BS: Intelpidity Design

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 07:13 PM

Speciation is a somewhat arbitrary division in the flux of evolutionary change, I think. The test of non-reproduction is fine, but there's a lot more change going on short of that is is plainly evolutionary.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 04:46 AM

"except that you can not demonstrate empirically, the mechanism by which something becomes more complex. Did the one photosensitive cell WANT to become an eye?"

There's no need for any 'wanting'. It's a simple equation: modifications (mutations, if you like) occur. There is a very small, but positive, chance that the change will be beneficial. There is a much higher probability that it will be detrimental.

In the case of the eye, I'd say it's sort of obvious that, if you have already got one sensitive cell, having two or more would be an advantage- you have greater sensitivity. Having the sensitive cells recessed slightly is an advantage, as it adds directionality. Further recessing will lead (unsought-for) to the pinhole camera effect coming into play- the organism can now sort-of see shapes, and distinguish between, say, food and not- food (a predator?).

And all these 'eye' types are actually found in nature. Plus of course, the line that's developed a protective (transparent) skin over the pinhole- thickening that just 'happens' to be in the right place and you've got the start of the lens. And all these types are also found in nature.

The 'benefit' or 'detriment' is tested by competition. If the change is detrimental, it will tend to be selected out (NOTE: not immediately and magically zapped). If beneficial, it will tend to remain around, and according to the benefit accruing, will propogate through the population simply because its possessors have an advantage.

Note that the mutation occurs randomly, by chance (on the basis of the possible mutations of the existing genetic material). But the selection is anything but chance- it depends solely on the competitive advantage.

It's obviously difficult to 'prove' this experimentally on living organisms, we haven't got even a few hundred years in which to make observations. But computer simulations have been carried out in which, by following a few simple rules as outlined above, it can be shown that UNPLANNED complexity can grow from a simple starting point.

Someone else pointed out that the fossil record seems to show periods of stability, with relatively rapid speciation between. This model, much supported by the late Stephen Jay Gould, is quite understandable, if you view the periods of change as environmental changes, forcing organisms well adapted to the conditions previously, to test out the possibilities of their gene pool against the new conditions.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 06:11 AM

Most of that is still describing the "what". Only the "(mutations, if you like)" describes the "how". And one might still wish to know how the non-photosensitve cell chose to become photosensitive. And it's not just the odds of that, but the odds that the environment was also aptly developing to cause/allow the change. I understand that the change doesn't have to be beneficial -- it just has to be change that the environment proves out to be workable. Still, the complexity of the whole is MUCH greater than just whether one cell can change itself.

Just sayin' y'know.

Your description, while well-laid-out, and perhaps even accurate, describes changes, the odds against which are still astronomical. I'm not saying we didn't beat those odds, I'm just saying that being able to describe a few million years in two paragraphs doesn't really scratch the itch of those really wishing to know the "how". And I have a certain sympathy for the skeptic.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 07:48 AM

"Most of that is still describing the "what". Only the "(mutations, if you like)" describes the "how". And one might still wish to know how the non-photosensitve cell chose to become photosensitive"

That's the point: no choice. It just happened. But having happened, it gave its possessor an advantage. It was photosensitive. It wasn't sensitive to magnetic or electric fields, to temperature, to the chemicals we feel as taste or smell, to pressure.... other cells (some, sadly, not in humans) did mutate in that way, and conferred the associated advantages on their owners.

You could sit down and list all the changes that didn't happen, perhaps because they are impossible, perhaps because they are possible but the chance mutation hasn't happened yet, or perhaps because it did happen, but its one and only carrier was just stepped on by me as I walked along the path outside.

I'll reiterate an important point: humans (or any other organism) didn't HAVE to be the outcome to date. They just were. If it were possible to rerun evolution from some earlier stage, it's perfectly possible that cogent organisms might never have developed. Or they might have been based on a different body plan (see Gould's Wonderful Life for some of the early body plans that did exist). In that case, they would have been talking about, say, crustaceans rather than mammals as the pinnacle of creation.

I'm certainly not saying that there are no mysteries- the greatest of which is why we (think we??) feel anything, why it seems to be ME that things are happening to. For my own part, I have no evidence about that; I just make the temporary assumption that feeling is a property of all sufficiently complex systems, a property of arranged matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Grab
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 07:57 AM

there's not a new species

In that you are in opposition to the entire biology establishment, who say that wolves and dogs *are* two different species. What do you know that they don't...? ;-)

Interbreeding used to be one of the tests for species difference. There are so many cases where this clearly isn't workable though (lion/tiger and horse/donkey, for example) that this was always open to dispute. DNA sequencing opened this up so that speciation can now be defined by genetic differences, regardless of physical similarity or ability to interbreed.

Only the "(mutations, if you like)" describes the "how".

Yep, and that's it. They happen so often that you often don't think about it - some potentially-advantageous human mutations are: being physically stronger than everyone else; being significantly taller or shorter; reaching puberty earlier or later; wider hips for child-bearing; predisposition to put on fat; etc. If you're a caveman and a random shuffle of the genetic cards pops up one of those, you're more likely to reproduce, and your offspring are then also more likely to have the same characteristics.

You say that the odds are astronomical. Well, I'll bet that if you picked maybe 20-30 friends of yours at random, some would be noticeably more muscular than others, some would be significantly taller or shorter than others, and some women would have significantly wider or narrower hips than others. "But this is normal", I hear you say. And so it is - but it's how this evolution thing works.

In pre-medical times, your thin-hipped women friends would almost certainly die in childbirth (and so would the baby), whereas large-hipped women could crank them out without problems. If the default is thin hips and most thin-hipped women die in childbirth, it only takes a random shuffle towards slightly wider hips and that woman and her offspring will be more likely to survive. Repeat the random shuffling, and wider hips will give more security in childbirth. You may care to observe that narrow hips and large birth size of babies are most common in Western societies where medical knowledge has prevented hip size being such a significant issue.

And one might still wish to know how the non-photosensitve cell chose to become photosensitive.

See, you're still using the word "chose". That's bogus - there's no choice. Did you choose your eye, hair and skin colour? Or did your hair follicle cells say "I'm going to decide to produce blonde/black/brown hair"? Or taking more extreme examples, do people choose to be blind or deaf from birth, or have sickle-cell anaemia? Of course not! So why do you call this a "choice"? It's random luck - sometimes the luck is good (if the random shuffle gets you a 250lb Arnie musculature) and sometimes the luck is bad (if the random shuffle gets you blind/deaf/mute).

Photosensitivity is a characteristic that many cells have - the issue is the extent to which they have it. Random chance will shuffle the amount of photosensitivity, and the prehistoric worms that roll a 12 get to detect a predator and dig into the earth to escape first. The prehistoric worms that roll a 2 can't detect the predator and get eaten.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 07:58 AM

Paul's points are spot on except for the issue of feeling which adds a whole different complex to the question.

Recommended: Hawkins, The Blind Watchmaker which presents all these issues well.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 08:30 AM

Graham,

I understand. I understand that "chose" is not the accurate word.

What I'm saying is that what it comes down to is that, upon asking, "well, just how did eyes evolve from nothing to these marvels that see black and white and color, focus, can cross or, in the case of Marty Feldman, can diverge?", The dismissive answer that is, itself, ignoring the immensity of becoming more complex, and the odds involved, is always something like...

"Photosensitivity is a characteristic that many cells have"

...an answer that acknowledges the "what" in order to minimize the immensity of the question "how?", which is answered quite simply, but emotionally unsatisfactorily, with...

"It mutated that way."

But I understand. Hard to believe that I understand and am as yet, not completely satisfied. But there you have it. I understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Pied Piper
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 09:04 AM

Thanks everyone for some really great posts on this thread.
Many biologically active molecules absorb light it's to do with the resonance of light with the energy of the electrons involved in the bonds. I know this is a "what" but since simple light absorbing organic compounds could very easily have been created by non-organic means in the Earths early history and have been detected in space.
These molecules don't choose to absorb certain frequencies of light it's just intrinsic to the nature of chemical bonds.
Now as regards the "astronomical" odds against life or eye's or brains evolving without Devine intervention, we live in an astronomically sized Universe that by definition must contain intelligent life to observe it, and is therefore self-selected.
Our job is to explain to ourselves "how" we got here, the "why" of some absolute cause can have no meaning.

Isn't it amazing I'm not Queen Victoria.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 09:43 AM

Nothing astronomical about it. That would be the case if changes were single-step; but they are cumulative. It might be the case if nothing made any change better than any other, but the viability of every change is expressed inthe dynamics of survival and reproduction.

Given these constraints, the odds of evolution are far from astronomical; it is in fact inherent in the mechanism of particle-based life forms in a space-time continuum.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Grab
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 11:53 AM

Sure, it's not as satisfactory an answer as "God pointed his finger and it happened", in that we naturally look for a "story" context with a beginning and an end. The ID story is certainly more emotionally attractive than "it just happened with a lot of very small steps". That's part of the problem that scientists have, I guess - trying not to let "common sense" or "it just happens" influence them.

Eyes are a great subject though, because there's a complete range of eyes in the natural world. Earthworms can only detect light and dark, and they only use that to know which way to dig. Dogs are limited to close-range black-and-white. Humans are reasonably good but nothing special, in the classic "generalist" way that humans tend towards (although notice that most people now require some form of eye correction, possibly because there's no longer a disadvantage in having vision defects since the invention of glasses!). Birds get UV vision (which they share with insects), and eagles can see vast distances very clearly. We even have octopi and humans sharing a common eye structure, which could be used as evidence of the Designer reusing his designs, but is usually taken as an example of convergent evolution where the same evolutionary tendencies give the same results (like the similarity between sharks and dolphins).

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 12:13 PM

John Hardly told us, in part:

*** which is answered quite simply, but emotionally unsatisfactorily, ***

Ahhh, there is where the problem comes in: "emotionally unsatisfactory".   That is, "I don't want it to go that way, so I won't believe it."

This grows (seems to me) out of teleological thinking--trying to think about where an organism was, in effect, "trying to go".   That is a very seductive thought, and hard for many to avoid. Because we are, naturally, interested in "How did the world come to be as it is?" we anchor our thought, as it were, on the present--on the eye that focuses and sees color and works with another eye in binocular fashion, say, assuming that as an immutable, fixed end of the process--and then think about "How did the organism manage to get there?" But of course the organism did not manage, did not choose, did not intend to develop that kind of organ. But to give up that kind of thought is emotionally unsatisfactory, and we don't want to accept anything that doesn't answer the problem the way we set out to ask it.

The organism way back there was not trying to develop the modern eye, nor even a primitive eye. Indeed, it was not trying to do anything except find food and reproduce.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 12:27 PM

Yeah, what Dave and Grab said...

... coupled with the detail that we haven't even touched on the implications that the arts (being very involved in them) would imply on the questions -- both in nature and in depth.

I might also admit that when I wrote "emotionally" I knew it wasn't quite ... I dunno .... complete. I really meant "intellectually" as well. But I think that the term Grab used, "common sense", maybe says better what I meant.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 12:41 PM

Wal, I think what we're trying to do with the evolutionary model is account for changes in physical forms through time. And the issue is, given the demonstrated mechanics of genes, not of organisms, and given a simple model with a small set of rules based on genes' behaviours, can we account for what we find in evidence in the world? I think the answer is yes with qualifications. '

I do not believe there is no intentionality in the world, but I believe it is very misleading to try and locate a single source.

I do not believe the matrix of colliding and interacting intentionality in the world can be particularly quantified. I also do not think it is necessary to explain the evolution of life forms.

Lamarcke's case for intentional evolution by the organism doesn't hold much water. The fact is that we don't need to add any other ingredients into the model to explain bserved phenomena.

We should probably not ignore the existence of intent, and of creative postulates such as are behind live communciation, art, music and such, just because the evolution of body forms can be explained without adding it in.

Unless, of course, you really believe that all humans are nothing more than their bodies, which I would argue is unjustified in light of non-particle phenomena such as understanding, actual perception (as distinguished from light-responses), and the ability to intend things.

A pure phyics-based biologist would argue (beyond his sphere of expertise) that these are just "emergent complex behaviors" deriving from the same small set of rules and elemts generating a much larger set of transactions until a new plateau of complex behavior emerges.

But believe that the "qualia"* argument kind of goes beyond those boundaries and interjects non-quantitative (and indeed non-quantifiable) components to the puzzle which are not accounted for.

A

*"Often referred to a "raw feels", qualia are those subjective, qualitative properties of mental states such as sensations and emotions—the "what it is like" to see red, feel pain, be angry. Such mental states are thought to have intrinsic qualitative features by which we identify them through introspection."

philosophy.wlu.edu/gregoryp/class/fall02/313/glossary.html

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 01:14 PM

BTW, I don't mean to be arguing with you, Dave and Grab. My comment was meant to commend you on your presentation of your POV -- even if, in the long run, I disagree in part with your conclusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 01:30 PM

>>Most of these people have had science in high school or college.
However, if someone tells them that it is all nonsense and the world was created 5000 years ago, they believe it. One has to wonder about the quality of science education in this country.<<

One professor gathered his most intelligent pupils once and had an ordinary street magician come in and do a few tricks and then the students were to write the opinions about what they observed. About a quarter of them were convinced this man had some kind of special powers because he did a few tricks that I myself do at getherings to amuse people and I'm no magician.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Pied Piper
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 07:40 AM

Whilst it is clearly silly to think of organisms trying to evolve, we cannot deny that animals have goals and purposes, and these can be sophisticated and feedback into selection.
So in the case of otters evolving webbed feet and other features useful in an aquatic environment, which of the following scenarios is most likely
1 Otter ancestor mutates to have webbed feet and takes up fishing.
2 Otter ancestor being adaptable and inquisitive discovers fishing and subsequent selection of mutations make it a more efficient hunter in the water.

I would say number 2, the impetus of speciation being a physiological attribute (how much genetically determined I don't know)

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Grab
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 08:09 AM

Cheers John. It ain't arguing if it's still rational and reasoned. :-) I reckon about the best definition of who you are is how you think, so if you want to get to know someone (or show yourself) then you can't do much better than that...

FWIW, I ain't exactly an expert - I've just been subscribing to NewScientist for a while, so you kind of inhale a bit of background. That just gives a better standard of bullshitting, mainly. ;-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 08:46 AM

The Kansas Board of Education is expected to soon adopt revised science standards encouraging students to challenge aspects of the theory of evolution.

Board Chairman Steve Abrams told the Kansas City Star he expects the standards to be approved and sent to an education laboratory in Denver for review, with a final board vote likely in October.

A majority of the 26-member committee that drafted the standards objected last week to changes made this summer by conservatives on the board, the newspaper reported. The changes use "intelligent design-inspired language," and intelligent design has no scientific basis, the committee wrote in a reply to the board.

Aside from calling for a more critical look at evolution, the new language also changes the definition of science. The new definition no longer would limit explanations of the world to "natural" phenomena.

Supporters of the intelligent design theory insist some aspects of the universe are too complex to be explained by natural causes.

---

Wow -- talk about the camel's nose. Redefining science? Nature Plus? What's UP wid dat? I suspect in their highly compressed mental states they meant to say they would not limit science to physical phenomena, but the way they put is pouring Crisco on an already-slippery slope!

These people are of course eminently qualified to re-define science, I am sure.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Paul Burke
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 09:33 AM

" 1 Otter ancestor mutates to have webbed feet and takes up fishing.
2 Otter ancestor being adaptable and inquisitive discovers fishing and subsequent selection of mutations make it a more efficient hunter in the water."

3. Otter's ancestors are predators hunting for small mammals, insects, frogs, fish etc. on the shore of a swamp or lake. Shoreline increases in slope. Most individuals limit themselves largely to land. Others are forced by population pressure etc. (because the overall food supply has decreased) to hunt mostly in the water. Those that can swim survive. Those that can't die. The ones that survive pass on whatever genes enabled them to swim better than the others. There is now a split between the land based population and the swimmers, based on habitat. They tend to mate where they find others like them, i.e. around the water or on land, so the differentation between the gene pools is accentuated, the water dwellers now having a selective pressure to make them better swimmers- things like webbed feet, high capacity lungs etc. Eventually the populations drift so far apart that they are regarded as separate species.

So the drive is purely environmental, there's no need to assume pre- adaption or intentionality. I've no idea if this is really how otters developed, what are their nearest relations?

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 09:45 AM

Dunno, but sounds like a darn good guess to me.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 09:53 AM

My qualia to the religious right's attempt to redefine science within public education is one of repugnance and disgust.

When I was in Jr High School in Vestal NY I did an essay on evolution that was heavily footnoted with sources from the Scientific American magazine. I was punished, censored, sent to the Principal's office and my parents were summoned. I wrote "Man and other animals..." The objection to what I had written was monumental. I was told Man was not an animal. I said "is Man a mammal?". Their arguments did not refer to scripture then but the school's animosity to evolution was clearly evident.

Three years later my high school was denied the "priviledge" of doing the senior play 'Inherit the Wind'.

I naievely believed that parochial rule would have lost the battle against science by the time I grew up.

The propoganda tool of putting the truth on the defensive, is a very effective and damaging weapon.

Will survival of the fittest determine the winner?
Few people can become scientists but vast swarms of the under educated can be a religious stupidigent designer.

Quality vs. quantity.
time will tell.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 09:54 AM

My friend the professor likes the (admittedly incomplete but apt) analogy that the environment is the "big fly-swatter of life". It's got a random mesh to it and when it comes down, only those things that fit between the holes survive. No intent. No watching for the swatter and scrambling for an opening in the mesh...

....in fact, as he points out, when we think we are scrambling for the openings in the mesh, we, through unintended consequences, merely change the mesh of the swatter.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: MMario
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 10:11 AM

near relatives of otters would be mink.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 10:28 AM

"near relatives of otters would be mink.

Who were obviously the first mammals on the planet to have evolved as snappy dressers. ...followed closely by the penguin.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 10:34 AM

Wow!! They discovered "dress for success"!!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: John Hardly
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 10:58 AM

The Krithians arrived on Earth a while back. They discovered a planet (obviously) devoid of intelligent life. But being the curious Krithians that they are, they set about trying to solve the mystery of how so many useful tools ended up on a planet with no intelligent life.

Their initial guesses included such theories as might conclude that intelligent life outside of Earth itself actually created the machinery, brought it to earth, and then left it behind when they left.

This was quickly disregarded as sensible because, they concluded, if there was an intelligent design to this machinery, then surely the designer would have created a different design and mechanism for each of the functions of the tools. Instead, whether the tool functioned on land or on sea or in the air, though the machines may have differed in appearance, they all shared the same basic technology and materials.

Realizing this, they began to develop a new theory: All of the machinery evolved from simple inanimate objects. That is why they are basically the same technologies – either internal combustion, electric, or nuclear (the Krithians pronounce it "NOO-kyoo-lur") – they're all basically the same concept. (Krithians have already developed beyond mechanical travel and can tele-transport for at least small distances).

And, as if the similarity in technologies weren't sufficient observable data upon which to conclude the evolution devoid of intelligent design, they also observed the evolution of species. It was so apparent, if not visually, then by the fact that they actually have names above their bumpers, that the automobile (they call them "the wheel-thingys". Though Krithians are highly developed in matters of transport, they are somewhat lacking in erudite nomeclature)

…anyway, they noticed that the automobiles had OBVIOUSLY evolved. They noted that some, like the Mustang and the Thunderbird had evolved steadily, though showed signs of throw-back genes that would still, from time to time, manifest themselves. They noticed that some automobiles went extinct as they were too ugly too survive. The Edsel, the AMC Pacer and Gremlin (and they couldn't help but note that the mutant throwback, the PT Crusier, appearing at least 75% genetically identical to the AMC Pacer, was probably doomed to the same fate) were all ill-equiped for the environmental change that taste was going to foist upon them unawares.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 11:41 AM

That's priceless, John!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Intelpidity Design
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 01:13 PM

An alternative theory that had by then been long since discarded as irrelvant, base don observations taken when the Terrans were still active, is that the Mustang, PT Cruiser, Edsel, F-150 WERE the dominant life forms, since so much of the environment seemed to be adapted to their welll-being. Occasionally, these life forms could be seen disgorging some sort of parasitic bipedal lower life form. It was speculated that these parasites might well have caused the long slow decline of the dominant life form by acting like a systemic virus, much like a tapeworm. Evidently, the relationship had a symbiotic vector to it, as it appears from the fossilized remains of the quadrocycles, as they were called, that the bipedal parasites went extinct near the same time as the quadrocycles did.

Some scientists speculate that a cataclysm such as a giant meteor may have been responsible for the death of the quadrocycles; but this is speculative. No-one knows exactly why they went extinct, unless the parasites were responsible. It appeared there food sources, Cornerus Shellus and Cornerus Mobilus, may have dried up for unknown reasons. The largest of the quadrocycles, Quadrocyclus Petrotankus was not among the fossil remains found around the usual hunting grounds for the Cornerus species, but from the evidence found at several sites it appears that the dying Quadrocyclus haunted the old hunting grounds in large numbers, long after there was no food to be found there.

Speculations on Terran Life Forms and their History
Wrkkmllzy Pshawbrquiz, Chief Kroicklean of Thrummix
Wrrux, Brunnxel and Phiqqulrstuv, Galactico, 5323