From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Topic for Discussion?
Date: 26 Jan 93 08:36:53 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <1k1ri0INN2t7@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:


|In article <1993Jan25.061459.10193@smds.com>, rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:
||> In article <1jq3p3INNa89@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:

||> >Where to store this representation?   It can't be stored
||> >centrally, outside the organisms - unless you believe in
||> >Sheldrake's informational fields - so it must be stored inside
||> >the individual organism, one copy per organism.

||> Stop right there.  This is the fallacy in your argument.  [It's
||> a nice argument though -- are you trying to see if people will
||> catch it?]  The fallacy here is the false dichotomy -- the
||> presentation of two alternatives with the claim that they subsume
||> all cases.

|No, it's not a false dichotomy.

Yes it is.  Later on you raise the issue of external environment plus
species.  I grant I didn't read that far.  However at this point what
you've said is explicitly, and I quote again, "It can't be stored
centrally, outside the organisms - unless you believe in Sheldrake's
informational fields - so it must be stored inside the individual
organism, one copy per organism."  That is the statement I was commenting
on.

|No, you don't have to "think a bit" at all.   I adressed this 
|explicitly in my posting, but you have deleted it, so I'll quote
|it here:

|	"Two final points.    First, I don't actually believe that you
|	can find a separate encoding called "this is the species model"
|	inside the DNA of each organism.    I'm just abstracting.

|	Secondly, the obvious "escape" here is to say "Well, micro-
|	evolution doesn't actually consult a species representation,
|	it's just that eventually cumulative micro-evolution produces
|	non-functional organisms.   In fact, that's not an escape,
|	because now you're saying that the representation "valid species"
|	is a function of the species+environment, and micro-evolution
|	can continue to produce cumulatively differing changes as long
|	as it stays within this representation.   But the information
|	in "species+environment" certainly changes over time.   In fact,
|	that's the point, isn't it.

Point taken.  As noted above, I didn't read the whole post.  Jon
is justified in pointing out that he addressed the issue.  However
I am now confused.  What do you mean by an "escape"?  Do you mean
an escape from any sort of representation whatsoever?

|As I said above, even if you think viability is the key, viability
|is itself a form of representation, because viabilty is the interaction
|between the organism and its environment, and because the environment
|changes, the "allowed states" in this interaction also change.

I would have thought that it was clear that I treated viability as
a form of representation.  The fact that, as the environment changes,
the "allowed states" change, neither establishes nor negates the
possibility that the region of viability is bounded.  Later on in
the posting you seem to agree.

||> That is, a particular
||> "kind" may be intrinsically limited in the range of variants that
||> are viable.

|You are making the same error that Mr Chow made, which is ironic,
|since you just posted for him.

Since you don't say what error I am making, it is rather difficult
to tell what you are talking about.  In the quoted sentence I use
the word "may".  I am not taking a position; I am merely pointing
out a possibility.

|What I am saying is that you can't show that micro-evolution can't
|lead to macro-evolution *in general*.

|Try to think of that "in general" some more.   What I am saying has
|nothing to do with what happens to a particular species.   It has
|to do with a general claim that there is some intrinsic "limit"
|to micro-evolution.

The problem here is that it is not clear what you mean by *in general*.
If you merely mean that one can't show this as a theoretical result,
independent of specific knowledge, then one could scarcely argue.

But, in the case of life as we know it, you haven't made your case
as far as I can see.  For any genome, either there are some environments
in which organisms having that genome are viable, or there are no
such environments.  [Or do I have a false dichotomy? :-)]  Now it
it at least logically possible that one could actually determine
which genomes were potentially viable and which were not, and that
genomes when restricted by potential viability formed disjoint bounded
sets.

In short, I am not claiming that I or anyone else can establish that
micro-evolution cannot lead to macro-evolution.  I am disputing the
claim that, in principle, no proof is possible.  Of course you may
not be making that claim, but if anyone is making it, then I dispute
until such time as the converse is demonstrated.


||> The catch is that there need be no explicit representation anywhere.
||> The constraints (again, on the assumption that they exist) are
||> implicit in the environment and in the laws of nature.  Likewise,
||> the mechanism is not explicit -- those variants outside the range
||> of viability die.  No explicit "comparison" is needed.

|Another misquote.   There does not have to be an explicit representation
|of the species.    However, if you hold that cumulative micro-evolution
|*cannot* lead to macro-evolution, then you have to appeal to some
|mechanism to implement this limit.

Agreed that you didn't claim an explicit representation.  I'm afraid
that I can't accept a statement "have to appeal to some mechanism"
without clarification of what you mean by a mechanism.

|Since no Creationist has ever - to my knowledge - proposed such a
|mechanism, I don't either.   Instead I simply say that if the mechanism
|exists, it must get its information from *somewhere*.   If there is
|a limit, and the limit controls micro-evolution, then the limit must
|berepresented somewhere, and it doesn't matter where, because however it 
|is represented, it is itself subject to change.   [Unless, as I said,
|you believe in some external, centrally controlled represenation]

|It doesn't matter if there is an explicit record in DNA, or if this
|information is encoded into the shape of DNA, or interactions between
|different genes, or in the interaction between the organism and its
|environemtn, *all* of these representations are subject to change.

Unless, of course, the limitation is implicit in the laws of biochemistry.
I have no idea whether you classify the laws of nature as a centrally
controlled representation.

...

|What I was dicussing is a different topic.   Not whether cumulative
|micro-evolution *has* lead to macro-evolution, which is simply an
|evidentiary matter, but whether one can sustain the claim that
|cumulative micro-evolution *cannot* lead to macro-evolution.

What you say is true; you discuss what you discuss.  Per your discussion
there are two different considerations, to wit: Has anyone sustained
such a claim, and is it even possible, in principle, to sustain such
a claim.  As to the latter, IMHO, you haven't made your case.  As to
the former, as far as I know, no-one has done so plausibly and I see
no prospects of anyone ever doing so.

However I should like to point out that, IMHO, the point that you are
trying to establish is irrelevant to the issue of Creationism/Evolution.
The Theory of Evolution makes the positive claim that macro-evolution
has occurred and that it is the result of cumulative micro-evolution.
The burden of proof is on the side of the Theory of Evolution for
establishing both the theoretical possibility and the practical feasiblity
of macro-evolution via cumulative micro-evolution.  

It is a legitimate tactic for opponents of Evolution to raise the issue
of the potential lack of such proof.  It obligation of the proponents
to provide it.

No formal proof is available; we lack a sufficient amount of theory.
So the best that can be done is evidentiary.  One can ask for evidence
on both sides, i.e. for evidence that there may be intrinsic limits and
for evidence that there aren't.  It is also worth noting that one might
find that macro-evolution via cumulative micro-evolution is possible,
but that in fact that it is not the principle mode of macro-evolution.
[I rather like the theory that macro-evolution is principally due
to inter-species DNA transfer via viruses; I have no evidence --
I just like the idea.]
-- 
Richard Harter: SMDS Inc.  Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742.    Fax: 508-369-8272
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
Newsgroups: talk.origins