Re: GOOD DEFINITION OF MACROEVOLUTION! BY WALT BROWN AND RON KUKUK! I AM READY TO TALK ABOUT THIS DEFINITION AND DEFEND IT I WILL ONLY ANSWER THOSE..THAT I THINK ARE BEHAVING THEMSELF!

On Jul 23, 1:53 pm, "mel turner" <mtur...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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<sheldo...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On Jul 22, 12:10 pm, "mel turner" <mtur...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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<sheldo...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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[snip]





* By EVOLUTION we mean a naturally occurring, beneficial
change that produces INCREASING COMPLEXITY.

They can mean that, or they can use "evolution" to mean "a
blueberry
scone with cream cheese", but nobody else has to follow them in
either
usage.

You just don't want the idea of purpose to be associated with
evolution.

That's something of a non sequitur, since the quoted Walt Brown
definition said nothing about associating evolution with any
purpose.

No, I did, about you.

Again, without any apparent connection to the foregoing.

To the foregoing what?

To the preceding discussion up to that point.

There was an apparent connection to your
response above, if that's what you meant. You didn't agree with the
Brown quote, and I told you why.

Your mindreading skills may need some work.

That may be, but I put the claim in context, which is what the entire
exchange between us up to this point has concerned.

I didn't agree with the Brown quote simply because I thought the
definition was inaccurate and misleading, not because I thought it
implied anything at all about "purpose", which so far as I can tell,
it doesn't.

Since I replied only to your response to the first part of the quote,
that is the subject of our exchange. You can disagree with my claim of
your intent, of course, but the substance of your argument against
must hold up. You think that first part was "inaccurate and
misleading", yet admit that some regard increasing complexity as a
reality of evolution. And so far, your arguments (extinction...) do
not appear to falsify the definition by Brown, and the similar
definitions, or observations, I referenced.

It simply didn't seem to serve any good purpose [as it were] for them
to create some new, non-standard definition of "evolution". They should
have instead simply described what they specifically wanted to talk
about in a few words.

This assumes there is some "standard" of defining evolution, and in a
few words. Good luck with that.

Anyone can associate 'purpose' with evolution if they wish to
[that's likely to be popular among "theistic evolutionists"], but
it won't be part of the science or of any scientific definition of
"evolution".

Well certainly evolutionists don't want there to be any connection.

Except for all those who do. Do you wish to argue for a connection?

No evolutionist would. Do "theistic" evolutionists have a different
scientific definition of evolution?

Do they need any different scientific definition of "evolution" to
believe that there is some divine higher purpose behind it all? Do
chemists who are also theists need to do the same about their
concepts?

They can believe that frogs rule the universe as well, but that isn't
a part of what they must accept to be evolutionists. I'm not talking
about what people "think" but what they may, or rather what you and
other evolutionists may think, about what may happen if an
*association* is possible between evolution and purpose. That could be
made possible by accepting evolution as a process of increasing
complexity.

I'd say they couldn't and still be regarded as evolutionists.

"Evolutionists who are also theists" may or may not believe that the
deity that they believe exists is somehow involved in the day to day
operation of of evolution. Such a belief needn't affect their
understanding of evolution and its apparently "naturalistic"
mechanisms.

A meterologist who is also a theist may personally, privately believe
that God is ultimately in complete control of the weather, but he's
still going to talk about cold fronts and low pressure systems and
all the other apparently unintelligent, purely "natural" immediate
causes that he studies. How is evolution any different?

It isn't. You apparently don't understand. I'm not talking about what
people think privately, but what is and may be accepted as scientific.


My claim is that evolutionists don't want
to accept increasing complexity because that might open the door to
considerations of purpose.

Again with the attempted mind-reading of others' unspoken true
intentions. Good luck with that.

It is an implication. However, purpose is quite the opposite to
evolution. The phrase "sufficient to explain" is widespread and
accepted, as is "nothing in biology makes sense....".

I still don't see a connection between complexity as such and any
implication of purpose.

Likely you really don't, yet I still suspect that you are not telling
the whole story. Were the observation that life has proceeded towards
complexity accepted, an association could be made of life in the same
way that anthropic, fine-tuning observations are used to imply
purpose. This is a subject that should not escape you, often involving
concepts such as emergence, entropy, etc. The subject is often brought
up here.

I also have no problem with accepting plenty of increasing complexity
during evolution. It undoubtedly has occurred and still occurs, however
problematic it may be to define or quantify "complexity". Increases in
size, increases in numbers of parts, increases in differences among
different parts, increases in genome size, increases in numbers of
genes, new biological functions, etc., all did and do occur. So do the
reverse.

It occurs to me that what would be regarded as threatening
evolutionists is if these observations of increasing diversity and
complexity were associated with rules or laws. So far, I see none, but
rather an observation of a "pattern" if you will, what has just
happened, creates the appearance of increasing complexity. Your
arguments against this are based on evolutionary concepts. It is these
concepts that would be threatened, perhaps altered unpredictably.

As to your question, I'm arguing from the
evolutionist perspective. I can easily see complexity increasing
within the evolutionary scenario.

As do evolutionists including myself. I still don't think there are
any all-pervasive trends toward increasing organismal complexity among
the groups that are already very complex.

Like evolution not occuring anymore? Surely you can. Competition
doesn't stop. Is there something about "simplicity" that appeals to
you in the sense of having some value?

But then "complexity" is going to be hard to define and to quantify.
Is the toothlessness of an anteater a loss of complexity, or is it
part of a complex new functional adaptation? Numerous parts [teeth]
are now missing, but there are also complex new modifications of the
snout and tongue.

I have provided you with some evidence to support that increasing
complexity is being considered. Personally I think a lot of words are
hard to describe when the chips are down, but that doesn't seem to
affect science.

[snip]

"Some evolutionary changes involve neither beneficial change nor
increased complexity."

And just why does this mean that life on earth has not progressed
toward increasing complexity? Is beneficial change an increase, and un-
benificial change not an increase, for example?

It seems to me that complexity vs. simplification, and
functional/beneficial vs. non-beneficial changes are two rather
separate questions.

I don't see any simplification, do you? And I sure don't see why non-
beneficial changes would not be considered as part of increasing
complexity.



http://astrobiology.ucla.edu/pages/res4a.html
"Progress in the evolution of life on Earth is measured by an
increase
in biological diversity (biodiversity), by an increase in
morphological disparity, and by progress towards increasing
complexity."

Interesting claims, but ones that I doubt are valid. [I note they
misspelled "principles" in the next sentence, the one in which they
used "this" for "these". A bit sloppy of them. But proofreading is
irrelevant to substantive content.]

It appears to me that principal is a better word to describe the
statement, since principle implies rules or laws.

They said the above increases "are general principals which apply to
any living system". "General principles" indeed implies rules or laws,
and the context fits that meaning.

What rules or laws do they identify?

The identified rules would seem to be their claimed general tendencies
to increases in diversity, morphological disparity and complexity.

Tendencies are rules? Come now, Mel. Principal trends can be
considered tendencies, but tendencies somehow don't fit the definition
of principles.

Sorry, the word principal seems
to be the correct one to use. They are the main observations, not
"rules" or "laws". They may indeed by principles, but until rules or
laws are identified, they are observations.

[Shrug] Then they should have said "principal observations" or
"principal trends" or something. "Principal" if meant as you suggest
ought to be an adjective and not a stand-alone noun. Not that it much
matters, but I still think they were referring to the three claimed
trends as "general rules". Whether they are "general rules" or "general
observations", they're still disputable as being overgeneralizations.

It was implicit; "progress is measured by..." It is a generalization,
but that doesn't make it not a valid observation.

I've no idea what a "general principal" might be, other than perhaps
a four-star military school administrator.

I find it hard to believe that your understanding only goes that far.

Well, "principal" is also used as a noun in the financial sense of
principal vs. interest.

Look it up. Go on Scholar and search "general principal".

Perhaps you wanted
the statement to read correctly using principle, since you think that
would be easy to dispute.

It's easier to dispute a sentence that makes some sense, yes.

Actually it doesn't matter. Use principle. Assume the article meant
that increasing complexity is a principle of evolution.

Or that that was a "principal generalization" about evolution that
they wanted to make. Both amount to much the same.

Which, by the way, fits what I said about
you not wanting to associate complexity with evolution.

Another non sequitur. How does your alternative reading of their
sentence associate complexity with evolution any more than mine?

It doesn't.

For that matter, you didn't say anything about my not wanting to
associate complexity with evolution. Remember? You said something
about me or perhaps evolutionists in general not wanting to associate
"the idea of purpose" with evolution. Hardly the same thing.

It was implicit. You were responding against increasing complexity,
and I told you why.

Again, the mind-reading trick seems to be on the fritz.

I was simply responding to a gratuitously non-standard definition
being held up as a "good definition". I'd likely have criticized any
other definition I thought was "wrong", since their non-standard
definition serveed no apparent purpose and might lead to confusion,
equivocation and strawmanitis. I would have made very much the same
criticism if they'd defined "evolution" exactly the opposite, as
_never_ involving beneficial changes or increases in complexity.

Should I mindread your "standard" definition as regards the progress
of life on earth?

How does the "idea of purpose" imply a general trend toward increased
complexity? Purposes might conceivably sometimes require
simplifications, and complexity alone needn't serve any purpose.

You have it backwards. Increased complexity could imply purpose. And
complexity doesn't serve a purpose, but imply a purpose.

I still don't see why that follows.

That what is relevant to the discussion is complexity implies purpose,
rather than serves a purpose? I don't have a response if you don't
understand that.

Surely you
are not unaware of ID claims about complexity. Consider increasing
complexity in evolution. What explanation could there be for it?

Any of various explanations, depending on the case. No doubt the
question is itself a rather complex one.

Those various explanations are at the very heart of this.

But then, Brown's quoted definition of "evolution" didn't even touch
on any explanations of the increasing complexity, other than saying
it was "naturally occurring", which may or may not say something about
its having any purpose.

The tendency toward increase in biological diversity produced by
speciations and cladogenesis will be offset by extinctions of many of
the clades. Diversity may be more or less stable over the long run,
but will also rise and fall especially with occasional mass
extinctions. The "morphological disparity" bit would tend to
parallel the biological diversity pattern.

Excuse me, but life on Earth has not suffered an extinction.

A great many branches of life on earth have, however.

So what? Cars are becoming increasingly complex. Because Ford goes out
of business does not detract from that fact, nor would a car being
junked.

Again, my extinction argument said nothing about trends with regard
to complexity.

Then I fail to see why you mention it.



On the other hand, all do.

All what do what?

"Suffer an extinction".

The extinction argument against complexity is a
very lame one.

The extinction argument was just against the idea that biological
diversity was constantly increasing. If species and groups of species
may be going extinct about as rapidly as new ones are forming, then
the net diversity of living species on earth at any one time [measured
in terms of numbers of species or families or whatever] needn't
increase at all. During mass extinctions it may drop a whole lot.

No requirement of *constant* uninterrupted increase is necessary for
life on earth to be observed as increasing in complexity, or for that
matter for any species that has ever existed.

Again, the point here was just about diversity, not complexity.
Remember? Increasing diversity is the first of the three principals
or principles your quoted site mentioned.

You will separate them? They appear to me to go together in what was
described as progress. This isn't a new thing, Mel. Darwin is full of
it, as is histroy before and after him.

It occurs to me that we could on the other hand decide to count both
living and extinct organisms as the total diversity of life [why hold
being dead against the extinct ones?], in which case yes, the total
cumulative diversity that life has produced so far on earth is
indeed constantly increasing. It's just that a lot of that diversity
is now extinct [and the ratio of extinct to living will also be
constantly increasing].

You may want to consider that extinct lifeforms no longer exist,

They're no longer alive, but they're still a real part of the total
history of life's diversity. In that sense they still "exist".

That makes no sense. Progress is measured from any given point. Choose
any point. Progress of life isn't reduced because one part dies.

and
that even those may have increased in complexity until that
extinction.

Again, we're just talking about diversity, not complexity. Still on
the first of their three "general principals".

You, perhaps. I would include all as together. From whatever point in
time you wish to look at, diversity is claimed to increase from that
point.

I don't consider extinctions part of *evolution* anyway.
Why should I?

No such suggestion was made here, but arguably extinction plays a
large role in shaping the overall pattern of macroevolutionary history
[somewhat the way a sculptor creating local absences of stone defines
the final sculpture].

If so, extinctions have contributed to the trend of increasing
complexity. The proof is in the pudding, Mel.

Life has gone on, and many evolutionists claiming, with
increasing complexity as well as diversity. You only have to look at
the start and the end to see the apparent observation.

But are there really any uniform trends toward increasing complexity
once we get far away from the "left wall" at the early Precambrian
start of things? Are modern pine trees more complex than Cretaceous
ones?

Neither quote claimed "uniform" trend, if you'll notice.

Then there's likely little left to discuss. The one site did call it a
"general principal", but then perhaps "general" doesn't necessarily
even imply "more often than not"?

What you are arguing against is "evolution produces increasing
complexity". This is implied in arguments intended to debunk claims of
irreducibile complexity. It is explicit in evolutionist arguments
about "new information" and such. But I don't think you can find
anything that has an absolutely uniform trend, including the speed of
light.

The increasing complexity claim is the most dubious of the three, if
we're looking at life after some of it has diversified far away from
the initial simplest forms of life [the "left wall" idea]. Only among
the earliest, simplest life would we expect there to be a consistent
trend toward increasing complexity.
see, e.g.:http://brembs.net/gould.html

Nah, it's apparent.

Some may claim it's apparent, and others may disagree, myself
included. But perhaps this needs to wait until some clearer criteria
for measuring relative "complexity" are available.

And what if that happens?

Then we can study numerous specific cases and try to generalize
something from them?

Lost me there. I'd have thought you would say "and try to find rules
and laws", instead of "generalizations".

How do we decide whether a chicken or a hummingbird is more complex
or less complex than an Archaeopteryx?

Don't ask me, it's not my position.

Nor mine. Is it anyone's?

Well it appears there are at least three, according to the references
in this thread. But why is it relevant to the question of whether life
on earth has progressed towards complexity, that Archy and a chicken
be compared?? Certainly they fit into different niches in their own
times. But since Archy doesn't exist anymore and chickens do, and
progress is usually described as being in a foreward direction, I'd
go with the chicken were I an evolutionist.

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Review_Complexity.pdf

"It is a common observation that complex systems have a nested or
hierarchical structure:they consist of subsystems, which themselves
consist of subsystems, and so on, untilthe simplest components we
know, elementary particles. It is also generally acceptedthat the
simpler, smaller components appeared before the more complex,
compositesystems. Thus, evolution tends to produce more complex
systems, graduallyadding more levels to the hierarchy."

Sounds like an interesting claim. Thanks for the link.

Perhaps it's theirs.

Doesn't it have to be, assuming your chicken argument is a valid
consideration?

.

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