Bad Examples

[Montalban]

In support of evolution a great many bad examples have been put forward.

Haeckel had his fradulant drawings, to Darwin using a truism ('survival of the fittest').

My own pet love is the 'biomorph'; a computer programme used to show how (in theory) small changes can lead to great diversity. Richard Dawkins has promoted these in the past.

Richard Dawkins, well known amongst evolutionaries suggested using computer modelling to show how relatively easily mutations can leap from one creature to another. He is very keen to get people interested in these as they are simple to run and suggest much change over little time...

“Dawkins started from a conventional recursive algorithm : for each iteration, a new connection is generated. The aim was to generate tree forms. Starting from a trunk, to any new iteration corresponds a sub-branch. The use of biomorph quickly showed the algorithm was absolutely not limited to the realization of different trees (apple trees, fir trees ...) ; but could also generate many types of forms, biological or not. Dawkins was therefore quite surprised to discover an insect-looking biomorph followed by planes, bats, branched candlesticks?”
http://www.rennard.org/alife/english/biomintrgb.html

The funniest thing is... sorry, I'm going to have to write it again!
“Dawkins was therefore quite surprised to discover an insect-looking biomorph followed by planes, bats, branched candlesticks?”
So, this magical program that is supposed to represent life actually can also produce aeroplanes! I'd like to see DNA morph into such things!

The next bit is just as funny...
“The use of biomorph is very simple. The eye of the user plays the role of natural selection. Starting from a given form, the user will systematically select the biomorph whose resemblance -very subtle at the beginning - is closer to the wanted form. After a certain number of generations, the result will draw near to the aim.” (Ibid)

So, in other words, you an intelligent actor weed out the programs that don't look like anything that resembles a living thing. Then you keep building up on the programs that look most like life. You are the creator of this cyber-universe! So much for 'natural' selection!

Here's what Richard Milton says about computer modelling....granted this is referring to whole creatures like Dawkins did...but hopefully you'll get the point...
“In his book “The Blind Watchmaker” Richard Dawkins describes a computer program he wrote which randomly generates symmetrical figures from dots and lines. These figures, to a human eye, have a resemblance to a variety of objects. Dawkins gives some of them insect and animal names...Dawkins calls these creations 'biomorphs' meaning life shapes or living shapes...He also refers to them as “quasi-biological' forms and in a moment of excitement calls them 'exquisite creatures'. He plainly believes that in some way they correspond to the real word of living animals
(Dawkins says of his biomorphs) “With a wild surmise, I began to breed generation after generation... my incredulity grew in parallel with the evolving resemblance... Admittedly they have like a spider...” (However) The only thing about the biomorphs that is biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. The program Dawkins wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world...his program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selections (conducted by Dawkins) in which he controls the rate of occurrence. There is also no failure in his program: his biomorphs are not subject to fatal consequences of degenerate mutations like real living things. And most important of all, he chooses which are the luck individuals to receive the next mutation.” quoted from “Shattering the Myths of Darwinism” pp168-9.

My question is, if the theory's so great, why such spurrious argument to support it?

 

[Montalban]

Another example - 'artificial' breeding to demonstrate natural selection...

This one's used in defence of Darwin's truism...
"From time to time, attacks on neo-Darwinism are mounted, usually by persons who either see evolutionary theory as antireligious or who basically misunderstand Darwin's theory. One attack, entitled "Darwin's Mistakes," by Tom Bethell, was published in Harper's magazine.
Bethell began by pointing out that Darwinian theory is a tautology rather than a predicative theory. (The term tautology means a statement that is true by definition.)* That is, evolution is the survival of the fittest. But who are the fittest? Obviously, the individuals who survive. Thus, without an independent criterion for fitness, other than survival, we are left with the statement that evolution is the survival of the survivors. This indeed is a tautology. But it is possible to assign independent criteria for fitness. Darwin wrote extensively about artificial selection in pigeons, in which the breeders' choice was the criterion for fitness. (Many novel breeds of pigeon have been created this way.) Artificial selection has been practiced extensively by plant and animal breeders. Here too, survival is not the criterion for fitness, productivity is."
Robert H Tamarin, (1996) "Principles of Genetics" (5th ed), p571.

 

[USincognito]

My question is, if the theory's so great, why such spurrious argument to support it?

I think a more important question is why, with all the practical and physical evidence we have supporting evolution, you chose to start your thread by mentioning a theoretical one?

 

[Nooj]

'artificial' breeding to demonstrate natural selection...

Artificial selection can be used as an analogy of natural selection. By selecting a particular trait, whether it is being done by environmental pressures or humans, animals can change in appearance, size, shape and form. Do you have a citation to Darwin's works where he ever said that artificial breeding was natural selection?

 

[Naraoia]

In support of evolution a great many bad examples have been put forward.

Haeckel had his fradulant drawings, to Darwin using a truism ('survival of the fittest').

Real embryos (have you seen any lately?) are almost as spectacular as Haeckel's doctored drawings. Fail.

This is what Darwin's "truism" actually says:

If [natural, beneficial variations] do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.

(link)

​

Note that this is a description of a pretty straightforward process (some traits make you better at procreating). Evolution is a consequence of the process. Where is the "truism" in this?

My own pet love is the 'biomorph'; a computer programme used to show how (in theory) small changes can lead to great diversity. Richard Dawkins has promoted these in the past.

Owww, I love biomorphs. Get on with the stuff

Richard Dawkins, well known amongst evolutionaries

Is an evolutionary the opposite of a creationary?

suggested using computer modelling to show how relatively easily mutations can leap from one creature to another. He is very keen to get people interested in these as they are simple to run and suggest much change over little time...

Actually, they are a cool demonstration of developmental evolution. The "genes" of the biomorphs all control certain decisions about the way the trees grow. When, which way, how many times they should branch and so on. This is a simplified model of real development, in which things like where, when, which way, how much cells should divide or die (and what they should become) are also decided by regulatory genes.

The funniest thing is... sorry, I'm going to have to write it again!
“Dawkins was therefore quite surprised to discover an insect-looking biomorph followed by planes, bats, branched candlesticks?”
So, this magical program that is supposed to represent life actually can also produce aeroplanes! I'd like to see DNA morph into such things!

This is so wrong on so many levels

(1) DNA doesn't "morph" into anything much. It remains the good old double helix, packaged up tightly with a bunch of proteins. I'm pretty sure you aren't all DNA either.

(2) This "magical program" is supposed to be an analogy of how genes build organisms, and how a change in them changes the organism (and how that leads to complexity).

The fact that it produced "aeroplanes" and "candlesticks" and whatnot is entirely irrelevant. These shapes are in the eye of the beholder. I have The Blind Watchmaker. As I've said, I adore the biomorphs. But for some of them I wouldn't have guessed "what" they were if Dawkins hadn't told me. It's like looking for shapes in the clouds.

The point about the biomorph program is that it produces an incredible variety of complex shapes (most of which are not planes or insects or anything unless you really want them to be) by gradual modifications from a single pixel.

The next bit is just as funny...
“The use of biomorph is very simple. The eye of the user plays the role of natural selection. Starting from a given form, the user will systematically select the biomorph whose resemblance -very subtle at the beginning - is closer to the wanted form. After a certain number of generations, the result will draw near to the aim.” (Ibid)

So, in other words, you an intelligent actor weed out the programs that don't look like anything that resembles a living thing. Then you keep building up on the programs that look most like life. You are the creator of this cyber-universe! So much for 'natural' selection!

You are woefully missing the point again.

THE POINT ISN'T WHO OR WHAT'S DOING THE SELECTION.

The point is that cumulative evolution can get you far from your starting point.

Here's what Richard Milton says about computer modelling....granted this is referring to whole creatures like Dawkins did...but hopefully you'll get the point...

Yes. The point is that neither you nor Milton understand the point.

...He plainly believes that in some way they correspond to the real word of living animals

In several ways, in fact. (Though unlike most animals, these critters are fully asexual)

(1) They have genes that determine what they look like

(1)(a) Which happens through a "developmental" process
​

(2) Their genomes mutate randomly

(3) The genes make the creature, but selection acts on the creature, not directly on the genes

(4) Selection can't change the genes (no Lamarckism)

The program Dawkins wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world...his program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection.

Yes, it does not represent natural selection, and he fully acknowledges that, together with explaining why he didn't build a "natural" selection mechanism into the program (because "natural" selection would have been a very tough nut to program, for one thing).

On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selections (conducted by Dawkins) in which he controls the rate of occurrence.

Occurrence of what?

There is also no failure in his program: his biomorphs are not subject to fatal consequences of degenerate mutations like real living things.

Actually, the vast majority of morphs fail. Directly from Dawkins (bolding mine):

With a wild surmise, I began to breed, generation from generation, from whichever child looked most like an insect.

(page number refers to this edition - or at least it looks like mine )​

Also, from slightly earlier the same page:

All the creatures pictured on the page are descended from the dot but, in order to avoid cluttering the page, I haven't printed all the descendants that I actually saw. I've printed only the successful child of each generation (i.e. the parent of the next generation) and one or two of its unsuccessful sisters.

True, the program doesn't model things like severe developmental defects, but there's no need to model them in this case. Most morphs in the process of "breeding" an insect do get selected against, so there are, if you will, detrimental mutations. What they are doesn't really matter. An evolutionary dead end is an evolutionary dead end, whether it had no head or just too short tail feathers.

(And you can't really argue that beneficial mutations don't ever occur in real organisms, as they demonstrably do)

My question is, if the theory's so great, why such spurrious argument to support it?

As USincognito has said, there's about a mountain range of actual, tangible evidence supporting evolution. This simulation was really just for demonstration purposes (of certain aspects of evolution). Maybe you've picked absolutely the wrong thing to pick on?

 

[Chalnoth]

My question is, if the theory's so great, why such spurrious argument to support it?

It seems to me that you are complaining, primarily, about popular works promoting evolution. It's just no surprise to me that many of the various strategies fail to convince many people. That's no argument at all against the validity of the mountains and mountains of evidence in support of evolution.

These popular arguments, after all, are just ways to get people who aren't interested in really going into details to understand the basic mechanisms. They have no say in what makes for a scientific consensus.

P.S. If you want a slightly more in-depth rundown than your run-of-the-mill popular article, check out talkorigins.org's 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. If you can read that entire essay and still think there's even a ghost of a chance that common descent is wrong, well, something is wrong with you.

 

[Naraoia]

By the way, as a way of making the biomorph simulation more "natural", I tried two rounds selecting simply for large size, which is a simple kind of selective pressure that occurs in nature. I used the Blind Watchmaker applet here. If there were more than one morphs I couldn't rank, I just picked one. These two pictures are screenshots of the 40[sup]th[/sup] generation in each run.

See, you don't have to select by some contrived human criterion to get complexity. And real selection pressures are never as simple as "bigger is better".

ETA: I also tried random selection, first by using a random number generator, then when I got bored, just by clicking on the same part of the window (as mutations are allocated randomly to each descendant, there should be nothing about their position in the window that would bias this method). I was quite surprised to see I actually got fairly big and complicated things (I didn't save those), but it took me several hundred generations to get out of the dot-simple shape-back to dot loops.

Biomorphs are FUN

 

[Skaloop]

In support of evolution a great many bad examples have been put forward.

Even if you were right, it's still nowhere near the number of bad examples put forward in attempts to refute evolution or support Creationism.

Take all the "bad examples" ever used to support evolution over its 150-year history, and I could find twice as many "bad examples" for Creationism in one month's worth of posts in Ray Comfort's blog.

 

[Chalnoth]

ETA: I also tried random selection, first by using a random number generator, then when I got bored, just by clicking on the same part of the window (as mutations are allocated randomly to each descendant, there should be nothing about their position in the window that would bias this method). I was quite surprised to see I actually got fairly big and complicated things (I didn't save those), but it took me several hundred generations to get out of the dot-simple shape-back to dot loops.

Right, this is an important point. Complexity is added naturally through evolution. Complexity actually has to be selected against for it to not appear naturally. I made a post about why this is a little while back:
http://www.christianforums.com/show...-mutations-add-information-to-the-genome.html

Basically, the increase in complexity from evolution is a consequence of activity akin to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It's not exactly the same, in that it is entirely possible for simplicity to be selected for, but on average complexity tends to increase through evolution.

 

[Athrond]

Another example - 'artificial' breeding to demonstrate natural selection...

Last time I checked humans were part of nature threfore breeding is also a part of natural selection. Just that a human is doing the selection.

 

[Naraoia]

Last time I checked humans were part of nature threfore breeding is also a part of natural selection. Just that a human is doing the selection.

The difference is that humans can plan ahead. That may affect the rate and mechanics of the evolutionary process; for example, if a complex trait requires intermediates that would be selectively neutral in the wild, humans don't have to rely on sheer chance to get the complex trait. But I don't think this fundamentally affects the kinds of outcomes possible.

 

[Montalban]

I think a more important question is why, with all the practical and physical evidence we have supporting evolution, you chose to start your thread by mentioning a theoretical one?

Are you here to discuss the bad examples I mentioned, or not?

 

[Montalban]

Artificial selection can be used as an analogy of natural selection. By selecting a particular trait, whether it is being done by environmental pressures or humans, animals can change in appearance, size, shape and form. Do you have a citation to Darwin's works where he ever said that artificial breeding was natural selection?

Let's start with the last point first. I never claimed that he said it was exactly the same.

But the real nub of this problem is how close they are.

In one you have an 'intelligence' (we would call the breeder) taking time to pick and choose particular traits with (one would hope) an ultimate goal. Nature doesn't do that. "Natural selection" is simply another means of describing his truism, that which survives, survives.

 

[Montalban]

Real embryos (have you seen any lately?) are almost as spectacular as Haeckel's doctored drawings. Fail.

Fail? In what?

This is what Darwin's "truism" actually says:

(link)

​

Note that this is a description of a pretty straightforward process (some traits make you better at procreating). Evolution is a consequence of the process. Where is the "truism" in this?

The truism is that which survives, survives. Darwin preferred to use it. Note my first post cited a reference that accepts it as a truism.

"But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient."
from the 6th edition of "Origin of the Species"
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/chapter-03.html

Owww, I love biomorphs. Get on with the stuff

Is an evolutionary the opposite of a creationary?

Actually, they are a cool demonstration of developmental evolution.

Except that they involve goals, intelligence, artifical selection, etc.

Last time I checked 'selection' was a process. Not a result.

 

[Montalban]

It seems to me that you are complaining, primarily, about popular works promoting evolution. It's just no surprise to me that many of the various strategies fail to convince many people. That's no argument at all against the validity of the mountains and mountains of evidence in support of evolution.

So "Origin of the Species" was just a popular work to promote Evolution?

These popular arguments, after all, are just ways to get people who aren't interested in really going into details to understand the basic mechanisms. They have no say in what makes for a scientific consensus.

I agree that Dawkins is a populariser of evolution.

P.S. If you want a slightly more in-depth rundown than your run-of-the-mill popular article, check out talkorigins.org's 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. If you can read that entire essay and still think there's even a ghost of a chance that common descent is wrong, well, something is wrong with you.

Thanks for the (albeit slight) diversion from the OP.

Talkorigins, speaking of which, do their best to apologise for Darwin using the term...
The best twist on this is...
The phrase 'survival of the fittest' was not even Darwin's. It was urged on him by Wallace, the codiscoverer of natural selection, who hated 'natural selection' because he thought it implied that something was doing the selecting. Darwin coined the term 'natural selection' because had made an analogy with 'artificial selection' as done by breeders, an analogy Wallace hadn't made when he developed his version of the theory. The phrase 'survival of the fittest' was originally due to Herbert Spencer some years before the Origin
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html
That is, it doesn't argue that he didn't use it, just that he didn't 'coin' it.

 

[Montalban]

Last time I checked humans were part of nature threfore breeding is also a part of natural selection. Just that a human is doing the selection.

So a city is 'natural' because we're part of nature and it's 'natural' for us to build a city?

 

[Skaloop]

So a city is 'natural' because we're part of nature and it's 'natural' for us to build a city?

Now you're gettin' it!

 

[Montalban]

Now you're gettin' it!

You missed the illogic; my argument by Reductio ad absurdum was too subtle for you.

As we perform 'naturally' all manner of things, by extension that would make 'aritifical' breeding, 'natural' breeding!


Police find bullet in man's chest; death by natural causes.

 

[consol]

So your argument against evolution says what about creationism?

 

[Skaloop]

You missed the illogic; my argument by Reductio ad absurdum was too subtle for you.

As we perform 'naturally' all manner of things, by extension that would make 'aritifical' breeding, 'natural' breeding!


Police find bullet in man's chest; death by natural causes.

Nothing was too subtle, but now you're just playing semantics with the various connotations of "natural." We as humans tend to differentiate our actions from those of other organisms, and as such tend to label a bird's nest as natural, but a house as not natural, even though both are dwellings made by animals. The difference is in degree of complexity only. And that we consider outselves special and outside of nature. Which is technically not true. Is a bird's nest natural? Is a termite nest natural? Is a beehive natural? Whatever your answer, can you please explain how you determine which sort of things are natural or unnatural?

We use artificial selection to point out the difference from regular old selection, in that our artificial selection has a specific goal, something natural selection does not. But the processes are identical. A dog breeder selecting for size is no different than the process of non-human-directed evolution.

Every death is a death by natural causes. But for the reasons of our justice system and our moral norms, we judge deaths caused by human actions to be different than deaths caused by non-human actions, or deaths caused by accident, physiological breakdown, or mere old age.