I don't think this changes the point he was trying to make, which was about limited space and resources.

This is kind of like saying that the martingale betting strategy wins. There's a sense in which you're right, but it ignores an important piece of reality.

It can have a directional tendency towards all three. All three of those have happened in species that are on Earth today. More complexity = humans. Less complexity = Mexican tetra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_tetra). Neither = coelecantch.

What is it that you think is being ignored?

Don't have a 'good understanding of evolution' - i.e. i've never studied it - but I would say that it necessarily has a directional tendency towards more complexity.

In my mind, complexity is the opposite of simplicity; we can clearly see that there is life around us right now that is more complex than what we started with, i.e. single-cell organisms. Environments are changing, so the products of those environments need to be able to survive or thrive in a multitude of different conditions.

Humans are the best example of this, but we could do a thought experiment with bacteria as well. If you were to expose a large sample, slowly, to something they're not used to - maybe a rare radioactive element, or something - those that survive are now not only capable of surviving in their original environment, but this new environment as well. In my mind this replicates the way nature is constantly throwing curveballs at life.

Both adaptation and speciation always create greater diversity of organisms, not less diversification, but I don't think that implies greater average complexity of organisms. Becoming more specialized can be a simplification. Certainly there are many examples of increased complexity, but there may well be just as many examples of simplification. I would say there isn't a causal relationship between evolution and complexity and probably not even a correlation.

Resource scarcity is a huge deal.

Yoda can envision all sorts of things happening as a result of "evolution." However, all of the examples he has given are detached from reality. In a very real way, his "evolution" is the "magic" that he has accused others of thinking it is:

It's "magic" if you think that you can be wrong by a couple orders of magnitude and think it's not a problem. It's "magic" if you think that evolution takes feral wolves to domesticated pit bulls in a few hundred years. It's "magic" that you can go from bacteria to humans based on the idea that "evolution is a colorblind person dying" alone.

Insofar as his concern is why people don't accept evolution, he doesn't seem to understand that when advocating for a scientific theory, you simply cannot make up the details as you go.

You still haven't defined "complexity," and without a good definition, we see just what we've seen itt so far after not defining "evolution" properly.

In your example, it is easy to imagine, e.g., a photosynthetic single-celled organism obtaining the ability to facultatively metabolize glucose, and after some generations in a dark environment, the photosynthetic apparatus becoming non-functional irreversibly.

Please explain why humans are more "complex," and in what ways, than a coelacanth.

We mean something when we say an eye is more complex than a brick. The idea is to try to capture what exactly is being meant and not to complain about the lack of capturing it so far. Definitions are to be tested against the meaning.

lol

Maybe it so hapopens that evolution has taken far longer than our universe has existed, maybe it could have happened in a million years given the right conditions. maybe we can do it on a computer in a few minutes. Its still the same game and its not magic.

Lol, indeed. What meaningful interpretation of that sentence is there?



Maybe we can do "evolution" on a computer in a few minutes? If you subscribe to the idea that if we manufacture a creature from scratch, that this is also evolution, then sure.

Also, every time you say you don't believe in fairies, a fairy dies, and evolution happens.

Not to rude, but this is stupid. I've already shown how "complexity" can have multiple definitions. There is no one understood umbrella concept for "complexity." One can make an assertion, that assertion can be shown false based on a common or standard definition, and the person making the assertion can then say "oh no that's not what I meant, I meant this." Such an approach muddles the process and ruins meaningful discussion. In cases where there are multiple candidate definitions for a concept, the definition should be specified beforehand. If I wanted to have a conversation about species and sex (for instance), I would expect to be challenged if I didn't define which definition of species I was interested in.

Chezlaw drunk itt?

Dont want to sound too stupid but we're not disagreeing about much here if anything. There is a limit to the use of definition though, sometimes none capture the meaning very well and we dont need to be experts on complexity and all its various metrics to talk meaningfully about it.

The real problem I conjecture with what we understand as life is its all pretty much the same.

No I just took some extremes. I've no great reason to rule out the possibility that our universe is a speck in reality or that its cut off from the rest of reality.

The point beyond Aaron's ability to understand is that even if it turns out that life started from beyond this speck and took many orders of magnitude longer to evolve than most might suspect it make no great differnce to the principles involved in evolution.

I should never underestimate your ability not to understand.

We can run simulations of a reality and let it evolve. If we have a very powerful computer we can run them many orders of magnitude faster. It makes no difference, its all evolution same as in what we know as reality.

You can continue not to understand. No magic required either way.

If you can't define it, you can't measure it. If you can't measure it, you can't compare it. If you can't compare it, you can't discuss whether it's meaningful.

That's simply untrue.

Then you don't understand science.

This is about concepts and meaning.

maybe you meant to say

"If you can't define it, you can't measure it. If you can't measure it, you can't compare it. If you can't compare it, you can't make it scientific"

Someone seems to have a deep and profound understanding of "time" with respect to a "simulation." Maybe if we have a fast enough computer, we can travel faster than the speed of light, too!

def·i·ni·tion   [def-uh-nish-uhn] noun
1.
the act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear.
2.
the formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc., as found in dictionaries.
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Oh.

oh please that's a really bad post. We dont start with definitions we start with concepts, definitions sometimes but not always follow.

Not bad pathetic like Aaron but seriously poor.

this discussion was pretty facepalmy to begin with but it just took a turn for the fairly serious eyes bleed.