h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is very little indeed that needs a supernatural explanation. Most, if not all things, are more readily explained in a simple way without need of magical hypotheses.

If we were to postulate magic as an explanation for some of the gaps in our theories, certainly simpler explanations than the frankly absurd god explanations are available.

Evolutionary algorithms don't generally provide a rigorous model of biological evolution. After all, that's usually not what they're supposed to be doing. There may be exceptions, I haven't looked. Certainly the one I implemented most recently lacks in that it has no mechanism to produce new material.

... isn't the lack of a viable source for new information one of the biggest objections raised by critics of evolutionary biology?

The scientific theory of evolution basically says: The gene pools of populations change over time -- teeny, incremental changes which add up over very long periods of time.
I think there's a good deal more to it than that. Obviously, gene pools change over time - merely because gene pools change does not mean a fish will evolve into a monkey.

The religiously inspired belief of creationism/ID, (which many feel is somehow a more attractive, simpler solution), claims extraordinary intervention via a supernatural agent
What you describe is creationism, not intelligent design. Intelligent design could be due to a natural agent - the theory is merely that life was designed by an intelligence. Could be aliens or people from the future or whatever. Intelligent design is much closer to Richard Dawkins and Co. than most people would think. A materialist or even an evolutionist could believe in intelligent design without contradiction, since intelligent design by itself does not specify the mechanism used by the intelligent agent to design life. You could, for example, believe that life arose through evolution that was periodically infused with new genetic information from this unknown intelligence.

To make an analogy, to believe in UFOs is not to believe in aliens. Any object that flies and is unidentified is a UFO. To believe in aliens is a much bigger step than to believe in UFOs.

Creationism is a faction within the intelligent design movement that insists that the intelligent agent was God.

I'm sorry, I'm confusing evolution with abiogenesis again. When I said "live arose" please strike that and insert "more advanced forms of life arose" - I did not mean to bring up the original/first life form(s).

I spent a deeply unpleasant hour yesterday evening in conversation with a religious couple who are 'home-schooling' their children, for the express purpose of preventing them from coming into contact with other (non-church) children of their own age or encountering 'secular humanism'.

How old were the little kids? I support home schooling but not when it's used for the purpose of keeping kids older than around eight years old isolated from the real world. (In the same way that I support private gun or automobile ownership - it doesn't mean I support using those things to shoot or run over people)

>> isn't the lack of a viable source for new information one of the biggest objections raised by critics of evolutionary biology?<<

No. New information occurs frequently and regularly throughout the biological process of evolution. You might say that evolution is about new information on the genetic level.

>>>>The scientific theory of evolution basically says: The gene pools of populations change over time -- teeny, incremental changes which add up over very long periods of time<<<<
>>I think there's a good deal more to it than that. Obviously, gene pools change over time<<

Here's a similar terse description of evolution:
Evolution by natural selection can be described as a change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time.

Of course there is much more complex detail, but as a nutshell definition is it is just as _basically_ valid as my previous one.

>>...merely because gene pools change does not mean a fish will evolve into a monkey.<<

Nor do monkeys evolve into men. Evolution by natural selection does not make any such claims. I'm a bit surprised you have somehow managed to remain unaware of that. Check the hootoo article on evolution for more information. A673319 You could also try reading a bit of Darwin's 'Origin' and other works for background on the theory, http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/ but some more contemporary stuff will provide the details you crave. See http://www.ebonmusings.org/evolution/whatevoisnt.html for a nice, user friendly discussion.


>>Intelligent design could be due to a natural agent - the theory is merely that life was designed by an intelligence<<

Oh, now come on! "A natural agent"? And it's hardly a theory.

Intelligent Design, however you wish to slice it, is based upon non-falsifiable claims, and is therefore of the form of a pseudo-scientific, or religious belief, rather than a scientific theory. I know many ID proponents take pains to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer, but the idea was originated by creationists, and ultimately Intelligent Design infers a non-testable notion of a non-observable supernatural agency.

btw, aliens and time-travellers

Thanks for the guffaw!

Hi NPF,

Nice to see you're stil around.

>isn't the lack of a viable source for new information one of the biggest objections raised by critics of evolutionary biology?

Yes, it's a common (though incorrect) objection. I think it's fairly clear that Bouncy was saying that the lack of a source of new information in his algorithm was a difference between that algorithm and biological evolution. You will note that 'critics of evolutionary biology' have been unable to explain what they mean by 'information' - as soon as they try to define 'information', biologists can either point to examples where it increases in nature or show that evolution doesn't require an increase in that form of information.

>I think there's a good deal more to it than that.

What more?



>Creationism is a faction within the intelligent design movement that insists that the intelligent agent was God.


ID is a faction within the Creationist movement that insists that non-Biblical methods can be used to prove the existence of God.

The difference between ID and Creationism is purely a matter of branding. Although (most) ID-ers are careful not to mention God, this is purely because for legal reasons they need to present ID as a secular theory. See, for instance, the notorious 'Wedge Document', which described how the originators of ID saw it as a means to get God into American classrooms, or the Dover court decision, which branded ID indistinguishable from Creationism. See also A31738485.

To use your own analogy, not one of the UFO groups in the USA is interested in studying meteorites, car headlights, remote-controlled frisbee hoaxes or 'encounters' that turn out to be planted by post-hypnotic suggestion. *All* UFO groups believe that at least some UFOs are aliens, in the same way that *all* ID-ers are Creationists. A literal useage of the term 'UFO' might include new species of bird and exclude alien abductions, but that's not what it means when used in modern English.

Here's a challenge for you: can you find any source that claims that ID is evidence for the existence of UFOs, time travellers or any other non-supernatural force? Or is it used exclusively as evidence for the existence of God?



>How old were the little kids?

Didn't catch the ages exactly, but about 6 or 7 - just learning to read. The parents certainly had no intention of sending the kids to school before college.

Gif

Hi Tal,

>>>...merely because gene pools change does not mean a fish will evolve into a monkey.<<
>Nor do monkeys evolve into men. Evolution by natural selection does not make any such claims.

They didn't evolve from any other *current* species - but they did evolve from a series of ancient species, some of which were remarkably similar to modern fish and monkeys, that would undoubtedly be classified as fish and monkeys were they alive today.

Gif

I think Tal means that fish evolved into fish with sturdy fins, which became legs, which grew sturdier legs, which started to live more on land, which eventually became amphibians.... etc.

Not that NPF is really concerned about the truth of the matter. If one Christian would just read a *whole* book, such as Dawkins' 'The Ancestor's Tale', and come back to us with arguments which aren't borne of ignorance, I for one would be a much happier .

Wallowing in ignorance is tantamount to intellectual dishonesty to me, and every thread about evolution displays it in spades.

Do not the Raelians (or whatever they are called - the followers of Rael anyway) believe in ID by UFO, that is, life on Earth has been Intelligently Designed by aliens and not god?

I read a really good point regarding the 'new information' thing recently. I'll just embelish it a bit.

The old creationist argument goes that if you put some watch parts in a box and shake it, they don't form a watch.

However, if you put some spaghetti in a box and shake it, the spaghetti will line up parallel.

In TAT, Dawkins makes the point that genes (very) often duplicate for no particular reason. If it's a gene with a specific function, then one copy is redundant and change its function. Hey presto, extra information!

Which is a damn sight less difficult as a problem than some triple-o superbeing coming into being, information-wise.

Hi TB,

Well found, I stand corrected.

Hi Bouncy,

Clear evidence for pastafarianism! Information can come only from His Noodly Appendage!

(Does it make any difference if the spaghetti is cooked?)

Hi Pedro,

But by picking their definition of 'information' clearly, Creationists can claim than genetic duplication is not an 'increase in information'. F'rinstance, Shannon Entropy - information is what you start with, any change is a loss of information. What you have described is a *loss* of information in the Shannon sense (mostly used by communications engineers).

Gif

I got the information from one of Penn and Teller's Bellshot [misprint] series, forgot which one. Amusingly, they also pointed out that religious creationists were as, say, amused as the rest of us by Raelians' opinions about the creation of Earth.

Hi Gif

NPF's comment,
>>..merely because gene pools change does not mean a fish will evolve into a monkey.<<
seems to be a thin rephrasing of the thoroughly debunked canard that evolution claims humans evolved from contemporary species, such as monkeys.
My response,
>>Nor do monkeys evolve into men. Evolution by natural selection does not make any such claims.<<,
was intended as a concise rebuttal
It is also an accurate one: Monkeys do not evolve into humans.

Humans are not descended from any contemporary, living species, but share a common ancestor, as does all life on the planet. Such common ancestors are now either extinct, or have evolved.

No contemporary species is evolving into any other extant species, which is why fish do not evolve into monkeys, nor do monkeys evolve into men.

Does that satisfactorily clarify my original statement?

If ID proponents claim life was designed by aliens, can they then explain who designed the aliens?


ID is not a theory. It is a wholly speculative hypothesis, and I use the term 'hypothesis' in the loosest possible sense of wild fantasy.

Of course the Creationists/ID-ers can make any definitions they wish, such as re-defining what 'natural' means, or what is meant by information, or even claiming their speculation is science, but no matter how much or how often they bluster and babble, the idea itself remains simply foolish wishful thinking at best, outright lying at worst.

Hi Gif,

Wasn't Shannon Entropy a character in Star Trek?

More technically, how would gene duplication reduce info? And, when gene B's function starts to differentiate from gene A's, is that *still* a reduction, in regards to this definition?

Hi Tal,

Yep, I think we're in violent agreement here.

Gif

Hi Pedro,

Shannon Entropy is (to over-simplify somewhat) used to measure the change in information in a transmitted message. Thus, zero loss of information is when the received message is identical to the transmitted message, and is the best possible(*). *Any* change is a loss of info / increase in Entropy.

So for instance, if I transmit the message: Lucy is dancing on wet planks

And you receive the message: Lucy is dancing dancing on wet planks

We have a loss of information. Gene duplication is a loss of information in this sense because it is a change, and *any* change is a loss of information. Evolving from a microbe to a man is a loss of information in this sense.

Gif

(*) I suppose a special case might be if one change alters the message and a second restores the original form - the second change could then be said to be an increase in information.

Hi, gentlemen,

I'm reading The Ancestor Tale (thanks to Gif who recommended it in the Dawkins thread, and... In Gif I trust)

I'm finding the reading easier than I thought. The book is really divulgative and I'm not using the dictionary (English-Spanish)as much as I expected. I would recommend it to anyone, from teachers of biology - he uses brilliant metaphors to explain thick concepts- to any who wants to know about evolution- a topic not easy to understand- or simply about how wonderful is life in this planet. etc.

The Ancestor's Tale is a truly wonderful book. It's just a shame that none of the Christians on hootoo are willing to read it, certainly not without being blinded by prejudice to the arguments in it.