Here ya go, *two* of them:
Posted on 05/08/2003 10:11:06 AM PDT by Nebullis
Arlington, Va.—If the evolution of complex organisms were a road trip, then the simple country drives are what get you there. And sometimes even potholes along the way are important.
An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Michigan State University and the California Institute of Technology, with the help of powerful computers, has used a kind of artificial life, or ALife, to create a road map detailing the evolution of complex organisms, an old problem in biology.
In an article in the May 8 issue of the international journal Nature, Richard Lenski, Charles Ofria, Robert Pennock, and Christoph Adami report that the path to complex organisms is paved with a long series of simple functions, each unremarkable if viewed in isolation. "This project addresses a fundamental criticism of the theory of evolution, how complex functions arise from mutation and natural selection," said Sam Scheiner, program director in the division of environmental biology at the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funded the research through its Biocomplexity in the Environment initiative. "These simulations will help direct research on living systems and will provide understanding of the origins of biocomplexity."
Some mutations that cause damage in the short term ultimately become a positive force in the genetic pedigree of a complex organism. "The little things, they definitely count," said Lenski of Michigan State, the paper's lead author. "Our work allowed us to see how the most complex functions are built up from simpler and simpler functions. We also saw that some mutations looked like bad events when they happened, but turned out to be really important for the evolution of the population over a long period of time."
In the key phrase, "a long period of time," lies the magic of ALife. Lenski teamed up with Adami, a scientist at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ofria, a Michigan State computer scientist, to further explore ALife.
Pennock, a Michigan State philosopher, joined the team to study an artificial world inside a computer, a world in which computer programs take the place of living organisms. These computer programs go forth and multiply, they mutate and they adapt by natural selection.
The program, called Avida, is an artificial petri dish in which organisms not only reproduce, but also perform mathematical calculations to obtain rewards. Their reward is more computer time that they can use for making copies of themselves. Avida randomly adds mutations to the copies, thus spurring natural selection and evolution. The research team watched how these "bugs" adapted and evolved in different environments inside their artificial world.
Avida is the biologist's race car - a really souped up one. To watch the evolution of most living organisms would require thousands of years – without blinking. The digital bugs evolve at lightening speed, and they leave tracks for scientists to study.
"The cool thing is that we can trace the line of descent," Lenski said. "Out of a big population of organisms you can work back to see the pivotal mutations that really mattered during the evolutionary history of the population. The human mind can't sort through so much data, but we developed a tool to find these pivotal events."
There are no missing links with this technology.
Evolutionary theory sometimes struggles to explain the most complex features of organisms. Lenski uses the human eye as an example. It's obviously used for seeing, and it has all sorts of parts - like a lens that can be focused at different distances - that make it well suited for that use. But how did something so complicated as the eye come to be?
Since Charles Darwin, biologists have concluded that such features must have arisen through lots of intermediates and, moreover, that these intermediate structures may once have served different functions from what we see today. The crystalline proteins that make up the lens of the eye, for example, are related to those that serve enzymatic functions unrelated to vision. So, the theory goes, evolution borrowed an existing protein and used it for a new function.
"Over time," Lenski said, "an old structure could be tweaked here and there to improve it for its new function, and that's a lot easier than inventing something entirely new."
That's where ALife sheds light.
"Darwinian evolution is a process that doesn't specify exactly how the evolving information is coded," says Adami, who leads the Digital Life Laboratory at Caltech. "It affects DNA and computer code in much the same way, which allows us to study evolution in this electronic medium."
Many computer scientists and engineers are now using processes based on principles of genetics and evolution to solve complex problems, design working robots, and more. Ofria says that "we can then apply these concepts when trying to decide how best to solve computational problems."
"Evolutionary design," says Pennock, "can often solve problems better than we can using our own intelligence."
Yes, I've seen both. That is why I know they are different. The picture has 17 transistors, the schematic has 18. The pix has the input signal going to 3 transistors connected as diodes, another transistor, and a resistor to ground. The schematic has the input going first through a resistor(RSRC) then to a resistor(R14) to ground, to 6 transistors(Q10,Q5,Q6,Q11,Q15,Q7 -- Q15 is diode configured) and to another resistor(R10) to ground
Well, the jumping to conclusion, was not that the circuits were different, rather that they produced a better circuit and presented that. "I do not know why but they are different" is not jumping to a conclusion.
You want to play the numbers game? Well at least I have facts to suppor it:
Described recently as "the most important evolutionary event during the entire history of the Metazoa," the Cambrian explosion established virtually all the major animal body forms -- Bauplane or phyla -- that would exist thereafter, including many that were 'weeded out' and became extinct. Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100. The evolutionary innovation of the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary had clearly been extremely broad: "unprecedented and unsurpassed," as James Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, recently put it (Lewin, 1988).
The important point is that there were a lot. Even more important, there have not been any new animal phyla since the Cambrian (the last missing phyla known at present, vertebrates, were recently found. A fish, with eyes and very much looking like any fish around nowadays).
As for "arose during the Cambrian", you might want to show your research on *that*
Now you are really going off the deep end. Aside from sponges and perhaps worms there were no other multi-cellular animals before the Cambrian. In a mere period of less than 10 million years a multitude of completely new life forms appeared:
Taxa recognized as orders during the (Precambrian-Cambrian) transition chiefly appear without connection to an ancestral clade via a fossil intermediate. This situation is in fact true of most invertebrate orders during the remaining Phanerozoic as well. There are no chains of taxa leading gradually from an ancestral condition to the new ordinal body type. Orders thus appear as rather distinctive subdivisions of classes rather than as being segments in some sort of morphological continuum.
* Valentine, J.W., Awramik, S.M., Signor, P.W., and Sadler, P.M. (1991)
"The Biological Explosion at the Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary"
Evolutionary Biology, Vol. 25, Max K. Hecht, editor, Plenum Press, New York and London, p.284
Furthermore, you'll note that phyla Cnidaria most certainly arose *before* the Cambrian. So if you're aware of any evidence that *all* phyla demonstrably arose *during* the Cambrian, feel free to present it now.
I did not say that. I did say that no new animal phyla have arisen after the Cambrian and that there is no way that evolutionary ancestors can even be postulated for the vast majority of them. Since you admit that only ONE (1) multicellular phyla existed before the Cambrian, my statements are correct by your own admission.
Also let me note here that we are trying to discuss here scientific facts. This is not a personal issue, it is about the truth and the truth is that the Cambrian is totally unexplainable according to evolutionary theory and totally disproves it.
Wow, not only are you the only person on the planet who knows for sure *when* all the animal phyla arose, you know exactly *how quickly* they did so! You must be psychic! Or at least delusional.
As usual, instead of presenting facts showing me to be wrong, you instead insult. There are two reasons for this:
1. you hope to bluff your way out of a fact that contradicts your theory with bluster.
2. you are too lazy and too lame to look at the facts for yourself.
I am not too lazy or too lame to look up the facts, here is support for my statement from the University of Bristol site:
3 billion years went by before complex multicellular life appeared, but when it did it only took between 5 and 10 million years for all the basic body plans of the organisms we see around us today to be established. This is why the origin of multicellular life, in particular the metazoans or large animals with complex body plans, is termed the Cambrian explosion.
From: The Cambrian Explosion"
DNA analysis of modern phyla
You cannot measure a distance when all you know is the end point. DNA analysis of modern phyla cannot give us any such information because we do not know what the DNA of these organisms was some 500 million years ago. This is trying to prove evolution by assuming evolution which is total circular reasoning and total bunk.
As to the rest of your talk about the difficulty of dating strata and so forth, well, it seems to me that evolutionisits always tell us that dating techniques are very specific and can tell us almost what day of the week a new species arose (/sarcasm). The research and dating were done by mostly evolutionist paleontologists (are there any others?) so you cannot give us this dating nonsense as an excuse. Further, the vast majority of these new phyla, which by themselves represent the greatest example of the Cambrian, the Burgess Shale find, is in one place and all the fossils are close in time. It cannot be denied with your obfuscating tactics.
As I have said before, the evidence is so strong for the sudden arising of all these phyla, that the famous atheist/materialist/charlatan of evolution S.J. Gould gave up on Darwinian gradualism because of it.
For a thorough and up to date discussion on the Cambrian those interested might check out The Cambrian Explosion - Biology's Big Bang .
Kindly submit your proof of the actual tangible existence of a law of gravity, which does not employ the formulation of humans of said law. The law of gravity and God stand on equal footing, in terms of being, at bottom, manifestations of faith.
Thanks for proving my point again. Since gravity (to you) is a matter of belief, then perhaps you will be willing to jump off a 20 story building to prove that it is wrong? I doubt you are as foolish with your life as you are in your efforts to contradict anything an opponent says.
So you claim, once again, without the slightest hint of sensible evidence for your absurd contention that it all started with prokariotes.
No donh, it all started with God. It is you who is throwing around prokaryotes (bacteria). I could care less about them. You are in no way responding to my argument against evolution that fitness, due to what we know about organisms today, is a totally impossible agent for transforming a species into another. You yourself gave the reason why:
It's a truism of entomology (been demonstrated in sealed mason jars thousands of times) that when two nearly identical species occupy nearly the same contained biological nitche, one or the other will eventually prevail entirely, no matter how tiny its differential advantage.
1,012 posted on 05/09/2003 9:59 PM PDT by donh ).
Since even the slightest disadvantage will destroy a change, and it takes numerous changes to destroy a species, it is impossible for all of them to be beneficial, hence transformation of one species into another is impossible. Since is the only agent ever proposed for evolution sifting random changes and becoming a deux ex machina in its effort to replace God as the Creator of all things, evolution is thus rendered to be impossible.
Seems that is the new all purpose insult used by evolutionists at anyone who dares to debate them. Now it seems to me that it is the evolutionists, who insult in every post, refuse to answer questions, refuse to address the facts presented to them, refuse to back up their assertions, and gang up on opponents that are the true trolls of these threads.
Then how about giving us an example of a circuit that was not humanly designed? How about giving us an example of a circuit that assembled itself? How about showing us how a pile of garbage organized itself into a tv set, a car, an airplane?
Your materialist dreams are not evidence, facts, real life examples are what counts.
Here ya go, *two* of them:
That's because you don't understand it, to be blunt.
I've done genetic programming, and I can tell you for a fact that I didn't "guide" the process. In fact, I was sleeping when it came up with its results.
And no, "setting up the scenario" doesn't make the results "guided", any more than purposely putting a bucket in your back yard "guides" the rain to land in it.
Come back when you know enough about the topic to have something even approaching an informed opinion.
Seems that is the new all purpose insult used by evolutionists at anyone who dares to debate them.
No, it's only used against those who, through their repeated evasive dancing and seemingly purposefully antagonistic posts, do indeed appear to be trolling.
Like, for example, when you yourself dump a great load of inflammatory and transparently false nonsense such as:
Now it seems to me that it is the evolutionists, who insult in every post, refuse to answer questions, refuse to address the facts presented to them, refuse to back up their assertions, and gang up on opponents that are the true trolls of these threads.
Yeah. Right. Sure.
Don't you have any more useful hobbies?
No you didn't.
No "I" didn't, *what*? I didn't claim I *had* done anyting in the above discription. You made the request, someone else filled it, you blew it off. All I did was watch.
Trollish Behavior #15: Making weird non sequiturs to further confuse the discussion.
I have shown you that the circuit is not the one we have been talking about.
Trollish Behavior #16: Hairsplitting. So? The other, more documented circuit is still an example to be discussed, i.e. an evolutionary evolved circuit which exceeds the performance of the best human-designed one. And yet, rather than engage in a discussion about *that* one, you keep playing, "but it's not the same as the *first* one that was shown in a picture here, so I don't gotta talk about the other one, either..."
And, in anycase, I do not accept a paper only "assertion" (simulation) no more than I accepted your posted assertions.
Trollish Behavior 17: Nitpicking. Mathematical analysis of electronic circuits is good enough for human designers and the patent office, but it's not good enough for Andrew, who won't even discuss the implications of a circuit unless it can be "proven" that the hardware performance will equal the results of well-accepted industry-standard circuit simulators.
The rest of your garbage is not worthy of more than a glance.
Trollish Behavior #18: ...speaks for itself.
The SciAm article itself on the original evolved circuit pointed out The evolved circuit is clearly more complicated but also contains redundant parts, such as the purple transistor, that contribute nothing to its functioning.. The mentioned part is clearly unterminated.
Trollish Behavior #19: Nitpicking again.
Trollish Behavoir #20: Andrew's pretending that he wasn't specifically challenged to demonstrate that the "problem" he lists is actually as big a "problem" as he implies (i.e., one big enough to change the results in any meaningful way). That challenge again, lest he forget:
That's a nice speech, but you have failed to in any way demonstrate that the circuit in question rises to the level of having "unnecessary transistors floating around" (ooh, nicely specific, *cough*) to the point where it will "affect circuit performance" (another marvelously vague claim) at "high frequencies" (*how* high?) enough that it will, you vaguely imply, defeat the performance claimed by the authors. Stop playing word games, Troll. Demonstrate your implication, or admit you're just waving your hands. In your own words, this implication (it doesn't even rise to the level of a "claim") is still "hanging".
Trollish Behavior #21: Failing to respond to the challenge that he support his "it's important, really, I swear it" implication.
Trollish Behavior #22: Simply repeating his original unsupported gripe as if that somehow strengthens it in any way.
Solder 2 diodes back-to-back and see if you get a transistor.
Trollish Behavior #23: Twisting my words into a straw man version. I was speaking of, a transistor being internally constructed of "back-to-back diodes" (i.e., in a continuous mass of semiconductor), which is different from your new nonsense about "soldering" the leads of two diodes togther in series.
Troll yourself.
Trollish Behavior #24, playing "I know you are but what am I?"
Got anything better to add to the conversation? Oh, I know, how about actually addressing the implications of the research results instead of nit-picking every wild red herring you can think of as excuses for why you shouldn't have to?
The researchers appear to have topped their prior "personal best" and produced an even better circuit, which they presented in their later paper.As I've already pointed out, I didn't "jump" to what I thought was a "conclusion", I specifically labeled it as a speculation (thus the word "appear", as most children would have noticed).
However, contrary to Andrew's snideness, it turns out that my speculation was a good one after all. I emailed the authors of the articles in question (gee, why didn't anyone else think of that?), and asked them about the differing circuits in the two articles. Although he's in the midst of traveling at the current time, Matt Streeter was still kind enough to email me back. On that question, he responded:
We definitely ran the cubic problem twice and got different results, and some of the earlier publications have the earlier result. [...] The SciAm article I believe has the latest one, which is better (I believe about twice the accuracy of the patented circuit on our fitness cases, vs. comparable accuracy for the earlier result).So there you have it.
As for your unsupported implication that they had only used 2N3904 transistors in the high-frequency cubic function generator circuit, his reply is as follows:
We ran the cubic problem both with 2N3904/2N3906 and with higher-frequency transistors. I believe we got similar accuracy in both cases.Gosh, Andrew, the researchers were way ahead of you. Who'da thunk it? And it's not surprising that they got similar accuracy in both cases, since while the 2N3904 family of transisters is not recommended for amplifier use over 100MhZ, the same stat sheet you referred to earlier showed a chart of its frequency response, and it was shown as still pretty linear up into the gigahertz range.
i.e., bad mutations get weeded out.
and it takes numerous changes to destroy a species,
Which won't happen because they'll get weeded out before sufficiently "numerous" bad mutations can accumulate across the whole population and "destroy" the entire species (what is this, an Irwin Allen movie?)
it is impossible for all of them to be beneficial,
They don't "all" need to be.
hence transformation of one species into another is impossible
Flawed premises, flawed conclusion.
Needs work. A whole lot of work.
You have not done much of "anyting"[sic] but blather on about trolling. To top it all off, when I provide the evidence that completely bury your replies you call it nit-picking. Hilarious. Even more hilarious is your weaseling after accusing me of doing such.
First I say a transistor is in a sense two diodes back-to-back in response to your implication that I lied about knowing that a transistor could be used as a diode. I also provided the evidence that I knew that use of a transistor. You continue your attempt at a red herring and Ad Hominem thusly --Not only "in a sense", Troll, but in actuality.. Then after I call you on that by the using the example of soldering 2 diodes back-to-back (an actuality), you produce this Twisting my words into a straw man version. I was speaking of, a transistor being internally constructed of "back-to-back diodes" (i.e., in a continuous mass of semiconductor), which is different from your new nonsense about "soldering" the leads of two diodes togther in series.. Do you know what in a sense means? What a Maroon you are.
You made hyperbolic assertions. You did not provide evidence backing up those assertions. Your name-calling, red herring distractions indicate your complete lack of substance.
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