Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Sriram on February 01, 2023, 05:58:23 AM
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Hi everyone,
Here is an interesting article about evolution...
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/dolph-schluter-profile-crafoord-prize-scn/index.html
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On the Galapagos Islands, a ground finch that usually munched on small, soft seeds was forced, during a drought, to eat harder, larger ones.
Within the space of a few generations, the bird evolved a larger but shorter beak better suited to cracking large seeds.
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Evolution here has happened mainly due to active adaptation of the bird to a changing environment and not due to random variations.
Adaptation and plasticity imply an inner mechanism for changing phenotype in response to changes in the environment. This is obviously an intelligent response.
Evolutionary changes have clearly been happening all along, due to active and intelligent adaptation rather than due to random variations.
Cheers.
Sriram
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Hi everyone,
Here is an interesting article about evolution...
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/dolph-schluter-profile-crafoord-prize-scn/index.html
*************
On the Galapagos Islands, a ground finch that usually munched on small, soft seeds was forced, during a drought, to eat harder, larger ones.
Within the space of a few generations, the bird evolved a larger but shorter beak better suited to cracking large seeds.
*************
Evolution here has happened mainly due to active adaptation of the bird to a changing environment and not due to random variations.
Adaptation and plasticity imply an inner mechanism for changing phenotype in response to changes in the environment. This is obviously an intelligent response.
Evolutionary changes have clearly been happening all along, due to active and intelligent adaptation rather than due to random variations.
Cheers.
Sriram
Adaptive radiation doesn't refer to adaption of individuals and doesn't imply an inner mechanism.
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Hi everyone,
Here is an interesting article about evolution...
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/dolph-schluter-profile-crafoord-prize-scn/index.html
*************
On the Galapagos Islands, a ground finch that usually munched on small, soft seeds was forced, during a drought, to eat harder, larger ones.
Within the space of a few generations, the bird evolved a larger but shorter beak better suited to cracking large seeds.
*************
Evolution here has happened mainly due to active adaptation of the bird to a changing environment and not due to random variations.
Adaptation and plasticity imply an inner mechanism for changing phenotype in response to changes in the environment. This is obviously an intelligent response.
Evolutionary changes have clearly been happening all along, due to active and intelligent adaptation rather than due to random variations.
Cheers.
Sriram
Except it doesn't suggest that at all - indeed the article is clear that the evolution was based on existing variations within the population:
"Of course, this kind of evolution does not wait for new mutations but works on the variation that is already present in the population,”
This is classic Darwian evolution, which is just as much about existing variation within the starting population (of course itself driven by previous genetic mutation) rather than mutations that might arise later. Indeed the latter is challenging in eovlutionary terms as by the time you wait for a new mutation the whole population may have died out if environmental conditions change dramatically.
So in this study we appear to have a level of variation, which might even be considered 'sub-species' - each better adapted to one of two environments (in the case of the finch to soft seeds, the other hard seeds, in the case of the fish bottom dwellers and open water dwellers). Change the environmental conditions - e.g. a drought which wipes out the soft seeds and guess what happens. The natural variation in beak side now confers evolutionary advantage to those with bigger breaks - so they survive and breed and rapidly the population variation shift so that all birds have larger beaks, rather than must a few.
Classic Darwinian evolution Sriram.
Note that your article never mentions plasticity, nor does it suggest whatsoever that an individual bird grew a bigger beak, merely that the population-level variation shifted towards birds with bigger beaks.
Actually the really interesting thing here - which actually many of us knew anyway - is just how radipdly a change can occur where there is pre-existing variation in the population. This contrasts with the evolution-deniers classic claim that evolution cannot be the answer to diversity as it takes too long. It doesn't - it can take just a couple of generations depending on the circumstances.
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Hi everyone,
Here is an interesting article about evolution...
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/world/dolph-schluter-profile-crafoord-prize-scn/index.html
*************
On the Galapagos Islands, a ground finch that usually munched on small, soft seeds was forced, during a drought, to eat harder, larger ones.
Within the space of a few generations, the bird evolved a larger but shorter beak better suited to cracking large seeds.
*************
Evolution here has happened mainly due to active adaptation of the bird to a changing environment and not due to random variations.
Adaptation and plasticity imply an inner mechanism for changing phenotype in response to changes in the environment. This is obviously an intelligent response.
Evolutionary changes have clearly been happening all along, due to active and intelligent adaptation rather than due to random variations.
Cheers.
Sriram
Nothing in the article says, implies, or even hints at that. Ir's a classic example of how small differences can have a big impact when the environment changes. As the article covers significant environmental change can drive evolution more quickly. This covers a specific issue on speciation.
You need to provide working for your conclusion, not just state it.
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Actually the really interesting thing here - which actually many of us knew anyway - is just how radipdly a change can occur where there is pre-existing variation in the population. This contrasts with the evolution-deniers classic claim that evolution cannot be the answer to diversity as it takes too long. It doesn't - it can take just a couple of generations depending on the circumstances.
Agreed. This is one of those things where you read it and think 'Of course, it works like that!', but until the detailed work is done it cannot be assumed. It removes the idea of remote populations being required for speciation, which looked too slow a mechanism. It's brilliant but in no sense does it affect Darwin's basic idea.
It's rather wonderful that the finches that were so important to Darwin are still so informative.
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Agreed. This is one of those things where you read it and think 'Of course, it works like that!', but until the detailed work is done it cannot be assumed. It removes the idea of remote populations being required for speciation, which looked too slow a mechanism. It's brilliant but in no sense does it affect Darwin's basic idea.
It's rather wonderful that the finches that were so important to Darwin are still so informative.
All that you need for very rapid changes are either:
1. A variety of traits as part of natural diversity within the population that do not confer evolutionary disadvantage and that an environmental change confers a significant advantage on one trait, that might even exist in the base population at a low frequency. But it doesn't even need this - hence
2. A variety of traits, including some that are evolutionary disadvantageous in the base population within their existing environment, but these trait are genetically recessive - so only homozygotes express them. So it doesn't matter if all the variants with that trait fail to survive to breed (so you might not even easily see them in the population) - the genes will remain in the population as heterozygotes even if those individuals don't express that trait. Change the environment to make the trait evolutionarily advantageous and the recessive homozygotes survive while other genetic variants don't and as they are homozygotes the offspring are also all recessive homozygotes and will have that trait. As if by magic (but actually by evolution) you can go in a couple of generations from a variation in which a trait seems non existent to one in which it dominates.
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Hi everyone,
Here is an interesting article about evolution...
Yes.
On the Galapagos Islands, a ground finch that usually munched on small, soft seeds was forced, during a drought, to eat harder, larger ones.
Within the space of a few generations, the bird evolved a larger but shorter beak better suited to cracking large seeds.
Yes.
Evolution here has happened mainly due to active adaptation of the bird to a changing environment and not due to random variations.
No. The traits were there prior, the species in question is still the same species. 'Evolution' has not happened, here, frequency distribution of particular traits has happened here.
Adaptation and plasticity imply an inner mechanism for changing phenotype in response to changes in the environment.
Arguably.
This is obviously an intelligent response.
No.
Evolutionary changes have clearly been happening all along, due to active and intelligent adaptation rather than due to random variations.
No.
O.
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Traits were there prior, means that the specific genetic trait was already there in the DNA. Depending on the environmental requirement, that particular trait surfaces.
This is intelligence within organisms. It shows adaptation to specific requirements without random variations and NS happening over a long period of time purely by chance.
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Traits were there prior, means that the specific genetic trait was already there in the DNA.
Yup - at some point in the past there is likely to have been a mutation resulting in variation in the DNA.
Depending on the environmental requirement, that particular trait surfaces.
Absolutely - if that trait becomes advantageous for survival it will become either more prevalent in frequency in the individual animals or plants etc or may even appear to emerge as in the case of the homozygote recessive that was disadvantageous for survival but is advantageous if the environment changes.
This is intelligence within organisms.
No it isn't - this is classic Darwinian evolution.
It shows adaptation to specific requirements without random variations and NS happening over a long period of time purely by chance.
No it doesn't - it just means that the random variation occurred prior to the change in the environment, in other words pre-existed within the diversity of the existing population. This is always how Darwinian evolution was considered to work.
This from the wiki page on the topic, with my emphasis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
"Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with artificial selection, which in his view is intentional, whereas natural selection is not.
Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations arise in the genome of an individual organism, and their offspring can inherit such mutations. Throughout the lives of the individuals, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits. The environment of a genome includes the molecular biology in the cell, other cells, other individuals, populations, species, as well as the abiotic environment. Because individuals with certain variants of the trait tend to survive and reproduce more than individuals with other less successful variants, the population evolves."
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How does anyone know that the variation was already present in the population or not? In phenotpic plasticity the phenotype changes to suit the environment even though the genotype remains the same.
We see cases of dramatic change in phenotype to suit the environment, such as in chameleons.
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How does anyone know that the variation was already present in the population or not? In phenotypic plasticity the phenotype changes to suit the environment even though the genotype remains the same.
By either looking at the variation of phenotypic traits in the population, or by analysing the genomes of a population of the relevant species. Standard scientific stuff.
We see cases of dramatic change in phenotype to suit the environment, such as in chameleons.
Sure - all sorts of animals and plants adapt to rapidly occurring changes in their environment - whether a chameleon changing its colour or a sunflower tracking the sun across the sky. But these abilities, which obviously confer survival advantage would have arisen via classic Darwinian evolution as when a mutation arises that confers that phenotype it will confer better ability to survive and likelihood to breed and will therefore become more dominant in the next generation and ultimately make result in all members of that (perhaps new) species having that trait.
Again this is standard evolution - I'm surprised that you seem surprised and perplexed by all this.
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I am surprised that you don't see the inherent intelligent responses in all these cases. Merely calling it standard evolution doesn't change that at all.
I hope you are not confusing my argument for an inherent intelligence with debunking evolution and arguing for a God!
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I am surprised that you don't see the inherent intelligent responses in all these cases. Merely calling it standard evolution doesn't change that at all.
I hope you are not confusing my argument for an inherent intelligence with debunking evolution and arguing for a God!
No, but you seem to be mistaking your assertions for an argument.
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I am surprised that you don't see the inherent intelligent responses in all these cases. Merely calling it standard evolution doesn't change that at all.
There is no 'intelligence' in the sense of direction. For every mutation that confers an advantage there will be others that are catastrophic, for example preventing an organism from even developing. And there will be a load further that confer no phenotypic change whatsoever. You are using surviver bias to try to infer intelligence. That is muddled thinking.
I hope you are not confusing my argument for an inherent intelligence with debunking evolution and arguing for a God!
Nope - although there are plenty of people who wrongly infer 'intelligence', 'direction' or 'purpose' in the processes (beyond simple conferring or not survival advantage) and then ... whoosh ... god. Even more muddled thinking.
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Acknowledging that there is an inherent intelligence is important simply because it is true. To fear that it will ultimately lead to a religious resurgence or a belief in Jehovah...is God phobia. This may not happen, rather we might uncover deeper aspects of life that we need to uncover.
Attributing everything to chance is clearly misleading.
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Acknowledging that there is an inherent intelligence is important simply because it is true.
Unevidenced assertion. As you are making this claim the onus is on you to justify it with evidence. Despite posting regularly you have failed to come up with one iota of credible evidence that evolution occurs other than via natural selection based on traits that arise in a random manner - some are beneficial and persist, others are detrimental and disappear, others neutral and are likely to remain within the gene pool but may only become determinative (positively or negatively) when there are environmental changes.
To fear that it will ultimately lead to a religious resurgence or a belief in Jehovah...is God phobia. This may not happen, rather we might uncover deeper aspects of life that we need to uncover.
On the contrary - I fear it is you Sriram who is unable to accept the evidence - none of which points to any kind of intelligence, purpose, design etc in the evolution of species as to accept it would undermine your prejudged view that there must be design and intelligence driving these processes.
Attributing everything to chance is clearly misleading.
Why - if that is what the evidence demonstrates. Your issue here is confirmation bias and survivorship bias - you focus on the traits that confer advantage and persist but completely ignore the traits that confer disadvantage and vanish. In any kind of intelligate/design framework why would you design in traits that are lethal?
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Aha!
I see a pattern emerging! People that see patterns where, actually, there are none - are more likely to assume inherent direction or intelligence where there is none.
Sometimes the effect is so pronounced that they can't read a straightforward paper without hijacking the evidence to reach the opposite conclusion to that found!
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Acknowledging that there is an inherent intelligence is important simply because it is true. To fear that it will ultimately lead to a religious resurgence or a belief in Jehovah...is God phobia. This may not happen, rather we might uncover deeper aspects of life that we need to uncover.
Attributing everything to chance is clearly misleading.
This is just you repeating your assertion.
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Acknowledging that there is an inherent intelligence is important simply because it is true.
The idea of an inherent intelligence is simply an assertion on your part with no evidence to back it up. Dolph Scluter(whose work your CNN article refers to) is an evolutionary biologist who has done much important work on ecology induced adaptive radiation, focussing especially on sticklebacks and Darwin's finches. There is no mention of your 'inherent intelligence' either in this article or, at least to my knowledge, in any of his work.
To fear that it will ultimately lead to a religious resurgence or a belief in Jehovah...is God phobia. This may not happen, rather we might uncover deeper aspects of life that we need to uncover.
Evolutionary biology has nothing to do with God phobia. That seems to be some sort of hang up of your own making.
Attributing everything to chance is clearly misleading.
And yet again you show little understanding of what Darwinian evolution actually means.
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Traits were there prior, means that the specific genetic trait was already there in the DNA.
Yes.
Depending on the environmental requirement, that particular trait surfaces.
Yes.
This is intelligence within organisms.
No, it's natural selection acting upon the trait that's being 'selected' for.
It shows adaptation to specific requirements without random variations and NS happening over a long period of time purely by chance.
No, it's the natural selection part of evolution in action. If a new beak shape that had previously not been identified emerged, and then was selected for, that would be a more complete example of the evolutionary process.
O.
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Unevidenced assertion. As you are making this claim the onus is on you to justify it with evidence. Despite posting regularly you have failed to come up with one iota of credible evidence that evolution occurs other than via natural selection based on traits that arise in a random manner - some are beneficial and persist, others are detrimental and disappear, others neutral and are likely to remain within the gene pool but may only become determinative (positively or negatively) when there are environmental changes.
On the contrary - I fear it is you Sriram who is unable to accept the evidence - none of which points to any kind of intelligence, purpose, design etc in the evolution of species as to accept it would undermine your prejudged view that there must be design and intelligence driving these processes.
Why - if that is what the evidence demonstrates. Your issue here is confirmation bias and survivorship bias - you focus on the traits that confer advantage and persist but completely ignore the traits that confer disadvantage and vanish. In any kind of intelligate/design framework why would you design in traits that are lethal?
The trouble with survivorship bias in philosophy is that the corpses are always fresh and with us for post mortem with many of them able to pop back into life at any time.
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Yes.
Yes.
No, it's natural selection acting upon the trait that's being 'selected' for.
No, it's the natural selection part of evolution in action. If a new beak shape that had previously not been identified emerged, and then was selected for, that would be a more complete example of the evolutionary process.
O.
But Natural Selection is a metaphor. There is no actual 'selection' taking place. It is all just chance environmental changes to which the organisms adapt by making suitable changes in their phenotype...even while the genotype remains the same.
It is more like Lamarckism.
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But Natural Selection is a metaphor.
No, it's a slightly poetic phrase used to describe a well documented, repeatedly observed, rigorously studied natural phenomenon.
There is no actual 'selection' taking place.
There is selection, but there's no selector; there's a blind, natural process which results in selection of fitness.
It is all just chance environmental changes to which the organisms adapt by making suitable changes in their phenotype...
Not quite. Yes it's all chance environmental changes working on organisms, but it's making 'selections' based not on phenotypic changes which organisms are 'making' but rather upon variation that naturally arises within those genotype of the species to create the variation amongst individual phenotypes. That variation occurs whether there is environmental pressure or not.
...even while the genotype remains the same.
No, it doesn't, that's why we aren't all still bacteria, and some people can roll their tongue whilst others can't (and a few other variations in between!)
It is more like Lamarckism.
No.
O.
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That Natural Selection is a metaphor is a fact.
Also, evolution may not be entirely gene centric.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3060581/#:~:text=Neo%2DDarwinism%20is%20the%20term,correct%20since%20Romanes%20coined%20the
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This article argues that the gene-centric interpretations of evolution, and more particularly the selfish gene expression of those interpretations, form barriers to the integration of physiological science with evolutionary theory.
understanding biological function through physiological analysis requires an integrative approach in which the activity of the proteins and RNAs formed from each DNA template is analysed in networks of interactions. These networks also include components that are not specified by nuclear DNA. Inheritance is not through DNA sequences alone.
The DNA molecule on its own does absolutely nothing since it reacts biochemically only to triggering signals. It cannot even initiate its own transcription or replication. It cannot therefore be characterised as selfish in any plausible sense of the word. If we extract DNA and put it in a Petri dish with nutrients, it will do nothing. The cell from which we extracted it would, however, continue to function until it needs to make more proteins, just as red cells function for a hundred days or more without a nucleus. It would therefore be more correct to say that genes are not active causes; they are, rather, caused to give their information by and to the system that activates them. The only kind of causation that can be attributed to them is passive, much in the way a computer program reads and uses databases.
While the vehicle is also ‘inherited’ (genes on their own do nothing and certainly are not sufficient to ‘make’ an organism – since we must also inherit a complete fertilised egg cell), the story goes that changes in the vehicle are not inherited (so no inheritance of acquired characteristics) while changes in the replicator (e.g. mutations) are inherited. This approach is what enables the wholesale inheritance of the vehicle to be ignored.
Yet, the vehicle (the cell, or each cell in a multicellular organism) clearly does reproduce (indeed, it is only through this reproduction that DNA itself is transmitted), and in doing so it passes on all the phenotype characteristics for which there are no nuclear DNA templates and which are necessary to interpret the inherited DNA.
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Just to point out the 'selfish gene' is a metaphor.
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That Natural Selection is a metaphor is a fact.
Also, evolution may not be entirely gene centric.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3060581/#:~:text=Neo%2DDarwinism%20is%20the%20term,correct%20since%20Romanes%20coined%20the
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This article argues that the gene-centric interpretations of evolution, and more particularly the selfish gene expression of those interpretations, form barriers to the integration of physiological science with evolutionary theory.
understanding biological function through physiological analysis requires an integrative approach in which the activity of the proteins and RNAs formed from each DNA template is analysed in networks of interactions. These networks also include components that are not specified by nuclear DNA. Inheritance is not through DNA sequences alone.
The DNA molecule on its own does absolutely nothing since it reacts biochemically only to triggering signals. It cannot even initiate its own transcription or replication. It cannot therefore be characterised as selfish in any plausible sense of the word. If we extract DNA and put it in a Petri dish with nutrients, it will do nothing. The cell from which we extracted it would, however, continue to function until it needs to make more proteins, just as red cells function for a hundred days or more without a nucleus. It would therefore be more correct to say that genes are not active causes; they are, rather, caused to give their information by and to the system that activates them. The only kind of causation that can be attributed to them is passive, much in the way a computer program reads and uses databases.
While the vehicle is also ‘inherited’ (genes on their own do nothing and certainly are not sufficient to ‘make’ an organism – since we must also inherit a complete fertilised egg cell), the story goes that changes in the vehicle are not inherited (so no inheritance of acquired characteristics) while changes in the replicator (e.g. mutations) are inherited. This approach is what enables the wholesale inheritance of the vehicle to be ignored.
Yet, the vehicle (the cell, or each cell in a multicellular organism) clearly does reproduce (indeed, it is only through this reproduction that DNA itself is transmitted), and in doing so it passes on all the phenotype characteristics for which there are no nuclear DNA templates and which are necessary to interpret the inherited DNA.
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The paper is about how, when looking at matters from a physiological perspective, epigenetic factors in the short term can outweigh the effects of genetic variation - that's not calling evolution by natural selection into question, it's noting that it's a long-term development in which there can be short-term 'noise' factors.
It's a little like the suggestion that a particularly cold winter somehow calls climate change into question, ignoring the short-term effects of weather and the long-term change that is global warming.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not suggesting the original paper is making that mistake, I think that's the erroneous implication of Sriram's citing of it.
O.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/replace-the-modern-sythes_b_5284211
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Suzan Mazur: In recent years the modern synthesis has been declared extended by major evolutionary thinkers (e.g., "the Altenberg 16" and others), as well as dead by major evolutionary thinkers, the late Lynn Margulis and Francisco Ayala among them. Ditto for the public discourse on the Internet. My understanding is that you are now calling for the modern synthesis to be replaced.
Denis Noble: I would say that it needs replacing. Yes.
The reasons I think we're talking about replacement rather than extension are several. The first is that the exclusion of any form of acquired characteristics being inherited was a central feature of the modern synthesis. In other words, to exclude any form of inheritance that was non-Mendelian, that was Lamarckian-like, was an essential part of the modern synthesis. What we are now discovering is that there are mechanisms by which some acquired characteristics can be inherited, and inherited robustly.
my argument for saying this is a matter of replacement rather than extension is simply that it was a direct intention of those who formulated the modern synthesis to exclude the inheritance of acquired characteristics. That would be my first and perhaps the main reason for saying we're talking about replacement rather than extension.
The second reason is a much more conceptual issue. I think that as a gene-centric view of evolution, the modern synthesis has got causality in biology wrong. Genes, after all, if they're defined as DNA sequences, are purely passive. DNA on its own does absolutely nothing until activated by the rest of the system through transcription factors, markers of one kind or another, interactions with the proteins. So on its own, DNA is not a cause in an active sense. I think it is better described as a passive data base which is used by the organism to enable it to make the proteins that it requires.
The third is an experimental reason. The experimental evidence now exists for various forms and various mechanisms by which an acquired characteristic can be transmitted.
Suzan Mazur: Margulis added that "people are always more loyal to their tribal group than to any abstract notion of truth. Scientists especially tend to be loyal to the tribe instead of the truth."
Would you comment?
Denis Noble: I would certainly go along with the view that gradual mutation followed by selection has not, as a matter of fact, been demonstrated to be necessarily a cause of speciation.
Suzan Mazur: University of Chicago microbiologist Jim Shapiro, whose work you cite, told me in our 2012 interview that he no longer uses the word "gene," saying: [I]t's misleading. There was a time when we were studying the rules of Mendelian heredity when it could be useful, but that time was almost a hundred years ago now. The way I like to think of cells and genomes is that there are no "units"; there are just systems all the way down.
What is the status now of the gene in your view?
Denis Noble: My argument is very simple. Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909 introduced the definition of "gene." He was the first person to use that word, although he was introducing a concept that existed ever since Mendel. What he was actually referring to was a phenotype trait, not a piece of DNA. He didn't know about DNA in those days. We now define a gene, when we attempt to define it, as a particular sequence with "start" and "stop" codons, etc., in a strip of DNA. My point is that the first definition of a gene -- Johansen's definition as a trait, as an inheritable phenotype -- was necessarily the cause of a phenotype, because that's how it was defined. It was, if you like, a catch-all definition of a gene. Anything that contributed to that particular trait -- inheritable, according to Mendelian laws -- would be the gene, whether it is a piece of DNA or some other aspect of the functioning of the cell. That we define "gene" as a sequence of DNA becomes an empirical question, not a conceptual necessity. It becomes an empirical question whether that particular strip of DNA has a function within the phenotype.
So I go further than Jim. Not only is it difficult, as he says in his book, to now define what a gene is; one should be thinking more of networks of interactions than single and fatalistic genes at the DNA level. It's also true that the concept of a gene has changed in a very subtle way, and in a way that makes a big difference to how the concept of a gene should be used in evolutionary biology.
Suzan Mazur: There's also natural selection, which became a catch-all term. As Richard Lewontin has pointed out, it was intended as a metaphor not to be taken literally by generations of scientists.
It seems natural selection is used as a catch-all for a failure to identify what the mechanisms are.
Denis Noble: I think that's right. In principle, Darwin didn't refer to any mechanisms.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/replace-the-modern-sythes_b_5284211
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Suzan Mazur: In recent years the modern synthesis has been declared extended by major evolutionary thinkers (e.g., "the Altenberg 16" and others), as well as dead by major evolutionary thinkers, the late Lynn Margulis and Francisco Ayala among them. Ditto for the public discourse on the Internet. My understanding is that you are now calling for the modern synthesis to be replaced.
Denis Noble: I would say that it needs replacing. Yes.
The reasons I think we're talking about replacement rather than extension are several. The first is that the exclusion of any form of acquired characteristics being inherited was a central feature of the modern synthesis. In other words, to exclude any form of inheritance that was non-Mendelian, that was Lamarckian-like, was an essential part of the modern synthesis. What we are now discovering is that there are mechanisms by which some acquired characteristics can be inherited, and inherited robustly.
my argument for saying this is a matter of replacement rather than extension is simply that it was a direct intention of those who formulated the modern synthesis to exclude the inheritance of acquired characteristics. That would be my first and perhaps the main reason for saying we're talking about replacement rather than extension.
The second reason is a much more conceptual issue. I think that as a gene-centric view of evolution, the modern synthesis has got causality in biology wrong. Genes, after all, if they're defined as DNA sequences, are purely passive. DNA on its own does absolutely nothing until activated by the rest of the system through transcription factors, markers of one kind or another, interactions with the proteins. So on its own, DNA is not a cause in an active sense. I think it is better described as a passive data base which is used by the organism to enable it to make the proteins that it requires.
The third is an experimental reason. The experimental evidence now exists for various forms and various mechanisms by which an acquired characteristic can be transmitted.
Suzan Mazur: Margulis added that "people are always more loyal to their tribal group than to any abstract notion of truth. Scientists especially tend to be loyal to the tribe instead of the truth."
Would you comment?
Denis Noble: I would certainly go along with the view that gradual mutation followed by selection has not, as a matter of fact, been demonstrated to be necessarily a cause of speciation.
Suzan Mazur: University of Chicago microbiologist Jim Shapiro, whose work you cite, told me in our 2012 interview that he no longer uses the word "gene," saying: [I]t's misleading. There was a time when we were studying the rules of Mendelian heredity when it could be useful, but that time was almost a hundred years ago now. The way I like to think of cells and genomes is that there are no "units"; there are just systems all the way down.
What is the status now of the gene in your view?
Denis Noble: My argument is very simple. Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909 introduced the definition of "gene." He was the first person to use that word, although he was introducing a concept that existed ever since Mendel. What he was actually referring to was a phenotype trait, not a piece of DNA. He didn't know about DNA in those days. We now define a gene, when we attempt to define it, as a particular sequence with "start" and "stop" codons, etc., in a strip of DNA. My point is that the first definition of a gene -- Johansen's definition as a trait, as an inheritable phenotype -- was necessarily the cause of a phenotype, because that's how it was defined. It was, if you like, a catch-all definition of a gene. Anything that contributed to that particular trait -- inheritable, according to Mendelian laws -- would be the gene, whether it is a piece of DNA or some other aspect of the functioning of the cell. That we define "gene" as a sequence of DNA becomes an empirical question, not a conceptual necessity. It becomes an empirical question whether that particular strip of DNA has a function within the phenotype.
So I go further than Jim. Not only is it difficult, as he says in his book, to now define what a gene is; one should be thinking more of networks of interactions than single and fatalistic genes at the DNA level. It's also true that the concept of a gene has changed in a very subtle way, and in a way that makes a big difference to how the concept of a gene should be used in evolutionary biology.
Suzan Mazur: There's also natural selection, which became a catch-all term. As Richard Lewontin has pointed out, it was intended as a metaphor not to be taken literally by generations of scientists.
It seems natural selection is used as a catch-all for a failure to identify what the mechanisms are.
Denis Noble: I think that's right. In principle, Darwin didn't refer to any mechanisms.
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Unfortunately for Noble's drive for a replacement of the modern synthesis, the epigenetic traits which can be passed on fade within one or two generations unless the social, cultural or environmental factors which cause them continue and serve to reinforce the traits.
Genetic changes, however, perpetuate until further mutation changes them again, so whilst epigenetics is a fascinating and very worthwhile addition to the biological field, it neither overwrites nor supersedes the neo-Darwinian model of evolution; it very much, though, serves as an additional, complicating factor that needs to be considered in any number of circumstances.
O.
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Its not just about epigenetics.
He is talking of redefining what a gene refers to. If the word 'gene' is used for something that is responsible for inheritance, it cannot merely be a piece of DNA sequence. Inheritance is much more complicated and involves the whole system with communication and interactions between cells, DNA and environment.
They both are also quite clear that Natural Selection is just a metaphor....and that scientists tend to use it as a catch all term because they don't know the actual mechanism.
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Its not just about epigenetics.
It's primarily about epigenetics, and the capacity for non-genetic traits to be passed on.
He is talking of redefining what a gene refers to. If the word 'gene' is used for something that is responsible for inheritance, it cannot merely be a piece of DNA sequence.
It can - that he finds a different perspective useful does not preclude the older understanding being valid.
Inheritance is much more complicated and involves the whole system with communication and interactions between cells, DNA and environment.
Yes. None of which overwrites established genetics, although it does expand it into new areas.
They both are also quite clear that Natural Selection is just a metaphor....and that scientists tend to use it as a catch all term because they don't know the actual mechanism.
It's only a metaphor inasmuch as there are innumerable combinations of factors which cause a functional selection for fitness, of which it's virtually impossible in anything except the rarest of cases to definitively identify which specific mechanism is involved. It is, nevertheless, natural in origin and serves the function of selecting from the range of phenotypic expresssions those combinations of traits which are the fittest in the circumstances.
O.
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The articles re. Nobel are good reading and informative. Assuming he is right on the button, it still lends no support for "active and intelligent adaptation rather than due to random variations" as proposed in the op.
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But Natural Selection is a metaphor. There is no actual 'selection' taking place. It is all just chance environmental changes to which the organisms adapt by making suitable changes in their phenotype...even while the genotype remains the same.
It is more like Lamarckism.
'Natural Selection' is a metaphorical phrase used to describe an actual real world phenomenon. Metaphorical use of language seems to confuse some people
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Most of you here have never really accepted that NS is a metaphor. You people have been spinning it around with no clue as to the real mechanism.
You needed an authoritative figure to follow and nod along with...I suppose.
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Most of you here have never really accepted that NS is a metaphor.
Well that's easily checked by a show of hands.
Not guilty.
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But Natural Selection is a metaphor. There is no actual 'selection' taking place.
There is selection taking place, there isn't a selector predetermining criteria, it's circumstance selecting in the moment.
It is all just chance environmental changes to which the organisms adapt by making suitable changes in their phenotype...even while the genotype remains the same.
No, organisms are making changes in their phenotype, changes are happening in their phenotype, which results in they and their offspring being different to their forebears - if the environment selects for that trait then the genotype distribution does shift, and if it shifts far enough then it can be changed entirely over time.
It is more like Lamarckism.
It absolutely is not Lamarckism. There are short-term (in evolutionary time-frames) epigenetic traits which can linger for a few generations, and which need to be DISCOUNTED when thinking about evolution specificalliy because they do not last long-term, but there is no inheritance of acquired traits.
O.
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You needed an authoritative figure to follow and nod along with...I suppose.
"I suppose" is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting right there.
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Most of you here have never really accepted that NS is a metaphor. You people have been spinning it around with no clue as to the real mechanism.
You needed an authoritative figure to follow and nod along with...I suppose.
You've just cited an 'authoritative figure' and I've argued, so I suppose not. You've put forth an argument (by proxy, but still), and I've explained where the gaps are in that argument, and why I think it's overstating its case. There is no cleaving to authority, here, I'm addressing the argument with arguments of my own, I'm dealing with the claims and the issues.
I've a huge measure of respect for the neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution, but it's potentially refutable as is any scientific model; it would take something exceptional to do so, though, given the weight of evidence in support of it. At best you could expect to see a minor refinement (such as taking into consideration epigenetic short-term hang-overs when considering inheritance), but it's unlikely that it's going to bring the whole thing crashing down.
And make no mistake, suggesting some Lamarckian version of evolution would be a significant change to the current model.
As to the idea that natural selection is a metaphor, it's not, it's a slightly poetic name for an observed phenomenon: the idea that nature is a 'selector' making 'choices' is a metaphor, because nature has no consciousness that we can see to do that, and there is no overriding plan to the selection that we can see, but natural selection has been observed; if nothing else we see it in each and every single antibiotic resistant strain of infectious disease that emerges.
O.
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I didn't mean only you Outrider. I meant a whole lot of people here who have been denying for years, that NS is a metaphor.
Secondly, Noble has talked about the idea of a gene itself as a hereditary unit becoming redundant because there are multiple factors responsible for inheritance. He (and others it seems) are questioning the idea or a gene (as a piece of DNA sequence) being entirely responsible for evolution.
The Modern Synthesis could see a replacement, it seems.
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Well that's easily checked by a show of hands.
Not guilty.
Not guilty also. Will we be hearing that 'The Selfish Gene' describes a literal state of affairs too?
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Not guilty also. Will we be hearing that 'The Selfish Gene' describes a literal state of affairs too?
The link I have given in post 23 takes care of that.....
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The link I have given in post 23 takes care of that.....
Except that treats it as if it were not a metaphor.
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From the article.....
'It is important therefore to ask whether the idea could be interpreted as an empirical scientific hypothesis, particularly since Dawkins's own initial interpretation was that it was not metaphorical; in reply to Midgley (1979) he wrote: ‘that was no metaphor. I believe it is the literal truth, provided certain key words are defined in the particular ways favoured by biologists’ (Dawkins, 1981). But a metaphor does not cease to be a metaphor simply because one defines a word to mean something other than its normal meaning.'
'The only kind of causation that can be attributed to them is passive, much in the way a computer program reads and uses databases. The selfish gene idea therefore has to be interpreted not only as a metaphor, but as one that struggles to chime with modern biology.'
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I didn't mean only you Outrider. I meant a whole lot of people here who have been denying for years, that NS is a metaphor.
A metaphor is an attribute of language, not of nature. Thus, natural selection is a phenomenon of nature, and "Natural Selection" is the metaphorical phrase that Darwin coined to describe it. No one denies that we make use of metaphors in language, but metaphors do not occur in nature.
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From the article.....
'It is important therefore to ask whether the idea could be interpreted as an empirical scientific hypothesis, particularly since Dawkins's own initial interpretation was that it was not metaphorical; in reply to Midgley (1979) he wrote: ‘that was no metaphor. I believe it is the literal truth, provided certain key words are defined in the particular ways favoured by biologists’ (Dawkins, 1981). But a metaphor does not cease to be a metaphor simply because one defines a word to mean something other than its normal meaning.'
'The only kind of causation that can be attributed to them is passive, much in the way a computer program reads and uses databases. The selfish gene idea therefore has to be interpreted not only as a metaphor, but as one that struggles to chime with modern biology.'
And yet amazingly Dawkins is wrong. There's a greatbquote about him that as a baby all the good fairies come yo give him gifts. They bestowed intelligence, articulacy, good looks upon him. As so often though the bad gairy had not been invited and therefore arrived late. Having seen what gifts he had been given, she calmly gave him the gift of metaphor.
He also has the 'gift' of self regard, and the quote above demonstrates that. In any usual, or indeed unusual, definition of selfish, the selfish gene is a metaphor, and as per the bad fairy's gift, a rather excellent one. But Dawkins wants it to be more and resorts to the fairly ridiculous squirrelling he does above.
This is similar to the fudging about memes - another excellent metaphor but one that Dawkins' pronouncements were attempts to make it concrete. He aches to have discovered something - an actual thing, rather than a fine metaphor.
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If however...we attach an innate Intelligence to the processes...all the metaphors can be taken literally. Maybe that is what Darwin and Dawkins were unwittingly indicating.... Truth has to come out somehow!
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If however...we attach an innate Intelligence to the processes...all the metaphors can be taken literally. Maybe that is what Darwin and Dawkins were unwittingly indicating.... Truth has to come out somehow!
If wishes were horses...
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It is not a wish but a recognition of a fact. Because people are reluctant to recognize this fact, they keep coming up with convoluted ideas and processes to explain life and evolution.
Intelligence does not necessarily mean an external God who directly intervenes in these processes, rather it is about Consciousness guiding and directing natural processes. Refer to my thread on Consciousness and the views of Donald Hoffman.
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It is not a wish but a recognition of a fact. Because people are reluctant to recognize this fact, they keep coming up with convoluted ideas and processes to explain life and evolution.
The idea that there is intelligence or purpose 'behind' things, somehow, is not a fact, It is just your perception. If it were a fact, then there would be some evidence for it.
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It is not a wish but a recognition of a fact. Because people are reluctant to recognize this fact, they keep coming up with convoluted ideas and processes to explain life and evolution.
Intelligence does not necessarily mean an external God who directly intervenes in these processes, rather it is about Consciousness guiding and directing natural processes. Refer to my thread on Consciousness and the views of Donald Hoffman.
Stamping your tiny feet and saying it is a fact doesn't make it so.
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It is not a wish but a recognition of a fact. Because people are reluctant to recognize this fact, they keep coming up with convoluted ideas and processes to explain life and evolution. .
Unfortunately, the idea that evolution is somehow teleological, and imbued with some all pervasive spirit or consciousness, presents endless problems of its own, not least the existence of evil. The 'guidance' that you speak of has some strange ideas about the goals of its endeavours, when one considers the delightful habits of the Jewel Wasp or the Guinea Worm, for example.
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Unfortunately, the idea that evolution is somehow teleological, and imbued with some all pervasive spirit or consciousness, presents endless problems of its own, not least the existence of evil. The 'guidance' that you speak of has some strange ideas about the goals of its endeavours, when one considers the delightful habits of the Jewel Wasp or the Guinea Worm, for example.
I'd suggest that Sriram's position isn't affected by that because the guidance isn't about anything beneficial. That doesn't deal with there being no evidence of such s thing,, nor that the argumeng implies an infinite address.
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Unfortunately, the idea that evolution is somehow teleological, and imbued with some all pervasive spirit or consciousness, presents endless problems of its own, not least the existence of evil. The 'guidance' that you speak of has some strange ideas about the goals of its endeavours, when one considers the delightful habits of the Jewel Wasp or the Guinea Worm, for example.
It is a philosophical position and not a religious position. The idea of Consciousness being fundamental and all pervasive is quite old. I have posted Hoffman's ideas in the Consciousness thread precisely to show how scientists are beginning to think.
The idea of panpsychism is now becoming quite 'koshar' I think.
https://mindmatters.ai/2020/05/why-is-science-growing-comfortable-with-panpsychism-everything-is-conscious/
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So why the thaw toward panpsychism over the past few years? Possibly, panpsychism offers a way to be a naturalist (nature is all there is) without the absurdities of physicalism (everything in nature must be physical). The panpsychists who are gaining attention are, generally speaking, naturalists.
Consciousness, for the panpsychist, is the intrinsic nature of matter. There’s just matter, on this view, nothing supernatural or spiritual. But matter can be described from two perspectives. Physical science describes matter “from the outside,” in terms of its behavior. But matter “from the inside”—i.e., in terms of its intrinsic nature—is constituted of forms of consciousness.
What this offers us is a beautifully simple, elegant way of integrating consciousness into our scientific worldview, of marrying what we know about ourselves from the inside and what science tells us about matter from the outside.
But dropping physicalism likely entails some changes. Panpsychists need not be Darwinists, for example. That is, they need not account for human consciousness either as a trait that evolved to help ancestors of humans survive on the savannah or as a byproduct of such a trait.
*************
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I'd suggest that Sriram's position isn't affected by that because the guidance isn't about anything beneficial. That doesn't deal with there being no evidence of such s thing,, nor that the argumeng implies an infinite address.
The fact that complexity arises and organisms adapt to their environment (plasticity) is evidence of consciousness and intelligence. Dismissing everything as random or as happenstance is ridiculous.
Infinite regress cannot be avoided in any case, so that cannot be used as an excuse to dismiss consciousness being the driver of evolution, emergence and complexity.
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The fact that complexity arises and organisms adapt to their environment (plasticity) is evidence of consciousness and intelligence. Dismissing everything as random or as happenstance is ridiculous.
The assertion that consciousness or intelligence is evident in adaptation is not supported by any evidence. You are just asserting the claim. Mutations in DNA are random with respect to their consequences for future generations. This randomness does not align with the idea of intelligent planning and the fact that mutations can lead to both harmful consequences for individuals, such as cancer, whilst also driving adaptation across populations are simply inevitable consequences. You might as well try to argue that glass shattering on impact, rather than bending, is evidence of intelligence or consciousness.
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https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-challenges-evolutionary-theory-dna-mutations-are-random#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20always%20thought%20of%20mutation,way%20that%20benefits%20the%20plant.
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DNA mutations are not random as previously thought
Findings change our understanding of evolution
“We always thought of mutation as basically random across the genome,” said Grey Monroe, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences who is lead author on the paper. “It turns out that mutation is very non-random and it’s non-random in a way that benefits the plant. It’s a totally new way of thinking about mutation.”
“At first glance, what we found seemed to contradict established theory that initial mutations are entirely random and that only natural selection determines which mutations are observed in organisms,” said Detlef Weigel, scientific director at Max Planck Institute and senior author on the study.
Instead of randomness they found patches of the genome with low mutation rates. In those patches, they were surprised to discover an over-representation of essential genes, such as those involved in cell growth and gene expression.
“These are the really important regions of the genome,” Monroe said. “The areas that are the most biologically important are the ones being protected from mutation.”
The areas are also sensitive to the harmful effects of new mutations. “DNA damage repair seems therefore to be particularly effective in these regions,” Weigel added.
***********
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The fact that complexity arises and organisms adapt to their environment (plasticity) is evidence of consciousness and intelligence. Dismissing everything as random or as happenstance is ridiculous.
Infinite regress cannot be avoided in any case, so that cannot be used as an excuse to dismiss consciousness being the driver of evolution, emergence and complexity.
However, the impersonal "consciousness and intelligence" that you argue for does seem to involve a degree of deviousness and deliberate maliciousness. You may then say that I am personalising the impersonal, yet your very use of the word 'intelligence' immediately personalises the situation.
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However, the impersonal "consciousness and intelligence" that you argue for does seem to involve a degree of deviousness and deliberate maliciousness. You may then say that I am personalising the impersonal, yet your very use of the word 'intelligence' immediately personalises the situation.
I don't see why it should personalize the issue....
Deviousness and maliciousness are highly subjective and relative concepts. A lion killing the little cubs of its rival or a just born fawn, does seem cruel. But that is nature. That does not however preclude consciousness or intelligence.
Even among humans many very intelligent people are devious and even evil. Why should consciousness always be benevolent?
Many atheists have more Christianity baggage in their minds than many Christians....
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https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-challenges-evolutionary-theory-dna-mutations-are-random#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20always%20thought%20of%20mutation,way%20that%20benefits%20the%20plant.
**********
DNA mutations are not random as previously thought
Findings change our understanding of evolution
“We always thought of mutation as basically random across the genome,” said Grey Monroe, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences who is lead author on the paper. “It turns out that mutation is very non-random and it’s non-random in a way that benefits the plant. It’s a totally new way of thinking about mutation.”
“At first glance, what we found seemed to contradict established theory that initial mutations are entirely random and that only natural selection determines which mutations are observed in organisms,” said Detlef Weigel, scientific director at Max Planck Institute and senior author on the study.
Instead of randomness they found patches of the genome with low mutation rates. In those patches, they were surprised to discover an over-representation of essential genes, such as those involved in cell growth and gene expression.
“These are the really important regions of the genome,” Monroe said. “The areas that are the most biologically important are the ones being protected from mutation.”
The areas are also sensitive to the harmful effects of new mutations. “DNA damage repair seems therefore to be particularly effective in these regions,” Weigel added.
***********
It's an interesting topic - that some genes may be less liable to mutations than others. Doesn't suggest intelligence though does it?
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Mutations are non random....that's what the article says. This is quite contrary to what many of you have been claiming...
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Mutations are non random....that's what the article says. This is quite contrary to what many of you have been claiming...
There are factors which mean it isn't purely random as I understand it. Still no indication of intelligence involved though.
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There are factors which mean it isn't purely random as I understand it. Still no indication of intelligence involved though.
If there is an active response to the environment prompting suitable adaptations in phenotype....that is intelligence.
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If there is an active response to the environment prompting suitable adaptations in phenotype....that is intelligence.
If the response is directed by the organism, yes, but if it isn't, then where is the intelligence?
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If the response is directed by the organism, yes, but if it isn't, then where is the intelligence?
Whether an organism does it or a cell does it....it is active response and therefore ....intelligence. There are different levels of consciousness and intelligence.
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Mutations are non random....that's what the article says. This is quite contrary to what many of you have been claiming...
Maybe not true random, but very few things in nature are in fact truly random. So, if the distribution of mutations in a genome is not perfectly random that just indicates some underlying causal mechanism at work. You can't extrapolate from a poorly understood mechanism to mutations being carefully and intelligently chosen without losing all your street cred. This sort of thinking comes from the same school that had us believing the Sun was being pulled across the sky by teams of invisible angels before we discovered the actual mechanism, gravity
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Mechanisms are just mechanisms. How do mechanisms get created? The fact that complex mechanisms exist in the first place shows intelligence at work. I mean this in a philosophical sense and not in a religious sense.
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Mechanisms are just mechanisms. How do mechanisms get created? The fact that complex mechanisms exist in the first place shows intelligence at work. I mean this in a philosophical sense and not in a religious sense.
This just leads to an infinite regress. What created the mechanism ? An intelligence. What created the intelligence ? A higher intelligence. And so on.
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Yes...infinite regress is unavoidable regardless of the explanation. We cannot know ultimate answers....period! We don't even see reality, how can we expect to understand it?
Some of you people however seem to be immensely satisfied with the..... 'it all just an accident and all laws, mechanisms and processes just happened by themselves. They just manifested from nowhere. Nothing before that absolutely'....explanation! ::)
Well....!!
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Yes...infinite regress is unavoidable regardless of the explanation. We cannot know ultimate answers....period! We don't even see reality, how can we expect to understand it?
Some of you people however seem to be immensely satisfied with the..... 'it all just an accident and all laws, mechanisms and processes just happened by themselves. They just manifested from nowhere. Nothing before that absolutely'....explanation! ::)
Well....!!
hmm.. it seems to me that most people seem to know when to stop and say "we don't know", it's only some that take results of limited experiments and analyses and declare that their subsequent speculations are somehow confirmation of the mantras they have been pushing.
What if there is no explanation? What is the "explanation" of maths? We don't have explanations we only have models that can be shown to work or not.
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Yes, I think a whole philosophy could be contained in the words ‘just stop.’
I’m fond of these lines from the Zen monk and poet Ryokan:
"I have nothing to report, my friends.
If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things."
No doubt he’d have included the demand for ‘ultimate answers’ in the many things we chase without cease. If we did find such things, what on earth would we do with them?
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Paraphrased once by Colin Wilson as "If you've got nothing to say, keep your mouth shut."
(I should say that CW's views were not so far removed from those of Sriram. Not that I'd have much sympathy with Wilson's views now)
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Whether an organism does it or a cell does it....it is active response and therefore ....intelligence. There are different levels of consciousness and intelligence.
It's a response. What do you mean by an active response? If it is not directed then it isn't intelligence as far as I can see. No evidence of it being directed is there?
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The fact that complexity arises and organisms adapt to their environment (plasticity) is evidence of consciousness and intelligence.
Individual organisms do not adapt to their environment to any great degree - species adapt to their environment over time. In what way is 'complexity' (how are you measuring that, by the way?) evidence of a directing consciousness?
Dismissing everything as random or as happenstance is ridiculous.
Despite the fact that it's demonstrably capable of explaining the observed phenomena? That's not a proof that it's correct, but it certainly blows the idea that it's 'ridiculous' out of the water.
O.
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It's a response. What do you mean by an active response? If it is not directed then it isn't intelligence as far as I can see. No evidence of it being directed is there?
It is directed towards survival. Cells direct the change of phenotype in line with the environmental requirements. This shows presence of consciousness and intelligence at a basic level. How can this be accidental?
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Individual organisms do not adapt to their environment to any great degree - species adapt to their environment over time. In what way is 'complexity' (how are you measuring that, by the way?) evidence of a directing consciousness?
Despite the fact that it's demonstrably capable of explaining the observed phenomena? That's not a proof that it's correct, but it certainly blows the idea that it's 'ridiculous' out of the water.
O.
Individual organisms do adapt (chameleons). Acquired traits do get passed on to progeny. Epigenetics is quite clear.
We cannot explain complexity purely through natural (for survival!) means. It can only be explained through development of consciousness. Merely labeling it as 'emergence' is neither here nor there. It is just a 'catch all' phrase again, explaining nothing at all.
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Individual organisms do adapt (chameleons).
That's no more adaptation in the sense of evolutionary theory that humans reaching above their own heads is 'getting taller'.
Acquired traits do get passed on to progeny. Epigenetics is quite clear.
But not in the long term, epigenetic influences disappear within two or three generations.
We cannot explain complexity purely through natural (for survival!) means.
Which 'we' is this? At the risk of spouting off before you adequately explain what you mean by 'complexity' and how you'd measure it, I'm not aware of anything in the variation of life on Earth that we can't explain through natural means.
It can only be explained through development of consciousness.
Except that you can't show that 'complexity' is a result of consciousness, you can't show that consciousness predates complexity, and the necessary forerunners for the current levels of complexity that we see are the product of evolutionary effects that originally occured in extremely simple organisms.
Merely labeling it as 'emergence' is neither here nor there. It is just a 'catch all' phrase again, explaining nothing at all.
It explains it generally without claiming to know specific details necessary. What it doesn't do is invent meaningless terms ('complexity'?) or require unexplained phenomena to account for the observed phenomena.
O.
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Did the small-beaked birds actually change into large-beaked ones, or is it the case that both types were present from the start and during the drought the large-beaked out-competed the small-beaked ones?
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If it was a change in phenotype, did the birds become more complex? No, since the newer generations would be less fit if the climate became wetter again.
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...
Which 'we' is this? At the risk of spouting off before you adequately explain what you mean by 'complexity' and how you'd measure it, I'm not aware of anything in the variation of life on Earth that we can't explain through natural means.
Except that you can't show that 'complexity' is a result of consciousness, you can't show that consciousness predates complexity, and the necessary forerunners for the current levels of complexity that we see are the product of evolutionary effects that originally occured in extremely simple organisms.
...
Exactly so.
btw: There is a perfectly good science of complexity, Complexity Theory, that studies complex systems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
It is essentially maths. It has no requirement for consciousness or intelligence to direct the development or evolution of complex systems.
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Did the small-beaked birds actually change into large-beaked ones, or is it the case that both types were present from the start and during the drought the large-beaked out-competed the small-beaked ones?
I think the point was that you can have one type of bird that has some larger beaked members and some smaller - no individuals of "a type of bird" are exactly identical there is always a natural range of variation. You don't even need the idea of out-competing - according to the circumstances just more of the larger beaked birds will live and reproduce. In the longer term other genetic effects are seen.
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Sriram,
The fact that complexity arises and organisms adapt to their environment (plasticity) is evidence of consciousness and intelligence. Dismissing everything as random or as happenstance is ridiculous.
Water adapts to its environment by existing variously as a gas, a liquid or a solid. Is this evidence that water has “consciousness and intelligence” too, or are you arbitrarily carving out this claim just for some phenomena but not for others?
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Did the small-beaked birds actually change into large-beaked ones
Individual birds? No, birds born with small beaks stay small-beaked birds for their entire lives, and vice versa.
is it the case that both types were present from the start
No. There were originally large or small beaked birds (but not both) until a variation occurred in the phenotype which produced the other variant for at least a portion of the populace; through breeding that trait then spread.
...during the drought the large-beaked out-competed the small-beaked ones?
Or vice-versa, yes. And thus a potential evolutionary development was either pruned out or flourished in that geographical locale.
O.
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I think the point was that you can have one type of bird that has some larger beaked members and some smaller - no individuals of "a type of bird" are exactly identical there is always a natural range of variation. You don't even need the idea of out-competing - according to the circumstances just more of the larger beaked birds will live and reproduce. In the longer term other genetic effects are seen.
So can I quote the well-known saying, "but they're still (finches)"? So we're not seeing an increase in complexity. Presumably the original ancestor of both beak types had the genetic information required for both of them.
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Presumably the original ancestor of both beak types had the genetic information required for both of them.
Not necessarily if the genome required for one beak type is due to a genetic mutation. In that case the original ancestor may only have had the information for one beak type but some of the offspring in some generation down the line, through mutation, developed the genome for the other beak type. Which dominates would be down to the prevailing environmental conditions and whether one beak type or the other conveys survival advantage.
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So can I quote the well-known saying, "but they're still (finches)"? So we're not seeing an increase in complexity. Presumably the original ancestor of both beak types had the genetic information required for both of them.
'Increase in complexity' is irrelevant. The beaks vary, differ, through adaptation. They don't need to be more complex, just different, in order to better exploit different resources.
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It has been seen quite clearly that...
1. DNA mutations are non random.
2. Natural Selection is not a real mechanism or process.
3. The gene centric theory of evolution is not correct.
4. Cells seem to direct evolutionary changes more than DNA sequences (genes). DNA sequences are largely passive.
5. 'Emergence' is just a label for unknown processes. It doesn't explain anything.
6. Phenotypic plasticity is a real process giving rise to changes in phenotype without genotype changes.
7. Epigenetics is a real process due to which acquired characteristics are inherited by offspring.
The Modern Synthesis is in need of replacement (according to Denis Noble). Taking into account the idea of panpsychism it now needs to be investigated as to how consciousness works from within organisms to direct evolution and generate complexity.
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Epigenetics is a real process, but natural selection is not ?
I think you've lost the plot. epigenetic effects are minor and short lived compared to natural selection. Back to the drawing board with you.
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You have not been paying attention Torridon...... :)
Check out my post 26
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/replace-the-modern-sythes_b_5284211
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Suzan Mazur: There's also natural selection, which became a catch-all term. As Richard Lewontin has pointed out, it was intended as a metaphor not to be taken literally by generations of scientists.
It seems natural selection is used as a catch-all for a failure to identify what the mechanisms are.
Denis Noble: I think that's right. In principle, Darwin didn't refer to any mechanisms.
**********
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That natural selection is a real phenomenon is abundantly clear; it is Darwin's use of a metaphorical phrase to describe it that seems to throw some people.
The Delta strain of coronavirus is pretty much extinct now, and the Omicron variant is the dominant strain worldwide. This is natural selection in action. Did you imagine that all new variants are being engineered in virology labs ?
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It has been seen quite clearly that...
1. DNA mutations are non random.
No.
2. Natural Selection is not a real mechanism or process.
No.
3. The gene centric theory of evolution is not correct.
No.
4. Cells seem to direct evolutionary changes more than DNA sequences (genes). DNA sequences are largely passive.
No.
5. 'Emergence' is just a label for unknown processes. It doesn't explain anything.
Arguable - it's a label for a range of individual circumstances where there is a resulting effect which is not the direct result of individual processes, but rather a side-effect of one or more.
6. Phenotypic plasticity is a real process giving rise to changes in phenotype without genotype changes.
Sometimes, yes, which is why short-term variation can be evidenced which does not always lead to long-term genotype change - such as the epigenetic elements you were so fixated on.
7. Epigenetics is a real process due to which acquired characteristics are inherited by offspring.
Yes and no - sometimes the effects are inherited, sometimes they are only manifested in the offspring, but the important consideration is that epigenetic traits diminish over generations until they are no longer maintained.
The Modern Synthesis is in need of replacement (according to Denis Noble).
And not in need of replacement according to the overwhelming majority of the remainder of the field.
Taking into account the idea of panpsychism it now needs to be investigated as to how consciousness works from within organisms to direct evolution and generate complexity.
Even if all the above had actually been correct, which they aren't, the conclusion is therefore 'we need to look at the evidence' and not 'let's talk about magic, baby!'.
O.
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What magic? Consciousness is not magic. I think you know of the power of the unconscious mind for which there is plenty of evidence.
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Sriram,
What magic?
Panpsychism.
Consciousness is not magic.
But panpsychism – the speculation that everything is conscious – is.
I think you know of the power of the unconscious mind for which there is plenty of evidence.
True, but irrelevant. In Reply 85 you made a number of assertions that were either flat wrong or, at best, debatable. Why not address where you went wrong rather than deflect to a straw man?
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https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-purposes-of-life
*******
“adaptedness of living beings is too obvious to be overlooked…. Living beings have an internal, or natural, teleology.”
The curious thing, however, is that despite this emphatic recognition of the purposive organism, we find in textbooks of biology virtually no mention of purpose — or of the meaning and value presupposed by purpose. To refer to such “unbiological” realities is, it seems, to stumble into the unsavory company of mystics. Yet we might want to ask: if purposiveness in the life of organisms is as obvious as many in addition to Monod and Dobzhansky have admitted, why should it be impermissible for working biologists to reckon seriously with what everyone seems to know?
*******
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Sriram,
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-purposes-of-life
*******
“adaptedness of living beings is too obvious to be overlooked…. Living beings have an internal, or natural, teleology.”
The curious thing, however, is that despite this emphatic recognition of the purposive organism, we find in textbooks of biology virtually no mention of purpose — or of the meaning and value presupposed by purpose. To refer to such “unbiological” realities is, it seems, to stumble into the unsavory company of mystics. Yet we might want to ask: if purposiveness in the life of organisms is as obvious as many in addition to Monod and Dobzhansky have admitted, why should it be impermissible for working biologists to reckon seriously with what everyone seems to know?
First, the author’s mistake here is to take the fact that some outcomes are not predictable from the available knowledge (eg the crash example) and to extrapolate from that the claim that even in principle they could not be predictable. That is to say, even with a perfect knowledge of the opening conditions and with unlimited computing power it still wouldn’t be possible to predict the outcomes.
That’s a big claim, and I see no justifying argument to justify it. Do you?
Second, if he wants to argue for a purposive model (“this emphatic recognition of the purposive organism”) then he has an epic task to establish a priori some means by which it could happen. Whether he wants to call that method “god” or anything else doesn’t matter for this purpose – there just be needs to be something to do the job. Absent that, he (and you) are marooned in Paley’s watch territory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy
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You just can't see the evidence that most people can.
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Sriram,
You just can't see the evidence that most people can.
That's because it's not evidence.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
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Sriram,
That's because it's not evidence.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
We keep coming back to the analogy of the stubborn blind man who will not be convinced about the existence of light. Nothing can be done....
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You just can't see the evidence that most people can.
Or, alternatively, not everyone is subject to the cognitive biases that lead believers into imagining things that are not there.
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We keep coming back to the analogy of the stubborn blind man who will not be convinced about the existence of light. Nothing can be done....
Which gets us nowhere.
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We keep coming back to the analogy of the stubborn blind man who will not be convinced about the existence of light. Nothing can be done....
This analogy is easily dismissed.
The blind man can still get a light meter, £20 at Amazon, and that will provide evidence for him.
A sea turtle can detect magnetic fields, whereas I cannot, as unlike turtles I don't have any inbuilt magnetoreceptors. I do not deny the existence of magnetic fields, however.
By building instruments to detect phenomena beyond our inbuilt sensory apparatus is one way to determine if extraordinary claims are real, or just imagined, a by-product of the way that complex minds have evolved to work.
You're going to need a better analogy.
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'Increase in complexity' is irrelevant. The beaks vary, differ, through adaptation. They don't need to be more complex, just different, in order to better exploit different resources.
I've just been reading how beaks (and body size and other traits) vary through adaptation; also that this appears to involve epigenetics rather than genetic mutation. I mentioned complexity because Sriram did.
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Not necessarily if the genome required for one beak type is due to a genetic mutation. In that case the original ancestor may only have had the information for one beak type but some of the offspring in some generation down the line, through mutation, developed the genome for the other beak type. Which dominates would be down to the prevailing environmental conditions and whether one beak type or the other conveys survival advantage.
In that example, the original ancestor was more complex as it had the genetic information from which the mutation would arise. The new species would not be able to change back, so it's less complex.
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Sriram,
We keep coming back to the analogy of the stubborn blind man who will not be convinced about the existence of light. Nothing can be done....
Given that I’ve corrected you on this several times before now, why have you returned to exactly the same mistake? Are you really so incapable of learning something?
Once again: your analogy is a false one. It’s false not only in its specifics, but also in its construction. It’s wrong in its specifics because you sneak in an agreed phenomenon (light) as if it’s equivalent to the premise you want to argue for but that isn’t agreed at all (“patterns” etc).
It’s wrong in its construction because what you’re attempting here (albeit unwittingly) is a fallacy called “begging the question” (or petitio principii):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
You assume your premise to be correct, and then blame the failure of others to agree with you on their inability to see it too. It’s the same “argument” as: “We keep coming back to the analogy of the stubborn man who can’t see the colour green who will not be convinced about the existence of leprechauns. Nothing can be done....”.
Can you see anything wrong with that argument?
It would help here if you’d acknowledge that you grasp the problem and try at least to address it rather than just pretend it hadn’t been explained to you, only to return to exactly the same mistake over and over again.
Can you do that?
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In that example, the original ancestor was more complex as it had the genetic information from which the mutation would arise. The new species would not be able to change back, so it's less complex.
Wow, so much wrongness in just two sentences.
Let's take a step back and think about what information is. First and foremost it is characterised by unpredictability. If you can infer the next bit of data from what has come before, then it is not telling you anything new, i.e. its information content is zero. If you have a good idea from previous data but it are not 100% sure, then it will contain some information (but less than the amount of data). If you have no idea at all what the next bit of data is, then it is all entirely new information. There is formal mathematics behind this but I hope you get the idea.
So, if I have a counter, that just produces the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4,... then it is not generating any information. If I ask the question: what will be the 2467th number be? The answer is obvious.
Now, what if I have a true random number generator? In this case every number it generates is new information because it is totally unpredictable. Before it generates 2467th number, I will have no idea of the answer to my question about its value. When it generates it, I'll know the answer, so I will have new information. Now, it's not very useful information and, unless its generating lottery numbers or something, nobody is likely to care. That doesn't change the fact that it's information.
Mutations, while not strictly random (some types are more statistically likely than others), are random with respect to survival and (apart from the general statistics) are unpredictable. We have something like a random number generator. Mutations generate new information. Almost all of it is about as useful as the output of our random number generator but the point is that it is new information that cannot be predicted from the previous generation's genomes. So no, the ancestor did not contain the information for the mutation.
So mutations are constantly generating new (largely useless) information. Each human has about 60 to 100 mutations (last time I looked it up - there may be a better estimation now but the exact number is irrelevant), but most of them do nothing of any significance at all.
The point with evolution is that all this new information is fed into the filter of natural selection. Just like you can generate any sound you want from (random) white noise, using the right filter, natural selection amplifies the information that aids survival and reproduction in the context of the environment of the population and filters out any that is harmful. There is nothing really mysterious or difficult to understand about it. If some mutation (new information) is actually useful for survival and reproduction, then those individuals that have it will survive and reproduce more than those without it, and hence it will spread through the population. Conversely, any mutations that are detrimental will quickly die out. Hence new information enters the genome based (essentially) on the environment, because it is that that provides the filter on the constant 'white noise' of mutations.
As for not being able to go back, well it depends. On one level, if a mutation changes a single base from (say) A to G, then it can obviously be changed back by another mutation from G to A. Other mutations are unlikely to be exactly reversed (say a duplication). Anyway, it's unlikely for a mutation to be reversed if it's advantageous in the environment and hence selected. That doesn't mean that, for example, if the environment changes, then the population is any less able to adapt, because it's constantly being fed by the new information from mutations.
Hence, you are simply wrong in assuming that the ancestor is necessarily more complex. However you may define complexity, it can go up or down in evolution. For example, trichromatic vision was an increase in complexity that resulted from the duplication and subsequent mutation of a part of the genome: The Evolution of Trichromatic Color Vision by Opsin Gene Duplication in New World and Old World Primates (https://genome.cshlp.org/content/9/7/629.long).
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This analogy is easily dismissed.
The blind man can still get a light meter, £20 at Amazon, and that will provide evidence for him.
A sea turtle can detect magnetic fields, whereas I cannot, as unlike turtles I don't have any inbuilt magnetoreceptors. I do not deny the existence of magnetic fields, however.
By building instruments to detect phenomena beyond our inbuilt sensory apparatus is one way to determine if extraordinary claims are real, or just imagined, a by-product of the way that complex minds have evolved to work.
You're going to need a better analogy.
We have discussed this many times. How does a light meter help a blind man to accept the existence of light? For one thing how does he read the meter and more importantly, how does he know that it is some strange thing called light that is being registered in the meter?
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Sriram,
We have discussed this many times. How does a light meter help a blind man to accept the existence of light? For one thing how does he read the meter and more importantly, how does he know that it is some strange thing called light that is being registered in the meter?
See Reply 102 for why your attempted analogy is still fundamentally false.
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Sriram,
Given that I’ve corrected you on this several times before now, why have you returned to exactly the same mistake? Are you really so incapable of learning something?
Once again: your analogy is a false one. It’s false not only in its specifics, but also in its construction. It’s wrong in its specifics because you sneak in an agreed phenomenon (light) as if it’s equivalent to the premise you want to argue for but that isn’t agreed at all (“patterns” etc).
It’s wrong in its construction because what you’re attempting here (albeit unwittingly) is a fallacy called “begging the question” (or petitio principii):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
You assume your premise to be correct, and then blame the failure of others to agree with you on their inability to see it too. It’s the same “argument” as: “We keep coming back to the analogy of the stubborn man who can’t see the colour green who will not be convinced about the existence of leprechauns. Nothing can be done....”.
Can you see anything wrong with that argument?
It would help here if you’d acknowledge that you grasp the problem and try at least to address it rather than just pretend it hadn’t been explained to you, only to return to exactly the same mistake over and over again.
Can you do that?
You can keep using your many 'fallacies' as a security blanket to defend your early 20th century memes. It doesn't concern me really.
It is very simple....some of you lack the natural ability to discern subtle patterns and experiences and therefore it is not possible for anyone to provide you with the evidence for such things. Arguments are of no use.
I was only trying to see if the opinions and perspectives of some senior and eminent scientists would help you along in understanding such matters a little bit. But it is obviously not happening. Your memes are only fighting back as ferociously as ever.
So...lets stop this discussion. Thanks.
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We have discussed this many times. How does a light meter help a blind man to accept the existence of light? For one thing how does he read the meter and more importantly, how does he know that it is some strange thing called light that is being registered in the meter?
How do you know that radio waves or neutrinos exist? Your 'analogy' always was beyond daft. A blind person who refused to believe that light exists, despite evidence, would be as stupid as you or me refusing to accept that electrons or x-rays exist.
Mindless repetition of a silly analogy does you no favours, seriously.
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Sriram,
You can keep using your many 'fallacies'…
Putting the word “fallacies” in inverted commas is, ironically, itself a fallacy called poisoning the well. You don’t rely on “fallacies”; you rely on fallacies, which makes your arguments wrong.
…as a security blanket to defend your early 20th century memes.
Identifying the fallacies in an argument isn’t a “security blanket”; it’s how you determine that the argument is wrong.
It doesn't concern me really.
Then it should. If you want to turn up here to argue for something then you must also accept that the argument collapses when it’s fallacious.
It is very simple....some of you lack the natural ability to discern subtle patterns and experiences and therefore it is not possible for anyone to provide you with the evidence for such things. Arguments are of no use.
And that’s just your repetition of the same fallacy of begging the question. I could equally argue: “It is very simple....some of you lack the natural ability to discern leprechauns and therefore it is not possible for anyone to provide you with the evidence for such things. Arguments are of no use”. As it’s precisely the argument you attempt except with a different object (leprechauns instead of patterns), what wrong with it?
If you want to demonstrate that there are “subtle patterns and experiences” rather than that you just imagine them then at some point you need to argue the point without doing so fallaciously. So far at least though you’re a 0/10 on that score.
I was only trying to see if the opinions and perspectives of some senior and eminent scientists would help you along in understanding such matters a little bit.
You’ve provided no evidence at all that “some senior and eminent scientists” do share your claims of “patterns” and such like, and even if you had, their justifying reasoning for that would stand or fall on its merits and not because they are “senior and eminent”.
But it is obviously not happening.
That’s right – and for good reason (see above).
Your memes are only fighting back as ferociously as ever.
No, reason is. You should try it some time.
So...lets stop this discussion. Thanks.
Probably wise for you do so, but it says a lot about you that you always run away rather than engage with the arguments that falsify you. How do you think your intellectual cowardice will enable you ever to learn anything?
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Your memes are only fighting back as ferociously as ever.
Yet again: your meme that memes are always irrational, is just false. That isn't how they are defined. They are just ideas that either survive, mutate, or die out. Sometimes they survive because they are good, rational, and useful ideas, sometimes because they are just stories that people find comforting or whatever, sometimes because they contain sort of mental traps, like "if you doubt, you'll go to hell", or any number of other reasons. If you had actually bothered to read the relevant chapter of The Selfish Gene, you would know this.
Both rational ideas, like the principles of sound reasoning and trying to avoids fallacies, and the fallacies that people cling to because they find them attractive, simple, comforting, etc. are memes.
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You can keep using your many 'fallacies' as a security blanket to defend your early 20th century memes. It doesn't concern me really.
It is very simple....some of you lack the natural ability to discern subtle patterns and experiences and therefore it is not possible for anyone to provide you with the evidence for such things. Arguments are of no use.
I was only trying to see if the opinions and perspectives of some senior and eminent scientists would help you along in understanding such matters a little bit. But it is obviously not happening. Your memes are only fighting back as ferociously as ever.
So...lets stop this discussion. Thanks.
Or you discern subtle paterns and experiences which aren't real and don't have the natural ability to differentiate reality from imagination.
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Or you discern subtle paterns and experiences which aren't real and don't have the natural ability to differentiate reality from imagination.
This thread is not about my experiences or patterns. It is about adaptation, Natural Selection, Random variations, gene centric evolution etc.....and the perspectives of scientists like Denis Noble, Stephen Talbott and others. Their views obviously seem to have no impact on the pretty stubborn memes held by people here. That is the point.
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This thread is not about my experiences or patterns. It is about adaptation, Natural Selection, Random variations, gene centric evolution etc.....and the perspectives of scientists like Denis Noble, Stephen Talbott and others. Their views obviously seem to have no impact on the pretty stubborn memes held by people here. That is the point.
Yet you posted about subtle patterns and experiences and say some of us lack the ability to see those patterns. Why did you do that if the thread is about natural Selection, Random variations, gene centric evolution etc.? And again you bring in stubborn memes in this post.
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Their views obviously seem to have no impact on the pretty stubborn memes held by people here. That is the point.
The sad thing is that it really is a battle of memes but you don't seem to understand the concept any better than you understand natural selection, random variation, and so on.
The battle here is between the memes of science, evidence, logic, and distinguishing between conjecture, hypothesis, and tested theories, and your own memes that seem to start with the assumption that you already know the answers and science should just catch up, and reading every article through the tunnel vision that that assumption creates.
For example, look at the article you so selectively quoted in #54 (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=19398.msg856762#msg856762). Not only is it a rather oversold pop-science piece but you missed out the very important point that the mutation rate was non-random because "The plant has evolved a way to protect its most important places from mutation...". There's even a whole section called "Plant evolved to protect itself" [my emphasis in both quotes].
Think about it.
You might also want to reflect on the fact that the whole reason why Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of memes was to show that the principle of variation and selection is more fundamental than any specific process. According to the evidence we have, even DNA itself must have been the product of evolution by variation and selection. I don't know of any hypothesis of abiogenesis that doesn't involve simpler replicators first.
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What magic?
Panpsychism.
Consciousness is not magic.
Consciousness directly changing the world is. Consciousness existing outside of individual brains is.
I think you know of the power of the unconscious mind for which there is plenty of evidence.
And that evidence doesn't even come close to existence outside of individual organisms, or to direct interlinking, or to affecting physical phenomena through means other than the body it resides in.
O.
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Sriram,
This thread is not about my experiences or patterns. It is about adaptation, Natural Selection, Random variations, gene centric evolution etc.....and the perspectives of scientists like Denis Noble, Stephen Talbott and others. Their views obviously seem to have no impact on the pretty stubborn memes held by people here. That is the point.
No – the point here is that you seem to unable to frame an argument that isn’t false, and unable to engage with the falsifications when they’re given to you. If you ever want to learn something I suggest you start with that – address the problems when you go wrong, and frame instead arguments that are cogent.
Why wouldn’t you do that if you could?
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Wow, so much wrongness in just two sentences.
Let's take a step back and think about what information is. First and foremost it is characterised by unpredictability. If you can infer the next bit of data from what has come before, then it is not telling you anything new, i.e. its information content is zero. If you have a good idea from previous data but it are not 100% sure, then it will contain some information (but less than the amount of data). If you have no idea at all what the next bit of data is, then it is all entirely new information. There is formal mathematics behind this but I hope you get the idea.
So, if I have a counter, that just produces the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4,... then it is not generating any information. If I ask the question: what will be the 2467th number be? The answer is obvious.
Now, what if I have a true random number generator? In this case every number it generates is new information because it is totally unpredictable. Before it generates 2467th number, I will have no idea of the answer to my question about its value. When it generates it, I'll know the answer, so I will have new information. Now, it's not very useful information and, unless its generating lottery numbers or something, nobody is likely to care. That doesn't change the fact that it's information.
Mutations, while not strictly random (some types are more statistically likely than others), are random with respect to survival and (apart from the general statistics) are unpredictable. We have something like a random number generator. Mutations generate new information. Almost all of it is about as useful as the output of our random number generator but the point is that it is new information that cannot be predicted from the previous generation's genomes. So no, the ancestor did not contain the information for the mutation.
So mutations are constantly generating new (largely useless) information. Each human has about 60 to 100 mutations (last time I looked it up - there may be a better estimation now but the exact number is irrelevant), but most of them do nothing of any significance at all.
The point with evolution is that all this new information is fed into the filter of natural selection. Just like you can generate any sound you want from (random) white noise, using the right filter, natural selection amplifies the information that aids survival and reproduction in the context of the environment of the population and filters out any that is harmful. There is nothing really mysterious or difficult to understand about it. If some mutation (new information) is actually useful for survival and reproduction, then those individuals that have it will survive and reproduce more than those without it, and hence it will spread through the population. Conversely, any mutations that are detrimental will quickly die out. Hence new information enters the genome based (essentially) on the environment, because it is that that provides the filter on the constant 'white noise' of mutations.
As for not being able to go back, well it depends. On one level, if a mutation changes a single base from (say) A to G, then it can obviously be changed back by another mutation from G to A. Other mutations are unlikely to be exactly reversed (say a duplication). Anyway, it's unlikely for a mutation to be reversed if it's advantageous in the environment and hence selected. That doesn't mean that, for example, if the environment changes, then the population is any less able to adapt, because it's constantly being fed by the new information from mutations.
Hence, you are simply wrong in assuming that the ancestor is necessarily more complex. However you may define complexity, it can go up or down in evolution. For example, trichromatic vision was an increase in complexity that resulted from the duplication and subsequent mutation of a part of the genome: The Evolution of Trichromatic Color Vision by Opsin Gene Duplication in New World and Old World Primates (https://genome.cshlp.org/content/9/7/629.long).
Thanks for the message. In my other post I mentioned that the beak changes seem to be caused by epigenetics rather than mutation, which is quite new to me but I found it interesting to read about. It even seems as though mutations are not really involved in speciation?
I got your point about information. But surely if you have a set of numbers arranged in order of smallest to largest and a set in which one of the numbers is not in sequence with the others, the second set doesn't contain more information but less? This will be obvious if we illustrate the numbers with something, eg peas,
What I meant generally is that if as is supposed, all dogs come from a wild ancestor, a poodle is less complex than the original wild type because it's offspring can never return to the original wild type.
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It even seems as though mutations are not really involved in speciation?
Epigenetic changes may be involved but they cannot replace genetic mutations. There are many changes for which we know the exact mutations that gave rise to the changes - the classic example of the peppered moth (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36424768) being one such change.
I got your point about information. But surely if you have a set of numbers arranged in order of smallest to largest and a set in which one of the numbers is not in sequence with the others, the second set doesn't contain more information but less?
No. As I said, information is to do with how 'surprising' or uncertain the data is. The way it's measured is information entropy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)). So in the your example, the second set contains more information than the first because the out of sequence number is unexpected.
This will be obvious if we illustrate the numbers with something, eg peas,
No idea what you even mean by this.
What I meant generally is that if as is supposed, all dogs come from a wild ancestor, a poodle is less complex than the original wild type because it's offspring can never return to the original wild type.
Non-sequitur. Again, as I said,, although it's unlikely that a series of mutations will be exactly reversed, that doesn't mean that it isn't possible for a species to regain characteristic of its ancestors. You are still making the completely invalid assumption that the ancestor somehow contains the information required for its descendants. Mutations add new information, basically from the environment - information is transferred from the environment to the genome via the random noise of mutations being filtered through the ability to survive and reproduce in the current environment of the population.
While complexity in this context can be quite tricky to define, I did give the example of trichromatic vision (for which we know the associated mutations), which I can't see how you could possibly regard as anything other than an increase in complexity.
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I got your point about information. But surely if you have a set of numbers arranged in order of smallest to largest and a set in which one of the numbers is not in sequence with the others, the second set doesn't contain more information but less?
Hi Spud,
I think here you're confusing 'data' and 'information'. The data just is, and the set of numbers is exactly the same data regardless of the order. If the position within the dataset is important to the interpretation then that is a layer of data, so either of them might have more or less information depending on the context of the information.
O.
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...
What I meant generally is that if as is supposed, all dogs come from a wild ancestor, a poodle is less complex than the original wild type because it's offspring can never return to the original wild type.
As you've posited this more than once ... complexity is wrong word/concept to use here.
The population of ancestor wild dogs were/are more diverse than the poodle population. Note I do not mean any individual ancestor or poodle - we need to consider the population even though any individual will carry a certain level of diversity hidden in recessive or otherwise unexpressed genes. Poodles result from selective breeding - restricting mating to other dogs likely carrying the desired genes - mostly other poodles (hence pedigree records and so on...).
If left free to breed "in the wild" the descendant population would soon regain a much higher level of diversity.
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As you've posited this more than once ... complexity is wrong word/concept to use here.
The population of ancestor wild dogs were/are more diverse than the poodle population. Note I do not mean any individual ancestor or poodle - we need to consider the population even though any individual will carry a certain level of diversity hidden in recessive or otherwise unexpressed genes. Poodles result from selective breeding - restricting mating to other dogs likely carrying the desired genes - mostly other poodles (hence pedigree records and so on...).
If left free to breed "in the wild" the descendant population would soon regain a much higher level of diversity.
What I meant by 'complex' is that a poodle population can't produce anything other than poodles if isolated from other dogs, whereas an isolated wild dog population has the potential to produce a range of different breeds.
Similarly I remember reading that there was a danger that wild corn would become extinct; if that happened we would have no 'backup' from which to selectively breed the types of corn we use for food, should the latter also become extinct.
I'm just saying that adaptation leads to decreased complexity - in the sense just described.
I'll try and comment on your point about trichromatic vision - I still need to read about that.
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What I meant by 'complex' is that a poodle population can't produce anything other than poodles if isolated from other dogs, whereas an isolated wild dog population has the potential to produce a range of different breeds.
Drivel. In fact selective breading is required to make sure that breeds maintain their 'desired' characteristics.
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Spud,
What I meant by 'complex' is that a poodle population can't produce anything other than poodles if isolated from other dogs, whereas an isolated wild dog population has the potential to produce a range of different breeds.
That's nonsense. Given enough generations for mutations to occur and enough environmental factors acting on them there's no reason to think that poodles wouldn't eventually be the ancestor of any number of different strains of canine down the line. Indeed given enough generations there's no reason to think that eventually different species entirely wouldn't occur, just as people and octopuses are different species with a common ancestor.
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Spud,
That's nonsense. Given enough generations for mutations to occur and enough environmental factors acting on them there's no reason to think that poodles wouldn't eventually be the ancestor of any number of different strains of canine down the line. Indeed given enough generations there's no reason to think that eventually different species entirely wouldn't occur, just as people and octopuses are different species with a common ancestor.
But you would need to breed the poodles with a 'wild type' dog in order to maintain their health. If you keep breeding poodles with poodles only, they will develop more and more genetic disorders and eventually become extinct.
Here is an example, not in dogs but wheat:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42204575.amp
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But you would need to breed the poodles with a 'wild type' dog in order to maintain their health. If you keep breeding poodles with poodles only, they will develop more and more genetic disorders and eventually become extinct.
Here is an example, not in dogs but wheat:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42204575.amp
That is entirely possible and most likely, but it depends on the probabilities. The larger the number of poodles you start with the greater the diversity within that population, and the greater the chances of beneficial mutations being promulgated, both of which , over time, could result in new strains.