Help me understand Intelligent Design

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That would be true if I'd said that CS was the outcome of natural selection. But since I didn't say that your assertion is completely groundless.

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Oh God (no point intended)I don't believe Paul, you're really something else...Anyhow, let's take it from the top. You refered to Cumulative Selection and told me, that "Without the effects of cumulative selection it would be extremely improbable."This is you Paul, you said this. Then I defined CS in order to show you that you a not speaking about NS. I also said that you have to take CS into account to understand Fisher's statement, just like Mutation has to be taken into account also, in order for the setence to make sense.Now.Let me strip you of both CS and Mutation. Now I will ask you to explain Fisher's statement to me..without CS & Mutation.go aheadThis message has been edited by ausar_maat, 10-11-2005 06:25 PM

CS is cumulative selection. Why would you say CS is cumulated mutations (CM??)?What is the dividing line between a "micro-mutation" and some other kind?I think "NS" can take over on just one, smallest possible mutation. Why do you think some kind of cumulation is needed before NS can happen?It is clear that you need to learn things about evolutionary theory and molecular biology. That is apparent. We all need to learn about a lot of things. It isn't an insult until you demonstrate an unwillingness or inability to learn.

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CS is cumulative selection. Why would you say CS is cumulated mutations (CM??)?

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What is the dividing line between a "micro-mutation" and some other kind?

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I don't know that that difference has any relevance, nor did I state it did.

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I think "NS" can take over on just one, smallest possible mutation. Why do you think some kind of cumulation is needed before NS can happen?

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Only mutation is needed, but Paul mentionned "Without the effects of cumulative selection it would be extremely improbable."I essentially demonstrated to him, that his statement only reinforced my arguement about how to understand Fisher. Thank to you Ned, this has been corroborated even further.

This appears to be an answer to the micro-mutation question. It ignores: I noticed no such demonstration. Perhaps you can spell it out for simply for me?I don't understand your juxtiposition of "only mutation is needed" and "without the effects of cs.... improbable". Can you explain that more step-by-step too.

In other words, Paul made allusion to the relevance of the effects of CS to the improbability. I stated that when he talks about CS, he's talking about a process involving mutation. Hence, he is indirectly using the same element of mutation to explain Fisher's statement. That is, from my vantange point, a contradiction. Because Fisher didn't say "CS is the mechanism that..."I pointed out the contradiction in Paul's assertion when trying to disprove mine, yet in the end, they are both correlated and neither appear directly in Fisher's statement.I hope that cleared it up.This message has been edited by ausar_maat, 10-11-2005 07:34 PM

No, actually not at all clear.You say CS involves mutation. In just exactly what way does it do that. Selection operates on whatever is there. What is there may have come about through mutation but I don't see why that is relevent in the context of this discussion.Perhaps you can supply a helpful summary of the situation?
Go back to the Fisher quote and point out how this ties in with it. It would help everyone if we reposted the quote in it's entirty.The point that PaulK is making is that if you discuss probabilities you must discuss the cumulation of selection events. CS isn't anything separate or different from NS it is just the application of NS over time.Perhaps you can explain to me why there is any confusion over this?This message has been edited by NosyNed, 10-11-2005 08:03 PM

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No, actually not at all clear.

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You say CS involves mutation. In just exactly what way does it do that. Selection operates on whatever is there. What is there may have come about through mutation but I don't see why that is relevent in the context of this discussion.

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I don't see your objection Ned, help me to understand the relevance of it?

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Perhaps you can supply a helpful summary of the situation?
Go back to the Fisher quote and point out how this ties in with it. It would help everyone if we reposted the quote in it's entirty.

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It's on page 10 I think

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The point that PaulK is making is that if you discuss probabilities you must discuss the cumulation of selection events. CS isn't anything separate or different from NS it is just the application of NS over time.

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You equate NS to CS? Maybe you can help us by quoting an authoritave source to substantiate your claim. Because never have I read anywhere that NS = CS.That's a little strange to call both synonymous. But maybe you can help me understand and explain step by step how they are the same.

Here is talk.origins' glossary dfinition of CSCumulative selection
* (np) 1. A process of repeated selection on different traits. It is the accumulation of a number of different _selected_ traits which makes cumulative selection a creative force. Syn., "cumulative evolution"]

Do we need to go to an "expert"?What is selection? It is the winnowing of the gene pool by differential reproductive success. It doesn't happen to matter in this context if it is natural or "artificial" or whatever.If selection occurs repeatedly then the changes in the gene pool that it results in will cumulate. Do we have a problem with that?The cumulation of many selection events has a direct relevance to producing "unlikely" events. Do you have an objection to that?I agree and will modify my view. CS is not, in this context (or the widest picture) congruent with individual selection. For larger scale change to accumulate there will need to be additional mutation events taking place between the cumulating selection events.To that degree only is CS different from simple repeated NS.I can't find the quote from Fisher. It would be useful after all this time to summarize where we are at. I might half get it but I need you to restate the logic in your own words in one place.My understanding is this:You are claiming something is highly improbable (specifically a bug ending up looking like a leaf IIRC). You seemed to be, at the start arguing that a mutation to produce this is highly unlikely. No one disagrees with that. What PaulK has pointed out that you don't need such a highly unlikely event at all. All you need are many, many resonable likely events combined with many, many trials and the effects of selection on those.The cumulative effect can produce what in a single step would appear to be unlikely. In fact, it can produce any number of very unlikely outcomes because it "tries" a huge number of outcomes and discards many of them. {iAny[/i] final outcome is very unlikely but one is still going to occur.If you have any problems with this it would be useful if you would spell them out in much greater detail than you have been.

If you haven't read the book then how do you know this? A book? Aren't you assuming an awful lot here? Yes the intolerance of scientists for people who just call something scientific instead of doing the science is just horrid. People who want to take over classrooms before they have contributed something to teach is terrible.FROM: One Nation, Under the Designer (click)
Think that might be a clue? Pure argument from emotion and incredulity with no logical validity.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

What improbability? Give us the number. Show us the calculations and the basis for any assumptions made. Demonstrate that all the possible pathways are dealt with.If you don't have these calculations and cannot explain how they fully and completely model every contingency possible, then all you have is an argument from incredulity, another logical fallacy (and just a failure of imagination).It seems you say an awful lot of things that have no evidentiary basis but you pretend that they are facts. This is a chance to prove yourself.Enjoy.This message has been edited by RAZD, 10*11*2005 10:38 PM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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I don't believe Paul, you're really something else..

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Becaiuse I can remember what I said ? Because I don't mindlessly agree with your falsehoods ? These don't seem to be very special attributes.

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Anyhow, let's take it from the top. You refered to Cumulative Selection and told me, that "Without the effects of cumulative selection it would be extremely improbable."

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I also said that natural selection is a form of cumulative selection.More importantly we see from the quote that *I* claim that the "EHDI" the item referred to as "it" in the quote - is an outcome of selection - not the selective process itself. Thus your attempt to pretend that my interpretation of the Fisher quote shares the same fault as yours is expsed as an absolute falsehood.

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This is you Paul, you said this. Then I defined CS in order to
show you that you a not speaking about NS.

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i.e. you invented a fake "definition" in an attempt to misrepresent my words. Since your definition was only invented after my statement was made it cannot be legitimately used to interpret my sentence. To do so would be completely dishonest.

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I also said that you have to take CS into account to understand Fisher's statement, just like Mutation has to be taken into account also, in order for the setence to make sense.

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Since Fisher explicitly refers to Natural Selection which is a form of cumulative selection that is not an issue.

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Now.
Let me strip you of both CS and Mutation. Now I will ask you to explain Fisher's statement to me..

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without CS & Mutation.

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go ahead

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What would the point be ? YOur challenge would only make sense if I insisted that neither CS nor mutation were involved in Fisher's statement. Since I have explicitly stated that both are involved your challenge is simply ANOTHER attempt to misrepresent my statements.If you really want to show that my interpretation of Fisher's statement is incorrect the least you could do is deal with what it actually states. Trying to infer it from other statements I have made would be unreliable even if you did not rely on obvious misreadings or try to twist my words through the use of fabricated (and nonsensical) "definitions".

I have read a number of your posts and I strong suspect that you are living in the real world. Authoritative source? How about reality? I'm gonna spell it out to you nice and slow, since 15 pages have gone by and you're not getting any further.NS = Natural Selection = Selection which takes place in and by the processes of the natural world.CS = Cumulative Selection = An accumulation of selections = more than one selection stacked up over time (an accumulation).What processes of selection is taking place? Natural Selection.
If we look at one selection what are we looking at? Natural Selection.
If we look at a series of selections that take place over a period of time? Cumulative Selection.
Is Cumulative Selection a collection of individual selections provided by Natural Selection? Yes.CS is NS in the long form.How is this hard to understand?You are arguing against the mechanics of the real world and (Im gonna have to go caps here)YOU HAVEN'T PROVIDED THE MECHANICS OF INTELLIGENT DESIGNWhich is the WHOLE POINT of the THREAD!!! If you want to argue FOR ID, then DO SO. But you aren't arguing FOR ID, you're trying to argue against evolution.Offer a positive argument for ID. Explain the mechanisms that are imployed in the designing and implimentation of the design.IF you can not do that, you don't have a theory.

ausar, could you address that question please? I'd like to know.

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I agree and will modify my view. CS is not, in this context (or the widest picture) congruent with individual selection. For larger scale change to accumulate there will need to be additional mutation events taking place between the cumulating selection events.

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I'm glad you modified that view. Paul, on the other hand, also insists in his last post that he "explicitly stated that both are involved" (CS & mutation) "in Fisher's statement".Therefore, we seem to at least agree on one thing. That being, CS & mutation are involed in Fisher's statement.In my original statement however, I did state that Fisher wasn't directly refering to genetic mutation. This is why I insisted it was infered. But for mutation, in and of itself, to occur in such multiplicity, complexity and specificity, represents an even greater challenge to the laws of probability or chance. But to quote myself, I said:

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Sir Ronald Fisher, step-father of non-teleological darwinism, states that ``Natural selection is a mechanism for generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability.''(and he's not even talking about genetic mutation yet, which has an even higher degree of improbabilities to overcome)

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Now, be that as it may, once we agree on the fact that Fisher's statement involves both CS & mutation, what are we left with?The challenge of establishing how according to Fisher, this mechanism of generating an exceedingly high degree of improbability can occur without an Intelligent Designer.To that end, proponents of this position claim that because we can explain, as late Havard Zoologist Ernst Mayr would put, "Darwin showed very clearly that you don't need Aristotle's teleology because natural selection applied to bio-populations of unique phenomena can explain all the puzzling phenomena for which previously the mysterious process of teleology had been invoked."In corroboration with this view, Dawkins attempts to explain the improbability of chance in reference to cumulative evolution by natural selection, saying that "Living complexity is indeed orders of magnitude too improbable to have come about by chance. But only if we assume that all the luck has to come in one fell swoop. When cascades of small chance steps accumulate, you can reach prodigious heights of adaptive complexity. That cumulative build-up is evolution. Its guiding force is natural selection." To which he concludes, that Design is an illusion. Yet, we need to approach them as if they were designed in order to "try to work out their functions.", according to Ruse. Not to mention that Dawkins doesn't adress the fact that these "cascades of small chance steps accumulat(ing)"over time, aren't so small at all, they each involve their own degree of EHDI. Plus, when all the small chance steps are accumulated selectively through Natural Selection, can the combined "luck factor" of all these steps, wihch constitute a Super Equation of EDHI, produce say...a leaf-like bug? In all that that entails?And as Dawkins also puts it, "The diagnostic of things that look (or are) designed is that their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in a functional direction.They do something well: for instance, fly." But that's only because "Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant.So Dawkins and Ruse and others agree, it looks and even is designed, in the sense that it has functions, purposes and it works. But the Ultimate Designer can only be Time multiplied by Random Mutation, in turn regulated by Natural Selection, which in conclusion, constitutes according to Fisher, an exceedingly high degree of improbability. Futhermore, to even infer, by means of Ockham's razor for example, that we can replace EHDI by Intelligent Design (God or what have you), is totally out of the question. Even though, it's easier to conclude the latter then the former. Because neither vestigial organs, nor even Evolution itself is really in question in a sense, but the Improbability Factor is what is in question. By all accounts, none of which precludes the Designer, on the contrary, the Improbility Factor encourages the notion of a Designer.Perhaps someone can clarely defined how it doesn't, because neither Ruse nor Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" have convinced me scientifically or tautologically.So someone please convince me, because the Improbability here makes no sense so far.. All of the non-teleogical arguements I read have more of a philosophical flavor then an emperical analysis...and please don't bring up Cumulative Selection gradients simulatons, because they don't show much other then their was evolution. Which again, doesn't preclude and rather encourages a Designer.Ok, now you may start...cheers
No wait, before I forget...

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My understanding is this:

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You are claiming something is highly improbable (specifically a bug ending up looking like a leaf IIRC). You seemed to be, at the start arguing that a mutation to produce this is highly unlikely. No one disagrees with that. What PaulK has pointed out that you don't need such a highly unlikely event at all. All you need are many, many resonable likely events combined with many, many trials and the effects of selection on those.

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The cumulative effect can produce what in a single step would appear to be unlikely. In fact, it can produce any number of very unlikely outcomes because it "tries" a huge number of outcomes and discards many of them.

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If you have any problems with this it would be useful if you would
spell them out in much greater detail than you have been.

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Well it's simple, that the outcomes evolved over time is not the problem, it's the specific nature of the oucomes, it's order, it's diversity, as well as the complexity, the numerous factors involved in the process, which can be climate, isolation, or others, when studied in light of what actual genetic mutation involves, that is, mutation can just as much be a damage as a change in the chromosome, which makes it that much harder to relate to the notion of complex positive mutation by way of mere cumulative chance. I personnally conclude that it shouldn't have, by mere chance of mutation coupled with NS, which, according to Dawkins, NS isn't a random process, but yet, according to Fisher, it is still an EHDI, produce a perfect "illusion" of Design in Dawkins' words. Not only that, but in order to even understand this "illusion" of Design, or "to try to work out their functions" as Ruse would put it, you have to begin with the assumption that it was, in fact, manufactured that way by an extrenal intelligence? I think you can see how that can be a problem to certain people. However, I'll wait for your explanations as to why it isn't a problem at all. And I'm sure we'll all go home happy.