Evolution

Stephen Meyer, Signature in a Cell, Part Two.  The central argument of Stephen Meyer’s book, Signature in a Cell, is that coded instruction sets in DNA, just like computer code, require intelligence for their origin.  Meyer calls this the best inference from the evidence, a valid argument used in science.  I think this argument is a valid one.  One can make the inference that the origin of information indicates intelligence.  Meyer's argument remains science because it stops short of the next step, which is to make the metaphysical inference that the “intelligent…

This is not much of a surprise: In six out of ten countries including Argentina (57%), China (72%), Great Britain (62%), India (77%), Mexico (65%) and Spain (61%), the majority of people who had heard of Charles Darwin and know something about his theory of evolution agreed with the opinion that ‘enough scientific evidence exists to support Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution’, compared to an overall average across all the countries surveyed of 56 percent. Less than half of those surveyed in Russia (48%), South Africa (42%), USA (41%), and Egypt (25%), who know something about Charles Darwin…

This is a review of a recent article, cooperation in Defense against a predator,  in the Journal of Theoretical Biology by Jozsef Garay of the Research Group of Theoretical Biology and Ecology of Hungarian Academy of Sciences.  Here’s the abstract: The origin and the evolutionary stability of cooperation between unrelated individuals is one of the key problems of evolutionary biology.  In this paper, a cooperative defense game against a predator is introduced which is based on Hamilton’s selfish herd theory and Eshel’s survival game models.  Cooperation is altruistic in…

Look out, Ida.   Hot on the heels of one overhyped mishmash of media hysteria, a new fossil primate from Myanmar/Burma called Ganlea megacanina is causing researchers to speculate that the common ancestor of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, not Africa, as many researchers believe.  A major focus of recent paleoanthropological research has been to establish the origin of anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes and humans) from earlier and more primitive primates known as prosimians (lemurs, tarsiers and their extinct relatives). Most scientists believe that…

As we saw in the previous posts, Part 1 and Part 2,many animals have the ability to abstract concepts and to abstract solutions to various problems. So what’s left? I am going to postulate that what separates humans from all the other animals, is the ability to abstract problems. In other words, while an animal may view a problem and review possible solutions, humans have the ability to “create problems” that aren’t really there and then abstract solutions to them. It is the fundamental ability to ask “why?” and to construct “what if” scenarios . It is this trait which gave rise to the…

Jeffery Dach, MD claims that this argument is persuasive: Since every man on the street knows that the computer code that runs a program requires  intelligence for its origin, it is reasonable to make the same inference with the code in DNA, which is even more complicated.  This is Stephen Meyer's point regarding the coded pattern in DNA which (according to Bill Gates) is a even more complicated than the source code for  Microsoft Office.  Both of them require intelligence for their origin, and even the man on the street can see this…

In Part 1 of this series, we introduced some of the basic concepts and steps associated with the development of cognition and how more and more sophisticated responses to problems may have emerged in species.  In this part, we want to continue by exploring some of the elements that make up what we consider to be "intelligence". Intelligence is defined according to Wikipedia as: “a property of the mind that encompasses … such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn.” The definition goes on to include…

Having been inspired by a series of articles by Becky Jungbauer, I thought it might be useful to explore the basic concept of intelligence and its possible origins. Any creature which has sensory organs of any type is collecting information. The only reason to collect information is to use it in making choices. Whether it be to eat something or not, or to move, or to mate, these are all choices that are made based on the information available to the organism. In many cases, such choices may be effectively “hard-wired” in that when certain information occurs, a specific reaction occurs. In…

David Brooks takes on evolutionary psychology and gets it sort of right: The first problem is that far from being preprogrammed with a series of hardwired mental modules, as the E.P. types assert, our brains are fluid and plastic. We’re learning that evolution can be a more rapid process than we thought. It doesn’t take hundreds of thousands of years to produce genetic alterations. Moreover, we’ve evolved to adapt to diverse environments. Different circumstances can selectively activate different genetic potentials. Individual behavior can vary wildly from one context to another. An arrogant…

    Part of the enjoyment of doing research is that ideas pop into your head all the time. Everyone has ideas, but the hard part is to choose which should be subjected to critical tests that have the primary aim of proving them wrong. That’s the most efficient way to discard bad ideas, because most of them in fact don’t work. Only after an idea survives the crucible of initial testing can it be taken more seriously and tested further. Then, if it still survives, you can publish.     Last week I described the rationale underlying a hypothesis about how…