Then how can we account for butterflies that mimic wing coloration Of toxic counterparts to ward off birds.Evolution is not blind, we just have not figured out the feedback mechanism yet, most likely its some kind of genetic memory.
The article isn't saying there is no adaptation; obviously there is and we have evidence for much of it. But where we don't have evidence, we need to assume a null hypothesis of no selection. This might sound obvious to outsiders, but unfortunately it often needs to be pointed out to many biologists (who of course should know better).
Then how can we account for butterflies that mimic wing coloration Of toxic counterparts to ward off birds.Evolution is not blind, we just have not figured out the feedback mechanism yet, most likely its some kind of genetic memory.
$living_thing with $property (wing coloration) isn't dead before reproduction happens, $property may be kept in the offsprings. $living_thing with $property (wing coloration) is dead before reproduction happens, $property may not be transmitted to the offsprings. It's a simple enough concept at its core. Then comes the complications of mutations, random this and that.
Evolutionary theory is uncannily similar to the Hebrew tetragrammaton, which is often translated into English as "I am that I am". But digging in, you will find that it is the verb "to be" in both perfect (now) and imperfect (past/future) tenses. It means something like "That which is now in a way consistent with that which has been and will be". To me, that's evolution. This is a reconciliation of philosophy and spi…
> It means something like "That which is now in a way consistent with that which has been and will be". To me, that's evolution.
Could you elaborate on why you see that as reflecting evolution? To me, being consistent with past and future means stasis and would preclude the evolution of such diverse lifeforms as we see today.
Then how can we account for butterflies that mimic wing coloration Of toxic counterparts to ward off birds.Evolution is not blind, we just have not figured out the feedback mechanism yet, most likely its some kind of genetic memory.
> Evolution is not blind
what is your evidence for this claim?
when you say "how can we account for butterflies that mimic wing coloration Of toxic counterparts to ward off birds" there's no reason to suppose the development of that would need to be directed.
Then how can we account for butterflies that mimic wing coloration Of toxic counterparts to ward off birds.Evolution is not blind, we just have not figured out the feedback mechanism yet, most likely its some kind of genetic memory.
Evolutionary theory is uncannily similar to the Hebrew tetragrammaton, which is often translated into English as "I am that I am". But digging in, you will find that it is the verb "to be" in both perfect (now) and imperfect (past/future) tenses. It means something like "That which is now in a way consistent with that which has been and will be". To me, that's evolution. This is a reconciliation of philosophy and spi…
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that evolution is a tautological collapse of the "why" in "why do we exist". Let me explain: evolution is a massive, groping search in the ultrahigh dimensional space of possible organisms, one that is solving for fitness by literally obliterating less fit entities from existence. So fitness is actually just "what is good at existing", which, given enough iterations,…
> evolution is a massive, groping search
It's not a search. There is no goal, no searcher, and nothing to find. The word evolution was chosen deliberately in its meaning of a dynamical system moving through state space. Not searching: just evolving.
It sounds like you are reading to deeply into things that have simpler explanations. Which is the point of the article, sometimes there is no real explanation other than it just happened that way. Sort of like how driving on the left or right side of the road started as a competently arbitrary choice, but now the rules are generally fixed in a given area. However, I might not be getting your point.
Okay, I've definitely been "guilty" of reading deeply into things that have simple explanations. That's cause I'm curious and I love trying to understand things! Whether or not I've dug "too deep" is feeling pretty close to a value judgement of something that's totally relative to one's point of view. So I'll leave that alone. > However, I might not be getting your point. If you weren't, it wasn't your fault, it's mo…
This is often a tight-rope conversation in public. I live close to Creation Museum, and regularly have to stop myself from verbally accosting my family for occasionally wanting to "just check it out". I'll die before I give that monument to ignorance my money. But every once in awhile I dare to walk the tight-rope when it's brought up on social media or in conversation. People come armed with points they want to fire off when the debate is on, they don't like curve balls that derail their momentum. When I try to share my view of evolution as a remarkably brilliant plan for life that formed a conscious mind all the way from a few molecules rolling into place, one side has their head buried in how and the other why. If there's something greater than us in this universe, a master clocksmith setting events in motion, watching from outside time, I find it disrespectful to deny and mock it's work. It also seems studying and understanding it's work to be one of the greatest endeavors a person could put themselves to. If I'm wrong, and all existence is happenstance, then I hope my silly view of the world didn't hurt anyone.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that evolution is a tautological collapse of the "why" in "why do we exist". Let me explain: evolution is a massive, groping search in the ultrahigh dimensional space of possible organisms, one that is solving for fitness by literally obliterating less fit entities from existence. So fitness is actually just "what is good at existing", which, given enough iterations,…
> evolution is a massive, groping search It's not a search. There is no goal, no searcher, and nothing to find. The word evolution was chosen deliberately in its meaning of a dynamical system moving through state space. Not searching: just evolving.
While Evolution clearly doesn't have any "goal" I wonder if we can say that it directs to the goal that is constantly changing (that is, a goal only known once some organism is there)?
> evolution is a massive, groping search It's not a search. There is no goal, no searcher, and nothing to find. The word evolution was chosen deliberately in its meaning of a dynamical system moving through state space. Not searching: just evolving.
While Evolution clearly doesn't have any "goal" I wonder if we can say that it directs to the goal that is constantly changing (that is, a goal only known once some organism is there)?
No, you can't. There is no look ahead at all. No gradients are available to measure. Without looking ahead, the notion of a goal is meaningless.
In this talk touches upon an interesting hypothesis that the purpose of junk DNA might be evolvability : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcD_L6_iBLU The idea is basically that junk DNA contains a memory in shape of a distributed representation of the past of the organism and its environment, akin to how neural networks encode information. It basically provides a basis for fast adaptability by introducing noise into t…
You're looking for purpose, but as the article states at the outset, don't ask 'what is this for'; ask 'how has this sequence evolved?'. 90% of our genome is unconserved, meaning that it is not under selection. Most of this consists of dead viruses and mobile elements. Such DNA was present for its own purposes while it was active but is long since dead. A tiny proportion of this junk is later co-opted by the host org…
But the null-hypothesis remains that it is junk. The hypothesis is that it is not junk, borrowing evidence from neural networks in which (1) things that look like noise are actually distributed representations and (2) in which noise improves robustness and facilitates exploration. This evidence is possibly transferable because both processes, neural network training and evolution can be formalized as a high-dimensional optimization problem (one being informed by gradient information while the other just randomly mutates and exploits ensemble effects of recombination).