Simulations of 'Irreducible Complexity' Emerging from Evolution

plumjam said:
Just as a general point I'm astounded as to how anyone would give credence to the findings of 'computer simulations' ...
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Your wide-eyed and childlike naivety would be a more appealing trait if you were, in fact, a child.
 
plumjam said:
You'd have awful trouble writing a flight simulator if powered flight were not an undeniable aspect of human experience.
Flight simulation software is not written in order to try to convince people that planes fly in the sky.
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You are training (err... "convincing"...) pilots that they can, in fact, do things to survive drastic situations, while in mid-flight.



What are the particular dangers associated with computer models, that would not apply to using any other models, for anything?
 
Dr Adequate said:
plumjam said:
Just as a general point I'm astounded as to how anyone would give credence to the findings of 'computer simulations'...
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Your wide-eyed and childlike naivety would be a more appealing trait if you were, in fact, a child.
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Well speaking of appealing traits:
plumjam said:
...Maybe I should go off and write some machine code which will prove God's existence.
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A machine code programmer? :eye-poppi Here... in our midst. :covereyes Holy smokes! That's hardly child's play (I would have thought only idiot savants could still manage it for code as high-level abstract as God's, and even then... whew). :hypnotize
 
plumjam said:
Maybe I should go off and write some machine code which will prove God's existence.
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Don't bother; I've already done it.

01101000100010011101000100011010100
01111010111001110110110001111110000
00011010100110100110100110000100011
11000011100011100001010101010101010

It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
 
plumjam said:
With thinks like AGW and evolution the computer simulations are just that, they're trying to convince people about ontological realities which may or may not exist.
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Engineer walks into the office of Boeing's CEO

Eng - I have a great idea for a new airplane!
CEO - how does it perform in the modles?
Eng - Pffft computer models are useless crap
CEO - I can't spend $25 billion on something if I have no idea it will even fly!
Eng - like I said computer modles are crap, but I thought it all through real science like!
CEO - get out and stay out.
 
plumjam said:
When you're relying on computer programs, you yourself have made up, in order to try to convince people of some substantive phenomenon in the real world, then you're on exceedingly shaky, very possibly self-delusive ground.
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I agree entirely.

Fortunately, nobody is doing this.

What people are doing is using computer programs to show:

1) Whether or not certain things are mathematically possible.
2) How certain things, if they are mathematically possible, might occur.

This terrifies theists, of course, because their beliefs rest upon the incorrect assumption that these certain things are indeed mathematically impossible.

plumjam said:
Maybe I should go off and write some machine code which will prove God's existence.
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You can't. It is mathematically impossible, by virtue of the very way you define God. So congratulations on that one!
 
plumjam said:
Just as a general point I'm astounded as to how anyone would give credence to the findings of 'computer simulations'; even more so in areas of heightened scientific controversy.
People believe in AGW and go off to write programs which will confirm their ideology.
People believe in evolution and go off to write programs which will confirm their belief in the theory.
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But evolution simulators actually produce output which wasn't designed. Where does the output come from? Are you saying that it was preprogrammed in some way?
 
plumjam said:
Just as a general point I'm astounded as to how anyone would give credence to the findings of 'computer simulations'; even more so in areas of heightened scientific controversy.
People believe in AGW and go off to write programs which will confirm their ideology.
People believe in evolution and go off to write programs which will confirm their belief in the theory.

When any such computer simulations find against the underlying ideology, what are they? Oh, they're mistaken, badly written, bugged, ill conceived etc..

When you're relying on computer programs, you yourself have made up, in order to try to convince people of some substantive phenomenon in the real world, then you're on exceedingly shaky, very possibly self-delusive ground.
Maybe I should go off and write some machine code which will prove God's existence
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All of your points are fine and good, but fail to mention a very important thing. Building a model and predicting the real world from model results is very hard and error prone, sure. But if someone comes up to you and says "Irreducible Complexity is the reason evolution is bunk!", you can easily disconfirm that theory through use of a model. If in fact evolution-like processes produce "irreducible complexity" all the time, without trouble, then whether or not evolution is bunk, IC is not in fact a good reason for supposing that evolution is bunk.
 
This seems relevant :

Evolution In A Test Tube: Scientists Make Molecules That Evolve And Compete, Mimicking Behavior Of Darwin's Finches
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429140849.htm

A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has set up the microscopic equivalent of the Galapagos Islands—an artificial ecosystem inside a test tube where molecules evolve to exploit distinct ecological niches, similar to the finches that Charles Darwin famously described in "The Origin of Species" 150 years ago.
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(I'll be so glad when the Darwin Year is over ... Enough, already.)

When Voytek and Joyce pitted the two RNA molecules in a head-to-head competition for a single food source, they found that the molecules that were better adapted to use a particular food won out. The less fit RNA disappeared over time. Then they placed the two RNA molecules together in a pot with five different food sources, none of which they had encountered previously. At the beginning of the experiment each RNA could utilize all five types of food — but none of these were utilized particularly well. After hundreds of generations of evolution, however, the two molecules each became independently adapted to use a different one of the five food sources. Their preferences were mutually exclusive — each highly preferred its own food source and shunned the other molecule's food source.

In the process, the molecules evolved different evolutionary approaches to achieving their ends. One became super efficient at gobbling up its food, doing so at a rate that was about a hundred times faster than the other. The other was slower at acquiring food, but produced about three times more progeny per generation. These are both examples of classic evolutionary strategies for survival, says Joyce.
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A different kind of model demonstrating the same principle.
 
GreedyAlgorithm said:
All of your points are fine and good, but fail to mention a very important thing. Building a model and predicting the real world from model results is very hard and error prone, sure. But if someone comes up to you and says "Irreducible Complexity is the reason evolution is bunk!", you can easily disconfirm that theory through use of a model. If in fact evolution-like processes produce "irreducible complexity" all the time, without trouble, then whether or not evolution is bunk, IC is not in fact a good reason for supposing that evolution is bunk.
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IC would be a good argument against evolution if it was irrefutably demonstrated. How that could be done is anybody's guess.
 
Wowbagger said:
What if someone defines God as the power that allows 1 plus 1 to equal 2, so neatly and conveniently, for us? Then, you could prove the existence of God this way:

1 + 1 = 2
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Yep. If only the religious really thought God was mathematics...

Also, then, priests would have my respect.

And also, people probably wouldn't blow themselves up. "Become a martyr, you will be greeted in heaven by 72 Taylor series!" No thanks...
 
CapelDodger said:
This seems relevant :

Evolution In A Test Tube: Scientists Make Molecules That Evolve And Compete, Mimicking Behavior Of Darwin's Finches
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429140849.htm
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Awesome! Just last night my girlfriend said "I have a good atheist question: how did life start from nothing?" I gave her my best understanding of the current abiogenesis theory. This article explains nicely that survival of the fittest can/must apply to self-replicating molecules.

Love it, thanks!
 
plumjam said:
Just as a general point I'm astounded as to how anyone would give credence to the findings of 'computer simulations'; even more so in areas of heightened scientific controversy.
People believe in AGW and go off to write programs which will confirm their ideology.
People believe in evolution and go off to write programs which will confirm their belief in the theory.
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1. The heightened scientific controversy exists solely in your mind I assure you.

2. Are you in an expert in coding programs? If yes skip to four

3. If you are not an expert do you have any experience with writing program code?

4. If yes to either two or three can you find something in the code he wrote and provided that is somehow disingenuous?

5. If no to two or three never speak of code again. If yes to four then please point it out.

6. If you have any experience with code can you make your own program using as parameters what we know of evolution by natural selection a simulation which effectively disproves evolution by natural selection?
 
Typicallucas said:
I gave her my best understanding of the current abiogenesis theory. This article explains nicely that survival of the fittest can/must apply to self-replicating molecules.

Love it, thanks!
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The Origins Series
A set of videos by the same guy who made the video in post #9. One focuses on a completely reasonable model for abiogenesis. (Note: Any reasonable model for abiogenesis is entirely hypothetical at this point, this one just shows one way by which it could have occurred without violating any known physical laws.)

An important thing to remember is that "I don't know," is a perfectly acceptable answer when someone comes up with an 'atheist question' for you. I'm not saying that you're making stuff up or aren't competent to answer the question posed, but we are asked to defend ourselves quite a lot more than the average bear (in my experience) and it's worth remembering that we don't actually have to have all the answers.
 
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