Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 If you know something about optimization, you know that by following the steepest gradient you arrive most quickly to local plateaus where local maxima and minima exist. But the process does not allow for the discovery of all hills with their peeks and surrounding valleys. Only a random process discovers these areas of optimization. Using an evolutionary paradigm is sheer genius. I would expect nothing less from God.Since you know something about optimization, you know sometimes local maxima / minima are surrounded by sheer cliffs which cannot be climbed in a slow, steady, step-by-step progression. In other words, there are problems - many of them - which cannot be solved by evolutionary algorithms. So please, spare me the paeans to evolution; you know, or ought to know, it can't do what has been attributed to it.
shalamabobbi Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 Since you know something about optimization, you know sometimes local maxima / minima are surrounded by sheer cliffs which cannot be climbed in a slow, steady, step-by-step progression. Which proves my point, the necessity of random search.??
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 (edited) Which proves my point, the necessity of random search.??Maybe I wasn't clear enough. NOT ALL PROBLEMS CAN BE SOLVED VIA A STEP-BY-STEP PROGRESSION UP A GENTLY SLOPING HILL. That is to say, not all problems are tractable via an evolutionary algorithm.May I suggest reading Dembski's "No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence," which details the theoretical shortcomings of both random search and evolutionary algorithms? Edited April 9, 2012 by Log
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 (edited) Demski has been proven wrong.Let's see the proof, then - a counterexample to specified complexity, or a formal proof demonstrating the contradiction in his theses concerning the applicability of the No Free Lunch theorems to the Darwinian algorithm.I'm going to go farther and ask you to detail Dembski's claims. I mean, if you are in a position to say his work has been nullified, then you had best be in a position to say what, exactly, was nullified. Edited April 9, 2012 by Log
Hamilton Porter Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 This may be putting the cart before the horse. Spiritual creation may have taken place to match physical creation. Many critics have illustrated the flaws of the human form as a design. I won't list them here. It may simply be that our form was determined by looking at what was available and most desireable when we decided that a physical tabernacle would be desireable.Do our spirits have spirit microbes in the intestines that match the physical microbes found there without which we would die? Do they match in number and in kind throughout the duration of mortality?Why do we use the same trial and error process in programs that design functional objects when we could simply design them in a straight forward manner?http://scienceblogs....better_ante.phpIf you know something about optimization, you know that by following the steepest gradient you arrive most quickly to local plateaus where local maxima and minima exist. But the process does not allow for the discovery of all hills with their peeks and surrounding valleys. Only a random process discovers these areas of optimization. Using an evolutionary paradigm is sheer genius. I would expect nothing less from God.This is simply a fact. There is an ongoing rate of change that we can measure in the lab from one generation to the next. Perhaps this is the reason for our brief stay upon the planet?Other than the fact that some LDS need to reconcile the evidence for evolution with a belief in God-centric creation, why would anyone dis-believe that?I don't desire to enter this forum again. I've decided that knowledge, like oil from the lamp, is something each must earn for themselves.That's an awesome article. I like Newton's method better than the method of steepest descent, but thanks for sharing.
thesometimesaint Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specified_complexity
ERayR Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 If evolution is valid then why don't mothers have 4 arms?
thesometimesaint Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 My kids always claimed I had eyes in the back of my head.
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 http://en.wikipedia....fied_complexityNo. I want you to tell me what Dembski's position is. Throwing up a link to a wikipedia article is insufficient for me to know that you, TSS, understand what's at issue and how it has been addressed. Because, in the year(s) since you and I have had this conversation last, I want to see that you have, in fact, finally got a grasp on what's being discussed, unlike last time. If you don't understand, or have refused to research for yourself, then I shall indeed decline to pursue this with you and formally request you retract your groundless claim that Dembski has been disproved.
ERayR Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 My kids always claimed I had eyes in the back of my head. If we tried we could probably come up with a few more very nice additions that should be there.
shalamabobbi Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 Maybe I wasn't clear enough. NOT ALL PROBLEMS CAN BE SOLVED VIA A STEP-BY-STEP PROGRESSION UP A GENTLY SLOPING HILL. That is to say, not all problems are tractable via an evolutionary algorithm.May I suggest reading Dembski's "No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence," which details the theoretical shortcomings of both random search and evolutionary algorithms?Linear optimization theory is not evolutionary theory, nor did I state or imply that it was.It is a man made process of optimizing something that has shortcomings one of which was pointed out by yourself.Evolution works by utilizing a random search and as a result is not limited by man made processes of searching for an optimal solution nor by the shortcomings of any other process based upon intentional design.That being said, it can certainly be utilized in an intentional manner as per the referenced article on antenna design.
shalamabobbi Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 If evolution is valid then why don't mothers have 4 arms? You might want to do a search on the vadoma tribe..
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 (edited) Evolution works by utilizing a random search and as a result is not limited by man made processes of searching for an optimal solution nor by the shortcomings of any other process based upon intentional design.Read the book; you're apparently unaware of the actual limitations of evolutionary algorithms. Edited April 9, 2012 by Log
ERayR Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 You might want to do a search on the vadoma tribe.."It's more likely, however, that the defect remains prevalent in the Vadoma because of a small genetic pool among the Vadoma. It is against tribal law for members to marry outside the group."
shalamabobbi Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 Read the book; you're apparently unaware of the actual limitations of evolutionary algorithms.Which book?
shalamabobbi Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 "It's more likely, however, that the defect remains prevalent in the Vadoma because of a small genetic pool among the Vadoma. It is against tribal law for members to marry outside the group."Which is how evolution works, small separated populations.I'm not sure if calling it a defect would be offensive or not to a tribal member, but if there were a sufficiently large advantage to the change, it would become the new standard.
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 Which book?"No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence".
Cobalt-70 Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 Astronomical numbers are supposedly rendered less astronomical given sufficient time and the application of natural selection. Have you not read Dawkins? Even getting a single self-replicating RNA strand produces numbers in this range, for the same reason, yet people swallow that hypothesis all the time.Be consistent. If that statistical argument worked, you could potentially falsify evolutionary theory with it. (Indeed, that is precisely how it has been falsified.)You are comparing apples and oranges. For one thing, the theory that RNA-world biogenesis was how life got started has not been established, and there may be an as-yet unknown step prior to the RNA world. Nobody knows. But even if it's not true, it by no means falsifies the fact that evolution occurred, which is independent of the question of how the first life actually got started, and is supported by such a boatload of evidence that it cannot be credibly questioned at this point.Second, your comparison of RNA molecules to humans is not apt. if the RNA-world theory is correct, the creation of self-replicating RNA would have occurred over the course of perhaps tens or hundreds of millions of years, within a chemical soup, maybe near some hydrothermal vent, where there were trillions upon trillions, possibly upon trillions, of interacting "draft" RNA molecules, only one of which is needed to start the process of self-replication. In humans and Neanderthals, however, there was no statistical process that would drive their DNA sequences to become identical. Because of random mutation, over time the DNA sequences of two species tend to become increasingly different. They never become more similar unless there is some mechanism, like interbreeding, for physically moving a DNA sequence from one species to another.So the fact that about 4% of the DNA of people of non-African ancestry is actually Neanderthal DNA means that somewhere along the line, some humans and some Neanderthals mated. Since Neanderthals died out at least 20,000-30,000 years ago, that means there must have been humans alive back then. (That, and the fact that we have found anatomically-modern human skeletons that are up to 200,000 years old, including human skeletons in the same regions and time periods where Neanderthals lived.)FYI - the logical necessity that partial identity in genomes require interbreeding cannot be demonstrated because it's an assumption.It's not an assumption. It is the elimination of all possible alternatives. Random chance is ruled out statistically. If you know of any other mechanism that can transfer genetic code from one human to another using paleolithic technology, then please speak up.
shalamabobbi Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 (edited) "No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence".Ah, Demski, say no more..Indeed, throughout there is a marked elision of the formal details of the biological processes under consideration. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is that neo-Darwinian evolution of ecosystems does not involve a set of genomes all searching the same, fixed fitness function, the situation considered by the NFL theorems. Rather it is a co-evolutionary process. Roughly speaking, as each genome changes from one generation to the next, it modifies the surfaces that the other genomes are searching. And recent results indicate that NFL results do not hold in co-evolution.It may well be that there is a major mystery underlying the performance of some search processes that one might impute to the historical transformations of ecosystems. But Dembski has not established this, not by a long shot.http://www.talkreaso...icles/jello.cfmI guess one would have to ponder the idea of Demski having insight that has eluded the best and brightest minds in the world, and on top of that, that Demski is so far advanced intellectually over the rest of the population that they are incapable of grasping the proof of his arguments and seeing the error that is staring them in the face. But fortunately for those of us at this forum, we are not so limited..Edit to add: (further rebuttal to Demski's work and to irreducible complexity)http://bostonreview.net/BR27.3/orr.htmlhttp://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html Edited April 10, 2012 by shalamabobbi
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 But fortunately for those of us at this forum, we are not so limited..Well, if Dembski really has generated such an insight - not that you'd know, since you've admitted to pulling a jaybear - then it more than implies that, for at least one of us at this forum, that individual is so limited.
Cobalt-70 Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 God must be "efficient"? Who says? An entire Universe to play with, and He has to be "efficient"? I don't even know what that means in this context!That being said, however, I should like to suggest that 6000 years ago (or whatever), He introduced Adam and Eve into the Garden. They needn't have descended from anything here previously, but I do believe God could make it look like they came from here. This isn't scientific, or natural. It's artificial. And so what?I don't insist on this scenario, though. I simply trust that God did what He did in a brilliant way.Even if God created poofed Adam and Eve into existence from clay, but made them physically and genetically identical to any of the millions of existing men and women who were alive at the time, genetic and fossil evidence tells us that all (or even a small fraction) of our genes could not have come from a single couple that lived 6000 years ago. Almost all, if not all, of our genes came from the other people who were living at the time of Adam and Eve.
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 You are comparing apples and oranges.No, I'm comparing large numbers to large numbers. In humans and Neanderthals, however, there was no statistical process that would drive their DNA sequences to become identical.Wait, wait wait. Compare that with this:It's not an assumption.When you can state your position without contradicting yourself, please, feel free to enlighten.
Log Posted April 9, 2012 Posted April 9, 2012 As an aside, for those who worship the trustworthiness of science over the clearly childish, primitive, superstitious religious mumbo-jumbo, check this out: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2012/04/intrinsic-unreliability-of-science.html
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