At 23:16 -0800 12/28/04, Nancy wrote:
I agree with the viewpoint that "random" selection cannot completely explain the evolutionary process, and although I do not accept their ideas, I can understand why there are so many who believe in intelligent design. I have spoken with those who accept the "design idea" and they put forth some very rational concepts. If a person were to take a dictionary, cut out all the words, and throw it up in the air, what are the chances that it would come back together in exactly the same order? Or that it would assemble in some order that would make rational sense or even SEEM to have some purpose or development? The notion that it would reconstitute itself in the proper order seems even more pseudoscientific than belief in a deity. And I have to agree.
But what if the first cut-out words
would fall down more or less randomly, but the next ones would have to
adapt to the ones that were there first, so that only those that
somehow fit in with the first ones would be allowed to stay, and the
next ones would have to fit in not only with the first ones but with
those fitted in earlier, etc.? If the rules for fitting together are
such that they respect basic grammar and semantics, you are likely to
see something resembling meaningful sentences emerge, although each
time you repeat the experiment, the sentences will be different. That
would be a much better analogy with the process of natural
selection...
This may seem rather simplistic, but it hints that something more is needed to understand the evolutionary process other than the idea that energy is expended and that there is a "random process" of natural selection.
The core misunderstanding is that
many people conflate the two DISTINCT components that together define
Darwinian evolution: (possibly random) variation, and (possibly
natural) selection.
Selection, by definition, is the
very oppossite of randomness. Randomness means that "anything
goes", any possibility is as good or as probable as any other.
Selection, on the other hand, means that some possibilities are chosen
or PREFERRED over others, that the probabilities of the different
possibilities surviving are not all the same, that some are
"fitter" than others. It is the combination of the
"random" (though I prefer the phrase "blind")
process of variation, exploring new possibilities, and the very
non-random process of selection eliminating all but a few of these
possibilities that gives rise to creative evolution and the appearance
of "intelligent design".
Note that there are many types of
variation including wholly non-random ones, and many types of
selection including internal selection (i.e. independent of the
environment) which leads to
"self"-organization, and
mutual selection, which can be seen in co-evolution where one evolving
system changes the other's fitness function and vice-versa. These lead
to a much richer and more complex picture of evolution than the one of
traditional neo-Darwinism.
However, the core lesson of Darwinism remains: you can generate
more adapted designs by starting with nothing more than random
variation and natural selection; there is no need to assume
intelligent design. The newer lessons of complexity add that once you
start looking at the (non-linear) interactions between different
evolving systems or components, this simple mechanism generates
extremely complicated and difficult to predict processes and
structures, explaining the subtleties of organization we find in
living, cognitive and social systems, and more generally the process
of emergence.
For more info, see our PCP page on evolution:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/EVOLUT.html
and two older papers of mine:
Heylighen F. (1999): "The Growth of Structural and
Functional Complexity during Evolution", in: F. Heylighen, J.
Bollen & A. Riegler (eds.) The Evolution of Complexity (Kluwer
Academic, Dordrecht), p. 17-44.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/ComplexityGrowth.html
Heylighen F. (1991): "Modelling Emergence", World
Futures: the Journal of General Evolution 31 (Special Issue on
Emergence, edited by G. Kampis), p. 89-104.
ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/Papers_Heylighen/Modelling_Emergence.txt
--
Francis Heylighen
"Evolution, Complexity and Cognition" research group
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
