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Topic: The role of chance in biological evolution
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Sandor Szabados
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Member # 1969
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posted 26. May 2006 12:46
Dr. Davison,
"The sizes of stars and planets, and even people, are neither random nor the result of any Darwinian selection process from a myriad possibilities. These, and other gross features of the Universe are the consequences of necessity; they are the manifestations of the possible equilibrium states between competeing forces of attraction and repulsion. The intrinsic strngths of these controlling forces of Nature are determined by a mysterious collection of pure numbers that we call the 'constants of Nature'." (John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, 'The Anthropic Cosmological Principle', p.5)
The above is the final word in physics. What in your field has led you to the same conclusion?
Sandor
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 27. May 2006 07:10
Sandor
I am sorry I did not see your new thread. I think the answer to your question will be found in my papers especially the most recent " A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis." The PEH is little more than the logical extension of the contributions of several critics of the Darwinian myth who have provided the basis for my own conclusions. One of my stated objcetives is to resurrect those sources from the deliberate oblivion to which the exponents of chance have always attempted to relegate them. It is a scandal.
As Leo Berg claimed when he referred to both ontogeny and phylogeny:
"Neither in the one nor in the other is their room for chance."
Nomogenesis, page 134
"Any system that purports to account for evolution must involve a mechanism that is not mutational and aleatory."
Pierre Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, page 245.
That is exactly what the PEH does.
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Scott
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Member # 1222
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posted 27. May 2006 10:29
quote:
...progress is made in population genetics by constructing mathematical models of evolution, studying their behavior, and then checking whether the states of populations are compatible with this behavior. Early in the history of population genetics, certain models exhibited dynamics that were of such obvious universal importance that the fact that they could not be directly verified in a natural setting seemed unimportant. There is no better example than genetic drift, the small random changes in genotype frequencies caused by variation in offspring number between individuals and, in diploids, genetic segregation. Genetic drift is known to operate on a time scale that is proportional to the size of the population. In a species with a million individuals, it takes roughly a million generations for genetic drift to change allele frequencies appreciably. There is no conceivable way of verifying that genetic drift changes allele frequencies in natural populations. Our understanding that it does is entirely theoretical. Most population genetecists not only are comfortable with this state of affairs but also revel in the fact that they can demonstrate on the back of an envelope, rather than in the laboratory, how a significant evolutionary force operates.
- John H. Gillespie, Population Genetics: A Concise Guide, pp. xi-xii
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John A. Davison
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posted 27. May 2006 12:01
There is at present no model for a prescribed evolution and population genetics never had anything to do with creative evolution. It can only describe the distribution of alleles in sexually reproducing populations which are quite incapable of evolving anyway. That is why they now, as in the past, keep going extinct.
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 27. May 2006 12:18
quote:
There is no conceivable way of verifying that genetic drift changes allele frequencies in natural populations. Our understanding that it does is entirely theoretical. Most population genetecists not only are comfortable with this state of affairs but also revel in the fact that they can demonstrate on the back of an envelope, rather than in the laboratory, how a significant evolutionary force operates.
What a strong statement of weakness to make of a science that has been legally declared as "fact".
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Sandor Szabados
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Member # 1969
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posted 27. May 2006 21:34
Dr. Davison,
Thank you for the quotes from those eminent scientists. I read your papers, you make a solid case in each, and I cannot but agree with your hypothesis.
As a philosopher of science, I found of special interest "Ontogeny, Phylogeny and the Origin of Biological Information". There you write: "The existence of laws presumes a law maker or makers. That in turn suggests purpose. Don't representatives in Congress have some purpose in mind when they enact legislation?
I have two questions (unrelated):
As an expert on evolution, what do you think the purpose of the lawmaker was?
If chance played no role in evolution, why is Jacques Monod's "Chance and Necessity" still part of mainstream biology?
Sandor
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 28. May 2006 06:25
Well thank you Sandor. Comments like yours are rare indeed.
As to the purpose of it all, quite frankly it baffles me. It is like a giant riddle. But here is an idea. Perhaps the purpose was to ultimately produce a product that might be able to understand why it was all necessary, a kind of giant tautology which has finally been fulfilled with the production of rational man.
There is no question in my mind that one or more intelligences far beyond our comprehension had to have been involved.
I like how Einstein put it:
"If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us."
I would only substitute when for if.
As for Monod, who is now dead, like Crick, he apparently remained an atheist to the end, at least as far as his science was concerned.
Another Frenchman, Pierre Grasse had a different view:
"Let us not invoke God in realities in which He NO LONGER HAS TO INTERVENE. The single absolute act of creation was enough for Him."
The Evolution of Living Organisms. page 166 (his emphasis)
I am not at all certain there was a single act of creation but I am in full agreement with Grasse's conviction that there is no intervention either now or in the distant past.
I feel that evolution resulted in the resolution of one or more goal-seeking programs written by one or more Big Front Loaders (BFLs) an unknown number of times at an unknown number of locations in the geological record. I realize that is a pretty vague picture but it is the best I can come up with.
As to how we view the world, I am convinced that we have very little control over that. As the studies on separated monozygotic twins have shown, whether we believe in a Creator or not seems to have a firm genetic foundation right along with our political views, our eye color, our preferences in clothing and just about everything else. If it were up to me I would make William Wright's "Born That Way" mandatory reading for every high school student. I learned a great deal about myself from it and I am sure others could as well. But will they? I doubt it.
Thanks again.
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Sandor Szabados
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Member # 1969
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posted 28. May 2006 09:04
quote:
I feel that evolution resulted in the resolution of one or more goal-seeking programs written by one or more Big Front Loaders (BFLs)
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Sandor Szabados
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Member # 1969
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posted 28. May 2006 09:21
Dr. Davison,
So sorry. I inadvertedly clicked on reply before the post was ready.
Your belief in BFLs is validated by the following:
"Life does not originate spontaneously. Life is constructed according to the plans formulated by the (unrevealed) Architects of Being..."
The Urantia Book, p. 397
Sandor
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 28. May 2006 11:55
That has a nice ring to it. I especially like the plural of Architects. Looking at the present world, I am inclined to favor at least two BFLs, one benevolent, the other malevolent.
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 29. May 2006 00:08
Sandor 606, I checked out your website, www.scientific-religious.com I was intrigued by two things.
First, you say you are a doctoral candidate. You seem to be uninhibited when discussing "fringe" views. What field are you studying?
Second, I noticed some highly intriguing stuff on crop circles. When I look at the evidence you present, I must conclude that, if the evidence is factual, crop circles have been dismissed far too easily. The logical question raised, is, "is the evidence from reliable sources?" Anyone, after all, can put pretty pictures, and fancy tales up on the internet.
Have you gone beyond the internet to verify the truthfulness of any of the reports you publish? What have you found?
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John A. Davison
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posted 29. May 2006 04:54
Bruce
Is it necessary to question one's credentials here at "brainstorms?" People in glass houses don't you know. The only credentials I question are those that are held by those who have found it necessary to ban me from their proceedings. Those are the credentials of intellectual cowards. I am confident that "brainstorms" is a cut above such methods.
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 29. May 2006 05:11
Incidentally, Sandor or anyone else for that matter, I am not an expert in evolution. There can be no experts concerning events that have never been observed.
"Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."
Montaigne
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Zachriel
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Member # 1793
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posted 29. May 2006 09:52
John A. Davison: "There can be no experts concerning events that have never been observed."
That is not a valid statement. Consider a fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. There are a variety of statements we can make. For instance, that it was bipedal. That it consumed meat. That it reproduced sexually. That it laid eggs. An expert can examine these fossils, and other associated evidence, and reach even more detailed conclusions.
So, the claim that some people cannot become experts, that is, to have more knowledge than non-experts, is not a valid statement.
Now consider the Maiasaurus. Horner had loved duckbilled dinosaurs from the time he was a child. As a geologist, he went looking for duckbilled eggs. He hypothesized, by analogy with extant organisms, that they would lay their eggs, near but not on the beach. Geological studies indicated that an inland sea once lapped its shores in Montana 80 million years ago. So he went and looked in strata near those ancient shores.
Horner found not just eggs, but nests. Not just nests but nesting colonies. That's behavior. And he found sibling babies in the nest, meaning they were being fed and protected there; the very sorts of behaviors associated with warm-blooded avian species. They checked the microcellular structure of the fossilized bones, and they more closely resemble birds than reptiles. Maiasaurus, 'Good Mother Lizard'.
Horner is a leading expert on Maiasaurus. Your statement is unsupportable.
[ 29. May 2006, 10:02: Message edited by: Zachriel ]
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Sandor Szabados
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Member # 1969
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posted 29. May 2006 11:57
Bruce,
I have an MA in History of Science and was a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy of Science in the early '70s. At that time I had serious doubts concerning Darwin's explanation of the evolutionary process, and finding no professor interested in my ideas, I quit the program and did research on my own. I became a school teacher and later wrote the paper "God and Evolution" for high school students.
Concerning crop circles, the information speaks for itself. Click on the links and you will see that the evidence for what is claimed is rock solid.
Sandor
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