the self replicating watch argument

[AV1611VET]

I am really not in the mood for you games today. Maybe you can find someone else to bother.

It always amazes me how people go to college and come out worse than when they went in.

(Actually it doesn't, since I know who is behind the academic spirit nowadays.)

 

[xianghua]

As I have said ad infinitum, it depends on how it replicates. If it grows from a fertilized egg to make a multicellular creature that contributes to more fertilized eggs with DNA, then it is an animal and most likely can evolve.

so if this object was made from organic and had a self replicating system and can grows from a fertilized egg, then you will not conclude its was the product of design:

https://www.robotlab.com/hubfs/images/Blog/Red-NAO---Top.png?t=1516411472218

https://www.robotlab.com/store/nao-evolution-educator-pack

 

[stevevw]

But any organism which doesn't have such a mechanism wouldn't survive to pass on the genes for the lack of such a mechanism.

In the early days of the world, when life was very much simpler, life (or the precursor to life) could have gotten by without such a complex mechanisms.

If simple life got by so well then why change, why upset things. Some say that the abundance and richnes of species of simple single celled organisms is evidence that they are more sucessful than complex life. Complex life suffers from reduced population sizes, reduced recombination rates, and increased deleterious mutation rates, which reduces the efficency of natural selection. This lends support for showing how adaptive evolution (natural selection) is inefficient at evolving more complex life rather than being a force of evolution towards greater complexity. It also lends support to there being preexisting genetic info that enabled early life to use, tap into, turn on and activate to create that complexity without having to use blind natural selection.

Jacob (46) argues that “it is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species.” The vast majority of biologists almost certainly agree with such statements. But where is the direct supportive evidence for the assumption that complexity is rooted in adaptive processes? No existing observations support such a claim, and given the massive global dominance of unicellular species over multicellular eukaryotes, both in terms of species richness and numbers of individuals, if there is an advantage of organismal complexity, one can only marvel at the inability of natural selection to promote it. Multicellular species experience reduced population sizes, reduced recombination rates, and increased deleterious mutation rates, all of which diminish the efficiency of selection (13). It may be no coincidence that such species also have substantially higher extinction rates than do unicellular taxa (47, 48).
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.full

Here I propose an experimentally testable hypothesis of Universal Genome that addresses these questions. According to this model, (a) the Universal Genome that encodes all major developmental programs essential for various phyla of Metazoa emerged in a unicellular or a primitive multicellular organism shortly before the Cambrian period; (b) The Metazoan phyla, all having similar genomes, are nonetheless so distinct because they utilize specific combinations of developmental programs. This model has two major predictions, first that a significant fraction of genetic information in lower taxons must be functionally useless but becomes useful in higher taxons, and second that one should be able to turn on in lower taxons some of the complex latent developmental programs, e.g., a program of eye development or antibody synthesis in sea urchin.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17660714

Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective:
“A mathematical analysis of the experiments showed that the proteins themselves acted to correct any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations and restored the chain to working order.”
http://www.princeton.edu/main/...../60/95O56/

 

[xianghua]

Try examining some of the many lines of transitional forms, such as that of whales. You start off with a quirky ear formation that today exists only in cestaceans. You can find it in past four legged land animals, and over time you can follow their slow evolution into whales and dolphins via the fossil record.

first: can you bring a reference for this special ear structure that is unqiue to whales and those four legged ancestors?

now, your argument is basically order in the fossil re cord. there are 2 problems with this argument:

1) many fossil dont show any order. here is one example for instance:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171023182615.htm

"The first trees to have ever grown on Earth were also the most complex, new research has revealed. "This raises a provoking question: why are the very oldest trees the most complicated?"

evolution didnt predict this kind of fossil because its more complex then modern fossils. and we have many such fossils. so if fossil in the correct order is evidence for evolution then fossil in the wrong order should be evidence against it.

2) we can arrange many objects in order. for instance:

(image from https://www.carthrottle.com/post/oiCEix/)

now, you can say that cars cant reproduce with variations like creatures. but even if they were able to do that it will not prove evolution .

 

[xianghua]

Because robots don't reproduce and neither are they in competition with peers over limited resources.

so if they were able to reproduce and had competition about limited resources you will say that those robots evolved?

 

[xianghua]

Who says a single trait evolves at a time?

Why not multiple traits evolving simultaneously?

because then its not stepwise anymore. it will be very unilekly. if the chance to evolve a a single trait is say one in a billion mutations then the chance to get 2 traits at once is about 10^18.

 

[Speedwell]

because then its not stepwise anymore. it will be very unilekly. if the chance to evolve a a single trait is say one in a billion mutations then the chance to get 2 traits at once is about 10^18.

So you say, but you don't understand how related biological traits evolve in parallel and have blown off all attempts to explain it to you.

 

[DogmaHunter]

so if they were able to reproduce

They aren't.

and had competition about limited resources

They haven't.

you will say that those robots evolved?

No, because they wouldn't be robots. Just like you have already admitted.

Here's an example of a non-living robot that doesn't reproduce, and an actual living organism that looks exactly like the robot:

You refust to call BOTH of these "robots" and you also refuse to call BOTH of these "humans".

So you DO understand the difference.
It's a complete mystery why you then insist otherwise.

 

[DogmaHunter]

because then its not stepwise anymore. it will be very unilekly. if the chance to evolve a a single trait is say one in a billion mutations then the chance to get 2 traits at once is about 10^18.

Evolution doesn't work that way.

 

[xianghua]

You refust to call BOTH of these "robots" and you also refuse to call BOTH of these "humans".

not realy. from a physical perspective (without geting now into the question of free will or soul) a walking creature like a penguin can be consider as a kind of a robot.

 

[Skreeper]

not realy. from a physical perspective (without geting now into the question of free will or soul) a walking creature like a penguin can be consider as a kind of a robot.

Maybe where you are coming from people call penguins robots. The rest of the world just calls them penguins and penguins are definitely not robots. What definition of robot are you even using?

 

[xianghua]

Maybe where you are coming from people call penguins robots. The rest of the world just calls them penguins and penguins are definitely not robots. What definition of robot are you even using?

do you see any problem to call this a watch if it was able to reproduce and was made from organic components?:

(image from https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/tribe/product/wood-watch-bear)

 

[Speedwell]

here is how it

Maybe where you are coming from people call penguins robots. The rest of the world just calls them penguins and penguins are definitely not robots. What definition of robot are you even using?

Here is how it works: A robot, a "mechanical man" is intelligently designed. Therefore, anything that you call a robot must also be intelligently designed. So if you call a penguin a robot, it must be intelligently designed.

 

[Skreeper]

do you see any problem to call this a watch if it was able to reproduce and was made from organic components?:

(image from https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/tribe/product/wood-watch-bear)

Show me a watch that can reproduce and is made from organic materials and we can talk. Until then your argument is put on hold.

 

[xianghua]

Show me a watch that can reproduce and is made from organic materials and we can talk. Until then your argument is put on hold.

i dont need to show such a thing in order to prove that it will still be a watch. and if a watch with living traits is still a watch then a robot with living traits is still a robot.

 

[Skreeper]

i dont need to show such a thing in order to prove that it will still be a watch. and if a watch with living traits is still a watch then a robot with living traits is still a robot.

Yes you do have to show that your wild fantasies are real otherwise your point is moot.

 

[Speedwell]

i dont need to show such a thing in order to prove that it will still be a watch. and if a watch with living traits is still a watch then a robot with living traits is still a robot.

So anything you call a watch must be designed? If you call a pile of horse poop a watch does that mean its designed?

 

[xianghua]

So anything you call a watch must be designed? If you call a pile of horse poop a watch does that mean its designed?

so the object above isnt a watch if it has living traits?

 

[Skreeper]

so the object above isnt a watch if it has living traits?

I think we would need to find a new name for such a creature.

 

[Speedwell]

so the object above isnt a watch if it has living traits?

You can call it Rumplestiltskin if you want to. The real question is, was it formed by natural causes or was it manufactured?