If we found a clock in the middle of the desert, we would be convinced that someone made it and put it there. Why, then, when it comes to humans, do we assume that we were created randomly by natural selection rather than by God's intelligent design?
My wife turned to me. I cringed when I saw the sparkle in her eyes. "We are almost at the top. Just a little more and we've arrived!"
"Okay, okay," I grumbled, "but I don't understand what's so special about climbing the Dolomites. Only trees and slopes. There is not even Wi-Fi here!”
"Stop grumbling," the lady went back to climbing. "The view from the top will be worth it."
And as always - she was right. Wine-clear mountain air greeted us as we rounded the next bend, and below us spread the Dolomites: hundreds of meters of steep dips, valleys and rock outcroppings. Far below us we could see the chimneys of the houses in the village and their red roofs, but we stood high above civilization, surrounded by pristine, green and bright nature. No one was ever present there. We knew that in all our hearts.
"What is?" asked my wife, bending down and picking up a small object. The sun's rays flickered and refracted on the golden metal.
I examined the object with curiosity. "It's a watch, my love. gold watch."
"Watch? What is a clock doing here? We are the first to climb this peak!"
I shrugged. "You know I don't like to say I told you so, but… I told you it wasn't worth the trouble."
Her face showed a storm of emotions: disappointment, anger, confusion, and suddenly - relief.
"I know how he got here." the statement. "He evolved!"
"what?" I asked.
"He has evolved. in evolution. Well, you know.”
I glared at her for a moment. She is an aeronautics and space engineer and I come from the field of biology. I knew that when I married her, but I thought we'd make it anyway.
"I don't think it evolved, just my heart." I tried to talk about intelligence. "Simply, clocks don't usually have parents, and one of the most basic requirements for evolution is to have parents who pass their traits on to their offspring. That's because they don't reproduce. They don't have male and female and small watches. Man creates them.”
"But wait," she stopped me, "then why do they always say that watches evolved like people?"
"Because we are also complex machines," I explained, "and each of the cells in our body is also a complex machine in itself. And it all started with Reverend Paley two hundred years ago, who claimed that just as clocks are made by an intelligent factor - man - so we too were made by an intelligent factor - God. Even Darwin was familiar with Paley's book on the subject, having read it when he was young. It was like the Bible to him. He accepted what Paley said almost without reservation."
"so what happened?" she asked and sat down on a rock, ready for the lecture that was about to come.
"He set out on a journey throughout the known world, on the ship Beagle. All the fossils and animals he found there made him realize, after several years of analysis and thought, that the living creatures were not created at once, but that they all evolved from some ancestor, by way of natural selection.
Those who were more adapted to their environment were able to produce more offspring, and their traits were passed on to the next generation, which is why today's organisms fit their environment like a glove. Birds have wings that allow them to fly, a giraffe has a long neck that allows it to reach the leaves high on the trees, and we all have eyes that allow us to see."
"You have a little logical leap here," said Meshush Chai. "Eyes were not created all at once. They consist of many different parts: cornea, retina, lens, the transparent part, cells that receive the light, nerves that transmit the message to the brain and many other parts. Each of these parts does not help on its own. There's no point in having a lens there if there are no light-receiving cells, right? So how can such an eye develop gradually, if every small step does not provide an advantage to the animal in its generation?"
"That's exactly what Darwin said," I agreed, "he asked himself - what's the point of half an eye? But since then they have done a lot of research, and discovered many types of primitive eyes. Even single-celled creatures, for example, have very basic eyes, consisting only of light-absorbing proteins. This is how the eoglina, for example, which is about the size of a human cell, knows how to move to a lighted place where it can photosynthesize and produce energy.
In more complex creatures, such as flatworms, these eyes have already started to become more complex, and a pit has been formed at the bottom of which are the light receptors. These holes allow the worms to understand which direction the light is coming from and this is very useful for them. The next step was probably when the dimples started to close, leaving only a small hole through which the light would enter. This development helped to protect the sensitive eye and gave the organism a better ability to distinguish the direction from which the light came and even to decipher basic shapes. These are the eyes that can be found today in the nautilus, which already existed millions of years ago."
"So you're saying that half-eye actually has many positive sides." my wife mused aloud. Puts the watch aside. "And I'm ready to accept it, but something is still not clear to me."
"What's troubling you, my oarless fish?"
"I agree that many intermediate stages of the eye have already been found, but has anyone ever seen a true evolution of the eye? Or of any other complex organ?"
"No," I admitted, "not of the eye." Lately there was one case of Lizards moved to another island with different vegetation, and developed within thirty-six years a type of valves in the intestines that slowed down the passage of food in the digestive system, so that the lizards had time to break down the plant food into its basic nutritional components. But I'm not sure to what extent such valves can really be considered as complex organs."
"But not every lizard and its offspring was followed, was it?"
"No, the researchers simply moved the lizards to the new island and returned after decades to check what happened to them. Evolution in nature takes a very long time and they didn't want to waste almost forty years on this lonely island. But according to genetic testing, the current lizards are really the descendants of the original lizards that were transferred to the island."
"But this is circumstantial evidence!" argued the woman. "Isn't there a study where they followed all the creatures and their descendants and checked how they evolve and develop new traits?"
"You're right," I agreed. "The scientists also realized that a piece of the puzzle is missing here, and that it needs to be completed in order to give full confirmation to the science of evolution. The problem is that, as I already said, evolution takes between tens and millions of years, and it is difficult to do experiments on such a scale. But still, there is A study in which they followed the evolution of complex organs. It has only one problem: it's made about digital creatures."
"what?!"
"Simple digital creatures, in a computer program. All creatures started the same way, when they only know how to duplicate themselves, and from time to time mistakes fall into their computer code - they may get an additional letter to the code, or lose a letter that already existed, or sometimes even a whole line of code. It is very similar to mutations that occur in the genetic code. Everything is completely random.”
"And how does this simulate evolution?" a question.
"Until now, there are two basic requirements here: the ability to produce offspring with the traits of the parents, and a computerized genetic code that can undergo mutations. The researchers added another condition that simulated natural selection. After a few relatively simple mutations the digital creatures began to develop simple logical functions. For example, they could read a number. Or remember it, or read two numbers and remember them. These are functions that seem very simple to us, but the digital creatures had to go through several thousand generations of mutations before developing them.
To encourage the creatures, each logical function they developed gave them incentives that helped them reproduce more easily. What happened is that as soon as a certain creature developed a logical function, even the simplest one, it replicated at a faster rate than its fellows and therefore eventually conquered all... software. And in the end there were even creatures that developed all nine possible logical functions!”
"But did they use them for anything?"
"This is the most interesting part," I said. "The most complex logical function allowed them to compare the two numbers they read and remembered. In order for the digital beings to evolve it, they first had to develop at least five simpler logical functions, and they actually managed to do that. The dominant strains in that software were the ones that developed the complex logical function, after 16,000 generations of random mutations, and a process of natural selection that resulted from the conditions of the software."
"But they weren't really alive. Just like the clock we found here!” she noted.
"I'm not so sure," I mused aloud. "The clock does not produce offspring and does not have a genetic code that undergoes mutations. The digital creatures have a computerized genetic code, they are able to reproduce, they undergo an evolution that gives them new features... From my point of view, this is enough to define them as living beings, at least inside the computer."
I bent down and picked up the golden watch.
"The real greatness of this study is that it showed that it is possible to get complex traits from random evolution, if you just bring natural selection into the business. The researchers continued the experiment for only 16,000 generations, and only 3,600 creatures lived in each generation."
The little watch refused to open in response to pressing the button. Rust, probably. Who knows how long he has been here, since he fell out of the pockets of the previous qualifiers for the summit?
"Now think about the enormous number of unicellular and multicellular organisms that live on Earth: about ten to the fifty, according to some estimates. This is much, much, much more than the number of stars in the entire known universe, or the number of grains of sand on Earth. And think about all the billions of years, and the tens of billions of generations of mutations that these creatures have gone through up to the present day."
I hit the watch on a rock. The hard casing cracked and the freed gears scattered on the ground.
"Compared to the complexity of the eye, this watch is child's play. But all the evidence we have shows that complex organs can evolve. Both in computer simulations, and in the evidence that exists in fossils and living creatures today. This is the power of evolution.”
"You didn't have to break it." said my wife scoldingly. She rose and stretched her limbs. "It's very tiring to go on trips with you, you know?"
"So can we stay home from now on?" I asked hopefully.
"No," she shook her head. "This is the price I have to pay for a trip: I've already received three lectures on the way up and I'm ready to accept that. But I have only one request.”
"What is your wish, my sweet cheese?"
"Can you please be quiet on the way down?"
49 תגובות
I feel sorry for your loss.
It is not easy to live with a woman who is so oppressive that you have to explain to her at her age things that 7-year-olds should already know.
Excellent article, I really enjoyed reading and waiting
*Nose
** Prove it
Crescent moon:
Indeed - I am against any immoral - not least - murderous system of laws.
I am also against lies and distortions of facts and your claim regarding the fact that the Torah does not speak about creation is a complete lie.
Say you're anti-religious and that's it,
And what is the problem with evolution and how does it contradict the Torah?
If the Torah does not speak at all about creation, it speaks in general to reach the purpose of Abraham and his legacy.
In short, it didn't go well for you..
Eric:
You just didn't understand the problem.
After all, the claim of science is that the organic creatures are in the end mechanical engineering products prepared by nature without the help of a planning engineer and this is what arouses the froth of those who want to leave God in the picture.
In other words - religion makes the diagnosis you are talking about in advance and the creationists attack science in an attempt to show that there is a contradiction between the scientific position (that everything is mechanical and engineering) and their twisted logic.
To remind you that today we are making more and more progress towards the "mechanical engineering" creation of living beings.
See for example here (and this is just one of the places):
https://www.hayadan.org.il/bacterial-cell-with-a-synthetic-genome-2105106/
The analogy between a watch and a human being is fundamentally wrong, a distinction must be made between something mechanical and engineering and an organism of any kind
shut up already god Go take care of the terrorists who are destroying Shabrat. But on the other hand, I don't think you will succeed, if you are responsible for the fact that the terrorists are also your creation and they do the output of your thoughts, then you are first of all responsible for that. If you are responsible for the destruction of what you built you are definitely a strange being. If so, please leave us alone.
The whole universe is just a small drop of seed, as soon as you finish exploring it you will discover the God who is responsible for it and only then will you begin to explore my thoughts that came to fruition and created the infinite reality.
And you would be like God, knowing good and evil, only then would you be in my image and in my likeness because from the beginning this is how it came to my mind
Good night my beloved children
Maybe. Maybe someone really created the universe (what is a world? Say universe). It really does not require that someone created life on Earth.
On the other hand, there are things that cannot be quantified in finite numbers but can only be described in infinite terms, there are no such things. Therefore who said that the universe had a beginning, that someone created it? (The big bang is not considered because it can be said that there was something before that that created it).
L29: Maybe, but that's not what the article discusses. I did not come to say that there is a Torah or things like that, I said that it is clear that someone created the world also according to the person who wrote this article.
As far as I understood the world they created on the computer, was not purposeful, but only created conditions for creatures to evolve or not.. They could also die or not change..
Both the clock or any technological invention as well as a biological development, it is probable! (that's the key word) that it was created during the development of relatively small steps, and not all at once... just as it is unlikely (but possible) that a person, a member of a remote culture living in Gungal and cut off from the modern world, will invent at once an atomic reactor or an airplane or a digital clock. I mean explain! that it had to be created in stages. Maybe if I had in my possession tens of millions of attempts it would have happened.. but it was less likely.. like the analogy if the monkeys typing war and peace by chance... a sequence of random ideas in random people, (likely it takes a lot of people) creates a product "by chance" It's good that it serves as a basis for another sequence of random ideas from random people, (it's likely that you need a lot of people) to upgrade the same idea/product, that is, enough people enough time and you'll create a good new idea... publish it so that enough people will hear it, and enough of them will think of ideas for upgrading, and there will be some ideas for upgrading... this is evolution, natural selection (advertisement, number of people, idea good enough, competition with other ideas and objections) and the idea is upgraded... you don't have to create the clock for its idea to roll out, it only helps publicity ( distribution) and proving its "goodness" (ie how good/survival it is)
This ..
The theories of relativity were used and published in order to settle contradictions between theories from different fields in physics. They were not "invented" like that out of nowhere, even though the proofs of their correctness were found years later. The theories did not come to explain hypotheses that were raised in the imagination without grounding in reality.
With all due respect to the "antiquity" of the human race on earth, not everything that is said or practiced belongs to reality (or is true).
In the same way, the theory of relativity was also invented, and only a few years after its publication was really found to be correct.
The doubt is always there, but it really does not rule out the truth or falsity of the news - without the proper investigation.
Who determines what a real foundation is? are you? Until now what is known about light is only a few basic properties, but no one is able to estimate its structure and explain why it behaves both as a wave and as a particle.
And as for the scientific assessment, come on, look at scientific history since Newton.
Many times while many schools of thought were headed towards a certain scientific theory, some researcher came along who revealed the whole universe to them anew. Every period in which the scientists claimed that they were on the verge of finishing forming a picture of the way the universe works - this turned out to be wrong in retrospect. Less than 100 years have passed since a similar revolution, some people are older than that. Man's feelings about the nature of things is the domain of man's beliefs, not of science.
This approach is not much different from the same approach of believing in God, and abandoning a central element in the investigation of the nature of the universe - casting doubt and an open mind. Blind adherence and narrow-mindedness can also appear in scientific researchers, and then it is no longer clear whether the goal is to find truths of existence or to prove beliefs that have been formed in the scientific field.
I say this as someone for whom physics is one of the loves of my life.
Alex,
I repeat and emphasize: it is possible to invent anything (including the flying spaghetti monster), but if there is no real foundation and no tangible phenomena and no other supporting evidence that can be pointed to - because then you have nothing in your hands and it is just a fantasy.
Beyond all that, scientific thinking has progressed somewhat since the discovery of electromagnetic waves, and it is possible to scientifically evaluate what is probable and what is not and where to look for the necessary evidence.
Yigal C (33)
Like any subject of investigation, the system that contains it must be referred to, as well as the method of investigation.
On such a subject, the empirical investigation alone cannot resolve the conflict (and not necessarily answer the question),
Because the counter-claimers do not necessarily eliminate the empirical field, but claim additional fields in which it is possible to investigate about God and the like, while the goddesses, on the other hand, state that only the empirical investigation is considered - and the conflict continues. It should be noted that although empirical investigation is central to modern life, it is not the only "scientific" field - the social sciences and humanities, those human sciences do not always fully overlap with the empirical sciences, yet are considered an integral part of understanding the world. Investigation by these means in addition to investigation by empirical tools can advance the subject in question.
Also, one must take into account the limitations available to man in his investigation of all his objects. If the statement was that only the objects that can be sensed by humans - are the ones that exist, then radio waves would not exist, the sound could not be explained and nuclear fission would be just an exploded concept that means nothing. Man has built tools to overcome his physical limitations, and to measure beyond the natural scope of man's investigation. To the same extent and with considerable probability could be the possibility that we have not yet built the next device that can sense God.
And one last thing, when investigating a subject, along with the limitation of the method - the answer received can also be flawed and not interpreted correctly. If it were said that only the human sight can sense the electromagnetic waves - then again, the cut fields would necessarily not be accepted as belonging to this group, even though today it sounds funny. It is necessary to assess the nature of the object being investigated and adjust the investigation methods, and not necessarily refer to one method as the only rule.
All of the above provides several options for solving the supposedly ridiculous case you presented. You know, with proper research you might even find it. What is certain is that without proper research you will not get an adequate and correct answer, but only the answer you want to get.
Alex (32),
You can invent spaces/dimensions/realms to your heart's content and determine what you want about them (yes God, no God) and it will not be possible to refer to it at all. I, for example (like Carl Sagan) claim that I have a dragon in my basement that hovers 2 cm above the floor. As soon as you turn on a light in the basement - poof! He becomes a seer and is not seen! Prove it wrong! (What, you claim I'm a liar??!!)
Eliyahu ben Hashem (31)
I'm not a religious person, but you're not entirely right.
It all depends on the area of derivation and the basic axioms of the situation you want to examine.
In Humphrey's situation maybe yes, but it is not the basic system in which the question arose and in which it is also examined.
Your position can be disputed with the following two main axioms:
1. If we say that God is indeed beyond the perception of man's senses and thought, even if in part
2. That the person lives in a certain area of sensory and mental perception, that is, there are areas of existence that the person cannot perceive, feel, think, understand, etc.
Thus you will not be able to both prove and disprove the existence of God, even if he exists or not.
Ail.A, it seems you didn't understand my intention, maybe another question mark would have been more understandable?
"Would you believe it was created by itself naturally? Or has he always existed in this form?”
Here, is it clearer that way?
That is, I took the parable of the clock, and replaced "clock" with "God" just to show the believers how much this parable does not help them, meaning that if a complex thing requires a creator, then it can also be blamed on God.
Jonathan,
This story does not aim to confirm the theory of evolution. Confirmations for this theory are numerous. This is not a controversial theory, but one of the most confirmed theories ever.
The purpose of the story is to refute the chewed clock argument of the believers and to show why it is a mistake to think that this broken analogy disproves the theory of evolution.
Mike Marom (response 12)-
created and left. Someone also created the universe for you. So why assume he didn't leave?
Eliyahu ben Hashem (response 17)-
Formed alone naturally. This is just as likely as the second option. Let's make another hypothetical assumption: if you were to go back 1000 years with the abilities you have today, you too could prepare a beautiful show for the natives that would make them believe you are God (even 100 years ago, and alternatively, go back a few thousand years, when the religions were formed And the beliefs about the powers of creation and unlimited powers, and even if you say that you are not an almighty God or an idol or whatever, they will not believe you... [hmm.. paradox] for them you are almighty - you can also grant "superhuman" powers to people "Flesh and blood" unlike you..).
An entertaining and well written article. but…
1. The example of the clock is not really suitable to contradict the argument of evolution. It's more of an endearing anecdote for those who can't dig too deep, and for followers of evolution something to debate with themselves.
2. Mike Marom touched on the important point. – Someone developed the software! And it should also be added that he pre-marked the circles around the target.
In short - there is still no proof or half proof for the theory of evolution. And all attempts to claim that there is, will be hidden very easily.
I'm really disgusted that every article on this site makes a killing on women. Calling your wife a rotting cheese and that she lacks a paddle in her head is simply insulting. If evolution has done so many wonderful things, maybe there will be a few million more years for women to understand, so why underestimate them.
A.
Take a read about how your kinesin is made.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15951483
R.H-
There is a difference between a simple mutation and the formation of a new structure. The difference lies in the statistical chances and the magnitude of the change. A protein like kinesin contains 2 legs. If one leg is missing, it will not be able to function. Hence, both legs had to appear at the same time. A difference of hundreds of bases is required here. On the other hand, a difference of conscience is required.
I didn't understand if you tried to write a Platonic dialogue and you are in the role of Socrates,
Or an opinion in the balance of an endearing story with a point.
I also didn't understand what the point is, what is the binding factor of the entire text written here:
The title and description suggest another article on divine design versus random existence,
The story is a type of description of an experience with exaggeration in speeches, explanations and scientific references,
who too amateurishly tries to compare a person to a clock (not that the issue is not amenable to serious consideration, but it is done hastily and throwing out random facts rather than a real investigative method).
For such sections there are blog sites, forums, opinion sites, etc.
This particular site, as far as I understand, is intended to engage in actual science and not semi-scientific speculation.
I agree that the thing that Mr. Roschild pointed out and Yigal hinted at, is a notable difference between the two processes. This difference is the substrate in which the process occurs. In nature, ideas/memes are DNA segments (genes). In order to know if an idea is successful (adapted to the environment) or not, it must be realized in the real world.
In the world of memes, the primary substrate is people's minds. This allows each idea to be tested in a kind of simulation of reality, and if it has passed this stage, the person carrying the brain will actually test it.
This enables the acceleration of the process as Mr. Roschild pointed out.
A byproduct of this advantage is the possibility of memes whose entire existence is in people's minds without the need to test them against reality (see the example of Chazi and his ilk, God, etc.)
If the mother was created randomly and the clock was created by the person then the clock was also created randomly?
או
That the exorbitant prices in the watch shops imply that these are watches made by God?
The little watch refused to open in response to pressing the button. Rust, probably. Who knows how long he's been here,
Rust in a gold watch??
Probably not so much gold..
I actually liked the nicknames you called your wife.. is it real? She doesn't beat you for nicknames like dogfish without a paddle?
Excellent article. Thank you very much, I really enjoyed reading 🙂
A.
E. coli bacteria do not have the ability to use citrate as a carbon source. In Lansky's experiment they acquired such an ability. What does it matter if a new protein is created or an existing protein is changed? After all, no one claims that Christians have new genes out of nowhere. The processes of creating the new genes are modification, fusion, disassembly, changing the reading frame, mixing, etc. which is too short to describe. But you, despite knowing everyone, still repeat the well-worn claim "nothing new was created".
Equally it can be argued that the first watch was nothing new. They took known gears, known springs and connected them. A mechanism was created, but you would claim "it's not new, it's just a change of the existing one". According to this approach there is nothing new in the world.
If you were to walk on the beach, and suddenly you encountered an almighty God, wiser than anyone, who creates universes and instantly turns wooden sticks into snakes, and lumps of mud into living, breathing people, would you believe that he was created by himself naturally, or has he always existed in this form?
: )
🙂 🙂
🙂 🙂 🙂
Well done, Roy. I think you should write more stories on similar and related scientific topics, combine them into a series and publish them as a book: "Travels with"
I have already written in the past many times about the evolution of memes and the fact that the watch (and the car) are examples of memes and the fact that as a result they evolve.
I also wrote that just as living creatures struggle for the resources of their living environment - memes also struggle for the resources of the environment in which they live - the minds of humans.
There are several differences that make the clock model invalid as a refutation of animal evolution, the most important of which are:
1. The only environment that animals need is the one that exists in nature. They do not need the minds of humans to survive and evolve. This is in contrast to the evolution of memes which requires a brain as an environment for existence and development.
2. The evolution of life is based on a choice between structures that are created by random mutations, while the "mutations" that create new ideas are not necessarily random - some are goal-directed mutations. This difference affects both the rate of evolution of memes and their ability to "jump" over the barrier of inextricable complexity that creationists often try to use as an argument against evolution.
3. In memes there can exist (because of the above reason) parts with inextricable complexity (a collection of memes is also a meme and it is possible that the collection has inextricable complexity) while in life it seems that there is no such complexity and all the attempts of the evolutionists to point to such complexity (justified attempts Because if you find complexity in life that can be proven to be indecomposable, it will really contradict the claim that the species of animals are the product of natural evolution) - not only did they not provide proof for the claim of the indecomposability of mechanisms that they brought as an example - but these mechanisms were all proven to have completely and even decomposable complexity Animals have been found in nature that demonstrate the different stages of their development.
Lisa (4),
You have some very basic mistakes:
1. An engineering product (the watch) does not develop like a biological creature (the person). It is developed, its desired features are planned in advance and it is produced. In a biological being there are always mutations-developments and then when a change occurs, the development, if not so far fatally related, can be beneficial. That is, in an engineering product first comes the need (environmental pressure) and then it leads to change. In living things, the changes exist and then when environmental pressure comes, the creature may be found suitable for the environment.
2. There is nothing to refer to - it is clear that no intelligent factor is involved in the (natural) development of living beings (it does not refer to the culture of plants and animals made by man unwittingly using evolutionary tools, nor to the changes that man himself creates in his genetic pool).
3. There was no similarity from the beginning - the complexity of the human body is immeasurably greater than that of the clock and there is no logical order in it.
The information you are referring to - the information regarding the "plans and method of production" - in an engineering product is outside the product, while in living products - in every cell in their body.
The analogy that appears in the story was denied by Roy within the story - it does not exist.
In Lansky's experiment, no new proteins were created. The ability to digest citrite already exists in bacteria. What was regenerated is probably 2 simple mutations that allowed the entry of citrite into the cell.
Very nice, only one thing you forgot to add - someone also created the software in which the randomness of these objects was enhanced...
Tempus Rarom Imperator..
Tempus Omnia Revolt.
Tempus Sub Rossa ;)
(9):
did you contact me What problem is this?
I think the source of the confusion is in the term randomness. Randomness in my opinion is something that cannot be predicted by a model. The simplistic model of evolution does not pretend to predict the nature of mutations but leaves them vague - that is, random, and in this way explains gradual development - that is, the general and rough evolutionary principle says that the creation of complexity from simpler components does not require a decrease in the details of the nature of mutations (even if they are not "random" for the purpose the rough model they can be like this)
Of course, as science developed, models were created that claim to describe and predict the nature of mutations.
Randomness is often used by scientists when they come to describe phenomena with the help of a model and there are aspects related to the model whose behavior is described probabilistically. There are two balancing forces in model development - one that strives for a model that is as accurate as possible and the other that strives for a model that is as simple as possible. The midpoint will often introduce randomness to compensate for loss of precision for simplicity
You didn't understand the problem at all. Why do you assume that these are random mutations and not a deliberate hand?
sympathetic:
I agree that the two processes are not exactly the same process (as in many other analogies it is not perfect).
Regarding the linear development versus the exponential development - I wonder if, as pointed out by people such as Gordon Moore and Ray Kurzweil regarding the exponential nature of the development of IT technologies, there is a similar thing happening in nature?
That is, if we continue the analogy, it will be significantly strengthened if it is possible to point to a similar exponential development of abilities or complexities of biological systems in nature (a related question is how to measure such abilities - will we measure computational abilities, will they be certain functional abilities, or perhaps another index for complexity). Does anyone know of a study done on the subject?
I believe that exponentiality, as it manifests itself in engineering, originates from a more conservative approach than the one you suggested. When developing software systems for example, one of the guiding principles is the reuse of code that has already been written in the past. Another principle is the principle of modularity - writing code in atomic functional units so that they can be easily replaced and reused elsewhere. I think that these principles are the exponential engine of technology and an important part of them is history (what a person has already written or developed in the past, it is desirable to reuse it and thus the development time increases)
For example:
If I wrote a certain function in some programming language - it would take me X minutes.
It is said that this function can be used by many people (it performs a very useful operation such as calculating an average for example) - we say Y people. The naive calculation means that all the people together will take X*Y person minutes to develop the computational ability in each of the people. If, on the other hand, Y people will use what I wrote - for each person it will take a minute - and together Y minutes. That is, the profit here is measured by multiplication and not by addition.
I don't know what the biological analogue of scientific revolutions is, but in my opinion technology advances more predictably than science in general
liza
In my opinion there is a small difference that does not always exist between the evolution of biological systems and the evolution of ideas
or engineering devices. Biological evolution is dependent on history, when it is faced with change it is
Uses the tools that are at her disposal. Evolution's random history determines how it deals with change. Engineering not to mention ideas can sometimes jump in a way that doesn't depend on history. Sometimes an idea arises that is not directly related to the knowledge that preceded it and is not based on it. Sometimes even in the field of engineering a device is produced that is not bound by tradition or history.
Everything that has been said above is said with the caveat that most engineering is a traditional field in which the engineer strives to face a challenge while solving the problem with minimal changes to the existing product that has already proven itself. Also from a business point of view, the market often prefers minimal changes. It is easier to make small changes to an existing production line than to build new production lines. Despite all this, ideas and engineering do not always progress in a linear fashion.
It's a pleasure, it's just fun to read your stuff Roy.
Great story, entertaining and waiting! I enjoyed every word 🙂
Thank you very much for an interesting article.
I wanted to comment on the matter of the watch in connection with the question that Roy's wife asked, "So why do they always say that watches evolved like people?"
This analogy between a watch and the human body is a good analogy, but as with any analogy, it should be done with caution.
The clock like the man wasn't always here
The watch, like man, is an incredibly complex and precise machine
A watch, like the human body, has components without which it would lack the ability to function as a watch/body
So far agreed. Which of the following is a suitable continuation?
1."He evolved!" Roy's wife said about the clock and so does the person.
2. An intelligent factor created the clock and the same goes for man
3. This is where the similarity ends. There is no connection between the creation of a watch and the creation of a person
I think 1 is a worthy candidate. What is meant by?
The similarity between the processes, the one that created the human body and the one that created watches, must be examined at the right level of abstraction. The two processes in question are processes based on information. In the case of the watch, the information is how the watch was built. This is information that is encoded either in the minds of watchmakers or in the diagrams with which watchmakers can reconstruct a watch's construction. The coded information is responsible for how the watch will look, how it will function, how accurate it will be, how durable it will be, etc. There are clear mechanisms for duplicating this information - verbally in communication between people, or duplicating production instructions. There is also a process of choosing the information - which information is the most suitable? The one that leads to the production of the best, most accurate, and most sought after watches. And don't think that clock mutations are so different from other mutations and their "biological" diversity is less:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=clock
Regarding the production process of the human body, the information in question is the code stored in DNA. Here Darwinian evolution is the name of the game.
In both cases it is a developmental process. The clocks of old are our ancestors. If I were to travel back in time 100 million years and I would meet a person I would be extremely surprised - likewise if I were to travel back in time 1000 years and I would see a sophisticated digital clock I would be extremely surprised.
Both in the manufacturing process of the watch and in that of the person there is a recycled use of components that were once used for other things and over time were adapted to the new role. The screws and springs of the watch are the cells of the human body.
I think a name that is absolutely appropriate for this article is "The Evolutionary Similarity Between Man and Clock"
Roy, nice article, thanks.
I just wanted to comment that you don't have to go far for computer simulations. Evolution can be demonstrated very nicely in cultures of single cells, yeasts and other bacteria. There is, for example, Richard Lansky's ongoing experiment in which breeders
E. coli has been around for over 50,000 generations and we are finding things from an evolutionary point of view, such as the development of new metabolic pathways that were not present in the bacterium before.
http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/
I really enjoyed reading!
hahahahahahahaha great I really liked it