Comment: Those who talk about the subjects of Evolution and Life (because they think they understand the subjects), are quite happy with words like "selection" and "adaptation". Or "advantage", "variation" "random mutation", etc. There seems to be something of an aversion to the word "purpose". Maybe this is because it's seen as a creationist or "predeterminist" argument, so must be avoided. But it's a word, for god's sake. It means: "adaptation" or "use", that's all it means. So if life is adaptive, then Evolution is adaptation. But there's the variation side of it - the random deck-shuffle for the next deal. If life uses things, then Evolution is (the result of) "a use of things".
Perhaps you are incapable of expressing yourself clearly because you do not know what you are talking about.
"you do not know what you are talking about." This looks like something a petulant little mind would think was meaningful. But t'ain' no thang, auy?
Version 1: (1) a [chance] change in some individual's genes which in some (usually a very small way) gives: (2) that individual, on average, greater advantage than others in leaving his modified genes in the next generation. Version 2: Darwin clearly sees two agencies at work: variability and adaptation. Variability is presented, the environment selects the fittest variations. The agency of selection. Adaptation is use of the gene complement, which is directed at survival and replication. The agency of adaptation. Version 3: ... if adaptation is part of the process not the result then this somehow implies direction and purpose. I certainly do no see it that way. ...it seems to me that Darwin and Gould both see adaptation as part of the process.
Quite true. However, that is not what I said. You have missed out the 'perhaps'. Perhaps you do indeed lack communication skills and having this pointed out to you seems to go to the heart of your psyche and to upset you. That would be your problem, not mine.
What anyone thinks they have "pointed out" is perhaps not what they pointed out, after all. No-one perhaps knows what they are talking about. Or expresses anything with any clarity because they don't, after all, know, that is, understand, the particular subject they are talking about. Or they just think they know something.
Your manner of expressing yourself appears to clearly imply that "I don't know" something. This thing is "what I'm talking about". But if you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't have said "Darwin and Gould both note the absence of purpose throughout their work", as if this somehow implies that Life is without purpose. You're sure you understand what either of them was talking about? If you aren't happy with my implication that there are at least 3 separate versions of the subject (whatever the hell it is), are you up to addressing this apparent contradiction, or just as happy to leave it up to me to tear your, and Billy T's ideas apart (as they appear in that list), and demonstrate how they really aren't quite the "story", after all? You're scared of a word, a little noun that starts with 'p', and means "use"? You aren't the only one, are you? By all means, sit back and fling the odd word around, who knows?
Righty-ho. BT has left an idea here that describes an evolutionary process. Is it an accurate description? A "chance" is bestowed: a change in an individual's genes occurs, due to some "random process", which is blind. Only if the change is beneficial, will that individual gain any advantage. Here, the ideas of "advantage" and "beneficial", are tied explicitly to the environment (the niche occupied). OK so far. But changes to genetic material can occur via horizontal gene transfer. This is when bacteria and other prokaryotes actually exchange genetic material; it also happens because of viral replication - a genome can adapt a viral gene, and accomodate it as an intron, and eventually an exon - it gets transcribed and used to assemble protein for the now evolved organism. Many genetic changes are due to duplication and branching (homology), as part of a "normal" cellular gene replication - so evolution of genes can occur naturally too, as "mistakes" in gene replication. Billy T does mention the agencies of selection and adaptation. But genetic variability isn't up to external processes alone (like ionising radiation, oxidising chemicals or free radicals, etc); these are some of the things that cause genetic changes, but it isn't the whole list. An organism, or a group of them, can actively vary their genes (by exchanging genetic sequences as plasmids, or by making mistakes when genes get copied).
"If adaptation is part of the process, this "somehow" implies direction, and purpose" (? ...direction is after all, purposeful). Darwin and Gould (and probably a lot of other Biologists), see "adaptation as part of the process"; yes, indeed they do. The "result" is speciation. A species is a relatively, and currently stable expression of a genome, or it is a genome. If the genome doesn't vary, it's an evolutionary dead-end, it's going nowhere. As I've stated, adaptation is purposeful. Adaption is the "direction" in Evolution. I've said that Life (and all the species in it), is not a static table, or list. We know that it changes (there's sufficient medical evidence that bacteria evolve quite rapidly). Evolution is called a "process" that explains this change. But Life is the process, Life evolves, not Evolution. Life evolves because it's a process. Life is a process that is subjected constantly to environmental changes (selection pressures), and must adapt, or disappear. Life adapts and gets selected for its trouble, not Evolution. Evolution is blind the way a poker deal is blind. A dealer still has to purposefully, or actively shuffle the cards. A deal of cards is a process, not a static "table" of information.
Life is a configuration of matter and energy. Which is to say that life is a configuration of energy. We simply do not have the resources to determine if the configuration that exhibits life is unique or if it is a ubiquitous within space and time. But that is no reason to inject drugs made out of human hair.
Until evidence to the contrary is presented I believe I have a pretty good idea what both Gould and Darwin are talking about. Once again you raise a strawman - it seems to one of your favourite techniques. I was speaking of purpose within evolution and was using two examples, from opposite ends of the time line on 'modern' evolutionary theory, to demonstrate that purpose was not something experts in the field gave any weighty consideration to. We may, as conscious beings, possibly possessing free will, choose to assign purpose to life. That is quite a different matter and has little to do with the topic in hand. Remind me again. This time try not to be obtuse. Done and dusted. You seem to have very little idea as to what my ideas are. This is hardly surprising as I have barely presented any of them in this thread. Please don't be silly. I have no 'fear' of the word purpose, but if you intend to apply it to life then you will need to a) define it rigorously in context; b) present extensive evidence to support your contention. You have failed to do either so far, so your waffle comes across as mere arm waving. Does it have a purpose?
It goes like this, inextensive one: Life is adaptive; adaptation is purposeful; Life is purposeful, it uses things. Life manages to create a bit of energy and channel it somewhere. Then it uses it. Like I've been saying. Explain how that is incorrect and then explain how it means life isn't purposeful.
Impossible to do as living organisms do have purposes - just getting something to eat when hungry is one. However, your statement that evolution has purpose is false. Evolution is not a living organism, trying to get something to eat, or any of the other 1000s of purposes that living organisms do have. Evolution is a PROCESS THAT ACTS ON THE GENE POOL OF ORGANISMS. Evolution acts by selecting the RANDOM CHANCE changes in the genes THAT OCCURE WITHOUT ANY PURPOSE. For example, by a cosmic ray or some chemical altering the genetic structure of some part of the DNA etc. Yes living organisms have purpose; but no physical/chemical processes, like the genetic changes of evolution, has any purpose, even if via these random changes these physical/ chemical processes produce in genetic material, evolution can alter the gene pool making individual organisms that are better adapted to the CURRENT environmental stresses. In the long run the nature of these stresses changes so what was once adaptive change will become a disadvantage. - Ask any dinosaur if you do not believe me. All chance changes remain beneficial /adaptive only while the environment remains static, but it is always changing on evolutionary time scales, which for most cases concerning large complex creatures, like man, are much longer than ice-ages. To take a shorter and very famous case: A white moth in pre-industrial England became grey when Industrialization filled the environment with soot. Then when England cleaned up its air they became white again. Thus in some case the once beneficial adaptation is for only 100 years or less. No one knows what is long term adaptive because no one knows the distant future environment. I bet that nature's accidental development of big brained creatures (men) will eventually cause a great reduction in the diversity of organisms, perhaps even make the planet sterile. If that should be the case, was that the "purpose of evolution"? - To make Earth free of life forms? I am not claiming to know that this is the future of Earth (at least not until the sun becomes a red giant, when it surely is the future of Earth) - I am only trying to illustrate that purpose is a property /characteristic of living organisms, not of physical / chemical processes, such as evolution, even thought in evolution's case the interaction with the CURRENT ENVIRONMENT does shape (or select) the net effect of the of a multitude of random chance changes, but not even then is it "stable change for the future" or "purpose." - Again, if you do not believe me, ask any dinosaur. I really only posts for others, just joining the thread, as you have already shown the rigidity of your POV and total inability to understand that the above shows that evolution has no purpose, but only adapts to the CURRENT environmental stresses and in the long run is not adaptive. (Why 99+% of all once adapted species are now extinct.)
Evolution is not an "external" process. It's an explanation, that explains a certain perceived directionality. No, selection acts on any adapted variations, that have been made "by chance", and by "design" - by other competing/co-operating genomes, under the same or different pressures. Selection is to purpose as winning and losing is to gambling. It explains why complex systems evolve, in a general sense. Darwinism is applicable to languages and anthropology in general, to medicine and disease. It's a certain kind of ergody, or ergodic theory, of complex interacting systems, and how they and the overall system evolves, over time (short and long intervals). Gene variability and expression are important features, in biological/biochemical evolution, what we keep calling "Life". Evolution "starts" with the chance variation of genes. The genes are then used with purpose (adaptively), which results in the best "users" surviving (more than the "not so good" users). This is what we classify as a species. Species in the same genus are all survivors of a selection, all variations on a common ancestor, that survived as either a small reproducing group, or a small group of related (diverged) species that then radiated, replacing other fauna because they were better adapted. Therefore Evolution is purposeful, because organisms are purposeful (adaptive). Evolution is directed, by those organisms which evolve. It's a divergence. Species are a convergence (and there is parallel evolution).
Such a singular definition may go some way to explaining many of your strange statements. Logical fallacy.:shrug:
I would say that saying "the evolution of lifeforms is without purpose because it's a logical fallacy", is nonsensical. You must think nonsensically...:bugeye: What's a logical fallacy(?), perhaps you don't understand what one of those is. Is gambling money purposeful? Is gambling survival on some shuffle of a genome purposeful? Does life gamble by "trying" new combinations - by making new information with existing information? Obviously, life evolves because it's trying to find better, more efficient ways of exploiting energy, and using that energy, by adapting it from other lifeforms, or by directly exploiting some resource; as a whole, it's something that adapts to various interrelated positions in a big network, that keeps shifting as the world changes climatically, geographically, and because of co-evolution. A major extinction event might reset things for a while, but if there are roles to play, generally the players evolve to play them. We are just a bunch of survivors, of a single genus that we know has at least a handful of species (they aren't around any more, but we know they're in our group), and that these co-habited. Our species is an accident of history, and so is every other surviving species. Competition and co-operation are not external influences, like cosmic rays, asteroids, or Milankovitch cycles. Life evolves purposefully, because adaptation is purpose.
