Boeing 747s and Other Misunderstandings about Evolution

by cofty 89 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cofty

  Perhaps the most common misunderstanding that prevents people from grasping evolution is complexity.

  We see it almost daily on the forum where people mention DNA or the eye or any of a multititude of examples and ask how it could have arose "by blind chance"?

  Whenever you see a reference to chance and complexity it is obvious the person hasn't yet grasped the basics of the theory. Chance is only one part of the process. The other important part, the one that Darwin discovered, is natural selection.

  Natural selection is a "chance accumulator". Dawkins illustrated it in "The Blind Watchmaker" using the well-known creationist challenge of monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare.

  Take the line from Hamlet, "Methinks it is like a weasel".

  The chances of monkeys with typewriters producing this phrase exactly is 1 in 10,000 million million million million million million.

  This is what we might call single-step selection

  However if we apply a cumulative-selection process it becomes very easy to produce this phrase.

  First the computer produces a random line of 28 characters.

  Next it "breeds" from this first generation by producing multiple copies of it but with a certain amount of random error or mutation built in.

  Now the computer selects the second generation that is closest to target phrase.

  and so on...

  The programme wasn't trying to create the target phrase it was simply producing random mutations and then selecting the one that looked the most promising.

  It turned out the phrase "Methinks it is like a weasel" in just 48 generations.

  It illustrates quite well how evolution by natural selection works.

  Genes suffer mutations which cause unpredictable changes in the bodies they build. If the change is even very, very slightly beneficial, that body has a better chance of passing on that gene to the next generation until it becomes ubiquitous in the gene pool. Complexity accumulates through lots of very small steps.

  When people express incredulity about natural processes producing complexity it is usually because they are thinking in terms of single-step selection.

  Hopefully this helps and might whet somebodies appetite to investigate furhter. "The Blind Watchmaker" is an excellent resource to challenge most of the creationist objections we were taught in Watchtower publications.
• 

  LucidChimp

  It's funny (to me at least), two years ago when I was watching Inside Nature's Giants on channel 4 I found him to be so annoying that I muted him and chatted about how amazing creation was until he was gone.

  Now I find his almost child-like enthusiasm endearing. Life's fun.

  You ever noticed how JW's just ignore Attenborough's diehard views (he does have that voice I suppose)? But then who didn't decide they were going to do this in the New System...

  1:38
• 

  LucidChimp

  I'm waiting for The Blind Watchmaker from Amazon. I'm hoping he caters to the newcomer somewhat.

  (Just noticed that I'm waay off topic blabbering random stuff I thought when I'd read the OP... Ignore me.)
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  prologos

  cofty: help us: "--next ---now the computer selects the next generation (could be overlapping?) that is

  closest to TARGET phrase.--"

  do you see the TARGET phrase as selected, like, in the sense pre-determined by (gasp), design, designer [double gasp] or

  TARGET phrase as in ultimately, automatically, dictatet, found to be , - by trial & elimination of error--, the most efficient by the laws of nature and it's function?

  like a wing for a certain flight regime? 747 vs Solar Challenger ?

  BSW. You are giving WT ideas how to spin, evolve their doctrines. (that is tyhe way they seem to actually do it. )
• 

  Comatose

  I always try to explain that evolution isn't smart as in it doesn't know what it's trying to become. It's just normal natural changes that have a side benefit of making the creature better equipped or more efficient or live longer. Over millions of years these dumb changes accumulate.

  Most uneducated people think evolution is some force that has intelligence and tries to change from one thing into another.
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  Hortensia

  "Complexity accumulates through lots of very small steps."

  When I first understood this, it was quite an "aha!" moment for me. Combined with the information on how old the universe is I finally felt I understood it. All sorts of things can happen when there is the luxury of eons of time.
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  cofty

  When I read the point it occurred to me that it could be misunderstood to be implying teleology.

  It's important to remember that the illustration is only about the power of cumulative selection. In the real world there is no specific desired outcome.

  I don't know if that answers your question prologos, I had difficulty understanding what you were asking.
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  prologos

  and individual members of a species are willing participants, coerced to work at it hard through the pleasure of sex with it's vagaries and premature death if the genetic "hand of cards" you are dealt is not full of aces.
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  rawe

  Hi Prologos,

  "do you see the TARGET phrase as selected, like, in the sense pre-determined by (gasp), design or"

  The process of evolution has no specific target of course. It can not plan or see into the future. Thus the designer of this simulation would have to be careful to avoid that in the model. Selection breaks down into who gets to survive and reproduce and who dies. We are all the end product of a long line of survivors. Human skin color is one of the examples of selection that really helped me appreciate how this process works. If an environment favors darker skin color, a male hunter who is light skinned may be disadvantaged compared to his darker skin peers. This disadvantage could easily translate into less food for his family and over-all less rates of reproduction and/or higher rates of death. All that is really going on is gene selection in relation to melanin.

  Ironically the cycles of life, reproduction and death has resulted in life as we know it. This is ironic, because JWs believe the ideal state for humans is living forever -- which of course, if it ever happened, would halt evolution of the human species.

  Cheers,

  -Randy
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  prologos

  Yes that how I understood your remarks. and

  In real life, the target is MOVING of course, conditions change, and what was efficient in one circumstance is not when the environment is modifying to fast.

  I believe though, that we are DRIVEN to evolve, adapt.

  r-awe, "--would halt human evolution--' yes, unless it would be carried on at the smallest, cellular level, since while the whole organism would last forever

  (under a dying sun?) the individual cells would have to be renewed, damage repaired ?