Re: Evolution is NOT random


"dkomo" <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g0cmbb$1o1o$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
So why do people keep discussing it as though it were? Evolution is a
deterministic process taking place in a deterministic world. The only
"randomness" about it is in our own minds due to our inability to
completely understand, track and predict what is going on. This
randomness is epistemological and relative, and is not a real feature of
nature.

Why do I say this? The only truly random processes in nature are
quantum processes and, as far I know, this quantum randomness plays no
role in genetic mutations. Mutations are chemical and thermodynamic
phenomena taking place in the macroscopic classical world above the
quantum realm.

GS: And the 2nd law of thermodynamics exists because of our ignorance,
right? You should see Prigogine's discussion of the role of irreversible
processes in the emergence of dissipative structures. It won't do you any
good, but I'm not really offering it for YOUR benefit.


So evolution plays out as part of the Newtonian clockwork universe and
statements like these: "If evolution was rerun a trillion times we would
get a trillion different results" and similar ideas from Stephen Gould
are utter bull***.

GS: That's one helluva argument!


To rerun the "tape of life" you first have to rewind it.

GS: Only you would have to first record it. And, if you could literally
record, it then playing it back would constitute on a facsimile.

The rewind is
completely deterministic because the laws of physics are
time-reversible. Now when you play the tape forward you get exactly the
same results as before. Replay it a trillion times and you get the same
result each time.

I think Gould's replaying of the tape of life is a fantasy like the
fantasy we create when we ponder what would have happened if Nazi
Germany had won WWII or if the South had won the American Civil War. In
the real world, evolution of life on earth could have taken only a
single path, which is the path that it actually did take. Neither an
Intelligent Designer nor true randomness played any part.

GS: When one arranges a system to show convection cells, for example, in a
highly constrained preparation, two possibilities are observed, and there is
no predicting which will emerge. Either the cells are rotating L-R-L-R etc.
or they are rotating R-L-R-L etc. Now, of course, you can say that this is
because we simply do not understand the system in sufficient detail to be
able to predict accurately, but this is simply assuming what you are trying
to prove. The alternative view is that irreverisibility, and its attendant
unpredictability, is an intrinsic part of Nature, and a pragmatic view of
science suggests exactly that.

Cordially,
Glen




.