Re: Lack of evolution in computers and living things

On Jun 12, 1:25 pm, Vernon Balbert <vbalb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Not when the same limitations that are seen in computer evolution
programs are also seen in living systems.

Living systems, like computer systems, simply do not evolve novel
beneficial systems of function if the novel system requires more than
a few hundred protein building blocks (amino acid residues) working
together at the same time. There seems to be a threshold limitation
to what is evolvable in observable time. This threshold is well shy of
functionally beneficial systems that require 1000aa. This threshold
has never been observed to be crossed in either computer systems or
living things. In fact, the evolutionary mechanism of random mutation
and function-based selection stalls out, in an exponential manner, as
this threshold is approached.

Novel beneficial systems do not spring to being overnight. It takes a
long time with gradual developments to produce new structures. Witness
a new study based on e. coli which produced a sub-species that can
consume citrate for nutrition. It took over 44,000 generations to do
this, but it's been repeated.
(http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02/a_new_step_in_evolution.php)

This is not significantly different than a host of other such examples
of evolution in action – such as lactase evolution in E. coli or
nylonase evolution and many other examples of the evolution of novel
single-protein enzymatic functions that do not require more than a few
hundred amino acid residues working together at the same time.

You have to ask yourself why evolution works so well and often so
easily when only a few dozen residues are required at minimum, much
less commonly when hundreds are requires (tens of thousands of
generations in a large colony of individuals) and not at all when more
than 1000aa are required at minimum? Why is there this exponential
stalling out effect for evolutionary potential as one moves up the
ladder of functional complexity?

Computer programs can only do what they've been written to do.
Bacteria, on the other hand, are not entirely predictable.

Bacteria, like all living things, are computer programs. What are not
entirely predictable are the random mutations that affect the
bacterial program. The very same thing (random mutations) can be set
up to affect computer programs in exactly the same way. Where is the
real fundamental difference?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Lack of evolution in computers and living things
    ... Living systems, like computer systems, simply do not evolve novel ... functionally beneficial systems that require 1000aa. ... Give it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years, and it will produce the kinds of "macro" changes that we observe in the fossil record and in the DNA record. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Lack of evolution in computers and living things
    ... Living systems, like computer systems, simply do not evolve novel ... There seems to be a threshold limitation ... functionally beneficial systems that require 1000aa. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Lack of evolution in computers and living things
    ... able to mimic what biological evolution has done. ... Living systems, like computer systems, simply do not evolve novel ... There seems to be a threshold limitation ... functionally beneficial systems that require 1000aa. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Lack of evolution in computers and living things
    ... By whatever mechanism, Ohno's or other, computers should be ... able to mimic what biological evolution has done. ... There seems to be a threshold limitation ... functionally beneficial systems that require 1000aa. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Lack of evolution in computers and living things
    ... beneficial systems of function if the novel system requires more than ... a few hundred protein building blocks (amino acid residues) working ... to what is evolvable in observable time. ...
    (talk.origins)