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Author Topic:   "The Edge of Evolution" by Michael Behe
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 7 of 149 (530768)
10-14-2009 7:23 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Colin
10-14-2009 5:27 PM


Targets are for creationists.
Colin writes:
All of the known resistant malarial strains have common changes in 2 amino acids, located in a section of DNA which encodes for a protein pump.
In the two step resistance that Behe is referring to, the first single mutation does actually confer some resistance to chloroquine, and is therefore selected for.
Colin writes:
Keeping in mind that only 2 essential amino acid changes were required, if 4 were needed for example, that number would be 1 in 10^40, which he says is less than the estimated total number of bacteria that have ever lived on Earth.
Plasmodium can do four in developing resistance to pyrimethamine, so you're wrong. Again, the stages are beneficial, and are selected for.
PNAS: Stepwise acquisition of pyrimethamine resistance in the malaria parasite
There are a lot more technical comments that could be made, but first I want to point out something that's basically wrong in Behe's way of thinking.
Evolution doesn't have to hit targets. It's not heading anywhere.
If there were a rare specific potentially beneficial series of mutations that might confer some great advantage on humans, but that would only occur once in a billion years on average, it's extremely unlikely that we will get it in the next million years. However, if there are 10 million such rare beneficial series that could occur, one will be completed every century in an individual, and the population would receive 10,000 on average each million years.
I.D. Creationists frequently make the mistake of making spurious probability estimates that include their own view of design and direction in the system. Give evolution a specific target, a certain pre-described series of mutations, and it's always unlikely to hit it, and it doesn't need to.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Colin, posted 10-14-2009 5:27 PM Colin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Colin, posted 10-14-2009 8:19 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(2)
Message 14 of 149 (530826)
10-15-2009 5:57 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Colin
10-14-2009 8:19 PM


Re: Targets are for creationists.
Hello, Colin.
I think you've missed my point about targets.
Colin writes:
If we deny ourselves permission to suggest evolution has any direction or trend from which to make predictions, It becomes a fit-all theory, with all the consistency of a piece of play dough.
If you give an organism specific targets, as we do with P. falciparum by challenging it with various treatments, evolution is under no obligation to solve the problem. In mammals, the equivalent to 10^20 P. falciparum, adjusting for mutation rates (which Behe I think correctly does) might be 10^12. But whatever it is, it's still an enormous number of individuals.
Supposing we gave humans a target by poisoning them regularly with arsenic, and it happened to be a 10^12 sequence of mutations that would enable us to deal with arsenic poisoning, we'd be extremely unlikely to hit on it, and if we were all being poisoned, would go extinct. No problem for evolution. Extinction happens all the time.
But, in the real world, we don't require such a rare sequence of survival dependent mutations at this particular moment, and we're here.
So, let's give ourselves another target that would be advantageous. What about a mechanism in the eye that would enable us to adjust lens shape/position in a way that eliminated short sightedness? We haven't got that particular feature, and perhaps it's a "10^12" feature. So, we've made up a target that evolution hasn't yet achieved. But there may well be a whole field of "10^12" advantageous mutation sequences, in which case we would have recieved some of them.
Indeed, that sight adjustment feature being of general advantage to all mammals, it wouldn't be surprising if at least one species did have it, and that could apply even if it was a rarer 10^20 feature.
If you give a specific species of mammal the specific target of hitting a given "10^12" sequence, it will be unlikely. But give it the general challenge of hitting some advantageous "10^12"s out of many, then some'll happen.
Would you like to calculate how many "10^12" sequences would have become fixed in our own lineage since we became sexually reproducing organisms without knowing how many possible "10^12" advantageous sequences there have been? If the figure is 1,000,000,000 possible such sequences, then one would have been completed in every 1000 individuals, but if there were only 1000, then one would have been completed in every billion individuals, and if these are general advantages, our fish ancestors would have got them all fairly quickly.
And what about rare "10^20" mutation sequences? How many could have been advantageous to our lineage? Or all tetrapods? Or all mammals?
Does Michael Behe know? Has he done the maths?
Of course not!
Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

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 Message 8 by Colin, posted 10-14-2009 8:19 PM Colin has replied

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 Message 17 by Colin, posted 10-16-2009 5:06 AM bluegenes has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 30 of 149 (531357)
10-17-2009 9:05 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Modulous
10-17-2009 8:27 AM


Re: Joe Thornton (and creationist targets).
Modulous writes:
It looks like Behe has attempted to use this same line of reasoning in regards to the work of Thornton. Thornton's response looks hautingly familiar:
Small world! I read that late yesterday, and was going to put it in a post today, knowing it would interest participants on this thread. Thornton's work might make an interesting thread on its own (I think Wounded King made a links post on an article about it recently).
I'd have quoted this, which struck me as being so close to what we've been saying in this thread, and which sums up Behe's built in misunderstanding of probabilities whenever he tries to attack naturalistic evolution.
quote:
Finally, Behe erroneously equates evolving non-deterministically with impossible to evolve. He supposes that if each of a set of specific evolutionary outcomes has a low probability, then none will evolve. This is like saying that, because the probability was vanishingly small that the 1996 Yankees would finish 92-70 with 871 runs scored and 787 allowed and then win the World Series in six games over Atlanta, the fact that all this occurred means it must have been willed by God.
Consider the future: there are countless possible [outcomes]* that could emerge from our present state, making the probability of the one that actually does evolve extraordinarily low. Does this mean that the future state that will ultimately emerge is impossible? Obviously not. To say that our present biology did not evolve deterministically means simply that other states could have evolved instead; it does not imply that it did not evolve.
Consider your own life history as an analogy. We can all look back at the road we have traveled and identify chance events that had profound effects on how our lives turned out. If the movie I wanted to see that night when I was 25 hadn’t been sold out, I never would have gone to that party at my friend’s house, where I met my future spouse. Everyone can tell a story like this. The probability of the life we actually lead is extraordinarily small. That obviously doesn’t mean that its historical unfolding was impossible.
That we inhabit an improbably reality requires a divine explanation only if we, like Behe, take the teleological view that this is the only reality that could exist. But if we recognize that the present is one of many possibilities, then there is no difficulty reconciling the nature of evolutionary processes with the complexity of biological forms. As history unfolds, potential pathways to different futures are constantly opening and closing. Darwinian processes are entirely adequate to move living forms along these pathways to a remarkable realization — but just one realization out of many others that could have, but didn’t, take place.
*My brackets due to a misprint/word omission in the article.
Hence the "targets are for creationists" subtitle I put in earlier. It's important, because this is a basic mistake that's often made by critics of evolutionary theory. If one gives evolution a retrospective target, the end results always appear unlikely.
Perhaps I can ask Colin what he thinks of the probability of his own particular unique genome, and therefore himself, existing.
If we assume a possible million siblings who could have been born instead, then apply the same to his 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, etc., we'll find that the probability of his existence would seem to be negligible even taken from a point just 200 years ago. Something like 1 in 10^500.
But nature without targets doesn't have to face such apparent improbabilities, and Colin, I'm happy to say, is with us.

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 Message 56 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-20-2009 11:36 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 38 of 149 (531497)
10-18-2009 9:21 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by Colin
10-18-2009 7:15 AM


Colin writes:
In referring back to your query, a feasible step here means any number of possible mutation clusters that will lead to some advantage in some way. I suggest 10000, which I arrived at arbitrarily in order to produce an "even odds" example at the end. I have no idea what this number actually would be - we are talking about hypothetical biological machinery.
I suggest 100,000,000 (equally arbritrarily).
So, if each of these trillion creatures, each had 10000 such beneficial evolutionary steps open to them, there would be even odds of just one of these steps being taken in the whole trillion creatures.
With my figures, 10,000 "steps."
More importantly:
Colin writes:
(Please note: I am again using the step to chloroquine resistance as an ball park estimate of the difficulty of taking a modestly complex, beneficial evolutionary step.)
P. falciparum seemed to take ~10^12 individuals to achieve resistance to atovaquone, so you could have chosen that as a "ball park estimate". The monkey in the picture to the left achieved an interesting new advantage in its digestive system by a series of mutations when there had probably been not more than a billion members of its species, so we could call that a 10^8 mutation series, which you could have chosen as a ball park estimate.
Humans developed cold climate adaptions of lighter skin, straighter hair and other minor things from a population of probably not more than 100,000,000 so we could call these a 10^7 combination of adaptions. Lactose tolerance in adults seems to have arrived several times in human populations since the advent of agriculture, so it is perhaps a 10^6 advantageous mutation.
The ease or difficulty with which one particular species develops one particular adaption does not work as a measure of evolution, or of the complexity of a particular characteristic. My little monkey's advantage involved more mutations than P. falciparum did for its chloroquine resistance, so a specific "10^8" could easily be described as more "complex" than a specific "10^20".
But the monkey could have received what was really one out of 10^12 possible "10^20" mutation sequences. Who knows?
Colin, it isn't variation that limits evolution. Look at the variety we can get very quickly when we cheat natural selection and breed plants and animals. It is conservative natural selection that keeps a wild wolf from developing rapidly into lots of very different looking creatures, not lack of genetic variation.
Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Colin, posted 10-18-2009 7:15 AM Colin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by Colin, posted 10-18-2009 10:44 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 40 of 149 (531567)
10-18-2009 5:59 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by Colin
10-18-2009 1:31 AM


Variation and artificial selection
Colin writes:
Since the number of potential evolutionary paths is unknown, let me work backwards. Behe puts the probability of chloroquine resistance at 1 in 10^20.
It would have taken far, far less than 10^20 organisms to produce the divergence seen below. No specific targets here. If it tastes good and it looks good, it gets selected.
To brighten up the thread, here are examples of the variations that can exist in real life due to mutation. All of these descend from the first within the last few thousand years, due to artificial selection. This illustrates that it is really natural selection far more than mutation that defines the "edge of evolution", and that there is no shortage in variation when we cheat natural selection.
Brassica Oleracea
Kohlrabi
Kale
Chinese Broccoli
Cauliflower
Romanesco Broccoli
Cabbage
Brussels Sprouts
Broccoli
All this (and more) from a common ancestor in just a few thousand years; instant geological time. For more details, see:

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 Message 33 by Colin, posted 10-18-2009 1:31 AM Colin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by Colin, posted 10-18-2009 11:02 PM bluegenes has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 80 of 149 (532366)
10-23-2009 2:32 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by Kaichos Man
10-20-2009 11:36 PM


Re: Joe Thornton (and creationist targets).
Kaichos writes:
bluegenes writes:
If we assume a possible million siblings who could have been born instead, then apply the same to his 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, etc., we'll find that the probability of his existence would seem to be negligible even taken from a point just 200 years ago. Something like 1 in 10^500.
But nature without targets doesn't have to face such apparent improbabilities, and Colin, I'm happy to say, is with us.
Same problem. Someone had to win the 1996 World Series, so the chance that it would be the Yankees was quite large. Equally, given that Colin's forebearers were fertile and liked children, the chance of a child being born was 1. The fact that it was Colin is just as likely as any other result.
And evolution producing peacocks or elephants is just as likely as any other result. So you seem to be disagreeing with Behe on probabilities.
To be analagous with evolution, Colin would have to be the only individual out of the trillions possible to be born with the specific genetic novelty needed to preserve the human race at that particular time.
The analogies being made are with Behe's target based probabilities. What's the probability of a cloud of dust forming into this solar system, exactly as it is? History is never improbable.
Evolution doesn't have to do anything, including preserve the human species. A characteristic doesn't have to be "needed" in order to be selected for. It just has to be advantageous.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-20-2009 11:36 PM Kaichos Man has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-23-2009 7:07 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 81 of 149 (532367)
10-23-2009 3:04 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by Colin
10-18-2009 10:44 PM


Re: Nuts & Bolts
Colin writes:
Whether Behe's calculation is common or not, it would of course not be unique. We always expect for sure that some mutations would be less likely and others more likely.
Behe's calculation is funny. It's a kind of tautology. If the rarity of a specific mutation or sequence of mutations is calculated by the number of individuals it takes to produce, then all mutations that have happened are likely. If a million members of a species have existed before mutation "x" occurs, then "x" is a 1 in 10^5 mutation on the Behe scale.
And don't you understand Thornton's comment about history?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by Colin, posted 10-18-2009 10:44 PM Colin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 82 by Colin, posted 10-23-2009 4:36 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 88 of 149 (532414)
10-23-2009 9:41 AM
Reply to: Message 84 by Kaichos Man
10-23-2009 7:07 AM


Re: Joe Thornton (and creationist targets).
bluegenes writes:
Kaichos Man writes:
No no no. Someone had to win the world series. Colin's ancestors had to have a descendant. But as you point out yourself:
Evolution doesn't have to do anything
Thornton named a specific team having a specific record and scores. He pointed to something that couldn't be predicted. You agree that whatever happened isn't unlikely, and that Colin's existence isn't unlikely.
So, you're disagreeing with Michael Behe. For Behe, something as specific as Colin requires a designer.
If you're going to use improbability arguments for history, you need to be consistent. What is the probability of Australia's coastline being exactly the shape it is? What is the probability of the solar system forming from a cloud of dust?
Kaichos Man writes:
And given that the chance creation of a single enzyme runs into trillions to one, the overwhelming likelihood is that it hasn't.
Really? Can you show your calculations for this? Are you arguing that the universe can produce nothing? If you were being consistent, in the same way that you argue that Colin is not unlikely, and someone must win the world series by some score, then the universe must produce something. The probability of history being what it has been is always, in a sense, one.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-23-2009 7:07 AM Kaichos Man has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-25-2009 8:56 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 89 of 149 (532416)
10-23-2009 10:09 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Colin
10-23-2009 4:36 AM


Re: Nuts & Bolts
Colin writes:
I do understand Thornton's comment, Kennith Miller has made the same point. You are correct in saying that insanely improbable events are occurring all the time, but what implication do these events have? If my parents did not have me as one of their children, chances are they would have someone else.
Now, concentrate on that. Do you remember the post when I pointed out that your existence, from a point 200 years ago, would seem to be less than 1 in 10^500 chance. But that's with Behe's way of thinking. Now think of a particular group of an ancient species with a particular genome, for example, the proto cat, ancestor of all species in the modern cat family.
If you give it a specific target, becoming a modern tiger, for example, then the probability of it achieving that particular combination of mutations and selection over time would be remote. The group we're looking at could become any one of the modern species of extant cats instead of a tiger, but it could also become any one of a huge field of cats that have never existed.
It's got to become something (including extinct) so in fact, whatever the end result, it's never improbable. Exactly like your own existence, instead of the existence of the (probably millions of) siblings that could have arrived. Are you getting this?
Behe was not measuring the chances of a specific mutation taking place, he was measuring the chances of any mutation taking place that would result in a necessary adaptation to malarias environment. The problem is very specific and unique, as are all the others, but the solutions are open to all possible means. The smoke screen is that this is one specific example and does not speak on behalf of evolution in general, but the book goes further. It shows that there is a direct correlation between the speed at which malaria develops resistance to a drug, and the complexity of the solutions found. The process of calculating the probability in light of population numbers is used as a matter of course in planning maria treatment programs. This is a REAL LIFE observation of evolution in action. We present malaria with a problem, we observe its ability to find solutions by Darwinian evolution, then the solutions are studied.
Again, you've missed a point I made early in the thread. European Elms were exposed to a specific problem (Dutch Elm disease) in the 20th century, and they've been wiped out. If you poisoned us with arsenic, we'd probably go the same way. Lineages very rarely have to deal with problems that they have to solve urgently. Evolution proceeds by picking up advantages, which need only be slight.
The overwhelming majority, if not all, of the mutations that have made us what we are going right back through the history of life, would not have been essential at the time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Colin, posted 10-23-2009 4:36 AM Colin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by Colin, posted 10-24-2009 2:02 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 93 of 149 (532607)
10-24-2009 4:46 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by Colin
10-24-2009 2:02 AM


Multi-dimensional fitness landscapes.
Colin writes:
I understand your argument, but you are talking about the chances of an individual person being born.
It applies to any individual alive today. All would have a less than 1 in 10^500 of existing from a point in history 200 years ago. Getting even one of the current 6 billion unique existing genomes would be extremely unlikely to Behe's way of thinking. Yet we're all here! And why? Because history has got to go somewhere, but doesn't have targets
Behe was not talking about an individual creature or even an individual mutation. The only target set was adaptation to the drug, by any means.
So what? Give us the target of solving the problem of any one of the diseases that currently plague us by any adaptation, and evolution hasn't solved it, has it? Look at the things that we vaccinate for. Pick one disease. That's your target. By any mutations. Evolution hasn't solved that specific thing, and it doesn't have to.
If we, as intelligent designers, attack any species with poison, giving it a specific "target" to solve, there is no reason why we should expect evolution to solve it, although fast breeding parasites often do.
In reality, species have a range of options by which to gain a advantage, and this would make the true set of targets for that species. And then there are numerous species each with their own complete set of options, which would constitute the complete set of all targets for evolution.
You're getting warmer, but forget the word "targets". Evolution happens in a multidimensional, ever-changing fitness landscape.
I use the word 'targets' purposely, because we are told that evolution is the mechanism responsible for causing great diversification in life on Earth by adaptation to environments.
It (evolution) still has no "targets". It wanders aimlessly. Looking at the results is doing so with hindsight. As with my "proto-cat" to tiger example, it can always seem improbable to you if you make up "tiger" as the target in your mind. This is Behe's fundamental mistake.
To test this, I need to give evolution the target of causing a species to adapt and change. If you say that evolution doesn't have a trend towards adaptation, then what exactly is the theory saying? Is the adaptation required for resistance so uniquely difficult and complex, that it should be considered a statistical anomaly within evolution?
It is not particularly "complex" just because it was rare in that species. "Rare" doesn't mean "complex"!
The theory is saying that variation and natural selection are responsible for the origins of species (the diversification of life on earth, as you put it). You don't need to give a species a specific target to test this. Dividing organisms of one species into two groups in different environments to see if you get divergence (and incipient speciation) would do it. And this has been done, with the results we would expect.
Whether or not a mutation is essential at the time is beside the point.
Not really.
Changes still need to be made, and those changes need to be significant enough to appear on natural selections radar. All life on Earth originated from a single species correct? If so, this is an incredible claim. Massive changes (or countless little ones), need to have taken place. Behe is showing that at least in this case, even modest adaptation is alarmingly slow considering the sheer numbers of reproduction.
Changes have been made, are being made, and will be made is better than changes "need" to be made, but what you are saying there is correct, apart from the "incredible claim" bit, and the last sentence. How many individuals of a specific species it takes to solve a very specific given target is no indication of how many individuals it takes other species to gain any advantageous mutations or mutation sequences.
Mutations make the "variation" part of evolutionary theory. I've already pointed out further up the thread that it is not lack of variation in genomes that stops a grey wolf becoming a terrier or a dingo in a few thousand years, and it is not lack of variation that stops a wild mustard plant becoming Brussels sprouts or Chinese broccoli in the same time period. These species do not have to sit there waiting for 10^20 individuals to exist before making "modest" changes, but they make quite significant ones in what is virtually zero geological time. So, why does Behe want to believe that it is mutation that is putting a tight limit on evolution? Religious desires?
What do you think?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Colin, posted 10-24-2009 2:02 AM Colin has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 97 of 149 (532666)
10-25-2009 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Kaichos Man
10-25-2009 8:56 AM


Re: Joe Thornton (and creationist targets).
Kaichos Man writes:
bluegenes writes:
Thornton named a specific team having a specific record and scores. He pointed to something that couldn't be predicted. You agree that whatever happened isn't unlikely, and that Colin's existence isn't unlikely.
Let me put it another way.
Process: baseball. Target: World Series. Result: Yankees.
Process: procreation: Target: a child. Result: Colin.
Process: evolution. Target: none. Result: peacocks.
Has that clarified things?
It makes it clearer that you don't seem to understand the quote that you originally decided to comment on.
Thornton writes:
Finally, Behe erroneously equates evolving non-deterministically with impossible to evolve. He supposes that if each of a set of specific evolutionary outcomes has a low probability, then none will evolve. This is like saying that, because the probability was vanishingly small that the 1996 Yankees would finish 92-70 with 871 runs scored and 787 allowed and then win the World Series in six games over Atlanta, the fact that all this occurred means it must have been willed by God.
Kaichos Man writes:
Process: baseball. Target: World Series. Result: Yankees.
Process: procreation: Target: a child. Result: Colin.
Process: evolution. Target: none. Result: peacocks.
Process: history of baseball. Specific targets: None. One specific result: the 1996 Yankees finished 92-70 with 871 runs scored and 787 allowed and then won the World Series in six games over Atlanta.
Process: human biological history: Specific Targets: None. One specific result: Colin, with his unique genome, was born.
Process: history of life on earth. Specific targets: None. One specific result: Peacocks.
Process: formation and history of the solar system. Specific targets: none. One specific result: the Saturn system exactly as it is now.
This illustrates one of the problems that Michael Behe faces when he is trying to demonstrate that any specific historical result of naturalistic evolution that has occured is improbable and therefore must require his god.
It is like claiming that Obama becoming president of the U.S. instead of one of the tens of millions of other Americans of his generation is improbable, and therefore requires intelligent design from above.
Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-25-2009 8:56 AM Kaichos Man has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-26-2009 9:37 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 102 of 149 (532951)
10-27-2009 1:26 PM
Reply to: Message 100 by Kaichos Man
10-26-2009 9:37 PM


Re: Joe Thornton (and creationist targets).
Kaichos Man writes:
bluegenes writes:
Process: history of baseball. Specific targets: None.
I'm sure the organisers of the World Series would be flabbergasted to hear that.
I'm sure that the English players of Rounders and the German players of Schlagball would have been astonished if someone had suggested that a thing called the World Series was the target of their hobbies, let alone the highly specific 1996 seasonal result for the Yankees of finishing 92-70 with 871 runs scored and 787 allowed and then winning the World Series in six games over Atlanta.
History, Kaichos, is not a person with volition and targets.
Kaichos Man writes:
bluegenes writes:
One specific result: the 1996 Yankees finished 92-70 with 871 runs scored and 787 allowed and then won the World Series in six games over Atlanta.
So obviously the Yankees weren't trying to win the World Series? I mean, that would make it a target, wouldn't it?
I presume they were trying to win all their games as well(and failed), but the specific seasonal result that Joe Thornton described was not a target of history, and it is the concept of targets of history that Thornton was very clearly talking about. You chose to comment on his comment, and I'm wondering how many posts it's going to take you to understand what he was saying.
Even the bluegenes "helpful illustrations for children" posts about things such as history not intending the specific outcomes of the Australian coastline or the Saturn system do not seem to have brought the point home. Colin, at least, seems to have some grasp on this. Here's what Thornton said once again.
Thornton writes:
Finally, Behe erroneously equates evolving non-deterministically with impossible to evolve. He supposes that if each of a set of specific evolutionary outcomes has a low probability, then none will evolve. This is like saying that, because the probability was vanishingly small that the 1996 Yankees would finish 92-70 with 871 runs scored and 787 allowed and then win the World Series in six games over Atlanta, the fact that all this occurred means it must have been willed by God.
He's making a simple point that I'd made on this thread in my first two or three posts.
Kaichos to Percy writes:
Colin's ancestors were trying to have a descendant. Evolution -as you have sternly lectured me on several occasions- isn't trying to do anything.
It's not actually true that all of Colin's ancestors were consciously trying to have descendents, but that's either a red herring or you've completely missed the point again. History was not "trying" or aiming for Colin, a specific result. If viewed as a target, any specific human with any specific genome appears extremely unlikely (as does any specific species).
Once Michael Behe understands this simple point, he will have made significant progress towards understanding the theory that he spends so much time and effort criticising.
Edited by bluegenes, : deletion of extra word
Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-26-2009 9:37 PM Kaichos Man has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-29-2009 2:20 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


(1)
Message 110 of 149 (533195)
10-29-2009 9:27 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by Kaichos Man
10-29-2009 2:20 AM


Re: Joe Thornton (and creationist targets).
Kaichos Man writes:
But given fertile, child-friendly ancestors, the chances of a human being occuring, Colin or someone else, is 1. Evolution doesn't have to achieve anything. That's why the overwhelming probability is that it will achieve nothing.
You're still lost on probabilities and targets, and you seem to be assuming the necessity of teleology in order to prove it, all of which indicates that you have a very Behe-like mind.
History always "achieves" something.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by Kaichos Man, posted 10-29-2009 2:20 AM Kaichos Man has not replied

  
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