Lack of Order in Evolution, page 1

Originally posted by Jamuhn
Well, this thread so far has been surprisingly civile. I appreciate that.

Ok, it seems there are a few main hang-ups relating to this topic...
1. That natural selection guides evolution.
Favorable mutations are naturally selected as superior. If a mutated organism survives and reproduces, it is considered fit. Although, even if it hasn't mutated, it will still be considered fit. But, environment is a factor that benefits the fitness of the adapted organisms, and ones that are adapted better are more fit. Natural selection can be said to guide evolution because the best suited traits for that environment are most likely to get passed through the genetic line. It is natural selection that essentially determines which traits are the best suited. Thus, an organism evolves as these adapted traits are passed on.

Often we forget that natural variation exists within a species that is not due to any mutation. The idea that the combination of mutation and selection are the only operatives in evolution is fallacious. Here's an example.

I know you probably don't believe what I'm going to use here for my example, but just for the sake of argument, please suspend your disbelief momentarily.

Australopethicus Afarensis dates to about 4 - 4.5 million years ago. It is currently thought that this species was one of the earliest hominids to walk on two feet. Louis Leaky has proposed that climate change (resulting from upthrusting Himalayas, I believe is what he said) caused a rather large and densely forested jungle in Ethiopia to start thinning out and eventually become grassland.

A. Afarensis, or it's ancestors, were tree dwellers. Why should they walk on two legs? As the trees disappeared, individuals that could walk on two legs over longer distances had a survival advantage. That is not to say that some individual one day got a lucky mutation so his offspring could now walk on two legs. It is to say that, like every primate we know now, earlier versions of A. Afarensis could walk on two legs if necessary, and some individuals could do this over somewhat larger distances than others.

Over time (probably not too much time, if A. Afarensis was in the least bit tasty) new generations of A. Afarensis could walk better on two feet, based on exactly the same principle that makes certain breeds of dogs better at pointing to and retrieving birds. No real genetic change, just a change in environment that altered the requirements for survival and brought out already existing traits in A. Afarensis that weren't absolutely necessary before.

I can see this species going from tree dweller to ground dweller in only a hundred years or so. And without any mutation in the DNA. And if natural selection has guided this process, then it's a fickle, if not blind guide, since only a few generations earlier natural selection was making promises to A. Afarensis about tree dwelling.

Originally posted by Jamuhn
2. That randomness exists.
It is not randomness that exists, but rather probability that does. When one says to produce a random card from a deck of cards, we are able to calculate the probability of a certain card being pulled.
And, on the matter of probability, I like this quote

Boole, George
An Investigation of the Law of Thought
Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave neither room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.
www.mathcs.carleton.edu...

I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say Boole was wrong. Randomness cannot be reduced to certainty by "a perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances..." Ask any particle physicist if you don't want to believe me.

Originally posted by Jamuhn
3. That people, particularly scientists, don't believe the universe is ordered.
I find this somewhat odd, seeing that without order, we would nothing but a heap of facts. But, we are able to connect seemingly unrelated facts, such as time, distance, and velocity to arrive at simple equations. We are able to predict events in nature by virtue of the universe having order. If the universe were not ordered than there would be no reason or ability to experiment, such as we see with the evolutionary theory. There are obviously parts of evolutionary theory that are ordered, such as microevolution and natural selection, but even young earth creationists believe in this. Put simply, science would not even exist if the universe were not ordered.

You and I must have different understandings of the term. I lean more toward the mathematical definition of "ordered." I'm not sure what you mean.

I'd say, like I said before, that scientists believe the universe is understandable, or at least describable. Randomness is both of these things.

Originally posted by Jamuhn
4. No-one has addressed the theory in evolution that it is a non-directional process.
Well, the theory of irreducible complexity (based on probability) seems to address the theory of a non-directional process. Non-directional evolution is an oxymoron considering that natural selection directs us to better adapt to our environment.

Read what I said above about the "guidance" of natural selection. The way you are looking at it puts the cart before the horse. Natural selection can "guide" you right into extinction, as well as toward better adaptation.

Harte