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August 21, 2009 02:45 PM
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Pretty much all of the words in the second description are wrong. It's not "intelligent", it's not a "force", it's not "random", and it has nothing to do with "perfection".
Evolution does all sorts of "dumb" things. One article just highlighted 10 of evolution's greatest mistakes:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-08/st_best
The article itself is full of mistakes, but it gets the gist across: evolution does what works, not what's perfect. There are all sorts of better plans out there; if they don't come up, it doesn't happen. Evolution is not an optimizing engine.
But it's not nearly as "random" as it sounds. Evolution does depend on the randomness of DNA duplication to produce some of the things that it works on, but that randomess is only part of it. The selection process is non-random: those things that work, reproduce. The randomness is constrained by the environment.
You can think of it as a "force" only by the most metaphorical notion. "Force" implies a direction, which evolution doesn't have. Evolution produces additional species that survive in particular niches. The niches change over time, by various natural events. Sometimes large numbers of species die off, leaving lots of niches open, and completely new ways of filling those niches.
So given that the second description is entirely wrong, the first description can't help but be more accurate. Evolution is, in part, a conceptual framework, but the particulars of evolution of life on earth are heavily constrained by the examples of it we dig out of the fossil record and DNA evidence. Which means it's more than just a notion; it's heavily attested by data.
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NO, evolution is not directed by an intelligent force and NO there is no movement towards "perfection," however one defines that. No intelligence, no sentient qualities, none of that mumbo jumbo. It's all automatic and natural and it heaves and hoes and stumbles about and changes all of the time.
Please note that just because I say evolution is not directed by an intelligent force doesn't mean I am saying anything at all about whether an intelligent force (or god) exists. That's got nothing to do with it. All I'm saying is that evolution (and science) does not ever involve the supernatural. Ever. NASA doesn't invoke magic beings when it launches a shuttle, your microwave doesn't need divine intervention to heat your burrito and life evolves over time without an intelligent force tweaking things. As soon as you invoke a supernatural force, you are no longer talking about science. This is the way science works. Period.
That's science. That's evolution. There's this whole other thing out there called philosophy and religion, but that's not what your question is about.
" There is only the natural, the normal, and mysteries we have yet to explain."
- Michael Shermer
Source(s):
http://www.michaelshermer.com/2009/
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Do scientist refer to evolution as a contextual framework or as an intelligence force randomly generating perfection?
Why is evolution often referred to as an intelligent force, with almost sentient qualities?
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| August 21, 2009 04:14 PM |
Evolution does all sorts of "dumb" things. One article just highlighted 10 of evolution's greatest mistakes:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-08/st_best
The article itself is full of mistakes, but it gets the gist across: evolution does what works, not what's perfect. There are all sorts of better plans out there; if they don't come up, it doesn't happen. Evolution is not an optimizing engine.
But it's not nearly as "random" as it sounds. Evolution does depend on the randomness of DNA duplication to produce some of the things that it works on, but that randomess is only part of it. The selection process is non-random: those things that work, reproduce. The randomness is constrained by the environment.
You can think of it as a "force" only by the most metaphorical notion. "Force" implies a direction, which evolution doesn't have. Evolution produces additional species that survive in particular niches. The niches change over time, by various natural events. Sometimes large numbers of species die off, leaving lots of niches open, and completely new ways of filling those niches.
So given that the second description is entirely wrong, the first description can't help but be more accurate. Evolution is, in part, a conceptual framework, but the particulars of evolution of life on earth are heavily constrained by the examples of it we dig out of the fossil record and DNA evidence. Which means it's more than just a notion; it's heavily attested by data.
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• Evolution does not have a time arrow
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August 21, 2009 03:55 PM
Sure, I think it's valid to think that scientists that work on evolution work within a contextual framework, but I doubt they think about it on a day to day basis. "Contextual frameworks" are for postmodernists and people that study science, I guess. Don't confuse "contextual frameworks" with dogma, since these sorts of things change as new information and theories come to light (blah, blah, probably more than you wanted to know, see also paradigm shifts and Kuhn, et al.) Anyhow... NO, evolution is not directed by an intelligent force and NO there is no movement towards "perfection," however one defines that. No intelligence, no sentient qualities, none of that mumbo jumbo. It's all automatic and natural and it heaves and hoes and stumbles about and changes all of the time.
Please note that just because I say evolution is not directed by an intelligent force doesn't mean I am saying anything at all about whether an intelligent force (or god) exists. That's got nothing to do with it. All I'm saying is that evolution (and science) does not ever involve the supernatural. Ever. NASA doesn't invoke magic beings when it launches a shuttle, your microwave doesn't need divine intervention to heat your burrito and life evolves over time without an intelligent force tweaking things. As soon as you invoke a supernatural force, you are no longer talking about science. This is the way science works. Period.
That's science. That's evolution. There's this whole other thing out there called philosophy and religion, but that's not what your question is about.
" There is only the natural, the normal, and mysteries we have yet to explain."
- Michael Shermer
Source(s):
http://www.michaelshermer.com/2009/
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August 21, 2009 05:06 PM
Do systems based on natural selection, mutation, and fitness disgress towards chaos or more towards order?
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August 21, 2009 06:39 PM
Suppose, you had a marble and a maze. Start the marble at the beginning point. Randomly shift the maze board at different angles. How long will it take for the marble to find the exit point? Fitness functions are required to find a solution. That is my point. The fitness functions need to have intelligent rules before a solution can be found.
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August 21, 2009 08:02 PM
I'm confused. That doesn't answer your own followup question. You wrote:
"Do systems based on natural selection, mutation, and fitness disgress towards chaos or more towards order?"
I'd think the answer would be (a) towards chaos or (b) towards order, maybe with some followup justification.
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"Do systems based on natural selection, mutation, and fitness disgress towards chaos or more towards order?"
I'd think the answer would be (a) towards chaos or (b) towards order, maybe with some followup justification.
August 23, 2009 03:27 AM
I'm inclined to believe that chaotic system migrate toward competitive non order systems.
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The fitness functions are just an approximation, and a poor one. Even if they do converge to some solution (and nobody guaranteed they would), there's no particular reason to think that it's anything more than a local optimum. And more to the point, since the environment is constantly changing, the fitness function is never really known.
Not entirely certain. You can model populations as they change through use of a function which determines, given the variables of the environment, who lives and who dies. But this is a radical simplification, useful to population biologists and certain kinds of evolutionary modelers, but not any kind of way of predicting where evolution is "going".
> Since he's curious about "contextual frameworks," does he mean that in the po-mo sense or in a kuhnian sense?
I think it entered the conversation in the Kuhnian sense, but in the context of misleading assumptions in the question, I take it more as a buzz-word of minimal semantic value than as an opinion on scientific revolutions.
> but in the context of misleading assumptions in the question
That's what I'm getting at: The initial question doesn't make sense. He seems to be asking "Do scientists operate within a contextual framework or is intelligent design true?" It's a non sequitur.
Now, don't get me wrong: both questions are really interesting and fun to answer (thanks davepamn!), I'm just trying to figure out of we can talk about the BS that was late 20th century postmodern literary theory, Popperian theories of how science works or why ID is not science. Again, all interesting topics, just a little confused.