What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[articulett]

That "other goal", and the lengths that a person will go to in order to achieve that goal, is why this thread interests me so much.

It is interesting, but after a while it's sort of the same. It's very much like the Kleinman thread (annoying creationists)... anything by John Hewitt and his apologist buddy (TA)... and the Dover transcript. Lots of nothingness with an occasional fact, piece of pedantry, ad hom, inferences, and blowing smoke.

I find it interesting to ask-- what was the supposed goal of the OP?... What is the actual goal of the assorted posts? The stated goal here was to find out how evolution was non-random... the actual goal was to infer that it really IS "random" no matter how vague and misleading saying so might be-- or how much the experts disagree-- or how much that sounds identical to a creationists strawman. Once you figure out the the goal then it's fun to watch how they keep spinning towards that goal and predict the thing is that they will never admit, say, or concede. (e.g. Mijo will never convey evolution in a way that illustrates how the appearance of design comes about via natural selection-- why the peacock has bright feathers or the male butterflies made a comeback etc.-- he will pretend that it means something useful to call evolution random and that Dawkins is wrong while he (ha!) is informative and saying something of value to someone other than creationists.

 

[JoeEllison]

It is interesting, but after a while it's sort of the same. It's very much like the Kleinman thread (annoying creationists)... anything by John Hewitt and his apologist buddy (TA)... and the Dover transcript. Lots of nothingness with an occasional fact, piece of pedantry, ad hom, inferences, and blowing smoke.

I find it interesting to ask-- what was the supposed goal of the OP?... What is the actual goal of the assorted posts? The stated goal here was to find out how evolution was non-random... the actual goal was to infer that it really IS "random" no matter how vague and misleading saying so might be-- or how much the experts disagree-- or how much that sounds identical to a creationists strawman. Once you figure out the the goal then it's fun to watch how they keep spinning towards that goal and predict the thing is that they will never admit, say, or concede. (e.g. Mijo will never convey evolution in a way that illustrates how the appearance of design comes about via natural selection-- why the peacock has bright feathers or the male butterflies made a comeback etc.-- he will pretend that it means something useful to call evolution random and that Dawkins is wrong while he (ha!) is informative and saying something of value to someone other than creationists.

What's interesting, ultimately, is the similarities between this and the the general creationist, and with every other woo belief/conspiracy theory. In the end, they are really all part of the same basic mental dysfunction, and whatever differences exist only seem to accentuate the similarities.

 

[articulett]

"my woo is the true woo and how dare you not accept my woo as the true woo"

 

[Meadmaker]

That's odd. From his explanations, I do see that.

Weird, huh?

I was thinking about my response here, which was posted when articulett said:

You fail to explain the "sticking factor"-- the non random aspects-- how stuff becomes fixed in populations, multiplies exponentially and is built upon-- why we see the results we see.

I wonder if part of the problem here is an educational mismatch. In fact, we know that that is part of the problem. As our simian commentator Andyandy has noted, neither description is "right" or "wrong", it;s just a way of looking at things, and that will be connected to previous education or experience.

However, in this case there might be a very clear illustration of the difference in thinking.

Jimbob had been discussing differential survival rates. Some organisms are more likely to live and reproduce than othes.

Once he says that, he doesn't have to say anything about exponential growth. He already has. I know that if x is the population size then I can say

x'=ax, where a is equal to the probability of reproducing * the number of offspring - the probability of death. I know that the solution to the equation is x=e^at. (Begging forgiveness for slight mathematical imprecision.)

He doesn't need to explain that to me. He doesn't need to walk me through the implications of it. I know that even a very small difference in the value of a will result in complete dominance of a population, and I don't have to spend any time thinking about it to reach that conclusion. I spent that time in differential equations class and it was drilled into my head sufficiently that it's just part of my nature at this point.

I tried to explain this to my eight year old son just this morning while playing "Heroes of Might and Magic", and why gold mines were so important. "Well, son, with the gold, I can buy monsters, and I can use the monsters to capture more gold mines, and so my armies grow exponentially. Don't you see that?" (The conversation wasn't exactly like that, but it was close.)

Of course, whether I'm playing "Heroes" or discussing population models, I know that the x'=ax model is a simplification. I can make it more accurate if I replace a with a random variable, where the specific value of a is based on a probability distribution that reflects variable population. Similarly, in "Heroes", I can look at my future gold income as a random variable based on whether or not I challenge the enemy hero guarding the gold mine, and win. I intuitively think in those terms. When deciding whether on not to attack the gold mine, I don't work out the numbers, but I do compare income growth rates to determine whether or not the impending battle results in a higher probability of victory. (Geek? Guilty as charged.)

I sometimes say that my wife and I make a decent team because I have two left brains and she has two right brains, so together it makes for two whole brains. The mathematical description of randomness is a very left-brained approach to evolution, and while it might not be the best for reaching the masses, there's no reason to assume that there is any hidden motivation for it. It's just the way we think.

 

[jimbob]

This strictly cannot be true of a finite system.

A few hundred billion unranium atoms, and a geiger counter à la Schrödinger's cat? Isn't that a finite system?

I seem to recall before that you seemed to agree that the selection criteria in nature is not random either...

Now what you seem to be mixing up here is the distinction between a static selection critereon and a dynamic one.

It depends on what you mean> by selection criteria. For an individual, I would say it is "probabilistic", for a population, I would say that the pressure is nonrandom.

The criteria are changing, so they are dynamic, but I would say that because of my disbelief in the inevitibility of any particular forms arising, the surrounding organisms (and thus the emaphasis on different selection criteria i.e. the selection pressure) does change randomly over geological timescales

No jimbob. No. I told you this before: it is a very common occurrence for the population of species A to affect the evolution of a population of species B in a general sense.

You cannot place humans outside the system: we are part of it, not beyond it no matter how much one would otherwise proclaim otherwise. The concept of 'artificial' is, in a sense, quite artificial too. You cannot have it both ways and that is what you are trying to do here.

How humanity has affected wild animals and how bacteria/viri have affected humanity's development is eviolution and non-artificial, how humanity has affected the development of domseticalted animals is a mixture of "natural" (unintientional) and "artificial" (intientional).

There is a difference when a breeder sees a wall-eyed dog and says, "I like wall-eyed dogs because they might intimidate the sheep more" so selectively breeds from these dogs, compared to rats evolving resistance to warferin, which certainly was unintentional, even if that was predictible.

If you can see why 'artificial' selection by some agent which might be said to be 'purposefully' moving a population towards some allele frequency then it should be clear that one can make just as clear an argument that it is just as 'purposeful' for other such occurrences.

As such there is a wide spectrum of such observable techniques developed by species to affect such beneficial changes - and it happens quite 'naturally' simply because it is beneficial.

It is therefore just as 'natural' when humans do it - even before we were quite aware of just what it was we were doing.

Either that or you should be happy to think of other similar examples in 'nature' as being 'artificial' selection.



The main problem here would be that you're being inconsistent.

Of course organisms affect the evolution of other organisms, but I would argue that you could say selective breeding is a very special case, and would be better described as an interaction of a purposeless and a purposeful process.

In the nozzle example there is no chance of one of the best nozzles in a generation not being selected by the algorithm.

In evolution an organism could have what seem like "fitter" traits than another, but fail to reproduce.

I still say that defining the fittest orgainsims solely as those that reproduce is less informative than saying that having beneficial traits increases the probable number of reproducing offspring.


I can not think of any other situation where one organism conciously plans what traits they would encourage in another. There may not be a "designer" in selcetive breeding, but there certainly is an intelligent agent controlling the other species reproduction and the direction in which it is developing.

I would say that equating artificial and natural selection, you are begging for people to claim that "maybe God evolved us, through a process of "theistic selection".

There are an indefinite number of optimisations possible, and as long as two are not mutually exclusive, the final direction can keep changing.

BTW, I think meadmaker's post #2569 is worth looking at (even if you do have him on ignore).

I spend a lot of time with similar sums, so the exponential growth is implicitly obvious to me in my treatment, indeed I would have thought it was explicit, but obviously not.


Articulett

(And Jim-Bob-- Gould was good, but he's been dead for some time, and our explanations have evolved... even still he's tons more eloquent than you, and not nearly so garbled sounding. Why not try using his terminology instead of making a case for your own. I'm telling you-- it's like you are describing Poker by only focusing on the randomness and assorted probabilities while missing what the game is really about--strategies and such. You don't even need to use the word random or probable to give people a very good understanding of the game. And yet, you guys are fixated on using words in a way that multiple people have told you are unclear and misleading and need to be defined tighter and in relation to something if you are going to use them.)

He might have been dead for some time, but his central argument that a bookmaker wouldn't have put money on the ancestor of chordates surviving to reproduce, is still valid.

Or do you think that is wrong, and humanlike sentience was inevible from the omoent life arose?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I was thinking about my response here, which was posted when articulett said:



I wonder if part of the problem here is an educational mismatch. In fact, we know that that is part of the problem. As our simian commentator Andyandy has noted, neither description is "right" or "wrong", it;s just a way of looking at things, and that will be connected to previous education or experience.

However, in this case there might be a very clear illustration of the difference in thinking.

Jimbob had been discussing differential survival rates. Some organisms are more likely to live and reproduce than othes.

Once he says that, he doesn't have to say anything about exponential growth. He already has. I know that if x is the population size then I can say

x'=ax, where a is equal to the probability of reproducing * the number of offspring - the probability of death. I know that the solution to the equation is x=e^at. (Begging forgiveness for slight mathematical imprecision.)

He doesn't need to explain that to me. He doesn't need to walk me through the implications of it. I know that even a very small difference in the value of a will result in complete dominance of a population, and I don't have to spend any time thinking about it to reach that conclusion. I spent that time in differential equations class and it was drilled into my head sufficiently that it's just part of my nature at this point.

I tried to explain this to my eight year old son just this morning while playing "Heroes of Might and Magic", and why gold mines were so important. "Well, son, with the gold, I can buy monsters, and I can use the monsters to capture more gold mines, and so my armies grow exponentially. Don't you see that?" (The conversation wasn't exactly like that, but it was close.)

Of course, whether I'm playing "Heroes" or discussing population models, I know that the x'=ax model is a simplification. I can make it more accurate if I replace a with a random variable, where the specific value of a is based on a probability distribution that reflects variable population. Similarly, in "Heroes", I can look at my future gold income as a random variable based on whether or not I challenge the enemy hero guarding the gold mine, and win. I intuitively think in those terms. When deciding whether on not to attack the gold mine, I don't work out the numbers, but I do compare income growth rates to determine whether or not the impending battle results in a higher probability of victory. (Geek? Guilty as charged.)

I sometimes say that my wife and I make a decent team because I have two left brains and she has two right brains, so together it makes for two whole brains. The mathematical description of randomness is a very left-brained approach to evolution, and while it might not be the best for reaching the masses, there's no reason to assume that there is any hidden motivation for it. It's just the way we think.

Possibly. Essentially what occurs then is that the mathematical, left-brain approach misses the forest for the trees. You guys are so caught up with the description of the process at that level that you miss the ultimate point that we are trying to tell you.

Ultimately there is only the base level of this organism reproduces or not. And the final level of the whole shebang resulting in optimization to a local environment. Sure all the details in the middle are describable with probability distributions, but as previously stated, that is merely an artifact of our ignorance and the way we describe these abstractions.

There is nothing fundamentally random about evolution in either the base level of each individual organism trying to survive and reproduce or the final level of optimization to the environment. It's starting to tick me off that some folks are still trying to push for that description. It has value when discussing the way we describe certain aspects of evolution -- the nuts and bolts of how optimization works -- because of our incredible ignorance, but that's it.

This is nicely summed in the following quote from Mijo:

The whole crux of my argument rests on the fact that deleterious mutations are not completely weeded in one generation.

He is describing only part of the process. Yes, probability distribution is the proper way of describing that particular abstraction -- that group of surviving animals. But that is not 'evolution'. That is part of the process.

Forest. Trees. Myriad tried to redirect the discussion back to the forest. I see that it has veered back to the trees, however.

 

[cyborg]

A few hundred billion unranium atoms, and a geiger counter à la Schrödinger's cat? Isn't that a finite system?

*Sigh*

Jimbob - there is no point arguing about this. It is just what the mathematics say.

If it is finite it CANNOT be random AND deterministic - it simply flows from the definitions.

If you are not being formal do not be formal. If you are being formal then you are wrong. There is no point arguing about it.

It depends on what you mean> by selection criteria. For an individual, I would say it is "probabilistic", for a population, I would say that the pressure is nonrandom.

*Sigh*

jimbob - can you not see that NOTHING but your labelling has changed in the situation between the individual and the population?

The criteria are changing, so they are dynamic, but I would say that because of my disbelief in the inevitibility of any particular forms arising

Argument from incredulity is still a fallacy jimbob.

How humanity has affected wild animals and how bacteria/viri have affected humanity's development is eviolution and non-artificial, how humanity has affected the development of domseticalted animals is a mixture of "natural" (unintientional) and "artificial" (intientional).

I see. You do think you are outside the system with yet another bifurcation that seems to create two distinct and separate concepts in the human mind which, on closer analysis, are not.

Remember, 'artificial' and 'natural' are lies - they may sometimes be useful but here it only muddies the water with anthropocentric thought.

There is a difference when a breeder sees a wall-eyed dog and says, "I like wall-eyed dogs because they might intimidate the sheep more" so selectively breeds from these dogs, compared to rats evolving resistance to warferin, which certainly was unintentional, even if that was predictible.

The difference is not of function - it is of form.

The ability to hypothesize future states does not wield any more power than trial and error - not least of which because eventually a hypothesis will have to be tested and it could well be wrong.

That's what we call 'learning'.

You see one as intentional, the other as unintentional - but what is your intent if not wrought from a series of prejudicial desires arising from your construct? Do you really have a choice over what you 'intend'?

This is the problem with trying to place yourself outside the system jimbob - you are, as they might say, in the matrix. You might well reason about what it is like to be outside it but you are still in it and that is forever so.

Of course for most people this kind of thought is just as counter-intuitive as the idea that intentionless molecules could eventually evolve to form beings with concepts of it. It is perfectly inevitable for you to think in these separating terms - to make decisions about object classes. I have, as always, from the beginning, been trying to express the fallacy of the distinctions you are making with respect to ideas of 'intent' and so forth.

Of course organisms affect the evolution of other organisms, but I would argue that you could say selective breeding is a very special case, and would be better described as an interaction of a purposeless and a purposeful process.

Very special? Really?

Sounds very anthropocentric to me. I think the distinction you are making is artificial.

Hmm...

In the nozzle example there is no chance of one of the best nozzles in a generation not being selected by the algorithm.

Ah - so you think the algorithm is fundamentally different.

This is not the case: all that is required is a higher order selection criterion.

In evolution an organism could have what seem like "fitter" traits than another, but fail to reproduce.

And I could be the cleverest man in the world and killed by the stupidest little bacterium.

You seem to think that perfect strategies should exist. The point of the Poker analogy is that this is not possible in a system where complete information is not available for such a strategy to exist.

I still say that defining the fittest orgainsims solely as those that reproduce is less informative than saying that having beneficial traits increases the probable number of reproducing offspring.

No. It is the most general description. You object to it not because it fails to capture evolution concisely but precisely because it does not allow you to spin off higher-order sub-concepts.

Nonetheless all those higher-order sub-concepts you are trying to position as paramount all derive from the same basic algorithmic concept.

Again, since it is a human tendency to chunk information in such a way I am hardly surprised you are so attached to these notions. So I say again: they are useful lies, but they do not represent the most general of the useful lies about evolution.

I can not think of any other situation where one organism conciously plans what traits they would encourage in another. There may not be a "designer" in selcetive breeding, but there certainly is an intelligent agent controlling the other species reproduction and the direction in which it is developing.

And in continuing with today's theme this is where I again ask you to consider why you think doing it intelligently is so very different. I suggest it is because you are entirely prejudiced to do so - by the very organ you state intelligent.

I would say that equating artificial and natural selection, you are begging for people to claim that "maybe God evolved us, through a process of "theistic selection".

That is their prerogative. They would, of course, not have understood the argument at all.

There are an indefinite number of optimisations possible, and as long as two are not mutually exclusive, the final direction can keep changing.

Yes it can.

Of course the more possibilities there are to choose from the harder it is to create a simple model...

(And we come full circle at the earlier 'model != reality' point.)

I spend a lot of time with similar sums, so the exponential growth is implicitly obvious to me in my treatment, indeed I would have thought it was explicit, but obviously not.

I still don't think you understand what I am getting at at all.

 

[mijopaalmc]

He is describing only part of the process. Yes, probability distribution is the proper way of describing that particular abstraction -- that group of surviving animals. But that is not 'evolution'. That is part of the process.

Forest. Trees. Myriad tried to redirect the discussion back to the forest. I see that it has veered back to the trees, however.

And what you seem to be missing that the "adaptive optimization" occurs because, if the sampling criteria remain constant, repeated sampling from successive populations will cause convergence towards the mean value of the distribution by the weak law of large numbers.

 

[JoeEllison]

A few hundred billion unranium atoms, and a geiger counter à la Schrödinger's cat? Isn't that a finite system?

It depends on what you mean> by selection criteria. For an individual, I would say it is "probabilistic", for a population, I would say that the pressure is nonrandom.

The criteria are changing, so they are dynamic, but I would say that because of my disbelief in the inevitibility of any particular forms arising, the surrounding organisms (and thus the emaphasis on different selection criteria i.e. the selection pressure) does change randomly over geological timescales



How humanity has affected wild animals and how bacteria/viri have affected humanity's development is eviolution and non-artificial, how humanity has affected the development of domseticalted animals is a mixture of "natural" (unintientional) and "artificial" (intientional).

There is a difference when a breeder sees a wall-eyed dog and says, "I like wall-eyed dogs because they might intimidate the sheep more" so selectively breeds from these dogs, compared to rats evolving resistance to warferin, which certainly was unintentional, even if that was predictible.



Of course organisms affect the evolution of other organisms, but I would argue that you could say selective breeding is a very special case, and would be better described as an interaction of a purposeless and a purposeful process.

In the nozzle example there is no chance of one of the best nozzles in a generation not being selected by the algorithm.

In evolution an organism could have what seem like "fitter" traits than another, but fail to reproduce.

I still say that defining the fittest orgainsims solely as those that reproduce is less informative than saying that having beneficial traits increases the probable number of reproducing offspring.


I can not think of any other situation where one organism conciously plans what traits they would encourage in another. There may not be a "designer" in selcetive breeding, but there certainly is an intelligent agent controlling the other species reproduction and the direction in which it is developing.

I would say that equating artificial and natural selection, you are begging for people to claim that "maybe God evolved us, through a process of "theistic selection".

There are an indefinite number of optimisations possible, and as long as two are not mutually exclusive, the final direction can keep changing.

BTW, I think meadmaker's post #2569 is worth looking at (even if you do have him on ignore).

I spend a lot of time with similar sums, so the exponential growth is implicitly obvious to me in my treatment, indeed I would have thought it was explicit, but obviously not.


Articulett



He might have been dead for some time, but his central argument that a bookmaker wouldn't have put money on the ancestor of chordates surviving to reproduce, is still valid.

Or do you think that is wrong, and humanlike sentience was inevible from the omoent life arose?

Here's a question: is your post "random"? Is mine?

 

[jimbob]

So are quantum effects random?

If so then the Schrödinger's cat example is random, if not then it is deterministic.

I was not arguing from incredulity, but I was pointing out the fundamental difference in our approaches.


Is anything random Cyborg?
From what I recall of QM experiments, true randomness does seem to exist.

If not, then you would be right and everything would be inevitible.

 

[cyborg]

Here's a question: is your post "random"? Is mine?

Hmm... that's a pickle. Seems like it should be: 10^14 processing units 10^4 connections between them - that's more than a few billion uranium atoms...

Of course it doesn't 'feel' like we're random - all seems quite 'purposeful'.

But then isn't 'purposeful' like 'deterministic'? Hmm, 'machines' are like that - but we're not 'machines'!

Seems like there might be a relevant theory being discussed here that might explain why we would think like that but it seems to elude me...

 

[jimbob]

The Forest and Trees argument is crucial, as it affects which forms optimisations take.

I still say that humanlike intelligence evolved as one of many possible optimisations, and that this was a "chance of history" in an indifferent universe.

If the evolution of humanity was not inevitible, then I feel happy calling the evolution of humanity "random".

Cyborg, are you arguing that humanity was inevitible?

 

[jimbob]

Cyborg, I actually suspect that our attitudes to "free will" are pretty similar, I will state my view below that thoughts are the result of deterministic processes, and if our thoughts are not inevitible, it is merely that they might be at the mercy of random events, as opposed to an actual "free" will.

Do I understand your posts to mean that you disagree with the whole concept of "selective advantage"? I can argue that a trait increases the probable number of reproducing offspring. All I can see with your treatment, is that a trait either makes an organism fit or not fit, fit ones reproduce, non-fit ones don't.

Cyborg is this a fair summary of part of your position:

More fit organisms produce more reproducing offspring than less fit organisms by definition.

I say more-fit organisms tend to produce more offspring.

 

[articulett]

Here's a question: is your post "random"? Is mine?

I tried that one (e.g. is the evolution of this thread random)-- yes, everything relating to probabilities in any way is random to them as useful or useless as that may be.

And Jim-Bob that part of Gould is a tangent... nobody knows what what changes would have produced what... and minuscule change would need to be made to change the outcome-- it would involve a different physical world on at least some level--if everything is exactly the same, it's exactly the same. The odds of a particular person winning the lottery is very small... the odds of someone winning the lottery are very large... the odds of a particularly person winning the lottery after the last number is drawn is 100% even before that person knows that their number was drawn.

Randomness plays a role in the direction of evolution-- but the big picture-- the "design" is determined by the best replicators in the environment-- The game has to be played before the the next piece is filled in...

 

[jimbob]

Articulett, my point is that I think QM shows that there is true randomness and that these effects can be magified to affect macroscopic events.

Would you say that humanity was inevitible?

If a random event could have maeant that humanity would not have evolved, then it was not.

If humanity was not inevitible, from an anthrocentric view the randomness was important.

 

[articulett]

The Forest and Trees argument is crucial, as it affects which forms optimisations take.

I still say that humanlike intelligence evolved as one of many possible optimisations, and that this was a "chance of history" in an indifferent universe.

If the evolution of humanity was not inevitible, then I feel happy calling the evolution of humanity "random".

Cyborg, are you arguing that humanity was inevitible?

I think arguing whether humanity was inevitable is pointless, tangential, and useless as to whether one would describe evolution as random. You are a result of a random sperm of your dad's meeting up with a ripe ready ovum of your mom's-- but you are not "random". You are an organized collection of molecules that appears somewhat "designed"-- evolution can tell you why... the randomness is the easy part to understand... how such randomness results in such complexity and seeming design is what Darwin figured out-- and Dawkins expanded on... and neither needed the word random or probabilistic to explain it to anyone.

If the question was "was humanity inevitable?" then we'd be having a different question with different words, and I wouldn't get involved in such a fatuous discussion. Whether a betting man could have predicted vertebrates has nothing to do with the non-random aspects of evolution nor the OP. What you think of as valuable or useful descriptors has nothing to do with what actually is useful or valuable... nor does it answer the OP. Many have answered the OP with the notion that Natural Selection is NOT random and the key to really understanding evolution. If you and your buddies don't like that explanation try to get something published in peer review, because all you seem to be doing is confusing yourself and others and pretending to understand something that you sound very clueless about. If you want to believe that there is nothing nonrandom about evolution, be my guest. But consider that maybe you are missing something and you might be poorly qualified like Behe in explaining the concept to others.

If anyone wants to know the non-random aspects of evolution-- stick with Dawkins, Berkeley, etc. If anyone wants to presume that evolution IS "random" (whatever that means)-- stick with Behe and Mijo. What's your goal?

 

[articulett]

Articulett, my point is that I think QM shows that there is true randomness and that these effects can be magified to affect macroscopic events.

Would you say that humanity was inevitible?

If a random event could have maeant that humanity would not have evolved, then it was not.

If humanity was not inevitible, from an anthrocentric view the randomness was important.

Randomness IS important... mutations happen whether they benefit an organism or not... some of the best mutations may never ever occur... others die for seemingly random reasons. But that is very easy to understand. Just as the randomness and probabilities of Poker are the part to understand. Nobody is saying those things aren't important. Here's what Dawkins does says:

(Regarding Behe's book)The crucial passage in "The Edge of Evolution" is this: "By far the most critical aspect of Darwin's multifaceted theory is the role of random mutation. Almost all of what is novel and important in Darwinian thought is concentrated in this third concept."

What a bizarre thing to say! Leave aside the history: unacquainted with genetics, Darwin set no store by randomness. New variants might arise at random, or they might be acquired characteristics induced by food, for all Darwin knew. Far more important for Darwin was the nonrandom process whereby some survived but others perished. Natural selection is arguably the most momentous idea ever to occur to a human mind, because it — alone as far as we know — explains the elegant illusion of design that pervades the living kingdoms and explains, in passing, us. Whatever else it is, natural selection is not a "modest" idea, nor is descent with modification.

But let's follow Behe down his solitary garden path and see where his overrating of random mutation leads him. He thinks there are not enough mutations to allow the full range of evolution we observe. There is an "edge," beyond which God must step in to help. Selection of random mutation may explain the malarial parasite's resistance to chloroquine, but only because such micro-organisms have huge populations and short life cycles. A fortiori, for Behe, evolution of large, complex creatures with smaller populations and longer generations will fail, starved of mutational raw materials.

If mutation, rather than selection, really limited evolutionary change, this should be true for artificial no less than natural selection. Domestic breeding relies upon exactly the same pool of mutational variation as natural selection. Now, if you sought an experimental test of Behe's theory, what would you do? You'd take a wild species, say a wolf that hunts caribou by long pursuit, and apply selection experimentally to see if you could breed, say, a dogged little wolf that chivies rabbits underground: let's call it a Jack Russell terrier. Or how about an adorable, fluffy pet wolf called, for the sake of argument, a Pekingese? Or a heavyset, thick-coated wolf, strong enough to carry a cask of brandy, that thrives in Alpine passes and might be named after one of them, the St. Bernard? Behe has to predict that you'd wait till hell freezes over, but the necessary mutations would not be forthcoming. Your wolves would stubbornly remain unchanged. Dogs are a mathematical impossibility.



You are making the same mistake that Behe is making by focusing on randomness and failing to see that artificial selection is the same as natural selection regarding algorithmic growth of the best multipliers. Dogs evolved because they got a symbiotic thing going with humans... which enhanced their opportunities to spawn and survive and so on... Humans that began domesticating wolves didn't plan anything having to do with poodles... they just helped those who helped them preferentially survive and pass on genes. Whether it's artificial or natural or planned or not-- the algorithm is the same.

Nobody chooses what randomness will show up-- but the environment and everything in it chooses which of the randomness is represented in the future. Whether it's something we like and want more of or a trait that survives better in a given environment for some other reason-- it multiplies in direct proportion to it's replication success (planned or not).

If Dawkins in the above quote cannot explain why the focus on randomness is "bizarre and misleading" and why artificial selection is a more focused sped up version of natural selection and why they are "the same" in regards to being responsible for design-- then NO ONE CAN.

Notice, human inevitability is irrelevant to the discussion. The results aren't random. Read Myriad's post in the TLA awards. (I'm giving up on you--I'm tired of the tangents, the accusations, and the ever moving goal posts.).

 

[JoeEllison]

I tried that one (e.g. is the evolution of this thread random)-- yes, everything relating to probabilities in any way is random to them as useful or useless as that may be.

So you're saying that "they" are stupid and/or dishonest... well, I'm saying it.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

The Forest and Trees argument is crucial, as it affects which forms optimisations take.

Yes. That was, in part, my point. That is where the discussion about probabilities is important. It is great for describing the middle distance.

The problem is that that is not 'evolution' -- it is part of evolution. And it is not what actually occurs in the real world, which concerns only individual organisms trying to survive and reproduce.

Probability is, therefore, not a fundamental property of anything in evolution (outside of the fact that true indeterminacy may be a fundamental aspect of the universe as a whole). These probabilities are ways of describing an abstraction with precision. That fact seems to be getting lost in all these discussions.

I still say that humanlike intelligence evolved as one of many possible optimisations, and that this was a "chance of history" in an indifferent universe.

If the evolution of humanity was not inevitible, then I feel happy calling the evolution of humanity "random".

Cyborg, are you arguing that humanity was inevitible?

It all depends on to what extent quantum uncertainties do or do not affect the large scale determinism that we see around us. If the universe began with precisely the same initial conditions and unfolded in precisely the same way, then humanity is inevitable. We simply have no way to know any of this information. That is why we use probability to describe the world -- it is not fundamental to the world as far as we can tell (if everything was completely chaotic it isn't clear that any of our mathematical descriptions would be helpful), but rather is a convenient means of precisely predicting what we might see given our incredible ignorance.

And what you seem to be missing that the "adaptive optimization" occurs because, if the sampling criteria remain constant, repeated sampling from successive populations will cause convergence towards the mean value of the distribution by the weak law of large numbers.

If you really wish to show me that you just don't get it, please keep posting like this. You really don't understand what Cyborg and Myriad and I have been saying do you?

You are focusing on a particular description of the underlying mechanisms, not the mechanisms themselves and not the result. It is the result that is non-random. And the actual reality, which is just individual organisms living and dying in what appears to be a deterministic universe (that is the reality of what is, but that is not 'evolution').

 

[articulett]

So you're saying that "they" are stupid and/or dishonest... well, I'm saying it.

Well, there's a the possibility of a meme infection coupled with anosognosia not unlike the incompetent in my sig article. Just like those who speak in tongues don't realize that they are engaging in "self hypnosis"-- the creationist defenders may not know that they are majorly meme infected. Unfortunately, it appears to be unfixable-- it's faith-based, and not amenable to logic or reason. Plus the more you try to nail them down and clarify--the more of a word salad and ad homs and pedantry and nothingness and goal post moving you'll get in return.

Really. Dawkins nails it. And then Behe in his Amazon blog does all the things mentioned above as though the message can't compute. http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A3DGRQ0IO7KYQ2/ref=cm_blog_blog

They are just having an entirely different conversation than everyone else. Engage such people for entertainment or diagnostic purposes only.