Neilium

I do.

(Maybe I'm missing something here.)

I don't think there's any mechanism that drives DNA's mutations towards any specific goal. That sounds more like Lemarck (sp?) than Darwin. Fish DNA didn't know it needed to produce legs and lungs, nor was it given any sort of command to do so. The mutations happen randomly, and the mutations that worked survived. Granted, aspects of that survival might not be so random.

If DNA were programmed with some sort of survival mandate, my hunch is evolution would have stopped long before humans could have evolved.

I think the 1,000 monkeys with typewriters analogy would be more accurate if you upped the monkey editorial staff to billions and fired the ones who didn't regularly produce the goods.

-neil

cricket

Aside from the mutations there is nothing random about natural selection. Selection is the opposite of randomness.

cricket

Neilium,

I agree.

I don't believe it would be either one. I think Lamarckian “evolution” is within a single organism in a species... which is why it doesn’t work here either... or anywhere else really. It’s not natural selection, at all. It’s like the aforementioned weight-trainer. His conditioned muscles don’t get passed on to subsequent generations. Giraffes don't stretch their necks toward leaves, then give birth to babes who are magically longer-necked. Doesn't happen.

(I should mention that I’m not a biologist; I like to blather here but willing to be overuled by the resident experts.)

I agree w/ you that features such as legs and lungs are not pre-programmed. The admittedly random mutations occur, then the positive mutations are selected, and this builds upon previously selected mutations. The features that are selected for are selected for for a reason.

(hmm "for for" ... I’m willing to be corrected by resident grammarians, as well.)

Neilium

Hi,

Without that mutation, there is no evolution. The event at the core of every step in evolution was a random mutation.

So, how, or when, does a process that has chance as its central engine become not-random?

-neil

edited moments after reading Cricket's follow-up post.

Cricket,

You were typing away the same time I was

The results of introducing a new mutation are predicated by an iron law of nature: have or become dinner. But still, the potential food sources, predators and benevolent cohabitants any creature faces have come up through the same random process.

Anyway, enjoying the thread. Thanks for clarifying Lamarck's theory for me.

-Neil

Doubting Didymus

Deja-vu! We've just finished talking to albert about this exact question, actually. Check out the later pages of this thread for an idea of why we say evolution is not random, even though random muations are a big part of it.

Neilium

D.D.

Thank you very much. This link:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/chance/chance.html

certainly straightens things out for me. It seems there's a subtlety in the language that was lost on me originally.

Thanks again, and cheers,

-neil(ium)
the less than noble gas

seanie

The Shakespeare analogy and MrSparkle's computer programme demonstrates the power of random chance coupled with non-random selection over random chance alone.

In both instances characters are being generated randomly.

But with random chance alone the odds of your computer generating even a line of Shakespeare are astronomically low. Practically impossible. Seriously. I'm talking long after the universe has ceased to exist.

But if you have the random generation of characters coupled with non-random selection, that preserves any correct hits, your computer will be able to generate a line of Shakespeare in less than a minute.

That demonstrats the power of selection. Evolution needs random mutations to operate, but the engine of evolution is selection acting upon those mutations.

beausoleil

What puzzles me is why a computer is needed - it's a fairly simple calculation to figure out the number of random guesses you're likely to need before selection can match a string of a given length. As an old Russian colleague of mine used to say, "Is no need for computer, can be solved analytically" (I reckon anyone who can program the computer can do the calculation). But everytime I see this discussion in the literature it's some computer programme that has been written.

seanie

Well most people, myself included, can get horribly confused whrn it comes to probabilities. Cast your mind back to my very first posts on this board. A little question about two six sided dice?

And a computer can provide a visual demonstration. Show people calculations and their eyes may glaze over.

Darth Dane

Think about it like this:

All these strings of DNA, spiralstrings! strings of atoms, which teh dna consists of (correct me if I am wrong). The Galaxy is a spiral and so on.

What if "God" is shaking all the strings from atomic level to galactic level, to see what will happen from teh chaos, will any order evolve? Shake shake, and 65 billions years later, pop goes the weasel and humans were "constructed" by "random chance".
And note there is a connection between the atoms and teh galaxy, at least according to Hawkings theory. So when one atom moves all teh rest will be "juggled" to fit the new order. And so it happens when a butterfly flaps it wings, a tornado will happen later on....all the atoms and strings have to be "juggled" before the tornado is not only a possibility but a reality

Now the possibility of man, was already existing when the big bang occured, we can verify to this yes?

Now, the possibility that aliens have evolved years before us, is a possibility, but it has not been verified, noone has produced a line of strings that evryone considers to make sense. i.e the Shakespeare example. "khrfigf" doesn't make sense, but "love is God" does.

It is just like the "law" of gravity, it was still working from teh get go, till now, only the string taht could explain just that law, wasn't seen until newton or whoever it was, actually spent time trying to express it. But the string of that Law, was already a possibility before man evolved.

What has yet to be expressed?

Where is that string of letters, that WILL tell us the meaning of life, the universe and everything?

And when it is found, will we believe it?

Do we dare believe those who see auras?

Do we dare to beieve in............"God" as the "entity" that makes everything exist?


"your faith will set you free"




DD - Love