Indeed evolutionists have been implying that the future can cut the chances of something occurring in the past.
Nonsense, but keep believing that if it gives you some strange kind of satisfaction.
This is the basic argument of natural selection as well as the new argument of pathways.
Gosh, biologists must have "missed" that aspect of natural selection over the past 150 years, perhaps you could go explain it to them.
I am glad you realize that such arguments are silly like I do.
Indeed, since they're *your* arguments.
The future cannot in any way make what happens in the past more likely.
Bravo. Here's a cookie. (There's hope for Gore yet!)
In the same way selection cannot cut down the tries that must occur for a favorable outcome
Actually it can, because that involves altering the *future* (by changing *current* conditions which have future implications), not the *past*.
Selection can indeed "cut down the tries that must occur for a favorable outcome" because it works like this:
random change -> select -> random change -> select -> random change -> select (etc.)In this way, each selection pass "improves the field" so that *later* random changes have more to build on than they would have without selection. This drastically reduces the number of "tries" necessary. Any number of evolutionary simulations (and mathematical analyses) prove this quite clearly. Selection is a very efficient reducer of effort.
For example, if your computer were to just try random strings of 27 letters until it lucked upon the string, "Methinks it is like a weasel", your computer would literally rust away before it got lucky (there are 2,042,911,512,229,885,603,274,215,297,897,150,684,236,521,591,013,376 possible strings of that length). HOWEVER, if you use selection to preferentially retain the random strings that were closer to the favorable outcome (than other attempts in the pool) before each new random change, your computer would find the Shakespeare quote in *seconds*. Try it for yourself here.
Selection *does* hugely decrease the number of trials necessary -- whether you understand it or not.
In fact the pathway idea is a contradiction of what evolution has been saying for 150 years.
No, it isn't.
Evolution has been claiming that from one species we have gotten numerous diverse species.
Yup.
The idea of pathways is that it constrains the variety of species in the future
Yeah, so? This in no way contradicts the statement that "from one species we have gotten numerous diverse species".
and therefore is totally contrary to what evolution has been saying.
Nope. Partially constraining the paths that evolution can (or is more likely to) follow in no way prevents it from producing new species. In fact, it may *help*, depending on whether the likely/unlikely pathways are more/less likely to produce "good" evolutionary results.
Even more important it contradicts the known facts. If one is to say that a certain type arose some 500 million years ago as we have been discussing then it would preclude the arising of vastly different types from that original in the future.
I sure wish you'd make sense. No, it doesn't preclude that at all.
The first vertebrates were certainly fish.
No they weren't, but thanks for playing. The first vertebrate were simple wormlike creatures.
If the pathways idea were correct, then all that we would have nowadays would be different kinds of fish but certainly we would not have had reptiles, dinosaurs or mammals because of the constraints set by the supposed pathways.
Where on *earth* do you get the bizarre notion that just because *some* evolutionary pathways might be more/less likely than others, that there would remain only *ONE* possible path? You've grossly misunderstood the entire discussion.
The "paths" analysis simply says, "not all possible outcomes are equally likely, some are more likely to occur than others (and a few may be impossible to achieve)".
It does *NOT* say, "there's only one road, period, end of story, all others are locked out", as you try to make it say.
So clearly evolutionists have realized that intelligent design has posed serious questions to evolution and in desperation they are contradicting their own theory.
So "clearly" your non sequitur conclusion does not follow. Not only does it not follow from what he was *actually* saying, it doesn't even follow from your own misunderstanding of it.
random change -> select -> random change -> select -> random change -> select (etc.)
The above is a fallacy similar to the gambler's fallacy. Let's say one is trying to change a gene with 300 bit pairs and one needs 5 mutations to achieve a favorable outcome. The first try has one in 4^300 chances (1.15 10^180). The 2nd would have the same chances as would the 3rd 4th and 5th they would not have 1 in 4^299, 4^298, 4^297, and 4^296 chances because random processes have no memory.
However this is the problem for evolution - the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and fifth tries may very well replace the first change. The problem is even more complicated than that in actuality. Mutations in the wrong place will be harmful and destroy the organism. Therefore, aside from the 5 which will be beneficial, the others changes which are likely to happen due to the randomness of the process would most likely be destructive and thereby the whole process would have to start over again. This is one of the many reasons for the total impossibility of evolution.