Mr BA^77,
I don't understand why you are continually raising the stakes for yourself. You can ignore me, I'm sure. But I think it is inappropriate to expect that any thread you have posted on is therefore offlimits for me to comment on also. That is hardly fair or within the moderation policy here on UD.
Let's get back to trilobites and genetic entropy.Nakashima
August 14, 2009
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I would just like to say for the record that I believe Mr. Nakashima is acting well within his rights, in commenting on this thread. I would like to add that on those occasions when he and I have engaged in debate in the past, I have always found his comments to be polite and well-informed.
In making the above statement, I do not wish my remarks to be construed as making any kind of criticism (implicit or explicit) of bornagain77, whose posts and links I appreciate.vjtorley
August 14, 2009
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Nak,
If I felt you were willing to learn, I would not mind, but as you have repeatedly demonstrated, to myself and others, you will never concede ANY point when refuted, thus your supposed "contributions" are useless to any meaningful dialog I may be is since you have made it clear you are actually trying to impede any meaningful progress. If you continue to refuse to obey my request to you to refrain from conversations I am in, I will no longer contribute on UD.bornagain77
August 14, 2009
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Mr BA^77,
I'm not asking you to leave a conversation. Please, continue responding to Mr Wisker or anyone else as you see fit. You may ignore or respond to my comments as you please.
I'm sorry you feel I've contributed nothing. I thought my comment on the relevance of genetic entropy to variable, long lived and diverse species was on topic. YMMV.Nakashima
August 14, 2009
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Nak,
Why should I have to leave a conversation I am in the middle of and to which you have contributed nothing? Please respect my wishes for you to refrain from any conversation I am in.bornagain77
August 14, 2009
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Mr Wisker,
I agree that adaptive radiations usually have a strong basis in niche availability. However, the point of the Webster study was variation within species, not the success of trilobites at radiating into thousands of species that lived (cumulatively) for 270 million years. Certainly that is a point against using trilobites as an example of mutational meltdown as well.Nakashima
August 14, 2009
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Mr BA^77,
I'm sorry, but we have similar interests. I'm not stalking you, trolling you, or flaming you, just engaging a point you brought up. Please choose not to respond to any of my comments if you see fit. I won't think less of you for it. If you want a private blog where Nakashima comments are not allowed, perhaps the mods here can help you.Nakashima
August 14, 2009
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Dave Whisker's main conjecture:
"adaptive radiation will not occur without ecological opportunity."
And he is correct in that species will rapidly radiate when a proper environment presents itself, but he is incorrect to ignore that the propensity to radiate is always found to be much greater for "ancient" lineages and is also found to be severely limited for sub-species of the ancient lineage, which is exactly what genetic entropy predicts:
African cichlid fish: a model system in adaptive radiation research:
"The African cichlid fish radiations are the most diverse extant animal radiations and provide a unique system to test predictions of speciation and adaptive radiation theory(of evolution).-------conclusion of the study?------ the propensity to radiate was significantly higher in lineages whose precursors emerged from more ancient adaptive radiations than in other lineages"
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16846905
Thus Dave has actually stolen from what is exactly predicted for the genetic entropy model to make it seem as if neo-darwinism is still viable as a theory, after what was a crushing blow delivered by the Cambrian Explosion i.e. he cannot extrapolate to adaptive radiation to explain how the species "arrived" in the first place. He needs to conclusively demonstrate how a novel species arises: Yet in
"ALL" test for novel speciation we find severe limits:
“Whatever we may try to do within a given species, we soon reach limits which we cannot break through. A wall exists on every side of each species. That wall is the DNA coding, which permits wide variety within it (within the gene pool, or the genotype of a species)-but no exit through that wall. Darwin's gradualism is bounded by internal constraints, beyond which selection is useless." R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990)
Natural Selection and Evolution's Smoking Gun, - American Scientist - 1997
“A matter of unfinished business for biologists is the identification of evolution's smoking gun,”... “the smoking gun of evolution is speciation, not local adaptation and differentiation of populations.”
Keith Stewart Thomson - evolutionary biologist
Selection and Speciation: Why Darwinism Is False - Jonathan Wells:
Excerpt: there are observed instances of secondary speciation — which is not what Darwinism needs — but no observed instances of primary speciation, not even in bacteria. British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton looked for confirmed reports of primary speciation and concluded in 2001: “None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another.”
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/selection_and_speciation_why_d.html
Dave then goes on to conjecture environmental/ecological constraints as a mechanism for why "consistent" loss of variability is found across the entire spectrum of trilobites. This is indeed far-fetched on Dave's part for trilobites were prolific and had worldwide distribution for 270 million years... But to drive the point home as to how detached from reality Dave is in this matter, I will point out that the environment was not becoming more constricted for "evolutionary opportunity" as Dave imagines, but was instead being significantly enriched with a greater diversity of minerals, which clearly should have presented MORE opportunities for evolution to demonstrate its awesome powers of creating new species from the trilobites. (As well other species were doing well while the trilobites were slowly loosing diversity) Indeed trilobites with amazing new abilities should have been noted in the fossil record:
The Creation of Minerals:
Excerpt: Thanks to the way life was introduced on Earth, the early 250 mineral species have exploded to the present 4,300 known mineral species. And because of this abundance, humans possessed all the necessary mineral resources to easily launch and sustain global, high-technology civilization.
http://www.reasons.org/The-Creation-of-Minerals
Thus once again, when faced with what we find from the "real" world evidence, evolution falls apart with scarcely any rigid scrutiny at all.
But all this goes to the heart of the matter for evolutionists NEVER address how natural process can generate information in the first place (they NEVER will) thus they have never even established their theory as viable with reality in the first place... That Dave would object to Genetic Entropy without ever addressing the main issue Genetic Entropy asserts from a foundation grounded in physics (Natural processes can only work to degrade the complex information found in life) is to highlight the slipshod method in which evolutionists practice science, They never connect with reality, with real science, and as such cannot rise above pseudo-scientific enterprise it has always been.
"Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting." -- Ernest Rutherfordbornagain77
August 14, 2009
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Mr Nakashima,
Both hypotheses are probably involved. Whenever we look at adaptive radiations (and the Cambrian explosion is certainly a spectacular example), the ecological conditions play an important role: no matter how variable a population is genetically, adaptive radiation will not occur without ecological opportunity. Rapid radiation requires both genetic variability and ample diverse niches. When it occurs, complex food webs develop that can be sensitive to subsequent changes in ecological conditions. Key changes in environment can produce spectacular collapses of these food webs-- often resulting in extinctions of whole lineages which in turn contributes to a decrease in the overall species diversity.
All of this is fairly basic ecology, and does not necessarily involve mutational meltdown to explain any of it.Dave Wisker
August 14, 2009
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Nak,
Please respect my wishes for you to refrain from any conversation I am in.bornagain77
August 14, 2009
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Sorry, I don't see the support for genetic entropy in that study at all. Where is the quick mutational meltdown? How is a family of thousands of species, lasting for 270 million years, evidence of rapid genetic failure?
Webster himself offers two hypotheses, one of which is the exact opposite of genetic entropy.
And just to be clear, the phrases "(Yet Suprisingly)", and "surprising and unexplained" are your glosses. They don't appear in the text.Nakashima
August 14, 2009
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Also of note from the Boston Globe article
"And, because his (Chen's) years of examining rocks from before the Cambrian period has not turned up viable ancestors for the Cambrian animal groups, he concludes that their evolution must have happened quickly, within a mere two or three million years."
First off it should be noted that evolutionists have always tried to stretch the Cambrian to as many millions of years as they could get away with:
Evolution's Big Bang:
“Yet, here is the real puzzle of the Cambrian Explosion for the theory of evolution. All the known phyla (large categories of biological classification), except one, first appear in the Cambrian period. There are no ancestors. There are no intermediates. Fossil experts used to think that the Cambrian lasted 75 million years.... Eventually the Cambrian was shortened to only 30 million years. If that wasn't bad enough, the time frame of the real work of bringing all these different creatures into existence was shortened to the first five to ten million years of the Cambrian. This is extraordinarily fast! Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould stated, "Fast is now a lot faster than we thought, and that is extraordinarily interesting." What an understatement! "Extraordinarily impossible" might be a better phrase! .... The differences between the creatures that suddenly appear in the Cambrian are enormous. In fact these differences are so large many of these animals are one of a kind. Nothing like them existed before and nothing like them has ever appeared again.”
Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin, University of Illinois (B.S., zoology), North Texas State University (M.S., population genetics), University of Texas at Dallas (M.S., Ph.D., molecular biology).
Thus now evolutionists are stuck with a extremely short time frame of 2 to 3 million years, but does even this amount of time help them?
NO!
The “real work” of the beginning of the Cambrian explosion may in actuality be as short as a two to three million year time frame (Ross: Creation as Science 2006: Chen 2000) which is well within what is termed the "geologic resolution time" i.e. The time frame for the main part of the Cambrian Explosion apparently can't be shortened any further due to limitations of our accurately dating this ancient time period more precisely.
Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories By: Stephen C. Meyer; Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington
"To say that the fauna of the Cambrian period appeared in a geologically sudden manner also implies the absence of clear transitional intermediate forms connecting Cambrian animals with simpler pre-Cambrian forms. And, indeed, in almost all cases, the Cambrian animals have no clear morphological antecedents in earlier Vendian or Precambrian fauna (Miklos 1993, Erwin et al. 1997:132, Steiner & Reitner 2001, Conway Morris 2003b:510, Valentine et al. 2003:519-520). Further, several recent discoveries and analyses suggest that these morphological gaps may not be merely an artifact of incomplete sampling of the fossil record (Foote 1997, Foote et al. 1999, Benton & Ayala 2003, Meyer et al. 2003), suggesting that the fossil record is at least approximately reliable (Conway Morris 2003b:505)."
http://www.discovery.org/a/2177
Thus as Chen Stated:
"the Cambrian explosion of new body plans is proving to be real, not an illusion produced by an incomplete fossil record."bornagain77
August 14, 2009
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Frost,
His notes of rapid diversity spanning within the Panarthropoda (superphylum) is consistent within the Genetic Entropy framework. As is clearly illustrated by the study of the arthropoda Trilobite by Mark Webster:
The following article is important in that it shows the principle of Genetic Entropy being obeyed in the fossil record by Trilobites, over the 270 million year history of their life on earth (Note: Trilobites are one of the most prolific "kinds" found in the fossil record with an extensive worldwide distribution. They appeared abruptly at the base of the Cambrian explosion with no evidence of transmutation from the "simple" creatures that preceded them, nor is there any evidence they ever produced anything else besides other trilobites during the entire time they were in the fossil record).
Excerpt from article:
It appears that organisms displayed "rampant" within-species variation "in the 'warm afterglow' of the Cambrian explosion," Hughes said, but not later. "No one has shown this convincingly before, and that's why this is so important."
"From an evolutionary perspective, the more variable a species is, the more raw material natural selection has to operate on,"....(Yet Surprisingly)...."There's hardly any variation in the post-Cambrian," he said. "Even the presence or absence or the kind of ornamentation on the head shield varies within these Cambrian trilobites and doesn't vary in the post-Cambrian trilobites." University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster; commenting on the "surprising and unexplained" loss of variation and diversity for trilobites over the 270 million year time span that trilobites were found in the fossil record, prior to their total extinction from the fossil record about 250 million years ago.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html
Thus Chen findings are perfectly consistent with the Genetic Entropy framework,,,bornagain77
August 14, 2009
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Frost,
Here is a paper by Chen that just came out this year:
2009: Chen Jun-Yuan
The sudden appearance of diverse animal body plans during the Cambrian explosion.
The International journal of developmental biology 2009;53(5-6):733-51.
Abstract:
Beautifully preserved organisms from the Lower Cambrian Maotianshan Shale in central Yunnan, southern China, document the sudden appearance of diverse metazoan body plans at phylum or subphylum levels, which were either short-lived or have continued to the present day. These 530 million year old fossil representatives of living animal groups provide us with unique insight into the foundations of living animal groups at their evolutionary roots. Among these diverse animal groups, many are conservative, changing very little since the Early Cambrian. Others, especially Panarthropoda (superphylum), however, evolved rapidly, with origination of novel body plans representing different evolutionary stages one after another in a very short geological period of Early Cambrian time. These nested body plans portray a novel big picture of pararthropod evolution as a progression of step-wise changes both in the head and the appendages. The evolution of the pararthropods displays how the head/trunk boundary progressively shifted to the posterior, and how the simple annulated soft uniramous appendages progressively changed into stalked eyes in the first head appendages, into whip-like sensorial and grasping organs in the second appendage, and into jointed and biramous bipartite limbs in the post-antennal appendages. Haikouella is one of most remarkable fossils representing the origin body plan of Cristozoa, or crest animals (procraniates+craniates). The anatomy of Early Cambrian crest animals, including Haikouella and Yunnanozoon, contributes to novel understanding and discussion for the origins of the vertebrate brain, neural crest cells, branchial system and vertebrae.
http://www.biomedexperts.com/Abstract.bme/19557680/The_sudden_appearance_of_diverse_animal_body_plansduring_the_Cambrian_explosionbornagain77
August 14, 2009
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In the basement they had several large sculpture displays of artist’s renditions of our primate ancestors. Yes, one of them was Nebraska Man.
Maybe they were copies of the sculptures made by HF Osborn and McGregor (both members of the American Eugenics Society.) Pictures of those sculptures appear in countless old books and encyclopedia entries. They were pure fantasy, complete frauds based on absolutely nothing but imagination. Piltdown Man was among them.
There is a plate photo of some of the Osborn-McGregor sculptures in the book The Direction of Human Evolution by AAAS president Edwin Conklin. Click here and scroll down to get the book.Vladimir Krondan
August 14, 2009
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Lenoxus, I'd like to answer it, maybe tomorrow I'm too tired for organized thought.lamarck
August 13, 2009
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Lenoxus where have you been? None of the 4 doors you list do not seem to have anyhtign to do with ID (except for the possible connection to IC)- no offfense.
First of all virtually any organism can evolve into any other organism via mutations and the like given enough imagination time and a well designed fitness landscape- but it is the improbability of those positive necessary mutations occurring that ID challenges. This is the question of did it happen by chance? That is, unguided, or was it the result of purposive design? SO no recourse to IC is needed.
Secondly no one is calling them hoaxes and ID does not need to either.
As for the idea of these creature not being able to live in their environment - I have no idea where that comes from and cant see how it relates to ID.
Now as far as an objection to them possibly being transitional fossils that strongly support the universal common ancestry view of history there are two problems. First, these two species even though different are not that far apart. In other words the skulls remain very much alike and there is as much loss of function (teeth and legs) as there is gain in positive function (blow holes, swimming adaptions etc) - So the simple to complex claim of evolution is not clearly elucidated by this example.
Now the second problem is that the tree of life is one where you start off in the oceans with water dwelling creatures and eventually more to the land to complex land dwelling creatures. The Whale example does not show this. This does not mean that there is not real evolution going on here but it does mean that this could be better case for "devolution"- which is an interesting problem here. I find it intriguing that the biggest example of UCA runs counter to the general trend of the tree of life. It just seems like another mysterious and improbable detail. And some will jump the gun and say it is not mysterious because the fossils of whales are so large that they just happen to be one of the ones we most easily find. Well that misses the point of "why should the largest fossils we find be of land dwelling creatures evolving/devolving into the oceans?"
Either way it seems to run against the tree.Frost122585
August 13, 2009
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bornagain77, lamarck, others: Can I interest you in one of my four doors (listed in my earlier comment), or any fifth door of your choosing?
DG: That's an interesting insinuation there, that the whale-fossil similarities are largely a product of our subconscious preconceptions. Huh.Lenoxus
August 13, 2009
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Born,
It is really interesting to see a scientist like Chen make such direct and explicit remarks. I have always said that i do not rule out the UCA picture of life but only remian skeptical- but in the case of Chen I would love to read some of his thoughts and work on this topic. Do you know of any resources I can read by him?Frost122585
August 13, 2009
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BA77, thanks, the second Gould quote is the one I was paraphrasing.
I didn't fully understand the polyconstrained genome argument. Is this for all genes or specifically regarding protein coding? What has a limit to it's plasticity exactly. You say interdependent genes, I can't tell if this is a subset of genes or all genes period.
I don't understand because we do see beneficial mutations albeit with info loss.lamarck
August 13, 2009
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Frost,, Yes It is VERY explicit ,,,as well this following quote is VERY explicit, and from the leading paleontologists in the world, and conforms exactly to what is predicted from a genetic entropy perspective:
In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution.
In the most published diagram in the history of evolutionary biology, Darwin illustrated what became the standard view of how new taxa, or animal categories, evolve. Beginning with small variations, evolving animals diverge farther from the original ancestor, eventually becoming new species, then new genera, new families, and the divergence continues until the highest taxa are reached, which are separated from one another by the greatest differences.
But the fossil record shows that story is not true, according to Chen. The differences appear dramatically in the early days, instead of coming at the top.bornagain77
August 13, 2009
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Vjtorley,
Thanks very much for the calculation. That's good to know it might be about five billion steps, of significant and harmonious mutations.lamarck
August 13, 2009
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Born,
I like the last quote the best.
Taiwanese biologist Li was also direct: “No evolution theory can explain these kinds of phenomena.”
It is really funny to me how explicit it is.Frost122585
August 13, 2009
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Excerpt from page two:
What they had actually proved was that Chinese phosphate is fully capable of preserving whatever animals may have lived there in Precambrian times. Because they found sponges and sponge embryos in abundance, researchers are no longer so confident that Precambrian animals were too soft or too small to be preserved.
“I think this is a major mystery in paleontology,” said Chen. “Before the Cambrian, we should see a number of steps: differentiation of cells, differentiation of tissue, of dorsal and ventral, right and left. But we don’t have strong evidence for any of these.”
Taiwanese biologist Li was also direct: “No evolution theory can explain these kinds of phenomena.”bornagain77
August 13, 2009
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I just love this quote:
“Evolution is facing an extremely harsh challenge,” declared the Communist Party’s Guang Ming Daily last December in describing the fossils in southern China. “In the beginning, Darwinian evolution was a scientific theory …. In fact, evolution eventually changed into a religion.”
Life is strange,,,,LOLbornagain77
August 13, 2009
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This Boston Globe article is a bit dated (2000) but it has some gems:
Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish
http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm
Excerpts:
CHENGJIANG, China — The fish-like creature was hardly more than an inch long, but its discovery in the rocks of southern China was a big deal. The 530-million-year-old fossil, dubbed Haikouella, had the barest beginning of a spinal cord, making it the oldest animal ever found whose body shape resembled modern vertebrates.
In the Nature article announcing his latest findings, Jun-Yuan Chen and his colleagues reported dryly that the ancient fish “will add to the debate on the evolutionary transition from invertebrate to vertebrate.”
But the new fossils have become nothing less than a challenge to the theory of evolution in the hands of Chen, a professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology. Chen argues that the emergence of such a sophisticated creature at so early a date shows that modern life forms burst on the scene suddenly, rather than through any gradual process. According to Chen, the conventional forces of evolution can’t account for the speed, the breadth, and one-time nature of “the Cambrian explosion,” a geologic moment more than 500 million years ago when virtually all the major animal groups first appear in the fossil record
And this beaut:
The debate over Haikouella casts Western scientists in the unlikely role of defending themselves against charges of ideological blindness from scientists in communist China. Chinese officials argue that the theory of evolution is so politically charged in the West that researchers are reluctant to admit shortcomings for fear of giving comfort to those who believe in a biblical creation.
“Evolution is facing an extremely harsh challenge,” declared the Communist Party’s Guang Ming Daily last December in describing the fossils in southern China. “In the beginning, Darwinian evolution was a scientific theory …. In fact, evolution eventually changed into a religion.”
Catch that last line?
Chen enjoys seeing his fossils get the attention. But to him, the big story is not that he has discovered our earliest traceable ancestor, but that the Cambrian explosion of new body plans is proving to be real, not an illusion produced by an incomplete fossil record.bornagain77
August 13, 2009
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BillB,
I have read some of the the material you pointed to. The point about thermodynamics is not whether it totally prohibits increases in complexity- nor whether heat can move and be compiled in one space or another. The question is the likelihood that that complexity will be moved in specific ways which increase functional* complexity. The specified complexity within the cell is so complex that we cant merely attribute it to the sun and the existence of a few proteins and or amino acids. The functional complexity is really quite astounding- and even if you have all the parts locally you still have the problem of assemblage. Thermodynamics 2nd law shows us that systems like these are not likely at all. So the gulf is the difference between the unlikelihood of functional specified complexity coming near and actual complexity of the cell itself.
This problem does not become easier once we have the cell either- in fact so long as the complexity increases into say higher taxa we have even greater improbable formation to account for.
I think the fact that the sun is the way it is- also gets into the question of cosmological fine-tuning as well. Often Darwinists will say I am exploiting natural laws to prop up ID- but the existence of the "form" and specified position of the sun in relation to the Earth is not an issue of law but actually another question of directed or undirected design. Newton thought the design of our solar system to be utterly apparent.
Some quotes that i think hit the point about the problem with a materialistic mechanical reductionist perspective...
“Any living being possesses an enormous amount of 'intelligence,' very much more than is necessary to build the most magnificent of cathedrals. Today, this 'intelligence' is called 'information,' but it is still the same thing. It is not programmed as in a computer, but rather it is condensed on a molecular scale in the chromosomal DNA or in that of any other organelle in each cell. This 'intelligence' is the sine qua non of life. If absent, no living being is imaginable. Where does it come from? This is a problem which concerns both biologists and philosophers and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it.”
Pierre Grasse,
“In the face of the universal tendency for order to be lost, the complex organization of the living organism can be maintained only if work – involving the expenditure of energy – is performed to conserve the order. The organism is constantly adjusting, repairing, replacing, and this requires energy. But the preservation of the complex, improbable organization of the living creature needs more than energy for the work. It calls for information or instructions on how the energy should be expended to maintain the improbable organization. The idea of information necessary for the maintenance and, as we shall see, creation of living systems is of great utility in approaching the biological problems of reproduction.”
George Gaylord Simpson
Those quotes (pulled from www.evoinfo.org) get at the time point which is it is lovely to point to the sun or some other very improbably specified causes to account for how life can be purchased but you still never get away from the question of the origin of form, specificity, functionality and most important information. The bottom line is the theory of ID explains the fundamental cause of how these things came about which is intelligence. The idea of unguided evolution is therefore really not one that matches the evidence- and this has been known and realized for a long time- at least sense the discovery of DNA (which lead its co founder to accept panspermia ID). That is why self organizational theories were pursued for some time but have proven unfruitful. There really is no good reason why or how life could evolve without guidance.
“The information content of amino acid sequences cannot increase until a genetic code with an adapter function has appeared. Nothing which even vaguely resembles a code exists in the physio-chemical world. One must conclude that no valid scientific explanation of the origin of life exists at present.”
Hubert Yockey
So how this conclusion applies to universal common ancestry- it is possible that the intelligent designer designed through and evolutionary process- but if intelligence is something that can manipulate matter on a cosmological level then that calls the entire theory of evolution into question. That is not only are the mechanisms inadequate but the tree of life itself is not required once we accept that intelligence acts on matter but does not reside within it's boundaries. in other words an evolutionary tree of life is no longer required as matter can be manipulated at will by a cosmological intelligence. The only question then is what are the boundaries of the will of that intelligence?
The 2nd law is the reality of our existence. The world shows no signs of materialistically necessary guidance. The laws of physics have even been shewn to break down at the subatomic level (uncertaintly principle). Thus, we don't even know if materialistic necessity exists at all anymore. So why is science so hell bent on ruling out ID and demanding materialsitic and mechanically necessary causal explanations of life and information's origin even when there are evidences agaist the sufficency of the DE mechanism and infavor of ID? It is abviously agenda driven- that is based on personal biases (some learned some innate). But in science both sides of the coin must be considered and I think the current evidence clearly points to a telelogical agent- especially in light of what we know about the 2nd law. Find me software randomly evolving into some brillaint functional program within it's enviornment and we can consider macr oevolution- find me a Computer arising in nature from scratch with the loaded information already on it and we can consider origin of the first life via DE pathways.Frost122585
August 13, 2009
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KF:
I took a look at Mr Schutzenberger's interview. The interview is from 1996 but even at this date he still seems to be rather behind the times in his understanding of biology and genetics.
His thinking with regard to the whole idea of function is rather narrow and confused as well. No wonder he found the idea of a few thousand genes assembling an eye to be absurd - his notion of genes seems to centre on them specifying the structure of organs.
It is my training as a computer scientist that makes me wary of naive comparisons like his.BillB
August 13, 2009
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Frost122585:
I dont really see your point given that:
1 - the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not prohibit increases in complexity or percieved functionality.
2 - It doesn't even prohibit the movement of heat from a cooler body to a warmer body, it just requires that work is done (and some heat dissapated) to achieve this.
3 - Thermal entropy can go down as well as up, its about averages.
4 - We have this thing called THE SUN!
5 - You may want to look up 'Maximum Entropy Production Principle' - some interesting stuff.
...BillB
August 13, 2009
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Ham. Do you see yonder cloud (skull) that ’s almost in shape of a camel (cetus)?
Pol. By the mass, and ’t is like a camel (cetus), indeed.
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is backed like a weasel.
Ham. Or like a whale?
Pol. Very like a whale.
ATTRIBUTION: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Willy was way ahead of Richard.DG