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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Chancing it to be Human
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
A commonplace of atheist apologetics nowadays is the unexceptional observation that the development of the human genome from dumb chimp common ancestor to garrulous plotting smart guy involves chance genetic mutation. This highly improbable yet nonetheless completely accidental process is supposed to be a knock down argument against alleged divine purposefulness in the evolution of homo sapiens. So how can divine providence deal with a roll of the dice? It's the implications for theology I am interested in, not the process itself, which I accept.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
Who created the dice?
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Chance is a funny thing. Looking forwards you can see the rare upon rare upon rare events which in the future will generate unexpected and unpredictable results as a form of miracle. But looking backwards it just looks inevitable (genes of this mutation won because it was best fit for the environment, which led to this other mutation being best suited and so on).
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
proving that something was a "chance" mutation rather than a divinely directed one is impossible.
Randomness is really un-provable.
Of course, the corollary is that it's pointless to say that a particular endpoint that we see is "statistically a bazillion to one" thus supposedly proving Divine intervention. But of course, that doesn't work when looking back from an event that has already occurred. pick up a grain of sand on the beach. the likelihood that that particular grain of sand would be the one you chose was a bazillion to one before you did it. but after you did it, it became 100%.
Trying to use randomness to either prove or disprove Divine influence in evolution is pretty pointless.
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
A commonplace of atheist apologetics nowadays is the unexceptional observation that the development of the human genome from dumb chimp common ancestor to garrulous plotting smart guy involves chance genetic mutation.
Not quite -- there is a purpose that shapes the process, and that is natural selection. The genius of evolution is that it provides a mechanism for directed change that does not require teleology. There is real intellectual beauty in the construct. Get over it.
--Tom Clune
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
A commonplace of atheist apologetics nowadays is the unexceptional observation that the development of the human genome from dumb chimp common ancestor to garrulous plotting smart guy involves chance genetic mutation. This highly improbable yet nonetheless completely accidental process is supposed to be a knock down argument against alleged divine purposefulness in the evolution of homo sapiens. So how can divine providence deal with a roll of the dice? It's the implications for theology I am interested in, not the process itself, which I accept.
What do you mean by "chance"?
It seems to me that when it is used to describe the mutations that are the raw material for evolution, "chance" has the special meaning of "not inherently inclined to be have either beneficial or deleterious effects".
More generally it can mean "not under anyone's conscious control", "not predictable", or "an event whose outcome is not determined by the cause of that event".
I think all of those are compatible with belief in God (and if I recall correctly, IngoB has even advanced the case here that the last one can be used as a proof of God), but I'm not sure which you are asking about, or if you are asking about something else.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune
The genius of evolution is that it provides a mechanism for directed change that does not require teleology. There is real intellectual beauty in the construct.
I am not too sure what kind of "beauty" this is, but there you go.
Anyway, a form of teleology is read back into natural selection, namely, the survival agenda. What is it about the laws of physics and chemistry that determine that an organism should "want to" survive? We see the survival instinct in living organisms and assume that it is a given within that nebulous construct called "nature". There is absolutely no reason at all why certain complex organic compounds should "want to" or need to continue in that state and reproduce rather than revert to the simpler state of non-living matter.
It's clear to me that materialists cannot cope with the full implications of their philosophy: that matter really is dead and mindless. There is no justification for their pretending - within their paradigm - that "nature" is some kind of living entity that is driven by any kind of purpose or "law of life". It isn't. Death and life are frankly both the same. Mindless. As is the process of change commonly known as evolution, which can go backwards (given that most mutations are either neutral or deleterious).
Therefore there has to be another explanation, which is indeed truly intellectually beautiful. DH territory, I know...
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Anyway, a form of teleology is read back into natural selection, namely, the survival agenda. What is it about the laws of physics and chemistry that determine that an organism should "want to" survive?
There is no requirement for this -- animals that fail to want to survive are more likely to not survive. Animals that don't survive have a somewhat lowered ablity to reproduce, so their genes don't get replicated. It is the statistics of pink noise and long time horizons.
--Tom Clune
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Setting aside the question of God and his purposes, is it not probable that chance natural selection would eventually produce a sentient being? Or am I mistaken? What is the view of evolutionary biologists?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Setting aside the question of God and his purposes, is it not probable that chance natural selection would eventually produce a sentient being? Or am I mistaken? What is the view of evolutionary biologists?
Most of the estimates I've heard rate it as one of the least probable adaptations. The reasoning being that certain adaptations are easy enough to convergently evolve in non-related lineages (like mottled pigmentation for camoflage or the camera eye). As far as we know only one lineage, the hominids, have developed human-type sentience. This uniqueness as an adaptive strategy suggests (though it doesn't prove) human-type intelligence is a fairly complex and difficult adaptation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
Given that it appears that only the Jewish people select for intelligence, perhaps we can use Darwinism to explain the idea of the Jews as the chosen people... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
--Tom Clune
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think that Prof. Conway Morris has argued that humans are inevitable, and if the 'tape' of evolution could be rewound and run again, they would appear. I think he bases this partly on the idea of convergence, and his idea of universals, e.g. music, which appear and reappear. He suggests that therefore evolution is heavily constrained. At this point, you could argue either by engineering principles, or by mathematical principles, or something else.
But certainly, on the surface, evolution seems incompatible with theism, or at least the teleological aspects of theism.
Anyway, I am expecting the various Christian palaeontologists to come up with a brilliant synthesis any day soon! You heard it here first; oh no, we didn't.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
A commonplace of atheist apologetics nowadays is the unexceptional observation that the development of the human genome from dumb chimp common ancestor to garrulous plotting smart guy involves chance genetic mutation. This highly improbable yet nonetheless completely accidental process is supposed to be a knock down argument against alleged divine purposefulness in the evolution of homo sapiens. So how can divine providence deal with a roll of the dice? It's the implications for theology I am interested in, not the process itself, which I accept.
Middle knowledge. God knows the results of every possible world that he could create, and creates a world in which he knows human being will thrive. Much more than that he knows what each human being will do in any given world he might create and creates a world in which certain free decisions bring about certain results that are essential to his plans.
Sheer genius.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Or you could argue, without any evidence at all, that God sets up an infinite multiverse, where all things that are possible are inevitable, and possibly, in an infinite number of copies.
The only point to this would presumably be to say: because I can.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Or you could argue, without any evidence at all, that God sets up an infinite multiverse, where all things that are possible are inevitable, and possibly, in an infinite number of copies.
The only point to this would presumably be to say: because I can.
Well if the multiverse exists, in which all things are possible, then there must be a universe in which a maximally great being exists. If a maximally great being exists in one universe he must exists in all universes (or he wouldn't be maximally great). So if he exists in all universes he must exist in our universe. So you've just given us an amazingly powerful argument for the existence of God.
Q - you're no Luis de Molina, but that's one helluva case for theism.
Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
So if he exists in all universes he must exist in our universe. So you've just given us an amazingly powerful argument for the existence of God.
Oddly, a stupid argument doesn't become persuasive, even when replicated an infinite number of times...
--Tom Clune
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Not quite -- there is a purpose that shapes the process, and that is natural selection. The genius of evolution is that it provides a mechanism for directed change that does not require teleology. There is real intellectual beauty in the construct. Get over it.
--Tom Clune
But it does require mutations since the Precambrian at a rate far greater than anything observed in the wild.
Your move.
[ 19. June 2012, 19:08: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think that Prof. Conway Morris has argued that humans are inevitable, and if the 'tape' of evolution could be rewound and run again, they would appear. I think he bases this partly on the idea of convergence, and his idea of universals, e.g. music, which appear and reappear. He suggests that therefore evolution is heavily constrained. At this point, you could argue either by engineering principles, or by mathematical principles, or something else.
This seems to be contradicted by Lenski's E. coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project, which involved preserving ancestral strains so that he could, in effect, rewind and rerun the 'tape' of his subject's evolution. Some adaptations (larger cell size, more efficient glucose metabolism) were selected across all strains, but the more specialized and intriguing results (the Cit+ mutation) seems very contingent and occurred only in the Ara-3 lineage, and seems linked to an otherwise neutral mutation somewhere between generations 20,000 and 20,500.
In other word, Lenski demonstrated that "rerunning evolution" will often yield different results.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Not quite -- there is a purpose that shapes the process, and that is natural selection. The genius of evolution is that it provides a mechanism for directed change that does not require teleology. There is real intellectual beauty in the construct. Get over it.
--Tom Clune
But it does require mutations since the Precambrian at a rate far greater than anything observed in the wild.
Your move.
Expand please. Or at least provide a citation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Anyway, a form of teleology is read back into natural selection, namely, the survival agenda. What is it about the laws of physics and chemistry that determine that an organism should "want to" survive?
There is no requirement for this -- animals that fail to want to survive are more likely to not survive. Animals that don't survive have a somewhat lowered ablity to reproduce, so their genes don't get replicated. It is the statistics of pink noise and long time horizons.
--Tom Clune
Though AIUI, according to Dawkins it isn't really about animals surviving, but genes.
Evolution doesn't give a damn whether you survive - it only cares that you survive long enough to produce fertile offspring.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
Perhaps Divine providence deals with 'rolls of the dice' in the same way as a computer programmer does, by building them into the software so that all eventualities are covered and the end game will occur as planned.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Though AIUI, according to Dawkins it isn't really about animals surviving, but genes.
Evolution doesn't give a damn whether you survive - it only cares that you survive long enough to produce fertile offspring.
Given that the global death rate is holding steady at 100%, that seems rather obvious.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Though AIUI, according to Dawkins it isn't really about animals surviving, but genes.
Evolution doesn't give a damn whether you survive - it only cares that you survive long enough to produce fertile offspring.
Given that the global death rate is holding steady at 100%, that seems rather obvious.
It should be obvious, but it's quite often not acknowledged when people are trying to derive philosophical conclusions from evolution.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think that Prof. Conway Morris has argued that humans are inevitable, and if the 'tape' of evolution could be rewound and run again, they would appear. I think he bases this partly on the idea of convergence, and his idea of universals, e.g. music, which appear and reappear. He suggests that therefore evolution is heavily constrained. At this point, you could argue either by engineering principles, or by mathematical principles, or something else.
This seems to be contradicted by Lenski's E. coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project, which involved preserving ancestral strains so that he could, in effect, rewind and rerun the 'tape' of his subject's evolution. Some adaptations (larger cell size, more efficient glucose metabolism) were selected across all strains, but the more specialized and intriguing results (the Cit+ mutation) seems very contingent and occurred only in the Ara-3 lineage, and seems linked to an otherwise neutral mutation somewhere between generations 20,000 and 20,500.
In other word, Lenski demonstrated that "rerunning evolution" will often yield different results.
Except other reviews suggest Lenksi's experiment supports Conway Morris. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_3_175/ai_n31347660/pg_2/
It's important research but the jury's out on what it's telling us.
Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
So if he exists in all universes he must exist in our universe. So you've just given us an amazingly powerful argument for the existence of God.
Oddly, a stupid argument doesn't become persuasive, even when replicated an infinite number of times...
--Tom Clune
It's a logical argument Tom, and the conclusion follows the premises. So if there's a problem with it, you need to be more precise as to where the argument breaks down.
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Please read "Evolutionary Love" by Charles Peirce. His idea is that love is sort of like gravity pulling evolution along (my wording, not his). This is in the public domain, so I think a somewhat sizable quote should be OK here:
quote:
Everybody can see that the statement of St. John [that God is Love - churchgeek, ed.] is the formula of an evolutionary philosophy, which teaches that growth comes only from love, from I will not say self-sacrifice, but from the ardent impulse to fulfill another's highest impulse. Suppose, for example, that I have an idea that interests me. It is my creation. It is my creature... I love it; and I will sink myself in perfecting it. It is not by dealing out cold justice to the circle of my ideas that I can make them grow, but by cherishing and tending them as I would the flowers in my garden. The philosophy we draw from John's gospel is that this is the way mind develops; and as for the cosmos, only so far as it yet is mind, and so has life, is it capable of further evolution. Love, recognizing germs of loveliness in the hateful, gradually warms it into life, and makes it lovely.
Basically, you can tie this in with the image of the Spirit hovering over the face of the deep in creation. Not long ago, Marilyn McCord Adams preached at Grace Cathedral and likened that image of the Spirit to the way parents bend over their infants and nurture them into being human. You can listen to it here. It reminded me of the article by Peirce I've linked above.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think that Prof. Conway Morris has argued that humans are inevitable, and if the 'tape' of evolution could be rewound and run again, they would appear. I think he bases this partly on the idea of convergence, and his idea of universals, e.g. music, which appear and reappear. He suggests that therefore evolution is heavily constrained. At this point, you could argue either by engineering principles, or by mathematical principles, or something else.
This seems to be contradicted by Lenski's E. coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project, which involved preserving ancestral strains so that he could, in effect, rewind and rerun the 'tape' of his subject's evolution. Some adaptations (larger cell size, more efficient glucose metabolism) were selected across all strains, but the more specialized and intriguing results (the Cit+ mutation) seems very contingent and occurred only in the Ara-3 lineage, and seems linked to an otherwise neutral mutation somewhere between generations 20,000 and 20,500.
In other word, Lenski demonstrated that "rerunning evolution" will often yield different results.
This is a debate I started reading about in the early 1990s. Conway-Morris and Stephen Jay Gould looked at the same data and came to opposite conclusions it seemed. Then there's more data and opinion later. Made me consider scientists as akin to a house of bishops or college of cardinals with many mansions where many different camps of the learned hold court and sway, where all have won and all must have prizes, where all truths are true and falsehoods are just truths in waiting, and where I agree with everyone, just disagree with how they say it.
Maybe CS Lewis was on to something deeper when he had the Lion sing Narnia into existence, animating all the animals with music. Holst's The Planets, also comes to mind.
Is there a deeper, 'perennial philosophy' that might join the random with the predictable? (I had thought the idea was Leibnitz' but the internet says others it seems.)
I also think of Forkhead Box P2, without which we'd not have language and adaptive brains.
Thus large and philosophical, and at the same time, small and also philosophical. Between the two, I seem to get sometimes a mushy brained sense of something more than either.
[ 19. June 2012, 21:54: Message edited by: no_prophet ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Croesus ... specific morphologies are only interesting in so far as they generate (VERY occasionally) .. sentience. You are on the horns of a dilemma here. Sentience is either common and, therefore inevitable, or rare ... and therefore, remarkable. Attempting to reduce life radically to randomn noise just doesn't fit the EVIDENCE. This is nothing to do with "faith" of course.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Expand please. Or at least provide a citation.
It is hard to get a fix on it, but the number of chains of mutations required to get from the level of biodiversity present in the precambrian to the level we find today (considering that any present given species must be a result of a chain of multiple mutations throughout time, and that there must also be many millions of 'failed' species that were not best fit) must require trillions of generations and many multiples of that of base mutations of dna.
And you have to fit that within a timespan of 600 million years. Any back-of-envelope calculations suggest that for that to be in any way possible, the rate of mutation must have been much greater than is even measured today in the simplest of organisms.
It is a statement of faith to say that is possible.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Perhaps Divine providence deals with 'rolls of the dice' in the same way as a computer programmer does, by building them into the software so that all eventualities are covered and the end game will occur as planned.
I really like this analogy as I believe (and hope) that the end game is very good.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
I forgot to add that also implies that evolution is linear, when there is evidence of loops/swerves whereby populations change in one direction and back again. As we don't know how often that happened in the past, there would need to be an additional fudge factor to allow for the number of mutations which ultimately did not have any effect on the overall evolution of the species through time.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
It's a logical argument Tom, and the conclusion follows the premises. So if there's a problem with it, you need to be more precise as to where the argument breaks down.
Same place it always has -- "Existence is not a predicate."
--Tom Clune
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Or you could argue, without any evidence at all, that God sets up an infinite multiverse, where all things that are possible are inevitable, and possibly, in an infinite number of copies.
The only point to this would presumably be to say: because I can.
Well if the multiverse exists, in which all things are possible, then there must be a universe in which a maximally great being exists. If a maximally great being exists in one universe he must exists in all universes (or he wouldn't be maximally great). So if he exists in all universes he must exist in our universe. So you've just given us an amazingly powerful argument for the existence of God.
Q - you're no Luis de Molina, but that's one helluva case for theism.
Oh rubbish. In the multiverse all things exist that can exist. The Maximally Great Being is an incoherent and paradoxical concept and therefore can't exist irrespective of how many times you try.
Now in the multiverse I've no problem with the idea of the Greek Pantheon existing. But the Greek Gods are just powerful beings who want to be worshipped and can be cajoled or even beaten by humans.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It is hard to get a fix on it, but the number of chains of mutations required to get from the level of biodiversity present in the precambrian to the level we find today (considering that any present given species must be a result of a chain of multiple mutations throughout time, and that there must also be many millions of 'failed' species that were not best fit) must require trillions of generations and many multiples of that of base mutations of dna.
Why must it?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Justinian - In any case this reworking (however ingenious) of Anselm's bankrupt ontological argument attempts to prove (in like manner) that God "exists." He does not exist. He is.
[ 20. June 2012, 11:42: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It is hard to get a fix on it, but the number of chains of mutations required to get from the level of biodiversity present in the precambrian to the level we find today (considering that any present given species must be a result of a chain of multiple mutations throughout time, and that there must also be many millions of 'failed' species that were not best fit) must require trillions of generations and many multiples of that of base mutations of dna.
Why must it?
Go on then, how many point base mutations does it require?
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It is hard to get a fix on it, but the number of chains of mutations required to get from the level of biodiversity present in the precambrian to the level we find today (considering that any present given species must be a result of a chain of multiple mutations throughout time, and that there must also be many millions of 'failed' species that were not best fit) must require trillions of generations and many multiples of that of base mutations of dna.
Why must it?
Go on then, how many point base mutations does it require?
I have no more idea than you do. But even if your estimate is correct, there's nothing to say they all have to occur independently. Half a dozen evolutionarily-advantageous mutations could happen within a single generation.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
@Marvin, this is true, although hard to see whether that increases or reduces the numbers of mutations required between the precambrian and now. Sometimes individual base changes have a profound effect on individuals, sometimes polyploidy makes a species much more (or less) vigorous. Sometimes the effects of base mutations are only seen generations after with further mutations, sometimes they appear to have no effect at all. There is no general pattern.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
So how can divine providence deal with a roll of the dice?
The lot falls in the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Custard:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
So how can divine providence deal with a roll of the dice?
The lot falls in the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
So Lord, would it be too much for You to let me fill an inside straight once in a while?
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
One of the things that I think is difficult to think about but which is endlessly fascinating, is that the evolution of a mammal skeleton, with breathing and digestive systems, had happened long before the dinosaurs lived, and I understand that the mammalian common ancestor of the ape family evolved from small, shrew-type creatures. So the basic structure was there long before humans evolved.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Setting aside the question of God and his purposes, is it not probable that chance natural selection would eventually produce a sentient being? Or am I mistaken? What is the view of evolutionary biologists?
No idea what evolutionary biologists think. I suspect they feel obliged to believe that, in much the same way as an evangelical from the Deep South of the US feels obliged to believe that creation started at midnight am on 23rd August 2004 BC.
For me, I'm unsure which of those two oversimplifications I find the less credible.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Croesus ... specific morphologies are only interesting in so far as they generate (VERY occasionally) .. sentience. You are on the horns of a dilemma here. Sentience is either common and, therefore inevitable, or rare ... and therefore, remarkable. Attempting to reduce life radically to randomn noise just doesn't fit the EVIDENCE. This is nothing to do with "faith" of course.
I can see something rare looking out of my window. A car with the registration plate LL61CJE. That registration plate is rare enough that there is only one car with it - but just because it is rare doesn't make it inherently remarkable.
And are we talking about sentience or sapience here. Because a cat is sentient but not sapient.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It is a statement of faith to say that is possible.
No, it is a statement of observation since it obviously happened. It is not a statement of faith simply because you do it understand it properly.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Because a cat is sentient but not sapient.
My cat is a Hell of a lot more sapient than I am, for what that's worth...
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
It is a statement of faith to say that is possible.
No, it is a statement of observation since it obviously happened. It is not a statement of faith simply because you do it understand it properly.
Not at all - read what I said - that there was enough time for all of the necessary mutations is a statement of faith.
There is no 'fact' that mutations occurred without the assistance of God. Hence it can only be a statement of faith that in the absence of a God, there was enough time for all of the necessary processes.
Otherwise you are left in the position of arguing that whatever unknowns there are in your understanding of the past, it must have happened as you say because you are here as evidence that it happened. Which is a silly argument, there could be all kinds of unknown factors which mean that your understanding is flawed.
Without a God involved, I don't believe there was enough time since the Precambrian for all of the necessary mutations. You are entitled to believe otherwise, but that is also a statement of faith.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Without a God involved, I don't believe there was enough time since the Precambrian for all of the necessary mutations. You are entitled to believe otherwise, but that is also a statement of faith.
No, this is just nonsense. We know that the changes did take place in that timeframe. Your "argument" could be tacked onto anything -- "Without God, Obama could never have become POTUS. You believe it could have happened without God. I disagree. We're both making (somehow equivalent) statements of faith." I call bullshit.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
]No, this is just nonsense. We know that the changes did take place in that timeframe. Your "argument" could be tacked onto anything -- "Without God, Obama could never have become POTUS. You believe it could have happened without God. I disagree. We're both making (somehow equivalent) statements of faith." I call bullshit.
--Tom Clune
Then you know nothing about shit or science. At present measurements, there was not enough time for all the necessary mutations. I put the differential down to the effects of an unknown factor, God.
If you don't believe it, then you need to come up with a reasonable explanation why rates should have been much higher across the time period than the current measurements, particularly during the periods of very rapid evolution as proposed by the 'punctuated equilibrium' hypothesis.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
If you don't believe it, then you need to come up with a reasonable explanation why rates should have been much higher across the time period than the current measurements, particularly during the periods of very rapid evolution as proposed by the 'punctuated equilibrium' hypothesis.
Not at all. There is absolutely nothing odd or unusual about different rates of activity in response to perterbation and repose, in just about any system. Insisting on making this a mysterious phenomenon is the thing that would require explanation. But it still would not "require" a deity -- it would be a rare scientist, indeed, who would equate those two notions. You're blowing smoke. This whole notion is too idiotic to support any further response from me.
--Tom Clune
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