Re: Observe the trend. It’s happening. Give it time.

On Sat, 8 Mar 2025 15:34:30 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:

On 7/03/2025 9:29 pm, Ernest Major wrote:

On 06/03/2025 00:45, MarkE wrote:

On 5/03/2025 3:31 pm, MarkE wrote:

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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<snip for focus>
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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?
>
How these limits might be determined is a separate issue, but the
first step is establishing this premise.
>

 
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.

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Natural selection is the *only* naturalistic means capable of increasing
functional complexity and genetic information.
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All other factors have only a shuffling/randomising effect. In every
case, NS is required to pick from the many resulting permutations the
rare chance improvements.
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Without the action of NS, all biological systems are degrading over time.
>

 
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.)
 
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.
 

>
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.
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To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):
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1. NS, along with any other naturalistic mechanisms, do not have the
logical capacity to fully traverse the solution space, regardless of
time available. Some (many) areas of the fitness landscape will be
islands, local maxima, inaccessible via gradualistic pathways (e.g.
monotonically increasing fitness functions). These are however
accessible to intelligent design.
>
2. The time/material resources of the universe allow exploration of only
a small fraction of even the accessible solutions. Again, this
constraint does not apply to intelligent design.
>
Does the burden of proof for these hypotheses rest exclusively with ID?
Not at all. Naturalism, if being intellectually curious, honest, and
open-minded, will ask the same questions and seek to answer them.

Assertions without evidence do not an argument make.  Your expressed
hypotheses above make it clear you have no idea how genetic drift and
natural selection work.  Both are capable of setting allele
frequencies to either 100% or 0% aka "arrived".  This is Genetic 101.

Your hypotheses also express a simplistic understanding of the meaning
of "fittest".  It does not mean the fittest among all possibilities.
It does mean the fittest among extant features; features which don't
exist at some arbitrary time and place need not be considered.

As you say, a reasonable discussion needs to be limited to "possible"
features; no organisms transmuting elements or quantum jumping.  What
you don't say is an hypothesis for how intelligent design gets genetic
material not available to natural selection.  Without that,
intelligent design and natural selection necessarily are limited to
the same solution space.  Or, like Behe, do you allow intelligent
design to magically *poof* features into existence?

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge