Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:17:00 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net>, <dave@jetcafe.org>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020910084415.Q62741-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <3D7D2D27.4B84C60B@mindspring.com>
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On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Terry Lambert wrote: > "Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > > Similarly, you could say "gravity causes objects to fall because gravity > > has the property of making objects fall." While true, it is completely > > uninteresting. It "works" *because* of the fact that it is true by > > definition. > > This argument is very like the argument that animals exist > because God created them that way, and we should not question > their nature. 8-). Actually I have not made that argument. I happen to think that the biological sciences are quite helpful to us. > The only difference I see here is that in > the case of evolution, you have a doctorine to appeal to, and > so it should not be questioned, whereas in the case of gravity, > there is no doctorine, so questioning it is acceptable behaviour. Huh? Who is questioning gravity? I'm questioning evolution. > What this really xomes down to is that you don't want people to > question doctorine, because you take it to be Revealed Knowledge, > and therefore beyond the right of man to question. You have your axioms, I have mine. The difference is that I think I can defend mine, whereas I don't think yours are defensible. > I'd point out > that the Ptolomeyic universe had this same favored position of > being protected by doctorine, and that what irked the Catholic > Church about Galileo was his publication in Italian, rather than > Latin, removing the information from slow and controlled integration > into existing doctorine over time. Basically, he broke the story > before they could change their public policy. "We have always been > at war with the East". 8-). As you have noted, it was not Biblical doctrine, it was Aritotelian philosophy that the Catholic Church had incorporated into its doctrine. It's not at all surprising, given human nature, but it is regrettable. > > > As long as it's not harmful, it's not selected against, and it > > > hangs around. Alternately, there could be some other environmental > > > pressure, which is not pervasive, but is instead periodic. The > > > fact that viruses emerge in waves, rather than being a steady > > > background noise, is indicative of this mechanism. > > > > Why should it hang around? > > The genes are there; why should they magically disappear, if there's > no pressure to remove them from the gene pool? We know for a fact > that it is almost impossible to eliminate recessive genes without > eugenics or explicit engineering: it's mathematical improbability is > so amazingly large that it simply can't happen. Kind of like the mathematical improbability of evolution is so amazingly large that it can't happen either? 8-) Why *should* chance favor order rather than disorder? > > It's like the million monkeys argument. In order for the million > > monkeys argument to work, somebody would have to do the selecting, > > meaning there is more involved than just a million monkeys typing > > on keyboards. > > "One, two, three, for, five, many..." > > "A million" is just a convenient handle for "an inconceivably large > number"; the premise in the argument is sound: given a source of > randomness, eventually, a set number of bits in a specific sequence > will happen. If it never happens, then your input wasn't really > random. It's basically a premise based on large number theory, > combined with the theory of limits. Basically, there is a finite > probability of something happening, and an infinity of attempts at > a matching value: eventually, it *will* happen. Yes, but the odds against it for all intents and purposes make it a statistical impossibility. Moreover, if you think *that* is how life arose, why do you use your eyes as though they were designed for seeing and that they can give you accurate information? It would be like if you were driving in the mountains, and a rock slide occurred blocking your road, and some of the rocks just happen to randomly arrange themselves into the words "Hello, Earthling". Now, statistically its certainly possible, but you would be in error to suppose that some kind of meaningful message was being communicated. So why suppose that your senses, that arose by chance, convey anything meaningful to you? In fact, why suppose that there even *is* a you? > > > I think that you are begging the question; the survival value > > > of gametogenesis is fairly indisputable. > > > > Who's disputing it? I'm asking how in the world it climbed > > Mt. Improbability. > > The general consensus is that it started with the exchange of > linear RNA segments Eucaryotes. Oh yeah, as if this didn't beg the question! > > > The real question is > > > not gameteogenesis, per se, which could easily have occurred > > > as a result of a mutation, but internalization of gametogenesis > > > into the organism to such an extent that specialization of organs > > > occurred. > > > > Yeah, an understatement to say the least! 8-) > > Not really. If something is possible, no matter how improbable, > given an infinite amount of time... You stretch credulity to its limits! > > > The second and third search results in the search reference I > > > gave you go into this idea in more detail than I'm willing to > > > go into myself, in this forum (the significance of the search > > > was not my ability to do a search, it was in my selection of > > > specific terms, and their ordering and grouping, to answer an > > > earlier question of yours). > > > > Ah, what irony! 8-) > > What, that I can think like the lexicographer who designed the > classification criteria for the search engines, such that I am > a "good search term picker"? 8-). I assure you, that a lot > of people have the ability to pick "good" search terms. You apparently missed it. I wasn't questioning your intelligence. I was specifically referring to the phrase "my selection of specific terms..." 8-) > > > > But does this not present a difficulty? With no will to do the > > > > selecting, "the power to select" is completely unintelligible. > > > > > > You keep saying that it's unintelligible, but literally many > > > thousands of scientists don't find it to be unintelligible. > > > > Maybe, just maybe, because they don't *want* to believe it to be > > unintelligible. > > Or that you want to believe that it is? No, I do not want to believe in square circles. > > > Why do you say that it's unintelligible? > > > > Because is isn't. It's like saying water has the power to choose its > > own path. Such a notion is completely unintelligible. > > Entropy chooses water's path. 8-). As it does the human mind. 8-) > > > Why don't they say > > > the same thing? The answer has to lie in the fact that you > > > and they don't share some fundamental assumptions. > > > > Now you're getting the point... > > I got that point from your first posting. > > Now you should get mine: it's unreasonable for you to expect > everyone to adopt your assumptions, particularly if their > asumptions are a subset of yours. 8-). I'll reiterate mine again: It's unreasonable to adopt a subset of assumptions that are the preconditions of intelligibility. 8-) Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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