Posted on 08/18/2005 7:39:37 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
When my mind gets to this point of incomprehensibility, I say, "what is the point of trying to understand a process with, practically, no limits?" This seems like the "god did it" explanation that gets met with so much derision. Essentially you are saying "millions of years did it". No, I believe you have to look at the limits to change in a single generation- these limits operate all along the way of descent to prevent the "big changes".
You are free to believe whatever you wish, but your inability to comprehend evolution doesn't change reality, any more than my inability to follow the math of quantum theory changes reality.
If you have a chile, or ever have one, I ask you to define the point at which the child learns language. Do you believe small changes accumulate to become differences of kind?
A couple points:
...define the point at which the child learns language.
Certainly, learning language is a process, with "software","hardware", and "training" requirements. An individual's mastery must develop via "training input", but, the "ability" must be present AT FIRST. The child must already have in place the ability to receive and process input.
Do you believe small changes accumulate to become differences of kind?
This seems unrelated to the language development issue. The accumulating "changes" in language learning do not change the child's physical being. No, I don't believe this example or the ring species examples (which started my mental meanderings) show evidence of accumulating small changes becoming "differences of kind".
My analogy of evolution, as developed the past few days:
Uncle Joe who lives in California gets dropped off in front of your house on the east coast. You see the car pull up and he gets out with a suitcase that has a collection of stickers from different states, some of which have dates on them. You develop a travelogue of his journey from California based on the sticker collection.
You may get the sequence of stops along the journey correct, but, it is highly unlikely, since you can't really be sure if he travelled all the way by car or by which route or if he flew across country. (The inability to determine his mode of transportation makes the travelogue practically impossible.) The stickers may have nothing to do with this particular journey.
...your inability to comprehend evolution doesn't change reality
Yes, reality is unchanged by my inabilities - but, who can fault my inabilities? If anyone says that they comprehend evolution, with its myriad of possible travelogues, I'd look at them cynically.
First, there is no logical difference between hardware and software, either in computers or in humans (or animals). In animal brains, learning is most definitely a physical change. You can see it under a suitable microscope. Learning changes the physical connections between neurons.
Second, language does require a suitable brain structure, but then that has no relevance to the discussion. Evolution also has to work with what is available for modifiction. Humans are not going to evolve feathers. If they do, get back to me and I will admit biology doesn't really know anything.
>>The stickers may have nothing to do with this particular journey.<<
True, and the story has no relevance. If you wish to believe that some omnipotent trickster diddles in DNA, placing false markers at will, that is cerrtainly a possibility. But it's a fairy tail with no Scientific merit or Biblical authority. Scientology makes as much sense.
In a universe in which DNA has no actual lineage, and false markers are placed by space aliens or deities, you cannot have science, because anything can happen without cuse or trace.
This is an interesting point, thanks for making it. I do have familiarity with neuro-developmental theories/therapies, and have practiced such with my speech delayed son. (I thought it interesting that you had used the language learning example.)
I'll give you that the difference between hardware and software for processing input may be fuzzy - but, I was also thinking "input hardware", like our physical senses which would be more distinct from "processing software".
Evolution also has to work with what is available for modifiction.
Well, we agree on this. Our departure seems to be on understanding the "what is available". Here, I suppose is where my belief on the inherent limits to variation applies - much as you stated that "Humans are not going to evolve feathers."
...false markers...
I don't say that the markers are inherently false or deceptive(just as the stickers are not false or deceptive - they just ARE) they may however be falsely interpreted due to unknown/unknowable factors.
Are you saying that everything regarding genetic variation is understood and there are no significant questions left to be answered?
Good heavens, no. But I'd say 150 years without a contradicting fact makes a good trend line.
There are always controversies at the fringe of understanding, and, I suppose, always the possibility that the findings will point away from "random" variation.
I just doubt it, and if it isn't "random" it will follow known laws of chemistry and physics.
I concur. At least insofar as we are talking about changes beginning at some point in the middle of the process and continuing to the present.
I suppose the matter of the "beginning of life" may not "follow known laws of chemistry and physics"- but, that is not a question that evolution purports to address, correct?
Evolution assumes life.
There are people studying chemical evolution, hoping to figure how life could have started, but this is a branch of biochemistry, not evolution.
A professor in Boulder here saves all the letters from the crackpots. When each new letter comes in, he writes a brief reply, "Thanks for writing, but, I'm not the expert in this field. May I humbly refer you to this person, who is" and then he gives the name and address of another crackpot who wrote him before. :-)
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