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On 06/03/2025 00:45, MarkE wrote:Natural selection is the *only* naturalistic means capable of increasing functional complexity and genetic information.On 5/03/2025 3:31 pm, MarkE wrote:First, natural selection is not the only evolutionary process. Even if one evolutionary process is not capable of achieving something that doesn't mean that evolutionary processes in toto are not capable of achieving that.Is there a limit to capability of natural selection to refine, adapt and create the “appearance of design”? Yes: the mechanism itself of “differential reproductive success” has intrinsic limitations, whatever it may be able to achieve, and this is further constrained by finite time and population sizes.>
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Martin, let's stay on topic. Would you agree that there are limits to NS as described, which lead to an upper limit to functional complexity in living things?
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How these limits might be determined is a separate issue, but the first step is establishing this premise.
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Second, you've changed the question. Evolutionary processes have limitations, but those limitations need not be on the degree of functional complexity achievable. Evolution cannot produce living organisms that can't exist in the universe. (You could quibble about lethal mutations, recessives, etc., but I hope you can perceive the intent of my phrasing; for example, I very much doubt that evolution could result in an organism with a volume measured in cubic light years.)The limits of NS are not simply due to physically possible organisms. It's much tighter constraint. The mechanism of "differential reproductive success" is a blunt instrument, rightly described as explaining the survival but not arrival of the fittest.
Applying this to functional complexity, physical limits on how big an organism can be, and how small details can be, do pose a limit on how much functional complexity can be packed into an organism. But such a limit doesn't help you - humans are clearly capable of existing in this universe, so aren't precluded by that limit. You need a process limitation, not a physical limitation; I don't find it obvious that there is a process limitation that applies here.
You say that the first step is establishing the premise. That is your job.
That there are things that evolution cannot achieve (a classic example is the wheel, though even that is not unimaginable) doesn't not mean that evolution cannot achieve things that already exist; one of the reasons that ID is not science is it's lack of interest in accounting for the voluminous evidence that evolution has achieved the current biosphere.
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