THE END OF EVOLUTION?

You have to replace the semantics after you've done your math.
A message is useless unless it has meaning.We have a message passed thru time and space.With our understanding now of the cell, it's not like a hurricane went through a dump and created a 747 it's like a cool breeze rolled over the plains and produced a self replicating Boeing factory, complete with all it's parts and every model they ever produced.

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There no doubt exist natural laws, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything. blz paskal

There is a problem with "our understanding of the cell".It seems like it is your understanding of the cell that leads you to believe that: "it's like a cool breeze rolled over the plains and produced a self replicating Boeing factory, complete with all it's parts and every model they ever produced."But, "our understanding of the cell", and by "our" I mean the folks who actually provided you with the evidence from their studies - Scientist - the conclusion is NOT like your conclusion. In fact, they have proposed many abiogenesis hypothesis and all have a natural process of origin for the cell.So we don't agree with you and your notion of what, comparitively, it would be like for the cell to originate. Our understanding of the living cell seems to be in direct contradiction with your personal opinion on the origin of the cell.The side of science has tones of research done in this field. Many hypothesis have been put forth to explain it's origin. So I guess you stand alone, with no evidence, and only a personal interpretation of other scientists'evidence, that seems to be at odds with every scientist working in the field of cell origin.Do you really have confidence in your ability to determine what the evidence points to, even when you are clearly in direct contradiction to what the working scientists in this field determined from the evidence?I believe your understanding of the cell may be wrong, as opposed to all of the scientists understanding. Maybe you should question how you've interpreted the evidence, instead of thinking that every single scientist got it wrong.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

It is true that a message without meaning is not of much use, but meaning isn't part of information theory. Information theory is the theory of communicating messages. In its simplest form communication is just the transmission of a series of bits, say "01100101", and the technical issues involved in transmitting those bits are completely independent of meaning. Those bits could mean the letter "A" or "The troops will arrive at dawn" or "Yes, I'll marry you," but no matter what the meaning, it has nothing to do with how you transmit those bits. Meaning is independent of information, at least when you're talking scientifically about information theory.That's why when you said in Message 125 that "Data is something an intelligent agent collects. Information is something an intelligent agent imparts," what you were really talking about is meaning, also technically known as semantics. What you really wanted to say was, "Meaning is something an intelligent agent attaches to information."But let's not forget your original claims, which were confused statements involving 2LOT, entropy and information. The reality is that the constraints of 2LOT and information theory can both be expressed in terms of entropy, and there is nothing in either one preventing the creation of new information. It is not exaggerating much to say that googols of bits of information are being created throughout the universe every second.--Percy

The original question in this thread was about the end to evolution. I've been wondering whether evolution has reached a dead end in homo sapiens. It seems to me that we should be seeing more homo species. Homo sapiens have only been around about 130 000 years but there have been more of us on the planet than other homo species. Homo habilis, homo ergaster, and homo heidelbergenisis were around for longer but were relatively few in number. At 10000 BC we were 5 million and that was only due to agricultural techniques. Now we are close to 7 billion. With the depletion of the ozone, toxic chemicals, pollutants, and radioactive waste there should be a higher degree of mutation but we have seen no new homo species. Are we the end of the line?

While the results have yet to achieve wide acceptance, genetic studies of the pace of human evolution indicate that it began increasing about 10,000 years ago and that we're evolving more rapidly today than ever before.But the creation of a new Homo species, in the sense that one group of people would become unable to breed with another group of people, seems unlikely in the extreme. Speciation only occurs when populations become separated, and the world population is becoming more and more interconnected every day.But the entire world population of Homo Sapiens gradually evolving to the point where we'd be unable to breed with people from, say, 10,000 years before, does not seem beyond the realm of possibility. But since no one from 10,000 years before would still be alive to test this, we'd have to rely on a less-than-conclusive genetic analysis.--Percy

There is a lot more to evolution than just speciation.We are mutating and evolving (what creationists would call micro-evolution) in relation to a variety of factors, ranging from exposures to pesticides to aids, influenza, and other diseases. All of these hundreds or thousands of environmental pressures cause change in the genome over time, but those changes go in many different directions--the changes that help against malaria are not necessarily helpful, or even related to, changes that help against aids. Some individuals may have one, or both, or neither of these changes. Only time (and now technology) will settle out where these changes lead and which are fixed into the overall population.But its possible that we have already changed sufficiently to not be interfertile or capable of bearing living offspring vis a vis groups of archaic humans going back, say, 160,000 years ago. But as you say, that's a tough one to test.But look for significant changes when humans begin living in space! Change the environment that much and you are sure to get changes in the genome, and perhaps rapid changes. Stay tuned!Evolution ended?NOT!

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

We have changed our environment drastically in the last thousand years. You mentioned pesticides and aids. Think of the changes in the makeup of the atmosphere, radiation, crowded conditions with increased competition, and the differences in our diet due to large scale farming, chemicals, ingested pills of all sorts, immunizations, etc. There have also been many changes in the water we drink. If it hasn't happened by now, I don't think it's going to. Why is that? What actually qualifies as "separated?" We have had the separation of aboriginal peoples in the Americas. There have been other group separations for long periods. How large a population does it need to be?

While we can speculate about causes, such as the ones you suggest and many others like modern health care and lifestyle changes, we don't really know what they are. I don't know if you saw my Message 140, but the evidence suggests that human beings are evolving at more and more rapid rates compared to before 10,000 years ago. Native Americans arrived here around 10,000 years ago, so a separation of 10,000 years obviously isn't long enough given the available selection pressures. Australian aborigines arrived there around 40,000 years ago, so that wasn't long enough, either. How long is long enough, and what kind of environmental pressures would be sufficient? Again, we're back to speculation, and I won't hazard a guess.It is required that genes not intermingle or at least intermingle very little in order for two populations to diverge in hereditary terms, and DNA studies on various populations of human beings around the world confirm that this has happened, but not to the extent of creating a new species, just new races. The interconnectedness of the modern world seems to guarantee increasing levels of genetic intermingling, so speciation of humans seems very unlikely.Coyote speculates that speciation would be more likely if human beings were to become a space-faring race, and I agree with him, though we proabably disagree about the likelihood of us populating space.--Percy

I grew up with Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and the rest. I assumed that moving into space would be natural.I never imagined NASA as we know it: excelling largely at coming up with reasons why something can't be done on time or within budget, or can't be done at all.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Me too. Ursala K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness dealt with significant human evolution, and Clark's Rendevous with Rama dealt with significant evolution among aliens. My favorite idea for space travel was James Blish's spindizzy, and Frederick Pohl's Gateway series had an appealingly mysterious space drive. Lloyd Biggle Jr.'s Dark series had matter transmission, but how did he get it to go faster than light? Anyway, all great stuff!--Percy

So it seems like we're talking hundreds of thousands of years. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around why you need separation. Are you saying all species that evolved were separated from a main group with which they could mate (same species)? How many would have to be separated? What do you mean by genetic intermingling? Every new human is the result of genetic intermingling.While trying to find an estimate on the population of homo habilis I came across an article (Nature 448, 668 - 691) that indicated that homo habilis and homo erectus coexisted. I know that habilis has been under some debate, at least some specimens were being argued over. Am I out of date? Is my order in post 339 still more or less accepted? Has habilis been kicked out of the line up?

The separation can be either geographic or temporal.Geographic: Look up "ring species" to get a feel for this. One example is a series of related groups of salamanders found around the central valley of California. Each adjacent group can interbreed with the next group, but where the "ring" joins at the far end the two adjacent groups do not interbreed. So what you have is a species that has separated such that the extremes can't interbreed--geographic speciation (with all of the "transitionals" still in place). Now if you cut the ring at any location you have two distinct species--defined by the lack of an ability to interbreed. This speciation was caused by geographic separation. Ancient apes appear to have undergone this same separation, when one group left the forests for the grasslands while the other group remained in the forests. The former led to humans, while the latter led to modern apes.Temporal: RAZD has posted a good explanation of this:

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For instance with Pelycodus:

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Pelycodus was a tree-dwelling primate that looked much like a modern lemur. The skull shown is probably 7.5 centimeters long.

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The numbers down the left hand side indicate the depth (in feet) at which each group of fossils was found. As is usual in geology, the diagram gives the data for the deepest (oldest) fossils at the bottom, and the upper (youngest) fossils at the top. The diagram covers about five million years.

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The numbers across the bottom are a measure of body size. Each horizontal line shows the range of sizes that were found at that depth. The dark part of each line shows the average value, and the standard deviation around the average.

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The dashed lines show the overall trend. The species at the bottom is Pelycodus ralstoni, but at the top we find two species, Notharctus nunienus and Notharctus venticolus. The two species later became even more distinct, and the descendants of nunienus are now labeled as genus Smilodectes instead of genus Notharctus.

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As you look from bottom to top, you will see that each group has some overlap with what came before. There are no major breaks or sudden jumps. And the form of the creatures was changing steadily.

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Color for empHAsis: this is the kind of continuing change we are talking about.

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http://EvC Forum: Speciation + Evolution = More Diversity -->EvC Forum: Speciation + Evolution = More Diversity

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I have very little understanding of the cell. Biological scientists don't understand the cell either, yet, they are still doing good work.This is how I see it. We are talking about one of the most complex organizational structures in the known universe; the others being related.
First of all we need a language A. A must have an originator or a generator, A doesn't exist otherwise. We then need a transmitter, which is the natural laws. Entropy is a factor in the natural world so we need a receive the message with all its warts.We're dead, unless the code that is transmitted has inbuilt error correction.Inbuilt error correction is not random arrangement.Edited by LucyTheApe, : No reason given.

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There no doubt exist natural laws, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything. blz paskal

Percy you can't get information from nothing.Edited by LucyTheApe, : No reason given.

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There no doubt exist natural laws, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything. blz paskal

Who said anything about getting information from nothing? I said that numbers approaching googols of bits of information are being created throughout the universe every second. That information isn't coming from nothing. It's coming from the universe, and the universe isn't nothing. Even the vacuum of empty space is seething with virtual particles and isn't nothing.When using an information theoretic approach to entropy then you're tracking the number of possible states of a system. The smaller the number of possible states the lower the entropy. The lowest possible entropy occurs when only one state is possible, and the maximum possible entropy occurs with the greatest number of possible states, such as will occur with the heat death speculated to be the ultimate destiny of the universe.A coin before being flipped has two possible states, either heads or tails. A ball in a roulette wheel has 38 possible states. Obviously the coin has lower entropy than the roulette wheel.--Percy