Doesn't darwinian theory fall apart on ontological grounds?

...the gene regulation network, in which such observations (e.g., what are the chemicals in the immediate environment?) play a key part in deciding which genes should be expressed...

... the next thing missing from Yokey's model is an encoder...

... that is, for DNA to be a code (or, more specifically, the result of a code that maps alphabet A to alphabet B), it must be alphabet B ...

. I think you would need to show that evolution itself is sentient ...

But I do recall that there is a chapter addressing the issue of 'intelligent design' and denying that his book amounts to evidence for it.

...the nature of Being, was that 'what was latent, becomes patent'.

...idea of 'the latent becoming patent' does that in that there is a kind of 'latent intelligence' in the universe which gradually becomes manifest in sentient beings.

I hope to promote the term, Intelligent Evolution. Noting that Darwin never mentioned the term Random Mutation in Origin of Species. He did however mention the need for an as yet unknown mechanism for Natural Selection to act upon. In the race to find that mechanism, Random Mutation was born. They may as well have called it Singularity. It means, "We don't know, but we can't let you know that. What would happen to our grants and funding?"

Barbara McClintock has handily demonstrated Controlled Mutation as the likely mechanism.

Remember that Christianity was first called The Way. It wasn't called Christianity until religion got a hold of it.

Are you not familiar with its role with pseudogenes? mRNA is a full blown operating system. It runs the entire show.

It's been a pleasure.

Noting that Darwin never mentioned the term Random Mutation in Origin of Species. He did however mention the need for an as yet unknown mechanism for Natural Selection to act upon.

In the race to find that mechanism, Random Mutation was born.

Well there's a few slurs against scientists (good scientists anyway) in there.

I don't know what you mean when you say "random mutation was born" as if to say scientists now sum evolution up as random mutation.

The random elements of reproduction are actually downplayed by most scientists...

...and exaggerated wildly by those who hope to equate randomness with chaos in order to reduce evolution to an absurdity.

Evolution is evolution. It doesn't need rebranding just because a single aspect of it is under some scrutiny as to exactly how big a role it plays...

...and even Barbara McClintock was working on the assumption that randomness plays a role...

Her personal theological beliefs in regard to her study are not science.

Saying "she thinks transposition implies some sort of external intelligence...

Would you please explain what you consider the difference to be between randomness and chaos?

I never said that. You've misread me.

Would you please explain what you consider the difference to be between randomness and chaos?

How do chemicals decide? We must be careful not to personify chemicals.

Yockey's model starts with the double helix. It has already been encoded. We don't know how.

Yes, DNA is technically alphabet B. RNA is technically alphabet C. We don't know the source for the original alphabet A. Yockey's model does not address the original encoding of DNA. We've seen the physical mechanism, when genes are selected from both parents and assembled into one new double helix. We just don't know what drives or instructs that mechanism to do so.

So this idea of 'the latent becoming patent' does that in that there is a kind of 'latent intelligence' in the universe which gradually becomes manifest in sentient beings. So again, this is the idea that intelligence doesn't evolve, our capacity for it evolves.

Whereas in the 'current scientific model', intelligence emerges only at the end of a very long evolutionary process having really been completely absent until it bootstraps itself into existence.

but this is not encoding, this is recombination ... DNA doesn't have to be a code to be recombined - it just has to be information ... and the resulting DNA is not a code in the Shannon sense, either, as the recombination is never reversed (decoded) to recover the original DNA of the parents (would this even be possible to do in principle?)

... but if latency is how the universe works, does that mean that matter was latent until the universe evolved the capacity for it? ... that carbon was latent until the universe evolved the capacity for it? ... that stars, galaxies, life, me, you, etc., were latent until the universe evolved the capacity for them? ... and what of the other almost infinite number of possibilities that never were and never will be realized by the universe - do they all exist as unfulfilled latencies? ... or does it make more sense that the universe simply creates new things (matter, carbon, stars, galaxies, life me, you, etc.) during its long, long trajectory through its state space of possibilities? ...

[INDENT]Thus, the denial of God has driven Nietzsche to deny science, the laws of nature, the existence of order and even of causality. There is no purpose in the world, only chaos. Instead of "law," Nietzsche substitutes "necessity." But what is this but another name for "law"? Likewise, biologist Jacques Monod, in Chance and Necessity (1971), denied the purposefulness implied by "teleology" only to exchange it with an almost identical word, "teleonomy." What is gained by substituting one word for another if both are intended to describe the same thing?

Now it is interesting to note that Nietzsche is not alone in the conclusions he reaches. Before him, David Hume trod the same path, and in his efforts to deny God did away even with the connection between cause and effect. Thus, as Professor Jacques Barzun notes, Hume arrived at a distrust of science and religion alike: "Hume's last word of doubt on religion carries with it such a doubt about the mind of man that the certainty of science goes down in shipwreck too." It was Kant who, transcending Hume, slipped a fresh foundation under the work of science.

Strikingly, we find the same attitude in Nietzsche. In The Will to Power, he states: "the psychological necessity for a belief in causality lies in the inconceivability of an event divorced from intent... The belief in [causes] falls with the belief in [purpose]." Thus the denial of God leads to the denial of causality, the basic underpinning of science. The world is not an organism, it is not even a machine. Even grammar does not escape his attacks, for it is a system of rules, order, and the repository of a hidden belief in causality.

Why? Why do both Hume and Nietzsche, in their overzeal to deny God, end up debauching science as well? Because their denial of God is dependent on the denial of any order whatsoever in the universe. Because they knew that science took its origin, and is still based on, a world in which order prevails. If the world is chaos, there can be no order, and hence no laws either of nature or of science. (In our day, however, even the word "chaos" is being redefined, as mathematicians and scientists discern hidden order in chaos.) For the existence of any kind of laws presupposes a Lawgiver, and indeed the originators of modern science-Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, etc.-quite openly expressed their faith in a Divine Lawmaker. In order to deny the latter, Hume, Nietzsche, and those who follow their path must deny the existence of any kind of order at all. But without such order, the whole enterprise of science falls down, for it is then senseless to seek for laws, order or pattern in a disordered world. Nietzsche borders on Orwellian Newspeak in his implied conclusion: "truth is a lie," and falls into the same rut that he so despises in those who confuse mortality and immortality. Yet paradoxically, Nietzsche was also genius enough to recognize that his nihilistic teaching (and Zarathustra's) is a "rebound from 'God is truth' to the fanatical faith 'All is false'."

But is all this true? "By their fruits you shall judge them." Science works-it is the most successful enterprise in the history of humanity. Even chance, even probability, has its laws and is not chaos. In that case, it makes sense to view the world as ordered, a place where laws-laws of science, laws of nature-hold. So it makes sense, in turn, to talk about a Lawgiver-which Newton, Copernicus, et al. had told us right from the very beginning, and which we would never have lost sight of had we not extended our debunking of the Christian conception of God to God Himself. The alternative is to assume that we ourselves project order onto the universe, which is a form of solipsism. In that case, though, the basis for an objective universe and materialism collapses. Even granting the point of solipsism, however, if man finds meaning within himself, where does he dredge up this meaning from? For according to Sufism, God is both Within and Without, so that we approach God even when we go within. God is both transcendent and immanent. Contrary to what Nietzsche thought, He is not just incarnate in Jesus, and not just beyond the universe.

[/INDENT]

It is not only believed, but truly important, that nature is dumb.

The history of science and human inquiry in all its forms clearly shows that facts, theories, concepts, and methods are not entities with a fixed and stable nature but process-geared eventuations that changeably reflect the cognitive state of the art of a place, time, and cultural modus operandi. What appear as the timeless truths of one era are merely transitory beliefs from the vantage point of another. (Nicholas Rescher)

So if you aren't proposing the interferance of external intelligence...

I'm quite familiar, though I'm not sure pseudogenes are what you're thinking of.

To be random means that all possible outcomes have equal probability, at least when "random" is not being used colloquially.

In its colloquial use, it's often interchanged with chaos, i.e. unpredictability.

By analogy, think about car accidents. Car accidents are a great example of chaos. At the beginning of the day, you cannot predict which two cars will collide with one another at the end of the work day, 10 hours later. The number of initial variables is too great, and the outcome partially dependent on so many of them. This is the so-called "butterfly effect".

But car accidents are NOT random. Elderly drivers, teenage drivers, males, distracted drivers, drunk drivers, speeders, etc are all more likely to be in accidents than sober, middle aged soccer moms driving the speed limit with their kids in the back. In other words, not all cars are equally likely to be in a collision.

So in this perspective an organism is a function of nature, rather than something existing apart from nature.

I wanted to pass along that Russian research I mentioned earlier. I would love to get your impressions on this.

Gariaev 06

There are some shocking inaccuracies in that reference...

But then, it is not really feasible to completely seperate the genotype (if that is the right word) FROM the environment. So the totality of the change is not really just with regards to the organism but the organism-in-an-environment. So even though with regards to this or that variation, or this or that particular species, you can isolate exactly what might have changed between this and an earlier form, in another sense, the change reflects nature itself, the universe at large. So in this perspective an organism is a function of nature, rather than something existing apart from nature.

If a God exists, then it is perfectly natural for a God to exist. Nothing supernatural about it whatsoever. Yet most would not allow for this, as they most commonly reserve "natural" for that which consists of material energy/matter alone.

True, and this is in part because DNA is nothing without regulation of its expression, and environmental cues can either directly modify DNA expression, or set in motion physiologic processes that in turn regulate expression.