Re: We believe in design

--- Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/05, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Again, that we can envision a 2-dimensional
> solution much easier than
> > higher dimensions may make it harder to accept
> that neutrality works in
> > higher dimensions.
>
>
> It's harder to accept because the plain maths shows
> there is a problem. I don't seem to be getting
across
> this idea of "curse of dimension" which is
> so well known to anyone who has worked in modelling
> of high-dimensional data. So I'll make one last
> attempt to spell it out and then give up.

I see where the problem lies. You are interested in
finding the solution or optimal solution to a problem.
In other words, an exhaustive search. This is also the
problem with Dembski's latest argument about
displacement. For a local 'search' however, and I
consider the term search somewhat unfortunate, all
that matters is that areas of functional differences
are connected by networks which are neutral. Evolution
may not find the best solution, not even the best
local solution but it finds a better solution.

As someone else has already argued the nature of the
beast is that uniform sampling may not be
representative of how evolution works.

> Neutrality surely can lead to appearance of stasis
> while the genotype
> > 'diffuses' until it reaches new possibilities.
> Stasis followed by rapid
> > evolution (punctuated equilibria like...) is what
> we also observe in the
> > fossil record for instance or even in simulation
> runs. There are some
> > good examples for RNA space.
 
>
> Yes, I've seen punctuated equlibria in simulation
> runs as well, while
> waiting for the right mutation to occur, but thse
> weren't down to neutrality
> as there wasn't any capability of neutrality. You
> also see punctuated
> equilibria in the fossil record, but how do you know
> it's down to
> neutrality?

In case of the fossil record it is likely due to a
combination of factors. That however simple
simulations recover the appearance of morphological
stasis helps understand how the evolution may have
happened.
Received on Tue May 31 23:22:29 2005