How can a past record be a prediction?
Your “tree” is not defined. The precise connections are still highly debated. It is still basically guesswork. Last time I looked it resembled a creeping shrub more than a tree.
Richard
The genetic patterns were not a past record, and the same prediction applied to them. It was an accurate prediction.
Those are broad stroke assertions.
The ToE tells us exactly why we shouldn’t see pegassi or griffins. I don’t know of any other theory that does the same. Contrary to your claims, the ToE accounts for it.
In fact, you got this part completely wrong.
That’s backwards. If mutations are random then there is no reason two separate lineages would find the same adaptation. It is the random nature of mutations that produces lineage specific adaptations instead of the multiple events producing the same result.
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Sorry but the contra is also true. Random means repetitions can occur, and most likely will.
In fact for ToE to work they have to occur again and again until they ae needed
If the deviations only occur at the exact time they are needed that would an astronomical fluke repeated millions of times.
Richard
Non-repetition is much, much more likely. This is why birds and bats have completely different adaptations for flight.
What is “they”?
You’ve already outlined how it works. If a mutation increases fitness then it is selected for.
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You are either being dumb or obtuse. A deviation is not automatically an advantage. it is only an advantage in the right circumstance. Web feet on the Savanah will not be helpful.
For ToE to be completely random the deviation will not be tuned to the circumstance at all.
The idea is a lottery style throwing out changes that may or mt not work or be beeficial.
Richard
Webbed feet in an aquatic environment can be advantageous, and could be selected for. On the savannah it will probably be selected against.
Why would it have to be? Also, there is plenty of evidence that is consistent with a lack of tuning.
Exactly, and no tuning is required for people to win the lottery. People win without needing foresight of what the winning numbers will be.
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IOW the deviation is repeated ad nauseum but is only selected if appropriate. It can be not other way without intelligent guidance.
My guess is that most Deists remove that element of chance as their inclusion in Evolution, but that would not be ToE.
(And it would negate survival of the fittest as a control)
Richard
No, not ad nauseum. For example, the mutations conferring antibiotic resistance in the Lederbergs’ plate replica experiment only occurred once every few hundred million divisions. A lot of other mutations happened to, some of which will be neutral and deleterious in a given environment. It is like the lottery where only a few people win, and very, very few of the tickets are the same.
Let’s use cards as an example. If you shuffle a deck of cards, do you expect the same card to be on top every time?
There is also the factor of genetic background. The same mutation in different genomes will have different effects. This is what causes different evolutionary pathways, such as the differences seen between the bat and bird wing. Bats didn’t evolve flight feathers, but they did evolve flight.
From my understanding of Deism, the Deity would set up a universe where random mutations would result in intelligent life.
I have no idea what you mean by negate survival of the fittest as a control.
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Sigh,
You and everybody else it would seem
Look, if the deveiation is deliberate then the advantage is deliberate so it will automatically be the best. There is no doubt, no competition (at least fair competition) the result is stacked. Survival is not in any doubt. It is not controlling the result, it is just the byproduct of a new form.
Survival is only a control if it judges between two random life forms, not if one is designed to be better.
The problem then becomes one of ethics. Would God show a bias towards one form over another? Scripture might suggest that He does, but it sticks in the craw of people like @mitchellmckain. We like to think of God as neutral, loving all things and people equally. If God directs evolution in any way that is clearly not the case.
Richard
Then mutations are not deliberate as shown by mountains of evidence. When we compare genomes we see ample evidence of an accumulation of neutral mutations and selection against deleterious mutations in functional DNA.
I’ve already shown you two examples of natural selection controlling the distribution of specific alleles: melanism in pocket mice and sickle cell trait in humans. Do we need to go over those again?
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Yes; some mutations are more likely than others (for example, changing between the structurally similar A and G or C and T (transitions) versus other substitutions (transversions) or different regions of the genome being more or less variable - you want your antibody genes to be mutating faster than the viruses), but whether any particular mutation happens is best described from a human viewpoint as mathematically probabilistic.
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The idea that evolution is all about competition, survival of the fittest, and random is quite prominent in many popular accounts (e.g.,
There is also the subjective component as to whether you emphasize the aspects that are more “random” or the ones that are more constrained. Such philosophical interpretation is outside of the science. If, for theological grounds, we assume that God is at work in “natural” processes, we will see His hand in the diversity and wonder of living things (cf. Ps. 104, which includes predation in God’s good creation). But one can focus on the parts that don’t appeal and claim it’s bad. Both sides are shown here:
If we do acknowledge God’s sovereignty over the process, even though aspects can be described as random from a human viewpoint, then we can assume that things are working out according to His plan, even where we don’t see how something fits, just as we must do for the everyday course of our lives.
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Cooperation may work…yes …but only if there is reciprocity leading to a net gain of resources for the individuals cooperating (there is still self-interest and competition underlying the cooperation). i.e., true altruism (sacrificing one’s own resources purely to aid the reproduction of another individual) cannot be a behaviour that evolves. It’s not stable, anyways.
And you are deliberately ignoring what I said
Design over rides any other selection.
I am not saying that there is no room for chance in TE but the basis is that Nature is directed from outside rather than any sort of competitive selection or adaption.
Evolution is excellent at adapting and developing, that is its part in creation.
Richard.
There is the technical complication that one’s genetic self-interest extends beyond self to others with matching genes (cf. Haldane’s supposed joke that he would willingly die for two brothers or eight cousins). And selection for behavior that helps close relatives might lead to behavior that helps others beyond that as well. But evolution is not good at producing or explaining true altruism; there is a disconnect between simultaneously claiming that people can precisely identify who is more closely related to side with in a dispute within the village and claiming that helping a stranger is merely misplaced kin selection.
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Kin Selection is another important factor in the the evolution of social behaviour, and in the absence of perfectly accurate kin-identification mechanisms, “rules of thumb” such as “those in my tribe are more likely related to me than those in the other tribe” may be sufficient, as long as the cost of mistakenly investing in the rare non-relative does not outweigh the reproductive gain of investing in true relatives. One would predict the evolution of better kin-discrimination mechanisms in modern human societies if the cost of helping random strangers on the street is sufficiently high…
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