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

The sugar cane 'example' mentioned earlier (post 395) sounds hugely bogus to me.
The figures sound *way* too rounded, and tripling the yield in three successive years would end up with a yield 27 times more than originally.
Since sugar cane has a natural yield of around 10%, even multiplying it by the lower figure of 9 isn't possible.

In the case of a product like sugar which is already a significant part of a plant, using GE to make successive yield improvements of large size three years running sounds hugely unlikely to me.
(In the case of desired molecules that are produced in small amounts by a plant, there is more room for large yield improvements.)

I'd guess that if there is any factual basis for the example, the timescale was longer and/or less regular, the yield improvements very much less. Even if the yield hadn't run up against a practical limit, the sudden end of the example is easily explained, since when altering or adding genes and seeing what happens, eventually the list of candidate genes for alteration or addition can be exhausted.

If it's not an outright invention, the example sounds like a story which has been retold and exaggerated by people who didn't know what they were talking about until it ended up as rubbish.

"And one other thing - evolution got a bad name because many people have used this model to describe how human society should work too - ie. social darwinism. Evolution also got a bad name because some people have used it to try disprove God. Evolution is a fact, but it does not necessarily follow that these particular inferences are true."

Evolution is the underlying principle of everything, it works invisible. But if someone tries to force this principle upon something, e.g. society through social dawinism, this someone violates the first rule of Evolution: everything comes from within, and therefore hinders Evolution, but never stops it.

Evolution even applies to cyberspaces like religion.

I think you have to be careful about how you use the word. Evolution is a beautiful process, a stunning mixing of simplicity and complexity. However it is one thing to say that it is how life came about, but quite another to say that it is an underlying principle of everything. The seas and mountains as far are I can tell, don't evolve: they do change, they do adapt, they may regenerate by other processes, but they don't evolve, unless you are willing to use the term "evolution" very loosely indeed.

People who understand evolution have seen how it has parallels, or how it is a metaphor for other processes in nature, and they have developed evolutionary based genetic algorithms to solve particular mathematical problems very effectively, but these deductions still remain a metaphor. Strictly speaking, in nature, the process of life is the only process known where evolution is known to take place.

I realise that what I just said might be circular because, if we saw in nature something different to what we commonly term "life" evolve, it too might well be classified as living.

Social Darwinism also comes from the false idea that in evolution you should act like a complete b*****d. But we would probably not have kindness and cooperation and such, if it wasn't because it is an advantage in evolution.

I'd accept the definition of evolution as an unavoidable property of natural or artificial systems where objects exist that give rise to other similar objects, there is at least one mechanism to introduce variation between the objects, and the operation of the whole system causes some differential reproductive success between the objects.

Evolution is a *theory*, if it were proven fact it would be a law, yes?

Can we get a good working definition of mutation going for the purposes of discussion? I'd like to know we're at least on the same page as far as semantics anyway.

Facts and Laws are different things. Science uses the word "law" very sparingly indeed and then only on phenomena which are repeatable in laboratory conditions at any time in any place. That's the great thing about science - there are no absolutes, just theories which fit in with all the evidence available and have not been adequately disproven. Evolution has survived as a theory because in the last 100+ years and nothing, despite everything that has been thrown at it, has convincingly disproven the theory. And, as Colonel Sellers has stated in an earlier post, it would not be that difficult to disprove it if you had the right evidence.

A Mutation is simply a change in the gene sequence of an organism's DNA resulting in a characteristic which is not seen in the organism's predecessors. It's a genetic variation, as you put it.

A change in the DNA anyway. But since we have a lot of DNA we don't use(Nature doesn't fix what isn't broken) it could be we would never notice any effect on the organism.

I'm not sure that I have a metaphysical imagination, not too sure what one is even but I thought that I would have a think and this is what I came down to, purpose does imply meaning, but purpose and meaning are different from each other and if you have one you also have the other, although it could be that you have niether. I'm still thinking it through and it all gets very blurry but I don't think things just are its the fact that they are that gives both purpose and meaning. I tried .
Peanut xx

Very well-put. To wander on a tangent, I can't agree more with the fact that "social Darwinism" seems to give rise to the popular idea that people need to behave like right b*****ds to each other ("I'm just competing and winning in life - people will walk all over you otherwise," is what seems to be a major part of that rationalization). Anyway, it may seem to be a small annoyance or character flaw, but I think it's at the very heart of two much larger problems of human nature: the inability (or chronic unwillingness) to comprehend an argumentative issue from another person's (or people's) point of view, and as a direct result of that first problem, the inability of the human race to govern itself without war.

Yeah, I just opened Pandora's box there, sorry.

It's finally here! My edited guide entry attacking Darwinism is finally done. You can read it and ridicule me here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A655805

You can post you thoughts on it here, in the article or on the peer review; it makes no difference to me.

Peanut, the coupling of purpose and meaning may need to be shown at a general level that not only encompases us humans, but also other life forms.

It has been argued, rather convincingly I think, that ONE of the purposes of life to to reproduce and continue life, coz if it weren't, we may not be here discussing it. It's tough however, for me at least, to imagine what meaning this purpose produces, not only in humans, but in other life forms.....

One of the *properties* of life is that it is a self-perpetuating process, but I'd as be wary of calling that a purpose as saying the one of the purposes of water is to make things wet.
Systems, objects and processes are defined by their properties, but ascribing any deep purpose to those properties is as much in the realm of philosophy as attempting to attach meaning or intent to them.

That article by Josh:

Please read it as a demonstration of blind faith. Be amazed. Everything that has been said in this forum has been eschewed in favour of his own falsehoods.

Including not believing that pollution causes trees to go black, and that moths turned black as a result. Even though there is OBSERVED DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE he still refuses to admit that it exists.

Josh, it doesn't take a genius to read outside of creationist dogma once in a while. I suggest trying it.

Ste,

You're right mate

It's great fun isn't it, sort of like a GCSE biology paper - it just needs the words 'discuss, using both sides of the paper' at the bottom.

D.

I have just countered Josh's article in the forum "why this entry is wrong...."

I'd be glad if you could read it and give me feedback. Should i make it into an entry?

Not sure where you got the idea that a purpose is descibed in the realm of philosophy?

Purpose is very practical indeed, with reproduction being both a practical function and one that has purpose to the extent that it has an outcome; more life.

I would ceratinly not call it a property; property is posessive, purpose implies a function or action.

BTW. The discussion here refers to life. Water, along with rocks, wind and other inanimate objects already mentioned, is just that; inanimate. It certainly has many properties, but how can it possibly have a purpose (of it's own)?

I think your one-piece reply to the alleged genius's article had been broadly paralleled in seperate replies while you were writing yours.

About the only thing the article proves is how poor the research and arguing skills of some creationists can be, and yet I guess there are some people out there who would believe *anything*.

Agreed Potholer.

I suppose i can just look at my reply as a cathartic excercise if anything.

What gets me is that Josh shows a lack of comprehesion of evolution, then thinks he can criticise it (with bizarre examples). Then when people patiently explain why he is incorrect (either logically or factually) he ignores it totally and utterly, *without debate*.

It would be ok if he could hold up his end of the deal...