At 12:19 AM 12/03/2000 -0800, you wrote:
> >Bertvan:
> >I find it hard to believe any random mutation might improve any delicate
> >piece of machinery, much less a living organism, which is many times more
> >complex than any humanly conceived machine. You wouldn't open up your
> >computer and invite a monkey to rearrange the pieces, expecting a
> beneficial
> >mutation. You suggest that "given enough time" one might occur. We aren't
> >speaking of infinite time for the evolution of the biosphere. I believe
> >Dembski's augment is that it is mathematically impossible for such
>complexity
> >to have occurred by chance in some four billion years.
>
>Letting a monkey dig into your computer and "rearrange the pieces" is the
>equivalent of letting someone switch the positions of your heart and
>liver. This is gross manipulation of the body form and no biologist that
>I've ever read claims this is the way evolution works. This is the
>equivalent
>of the creationists old battle cry: "I haven't seen any cats evolving into
>dogs lately". The other point I'd like to make is that, while it's true that
>humans are more complex than computers, we are also much more tolerant of
>tinkering. We can lose a kidney and keep right on going. Scratch a hard
>drive with a screwdriver and you have a non-functioning computer. We can
>have anemia and still survive. Cut the computer's voltage by 5% and nothing
>is going to work right. We are more complex but the computer is much more
>delicate and the parameters for its survival are very narrow. It would be
>very hard to find a random mutation that would improve a computer but the
>situation is quite different for biological units.
Chris
It also needs to be understood that the only kinds of things that can
evolve are those that can survive such modifications of their genes. All
the organisms that are as rigid in their requirements as PCs do not last
long. Selection blindly kills off all organisms that are too rigid.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 03 2000 - 11:56:22 EST