> >>>>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.
>
> >>>Ralph: 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.
>
>
>
>****************************************
>DNAunion: Ralph objected to Bertvan's analogy, but then took the analogy to
>the other extreme end of the spectrum. Let's take a look.
>
>
>
> >>>Ralph: 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.
>
>DNAunion: Can we lose a brain and keep on going? Can we lose a heart and
>keep on going? Ralph picked something none vital (instead of something
>indispensible) to humans. But note what he then chooses for a computer.
>
>
>
> >>>Ralph: Scratch a hard drive with a screwdriver and you have a
>non-functioning computer.
>
>DNAunion: So here Ralph zeros in on one of the most indispensible components
>of a computer. Why did he not choose a sound card, or a floppy drive, or a
>Zip drive, or a printer or scanner, or some other non-vital computer
>component? Ralph does not maintain parallelism when he chooses his parts
>with which to fiddle.
Good point. I agree, a sound card or floppy drive would have been more
appropriate.
Printers and scanner are not inside the computer so they wouldn't work so
well. But
the main point is that mutations at this gross level is not what evolution
is talking
about..
>Ralph's hard drive example is analogous to one's digging into a person's
>heart with a screwdriver and ripping apart the valves. Would the
>operated-upon human still function? No.
>
>But one might object that instead of messing with the "patient's" valves, I
>should have just said the "doctor" scraped the heart's tissue. No good -
>doesn't maintain parallelism. Ralph claims that scratching a hard drive
>results in a non-functioning computer: this is not true. First of all, the
>random scratch could affect an unused allocation unit on the hard drive (a
>sector-track area where neither data nor code is stored). Seoncd, the random
>scratch could affect a mere data file (say an MS Word, MS Excel, or MS Access
>file): everything else would function normally. That screwdriver would need
>to scratch a vital portion of the hard drive, so a vital part of the heart
>must also be affected to keep the analogy consistent.
I agree.
> >>>Ralph: We can have anemia and still survive. Cut the computer's voltage
>by 5% and nothing is going to work right.
>
>DNAunion: Computer's can operate within a certaion voltage range, which must
>be why you made a fairly-drastic cut of 5%. But cut a person's energy intake
>5% below his/her minimum life-sustaining value and the person will likewise
>not work right.
Some definitions would firm this up but I'm not interested in belaboring
the point.
>Also, computers are actually *better* on this point. If a person loses
>his/her energy source long enough, he/she will die (starvation) and will
>*never* be able to function correctly again. If a computer loses it energy
>supply, it will "die" only temporarily: once power is restored, even if a
>full year later, the computer will again function normally.
Some religions maintain we will be "powered-up" again. Thanks
for pointing up the problems you saw in my post. I appreciate the
feedback. I think the human-computer analogy is a bad one no matter
how you cut it.
ralph
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