avocationist
Posts: 173
Joined: Feb. 2006
|
Chris,
Quote
The weasel program was meant to demonstrate cumulative selection not evolution.
Yes, but without deciding the end result at the beginning, blind forces might never get there.
The whole question of search space is an interesting one, because we may not really know the factors that would help to narrow down the search. When certain evolution detractors have put forth what would appear to be the search space, the possibility of a solution to this or that problem is often quite out of reach, no matter how many e coli you have working for you. Problem is, organizing factors or emergent properties all seem to change the nature of our universe. They all seem to require some fundamental intelligence.
Why do you read several evolutionary papers per week?
Quote
This may be an irreconcilable philosophical difference, sufficed to say any of the laws I described would not be any more proof of this consiouness to me than if they did not exist. Having said that I am perfectly willing to accept the existence of a god, but I would still need scientific evidence of his involvement in evolution.
Are you familiar with cosmic fine tuning? It's not just a few laws here and there. They say, for example, that the amount of matter in the universe is within one billionth of what it needs to be in order to have a stable universe. That is, the parameters are that narrow. Nature's Destiny by Denton does a good job of explaining a wide array of them.
Quote
Having said that I am perfectly willing to accept the existence of a god, but I would still need scientific evidence of his involvement in evolution.
There is no way for God to be omnipotent or omniscient unless God is actually everywhere, and in everything. I think of evolution as an inside job, not one of an external being. It seems to me the evidence is fairly strong that random processes didn't cause this universe, or its laws, or its existence in the first place. What do you think of the information based arguments for ID?
Quote
I had this problem over at UD, the best way to look at it is that random means that the organism does not know which mutations will increase fitness.
It's too bad you guys over there have different names and I am clueless what's going on. It may be that the organism turns on a mutation feature, and in a specific area of the genome, and then suddenly gets the mutation for digesting nylon. For me, that's just too good to be true but we must also account for the organism's ability to direct itself like that in the first place.
Quote
Presumably you mean that we need an evolutionary path for every single system for it to be scientifically acceptable to infer that it did evolve?
I don't think so. Behe complains that there are none in the literature that are really any good. If we had a couple of quite good and plausible routes for some very complex systems to evolve, then the pressure would be off. It wouldn't matter that we couldn't explain each one.
Quote
I would say that modern evolutionary theory certainly does not rule it out.
Saltation?
Quote
(homology flaw) Why is that a flaw, have I missed something?
I'm referring to the problem that homologous organs often do not arise from the same genes, and that during development, they are often grown from different body segments or in a different order or from a different group of cells. Animal forelimbs develop from different body segments. Homology is difficult because many or most genes control widely divergent body parts. The eye color of drosphila is controlled by a gene th also controls female sex organs. Mouse coat color and mouse size are on the same gene. Chickens are subject to a detrimental mutation in a single gene that causes a wide array of malformations, some of which are unique to birds and others which are shared by other vertebrates.
No only do homologous structures in closely related species arise from different genes, but nonhomologous structures can arise from the same gene.
Quote
This may be true in some cases, but in many cases journals are so eager to publish innovative 'against the grain' work that big name journals can end up publishing bad papers.
I suspect that this greatly depends on just which grains are being rubbed.
|
