----- Original Message -----
From: "Tedd Hadley" <hadley@reliant.yxi.com>
To: "Evolution Reflector" <evolution@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 3:53 PM
Subject: Re: ID
> "Ami Chopine" writes
> in message <009201bfc4d5$b73bf020$3f8df4d0@vh2>:
>
> Before I get to the details I want to understand something: is
> it your contention that any process or experiment that involves
> intelligence in any way can not model a non-intelligent process?
Not really. But we must be very careful about how intellegence can affect
the outcome of the experiment. Hence, we have controls, double blind
studies, and the like
to filter out intellegent influences.
> For example, we can set up an erosion experiment in the lab with
> a slab of rock, sand and running water. Would you claim that
> any erosive features formed prove nothing about nature since
> the experiment involved intelligence?
Not at all. Let me further the analogy of this experiment with the Darwin
chip one to show you what I mean, and what information the Darwin Chip gives
us about evolution.
Intellegence placed the rock, sand and running water in the lab. It was
placed in such a manner as to achieve the desired result. Obviously, there
would be no erosion each of these were placed in a different container.
Also, the water was made to run. While these things were intellegently
placed, the experimenter does her best to mimic nature. Then she stands
back and lets the running water do its work without intervention save to
keep the water running. Thus, the process of erosion is documented very
well, and verified in nature. But this experiment has no say on how the
water or rock in nature got there. It is also very poor at documenting how
other processes may have shaped the rock.
Intellegence placed the chip, a genetic algorithm, and a mutation and
selection process together in a manner to achieve the desired result. The
selection process is made to work on every generation. Certain things were
done to filter out any influence intellegence might have in the process
(this is made clear in the article) Then, except to keep the mutation and
selection software going, they stood back and watched what happened. The
process of natural evolution was documented very well. But it says nothing
about how the original equipment got there, or other processes which may
have shaped the diversity of life. Indeed, no diversity occured, but only
the astoundingly efficient ability to determine the difference between two
tones. This also can make no comment on whether purpose in selection exists
in nature, as there was only an intellegent, purposeful selection here.
If not, please clarify
> how intelligence does or does not allow the extrapolation
> of lab results to nature.
It depends on the design of the experiment, and the results extrapolated
from it, as I said before.
> <snip>
> > Tedd:
> > > Think about asking the question "who designed our economy?".
> > > The answer obviously isn't a single person or intelligence;
> > > however, answering "human beings" has some problems. How can
> > > we be said to have designed something that large when all we
> > > did was individually add small steps to a process with solving
> > > only simple, short-term goals in mind?
> >
> > Ami:
> > But it was intellegence which moved here, and there is no such
> > thing in the traditional view of RM and NS.
>
> The point I'm trying to make is that invoking "intelligence" is
> *not* enough to explain economic complexity. How can we correctly
> say the economy was intelligently designed when no one planned,
> conceived or predicted it? Who had the blueprint for it? Who
> directed each of the billions of tiny steps it required? The
> conclusion seems unavoidable that complexity from simple origins
> can occur without an intelligent plan or blueprint.
>
I have never claimed that intelligence is enough. But I do claim that the
complexity would not have happened without intelligence. The difference is
that by our ability to percieve problems, solutions, slightly better
methods, and to predict consequences do these many small, individual steps
lead to the economy.
> Or are you saying that because humans are intelligent, in some
> sense our collective intelligence over time and space forms a
> sort of vast "brain" that *can* be said to be the intelligence
> that designed our economy? I sort of agree with that, but then
> I want to highlight the principle that emerges from that -- that
> many simple steps, each requiring only simple, limited intelligence
> can produce something that only a vastly greater intellence could
> conceive.
>
> If limited goal-directed intelligence can produce something like
> that, why not even more limited intelligence? Let's keep
> decreasing the level of intelligence while assuming that organisms
> still have to reach some sort of goals (food, reproduction,
> etc.).
Even with these goals in mind, the organisms cannot change their genetic
makeup or that or their children.
At what point does complexity not naturally emerge from
> that kind of arrangement? I maintain that complexity *always*
> emerges from that.
The only systems I'm aware of that has enormous complexity where its origins
and development is unknown is the world ecosystem and its individual parts.
Every other complex system in existance had intelligent purpose involved at
some level.
The ecosystem, the "balance" of nature,
> is the complexity that emerges from millions of unintelligent
> organisms going about their simple business.
Balance leads to stasis, not diversity.
<snip>
regarding bacterial resitance:
Tedd:
> Wouldn't you have seen purpose before you knew about the mutation?
> Virus and bacteria want to live and infect hosts and beating an
> antibiotic is very important to them and they've found a way to
> do it. That seems to fit the definition of purpose to me.
They found nothing. They got lucky with a mutation. They didn't even
percieve that the mutation was desirable. Only natural selection killed all
those who didn't have it.
They don't want anything, in the same sense that you and I do. They float
around and if food or a means of reproduction comes to them, the proper
responses are activated. There is no purpose to their actions, only IF THEN
reactions. IF there is food, THEN eat it. IF you get too big, THEN divide.
Purpose by my definition, inolves the willful manipulation of enviroment to
achieve desired ends. It requires an ability to comprehend, plan, and enact
in order to be effective.
> What I'm asking is why we should ever trust "seeing purpose" at
> all, since, so far, it's been about as reliable as a desert mirage.
Your contention is not based on purpose as I define it. We cannot dismiss
this purpose in the evolution of life. As I said before, except for the
unknown of life, every complex system had purpose involved. Since the
origins and genetic development of life is unknown then we must be aware of
underlying assumptions and not give them the status of fact. Whether we
like it or not, such assumptions affect science and are not, themselves,
scientific.
The phycisists go by an assumption that has never been proven. It is simply
that the solar system is not the unique center of the universe.It is,
actually, an unscientific assumption, since it is beyond our present ability
to test. It does solve some problems, as previous theories based on a
heliocentric universe were becoming unwieldy and defying common sense.
I suggest that the assumption of no purpose in the development of life is
unwieldy and defies common sense.
>
Tedd:
> What I've described above [The natural evolution of flight]
requires no multiple chance happenings,
> merely step by step. Feathers have interesting genetic connections
> with scales and "scutes" suggesting that one evolved from the
> other (whether proto-feathers or scales were first is open to
> question). Biped dinosaurs having proto-feathers have the selection
> advantage of warmth, sexual display or maneuverability. At that
> point, changes in arm shape for better control of leaps or glides
> is another selective possibility.
>
> Of course this is speculation, but I think it serves to refute
> your claim that a whole lot of events must happen at once
> to make flight possible.
There are intermediates that were in other ways more clumsy than either the
fast runner or the animal in flight, so that the next mutation would need to
be before they were killed off. What about behavioral modifications? Any
innovation in nature that happens step by step rely on the appearance of
beneficial mutations in a timely manner. Not only that, the mutations
involve bodily changes which cannot affect other parts of the body
adversely. And certain steps would, indeed, require more than one gene to
be mutated or created for the entire step to be succesful.
<snip>
> > > > But what if there was intellegent selection? What if that is
> > > > the form that ID takes?
> > >
> > Tedd:
> > > Seems unncessary.
> >
> > Ami:
> > Only to those who have faith in chance. It is an underlying
> > philosophical assumption, not a tested fact or theory.
>
> I took your original objection to state that there were too many
> coincidences that must be invoked to explain flight (which I've
> shown need not be the case) -- not that the evolution of flight
> has some kind of philosophical nature to it. I don't see
> that faith in chance is required, only that selection and
> mutation are logically capable of a great deal of change.
>
Yes, that is my objection, that there are too many coincidences. Too many
beneficial mutations occuring in a timely manner. The reason why
intellegent selection or mutation seems unnecessary to you is your basic
underlying assumption that all things must happen naturalistically. You
have faith that the right mutations occur with great frequency. The fossil
record is not proof of this, it is only proof of gradual change. We do not
know what the engine was that powered that evolution.
> > The only task natural selection takes into account is survival
> > long enough to reproduce. Obviously single celled creatures do
> > that very well. How did they gain new abilities?
>
> It seems there is no barrier to prevent it.
>
There is no barrier to prevent a mountain to get up and move. There is no
barrier to prevent my computer from writing this letter itself.
There is no barrier to prevent an object moving in a direction to change
direction or speed. Nevertheless, it does not change direction unless a
force acts
on it.
That is a rather weak argument. Having no barrier to prevent something does
not mean that it will happen.
Ami Chopine
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 26 2000 - 10:54:43 EDT