Do you agree with these statements?

[stevevw]

Yet you characterize such a process as "blind and random."

I cannot understand why this is a problem. Natural selection cannot see ahead or has no goal as to what is needed to increase variety and complexity. Its only mission really is survivability. That means weeding out the dysfunctional, weak and unsuitable.

It doesn't matter if it changes a previously good working sequence and makes it dysfunctional so long as this works in the new environment. Those changes may become immediately useless if the environment changes again. So in that sense, it is blind.

Random mutations are random in that they cannot throw up a well suited and functional mutated change that may be needed to help a living thing evolve into a fit and functional creature without risk of harm. It throws in harmful mutations as well which threaten life. In that sense, it is a bit of a jackpot as to what you end up getting.

Though NS can weed out that harm it seems like one step forward 10 steps back. It's like throwing a virus into windows 7 to change it to windows 10 or something better or different. Why not just use existing software that has been designed to upgrade it. As with life why not have a mechanism that can produce well suited and integrated changes in the first place.

Here is what Berkley says about random mutations
Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful for the organism, but mutations do not "try" to supply what the organism "needs." Factors in the environment may influence the rate of mutation but are not generally thought to influence the direction of mutation. For example, exposure to harmful chemicals may increase the mutation rate, but will not cause more mutations that make the organism resistant to those chemicals. In this respect, mutations are random.
Mutations are random

The issue I see is that putting all the eggs in one basket in giving NS and random mutation so much ability to account for what we see that you cannot allow any scrutiny. As we discover how life is so amazingly varied and complex the more creative power has to be given to NS regardless of whether this can be supported or not.

But when we consider that there are other mechanisms that can help account for how life can evolve that has more direction and self-organization that along with NS and mutations we can have a fully accountable and explanatory theory.

 

[Speedwell]

Well I hope you have a ranch. They are sections of the original papers which I have often read. You can go back to my history and find different sections linked going back years. I have a lot of papers along these lines. As I said the EES is associated with my line of study and work in human behavior especially mental health. It is important to understand all the influences for behavior including cognitive, psychological, and genetic, especially epigenetics. It is important to understand if there is a genetic basis for behavioral problems as opposed to learned or conditioned.

Just checking. You understand that we see that package of quotes fairly regularly, always used to support an argument that runs, roughly, "See? See? Even real scientists are coming around to the idea that there is more than godless blind random chance to evolution!"

 

[Speedwell]

I cannot understand why this is a problem. Natural selection cannot see ahead or has no goal as to what is needed to increase variety and complexity.

Yes, that is why the offspring of a species present a range of variants to the environment for selection. Some of these variants will be a better fit to the environment than the parents, some less.

Random mutations are random in that they cannot throw up a well suited and functional mutated change that may be needed to help a living thing evolve into a fit and functional creature without risk of harm. It throws in harmful mutations as well which threaten life. In that sense, it is a bit of a jackpot as to what you end up getting.

What you wind up getting is a random distribution--a "bell curve" of variants.

Though NS can weed out that harm it seems like one step forward 10 steps back. It's like throwing a virus into windows 7 to change it to windows 10 or something better or different. Why not just use existing software that has been designed to upgrade it. As with life why not have a mechanism that can produce well suited and integrated changes in the first place.

There is one--it's called variation. No one expects natural selection to create anything.

Here is what Berkley says about random mutations
Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful for the organism, but mutations do not "try" to supply what the organism "needs." Factors in the environment may influence the rate of mutation but are not generally thought to influence the direction of mutation. For example, exposure to harmful chemicals may increase the mutation rate, but will not cause more mutations that make the organism resistant to those chemicals. In this respect, mutations are random.
Mutations are random

Using "random" in a slightly different sense, that is correct. Natural selection reduces the information content of the gene pool. Mutations increase the information content of the gene pool, but they best be random because a random signal contains the most information.

 

[jayem]

Exactly. This is why I don't understand why creationists would be so quick to marry their "kind" definition to modern biological taxonomy. It's basically an admission that such classification is arbitrary.

I've noticed that as well. I haven't read all 700+ postings in this thread. I may be repeating what's already been mentioned. Linnaean taxonomy, which is based almost totally on anatomy, is not the only system of classification. Cladistic analysis is much more useful, especially in the context of evolution. Instead of the traditional kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species, there are clades. These are groups of organisms which, based on anatomy, physiology, and genetics, appear to have descended from a common ancestor. A clade diagram is a tree with the ancestor as the trunk, and the organisms descended therefrom are branches. There may be some degree of speculation in assigning an organism to a clade based on estimates of genetic similarity. But cladistics is the more modern and useful taxonomic concept.

Reconstructing trees: Cladistics

 

[inquiring mind]

If you believe in creation the evolution-defining assertion that mutations are ‘the cause’ of variations can only be a secondary effect at best because proto-types were already created. Mutations ‘act upon’ them in the process of life, but only at the micro-level, and that is the only additional variety we actually see. Suggesting major change at the macro level over incomprehensible lengths of time just cannot be supported, except through pure speculation.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Natural selection cannot see ahead or has no goal as to what is needed to increase variety and complexity. Its only mission really is survivability. That means weeding out the dysfunctional, weak and unsuitable.

Those sentences are contradictory. Natural selection has no goal or mission; it's a descriptor for how fitter organisms out-compete less fit organisms in reproductive success.

It doesn't matter if it changes a previously good working sequence and makes it dysfunctional so long as this works in the new environment.

A change isn't dysfunctional if it 'works', i.e. maintains or increases fitness.

Though NS can weed out that harm it seems like one step forward 10 steps back. It's like throwing a virus into windows 7 to change it to windows 10 or something better or different. Why not just use existing software that has been designed to upgrade it. As with life why not have a mechanism that can produce well suited and integrated changes in the first place.

Neither evolution nor natural selection have goals or directions, so there's no relevant comparison or analogy with upgrading software.

The issue I see is that putting all the eggs in one basket in giving NS and random mutation so much ability to account for what we see that you cannot allow any scrutiny. As we discover how life is so amazingly varied and complex the more creative power has to be given to NS regardless of whether this can be supported or not.

But when we consider that there are other mechanisms that can help account for how life can evolve that has more direction and self-organization that along with NS and mutations we can have a fully accountable and explanatory theory.

As Kylie already pointed out, whatever the mechanisms for producing variation, it is natural selection that determines whether or not a variant will persist and spread through the population. It is not some kind of external force acting on populations, it is simply differential reproductive success.

 

[stevevw]

Just checking. You understand that we see that package of quotes fairly regularly, always used to support an argument that runs, roughly, "See? See? Even real scientists are coming around to the idea that there is more than godless blind random chance to evolution!"

Yes but I don't dispute evolution just the role and degree NS and random mutations play. I am sure that is a fairly common debate among all who support evolution whether they are religious or not.

 

[stevevw]

Yes, that is why the offspring of a species present a range of variants to the environment for selection. Some of these variants will be a better fit to the environment than the parents, some less.

I would have thought that as the parents are already surviving that any change away from the parents is not a benefit. It will depend on the environment, if it has changed or if a new niche is found. But this is where forces like niches construction can come in. If an environment changes creatures change it to something that suits them rather than being changed to suit the environment. This is often neglected in that creatures can determine their own survivability and be subject to NS dictating terms.

What you wind up getting is a random distribution--a "bell curve" of variants.

I don't think it works like some math equations. That is what some have criticized NS as trying to apply a deductive calculation to living things when there are many more variables at play. There is much more back and forth interaction between living things and their environments. It isn't all about adaptive evolution. Other forces can offer more certainty and direction to evolution.

There is one--it's called variation. No one expects natural selection to create anything.

But if that variation is random then that is what is causing the potential virus. Throwing a random mutation into a well-oiled operation that requires precise changes or adjustments is not the best way to improve things. If the change is detrimental then hopefully the internal rescue safety devices bring in back into line. But sometimes small errors get through. Mutated variations are not the best way to perform changes.

Using "random" in a slightly different sense, that is correct. Natural selection reduces the information content of the gene pool. Mutations increase the information content of the gene pool, but they best be random because a random signal contains the most information.

The most information is not necessarily the best or what may be needed. It is the precise information that fits the need the first time is what is needed. The random info also comes at a high risk of being the wrong info and detrimental info.

That is where other processes can allow precise and well-suited changes. This is what living things are equipped with. So at least a good % of the changes perceived as coming from random variation that may have provided a benefit have actually come from other sources because the % of change that needs to be spot-on cannot be accounted for by that random supply of variation. For every beneficial change, it would also introduce far too many risks to be viable and to account for the level of complexity and variety we see.

 

[Speedwell]

I would have thought that as the parents are already surviving that any change away from the parents is not a benefit. It will depend on the environment, if it has changed or if a new niche is found. But this is where forces like niches construction can come in. If an environment changes creatures change it to something that suits them rather than being changed to suit the environment. This is often neglected in that creatures can determine their own survivability and be subject to NS dictating terms.

And the best example of that is humans, who can manipulate their environment to a great degree. But that manipulated environment also exerts selective pressure.

I don't think it works like some math equations. That is what some have criticized NS as trying to apply a deductive calculation to living things when there are many more variables at play. There is much more back and forth interaction between living things and their environments. It isn't all about adaptive evolution. Other forces can offer more certainty and direction to evolution.

What math equations? I'm talking about something which is directly observed. Each new generation of a species presents a range of variants to the environment for selection and that range of variants is randomly distributed--it forms a bell curve.

But if that variation is random then that is what is causing the potential virus. Throwing a random mutation into a well-oiled operation that requires precise changes or adjustments is not the best way to improve things. If the change is detrimental then hopefully the internal rescue safety devices bring in back into line. But sometimes small errors get through. Mutated variations are not the best way to perform changes.

I have no idea what you are talking about--it's nothing to do with the theory of evolution, anyway.

The most information is not necessarily the best or what may be needed. It is the precise information that fits the need the first time is what is needed. The random info also comes at a high risk of being the wrong info and detrimental info.

There is no "what may be needed."

That is where other processes can allow precise and well-suited changes. This is what living things are equipped with. So at least a good % of the changes perceived as coming from random variation that may have provided a benefit have actually come from other sources because the % of change that needs to be spot-on cannot be accounted for by that random supply of variation. For every beneficial change, it would also introduce far too many risks to be viable and to account for the level of complexity and variety we see.

No, it's all randomly distributed variation, but not all of the variation comes from mutation. That has long been understood.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I would have thought that as the parents are already surviving that any change away from the parents is not a benefit.

Surviving isn't necessarily thriving. This is where physiological adaptation (plasticity) comes in - it can enable a parental generation to survive to have offspring with fitter variants.

 

[stevevw]

Surviving isn't necessarily thriving. This is where physiological adaptation (plasticity) comes in - it can enable a parental generation to survive to have offspring with fitter variants.

Yes, I agree as this article mentions.

The evolution of plasticity does something more than make individuals suited to their surroundings: it defines the ‘rules’ that connect environment and phenotype. In the classic view, these rules take the form of genetic ‘if x then y’ programs that modify an otherwise genetically specified phenotype. The EES framework recognizes that development is always the result of interactions with the environment. Rather than being just a strategy for survival, plasticity becomes a necessary component to create phenotypes. And since natural selection depends on the ability to create new phenotypes, constraining the variation produced in new environments will potentially steer the course of evolution.
Understanding the role of plasticity in evolution – Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

But I don't want to allow this to steer the thread away from the OP. It is perhaps something that should be discussed in more detail in another thread.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

But I don't want to allow this to steer the thread away from the OP. It is perhaps something that should be discussed in more detail in another thread.

So why are you posting all this stuff here?

 

[AV1611VET]

So why are you posting all this stuff here?

I think the OP has run its course.

It's [another] not too thought out OP:

1. If you're a creationist, then they're all still zebras.
2. If you're an evolutionist, then they've changed into something else.

Either way, you can agree with all seven statements, and it won't change your point of view.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I think the OP has run its course.

It's [another] not too thought out OP:

1. If you're a creationist, then they're all still zebras.
2. If you're an evolutionist, then they've changed into something else.

Either way, you can agree with all seven statements, and it won't change your point of view.

You missed the point of the post.

 

[AV1611VET]

You missed the point of the post.

What post? the OP? I don't think so.

Again, if you're a creationist, then they're all zebras.

But if you're an evolutionist, and particularly one who likes to bring up that red-to-violet palette example, then they've changed to something else.

 

[stevevw]

So why are you posting all this stuff here?

I began post my thoughts on this but didn't realize Kylie wanted a more basic thread. So I have been trying to tone it down. But it's hard to do without detailing these alternatives views on evolution. But I respect that it is Kylie's thread and that it is important to direct the thread along the lines of the OP.

 

[Speedwell]

I began post my thoughts on this but didn't realize Kylie wanted a more basic thread. So I have been trying to tone it down. But it's hard to do without detailing these alternatives views on evolution. But I respect that it is Kylie's thread and that it is important to direct the thread along the lines of the OP.

They aren't "alternative views."

 

[stevevw]

They aren't "alternative views."

What are they then.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

What post? the OP? I don't think so.

The post you were responding to - my post.

 

[Speedwell]

What are they then.

They are an accepted part of the scientific discourse which makes up evolutionary biology. Not all of them are formally a part of the theory, but they by no means represent an "opposition party."