek, strong, smart animal, Evolution is creating things that are good at perpetuating themselves. Televisions are not made to perpetuate more televisions.

What happens to this statement when machines are designed to perpetuate themselves? Couldn't artifical intelligence allow them to make improves on the original design? I know that nothing like that is going to happen soon, but it seems a pretty sure bet that it will.

 

[jimbob]

re #396 er, that isn't the quote you were refering to...

 

[jimbob]

Are you implying that photocopies evolve?

 

[articulett]

Are you implying that photocopies evolve?

Nope. Information evolves. Not the vectors that contain the information... they are finite. Just as no creature evolves into something else in it's life time. It's the information that gets passed on which evolves.

The information is like computer codes or recipes or blueprints or language-- it is different than the results it produces-- the vectors of said information-- the vectors interact with the environment which "selects" the info that gets passed according to the vectors best at passing the info. on.

Photocopiers evolve based on the design of the copiers most in use.

 

[jimbob]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3056180#post3056180

But no matter how carefully this is explained...no matter how detailed and cohesive the analogy--they cannot see it. And yet they have provided no example of human made products that did not evolve from simpler products... where chance played no role--where selection and modification of information amassed before was not utilized as a foundation.

What definition of evolution are you using, the colloquial definition, or that used in "the THeory of Evolution"?

In talking about the theory of evolution, am using the definition of evoultion as in that theory.

"And yet they have provided no example of human made products that did not evolve from simpler products..."

These products were developed from simpler products. We all accept that.
We do not accept that they evolved, as intelligence was used (in every instances) to define the criteria for a "good product", and in the vast majroity of cases to actually design the product. Evolutionary algorithms are not evolution, for the reasons that I, ImaginalDisc and mijopaalmic have said.

If someone says why is the Atacama Desert so dry, an answer that began by talking about the origin of the solar-system, would be irrelevant. Even if you subscribe to the laplacian outlook (which Cyborg does) a better answer would be to talk about the prevailing winds and the rain-shadow of the surrounding mountains.

In the same way, if someone asks if a watch is natura, or artificail, it is better to say that it is artificial, even though it was made by an animal that is itself the prpoduct of natural processes. It is also unhelpful to state that it is not the product of intelligent design.