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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: kriminalelement]
    #8084230 -

Upon reading this post, it seems many of you have not taken upper level evolutionary biology classes and are making randomized arguments based on a meager understanding of the topic.

hmmmm... the evolution of an argument based on random guesses.....


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While there is a lower class, I am in it
While there is a criminal element, I am of it
While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Eugene V Debs

Edited by kriminalelement (02/28/08 11:40 PM)

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: kriminalelement]
    #8084261 -

Thank you!

Finally someone speaking my language. You get five shrooms


--------------------
Bufotenine Yopo/Cebil Info | Guide to Hunting/Using Fly Agarics
Good Drug Books
PCPiHKAL|Rhodium

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: kriminalelement]
    #8084285 -

Evolution is random in so much as random parts of DNA mutate over generations, causing a slightly different genome, which causes a slightly different phenotype (a physical expression of a genetic trait). This gives us an array of different physical features over time.

In many cases a dramatic mutation will lead to a failed pregnancy, but in some cases the pregnancy will carry through to term. Those that only get small mutations... slightly more fur, slightly less fur... stronger calf muscles supporting a tiny bit more weight... these aren't going to kill anything. Thats about all thats random though.

Evolution works by taking a whole population, with all of these little genetic variances, and putting them in a real world environment. The best example I know of is long haired deer.

Suppose you've got a herd of deer, some with longer hair, some with shorter hair. They experience a number of especially cold years. Those with thinner coats of fur can't survive the cold, and perish. Because they perished, their genetic code and its variances don't get passed on to new generations. Because that genetic code gets taken out of the equation (removed from the "pool" of possible genes that exist in the population), it becomes less and less likely for future generations to inherit that genetic code. Eventually that genetic possibility has all but been erased from the gene pool. Now all of the deer in the herd have longer hair to survive in the now-colder climate. Those who were best suited to their environments evolved over numerous generations to survive the best there.

Think about evolution less as the survivors changing to survive their environments.. think of it more as a whittling down of the population so only the best candidates for each particular 'environmental problem' are left.

Hope this helps some :smile:


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You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.
Hunter S. Thompson

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: kriminalelement]
    #8084296 -

Selection is not random. The brown moths have advantage because they match the brown soot. It is not random that they evolve to be brown. The selection process favors the brown ones for a specific reason, the reason being that the soot around them is brown. Now for an individual moth, it is random what mutations will occur, but for the species as a whole it is not random that brown became the dominant color. There was not an equal chance they would be pink or blue. If there was an equal chance they would be pink or blue, then it would be random.

Like I said in my first posts, the mutations of an individual in the species are random, the traits the species develops due to pressures are not. That is how selection works.

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: Entropymancer]
    #8084310 -

Okay, on further analysis, I think I see what your problem is here.

Some people assume that evolution is specific. This is COMPLETELY wrong, for in order to be specific, evolution must have a goal. This predisposes that evolution has some sort of shaping force behind it, some molding hand that is pushing it in a specific direction. Genes don't have motivations or goals. Animals don't have motivations or goals beyond staying alive and reproducing. This impetus is what drives evolution.

The intelligent design people would probably argue that if evolution exists, it is specific. The problem is that genetic mutations happen randomly. 99% of species go extinct. If evolution WAS specific, don't you think it would have stepped in and saved the lost branches of the tree?

Not only is intelligent design utterly unprovable using any scientific method (unless you consider dogma you pull out of your ass science), it is insulting to the beauty of the system as it is. Evolution is one of the most extensively proven scientific theories known to mankind, with the exception of gravity, which is testable by demonstration.

There is no specific drive or force behind how things evolve or why. Think about it scientifically. It can only make sense if all the factors are random. Introduce one "specific" drive in a creature's genetic code and you've stepped into unscientific territory.

Sorry guys, but no matter how much you'd like to believe in the pseudo-scientific idea that evolution is "specific", science is not democratic. It is formed not of opinions, but empirically tested logically based FACTS.


--------------------
While there is a lower class, I am in it
While there is a criminal element, I am of it
While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Eugene V Debs

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: DieCommie]
    #8084323 -

Selection is (in the most general terms) the process by which it is determined whether a trait will be carried on or lost.

This depends on selectional pressures.

Selectional pressures depend on a variety of environmental factors which are random. Just trace back how any selectional pressure got there; it's totally random. That random mutations can respond to these random stimuli and continue to generate viable lifeforms is called evolution.

Selectional pressures are not premeditated.


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Bufotenine Yopo/Cebil Info | Guide to Hunting/Using Fly Agarics
Good Drug Books
PCPiHKAL|Rhodium

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: kriminalelement]
    #8084331 -

Quote:
Selection is not random. The brown moths have advantage because they match the brown soot. It is not random that they evolve to be brown. The selection process favors the brown ones for a specific reason, the reason being that the soot around them is brown. Now for an individual moth, it is random what mutations will occur, but for the species as a whole it is not random that brown became the dominant color. There was not an equal chance they would be pink or blue. If there was an equal chance they would be pink or blue, then it would be random.


Did the brown moths make the soot so they would survive? No. There is no driving specific impetus. Genes are random, factors are random. Some factors favor some genes. Random process. It ends up with a specific RESULT. That's where you're getting confused.

The Process of Evolution is random. The results are specific. The OP asked if EVOLUTION was random, meaning the process. Of course the process of selection is going to produce specific results.

Think about the difference between the process and the result. What is the difference between these two words? Is Evolution specific? If it were, it would need a driving impetus/ intelligent design to make it so.

This is really a philosophical discussion. If you want to believe Evolution is driven by a specific guiding force, move to Kansas with the Pentecostals and fuck up the educational system.


--------------------
While there is a lower class, I am in it
While there is a criminal element, I am of it
While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Eugene V Debs

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: kriminalelement]
    #8084406 -

kriminalelement said:
move to Kansas with the Pentecostals and fuck up the educational system.


Well, I mean, it *is* just a theory

:tongue:


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You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.
Hunter S. Thompson

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: imachavel]
    #8084721 -

(I did not bother reading this entire post.)

Biological evolution is not random... at all. Not one bit. It is a very deterministic process. Daniel Dennet compared it to a mathematical algorithm.

Darwin had knowledge of Mendel's model of inheritance (genes), but genes were not scientifically accepted in his time. Because of this, his explanation for how species evolved physiologically was vague by todays standards. He postulated "descent with modification" meaning that offspring were some what different or "modified" from their parents. Darwin's theory of inheritance is called pangenesis. There is much more to his theory of inheritance than this, but I'm not going to bother explaining it, because it ended up being completely wrong.

Mendel's theory of genes was not accepted until the early to mid 20th century and at this point it was incorporated into Darwinism. (Mendel's Theory of Inheritance was used by skeptics to attack Darwinism up until this point in time.) When biologists around this era were trying to figure out how descent with modification could occur using Mendel's Theory of Inheritance, they came up with the idea of "random mutations." Mendel had assumed that genes were ultimately unchanging and static. If this was so, then evolution would not be possible. Genes could combine to form different variations of an organism, but no mixture of genes could ever result in a unique trait. Random mutation explained how organisms evolved.

This how all the nonsense about evolution being random came about. Ever since, creationists have been using it to try to discredit the Theory of Evolution.

"You mean this vast diversity and COMPLEXITY of life was just RANDOM?"

Well no.

It turns out that random mutations don't really exist. Genes mutate for a reason. Coping errors of DNA during cell division is common, chemicals interfere with DNA and cause mutations, radiation (including light) can cause mutations, viruses cause mutations, etc. These are still called "random mutations" but they are not truly random. Not to mention, sexual reproduction (meiosis) shuffles up the DNA, causing the offspring of an organism to be a variant of its parents rather than its clone.

The complexity of life arising from mutations is a bit harder to explain. Daniel Dennet came up with a good analogy to explain the seemingly improbable existence of complex organisms arising from "random" mutations. He used the analogy of a coin-flipping tournament.

It is very unlikely that a single person could flip a coin and have it come up heads each time. But, what if we set up a tournament? A thousand people enter the tournament. The first round, everyone flips their coin. The players that coin comes up head get to move on to the next round and the rest are disqualified. In the second round, the players flip their coins and everyone that has their coin come up heads gets to advance to the third round. And so on for eight more rounds. At the end of ten rounds, it is very likely that some people will have flipped a coin that came up ten times.

Even though the coin flips are random, this tournament ends up selecting a minority of individually improbable coin-flippers. The coin flipping is random, but the process of selecting the coin-flippers is not random at all. Evolution is a similar process.

I don't want to give the illusion of evolution being simple - it is actually quite complex. It is not the easy to explain process many people mistake it to be. In order to really grasp the full scope of the Theory of Evolution, you need to understand things like genetics, ethology, game-theory and more. It is hard to fully explain the Theory of Evolution without explaining the rest of biology in the process!

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #8086302 -

Yeah...I'm sorry but calling evolution random implies a lack of true understanding. Yes the original genetic mutations are random, we all know that, you won't find an argument there. But over a long time period the genes that are selected in relation to the environment are not random at all. That's why animals evolve with such specificity.

And evolution does have a goal, it's the successful reproduction of species. Theres no concrete "guiding hand" if that's what you mean, but it's a perfectly self contained system that when viewed externally is indeed very deterministic.


--------------------
check out my music!
drowse in prison and your waking will be but loss

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: g00ru]
    #8086648 -

Certainly there's a high specificity in evoltionary selection.

All I'm saying is that the selection pressures that operate on an organism are a product of their environment. If everything else in the environment has been evolving by random mutation and conservation, then the exact conditions selecting on any given organism in that environment is dependent on what beneficial random mutations occured in the genetic history of every other organism in the environment. Sure, all of the conserved traits are beneficial, but which beneficial traits occur is random.

This is what I mean when I say that selectional pressures are random.

No one is denying that the end result is specific organisms suited to their environment.


--------------------
Bufotenine Yopo/Cebil Info | Guide to Hunting/Using Fly Agarics
Good Drug Books
PCPiHKAL|Rhodium

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: Entropymancer]
    #8086665 -

I wasn't refuting you in particular, but yeah I see what you're saying. But now we're really just arguing semantics. If you look at it that way, everything in the universe is random . For the purposes of a simple discussion, I think it's better to define evolution as a non random mechanism because calling it random misrepresents it.


--------------------
check out my music!
drowse in prison and your waking will be but loss

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: g00ru]
    #8086731 -

guruu said:
If you look at it that way, everything in the universe is random.


As I understand it, this is the case. Otherwise all of the approximations made by statistical mechanics wouldn't work (which they do)


guruu said:
For the purposes of a simple discussion, I think it's better to define evolution as a non random mechanism because calling it random misrepresents it.


Maybe. I'm not sure I see how calling it random misrepresents it, though. As a biochemistry major, calling it anything but random offends my fundamental sensibilities.


--------------------
Bufotenine Yopo/Cebil Info | Guide to Hunting/Using Fly Agarics
Good Drug Books
PCPiHKAL|Rhodium

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: g00ru]
    #8086955 -

guruu said:
And evolution does have a goal, it's the successful reproduction of species. Theres no concrete "guiding hand" if that's what you mean, but it's a perfectly self contained system that when viewed externally is indeed very deterministic.


I would not describe that as a goal. Evolution has no intentions or desires or plans. It cannot have goals save those we project onto it in retrospect. It is a natural process, analogous to erosion.

Picture stones in a fast-running stream bed. Over time, through random collisions with sand and grit particles, the stones become smooth and saucerlike, allowing water to flow over them with less resistance. It almost appears as though they have been designed to sit in a stream bed. They do not become this shape because the water finds it more agreeable. Their smoothness is the result of the process of erosion, not the goal.


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Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:

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Re: question about evolution..... [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #8087051 -

MushmanTheManic said:
"You mean this vast diversity and COMPLEXITY of life was just RANDOM?"

Well no.

It turns out that random mutations don't really exist. Genes mutate for a reason. Coping errors of DNA during cell division is common, chemicals interfere with DNA and cause mutations, radiation (including light) can cause mutations, viruses cause mutations, etc. These are still called "random mutations" but they are not truly random.




This right here represents the heart of this debate: what does 'random' mean?

If you want to get down to it, NOTHING is truly random. There is a reason for everything. You may think a die roll is random, but it is purely a function of the die's release velocity and orientation, its mass, its size, its coefficient of friction and that of the surface it hits... and out pops a 5.

There are so many factors that we cannot calculate the result of this function. Given the utter complexity of it, is there anything really deceiving about treating the result as a randomly produced number?

But for our purposes, why not take the result of the die roll as random? The unique combination of chemical interference, viral interference, radiation, and timing produce a specific result, which in this case is a specific genetic mutation. I don't know that much about biology, but are we able to a) measure all of these constituent factors and b) calculate what the resulting mutation will be? I suspect not, and that is why the word 'random' is used to describe these mutations. 'Unpredictable' might be more accurate.

Quote:
Even though the coin flips are random, this tournament ends up selecting a minority of individually improbable coin-flippers. The coin flipping is random, but the process of selecting the coin-flippers is not random at all. Evolution is a similar process.


The coin flipping tournament is a great analogy. Yes, the coin flips are random, and the selection of the winners is not. So in that sense, no, evolution is not random, but the mutations are.


--------------------
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:

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