Intelligent Evolution?

[articulett]

In regards to the "jet engine", nature has communities of cells and organisms that come together and specialize, fill their niche...each having evolved independently before combining to become part of something else--part of an ecosystem, an organ, a multicellular organism, symbiotes, parasites, insertions, a family, a pride-- these are all evolving systems with independent parts that also come together and evolve as a whole. There is no irreducible complexity or definitive line between something planned entirely from the top down (from scratch) and something that evolved from the bottom up with partial or no intention and multiple inputs.

What is the most complex thing that you can think of that was designed not based on a design that came before--that is, it's not analogous to the way organism adapt features and refine them. Engines evolved. And they coincided and became part of air travels evolution. I see way more similarities than differences.

Fins didn't become wings in an instant--but they use the same tool box... and I suspect the first airplane--and thus subsequent airplanes were built with natures evolutionary design in mind. I just see it all as part of a continuum of evolving pieces coming together and forming more complex evolving systems...

I see way more similarities and analogues than differences. I am surprised when others cannot.

 

[articulett]

And irreducible complexity is a made up term... systems evolve together. A heart isn't just inserted into a body... it emerges as part of the plan-- each body starts as a single cell--and then like evolution, copying, differentiation, pruning (apoptosis) and environmental input which shapes the output occurs. Sure, no organism could survive without a head--but that doesn't make the head irreducibly complex... and that goes for eyes, noses, the blood clotting cascade and the bacterial flagellum. You are thinking like a creationist if you see things as irreducibly complex... the insides of a computer are separate pieces that evolved together once they became a part of the computer--the evolved. Use your example of the inside of a computer today as compared to the inside of one 10 years ago and you will see most of the basics--refined and made better, with some newer features that evolved from older features for the most part... car engines too... there is no such think as irreducible complexity. Everything can be dissembled to atoms... anything that can utilize energy to do work is to some degree "alive"-- whether it's a vehicle, a computer, a person, or a cell-- If you can understand this technology--and other systems (the internet, cities, etc.), then you have an edge at intuiting how evolution can look designed, but only really be shaped by multiple environmental inputs building from the bottom up. We can only move the next step forward... just like evolution-- we can plan the next steps--evolution just goes with what survives to make more copies of the best copiers. Evolution just needs someone to win the lottery--humans are the only creatures wanting to control the outcome so it might be them that wins the lottery. Evolution, like Vegas, always wins. Humans try to control small pieces of that with science, technology, plans, investments, etc.

 

[Southwind17]

But an evolutionary route from an early engineered system to a more advanced system would follow a different "trajectory" of iterations compared to one that was intelligently designed.

It would, but you could still finish up with the same outcome, just different timescales.

Aircraft:

The Supermarine Spitful was a piston-engined replacement for the Spitfire, and the Wing of the Spiteful was used in the jet-engined Supermarine Attacker (Ah the joys of wiki)

Is it useful to say that the Attacker was a jet-engined evolution of the spitfire? I would say no, because you could relpace "evolution" with "development".

I think these two words can be classed as similies, for the purpose of this debate.

The Spitfire/Spiteful design did not "evolve" a jet engine, it was designed in because the performance advantages of jets were clear.

Correct, this is a poor example for the analogy though, and I've previously acknowledged that not all examples serve to make the case. Remember that the jet engine itself 'evolved' (I made this point earlier). The fact that somebody combined it with an aircraft doesn't negate the analogy. Let's go with gliders, if you like!

In the DeHaviland Mosquito, a prototype apparently broke its back on landing. If the design evolved, this would be a failure, so would not "breed". Instead, extra plywood strengthening was applied at just the point of the break. This is the sort of learning from failures that evolution can't do.

It is fundamental to how evolution works.

You're missing the point, and actually helping argue my case here. The prototype to which you refer (which was, undoubtedly, based largely upon previous aircraft, as we've previously established) was only one of many (very many!)that could have been produced. Each alternative prototype could be considered a mutation of the common 'ancestor' (or parts thereof). The particular prototype that you refer to failed and became 'extinct'. For every prototype that could have been produced and failed, a prototype could have been produced and succeeded, and gone on to 'breed' (at least one of those prototypes would, by chance, happen to have had extra plywood strengthening at the point of the break!). As I've previously pointed out, it is simply more time and cost effective to make prototypes that fail and are addressed at the point of failure than to make every conceivable prototype and retain those that just happen to work ( a la natural selection).

 

[Southwind17]

Perfect copying won't work, as the design is then frozen.

The extra information in evolution comes form "useful mistakes".

Do you mean like the DeHaviland Mosquito prototype above, where it was a 'useful mistake' not to have sufficient plywood?!

 

[quixotecoyote]

One can compare anything to anything if given enough leeway. People have claimed mechanical design is like evolution in order to be able to shove the intelligent label onto evolution.

In response, I offer a challenge: Name any process. I will tie it to evolution. It will not be exactly like evolution, but then neither is mechanical design. But if you prefer baking cookies, bear baiting, or shoelace tying, I'd be happy to turn those into a simile for evolution so we can tack their names onto it as well.

 

[Southwind17]

You could use an evolutionary algorithm, but the selection criteria would include "the closest to getting off the groun, or flying".

Or, put another way, not getting eaten by the lion because it didn't get off the gound?!

You would still know that you wanted a flying machine.

I am assuming that you know enough to spot if the iterations are closer to getting off the ground.

Yes, but what if the output looked nothing like a plane, but more like a boat, so you then, instead, decide to 'evolve' a machine that floats (that's still very useful!). Ah, but what if the next iteration just happens to have traits that make it more suitable for skating (on ice, say). Well, I suppose you could try to evolve a sledge instead (that's also a useful machine!). Ah, but what if ...

 

[Southwind17]

I think most ID proponents will jump down your throat on that one. This is the big difference between evolution and technology, and you dismiss it as "analogous".

With technology, we can make very tiny improvements, but we can also make completely sweeping changes based on entirely new theories. E.g., you can look at the evolution of the car, and it's easy to see how 1969 Ford Mustang was the result of making a lot of tiny changes to a model-T Ford. But where would the Mazda RX-7, with it's rotary engine, fit into your phylogeny? That wasn't a tiny change of anything, it was a sweeping change. The Mustang has parts directly analogous to parts found on the Model-T, but the rotary engine has parts which are not to be found in any car before it, and not just one part, but a number of them, arranged in a completely new way.

I guess to keep your analogy fit, if cars are like insects, then the Mazda is like an arachnid--to the uneducated an arachnid looks like just another kind of insect but when you 'get under the hood' you realize it's quite different.

The RX-7 rotary engine would not fit, but why not look for analogies that do. I don't claim that every example of a machine is a good analogy, only some, and there are, no doubt, better analogies than those I've chosen. See my recent post for my views on using 'sweeping' changes, such as jet engines, for analogies. Machines don't necessarily have to become complex through 'sweeping' changes.

That's a stretch.

I know, but nonetheless!

Serendipity (like penicillin) happens now and again, but it's not the driving force.

I know, but nonetheless!

As a software designer, I can tell you that if I type "+" when I really meant "-" it's very unlikely that I am going to make an improvement and certainly not a revolution.

Maybe so, but what if you type "[@!" instead, or "%^)#", or "$$$@@!!", or maybe even "@__@__@", or "*&%@(", or "^{}{}{}*", or .........

Why do you think we can't send a manned mission to Mars yet? Why can't we fly a 1000-passenger aircraft yet? The answer, my friend, as Warren Buffet will bear out, is TIME! We certainly have the intelligence (human's aren't going to evolve better brains in the foreseeable future). What we're waiting for is technological change, and that can evolve quickly, aided by a time machine - the engineer!

Probably a tighter fit would be that mutations are analogous to new ideas, but of course that would undermine the point you're trying to make.

Yes, so it probably isn't a tighter fit then!

 

[Southwind17]

I question that. Perhaps you mean to say "we have never witnessed irreducible complexity in nature", in that case I might agree (although I'm hardly qualified to judge).

Take any digital computer, for example the original ENIAC--that system, in my estimation, is irreducibly complex. The ENIAC had millions of parts and if any of them were removed, the system would either malfunction severely or not function at all.

Analogous to the human heart in relation to the human body, for example?!

 

[Southwind17]

I do have a fair idea of how engineering works, and sometimes there are "revelations".

In normal engineering, there are plenty of cases where causes of failures are corrected. The failure is analysed, the cause found, and the remedy applied. This is not an evolutionary approach, as information was obtained from the failure.

See Post #223

 

[Southwind17]

Evolutionary algorithms are good analogies for evolution, just like selective breeding, but the direction is defined for the specifier's benefit. They are still not evolution, though they share many common features.

Could one not 'selectively' breed dogs by simply pairing them at random and waiting to see which 'appealing' combinations occur ('appealing' being measured by buyers' willingness to hand over cash)? I think one could, but one wouldn't make a living from it!

 

[jimbob]

You're missing the point, and actually helping argue my case here. The prototype to which you refer (which was, undoubtedly, based largely upon previous aircraft, as we've previously established) was only one of many (very many!)that could have been produced. Each alternative prototype could be considered a mutation of the common 'ancestor' (or parts thereof). The particular prototype that you refer to failed and became 'extinct'. For every prototype that could have been produced and failed, a prototype could have been produced and succeeded, and gone on to 'breed' (at least one of those prototypes would, by chance, happen to have had extra plywood strengthening at the point of the break!). As I've previously pointed out, it is simply more time and cost effective to make prototypes that fail and are addressed at the point of failure than to make every conceivable prototype and retain those that just happen to work ( a la natural selection).

The point was that this failure provided the information to correct the fault. With an evolutionary approach the only information you would have is that some failed and some didn't.

Evolved systems often look completely different from designed systems. No halfway competent designer would design the mamalian eye as it has evolved. "Lets require a blind spot, and lets obscure the light-sensitive cells with blood vessels"

 

[jimbob]

I did a google search on "intelligent evolution"

It is a prase that IDers seem to like.

Perry Marshall's Intelligent Evolution Quick Guide

II. Proof that DNA was designed by God:

1) DNA is not just a molecule – it is a coding system with a language & alphabet, and contains a message

2) All languages, codes and messages come from a mind

3) Therefore DNA was designed by a Mind

Uncommon Descent

I therefore offer the following proposal if ID gets outlawed from our public schools: retitle it Intelligent Evolution (IE). The evolution here would be reconceived not as blind evolution but as technological evolution. Nor would it be committed to Darwin’s idea of descent with modification. But, hey, it would still be evolution, and evolution can be taught in schools. In fact, I think I’ll title my next book Intelligent Evolution: The Mindful Deviation of Evolutionary Pathways. Perhaps this book has already been written.

for example

ETA

Intelligent Evolution: A response to Daniel C. Dennett by Sachin Gupta (geocities so maad)

In his op-ed piece, "Show Me the Science" published in the New York Times on August 28th 2005, Daniel C. Dennett makes a crisp attack on the proponents and motives of the intelligent design movement. However, he ignores the fact that some versions of the intelligent design theory do not challenge evolution or its mechanism of natural selection but actually adopt them. These versions of the intelligent design theory only challenge the 'randomness' of the mutations that occasionally prove beneficial and are therefore propagated. To help sort out this debate, let us review some definitions.

 

[cyborg]

Yes, like I said, these people don't understand what they are saying.

 

[jimbob]

The above posts show why I don't like deliberate design iterations to be confused with evolution.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Yes, like I said, these people don't understand what they are saying.

Presumably, we are, however. As such, it behooves us not to use ambiguous, confusing, equivocations when discussing the origins of living things, but to stick to clear technical terms and their strict scientific meanings, least we lead the hypothetical future person in the OP astray.

 

[cyborg]

*Sigh*

I think we should get you a tattooed with "EVOLUTION IS BIOLOGY DAMNNIT".

I don't know exactly what magic you think is going to happen by doing as such.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

*Sigh*

I think we should get you a tattooed with "EVOLUTION IS BIOLOGY DAMNNIT".

I don't know exactly what magic you think is going to happen by doing as such.

The Theory of Evolution is a theory describing the origin of species, and it has broad applications with regard to the functions and forms of living things. It is completely unrelated to design, and is the alternative to the theory of design. You can't responsibly teach evolution by alluding constantly to design.

 

[cyborg]

Right, so get that tattooed on you.

A process with a different name is different - period.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Right, so get that tattooed on you.

A process with a different name is different - period.

Except when the processes are actually different, which is the case when referring to technological development and biological evolution.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Right, so get that tattooed on you.

A process with a different name is different - period.

Evolution and design have radically different implications for the form and function of things, which stem from the exceedingly differend processes involved. That they both produce complex forms is merely a coincidence. They're profoundly different, and using one as an analogy for the other is misguided, at best.