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> Still far, far too complex to occur "randomly," which is fascinating Why spend time making this point? Nobody believes that this occurred randomly: it occurr

> Still far, far too complex to occur "randomly," which is fascinating Why spend time making this point? Nobody believes that this occurred randomly: it occurred via evolution. The mutations are a random part of evolution, but the process overall is not random at all - no more so than your immune system (which randomly generates antibodies, then selects against those that target innate epitopes), or stable diffusion (which starts with random noise, then marches up a gradient toward a known target). It is the selection step that makes similar processes non-random, because a random selection step would just be noise.

threethirtytwo 11mo ago
This is technically random. The entire creationist argument is that complexity cannot come from randomness but evolution is the method in which it does. Evolution is just a sort of way for low entropy structures to form from randomness. It’s still random all the way down. The man is just trying to reconcile a belief in god with the scientific reality. He needs to bend the evidence to fit his identity he cannot bend his identity to fit the evidence because that could break his identity. The fact he commented here on this topic is sort of unhinged. It seems like the article presented evidence that is strikingly against his world view and he needed to justify something in order to prevent his identity from rearranging itself according to external reality.
- cozyman 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - threethirtytwo 11mo ago
    Easy. Covid evolved forms. The genes are different. There are measurable differences in DNA. These are slight. So from real time observation we know viruses and bacteria can mutate and have small delta changes in their DNA. From this we can deduce that over long period of time many small changes can equate to big changes in DNA. Because we know DNA describes macro characteristics of all living beings and effects behavior, physicality and speciation by logic we know that through induction many many small changes together equals big change and thus evolution can result in speciation and different creatures. This is the literal conclusion through Direct observation and the inescapable logic of induction. Not to mention it's inline with fossil evidence AND covid is clearly not the only species where we observe mutations. Mutations are observed everywhere, including humans. Cancer is mutation and selection as well.
    - cozyman 10mo ago
      This isn't convincing to me, I'm not disputing that mutations exist. Do they become different categories of being? Macro Evolution has always seemed like a philosophy/ideology/religion to me with a veneer of science.
      - threethirtytwo 10mo ago
        Doesn't have to be convincing to you. It's a fact and inescapable conclusion. If you're not convinced, you're wrong. If mutations can happen, then by logic many mutations can happen, if many mutations can happen then many many mutations can stack up and cause speciation. By believing in mutations, evolution follows via logical induction. Your DNA can be edited with many many mutations until it becomes indistinguishable from penguin DNA. Take that DNA and insert it into an zygote embryo and you get a penguin, not a human. This is not a conclusion formed by observation. This is basic logic, 1 + 1 = 2. If the axiom is mutation, evolution is the logical theorem that follows. It is undeniable. You have to go through a lot of mental gymnastics to deny this logic, but it's worth it if such mental gymnastics formulates a conclusion that remains inline with your religious identity. People without this bias who don't have truth tied to their identity don't need to do this kind of thing.
  - rcxdude 11mo ago
    The entire fossil record and the mountains of shared DNA between very different creatures is pretty compelling evidence. Not to mention the idea of changing 'kinds' is an entirely human-derived categorisation, not something that has some natural definition.
  - fwip 11mo ago
    "Change kinds" is something that only people who believe in a rather literal view of the Christian bible say, and only because that's the popular fundamentalist argument against evolution. Fundamentally, it's impossible to reconstruct something from the fossil record that's convincing to these folks, because they will always arbitrarily decide "fossil 1 is kind X, and fossil 2 is kind Y, you need to find me fossil 1.5," no matter how close in time and likeness the fossils are. So what they actually want is "evolve a lizard species into cats" which fundamentally misrepresents both A) how evolution works (it does not concern itself with human categories) and B) the vast timescale over which small changes accrue. "Kinds" are just human categories we've mapped onto the results of billions of years of evolution after the fact.
    - cozyman 10mo ago
      Is there any way to demonstrate it or is it only an unfalsifiable claim that requires unfathomably long timelines?
- akomtu 11mo ago
  "It's all random all the way down" is just another religious belief. Besides, has anyone estimated the probability of creating organisms so complex using this random evolution scheme? Another problem is why would randomly-evolved organisms be so geometrically symmetric? I'd expect a random process to create an unholy blob of matter.
  - threethirtytwo 11mo ago
    It's not. It's derived from real time observation, logical induction and other historical evidence that's inline with logic and observation. See my other reply to a sibling commenter of yours.
  - rcxdude 11mo ago
    You're lacking imagination and understanding of how these systems form. Symmetry is very commonplace in nature, for very unsurprising reasons, because what's random is how the processes that create those forms change over time, not the entirety of those processes themselves. And yes, there is a huge amount of study of how life could form in the kinds of environments we think existed on earth near the start of life. ATM it's not so much 'how could this happen at all' and more 'what looks like the most likely way that it happened'.
- hellofriend_ 11mo ago
  Look, the leap from “a human in a lab coat mixed some chemicals and got something that grows and divides” to “therefore no God (or no transcendent intelligence) is necessary for life to exist” is not a valid inference. It is a category error dressed up as science. Demonstrating that intelligence can produce life (or a lifelike system) is the opposite of demonstrating that intelligence is not required. It is literally evidence in favor of the design hypothesis, not against it. The only thing it would rule out is a very narrow version of young-earth creationism that says “God would never let any natural process produce life under any circumstance”. Also, scaling from “possible on a planet” to “therefore no intelligence was required anywhere in the process” is still the same non sequitur, moving the (apparent) design from the origin of the first cell to the origin of the cosmic initial conditions and laws that permit planetary abiogenesis. This equation of “intelligent design = creationism = Adam and Eve” is a cultural artifact of the American culture wars, not a reflection of logic or the global scientific community.
  - threethirtytwo 10mo ago
    >Look, the leap from “a human in a lab coat mixed some chemicals and got something that grows and divides” to “therefore no God (or no transcendent intelligence) is necessary for life to exist” That is not my chain of reasoning, nor has lab created life has ever been created. So what you're saying can never be used as valid proof of creationism. And I certainly did not use that evidence to make such a claim. Additionally I never said god does exist or does not exist.
    - hellofriend_ 10mo ago
      [dead]
api 11mo ago
People misread my comment as creationism. The point I was making was that the complexity curve has to meet the floor at some point, and thinking about how this happens and what that looks like is interesting. I was familiar with RNA world but wasn't aware of how much progress had been made.
- andrewflnr 11mo ago
  Unfortunately your comment is mostly indistinguishable from the kind of "just asking questions" thing actual creationists occasionally post. And you did draw in at least one actual creationist in your replies. Sorry dude. :D Anyway, as a couple of us mentioned, be sure to check out Nick Lane's theories.

threethirtytwo 11mo ago

This is technically random. The entire creationist argument is that complexity cannot come from randomness but evolution is the method in which it does. Evolution is just a sort of way for low entropy structures to form from randomness. It’s still random all the way down. The man is just trying to reconcile a belief in god with the scientific reality. He needs to bend the evidence to fit his identity he cannot bend his identity to fit the evidence because that could break his identity. The fact he commented here on this topic is sort of unhinged. It seems like the article presented evidence that is strikingly against his world view and he needed to justify something in order to prevent his identity from rearranging itself according to external reality.

cozyman 11mo ago
[flagged]
- threethirtytwo 11mo ago
  Easy. Covid evolved forms. The genes are different. There are measurable differences in DNA. These are slight. So from real time observation we know viruses and bacteria can mutate and have small delta changes in their DNA. From this we can deduce that over long period of time many small changes can equate to big changes in DNA. Because we know DNA describes macro characteristics of all living beings and effects behavior, physicality and speciation by logic we know that through induction many many small changes together equals big change and thus evolution can result in speciation and different creatures. This is the literal conclusion through Direct observation and the inescapable logic of induction. Not to mention it's inline with fossil evidence AND covid is clearly not the only species where we observe mutations. Mutations are observed everywhere, including humans. Cancer is mutation and selection as well.
  - cozyman 10mo ago
    This isn't convincing to me, I'm not disputing that mutations exist. Do they become different categories of being? Macro Evolution has always seemed like a philosophy/ideology/religion to me with a veneer of science.
    - threethirtytwo 10mo ago
      Doesn't have to be convincing to you. It's a fact and inescapable conclusion. If you're not convinced, you're wrong. If mutations can happen, then by logic many mutations can happen, if many mutations can happen then many many mutations can stack up and cause speciation. By believing in mutations, evolution follows via logical induction. Your DNA can be edited with many many mutations until it becomes indistinguishable from penguin DNA. Take that DNA and insert it into an zygote embryo and you get a penguin, not a human. This is not a conclusion formed by observation. This is basic logic, 1 + 1 = 2. If the axiom is mutation, evolution is the logical theorem that follows. It is undeniable. You have to go through a lot of mental gymnastics to deny this logic, but it's worth it if such mental gymnastics formulates a conclusion that remains inline with your religious identity. People without this bias who don't have truth tied to their identity don't need to do this kind of thing.
- rcxdude 11mo ago
  The entire fossil record and the mountains of shared DNA between very different creatures is pretty compelling evidence. Not to mention the idea of changing 'kinds' is an entirely human-derived categorisation, not something that has some natural definition.
- fwip 11mo ago
  "Change kinds" is something that only people who believe in a rather literal view of the Christian bible say, and only because that's the popular fundamentalist argument against evolution. Fundamentally, it's impossible to reconstruct something from the fossil record that's convincing to these folks, because they will always arbitrarily decide "fossil 1 is kind X, and fossil 2 is kind Y, you need to find me fossil 1.5," no matter how close in time and likeness the fossils are. So what they actually want is "evolve a lizard species into cats" which fundamentally misrepresents both A) how evolution works (it does not concern itself with human categories) and B) the vast timescale over which small changes accrue. "Kinds" are just human categories we've mapped onto the results of billions of years of evolution after the fact.
  - cozyman 10mo ago
    Is there any way to demonstrate it or is it only an unfalsifiable claim that requires unfathomably long timelines?
akomtu 11mo ago
"It's all random all the way down" is just another religious belief. Besides, has anyone estimated the probability of creating organisms so complex using this random evolution scheme? Another problem is why would randomly-evolved organisms be so geometrically symmetric? I'd expect a random process to create an unholy blob of matter.
- threethirtytwo 11mo ago
  It's not. It's derived from real time observation, logical induction and other historical evidence that's inline with logic and observation. See my other reply to a sibling commenter of yours.
- rcxdude 11mo ago
  You're lacking imagination and understanding of how these systems form. Symmetry is very commonplace in nature, for very unsurprising reasons, because what's random is how the processes that create those forms change over time, not the entirety of those processes themselves. And yes, there is a huge amount of study of how life could form in the kinds of environments we think existed on earth near the start of life. ATM it's not so much 'how could this happen at all' and more 'what looks like the most likely way that it happened'.
hellofriend_ 11mo ago
Look, the leap from “a human in a lab coat mixed some chemicals and got something that grows and divides” to “therefore no God (or no transcendent intelligence) is necessary for life to exist” is not a valid inference. It is a category error dressed up as science. Demonstrating that intelligence can produce life (or a lifelike system) is the opposite of demonstrating that intelligence is not required. It is literally evidence in favor of the design hypothesis, not against it. The only thing it would rule out is a very narrow version of young-earth creationism that says “God would never let any natural process produce life under any circumstance”. Also, scaling from “possible on a planet” to “therefore no intelligence was required anywhere in the process” is still the same non sequitur, moving the (apparent) design from the origin of the first cell to the origin of the cosmic initial conditions and laws that permit planetary abiogenesis. This equation of “intelligent design = creationism = Adam and Eve” is a cultural artifact of the American culture wars, not a reflection of logic or the global scientific community.
- threethirtytwo 10mo ago
  >Look, the leap from “a human in a lab coat mixed some chemicals and got something that grows and divides” to “therefore no God (or no transcendent intelligence) is necessary for life to exist” That is not my chain of reasoning, nor has lab created life has ever been created. So what you're saying can never be used as valid proof of creationism. And I certainly did not use that evidence to make such a claim. Additionally I never said god does exist or does not exist.
  - hellofriend_ 10mo ago
    [dead]

api 11mo ago

People misread my comment as creationism. The point I was making was that the complexity curve has to meet the floor at some point, and thinking about how this happens and what that looks like is interesting. I was familiar with RNA world but wasn't aware of how much progress had been made.

andrewflnr 11mo ago
Unfortunately your comment is mostly indistinguishable from the kind of "just asking questions" thing actual creationists occasionally post. And you did draw in at least one actual creationist in your replies. Sorry dude. :D Anyway, as a couple of us mentioned, be sure to check out Nick Lane's theories.