Re: News: Replaying evolution.

Bob Casanova wrote:

On Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:50:54 -0600, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by dkomo <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx>:


noshellswill wrote:

On Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:09:30 -0700, Bob Casanova wrote:



On Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:18:31 -0400, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by noshellswill
<noshellswill@xxxxxxxxx>:



On Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:18:16 -0600, dkomo wrote:



Bob Casanova wrote:


On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:28:08 GMT, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Ye Old One <usenet@xxxxxxxxx>:




On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:08:36 -0600, dkomo <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx>
enriched this group when s/he wrote:




Ye Old One wrote:



Replaying evolution
By Patrick Barry
June 2nd, 2008

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32801/title/Replaying_evolution_

Scientists show that happenstance mutations matter

WTF? The only thing this experiment shows is that *all* mutations matter, whether happenstance or not.

All mutations are happenstance (though that is a merkin word that I
don't like) in the sense that none can be predicted.


Unfortunately, a recent thread (sorry, don't remember which)
included an individual who claimed that since the universe
is 100% determinate (a concept I reject) a rewind would
result in *exactly* the same world we see, complete to that
jelly stain on your shirt, since *all* events, including
every cosmic ray that hit and mutated a gene, would repeat
exactly.


You're referring to Rev 1.0 of "Evolution is NOT Random", which was a tentative hypothesis based on classical determinism. I'm working on Rev 2.0 which takes into account mutations based on radiation and acknowledges that these are *intrinsically* random and not repeatable. The final conclusion about replaying the Great Tape is not much different, however, so I doubt that you'll like it. The world *exactly* gets replaced by "to a degree of similarity approaching 100%".


--dkomo@xxxxxxxx

I don't think you get to "...replay the tape...", because you 'aren't
allowed' to re-wind it!

Look up "thought exercise".


BC:

Not all thought-exercises are <permissible>. Arguably, re-winding is one
of them. For the reason(s), look up "wave-function" collapse and
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Re-winding is a swamp; as I understand
the issues, here are the alligators...


Rewinding the tape of evolution is only a metaphor. It is not the relevant aspect of this thought experiment.

Consider an equivalent way of replaying evolution without the problems of rewinding. Start with a trillion (or some other large number) of identically prepared earths. The starting conditions for these earths would have to include all aspects of the surrounding physical environment, for example the solar system with the sun, asteroids and comets, all with identical starting conditions. Now start time going at the same instant on all these earths. Now you can ask, "what could possibly be different on each earth to cause evolution to diverge?" *That's* the question I'm asking. Where could the randomness, if any, be coming from?


I'd say (and have repeatedly said) quantum effects, which
seems to be confirmed by...


By the way, "identically prepared systems" is a a concept commonly used in quantum mechanics to illustrate ensemble averages taken across observables.


....which would result in identical outcomes if quantum
effects were irrelevant, but which demonstrably do *not*
result in such outcomes.

And now the question can be asked, "How much of a difference to evolution do mutations produced by radiation make?". If a single important beneficial mutation like this occurs on one of the identical earths, is the history of life greatly changed? How many mutations caused by radiation are even beneficial? What fraction of all mutations are radiation induced? Perhaps the history of life would barely be affected at all.


--dkomo@xxxxxxxx

.

Relevant Pages

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