"Natural selection" is it for real ?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by cyber_indian, Oct 28, 2005.

  1. valich Registered Senior Member

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    What do you mean by blackboxing? A hidden, unknown process?

    Artificial Selection started with the dawn of "human" and only "human" civilization and the cultivation of the Earth by choosing which grain seeds yielded the best results and the choosing of which domesticated animals that man selected to produce the best herds. Domestication of the 300+ dog breeds is strictly the result of Artificial Selection. Mendel's pea experiments. Virtually all bio-genetic experimental research in labs around the world today are done by using Artificial Selection. We now select which people we allow to live against Nature's natural forces that would otherwise kill them (Natural Selection). We keep the diseased and unfit alive and interbreed which them through our conscious choice. This is contrary to Natural Selection.
     
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  3. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    That's perfect valich highjacked the subject ... and now we are talking about Artificial Selection.
     
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  5. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    Blackboxing is when you have a process and you know what's the imput and output, but you have no idea what's going on inside this process and you are satisfyed as long it works fine for you.
     
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  7. valich Registered Senior Member

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    "Hijacked" Yeh, right. I was responding simultaneously to the other post. Did you see it?

    You state: "Natural selection" uses blackboxing and we believe that we know how the whole process started, and also beleive that the source of new genes is destuctive mutations." Your answer still does not explain what you are saying here. Where do you get the idea that "the source of new genes is "destructive" mutations"? And not progressively constructive? Natural Selection is progrssive in relation to the environment. The organism progresses to a state that it is better able to exist in its environment.
     
  8. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    You are as usual totally wrong and you completely misunderstand what fitness means.


    Firstly, who do we select?

    Medical care in most european cities is for everybody, and in the US healthcare seems to be dependent on having the proper insurance. If we now make a simple projection from this it seems that rich and smart people get the best health insurance.

    Secondly, who is the fittest in our society? If we now look at the statistics it shows that poor people at the bottom of society have more children than the people we actually select (on monetary criteria) for the best health care. So the peole we select to keep alive actually produce less offspring.

    Conclusion: the people we select are less fit. That is nature biting in your ass.

    If we now compare the 1st world to the 3rd world, we see that the medical care, and simple things like having proper sewers etc, is rather unevenly distributed between them. Still, the population of the 1st world is not growing, in most cases it is even declining. The selected few countries in the world are living a decadent life and are not fit at all. Oh no, the populations in 3rd world countries grow much faster without all that fancy healthcare, hygiene, food, etc. They kick our evolutionary asses so to speak. Those poor people would laugh in your face if you tried to explain to them that we are selecting them by not giving them heathcare, hygiene, food etc. Because valich, they ARE FITTER THAN US.

    Moreover, on a personal note. You personally would be dead and not posting right now weren't for modern medicin. The chance you would have died before reaching maturity is rather large. But you got vaccinations, some antibiotics, and you miraculously made it through childhood, and maybe even puberty. So be happy. You were an evolutionary dead end yourself.
     
  9. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    "organism progresses to a state that it is better able to exist in its environment" - it's true, but ever occur to you that maybe it's not "natural selection" that does that. Just because "natural selection" is only probable explanation it dosn't mean that it's realy the right one - it just sound like one.

    By the way try to flip a coin on every intersection, acording to the outcome of the coin get the direction and see if you gonna get home.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2005
  10. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Coin example:
    If there were millions of people flipping coins, and on every "wrong" street, you got killed, then yes, some people would eventually get home.
     
  11. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    Do you realy believe that ?
    I have another example - since executable computer files have pretty good resemblance with, try to change one byte in it and run the program. It's just one only one change that is enought to damage the program ... now keep on making changes or even write a program to mutate that executable file ... acording to your logic eventualy you'll have a fine working program ... hell even with never till now know extraordianary functions and maybe a new windows that will put Bill Gates to his knees.

    Why are you still wasting time with us, get to work - this is undeniable logic and it will work no doubt about it.
     
  12. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Living organisms do not work the same way as a computer. A misspelling usually doesn't matter at all for the functioning of it or one of its processes.

    If we are talking about the development of an organism then I must say it is extremely robust and flexible at the same time. Nothing like operating a computer at all.
     
  13. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    "operating a computer" is the equivalence of you talking with me or making me do something.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    That's true, there have been evolved computer programs that are able to solve problems in unexpected ways, with fewer lines of code than ever predicted. I'm surprised you don't know about that.
     
  15. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    That's called minimisation of sum of functions.
     
  16. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    There was also a system in use on mainframes in the 50s and 60s called "gracefull degradation". In this, as a system failed it did so slowly, allowing time for back ups and proper shut-downs.
    I have seen plenty of software working with obvious glitches in it that are random failures in that run, yet which do not crash the system.
     
  17. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    Are you refering to "Protected mode" the mechanism that make shure that a out of control programs doesn't have access to rest of the system and by this protecting it from crashing.

    Windows NT technology is actualy contemporary technology of "Protected mode".
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2005
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    One thing the digital organisms do particularly well is evolve.β€œ Avida is not a simulation of evolution; it is an instance of it,” Pennock says. β€œAll the core parts of the Darwinian process are there. These things replicate, they mutate, they are competing with one another. The very process of natural selection is happening there. If that's central to the definition of life, then these things count.”

    http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.html
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2005
  19. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Bloody interesting read! thank you very much.
     
  20. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    cool ... all you have to do now is run as many as you can computers and the fate of the humankind is doomed by this future computer code

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. cyber_indian Registered Senior Member

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    That's right ... why run Predictor@home or SETI@home when we can run Avida
     
  22. valich Registered Senior Member

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    No! You are usually totally wrong, and in this case admit it! As usual you went way off the subject and addressed absolutely nothing relavent to what I posted. You start rambling on-and-on, drift farther-and-farther away, until it has nothing to do with the subject matter.

    You just seem to have this innate impulse to post something - anything - to satisfy your egotistic desires to feel intellectually superior to others. What the hell does the above post have to do with anything that I or anybody else have posted?
     
  23. valich Registered Senior Member

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    3,501
    Computers have logical patterns and can make decisions based on learned past experiences but they do not have free thought. Free thought can make decisions that are contrary to logic and learned experiences - based on emotional impulses, learned values, likes and dislikes, spur of the moment decisions that could be crucial, and perceived supernatural spiritual impulses.
     

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