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Author
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Topic: Why Are Humans So Intelligent
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 30. September 2002 10:00
ID is based on the observation that the ‘intelligent’ designs created by human intelligence are in many respects similar to the biological designs created by evolutionary processes. This observation suggests that understanding human intelligence might help up understand evolutionary processes, and understanding evolutionary processes might help us understand human intelligence. In order to address the ID/evolution question, it may, therefore be useful to take a closer look at ‘Why humans are so intelligent?".
Understanding human intelligence begins with the observation that "There is a clear, unambiguous, discontinuity between human and animal intelligence". It can be debated whether the difference between human and animal intelligence is a difference in ‘kind or degree’(IMO human intelligence involves a different processes from animal intelligence processes). It can also be debated whether animals can exhibit human or human-like intelligence (IMO, most animals exhibit some limited degree of human-like intelligence as well as animal intelligence, and humans exhibit animal intelligence as well as human-like intelligence). [For the discussion here, the existence of a clear and unambiguous discontinuity between human and animal intelligence is taken as a given.]
The existence of the human intelligence/animal intelligence discontinuity is important for two reasons. First, the existence of the discontinuity means that some change which explains the discontinuity evolved or was created in the relatively recent past(the date or period of the change is a subject for discussion). Second, the existence of the discontinuity means that human intelligence can be analyzed by comparing and contrasting human and animal intelligence.
THE EVOLUTION/CREATION OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
The evolution (or creation) of human intelligence (the human/animal intelligence discontinuity) comes down to (at least) three questions- 1)When did it occur?, 2)What changed? and 3)Where is the change stored? [The discussion of the evolution of human intelligence often starts with the assumption/insistence that humanness or human intelligence MUST be stored in DNA. For the discussion here, intelligence stored in DNA is not a precondition, but one of several possible answers which is subject to testing/validation like any other possible answer. ]
WHAT CHANGED?
The human/animal intelligence discontinuity is defined/measured(at least here) in terms of 1)the capacity to generate adaptive solutions/behavior and 2)the capacity to generate creative or novel adaptive solutions/behavior. Humans and non-human animals both exhibit the ability to generate adaptive behavior and creative adaptive behavior. The human/animal intelligence discontinuity is defined/measured in terms of the volumes of adaptive and creative solutions. By many different measures, human capabilities in these areas are 1000’s and even millions of times greater than those of our nearest competitors. [As a simple example, humans create 1,000’s, probably millions, more new songs than whales. ]
There are undoubtedly other possible descriptions/definitions of the human/animal intelligence discontinuity. The discussion here is limited to definitions which are both measurable and demonstrably related to the human/animal intelligence discontinuity.
WHEN DID THE CHANGE OCCUR?
If we define the human/animal discontinuity in terms of ‘significant increases in the ability to generate adaptive and creative solutions’, then we have a very clear measure/record of when the changes occurred. The record clearly shows that increases in the capacity to generate adaptive and creative solutions have occurred in historical times and are continuing to occur. The rate at which humans generate adaptive and creative solutions has increased in the recent past and is continuing to increase. The evolution of humanness, as measured by objective standards, has occurred in the recent past and is occurring in the present at a measurable, and easily recognizable rate.
It will be noted that the ‘result’ of evolutionary change is only observed measured when the ‘last piece’ of the change is in place. Many of the pieces or processes that account for today’s rate of creative intelligence undoubtedly evolved millions of years ago. The fact that the rate of generating creative behaviors continues to increase, however, suggests that some element contributing to the rate must have evolved very recently.
It will also be noted that it is difficult to justify the argument that A evolved 200,000 or 2 million years ago, but was first manifest 200 or 2 years ago. It is difficult, although not necessarily impossible, to argue that the evolution or creation of ‘humanness’ was completed some time in the distant past but the manifestations continue to change. For the discussion here, it is not considered adequate to simply ‘assume’ that evolution stopped to slowed down 200,000 years ago. It is also necessary to explain why manifestations continue to change.
The ‘evolution of humanness is continuing at a very rapid rate’, is not the only possible answer to when the evolution or creation of humanness occurred. Any alternative answer, however, needs to be able to explain why the manifestations of humanness continue to change.
WHERE IS HUMANNESS STORED?
If you assume there is a materialistic explanation of humanness, then you assume that there are physical mechanisms that store humanness. By time honored tradition, we test ‘it is stored there.." hypotheses by ‘taking out a bit and seeing if it still works’. From such analysis, we know that we can stop or hinder ‘humanness’ by removing the head, the brain, and/or the heart. Clearly, significant and critical features of humanness or of the human/animal intelligence discontinuity are explained in terms of the physical features of humans.
We have reasonably reliable evidence that the ‘physical/genetic human species has not changed materially in the last 5-10,000 years, but the characteristics of humanness, as defined here, continue to change/evolve rapidly. This suggests the possibility that there are features of humanness or the human/animal intelligence difference that are stored outside the physical human entity.
This ‘possibility’ is easily tested and confirmed. The ability of humans to generate adaptive and creative solutions can be easily and dramatically reduced by eliminating the physical/mechanical tools humans use in generating adaptive and creative behaviors. Humanness and human intelligence involve the ability to use tools, but they also involve the tools themselves.
Animals appear to exhibit some ability to perform human-like intelligent creative problem solving, but animals do not use tools to the extent that humans do. It is interesting to ask, can human intelligence and the human-like intelligence exhibited by animals be disrupted by disrupting external features other than tools? The answer, I suggest, is yes. The ability to generate adaptive and creative solutions can be significantly reduced by disrupting the communications channels between individuals. [Intelligence, I suggest, can also be increased by increasing communications channels including increases in communications channels between different species.]
The generally accepted view is that the physical manifestation of ‘humanness’ or the ‘human mind’ is located or stored in the human brain. It is useful to note that just because something is a generally accepted view or generally accepted by the academic/scientific community does not mean it is the ‘only legitimate view or perspective’. Despite what we are sometimes told, generally accepted is not necessarily the ‘best’ perspective [It will be recalled that just a few years ago the dot.com/new economy view was the generally accepted view supported by the vast majority of professional investment analysts.].
The analysis here suggests that humanness, the human mind, or the mechanisms explaining the discontinuity between human and animal intelligence, may be stored in tools and communications channels as well as ‘inside our heads’. This conclusion would appear to be clearly supported by ‘take away a piece’ type analysis.
The success or effectiveness of analysis depends, IMO, to a very large extent on the view or perspective used to frame the analysis. ID/evolution analysis has historically been framed in terms of the 'mind is brain’ and ‘evolution is genetic change’ perspectives. The analysis here suggests that neither of these traditional perspectives is 1)compatible with the facts nor 2)particularly useful in explaining the evolution of humanness. The analysis suggests that it might be at least interesting to consider the mind as something both ‘inside and outside the brain’ and consider the evolution of humanness as involving ‘changes in communications channels and tools’ as well as changes in ‘the ability to use tools and communications channels’.
[More tomorrow (maybe), on what this unconventional perspective means for explaining why humans are so intelligent, and what this means for evolution.]
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Frances
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Member # 169
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posted 30. September 2002 11:43
An important part of our knowledge and in fact of knowledge in the animal kingdom may be stored in the population. That is through learning or mimicking behavior new additions to the population can acquire knowledge. What makes humans more unique is that they have found ways to store knowledge in a more permanent manner.
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Elend
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Member # 326
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posted 01. October 2002 05:05
First, I think this is a very interesting discussion subject. Some comments now. There are animals that do use tools, build constructions in a creative manner, even cultivate crops (I can find some references for those interested). As Warren pointed out, there is both physiological and external support for human "intelligence". As Frances said the external support comes from the culture passed on to us by society. On the other hand our brains must be able to handle this input and use it for our advantage. It is though one point I disagree with what has been said:
quote:
The rate at which humans generate adaptive and creative solutions has increased in the recent past and is continuing to increase.
It is very tricky to use the progress of our society as sign of increase in creative power or intelligence. Assuming a child from 10,000 years ago would somehow be transported in the present, he would most likely have no problem becoming the average citizen of the current society. Moreover, from an evolutionist point of view, the selection pressure seems to be shifting compared to that of some tens of thousands of years ago. One could say it is becoming weaker, since it is probably easier to survive now than in the past. On the other hand, the gene flow has improved, which could lead to higher peaks (say there are more "highly intelligent" people, not because of the number increase but because of gene recombination). The diet has also improved, which could lead to better performance. Anyway, I would expect that the average "intelligence" didn't change significantly over a few thousand years, given the same external conditions.
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 01. October 2002 07:41
Response to Frances,
As you may have guessed, I make a distinction between within brain, individual information processing and group or social information processing. The observed discontinuity in creative intelligence between humans and non-humans is explained by a dramatic increase in group or social information processing.
This increase in social information processing ‘appears’ to be due in part to 1)an increase in the ability to use certain types of tools(key among these was the ability to use language), and 2)an increase in the ability to use multiple communications channels. Both of these ‘abilities’ appear to be heritable within brain individual skills.
When we look at animals, particularly primates, IMO, we can observe these abilities to use tools, even language, and ability to use multiple communications channels. As would realistically be expected, humans differ in these abilities from animals in degree or magnitude of these capabilities. Humans do not appear to have unique individual abilities not shared with other animals. What appears to have happened, or if you wish what I am speculating happened, is that in humans at some point, the ability to use tools and the ability to use multiple communications channels reached a ‘critical point or mass’ where it became possible for the external tools and channels to begin ‘evolving’.
The ability to evolve tools meant that, as you pointed out, humans could rapidly increase memory capacity. They could also increase processing capacity, data gathering capacity, communications efficiency etc. . With the evolution of tools came the ability to ‘connect’ more brains to solve a problem, and the ability to increase the efficiency of the processing of individual brains.
I am suggesting, that once a certain critical point was reached, it became possible for human creative intelligence to continue to evolve, and evolve very rapidly, without any further change in the within brain abilities.
The above interpretation/description/explanation appears to be 1)consistent with the observed facts and 2)testable using the ‘take a piece away’ technique or the compare animals and humans technique.
The ‘problem’ with the above interpretation is not that it conflicts with facts, but that it conflicts with some of our most widely accepted theories and beliefs. We firmly believe that ‘human intelligence is an inside the head phenomena’ and we firmly believe that ‘evolution means changes in genes’.
Response to Eland,
Your comments illustrate the difference between ‘facts’ and ‘how facts are interpreted’. There is really very little reason to doubt that ‘the pace of technological progress has increased dramatically over the last 10,000 years’ or ‘the pace at which human creative intelligence produces results has increased over the last 10,000 years’.
If you start by imposing the requirement that ‘human intelligence must be an inside the individual brain process’, then you faced with the task of explaining how the output of intelligence can be increasing when intelligence, as defined is unchanged. Putting a label on the phenomena, calling it cultural evolution, is not, IMO, the same as explaining the phenomena.
The goal of this discussion was to address the question ‘why are humans so intelligent?" or "why is there such a clear discontinuity between human and non-human intelligence?" If we impose the artificial or arbitrary constraint that ‘human intelligence must be an inside the individual brain phenomena" then, it appears, we can find no explanation for the observed differences nor can we explain the observed pattern of manifestations of human intelligence.
As discussed above, if we remove the artificial ‘human intelligence is an inside the brain phenomena’ then there appears to be a relatively straight forward explanation both for human intelligence and for the pattern of manifestations.
As you suggested, if you could move someone from 10,000 years ago into the present(at a young enough age), they would probably fit right in. Similarly, if you moved Einstein or Mozart, at a young age, back 10,000 or even 100 years in time, you would dramatically reduce the ‘manifestations of their creative genius’. This suggests, IMO, that there is more to human intelligence than inside the head processing.
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John 3
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Member # 269
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posted 01. October 2002 09:26
There has been a de-evolution in our intelligence concerning our own history in the past few thousand years. A great deal of knowledge has been lost. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of years of culture. What would cause our stupidification? Probably global disaster.
If a person was to live their entire life without any contact with other humans, I dought any significant accomplishments would be made in that person's intelligence. But the person would still keep learning. And while intelligence, through communication, is passed from one person to another, how can an evolution of ones intellingence (intellectual novelty unconceived of before) occure anywhere but inside ones brain?
WB:
"As you suggested, if you could move someone from 10,000 years ago into the present(at a young enough age), they would probably fit right in. Similarly, if you moved Einstein or Mozart, at a young age, back 10,000 or even 100 years in time, you would dramatically reduce the ‘manifestations of their creative genius’. This suggests, IMO, that there is more to human intelligence than inside the head processing. "
I still dont see how you envisige intelligence outside the brain. I only understand inteligence to be inside the brain. Of coarse, no one person can concieve all the processes that make society work. In that way, the collective is much smarter than the individual within it. But as I understand it, intelligence is only what an individual creates in their mind OR has inherited from someone else who created it in their mind. Sure, most of what we learn is of an external origin (perhaps most of the intelligence I am using to say these words right now are largely the result of mental efforts that came before me), but before this intelligence enters society it must first pass through a persons mind, must it not?
Almost all animals have a model of their external and, to some extent, their internal environment. Most have a system of evalutation of those models that give object meaning relative to the animals pleasure and pain. But what I think distinguishes us from animals is how we can perceive an object as a symbol that means something more than its physicality implies. Like words. An apple doesnt necessarily mean a-p-p-l-e but the symbol allows us to place the the object in a linear string of thought. Much like algebra, these value strings are managed by mental permutation patterns and allow more complex thoughts to be achieved. For example:
me hungery
there apple
me get apple
apple on tree
apple high
me climb trunk
me fall
ouch
...
there long stick
stick go high
apple high
me swing stick
hit apple with stick
apple fall
yummy
See, by knowing the stick was long and that long CAN equate to high, stick usage can result in a full stomach.
Thats the major destinguishing feature in my oppinion -- primarily language and symbology in general.
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Frances
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Member # 169
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posted 01. October 2002 11:00
Warren,
I fail to see how you consider collective knowledge to be at odds with evolution and more importantly neo-Darwinian?
For instance the Baldwin effect shows how learning and evolution can be reconcilable with Darwinian theory.
Perhaps you could explain?
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Evan
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Member # 164
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posted 01. October 2002 12:42
Warren writes, “Understanding human intelligence begins with the observation that "There is a clear, unambiguous, discontinuity between human and animal intelligence"”
This is not necessarily clear and unambiguous. Warren himself says that “it can be debated whether the difference between human and animal intelligence is a difference in ‘kind or degree’,” - if the differences are ones of degree, and not kind, then the discontinuity is not unambiguous. Differences of “degree” implies a continuity.
Furthermore, Warren writes, “It can also be debated whether animals can exhibit human or human-like intelligence (IMO, most animals exhibit some limited degree of human-like intelligence as well as animal intelligence, and humans exhibit animal intelligence as well as human-like intelligence).”
This also seems to be saying that the differences between human and animal intelligence are perhaps not so clear-cut.
There is no doubt that some aspects of human intelligence surpass anything in the rest of the animal kingdom. The question is whether some type of discontinous jump happened, and if so, what kind of discontinuity is this.
To some extent we have a semantic issue here. If the word discontinous is being used in an informal sense, meaning “a big change”, then we can call this a discontinuity without there being any big issue.
But if the word discontinuity is being used to mean a true ontological discontinuity - an abrupt creation of a new quality that is not connected causally with what came before, that is a major claim that is not at all a “clear and unambiguous” conclusion.
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John 3
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Member # 269
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posted 01. October 2002 15:20
I was thinking about your post, Warren, and I was thinking about "why" one sees such an accelaration in the growth of intelligence. While there are probably many reasons, I thought, perhaps its just that: Why.
Would it be typical of any civilization in the universe to look so quizically upon its past, present, and future? Perhaps we found our models of the world too incomplete and it was simply wanting to know the truth that has driven the rate of mental evolution. Therefore, the very motivation of your post perhaps answers the question of why intelligence is presently evolving at the rate it is.
As for when, how, and why there is such a gap between us and other animals in the way of intelligence, we can only conjecture but there is good evidence on the ID side of the debate. Primarily all of the religions of the world. They are mankind's earliest memories and most of them speak of higher beings that came out of the skies.
more later
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 01. October 2002 15:29
Response to Frances,
I try to qualify statements like ‘at odds with evolution or neo-Darwinism’ because it is so difficult to pin point exactly what people mean by those terms. I am defining humanness here as the ‘the ability to generate or produce creative/adaptive solutions’. As defined, this process continues to change and evolve despite the fact that there is no corresponding change genetic change.
If I discovered 1)a species of bird that has remained essentially genetically unchanged for last 200,000 years, 2)that first demonstrated an ability to fly 100 years ago, 3)first demonstrated an ability to fly at speeds greater than the speed of sound 50 years ago, and 4)first demonstrated and ability for flying in outer-space 30 years ago, would these discoveries be compatible with neo-Darwinism? Would the discoveries be compatible with the claim ‘the birds ability to fly evolved by neo-Darwinian mechanisms’?
The questions are addressed were- with respect to the clearly identifiable human ability to generate creative/adaptive solutions, 1)what evolved?, 2)when did it evolve?, and 3)where is what evolved stored?. I offered for discussion answers that would appear, at least on the surface, to be incompatible with some narrow interpretations of neo-Darwinism. The answers offered would also appear to be incompatible with the narrow interpretation of ‘the human mind which exhibits creative intelligence is located entirely within the brain of an individual’.
The ‘appearance of incompatibility’, IMO, is fairly obvious. I guess if you wished to show how the three questions would be answered 1)based on neo-Darwinian concepts of evolution and 2)how your answers can be reconciled to the observed facts, such a demonstration would be interesting contribution to the discussion here.
My primary interest in discussing ‘the evolution of humanness’ or ‘the evolution of the human creative ability’ is to point out that humanness can be viewed as primarily a group or social phenomena rather than as an individual ‘within brain’ phenomena. The group or social feature of humanness has important implications, IMO, for how human intelligence is studied and ultimately explained. If, I am proposing, human intelligence is primarily a group/social phenomena, then it may be possible/practical to observe/analyze the operation of human intelligence by observing/analyzing the communication between individuals.
Response to John,
Quote: And while intelligence, through communication, is passed from one person to another, how can an evolution of ones intellingence (intellectual novelty unconceived of before) occure anywhere but inside ones brain?
Whether we view ‘intelligence’ or ‘creative human intelligence’ as something ‘dispersed among 10 billion neurons’ or ‘something dispersed among 10 billion humans’, we still need to explain what it is and how it works. Dispersing the location of the operation of intelligence doesn’t necessarily change the difficulty of explaining what it is or ‘why it appears to be so much greater in humans than non-humans.
As I explained to Frances above, the ‘benefit’ of ‘human creative intelligence as a social phenomena’, is that it ‘may’ be easier to observe.
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Frances
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posted 01. October 2002 22:14
Dear Warren,
It seems to me that your claim that collective knowledge to be at odds with evolution and more importantly neo-Darwinian? is not really founded in a true argument other than that it's so difficult to pin point exactly what people mean by those terms
In fact, perhaps one could convincingly argue that collective knowledge is neither at odds with Darwinian theory and in fact forms of learning like the Baldwin effect can even be explained in Darwinian terms.
This suggests that making claims of incompatibility should be made carefully imho and perhaps Warren could make an attempt to show that this is the case. One may want to start with the Baldwin effect as an example of collective knowledge and learning through Darwinian mechanisms and then perhaps address if Darwinian theory is at odds with other forms of collective knowledge or that it is neutral or perhaps even that it can explain it?
Looking forward to your answers.
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John 3
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Member # 269
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posted 02. October 2002 01:29
"Whether we view ‘intelligence’ or ‘creative human intelligence’ as something ‘dispersed among 10 billion neurons’ or ‘something dispersed among 10 billion humans’, we still need to explain what it is and how it works. Dispersing the location of the operation of intelligence doesn’t necessarily change the difficulty of explaining what it is or ‘why it appears to be so much greater in humans than non-humans." Warren Bergerson
Sorry, I thought you were implying that the intelligence itself existed somewhere outside the nuerons of these humans. Thats not what you ment right?
What kind of communication pathways do you think give rise to intelligence? Dynamic problem-solving between team-mates? The teacher and the learner? Systemic cooperation?
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Elend
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Member # 326
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posted 02. October 2002 04:12
I thought initially that this board will focus on the change triggered in humans that brought us where we are.
As for ever increasing human "intelligence," I think we just have different views on what intelligence is. In my view "creative power" or if you wish "intelligence," is the efficiency of finding a solution to a problem, given a reference background knowledge. It is pointless, in my opinion,to compare intelligence given different background knowledge. Of course we (humans) are better off now than some thousands of years ago. Coral reefs are higher than thousands of years ago, yet nobody claims they evolved into better "builders" or have "improved creative power".
quote:
If, I am proposing, human intelligence is primarily a group/social phenomena, then it may be possible/practical to observe/analyze the operation of human intelligence by observing/analyzing the communication between individuals.
This is rather the same as claiming that the processing power of a network can be understood by only looking at its topology, and have little concern about the individual nodes. At the same time using the conditional form makes your claim a tautology - how else can one define a group/society other than by the communication between idividuals? If "human intelligence" is a social phenomena, of course it can be observed by looking at the communication between individuals! Only if.
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 02. October 2002 08:40
Respnse to John,
Quote: Sorry, I thought you were implying that the intelligence itself existed somewhere outside the nuerons of these humans. Thats not what you ment right?
I define ‘intelligence’ as a power or force responsible for creating creative and adaptive phenomena. I also define/describe intelligence as a ‘complex set of complex causal relationships’. Intelligence, as I define it, is a property of an entity. While it is relatively easy to define an entity so that the entity is identifiable, it is often difficult to define exactly where in the entity a specific property exists. As a practical matter, it is generally not necessary to define exactly where within an entity a complex property exists.
I am suggesting that ‘human intelligence’ can be viewed and analyzed as a property of ‘a social group, the tools used by the group, and the communications channels used by members of the group’. I am saying that ‘human intelligence’ exists outside the individual human and the neurons of the individual human. Exactly where intelligence does or does not exist within the social entity is probably a question that can not and need not be answered.
While the exact location of intelligence is not critical to the proposed view of intelligence, the concept of property of ‘divisibility’ is important. Both the concepts of ‘intelligence in sets of neurons’ and ‘intelligence in sets of individuals’ suggest that the process or force of intelligence can be divided into ‘sets of information processing units’ and ‘the communications among these sets of information processing units’. This view suggests that we may be able to understand intelligence if we can understand the processing performed by the small units and if we understand how the small units communicate.
The apparent divisibility of both human and nervous system intelligence appears to conflict with the logic of one of the central arguments in the ID/Darwin debate. In simplified terms:
1) If Darwin and Natural Selection Only(NSO) are true,
2) Then Irreducible Complexity and Specified Complexity are necessarily true and
3) Then evolution requires the operation of an external designer.
NSO suggests that selection is a force operating on the organism as an entity. If NSO is ‘ASSUMED TO BE TRUE’ and if there features in nature with high degrees of complexity measured by N/Nf, and there is no identifiable step wise process for producing N/Nf then we have examples of Irreducible and Specified Complexity.
However, if we reject NSO as a single force and replace it with a set of selection processes[where members of SSP are not based on death or preventing reproduction], (SSP) then evolution can be defined in terms of sets of parallel evolutionary processes in the same way that human and nervous system intelligence appear to be definable as a set of parallel processes.
Let some feature in a biological system be identified as IC with a complexity of N/Nf measured as 2^z where z is some integer. If using SSP, evolution is a set of parallel processes, then a measured complexity of 2^z could be achieved by a set of ‘z binary choice processes’.
Nervous systems and humans, it appears, use parallel processing to generate ‘intelligent designs’. The suggestion offered here is that the complex design observed in biological systems are also the result of parallel evolutionary processing.
Response to Frances:
Quote: This suggests that making claims of incompatibility should be made carefully imho and perhaps Warren could make an attempt to show that this is the case
I guess I do not understand why I need to be careful in pointing out "what appear to obvious incompatibilities". I also do not understand why I should be attempting to explain the obvious. I would appreciate any clarification you can provide on the subject.
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Elend
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Member # 326
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posted 02. October 2002 10:17
warren,
quote:
I am saying that ‘human intelligence’ exists outside the individual human and the neurons of the individual human.
This is a rather amazing claim, suggesting that individuals are not intelligent. Are you claiming that intelligence is an emergent property, not possessed by individuals but manifested at system level? But I guess I still do not understand what is the difference between what you call "human and nervous system intelligence".
quote:
However, if we reject NSO as a single force and replace it with a set of selection processes[where members of SSP are not based on death or preventing reproduction], (SSP) then evolution can be defined in terms of sets of parallel evolutionary processes in the same way that human and nervous system intelligence appear to be definable as a set of parallel processes.
It would be really interesting if you could give us some examples of such sets of selection processes, not based on death or preventing reproduction. As far as I remember NS is in fact a resultant of a set of more specific selection processes.
quote:
The suggestion offered here is that the complex design observed in biological systems are also the result of parallel evolutionary processing.
I think evolution or GAs for that matter are in fact quite widely considered as parallel processes. As a hint, GAs can be implemented in a highly parallel manner, with relatively little effort. But perhaps you are refering to a different kind of parallelism, if you care to explain.
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Frances
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Member # 169
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posted 02. October 2002 11:00
Warren:
You state the following
quote:
In simplified terms:
1) If Darwin and Natural Selection Only(NSO) are true,
2) Then Irreducible Complexity and Specified Complexity are necessarily true and
3) Then evolution requires the operation of an external designer.
Perhaps the terms were a bit too simplified for me since I fail to see how 2) follows from 1), not to mention how three follows from 1) and 2). Perhaps you could explain the necessity of 2) if 1) is given?
Your explanation suggests that you may not be using the definitions commonly used by ID theorists when using IC and CSI. Perhaps you can explain which definitions you prefer?
Btw neo-Darwinian evolution seems to match your ideas of 'parallel' computing quite well. If CSI and IC can be achieved by your 'parallel' computing then I would argue that the same can obviously be achieved by neo-Darwinian evolution.
In your earlier post you made a claim of incompatibility. I asked you why you considered this to be incompatible with Darwinian theory especially since for instance the Baldwin effect can be explained in terms of Darwinian theory. You seemed to respond by saying that you considered Darwinian theory a bit vague since you did not really know which version to take.
quote:
I try to qualify statements like ‘at odds with evolution or neo-Darwinism’ because it is so difficult to pin point exactly what people mean by those terms.
I can understand that people may have difficulty with neo-Darwinism but to then conclude that there is an incompatibility would require some additional effort to show that this is the case. I am encouraging you to formulate a logical argument in which you explain what YOU thought neo-Darwinism to be when you made the claim and show how intelligence and learning are incompatible with it.
So far you seem to not have done this. Instead you make such meaningless claims as "why should I be attempting to explain the obvious". In light of your statement about pinpointing which version and the lack of a coherent argument I would be tempted to argue that your claim is hardly that obvious.
For starters you may want to propose your version of Neo-Darwinism that you believe is incompatible?
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