Intelligent Evolution?

[jimbob]

OH sorry are we shouting now

 

[articulett]

Cyborg,

Why and how is the analogy useful?

The processes are fundamentally different. One requires intelligence and one doesn't.

Ignoring that difference seems rather pointless.

It's apparently used and useful by the majority of posters on this thread and the multitude of various intelligent people I linked. It only appears to be nonuseful to those who are certain they understand evolution, but who most decidedly do not understand it is well as they think.

It doesn't matter that you cannot understand the analogy because you confuse the information from what it codes for along with a few other nutty details like Mijo and the few other nutters that interject on this thread... it only matters that many people apparently can and do find the analogy useful. The ones who don't seem muddled and confused.--and far less capable of describing the process clearly than the OP. Moreover, the smart people seem to be understanding evolution more in the process of using and applying the analogy... the ones who can't get it, don't seem to be grasping a single new thing about the evolutionary process--nor do they show an inkling of interest in understanding more. Clearly, the analogy doesn't work for thos who think they know everything there is to know on the subject. But for everyone else it works great.

 

[cyborg]

Why and how is the analogy useful?

The argument for design is the argument that things humans design require humans to design them. We see ourselves as 'intelligent'. Therefore those designs require 'intelligence' for their construct.

Remove the 'intelligence' from the construction process and we can relate this to the intelligence-lacking evolutionary process.

Intelligence is irrelevant. Designs either work or they do not.

The processes are fundamentally different. One requires intelligence and one doesn't.

Intelligent design requires intelligence.

Guess who likes that argument?

(For those with a difficultly appreciating the subtle this basically alludes to the fact that the question being begged here is: "who gets to decide what is an 'intelligent' design is anyway?" and if you answer "God does!" it's really not much better than saying "man does!" or, "I do!" or "Well, if it's stuff made by a clever bloke it is!")

My argument is: "Intelligent design doesn't require intelligence: only luck."

Now I ask: who should be appreciating this argument?

Ignoring that difference seems rather pointless.

Sure; if you presume intelligence is inherently special.

Guess who does that?

 

[jimbob]

Articulett, Yes it is the DNA that replicates, that is the "payload". It is embodied within organisms, these are what are selected. However these are also the delivery systems for the DNA.

The information self-replicates in the form of DNA. I prefer to say that the DNA self-replicates. This information is carried within the organism.

Because the information is carried within the organism that it embodies, selection of the organism selects the information. This is natural selection.

If the information is not embodied within the vehicle, then selection of the vehicle would not select the information. Sush a system would not have natural selection, which is vital for evolution.

 

[articulett]

OH sorry are we shouting now

Nope... not me... I'm putting you back on ignore... I see you have kleinman brand imperviousness, and I find it unfixable, arrogant, dishonest, incurious, and just plain wrong.

But I now know for certain that you are of Mijo/Kleinman ilk. As is President Bush. I'll warn new posters you might inflict your hubris on... and go about my merry way with people who actually can learn and share useful information. (And I'll giggle like a school girl as cyborg et. al send the zingers flying over your hubris laden head.)

 

[jimbob]

Yes I do suppose that intelligence is special. It is not needed for evolution though.


ETA:

In fact intelligence has nothing to do with evolution.

 

[articulett]

Articulett, Yes it is the DNA that replicates, that is the "payload". It is embodied within organisms, these are what are selected. However these are also the delivery systems for the DNA.

The information self-replicates in the form of DNA. I prefer to say that the DNA self-replicates. This information is carried within the organism.

Because the information is carried within the organism that it embodies, selection of the organism selects the information. This is natural selection.

If the information is not embodied within the vehicle, then selection of the vehicle would not select the information. Sush a system would not have natural selection, which is vital for evolution.

Yes... just as the design of an airplane is carried in the actual airplane... and the blueprint of a house is carried in the house... and the recipe is coded in the actual product it produces via the recipe. It's the same.

Information coded for in human brains need humans for copying... Information in viruses need bacterial cells for copying... information in sperm need eggs for copying... information in VHS need VHS machines to copy... or digital... digital data need computers to copy it... "wash rinse repeat" gets itself copied... but it's by a machine... until you understand this... you are playing checkers with chess masters and will be mocked accordingly.

 

[cyborg]

Yes I do suppose that intelligence is special.

Why?

It is not needed for evolution though.

What number can intelligence produce that dumb luck cannot?

 

[cyborg]

Yes... just as the design of an airplane is carried in the actual airplane... and the blueprint of a house is carried in the house... and the recipe is coded in the actual product it produces via the recipe. It's the same.

Actually we would generally say that there are structural relationships between these entities: that is the thing itself is an implicit design for itself - the prototype. Other designs may instruct as to the construction of the thing itself. We would generally differentiate these things because distinguishing the later as a design requires an encoding whilst the former 'speaks for itself'.

 

[articulett]

Yes I do suppose that intelligence is special. It is not needed for evolution though.


ETA:

In fact intelligence has nothing to do with evolution.

What you call intelligence is an an evolutionary byproduct... it is coded for in genes and honed by the environment because those who had it, were more likely to pass on their genes than those who did not. But nowadays, the stupid pass on their genes as often as the intelligent thanks to evolved medicine, knowledge, science, and social constructs.

From an information perspective, intelligence is just a way to get human "ideas" (memes/education/culture/technology/etc.) copied... in the same way the sex drive or whatever it is that causes asexual reproduction is a genes ways to get themselves copied. The fact that the butterfly mutation conferred a strong survival advantage was that mutations way of spreading widely. Human intelligence is just an copier as far as information is concerned... just like butterflies are just copiers as far as the butterfly mutation is concerned.

 

[articulett]

Actually we would generally say that there are structural relationships between these entities: that is the thing itself is an implicit design for itself - the prototype. Other designs may instruct as to the construction of the thing itself. We would generally differentiate these things because distinguishing the later as a design requires an encoding whilst the former 'speaks for itself'.

Yes... the code is the medium, but it can translate back and forth. You can deduce the sheet music from hearing a song and you can play the song from reading the sheet music... but one is not the other... But DNA is not the organism... it's just the bits and pieces of directions for making an organism...

For purposes of the analogy... what is getting copied is the information based on how well the product it codes for performs in the environment... which is pretty much the story of biological evolution. Information that is good at getting itself copied drives evolution.

 

[President Bush]

What number can intelligence produce that dumb luck cannot?

What might William Shakespeare write than an infinite number of monkeys couldn't?

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a particular chosen text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. In this context, "almost surely" is a mathematical term with a precise meaning, and the "monkey" is not an actual monkey; rather, it is a metaphor for an abstract device that produces a random sequence of letters ad infinitum. The theorem illustrates the perils of reasoning about infinity by imagining a vast but finite number, and vice versa. The probability of a monkey typing a given string of text as long as, say, Hamlet is so tiny that, were the experiment conducted, the chance of it actually occurring during a span of time of the order of the age of the universe is minuscule but not zero.

Further down the page:

Ignoring punctuation, spacing, and capitalization, a monkey typing letters uniformly at random has one chance in 26 of correctly typing the first letter of Hamlet. It has one chance in 676 (26 times 26) of typing the first two letters. Because the probability shrinks exponentially, at 20 letters it already has only one chance in 26[size=-4]20[/size]=19,928,148,895,209,409,152,340,197,376, roughly equivalent to the probability of buying 4 lottery tickets consecutively and winning the jackpot each time. In the case of the entire text of Hamlet, the probabilities are so vanishingly small they can barely be conceived in human terms. Say the text of Hamlet contains 130,000 letters (it is actually more, even stripped of punctuation), then there is a probability of one in 3.4×10[size=-4]183946[/size] to get the text right at the first trial. The average number of letters that needs to be typed until the text appears is also 3.4×10[size=-4]183946[/size].

For comparison purposes, there are only about 10[size=-4]79[/size] atoms in the observable universe and only 4.3 x 10[size=-4]17[/size] seconds have elapsed since the Big Bang. Even if the observable universe were filled with monkeys typing for all time, their total probability to produce a single instance of Hamlet would still be less than one chance in 10[size=-4]183800[/size]. As Kittel and Kroemer put it, "The probability of Hamlet is therefore zero in any operational sense of an event…", and the statement that the monkeys must eventually succeed "gives a misleading conclusion about very, very large numbers."

Even in a universe as large as this... I may never get another chance to say: "thanks" for answering my question, cyborg.

 

[articulett]

Infinite monkeys have no selection process... If a word stuck every time a word was accidentally typed while all the other non-words died out... then you get miracles... akin to evolution (information with selection process).

Of course one single primate DID write the works of Shakespeare... it just took billions of years of evolution-- But just millions between monkey ancestor and Shakespeare.

Shakespeare evolved... just as his works did. Information that gets itself copied drives evolution-- the environment hones and assimilates the stuff that sticks around.

BTW, the monkey/typewriter analogy like the tornado/747 analogy is a creationist strawman-- once again pretending that evolution is about randomness while completely misunderstanding what selection is or how it is responsible for "design".

(Cyborg, I think PB thinks he's proved something... but like Jimbob's bioluminescent mouse and Kleinman's math and Dembski and Behe's equations of obfuscation... I think his "proof" is part of the contest he's winning in his head. Or maybe he truly is a chatbot. It would help if the nutters all spoke the SAME woo... but alas).

 

[President Bush]

Infinite monkeys have no selection process...

How's that jigsaw puzzle going?

 

[six7s]

What is it about you and your apparent obsession with jellyfish? Is it cos they too are spineless?

It is not an obsession with jellyfish, it is pointing out that whilst it is is conceivable that a mouse could have evolved the same 700+ letter gene sequence as one that is already observed in jellyfish, you would have better odds...

OK, if it's not an obsession, let go of it

What about the odds of 'some mice evolving a new gene sequence that gives rise to a superficially similar (yet genetically different) appearance as observed in jellyfish (i.e. they glow)'

Absolutely impossible?

Could you explain your "spineless" comment?

Yes

You come across as spineless because of the way you, despite a fairly well-developed vocabulary AND the time to use it, lack the fortitude to clearly define your stance and, instead, you go with the wishy-washy flow of obfuscating nonsense

For example:

In response to:

However, my question concerened your use of the phrase "Has to involve an intelligent agency"

Your answer did not even begin to address this issue

Your wishy-washy reply is:

I have previously discussed this elsewhere

You sad git

This sort of reply is the hallmark of a spineless fraud, someone who demonstrates a lacks of integrity by using the 'read the backlog' cop-out instead of simply addressing the issue - something you could have done in less than 50 words

Do you agree that evolution requires "selection" and "mutation"?

Please refrain from trying to lure me into swallowing one of your obfuscations with one of your red herrings as bait.

As evolution is not a sentient being or force, it requires nothing, it simply happens.

However, as I'm here, I may as well answer your question, with a 'qualified yes': I think so... i.e. I don't know

Without self-replication, a copy could be made of a "design" even if the physical structure...

Seriously, forget whatever you think you know about 'self-replication'. It has been pointed out all too often that you don't know what it is, so, for you to drone on about it from a self-appointed position of authority is farcical

As you seem to disagree with this, please give me a convincing example.

Your request does not parse correctly. I won't bother trying to decipher it until you can and have demonstrated that you yourself know what you're talking about

====================

I assume this is a rhetorical question

No.

I assume you don't know what rhetoric is
Google: Definitions of rhetoric on the Web

What were you aiming to illustrate?

I ask simply because I have no idea

The LMB is part of the MRC, this is an accademically recognised organisation, the "Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry" Division is...

Thank you for at least trying to give me an idea. Alas, you failed - probably because you don't actually know either

What is your intent?

A stated aim of this forum is to encourage critical thinking and, luckily for me, there are several very astute minds who are more than willing to share knowledge and insight on a wide range of topics

As alluded to above, I think I have a grasp on the key aspects of evolution, but I don't know

My intent is simple:

• To think and learn about stuff I don't know yet

However, this aim is - needlessly and annoyingly - complicated by the mere presence of people like you and mijo: purveyors of bull-science, which is much more detrimental to learning than unabashed woo simply because, like con-artists, you use half-truths and jargon-fuelled bull-science to pretend that you not only know what you're talking about but also something much worse, that your nonsense is true

You asked who the "mysterious mathematician" was, I answered the question

Thank you

I was agian showing that if something has made it onto a university course, then it is scientifically uncontentious.

Really? I honestly had NO idea what you were on about

The quoted text showed why self-replication is required.

Oh... and nor did you

If the odds are so great that it is vanishingly unlikely within the age of the universe, indeed within the best projections for the total lifetime of the universe, then I would say that it is reasonable to say "never".

Aaahhh! You can 'reason' an excuse to to be absolutist

Or maybe you won't see... blinded as you are by bull-science

What do you mean?

Don't play the innocent jimbob: you are naive, not stupid

Are you denying that the genetic modification {of the glowing mouse} was performed by intelligent agents?

As you delight in illustrating, you don't know - in the context of this thread - what intelligence is, so your question is facile

I am pointing out that there are differences betweeen the results of intelligent action and of evolution. These diffences are because the processes are fundamentally different.

Bollocks

You aren't pointing out anything other than your determination to obfuscate

 

[six7s]

How's that jigsaw puzzle going?

Don't tell me... you're gloating cos you finished yours in less than a month...

Tip: on the side of the box where it says '3 to 5 years'... that's the age group of the intended market... not a time frame for completion

 

[articulett]

Don't tell me... you're gloating cos you finished yours in less than a month...

Tip: on the side of the box where it says '3 to 5 years'... that's the age group of the intended market... not a time frame for completion

It's interesting how everything a woo reads somehow magically supports the imaginary contest in their head. They never even seem to notice that the other woo aren't even on the same page as them. The woo game often involves asking an inane question that they don't really want answered like how long does bioluminiscent mice ears take to evolve or "explain the analogy" etc. -- they actually have imagined the answer they want, and all answers to the question will be twisted into points for that answer. Meanwhile, of course, the facts just keep being the facts. As their imperviousness to them just gets more glaring.

(You'll be surprised how common this is with creationists. You get sucked into thinking they are truly interested in information, but it's just this weird masturbatory attention game they are playing, where they award themselves "cleverness" points in a game only they seem to understand the point of. None of them know that they all sound as stupid as each other. None of them can fix their incompetence, because none of them are aware that they are the incompetent ones. They think they have something to teach, while not seeing the giant neon vacancy sign flashing on their foreheads.)

 

[articulett]

How long would it take monkeys tossing silk around to form a spiderweb? How long would it take an intelligent design like a spiderweb to evolve if spiders never existed?? How about bioluminescent spiderwebs??? What are the mathematical probabilities of a tornado in a silk factory forming a perfect spiderweb???? (I bet you can see how these analogies are on par with Jimbob's et. al. analogies, six7s, --while Jimbob cannot.)

Those analogies are on par with the woo analogies. That's why the woo can't understand the analogy in the OP. They completely suck at analogies... especially analogies involving "natural selection". It's the blight of faith and being seeped in such thinking for years. It's hard to fix once it's set, folks... so teach the kiddies critical thinking early, lest they grow up to sound like the 3 stooges on this thread. The fact that Southwinds analogy gets the nutters' panties in a bunch is a sign that it's a good tool. The people who communicate well, use this analogy and similar ones as has been amply illustrated by links the nutters avoid. And the nutters cannot explain even the most simple of things and nobody but themselves seem to be following their "points". (They are not even following each other-- tee-hee)

The nice thing about "smart" is that you can learn from the experts AND you can learn how "not to be" from the daft. The daft, sadly, never know they are the daft ones... and so they can't fix the daftness.

Six7s, despite your humility regarding your knowledge of genetics, you come across much clearer and knowledgeable than the Bozos who imagine themselves experts on the subject. Southwind does to. The problem with incompetent, on the other hand, is that their lack of awareness of their incompetence leaves the incompetent so full of impenetrable hubris that humility is utterly lacking--along with wit, charm, and intelligibility.

 

[articulett]

Hey, I know a fun game... why doesn't every one who thinks the analogy doesn't work sum up the main points of one of the other people who says the analogy doesn't work. And then the fellow naysayer can tell us if that person understood them. My theory is that the woo don't understand each other... and each woo thinks they sound much smarter than the other woo.

Jimbob, why don't you start and sum up Mijo's main argument or President Bushes point?

 

[Southwind17]

Jimbob – it seems to me that your two main problems with the validity of the analogy are the notion of ‘self-replication’ (the emphasis being on ‘self’) and ‘intelligent agents’. Let’s discuss these further:

Self-replication

I acknowledge that in nature the entity contains its own blueprint and that in technology the blueprint is stored remotely. Therefore, in nature, the ability of an entity to be replicated is dependent upon the entity surviving its environment long enough to reach breeding maturity, and something then happens within the entity that prompts it to search out a mate and breed – let’s call that something a ‘trigger’. Now, what determines an entity’s ability to survive its environment long enough? Well, it is its features and characteristics, and the act of breeding is in fact testament to those features and characteristics. So, in technology, whilst you claim that the designer is free arbitrarily to press the ‘reproduce’ button at any time, we know that that is not what actually happens. There has to be a ‘trigger’. What is that trigger? Well, in the case of Sam’s electronic ‘entities’ it was the receipt of the proceeds of sales that enabled him to buy more components. Without those proceeds he could not press the ‘reproduce button’. And what led to the receipt of those proceeds? Well, it was the features and characteristics of his entities that better placed them to ‘survive’ their environment compared to competing entities. You will recall that those entities that Sam produced that had no beneficial characteristics and features very soon became extinct, and their blueprints can be considered to have disappeared with them (why bother keeping them?), but those that did have beneficial features and characteristics proliferated. You will also recall that Sam created his entities with absolutely no forethought and intent. He simply recognized the ‘reproduction trigger’ when it was pulled (i.e. receipt of proceeds) and then went ahead and performed a reproduction. In nature, an entity recognizes its ‘reproduction trigger’ hormonally, let’s say, and also then ‘pushes the reproduction button’. Now, jimbob, what exactly is it about self-replication, that you see as so fundamental and profound that it invalidates the analogy? Please don’t blindly repeat what you’ve previously stated. What you’ve previously stated has absolutely no impact on the comparison above.

Intelligent Agents

I believe the two relevant ‘intelligent agents’ in the Sam & Ollie story previously are Sam, as the ‘designer’ and his school mates, as the ‘selector’. I don’t think the story can be any clearer in demonstrating that Sam applied absolutely no intelligence to the ‘replication’ or ‘variation’ processes. The former was done by blindly following the ‘code’ that had become apparent as ‘useful’ by virtue of the fact that his entities had proven themselves capable of surviving their environment long enough to 'breed', as described above; the latter were essentially random changes to such code. The ‘good’ changes showed themselves to be so by virtue of the fact that those entities acquiring the good changes sold better than those that didn’t. Any ‘bad’ changes were quickly eliminated through extinction, i.e. zero sales. Sam didn’t apply any intelligence in determining what variations were good or bad; he simply waited for the proceeds of the sales. That informed him what was good and bad, and formed the trigger for him to press the ‘reproduce button’.

That just leaves the ‘selector’ then. As explained previously, the school boy perusing the available options at the bring & buy sale (including Sam’s entities) applies no more intelligence in determining whether Sam’s entity will ‘survive’ (i.e. be bought) than the cheetah does in weighing up its options for dinner, i.e. determination of the cheetah’s probability of survival. For both Sam’s entity and the cheetah, there are numerous factors that will determine their respective probabilities of becoming copied. But in both cases those factors are fixed at ‘birth’ – it comes right back to their inherent features and characteristics. It matters not that the natural environment is the selective force in one case and a school boy in the other. Sam’s entity and the cheetah’s respective probabilities of survival, and hence replication (with occasional variants), and hence likelihood of demonstrating evolutionary theory, are based wholly on their inherent traits, and not at all on any ‘intelligent agent’. The school boy has absolutely no more influence over the likelihood of Sam’s entity becoming replicated than the natural environment does over the cheetah. The school boy, as intelligent as he might be, does not apply that intelligence in his decision making process any more than the weather does in the wild. He’s simply part of the ‘environment’.

The way I see it, jimbob, is that this satisfactorily reconciles both notions, namely 'self-replication' and ‘intelligent agents’, between the two components of the analogy, and that the analogy, therefore, remains not only valid but completely appropriate.

Now, if you consider carefully exactly what I'm saying here you should realize that it's fundamentally different from the IDiots' argument. You need not, therefore, be scared of it!