Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

How shocking it is that today still so many people do not seem to have any real idea of the TofE.

Indeed.

"Natural selection is not some desperate last resort of a theory. It is an idea whose plausibility and power hit you between the eyes with stunning force, once you understand it in all its elegant simplicity. Well might T. H. Huxley cry out, ‘How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that!’"

-- Dawkins, Richard. Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist. Transworld. Kindle Edition.

[jeremyp]

Yes, I did read it, and it brought to mind the presumption that all this phenomenal complexity and functionality was brought about by nothing but random unguided mutations without any concept of purpose or need, together with the development of all the other amazing organs of the body.

But that is the way it happened, unless you have an alternative that doesn’t involve “God does magic”.

Have you?

[torridon]

Of course I understand it.  What I also understand is that there is a presumption that every beneficial mutation involved in the process was produced by random events.

I am fully aware of Richard Dawkin's cleverly thought out scenario showing how everything needed for a fully functioning eye can be generated from a series of naturally selected beneficial mutations.  But the key word here is "needed".  Any random mutation will not be aware of the need for a light sensitive surface, or a transparent lens, or a means of focussing, or a means of controlling the amount of light, or the means of transferring each pixel of light to the brain, or the interpretation of different wavelengths to discern colours, or the combining of two different viewpoints to perceive 3D images.  To satisfy these needs from purely random mutations would demand a virtually infinite supply of such mutations for the process to work.  And the brain is a far more complex organ than the eye, because we have not yet fully discovered how this amazing organ works - yet we still presume that every random mutation needed to make it work was available for selection.

The number of mutations is 'virtually infinite' for all practical purposes.  I've got 37 trillion cells in my body, each of which has 6 billion candidate sites for mutation.  All of these cells are constantly dividing and replicating; even if you have vanishingly small error rate in cell copying, say 1 error in a million, that still results in vast numbers of mutations.  And I am just one individual in one species; multiply that up by the number individuals across populations across species across geological time scales and you are going to get unfathomably big numbers.  Infinite for all practical purposes.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi torri,

The number of mutations is 'virtually infinite' for all practical purposes.  I've got 37 trillion cells in my body, each of which has 6 billion candidate sites for mutation.  All of these cells are constantly dividing and replicating; even if you have vanishingly small error rate in cell copying, say 1 error in a million, that still results in vast numbers of mutations.  And I am just one individual in one species; multiply that up by the number individuals across populations across species across geological time scales and you are going to get unfathomably big numbers.  Infinite for all practical purposes.

Quite so. He’s also though locked in to some circular reasoning that I took the time to correct a while ago, but that he just ignored – presumably so he could return to the same mistake.

His thinking is something like: a human being is a phenomenally complex thing. The chances of it arising by chance are unfathomably small. Therefore god.

It fails obviously in its premises in any case because (as you’ve explained) he hugely underestimates the number of opportunities for mutations, because evolution works incrementally, and because the interactions of mutations with their environments is anything but chance.

At its heart though there’s the deeper problem of circular reasoning. It assumes both that our (and presumably other) species were god's plan all along – ie, a top down approach – and that the same god is the only plausible option for his own plan to be achieved. That is, the “argument” requires there to be god in order to demonstrate god.   

It’s tortuous stuff that disappears in a puff of smoke immediately you grasp that evolution works bottom up rather than top down – it neither knows nor cares which species will appear along the way.   

Wouldn’t it be great if he responded to this with, “Ah, I see now where I’ve gone wrong. Thank you for correcting me. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Probably not a good idea to hold my breath though…

[BeRational]

One of the best explanations for the incremental approach of evolution, was I think by Richard Dawkins.
The analogy he used was of a safe, with 10 digit code. Working by chance to crack this code would take far to long to even consider.
But, this is the key part, the chance of getting the first digit correct is of course 1 in 10, and would take a few seconds to crack.
With that, the door opens just a little, and you get a bit of money.
You then move on to the next digit etc, and a safe using this coding method could be opened in about 2 minutes!

At the end you could say I cracked this seemingly impossible 10 digit code, but with the incremental approach, it is fairly easy.

[SteveH]

One of the best explanations for the incremental approach of evolution, was I think by Richard Dawkins.
The analogy he used was of a safe, with 10 digit code. Working by chance to crack this code would take far to long to even consider.
But, this is the key part, the chance of getting the first digit correct is of course 1 in 10, and would take a few seconds to crack.
With that, the door opens just a little, and you get a bit of money.
You then move on to the next digit etc, and a safe using this coding method could be opened in about 2 minutes!

At the end you could say I cracked this seemingly impossible 10 digit code, but with the incremental approach, it is fairly easy.

Also with the old "monkeys with typewriters producing Shakespeare" one, if they were using computers, and each time a letter, punctuation mark or space was correct, the computer allowed it to stay, but if it was wrong, it disappeared, they'd get the complete works quite quickly - or at least within a year or two.

[Alan Burns]

The number of mutations is 'virtually infinite' for all practical purposes.  I've got 37 trillion cells in my body, each of which has 6 billion candidate sites for mutation.  All of these cells are constantly dividing and replicating; even if you have vanishingly small error rate in cell copying, say 1 error in a million, that still results in vast numbers of mutations.  And I am just one individual in one species; multiply that up by the number individuals across populations across species across geological time scales and you are going to get unfathomably big numbers.  Infinite for all practical purposes.

You have this quite wrong, Torri.
The mutations are passed on through your DNA, which is fixed from birth and does not alter over time.
Whatever happens to the rest of your cells is irrelevant to evolutionary theory.

[Alan Burns]

Also with the old "monkeys with typewriters producing Shakespeare" one, if they were using computers, and each time a letter, punctuation mark or space was correct, the computer allowed it to stay, but if it was wrong, it disappeared, they'd get the complete works quite quickly - or at least within a year or two.

But if pressing wrong key actually destroyed some of the progress being made you could end up back at the start.

You can't presume that all non beneficial mutations are neutral.  Some are obviously detrimental.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You have this quite wrong, Torri.
The mutations are passed on through your DNA, which is fixed from birth and does not alter over time.
Whatever happens to the rest of your cells is irrelevant to evolutionary theory.

Wow - you're seriously embarrassing yourself now. Cell mutation enables either the host to interact more successfully with its environment, or less successfully with its environment, or it makes no difference either way. When it's the former though, the host is more likely to survive and to breed than those that don't have the beneficial mutation, and thus to pass the same mutation on to its offspring. And over bajillions of such events we end up with...

...evolution!

Can I caution you against telling someone they're wrong about something when you clearly fundamentally fail to grasp that they are in fact right?

[SteveH]

But if pressing wrong key actually destroyed some of the progress being made you could end up back at the start.

You can't presume that all non beneficial mutations are neutral.  Some are obviously detrimental.

They are the ones the owners of which will not successfully reproduce, which is fully in line with evolutionary theory.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But if pressing wrong key actually destroyed some of the progress being made you could end up back at the start.

You can't presume that all non beneficial mutations are neutral.  Some are obviously detrimental.

Jeez but the stupidity is deep with this one. You don't need to presume any such thing. When a mutation is harmful over time its host will tend to exit the gene pool, thereby leaving the field clearer for organisms with mutations that are beneficial and so are more likely to increase. It's called evolution - you really should find out something about it before embarrassing yourself like this.

[Alan Burns]

I’ve corrected you on this already. Why do you use “clever” as if it somehow diminishes the quality of the argument against you?

I was emphasising the fact that Dawkins had to employ his considerable gifts of intelligence and freedom to control his own thought processes in order to come up with his scenario for the evolutionary development of the eye.

Yet he presumes that a blind, unguided process of natural selection driven by nothing but random mutations can not only deliver such a process, but can also provide him with the capability to use his own thought processes to come up with his well thought out scenario.

Your presumption that higher complexity is a natural bottom up process is largely based upon the assumption that there is no higher creative intelligence to guide the process of evolution.  The existence of such higher power cannot be ruled out just because you choose to ignore the possibility of it existing.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Jeez but the stupidity is deep with this one. You don't need to presume any such thing. When a mutation is harmful the host will tend to exit the gene pool, but that just leaves the field clear for organisms with mutations that are beneficial. It's called evolution - you really should find out something about it before embarrassing yourself like this.

What I was saying is that you can't presume that all beneficial mutations get passed on.  There is an obvious possibility that some may be taken down by detrimental mutations.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I was emphasising the fact that Dawkins had to employ his considerable gifts of intelligence and freedom to control his own thought processes in order to come up with his scenario for the evolutionary development of the eye.

Then of course you were "pointing out" wrongly if by "freedom" etc you actually meant your impossible concepts of such terms.

Yet he presumes that a blind, unguided process of natural selection driven by nothing but random mutations can not only deliver such a process, but can also provide him with the capability to use his own thought processes to come up with his well thought out scenario.

He "presumes" no such thing - what he actually does is to follow the overwhelming reason and evidence that tells us that evolution is "unguided".

Your presumption that higher complexity is a natural bottom up process is largely based upon the assumption that there is no higher creative intelligence to guide the process of evolution.  The existence of such higher power cannot be ruled out just because you choose to ignore the possibility of it existing.

No it isn't. It rests on the overwhelming reason and evidence that tells us that evolution works bottom up, and thus that conjectures about gods and the like are unnecessary for understanding why life is as we observe it to be.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

What I was saying is that you can't presume that all beneficial mutations get passed on.  There is an obvious possibility that some may be taken down by detrimental mutations.

Then what you were saying was a straw man - no-one does say that all beneficial mutations are necessarily passed on, and nor does evolutionary theory require that they are. What's actually required is just that enough of them are passed on for evolution to happen. It's simple enough I'd have thought.

[Stranger]

What I was saying is that you can't presume that all beneficial mutations get passed on.  There is an obvious possibility that some may be taken down by detrimental mutations.

You seem to be spectacularly missing the point. A mutation will happen in an individual, if it is beneficial (meaning that it leads to a greater chance of surviving and reproducing in the environment), then it will end up in many individuals or the entire population. Detrimental mutations, by definition, leave an individual with less chance of surviving and reproducing in the environment, so do not tend to get passed on.

The simple fact is that beneficial mutations reproduce more than detrimental ones. That's what natural selection means.

[SusanDoris]

I was emphasising the fact that Dawkins had to employ his considerable gifts of intelligence and freedom to control his own thought processes in order to come up with his scenario for the evolutionary development of the eye.

Yet he presumes that a blind, unguided process of natural selection driven by nothing but random mutations can not only deliver such a process, but can also provide him with the capability to use his own thought processes to come up with his well thought out scenario.

Your presumption that higher complexity is a natural bottom up process is largely based upon the assumption that there is no higher creative intelligence to guide the process of evolution.  The existence of such higher power cannot be ruled out just because you choose to ignore the possibility of it existing.

Your  latest above posts, in my opinion, sink to a new low in abysmal misunderstanding and ignorance.
You keep using the words[driven by ... random mutations'. It is not 'driven'. There is nothing to drive anything. Things happen naturally because of the way things naturally are and naturally happen.   
It is desperately sad that a man like Captain Robert Fitz-Roy committed suicide because of his deeply ingrained religious beliefs not long after  The TofE was published. It rocked his beliefs to the core. It was he who invented storm cones, and many other superb innovations. How much had to wait for too long a time to be invented because he killed himself too soon?

[Stranger]

I was emphasising the fact that Dawkins had to employ his considerable gifts of intelligence and freedom to control his own thought processes in order to come up with his scenario for the evolutionary development of the eye.

Which is neither the same as, nor evidence for, your impossible, contradictory notion of 'freedom'.

Your presumption that higher complexity is a natural bottom up process is largely based upon the assumption that there is no higher creative intelligence to guide the process of evolution.

No, it's based on the overwhelming evidence and the fact that there is no logical need for, and no evidence for, such an intelligence. Evolution by natural selection actually explains complexity and intelligence, whereas postulating a "higher creative intelligence" doesn't.

The existence of such higher power cannot be ruled out just because you choose to ignore the possibility of it existing.

And finishing off with an argument from ignorance fallacy...

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Wow - you're seriously embarrassing yourself now. Cell mutation enables either the host to interact more successfully with its environment, or less successfully with its environment, or it makes no difference either way. When it's the former though, the host is more likely to survive and to breed than those that don't have the beneficial mutation, and thus to pass the same mutation on to its offspring. And over bajillions of such events we end up with...

...evolution!

Can I caution you against telling someone they're wrong about something when you clearly fundamentally fail to grasp that they are in fact right?

But the point I was making is that any advantageous cell mutations which are not defined in the DNA will not be passed on and will not offer any beneficial effects to the TOE.

[Alan Burns]

You seem to be spectacularly missing the point. A mutation will happen in an individual, if it is beneficial (meaning that it leads to a greater chance of surviving and reproducing in the environment), then it will end up in many individuals or the entire population. Detrimental mutations, by definition, leave an individual with less chance of surviving and reproducing in the environment, so do not tend to get passed on.

The simple fact is that beneficial mutations reproduce more than detrimental ones. That's what natural selection means.

But do you refuse to acknowledge that some beneficial mutations can be killed off by a future generation of bad mutations?

[SusanDoris]

But the point I was making is that any advantageous cell mutations which are not defined in the DNA will not be passed on and will not offer any beneficial effects to the TOE.

Since your knowledge of the TofE appears to be extremely minimal, on what evidence do you base this assertion? Let's see if you can produce some facts from science.

And what do you mean by 'killed off' in post above this one?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But the point I was making is that any advantageous cell mutations which are not defined in the DNA will not be passed on and will not offer any beneficial effects to the TOE.

That’s not a point (a genetic mutation is a change in the DNA sequence), and your primary mistake was to tell torri "you have this quite wrong" remember?

Why not start with an apology for that?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But do you refuse to acknowledge that some beneficial mutations can be killed off by a future generation of bad mutations?

Sort of. A beneficial mutation will be more likely to survive than will a harmful one though (that's essentially what "beneficial" and "harmful" mean in this context). That though is readily accommodated within the ToE. So what?

[Stranger]

But do you refuse to acknowledge that some beneficial mutations can be killed off by a future generation of bad mutations?

If a beneficial mutation has had time to spread through the population (it exists in a significant number of individuals), then any deleterious one will not (by itself) be able kill it off because (by the very definition of "beneficial" and "deleterious" in this context), the beneficial one will be producing copies of itself faster than the deleterious one. That's the power of natural selection; it keeps the advantageous mutations and kills off the harmful ones entirely due to differential reproduction.

It really isn't rocket science. Those mutations that aid survival and reproduction in the environment, survive and reproduce in the environment more than those mutations that hinder survival and reproduction in the environment.

[SusanDoris]

Unfortunately, I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that AB thinks there is a little soul or similar busily running round the cells trying to kill off harmful mutations!