However, analogizing technological development to biological evolution immediately begs the question as to what the analog to the intelligent agents therein is exactly. Intelligent design fills that void by saying there is some sort of (supernatural) Intelligent Designer. That is why some here object to analogizing technological development with biological evolution.
The only people who object are those who are incapable of extracting the 'intelligent agents' from the analogy and replacing them with randomness then recognizing that either way it makes no difference to the outcome.
I found this quote in anthoer thread and thought it might apply here too. If the statement is true, then it demonstrates that technological development (which, with all the vague talk of "information", seems to be a form of memetics) and biological evolution are two fundamentally different processes, because technological entities can alter their information according to acquisitions during their "lifetimes" while biological entities cannot.
Alteration of information in the technological environment is triggered by one of two primary prompts. The first prompt is the recognition of a weakness in a design, or an opportunity for improvement, through use of that design, or observation of competing or ancilliary designs, within the operational environment. The second prompt is similar, except that it arises through thought alone, i.e. intent and forethought, without empirical data to support it. Either way, the 'intelligent agent's' role is simply to recognize the weaknesses and improvements and then leapfrog the steps that would have to be gone through if left to random variation. That's all. As I've written numerous times, this ability to recognize, analyze and effect change with intent and forethought is simply a 'convenience' that humans exploit.
Apathia-
Do you find it the least bit strange that engineers can set out with predefined goals and achieve them, but that evolution can't since there are no predefined goal in evolution?
There's nothing 'strange' about this at all. Humans are great at exploiting their evolved advantages. Such exploitation, though, should not be seen as something it isn't; in this case nothing more than a convenience. Intelligence, in principle, is no different from the opposing thumb! It doesn't make us any 'different' or 'better' than any other species per se; it just enables us to do things that other species cannot to our advantage.
Do you see this as a possible fundamental difference between the processes of biological evolution and technological development that the analogy fails to address and that therefore might undermine it?
Not when you look on it like an opposing thumb. To what extent do you see an opposing thumb in humans as invalidating the analogy?
The quote I disputed was directly from one of your posts. I kept up just fine.
The problem is, for there to be any analogy you have to make your random creator so much different it isn't like biological evolution at all.
In what way do you see my random creator different from the 'natural random creator'?
Each time a difference has been pointed out you have just said, more time, or more robots, or allowed larger mutations.
That's because I started with a highly simplified analogy in anticipation that some people might struggle to comprehend anything close to biological evolution. You will surely not deny that a fair comparison of the two processes requires application over the same effective timescale. You will also surely not deny that a fair comparison of the two processes requires an army of automatons such that an entire species is represented. As for the larger mutations, I'm not sure where this allegation comes from. My analogy is all about miniscule incremental change. It is your inability to recognize and differentiate micro-mutations form macro-mutations that lead you to think that the analogy fails because it cannot span the apparent void between, say, piston engines and rotary engines.
At a certain point we are back to an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters. If you give a random process arbitrarily large variation anything can happen. If you also give it an arbitrary number of attempts anything will happen.
I don't think you appreciate the notion and scale of geological time. Your infinite number of monkeys and typewriters is shown to be fallacious as regards biological evolution. What causes you to conclude that the numbers required for randomly variable technological development would be any different?
The problem in illustrating the issue of irreducible complexity is that, what is irreducibly complex under one system may not be in another.
Do you know of such a system where it isn't?
You have shown that given an arbitrary mutation process that nothing is irreducibly complex. Since 99% of creationist don't have (or want) a clue what irreducibly complex means this argument might be legimate in debating them. But in teaching people who want to know about evolution it should be taught that the error in the creationist argument is that what we see in biology is "reducibly" complex.
Surely a good way of teaching an evolution student that what we see in biology is reducibly complex is by demonstrating to him that nothing is irreducibly complex. If you cannot convince IDers that biology is reducibly complex by explaining biology to them then how can we be sure that the evolution student will accept the explanation? That said, I never set out with the analogy in mind as a teaching tool. Indeed, it was more of an attempt at an argument to convince the IDers, not tht they'd be at all interested in entertaining it, even if they could comprehend it!
The only reason your hypothetical random technological designer appears to work is that you define so vaguely that we can get any byproducts we want out of it.
The automaton can only work with the materials and components that it's given to work with. This is really no different from biological evolution. The automaton developing electronics devices is no different in principle from the biological 'automaton' that continuously reproduces cheetahs. Can you identify what caused you to make this erroneous statement?
Aside from VTOL, Tesla's inventions and developments included the ac motor, the bifilar coil, various devices that use rotating magnetic fields, the alternating current polyphase power distribution system, the fundamental devices of systems of wireless communication (legal priority for the invention of radio), radio frequency oscillators, devices for voltage magnification by standing waves, robotics, logic gates for secure radio frequency communications, devices for x-rays, apparatus for ozone generation, devices for ionized gases, devices for high field emission, devices for charged particle beams, methods for providing extremely low level of resistance to the passage of electrical current, means for increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations, voltage multiplication circuitry, devices for high voltage discharges, devices for lightning protection, and the bladeless turbine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tesla_patents
Talk about hit-or-miss flukes!
Not sure what you're implying here Mr President. I think you're casting your mind right back to the notion that the complexity inherent in the inventions you list cannot arise without intelligent intervention. If so, what do you hope to achieve from making this post; it neither demonstrates nor proves anything? If not, could you please clarify the point you're seeking to make. Thanks
