Debate with a scientist

[John Human]

Back in December and January, I had a debate with a scientist at a forum for medieval genealogists, where people routinely ridicule the thought of directly communicating with deceased ancestors. (For an explanation of communicating with ancestors, see https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/535187/com ... -ancestors)

Toward the end of December, a “scientist and engineer� appeared and initiated a debate. For the very first time, somebody actually tried to refute me instead of the usual fare of contempt and insults. This self-identified scientist made it very clear that he dismissed my lengthy stories from ancestors as hallucinations, because of his reductionist materialist presupposition that any such communication at a distance, without some sort of physical connection, was impossible.

“Reductionist materialism� is but one solution to the so-called mind-body problem that exercised natural philosophers (“scientists�) in the 17th and 1th centuries. Are mind and body two separate things? If so, which one is primary? An overview of the mind-body problem can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem

Reductionist materialism means that things like astrology or shamanism or channeling or communicating with ancestors get summarily dismissed as “hallucinations� or “superstition.�

The conclusion of the debate (because the scientist made a point of bowing out without offering any counter-argument) came on Jan. 7. Here is the essential part of what I wrote to the scientist:

You made it clear that you consider mind to be an epiphenomenon of neural activity in the brain, and you go on to say: “To me, the mind is a function of a living brain, meaning that they’re not distinct. In my opinion, there can be no mind without some form of complex structure, like a brain.�

In response to your opinion that there can be no mind without some form of complex structure, the obvious question is, why not? I am reminded of the New York Times declaring that a heavier-than-air flying machine was impossible. Your opinion seems to be unscientific, and serves to block skeptical inquiry. It would also seem to be rigidly atheistic (denying the possibility of a transcendent deity), as opposed to a healthy skepticism when approaching questions that appear to be unknowable. Your position regarding belief in witchcraft, denying that it has anything to do with “truth,� also seems to be arbitrarily rigid and unscientific, opposed to a spirit of skeptical inquiry. However, perhaps you wrote hastily and polemically, and perhaps in general you are able to keep an open mind regarding subjects where you are inclined to strongly doubt claims that violate your pre-existing suppositions about reality.

Please keep in mind that, regarding the mind/body problem, there used to be (and still are) several different approaches, as opposed to the mind-numbing reductionist materialist view that is overwhelmingly prevalent today in science departments. Perhaps Leibniz’s approach was the most esoteric, and he was a renowned scientist and mathematician (as well as a philosopher and diplomat). His view was routinely dismissed but never refuted (as far as I am aware), but Leibniz’s influence simply disappeared from universities after protracted tenure battles in the mid-eighteenth century. However, Leibniz’s view isn’t the only possibility. I am intrigued by the thought that both matter and consciousness are manifestations of something underlying, which is not inconsistent with my own view of reality.

It seems to me that reductionist materialism (your stated belief) fails to explain the all-important phenomenon of human creativity, as measured by our ability to reorganize our environment (as a result of scientific discovery and technological progress) to establish a potential population density orders of magnitude above that of a primitive hunter-gatherer society in the same geographical area. (There is an important corollary here: Once a human society exits the Stone Age and begins using metal as a basic part of the production of food and tools, in the long run we must continue to progress or collapse due to resource depletion, especially regarding the need for progressively more efficient sources of energy. And there is another corollary as well: As a society gets more technologically complex, the minimum area for measuring relative potential population density increases.)

Is this human capability explainable in terms of matter reorganizing itself in ever-more-complex fashion? If you answer “yes� to such a question, the subsidiary question is: how does matter organize itself in ever-more-complex ways (such as the creation of human brains that then come up with the technological breakthroughs and social organization to support ever-higher relative potential population densities)? Does random chance work for you as an answer to this question? If so, isn’t that an arbitrary (and therefore unscientific) theological supposition? Or do you see the inherent logic in positing some form of intelligent design (an argument as old as Plato)? If you accept the principle of intelligent design, it seems to me that, to be consistent, the reductionist materialist view would have to posit an immanent (as opposed to transcendent) intelligence, as with the Spinozistic pantheism that influenced Locke’s followers and arguably influenced Locke himself. But if you go in that direction, where is the “universal mind� that is guiding the formation of human brains capable of creative discovery, and how does it communicate with the matter that comprises such brains? The way I see things, both the “deification of random chance� argument and the supposition of an immanent “divine� creative force have insurmountable problems, leaving some sort of transcendent divinity as the default answer regarding the question of the efficient cause of human creativity, with the final cause being the imperative for humans to participate in the ongoing creation of the universe.

The forum thread where this originally appeared is here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... yqswb4d5WA

[mgb]

It is the same for jaw bone curves vs. eye socket curves. These develop the same in humans today because the process is defined by genes and gene expression, signaling proteins, etc. just like most other processes during development. There is no need for some intelligent designer to oversee the process. ToE is hugely supported by the observation that our relatives in the primate tree also have jaw bones and eye sockets that form during development the same way ours do. It is this passing down of "gene tweaking" as you call it across hundreds of thousands of generations and across species to produce similar processes within an entire taxonomic family that supports ToE, not the opposite. But your complaint seems to be with random mutations, not ToE.

I am not arguing that genes don't play a part. Of course they do. But how does it happen? You say "our relatives in the primate tree also have jaw bones and eye sockets". How does that explain anything? I am not disputing that evolution happens, it does, I am saying that scientists don't know how it happens. Yes they can observe it happening but that does not answer the questions.

It comes down to this; evolution is guided by intelligence or it is founded on chance events. I don't see any other alternative. Either it is guided or it is not. You haven't answered my question about how the skull forms. How do cells in the skull know what part of the skull they are in so they will form the correct curves?

Cells join together by electrostatic forces. What physically manipulates the cells into position so they will form the right curves? Where is the information that passes the curve from one generation to the next?

ToE doesn't care how these DNA changes occur, so you seem to be complaining about something that isn't ToE, but rather the mechanism of DNA change.

ToE says they are random - ie, not guided intelligently. Also, science has not shown that genes do all the things they are supposed to do eg. consider the questions above concerning the shape of the skull.

Growth and form require a vastly complex symphony of genes switching and protein production; genes must be switched on or off or partially on so the correct form will emerge. Where is this instruction set stored? There must be some kind of blueprint somewhere because skulls etc are the same for all human beings.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 111 by mgb]

I am not disputing that evolution happens, it does, I am saying that scientists don't know how it happens.

So is your argument that ToE is "has huge problems" (post 103) and "gaping holes" (post 106) because science can't yet answer every question about mechanisms? ToE doesn't specify the mechanisms for DNA changes, so it can't have "gaping holes" because science hasn't yet answered all questions on mechanisms. Again, it seems your complaint isn't with ToE, but with the mechanisms for DNA changes. That is a different discussion and does not suggest that ToE has gaping holes ... it suggests that complete understanding of the mechanisms for DNA changes may have gaping holes.

It comes down to this; evolution is guided by intelligence or it is founded on chance events.

Given those two choices, and the fact that things like gods have never been shown to exist, ever, in any form, I'll take chance events and natural selection. We know DNA changes occur, we know mutations, insertions, deletions, etc. happen. So we can positively say for certain that DNA changes happen routinely in living things. We know that most genes code for proteins by specifying the sequence of amino acids that make up the protein. If one base pair is substituted for another base pair (ie. a single point mutation) then a different protein is specified compared to the original protein. This new protein may result in some small improvement to a structure, or a function, etc. and therefore represent a beneficial mutation. It could result in a faulty protein as in sickle cell anemia. It may have no impact. These kinds of things have been quantified and observed many times, so I don't see how you can "scientists don't know how it happens." A copying error is how the example I just gave can happen. Insertions and deletions can happen the same way (ie. mistakes in the copying process).

You haven't answered my question about how the skull forms. How do cells in the skull know what part of the skull they are in so they will form the correct curves? Cells join together by electrostatic forces. What physically manipulates the cells into position so they will form the right curves? Where is the information that passes the curve from one generation to the next?

Growth and form require a vastly complex symphony of genes switching and protein production; genes must be switched on or off or partially on so the correct form will emerge. Where is this instruction set stored? There must be some kind of blueprint somewhere because skulls etc are the same for all human beings.

Again, I can only suggest you get a copy of Life Unfolding by Jamie Davies, or any similar book. A lot is known about exactly this subject that you seem to simply be unaware of. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 1 (pp 12-13):

"Distributed, circular control is by no means the only strange behavior of biological construction. Another feature that seems very alien, when viewed from the comfort zone of conventional engineering, is that biological molecules can assemble themselves into larger-scale structures, spontaneously, something that bricks and bolts never do. This process, which is of fundamental importance for the existence of life, is a little like the formation of crystals. Ordinary crystals, such as those grown by children with chemistry sets, form because their constituent molecules can bind to each other, typically, by attractions of small, local electric charges. Proteins also have patterns of intrinsic local electric charges, often in rather complex crevices or in projections from the main body of the protein. The arrangement of charges and the shape of the protein are properties that derive from the sequence of amino acids.. Sometimes, a protein has one kind of crevice at its front end, and a projection that fits that type of crevice at its back end, rather like a "Lego" brick. In that case, molecules of this protein can line up end to end to make a long, thin filament of indefinite length (Figure 5). More often, each protein can recognize binding sites only on another specific protein, or some other molecule, and not on itself. This means that it cannot form indefinite crystal-like threads with identical molecules, but instead binds only to a defined number of other proteins to make a multi-component complex of a defined structure. These complexes are very important in the cell because they act as tiny machines that can run complex chemical reactions or organize the assembly of structures that are too large and complicated to arrange themselves spontaneously. The gene-reading protein complexes already mentioned are an example.

This level of organization represented by protein complexes takes us to a very important boundary. The assembly of proteins into their complexes relies on information that resides only within proteins themselves ("information" being, in this case, synonymous with structure). It therefore belongs within the domain of chemistry and the result is always the same: reliable, reproducible, but inflexible (eg. relating your comment about skulls, etc. being the same for all humans). At larger scales, biological structures are more variable, their exact arrangements being adapted to circumstances. The overall shape of a cell, for example, is adapted to the space it must fill in a tissue. The arrangement of the connections it makes with neighboring cells must similarly be adapted to the location of the cells that surround it. These larger-scale structures cannot, therefore, be determined solely by the information contained in the chemical structure of their molecular components: extra information is needed. This transition, between internally determined structure and structure that is regulated by external information as well, takes us across a boundary from pure chemistry to the realm of biology. In biological systems, layers of regulation are added to chemical self assembly to produce systems that organize structures adapted to circumstance and need. This is where the concept of adaptive self-organization, mentioned earlier, becomes important. Adaptive self-organization turns out to be the key to explaining how a few thousand genes and proteins, none of which can possibly hold any concept, in any language, of the structure and function of the human body, can nevertheless organize themselves to build one. It stands in marked contrast to the way that engineering projects use external agents, such as workmen or robots, to assemble components together in the right way. The following chapters will illustrate how adaptive self-organization is critical to human development, at levels ranging from self-organization of molecules within a single cell to the large-scale construction of complex tissues."

The book is full of detailed descriptions of exactly the kind of thing you are referring to (ie. how genes do the things they are supposed to do to build things like skulls and jawbones, and how this is done without any "blueprint" or stored instruction set). If you really want to know more about how the whole process works, read a book like this which describes it in far more detail than I can do justice for here.

[mgb]

The subset of useful genes/proteins are infinitesimal compared to all possibilities. So how are these genes selected? 'Natural Selection' they say but how do these genes arise in the first place given that almost all proteins will have a detremental effect? How can the shape of a skull emerge when almost all mutations will mitigate against such a form emerging? A survival advantage would require not one change but a whole set of very precise mutations that work together and compliment each other. How do you get such a set if you depend on random events? Let's say you need 10 mutations to get a survival advantage. Number these as #1, #2, #3, ...#10

Let's say you randomly get #3. Ok, you have a start. How many generations would it take to get another? 500? 1000? Let's be generous and say 100 generations.

So, after 100 generations you get #8. Now you have #3 and #8. Things are looking good.

After another 100 generations you get #5 but #3 is gone because useless mutations fade away. So you now have #5 and #8.

After another 100 generations you get #7 but now #5 and #3 are gone. So now you have #7.

Next time round #8 comes back but #7 is gone.

Then #8 goes.

Now you have nothing. This is like trying to write a novel while someone keeps stealing the pages you have written. How would it ever get finished?

The piece you quoted describes what is happening but description is not explanation. It is not possible to randomly construct a skull let alone a human being. So how are these forms emerging if randomness won't do it?

Scientists rightly argue that what is happening is purely natural; molecules are doing what they do naturally (as far as we can tell) but that does not tell us anything about how forms emerge. If an organism is intelligently designed of course it will be a natural entity and its molecules will do what they do naturally. I would not expect scientists to be able to observe unnatural activity but that does not mean there is no intelligence involved; intelligence need only work with natural forces. If someone builds a computer and a scientist comes along and examines the computer he will not find the computers atoms and molecules doing anything unnatural; the computer will operate in accordance with the laws of nature but that does not mean it is not intelligently designed. This is why the piece you posted does nothing to answer the question. That piece is just describing what is happening and is saying, implicitly, that nature is doing what it does. But that is not in question. The question is why is nature doing this particular thing?. Where does all this organization come from? Random don't cut if for me and the argument that molecules are just doing what they do (so there's 'no need for intelligence') doesn't answer the question about why nature is doing this particular thing which is so complex it is the least likely thing it will do, by itself.

[mgb]

Listen to what he says-

In biological systems, layers of regulation are added to chemical self assembly to produce systems that organize structures adapted to circumstance and need. This is where the concept of adaptive self-organization, mentioned earlier, becomes important. Adaptive self-organization turns out to be the key to explaining how a few thousand genes and proteins, none of which can possibly hold any concept, in any language, of the structure and function of the human body, can nevertheless organize themselves to build one. It stands in marked contrast to the way that engineering projects use external agents, such as workmen or robots, to assemble components together in the right way. The following chapters will illustrate how adaptive self-organization is critical to human development, at levels ranging from self-organization of molecules within a single cell to the large-scale construction of complex tissues.

All he is really doing is describing what is happening: "a few thousand genes and proteins...can nevertheless organize themselves to build [a body]."

Ok, they build a body. How do they 'organize' themselves into skulls etc? All he is saying is 'it happens'. It does not matter how much detail he goes into he is still only describing what is happening. Where did the skull shape come from in the first place? Why a skull? How does such a functional entity emerge? Why is everything fitting into place in such a precise way?

The more I read of these descriptions the more convinced I am that there is intelligence in there somewhere. The essential question is not about what proteins are doing it is about why they are doing this particular thing.: they are constructing bodies but you won't find a map of a body in a gene or protein so where does the body come from?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 113 by mgb]

A survival advantage would require not one change but a whole set of very precise mutations that work together and compliment each other. How do you get such a set if you depend on random events?

Look at the finch example I gave earlier for obtaining longer beak size in a population. That didn't require any new mutations or"random events" at all ... natural selection created the population with larger beaks because this trait was already in the population in the wings of the normal distribution of beak lengths. The new food source required a longer beak to reach, so the birds with longer beaks already in the population eventually dominated as they had higher survival and reproduction rates, so their (already existing) genes for longer beak length became dominant in the population. Now imagine a hurricane comes along and wipes out 90% of the finches and 90% of the food sources on the island. Some of those finches within the remaining population may have some trait already in the population in the wings of the distribution (eg. bigger feet, or larger wings, or ???) that would help their survival in the new environment. Now after a few hundred generations you have a new population of finches that have large beaks as well as, eg. bigger wings. Repeat this process for 100 million years and you may end up with blue-footed boobies or some other new species of bird.

Note that this entire process required no new genes or mutations to appear ... natural selection "selected" from among the already-existing traits which conferred an advantage, and as those groups were able to outreproduce the others they became dominant. This kind of process, over enough time, can explain a lot of the diversity we see today. But there are various beneficial mutations or other DNA changes that also work. Take the transition from fish to amphibian. A mutation that created a new protein in fins that made them stiffer (such a mutation may require on a single point mutation ... one base pair swapped for another) would have benefitted a fish having to "walk" between drying up tidal pools (there are fish today who do this). Eventually those fins became legs and we can follow this via the fossil record in the transition from fish to amphibians.

The tetrapod body form first appeared some 400 million years ago.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibra ... vograms_04

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_tetrapods

This is a bat skeleton:

http://www.ikonet.com/en/visualdictiona ... -a-bat.php

Doesn't that look awfully like another tetrapod mammal's skeleton (a human) with different dimensions? Surely you can appreciate that this basic tetrapod form appeared gradually and was not built from some organism that had a series of purely random mutations that accidentally built a skull from nothing (as you seem to be suggesting). Brains evolved from ganglia, skeletons evolved from cartilage, etc. The process has taken literally billions of years (with a b).

It is not possible to randomly construct a skull let alone a human being. So how are these forms emerging if randomness won't do it?

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding how ToE works. You can't start with a modern animal like a complicated human being and ask how that could come about via purely random events with no other input (such as natural selection). This is what you are doing, but you have to start with the first, likely single-cell, much simpler organisms (no skull, or jawbones, or eyes, or a brain, etc.) and follow those over some 4 billion years to see how modern tetrapods came about. The process was not a series of purely random events (mutations, etc.) that accidently created a human being by pure dumb luck.

I'll recommend another book called the Ancestor's Tale by Dawkins. Ignoring whether you believe his position on gods, etc., he is a biologist and did a good job in this book of working backwards from modern humans to trace back our ancestry all the way to some population of single-celled organisms. Of course, the farther back you go the more detail is missing, and we don't know exactly what the first organisms were, but we have plenty of evidence to suggest that Earth was teaming with single-celled organisms as the only forms of life for some 3 billion years or so. Then simple multicellular organisms starting appearing about 1 billion years ago. But when asking how modern animals came about via evolution you have to start not with a fully-formed human or other tetrapod, but with a far simpler single-celled organism.

Once you have this first population of simple, single-celled organisms, ToE describes how the subsequent diversity in life forms developed. There were millions of species along the path from the first single-celled organisms to modern animals (99% or more which are extinct ... how is that explained by an "intelligent" designer?). This path is documented in countless books and papers published over the last century, but Dawkin's book is a simple overview. It is much easier to see how it happened if you look at the entire 4 billion year process, rather than starting with a modern human and thinking that came about through purely random, blind chance. That is not at all what ToE says.

Another thing you are ignoring is sexual selection. Darwin wrote an entire book on it. This also influences development, sometimes significantly. The peacock tail is the most common example. Peahens won't mate with a male peacock who doesn't have a large tail, with lots of "eyes" (dots). If you are a peacock with a small tail (by an accident of birth, but with genetics already in the population) your chance of mating is about zero and your genes for a small tail won't get passed on. Haram societies generally have males that are much larger than the females because the simple rule there is whichever male can beat up the other males wins the females, and his genes are passed on. Since winning physical fights generally means a larger, stronger animal, the males end up over time being much larger than the females, and this is driven by sexual behavior. Lots of other examples, but this is another example of evolutionary change that does not require new genes or mutations to appear ... selection is made from the distribution of traits that is already there. Natural selection at work.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 114 by mgb]

The more I read of these descriptions the more convinced I am that there is intelligence in there somewhere. The essential question is not about what proteins are doing it is about why they are doing this particular thing.: they are constructing bodies but you won't find a map of a body in a gene or protein so where does the body come from?

I was typing my previous reply when this came in, but you seem to be missing the point about gradual development over very long periods of time. Features develop not only from mutations or DNA changes, but natural selection operating on existing traits within a distribution, as with the finch beak lengths, peacock tails, etc. The body doesn't "come from" anything. Various body shapes and components have evolved over time according to the environment, mating habits, etc. that were present. Fish evolved into amphibians when it was necessary to spend more time on land. Lungs developed, then reptiles, then mammals, etc.

All ToE says is that these various body forms evolved gradually over long periods of time through small changes that accumulated into substantial changes. There certainly are cases where mutations or other DNA changes may create more sudden physical change (sudden being hundreds of generations rather than thousands or millions), but you seem to have this idea that body forms are somehow designed beforehand so must "come from something." That is not how it works. There is no blueprint or plan. Just look at all the different ways eyes have evolved, and their different forms. If there was a "designer", why was it necessary to "invent" all of these different kinds of eyes?

[mgb]

Look at the finch example I gave earlier for obtaining longer beak size in a population. That didn't require any new mutations or"random events" at all ... natural selection created the population with larger beaks

Yes, that is all very well and I can see how N.S. would select these birds. No problem there. But bigger beaks are just more of the same; more beak. Likewise with mammals that have longer hair and can withstand the cold better; more of the same. More hair. But evolution is not just more of the same. A ball and socket joint is not just more bone, it is a very specific design that requires a geometric construction. This is what evoluting is really about. It is about highly sophisticated structures that are very finely designed to integrate with each other. More of the same doesn't explain it.

Whether the changes are genetic or not, there must be some factor that makes the change. In a system with incremental changes + N.S. it is not likely that sophisticated forms will emerge. Why? because the potential for change is vast. Just consider how many possible bone shapes there are. How many are there? Quadrillions, at least. That means there are quadrillions of possible changes. So how do useful changes emerge when so many are useless? What use is a lump on top of the skull? Or a hole in the skull? How many different shaped lumps and holes can there be?* And most are useless. So how does this microscopic subset of useful changes emerge? I accept what you say about N.S. taking advantage of the change once it occurs but it must occur before N.S. has anything to work with and when it comes to complex geometric structures - like the ball and socket - how many attempts and bone alterations would there have to be before that shape emerges? At 4 different locations in the body? Get a computer to make 2D lines, randomly, and see how long it take for a ball and socket to emerge. Nothing remotely resembling a ball and socket will emerge for a very long time. But evolution has not had a very long time to make everything. The 550 million years since the Cambrian Explosion are only a hill of beans compared to what we are talking about and most modern life dates only from the Cambrian Explosion. If you take the average generation to be 10 years that makes only 55 million generations. That is not a lot.

*We got two holes in the back of our eye sockets so the optic nerve can pass through. So what were optic nerves doing before the holes were there?! Or if the holes came first what use were they? It seems that both emerged at the same time and both compliment each other very nicely. But what are the chances of the optic nerve and the holes evolving at the same time?

This is another problem that makes the whole system unlikely without intelligence; these systems evolve together, hand in glove, and work together in a precise and seamless way. The whole organism evolves as a set of systems integrating with each other. What are the chances of all these systems evolving simultaneously? Amidst quadrillions of useless mutations/changes getting in the way? The numbers just don't add up.

I know ToE, at least to a point, is logical but logical is not the same as true because logic and truth are not the same thing. Logically, if there are random changes and there is some kind of selection mechanism something should emerge. That is logical but that does not mean that is the way it happened because the bogey here is 'random' or simply 'natural' or 'automatic'. None of these words cut it for me.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 117 by mgb]

But bigger beaks are just more of the same; more beak.

And stiffer fins are just more fin ... until the changes reach a level where we call them legs. Look again at the bat skeleton. Their "finger" bones are separated just like a human or chimp, but the space between them is filled with the covering that makes a wing structure. Same basic skeleton, different "skin", and this provides a completely different function so instead of being able to grip things with a hand they have a functional wing that can't grip like fingers can.

Would you say that a bat's wing is just "more hand? What about an amphibian's legs ... are they just "more fin", or is it a structure modified enough via slow changes over time to the point it is a a new structure called a leg?

A ball and socket joint is not just more bone, it is a very specific design that requires a geometric construction. This is what evoluting is really about. It is about highly sophisticated structures that are very finely designed to integrate with each other. More of the same doesn't explain it.

Why not. What degree of change do you require to call something "more of the same" vs. "something new"? If you follow the sequence from simple light sensitive molecules, to an eye path, to a cupped light path (directional sensitivity) all the way to a modern eye, where along the line do you say that the resulting structure is more of the same, or something new?

Why? because the potential for change is vast. Just consider how many possible bone shapes there are. How many are there? Quadrillions, at least. That means there are quadrillions of possible changes. So how do useful changes emerge when so many are useless? What use is a lump on top of the skull? Or a hole in the skull?

You're describing the process as if only purely random changes among the total statistically possible number of changes must happen in the "right direction" before anything useful can happen. That is not how it works. Things build on themselves gradually with natural selection working along the way, and in many (most?) cases no new "lucky" mutations are needed. In the case of evolution from light sensitive molecules to eyes, each small step need only confer a tiny advantage in some way, and this may be exactly like the finch beak where the specific trait was already in the gene distribution. Mutations or other DNA changes may speed up the process, but even without those complex structures can be formed.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _to_Evolve

I accept what you say about N.S. taking advantage of the change once it occurs but it must occur before N.S. has anything to work with and when it comes to complex geometric structures - like the ball and socket - how many attempts and bone alterations would there have to be before that shape emerges?

Well, in the example of the finch beaks there was no new change needed. Genes for larger beaks was already in the distribution of beak sizes and natural selection just selected for those due to a different food source. But again, this isn't some completely random walk through statistical possibility space in the hope that some beneficial mutation pops up. If that happens things can happen much faster, and there are no doubt many examples where this is the case, but you are looking at the total universe of statistical possibilities and assuming that all of those options are on the table and so we should see all of them represented. But the complex structure that is built must have some useful function in the organism or we never see it. Significant changes in organisms can take from hundreds of generations to millions depending on many factors (environment, predators, mutations, breeding behavior and sexual selection, etc.). Those that require a "lucky" DNA change may take a lot longer than those driven by natural selection acting on existing traits as in the finch beaks. But there is no reason to expect the full statistical space of possible changes to have to occur until some lucky event causes a ball and socket joint. Small changes in that direction, driven by natural selection, builds these structures according to their function and benefit to the organism.

*We got two holes in the back of our eye sockets so the optic nerve can pass through.

We also have eyes designed for night use and are not the "best" design for daytime sight. Why would an intelligent designer do that? It makes perfect sense when you consider that mammalian eyes evolved for primarily nighttime use when they were competing with dinosaurs who "owned" the daytime. But it would not be designed this way from scratch:

https://thehumanevolutionblog.com/2015/ ... human-eye/

What are the chances of all these systems evolving simultaneously? Amidst quadrillions of useless mutations/changes getting in the way? The numbers just don't add up.

Because they work together and are synergistic. The big problem I have with an intelligent designer is simply that no such being or creature has ever been shown to exist ... not even one of the thousands that humans have invented in their minds. At least ToE provides a rational explanation that is supported by the fossil record and genetics work at least at the basic level of the main processes involved. An imaginary "creator" of some sort that has never been seen, and comes in all kinds of flavors (pick your religion) many of which are mutually exclusive, doesn't explain anything.

[mgb]

but you are looking at the total universe of statistical possibilities and assuming that all of those options are on the table and so we should see all of them represented. But the complex structure that is built must have some useful function in the organism or we never see it.

I'm not saying all of them should be represented. I am saying that if a useful change - for example in the shape of a bone - is possible all the useless changes must be possible too. So how does evolution come up with the useful changes when there are so many useless ones that can happen? The only way useful changes can become more likely is if evolution is guided.

Because they work together and are synergistic. The big problem I have with an intelligent designer is simply that no such being or creature has ever been shown to exist ... not even one of the thousands that humans have invented in their minds. At least ToE provides a rational explanation that is supported by the fossil record and genetics work at least at the basic level of the main processes involved. An imaginary "creator" of some sort that has never been seen, and comes in all kinds of flavors (pick your religion) many of which are mutually exclusive, doesn't explain anything.

ToE shows a process in action but it can't answer the question I am asking; why is the dice loaded in favour of useful changes?

There is something very mysterious happing in evolution and until this is solved nothing is really understood properly.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 119 by mgb]

I'm not saying all of them should be represented. I am saying that if a useful change - for example in the shape of a bone - is possible all the useless changes must be possible too. So how does evolution come up with the useful changes when there are so many useless ones that can happen? The only way useful changes can become more likely is if evolution is guided.

Sure ... all the useless changes are possible too. But since they serve no useful function they don't make it into structures. There may be 1000 (or 100,000, or ???) useless changes for every 1 useful one, but when that useful one comes along it remains simply because it is useful. Evolution doesn't "come up" with changes due to any predetermined plan or blueprint ... natural selection just says that the changes that are useful hang around, and many small, successive useful changes can build complex structures like eyes, knee joints, etc.

And again... no DNA changes may be necessary for this process to proceed (like the finch beaks). If there are existing genes for a trait or feature already in the genome, but expressed in only a small portion of the population, natural selection can make that trait dominant if it provides an advantage to survival and reproduction rates due to some change in environment, predator scenario, etc.. It isn't like evolution is trying to build anything specific, and getting there through completely random tries. There are fish living in dark caves that have lost eyes they once had because they no longer serve a purpose and over many generations they slowly went away. An example of evolution producing a decrease in complexity, and adaptation to the environment that is present for the organism.

ToE shows a process in action but it can't answer the question I am asking; why is the dice loaded in favour of useful changes?

Simply because they ARE useful. We don't see the inconsequential changes, which are probably a lot more numerous, because they don't make it into useful structures or functions.