Re: An atheist professor & his student

On Thu, 7 Feb 2008 21:57:35 -0600, "Elvis Kabong"
<ampscience@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Rob" <Rob@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

Greg, the little bugs are not thinking and trying to mutate. The most
powerful force in the world of Darwinian evolution is death. Example:

Say you have a billion and ten microorganisms that can survive in a
given environment. You bombard them with a powerful antibiotic. It
kills a billion of them--all but the last 10...the meanest most
bastardly of all of them. Now those 10 have all the resources of their
world (too often that is your own body) to themselves--no competition.
They can reproduce like crazy. All their kids take after them, so most
of the offspring bacteria will in turn be resistant to the same
antibiotic. This goes on until their population has rebounded to a
billion and ten, but now they are all resistant. *

It may appear that there was some intent, but there is none. This
simple concept has been shown to produce amazingly complex things that
are simply better suited to survival.

On a larger scale, a controlled lab experiment reported the mutation
of a two chambered heart into a three chambered heart in one
generation. The nature of genetic mutations can indeed do such things.
(Refer to "Hox genes", for instance) Drastic mutation mechanisms are
usually fatal. But they can (rarely) make a rapid 'jump' to create a
new, adept variant on a species.

Some of the Intelligent Design Creationists insist that evolution
can't create something as complex as a human eye.


But simple computer
simulations have proven that wrong. The simulations start with a
simple flat light-sensor like you'd find in bacteria. Then allow it to
'reproduce', affording a very tiny random shift in the way that its
offspring work (this is analogous to DNA mutations caused by cosmic
rays and chemicals). The newborn sensors are most often screwed up,
but sometimes they see better. The ones with better vision are
'rewarded' with an increased chance of survival. In the real world,
they would be more likely to find food and to avoid predators.

Sounds simple enough, right? Within a reasonable amount of time, the
simulations were developing convex lenses and focusing mechanisms!
That is how evolution works. This is why it may -appear- that complex
organisms and structures spring up from random chance. It requires a
inheritance of the parents' properties (with occasional mutation, as
we see in DNA), and it requires that the unfit have lower chance of
survival.


Oh really now. From what I've heard there has yet to be a
computer built with the complexity of a single human cell.

Computer simulation, Elvis. It's a complex program, but doesn't have
to be as complex as an actual cell. A simple video game can model the
behavior of a car without having to construct one.

The point was: Given similar starting point, and setting in motion the
same types of design decisions (only the more adept survive til the
next round), the computer model started coming up with the same types
of constructs (lenses, etc) that have evolved in nature.

The concept sounds like an iron cage match, and it essentially is. The
idea of eugenics was once popular in many civilized countries:
sterilize the inferior, breed only the more adept. Very controversial
at the time, but eugenics had the support of many in England and the
USA. Nazi Germany helped to clarify the uglier aspects by taking it a
step further and just killing those with an IQ below a certain level
(not just Jews).

Nature's own approach is harsh, something akin to eugenics. The weak
and slow organisms are lunch. That concept, carried through for a few
billion years, has bred complex, intricate organisms suited for
survival in select environments...such as ourselves.

Long-term survival is a continuing story. I think Arthur Clarke said
"It remains to be seen whether intelligence is a survival trait." In
the future, it could be more important to be impervious to radiation.
.