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Author Topic:   How long does it take to evolve?
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 106 of 221 (770551)
10-07-2015 7:19 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by Percy
10-07-2015 5:47 PM


Re: Creationist "Unanswerable Questions"
But the big problem with irreducible complexity is that almost all examples creationists identify in nature are not really examples of irreducible complexity. ...
Nor that nature cannot erect the scaffolding and then remove it -- as seen in Message 105.
ie their failure is two-fold: (1) the systems function in some way (the mousetrap becomes a tie holder) and (2) nature can and has erected scaffolding and then removed it in any number of systems, physical and biological.
Enjoy

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by Percy, posted 10-07-2015 5:47 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 107 of 221 (770554)
10-07-2015 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by Percy
10-07-2015 5:47 PM


Re: Creationist "Unanswerable Questions"
The most amazing thing about irreducible complexity is that a genuine scientist, Michael Behe, thought of it. Shows what evangelical Christianity can do to your mind.
I don't think the concept of irreducible complexity is flawed. The problem is that nobody can manage to find any real examples of irreducible complexity. But that difficulty turns out to be because life on this planet actually did evolve.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by Percy, posted 10-07-2015 5:47 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 108 of 221 (770555)
10-07-2015 8:38 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by RAZD
10-07-2015 6:25 PM


Re: Creationist "Unanswerable Questions"
It is still those kinds of complexity that I am identifying as anathema to good design.
I know what I meant when I said it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by RAZD, posted 10-07-2015 6:25 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 109 of 221 (770557)
10-07-2015 8:49 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by Lamden
10-06-2015 8:40 PM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
Most directly, I found on your website a program you ran to try and get the word monkey out of randomness. I understood the first part of your explanation, but lost you somewhere in the middle. I was hoping you could take the trouble to answer me in layman's terms, if possible.
You need but ask. You should quote the part of the text you don't understand, so I can do a better job of answering. That would include telling me which page it's on. For example, you appear to be talking about my MPROBS page, http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/mprobs.html, in which I analyze the probabilities involved, but you could be talking about the main MONKEY page, http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/monkey.html. Knowing which page you got lost in the middle of would help me to help you.
BTW, a few things about MONKEY. I wrote that program and the supporting documentation about 25 years ago. At the time, I was working extensively in Pascal and I think I was just about to start learning C and C++. So I wrote it in Pascal. That means that the source code that I provide is in Pascal. It is rather difficult to find support for Pascal anymore.
Then I ran into the first problem with the executable. The program using timing functions which depend on a calibration routine that the startup code performs. Well, PCs are getting faster and faster all the time. It got to a point where PCs were just plain too fast for that startup code, causing its count to overflow and the program to crash. It took some searching, but I finally found a code patch to clear that up.
Now I think that there's a new problem for the executable. I don't think that the newer 64-bit Windows systems will run it. They can run 32-bit programs, but not 16-bit. I'm sure that MONKEY.EXE is a 16-bit program, which means that it shouldn't be able to run under 64-bit Windows. I haven't tried it yet.
{ABE: As you were! I did try it four years ago and it did not work. See the history at the top of the http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/monkey.html page.}
In the meantime, I've rewritten MONKEY in C and I feel fairly confident that it's working. However, I haven't completed the conversion of MPROBS yet. I will also need to work out possible issues with distributing MONKEY.EXE. So the upgrades will take a while.
To state simply what I don't get is: I want to hypothesize that, for all practical purposes, one can never get complex organization from randomness. The monkey program, modeled after Dawkins methinks weasel sentence, was intended to demonstrate that with NS it is not as far fetched as it seems.
Out of randomness, no, of course not! Out of an evolutionary process, now that's something entirely different. Evolution is not randomness.
Neither Dawkins' WEASEL nor my MONKEY(which others have described as the most faithful implementation of WEASEL which Dawkins only described in his book, The Blind Watchmaker) simulates evolution. Neither simulates natural selection. Both have been criticized by creationists as failing to simulate evolution, which is something that both Dawkins and I explicitly denied in our original presentations of attempting. Rather, we were both demonstrating the difference in performance of two different forms of selection: single-step selection and cumulative selection. Both our approaches (which were essentially the same) were very abstract, which for me was fortunate since an abstract problem is much more conducive to mathematical analysis. And both forms of selection are tested in exactly the same way, so the differences we observe are entirely due to the method of selection.
Single-step selection is where you attempt to assemble the string in a single attempt. If that attempt fails, then you start all over again from scratch. In one science show, it was like travelling from one corner of a chess board to the opposite corner by taking one huge random step and, upon failing in that, starting all over again from that same corner.
Cumulative selection is where you take the previous best result and use that as the starting point of the next attempt. Thus instead of trying to assemble the entire string in each step, you make a small change to the previous best attempt. This approach also includes a population of attempts from which you choose the best of the litter (you could and should also try that with single-step selection, but that would not help since you'd through the entire litter away anyway). In that science show analogy, it would be like randomly choosing a few possible small steps and selecting the one that has gotten you closest to the target corner.
Both by demonstration (cumulative selection succeeds in less than a minute whereas single-step would take several times longer than the age of the universe to succeed) and by mathematical analysis of the probabilities (cumulative selection with a population of 100 has 99% probability of success in 69 generations while single-step selection has extremely low probability of ever succeeding), cumulative selection is virtually certain to succeed rapidly whereas single-step selection is virtually impossible. The only connection with evolution is that, in comparing the methods of selection in creation and in evolution, it is obvious that creation uses single-step selection and evolution uses cumulative selection. That should come as no surprise since cumulative selection was itself modeled on natural selection and evolution.
A famous biologist (I don't recall his name at the moment) has been quoted as saying that natural selection makes the highly improbable inevitable. After playing with cumulative selection, we can now see why that is.
BTW, all the creationist probability arguments that I have seen use single-step selection to determine the probability of something evolving. Well of course the results they get are abysmally low! They're actually calculating the probability of it being created ex nihilo!
Again, here's the basic evolutionary process:
  1. A population undergoes reproduction, producing a new generation which are almost identical to their parents, yet slightly different.
  2. The new generation matures and the ones that survive and can reproduce do so, producing a new generation which are almost identical to their parents, yet slightly different.
  3. Rinse and repeat.
Or to express it far more abstractly, as is done in genetic algorithms:
  1. Initialization -- Start with an initial population. Associated with each individual in the population will be a "chromosome", a data structure describing parameters for the problem to be solved.
  2. Selection -- select a portion of the population to reproduce. Use a fitness function to make this determination. The fitness function is always problem dependent.
  3. Genetic operators -- Apply mechanisms for generating the next generation. These will usually employ techniques of copying and modifying the parents' "chromosome", including Crossover (akin to genetic recombination) and Mutation (akin to genetic mutation). These processes ultimately result in the next generation population of chromosomes that is different from the initial generation. Generally the average fitness will have increased by this procedure for the population, since only the best organisms from the first generation are selected for breeding, along with a small proportion of less fit solutions. These less fit solutions ensure genetic diversity within the genetic pool of the parents and therefore ensure the genetic diversity of the subsequent generation of children.
  4. Termination -- This generational process is repeated until a termination condition has been reached, normally that a solution has been reached. If the conditions for termination are not met, then loop back to Step 2.
BTW, the application of genetic algorithms not only results in optimal solutions to complex engineering problems, but when applied to creating designs results in designs that are highly complex, even irreducibly complex.
What I don't get is, that the program was designed with "monkey" in mind. wouldn't it be more fitting to compare NS to trying to program some unknown word . It could be monkey, bird, or perhaps tyrannosaurus, but not programmed in advance.
That is indeed what would be needed to attempt to simulate natural selection. Everybody who criticizes WEASEL or MONKEY zeros in on the teleogical problem, the fact that we know in advance what the target is and we test each attempt against that known target. Of course, that is not what evolution nor natural selection does, since natural selection is the immediate environment exerting its influence. My best response is to point out that we are comparing two different selection methods and by applying the exact same fitness test in both cases then the differences are due to the selection methods themselves and not to knowing what the target string is.
As I said, I've started thinking through the specifications for such a project, but frankly it is not trivial. However, there have been simulations that do what you ask. Indeed, such projects are common in the field of artificial life.
Read up on Thomas Ray's Tierra program (Tierra home page is at http://life.ou.edu/tierra/). He created an artificial environment within a computer and created an initial population of organisms whose genetic code consisted of an abstract programming "language" that handled such tasks as "eating" (consuming computer resources, abstractly of course) and reproducing (creating copies of themselves that were similar yet slightly different from their parents). One thing that happened was the evolution of parasites, organisms that had lost the ability to reproduce but that could infect another organism and use its genetic code to reproduce. Completely unplanned for; it just evolved on its own. Another thing was the invention of a form of reproduction that the designers had deemed impossible and that they later called "unrolling the loop." Go to the Tierra home page for much more detailed documentation and source code.
Another much simpler simulation was Bugs, which was featured decades ago in a Scientific American "Mathematical Recreations" column, which included enough code for me to program it for myself -- that was back when all my work was in MS-DOS, so the graphics programming was specific to that environment. You had organisms called "bugs" that wandered through their environment feeding. Their "genes" specified their behavior, specifically in what manner they would move as they sought food; eg, zoomers that moved straight ahead, twirlers that would move in tight loops -- all movement was wrap-around, so a bug moving off the edge would reappear on the opposite edge. If a bug got enough food, it would spawn a couple offspring who were very similar yet slightly different, so new behaviors could emerge. If a bug couldn't get enough food, it would starve and die. What was different was how food would grow in the environment. If it grew uniformly, then zoomers would thrive since they were constantly moving to greener pastures whereas twirlers would soon starve as they overgrazed their little patch of used-to-be-green. If it grew only in one area, then twirlers that had hit upon that patch of green would thrive whereas zoomers would zoom out into barren wilderness and starve. Of course, none of those outcomes were programmed into the simulation, but rather they would result from the bugs' evolved new behavior selected for or against by the environment. The type of bug that would evolve and become prevalent was the type best suited for that environment.
Now, back to MONKEY. It wouldn't be enough to allow for some random unknown word, since that would just return us to the teleology problem, it would just simply replace a letter sequence we could decide to use with one that we didn't decide upon. Instead, what we would need would be some practical problem that needed to be solved, such that each possible sequence would be tested for how much better it came to solving that problem.
In visualizing a possible simulation, I keep falling back on graphics from a science journal (either from Science or Nature) that covered a conference among the first where punctuated equilibrium was discussed. It depicted the generation-by-generation gradual evolution as a serious of overlapping bell curves whose center was migrating taking the population with it. From that, I visualize the x-axis as representing each organism's fitness (ie, how its phenotype relates to the environment -- obviously, I'd have to take an n-dimensional orthogonal space relating an n-dimensional orthogonal genetic space to an n-dimensional orthogonal space of environmental factors and project it down to a single dimension to get that value, but I'd much rather just wave my hands a lot at this point). And the y-axis would be how much of the population is at that x-value. In a stable situation, we could expect most of the population to be clustered about the optimal fitness value with smaller portions falling further from that value.
During reproduction, the population size would grow and the bell curve should also spread out as the population becomes more varied. However, selection would then shrink the population back down with most clustered about that optimal fitness value. That is an important point, since that shows that statis is not due to evolution having "stopped", but rather that evolution processes are still very much in effect and are actively keeping the well-adapted population in statis about that optimal fitness value.
When the environment changes, the optimal fitness value should also change and that optimal point on the x-axis should shift either left or right. Now during selection the formerly optimally fit are less fit, whereas a portion of the population that used to not be so fit has become more optimally fit. Thus the mean portion of the new population will increase about the new optimal value and the outer fringe of the old population that is now even further away from the new optimal will be even less fit and should die off.
Decades ago there was a science special hosted by pre-accident Christopher Reeve in which he stated about the varying rate of evolution change that the further away from that optimal fitness the population is, the faster it will change and then the closer it gets the slower the rate of change. My reaction to that was "Huh? What could possibly cause that?" Now with this bell curve model, that makes sense.
Now, how to implement that in a simulation and how to report the results.
Now , the most likely answer I would expect is, that each step of NS is intrinsically "programmed " to stay put, as it provides some sort of advantage to the creature. But I don't get that either, as each step towards a "good thing" is hard to believe that it really helps that much. Ie, is a little snub of liver or kidney really so useful to an animal?
Google on Weasel and "Royal Truman" for his creationist "refutation" of WEASEL. Part of that "refutation" was the claim that once a correct letter had been found, it was locked in place and not allowed to change again. The problem is that that was not a feature in WEASEL nor in MONKEY. If you run MONKEY.EXE (I forget whether it will still work) with a small enough population size in order to slow it down (try a population of 10), you will see it repeatedly approach the target and then back-slide away, something that would be impossible if all correct letters were not allowed to be changed. Also, in MPROBS I explicitly include the probability of a correct letter being selected and changed to an incorrect one. I was able to track Truman's mistaken idea down to something written by somebody else (Erick Sobel?) who had mistakenly introduced that idea of locking rings.
I mention that because that's what is sounds like you're attributing to natural selection. Natural selection is not intrinsically programmed in any way. It doesn't even exist as an actual something, but rather it's the name we give to what we observe happening in nature: organisms that are better adapted to survival in their environments tend to be the ones to survive and to pass those better-adapted traits on to their offspring. No intrinsic programming, nothing to force them to "stay put". If a trait helps an organism to survive, then it will tend to remain in the population's gene pool, whereas a trait that detracts from survival will tend to be removed from the gene pool.
As I suggested, in The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins deals with your question by describing the evolution of the eye (repeated very briefly by RAZD in his Message 101), which itself is a slightly different version of Charles Darwin's discussion which starts with (paraphrased) "how the eye could have evolved is impossible to imagine, but that is due to our inability to visualize it, since if we apply reason ... " and then he goes on for another two pages describing a long list of intermediate forms of the eye that do exist in various animals and which are functional as light-sensing organs of differing efficiency -- creationists frequently misquote Darwin about the eye, stopping with "is impossible to imagine".
When a creationist talks about half an eye being useless, he almost never explains his reasoning. The best that I can piece together is that somehow he's thinking about taking a razor blade to an existing human eye and cutting out distinct parts, the loss of any of which would render that eye useless as an eye. A co-worker repeated the argument as he had heard of it as their calculating the improbability of an eye evolving by coming up with a probability for each separate part of the eye evolving all by itself separately from any of the other parts, such that the final product, the eye, would then be put together with each of the separately evolved parts. That makes absolutely no sense at all, but that is what I'm hearing. There is no way that each separate part could evolve as a component of an eye without being part of an eye every step of the way. Instead, the only model for the evolution of the eye is that the component parts evolve together as part of the visual organ as it is evolving.
Similarly, what good is a heart without blood vessels? Ask one of the many invertebrates who have just such a circulatory system (eg, grasshoppers, as I recall). Serves it rather well, since it's too large to get oxygen to its body tissues by diffusion like an ant can. From there, a little extra tubing to deliver the outgoing oxygenated body fluid more efficiently to the rest of the body is a plus. Add more tubing, such as in getting the fluid back to the heart and lungs and it becomes even more efficient. That added efficiency enables other changes, though now with those other changes the body needs that added circulatory efficiency, such that going back to the original system could even prove fatal.
What good is a three-chambered heart? If we lose the septum between our ventricles, we would be in a world of hurt; basically, that's blue baby syndrome. Having one ventricle means that oxygenated blood from the lungs gets mixed with de-oxygenated blood from the rest of the body, which greatly reduces the amount of oxygen getting out to the body. Bad news. Yet amphibians and reptiles only have one ventricle and running on partially oxygenated blood is no problem for them, since their metabolisms are much lower than that of us mammals. Plus their body size is much less. Since that's the stock that mammals evolved from, that's what we had started out with. What does it take to convert a three-chambered heart to a four-chambered? Grow a septum that divides the ventricle in two and that keeps oxygenated blood and de-oxygenated blood from mixing (some turtles almost do that with a muscular ridge that divides the ventricle when it contracts). Alligators and crocodiles are born with a three-chambered heart which then changes into a four-chambered heart when they grow to a certain size. With more efficient delivery of oxygenated blood you can grow larger and run a higher metabolism, becoming warm-blooded. But once you have made those changes, now you must keep that more efficient delivery of oxygenated blood.
There are creationist claims citing such things as evidence against evolution. The basis of those claims is an underlying assumption that you need to have to fully formed modern organ before it can be of any use. A possible justification for that underlying assumption seems to be that modern organisms, such as people, are severely impacted if they don't have a fully formed modern form of that organ. That seems to lead to a corollary assumption that a less fully formed form of that organ would be useless, even though we find many examples of them in the wild in organisms who don't have the same requirements as people do, as I have just discussed above.
Ie, is a little snub of liver or kidney really so useful to an animal?
You seem to be making that same kind of wrong assumption as those creationist claims. How useful an earlier form of an organ would be to an animal depends on the animal and its requirements. And indeed we do find in the wild those less advanced forms of those organs and more in animals whose requirements allow them to benefit from those less advanced organs.
This could be a case where we would want to know what your reasoning was. What understanding of biology and assumptions were you using there?
Now for a weird creationist claim. Bill Morgan delivered this in a debate video and his audience loved it even though it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Here's a written form of it::
quote:
Q: Which came first? The Chicken or The Egg?
A: It wasn’t a chicken or an eggit was two chickens! A male and a female. Sexual reproduction requires a male and a female. The first male chicken needed to have 100% functional male stuff and the first female chicken needed 100% functional female stuff. They need to be at the same place at the same time. They can’t wait for millions of years for the opposite sex to evolve. They need a muscular, circulatory, respiratory, skeletal system and many others as well. Before the chickens can make an egg, they need an environment with the right temperature, the right food, the right amount of oxygen the right amount of gravity etc. The answer to the chicken and the egg is someone with incredible intelligence instantly designed an adult male and an adult female at the same time, at the same place, and the place had the right temperature, gravity, food etc. The Garden of Eden story answers the chicken and the egg question.
So then what's evolution, chopped liver? (apologies to the two chickens)
On the face of it, it appears that he's claiming that for the chicken to have evolved, it had to have re-evolved everything, that it didn't inherit anything from its parents -- as I recall the verbal form, he made a really big deal about them having to have evolved compatible business ends. I do not understand what his underlying assumptions and misunderstanding of evolution could possibly be to support that claim.
According to evolution, it takes many generations for one species to evolve into another, though that can be sped up by human intervention during domestication. Chickens evolved from jungle fowl. For this thought experiment, let's assume 100 generations for that jungle fowl to become a yardbird. So what were the parents for the first 100% chicken? They were 99% chicken, which is damned close. What's the difference between 99% chicken and 100% chicken? Hardly any at all. I doubt that anyone could look at a 99% chicken and a 100% chicken and be able to tell the difference. So what if there's only one 100% chicken (since women keep telling us that they're more advanced than men, let's assume it's female). There she is, the only 100% chicken in existence. With whom does she mate? With a 99% chicken male, of course. Why not? There's practically no difference between them so they're plenty interfertile. What about their sex organs, where did they get them from, did they have to re-evolve them? Of course not! They got those from their parents, of course, where else? And where did their parents get theirs from? From their parents, who got theirs from their parents, and so forth and so back all the way back to whatever original ancestral species of theirs it was that had first come up with the idea of sex organs. Same thing with their muscular, circulatory, respiratory, skeletal, etc systems.
When we have a basic knowledge of how evolution works, we find such creationist claims as that to be incomprehensible.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Lamden, posted 10-06-2015 8:40 PM Lamden has not replied

  
Lamden
Junior Member (Idle past 2395 days)
Posts: 25
From: Lakewood
Joined: 09-23-2015


(1)
Message 110 of 221 (770559)
10-07-2015 9:16 PM
Reply to: Message 101 by RAZD
10-07-2015 5:02 PM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
I think that this was a better conversation than I thought it would be.
I understand and agree with much of what has been said.
I would , however , make clear at least one point of divergence.
The consensus here is explaining how IC ( thanks to the one that deciphered that for me) can indeed be reduced.... I just don't buy it.
Let us take the eye, as a tribute to RAZD that mentioned it.
Firstly, and most importantly, I imagine that even the most primitive light receptor is the result of a remarkable organization, be it natural or not. I do not believe that NS could have aided such organization , as each piece to the puzzle is useless on it's own (let me know if explanation is needed, I assume you have all heard this argument, feel free to link to the discussion!) and thus the monkey/weasel computer model would not apply to this first step. This logic would apply to every subsequent step as well... I would think that one mutation can not create a marginal incremental benefit, it would likely require dozens of mutations to line up per step!. (i concede to the comment made that the order of amino acids / proteins/ whatever may be of little significance, but still, pretty staggering. Of course, i guess it could happen eventually, but I don't think 14 billion years is enough time.
Secondly, the light receptor is still 100% useless without a brain capable of deciphering the light in to "message". Think webcam without a computer. (this point I actually heard from someone else, who likely heard it from some creation science guy or something like that. But I think it's a great point.). There would be no reason for NS to aid in the dominance or propagation until the brain was there , (another very organized block of mush, even at it's simplest level)
Thirdly, (back to my own thinking), even after deciphered in to a message, a light message requires further action from the brain. Does the light mean I should jump in to the fire, or away from the fire? A further impediment from allowing NS to help out .
All this is for the simplist level of light receptor.
Now, I understand that if we could get past all that I have wrote about- and if it is a PRATT, a link is fine, if it is easy to understand.
I could go on, but if we have reached the point where we just agree to disagree, let's call it a quits. I have some other interesting threads in mind! Of course, if my points are easily refuted, I am not looking to be carrying around a sack of falsehoods.
Edited by Lamden, : No reason given.
Edited by Lamden, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 101 by RAZD, posted 10-07-2015 5:02 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
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Lamden
Junior Member (Idle past 2395 days)
Posts: 25
From: Lakewood
Joined: 09-23-2015


Message 111 of 221 (770560)
10-07-2015 9:18 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by Lamden
10-07-2015 9:16 PM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
DWISE:
please note my last comment was written before i got a chance to read your recent lengthy comment ... I fear you may have addressed some of my points. But not to worry, I am reading it now.
Edited by Lamden, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Lamden, posted 10-07-2015 9:16 PM Lamden has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 112 of 221 (770568)
10-08-2015 7:26 AM
Reply to: Message 107 by NoNukes
10-07-2015 8:14 PM


Re: Creationist "Unanswerable Questions"
NoNukes writes:
I don't think the concept of irreducible complexity is flawed. The problem is that nobody can manage to find any real examples of irreducible complexity.
If you're saying there's no such thing as irreducible complexity in the sense that I think creationists usually mean it (that it couldn't have come about naturally), then I agree.
But that difficulty turns out to be because life on this planet actually did evolve.
Or more generally, the universe we see today did form from natural processes.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by PaulK, posted 10-08-2015 7:39 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


(1)
Message 113 of 221 (770570)
10-08-2015 7:39 AM
Reply to: Message 112 by Percy
10-08-2015 7:26 AM


Re: Creationist "Unanswerable Questions"
I disagree. As an argument against evolution IC is fatally flawed. Otherwise the basic concept is fine.
Even in Darwin's Black Box Behe admitted that IC systems could evolve "indirectly", offering only an opinion that it was too unlikely. Later he retreated further, offering a different definition of IC (that never caught on). More recently he has dropped the IC terminology and is still looking hard for systems that could not evolve. He hasn't found any.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by Percy, posted 10-08-2015 7:26 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 114 of 221 (770571)
10-08-2015 7:53 AM
Reply to: Message 110 by Lamden
10-07-2015 9:16 PM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
Firstly, and most importantly, I imagine that even the most primitive light receptor is the result of a remarkable organization, be it natural or not. I do not believe that NS could have aided such organization , as each piece to the puzzle is useless on it's own (let me know if explanation is needed, I assume you have all heard this argument, feel free to link to the discussion!) and thus the monkey/weasel computer model would not apply to this first step. This logic would apply to every subsequent step as well... I would think that one mutation can not create a marginal incremental benefit, it would likely require dozens of mutations to line up per step!. (i concede to the comment made that the order of amino acids / proteins/ whatever may be of little significance, but still, pretty staggering. Of course, i guess it could happen eventually, but I don't think 14 billion years is enough time.
I suggested the eye because this is an old issue that has been discussed many times (also called a "Point Refuted a Thousand Times -- a PRATT):
quote:
This is the quintessential example of the argument from incredulity. The source making the claim usually quotes Darwin saying that the evolution of the eye seems "absurd in the highest degree". However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).
  • photosensitive cell
  • aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
  • an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
  • pigment cells forming a small depression
  • pigment cells forming a deeper depression
  • the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
  • muscles allowing the lens to adjust
All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.
Evidence for one step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye comes from comparative anatomy and genetics. The vertebrate βγ-crystallin genes, which code for several proteins crucial for the lens, are very similar to the Ciona βγ-crystallin gene. Ciona is an urochordate, a distant relative of vertebrates. Ciona's single βγ-crystallin gene is expressed in its otolith, a pigmented sister cell of the light-sensing ocellus. The origin of the lens appears to be based on co-optation of previously existing elements in a lensless system.
Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.
Oh look, they talk about how long, how many generations it would take ... and it's a lot less than 4 billion years (not 14).
And as I noted before that a photosensitive cell isn't necessarily the starting point -- just a cell that can detect solar radiation, such as a skin cell sensing heat, and being able to use that sensation to know which direction the sun is.
Secondly, the light receptor is still 100% useless without a brain capable of deciphering the light in to "message". Think webcam without a computer. (this point I actually heard from someone else, who likely heard it from some creation science guy or something like that. But I think it's a great point.). There would be no reason for NS to aid in the dominance or propagation until the brain was there , (another very organized block of mush, even at it's simplest level)
Which can evolve as the sensors evolve. But let's take a step back and ask what are criteria for something to be considered "living" ... see Message 25 on the Definition of Life thread for discussion. Here's the critical part from Life - Wikipedia:
quote:
6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
So the ability to react to stimuli is a beginning condition of life, and thus it is something that can evolve as the ability to sense stimuli evolves. Or more directly, the brain evolves as the senses evolve as they are entertwined in the mechanism\process of sensing.
Thirdly, (back to my own thinking), even after deciphered in to a message, a light message requires further action from the brain. Does the light mean I should jump in to the fire, or away from the fire? A further impediment from allowing NS to help out .
Actually that would be where NS would shine ... those that perish don't pass on their genes, while those that survive to breed succeed in passing on their genes to the next generation.
Think of evolution as a massive trial and error computer.
Now, I understand that if we could get past all that I have wrote about- and if it is a PRATT, a link is fine, if it is easy to understand.
See CB301: Eye complexity above.
I could go on, but if we have reached the point where we just agree to disagree, let's call it a quits. I have some other interesting threads in mind! Of course, if my points are easily refuted, I am not looking to be carrying around a sack of falsehoods.
Curiously I think you should investigate from start to finish, and certainly finish one before you start the next.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : .

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Lamden, posted 10-07-2015 9:16 PM Lamden has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by Lamden, posted 10-08-2015 9:51 AM RAZD has replied

  
Lamden
Junior Member (Idle past 2395 days)
Posts: 25
From: Lakewood
Joined: 09-23-2015


Message 115 of 221 (770579)
10-08-2015 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by RAZD
10-08-2015 7:53 AM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
RAZD,
Let us go step by step.
How are you addressing my first point?
You explain how things could incrementally improve. I get that. My point is, according to my understanding, every one of those steps seems to exhibit IC.
Let me explain myself .
Everything living is a result of the DNA coding. If a human cell contains 6 ft of microscopic DNA coding, let us take an arbitrary guess at how much DNA would be needed to program for a simple light receptor- let's say 1/10 of a mm. (pick your own guess) That would be far, far, more organization than the word "monkey" right there. And less likely to happen than it is to have any word formed by shaking up a bunch of letters and pulling them one by one. So maybe IC or ID is not the right word.... let's call it a statistical improbability. It is towards this first step that I do not see how NS could aid in organizing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by RAZD, posted 10-08-2015 7:53 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 118 by JonF, posted 10-08-2015 10:36 AM Lamden has not replied
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 Message 120 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-08-2015 1:16 PM Lamden has not replied
 Message 121 by RAZD, posted 10-08-2015 8:42 PM Lamden has not replied
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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 116 of 221 (770580)
10-08-2015 10:26 AM
Reply to: Message 110 by Lamden
10-07-2015 9:16 PM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
Hi, Lamden.
Lamden writes:
Firstly, and most importantly, I imagine that even the most primitive light receptor is the result of a remarkable organization, be it natural or not. I do not believe that NS could have aided such organization , as each piece to the puzzle is useless on it's own (let me know if explanation is needed, I assume you have all heard this argument, feel free to link to the discussion!) and thus the monkey/weasel computer model would not apply to this first step.
Actually, the most primitive light receptor is thought to have been nothing more than a protein that was altered in some way when light struck it. This would result in a few subtle changes to the chemistry inside a primitive cell, which would in turn alter the cell's behavior and introduce selection for various means of exploiting this newfound ability to react to an environmental stimulus.
Eyes have come a long way since then, of course. Those primitive proteins that reacted to light could later become the basis of photosynthesis (in which the light energy could be stored in chemical form) and the basis of vision (in which the light would be used to regulate the cell's behavioral rhythms to match the environment).
I'd love to walk through the entire (theoretical) process of eye evolution, since it's a topic we've all discussed regularly and really has some cool bits to it; but let's go ahead and take it slow, because there's a lot to cover, and it isn't always obvious from a layman's perspective.
Do you understand this "first step" in eye evolution?

-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Lamden, posted 10-07-2015 9:16 PM Lamden has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(3)
Message 117 of 221 (770581)
10-08-2015 10:31 AM
Reply to: Message 111 by Lamden
10-07-2015 9:18 PM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
I understand. My own time to read and respond is limited between work and afterwork.
One of the basic points I was making is that for questions of whether something nascent could or could not work, we can look at nature to see whether it could work. So can the ability to perceive light work if the organism doesn't have a fully developed brain and could it benefit them (vertebrates are wrong for that question because they all have some form of central nervous system)? Yes it can, because we find so many invertebrates with light perception and whom it benefits. Even for ones with a nervous system so primitive that they couldn't process images and then think their way through what they're seeing? Yes, those exist too. A lot of their behavior is hard-wired as instinct. And research has shown that a lot of apparently complex behavior can be produced by a few very simple rules.
Another point is that we need to avoid the mistake of projecting our own needs and experiences on other organisms. "Seeing" is different for us than it is for invertebrates and the benefits of "seeing" are different and the "infrastructure" support for "seeing" and acting on what we see is different.
Of course, that requires us to learn about the other animals and how they work. But then learning all that is one of the biggest benefits of discussing creation/evolution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Lamden, posted 10-07-2015 9:18 PM Lamden has not replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 167 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 118 of 221 (770582)
10-08-2015 10:36 AM
Reply to: Message 115 by Lamden
10-08-2015 9:51 AM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
There isn't much point in basing your guessed probability estimate on numbers made up from a very overly-simplistic concept of DNA..
Pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve
Life's Grand Design
Evolution of the Eye: Lessons from Freshman Physics and Richard Dawkins

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Lamden, posted 10-08-2015 9:51 AM Lamden has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 119 of 221 (770583)
10-08-2015 11:04 AM
Reply to: Message 115 by Lamden
10-08-2015 9:51 AM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
Lamden writes:
If a human cell contains 6 ft of microscopic DNA coding, let us take an arbitrary guess at how much DNA would be needed to program for a simple light receptor- let's say 1/10 of a mm.
Breaking DNA down into lengths isn't the right way to go about this. The human genome contains about 3 billion base pairs, so .1mm is 164,041 base pairs. Is that enough for a "simple light receptor"? Though it varies widely, the average gene size in humans 10,000-15,000 base pairs (Average gene size - Human Homo sapiens - BNID 104316), so that would yield around 10-20 genes for a simple light receptor, though that doesn't take junk DNA into account. Anyway, is that enough? Got me.
So maybe IC or ID is not the right word...
Definitely not the right words. You're asking if DNA information encoding is dense enough to contain all the information for building a living creature. We do know now that some of the information is contained elsewhere in the cell, but the vast majority is in our DNA. If the information isn't in the DNA and a little bit more elsewhere in the cell, then where is it? I'm not saying that's how we reasoned that the information is in the DNA. I'm just trying to get you to see how ridiculous your question is. DNA has to contain the information, else the information is nowhere and we couldn't exist.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Lamden, posted 10-08-2015 9:51 AM Lamden has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by MrHambre, posted 10-08-2015 8:45 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 120 of 221 (770591)
10-08-2015 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by Lamden
10-08-2015 9:51 AM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
Everything living is a result of the DNA coding. If a human cell contains 6 ft of microscopic DNA coding, let us take an arbitrary guess at how much DNA would be needed to program for a simple light receptor- let's say 1/10 of a mm. (pick your own guess) That would be far, far, more organization than the word "monkey" right there. And less likely to happen than it is to have any word formed by shaking up a bunch of letters and pulling them one by one.
Well, this may interest you. It's a good place to start.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Lamden, posted 10-08-2015 9:51 AM Lamden has not replied

  
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