Does evolution need a guiding hand?

[QED]

In another topic

As one who believes in guided evolution, I hope not to be on the receiving end of the brick bats aimed at the "Creationists". However, the textbook explaination of evolution just does not wash for me. Everywhere I look, I see something that tells me there were intelligent decisions made on the basis of specific needs. As an example, that the eustation tube in the ear, that equalizes the pressure accross the eardrum. An accident? Really! And, this "accident" appears,(as far as I know) everywhere there are ears! But that's only one example. The patterns that work are copied cross species, and adapted to meet specific need. Usually, these refinements are not a matter of life or death, but just make life a little more pleasent. So, how does the feedback work for "pushing genetic accidents" in that direction?

Religionist use God as a "magic wand" to make it all work, but scientists are really is no different. They use the TIME wand, waving it furiously whenever challanged on an evolutionary outcome.(given enough time, anything is not only possible, but probably... )

So, what exactly is so repugnent about a guided evolution? The existance of intelligence is certainly not in dispute. So why is it sooo important to not have a Creator/Designer/Implimentor making it all come together? While it is not possible to absolutely prove or disprove the existance of such a Creator, there appear to be "fingerprint" all around us suggesting it ain't just an accident!

Dave, you say that pointing to time is just as much a cop-out as pointing to God. So you're not saying that God does everything. I understand from other debates that you accept the fundamental principle of natural selection at work in evolution but just can't see it acomplishing all the "design" that goes on.

This is a bit like saying that you can believe that Mozart managed to come up with some of his works on his own but no way could they reach their state of perfection without God leaning down and tinkering here and there.

Time does have a phenomenal impact and I think it's more the case that we can't imagine what a million or a thousand million years really means. I hope you're not one of those persuaded that geological features like the grand canyon were carved out in days by a global flood... looking at the layers of rock that stretch vertically up for a mile or so makes me giddy. I'd hate to have a mind that brushed it off as sediment that settled when the waters resided. Limestone projections like the White Cliffs of Dover are the bodies of countless numbers of once living creatures - can you not see the sheer magnitude of individual lives and events that hundreds of cubic miles of compressed rock represent?

It's not waving a magic wand Dave. It's getting a grip on an unfamiliar perspective -- something so outside our pathetic human timescales that it might at first seem to be irrelevant. But Mozart got there by devoting large chunks of his life to the working and reworking of intricate arrangements of notes. If minds like the one Mozart possessed were the only entities that could arrange things then there would be no argument about where the clever design came form. But we know there are other principles that can bring themselves to bear on the materials of the world. We can set these principles to work at generating designs for our uses and they are not restricted such that we have to step in and give things a nudge now and then.

Nature never directly evolved projectile weapons like guns -- a "possible thing" in the universe, and one that would have conferred a huge advantage to its host, but there is a concept of "local maxima" where we visualise a terrain of peaks and valleys representing possible solutions, and all evolved life on the planet finds itself constrained to a particular region in this terrain unable to break out beyond its confines from time to time. Of course it's trying hard now, with the evolution of a technological mind that's turned its attention to weaponry, so every so often comes a development that ratchets-up the level of the game and opens up a new territory.

But I notice you focus on the evolution of comforts - things that are not matters of life-or-death. This is something rather subjective. Don't forget we evolved in a very different environment to the one we enjoy today. It is life or death events that shape the flow of genetic information. As we see in some sports where winning or losing is down to a fraction of a second, so can outrunning a predator be down to split-second timing. Anything that saves a centisecond will accumulate as a consequence. Of course there are more subtle aspects of this related to behaviour and reproduction. What's so compelling for me is the consistency of this process -- from the fancy plumage and rituals of birds of paradise to the life-cycles of parasites. Nothing steps out beyond its practical bounds but those bounds change now and then (not that we see this because of the time disparity) and life follows.

[Wyvern]

Funny, I see exactly the opposite! You try to get decisions made with not decision maker. So, what does the heavy lifting, magic???

I think what you are looking for is the environment. The environs of a creature will put specific stressors on a creature. In any population there are minor fluctuations which will either give or take advantage which in turn makes it more likely that that particular creature will be able to pass on this advantage and improve on it, based on its needs. A good example would be the means of locomotion. It ranges from simple ridges of muscle(yes I simplified how it really works) in worms all the way to wings in birds bats and many insects. None of these systems can be called perfect but they work very nicely for the most part in their environment.

Come on, don't just wave your time wands to get everything done. No matter how much time you throw at this, eventually "something" needs to "recognise" things are moving in a nonproductive direction, and make corrections.

Everything takes time, if something is moving in a nonproductive way that group will not be able to reproduce in the same numbers as one that is. Nothing and noone is needed to make corrections. The system is self correcting.

[Bro Dave]

Dave, what is all this with a necessary consciousness analyzing things in a anthropomorphic way? If we consider the governor of a steam engine or a feedback loop around an operational amplifier, surely we don't have to invoke a man-like entity within each instrument using its senses to observe and its conscious mind to make decision on how to react.

Steam engines are a design. Governers are a result of conscious, purposeful, intelligent intent to solve a recognized problem. The same is true of any feedback system. A higher level of intellect is required to recognize a problem exists, and then to address it.

This seems just plain nutty outside of being a cute way to introduce mechanical and electronic principles to young students. I challenge you to justify it for these examples and if you can't, then I challenge you to explain how these examples differ from the feedback loops in biological evolution. I trust you've seen the thread in which Enigma challenges us to Spot the design, for fun and profit. We know that no "little men" are beavering away inside the generators of the designs in these examples. Instead we understand that the feedback loops testing random choices against selection criteria walk blindly along pathways of possibility, resulting in the appearance of intelligent design.

As I have suggested, the principle of self assembly is a fundamental design intent. That it work so well, hardly eliminates the creator of the principle. Negative entropy is a wonderful example of something that simply should not be there. But it is. Likewise, apparent chaos in now showing itself to be much more a system, and even a controlling force that can bring order where there was none. http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?nam ... e&sid=1840

It would be nice if you could acknowledge this and focus more on the implications. Here I think you run into greater difficulties which is possibly why you prefer to continue pointing out the anthropomorphic interpretation which, in my opinion is wholly unjustified.

Sorry, but until you, or someone else can explain to my satisfaction the roots of order and intent of the universe to “self regulate”, I feel no compunction to yield to the arguments that no intelligence is required to make decisions on what is productive and should be further refined, and what is of no use, switching that chunk of DNA off. That's a pretty high order function in my humble opinion. It is certainly unreasonable to say that the cells themselves are making these decisions, restricted as they are to their scale, yet affecting the design of structures billions of times their size. How can you just toss off that a cell “recognizes” and “adjusts” for effects that it should have no possible way of sensing? Once the “live or die” extremes of survival are laid aside, it becomes clear there is a much more refined process present that is not so “black or white”.

As for anthropomorphizing this, I am not. The error of creating a God that reflects us, is beyond silly. We use labels of language and assign them to The INFINITE, and then turn around and ridicule what we have described, as laughable, dismissing the object of the definition because of our own limitations of description! Is that not arrogant?

Bro Dave

[QED]

Dave, once I correct a couple of points you make here, I think you'll find you're actually answering your own doubts...

Steam engines are a design. Governers are a result of conscious, purposeful, intelligent intent to solve a recognized problem. The same is true of any feedback system. A higher level of intellect is required to recognize a problem exists, and then to address it.

No, a higher level of intellect is most certainly not always required. The problem for life is continued existence. Nothing has to recognize and point this out to living creatures, they'll find out by trial and error. The design of steam governors may well be obviously contrived, but that's why I invited you to "spot the design for fun and profit" -- we can't always infer design from appearances. All "mechanisms" will operate according to physical law and if feedback is a part of that mechanism, then it will seem to operate in a purposeful way. But again, this is all anthropomorphic talk. There is nothing more than an analogy that can be drawn here, and while that often impresses a casual observer it has absolutely no leverage in a properly conducted logical argument.

...It is certainly unreasonable to say that the cells themselves are making these decisions, restricted as they are to their scale, yet affecting the design of structures billions of times their size. How can you just toss off that a cell “recognizes” and “adjusts” for effects that it should have no possible way of sensing?

Isn't it remarkable how something so tiny can make such a big difference? No, not when their collective effects are taken into account. Have you been hanging out on the "Answers In Genesis" site again?

Dave, I'll take a look at that other stuff later but before I do I want to summarise what I'm saying here:

1)We cannot infer sentience from the appearance of design
2)We cannot infer sentience from the appearance of purpose
3)We don't know why the laws of physics are as they are (leading to the above appearances), but we do know that had they been otherwise we wouldn't be making any observations at all.