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.

<snip for focus>

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.

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.

--
alias Ernest Major

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 08/03/2025 04:34, MarkE 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.

<snip for focus>

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.

Natural selection is the *only* naturalistic means capable of increasing functional complexity

Creationists have been known to argue that natural selection doesn't
create anything; it merely selects what's already present. As an
argument against evolution that's worthless; but as an observation it's
true enough. Each step in functionality complexity originates from
mutation, or recombination, or gene flow, and is subsequently fixed or
not by natural selection or genetic drift.

For example Ron Okimoto (I think) recently mentioned that one flagellar
gene is a truncated version of another, and results in the assembly of a tapered flagellum rather than cylindrical one. I can imagine that the
tapered flagellum is advantageous, and was fixed by selection. It might
be that the gene was duplicated and fixed by drift before a truncation
mutation occurred, but as selection against excess DNA is effective in
bacteria I suspect that it originated as a partial duplication of the
gene, which was then selected. But note that the initial increase in
complexity was caused by the mutation. Natural selection fixes this in a population, and as you have mentioned acts as a ratchet allowing changes
to accumulate.

But you are assuming increases in functional complexity are adaptive.
They could be neutral or slightly deleterious and fixed by genetic
drift. I don't accept without question your
panadaptationist/panfunctionalist premise.

Passing over the problems with defining an objective criterion for
irreducibly complex systems, there are at least three classes of
evolutionary paths to this. I think that coadaptation is the predominant
one. This goes from non-interaction to facultative interaction to
obligate interaction. Both steps could be fixed by either natural
selection or genetic drift.

and genetic information.

Increases in functional complexity and genetic information are not the
same thing. If you use a Shannon or Kolmgorov measure natural selection
tends to reduce, not increase, information in a gene pool.

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.

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.

To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):

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.

You are moving the target again. It is not legitimate to take the
probably truism that evolution cannot reach all targets, and use that to
argue that are limits to the degree of complexity that evolution can
generate.

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.

Also doesn't address the issue of whether there are limits to the degree
of complexity that evolution can generate.

So far you have asserted that evolution can't account for the complexity
of present day life. You haven't supported that assertion.

To give an example of a limit nearer than limits on organism volume and complexity density, genetic load places a limit on the size of
functional genomes. Naively that places a limit on the amount of
complexity that can be obtained. But that limit would again clearly be
beyond what has been already obtained.

Looking more closely, genetic load can be reduced by decreasing the
mutation rate, or by changing the distribution of selection
coefficients. This can be expected to slow evolution, as it decreases
the availability of new variation. But does the upper bound on
complexity converge on a fixed limit (as in f(x) = x - 1/x) or does it
continue to increase ever more slowly (as in f(x) = log x)?

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.

Your double standard is showing. You have been arguing that ID doesn't
not need to ask questions about who, what, when, where, how and why.
It's not quite breaking Augustine's dictum, but it has the same effect.

Anyway, people will select for research questions that they think can be productively addressed. (Do you expect people to put effort in
researching exceptions to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?) Research has
been performed on evolutionary rates - the results are that evolution in
the laboratory, under domestication, and in the wild can occur (and
typically does) occur at rates well in excess of what is required to
account for the fossil record.

--
alias Ernest Major

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/5/25 7:24 PM, MarkE wrote:

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.

No, I don't agree with the premise. Creating functional complexity is
what evolution does. I see no indication of an upper limit.

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 13/03/2025 11:17, MarkE wrote:

On 12/03/2025 9:31 am, Ernest Major wrote:

On 08/03/2025 04:34, MarkE 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.

<snip for focus>

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.

Natural selection is the *only* naturalistic means capable of
increasing functional complexity

Creationists have been known to argue that natural selection doesn't
create anything; it merely selects what's already present. As an
argument against evolution that's worthless; but as an observation
it's true enough. Each step in functionality complexity originates
from mutation, or recombination, or gene flow, and is subsequently
fixed or not by natural selection or genetic drift.

For example Ron Okimoto (I think) recently mentioned that one
flagellar gene is a truncated version of another, and results in the
assembly of a tapered flagellum rather than cylindrical one. I can
imagine that the tapered flagellum is advantageous, and was fixed by
selection. It might be that the gene was duplicated and fixed by drift
before a truncation mutation occurred, but as selection against excess
DNA is effective in bacteria I suspect that it originated as a partial
duplication of the gene, which was then selected. But note that the
initial increase in complexity was caused by the mutation. Natural
selection fixes this in a population, and as you have mentioned acts
as a ratchet allowing changes to accumulate.

But you are assuming increases in functional complexity are adaptive.
They could be neutral or slightly deleterious and fixed by genetic
drift. I don't accept without question your panadaptationist/
panfunctionalist premise.

Passing over the problems with defining an objective criterion for
irreducibly complex systems, there are at least three classes of
evolutionary paths to this. I think that coadaptation is the
predominant one. This goes from non-interaction to facultative
interaction to obligate interaction. Both steps could be fixed by
either natural selection or genetic drift.

and genetic information.

Increases in functional complexity and genetic information are not the
same thing. If you use a Shannon or Kolmgorov measure natural
selection tends to reduce, not increase, information in a gene pool.

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.

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.

To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):

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.

You are moving the target again. It is not legitimate to take the
probably truism that evolution cannot reach all targets, and use that
to argue that are limits to the degree of complexity that evolution
can generate.

I'm not claiming a limit the degree of complexity that evolution can generate, but rather the extent of of the solution space.

"Would you agree that there are limits to NS as described, which lead to
an upper limit to functional complexity in living things?" - MarkE, 5th
March 2025. (Quoted by MarkE on the 13th March 2025 - see above.)

--
alias Ernest Major

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/5/25 4:45 PM, 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.

<snip for focus>

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?

As I noted earlier, your premise is not acceptable. There is nothing
inherent in evolution which leads to an upper limit to functional
complexity. Therefore, "stay on topic" is moot. Your topic is dead.

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/7/25 8:34 PM, MarkE 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.

<snip for focus>

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.

Natural selection is the *only* naturalistic means capable of increasing functional complexity and genetic information.

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.

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.

None of which is relevant to the real world.

To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):

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.

Okay, now how do you test them?

Keep in mind that they have already been tested, which is a major reason
why evolution is the accepted explanation for diversity. The other
reason is that nobody has come up with another hypothesis to explain
diversity. No, "intelligent design" is not a hypothesis until you say
how it works.

Does the burden of proof for these hypotheses rest exclusively with ID?

Yes.

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 14/03/2025 04:57, MarkE wrote:

On 14/03/2025 12:18 am, Ernest Major wrote:

On 13/03/2025 11:17, MarkE wrote:

On 12/03/2025 9:31 am, Ernest Major wrote:

On 08/03/2025 04:34, MarkE 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.

<snip for focus>

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.

Natural selection is the *only* naturalistic means capable of
increasing functional complexity

Creationists have been known to argue that natural selection doesn't
create anything; it merely selects what's already present. As an
argument against evolution that's worthless; but as an observation
it's true enough. Each step in functionality complexity originates
from mutation, or recombination, or gene flow, and is subsequently
fixed or not by natural selection or genetic drift.

For example Ron Okimoto (I think) recently mentioned that one
flagellar gene is a truncated version of another, and results in the
assembly of a tapered flagellum rather than cylindrical one. I can
imagine that the tapered flagellum is advantageous, and was fixed by
selection. It might be that the gene was duplicated and fixed by
drift before a truncation mutation occurred, but as selection
against excess DNA is effective in bacteria I suspect that it
originated as a partial duplication of the gene, which was then
selected. But note that the initial increase in complexity was
caused by the mutation. Natural selection fixes this in a
population, and as you have mentioned acts as a ratchet allowing
changes to accumulate.

But you are assuming increases in functional complexity are
adaptive. They could be neutral or slightly deleterious and fixed by
genetic drift. I don't accept without question your
panadaptationist/ panfunctionalist premise.

Passing over the problems with defining an objective criterion for
irreducibly complex systems, there are at least three classes of
evolutionary paths to this. I think that coadaptation is the
predominant one. This goes from non-interaction to facultative
interaction to obligate interaction. Both steps could be fixed by
either natural selection or genetic drift.

and genetic information.

Increases in functional complexity and genetic information are not
the same thing. If you use a Shannon or Kolmgorov measure natural
selection tends to reduce, not increase, information in a gene pool.

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.

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. >>>>>
To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):

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.

You are moving the target again. It is not legitimate to take the
probably truism that evolution cannot reach all targets, and use
that to argue that are limits to the degree of complexity that
evolution can generate.

I'm not claiming a limit the degree of complexity that evolution can
generate, but rather the extent of of the solution space.

"Would you agree that there are limits to NS as described, which lead
to an upper limit to functional complexity in living things?" - MarkE,
5th March 2025. (Quoted by MarkE on the 13th March 2025 - see above.)

To recap different contributing factors to an upper limit in functional complexity in living things in relation to natural selection:

You were being invited to address your vacillation about whether you
claim that there is an upper limit to the amount of functional
complexity that evolution can generate.

1. Fitness landscape

If the fitness landscape has unreachable islands (local maxima sparsely distributed in a plain), then if some of these represent "solutions" of greater functional complexity than those in local maxima accessible to
NS, this implies an upper limit, lower than that of all physically
possible organisms.

This is conditional, as indicated by the two 'if' statements it contains.

Fitness landscapes are often illustrated as two-dimensional surfaces.
This makes it easier to visualise them, but also makes it easy to
imagine isolated peaks of fitness. Real fitness landscapes have much
higher dimensions and also shift with time (changing environments). The mathematics may well be beyond me, but at first sight it would seem that
the more dimensions there are the greater likelihood of there being an
upwards path in at least one dimension. And then there's the effects of changing environment, making the likelihood of there being an upward
path in a least one dimension at some time.

The existence of the biosphere is indirect evidence that fitness space
is sufficiently connected. The slowness of evolution across geological
time (compared to rates that can be observed in the present and recent
past) is evidence that it is not pervasively connected.

As you say, that disconnected parts of fitness space are systematically
biased towards greater functional complexity is only a conjecture.

No such constraint applies to an intelligent designer with access to the entire solution space.

Different constraints apply to an intelligent designer with access to
the entire solution space. Evolution has no problem in identifying
peaks, but may have problems finding paths towards them. An intelligent designer may less constrained by paths, but has the problem of telling
whether a particular design sits on a peak.

I think you've found an argument that life is not intelligently designed.

Consider organisms using different proteinogenic amino acid repertoires.
In the current biosphere some bacteria have added pryolysine, there's a
kludge for selenocysteine, a variety of post-translational modifications
(e.g. hydroxyproline in collagen; there's actually more hydroxyproline
residues in the human body than of several canonical amino acids), and
minor changes to the genetic code in organelles and bacteria with small
genomes (and in ciliates, which I do find weird), but no organisms with markedly different amino acid repertoires. This is because changing the
genetic code is difficult, to say the least. I don't believe that such organisms are not accessible to evolution, but they are disconnected
from the current biosphere - to evolve them you'd have to go back to a
simpler, now outcompeted and extinct, form of life.

As you say your intelligent designer is not under that constraint. So
their absence is evidence against your intelligent designer.

2. Time available

If the time/material resources of the universe allow exploration and discovery of only a fraction of even the accessible solutions, this
places another upper limit on the functional complexity that could be realised.

Again, this constraint does not apply to an intelligent designer.

Claims that evolution can achieve X, and claims that there hasn't been
enough time for evolution to achieve X, are not the same thing. I wish
you'd stop conflating them.

I has previously mentioned to you that rates of morphological evolution
far in excess of those required to account for change in the fossil
record have been observed - consider dogs, pigeon and cabbages, or
maize, for example.

3. The intrinsic capacity of NS

The mechanism of "differential reproductive success" is, I contend, a
blunt instrument. How blunt is of course at the heart of this debate,
and a topic with many facets.

That doesn't seem to be a 3rd claim.

None of these are claimed as a disproof, but rather for scoping and clarification.

Would you agree with this logic/structure?

Petītiō principiī is generally accounted a fallacy. You are postulating
that evolution is incapable of accounting for the biosphere as support
for a claim that evolution is incapable of accounting for the biosphere.

There is voluminous evidence for the factuality of evolution. (Literally billions of observations and mountains of evidence.) Postulating a
silver bullet that overturns all this evidence doesn't cut it as an
argument; you actually have to produce the silver bullet.

--
alias Ernest Major

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/11/25 11:47 PM, MarkE wrote:

On 12/03/2025 11:09 am, LDagget wrote:

On Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:18:00 +0000, MarkE wrote:

On 11/03/2025 5:44 pm, LDagget wrote:

On Tue, 11 Mar 2025 5:30:52 +0000, MarkE wrote:

On 11/03/2025 5:30 am, LDagget wrote:

On Sat, 8 Mar 2025 4:34:30 +0000, MarkE wrote:

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.

To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):

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. >>>>>>

You assertions (it's vainglorious to promote them as hypotheses) are >>>>>> rooted in nonsensical presumptions. Why would "solution space"
need to be fully traversed? A sensible person would have considered >>>>>> 'adequately traversed' and then followed that up with an analysis
of what would be adequate. But you chose FULLY. It's beyond
amateurish.

That biological evolution will never get around to testing some
potential
genomes is one of those trivial things. You can work out the math on >>>>>> the number of potential genomes and the number of atoms in the
universe
and figure out that they won't all wind up in some fledgling organism >>>>>> asking for a try out. And so what? It doesn't advance a sensible
point.
You aren't advancing a remotely sensible notion, much less a
hypothesis.

Now as to your assertion about "intelligent design" being able to
somehow consider all the possibilities, I don't think so. Tell me how >>>>>> you would model all the possible permutations of a yeast sized
genome.
All of them. And that's not about just flashing permutations of ATCG >>>>>> into memory, that's running a simulation on each. So your
assertion ---

 ... Again, this
constraint does not apply to intelligent design.

--- is trivially false (on top of being proposed to follow a
foolish premise).

Why would you expect people to follow you down a poorly conceived
speculation that is absolutely full of ill-informed speculations
that pile on top of obviously flawed premises? Moreover, why
don't you apply an internal editor to weed out foolish ideas
before you post them?

LD, your post may be a personal best in terms of count of overblown
adjectives, insults, and misconceived assertions. But don't let that >>>>> allow you to become complacent.

You can't expect too much science in response to a post that had
none to respond to. And yet, my response hit directly at the flaws
in your assertions.

Suggesting that evolution HAS to explore ALL available search space
is simultaneously absurd and unnecessary. And yet you suggested that
very thing. And now, you deflect when that defect is laid at
your feet. Anybody reading this knows how to interpret that.

Here's a review of what I said:

<quote>

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.

To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):

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.

You are getting revisionist here. Your over-arching premise is that
current life exhibits complexity that is inaccessible to biological
evolution. To support that, you're going on about how evolution can't
explore the full landscape of theoretically possible genomes.

The connection between those two is BS. You have not and cannot
establish that it is necessary for evolution to explore all possible
genomes to produce the observed biological landscape. So the
whole line of your argumentation is nonsensical.

Moreover, the things evolution deniers cite as "impossible" for
evolution to produce bear no resemblance to remote islands on a
fitness landscape. Not blood coagulation, not the immune system,
not regulator networks, not developmental pathways.
Nothing they can cite. Indeed, these all have simpler forms and
reuse basic biochemical mechanisms.

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.

</quote)

Statement 1 is a postulate (i.e. I'm hypothesising) that NS is unable to >>> fully traverse the solution space. I made this statement (and the
second) to clarify that my contention is this: the limits of NS are more >>> than the obvious and necessary, e.g. that NS can produce only
"physically possible organisms".

Here's what I did NOT say or suggest: "that evolution HAS to explore ALL >>> available search space." Rather, I suggested that evolution would not be >>> able to explore all available search space. Which is a very different
claim (and I assume one you would agree with?).

I also state that ID has does not have this constraint, i.e. an
omniscient designer would have access all physically possible organisms.

My my my. An Omniscient Designer?

So yours is the theory of Omniscient Design.

About your Gish Gallop: your nag just threw a shoe.

But I'll give you this, the tautology in your claim is something
to behold. An all knowing designer would know how to design.

It's a bit unclear why you took the time to type that out, but if
that's where you want to hang your hat, my hat's off to you. It
seems entirely in character.

I had frankly hoped to push you into trying to apply some biochemical
specifics into  your rhetoric but you went in a completely different
direction  toward even more abstract hand waving.

But I must comment. You were asked why your Design "Science" doesn't
act like actual science and ask questions like who, what, why, where,
and how. You have at least answered the who question.

Your who is an Omniscient Designer. It would be nice if you could
be honest enough to make that clear to people who don't read this
small selection of posts.

Look, we'll probably always strongly disagree, but a rhetorical boxing
match is at the expense of interesting discussion. I am willing to
examine the less certain aspects of my own position.

It does not appear that you are. In particular, I have never seen you
address the theological problems with your position, in particular, the evidence that there were multiple designers, and that at least one of
them was opposed to humanity. How can your theory of origins be
reconciled with mainstream Christianity?

[...]
3. I can appreciate there is some frustration in relation to the "what,
why, where, and how" questions. I'm not actively avoiding them, and have given some broad suggestions here and there.

An example I've give before is this: it is entirely valid to seek to
show that human induced global warming is a real problem, regardless of whether or not you have a solution. Similarly, it is entirely valid to
seek to show that naturalistic explanations of origins are inadequate, regardless of whether or not you offer an alternative hypothesis.

Your example is equivocation. The "what, why, where and how" of global
warming is understood every bit as much as that of evolution. And I
don't think we need a "solution" for what to do about evolution.

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

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