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From: Ernest Major <{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk>
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On 14/03/2025 04:57, MarkE wrote:
> On 14/03/2025 12:18 am, Ernest Major wrote:
>> On 13/03/2025 11:17, MarkE wrote:
>>> On 12/03/2025 9:31 am, Ernest Major wrote:
>>>> On 08/03/2025 04:34, 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 
>>>>
>>>> Creationists have been known to argue that natural selection doesn't 
>>>> create anything; it merely selects what's already present. As an 
>>>> argument against evolution that's worthless; but as an observation 
>>>> it's true enough. Each step in functionality complexity originates 
>>>> from mutation, or recombination, or gene flow, and is subsequently 
>>>> fixed or not by natural selection or genetic drift.
>>>>
>>>> For example Ron Okimoto (I think) recently mentioned that one 
>>>> flagellar gene is a truncated version of another, and results in the 
>>>> assembly of a tapered flagellum rather than cylindrical one. I can 
>>>> imagine that the tapered flagellum is advantageous, and was fixed by 
>>>> selection. It might be that the gene was duplicated and fixed by 
>>>> drift before a truncation mutation occurred, but as selection 
>>>> against excess DNA is effective in bacteria I suspect that it 
>>>> originated as a partial duplication of the gene, which was then 
>>>> selected. But note that the initial increase in complexity was 
>>>> caused by the mutation. Natural selection fixes this in a 
>>>> population, and as you have mentioned acts as a ratchet allowing 
>>>> changes to accumulate.
>>>>
>>>> But you are assuming increases in functional complexity are 
>>>> adaptive. They could be neutral or slightly deleterious and fixed by 
>>>> genetic drift. I don't accept without question your 
>>>> panadaptationist/ panfunctionalist premise.
>>>>
>>>> Passing over the problems with defining an objective criterion for 
>>>> irreducibly complex systems, there are at least three classes of 
>>>> evolutionary paths to this. I think that coadaptation is the 
>>>> predominant one. This goes from non-interaction to facultative 
>>>> interaction to obligate interaction. Both steps could be fixed by 
>>>> either natural selection or genetic drift.
>>>>
>>>>> and genetic information.
>>>>
>>>> Increases in functional complexity and genetic information are not 
>>>> the same thing. If you use a Shannon or Kolmgorov measure natural 
>>>> selection tends to reduce, not increase, information in a gene pool.
>>>>>
>>>>> 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.
>>>>>
>>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> You are moving the target again. It is not legitimate to take the 
>>>> probably truism that evolution cannot reach all targets, and use 
>>>> that to argue that are limits to the degree of complexity that 
>>>> evolution can generate.
>>>
>>> I'm not claiming a limit the degree of complexity that evolution can 
>>> generate, but rather the extent of of the solution space.
>>
>> "Would you agree that there are limits to NS as described, which lead 
>> to an upper limit to functional complexity in living things?" - MarkE, 
>> 5th March 2025. (Quoted by MarkE on the 13th March 2025 - see above.)
>>
> 
> To recap different contributing factors to an upper limit in functional 
> complexity in living things in relation to natural selection:

You were being invited to address your vacillation about whether you 
claim that there is an upper limit to the amount of functional 
complexity that evolution can generate.
> 
> 1. Fitness landscape
> 
> If the fitness landscape has unreachable islands (local maxima sparsely 
> distributed in a plain), then if some of these represent "solutions" of 
> greater functional complexity than those in local maxima accessible to 
> NS, this implies an upper limit, lower than that of all physically 
> possible organisms.
> 
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