Philosophy Now Forum

PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:09 pm
After rereading this, it's funny that you even start with a population that is more complex than the final one, as by selecting out genes you simplified the genetic pool. This could be the opposite of evolution, but not worth discussing that.

Yes, there are many example in evolution of going from complex to simpler. Evolution does not imply going from simple to complex. Evolution is change in gene frequencies over time and that's it.

It's not circular. It's not teleology. It's not going from simple to complex.

You should really try to educate yourself before spouting off. I assure you that a rando on the interwebs (you) has not overturned evolutionary theory, no matter how much it might flatter you to think so.

PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:08 pm Would Galileo take this as science?

How did Galileo get to be final arbiter on the subject?

davidm wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:11 pm

Please read above.

PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:24 pm

davidm wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:11 pm

Please read above.

Read what above? Nothing you've written makes any sense, still less proves any circularity.

davidm wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:19 pm

Sorry. The thread goes long.

Get it here:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14226&start=120#p325250

PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:09 pm After rereading this, it's funny that you even start with a population that is more complex than the final one, as by selecting out genes you simplified the genetic pool. This could be the opposite of evolution, but not worth discussing that.

There is no opposite to evolution, evolution is a one-way street to change to have a better chance to reproduce, that's all it is even with all it's complexity. The complexity or simplicity of the gene pool is irrelevant if the organism is more successful at reproducing.

thedoc wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2017 12:36 am

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Thanks for the comment. Breeding was the main post and this remains untouched by you.

Only a loose thought seem to contradict you, something I confessed wouldn't be worth discuss.

Anyway, perhaps you'd like to review your comment.

"one-way street to change to have a better chance to reproduce"

I'm sure you don't mean such a thing, unless you can explain what's the guiding force that grants changes are "one-way street" to "have better chance to reproduce".



















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PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 11:25 pm

davidm wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:19 pm

Sorry. The thread goes long.

Get it here:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14226&start=120#p325250

Right. I read it, and responded to it.

davidm wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:01 am

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I believe you read it, but you responded to

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14226&start=135#p325374








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PauloL wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:48 pm
Look at the tenets of natural selection:

(1)Individuals within populations are variable
(2)Variation is heritable
(3)Organisms differ in their ability to survive and reproduce
(4)Survival & reproduction are non-random

Organisms reproduce with variation. There must be variation for evolution to work.

Evolution works by two broad processes, selection and drift. Some variation, by chance alone, will make an organism better at finding food and/or a mate and hence it is more likely that such an organism will leave more offspring. The more successful variation will then begin to spread through the population. This is natural selection. Other variations will be neutral or deleterious, and are less likely to spread. Some variations, including even sometimes deleterious ones, will spread via random drift (not natural selection.)

Repeat process over 3.5 billion years and you get a biosphere.

Where's Achilles tendon here? Right on the first premise. You start with a variable population to explain that a population evolves because of variation. Could it be more circular than this?

No. You start with simple replicators -- cell precursors -- that reproduce variably. Then natural selection and drift work on that variability.

There simply is nothing circular here.

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David,

What do you mean as cell precursors?

So you need variation for evolution, so where did evolution start? I think a primordial cell is no longer enough.

3.5 billion years isn't that long, given the hugely small probabilities for the genomes now on earth to appear randomly.









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PauloL wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:35 am "one-way street to change to have a better chance to reproduce"

I'm sure you don't mean such a thing, unless you can explain what's the guiding force that grants changes are "one-way street" to "have better chance to reproduce".

The only thing that could be considered a guiding force is the environment. The environment is the force that selects for evolution to occur, if there is no change in the environment there is no change in the organism. For a prey animal the environment includes the predators and for a predator the environment includes it's prey. There have been numerous cases where changes in the prey have produced changes in the predator.

PauloL wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:29 am .









David,

What do you mean as cell precursors?

So you need variation for evolution, so where did evolution start? I think a primordial cell is no longer enough.

3.5 billion years isn't that long, given the hugely small probabilities for the genomes now on earth to appear randomly.









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Your spaced out posts resemble Bills, are you Bill's sock? You seem to be just as ill-informed as he is.

PauloL wrote: ↑Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:29 am .









David,

What do you mean as cell precursors?

Very simple replicators that were the ancestors of cells. There are many ideas on what these could be, but no one is certain and may never be certain because life started about 3.5-3.8 billion years ago and it VERY HARD to get good information about stuff that happened so long ago,

So you need variation for evolution, so where did evolution start?

It started with the first simple replicators because they reproduced with variation. Reproduction with variation entails evolution.

3.5 billion years isn't that long, given the hugely small probabilities for the genomes now on earth to appear randomly.

Why would you say this? In the first place, these genomes did not evolve randomly. Random mutation PLUS natural selection is not a random process. Plus, it is known that eyes, which are very complex, evolved within a few million years, which is a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of 3.8 billion years; moreover simpler eyes evolved much more quickly and the eye has evolved independently many times.









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Biologists have mathematical models of the pace of evolution based on the fossil record and molecular biology. For example, it is estimated that the vertebrate eye evolved from a simple photoreceptor patch in about 365,000 years.

The age of the earth is about 4.6 billion years.

Now let us imagine that we were to compress 4.6 billion years into a single calendar year, 365 days.

If we do this, it means that in a 365-day year the vertebrate eye evolved from a photoreceptor patch in about half a second.

Looks like evolution had plenty of time to work on earth after all.