Evolving the Musculoskeletal System

Haven't we talked about this before? If it's such an "intelligent system" why is the retina in backwards? Why is there a blind spot? Why are some people colorblind or nearsighted?The lens in my eye focuses the image about 1-2 mm short of resolution on my retinas, necessitating prescription eyewear for me to see much further than about two meters. Is that the "intelligent design" you're referring to?As I recall, your reply was that the eye must be "intelligently designed" because you don't have to stand on your head to see things the right way. That's a pretty low bar, don't you think, for intelligent design by the smartest being in the universe? Really? Pope John Paul II was an atheist? Natural selection doesn't have to "determine" anything - mutations that are detrimental to survival select against themselves by definition. To not survive means to die before reproducing. Nobody has to "select" against organisms that don't survive; they're already dead, they're already selected against. When a fox is able to catch the slower rabbit, nothing else has to happen for the mutations that contributed to the rabbit's capture to be selected against - it's already happened, the rabbit is dead.

Good Morning Huntard, (or what time is it for you over there in the Netherlands?) I appreciate your friendly and respectful response Mate. I was thinking if we lived in the same neck of the woods I would invite you over to watch the Super Bowl or something. We would have to keep our world views on the shelve to keep from arguing though I guessLets do a little analogy since a word picture is a pretty effective way to make a point. OK?
Lets take a man and we'll call him Mr. Chance. Now lets say for the purpose of this test Mr. Chance is a being who can live for as long as we want, lets say billions of years. Now lets give Mr. Chance a big pile of parts to work with. Lets say it is 5,000 parts along with 50,000 nuts, bolts and screws of various sizes that when fully assembled in the correct sequence would create a beautiful new Rolls Royce.Now for the purposes of this test Mr. Chance has never seen any kind of automobile and has no clue what he is suppose to build. Not only that but Mr. Chance is dumber than a room full of Creationists ...just checking to see if you were still awake. But no, lets say he has never been to a day of school in his life and wouldn't know a hammer from a screwdriver.Now giving him any amount of time you choose, would he EVER be able to assemble the Rolls Royce?

Hi, ICdesign.You've already got some responses to your post, but I'd like to add a simple side comment. Don't feel like you need to respond: it's more of an aside. No doubt this "natural selection" of which you speak wears black robes and carries a scythe, with which it kills off those that it deems unfit for survival?When we speak of natural selection killing off the weak and preserving the fit, we aren't actually envisioning a real force of nature, to which we ascribe the name "natural selection," that is analyzing information and making decisions about who survives and who dies.Rather, we are using what is called "teleonomic language." This is a metaphoric language that pretends there is intentionality where we know there isn't. It's usually done for efficiency or for ease of explanation. "Natural selection" is just a pattern of observations that the organisms that survive and reproduce well tend to be organisms that have characteristics that are appropriate for their environment, or characteristics that are conducive to successful reproduction.That's not too complicated, is it? In fact, it seems kind of a no-brainer, doesn't it? 'Those that have the tools to survive have a better chance of surviving.' Obviously.Teleonomic language is used when the results of non-intentional processes turn out to look like something that is intentional. For example, in ecology and animal behavior, there is a theory called "optimal foraging theory," which seeks to model animal foraging (food-finding) behavior. The basic model essentially treats animals as if they are making informed, economical decisions by analyzing information about their environment and their prey.The trouble is, we know that the information the animals are meant to be analyzing is not actually available to them, so they clearly aren't making decisions based on that information. Yet, amazingly enough, optimal foraging theory does a fairly decent job of modeling the foraging behavior of animals anyway. Why? Because the results of natural selection mimic the results of decision-making processes.So, just because a certain phraseology of a scientific idea seems as if it is referring to intentionality, it doesn't mean intentionality is required or implied.I hope this helped a little. Note: "Teleonomy" is not the same thing as "teleology," which is an argument that actually proposes design as an explanation, and not just a metaphor.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

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You think I don't understand the claims of the ToE. I do.
I know what its claims are and that it is impossible for those claims to be true.

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Nobody respects anything I have to offer anyway.

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The italicized part can be explained by the non-italicized part.

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This is such an astonishing system with such a high level of intelligence throughout the entire design you have to infer an intelligent mind constructed it for the purpose of allowing sight.

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Are you familiar with the concept of the circular argument?

Hi, ICdesign. First, why does he have to build a Rolls Royce?
Why can't he build roller skates or a hot dog cooker instead?
Why must the end-product be specified beforehand?
In evolution, the end-product is not specified beforehand, so this isn't a good analogy for how evolution works.Now, from where we stand in time, we have to explain how evolution produced, e.g., humans, so it looks like we have to have a process that works toward the "goal" of producing humans.But, in actuality, the end-product of "human" was not specified when evolution started: it was just the end-product that came about, and our job is to retell the story of how it went down.-----But, even if this were the way evolution works, you're analogy has left out one of the principle characters! In this analogy, Mr Selection is the supervisor, who shakes his head every time Mr Chance puts a part in the wrong place, and removes the offending part.What do you think Mr Chance's chances of making a Rolls Royce in a billion years would be then?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

That is, I believe, the real sticking point. Many people would like to think that humans in particular are some desired outcome. That is of course, supported by most religious creation stories, whether we are talking about the Judaic God, Apsu, Tu-Chai-Pai or Crow; they have some initiator that purposely creates individual critters.But that is also totally irrelevant to the question of how a musculature and skeletal system evolved.The answer to that question is really very simple. The things that did not work did not live long enough to reproduce.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

As Bluejay has already explained, this again demonstrates your misunderstanding of how evolution works. You've got Mr. Chance bumbling around with no guidance whatsoever about what constitutes a good or bad action, where his actions are analogous to mutations. Mutations get constant feedback from the environment about whether they're good or bad. Bluejay's addition of a supervisor who expresses approval or disapproval, analogous to feedback from the environment, is a much more accurate analogy.The filter of natural selection that is imposed by the environment in which populations of organisms live has been explained to you in this thread over and over again, and this is what we have to talk about. Until you stop ignoring it, as you did with Mr. Chance, the discussion cannot move forward.In case it helps, we agree with you that in your version Mr. Chance would not have a prayer of assembling the Rolls Royce…but this is not the way evolution works.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

Hi Bluejay,Thanks for your thoughtful and respectful feedback. I really mean that. Your last 2 posts have a lot of good points of view. I see Huntard logged off before my post reached him. I will give him a little time to respond since this particular conversation was for him. I know what your saying. I have a point I plan to make. It doesn't really matter what the produced product is. Yes I understand that.----- So now your saying Mr. Selection can determine a wrong place then? I give my answer in a bit.
IC

Percy,
Can you lighten up a little and quit being such a tight ass? Dang man, do you moonlite as a prison guard or some thing? If I wanted to get wacked with a ruler all the time I would go enroll at a Catholic School or something. feedback? approval or disapproval? How is this not reasoning ability? Actually with enough time it wouldn't be completely impossible.Do we have an end product that has been assembled? Yes or no?

Yes, of course. Mr. Selection is analogous to natural selection. That's why Bluejay gave him the name Mr. Selection instead of Mr. Jones or Mr. Smith.Breeding is analogous to natural selection. In breeding it is people who play the role of Mr. Selection in deciding who gets to breed and who doesn't, who gets to pass their genes on to the next generation and who doesn't. Deciding that a given animal won't be bred is analogous to Mr. Selection determining a wrong place.In nature it is natural selection operating through the environment that decides who gets to breed and who doesn't, who gets to pass their genes on to the next generation and who doesn't. For example, instead of a person it is a cold winter or a drought or a flood or an influx of predators that decides who dies and fails to leave any descendants. Any mutations that leave an organism less capable of dealing with the vagaries of nature will not leave any descendants, analogous again to Mr. Selection determining a wrong place.In reality nature isn't all black and white. Organisms can leave no descendants, one descendant, a few descendants, or many descendants. The more descendants an organism produces means the more successful it has been in its environment. Successful organisms with good mutations have more offspring. Less successful organisms have fewer offspring. Completely unsuccessful organisms have no offspring.Basically it's a race to see who can have the most offspring.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

It's currently a quarter past six in the evening here. So, good evening to you. Probably, but I think that would be true for almost all persons. As long as nothing "personal" or "fundamental" (to the persons involved) gets discussed, most people will be able to spend plenty of quality time together.Anyway, on to your analogy. I'll first answer your question: Any amount of time I choose? Yes. I'd just need to select a long enough time period. But I don't think this is what you meant.Now, let us make the analogy a bit more like evolution, ok?Let's say Mr. Chance starts with a nut, this nut happens to be in the right place. He selects a part, also right, then he selects another part, but this part is wrong. Now, Mr. Selection (who is also in the room, and who knows how to build Rolls Royces (not saying natural selection "knows" anything, but let's run with this for now)), whacks him on the skull with a funny mallet. And screams: "WRONG!". Mr Chance selects another part, it's wrong again, same thing happens.Now, every time Mr. Chance picks up a wrong part or nut, Mr. Selection whacks him and screams. When he picks up a right part or nut, and places it correctly, Mr. Selection does nothing.This will decrease the time it will take for Mr. Chance to complete the Rolls Royce dramatically. He gets to keep what is right, and every time he does something wrong, he is immediately whacked by Mr. Selection. So really, he can't build it wrong.Do you agree so far? {ABE} Heh, just read Bluejay's reply, he thought of Mr. Selection as well Edited by Huntard, : Added {ABE} bit

Mr. Selection has knowledge and reasoning ability, but that's irrelevant to the analogy with natural selection. Natural selection has no such reasoning ability. Mr. Selection's important contribution is the feedback he provides, not the cognitive skills he employs in order to provide the feedback. Mr. Selection was introduced into the analogy not because of his cognitive skills but because the purpose of an analogy is to liken something familiar to something unfamiliar in order to make it more easily understandable, and people providing feedback is very familiar. He's there providing the feedback to Mr. Chance in a manner analogous to how the environment provides feedback to mutations.But the environment employs no cognitive skills to become cold and kill off those animals with insufficient fur or who didn't dig their burrows deeply enough. There's no reasoning ability in nature. Why do you want to continue working with your flawed analogy? It doesn't matter whether or not it's possible for Mr. Chance to assemble the Rolls Royce because your version of the analogy is not the way evolution works. If you want to believe he can do it eventually then fine, it's irrelevant to evolution.--Percy

In what way do we observe a reasoning ability in the OBSERVED process of natural selection?Do we need an outside entity with reasoning ability in order for the slowest elk to be eaten by wolves at a higher rate than the fastest elk? Do we need an outside entity with reasoning in order to find the mutations that confer bacterial resistance, or do we just need mutating bacteria and antibiotics in order for these mutations to reach dominance?

Hi, Huntard. We must be the reincarnated Darwin and Wallace. Your Mr. Selection is mean (and probably more accurate), though.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.