Richard Dawkin's big blunder

[Rampant.A.I.]

Warning! Let me preface by saying that as free thinkers, it is okay to question science and authorities in science

Correction: there are no authorities in science. There are experts

And they become experts by questioning, hypothesizing and testing theories, not enforcing a status quo. . . I'm not sure what he's on about.

---

That is, literally, what I said. :dodgy:

You said he meant there was no conscious force guiding it....which is quite a bit different then there is no component of an evolutionary system which looks ahead.

Which component "looks ahead"? The God of the Gaps component?

[Heywood]

I'm bored... Heywood, your speculations have become tedious. Did you get your concept of Evolution from Star Trek?

Alex, if you are going to engage me in this way you move down on my list of people who I try to always respond too. Don't be surprised if in future threads the questions you ask of me go unanswered.

[Faith No More]

Evolution is different from a river. You can replicate a river by the simple act of dumping a whole lot of water on the ground and the river will form its own banks.

If you try to replicate evolution you need to construct those banks before hand.

Now you're not making any sense. A river forms banks based upon gravitational pull and electromagnetism causing the atoms of the river and the banks to be unable to share space. Organisms form based upon random mutations which are then selected due to their benefit towards survival. It's natural processes guiding both.

[Heywood]

Evolution is different from a river. You can replicate a river by the simple act of dumping a whole lot of water on the ground and the river will form its own banks.

If you try to replicate evolution you need to construct those banks before hand.

Now you're not making any sense. A river forms banks based upon gravitational pull and electromagnetism causing the atoms of the river and the banks to be unable to share space. Organisms form based upon random mutations which are then selected due to their benefit towards survival. It's natural processes guiding both.

The point is in replicating a river you don't have to do anything other than let the laws of physics operate on matter. Dump a large amount of water on the ground and something like a river will form.

Replicating Darwinian evolution is not so easy. You have to contrive a selection mechanism. You have to make a judgment about what is going to be a benefit towards survival and what isn't. You cannot replicate Darwinian evolution without making these conscious decisions....at least I haven't seen it. Dawkins' admittedly couldn't do it.

I agree with you that both processes are guided and are natural. Where I disagree is in the assertion that both processes are blind.

[shep]

I agree with you that both processes are guided and are natural. Where I disagree is in the assertion that both processes are blind.

An example showing evolutions "blindness" is our throat, which we use to both swallow and breathe through.

[Heywood]

Which component "looks ahead"? The God of the Gaps component?

Good question.

If you read this entire thread, you will see a post of mine where I respond to Alex regarding targets and selection criterion. In it I substitute Dawkins' "methinks" sentence for a simpler one. I give an example of a selection criterion that would select for the exact sentence "I am". If you look at that selection criterion you will see that it is really just a description of the target.

In a sense the fitness paradigm is just a description or blue print which evolution follows to build a particular product.

---

I agree with you that both processes are guided and are natural. Where I disagree is in the assertion that both processes are blind.

An example showing evolutions "blindness" is our throat, which we use to both swallow and breathe through.

Off topic but I will respond anyways.

You could have a second orifice for breathing, like a dolphin....but something could still get lodged in that orifice causing you to choke anyways. On top of that a second orifice is just another avenue for infectious agents to enter the body. I always thought that the human throat was a horrible example used by atheists to describe what constitutes bad design.

[Mudhammam]

Replicating Darwinian evolution is not so easy. You have to contrive a selection mechanism. You have to make a judgment about what is going to be a benefit towards survival and what isn't. You cannot replicate Darwinian evolution without making these conscious decisions....at least I haven't seen it. Dawkins' admittedly couldn't do it.

Nonsense. In theory it could be as "simple" and unconscious that under specific conditions light causes different atoms to self-organize into molecules and given the pressures of the surrounding environment, they survive only by copying themselves, with the help of symbiosis. There's no reason, on the Darwinian account, or any for that matter, to invoke anthropomorphic designers. Nature does the trick well enough on "her" own using genes.

[Heywood]

Nonsense. In theory it could be as "simple" and unconscious that under specific conditions light causes different atoms to self-organize into molecules and given the pressures of the surrounding environment, they survive only by copying themselves, with the help of symbiosis. There's no reason, on the Darwinian account, or any for that matter, to invoke anthropomorphic designers. Nature does the trick well enough on "her" own using genes.

I patiently await your demonstration of what you claim could in theory be simple. Until then I gotta go with what I observe. I observe that in order to replicate a Darwinian like evolutionary system, selection mechanisms need to be contrived and judgments need to be made on what is and isn't beneficial.

[shep]

Unguided evolution would be descent with change. There would be no cumulative selection. It would look like the random sentence generator in Dawkins' example.

---

The creature probably became a few different species. But if I had to guess which species is the answer you are looking for, I would say homo sapiens. I remember watching a documentary about human evolution and it featured a creature like this living near water. My second guess would be elephant.

If human beings lived in micro gravity for a long enough time, I predict we would effectively loose our legs. If we didn't loose our legs/feet they would become more arm/hand like.

If a designer is in the picture so to speak. He wouldn't start from your creature. He would have started at abiogenesis.

Well I would like to thank you for not cheating and looking it up.

Its actually one of 2 fancied originators of cetaceans (the other being a species called Mesonychid).

So one of the above, in all probability led to:



The Blue Whale!

Now tell me how that particular line of evolution would have ever been a predictable target state, actually from either end of the spectrum.

You can almost the whole story at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_evolution

That's the great thing about Whales. They preserve particularly well so we have an entire lineage to look at.

Really really cool max, thanks for posting that.

[Heywood]

Do you have citations for your limit on DNA intelligence?

No its a conclusion I reached. DNA is contained in cells. The laws of physics limit the range of size a cell can be(there is a reason you don't see cells the size of your sofa for instance). Only so much DNA can be contained within a given size cell. A finite amount of DNA can only come in a finite number of configurations. Since DNA can only come in a finite number of configurations DNA can only code for a finite number of possible organisms. Do you see where this is going?