Zero probability for Evolution

[Wildswanderer]

Please read my statement again.
No credible book on Evolution talks about 'accidental' - evolution is NOT accidental.

Only because that would be too honest. But it actually has to be accidental. There's only two possibilities, accidental or planned. Since it's supposed to happen due to random mutations, it surely can't be considered planned.

 

[F1fan]

Only because that would be too honest. But it actually has to be accidental. There's only two possibilities, accidental or planned. Since it's supposed to happen due to random mutations, it surely can't be considered planned.

Nor accidental.

Accident implies there was some other outcome that was expected to happen. That means some sort of plan.

And planned means there was some actor directing things. So both are the same thing.

 

[McBell]

There's only two possibilities, accidental or planned.

False dichotomy.

You are claiming an agent has to be involved when there is no convincing evidence that an agent was involved, let alone has to be involved.

 

[rational experiences]

Consciousness owned by a living human with an ego.

Talking.

Everything talked about exists. A human chooses the subject. A human imposed human reasoning about it.

A human is just a human.

Yet some humans compare what they achieve whilst living as just a human makes them a superior human.

So we write stories.

In a story theism it says if you idolise your own man self. Man being scientist you lie and cause life to be sacrificed.

A human story.

Theism. How to convert first theorising.

We always were a human telling any theorised story.

 

[Altfish]

Only because that would be too honest. But it actually has to be accidental. There's only two possibilities, accidental or planned. Since it's supposed to happen due to random mutations, it surely can't be considered planned.

No, there are more possibilities ... REACTIVE is the main one.


Imagine you are driving home tonight when a child runs in front of your car.
Do you accidentally sop? No
Do you plan to stop? No

What you do is react and you slam the brakes on.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Nor accidental.

Accident implies there was some other outcome that was expected to happen. That means some sort of plan.

And planned means there was some actor directing things. So both are the same thing.

Lol, that's a stretch! Accidental sure doesn't mean another outcome was expected. In this context it means random.

 

[Wildswanderer]

False dichotomy.

You are claiming an agent has to be involved when there is no convincing evidence that an agent was involved, let alone has to be involved.

Sure because life just formed from magic fairy dust, no agent needed ...

 

[Revoltingest]

Lol, that's a stretch! Accidental sure doesn't mean another outcome was expected. In this context it means random.

To call a stochastic process (evolution, abiogenesis) "random"
is to leave out other elements essential to the process, eg,
natural selection.

 

[Wildswanderer]

No, there are more possibilities ... REACTIVE is the main one.


Imagine you are driving home tonight when a child runs in front of your car.
Do you accidentally sop? No
Do you plan to stop? No

What you do is react and you slam the brakes on.

I'm an entity. I can react, I have intelligence. Are you trying to say a single cell has intelligence?

 

[Polymath257]

Only because that would be too honest. But it actually has to be accidental. There's only two possibilities, accidental or planned. Since it's supposed to happen due to random mutations, it surely can't be considered planned.

I am always curious about it when people make this dichotomy. Accidental, in my mind, means there was an intention one way and things actually happened a different way. Planned means that the actuality matched the intention.

But the vast majority of the universe doesn't have an intention at all. Instead, it works via natural laws, which are neither random nor planned. For example, the orbit of the Earth is due to the gravity of the sun. The sun has no intention, but it produces the gravity that keeps the Earth in exactly the orbit it has.

Evolution has *two* parts: mutation and natural selection. Mutation isn't related to the needs of the organism or population, so in that sense it is random. But it is due to things like radiation or chemicals in the environment, so is subject to the laws of nature.

Natural selection is also distinctly not random. Which organisms survive to reproduce has a highly non-random component to it.

So, your claim that there are only two possibilities: accidental or planned seems to not just be false, but to be trivially false. it assumes that there is an intention in everything, which is something that is pretty clearly wrong, as far as I can see.

 

[Polymath257]

Lol, that's a stretch! Accidental sure doesn't mean another outcome was expected. In this context it means random.

Then that is simply wrong. There are many things that are neither random nor planned. In fact, most of what we see in the universe is neither of those. Things are often orderly and not planned.

 

[Polymath257]

I'm an entity. I can react, I have intelligence. Are you trying to say a single cell has intelligence?

No, but a single cell does react to its environment.

 

[Wildswanderer]

To call a stochastic process (evolution, abiogenesis) "random"
is to leave out other elements essential to the process, eg,
natural selection.

Natural selection is an oxymoron. Nothing is selecting.

 

[Wildswanderer]

No, but a single cell does react to its environment.

Purely by random causation. Comparing it to a human putting on the brakes is silly. It can't choose anything.

 

[Polymath257]

Natural selection is an oxymoron. Nothing is selecting.

Because of the environment, some organisms are more likely to survive than others. The differences are partly attributable to differences in genetics. So, each generation will be slightly better adapted to the environment than the previous one.

That *is* natural selection.

 

[Polymath257]

Purely by random causation. Comparing it to a human putting on the brakes is silly. It can't choose anything.

But it isn't random. It is produced by ordinary causation based on physics and chemistry.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Then that is simply wrong. There are many things that are neither random nor planned. In fact, most of what we see in the universe is neither of those. Things are often orderly and not planned.

Except that doesn't make any sense. In fact it's the glaring flaw in the whole evolution theory. You can't have order without someone planning order. Try letting your room clean itself and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Because of the environment, some organisms are more likely to survive than others. The differences are partly attributable to differences in genetics. So, each generation will be slightly better adapted to the environment than the previous one.

That *is* natural selection.

That's the theory. But it doesn't work on a macro scale.

 

[Polymath257]

Except that doesn't make any sense. In fact it's the glaring flaw in the whole evolution theory. You can't have order without someone planning order. Try letting your room clean itself and you'll see what I mean.

Of course you can have order without planning. Look what happens to water when the temperature drops: it freezes. And ice crystals are more orderly than liquid water.

Or, look at the formation of stars due to gravity. Or any number of examples where the basic laws of physics and chemistry push things in one way as opposed to another.

Those physical laws are NOT random. And they quite often produce order with nobody planning it.

For that matter, look at the flat surface of a body of water. That is produced by gravity. Or look at the orderly waves on the water when something falls in. Those are orderly and nobody planned them.

I can go on and on.

 

[Polymath257]

That's the theory. But it doesn't work on a macro scale.

Really? Why not? Little changes add up over generations, leading to large changes.