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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 2:07 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 1:36 pm)Heywood Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 7:07 am)StuW Wrote: What is it about flocking of fish and birds specifically that leads you to see intent of intelligence rather than just response to external stimuli like any other natural "flocking" of non-intelligent objects?
Its not that I see the intent of intellect. It is that I observe that whenever there is a flock or school, brains are always involved. From that observation I can conclude that brains are required for flocking.
(January 25, 2015 at 8:27 am)bennyboy Wrote: Iron particles group around a magnet in an organized way. Are you saying that God is hanging around in magnets putting all those particles in order? Cuz my guess is that's just natural forces at work.
Iron particles arranging themselves around a magnet is not flocking. The iron particles gather around the magnet because of the electromagnetic force. Birds flock because they follow a set of rules:
1. avoid predators.
2. don't be to close to your neighbor.
3. don't be to far away from your neighbor.
Iron particles are not going to move off into another direction if rust inducing water particles show up the way birds do if a predator shows up. A better example of "flocking without brains" would be swarms of jellyfish but this too isn't flocking.
Such forms of emergent self-order occur without intellect all the time. Just look at the wiki entry for a list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 2:22 pm
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2015 at 2:49 pm by IATIA.)
(January 25, 2015 at 1:57 pm)Heywood Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 1:56 pm)IATIA Wrote: Stars 'flock' into galaxies. Galaxies 'flock' into super clusters. And maybe super clusters 'flock'? You do not know what flocking is. Stars do not flock. Stars do not move away when black hole shows up to devour them. A black hole would 'encourage' 'flocking', It is natural for everything to flock. How often do you see the freeway traffic grouped up?
In general, the total forces at any single point will tend to be unbalanced. The unbalanced energy will tend to be similar in a given area and anything responsive to that energy will tend to 'flow' in the same direction and that is what lets things 'flock'.
In animate objects, the tendency to 'flock' would allow for a greater number of survivors which would be inherited.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 4:24 pm
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2015 at 4:38 pm by Heywood.)
(January 25, 2015 at 10:22 am)Chas Wrote: Evolution requires the replication of replicators. Your example fails.
This is just plain wrong. How the population is replicated is inconsequential. Instead of mothers pushing out babies, they could be made in a factory and the stork could be delivering them. All that matters is the future babies be near copies of past babies and any changes which lower fitness are selected against. For instance, Only babies which survive to the age of reproduction will be copied.
You simply fail to understand how evolution works.
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 4:29 pm
To a certain extent, I can see that. We are driven by a superior drive to survive, that is why Cro-magnon and Neanderthal are no longer around. It would only be natural that everything we do from day to day has this goal driving us from down deep, even in the production of cars. So I can see that as sort of an evolution. Viruses cannot replicate themselves, they need a host. Cars need a host too.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers
Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 4:35 pm
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2015 at 4:43 pm by Heywood.)
(January 25, 2015 at 2:07 pm)StuW Wrote: A group of jellyfish is a Smack not a swarm. :-p
Jellyfish don't actually swarm. The aggregation of them is usually the result of blooming. Some jellyfish actually do come together because they use a sun compass and in certain geographic layouts this causes them to all move to basically the same place. But this behavior isn't flocking or schooling. Flocking or schooling isn't organisms moving to the same location. Flocking or schooling is organisms moving in unison. Jellyfish do not move in unison just because they can often be found aggregated.
I skimmed your article and will comment on it later. Kind of busy today.
(January 25, 2015 at 2:07 pm)rasetsu Wrote: Such forms of emergent self-order occur without intellect all the time. Just look at the wiki entry for a list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization
Can emergent self-order occur without intellect? Yes. But that is not the same question as "Can flocking occur without intellect".
Is it your position that all emergent self-order can happen without intellect? If so I would encourage you to examine this position.
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 5:15 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 4:35 pm)Heywood Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 2:07 pm)rasetsu Wrote: Such forms of emergent self-order occur without intellect all the time. Just look at the wiki entry for a list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization
Can emergent self-order occur without intellect? Yes. But that is not the same question as "Can flocking occur without intellect".
Is it your position that all emergent self-order can happen without intellect? If so I would encourage you to examine this position.
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 5:51 pm
It gets to the point where it hurts, doesn’t it?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 6:35 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 4:24 pm)Heywood Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 10:22 am)Chas Wrote: Evolution requires the replication of replicators. Your example fails.
This is just plain wrong. How the population is replicated is inconsequential. Instead of mothers pushing out babies, they could be made in a factory and the stork could be delivering them. All that matters is the future babies be near copies of past babies and any changes which lower fitness are selected against. For instance, Only babies which survive to the age of reproduction will be copied.
You simply fail to understand how evolution works.
Copied by what? What is propagating change?
You have now utterly failed Evolution 101. You get an F.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
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RE: Detecting design or intent in nature
January 25, 2015 at 7:27 pm
(January 25, 2015 at 4:24 pm)Heywood Wrote: (January 25, 2015 at 10:22 am)Chas Wrote: Evolution requires the replication of replicators. Your example fails.
This is just plain wrong. How the population is replicated is inconsequential. Instead of mothers pushing out babies, they could be made in a factory and the stork could be delivering them. All that matters is the future babies be near copies of past babies and any changes which lower fitness are selected against. For instance, Only babies which survive to the age of reproduction will be copied.
You simply fail to understand how evolution works.
Evolution requires accumilated small changes to build and cannot jump between phenotypes. So if we look at your automobile, say the ford mustang. It starts of like
Goes to this
Then jumps in one generation into something less recognizable
Finally it jumps back to something that looks more like it's ancestor in the next generation.
This is not how evolution works, and this one of many reasons your automobile example fails.
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