Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis
by JoyThought Provoker mentioned EAM while talking about FLE in another thread.
Alan Fox requested answers from an EAM point of view to determine if it is just another variation of FLE. As the only resident EAMer, I described it here and expanded here.
That thread has more than 100 comments, meaning I won't be able to keep following if that discussion wants to go anywhere. So this thread will serve that purpose if anyone's got anything they want to discuss about Endogenous Adaptive Mutation.
Please bear in mind that I know a total of three EAMers in the world. Mike Turner, who developed the general framework, and Bertvan, a friend who mostly posts at ARN but does occasionally appear here as 'bert'. I haven't heard from Mike for a couple of years (could be longer, I forget), don't know if he's developed it any further than what he gave me (which I've been tweaking here and there as evidence comes in). I'm not a working biologist or biological theorist, though I do know a bit, I follow the incoming research when I can, and I've learned a lot more by participating in these debates from Mike Gene and so many others here. Fascinating subject, and it just keeps getting more fascinating.
The EAM framework is gappy and unfleshed in many places, mechanistically undetailed, and created from a metaphysical philosophy I don't subscribe to - panentheism. Sort of like chasing rabbits around duck ponds, it's mostly a way of looking at things, of fitting information into the framework, trying to figure out where to look for the next pieces. It's not really about front loading, though front loading (and supporting, incoming evidence) does fill a hole in the lower right quadrant of the scaffolding. It's consistent.
EAM may not even be the 'correct' label for what's been building, as mutagenesis is an afterthought in this view. What happens when creative, adaptive expression suites prove worthy of being hardwired into the genome. But that's what it was when I got hold of it, so that's what it still is. As a lay-theory it can be called whatever its inventer wants to call it, fine with me. It's a fuzzy but fair description, but not could earn a better label at some point. Who knows?
It's not just consistent with FLE, it also relies upon the Orchestrated Objective Reduction [Orch-OR] physical model developed by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose in the 1990s and under testing and refinement to the current time in various places. The primary endogenous facilitator for the process is consciousness, all the way down to Shapiro's "Cellular Intelligence" - the vital impetus of life's struggles and experience in this world. While recognizable consciousness is still a ways off (needs a certain number of specialized neural cells to enable), even microbes act and react in the world. All life does, and all life seems to use the basic equipment (more or less) to interact with the world and organize its own interior functions. Thus consciousness is a gradient spectrum across all beings great and small, a concentrated physical expression of a fundamental universal parameter.
Because the impetus and the often creative "experiments" of stressed organisms can sometimes be disastrous for the organism, it also allows for a sort of "fallibility factor" that readily admits organisms won't all pick the same solutions, and that the solutions they do pick using endogenous organizational means will vary greatly in relative 'success' on evolutionary terms.
Only after these endogenous adaptation "experiments" in organisms (and populations) undergoing stress prove useful enough to propagate and adaptive enough to do the trick, do they get written-in the genome and its expression-related attachments. If it's successful enough, it may design a whole adjunct informational region complete with gene copies or slightly engineered variants of copies, RNA attendants, expression enhancers, etc.
I do not know the precise mechanisms, epigenetic or genetic. But in approaching from this angle, places to look for them do come up quite often. For me, the original philosophy is irrelevant, it is consistent within any or no philosophy other than determinstic materialism. It's a version of ID that grants to life the intent and the means to design itself over deep time - to shape the future over generational time. How, Who and Why for there to be life at all, and its actual nature, remains a philosophical question beyond science's (or EAM's) charter or ability to say.
Anyway, that's the general gist of it.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Hi Joy,
Thank you for your interesting comments regarding EAM here and on the earlier thread. I personally think that EAM (or something like it) is going to turn out to be true of the world — and that this "something" will be the future of ID. I have also wondered here (a few years ago at TT) whatever happened to Mturner given that he was such an active contributer at the ARN forum.
Comment by William Brookfield — September 4, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
September 4th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
William Brookfield:
Wow, William. That sounds almost exactly like what I've been saying ever since I first encountered EAM. I've taken it further on some levels in my own mind than MTurner did when he offered it, but I too suspect that where science ends up on "Modern Evolutionary Theory" once they dump Darwin is going to look an awful lot like what EAM is describing.
It's a system serving a process, so things are pretty fuzzy to begin with. There may always be fuzziness, given the 'fallibility factor' and such, but let's face it. Life is designed. I think we'd do much better for ourselves to examine its designs and learn how things work, and not just because it'll tell us a lot about how things don't work.
This is where the incoming evidence is pointing. I don't care what they call it in the end. I just wanted to offer (because I was asked) the point of view. The means of approach. I think it could prove immensely more useful to our practical purposes than 'random' ever could. That's a label you apply to something that baffles you so badly you're willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We have better tools, better technology and better ideas now than we ever had before. Why be so scared of what they're finding?
These inane culture wars and witch-hunts and turf guarding goon squads are a complete distraction. I am so sick of being called a 'Creationist' and having my whole view labeled on religious terms I've several times considered just leaving the die-hards to die on their own time. Then, occasionally, I find those who aren't so unreasonable. You and TP come to mind.
Thanks.
Comment by Joy — September 4, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Hi Joy
I have only recently developed an interest in ID, but have had a longstanding interest in panexperientialism (the philosophical position that experience is a fundamental and ubiquitous natural property). I recently put a post on my blog re ID and panexperientialism, which touched on adaptive mutation.
I think there is a plausible possibility that a cosmic 'drive to differntiation' is a factor in evolution, but think this is something that would be difficult to approach from a scientific point of view.
Comment by justin — September 5, 2008 @ 6:40 am
September 5th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hi Joy,
You wrote…
Guarding against throwing out babies due to oversimplification is one of the key things I learned during my engineering training.
Thanks for the notation. I am also trying something new. I am restraining from trying inject my spin on this very interesting thread.
Just wanted to let you know that my lack of comments isn't a lack of interest.
Comment by Thought Provoker — September 5, 2008 @ 9:48 am
September 5th, 2008 at 10:21 am
justin:
Hi, justin. Thanks for your comment and link. I found your post very interesting, tugging at all the 'pan'whatevers I encountered with Hameroff, et al. at UA. I actually rather liked panprotopsychism because it allows for the universal 'urge' toward experience without giving it specific agency in its fundamental, diffuse state. It's nice to see those working in the nether regions between science and philosophy are still at formalization. It's not the easiest task humans ever assigned themselves!
While I agree that things may remain philosophically fuzzy at this end of the causal chain, it seems to me that science and naturalism can work with fuzz pretty well. FAPP. We don't have a clear physical description of what mass *is* (possibly to be rectified soon at CERN), but we observe that some elements have more mass than others. We don't have a clear physical description of what gravity *is* either, but we observe that it orders the universe.
These evolutionary culture wars are all about metaphysics, not science. It should be a sideshow somewhere over by the tattooed lady and the rubber man, but it's played on the actual main stage of biological science and education. Corruption, pure and simple. The turf guardians have a sociopolitical agenda to disabuse us all of our traditional and non-traditional belief systems so they can impose their own metaphysically bankrupt faith. As always, it's the entirely predictable resort to authoritarianism if you can't convince others of the superior value of your ideas.
The 'darwinian' paradigm (in all its guises ruled by metaphysical materialism) has been around for many generations, and has not won in the free marketplace of ideas. It simply cannot satisfactorily explain what we see and experience and know of life and death on planet earth. There is 'More' going on, it's about time science acknowledged it (and got out of the religion/anti-religion business).
I've bookmarked your blog, hope you'll participate here too.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 10:21 am
September 5th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for taking the trouble to write those comments, Joy.
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 1:11 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Yes, Joy, thanks for starting this very interesting EAM thread. I will add some comments about the ideas later, if you don't mind. Have to do some cooking first (a delicious Indian curry if you must know).
Too bad about the last two paragraphs of your last post though. It's the same old tired rant that I've seen dozens of times by now. I suspect you have it stored as a macro (crtl-R perhaps).
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Hi Joy,
I too wonder whatever happened to the inimitable mturner. My very few thoughts on EAM:
1. The problem of the Origin of Life (OOL). Was there consciousness before cellular life, as we know it, first appeared? If so, did it just experiment around until it found what worked best? If so, shouldn't we find remnants of the prototypes, still functioning in their own little niches? Or was this consciousness a very advanced bio-nano-engineer, that figured out the best type of cells to design before it designed them and placed them in the environment? If the latter, then this "consciousness" seems to be more like an independent mind, instead of a consciousness inherent in the physical world.
2. The problem of evolution after the OOL. Mike Gene seems to be working on the hypothesis that if the original cells were front-loaded with enough information, then Darwinian evolution (RM + NS) could accomplish the rest — no need for further consciousness. This seems to be antithetical to EAM. I'm wondering what might falsify the one and verify the other?
Comment by Bilbo — September 5, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Bilbo:
Hi, Bilbo. Good questions! Don't know where MTurner disappeared to. He was notoriously grumpy in debate, maybe he's relaxing in the Carribean on a nice beach or something. §;o)
All I can do is tell you how I see it. And obviously that's not in any way authoritative - I just see what fits into the framework, look around for more. On question 1, I haven't gotten to OOL yet, maybe never will. I don't think it can be known from within an EAM view any more than from within NDS. Possibly a forever-mystery.
In the "consciousness as universal fundamental" view, consciousness is something I could only liken to other such fundamentals we already know of, but obviously something different and 'More'. Like something that arises from a whole other reality, even though it's intimately known to us all. Weird, I know, but isn't gravity like that? Isaac Newton didn't invent gravity when he formalized the calculus that can describe its action precisely enough to let us fly to other planets and moons using planets and moons along the way to slingshot our probes.
I don't know its nature. We haven't yet figured out the nature of matter or energy or space or time, so this one's on the back burner.
I'm not pantheistic or panentheistic. Such a view would see what we call 'divinity' as sort of a universal consciousness. All things and all the spacetime they manifest in as holding some degree of actual consciousness. I'm a little more Platonic than that, all things physical being reflections or shadows on the cave walls. Real enough to define the physical nature and conditions of our own lives and deaths (and all experience and consciousness in between), but mere second-hand goods compared to what's really going on.
Think about it for a moment. What if there are 10 real dimensions of space (plus 1 of time) in the totality of reality affecting us here. We observe and experience our entire lives in only 3+1 of them, even if in truth we exist in all. All we can do is our best to understand FAPP the 3+1 we've got to work with, based on our physically evolved equipment for sensory input and creative conscious ability to go farther. The very fact that our creative consciousness DOES allow us to go farther than space and time tends to support the idea that consciousness is way ahead of our evolved physical equipment.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Bilbo:
That life has evolved is entirely evident. Nobody but hard core YECs and Last Tuesday-ists deny the evidence. Yes, accidents happen - organic molecules and living systems are heartbreakingly fragile, subject to the damaging winds of fickle fate in a not-so friendly universe. But I do not believe evolution has proceeded primarily - or even predominantly - by accident and fateful happenstance.
There are probably a few interesting traits in this species or that one that could be traced to random genomic accidents that beat the odds and added something useful to the system. But this cannot explain life or evolution as we observe the results. There's simply not enough time, not enough genomic instability, not enough organismic ability to control the chaotic results. Such a model makes no sense, which is why most people don't buy it. One thing we did earn from evolution is a pretty good bullshit detection sensor network. The NDS dog won't hunt, and increasing numbers of trained biologists are agreeing.
Front Loading is becoming entirely evident as well. We don't have the LCA right here in front of us to examine, so we have to look at what *is* here. It's looking more and more like the actual LCA was front loaded with all the necessary toolkit information to create everything we see now and in the rocks. Some gained information, some lost information. The Super-Shrub of evolution allows all kinds of trajectories, and most have probably been taken at some point or other. Some dies out, some keeps going, some are regular changelings adept at form-hopping and accumulating informational tools and trinkets.
Here we are, asking these kind of questions. That holds the crown for "most advanced" life form we know of here on earth, anyway. And what makes us so "advanced?" The fact that we're here asking these kinds of questions. Consciousness, like gravity, asserts itself whether we recognize it or not. After all, we're still matter-bound. Subject to its bottom-up processes and the fickle finger of fate. Yet by golly, we're conscious enough to resent it!
Even if the information was front-loaded, RM-NS can't account for us. Nor can it account for where we choose to take our own species' evolution from here by intelligent design. IMO.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
TP and Alan, thank you both as well. It's all pretty much floating around in the flotsam and jetsam of some hidden portion of my brain overloaded with information and way behind in organizing it. I've been on this quest for just over a decade and a half, and I got a very late start. Haven't done the scientific work myself, have relied on seeking out what others think they know. It's good to be motivated occasionally to take it all out, dust it off, and try again to fit it into the puzzle's frame.
But because it's me, there was never any real chance I'd buy into someone else's total worldview whole hog. I just take whatever information they've got to offer and file it in the 'sift for possible value' box, then move on to the next idea. What value my own stores and confusions could offer someone else is completely questionable. But it is what is is, for whatever it's worth. §;o)
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Hi Joy,
I really recommend anyone interested in FLE an EAM to look into any research about Trichoplaxa adherensis, the most simple metazooa known to date. This little creature is so simple, it has only two cell types. The most likely object of research, if your pet-theory relyes on front-loading (I hope I did not get that completely wrong). It is just a suggestion and a proposal for developing a research programm based on a design paradigme.
all the best
Karla
Comment by Karla — September 5, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Raevmo:
Mmmmm… I may have to go curry tonight too, now that you mention it! Of course, I've gotta finish sewing my "holder-uppers" to the fouton cover first. Daughter fixed the wooden couch frame awhile back, put it in total upright position and locked it with wood screws, but gravity just keeps on winning anyway. The fouton ends up on the floor even if nobody's sitting on the couch and I'm not strong enough to lift it. I tried to tie it to the frame, the stitches just popped. So now I'm doing heavy duty upholstery stuff to defeat gravity. Just stubborn, I guess.
My view of the culture war is inescapable if I'm going to be me. It just irks me no end, and I can genuinely say I'm sick to death of it. I injected it to get it out of the way right up front. You're welcome to contribute, I'd like to hear your thoughts. And I think I am more familiar with the sarcastic side of your persona than some others here, since it's given me some delighted giggles on occasion. And you're still here, aren't you? §;o)
Just keep it civil and everything will be copascetic. I've opened a can of worms, I know. But it's time for annual mind-cleaning anyway, so it should work out fine.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Karla:
Thanks, Karla. I've been keeping tabs on Mike Gene's explanations of the several incoming evidences of front loading, including this beastie. It's all really interesting to me, but I am honestly not qualified to speak much to it on a serious biological level. My background is physics, with a bit of biophysics thrown in. And even that was a long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away…). §;o)
EAM doesn't rely on front loading, but front loading is consistent with it. To tell the truth, I don't think genes and genomes are all they've been cracked up to be. Instead of being the 'selfish' determinators of all things living, life does sometimes manage to do some spectacular things without "genes for this, genes for that" sort of imposition. Heck, voles are the fastest evolving mammals we know of, and their genome(s) are a regular case study in HUH!!!??? They all look just alike, but have such genetic chaos in their cells that the males and females of one species have different numbers of chromosomes! Explain that one with RM-NS if you dare…
Again, EAM isn't gene-centric. DNA is just information available to the system, which can make what it will of it. Or try really hard. Or fail spectacularly. Just life doing life things. Fun with Clay!
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Hi Joy,
thanks for clarifing the point, that m. gene is keeping a tap on this little critter. I could not find a referernce through the search funktion. Anyway, I do understand, that you are follwing up a different path, but to my mind, it has to ty up with the known data to bee consistient with the rest of the data. I merely suggested, that this simple organism is realy something that is worth looking into - no mater what your background is. My main prupose in this forum is, to distinguish between what scientifich papers realy say, and what people interpret into them.
Anyway, the organism should be monitored.
All the best
Karla
Comment by Karla — September 5, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Karla:
Mike's "Design Matrix" blog is here, and he talks about Trichoplax adhaerens here. There are other significant clues leading to a front loading theory, and he's doing a great job of following. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if he were hitting the paper-waves himself here and there on this subject… (we'd never know, since 'Mike Gene' is just a pseudonym, after all).
But if you know of findings in addition to what's available here or there, please do add your links and thoughts in open threads when you can (we need a new one anyway), and there is always the possibility of a Guest Post where one of us can host your topic on the main page. If you've some material to contribute, you can click on one of our names on the "Pages" list on the right side of the main page below the featured books. Our email addys are there, you can use them to communicate. It's all important information, and it's all quite fascinating! §;o)
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Hi Joy,
Interesting thread. I think the immune system would be a perfect example of a possible EAM system. The first "rule" of evolution seems to be "complexity is your destiny". Maybe the second one should be "diversify or die".
A working immune system is crucial for survival and antibody diversification is central to a working immune system. The process of antibody diversification depends on the efficacy of activation-induced cytosine deaminases (AIDs) and the subsequent processing of the induced mutation (U:G lesion). AID initiates Ig gene-conversion, class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation. All of these processes contribute to diversification. Somatic hypermutaion depends on the efficacy of the repair processes. Usually the repair mechanisms result in error-free DNA repair, however during antibody diversification, a mutagenic resolution of the U:G lesion is triggered.
The type of mutation during a mutagenic resolution of the U:G lesion is largely dependent on the repair mechanism that is employed to resolve the lesion. For e.g.:
1) Simple replication results in a C:G→T:A transition
2) Recruitment of error-prone translesion polymerases during SP-BER results in transversions (e.g. REV1; C:G→G:C)
3) Recruitment of low-fidelity polymerases (e.g. Polymerase eta) during long-patch BER and and mismatch repair mechanisms are a major cause of A:T transitions.
These mechanisms play a part in antibody diversification. Activity of the AID is regulated by protein interactions, post-translational modifications and research is ongoing to see if epigenetics also play apart.
Even though this is not an example of a "foresighted mechanism" whereby a cell "designs" an antibody for a specific antigen, it is still an active process whereby the optimal properties of the genetic code are exploited by random variation and selection for controlled variability.
Two specific optimal properties of the genetic code are worth mentioning:
1) The effect of cytosine deamination on a random pool of amino acids.
2)
So maybe a part of the EAM framework can be to look for similar systems in other primitive organisms. Thus, instead of viewing organisms as passive entities as a result of selection of random mutations that happen for no reason, take the view that cells are active entities that search "randomness" through active induction of random mutations and then use intrinsic quality control systems as a selection mechanism.
Evidence for this?
1) Cytosine deaminases are present in bacteria
2) High and low fidelity repair systems are present in bacteria
3) RecA and LexA might play an active part?
4) Quality control mechanisms for proteins are present (see DNAJ genes)
5) Programmed cell death in unicellular organisms might be an EAM-related mechanism.
6) Optimized genetic code might facilitate such a process (see above)
All that is needed is to combine these properties and see if bacteria actively induce variation through mutation, and let the quality control mechanisms do the selecting.
EAM = Controlled variability achieved by an active search of "random space" utilizing the optimal properties of the genetic code and quality control mechanisms?
And maybe rule 1 exists because of rule 2.
Comment by Telicmeme — September 5, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I've been spending a little time looking back over old ARN threads. Guts is a pale shadow of Mike Turner
. Anyway Bertha Jane posting at ARN states this is a good explanation of EAM:
Frankly, does this make any sense to anyone?
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
EAM is a non technical alternative to materialism. It is compatible with any theory that recognizes the reality of intelligent, purposeful choice. Whether the purposeful organizing intelligence of nature emanates from a deity or is an innate force of nature is immaterial to an agnostic like me, someone very different from the evangelical atheists touting “natural selection”. EAM wouldn’t seek a theory about the origin of life. The universe is (and always has been) intelligent. The individual choices by which the inanimate universe designed itself were too miniscule to be detected by contemporary science.
I don’t know what happened to mturner. As an anti-war, anti-imperialism, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, political liberal, I wouldn’t consider voting for McCain even if his VP might advocate ID, so my interests lie elsewhere these days. Besides, I have no desire proselytize anyone. So long as everyone is aware of all the options, I’m content for everyone to formulate their own concepts.
http://30145.myauthorsite.com/
Comment by Bert — September 5, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Hi, Berthajane! Hope your life is going fine and dandy. Thanks for weighing in (and to Alan Fox for pulling a previous well done point of view of yours). Yeah, I'm still in here swinging away at bats aiming for my hair, but even I get sick of it sometimes. I take a break, then can't help peeking in, and then I'm off again. Weird addiction.
Thanks again!
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Joy,
Some thoughts on your comment that:
I am not convinced that the Dawinian paradigm and metaphysical materialism cannot account for the evolution of life. However, I do think that it cannot account for the existence of subjective experience (’the hard problem of consciousness’). The intractability of the problem of consciousness then opens up the plausibility of other metaphysical frameworks which, in turn, may then make ID as a factor in evolution more plausible.
For example, if we take experience as a fundamental property of nature, two possible ways we can go are:
- Micropsychism: Posit that events at the micro level of fundamental particles are associated with experiential or proto-experiential events (this has some similarities to Hameroff’s views).
- Cosmopsychism: Posit that the entire universe is a subject of experience, with the physical laws and events of the universe being the outward manifestation of its inner subjective dynamic (similar to a Spinozistic view). This sounds like pantheism, but I think that Occam’s principle needs to be applied here to keep the cosmic subject as simple and unintelligent as possible, so theism is best kept out of the argument.
I think either of these views could produce plausible hypotheses of ID and EAM (though whether they could ever be testable is another matter). But I think the macro view of viewing the universe as a cosmic subject could also have application to the issue of the “fine tuning” of the universe for life, so may be the more preferable position.
Comment by justin — September 5, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Joy:
This view is not entirely at odds with MET. Here’s from Mary Jane West-Eberhard’s 2003 book "Developmental Plasticity and Evolution" (p 29):
A little later she writes:
In MJW-E’s view, then, a lot of new “phenotypic space” is “searched” by developmental plasticity, not necessarily induced by mutations, and not very endogenous either given the prominent role of environmentally induced (plastic) variation. But in this view it is still selection that keeps the good stuff in the population and favors the genetic variants that tend to express the good stuff. It’s my impression that in your extreme and, excusez les mots, a bit silly, dislike of Darwinism you throw away the baby with the bathwater.
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
He appears to have become obsessed with the politics of the Middle East and was expelled!
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Bertajane (alias of Bert?):
How do you measure those non-mechanical non-physical phenomena?
I'm afraid that as long as people associate EAM with this kind of new-age mumbo-jumbo it will never be taken seriously by the scientific community.
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Just to remind folkq of the couple of questions that occured to me that I hope someone can respond to:
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
DaveScot commenting on front loading. at UD. I'd like to respond but, somehow, I am unable to log in or regoiister
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Oops, thinking out loud. Clicked "post comment" instead of "preview" but no edit option. Never mind. S/B "register" And >a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/education/agnostic-pro-id-vs-thei st-anti-id/#comment-295200">this is the link.
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Raevmo
I agree that there could be difficulties in EAM ever being taken seriously by the scientific community.
To show that adaptive mutation was a result of an anticipative evolutionary drive (or cellular intelligence or other aspects of ’mind’) it would be first necessary to eliminate other possible causes. These could be Darwinian (such as selection acting on a generalised increase in mutation rate in response to environmental stress), or some as yet undiscovered physical Lamarkian mechanism that provides relevant phenotype to genome feedback.
If such physical explanations had been eliminated then perhaps it could be said there was some support for the influence of an intentional drive in the evolutionary process. The next question would then be what is the actual mechanism by which the anticipative drive effects evolutionary change. That is, how are mutations 'directed' without violating natural law. I think there are two options here. Firstly, the directed mutations could be effected through exploiting indeterminacy at the quantum level. Secondly, one could take a different metaphysical view of the character of physical law, adopting the perspective of Alfred North Whitehead that laws are the 'habits' of nature which on rare occasions may be broken.
It could be objected here that explaining directed mutation on the basis of quantum events or temporary alterations in nature's habits does not suffice as an explanation at all, because it does not explain the actual mechanism of how ‘mind’ or an evolutionary drive 'causes' the copying errors that lead to the required mutations in nucleotide sequences . But it may be the case that to ask this question is like asking why fundamental laws and properties are the way they are, and that no further physical explanation can be given.
So it seem to me the scientific investigation of EAM would work on a fundamentally negative heuristic - other possibilities are eliminated and we are left with nonrandom directed mutation without a more fundamental physical cause which can be pointed to. In this regard, explanation of direct mechanisms of biological changes, evolution and development are always going to yield a more productive science than that which operates on a negative heuristic of eliminating other possible causes.
Nevertheless, although ID may never be a productive research program in terms of helping us to learn more specifically about how the natural world works this is not to say it may not, after all other physical explanations have been exhausted, be shown to be the best explanation of some evolutionary changes. Of course, even then some might say that deferring to an as yet undiscovered explanation by normal physical means is preferable to postulating an ID mechanism which includes unobservable features. Here we are in the borderlands where philosophy of science meets metaphysics, the issue being whether methodological naturalism needs to be modified to incorporate inferences derived from the natural phenomena of subjective experience.
(BTW I cut most of that from a previous blog post of mine, but think it directly pertains to the topic at hand)
Comment by justin — September 5, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
This is the link.
(Apologies)
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Ahah!
DaveScot refers to Professor John Davison! Is he restricted from contributing here?
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
justin:
Well, I'd have to disagree, given that I strongly suspect there is no actual "Hard Problem" of consciousness. It's just that we haven't invented the proper definitions yet. If there are physical and neural correlates of consciousness - and you probably know as well as I do that if it's manifest in life, it's got a physical biological mechanism that enables that manifestation - then there shouldn't be that much trouble entailed in delineating its attributes while we're out there seeking its nature. I mean, it's not like it's something we don't know perfectly well by our own direct, empirical (but subjective) experience exists and is causally effective.
Honestly, sometimes I wonder if the paid-to-argue 'experts' who never have the same opinions might all be the REAL zombies, just trying to pull one over on all us actually alive and conscious people. They spend years and years spinning fanciful yarns of advocacy and denial that nobody follows, because we're all busy living real life in the real world with whatever real equipment we have to work with. They should all get some honest work for a change. I bet it would change the tone of the whole debate.
Actually, I'm not talking about experience as a fundamental property. Not in terms of either qualia or the experiences themselves (i.e., "Hmmm… think I'll have my only son bleed to death in my arms in the middle of the night. THAT would be an experiential rush!" then leafing through the rolodex for that experience and plugging it into the hardware).
Experience is always unique to the individual that does the experiencing. Colored and flavored by that person's sum of histories and mental/emotional proclivities and peculiarities. I have this same sort of issue with qualia. The debaters too often assume there is some actual agreement about what it "feels like" to see red. Heck, we aren't even sure that "red" is the same color to you as it is to me!
"Feels" aren't something within science's purview, nor are the sensory-stimulated 'moments of consciousness' associated with them. The most they could ever hope for is to see some little portion of your brain light up when you "feel" green. It might even match everybody else who volunteered for the measurement. But that doesn't mean you all "felt" the exact same thing, and none of you would necessarily match my brain-map on green! (I'm a synesthete, btw).
I think that whole diversion is just a diversion. Good for a few dozen research papers and associated funding, but that's about it. In the end, we'll be no wiser. Consciousness (or proto-consciousness) as a fundamental of nature is a whole other beastie. IMO.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
justin:
It's not possible, in principle let alone in practice, to eliminate all other possible causes of adaptive mutation. Dembski's method of design detection suffers from the same flaw. But more importantly, I think, is that there is no way of disproving that those other possible causes (including Darwinian ones) are also the result of some anticipative mind somehow interfering.
Are there any distinguishing (I'm starting to sound like Zachriel) EAM predictions that have been derived in a logically rigorous way from a model that have since been verified?
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Raevmo:
It's not so erroneous to offer a "Devo-Evo" turn-around, I guess. Since I'm not a Darwinian Die-HardTM, they'd be responsible for lodging their own objections. Nor am I particularly surprised or dismayed that there are Darwinian Die-HardsTM out there who could interpret anything and everything to their own governing uber-theoretic. That's just business as usual.
But that's not how I interpret the same phenomena. You'll have this, it's best to just let it be than to attempt to impose somebody's idea of a damned 'orthodoxy'. We already know from human history that it won't work, so there's no point.
Gee, I certainly wouldn't want my "extreme" and "silly" views to be responsible for anybody's baby's life! Who's baby was it?
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Raevmo to justin:
Just an aside to the subject for you, Raevmo. EAM is not about exterior forces. If you are really unable to consider life itself as a possible suspect for the agency of directed evolution, then you won't understand a word that's likely to be said in this thread.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Is this humour?
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Joy:
Doesn't the A in EAM represent Adaptive? As in adaptation to the environment? Environment being (mostly) exterior to the organism?
I am happy to accept that some mutations are almost entirely "endogenous", but where's your evidence that this is the rule rather than the exception?
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Alan:
I'm afraid not. Joy apparently wants to share the dramatic and miraculous moments of her life with us. Haven't you noticed?
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
The blackest of black humor, Alan. It's one of my more notable experiences of life and death on planet earth, always readily available off the top of my head. AND it's everyone's worst nightmare - something all can relate to. A way of separating the actual terminology - "feels" - from the broader and hopelessly complex term "experience."
I can use it because… I can. As a professional fool, all of life's absurdities are available for examination, parody, satire, and ridicule. All of 'em.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I have noticed that Joy's posts can be somewhat eclectic. It would be nice if she found time to address the two questions I have posted about front loading.
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I suppose I must be humour-challenged. I have always found clown faces mildly disturbing and not at all funny. But, if you have time to address my queries about front loading, that would be great.
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Raevmo
I am not aware of any instances of adaptive mutation for which plausible Darwninian explanations have not been proposed (but then again i haven't read all that much in the area)
Re:
I agree that possible physical causes can never be eliminated - it is always possible to postulate an ad hoc physical explanation which has not yet been discovered. Better wording on my part would have been to say that physical explanations which are less plausible than those incorporating explanations invoking mind or consciousness had been eliminated.
Of course, then there is the problem that methodological naturalism does not allow such factors, which is why I agree that ID may never be taken seriously by the scientific community (unless its parameters are broadended).
BTW Joy, I use the word experience pretty much synonymously with consciousness.
Comment by justin — September 5, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Alan:
You know very well that adding real and imaginary yields complex stuff.
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Revmo:
I have mentioned repeatedly that any theory that pretends to explain everything we see, must also explain the anomalous manifestations. This really isn't hard to grasp. Experiences of the anomalous occur to people all over the world every day, you just don't often hear about them. When those anomalies point directly toward something a whole lot 'More' than what anyone's little worldview can handle, tough titty.
But this example isn't particularly anomalous. Someone somewhere loses their child every hour of every day and night, all the time. It may "feel" unnatural, but it's not and there's plenty of factual history to demonstrate how 'normal' it really is. Where do you suppose human beings came up with the idea that the death of children is somehow 'wrong' or some sort of cosmic 'injustice'? It certainly can't be gleaned from actual biological facts and human history, at any time in the entire existence on this planet, in any form.
I just used it to inform justin that the "feel" of red isn't the same thing as "experience" which has a much, much broader frame. Hell, I'd be willing to entertain the idea that "experience" is the whole point - the goal of the manifestation game. If it's the goal, it cannot *be* and subvenient attribute.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Fly, my meme, fly!
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
justin:
OK, but to do this in a rigorously scientific way you must be able to assign, quantitatively, a degree of plausibility to the competing hypotheses. This requires explicit models, with parameters that can be estimated from the data. Then we can use some criterion of model fit (such as AIC) to decide which model explains the data best. Do you think that is possible, or better yet do you know of any examples, for explanations invoking mind or consciousness?
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Alan Fox:
"The clown remains a mysterious figure, a medieval character in the razzle-dazzle age of the atom. He's a crazy-house mirror into which men and women as individuals can look to see themselves, their friends, enemies and neighbors, and beyond them the forces that influence and sometimes threaten everyone's life. Clowning can be that serious."
Bill Ballantine, Founding Director of Ringling Clown College. From whence I earned my only pertinent-to-these-debates credentials. Or, I suppose, I could cite the tag line on our first business cards after stepping off the train…
"If any man among you seems wise in the ways of this world, let him become a fool, that he may be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. He will entrap the wise men in the web of their own deceits."
I Corinthians, 3: 18-20
But yes, SkyPup was really my son, he really did bleed to death in my arms in the middle of the night at the ripe old age of 21. He was a clown too, the best you can imagine. It launched my quest. That was 16 years ago.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Joy:
But you also mention FAPP a lot. So which is it?
Yet I'm not sure what you mean by anomalous. Does the appearance of Jesus' face on a tortilla qualify? Science just isn't very good in dealing with phenomena that can't be repeated. But I suppose if enough anomalous phenomena occur and a pattern can be detected in them, then we're in business.
It feels bad to lose a loved one. One tries to prevent feeling bad. This tendency to avoid feeling bad has obvious survival value, either directly (avoid feeling pain) or indirectly (avoid the suffering or death of relatives). To me, it makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary point of view.
Comment by Raevmo — September 5, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Well, I am sorry for your loss. I find it difficult to to comprehend having to face such tragedy.
Comment by Alan Fox — September 5, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
justin:
Thanks for the clarification, justin. Just wait a few hours, someone will chime in about 'intelligence' to try and hopelessly entangle the whole subject in semantic nit-picking.
Guess I just see the term "experience" as too broad, and too liable to stream-braiding complications for it to be the word-concept of choice to describe what I think you're describing. But I also see the narrowed definition of "qualia" to lack specificity. As a synesthete who 'normally' perceives more and/or different informational input from my sensors, the notion of qualia has always seemed imprecise as well. I think I grok what they're aiming at, but to tell the truth, I don't have a better word for it.
I'd call it a "Know," but the formal definition would be complicated and controversial.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 9:16 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Alan Fox:
Thanks, Alan. There's been time to lock up the "feels." But I do know where I've stashed them.
It was just an "extreme" example that popped readily to mind when I wanted to insert an "extreme" example, because Raevmo was doing his "extremist" dance. He knew it was coming, we've danced this dance before.
Comment by Joy — September 5, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
September 5th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Raevmo
As I said, I think possibly the best that could be hoped for in terms of supporting a consciousness related hypothesis re EAM lies in eliminating other plausible physical explanations of apparent directed mutation and then relying on inference to the best explanation.
Of course, this does not suffice as much of a scientific explanation, which is why I think that the parameters of what a valid scientific explanation would need to be broadened in order to accommodate ID explanations (and I’m not saying that this broadening is something that should occur at the present time).
On the subject of the physical effects of experience, you mentioned that you think that feeling bad has survival value. This implies that subjective feelings have physical effects rather than being mere epiphenomena. This seems to me to be problematic in the same sense that consciousness-related EAM explanations are, as it requires somewhere in the chain of physical causes and effects for one's feelings to intervene and ‘bump’ one's atoms in the appropriate way.
Comment by justin — September 5, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
September 6th, 2008 at 4:44 am
justin:
Broadening them to encompass, say, astrology, as Behe suggested? Those "parameters" have been arrived at by a long process of trial-and-error resulting in a system that works pretty well. To broaden them would make science less reliable and mostly serves a political agenda.
A great deal is known about the physiology (perhaps you prefer to say the atom-bumping) and even genetics of pain. Precisely because we want to avoid it, even at considerable cost, a great of deal of research has been devoted to it. We can infer that animals other than humans have pain under very similar conditions and we see that they actively avoid such conditions. Such behavior clearly has survival value because it prevents bodily harm. Can this be in any way controversial?
Comment by Raevmo — September 6, 2008 @ 4:44 am
September 6th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Raevmo
This is getting off topic, but my point was that from a standard Darwinian point of view, it does not matter if, for example, when you put your hand on a hot stove, whether you experience ecstatic pleasure or excruciating pain, as long as the physiological response of removing your hand ensues.
As evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker puts it in this interview:
“Since we can imagine a robot that, behaviour-for-behaviour and state-for-state, is identical to a human, but in which there's "no one home" — no one actually feeling the pain or seeing the red — there can't be an adaptive explanation of sentience, because we've defined it as something that can have no external consequences”
Incidentally, the fact that feelings do seem to be appropriately pleasurable or painful in ways which enhance survival, led chemist Jim Cairns Smith in his fascinating book Evolving The Mind to propose a Quantum Mechanics based model that posits that subjective consciousness does have physical effects.
Comment by justin — September 6, 2008 @ 5:48 am
September 6th, 2008 at 10:41 am
It can be shown that sharp pains can cause a physical response *before* the conscious mind is aware. The pain is a special function of consciousness so that you *learn* not to put your hand on a hot stove.
Comment by Zachriel — September 6, 2008 @ 10:41 am
September 6th, 2008 at 11:30 am
justin to Raevmo:
Science can handle the idea of causally effective consciousness just fine. The detail work - pinning down the working definition so that physical mechanisms can be identified and their activities explained - will take awhile longer. There are already working definitions for various attributes of consciousness and cognitive scientists are actively investigating them.
All things biological and biochemical ultimately reduce to quantum mechanics in the substrate, and QM already accepts that observation directly affects the state of the system. This is a little mind-spinning when you first encounter it, but it's not scientifically controversial at all. Thus science can accept the causal efficacy of consciousness as a 'given', just like it accepts the causal efficacy of electromagnetic fields and gravity. It's all well within the current parameters of what a valid scientific explanation must include.
Basic awareness is a hallmark of life. The organism interacts with its environment - obtains information, processes the information, and responds to the information. We observe this all the time, so it isn't controversial. There's no need to add the baggage of emotion to the situation because emotion appears quite late in the course of evolution. There's no problem here.
It's only professionals in the game of dueling metaphysics who like to pretend consciousness is not a 'real' phenomenon. Philosophers arguing philosophical fine points is just another sideshow, a pastime having no particular impact on scientific examination of consciousness and no authority to prevent scientists from including consciousness and/or awareness in their list of causal factors for life's operations and behaviors at various levels of complexity.
Comment by Joy — September 6, 2008 @ 11:30 am
September 6th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
RAEVMO:
(self-awareness, cellular intellignece, memory, intention and other aspects of 'mind')
Such forces are non deterministic and I doubt they will ever be reduced to mathematical formulas. Life is unpredictable and produces surprise solutions, something mathematics can't handle.
If self-awareness, cellular intellignece, memory, intention and other aspects of 'mind are real aspects of living systems, and "science" feels it cannot deal with such forces, I suppose people will turn to some other discipline than materialistic science to explore their understanding of life. "The scientific community" will continue to produce their just-so stories of how random mutation and natural selection created biological structures, but fewer and fewer people will pay attention to them. More and more people will explore concepts such as EAM.
Comment by Bert — September 6, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
September 6th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Hi Joy,
Thankyou for your kind words at the top of the thread. Unfortunately this has been a very busy working weekend for me. I will be able comment more when this weekend is over.
Comment by William Brookfield — September 6, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
September 6th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Joy
I'm all for the commonsense view that our feelings affect our behaviour. However, if all behaviour is ultimately explainable by objective, observable physiological processes, then there is no room for one's private, subjective feelings to do any work.
Thus under MET as it stands, feelings cannot have any adaptive consequences. This I think is one of MET's shortcomings, because feelings seem to be adaptively appropriate, as Raevmo says.
Comment by justin — September 6, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
September 6th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
justin:
There is genetic variation for the capacity to feel pain. Those who cannot feel pain are at a disadvantage because they do not learn to avoid bodily harm.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...:
This seems to strongly suggest that feelings can have adaptive consequences. How do you read this?
Comment by Raevmo — September 6, 2008 @ 6:22 pm
September 6th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Bert:
A lot of unsubstantiated assertions there. How do you know those (undefined) "forces" are non deterministic? Some aspects of life are unpredictable, others are very predictable. There's quite a bit of solid mathematics dedicated to stochastic processes. Please give some arguments instead of blowing smoke.
Comment by Raevmo — September 6, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
September 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Raevmo
I agree that article supports the view that feelings have adaptive consequences (as does common sense). But if you want to broaden what a valid scientific explanation is to incorporate unobservable subjective feelings, how does this differ from:
Comment by justin — September 6, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
September 7th, 2008 at 9:54 am
A couple of thoughts on the thread:
Alan asks:
Kind of an odd question for a Darwinist. If RM&NS can explain it all, some extra information floating out there doesn't really need any guarantee on any specific appropriate environment. It may help, or not. We sometimes plant seeds (metaphorically speaking) without knowing that they will prove fruitful, or fruitful in the same manner we intended.
But I'm not an EAMer for an FLEer specifically.
Raevmo Says:
I understand that whole exchange from Dover is just too juicy for some to pass up. But Behe's point was a valid one. The whole demarcation issue is more complex than the typical Darwinian will admit. Take what follows, that I think Behe, amongst others, addresses:
If those "parameters" have an empirical source, then they can't be demarcation criteria. They may be useful on some problems, but not on others. They may be useful till they no longer are.
Behe gets the better of this exchange. But the Raevmos of this world can't seem to see it.
Comment by RogerRabbitt — September 7, 2008 @ 9:54 am
September 7th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Thank you for noticing. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would help with answers to my (originally two, now three) queries. The point I am making is NS (for those convinced of its explanatory power), by definition, results in organisms matched to their niche. Golden moles in the desert, blue whales in the ocean, Riftia tube worms at thermal vents. E in EAM stands for endogenous, so no input from the environment. So what guarantees organisms match their environment?
Sort of like natural selection?
Obviously not!!!
Comment by Alan Fox — September 7, 2008 @ 10:33 am
September 7th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Alan says:
The good news is that I think I NOW understand why you asked the question. The bad news is I think you misunderstand at least generic FLE. NS isn't getting replaced. RM is being supplemented. Since Joy is the one explaining EAM, I'll her answer explicitely, but from her words:
I assumed "adaptive" and "successful" are meant to convey the idea of NS.
Comment by RogerRabbitt — September 7, 2008 @ 11:33 am
September 7th, 2008 at 11:51 am
So there is no difference from natural selection as originally proposed by Darwin? That takes care of one query.
My other query was the source of new information. ToE posits mutations plus HGT, etc. Front loading posits what?
Third query:
EAM seems to propose organisms being able to transfer information gained from the environment into its germ cell DNA. There is no biological pathway I know of that perorms this function, or does this happen in the complex plane?
Comment by Alan Fox — September 7, 2008 @ 11:51 am
September 7th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
justin:
However, if all behaviour is ultimately explainable by objective, observable physiological processes, then there is no room for one's private, subjective feelings to do any work.
? Why must all behavior ultimately be explainable by objective, observable physiological processes? Is that some Big-Pharma propaganda? We know that thoughts and mood alters brain chem-physics. We know that whole regions of active brain chem-physics serve to monitor and control cellular and organ processes 24-7. Quite the impressive construct, a brain.
Identifying the NCCs - Neural Correlates of Consciousness - and following their trail back through life, we will just be assured that it's real. It is, everybody knows it, might as well accept it. I am intrigued by the Orch-OR model because it so specifically relies on a quantum computational basis for information processing. It's really the only thing that makes sense, given the stupifying complexity of our amazing organ of consciousness. I'm even more intrigued by the likelihood that the actual nature of the computational capacity is greater by exponential factors than the simplistic quantum computers they're trying so hard to build.
But even if we were to demonstrate those NCCs objectively 'real', the question of "who" is running the computations, receiving and meta-analyzing the conclusions, and acting on them, remains. That question, far as I can tell, is metaphysics' purview, not science's. That could change someday on some kind of evidence, but it's philosophy now.
We know that mere intent can determine what emerges as 'real' from the intermediate quantum state. Our 'aware present' thinking consciousness can influence the time-independent superpositions, thus the results of the time-independent computations in the MTs. These trigger biochemical cascade and biophysical events in neurons, dendrites and synapses. These in turn affect the whole organism to a greater or lesser degree. It's perfectly okay to have physical equipment, it's how we live in this world.
Comment by Joy — September 7, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
September 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Alan says:
ID generally, and FLE as a subset, posits that genetic changes random with respect to fitness don't seem to explain the tremendous variations we see upon which NS can operate.
The recent conference in Europe, which seemed focus on supplementing current explanations, and the book that used to be featured here (can't remember the title - maybe somebody can help), which admits that the source of variations is a weak point of MET.
I'm surprised that you are that unfamiliar with the basic ID position.
FLE says, as far as I know, that it preceded its usefulness via non-Darwinian means. The designer, or some innate feature of nature, or what have you.
Comment by RogerRabbitt — September 7, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
September 7th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Alan Fox:
You may have to ask the first two again, Alan. I can't seem to find them. On this one, the communication between the environment, the organism's sensors and the organism's information processing and bioevent initiation equipment helps to shape adaptations responsive to the selective stress that triggers the process of adaptation.
Again, not all organisms in a population exposed to the same selective stress will respond in the same way, or find the same adaptive solutions. Some won't even try, may get 'selected out' by the stressor (die young). Some will come up with not very effective response, some will come up with better responses, some may come up with something novel (white hair in winter! Cool!) that everybody finds attractive and wants for their own progeny.
The standard wheel of karma differentials related to long-term evolution take things from there, having no preference among adaptations the real-time experiencing individuals are sporting. Those are always in play for the march of life, whether life is changing and adapting or not.
We don't insist that time or length (or breadth or volume) imposes on matter its shapes and interactions with energy or other matter. Spacetime is just the milieu in which what exists (matter and energy) manifests, delimiting its range of possible forms, actions and interactions. The same is true for ecosystems and that broad 'environment' in which life exists. Life's forms, actions and interactions are delimited by its existential milieu - that to which it must adapt dynamically if it is to exist at all