THE END OF EVOLUTION?

I come across articles about this in the pop-sci press probably several times a year. I can't recall the actual source and issue of any of them, though I'm sure two of them were New Scientist and Scientific American, but here's a short column I found on the web that provides a few details. It appeared in SciAm a couple years ago: Culture Speeds Up Human Evolution--Percy

If by speciation you mean the human race splitting off into two different species, then you're right to express skepticism. Given the increasing interconnectedness of the world, it seems extremely unlikely.But if it's true that the rate of human evolution has been accelerating over the past 10,000 years, then it is very likely that at some point we'll no longer be the same species we once were. That means we'd be unable to breed with humans from tens or even hundreds of thousands of years before. Of course, being able to establish that this had happened experimentally seems unlikely given the probable unavailability of not only any humans from that long ago, but even just genomic information. Will scientists 100,000 years from now still have a copy of the results of the human genome project that was completed a few years ago? I doubt it.--Percy

You keep saying things like this without providing any supporting evidence or argument. Instead of repeating unsupported assertions, please describe for us how the formation of DNA by random chance violates 2LOT.The reality is that it isn't impossible, and 2LOT doesn't say that it is. The probability of spontaneous formation of DNA is a function of the starting conditions. Are you starting with a simple mixture of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and potassium? Of the nucleic bases, cynine, adenine, guanine and thymine? Are sugars present in the mixture? Phosphates?But while the probability of spontaneous DNA formation is not zero, it must be extremely tiny, and scientists do not believe that this is how DNA first formed. They believe that it developed gradually over time from simpler predecessors via a process of imperfect replication and selection. In other words, you're not only wrong about what 2LOT says and doesn't say, you're arguing against a scenario that is a common layperson's misunderstanding of the origin of life and that is not something that scientists propose ever happened. Most words in most languages have more than one definition, so I hope that doesn't make you feel like you're being tricked, else you'll feel tricked much of the time.It also shouldn't surprise you that the deeper you delve into a topic that the more complexity emerges. That's why we have dictionaries for the simplest level of definitions, encyclopedias for more detail, and textbooks for more detail yet. That there is more to evolution than you originally suspected might come as a surprise to you, but no one's trying to pull a fast one on you. Evolution definitely does not mean *random* change over time. Selective forces guide evolution toward better adaptation to the environment. For example, that's why white fur evolves in the far north and not in jungles. If evolution were random change then white bears could emerge anywhere, but they don't. No, they really aren't. Each requires the creation of new information, it's just that one requires more new information than the other. Your "structured information system" requires that information defining that system first be created before the information contained within that system is created. There is nothing in 2LOT that constrains the creation of new information. Billions and trillions and quadrillions of bits of information are being created in the universe every second. It's becoming obvious that you're just invoking 2LOT for everything you don't like, and since you don't understand 2LOT, your claims never make any sense.2LOT can be expressed in many different ways. You could say that the entropy of a closed system can never decrease. You could say that heat can only travel toward lower heat. You could say that no process is reversible. You could say that the amount of energy available in a system to do work can never increase.But you definitely cannot claim that 2LOT says that, "Randomness cannot possibly drive a process in any specific direction." I don't know what that even means in any scientific sense, and I'm very sure that you don't.Concerning Lenski's E. coli, you seem to concede that a new function evolved ("So it seems E.Coli have finally learned to eat something new..."), but then you say you're not impressed, and so your stance on this is unclear. Do you understand that Lenski's E. coli evolved a new function, and that this runs counter to your 2LOT claims of impossibility?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Add emphasis to the word "random".

Every few days you check in and attempt to reset the discussion to square one, forcing everyone to remake their arguments from scratch. Please go back and respond to the messages that have been posted to you. If you don't understand what was said then ask questions.But more importantly, if you don't want to talk about 2LOT (you said you were trying "to move away from 2LTD") then you shouldn't be participating in this thread, and incredibly, you're the actual originator of this thread. Oh, the irony, the thread's originator doesn't want to talk about his own topic!Since you've obviously forgotten, you began this thread by saying it was about 2LOT. This is from your opening post, Message 1: So if you don't want to talk about 2LOT, then I'm afraid you'll have to stop participating in your own thread.--Percy

I think you should make your own choices about which messages to respond to. My only point is that when you respond to zero messages it makes it impossible to have a discussion.What we see is that every few days you pop back in, and with fair frequency it's with a post that doesn't respond to anything anybody said, often just asking the exact same question you posed in your opening post. People then take you back through the same evidence and arguments you just blew off, but eventually ending up with you just blowing everything off again by again asking your original question.It would be really, really nice if you stopped this pattern. When the discussion gets to the point where you're feeling the need to reset to the beginning, instead stick with it, ask questions, do research, whatever it takes.--Percy

Hi Pcver,Picking out just a couple representative sentences Your post is just fantasy and semantic word games. There's nothing of substance I can reply to. You could have addressed the topic by building an argument in terms of 2LOT or information theory, but what you're describing isn't either one. 2LOT and information theory already have definitions that have been scientifically validated against reality over many years. You're just making up your own definitions and exercising your imagination.--Percy

Yes, it's pretty clear you don't understand what Coragyps is "on about." This is because you don't understand the implications of your own words. You claimed in Message 230: But DNA is just a molecule, a complex one to be sure, but still just a molecule. It and all its constituent parts follow the laws of the universe just like all other molecules. Theories are generalizations that apply to the whole universe. What you're doing is making up rules that apply only to DNA and calling it logic.That's why Coragyps responded with a rhetorical question about whether water forming by random chance would violate 2LOT. The answer is obvious, naturally, that's why it's rhetorical, but of course water forming by random chance wouldn't violate 2LOT, nor any other physical law. Water molecules form by random chance all the time.DNA is a molecule, too. A complex one with thousands and millions of atoms, but still a molecule. It's formation by random chance is far less likely than water, but not impossible, because 2LOT is a physical law that applies to all matter and energy everywhere throughout the universe, and that includes both water and DNA. The spontaneous and random formation of molecules of any kind does not violate 2LOT.But origins of life researchers do not believe that DNA came about as the result of a very unlikely chemical accident, but that it developed gradually over time from simpler predecessors through a process of imperfect replication and selection. Like the spontaneous formation of molecules, this process is in perfect accord with 2LOT and information theory. We understand that you think it violates the rules you're making up in your own head, but the real world doesn't have to concern itself with your fantasies.You claim you're applying logic. I see little logic in your arguments, but anyway, logic without knowledge is helpless. That's why you can claim you're using logic and that you're not being contradictory when, for example, you apply physical laws differently for water versus DNA, yet never see the irony. It's why you can't see the obvious implications of much of what you say.Games of Dungeons and Dragons are very logical (and complex), but they are fantasy. For something to be true of the real world takes more than just logic. You have to actually experiment and/or observe the real world to understand how it works. Of course, most of us don't do this work ourselves - we read books by others who have. But if you're not going to do the research yourself, and if you're not going to read or accept the research performed by others, that leaves you pretty much completely ignorant of how the real world actually works.And that's how it is that we find ourselves today in this thread listening to you tell tall tales. This thread is about 2LOT (or information theory if you like) and its implications for evolution, and whenever you're ready to begin discussing the real 2LOT or the real information theory, instead of the ones you're making up, we're ready.--PercyEdited by Percy, : "things" => "rules" in my 2nd para. Grammar.

Sigh.I'm a software engineer, and during my entire professional career I've had to live with the apparent reality that a fair number of engineers and programmers, my friends and fellow co-workers, are fertile ground for pseudoscientific claptrap. As near as I can make out, it's not uncommon for them to be savants of a sort who possess amazing intuitions that along with their training enable them to solve complex problems. But somehow missing from their makeup is any sense that even outside of their professional life ideas must still be anchored in reality to have any validity. This enables them to believe all sorts of nonsense while still able to be not just competent but even amazing engineers and programmers.Living daily with this contradiction,--Percy

You spend a month wasting our time with things you make up off the top of your head while avoiding actual discussion of the topic or anything that science has actually established, then when people's frustration starts to show you take a hike. Good show.To us moderators: I think we dropped the ball on this one. Moderator pressure to focus on the topic would probably have caused Pcver to leave anyway, but it would have been worth a shot.--Percy

Since Pcver has announced he's leaving, I'd like to make an additional comment about this: There's no way to know precisely what "I'm fairly close to software engineering" means concerning Pcver's job description, but if he were an engineer or a programmer he would have said so. I think he means he works with software engineers but is not one himself. My experience is that those who work in support positions for software engineering tend to be even more vulnerable to pseudoscience than the programmers themselves.One of the things I found interesting about education level and belief in pseudoscience is that college graduates are just as vulnerable as those with a high school education. Hey, maybe a bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma! Anyway, only with graduate degrees does it decline.--Percy

Could be. How susceptible would you say your co-workers are to homeopathy, which is as out of control in the UK as creationism is here?--Percy