(September 11, 2014 at 7:43 pm)Chuck Wrote:(September 11, 2014 at 4:33 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: When biologists talk about an "evolutionary arms-race," do they in any sense mean that otherwise generally random gene mutations somehow directly respond to the competition?
No. Competition alters the environment in which a species operate. This In turn changes the optimal mix of behavioral and physiological traits required to maximize chances of survival and reproduction. Random genetic mutation itself is mostly indifferent to these pressures. However, since mutations effect behavior and physiology, changes to the optimal mix of traits changes which mutation would increase a creature's chances of survival and reproduction, and which ones would decrease it.
So generally random gene mutations do not somehow directly respond to the competition. But which product of generally random gene mutations survive and which die out does respond directly to competition.
(September 11, 2014 at 7:43 pm)sswhateverlove Wrote: I don't think using words like "twistedly brainwashed" and "faithtards" is a very respectful way of going about a discussion.
I do observe things to happen consistently, and I am encouraged to believe what I'm told by scientists with regard to the laws and rules that are implied by them. I also observe that sometimes "laws" and "facts" that were absolute end up being revealed as a misunderstanding of data in light of new information. Fallible human beings report to us the laws, rules and facts and often they end up "eating crow" later on.
Whether human understanding of law of nature is right or wrong, you have never seen any intelligence impose them. That unimposed laws exist regardless of the correctness of our understanding of it can be proven by the expedient of you stepping out of a window. Does the fact that our understanding of gravity changes the law that you will go splat? Has the law of the splat been seen by you to have been imposed by any intelligence?
That fallible human beings are wrong sometimes does not means they are wrong all the time, nor does it mean when they appear to be wrong, they are not right in some subtle way.
Infallible god, on the other hand, seem to have failed every time where he is rigorously tested.
So, my observations have been that my experience always moves with forward motion, wherefore, if I jump, splat. Physicists, however, say that the laws do not say that it has to happen that way. In fact, they said that according to the laws, I'm just as likely to experience in reverse time than forward time, the calculations work the same. Although I assume that I will continue to experience time in a forward moving direction in the future, I do not rule out the possibility that sometime there may be more information, new technology, etc, that would allow me to experience reality differently.