Re: Does anybody have any evidence that all evolutionary events are

dkomo wrote:

John Wilkins wrote:


dkomo <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



John Harshman wrote:

...


It's my understanding, based on occasional and strictly exposure to
physics, that it's been shown that quantum events can't be determinate,
i.e. that there are no hidden variables. But if they are truly random,
and if mutations are the result of individual quantum events, which they
frequently are,

Where do you get that mutations are the result of individual quantum
events? As far as I can tell, mutations are poduced by chemical
interactions, and these occur at the molecular level rather than the
atomic, nuclear or subatomic level. A point mutation like a base
substitution might be caused by thermal noise, for example, but I
wouldn't consider that a "quantum event".


Even the occasional gamma particle is hardly the major source of
mutation. I too understood most mutation to be thermal noise and
mispairings.



Agreed. However that still makes mutations random, and not just random
with respect to fitness. Truly random, just as if they were caused by
qunatum events. You could never predict where and when a mutation will
occur, hence there goes your determinism.

This is true if two other things are true:

1. Thermal noise and mispairings are not deterministic. If, as you say,
they are not quantum events (or if their precise occurrence is not
controlled by quantum events), then they must have causes, even if we
are not able to untangle them.


2. Mutations direct the course of evolution. If individual mutations are
not important, i.e. happen in sufficient quantities and directions,
regardless of whether they are truly random, they merely become
background for deterministic processes such as selection and drift. (It
may sound odd to consider drift deterministic, but it's merely due to a
complex set of causes that we have no direct access to.)

If either of these is not true, then evolution is deterministic. This
doesn't mean that we can in practice predict its course in detail,
because we have little access to either the initial conditions nor the
complete causal chain. We have no idea which squirrels were struck by
lightning on September 14, one million and forty-two BC, for example, or
what their genotypes were.



.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Does anybody have any evidence that all evolutionary events are
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  • Re: Does anybody have any evidence that all evolutionary events are
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    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Does anybody have any evidence that all evolutionary events are
    ... and if mutations are the result of individual quantum events, ... Where do you get that mutations are the result of individual quantum ... and these occur at the molecular level rather than the ... substitution might be caused by thermal noise, for example, but I ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Does anybody have any evidence that all evolutionary events are
    ... and if mutations are the result of individual quantum events, ... Where do you get that mutations are the result of individual quantum events? ... As far as I can tell, mutations are poduced by chemical interactions, and these occur at the molecular level rather than the atomic, nuclear or subatomic level. ... A point mutation like a base substitution might be caused by thermal noise, for example, but I wouldn't consider that a "quantum event". ...
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