Thursday, March 24, 2016

Natural Selection Does Machine Learning

It’s All Inevitable

After explaining the limitations of natural selection it is good to see the feature article in this week’s NewScientist admit that “current ways of thinking about evolution give a less-than-complete picture of how that [the spontaneous evolution of ‘all living things’] works.” Less-than-complete? That is evolution-speak for a theoretical meltdown. It’s no secret that the idea that the biosphere arose spontaneously is contradicted by the science. For evolutionists, that means their theory is “less-than-complete.” Well I suppose, technically, that is true. A theory that makes no sense is “less-than-complete.” Evolutionists are masters of the euphemism. They are also masters of the epicycle.

With each failure evolutionists modify and patch their theory with so many epicycles. Today the theory is enormously complex. And this NewScientist article provides one more example. The article explains the “less-than-complete” aspects of natural selection, and how it’s now all fixed. Yes, evolution was a fact, but now it’s even more of a fact. We were certain, but now we can be even more certain it is true.

Why? Because now natural selection has been expanded. Instead of just acting on genes, it acts on genetic regulatory processes—the incredibly complex networks of transcription factors and other molecular agents that help to regulate gene expression.

It turns out that if natural selection acts at the network level, everything works out as it should. We shouldn’t doubt this for, as evolutionists point out, it is analogous to the brain’s fancy techniques for learning.

In fact, natural selection is actually engaged in “deep learning,” a machine learning technique used on Big Data. As usual, strangely enough evolution mimics contemporary technology.

As we have discussed before, when the leading edge in biology was breeding, evolution was cast as a natural breeder. When computers became increasingly connected via networks, evolution was said to use “networks.” When artificial intelligence was thought to be on the horizon, evolution was said to use “molecular intelligence.” When the state of the art was genetic engineering, evolution is cast as a natural genetic engineer and “Biotechnology” was claimed as an evolutionary mechanism. So it is hardly surprising that now “Big Data” has been enlisted as yet another example of a cutting edge idea that fits right in with evolutionary theory. You see evolution is cool. It’s trendy and relevant. Whatever the latest technology is, it’s a perfect description of how evolution works.

As the article explains, evolution rests on three pillars: variation, natural selection and inheritance. And if natural selection uses machine learning techniques at the level of genetic regulation then, WaLa, we can now explain why evolution is such a good problem-solver, creating all sorts of complexity in such short order. In fact, it’s inevitable.

Of course there aren’t any actual biological details here. The results are obtained in the austere world of computer simulations, which evolutionists work hard at developing, debugging, and testing, to get just the right result. And those simulations are hosted on finely-tuned computers, running on loads of electricity, conveniently available in a wall socket.

And of course this new, high-tech, version of natural selection requires the pre existence of populations, functional, reproducing, organisms, heredity, and of course genetic regulation. No word on how all that arose, but we’re certain evolutionists will figure it out.

It’s inevitable.

75 comments:

  1. "It’s no secret that the idea that the biosphere arose spontaneously is contradicted by the science."

    How so? Something not being explained by science (e.g., OOL) is not the same as it being contradicted by science.

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    1. Dr Crick ( the co discoverer of the DNA) realized that life arose suddenly with no precursors 3.8 billion years ago. He couldnt explain it so he punted, he claimed it came form outerspace.
      None of the OOL experiments done for over 70 yrs have so much come up with the first nucleotide much less homochiral ones.
      Maybe you can enlighten us with an article to show otherwise.

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    2. Again, how does a current lack of understanding translate into being contradicted by science?

      For years, alchemy was the consensus "science" and there was a search for the way to transmute lead into gold. The science that contradicted this was not the repeated failure to change lead into gold, it was the scientific discovery of the underpinnings of chemistry. Similarly, non intelligent OOL is not contradicted by the inability of scientists to repeat the steps involve. If it is to be supplanted as the most likely cause, there is going to have to be a better alternative that can be tested.

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    3. LOL! The dirt worshipper wants to know why his superstitious belief that dirt gave birth to life is a stupid idea. Isn't that nice?

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    4. Always amusing, but never informative.

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    5. The only way to inform a dirt worshipper is to help him or her count the many different ways to worship dirt as the mother of life. LOL

      Dummy.

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    6. What dirt worshippers need is a Flying Dirt Monster. LOL

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    7. WS:

      It seems to me that the problem with the origin of life is not so much that it is unexplained, but rather the spontaneous generation of life from non-life is impossible.

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    8. natschuster

      the spontaneous generation of life from non-life is impossible.


      Unsupported and downright silly assertion.

      Tell us nat, how did you manage to prove a negative?

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    9. Life from dirt is a superstitious fairy tale because the combinatorial explosion kills it. The problem is simple: the search space grows exponentially with every new variable. It's ridiculously simple math that middle school students will have no trouble grasping.

      The only reason that Darwinists, atheists and materialists don't get it is that they are religious morons who belong to a religious faith that worships dirt as the mother of life. It's the church of the Flying Dirt Monster. LOL!

      Arguing with dirt worshippers is like arguing with watermelons or Jehovah's witnesses. It's stupid and futile. This is why I do not like to argue with them. I just ridicule the jackasses and make fun of them.

      And I enjoy it. ahahaha...AHAHAHA...

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    10. GR:

      See, it's like this. WE know from looking at things that things follow certain laws. We say that violating, contradicting, or going against these laws is impossible. The spontaneous generation of life from non-life violates these laws, therefore it is impossible.

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  2. And if natural selection uses machine learning techniques at the level of genetic regulation then, WaLa, we can now explain why evolution is such a good problem-solver, creating all sorts of complexity in such short order.

    "WaLa"???

    (facepalm) Good grief.

    The word is the French voilà, meaning "see here".

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  3. Magic, like evolution, needs no explanation.

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    1. But unlike magic and ID-Creationism, evolution has an excellent one that's supported by all the available data.

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    2. Evolution is a stupid religion that is supported by stupid dirt worshippers. Teaching dirt worshipping in our schools and indoctrinating our children into a religion faith is against the US constitution. This fraud against the taxpayers must be stopped and its perpetrators jailed.

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    3. "evolution has an excellent one that's supported by all the available data"

      Correction: supported by cherry-picked data, while contrary data is conveniently ignored.

      If there is so much evidence, there must be an observable mechanism that we can reliably test. Is it reproducible? Why can't we purposely breed monkeys into chimps, rats into squirrels, if evolution can make similar changes, and greater (pakicetus to whale), by chance? What came first, the "science" or the belief?

      If evolution-based OOL research is viable, why haven't we been able to purposely produce what apparently happened by accident, after nearly 100 years? I mean, alchemy had better success. We at least got some great metal alloys out of it. Drummers still use Zildjian cymbals, made from a brass alloy by an Armenian alchemist. If time is on the side of chance, shouldn't intention be much faster? Shouldn't we get something beside tar from this "promising" theory? I lean more toward the idea that spontaneous generation, even in it's current form, is still the wrong track entirely. Like alchemy.

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    4. Brian

      If there is so much evidence, there must be an observable mechanism that we can reliably test.


      There is. It's called evolution by natural selection. The process involves variation, differential selection, and heredity that retains beneficial traits. You can read all about it online or in any freshman level biology book.

      Is it reproducible?

      Yes tests on the mechanism are reproducible.

      Why can't we purposely breed monkeys into chimps, rats into squirrels, if evolution can make similar changes, and greater (pakicetus to whale), by chance?

      Specific results aren't duplicatable because the process has a stochastic component.

      If evolution-based OOL research is viable, why haven't we been able to purposely produce what apparently happened by accident, after nearly 100 years

      Science labs have been working on the issue for around 60 years. Nature has hundreds of millions of years and a whole planet to work with.

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    5. Dirt worshipper:

      It's called evolution by natural selection.

      No. It's called worshipping dirt in the hope that it can find a way around the combinatorial explosion. Moron.

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    6. "No. It's called worshipping dirt in the hope that it can find a way around the combinatorial explosion. Moron."

      As informative as ever.

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    7. This is why you keep coming back for more. Like all dirt worshippers, you're a glutton for punishment. LOL

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    8. ghostrider,

      "There is. It's called evolution by natural selection. The process involves variation, differential selection, and heredity that retains beneficial traits. You can read all about it online or in any freshman level biology book."

      That's a general answer. I took freshman biology. Natural Selection kills. How does it innovate? Just because a dog can vary from chihuahua to great dane, doesn't mean we can extrapolate from microbe to man. They're still dogs. I can use a ladder to climb onto a roof of a short building, but can't use one to climb into the stratosphere. What justifies the extrapolation?

      "Yes tests on the mechanism are reproducible."

      How? Breeding demonstrates that a species has limits.

      Specific results aren't duplicatable because the process has a stochastic component.

      I'm not looking for specific results. I'm looking for similar degrees of change. Animals die from such efforts.

      Science labs have been working on the issue for around 60 years. Nature has hundreds of millions of years and a whole planet to work with.

      It takes decades, centuries, even millenia for the elements to erode geological features. But an intentional being can do the same in days with machinery and explosives. Shouldn't we expect similar results from OOL and breeding? DNA is cataloged.

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    9. "Nature has hundreds of millions of years and a whole planet to work with."

      Why would we need all that? We have brains, purpose, energy on demand, amino acids, sugars, proteins, DNA, RNA, prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, complete reptiles, fish mammals..., in other words, plenty of models to imitate. We should be able to speed it up to get something beside tar and defective species. Right?

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    10. Brian

      I took freshman biology.


      Then you should take it again until you pass it.

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    11. Got an A. Raise a fresh cadaver from the dead (all the ingredients are there right?), and I'll believe physics can breathe life into chemistry.

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    12. Brian

      Got an A.


      Then how do explain your ignorance of such basic biology knowledge?

      Raise a fresh cadaver from the dead (all the ingredients are there right?), and I'll believe physics can breathe life into chemistry.

      It's not evolution that claims a man rose from the dead.

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    13. But if (and Oh! What a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etc, present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes...
      -Darwin

      It is evolution-based OOL that holds that mere energy and chemistry can cause life. Simpler to try it with something we know works. Mary Shelley had a more plausible idea.

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    14. If it's all just matter and energy, why not?

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  4. Louis,

    "Evolution is a stupid religion that is supported by stupid dirt worshippers. Teaching dirt worshipping in our schools and indoctrinating our children into a religion faith is against the US constitution. This fraud against the taxpayers must be stopped and its perpetrators jailed."

    There is no doubt about it, that changed ghostrider's whole way of thinking. I am sure he is no longer an evolutionist after that intellectual salvo.

    Why do you think this type of comment would have any hope in encouraging someone like ghostrider to look at the problems of evolutionary thought?

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    1. Look, you self-righteous moron. I have no desire to change the dirt worshipper's way of thinking. I just enjoy bashing the idiot. If you don't like it, go pack sand somewhere and see if I care.

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    2. Mapoo, you are under the misconception that what you are doing is "bashing" anyone. I must admit that I take a guilty pleasure in our "conversations". It is fun to see what ignorant nonsense I can get you to spew. But I must admit that it is not something I am proud of.

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    3. Wow. The dirt worshipper is feeling guilty. I'm so sad. Not.

      You need a Flying Dirt Monster to complete your training into the art of worshipping dirt. LOL

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    4. Thanks again Nic but I think with fruit loop Louis you're trying to reason with someone not capable of the act. You've shown a decent human side these past few days that has raised my opinion of you considerably.

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    5. GR, I have had discussions with Nic for over a year. Even though we seldom agree on the science, he has always been civil and friendly. Probably more so than I have been on occasion.

      Mapoo. On the other hand, obviously has some unresolved issues. For some reason, he hates atheists and evolutionists with a passion that is not rational. It reminds me of the mentality used by white supremacists.

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    6. As the adage goes:
      "If you don't have anything nice to say,
      Go to the comments section."

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    7. Here's a question for all dirt worshippers. Which is dirtier and stupider, a Flying Spaghetti Monster or a Flying Dirt Monster?

      ahahaha...AHAHAHA...

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    8. Mapoo lives by Ed the Sock's motto. "If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, say it often.

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    9. Billy boy's motto is simple: "Find some dirt and worship it."

      ahahaha...AHAHAHA...ahahaha...

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    10. "There is no doubt about it, that changed ghostrider's whole way of thinking."

      Savain's comment was no argument, but ghostrider's way of thinking isn't based in science, so I doubt that even amicable, and evidence-based argument will change it.

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    11. Brian, you're absolutely correct. The dirt worshippers are not here to be converted by Christians. They are missionaries from the Church of the Flying Dirt Monster. They are here to convert so-called Christians into their stupid dirt worshipping religion. Trying to reason with them is also stupid.

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    12. "Flying Dirt Monster"

      I think the name of the entity is spelled "S-p-a-g-h-e-t-t-i". I don't want to be disrespectful.

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    13. I think the name of the entity is spelled "S-p-a-g-h-e-t-t-i".

      I know. The "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" is used by atheists to make fun of intelligent design proponents. I'm just proposing that we create the "Church of the Flying Dirt Monster" to ridicule dirt worshippers.

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    14. I was just laughing along with you. :-)

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  5. Darwinism is in its death throes...a dying secular religion. Defenders are desperate and increasingly irrational.

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  6. Truth Will Set You Free

    Darwinism is in its death throes...a dying secular religion.


    ..so Creationists have claimed every six months for the last 150 years. :D

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    1. You're right. It did take centuries, after all, for Ptolemy's cosmology to die. We need more evolutionary epicycles first.

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    2. All you really need it a scenario that explains all the evidence in a better, more consilient manner that evolutionary theory does. But you don't even have the faintest beginnings of that.

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    3. I don't need a new theory to point out the current one is a failure. The basic idea has been around since, at least, Aristotle. There should be some progress if it's viable. Interesting that modern science exploded when such thinking was sidelined.

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    4. I don't need to present pictures of every acre on earth before I confidently state there are no unicorns.

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    5. So you have nothing but wishful thinking and hot air. Nothing that can explain the data better than evolutionary theory. Got it

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    6. You have nothing but wishful thinking and hot air. Evolutionists have only created tar with OOL research. Genetic tinkering has only resulted in minimally altered varieties of the same species, at best, flightless fruit flies, and other degraded organisms, when we try to go too far.

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    7. The OOL has nothing to do with all the evidence for the evolution of life in the 3.5+ billion years after things got going. If you're hoping science will build you a crockoduck you're going to have a long wait. So much for your "A" understanding of biology.

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    8. Both originate with the same bankrupt philosophy and fail like a man trying to ride a dog.

      If you're hoping science will build you a crockoduck you're going to have a long wait.

      If evolution can build a platypus by accident, why can't scientists do the same on purpose and in far less time?

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    9. Dirt worshipper: Nothing that can explain the data better than evolutionary theory.

      LOL. Evolution explains nothing. It's a stupid farce, a con game based on superstition, ignorance and a deep desire by dirt worshippers to deny a creator. Why? Just because they have a stupid bone to pick with Christians. Bad faith from morons and a-holes.

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    10. If you're hoping science will build you a crockoduck you're going to have a long wait.

      We must not understand how evolution really works then, if it is a worthy explanation. So much for an established theory. Newton got us beyond the solar system. What did Darwin deliver?

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    11. We must not understand how evolution really works then

      You mean you personally don't understand how evolution works. But that's OK, very few internet creationists actually do.

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  7. "Newton got us beyond the solar system. What did Darwin deliver?"

    Disease resistant plants, gene therapy, modern breeding techniques, much of modern medicine, and a better understanding of barnacles and earthworms. What have you delivered?

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    4. "Disease resistant plants"

      John Sanford got us a few of those and he says that we could accomplish with or without evolutionary theory. You confuse genetics with evolutionary biology. They don't teach it in medical school because it isn't relevant.

      evolution occupies a special, and paradoxical, place within biology as a whole. While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that ‘nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution’, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. ‘Evolution’ would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.
      -Adam S. Wilkins, BioEssays, 2000, p. 1051, emphasis mine

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    5. "You confuse genetics with evolutionary biology."

      Absolutely not. Genetics (eg Mendelian) was dead on the vine until people thought about it with Darwin's theory in mind.

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    7. Genetics (eg Mendelian) was dead on the vine until people thought about it with Darwin's theory in mind.

      So what? Only shows the ability of people to ignore monumental discoveries. Possibly because it was eclipsed by Darwinian pop science. Evolution can't be credited for genetics. It's a separate field entirely and you're confusing the two. Attributing the accomplishments of one to the other, as the Borg, of Star Trek fame, assimilates all. Mendel was a creationist anyway. An Augustinian friar. Good grief.

      Mendel believed that the laws of genetics he deduced just seven years after Darwin’s Origin of Species was published posed a serious challenge to the theory of “transformism” (that one species can be transformed into another).

      see
      http://crev.info/?scientists=gregor-mendel

      and

      http://www.weloennig.de/mendel01.htm

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  9. " Evolution can't be credited for genetics. It's a separate field entirely and you're confusing the two."

    Separate but inextricably linked. Just like physics and chemistry. There is no confusion. You can't have evolution without genetics, you can't have genetics without molecular biology, you can't have molecular biology biology without chemistry and you can't have chemistry without physics. The amazing thing in this sequence is that none of the research to date has seen the need to insert God anywhere along this hierarchy.

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  10. You can't have evolution without genetics, you can't have genetics without molecular biology, you can't have molecular biology biology without chemistry and you can't have chemistry without physics.

    Agreed. Evolution needs a crutch. None of the above needs evolution.

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    1. Edit:

      Agreed. Evolution needs a crutch. None of the above [hard, legitimate sciences] need evolution.

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    2. And physics doesn't need chemistry. Are you denying chemistry as well? Or are you only denying what is contrary to your religion?

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    3. You're ridiculous. NOTHING needs evolution, save materialistic philosophy.

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    4. Brian

      You're ridiculous. NOTHING needs evolution, save materialistic philosophy.


      Nothing needs the theory of gravity or the germ theory of disease either. They are however, like evolutionary theory, incredibly helpful explanatory frameworks for understanding and interacting with the natural world.

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    5. "Nothing needs the theory of gravity"

      Nonsense. We used the theory, and reality, of gravity to slingshot probes to Mars, Saturn, Pluto and beyond. We use the same everyday on earth for many technologies from air-drop systems to roller coasters. Gravity, unlike evolution, provides a useful framework we can use to accomplish real tasks.

      You rob genetics of accomplishment and attribute it to evolution just because it has no record of accomplishment of its own. And it can only stand with genetics as a crutch, but genetics doesn't need evolution. That means disease-resistant crops are the result of genetic research that is no result of evolutionary speculation.

      Your claim that modern medicine needs evolutionary theory is a load of crap. That's why you never read about the theory, at least in a legitimately meaningful way, in a medical journal. It's why evolutionary biology isn't required, or even taught, in medical school.

      Evolution is like that annoying co-worker that has a habit of taking credit for the ideas and work of others because he really has nothing useful to offer. It's a wart on a beautiful body of science....a cancer, actually.

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    6. Brian

      Nonsense. We used the theory, and reality, of gravity to slingshot probes to Mars, Saturn, Pluto and beyond. We use the same everyday on earth for many technologies from air-drop systems to roller coasters. Gravity, unlike evolution, provides a useful framework we can use to accomplish real tasks.


      The CDC uses evolutionary theory to predict the evolutionary path of disease vectors to better allocate limited resources to prevent the spread of infections. Evolutionary theory is also of immense importance in studying ecological consequences to climate change.

      Your ignorance of evolutionary theory's usefulness doesn't diminish that usefulness one bit.

      I should point out the idiocy of Brian's idea that a theory's validity is based on its practical usefulness. Maybe Brian can tell us what practical use is the theory of plate tectonics.

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    7. Brian

      That's why you never read about the theory, at least in a legitimately meaningful way, in a medical journal.


      Sorry Brian but you're quite the ignoramus. PNAS a few years back did a whole series of articles on how evolutionary theory is used in the medical field.

      Evolution and Public Health

      There are hundreds of papers readily available concerning evolution's applications in medicine. You really should do some research before blindly regurgitating creationist propaganda you read.

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