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So when Stradivari was using trial and error methods to tune his violins, the errors would accumulate and he could never create a fine violin. Is that what @Otangelo is arguing?
Although I would have inserted “unsupported by the evidence, which the claimants routinely misrpresent,” after “claim.”
Hi Neil
The crux to the genetic entropy argument is around how random change to a functional sequence tends to move to disorder or non functionality. An experiment around sequences can be performed on a written human language showing how random change erodes meaning.
This argument is very old and my first knowledge of it was the Wistar conference.
No, that’s the claim of GE. That claim is wrong.
Show me the written language that works by slapping words against one another until they stick in a way that makes one of them bend weird, and then you can make an analogy to that language. Until then, comparing functions in biochemistry to meaning in written language is silly.
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And it has been explained to you repeatedly and in painstaking detail why it is a crock.
It’s odd that you seem to see your stubborn refusal to accept plain facts as some sort of victory for creationism.
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That ignores the role of natural selection.
And that ignores the effect of editors and readers who point out problems in the text.
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Hi Neil
If random change is degrading the sequence natural selection cannot change the trend. Its role is to fix the trend in the population (temporary beneficial mutation) which is degrading function over time.
Editors and readers have minds and can understand the meaning of the text.
You are allowing your creationism to confuse you.
Overall, it is a trial and error system. The mutations are a way of trying out alternatives, and natural selection is going with the successes.
We usually think of trial and error as a good learning system. We even think of it as intelligent behavior. But when it happens as part of nature, creationists just see it as random.
As a Christian, you could be praising your God for coming up with an intelligent way maintaining the biosphere. But instead, you are in effect accusing you God of being a deliberately corrupting influence.
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The only way you could say this is if you either don’t understand how mutation works or don’t understand how selection works. Or both.
My money is on both.
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If all random chance is “degrading” the sequence, yes. IF. But it isn’t ALL random change. Some of it is neutral, and some of it is beneficial too. And there’s natural selection that removes the deleterious changes. So your hypothetical does not apply as it is based on assumptions diametrically opposite to observational reality.
You understand what “diametrically opposite to observational reality” means, right?
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But there is no need for any mind to understand anything in order for an organism to die without reproducing. Do you disagree?
Hi Neil
The only model I know of that can find a sequence through trial and error uses the specified sequence as the target. I think you are underestimating the difficulty RMNS faces. I have yet to see any realistic model that supports your assertion.
The models you have never seen are discussed at great length in this forum and others. No specified sequence is needed, only a criteria to evaluate function.
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/search?q=Genetic%20algorithm
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Your ignorance is not an argument.
That’s especially true in this case since there have been many genetic algorithms referenced or even posted here that do not look for a specific sequence, but for the outcome of using a sequence, and do not use the specified sequence as the target. For many of them the best sequence is not even known by the algorithm developer. Dave Thomas’s Steiner tree program for instance.
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Perhaps it is worth noting that matching a sequence is an example of a very specific sort of criteria. There is no requirement for the criteria to be specific.
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It isn’t trying to find any specific sequence. It is just trying to find one that works pretty well.
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Yes, and the Texas Sharpshooter always hits the target. So what?
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This sequence Dawkins used was 1 tenth the length of an average vertebrate protein. Even if half the amino acids of vertebrates are substitutable for a given protein the sequence problem still exists.
The claim of working pretty well is not apparent from the evidence. Below is the alignment data from uniprot for cardiac actin for several vertebrates. Not a single mutation has been fixed in the vertebrate populations over 200 million years. The math here is not close to working given reasonable assumptions based on the evidence. Life requires precise sequences in many instances.
sp|P68032|ACTC_HUMAN100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%sp|[P68035]
(UniProt)|ACTC_RAT100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%sp|[P68034]
(UniProt)|ACTC_CHICK100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%sp|[Q3ZC07]
(UniProt)|ACTC_BOVIN100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%sp|[P68033]
(UniProt)|ACTC_MOUSE100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%