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The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

nautil.us

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Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#21

Post by Retra »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #20
pcunite wrote: post #2

A quote from the article: "You don’t have to be a benighted creationist ..." Can we please keep these type of articles off HN please? I don’t come here to be insulted. I have other sites for that! Sir Isaac Newton was not a simple nor stupid man and he gave honor to the Creator. Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence. A whole lot of reasons for what allowed the Internet, HN, science…

I half agree with you. I do think that the language used to describe religious viewpoints includes off the cuff insults far too often. The word benighted was unnecessary in that sentence and does detract from the article. I don't think it was egregious enough to demand the article not be posted, but I do agree that it is a form of philosophical point scoring that serves neither the article, nor the wider discussion.…

Ignoring the argument in order to preach "nice makes right" also detracts from the argument...

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#22

Post by abecedarius »

woodchuck64 wrote: post #12

"Evolution need only take a random walk along a web of neutral (or at least almost neutral) mutations, that, without impairing the fitness of an organism, surrounds it with very different neighbors: innovative solutions to selective pressures that are there for the taking when the circumstances compel it." Wow, that starts to explain the amazing creativity of rapid evolution (like whale evolution in 10 million years)…

Gerry Sussman's http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6.945/readings/rob... has some related ideas.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#23

Post by lotsofmangos »

Retra wrote: post #21
lotsofmangos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I half agree with you. I do think that the language used to describe religious viewpoints includes off the cuff insults far too often. The word benighted was unnecessary in that sentence and does detract from the article. I don't think it was egregious enough to demand the article not be posted, but I do agree that it is a form of philosophical point scoring that serves neither the article, nor the wider discussion.…

Ignoring the argument in order to preach "nice makes right" also detracts from the argument...

I am not sure that describing creationists to be in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance is anything to do with the argument presented by the article.

Also, I was not addressing the article, I was addressing the comment of pcunite and their problem with the language used in one particular sentence, which is something I partly agree with and is nothing whatsoever to do with the accuracy of the article itself.

If someone tries to teach children maths by telling them "listen up idiots, two plus two is four", and I pick them up for their use of language, it has no real bearing on my view of the usefulness of learning addition.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#24

Post by Xcelerate »

Wow, this was a very good article (I don't often say that).

I have long had a rather uncomfortable feeling about this idea that many chance mutations eventually produce some that are close to some objective function -- for essentially the same reason given in the article. There's just too many combinatorial possibilities to explore in the rather small time that the universe has been around (I mean, we're comparing like 10^50 to like 10^(10^(...)) here).

But this makes a lot of sense to me. Essentially what he's saying is that input sequences (vectors) pass through some kind of surjective mapping into a lower dimensional space of "networks" (I'll just call them a different space of vectors).

If I had to guess (and this is purely speculation here), this is probably due to some symmetry property.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#26

Post by Retra »

Rexxar wrote: post #9
shasta wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big question of science is "Why...?" The big question of religion is "Who...?"

I disagree here. For example, relativity and quantum mechanics explain how our world behave but we have no idea why these theories are true or even why can the universe be described with mathematical equations ?

I suppose religion will tell you why those things are true?

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#27

Post by Dewie3 »

pcunite wrote: post #2

A quote from the article: "You don’t have to be a benighted creationist ..." Can we please keep these type of articles off HN please? I don’t come here to be insulted. I have other sites for that! Sir Isaac Newton was not a simple nor stupid man and he gave honor to the Creator. Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence. A whole lot of reasons for what allowed the Internet, HN, science…

> A whole lot of reasons for what allowed the Internet, HN, science, and technology to be where it is at today came out of a nation (silly apparently to the writer) which put "In God We Trust" on everything.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day - imagine then how often a collective of 300 million of those are correct! :)

(Just kidding - Americans aren't more broken than any other group. Of course)

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#28

Post by Retra »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #23
Retra wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the argument in order to preach "nice makes right" also detracts from the argument...

I am not sure that describing creationists to be in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance is anything to do with the argument presented by the article. Also, I was not addressing the article, I was addressing the comment of pcunite and their problem with the language used in one particular sentence, which is something I partly agree with and is nothing whatsoever to do with the accuracy o…

But rhetoric is useful to teaching, and especially to writing popular articles. (I even learned what 'benighted' means today.)

Maybe it's not that useful to creationists. Almost anybody else would be able to see past it and get some real content. I don't think most creationists would be bothered to do that either way.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#29

Post by im3w1l »

Maybe a reformulation in terms of the familiar can be enlightening:

DNA can spontaneously "refactor" itself, i.e. use vastly different internals without changing behaviour. For some "implementations", an appropriate change in behaviour can be much easier than in others.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#30

Post by Rexxar »

Retra wrote: post #26
Rexxar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree here. For example, relativity and quantum mechanics explain how our world behave but we have no idea why these theories are true or even why can the universe be described with mathematical equations ?

I suppose religion will tell you why those things are true?

Personally, religion didn't tell me anything. But they are giving an explanation to non-scientific question to a lot of people.
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