Re: [asa] Front-loading thoughts

Hi Dave,

You wrote:

"I don't get it. Neither artificial selection nor natural selection is built into the cells or organisms. They can only take advantage of such changes as occur within the genome, which does not have to be chromosomal though that is what is usually considered. Some changes my be deleterious, even to the point of immediate death. But there may be accidents that kill what, had it survived, would have been a marked advance. How are lethal mutations and accidental deaths front-loaded to guide development?"

If we are going to use evolution to carry out design objectives, we would want to account for the inevitability of lethal mutations and accidental deaths. That is, we would want to design the architecture of life in such a way as to maximize the transmission of our designs into the future despite the expected occurrences of lethal mutations and accidental deaths. So that is one question to ponder from the FLE perspective: if we think of lethal mutations and accidental deaths as noise, to what extant does this noise drown out any design over time? And how could we work around (or through) this noise?

One solution would seem obvious to me. If we think of reproduction as the means to forward design into the future (rather than simply think of reproduction as a brute given), we would want this process to be a) very accurate and b) robust. We can make the process robust on many levels. For example, simply making reproduction as common as possible (the "drive the reproduce") means you would decrease the significance of any particular lethal mutations or accidental death. The survivors propagate the design. Your real problem comes with extinction.

You also add:

"The thesis held by some who push ID, that information cannot be expanded internally but only with external input, is incompatible with front-loading. For them all the information in advanced plants and animals would have to be contained within the original life form, an impossible situation. They have to show that new information, that is, new genes and controls, have to be inserted to promote the development of more advanced forms."

I have never subscribed to the common ID notion that information requires an external input. Information will expand as a consequence of "mistakes" that happen to serve the needs of an organism in a particular environment. In essence, mutation and natural selection are ways to download environmental information into a genome. Front-loading recognizes this reality, yet asks a simple question - can this process of down-loading be facilitated and even guided?

Takes trees. To make a tree, we need wood. To make wood, we need lignin. Lignin has long been found only in plants with woody tissue. But recently, it was discovered in simple algae (!). Thus, it is very tempting to view the lignin as a preadaptation that made it more likely trees would eventually evolve. Some place. Some time. Just a matter of time.

Mike

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  Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 11:25 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Front-loading thoughts

  I don't get it. Neither artificial selection nor natural selection is built into the cells or organisms. They can only take advantage of such changes as occur within the genome, which does not have to be chromosomal though that is what is usually considered. Some changes my be deleterious, even to the point of immediate death. But there may be accidents that kill what, had it survived, would have been a marked advance. How are lethal mutations and accidental deaths front-loaded to guide development?

  The thesis held by some who push ID, that information cannot be expanded internally but only with external input, is incompatible with front-loading. For them all the information in advanced plants and animals would have to be contained within the original life form, an impossible situation. They have to show that new information, that is, new genes and controls, have to be inserted to promote the development of more advanced forms.
  Dave (ASA)

  On Tue, 8 Sep 2009 22:40:53 -0400 "Nucacids"
    Front-loading is the hypothesis whereby the original cells were designed in such a way that their subsequent evolution was under some form of control. It thus represents one way in which evolution can be designed. Yet this control is not deterministic. Instead, it nudges and encourages evolution to explore certain trajectories, by predisposing entry into those trajectories with particular preadaptations.

    In essence, front-loading is a hypothesis which posits that evolution is guided. All of our data and experience with artificial selection teaches us evolution can be guided. But in such case, the guidance is extrinsic, as the designers choose the environments and selection pressures. In the case of front-loading, we envision a very clever designer that is able to replace extrinsic guidance with a specific cellular architecture and composition that will subsequently guide evolution intrinsically.

    Artificial selection is a crude model of front-loading in that not only is the guidance extrinsic, but also exists over very short spans of time. Front-loading would employ a softer touch, where the mechanisms of intrinsic guidance are solid enough to exert effect, but also robust enough to exploit and tolerate, rather than be drowned out, by contingency over spans of millions/billions of years.

    What is most encouraging is that in the years I have been proposing and attempting to flesh out this hypothesis the case for the plausibility of front-loading has gotten stronger. Not weaker. Not the same. Stronger.

    It has become more clear that deep homology, symbiogenesis, and preadaptation have played key roles in significant evolutionary transitions. It has also become even more clear that convergent evolution is not some fluke, but instead speaks to a core aspect of evolution. It has even become more clear that organisms are not being passively shaped by their environment, but actually play a role in their own evolution. Not only does this all support the plausibility of front-loading, but the hypothesis of front-loading coheres these together into a larger perspective. In contrast, the non-teleological perspective typically views these phenomena as separate processes.

    What's more, there really is no argument against the plausibility of front-loading. In all the years I have proposed this hypothesis, I have yet to encounter such an argument. I have encountered complaints, misrepresentation, and sometimes ridicule. But none of that provides any reason to think the hypothesis of front-loading is not true.

    So as the case for front-loading gets stronger, and as arguments against the hypothesis fail to materialize, I have no choice but to proceed. :)

    Mike

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Received on Wed Sep 9 23:04:26 2009