Richard Dawkin's big blunder

[pocaracas]

I guess crocodiles and sharks are the most complex, diverse and knowledgeable living creatures on Earth, seeing as they haven't evolved much in the past tens of millions of years...

[Heywood]

I guess crocodiles and sharks are the most complex, diverse and knowledgeable living creatures on Earth, seeing as they haven't evolved much in the past tens of millions of years...

Evolution hits plateaus. When I posted the definition I acknowledged that sometimes evolution does not lead to an increase of those things. In the case of crocs lots of evolution has been happening but not a whole of increase in diversity, complexity, or information.

I suspect that human biology has hit a plateau. I don't see us getting any more intelligent. As a civilization we will get more intelligent but in terms of individual raw intellect....the average human brain 100,000 years from now won't be any smarter than the average human brain today. Of course we could merge with machines and then all bets would be off.

[pocaracas]

Which just proves that your definition is lacking.... and so, we cannot use it.

The concept of evolution by natural selection is simple.... the actual implementation of it is rather complex and is elusive to such a simple description as yours.


Humans... have been adapting their environment to themselves, instead of the opposite... human evolution, which was already slow due to the long period between generations, is now slower, due to the lack of environmental pressure.

[Heywood]

Which just proves that your definition is lacking.... and so, we cannot use it.

Evolution is our explanation for the production of complexity, diversity, and knowledge that happened on this planet the last few billion years.
If it makes you feel better you can substitute "ultimately results" with "sometimes results"....and then the definition isn't lacking anymore.

[tor]

Which just proves that your definition is lacking.... and so, we cannot use it.

The concept of evolution by natural selection is simple.... the actual implementation of it is rather complex and is elusive to such a simple description as yours.


Humans... have been adapting their environment to themselves, instead of the opposite... human evolution, which was already slow due to the long period between generations, is now slower, due to the lack of environmental pressure.

Soon we will change our own nature so natural selection is no longer necessary.

[Mudhammam]

It seems like we're arguing dualism under the false guise of scientific credibility here.

Dualism has an armada of different meanings. For instance in physics there is wave/particle duality. In what sense are we arguing dualism?

As far as science goes, I don't think there is any real disagreement on the science. The disagreement is in the interpretation of that science.

Regarding the claim made by another poster that simulations are not evolution...that is just plain wrong. Any process which satisfies the definition of evolution can be said to be evolution. I put forth the following definition for evolution in this thread and received no objections or criticisms.

Evolution is a process whereby small changes in the heritable characteristics of a population accumulate thru a selective filter over successive generations. The accumulation of these changes ultimately result in significant increase in one or more of the following: complexity, diversity, and knowledge.


Simulations contain these elements and achieve the stated results.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into your convoluted view of natural selection but you seem to project human consciousness onto all of matter, from the collision of every atom to each organism. That is, because humans can guide evolution through artificial selection or design incredibly complex silicon machinery that mimics biological functionality, this implies that consciousness somehow must have manipulated the entire Universe for last the 13.8 billion years.

[Chas]

It seems like we're arguing dualism under the false guise of scientific credibility here.

Dualism has an armada of different meanings. For instance in physics there is wave/particle duality. In what sense are we arguing dualism?

As far as science goes, I don't think there is any real disagreement on the science. The disagreement is in the interpretation of that science.

Regarding the claim made by another poster that simulations are not evolution...that is just plain wrong. Any process which satisfies the definition of evolution can be said to be evolution. I put forth the following definition for evolution in this thread and received no objections or criticisms.

Evolution is a process whereby small changes in the heritable characteristics of a population accumulate thru a selective filter over successive generations. The accumulation of these changes ultimately result in significant increase in one or more of the following: complexity, diversity, and knowledge.


Simulations contain these elements and achieve the stated results.

Even if I accepted your definition of evolution (I don't), you still have made a terrible blunder.

Please address the fact that the examples of aspects of evolution are not simulations of evolution as they don't contain all the aspects of evolution.

[Esquilax]

I'm sorry Esquilax since you have stooped to name calling, I no longer feel obligated to respond to any of your posts. I'm not saying I am ignoring you....it's just that I don't see much point in carrying on a conversation with you if your inclination is to verbally abuse your adversary.

I will of course respect your position as a moderator and will fill obligated to respond when you post something in accordance with your position.

Transparent dodge: the vast majority of my post was a perfectly fine rebuttal of your argument, and your decision to harp on a single- fairly tame, let's be honest- insult speaks more to your inability to deal with the facts of my argument than anything else.

And frankly, I find it far more rude and frustrating that you opted to simply repeat your initial assertion as though I hadn't said anything the first time around.

[pocaracas]

Which just proves that your definition is lacking.... and so, we cannot use it.

Evolution is our explanation for the production of complexity, diversity, and knowledge that happened on this planet the last few billion years.
If it makes you feel better you can substitute "ultimately results" with "sometimes results"....and then the definition isn't lacking anymore.

Still lacking.. how does it work for the "other times"?

[Heywood]

Perhaps I'm reading too much into your convoluted view of natural selection but you seem to project human consciousness onto all of matter, from the collision of every atom to each organism. That is, because humans can guide evolution through artificial selection or design incredibly complex silicon machinery that mimics biological functionality, this implies that consciousness somehow must have manipulated the entire Universe for last the 13.8 billion years.

Humans or any sufficient intellect, can guide evolution to produce specific forms by designing the fitness paradigm and letting natural selection do its thing.

Here is a video of an intellect using a genetic algorithm to evolve a face. The human intellect isn't actively choosing what random image gets bred from and what image doesn't as in the case of artificial selection.

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Evolution is our explanation for the production of complexity, diversity, and knowledge that happened on this planet the last few billion years.
If it makes you feel better you can substitute "ultimately results" with "sometimes results"....and then the definition isn't lacking anymore.

Still lacking.. how does it work for the "other times"?

I don't understand your question.