Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft


Wall Of Sleep wrote:
Iain wrote:

Wall Of Sleep wrote:

Deadrat wrote:

"Wall Of Sleep" <Sabotage@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:IVqIf.31472$Eq.18754@xxxxxxxxxxx


Deadrat wrote:



"Wall Of Sleep" <Sabotage@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:TiqHf.1655$7C3.1396@xxxxxxxxxxx



Deadrat wrote:



"Wall Of Sleep" <Sabotage@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:fs6Hf.55$Lr.14@xxxxxxxxxxx

<snip>

No, corruption means a "change" basically. Using a language analogy,
changing the letters in any sentence is a "corruption" of that sentence
- whether it changes the meaning or not. Sometimes one change can
completely destroy the meaning, sometimes it makes little difference,
and rarely it makes for a completely different meaning.


I think I understand now. You have been seduced by your analogy, which
like all analogies, is only as useful as it is exact. When you say that a text
has been "corrupted," you mean changed from the original, "true" text. We
know we have such a text because we have the assurances of the author as
to what the text is and what the text means. Thus if we hear the actor playing
Hamlet say

To flee or not to flee. That is the question.

then that is a corruption of a text that we know is about suicide not about running
away.

With an organism, there is no such true copy. There is only the DNA of a
surviving organism. A change to that organism's DNA is simply a change for
good, bad, or indifferent.


I think that's a bit misleading. The DNA sequence is changed, therefore
there are pre and post mutation sequences. They can be compared.


Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity
means, we can't say whether one is more specific than the other.



To improve on your analogy, suppose we have a play in which the actors make
random changes to the text. There isn't expected to be a standard text, but the
critics judge each night's performance (with attendant changes). If the critics like
the changes, they write glowing reviews and audiences attend: those changes stay.
If the critics don't like the changes, they pan the changed version, audiences stay
away, and those versions close.

Let's examine two lines from Thursday's performace.

Alice: Bob is true, kind and brave.
Cathy: Bob is actually one of those things.

On Friday, the dialog goes like this:

Alice: Bob is true, kind, and brave.
Cathy: Bob is actually none of those things.

This is a one-letter change. It's hard to say it's a corruption, since no one expects
there to be a standard version of the play. The only thing that counts is the reviews.
Is the changed text more or less specific? True, Cathy's line means something
different on Friday than it did on Thursday, but that's all you can say.


First, any change is a corruption of the original.
In that example the specificity has not changed though, as there is
essentially "equal" meaning, precision and detail.


There is a change from Thursday's performance, which is just one in a long
string of slightly different plays. There is no "original." There are two different,
intelligible English meanings, but without a definition of "specificity," I don't see
how you can say that the two performances are equally specific. One might
envision, say, that for Cathy to say that Bob is true or kind or brave has a much
different implication for the later acts than were she to say that Bob is none of
these things. For the purposes of the analogy, however, the only thing that matters
is what the critics like.




However what if this
was the change:

Alice: Bob is true, kind, and brave.
Cathy: Bob is actually fne of those things.

Meaning is lost. Precision, detail and exclusiveness are also reduced.
Therefore there is a loss of specificity.



Meaning is lost because you insist that the English semantics is important.
But in the DNA analogy the only things that's important is what the critics
say. Also note that although fne isn't an English word, what matters is how
Cathy pronounces it. The text is the DNA, but the performance is the
expressed protein (if you will).


Exactly. It is the result that matters. You must know the result to
measure specificity.


Then I don't understand why specificity is important. In the example, there
is a text change and an actor speaks a line different from the previous performance.
I guess you can say that the new play isn't as specific to the old play, but so what?
All that matters is whether the critics like it.


That's *not* all that matters. First off, it has to work. If there is no
function - where previously there was - then this mechanism cannot be
the "champion" you claim it to be. It is incapable of building
specialized functions that previously did not exist. Of course "the
critics" might still like it - indeed it *is* possible to lose functions
and survive - perhaps even thrive. But the only type of evolution you
have then is "from man to soup". You need to show that it works the
other way around.

In short, you *need* a mechanism that is robust enough to *build*
specified complexity.



But Wall, that's the "combination lock view".

Let's look at some of what you call "specified complexity" -- The human
heart, for example.

The human heart did _not_ get this way because natural selection
adapted it to _this_ environment. As I think you realise, that would be
impossible, or unlikely. Early hearts did not develop with a view to
becoming what we have now, either.


The fact that you think the human heart "developed" from an earlier form
shows how much your view is colored by evolutionary thought. How do you
know the heart developed from anything that wasn't... a heart?


You ask "How do we know that modern features are evolved from previous
features".

That's a good question with very good answers.

Two main reasons, and third personal one(maybe another poster will add
more) -- First, the fossil record and its shades of gradiation along
geological time quite often gives us detailed answers. Take your pick.
However, you'd be right in pointing out that the development of softer
organs is more, although not wholly elusive, seeing that they do not
fossilise directly.

Secondly, the structure of the genome does not specify organs
straighforwardly, but instead seems to arrive at them by improving on
what touched on other routes. For example, birds very briefly
developing teeth in the womb, humans tails, and so on.

If we look at the bird genome, lo and behold, we find the DNA for a
toothed mouth that is simple deactivated by newer DNA.

So, these two things match:
1) Fossil record leading to toothed birds
2) Birds developing teeth early in the womb before being stifled by
newer genetic info.

In other words the development of embryos appears constrained by the
SAME history we see in the fossil record.

Birds aren't the only example of this. It's a rich orgy of evidence all
pointing in the same direction.

Finally, common descent helps answer the following question: Given that
synchronised adaptation is an observed reality, what becomes of that
reality? If it's been happening for millions of years, we'd expect to
see the effects of it cascade down the strata, and we do in the fossil
record. If the fossil record isn't evidence of what we already know is
true having been happening for a long time, what stopped it from
happening all that time?

Common descent also neatly explains the nested hierarchy structure. All
the time we see characteristics that are found either together or not
at all, but that don't need each other. What has nipples, doesn't lay
eggs. There's no need for that connection -- Why shouldn't something
with nipples also breast feed what hatched from an egg? There's no rule
against it. Why such a bias? Why is it such a firm rule?

It becomes immediately explicable with one takes them as having a
common origin.

So as you can see common descent has both a lot of evidence and a lot
of explanatory power.


It's all a hypothetical argument - and you're using it as evidence?

I'm explaining to you that although you say that natural selection is
not robust enough to build complex organs, I am saying that the reason
you take that view is that you are forgetting that natural selection
does not just build from scratch organs that are suited to one
environment, but instead is always meandering and improving on past
development in order stay up to date with the latest environment, which
changes like a kaleidoscope.

To simplify, natural selection doesn't just mean a steady state of
adaptation; It also means a steady state of exaptation. Organisms
cannot get less apt with a view to becoming more apt. That is why they
pile on complexity. Please reflect on that.


The "robustness" of evolution is not that it will build "specified
complexity" -- Instead, it will always adapt whilst making the most of
previous development.

In other words, the heart is being built upon as needed, while at the
same time, what already exists of the heart is always improving to
compliment that. If you remember that this is happening under a
changing kaleidoscope of ecosystems, it will "ratchet up" complexity,
because it cannot backtrack with a view to improvement.


Wrong. Natural selection has no "improvement goal".


It has the net effect of leading population gene pools to become more
fitting, which leads it down irredeemably complex routes.


This is why the bird genome has all the D.N.A. for a set of teeth,
their growth stifled only by the effects of newer D.N.A..


Or maybe those teeth are part of a designed genome that was made for
adaptation to a wide variety of environments.


Part of a WHAT? Why do they need to be "made for adaptation" when we
know that gene pools already have it in them to adapt anyway?

~Iain

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... then that is a corruption of a text that we know is about suicide not about running ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... then that is a corruption of a text that we know is about suicide not about running ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ... The human heart did _not_ get this way because natural selection ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ... The human heart did _not_ get this way because natural selection ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... resistance increases the survival rate more than the change to the attachment ... If mutations rarely produce a more specific coding, ...
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