Political Philosophy discussion

[Blazenclaw]

1. No, it's not.
"Jumping" refers to generations in this context.
In other words, jumping up 100 times in a row means having a LINEAGE of 100 generations directly descending from one another.
And in the context of mutations, it means that those ALWAYS ACCUMULATE (when discussing cases like "running to flying" and similar quantum leaps).
But statistically speaking, this is almost certainly FALSE - and for two separate reasons:

So to be clear - species A has several mutations over a long timespan, creating A1, A2, A3, A4.
Over another timespan, each of these have mutations (and some of the original species die out); we now have: A11, A12, A13, A14 from A1, and also have A31, A32, A33, and A34 from A3. A2 and A4 die out; they were viable mutations, but selected out due to whatever factor.
Over more time, more mutations occur. We now have A121 A122 A123 A124 (A11 died out), A131 A132 A133 A134 (from A13, and A14 dies), and similar for A331, A332, A333, A334.
Over more time... etc, you get the idea.
So yes, given my naming convention, for some currently existing species A331 there were prior splits at A33, A3, and A, each building off the prior in some manner. But you say this accumulation is false - now to why.

a. There is zero necessity for EACH generation to be capable of producing healthy and viable progeny that would survive to reproduce.
And if even ONE generation fails it - you'd "FALL" back down to step zero, since all of the latter generation's mutations would simply DIE CHILDLESS (progeny-less).
Not impossible - and actually quite common.
This typically gets "countered" with "there are always enough specimens to produce a new generation", which is a false statement that implies ACCUMULATIVE mutations once again - whereas RANDOM mutations can easily simply "fall off" just as well (or mutate in "wrong directions").
If we actually observed such a process taking place, none of it would be as "accumulative" as this approach suggests, I betcha.

1. Generation is very much not the same as species. A single new viable species might occur after millions of generations, including many false starts where after (4) generations all (13) carriers of that mutation die off (small numbers for example). It's only after that this does manage to happen successfully - and we do have evidence for this happening in fast breeding animals such as fruit flies - and a new mutation (or several) establishes themselves as independent over the course of tens to hundreds to thousands of generations do we define the creation of a new species. This may be one source of misunderstanding on evolution; it is slow as fudge.
2. Generation is very much not the same as mutation. It is in fact probable that an individual animal with a mutation would make that animal less likely to reproduce, or even make it unable to do so.
3. In only very rare cases does a failure of a *species*, once it dies out, fall back to "step zero". When A11 and A14 die out, A12 and A13 still exist. Certainly if all of A11 A12 A13 and A14 die, then yes, the A1 line is extinct. Even this happens all the time in nature, we agree. But what about A33? That's far beyond 'step zero' of A. What about H7, or L2315 that also show promise? We agree, a single species failing is common; but you seem to think that species cannot branch out, if I understand correctly?
4. We've gone back and forth a little bit on 'accumulative'. The end result of a specific species or family thereof sharing some trait ("flight") is accumulative, yes. However, this is only from the standpoint of looking at the end result, and working backward. Evolution, as I've described here, does not aim or attempt to get to the end result. It simply shotguns changes, constantly, and sees what sticks. Over time, collections of features arise that humans like to put into boxes and call 'flight', 'sight', 'hearing', etc. But there exists incredible variety in any feature you can name; even intelligence is a sliding scale.

b. In quite a few "extreme" cases, "mid-jump" species are simply "neither here, neither there".
Say, the transition from an "otter" to a "dolphin" necessitates a "middle species" that is ALREADY non-land YET NOT fully aquatic either.
Basically, such a species has a LOWER rate of survival than its parent (or child, but that one isn't born yet) - and while it's not impossible to imagine it surviving, it does require a huge lot of "magical luck", which is anything BUT scientific.
So while possible, such a transition requires a leap of BELIEF in its success - and that is NOT how you prove a scientific theory AT ALL.

1. Your choices of "otter" and "dolphin" are odd considering both are aquatic but from different routes as evolution predicts; otters share genetics with weasels, land carnivores ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustelidae ) and dolphins with whales, which remain unchanged for a very long time ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacea ). Their common ancestor would be way, way, way back.
   • I'm going to assume you mean a generic aquatic / land transition. In such a case, what precisely would require such a species to have a lower survival rate than one that was purely either/or? This is a claim with no proof, but stated with what feels like considerable belief behind it.
   • In the general case, partial adaptation takes many steps. One species has better lung capacity, another better eyesight underwater (one mutation present in humans by the way! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12747831 This is also where I can point out I'm also not quite using species correctly, or even the concept of purely mutations as able to create new species. Periodic isolation is also required; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation ), another mutation increases mobility underwater, etc, until the transition completes, or doesn't. There are a great many species that are semi-aquatic, you own example of otter technically one of them! Therefore the conclusion drawn - requiring "a huge lot of magical luck" is drawn from a false premise, given the sheer variety we do in fact see for these partial transformations, and that such middle species are in fact viable.

2. No, I meant something else entirely.
What I'm saying is that the following "evolution tree" in vertebrates is EXTREMELY too LINEAR for anything even remotely random:
Fish=>Amphibian=>Reptile=>Mammal/Bird.
You see, there SHOULD have been SEVERAL (surviving, not hypothetical-on-paper) branches already by the Fishes, and then by every further step.
Yet what do we see here?
A very linear lineage of classes - always ONE class turning into ONE "further evolved" class.
While I predict a "retort" with "all those branches appeared and died out" - I simply won't buy it happening THREE TIMES in the exact same manner over and over again.
By the logic of "random mutations" multiplied by "millions of years of often very separate evolution" - there SHOULD be many MORE surviving branches in vertebrates.
The fact there ISN'T - is a huge HOLE in the logic of "evolution" - again, requiring strong BELIEF in it"happening like we SAY it did".
Facts and observations, though, DO NOT align too well with the current THEORY.

1. The given description of fish into amphibian into etc. is simply not what the theory of evolution predicts or suggests, but is an often quoted strawman. Please briefly examine a diagram of mapped branches ( https://evogeneao.s3.amazonaws.com/images/tree_of_life/tree-of-life_2000.png ) ; this should hopefully not seem linear as you say. This mapping is done by a mix of both examining genetic markers for similarities, as well as yes some guesswork for species that have died out (of which extremely few are shown on that diagram!) and ordering of which branches appeared first, as time goes further and further back and mapping becomes more difficult.
2. So yes, there are indeed several branches even "by the Fishes" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnatha , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondrichthyes , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes for three at random. Trying to fit everything so tightly into either "fish" or "amphibian" or "reptile" or "bird" etc, loses so much definition to be not worthwhile to discuss.

3. Niches can only help that much - and it makes zero sense for sharks to coexist with dolphins and whales, when they literally share food sources.
Given "random mutations TIMES millions of years", ONE of their sides should have "out-niched" the other eventually without a doubt.
The fact neither did it, is a logical paradox that again invokes BELIEF over LOGIC.
And there's a ton of such examples in almost every niche worldwide - more or less.
Including bacteria not devouring everything alive in the world - despite being highly adaptive and preying for live matter all the time.
All of these "rabbits and wolves"-type BALANCED systems highly invoke either BELIEF in them magically controlling themselves - or a necessity of an "external control".

1. Sharks and dolphins and whales do not, in fact, strictly share food sources, but perhaps this was a bad example on your part. Further, this is again entering into an ecology / evolution confusion, not to mention more oversimplification. The very concept of a species differentiation implies there exists some difference, for which species F might be slightly better at some things and worst and others than species G. Ergo, if F begins to dominate, not only does that change the ecosystem, but G may be able to survive by capitalizing on what it can do better than F. If it can't then yes, G may perish in the local region. This happens. But it does not imply a civ-style winner-takes all approach, where F slowly pushes everyone else out of the ecosystem!
2. Bacteria not devouring the world is a good point! There are a few comments I'd leave on this, partly because I'm not certain of it myself! One thing is that the bacterial world is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly competitive compared to what we'd consider the macro biological world; animals we can see and stuff. If one bacteria does very well and starts to eat all the other ones, then whichever bacteria that can find a weakness in the previously good one is suddenly eating like a king and does well themselves, leading to pressure to eat the second, etc. Additionally, optimization is absolutely critical here. If a bacterium develops some means to do X, that comes at the cost of resources to create that, which necessarily slows down growth rate unless what it gains can improve growth rate more than the cost; you may repeat this many times, but eventually, you end up with bigger and bigger bacterium, which suffer from problems that smaller ones don't. These are my thoughts at any rate... but I'm certain there are better, evidence-backed reasons. My training is in physics and microscopy, but @Kazavon might know more? Alternatively - you can always search the internet for reputable sources yourself ^.^
3. If you do not believe that rabbits and wolves can exist in a balanced ecosystem by virtue of balance being impossible without magic or external control, then does this external control also govern your refrigerator, which is also a self governing system? What about you - does it tell you when to eat and when you're full, or is there some chemical system that does it? I'm being a little exaggerating here and perhaps not so kind, I do apologize. I should probably wrap this up and sleep soon...
   • Consider: Is there anything magical about a ball resting in the bottom of a bowl? If you disturb the ball by poking it, or placing it partway up the sloped sides of a bowl, it is no longer stable; the sloped sides of the bowl guide it toward the center, revealing a stable equilibrium at the bottom. Even if the ball is bumpy or rough, or the bowl is lightly moving in irregular motions, the average location would still be the bottom of the bowl. Ecosystems occur under the same general principle, even if more complex. A very simplified version of it - wolves eat too many rabbits -> not enough rabbits -> wolves starve or have fewer pups -> more rabbits live, or at least, the rate of rabbit decline decreases, and a new equilibrium is attained. It is certainly possible for ecosystems to be unbalanced - invasive species are often this - but the presence of an unbalanced system does by no means prove balanced systems cannot exist.

And let's leave it at this for now.

If you wish to, by all means. I've some time, and find it useful to talk to people with different viewpoints; questioning your own ideas, seeing evidence based discussion and deciding thereon is, imo, one of the better things a person can do.

 

[Somebody613]

...

I'll come in a few hours for a more detailed discussion, but the one thing I can say now is that you can't shake off the very "looking backwards" approach you so dislike.
You are automatically resorting to "proving" evolution from the view point of "it already happened, now let's explain it".
Which is NOT my approach AT ALL.
And "rabbits and wolves" is EXACTLY the logical clash between our VIEWS.
See ya later.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Evolution is very, very slow. Intermediate 'steps' do exist; aren't even just different species evidence of this, no? Could you name some intermediate step that must exist for, well, any species whatsoever, that would confer no net disadvantage?

Which counters the idea that the selection process is so accurate as to only allow the strongest and most successful mutations to survive. You're going back to reliance on the chances of survival still existing despite non-optimal adaptation, and I'm sure that's true, but towards numerous points of amazing achievements for life, even gliding for squirrels, for example, surely there are actually factors that make the species LESS survivable at certain steps, requiring the counter-intuitive (rather... counter to theory conclusion) adaptation to thrive and survive despite its introduced handicap. Life seems to do what it can to nurture some of these at times.

Another observation, what a species doesn't need or require anymore, no matter how minimally unnecessary it may be, becomes phased out over time as well. Simple process of natural selection doesn't quite account for that, particularly in light of the previous quandry, where useful adaptations for a future adaptation despite being disadvantageous now are harbored for a time and survive despite the selection process. It's as if forms have a certain energy cost to what it wants to exhibit and it will trade in one thing for another so as to gain more room for its new design ambitions.

Here's an idea that may seem tangential at first. Our universe, as we understand, has select few physical constants ; relative strengths of strong and weak nuclear forces, gravitational constant, etc. If any one of these is off by a tiny percent relative to what they currently are, life simply could not exist or would not develop in the universe (stars can't form, matter doesn't condense, etc). One could say that it's incredible, how this universe seems just tailored fit for us! And it really is, in a way; because the other options could not host life, life could not form in universes where the 'settings', if you will, don't allow it. This is the anthropic principle; it seems marvelous, because of a survivorship bias.

I tend to think if these things were just that little bit different, we'd find that reality manifests the game in a new way. There's no purpose to existence if there isn't life to observe it and there's certainly no purpose to an existence we believe has none. Life is kinda the whole point, or at least the development of intelligence that can observe nature and the entire structure of it and marvel at it is. I don't see how it couldn't be.

Essentially, I question: Are the 'designs' themselves wonderous from some standpoint outside of humanity (if such a viewpoint exists?), or is it just that we exist to understand them (sentience) that which makes them interesting? If there isn't a good definition for a 'design' for some entity to design towards or 'river' to flow to... then what?

If you're reading what I'm saying closely, you'll realize that I start from the perspective that there is intelligence in all things and at every level. Those intelligences vary greatly as to what they experience, how they experience it, how they consider it. I believe even atoms have an intelligence of their own and its only from our zoomed out viewpoint that we see them as being completely mathematically driven by the forces of physics. Perhaps at such a zoomed out view, our own behavior could be so easily boiled down to following the urges of forces at play. Therefore, although I say Life is the point, I should rephrase that... experience is the point. And all things that exist maintain some experience of existence. Therefore, no matter what the definition of various forces and how they interact, there will always be a perspective of something to observe it. Life, as we know it, just happens to be a very refined intellect, but if we think we're all that refined really, we should consider there's ALWAYS a bigger fish and we're little more than a stage in an infinite cycle of ever increasing complexity. We are the simple atoms to something else watching. So I guess to answer, it's all going to be wondrous no matter what it is because all that is cannot be divided from thought as that is all that comprises purpose behind anything to exist in the first place. We are just the one spirit incarnating in all its many imagined possible ways to incarnate, all pretending to be individual and separate from that oneness because it kinda sucks being all that really is. Kinda lonely.
But now I'm getting into where my own spiritual outlook is bleeding in here. I still think this is what 'science' will determine to be the case at some point. If we are ever to find the unified field theory, this is a stage in understanding it.

This is a really interesting idea I enjoy as well! I would highlight a few things though; much as our brain is created from a net of neurons, it cannot directly interfere with the level of neurons. Abstracting a brain to a black box, it cannot directly interfere with the individual neurons that make it up - it's an emergent system . Taking the same approach, if you consider a nation as a black box, it may take in signals in form of citizens and goods, and send signals by similar means. I would say that this does not necessitate that such a system is intelligent, mind you - fleas have brains as well but talking to one is a moot point - but that if it were, how would an intelligent system communicate to another? Not really in any way we could understand, at least without a good deal of effort. I recall reading a story about galaxies talking to each other in such a manner, but can't find it now, drat!

Not in any way that we could understand is probably exactly correct, at least for now. We would have to learn how to interpret the transition of information (data) from one thing to the next and what 'language' it speaks and what it is meaning in that language. And we're struggling to understand the brain, a system we KNOW is purposefully passing information from one cell to the next. Understanding that, I think, will lead us to later understanding how a network of life communicates and once we start understanding that it does and start figuring out how to trace the data streams and 'listen', then interpret, we'll really enter a new realm of cognizance and learn things we couldn't dream of now. To me it seems this is what we're headed for eventually. There are so many levels to this, perhaps a nearly infinite number of them, and both up and down the chain, every step is an incredible stage further in complexity to try to interpret and understand. We know a flea thinks, but could we possibly grasp the WAY it thinks? There's a place for our technological singularity in our future to take us here. But even that would eventually find complexity beyond the imagining that all that power is required to even begin to disseminate.

I suppose I'm just theorizing here.

 

[Somebody613]

...

Let's pretend that we need several exact elements to "build" the flight:
a. Feathers.
b. Wings.
c. Light-weight.
d. Behavior.
In THAT order.
So, using your analogy (and simplifying it as much as possible):
Generation A has none.
Specimens A1, A2, A3, A4 all have (a. feathers).
So if A1, A2, A3 die out, A4 will still introduce (a. feathers) into the gene pool.
Generation B has mutated (b. wings), but not in all specimens.
Only A1B1, A1B2, A2B1, A3B3 have it - all the others DID NOT mutate into (b. wings).
So if you kill off A1B1, A1B2, A2B1, A3B3 - even though you'd still have A2B2, A3B1, A3B2, those are DEAD-ENDS for *FLIGHT*.
And then suddenly you get (c. light-weight) in A3B1C2 in the next generation (mutations are random, lol).
But, ahem, A3B1 did not have (b. wings), so it's also a DEAD-END, despite having an even more "advanced" mutation (but NOT having a "previous" one).
Etc. etc. etc.
This practically shows how A1B1C1D1 is statistically UNLIKELY to happen, as opposed to any other spread.

As of vertebrates, it's super easy to explain.
How many LIMBED vertebrates had evolved from fishes?
ONE type - amphibians, period.
Sure, you can then "split" them into smaller "sub-classes", but ALL of them will be more or less FROGS - not Grox.
And the same in regards to amphibians?
ONE type - reptiles.
And then reptiles produced (finally) TWO - mammals and birds.
But if evolution was truly random, mammals would have stemmed from fishes, not from reptiles.
Or at least "another mammals" would - a branch that looks totally differently from the "major trunk" that is my "fish=> mammal" point.

What stopped the FIRST-YEAR-AFTER-CONTACT wolves from devouring ALL contemporary rabbits?
What stopped the FIRST-YEAR-AFTER-CONTACT rabbits from devouring ALL grass and die out of starvation?
Answer: magic.

I'm not fully done here, but let's see where it leads from here.

 

[Blazenclaw]

Which counters the idea that the selection process is so accurate as to only allow the strongest and most successful mutations to survive. You're going back to reliance on the chances of survival still existing despite non-optimal adaptation, and I'm sure that's true, but towards numerous points of amazing achievements for life, even gliding for squirrels, for example, surely there are actually factors that make the species LESS survivable at certain steps, requiring the counter-intuitive (rather... counter to theory conclusion) adaptation to thrive and survive despite its introduced handicap. Life seems to do what it can to nurture some of these at times.

I'm not sure I follow this. I don't see a reason a 'stepping stone' by necessity must be disadvantaged. "Surely there are factors that make the species LESS survivable" ; certainly any change has benefits and drawbacks. The flying squirrel is less able to search the ground for nutrients due to it's frame less optimized for walking, but it makes up for this in gliding ability to escape predators or reach further areas than just jumping. The *net* is positive, or at least not negative, which is why the species exists, and over time, incremental changes of local maxima in survival ability lead to, generally, more complex designs.

If you say surely there are steps that make a species less survivable overall, could you name any existing or must-have-existed intermediate step that is *strictly inferior* to a prior? Multiple if possible so as to discuss!

Another observation, what a species doesn't need or require anymore, no matter how minimally unnecessary it may be, becomes phased out over time as well. Simple process of natural selection doesn't quite account for that, particularly in light of the previous quandry, where useful adaptations for a future adaptation despite being disadvantageous now are harbored for a time and survive despite the selection process. It's as if forms have a certain energy cost to what it wants to exhibit and it will trade in one thing for another so as to gain more room for its new design ambitions.

I highlight your last sentence, which is exactly one reasoning to explain your first. We agree that over time, as some feature no longer becomes relevant, it is slowly selected against but remains as a vestigial structure for some (potentially very long!) duration. The reasoning for the selection against [a feature not providing any benefit] is that there is indeed a certain energy cost in the form of energy (food) needed to grow it for any individual of the species, as well as the added complexity allowing for things to go wrong and harm the whole without giving any benefit.
Consider the human appendix. In its current form, it generally does nothing significantly helpful, as far as we can tell; if I recall, some suggest it may help in restoring the gut microbiome in cases where it has been damaged, but it's not obvious. However, we all know that in some cases it can become inflamed, and: In 2015 about 11.6 million cases of appendicitis occurred which resulted in about 50,100 deaths. This is the 'energy' cost of structures that don't actively provide net benefit; complexity brings additional failure modes. A human without legs can't die due to an infection from a cut on the toe - in this sense every feature has drawbacks - but such a human would certainly be less well off overall.
In a hypothetical world where humans weren't intelligent, the appendix would eventually phase itself out, but with a relatively weak pressure to do so, all things considered. There are two ways in which it may phase out; either it simply disappears by becoming smaller over some number of mutational steps, or it changes in some manner to alter its form. So maybe this is one way the creation of features makes sense - feature A exists in a narrow benefit for situation 1, but as situation 1 changes, feature A still exists - until a mutation changes it to be (B), better for the new situation 2. Then once more, as new situation 3 occurs, a mutation to C arrives. So I can also see how given the state of [situation 3 and feature C], it seems unlikely that 'prereq' feature A would have been chosen for situation 3 - because it wouldn't be, and wasn't.

More generally, I'm not convinced that any currently existing design - flight as our example - must necessarily have gone though a 'useless' stage (not quite 'vestigial', since that refers more to a feature partially removed or providing no net benefit). This seems like the main idea here, so to repeat; can someone actually show there exists some stage that a current species must have gone through in which there is no benefit to the prior species for that particular stage, that was then used to build upon to a more complex feature? Or, are there currently existing features in species that are actively harmful for the situation they developed in - and importantly - not vestigial in the sense as they are partially removed features? The presence of either may be difficult to explain from an evolutionary standpoint, but I cannot think of anything that fits this criteria.

If you're reading what I'm saying closely, you'll realize that I start from the perspective that there is intelligence in all things and at every level. Those intelligences vary greatly as to what they experience, how they experience it, how they consider it. I believe even atoms have an intelligence of their own and its only from our zoomed out viewpoint that we see them as being completely mathematically driven by the forces of physics. Perhaps at such a zoomed out view, our own behavior could be so easily boiled down to following the urges of forces at play. Therefore, although I say Life is the point, I should rephrase that... experience is the point. And all things that exist maintain some experience of existence. Therefore, no matter what the definition of various forces and how they interact, there will always be a perspective of something to observe it. Life, as we know it, just happens to be a very refined intellect, but if we think we're all that refined really, we should consider there's ALWAYS a bigger fish and we're little more than a stage in an infinite cycle of ever increasing complexity. We are the simple atoms to something else watching. So I guess to answer, it's all going to be wondrous no matter what it is because all that is cannot be divided from thought as that is all that comprises purpose behind anything to exist in the first place. We are just the one spirit incarnating in all its many imagined possible ways to incarnate, all pretending to be individual and separate from that oneness because it kinda sucks being all that really is. Kinda lonely.
But now I'm getting into where my own spiritual outlook is bleeding in here. I still think this is what 'science' will determine to be the case at some point. If we are ever to find the unified field theory, this is a stage in understanding it.

I do recall you posting about this topic elsewhere as well, true. It is an interesting idea! I can see this as a general expansion of the definition of intelligence ("the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills") to be something like "a system which acts upon inputs based upon rules governing expected outputs" , though it would need some further quantifiers (and rewording, don't think is accurate as is) to stop generally anything that does a simple function (e.g. a microwave) from falling into that. Unless that's the point? One could say that in some way, as a microwave is used more and more, wear and tear accumulates as 'memories' of past use; with sufficient computing and analysis, could one not restore the history of the microwave akin to asking for its memories? Huh.
Granted, the universe is not deterministic, and some (select few) processes are perfectly reversible such that the system itself is unchanged for it, at the cost of the surroundings to that system eating the entropy change, but that doesn't really impact the thought of irreversible processes as experiences to a system.

Personally, I take somewhat of the inverted approach, but to be clear this is definitely where personal opinion strongly holds sway. If any system could be modeled to have intelligence, then technically it could be framed as nothing has intelligence; put another way, if humans and nations both are intelligent, then what's special about human intelligence? My personal conclusion is that, well, nothing's special about humans. We're just a system - one with high complexity and self-regulating nature - that bumbles in reality, and to me, that's quite humbling. As you said, but from a different angle; kinda lonely.

 

[Blazenclaw]

... one thing I can say now is that you can't shake off the very "looking backwards" approach you so dislike.
You are automatically resorting to "proving" evolution from the view point of "it already happened, now let's explain it".

I just double checked, and nowhere in anywhere of my posts am I attempting to prove evolution; I am mostly defending it from misunderstand and being attacked based on said misunderstandings of what it suggests, or, such is my intent at least.

I should hope we agree on the current state of reality ; we agree that something happened to get the world to where it is, yes? We should agree on things like there are indeed at least 50 species of flying squirrel in the wild, that we can and have run experiments on fruit flies and E. Coli to watch mutations and new species appear ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution#Fruit_flies , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment ). This is one example of many for the theory of evolution working in an observed manner; its application to the rest of the world is inferred, as would be any and every hypothesis to describe the current state based on the past. From this standpoint, the theory of evolution broadly suggests a framework by which the current state of reality may be explained, and importantly, provides both methods by which it may be disproven (changes not following those of expected by mutation/selection processes, species not adapting to environments, etc) as well as predictions of things that should exist (predicting dinosaur species before fossil evidence is found for them, the liklihood of humans to biologically adapt to environment which was then found, mutations appearing in controlled experiments, etc).

I do not believe you have stated your personal thoughts for an alternative explanation, but hopefully it should also provide predictions for things not yet observed as well as some method by which it may be disproved if wrong.

Also, if we are to continue, I would ask that you please try to be a little more careful in your declarations, particularly in regards to the intent of others; you've posted here and elsewhere things like "We don't need to observe events actually happen before our eyes, we just need to cutely write about them, and that will make them 100% true. Just believe it does." and similar statements that do not represent in the slightest what the underlying idea is or intent thereof. The scientific method relies on people being able to replicate results if they so wish; famously, psychology is having a field day with a recent replication struggle.

Which is NOT my approach AT ALL.

If you're inclined, I would be interested to see your alternative approach.

Let's pretend that we need several exact elements to "build" the flight:
a. Feathers.
b. Wings.
c. Light-weight.
d. Behavior.
In THAT order.

There is no reason it must be in this order. Why not have a lighter body - allowing for jumping further - come before feathers? Why not have wings - like, I don't know, a bat? - come before feathers? This is an arbitrary restriction to make it seem less likely, when the theory imposes no such restriction.

So, using your analogy (and simplifying it as much as possible):
Generation A has none.
Specimens A1, A2, A3, A4 all have (a. feathers).
So if A1, A2, A3 die out, A4 will still introduce (a. feathers) into the gene pool.
Generation B has mutated (b. wings), but not in all specimens.
Only A1B1, A1B2, A2B1, A3B3 have it - all the others DID NOT mutate into (b. wings).
So if you kill off A1B1, A1B2, A2B1, A3B3 - even though you'd still have A2B2, A3B1, A3B2, those are DEAD-ENDS for *FLIGHT*.
And then suddenly you get (c. light-weight) in A3B1C2 in the next generation (mutations are random, lol).
But, ahem, A3B1 did not have (b. wings), so it's also a DEAD-END, despite having an even more "advanced" mutation (but NOT having a "previous" one).

I see now you've, again, made the mistake of confusing generation with species. This works on a many-generation level, not an individual entity or even single generation level! Please be careful! In addition, you've either typoed or made some mistakes here with the numbering. Using your arguments, trying to fix where possible?

1. If A1, A2, A3 die out, then A3B1C2 or A1B1 or A2BX... never appear, since the A1 - A3 lines are dead.
   
2. You state A has feathers (presumably as it's a selected subset of species in which A is the only instance of feather generation), of which you also specify that only one exact species survives - A4. Thus a series of species descending from A4 would be (using your slightly modified nomenclature) A4B1, A4B2, A4B3 ... A4BN for some N created species, for which some along this B line have wings. Let's say for simplicity that B1-B4 have wings, and B's >4 are species not developing wings.
3. You then propose to kill off all of the A4BX species. Well, then yes, if you kill everything, of course you're back to square one, if it even still exists (likely not). And yes, this does happen. But you've been particularly bloodthirsty!

To reformat my original post with AXBY formulation instead of AXYZ, and being more explicit about the species vs individual problem you seem to be having:

1. Species A starts with (feathers).
2. 100,000 years pass. Now there are A1, A2, A3 ... AN as (N) new species sprung from A. Let us say that A1 - A3 have wings, whereas A4+ have unrelated mutations.
3. Some species don't make it, we agree. Over the next 100,000 years, only two do; A1 and A3 as separate species, each containing a great number of individuals.
4. Both of these continue to mutate and be selected; over another 100,000 years we now have A1B1, A1B2, A1B3... A1BP from the A1 line (as evident in their name, there are P species from A1) and A3B1, A3B2, A3B3... A3BQ from A3 as before, with Q number of species.
5. Given that A1 and A3 have thrived, in order to remove feathers (A) altogether, all P + Q species must be eradicated! Many of them have different features; some maybe have bright feathers, some hollow, some sharp, but all have feathers in some manner.
6. This process continues for any feature; A was arbitrarily chosen to represent feathers, but if you agree with this, then recursively select "lightweight" as the stand-in for A, or "behavior" as you say, etc, and this process can generate any design.
7. To reiterate: Of course it is possible that step 3 may not occur, maybe somehow every instance of every new species from a given ancestor dies. This happens. But it cannot happen every single time; we observe fruit flies, butterflies, E. coli, dynamically creating new features.
8. If you agree that step 3 might happen, and understand that the mutation to step 2 from step 1 matches that of step 4 from step 3, this will generate new features to whatever arbitrary level that allows for a species to survive at all as in 3.

This practically shows how A1B1C1D1 is statistically UNLIKELY to happen, as opposed to any other spread.

We are in agreement that any given outcome may be statistically unlikely to happen. The probability of getting 10 heads in a row with a flipped coin is incredibly unlikely yes. However, please note ten heads shares the exact same likelihood as some random HTHHTTTHTH for H heads and T tails. It just so happens however, that for all the possible permutations of mutations that occur, some are indeed real interesting. One random outcome might be the features that make flight, one outcome is sight, etc. The outcomes of random mutations that don't do anything are less likely to be selected via the selection mechanism, which is why evolution suggests we see interesting features that create systems, not giant blobs of random goo mutations.

As of vertebrates, it's super easy to explain.
How many LIMBED vertebrates had evolved from fishes?
ONE type - amphibians, period.
Sure, you can then "split" them into smaller "sub-classes", but ALL of them will be more or less FROGS - not Grox.
And the same in regards to amphibians?
ONE type - reptiles.
And then reptiles produced (finally) TWO - mammals and birds.
But if evolution was truly random, mammals would have stemmed from fishes, not from reptiles.
Or at least "another mammals" would - a branch that looks totally differently from the "major trunk" that is my "fish=> mammal" point.

This is a different point, and kinda interesting. I assume you're referring to a spindle-diagram like this ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebrate#Traditional_classification ).

Your main argument here, if I have it right, is essentially "if evolution was truly random, [another branch] would have stemmed from fishes, not from reptiles."

This, I personally don't have a strong argument for. There are many I can think of - once land animals have evolved from the sea, it becomes harder for further adaptations to move into an already existing ecosystem with predators, etc - but neither do I see it required that there be more historical splits in species. Moreover, this far back, there is considerable conjecture about the precise splitting of new species; fossil records are, understandably, incomplete. It's quite entirely possible there are multiple splits but have since died and we lack record of, not to mention, the way you define 'split' here is arbitrary! Why do you claim the right to say something like "oh, fish with bony exteriors are the same as fish, but if they have limbs, then they're different!" ? Would you consider bats a bird, or mammal? Evolutionary records suggest they stem from the mammal family, evolving flight entirely independently from birds- is this not a 'new branch'? You previously decided to separate birds from mammals, so why not separate bats from mammals? Where do you draw the line?

My counter here is that your objection is arbitrary, again done by choosing to oversimplify.

What stopped the FIRST-YEAR-AFTER-CONTACT wolves from devouring ALL contemporary rabbits?
What stopped the FIRST-YEAR-AFTER-CONTACT rabbits from devouring ALL grass and die out of starvation?
Answer: magic.

Here you are assuming that in a single year (or very short timespan), a population of predators (or new consumers, etc) appears via evolution and is introduced to an ecosystem, and come to the conclusion "magic". Again, your argument stems from fundamentally not understanding what the theory of evolution is saying.

1. "Wolves" (as a stand-in for 'new predator') do not appear in a single generation. That's the entire point of the theory of evolution. What would happen is that over potentially thousands of generations, an existing consumer gains some adaptation that allows it to consume better; 20% more likely to succeed at a hunt at night, for an arbitrary example. They hunt more successfully and expand in their ecosystem, putting increased evolutionary pressure on their prey (plants even, in the case of herbivores) to more strongly select for mutations that mitigate this. However, a balanced ecosystem tends to prevent complete destruction of a species unless there is some significant environmental change. In hunting slightly better, there are slightly fewer rabbits, which means less food for the wolves, which leads to a new equilibrium. This argument is not about evolution, but rather a misunderstanding of how an ecosystem works.
2. In reality, ecosystems often do encounter shock, typically from humans introducing a new ('invasive') species where it didn't exist before. In this formulation, yes! It is relatively common for one species to dominate others and eradicate competition! But please - this has nothing to do with what the theory of evolution predicts. I generally am providing links as evidence for claims I make, but in this case, I would urge you to take just a few minutes and skim through the wikipedia article on ecosystems ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem ) , if you are actually interested in learning more.

Also, trying to move discussion from an unrelated thread to where it more belongs...

The very fact that almost none of you realize the crucial difference between "observed" and "inferred" - is the point I'm making to begin with.
Instead, you focus on a clearly false dichotomy of "accepting science OR rejecting science", without separating "science" itself into "observed" and "inferred".
To you, "acceptance of ALL science" automatically gets opposed by "rejecting ALL science", without any in-between stances that would actually JUDGE science per theory.
Computers and gravity work because they are observable - but evolution and Big Bang are merely assertions because they are NOT observable.
Yet you actively fight any approach that would SEPARATE each and every scientific theory based on how TESTABLE and OBSERVABLE those are.
If such approach isn't "blind religious belief"...

1. As has been stated previously; is this an attack on the scientific method, or results achieved from following it, or specific theories, what? The entire premise of the scientific method is to observe reality, and use it to create hypotheses that infer or predict things outside of what is observed, and then attempt to find new observations that prove the hypothesis false. If ever there are clear observations that directly counter the hypothesis, the hypothesis must be changed to account for the new observations. In this way no theory can ever really be proven true, but if after years and years and thousands of attempts we cannot find any evidence whatsoever refuting it, and the hypothesis continues to correctly predict things before we observe them ourselves, then it becomes a theory instead of a hypothesis. Evolution is one of many things that the scientific method has judged to be a theory rather than hypothesis by the sheer volume of evidence in favor of it, and lack of evidence against it.
2. Big Bang and Evolution most certainly have observable impacts. Evolution, from controlled experiments in real time as I've previously linked, and even the big bang does as well. The cosmic microwave background is good evidence of quantum fluctuations occurring at a time when the universe was incredibly tiny, spread wide, until we receive photons from that surface of last scattering.
3. Separating hypotheses based on their ability to be tested is a good way to determine strengths of hypotheses. This is part of the scientific method; once again, I ask why is, in short, the scientific method of "attempting to find logical errors or inconsistencies with reality in ideas describing the world" considered a "blind religious belief"?

Lastly, I do want to thank you - and everyone participating in this thread - for taking the time to discuss things like this, and speak up even when there are disagreements. It's all too easy to just say something like "bah, they don't understand" and just write it off, never choosing to examine your own ideas (or allow them to be examined), which is a real shame; growing polarization of social groups is a real danger, and honestly, just interacting with opposing viewpoints in a healthy manner is a wonderful way to reduce some of that danger.

Special shoutout to @JosEPh_II also, I don't know quite where to say it but; I don't know your views on this particular topic, but in other places I've seen, I do appreciate you for the action of standing up for your own thoughts, even if it seems like many people are opposed!

 

[Somebody613]

I just double checked, and nowhere in anywhere of my posts am I attempting to prove evolution; I am mostly defending it from misunderstand and being attacked based on said misunderstandings of what it suggests, or, such is my intent at least.

I should hope we agree on the current state of reality ; we agree that something happened to get the world to where it is, yes? We should agree on things like there are indeed at least 50 species of flying squirrel in the wild, that we can and have run experiments on fruit flies and E. Coli to watch mutations and new species appear ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution#Fruit_flies , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment ). This is one example of many for the theory of evolution working in an observed manner; its application to the rest of the world is inferred, as would be any and every hypothesis to describe the current state based on the past. From this standpoint, the theory of evolution broadly suggests a framework by which the current state of reality may be explained, and importantly, provides both methods by which it may be disproven (changes not following those of expected by mutation/selection processes, species not adapting to environments, etc) as well as predictions of things that should exist (predicting dinosaur species before fossil evidence is found for them, the liklihood of humans to biologically adapt to environment which was then found, mutations appearing in controlled experiments, etc).

I do not believe you have stated your personal thoughts for an alternative explanation, but hopefully it should also provide predictions for things not yet observed as well as some method by which it may be disproved if wrong.

Also, if we are to continue, I would ask that you please try to be a little more careful in your declarations, particularly in regards to the intent of others; you've posted here and elsewhere things like "We don't need to observe events actually happen before our eyes, we just need to cutely write about them, and that will make them 100% true. Just believe it does." and similar statements that do not represent in the slightest what the underlying idea is or intent thereof. The scientific method relies on people being able to replicate results if they so wish; famously, psychology is having a field day with a recent replication struggle.


If you're inclined, I would be interested to see your alternative approach.


There is no reason it must be in this order. Why not have a lighter body - allowing for jumping further - come before feathers? Why not have wings - like, I don't know, a bat? - come before feathers? This is an arbitrary restriction to make it seem less likely, when the theory imposes no such restriction.


You've ether typoed or made some mistakes here. Using your arguments, trying to fix where possible?

1. If A1, A2, A3 die out, then A3B1C2 or A1B1 or A2BX... never appear, since the A1 - A3 lines are dead.
   
2. You state A has feathers (presumably as it's a selected subset of species in which A is the only instance of feather generation), of which you also specify that only one exact species survives - A4. Thus a series of species descending from A4 would be (using your slightly modified nomenclature) A4B1, A4B2, A4B3 ... A4BN for some N created species, for which some along this B line have wings. Let's say for simplicity that B1-B4 have wings, and B's >4 are species not developing wings.
3. You then propose to kill off all of the A4BX species. Well, then yes, if you kill everything, of course you're back to square one, if it even still exists (likely not). And yes, this does happen. But you've been particularly bloodthirsty!

To reformat my original post with AXBY formulation instead of AXYZ:

1. Species A starts with (feathers).
2. A1, A2, A3 ... AN are (N) new species sprung from A. Let us say that A1 - A3 have wings, whereas A4+ have unrelated mutations.
3. Some species don't make it, we agree. Only two do; A1 and A3.
4. Both of these continue to mutate; we now have A1B1, A1B2, A1B3... A1BP from the A1 line (as evident in their name, there are P species from A1) and A2B1, A2B2, A2B3... A2BQ from A2 as before, with Q number of species.
5. Given that A1 and A3 have thrived, in order to remove feathers (A) altogether, all P + Q species must be eradicated! Many of them have different features; some maybe have bright feathers, some hollow, some sharp, but all have feathers in some manner.
6. This process continues for any feature; A was arbitrarily chosen to represent feathers, but if you agree with this, then recursively select "lightweight" as the stand-in for A, or "behavior" as you say, etc.
7. To reiterate: Of course it is possible that step 3 may not occur, maybe somehow every instance of every new species from a given ancestor dies. This happens. But it cannot happen every single time; we observe fruit flies, butterflies, E. coli, dynamically creating new features.
8. If you agree that step 3 might happen, and that the mutation to step 2 from step 1 matches that of step 4 from step 3, this will generate new features.

We are in agreement that any given outcome may be statistically unlikely to happen. The probability of getting 10 heads in a row with a flipped coin is incredibly unlikely yes. However, please note ten heads shares the exact same likelihood as some random HTHHTTTHTH for H heads and T tails. It just so happens however, that for all the possible permutations of mutations that occur, some are indeed real interesting. One random outcome might be the features that make flight, one outcome is sight, etc. The outcomes of random mutations that don't do anything are less likely to be selected via the selection mechanism, which is why evolution suggests we see interesting features that create systems, not giant blobs of random goo mutations.


This is a different point, and kinda interesting. I assume you're referring to a spindle-diagram like this ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebrate#Traditional_classification ).

Your main argument here, if I have it right, is essentially "if evolution was truly random, [another branch] would have stemmed from fishes, not from reptiles."

This, I personally don't have a strong argument for. There are many I can think of - once land animals have evolved from the sea, it becomes harder for further adaptations to move into an already existing ecosystem with predators, etc - but neither do I see it required that there be more historical splits in species. Moreover, this far back, there is considerable conjecture about the precise splitting of new species; fossil records are, understandably, incomplete. It's quite entirely possible there are multiple splits but have since died and we lack record of, not to mention, the way you define 'split' here is arbitrary! Why do you claim the right to say something like "oh, fish with bony exteriors are the same as fish, but if they have limbs, then they're different!" ? Would you consider bats a bird, or mammal? Evolutionary records suggest they stem from the mammal family, evolving flight entirely independently from birds- is this not a 'new branch'? You previously decided to separate birds from mammals, so why not separate bats from mammals? Where do you draw the line?

My counter here is that your objection is arbitrary, again done by choosing to oversimplify.


Here you are assuming that in a single year (or very short timespan), a population of predators (or new consumers, etc) appears via evolution and is introduced to an ecosystem, and come to the conclusion "magic". Again, your argument stems from fundamentally not understanding what the theory of evolution is saying.

1. "Wolves" (as a stand-in for 'new predator') do not appear in a single generation. That's the entire point of the theory of evolution. What would happen is that over potentially thousands of generations, an existing consumer gains some adaptation that allows it to consume better; 20% more likely to succeed at a hunt at night, for an arbitrary example. They hunt more successfully and expand in their ecosystem, putting increased evolutionary pressure on their prey (plants even, in the case of herbivores) to more strongly select for mutations that mitigate this. However, a balanced ecosystem tends to prevent complete destruction of a species unless there is some significant environmental change. In hunting slightly better, there are slightly fewer rabbits, which means less food for the wolves, which leads to a new equilibrium. This argument is not about evolution, but rather a misunderstanding of how an ecosystem works.
2. In reality, ecosystems often do encounter shock, typically from humans introducing a new ('invasive') species where it didn't exist before. In this formulation, yes! It is relatively common for one species to dominate others and eradicate competition! But please - this has nothing to do with what the theory of evolution predicts. I generally am providing links as evidence for claims I make, but in this case, I would urge you to take just a few minutes and skim through the wikipedia article on ecosystems ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem ) , if you are actually interested in learning more.

Also, trying to move discussion from an unrelated thread to where it more belongs...

1. As has been stated previously; is this an attack on the scientific method, or results achieved from following it, or specific theories, what? The entire premise of the scientific method is to observe reality, and use it to create hypotheses that infer or predict things outside of what is observed, and then attempt to find new observations that prove the hypothesis false. If ever there are clear observations that directly counter the hypothesis, the hypothesis must be changed to account for the new observations. In this way no theory can ever really be proven true, but if after years and years and thousands of attempts we cannot find any evidence whatsoever refuting it, and the hypothesis continues to correctly predict things before we observe them ourselves, then it becomes a theory instead of a hypothesis. Evolution is one of many things that the scientific method has judged to be a theory rather than hypothesis by the sheer volume of evidence in favor of it, and lack of evidence against it.
2. Big Bang and Evolution most certainly have observable impacts. Evolution, from controlled experiments in real time as I've previously linked, and even the big bang does as well. The cosmic microwave background is good evidence of quantum fluctuations occurring at a time when the universe was incredibly tiny, spread wide, until we receive photons from that surface of last scattering.
3. Separating hypotheses based on their ability to be tested is a good way to determine strengths of hypotheses. This is part of the scientific method; once again, I ask why is, in short, the scientific method of "attempting to find logical errors or inconsistencies with reality in ideas describing the world" considered a "blind religious belief"?

Mommy, a text Wallzilla!!!
(But really thanks for actually discussing it through. I might be slightly overly "touchy", because on another forum I've had an ongoing disaster of being trolled by idiots.)

I'll try summing up my "anti-evolution" point in two meta-points.

1. The "flight parts" example wasn't focusing on which exact parts were needed, but on the concept of cumulative gathering OF those parts over generations.
I merely put them in a specific order because that's also how mutations work - they almost never can be "put in a different order", since their micro isn't their macro.
And convergence proves it very easily - pterosaurs, bats, and birds ALL more or less know how to fly, but their non-flight-related biology is vastly different.
The point could've been replaced with simply achieving a [1,2,3,4,5,6] in exactly 6 die throws and in that order.
The crucial difference here is that you'd need THOUSANDS of generations between a raptor-runner and a bird-flier.
Mathematically speaking, it's literally getting a million of "6"s in a row without fail.
Sure, you also have "millions of people throwing dice", so you intuitively EXPECT them to succeed "at least once" - but simple probability math shows this being "magic".
Let's do some MATH.
Say, we count that there's a 50% chance for a specimen of Gen X to produce a specimen of Gen X+1 with BOTH [x & x+1] mutations (which is very generous, admit it).
Say, we need a thousand generations of uninterrupted accumulation of mutations.
What's the chance of it happening from ONE initial specimen (we aren't focusing on procreation here)?
It's 1/(2^1000), lol.
Which is approximately 1/(10^333).
Just think about it - it's a number with 300+ ZEROES, and only ONE of those is WHAT WE NEED.
Now tell me it's NOT "magic".
Note that you(?) make a very annoying mistake in saying that "ha, but it DID happen, so who cares" - we SHOULD care, science SHOULD care.
If something "just happens" yet has literally ZERO chances of happening - you CAN'T claim "randomness" there and stay HONEST about it.
It's a huge LEAP OF FAITH to take a number with 300 ZEROES and calmly say "ah, it JUST HAPPENED".
I simply don't subscribe to taking such OPENLY IMPROBABLE possibilities ON FAITH.
Yes, I do REFUSE *THIS*.

2. Now, let's unveil the fallacy of the "scientific method".
Here we come to a somewhat complex concept that is "human personal experience of observation".
It gets shunned and ridiculed by the more aggressive evolutionists-atheists, but it's a very serious topic no matter what.
And here's the clincher: I only have beef with something that lies ENTIRELY beyond the POSSIBILITY of having a human observation experience.
Even if it was only POTENTIALLY possible - it's still fine, but if it was undeniably IMPOSSIBLE - then I reject it on the fly, UNLIKE evolutionists-atheists.
And I can tell you a ton of examples where human first-person observation IS THE ACTUAL JUDGE all along.
For a very simple example - no amount of extrapolation or theorization will allow you to PROVE what I had dreamed about this night.
Conversely, no amount of theortization is NEEDED for MYSELF to tell you whatever I still recall from my dream.
In this case, I exist in a reality where the DATA of my dream is easily accessible to ME - whereas you exist in a reality where you have NO access to that DATA at all..
Does it make MY observation any less VALID that your non-observation?
Obviously, not at all.
Thus, going back to the "method" - whenever I hear people bragging about "everyone can TEST it", I immediately add: "But you CAN'T test my dream, which I saw."

I might add something later, but I'm scared of the Wallzilla.

 

[Blazenclaw]

Mommy, a text Wallzilla!!!
(But really thanks for actually discussing it through. I might be slightly overly "touchy", because on another forum I've had an ongoing disaster of being trolled by idiots.)

I definitely understand re: trolls, it is always a sketchy thing when not speaking to someone irl (and even then, but a bit less so).

Though on 'text wallzilla', I do hope you read it carefully; I spend most of my morning writing that, it turns out! Particularly the evolution/ecosystem confusion there seems to be going on re: wolves/rabbits is an important one, as this is a system that is very well understood and observable. I'll see about getting around to your latest post(s, if you update) later, as I've put off the things I needed to do this weekend far too long already!

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm not sure I follow this. I don't see a reason a 'stepping stone' by necessity must be disadvantaged.

Because logically, in any evolutionary direction towards a given 'form', there would be disadvantaged steps, just like in any direction towards any goal, there are always challenges. IF, however, you CAN show that the evolutionary path to flight is entirely the path of least resistance (most optimal survival or at least no-detriment on each adaptation) then now we have a situation so incredibly unlikely, it would be like trying to imagine that some life forms might have evolved into a 50,000' skyscraper shaped exactly like the Chrysler building as a matter or random chance and somehow each of those stages of development towards that conclusion were just a good concept for life and it really worked for them. The conclusion of showing that the path to flight was an evolutionary process of least resistance is one that would definitely bear the mark of a creator because it's almost inconceivable that every step along the way would've been the next best most survivable step for that lineage.

If we had only one example of this sort of unlikely complexity, like eyesight, ears, intellect, flight, etc, then I might be able to think there is no evidence of an intelligence guiding evolutionary movement and might be able to think of all lineages as a river, but being that there are so many, and so much incredible ironic interactive harmony elements between species, like how perfect horses are as a ridden mount for humans both in design and psychology, it stretches the idea of absolute random chance defining the pathways completely a little too far.

Yes, we can show that there are optimal points and achievements along the way to flight, but I feel that's somewhat so visible due to a bias to want to see evolution in the light of having no intelligence behind its process and what gets overlooked is how many small adaptations along the way would've been sub-optimal as well.

certainly any change has benefits and drawbacks

Partly supports my point, however, I see where you are going about existing environmental factors making those adaptations more beneficial in those cases. Again, something seems a little cheeky about that too, that the story of reaching the conclusion of something like flight based on immediate existing environmental support clauses for each stage of evolution would be so... emergent from total chaos. This is a lot like the things that happen in our lives. How many times does someone come to the conclusion that something horrible happened to them only so that they could experience something much better than they could imagine later? This sort of phenomenon, dubbed synchronicity in the 90s, has often been one of the hardest to dismiss reasons to think there's actually intelligence behind the things that HAPPEN in life as well, challenging us to consider that chaos cannot account for the intrigue of the process of things that happen and there often appears to be some kind of storytelling or authoring intelligence behind the scenes tweaking the events that unfold in every moment, but let's not get too far into that because that's another theory and another rabbit hole. COULD be related to the 'higher forms of intelligence networks' I've mentioned of course.

If you say surely there are steps that make a species less survivable overall, could you name any existing or must-have-existed intermediate step that is *strictly inferior* to a prior? Multiple if possible so as to discuss!

For flight, no. However, if you look at the Human intellect, the mind, you can point to quite a few sub-optimal adaptations in play I think. Of course, you can always show how its optimal 'in a way', but it's still also a stronger downside than a benefit. I think it would be easy to get lost in the weeds with specific examples however, because there's ways to argue beneficiality for any of it because if a bias exists to see all adaptations as positive, then it will find its own evidence whether a true conclusion or not. My point is that when you have 50,000 steps from point a to point b and point b is miraculously complex, then either some intelligence setup point b to be a point that could be reached by following a valid path of least resistance, or there were times when the water was running uphill. Almost as amazing is how difficult it would be to find such a point of suboptimal adaptation. As I've said in other conversations, if there is an intelligence behind creation itself, it also does not want to be proveable and does all it can, which is a hell of a lot because it did create all this, to make creation appear completely seamless, but there are points where you can step back and look at the bigger picture and realize, yeah, no way is chaos alone able to do all this. I mean, I believe it did, but the intelligence(s) that emerged from the forming reality, like the intelligence of our own minds forming as networks of information combine, has reached a point where it now has a guiding hand in pushing towards objectives and goals.

Consider the human appendix. In its current form, it generally does nothing significantly helpful, as far as we can tell; if I recall, some suggest it may help in restoring the gut microbiome in cases where it has been damaged, but it's not obvious. However, we all know that in some cases it can become inflamed, and: In 2015 about 11.6 million cases of appendicitis occurred which resulted in about 50,100 deaths. This is the 'energy' cost of structures that don't actively provide net benefit; complexity brings additional failure modes. A human without legs can't die due to an infection from a cut on the toe - in this sense every feature has drawbacks - but such a human would certainly be less well off overall.
In a hypothetical world where humans weren't intelligent, the appendix would eventually phase itself out, but with a relatively weak pressure to do so, all things considered. There are two ways in which it may phase out; either it simply disappears by becoming smaller over some number of mutational steps, or it changes in some manner to alter its form. So maybe this is one way the creation of features makes sense - feature A exists in a narrow benefit for situation 1, but as situation 1 changes, feature A still exists - until a mutation changes it to be (B), better for the new situation 2. Then once more, as new situation 3 occurs, a mutation to C arrives. So I can also see how given the state of [situation 3 and feature C], it seems unlikely that 'prereq' feature A would have been chosen for situation 3 - because it wouldn't be, and wasn't.

Kinda makes you wonder why it can even get inflamed... seems to be the WAY that the species is attempting to phase out the vestigial adaptation perhaps? Imagine if it did not get inflamed and cause deaths now and then. It would never have any pressure to be eliminated, so would just stick around being a useless oddity forever. We don't see forms hanging on to useless oddities forever. From the perspective of an intelligent viewpoint, yes, holding on to an unnecessary bone spur or appendix might seem like a bad idea for a species, however, if it never gives any cause to be eliminated, what force would eliminate it? Now consider how many adaptations we could live with that wouldn't be optimal but would have no reason to be eliminated and ask yourself how we (all species) are as streamlined into our designs as we actually are. Why don't we have, by random chance, all sorts of odds and ends that have no purpose like the appendix? Particularly if there was no sub-optimal survival aspect to that design? What defines for us the people we find attractive and why? Could that be part of the force of a larger intelligence pulling strings on the individuals of the species to define for us what traits we are naturally drawn to replicate? Is this HOW that intelligence operates? Or is it just random chance that we like certain details in a mate?

More generally, I'm not convinced that any currently existing design - flight as our example - must necessarily have gone though a 'useless' stage (not quite 'vestigial', since that refers more to a feature partially removed or providing no net benefit). This seems like the main idea here, so to repeat; can someone actually show there exists some stage that a current species must have gone through in which there is no benefit to the prior species for that particular stage, that was then used to build upon to a more complex feature? Or, are there currently existing features in species that are actively harmful for the situation they developed in - and importantly - not vestigial in the sense as they are partially removed features? The presence of either may be difficult to explain from an evolutionary standpoint, but I cannot think of anything that fits this criteria.

I understand your argument and I'm not trying to necessarily say that there would be such a stage we could identify, but if there isn't, isn't THAT a little suspicious in itself? Think of any goal or objective you have ever had to obtain something of value and try to consider how unlikely it is that you could have achieved it by having it fall in your lap by stupid blind luck. You'd probably find there's a few. But almost anything of value has required an effort to achieve, that effort is the act of pushing against the path of least resistance. So all that life has achieved has done so as a result of least resistance, down the paths of most optimal survival? Equally as suspicious in suggesting a hand of intelligence behind the setup of the whole scenario.

I know that scientists have been looking to find that suboptimal adaptation and haven't actually found it because it's possible to determine why any adaptation along the way COULD have been more beneficial for the species and thus been selected. I understand that life looks to fill every niche (valley) it can find. But when you consider every stage along the way, the hip adaptations, the lightening of the body, there ARE points where it appears life knew where it was headed and wasn't just selecting on the basis of the most immediate beneficial needs. The adaptation needed to be one that would work and wouldn't lead to immediate elimination of that line, but sometimes it doesn't seem like it would've been perhaps the BEST choice for that species unless it somehow knew where it was heading. Otherwise it would've just as likely picked another even more optimal adaptation and that would've ended up being even more successful. The equal question here being why did life not pick even more optimal selections instead? I know, from branches in the tree, it DID that too, but it didn't select out the paths that were headed for something truly amazing either.

Also bear in mind, I'm not saying its IMPOSSIBLE for no intelligence to exist behind design, just that it is improbable.

I do recall you posting about this topic elsewhere as well, true. It is an interesting idea! I can see this as a general expansion of the definition of intelligence ("the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills") to be something like "a system which acts upon inputs based upon rules governing expected outputs" , though it would need some further quantifiers (and rewording, don't think is accurate as is) to stop generally anything that does a simple function (e.g. a microwave) from falling into that. Unless that's the point? One could say that in some way, as a microwave is used more and more, wear and tear accumulates as 'memories' of past use; with sufficient computing and analysis, could one not restore the history of the microwave akin to asking for its memories? Huh.

Yes, that's the point. Even simplistic input and output systems are the basic building blocks of more complex intelligences and everything stores memories of experiences in some way. Super large complex systems can have super large complex 'thought processes' that become quite directed as they become self aware. Not all intelligence IS self aware - nor were we when we were young enough and still forming in the womb at a point. Our own system is truly fascinating and shows how mere mathematical processes can add up to self replication and self awareness and it can happen on this kind of scale and even goes so far as to suggest that much larger forms of processing make up larger bodies of information transfer. I'm not sure I'm commenting exactly to the point you've made here but it's where I went with it

Personally, I take somewhat of the inverted approach, but to be clear this is definitely where personal opinion strongly holds sway. If any system could be modeled to have intelligence, then technically it could be framed as nothing has intelligence; put another way, if humans and nations both are intelligent, then what's special about human intelligence? My personal conclusion is that, well, nothing's special about humans. We're just a system - one with high complexity and self-regulating nature - that bumbles in reality, and to me, that's quite humbling. As you said, but from a different angle; kinda lonely.

I completely agree. It really disturbs our love of self-worship to think of it like that but yes, we are very small and meaningless from larger perspectives and once that perspective is glimpsed, it makes you realize that we are blessed to be able to determine for ourselves what actually matters, because in truth, nothing really does. Our whole history is a blip, a microsecond, to some much more vast perspective. Geologists understand this point blank for example.

What may be kinda amazing is what our potential is. We have the capacity to potentially build ways to discover the larger perspectives. It's like imagining that some special subatomic particles may figure out how to cognize our own existence, reach out to us, have systems to translate between us and then begin to share their perspectives, seeking our own as well. It would be hard for them to understand that to our perspective their entire civilizations will be wiped out in a few seconds later as the wind shifts, but it would make them no less impressive.

psychology is having a field day with a recent replication struggle.

Curious what you're pointing to here - I may get it as soon as stated a bit more explicitly.

 

[Blazenclaw]

Curious what you're pointing to here - I may get it as soon as stated a bit more explicitly.

Quick note while on an errand run, a few years ago some psychologists tried to replicate a bunch of well-known psychology experiments, and got different results. The last few years has seen a fair bit of discourse on the validity of previously held ideas in psychology that seemed relatively sound; I can't find a great source rn or the original paper while on my phone, but googling should find a bunch of stories etc. about "psychology replication crisis". It extends beyond psychology, but it's where it originated and iirc is the most severe

 

[Thunderbrd]

Intelligent design and spiritual wizardry require sentient energy fields like The Force from Star Wars.

Ok, I'll admit I do believe that exists.

And I do admit that I believe this entire reality is something of a simulation that only now we are getting perspective to conceive of with the way computers show us that we can create simulated worlds within them. It would not be a stretch to think someday we'll do numerous massive reality simulations that are nearly completely following all the rules of physics and in which we could manifest as beings that naturally result from the processes set forth there and we'd realize that it's just as hard within those simulations to realize it's 'just' a simulation and may, when we return from it, help us to realize what we are actually living is 'just' a simulation so to speak as well. I say simulation but I don't think it's a replication necessarily, just that it's equally illusionary and follows a tremendous amount of predetermined 'laws of cause and effect' so as to create the game we play. Makes you wonder... what is on the other side of that? If we wake up from this life, if we 'log out' of the system, what will we discover ourselves to be? And will that also be a being that is wrapped up in yet another created system as well? Probably...

I think our tech tree is ironic... it's kinda joking about the simulated universe tech but... is it really a joke or is it actually the ultimate conclusion? How hilarious would it be that a mod like this to an archaic game back in the early 21st century would've come to that conclusion so long before it's really proven as well? lol That would actually be really hilarious. And poignant.

In caveman2cosmos you can go into space, there could be event where you collect data about various fallen civs.

That's actually a really interesting idea, to discover the remnants of previous alien civilizations that reached a fatal black-ball conclusion at some point. I'd think that would be a REALLY cool way to build up to discovering the civilization that survived and is now a massive threat to your emergent galactic civ. Cool foreshadowing.

If we don't believe in science, we will, God forbid, require to have objective morals. Please, believe me saying that there can't be objective morals in the first place.

You talk about those you are discussing with maintaining a dichotomy of all or nothing on scientific outlooks, but this is pretty all or nothing on a religious one. Science has nothing to do with determining anything about whether an objective morality exists or not. That is an entirely different study in itself and an interesting one, but is it not one that is given a foregone conclusion if you accept any given world religion? I'm not saying its true or it isn't that there is an objective morality... just that I've deeply researched this from a personal level in my own life and still do not have a determination on this but I still accept its a very interesting question. I don't see why you would trust a religion to tell you the answer any more than you would trust scientific conclusions either tbh.

Quick note while on an errand run, a few years ago some psychologists tried to replicate a bunch of well-known psychology experiments, and got different results. The last few years has seen a fair bit of discourse on the validity of previously held ideas in psychology that seemed relatively sound; I can't find a great source rn or the original paper while on my phone, but googling should find a bunch of stories etc. about "psychology replication crisis". It extends beyond psychology, but it's where it originated and iirc is the most severe

OK, cool... I'll look into it. Sounds very interesting.

EDIT: Wow... lots to that. I really resonated with what it said about marketing - being in that field it seems no methodological conclusion is ever reliable or repeatable. It feels in many ways that there is a law of diminishing returns on repeated efforts even where there is no direct cause, and yet other times that law fails too and you do something exactly as you did somewhere else and it goes just as well. It's kinda maddening trying to pinpoint the formulas for success.

 

[Somebody613]

You talk about those you are discussing with maintaining a dichotomy of all or nothing on scientific outlooks, but this is pretty all or nothing on a religious one. Science has nothing to do with determining anything about whether an objective morality exists or not. That is an entirely different study in itself and an interesting one, but is it not one that is given a foregone conclusion if you accept any given world religion? I'm not saying its true or it isn't that there is an objective morality... just that I've deeply researched this from a personal level in my own life and still do not have a determination on this but I still accept its a very interesting question. I don't see why you would trust a religion to tell you the answer any more than you would trust scientific conclusions either tbh..

You view religion as BELIEF (read: philosophy), I view it as KNOWLEDGE (read: historical facts) - no wonder we have opposite conclusions about its validity all along.
To me, God is MORE of a fact than a T-Rex - because God actually directly interacted with humans, while dinosaurs didn't (even if we assume they existed).
For me, human personal experience will always take precedence over the lack of it - no matter how "improbable" it feels to people with personal agendas against it.
So if I have to choose between God (read: human experience) and dinosaurs (read: no human experience) - I will always take the option WITH human experience to it.

 

[raxo2222]

You view religion as BELIEF (read: philosophy), I view it as KNOWLEDGE (read: historical facts) - no wonder we have opposite conclusions about its validity all along.
To me, God is MORE of a fact than a T-Rex - because God actually directly interacted with humans, while dinosaurs didn't (even if we assume they existed).
For me, human personal experience will always take precedence over the lack of it - no matter how "improbable" it feels to people with personal agendas against it.
So if I have to choose between God (read: human experience) and dinosaurs (read: no human experience) - I will always take the option WITH human experience to it.

There were a lot of gods here, unless all those shaman/ancient Egyptian/classic Greek gods are one and same God as Christian/Islamic/Judaic/Buddhist one and so on.
Also holy scriptures like Bible, Quran, Torah were written by humans and then were translated over and over again.
That is whatever your religion is, it is equally valid as other religions, same with their holy books.

Universe is 13 billion years old. Several billion years passed before anything could experience their surroundings (building blocks of life had to be created, and surroundings can't be too active for long term life development), and even more time passed before sentient beings appeared.
There probably are aliens on other side of Virgo supercluster having similar discussion like this lol.

God, advanced aliens, sentient energy fields (magic), simulation, whatever you call it, its just spirituality or religion - faith and nothing more.
There are tons of things going on, that humans simply can't directly experience like inside of Earth lol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest

Your religion and all others are just a belief.

 

[Somebody613]

There were a lot of gods here, unless all those shaman/ancient Egyptian/classic Greek gods are one and same God as Christian/Islamic/Judaic/Buddhist one and so on.
Also holy scriptures like Bible, Quran, Torah were written by humans and then were translated over and over again.
That is whatever your religion is, it is equally valid as other religions, same with their holy books.

Universe is 13 billion years old. Several billion years passed before anything could experience their surroundings (building blocks of life had to be created, and surroundings can't be too active for long term life development), and even more time passed before sentient beings appeared.
There probably are aliens on other side of Virgo supercluster having similar discussion like this lol.

God, advanced aliens, sentient energy fields (magic), simulation, whatever you call it, its just spirituality or religion - faith and nothing more.
There are tons of things going on, that humans simply can't directly experience like inside of Earth lol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest

Your religion and all others are just a belief.

That's what I said:
You BELIEVE in all that crap - because you base everything on the LACK of human experience.
Whereas I KNOW what actually happened - because I base everything on the PRESENCE of human experience.
But your BELIEF prevents you from opening your eyes and ears to listen to what I could say to you.
It's not your fault, and it's normal for people to be like this - but it's still "belief vs knowledge" nonetheless.

 

[Thunderbrd]

You view religion as BELIEF (read: philosophy), I view it as KNOWLEDGE (read: historical facts) - no wonder we have opposite conclusions about its validity all along.

It's belief because we have yet to prove it as historical fact and have little to no basis upon which to assume it to be (thus it requires blind faith, which it attempts to give reasoning for in the manner in which the world is designed - framing it as a moral challenge). We cannot say for any certainty that it is knowledge. I don't see how anyhow.

I understand some of your perspectives here, just saying you're not approaching observing life with an objective mind and that CAN cloud your perspectives so as to support your assumptions. I often fight with more scientific minded people here in an effort to show that they, too, are bringing a bias. And sometimes I am caught doing so as well. Truth be told, we only know we don't know anything.

That is whatever your religion is, it is equally valid as other religions, same with their holy books.

If we're measuring validity by 'how many people believe it', sure. I think there are differing measuring sticks different folks use to determine validity, and what they were taught as children tends to hold far greater authority than it ever should in many cases.

Whereas I KNOW what actually happened - because I base everything on the PRESENCE of human experience.

There are certain things I KNOW from similar PERSONAL Human experiences. Yet at the same time I must also admit that all of these revelatory experiences can also be capable of shining the light on misleading conclusions as well. Question everything about even those I think.

 

[Somebody613]

I just now realized that I *DIDN'T* come here to argue about religion, loool.
My main point was to enjoy and assist C2C - so I guess I should try limiting myself to that as the primary goal.

 

[Blazenclaw]

I really resonated with what it said about marketing - being in that field it seems no methodological conclusion is ever reliable or repeatable.

I wouldn't go so far as to say 'no methodological conclusion is ever reliable or repeatable' unless you're directly referring to marketing somehow? Only that, at least specifically in fields with disproportionately high controlled variables in experiments (psychology, sociology, etc) it truly is disproportionately difficult to discern relationships between variables, and the scientific method does struggle. This is one of many reasons I studied physics lol

And I do admit that I believe this entire reality is something of a simulation that only now we are getting perspective to conceive of with the way computers show us that we can create simulated worlds within them. It would not be a stretch to think someday we'll do numerous massive reality simulations that are nearly completely following all the rules of physics and in which we could manifest as beings that naturally result from the processes set forth there and we'd realize that it's just as hard within those simulations to realize it's 'just' a simulation and may, when we return from it, help us to realize what we are actually living is 'just' a simulation so to speak as well. I say simulation but I don't think it's a replication necessarily, just that it's equally illusionary and follows a tremendous amount of predetermined 'laws of cause and effect' so as to create the game we play. Makes you wonder... what is on the other side of that? If we wake up from this life, if we 'log out' of the system, what will we discover ourselves to be? And will that also be a being that is wrapped up in yet another created system as well? Probably...

I think our tech tree is ironic... it's kinda joking about the simulated universe tech but... is it really a joke or is it actually the ultimate conclusion? How hilarious would it be that a mod like this to an archaic game back in the early 21st century would've come to that conclusion so long before it's really proven as well? lol That would actually be really hilarious. And poignant.

So, this totally reminded me a story I read somewhat recently. If anyone is a fan of clever, hard science fiction and/or Overwatch, I'd highly recommend reading The World As It Appears To Be in spare time, or if you just want to curl up with a good story. It's an Overwatch fanfic on Ao3, which just by itself threw a number of red flags when I first was told about it, but trust me- it's real bloody good, easily in my top five of all web fiction I've ever read, top twenty of all fiction. I've never played the game - just seen a few of the cinematic trailers which themselves are pretty good stories I might also recommend - but the story itself I would rate as top tier science fiction, taking an existing idea/world and adding levels of depth and complexity to it, even having a novel construction for an idea I'd never come across before. It's also completed, clocking in at 130k words; roughly twice the first Harry Potter novel, or 80% of The Fellowship of the Ring, and while there is some smut, it's very minor overall, rarely even mentioned; kinda akin to the Culture series, if anyone's familiar with that. Ahem. It's just good, go read the first chapter at least

Re: the rest of the points... I may have time by next weekend? These take a lot out of me, especially in making sure I have papers to support claims where possible, and got far less recorded (and done in general) this weekend than I'd intended, whoops
It certainly has been interesting, at any rate!

 

[Thunderbrd]

I wouldn't go so far as to say 'no methodological conclusion is ever reliable or repeatable' unless you're directly referring to marketing somehow?

Yes, very directly.

 

[raxo2222]

Whereas I KNOW what actually happened - because I base everything on the PRESENCE of human experience..

Universe and laws of physics (chemistry bases on physics and biology bases on chemistry) wouldn't care, if humans never existed.
Humans aren't center of universe, and human experience is subjective things, while mathematics and logic are objective.

God is made-up concept created by humans (aliens have their alien gods too).
Religion is when you believe in all crap, that supports your views no matter if its true or not.

 

[Somebody613]

Universe and laws of physics (chemistry bases on physics and biology bases on chemistry) wouldn't care, if humans never existed.
Humans aren't center of universe, and human experience is subjective things, while mathematics and logic are objective.

God is made-up concept created by humans (aliens have their alien gods too).
Religion is when you believe in all crap, that supports your views no matter if its true or not.

All of that is nothing but a biased personal opinion (exactly like you said: to support your views) - and I already decided to not even bother discussing this topic HERE.
Therefore, please leave it to others and elsewhere.