NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/talk/origins/16724

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-25 | 6.7 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Topic for Discussion?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 25 Jan 93 23:02:24 GMT
References: <1jo29o$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Richard Harter) writes:
|> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jon Livesey) writes:
|>
|>
|> >Where to store this representation?   It can't be stored
|> >centrally, outside the organisms - unless you believe in
|> >Sheldrake's informational fields - so it must be stored inside
|> >the individual organism, one copy per organism.
|>
|> Stop right there.  This is the fallacy in your argument.  [It's
|> a nice argument though -- are you trying to see if people will
|> catch it?]  The fallacy here is the false dichotomy -- the
|> presentation of two alternatives with the claim that they subsume
|> all cases.

No, it's not a false dichotomy.

|>
|> Now quite obviously, if one thinks on it a bit, it is conceivable
|> that the limit [if it exists] is viability.

No, you don't have to "think a bit" at all.   I adressed this
explicitly in my posting, but you have deleted it, so I'll quote
it here:

    "Two final points.    First, I don't actually believe that you
    can find a separate encoding called "this is the species model"
    inside the DNA of each organism.    I'm just abstracting.

    Secondly, the obvious "escape" here is to say "Well, micro-
    evolution doesn't actually consult a species representation,
    it's just that eventually cumulative micro-evolution produces
    non-functional organisms.   In fact, that's not an escape,
    because now you're saying that the representation "valid species"
    is a function of the species+environment, and micro-evolution
    can continue to produce cumulatively differing changes as long
    as it stays within this representation.   But the information
    in "species+environment" certainly changes over time.   In fact,
    that's the point, isn't it.

As I said above, even if you think viability is the key, viability
is itself a form of representation, because viabilty is the interaction
between the organism and its environment, and because the environment
changes, the "allowed states" in this interaction also change.

|> That is, a particular
|> "kind" may be intrinsically limited in the range of variants that
|> are viable.

You are making the same error that Mr Chow made, which is ironic,
since you just posted for him.

I'm saying nothing at all about what some *particular* "kind"
[whatever that is] may have as a limit.   In fact, we all know that
particular species may get themselves into situations out of which
*no* series of micro-evolutionary steps can get them out of.   That's
one way we get extinction.

What I am saying is that you can't show that micro-evolution can't
lead to macro-evolution *in general*.

Try to think of that "in general" some more.   What I am saying has
nothing to do with what happens to a particular species.   It has
to do with a general claim that there is some intrinsic "limit"
to micro-evolution.


  I use the word "kind" advisedly because if this were
|> the case then it quite conceivable that a "kind" might actually
|> involve a number of species.  Now the interesting thing here is
|> the steps that Jon takes.  The first step is to infer that, if
|> there is a limit, then there must be a mechanism.  So far, so
|> good.  The second step is to infer that there must be a representation
|> aand a comparison.  This step in his argument is misleading; it leads
|> us to think in terms of an explicit representation stored in the
|> form of information and an explicit comparison mechanism.  Once
|> we accepted this implicitly suggested limitation we are led down
|> the garden path to Jon's refutation, because we ask where can this
|> information be stored, and the answer is that there is no plausible
|> place to store it.

In my posting, I carefully disowned the notion that there was an
explicit representation, so this is a misquote.

|>
|> The catch is that there need be no explicit representation anywhere.
|> The constraints (again, on the assumption that they exist) are
|> implicit in the environment and in the laws of nature.  Likewise,
|> the mechanism is not explicit -- those variants outside the range
|> of viability die.  No explicit "comparison" is needed.

Another misquote.   There does not have to be an explicit representation
of the species.    However, if you hold that cumulative micro-evolution
*cannot* lead to macro-evolution, then you have to appeal to some
mechanism to implement this limit.

Since no Creationist has ever - to my knowledge - proposed such a
mechanism, I don't either.   Instead I simply say that if the mechanism
exists, it must get its information from *somewhere*.   If there is
a limit, and the limit controls micro-evolution, then the limit must
berepresented somewhere, and it doesn't matter where, because however it
is represented, it is itself subject to change.   [Unless, as I said,
you believe in some external, centrally controlled represenation]

It doesn't matter if there is an explicit record in DNA, or if this
information is encoded into the shape of DNA, or interactions between
different genes, or in the interaction between the organism and its
environemtn, *all* of these representations are subject to change.

So what?   So can we show that all organisms can evolve without limit?
No, of course not.   There will always be some "graphs" as Mr Chow
put it, that have unreachable states, or in which a current state is
surrounded by unreachable states, leading to extinction.

However, for graphs in general, you can't show that a series of small
changes cannot lead to a large change.

|>
|> The question of the limits to macro-evolution is one of fact; it is
|> not an issue that can be settled by theoretical arguments alone.  It
|> is the weight of an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that
|> establishes that macro-evolution has occurred.

In the first place, we are not discussing whether macro-evoution has or
has not occurred.   We can be pretty sure, IMHO, that it has.    But that
does not establish that it took place through cumulative micro-evolution,
so what you write here is at best irrelevant.

What I was dicussing is a different topic.   Not whether cumulative
micro-evolution *has* lead to macro-evolution, which is simply an
evidentiary matter, but whether one can sustain the claim that
cumulative micro-evolution *cannot* lead to macro-evolution.

jon.