Video on Natural Selection Played to A Wonderful Song

Abrasax · #1 (**permalink**) 11-02-2007, 07:28 AM

YouTube - Why Intelligent Design is WRONG

A marvelous video explaining how we can arrive at complexity and seemingly impossible odds through natural selection helping the process.

**Brother of Yeshua** · 11-07-2007, 11:11 PM

I watched this video, and i felt like I didn't get it.

I just rewatched it, and I get it, but the argument is flawed.

The experiment is faulty because in both, there was a pre-set goal trying to be attained.

A true experiment would have to be allowing things to randomly mutate with no goal and see what pictures or sentences develop.

If anything, this strengthens the idea that some general goal must be intelligently set for natural selection to even work in the first place.

If I'm missing something feel free to point it out.

Abrasax · 11-08-2007, 06:48 AM

While it is flawed in the sense that it has a preset goal, I basically undertand it as the preset goal representing survival. It does a wonderful job in my opinion of demonstrating how something complicated can arise in order to survive.

I wondered that as well..

**Brother of Yeshua** · 11-08-2007, 09:33 AM

Which still raises the question of how does nature know what mutations are "good" and "bad."

And if every entity is constantly adapting to adjust to its environment, it would have to even further increase the odds of complex organisms, like us, where millions of single celled organisms, bacteria, and other living things are functioning together in symbiotic relationships.

I believe this is happening, but you know where I'm looking at this issue from.

Hope this didn't come off as argumentative.

**Opunaya** · 11-08-2007, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother of Yeshua

Which still raises the question of how does nature know what mutations are "good" and "bad."

And if every entity is constantly adapting to adjust to its environment, it would have to even further increase the odds of complex organisms, like us, where millions of single celled organisms, bacteria, and other living things are functioning together in symbiotic relationships.

I believe this is happening, but you know where I'm looking at this issue from.

Hope this didn't come off as argumentative.

Maybe that's where we get some retarded people from? I'm not being mean, just making an observation.

**Brother of Yeshua** · 11-08-2007, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Opunaya

Maybe that's where we get some retarded people from? I'm not being mean, just making an observation.

It's a valid one.

My overall observation is just simply that natural selection is apparent, but in order for it to progress in a way that produces survival, there has to be intelligence and logic behind it to some degree, otherwise it would be a clusterfuck of mutations and worthless sub-species.

And perhaps it started that way and the logic and intelligence of the universe is evolving just as our own is. Perhaps the laws of nature are not as static as we think they are.

I did enjoy the way the video explained and showed the potentials of natural selection, I just think many staunch supporters of evolution treat natural selection the way some religious folks treat God, in the sense that they use a theoretical concept to explain away any discrepencies.

**Ristaron** · 11-08-2007, 12:31 PM

I don't think I quite got it... he applied an algorithm to a static picture and it revealed an image? There are a million ways I could do that, and all of them mean nothing.
He should give us more information on what each of the 'next generation' children mean and a smaller example to show it happening on a smaller scale. And then shown us the big picture.

Aside from that, I want to remark on the argument ID proponents employ when attempting to disprove evolution.

"A watch is so complex, it had to have been designed.
Same with Mt. Rushmore, it didn't erode that way.
Same with proteins, which are too complex to appear by chance."
Now, hold on here. You just listed two inatimate things, and then listed proteins. Last I checked, the human body is alive, and therefore operates under slightly different rules.
#1. It reproduces.
#2. It mutates.
#3. It competes to survive.
We are not all genetically identical, though in the grand scheme of things our genomes are all 99.9% accurate of one another. What this means is that those of us who, say, develop better lung capacity will be able to run longer, hunt longer, climb more stairs, etc. Versus someone who develops lungs less efficient and is not as fit for survival.
Now, with human society continually growing and asserting its dominance over the rest of the world, we can support those people who don't pull their weight as well, and we can end up with asthmatics and haemophiliacs and diabetics and hypoglycaemics and every other person who manages to get the unlucky combination of genes from both parents.
Last I checked, some watches don't need to eat a complete balanced breakfast in order to function throughout the day, and Mt. Rushmore doesn't need to compete with Mt. St. Helen's in order to be able to dominate the Sierra Nevada and take on mates.

edit: ah hah, I get what he did now. And his experiment is flawed. His control condition "most fit" is what doesn't suit the image, but that's not how evolution works. You don't start with an end-goal in mind, you have what can best survive and what can't. If conditions had been slightly different and we had only developed four fingers on each hand, we still would have evolved, just not the way we did to get five fingers.