Greylorn Ell wrote:Nothing at all. The probability of a future outcome is mathematically unrelated to prior results. Suppose that you set out to perform consecutive head-flips and begin by getting two in a row. The probability of that happening, before the flips, was 0.25. The probability after the two successful flips is 1.00. Now you go for three in a row. The probability of your next flip is 0.5, the accumulated probability of 1.0 and the probability for a successful head flip of 0.5, which comes out to 0.5.
If you have completed 1000 consecutive head flips, the probability for one more remains 0.5.p
You miss my point. Because there is natural selection in play in nature I attempted to make an analogy in your coin flipping scenario, to wit, every time you get the pattern you wish, heads say, some mechanism applies that makes the other combinations that little less likely, i.e. a reproductive advantage. How will that affect your probabilities?
Since Charlie's books are available for anyone to read, there's no need to be uncertain about your opinion. His simple theory boiled down to two mechanisms involved in evolution.
Like I said, I've only read one, you'll have to tell me what the others are?
Reading below I'm beginning to think you have not actually read The Origin of Species.
1. Random changes occur when critters reproduce. Darwin did not know what the mechanism for this might be, and based this correct claim upon the evidence. ...
If you look at the index in his book you will find no mention of the word "random" and you will find that he postulated that in domestication environmental factors appear to affect reproduction so this may be the case in nature. The mechanism he did not know about was what caused the inheritance but postulated that there must be one.
2. Random changes that are helpful to a critter's survival tend, over time and reproductive cycles, to accumulate, leading to "more fit" variations within a given species, and sometimes to entirely different species, This is called "natural selection," and it applies to all selection processes, even those which determine the clothes you are wearing and the food in your pantry. Because the principle is so general it is pretty much accepted w/o verification.
Not really, you are stretching the idea, what does apply is his idea of mans selection ability in domestication, as it can produce traits that do not produce the 'fittest' but the most expedient.
The discovery of DNA gave biologists their first shot at examining the mechanism behind Darwin's first principle, which they pretty much blew off by declaring that by having found the mechanism, they automatically vindicated Darwin's principle. Of course this is not true.
What's not true is your interpretation of what you call Darwins 'first principle', whereas his postulate that there must be an inheritance mechanism for variations to be passed and sieved by natural selection was proved true by the discovery of DNA and the Genes.
As perspicacious biologists and skeptical mathematicians pursued the question, they discovered that Darwin's simple principles were insufficient to account for many observations (e.g: the c-value enigma). ...
Since they weren't his principles I doubt this but there is nothing in the idea of 'junk' DNA that bothers his actual idea as anything that does not actively harm the reproductive process will still be inherited and not sieved out by natural selection.
Hence the arrival of a new gang of theoretical biologists, the neo-Darwinists, who try to patch and obfuscate holes in the basic theory with explanatory kludges. You'll find that this behavior reflects that of religionists who found problems with some Catholic dogma, and patched it with kludges of their own during the Protestant reformation, developing various Christian sects (Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.) while still retaining the core beliefs of Catholocism that are the real source of problems.
If you read Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, you'll find the theory that explains why the development of ideas follows such typical patterns. One who reads Digital Universe -- Analog Soul will learn why Kuhn's theory applies. ...
Given you appear to misunderstand what Kuhn wrote, as these 'kludges' you talk about are the process of how a new paradigm in science arises, I seriously doubt this. Is this another book you haven't actually read?
That is what they say, and isn't it interesting that their estimate is so broad and vague? 10% vs. 25% amounts to hundreds of thousands of genes. Astronomers make better estimates than that.
Not broad or vague at all, although it was my error as I just gave a range, in fact its 18% for yeast, 28% for wine grapes and 45% for rice, so however you cut it we share a fair chunk with the flowering planets, ferns I'm not sure about, probably less as they are some of the oldest upon the planet but I would suspect we still share some genes.
If you were to examine all the software programs written to operate on the Intel 8086/8088 chip, the CPU for the original IBM PC, since expanded to operate on expanded versions of the same chip design, you would find millions of segments of identical code, written by different programmers for different purposes. Given the limited instruction set of any CPU chip, and the fact that mathematical algorithms will find their way into most interesting programs, this is inevitable.
Suppose that we run an experiment which verifies this. What would it prove?
It cannot prove that hundreds of thousands of different programmers copied one anothers' code-- although certainly many of them will have done so, with or without permission. All that such an experiment can prove is that, given a machine with a finite instruction set (such as eukaryotic cells) and lots of programmers (or events) that change their arrangements over a period of time, there will be identical code sequences.
And yet genetic algorithms work in producing 'fitter' computer programs? Thereby lending support to the idea that no designer need be necessary.
This conclusion supports neither Darwinism nor Beon Theory, nor any other theory of which I know, and is therefore irrelevant.
It does support Darwin's idea as we can trace the development backwards, from X or Y programming language down to C to Cobol to Fortran to Assembler to Machine Code.
'Beon Theory'
Took a goggle and saw two things, one in a physics forum which appeared to be some modern update of Leibniz's Monads and another, I presume yours, which appeared to be redefinition of the concept of a 'soul' for some purpose or other.
And I am certain that your assertion is dead on. But in time, one of their own will read my book, translate it into biologese, and take credit for some of my ideas. That is the natural behavior of academicians.
Very unlikely as they are too busy doing science to take much note of religious metaphysics based upon physics.
It's not the latest research that reconciles Darwinism with the Cambrian explosion-- it is the latest kludges to neo-Darwinian theory.
You really don't understand what Khun said. I can only assume you haven't read him.
Punctuated evolution is part of the evidence. Beon Theory explains it nicely. You'll find that punctuated change applies to every long-term development in which minds are involved.
Given that the theory of 'punctuated evolution' is still up for discussion in Biology I'm surprised you can make such a claim but you appear to be contradicting yourself as you claimed this a kludge?
If you examine the evolutionist explanations for punctuated change in the context of irradiation experiments on fruit flies, you'll find a bit of cognitive dissonance. Do the research yourself and let me know what you think.
You'll have to be more precise and hopefully simpler than this as a goggle chucks-up too much and all a little too technical for me.
Good question. My theory provides a different take on the nature of force that is beyond the scope of a forum explanation, but which is very simple nonetheless. It proposes that there are only two fundamental forces. General relativity's description of gravity falls nicely into the two-force theory.
Not an answer to my question, which was about pointing out that 'Force' and 'Energy' are exactly of the same kind as the term 'punctuated evolution' in that they are terms to cover the phrase, 'we don't know'. So physics is in the same boat as biology in this sense.
Natural selection is actually the most irrelevant component of Darwin's theory. It applies equally well to the selection of products, as mentioned above. Natural selection explains why Dodo birds are extinct, and why no one drives an Edsel. NS cannot explain why either Dodo birds or Edsels came into existence in the first place, and that is the real issue.
It may well be your issue but its not the one Darwin was concerned with, he was just concerned with explaining how variation of species could arise.
NS is a very important part of Darwin's theory as its the sieve upon which selection is made and he also thought it had an impact as well, at least in domestication. Natural selection a la Nature has nothing to do with why the Dodo went extinct, sailors and hunger do, nor does it have anything to do with motor-manufacturing. What does have place is the selection Darwin described acting in domestication, i.e. us.
I understand your interest in how reproduction rates might apply. When I first set about trying to calculate probabilities I went down that ugly, rutted, unmarked, and frequently branched dirt road. I was able to make some calculations for simple species where the reproduction rate is fairly well known, such as the malaria parasite, but they are difficult to explain to non-mathematicians. Applying them to more complex critters (e.g. mammals) would take a better mathematician than me 100 lifetimes.
Don't need to know the technique, just the results.
But I learned from Galileo that science obtains its insights by reducing problems to their most bare, most fundamental essentials, experimenting on the simplest possible arrangement of the universe's various elements, noting the results, and then generalizing those results into a richer theoretical explanation.
After a credible explanation of things appears, another class of individuals, engineers, then applies the explanations to more complex arrangements of things. Engineers are the unappreciated and usually ignored component of scientific discovery. Their machines provide the money that circulates through society and comes around to support research. Engineers find the faults in a poor scientific theory more quickly and certainly than scientists.
Good for you. Like Engineers as well but whats this got to do with anything we're talking about?
You are correct. But why say something like "averages not events?" The math determines the odds, but the events establish the validity of the math. Without the events, the math would be irrelevant.
Fair point. Mine was that events sometimes make a mockery of the odds.
You got me there, and thank you for the correction. No I don't confuse Darwin with Dawkins, because I respect Charlie but regard Richard as a narrow-minded dogmatist. Posting late at night or into the wee morning hours I simply made a stupid, and dreadfully anachronistic misstatement.
Nah! He only got that way after years of talking to just such people. Personally I don't think you show any respect for Darwin as you keep making him a straw man.
Assuming that "he" refers to C.Darwin, his random mutation hypothesis is distributed throughout his book, "On the Origin of Species..." You've read it.
I have and dug it off the shelf and can find no mention of the terms 'random' or 'mutation' in ether the index or the précis at the beginning of each chapter. You sure you've read it?
Of course there are a "whole load of mechanisms," but they are not real mechanisms. They are theories, which in this case means professors' rationalizations. Those I've read are of the same absurd, hand-waving variety as explanations for why Big Bang theory failed to predict dark energy and dark matter, 95% of the universe.
They are exactly mechanisms, its why Biology now has an Engineering wing. I'd have thought that it was issues with expansion based upon the idea of the BBT that led to the postulation that there is such things as DM and DE?
If you care to extract one specific theory from this glut, describe it and explain what problems it solves, in a manner that is comprehensible to other forum readers, I'll do my best to explain why it sucks. Then we can move on to other specific theories.
Which glut, the physics or the biology?
Well, then I guess we need to scrap Einstein's explanation for Brownian motion, and the entire body of quantum mechanics.
Fair points. In the case of BM and QM there are actual observations of events that needed modelling, which is what makes it science I guess.
That is a higher level of research than the TV show from which I obtained the same information. Coincidence that your comment came shortly after the TV show. I apologize for the faulty implication.
Accepted.
Thank you for the tip, which I must respectfully decline. In the course of my university education I attended many classes (workshops, really) "taught" by post-grads. To a man they were a gaggle of nincompoops, too occupied with learning the stuff that they were supposed to be teaching.
We call them seminars over here and the idea is that they still have a clear memory of the problems they had when grasping the undergraduate work so do not get exasperated in the same way professors can. You also appear to wish that they have all the answers but in many subjects the questions are still in question. Although it could just be that the professor didn't make a good choice when choosing who to cover the seminar or s/he was saving their best for research projects.
Let me correct your statement for the record. I studied physics but did not go on to obtain a Ph.D, so I'm not a credentialed physicist and have not claimed to be. ..
You have a BSc at least? Maybe even an Msc?
I dropped out of physics because of disagreements with the mathematical models for QM. (I'm not alone.)
Maybe you should have stayed and proved your models? But from what I gather there's always been an issue with the maths models but since they appear to work and no-one can currently give a credible alternative they'll keep using them. Are you talking about this issue with the square root of minus one and complex numbers? Bill Wootters appears to be working on this, although its been tried long-before this.
Nonetheless I solved a number of physics problems in the course of my career, and have tried to keep up with general developments. My mathematical skills are limited to applied calculus, which I've not put to practical work in decades.
What was your career, engineer?
However, my book explains (in the later, advanced chapters that no one needs to read to understand my core theories) why differential calculus cannot be applied to quantum phenomena.
Like I said, not maths educated. Are you saying they use differential calculus to calculate quantum phenomena and it gives false results?
I learned some history of science from Thomas Kuhn, a bit from Mortimer Adler, and quite a lot from reading classic science texts written by their original authors. (Galileo, Newton, William James, etc.). My most interesting perspectives came from the Director of an astronomical research lab located across the street from a friendly little tavern, where I would occasionally join him after work. He was an old enough man to have known people like Fred Zwicky and relate inside stories. I was working there amid the conflict between Hoyle's steady-state theory and Gamow's expanding universe, the time of the Big Bang's emergence as viable theory of the beginnings. He and I and other astronomers got into some intense discussions about the philosophy of science, because I was developing Beon Theory whereas he and they were absolute atheists who regarded consciousness as merely an epiphenomenon of a universe that operated by chance and happenstance.
Thats Newtonian metaphysicians for you.
Around that time I was insisting to him and other astronomers with whom I worked that because the universe was designed to develop consciousness in beings such as ourselves, there would be millions of life-supporting planets within our own galaxy alone. The conventional belief at the time was that earth and humans were a one-shot, never again and certainly not elsewhere occurrence. As it turned out, by the revised standards of astronomers, my estimate was at least an order of magnitude too low.
And yet orders of magnitude lower in comparison to the non-life bearing lumps? Seems a poor 'design'.
Study all the books you want, but unless you've had conversations back in time with various scientists, and have read the original books and papers which laid the foundations, I honestly don't think that you are the authority on the history of science whom you might yet become.
Not my intention as I prefer my philosophy political or phenomenological. But during an MSc I chatted to many physicists and mathematicians and they, in the main, appeared to be poor philosophers.
Your cynical and unkind comment is not correct.
Incorrect, it's a fact.
You have a very fragile ego as you appear more than happy to make unkind comments about others but are very testy when people state fact about your thoughts.
Perhaps someday you will develop an alternative idea about something that you come to regard as worthy of a scale of consideration beyond the opinions of friends or self. If you take your idea or ideas seriously enough to actually try to present them to the world, or to those occupants of it for whom it might make a difference, you will try to get your ideas published. From this you will learn enough to diminish your criticism of others who try the same.
Doubt it, as even a BA in Philosophy gives one a thick skin about such things. It also gives one a perspective upon one's thoughts and at present the only alternatives I'm interested in are in politics or phenomenology not religious metaphysics.
"Digital Universe -- Analog Soul" has found few readers because my marketing skills really suck. Few are qualified to understand the book, not because it is difficult, but because people have a lot of trouble comprehending ideas that contradict their current beliefs (which the book explains). ...
If it explains it then it should also have a solution?
So far only one qualified man has read it, a retired mathematician who knows physics. He accepts its basic ideas and has written one essay expanding upon my anti-Darwinist arguments, replacing all of mine with a superb insight of his own. (It is about the impossibility of arbitrary codes appearing within the DNA decoding mechanisms. I'll be happy to list it if you are interested. But if you want to discuss it, a separate thread would be the right way to do so.)
Should you not be finding a biologist rather than a mathematician?
He is currently working on another extension of Beon Theory in a different essay, which you might find interesting after it is finished. This one explains the core elements of my theory in the context of manifolds and multi-dimensional spaces.
Since you are trying to prove a 'soul' and that there are 'gods' as 'designers' I'll pass thanks, as I find such things of no explanation for the issues I'm concerned with in Philosophy. Not least because they invariably face the issue of infinite regress of causality. If I was going to go with such stuff, say I fancied a flight of fantasy, then Zuse, Fredkin, Bostrom and Wolfram are more my cup-of-tea.
Except for him, other readers have been speed-readers, who are unqualified to absorb new concepts, and religionists who are unwilling to consider such concepts. I believe that if qualified scientists actually perused DUAS, some of them would find rich food for thought. Unfortunately I have no publisher and poor marketing skills, so my ideas lie pretty much dormant. The only other comments I get about them come from ignorant individuals who do not have the slightest idea what they are, and so do not need to give them an honest look. They'd rather attach their favorite dunce-hat and bitch from the sidelines.
You certainly whinge a lot, your Beon Theory not helping you solve these problems?
Perhaps you might produce a little essay yourself, explaining why such non-readers think that any of their comments are relevant?
Easy, as this one is just responding to what you say here. Drop the price a bit, especially since you could use POD or make it an e-book and I'll take a read but my eyes were drooping even with the stuff I found as there was too much theological and political polemic and at base you appeared to be talking about Leibniz's Monads and Spinozas's 'God'. Still, it does also appear to be a rollicking read in places.
