Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection

On Oct 27, 12:23=A0am, dkomo <dkomo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Wolfram says complexity arises naturally with even the smallest change
in the organism's genetic makeup, and that natural selection serves
mainly to rein it in by culling the unworkable variations."

=A0 =A0 --dk...@xxxxxxxx

It seems only contradicts Darwin with respect to the size of the
variation that occurs. Wolfram is still claiming that random mutation
is the main force of evolution, just like Darwin.
Darwin claimed that most of the variation leading to complexity
is small. Complexity accumulates from a series of small mutations
accumulating due to natural selection. He finds "helpful
monstrosities" to be very rare. Saltations are overwhelmingly lethal,
according to Darwin.
Wofram is saying that most of the variation leading to
complexity is large. Complexity comes from an extremely unlikely
mutation, very large in terms of phenotype, that survives. "Helpful
monstrosities" are relatively common. Natural selection gets rid of
most of the monstrosities, but a few are at a large advantage rather
than a disadvantage. Saltations are commonly improvements, according
to Wolfram.
I am a traditional evolutionsit in the sense that I think evolution
is predominately a slow process, as Darwin conjectured. I think
Wolfram is for the most part wrong. However, I suspect that Wolfram is
partly right. On occasional saltation must make it big.
I suspect that saltations may be particularly important in the
evolution of bacteria and viruses. Single cells don't have to be "fine
tuned" to support the other cells around it. So maybe Wolfram has a
point.

.

Relevant Pages