Neti,

insofar as Big G confides in me via Howard Bloom, Perry Marshall, & prof Shapiro, he seems to be saying that Darwin's theory of natural selection is not, repeat NOT, viable.

Sorry about that. It 's so simple, it ought to be true. But if you think about it more than 5 secs, survival of the fittest is a truism for idiots - probably why it is so widely acknowledged. What is fitness? It is whatever survives. Fitness = survival = what exists.

Darwinism is the perennial conservative cant: what is, is right. Or, all's for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Pace the Oblomovs, walking dead & brain-dead, nah! BP

Mutations were not in Darwins original theory, that is Neo-Darwinism which came into the model of evolution decades later.

Eek!!,

Quote:

‘Mutations were not in Darwins original theory, that is Neo-Darwinism which came into the model of evolution decades later.’

Can’t remember. The theory itself went thru several modifications. That began with Darwin himself. If you are as silly as I am, you can waste an awful lot of time trying to disentangle the final mess of Neo-darwinism. IMHO, better to go for the modern replacement theory, rather than restore a worn-out Victorian antique. It is no longer decorative or useful.

The applied insights of information theory (Perry Marshall et al) are valuable becos they rejoin evolution theory to broader modern science. IMHO, Poincaré had the best definition of a scientific law – the highest law covers/explains the most phenomena/cases. It is at the apex of a hierarchy of lesser laws. BP

neti

Quote:

‘yes you are sorry -- - i didnt read the link - there are thousands of theories not one reconciles everything logically - and if theres no logic - you cant know --- natural selection is the same as passing powders through a mesh - what fits passes rest is held back - if this is sound so is natural selection - anyways i dont want to chase this -arguments in favor of Natural selction are stacked very high -- i dont need to advocate it but if you would enlighten us as to the "why" ? r e p e a t WHY? - put down what "you" believe - dont quote perry marshall -- i can quote dozens i beleive but its a waste - just debunk natural selection –‘

I think you are asking for a quick run-thru of the reasons why I think Darwin’s theory is wrong. Sorry, I can’t do that. I am too long-winded & the reasons too many. All I can do is advise you to read Marshall’s site. If his theological bias offends, try the sites of Howard Bloom & prof Shapiro. The scientific & logical arguments & evidence against Neo-darwinism are now formidable.

Philos can simplify. At the heart of Darwin’s theory is a tautology, a circular argument or ‘analytic’ proposition. It says natural selection shaped the many different life-forms in the world. NS ‘weeds out’ the unfit. So, Darwin claimed, fish evolved fins so they could survive in water.

Do not be deceived by the trick here! NS is not ‘proved’ by such features as fins on fish. W/out fins, fish as we know them could not exist. Darwin has merely indicated that fins are necessary for fish to exist. But we knew that already. The challenge was to explain why the many different life-forms exist, not affirm that a wide variety does exist. The ‘evolution by natural selection’ part remains a theory, assumed, slipped in as it were irrefutably obvious. It aint.

Darwinism: fitness for survival is proved by existence (a claim); fitness is produced by natural selection (another claim). Circular argument: fitness = existence = natural selection.

Do not be impressed by the Darwinians’ intricate egs., becos a tautology is logically sound, but has no content; it is empty of meaning, eg., a fish is not a horse. That is why Darwinians can make almost anything in the living world consistent with Darwinism. Becos it is unfalsifiable under any circumstance. They make a proud principle of this. Richard Dawkins et al pontificate that the course & direction of evolution cannot be predicted. Certainly it cannot by Darwin’s inadequate theory.

I am as reluctant as you to get entangled any further in anti-Darwinism, at least unless you or anyone else shows sufficient interest to read the reffed material & comment on that. Otherwise, we just keep beating our gums on nothing but the same opinion. The following is a few hours’ reading. There is no short-cut to knowledge, & you can get lost even the long way round.

Marshall http://cosmicfingerprints.com/iidb.htm
Bloom http://www.scientificblogging.com/howard_bloom
Shapiro http://www.bostonreview.net/br22.1/shapiro.html

BP

Well, it seems the 2009 duplo-centenary funeral is over. We have celebrated & praised the stiff, now we move on. Oh, the advantages of freeing ourselves from Darwin’s 19c, drooling, cretinous materialism!

The modern findings & thoughts of Bloom, Marshall, Shapiro, et al above open up a vista of the future of science. What Marshall found is an eg of a basic, underlying law – information flows rule. And info is not material. It is immaterial, yet it has the power to kick around matter, ‘stuff’. Eg., genes & DNA are primarily info. Their informational message merely uses matter as the medium, to further shape matter into life-forms.

This is actually a far from radical insight in physics, yet the prevailing prejudices of science demand public obedience to the creed of materialism. No: idealism rules.

Unfortunately, Marshall is unlikely to develop his ideas, since having found ‘proof of God’s existence’, he will likely stop short, satisfied. As I have said elsewhere, religion is usually the comfort of the conservative mind, not spur to the enquiring & radical one.

Bloom et al show the role of information in forming the universe. We can go further (dissident, radical rascals that we are). Information flows made homo sapiens. They revolutionized animals limited to crude signalling. Signalling became language, & verbal exchanges of an increasingly complex kind shaped the ape head into the human one, with a voice-box & big info-processing brain.

Language development = rise of human intelligence. Info is not intelligence, but by the increasing quantities of verbal exchanges allowed a parallel rise in the quality of linguistic info exchanges. They pushed development of enriched social relations, planning, & coordinated group organization. Info flows increased, both as cause & effect. This always put further pressure on the storage & retrieval of info, so the fast-evolving brain. Notice how your PC hard disk is always full after 2 years? Same principle.

Sapiens' evolution is incomprehensible except as group evolution. Precisely becos of this, human self-consciousness, the separation of me & thee, became inescapably necessary. Each mind must have a separate identity, just as every computer in the global network must have a unique, identifying number. Individuality is not the polarized enemy of the collective; the two are crucially interdependent.

Which was not entirely good news for sapiens. Paradoxically, from group solidarity & interdependence grew the psychically alienated individual. Unique animals; we are dead w/out communications with others, yet still alone! Human self-consciousness brings with it realization of our mortality, as Gilgamesh discovered. Herd animals do not worry about death. Hence religion? Terminal dissolution of little selves into Big Self? Who knows, except division of social roles within groups likely became more matters of conscious identity.

Meantime, info flows pushed-dragged humanity. New info techniques accelerated the process. Clay tablets made city states. Gutenberg made pretty much e/thing since, till computers & IT.

Now the dizzy info flows are faster & wider, undermining our cultural world & demanding the birth of a new one. We remake it as s/thing better, or we go under. That’s another tragic message for humanity, brought by Mercury, the fleet-foot god of communications. You can ride the tiger of progress, but not get off. The one-way info river is time.

Most human characteristics, possibly all, exist in primitive forms in the animal world. We are such creatures as never completely leave anything behind. It’s all stored s/where in our mental junkheap. We retain our affinities to the animal world. However limited, when we communicate with pets or animals, we grasp the unity of all life in primal intelligence. OK, but watch out for tigers!

Infor flows rule the universe, so idealism is the philosophy of science & the future, if we have one. BP

read the history of bulldogs - selective breeding - same as "selection" by "nature" - its not rocket science -- on the origins of life i dont think any one has the answer - if you do know what causes consciousness and for such supreme order to come out of inherent chaos - let me know --

many people view natural selection with prejudice as anti-religion -- it isnt --our souls or consiousness could be from god - and the vehicles we drive could be "designed" to suit the purpose and environment ? i see a reconciliation - but cant prove it even to myself.

Neti,

Quote:

‘read the history of bulldogs - selective breeding - same as "selection" by "nature" - its not rocket science‘

No, but there is an awful lot more to it than you seem to think. You’ll have to read more to learn about it. Darwin himself bred pigeons so knew all about selective breeding. There, it is human intelligence that does the selecting. In natural selection, the environment, niche, or any other form of matter cannot ‘select’, since they have no intelligence.

If you are thinking about the sick & otherwise faulty creatures dying off, that is becos they do not meet the requirements of existence, as specified originally by the genotype. That is not an explanation of natural selection, it just refers to the necessaries & exigencies of existence (tautology again).

Quote:

‘- on the origins of life i dont think any one has the answer - if you do know what causes consciousness and for such supreme order to come out of inherent chaos - let me know –‘

If you are really interested in getting the answers to your questions, read the reffed material. That’s why I reffed it. What we know now is that random processes certainly did not produce either the universe or life, as required by Neo-darwinism.

Quote:

‘many people view natural selection with prejudice as anti-religion -- it isnt --our souls or consiousness could be from god - and the vehicles we drive could be "designed" to suit the purpose and environment ? i see a reconciliation - but cant prove it even to myself.’

Possibly, which is why I tried hard to steer this discussion away from the sterile Darwin versus religion saloon wrangle. BP

contrary to usual habit, i have not yet checked out the funeral procession yet...

i am i'm running out of time thinking of all the natural selection targets already envisioned and in full swing today.

engineering as far as one can see. ai itself appears a product of nature's free choice.

too sarcastic?

\!!

the following link seems interesting, although i have yet to read more on the subject in detail as yet.

http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho36a.htm

LO,

as long as capitalist ideology, bio-warfare, research grants, & jobs depend on it, Darwinism's corpse will continue to fester. BP

BP:

and as long as it does, a dissident must have the right to say so, even if the responsible persons are unrecognizable.

LO,
I think we covered IT evolution in another thread? The explosive growth in global computing power is arguably a threat to humankind only if you accept that human cultures can evolve in ways analogous to life-forms. Since Darwinism insists that evolution only works thru the individual, it is a threat discounted by majority opinion. I & a few dissidents argue against this. Therefore, Darwinism is yet again a block. It prevents rational discussion of this threat. That's why we must dump Darwinism (says I).

IMHO, every advance in communications technology is both a potential boon & a potential weapon of social destruction. The ever-more powerful global IT network can be the means to a higher, universal democracy, or a trap to enmesh all humankind in a new slavery to silicon-based, machine intelligence. BP

LO,

to keep your fingers on the throbbing pulse of real life, you only need to read Bamberpanda's posts. Even when I get it wrong, what I should have said was 100% correct. Excuse me, I think there are some Vandals at the door. BP

^