Mageth

you think that complexity can arise randomly...we can intellectually and logically prove that life is too complex to have arisen totally randomly...

You are a broken record with this "random" thing. Randomness plays a part in evolution, but it is wrong to imply evolution (or abiogenisis, IMO) are totally random (as I and others have repeatedly told you).

You need to read up on self-organizing systems, autocatalyisis, etc. to learn a little bit about non-random organization in systems from "scratch."

<a href="http://www.ezone.com/sos/" target="_blank">Here's</a> a place to start.

And <a href="http://www.calresco.org/sos/sosfaq.htm" target="_blank">here's</a> another good site.

Oolon Colluphid

Right. That does it. Listen up, you guano-brained imbecile. I have told you EVERY TIME you’ve said this (I can’t be bothered to go back and check, but it’s at least four times previously) that evolution is not a random process.
EVOLUTION.

IS.

NOT.

A.

RANDOM.

PROCESS.

Not. Random. Is someone translating this for you into some foreign language? Do they not have an English-Thiaooubian dictionary?

The ‘selection’ in ‘natural selection’ is not there just to make up the numbers.

<a href="http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=random" target="_blank">www.dictionary.com/search?q=random</a>

<a href="http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=selection" target="_blank">www.dictionary.com/search?q=selection</a>

This is your last chance to get what passes for your brain around this concept.

Only the ‘best’ (at the time, and comparatively) survive at each generation. They pass on their ‘best-ness’. If an improvement turns up randomly (and with lots of genes, lots of individuals and lots of generations, this is far from improbable), it will automatically spread through the population as generations pass. Repeat. And repeat. With this method, what you can get after millions of repetitions is complexity.

Could a human eye be derived from something very like itself, but not quite as good? Of course. If you doubt it, just make the gap between the previous eye and yours smaller, till it could have. Remember that not everyone has perfect eyesight, yet they still manage.

Could that eye have also been derived from something very like itself, but not quite as good? Of course.

Give yourself, say, a million versions in a row. Just how different could the eye be after 1,000,000 slight de-improvements?

If it took 100 years for each improvement to turn up and spread (that’d be over 100 generations for something like a mouse, for example), that’d still be only 100 million years, or only back to the Jurassic. Or about 2.8% of the way back to when life started. Even at a thousand years for each tiny change, that would still be only a quarter of the way back through life.

And we know from modern population studies (eg the Grants’ work on Daphne Major finches) that changes can turn up and spread through populations a wee bit faster than that.

Evolution is not random, and can explain complexity.

Write that out one hundred times.

whose grasp on reality, let alone science and grammar, lacks opposable thumbs...

See these boards passim for them...

Highly respected scientist that he is...

Fine. Have it your way. In which case I insist yet again that you explain the intelligence behind satellite DNA, the laryngeal nerve, fake sex in parthenogenic species, the inguinal ring, seaslug development, hind limb bones in whales and pythons, blind eyes on burrowing and cave-dwelling creatures, human post-auricular muscles, marsupials not being born straight into the pouch, foetal teeth in anteaters and baleen whales, and all the others in <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=000801" target="_blank">this thread</a>.

Armholes. Where the argument stopped is back where it’s always been: with your utter inability to comprehend even the simplest scientific idea, coupled with your inexhaustable hunger for the horseshit your cult feeds you. Go away. You are a waste of bandwidth.

TTFN, Oolon

[ August 16, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Richiyaado

Yes, yes, Oolon, but why do you think complexity can arise randomly?

TooBad

"...whose grasp on reality, let alone science and grammar, lacks opposable thumbs..."

Excellent.

Writer@Large

I think Oolon took care of the "random" part of this comment, so I'll keep myself to the other part: that it can be "proven" that life was designed.

No, you cannot; at least, you have not done so. That was the point of my contention; you seem to have ignored it. "The Freedom of Choice" fails to prove, even logically, its argument for design.

Saying "we've proven it" over and over doesn't make it so.

Nonsense. One just has to have good logic.

Now you're confusing two things. There is a difference between "society" and "the scientific world." And you're right; in order to sway science, Dr. Chalko is going to have to come up with something better than "creating life is more complex than building a house!"

"logically sound case"!

You overstate your own case, and now you drastically understate the case for evolution. You finally got one thing right: mutations, which are often the fodder for evolution, are random ... but that is as far as the randomness goes. And not only has science proven that these mutations occur, it has proven that even the slightest difference--the slightest change or mutation--can have an enormous effect on survival potential--an entirely non-random factor. This is not speculation; this is fact, borne out by decades of observation, measurement, and collected data.

Which will be a hoot and a holler to watch.

Well, at least you understand that. Dr. Chalko believes that Tinkering from the Ninth Planet created us; it is up to him to prove his theory. It is enough for the rest of us to look at the facts and go "nope, it don't float."

--W@L

Jonesy

Ok, if you say these organisms actually 'select' what to do, what to mutate with, then doesn't this mean they display some type of intelligence that they use to determine these selection processes? If suddenly faced with a 'selection dilemma', an organism makes a decision surely based on 'learned' attributes, which is a sign of 'learning' and as such 'some type of intelligence' being present. (this intelligence does not have to be large, but it is still 'intelligence')

Daggah

Go back and read it again, Thiabooby. Your understanding is pathetically lacking.

Writer@Large

Thiaoouba:

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Your last response proves two things:

1) You lack any actual understanding of evolutionary theory, and

2) You utterly refuse to discuss any criticisms of your ideas, prefering instead to ignore them in favor of tossing out another nugget of "argument."

Why I waste my time ...

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

--W@L

Oolon Colluphid

I did? Where? As far as I know, I said nothing of the sort. Because that would be the opposite of what I mean.

“Mutate with? “Mutate with? Sorry, I was forgetting just how basic this needs to be. What is mutated is DNA. This means that as copies are made, errors slip in by accident, randomly (see definition above). That is why it is called ‘random mutation’.

And no. The organisms do not do the slightest selecting. Darwinian evolution, reduced to almost a formula, is ‘random mutation’ plus ‘natural selection’. Natural selection is a mechanism external to the organisms. All it means is that those organisms that are best adapted to their environment leave the most descendants. Organisms that are not quite as good as their competitors, who haven’t quite got what it takes (whatever that may be) in that environment (compared to the others), simply leave fewer descendants. Thus the most well adapted at each generation are ‘selected’. Hence, ‘natural (‘it just kinda happens, no thought required’) selection’.

They show as much intelligence as you do, every time you put finger to keyboard. That is, none at all.

The intelligence involved is of the same sort as that which water and cooked rice show when one passes through a sieve, and the other stays in it. Natural selection is a constant, ongoing genetic sieving process. The genes that make less efficient (compared to the others) bodies leave fewer descendants: they get caught in the sieve. Only those genes which make the best-adapted bodies get through to the next round, the next generation. To be sieved again. And again.

What you get after millions of such sievings is stuff that’s good at getting through sieves: stuff that’s good at surviving long enough to reproduce. Stuff that has been 'selected' as winners of this round, over and over again.

Nothing need be aware of selection pressures. That’s the whole point. It’s why Dawkins put ‘blind’ in the title of his book. It just works that way, inevitably, automatically and without any ‘mind’ needed, once you have replicating entities (no copying process is perfect... and the mistakes are random) and competition (which causes selection, with only the ‘fittest’ passing on their genes).

Got it yet?


Hopefully, once (if you ever) understand the above explanation, you’ll see how daft what you’re saying here is.

Why?

Huh? So a monkey that learns to walk on its back legs will decide to mutate its relevant genes to make its body better at such walking??
&lt;shouts&gt; Is there a Reception class science teacher in the house?!

Well the words on the screen in front of me must have been typed somehow, as they’re in more or less coherent English. If we attribute them to Thiaoouba, it’s a sign of 'learning' and as such 'some type of intelligence' being present. (This intelligence does not have to be large, but it is still 'intelligence', though.)

Sorry Thia. That's a bit unkind. Maybe you are not irredeemably stupid. You are, unfortunately though, undoubtedly the most ignorant (not meant perjoratively, simply meaning lacking in knowledge and understanding) person I've ever communicated with.

TTFN, Oolon

[ August 19, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Writer@Large

With all due respect, Oolon: the organisms have a part in selection--the equation, IIRC, is ‘random mutation’ plus ‘natural selection’ plus 'sexual selection,' the third component being indeed the choice of the individual organisms and sometimes a force working counter to survivability.

Not that this makes Thia's argument any more coherent. I just wanted to make sure I had it all correct.

--W@L