Then he quoted Brian
>BH> Not all of evolution involves chance events. If laws governing
>> the evolution of a system are highly sensitive to initial conditions
>> then it seems feasible at least that a significant amount of evolution
>> would be determined by laws+initial conditions. Also, if there exist
>> so-called "strange attractors" then it seems reasonable that
>> transient "random" events may not disturb the course of evolution
>> as set up by the initial conditions. Yes, yes, wild speculation :).
I was going to respond to this earlier, but other things intruded. I have
a slightly different perspective on the strange attractor issue. Strange
attractors frequently cover large regions of phase space, and/or have many
branches. Exactly what branch a trajectory settles to, or what region of
phase space it traverses can be determined by infinitesimal perturbations
-- at least at certain points in the process. If you could characterize
the reproduction of genomes mathematically (in principle you can, but I
don't have that much time), I wold expect to see interacting chaotic
systems. It seems to me that a very elegant way to control such a system
would be to introduce infinitesimal perturbations as it evolves (evolves is
a perfectly common, politically correct, word mathematicians and engineers
use to describe the time behavior of a system) so as to cause the processes
to go to the desired points in their phase spaces. But such inputs would
not be distinguishable from random noise.
>
>> [...]
>> Suppose that Brian Goodwin is correct,
>> i.e. (1) there is no essentially infinite continuum of morhological
>> "shapes" (body plans etc) for mutations+natural selection to pick and
>> choose from (2) instead there are a much fewer number of "generic forms"
>> determined by nonlinear physical and chemical laws. These forms come
>> "for free", they don't have to be selected for, they are "just there".
>>
>> Now we still have naturalistic evolution but we don't have to resort to
>> the "accident of history" explanation which fails to explain. Also, the
>> tape plays again (for the most part), i.e. the generic forms that are
>> "just there" will be found again and again.
>>
>> I am interested in trying to develop these ideas further. I find it appealing
>> in the sense that it provides a natural way to combine intelligent design
>> with theistic evolution.
Agreed. Thanks, Brian, and thanks to Loren for reposting Brian's comments.
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
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