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From: Mark Isaak <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>
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On 3/7/25 8:34 PM, MarkE wrote:
> On 7/03/2025 9:29 pm, Ernest Major wrote:
>> On 06/03/2025 00:45, MarkE wrote:
>>> On 5/03/2025 3:31 pm, MarkE wrote:
>>>> Is there a limit to capability of natural selection to refine, adapt 
>>>> and create the “appearance of design”? Yes: the mechanism itself of 
>>>> “differential reproductive success” has intrinsic limitations, 
>>>> whatever it may be able to achieve, and this is further constrained 
>>>> by finite time and population sizes.
>>>>
>>>
>>> <snip for focus>
>>>
>>> Martin, let's stay on topic. Would you agree that there are limits to 
>>> NS as described, which lead to an upper limit to functional 
>>> complexity in living things?
>>>
>>> How these limits might be determined is a separate issue, but the 
>>> first step is establishing this premise.
>>>
>>
>> First, natural selection is not the only evolutionary process. Even if 
>> one evolutionary process is not capable of achieving something that 
>> doesn't mean that evolutionary processes in toto are not capable of 
>> achieving that.
> 
> Natural selection is the *only* naturalistic means capable of increasing 
> functional complexity and genetic information.
> 
> All other factors have only a shuffling/randomising effect. In every 
> case, NS is required to pick from the many resulting permutations the 
> rare chance improvements.
> 
> Without the action of NS, all biological systems are degrading over time.
> 
>>
>> Second, you've changed the question. Evolutionary processes have 
>> limitations, but those limitations need not be on the degree of 
>> functional complexity achievable. Evolution cannot produce living 
>> organisms that can't exist in the universe. (You could quibble about 
>> lethal mutations, recessives, etc., but I hope you can perceive the 
>> intent of my phrasing; for example, I very much doubt that evolution 
>> could result in an organism with a volume measured in cubic light years.)
>>
>> Applying this to functional complexity, physical limits on how big an 
>> organism can be, and how small details can be, do pose a limit on how 
>> much functional complexity can be packed into an organism. But such a 
>> limit doesn't help you - humans are clearly capable of existing in 
>> this universe, so aren't precluded by that limit. You need a process 
>> limitation, not a physical limitation; I don't find it obvious that 
>> there is a process limitation that applies here.
>>
>> You say that the first step is establishing the premise. That is your 
>> job.
>>
>> That there are things that evolution cannot achieve (a classic example 
>> is the wheel, though even that is not unimaginable) doesn't not mean 
>> that evolution cannot achieve things that already exist; one of the 
>> reasons that ID is not science is it's lack of interest in accounting 
>> for the voluminous evidence that evolution has achieved the current 
>> biosphere.
>>
> 
> The limits of NS are not simply due to physically possible organisms. 
> It's much tighter constraint. The mechanism of "differential 
> reproductive success" is a blunt instrument, rightly described as 
> explaining the survival but not arrival of the fittest.

None of which is relevant to the real world.

> To elaborate my hypotheses (not proofs):
> 
> 1. NS, along with any other naturalistic mechanisms, do not have the 
> logical capacity to fully traverse the solution space, regardless of 
> time available. Some (many) areas of the fitness landscape will be 
> islands, local maxima, inaccessible via gradualistic pathways (e.g. 
> monotonically increasing fitness functions). These are however 
> accessible to intelligent design.
> 
> 2. The time/material resources of the universe allow exploration of only 
> a small fraction of even the accessible solutions. Again, this 
> constraint does not apply to intelligent design.

Okay, now how do you test them?

Keep in mind that they have already been tested, which is a major reason 
why evolution is the accepted explanation for diversity.  The other 
reason is that nobody has come up with another hypothesis to explain 
diversity.  No, "intelligent design" is not a hypothesis until you say 
how it works.

> Does the burden of proof for these hypotheses rest exclusively with ID? 

Yes.

-- 
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell