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From: MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com>
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Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2025 22:26:34 +1100
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On 16/03/2025 9:51 am, Ernest Major wrote:
> 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 
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