Are All UFO Reports Wrong, Or Are They Evidence That UFOs Exist?

[Mendel]

The simple point is that the rate and nature of favourable (increasingly complex) mutations that has occurred in our biosphere hasn't been mathematically accounted for on a premise restricted to, and accurately reflecting, the foregoing two processes without a (3) third factor of some sort of bias towards complexity (or without appeal to a multiverse of infinite bubbles whereby this amazing coincidence can be explained as a feature in one -- our -- planet in one -- our -- universe).

Or someone's mathematical accounting is wrong. For example, the discovery of epigenetics changed things.

Natural selection is a kind of purification process by which certain alleomorphs are purged from the population. This narrow process can never, even theoretically, account for the progressive complexification of lifeforms in the evolutionary process. In fact, without mutation, and once the effect of given selective pressures has played itself out, a closed population in a stable environment will quickly converge to a stable equilibrium state (Hardy-Weinberg) in which the proportion of all alleles is constant. Where no further genetic change occurs.

first, natural environments are not in a "stable equilibrium", they're at best in a dynamic equilibrium (e.g. Lotka–Volterra predator–prey model), and climate/sea level history plus plate tectonics document external change that creates new ecological niches for living beings to evolve into. And environmental changes that open up new niches turn a bunch of "unfavorable" mutations into favorable ones. And complex dynamic systems exhibit chaotic behaviour simply because of their structure.

secondly, like a random walk, complexification isn't unidirectional. E.g. plants multiply their chromosome set to become polyploid, and use the redundance to simplify the genome (genome downsizing). We humans have a chromosome less than apes because sometime in our evolutionary history two chromosomes fused. An asteroid hits, or human civilisation happens, and huge numbers of species go extinct in the blink of an eye.

But there's a bias for complexity because becoming simpler is more difficult. It's unlikely for a random walk to not look complex, because the path contains its own history. Genetic mutations that add information are more likely to leave traits intact that are essential for survival, and adding information increases complexity.

I don't see any evidence that complex systems behave any different on Earth than they would elsewhere in the universe.

 

[LilWabbit]

Is it? Or is the outer appearance of an animal merely a thing that conveys an evolutionary advantage (camouflage and/or enhanced attractiveness to a mate) with no appeal to complexity?

Complexity comes into play in genetic variation caused by a favourable mutation such as bicolor distribution. Unfavourable genetic mutations result in an evolutionary disadvantage. The point being, natural selection does not cause genetic variation (increase in complexity) but rather mutation does.

 

[LilWabbit]

Or someone's mathematical accounting is wrong. For example, the discovery of epigenetics changed things.

It did, but stating the impact of epigenetics doesn't really contradict the point I raised. Indeed, maybe you didn't mean to.

first, natural environments are not in a "stable equilibrium",

Not something I claimed nor referred to by the term "equillibrium", nor something claimed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge or any other punctuationist discussing equillibrium.

they're at best in a dynamic equilibrium (e.g. Lotka–Volterra predator–prey model), and climate/sea level history plus plate tectonics document external change that creates new ecological niches for living beings to evolve into. And environmental changes that open up new niches turn a bunch of "unfavorable" mutations into favorable ones.

An unfavourable mutation, in evolutionary biology, is one which leads, sometimes over many generations of iteration, to the extinction of a population or even a species. If it doesn't, it's been a favourable mutation all along which may have proven to be disadvantegeous in other ways than survival.

And complex dynamic systems exhibit chaotic behaviour simply because of their structure.

This comes across a rather sweeping generalization unsupported by evidence. Chimpanzee is a complex dynamic system, and so is a chimpanzee tribe. They're not chaotic in the least but operate according to various predictable patterns. Be as it may, it doesn't really contradict the key points that were raised. We're digressing.

But there's a bias for complexity because becoming simpler is more difficult. It's unlikely for a random walk to not look complex, because the path contains its own history. Genetic mutations that add information are more likely to leave traits intact that are essential for survival, and adding information increases complexity.

Precisely. Insofar as that added information results in greater fitness of the phenotype.

I don't see any evidence that complex systems behave any different on Earth than they would elsewhere in the universe.

Me neither. But stating this fact is not relevant to the points I raised

As to developmental bias in evolutionary biology, two types have been identified:

Article:

Types of bias[edit]

Developmental constraints[edit]

Developmental constraints are limitations on phenotypic variability (or absence of variation) caused by the inherent structure and dynamics of the developmental system.[1] Constraints are a bias against a certain ontogenetic trajectory, and consequently are thought to limit adaptive evolution.[12][13]

Developmental drive[edit]

Developmental drive is the inherent natural tendency of organisms and their ontogenetic trajectories to change in a particular direction (i.e. a bias towards a certain ontogenetic trajectory).[14][5][6] This type of bias is thought to facilitate adaptive evolution by aligning phenotypic variability with the direction of selection.[15][12]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_bias

In other words, "the underlying architecture of the developmental systems influences the kinds of possible phenotypic outcomes". It's this underlying architecture of these developmental systems -- much like the underlying potential of spherical-shaped objects in the universe -- that's the kind of 'hidden parameter' proposed by this line of theorizing (a.k.a. 'structuralism'). This architecture becomes apparent only through the course of evolution, manifested as increasingly complex species. Without these parameters there'd be an infinity of configurations for random picking and we'd still all be amino acids or something even simpler.

 

[Scaramanga]

The quote you responded to was this:

Note here again that "near certain" does not mean we know.

I saw no reason to challenge that because it's a reasonable position for Kaku to hold, even if it might reflect his belief only approximately.

But what you wrote was this:

This is different, because here you are representing 4 named people as claiming certainty (the opposite of "don't know") when there's at best a probability, which makes them appear incompetent—more incompetent than I thought likely. So as you wrote this, for me there's both an element of disbelief and of slander involved; and that's a combination I felt deserved a challenge.

So that's why I challenged that (twice!). At this point, I was open to two outcomes: either your assertion was valid and you had surprising sources, or you would correct your phrasing. Either reply would've shut me up with a thumbs-up on your reply.

What you did do was bring sources (twice!) that fail to support your claim, and that's why we're having this extended conversation. I hope it drives home the point for everyone who's reading it (not just you; this isn't personal) that it's important to represent the points you are arguing against fairly, ideally with quotes.

Compare this to my initial reaction to Kipping's video:

It's not sourced, either, which is why I made only a weak claim to factuality ("my impression"), and I avoided making the strong claim that what they're saying is qualitatively different. It would've probably been interesting to dig deeper on this if challenged: we would've looked at the actual formulas of the different authors, and compared them.

Which we can still do, but I wouldn't recommend using youtube for that.

I think the point is that the said scientists ( and, I might add, many others ) don't say ' we don't know...we have no idea' when asked. All the scientists mentioned have made statements 'supportive' of extraterrestrial life....and any statement other than 'we have no idea' is a supportive statement and, I might add, an unscientific one too.

That some of these scientists have made statements supportive of extraterrestrial life is common knowledge. Its not hidden away in obscure journals where people can then say ' Oh...I never knew scientist XYZ believed that'. It is in radio programs, TV programs, podcasts, Youtube, sources galore. It's all over the place !

I mean, look...here is Neil DeGrasse Tyson quite openly arguing against the 'Rare Earth' hypothesis. The article even starts with a "Since many other scientists believe advanced life is common out there". Well fancy that !

How can any argument against the Rare Earth hypothesis be anything other than an argument for life being common ? If NDT is arguing life is not rare then ipso facto he is arguing it is common. Not once does NDT simply say 'we have no idea'.

This is just one of many, many, such examples...

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/ward.html

 

[Scaramanga]

All the while you ignore that earth exists. Lambda's 1.

So ? By definition there will always be 1 of anything that has even the most absurdly small chance of occurring. The fact that we have found 1 ( which we had to by virtue of the anthropic principle ) does not mean there are 2 or more.

 

[jarlrmai]

Science engagement people when talking about fun things like the possibility of alien life are generally going to be on the optimistic "no reason there cannot be life out there and plenty of reasons why it might be" side than the hard straight answer which is "we have no idea either way but as far as we know it's not impossible."

This is a fun topic engaged with by science communicators looking to inspire kids into science, it's not a dry journal article talking about the reality which ultimately is "we don't know."

The difference between science engagement and actual scientific consensus.

 

[Scaramanga]

Science engagement people when talking about fun things like the possibility of alien life are generally going to be on the optimistic "no reason there cannot be life out there and plenty of reasons why it might be" side than the hard straight answer which is "we have no idea either way but as far as we know it's not impossible."

This is a fun topic engaged with by science communicators looking to inspire kids into science, it's not a dry journal article talking about the reality which ultimately is "we don't know."

The difference between science engagement and actual scientific consensus.

But science is being 'popularised' with absurd things like Seth Shostak claiming we'll find alien life by 2036. Did he actually say that ? Well, a number of sources assert he did. And it really is not that hard to find all manner of scientists weighing in with claims supportive of extraterrestrial life.

What's more....we now have a specific branch of science called Exobiology, and scientists who call themselves Exobiologists, even though there is not a single scrap of empirical evidence ( which is what science is supposed to be based on ) that there is any exobiology. Its all rather absurd.

https://blog.ted.com/contact-with-aliens-by-2036-astronomer-seth-shostak-wants-to-believe-and-does/

 

[LilWabbit]

Uh? I never heard of that, but surely I heard the opposite: the teleological (meaning 'which tends toward some goal') interpretation of evolution is nonsensical (which is, btw, pretty obvious considering how evolution works). For what concerns 'evolution towards complexity' in particular there are lots of examples where evolution brought on a simplification instead (ie., but not only, these being just the most extreme example: parasitic organisms). The only 'goal' evolution knows of is maximizing the reproductive fitness, if this happens by an increase of complexity that's good, if it happens by decreasing complexity it's as good as well.

Not teleological. Macro-deterministic whilst indeterministic (almost entirely stochastic) on a micro scale. There's no evidence that counters this overall trend of evolution. Overall complexification as a significant feature of evolution in no way contradicts the parallel observation of complex organisms being wiped out and replaced by simpler ones all throughout the process.

As I wrote earlier, classic accounts on natural selection and genetic mutation fail alone to mathematically account for the rate of evolution of increasingly complex organisms that has occurred in our biosphere. In other words, such a hypothesis is a poor predictor of what has actually been observed. Evidence quite simply doesn't support it. Other variables are required in addition to the received model; for instance a hypothesis of a multiverse providing an anthropic principle kind of infinite playing field for random variance (proposed by @Scaramanga here), or a type of structuralism as referenced in the above. These are both possible, whilst mutually exclusive rival hypotheses. The former being in fact less parsimonious.

Any insistence on the completeness and adequacy of the received neo-Darwinist model for calculating the observed rate of emergence of increasingly more complex species is faith-based rather than evidence-based. It's based precisely on the kind of psychological dislike towards teleology that you are displaying in your response and has nothing to do with evidence.

This discussion gets easily derailed due to different interlocutors assigning different meanings to the same terms, and also due to ideological leanings against or for any level of teleology in the universe. Even if some level of teleology were scientifically plausible as an added factor not contradicting the essential Darwinist claims in any way.

In any case, the debate between structuralists and conservatives is ongoing within evolutionary biology quite irrespective of what we personally feel about these theories. Niles Eldredge is not a fringe biologist by any sensible measure.

 

[jarlrmai]

Life in other places than Earth is not some extraordinary claim. You can have good science around developing the techniques we might need to look in the right ways in the right places.

Sending a Rover to Mars to look for potential signs of life past or present is exobiology.

Life exists here, we see no reason why it might not exist elsewhere given certain conditions, the speculative search for it is not absurd.

Think of it like theoretical and practical physics, we speculate based on what we know that there might be a particle we've given the name the Higgs Boson, then we work out from that what we would need to prove it, then we build the LHC and try to find it.

 

[FatPhil]

Is it? Or is the outer appearance of an animal merely a thing that conveys an evolutionary advantage (camouflage and/or enhanced attractiveness to a mate) with no appeal to complexity?

Plus the occasional harmless spandrel. Sometimes the evolutionary advantage of one trait is greater than the disadvantage of some side-effect, such as tint or patterning, that the adaptation for the desirable trait brings with it. Of course, with the adaptation in place, there may be opportunities to exploit the spandrel, and thus turn it into a post-facto advantage, an "exaptation" in Gould's terms (he coined "spandrel" too). Given the directionless nature of evolution, both of these things should be unsurprising.

 

[FatPhil]

As I wrote earlier, classic accounts on natural selection and genetic mutation fail alone to mathematically account for the rate of evolution of increasingly complex organisms that has occurred in our biosphere. In other words, such a hypothesis is a poor predictor of what has actually been observed. Evidence quite simply doesn't support it.

Not according to anything I've read. OK, it's not my speciality, but there was a fair bit about every aspect of evolution in the Sapolsky /Human Behavioural Biology/ lectures from Stanford, including the various contraditions that arise when you look at the subject from different angles, and how to resolve them, specifically including the confusion over the paleontologically-obseved slow steady evolution, and the Gouldian punctuated equilibria - they are not in contradition with each other at all - you're primarily looking at the process at completely different scales (and also ignoring things like polymorphism, and other neutral changes). The speed of evolution is no better defined than the length of the coastline of Great Britain, and for a similar reason. And it certainly isn't so suspiciously fast that we need to start looking for non-obvious new tweaks and parameters.

 

[Scaramanga]

Not according to anything I've read. OK, it's not my speciality, but there was a fair bit about every aspect of evolution in the Sapolsky /Human Behavioural Biology/ lectures from Stanford, including the various contraditions that arise when you look at the subject from different angles, and how to resolve them, specifically including the confusion over the paleontologically-obseved slow steady evolution, and the Gouldian punctuated equilibria - they are not in contradition with each other at all - you're primarily looking at the process at completely different scales (and also ignoring things like polymorphism, and other neutral changes). The speed of evolution is no better defined than the length of the coastline of Great Britain, and for a similar reason. And it certainly isn't so suspiciously fast that we need to start looking for non-obvious new tweaks and parameters.

What people forget is that multiple members of a species are all mutating, mating, and spreading genes. So any one animal has input from hundreds of others. And that is what speeds up evolution.

 

[LilWabbit]

Not according to anything I've read. OK, it's not my speciality, but there was a fair bit about every aspect of evolution in the Sapolsky /Human Behavioural Biology/ lectures from Stanford, including the various contraditions that arise when you look at the subject from different angles, and how to resolve them, specifically including the confusion over the paleontologically-obseved slow steady evolution, and the Gouldian punctuated equilibria - they are not in contradition with each other at all - you're primarily looking at the process at completely different scales (and also ignoring things like polymorphism, and other neutral changes). The speed of evolution is no better defined than the length of the coastline of Great Britain, and for a similar reason. And it certainly isn't so suspiciously fast that we need to start looking for non-obvious new tweaks and parameters.

You've listened to Stanford lectures. Well and good. Please cite a single credible calculation for the observed rate of complexification which doesn't invoke the anthropic principle or any kind of development bias, and accurately reflects the actual process of genetic mutation and natural selection as I outlined in my earlier longer post.

 

[LilWabbit]

A macro-evolutionary direction towards increasingly more complex organisms -- from unicellular bacteria to multicellular algae, to plants, later from fish to reptiles, and from reptiles to birds and mammals -- is an observed fact. Not an opinion.

Once a more complex generic taxonomixal group or class had emerged, it has remained in existence in addition to simpler classes even if individual species within each class have gone extinct and been in a constant state of flux. Conversely, the earlier the fossil snapshot, the less do we have any evidence of these more complex classes.

Macro-deterministic directionality defined. Both ways.

To not see a direction towards general complexity in the above macro-process is an act of self-delusion prompted by a belief system whereby any and all directionality sends its proponents' alarm bells into a frenzy. They (entirely unnecessarily) begin to see an Evangelical Christian creator-god Bible-thumped on their heads from even the slightest evidence of teleology. An idea that need not be embraced in the least based on the mere technical fact of observed directionality towards complexity. Such a denial of directionality is all well and good in a free world, but in no way refutes the above-summarized clear evidence to the contrary.

 

[FatPhil]

So ? By definition there will always be 1 of anything that has even the most absurdly small chance of occurring. The fact that we have found 1 ( which we had to by virtue of the anthropic principle ) does not mean there are 2 or more.

You're supposed to use the evidence you've found in order to ensure that your model represents the world you're in. If your model predicts life is all but impossible, you should not have great confidence in that model.

 

[FatPhil]

You've listened to Stanford lectures. Well and good. Please cite a single credible calculation for the observed rate of complexification which doesn't invoke the anthropic principle or any kind of development bias, and accurately reflects the actual process of genetic mutation and natural selection as I outlined in my earlier longer post.

Nothing I encountered mentioned a "rate for complexification", as far as I know this is a concept of your own invention, and I am certainly not making any claims about it, so have nothing to support.

The rates I encountered were simple things like the molecular clock, and that was presented with precisely no reference to the anthropic principle (why the heck would it, human's are irrelevant to 99.9% of the time evolution's been taking place on earth) or any artificial bias. If evolution could keep up with environmental changes, including the evolution of others, then it would, otherwise it didn't. You're the one who seems to be using survivorship bias to imply that somehow evolution must happen in some *particularly ill-defined* direction, and at some particular speed. I've never seen Gould say that, nor Haldane, nor Wilson, nor Dawkins (nor Sapolsky whilst summarising the field) - and, by heck, did those guys disagree with each other all over the place.

 

[Scaramanga]

Life in other places than Earth is not some extraordinary claim. You can have good science around developing the techniques we might need to look in the right ways in the right places.

Sending a Rover to Mars to look for potential signs of life past or present is exobiology.

Life exists here, we see no reason why it might not exist elsewhere given certain conditions, the speculative search for it is not absurd.

Think of it like theoretical and practical physics, we speculate based on what we know that there might be a particle we've given the name the Higgs Boson, then we work out from that what we would need to prove it, then we build the LHC and try to find it.

I guess we'll just have to agree to differ. To me science is hard nosed empiricism. Sure we should be 'looking' for evidence otherwise we never get to the empirical bit, but anything other than hard empirical data is just speculation.

I think also that it is a touchy subject and many people just don't like the notion of us being totally alone in the universe....and the mind sort of rebels against it. But personally I support the rare Earth ( in fact very rare Earth ) hypothesis and I think there are multiple good reasons for doing so.

It is also quote possible that life from Earth reached Mars, Europa, Titan, etc, or even vice Versa, and that we may simply never know whether there was a single source or multiple sources for life in the solar system even if we do find other life there. It would not surprise me if there was past life on Mars...it has had 4 billion years to share life with Earth. So within our solar system we may never answer the question of whether life arose elsewhere independently.

In fact, given the fact that our solar system has been round the entire galaxy 16 times since it formed....one could apply the same argument to the galaxy as a whole. We've been shedding microbe bearing rocks all over the place.

 

[LilWabbit]

Nothing I encountered mentioned a "rate for complexification".

Thank you.

You're the one who seems to be using survivorship bias to imply that somehow evolution must happen in some *particularly ill-defined* direction, and at some particular speed.

Nonsense. The rate of complexification of the aforementioned classes of organisms is quite easily calculated from fossil records and other forms of tracking and has nothing to do with any survivor bias, and everything to do with an observable direction towards increasingly more complex general groups of organisms.

 

[jarlrmai]

It is also quote possible that life from Earth reached Mars, Europa, Titan, etc, or even vice Versa, and that we may simply never know whether there was a single source or multiple sources for life in the solar system even if we do find other life there. It would not surprise me if there was past life on Mars...it has had 4 billion years to share life with Earth. So within our solar system we may never answer the question of whether life arose elsewhere independently.

Would you agree that trying to find out the answer to the question of life developing on Mars and if so seeing how if in anyway it is similar to that on Earth is exobiology and and a useful endeavour.

 

[Scaramanga]

You're supposed to use the evidence you've found in order to ensure that your model represents the world you're in. If your model predicts life is all but impossible, you should not have great confidence in that model.

We have a sample of 1. All that tells us is that life is possible. It tells us nothing about whether every stellar system is teeming with life or we are the only life in the entire observable universe or even in the surrounding gazillion observable universes.

 

[Scaramanga]

Would you agree that trying to find out the answer to the question of life developing on Mars and if so seeing how if in anyway it is similar to that on Earth is exobiology and and a useful endeavour.

The very term 'exobiology' implies that there is biology to be exo about......just as Parapsychology has an implicit 'Para' ( beyond ) bit. It just seems to me that the entire tone of the search is the expectancy of finding something. Sort of like setting up a Professorship Of Phlostigon in the 18th century.

 

[Mauro]

A macro-evolutionary direction towards increasingly more complex organisms -- from unicellular bacteria to multicellular algae, to plants, later from fish to reptiles, and from reptiles to birds and mammals -- is an observed fact. Not an opinion.

If this is not teleology, I don't know what qualifies. A mammal is more 'complex' than a bird? Oh c'mon.

IF the Niles Eldredge you quote in post #208 (never heard about him) is NOT a fringe biologist as you say, THEN he cannot have said anything even remotely resembling the sentence you wrote above. THEN I guess you are misinterpreting what he (or others, ie. the Wallace Arthur who wrote the paywalled article you quoted here) is saying, OR I am misinterpreting what you say (but the above quoted sentence looks clear enough).

I'd be happy if you could link a (non-paywalled) article so I can check, because what you are claiming is pretty astounding (from my point of view) and I thought the matter was fully set, scientifically, since 100+ years, so I'm rather curious to understand what's going on. Possibily in a specific thread, this one has drifted far and wide enough already.

 

[FatPhil]

We have a sample of 1. All that tells us is that life is possible. It tells us nothing about whether every stellar system is teeming with life or we are the only life in the entire observable universe or even in the surrounding gazillion observable universes.

Did anything in the post you are responding to say that every stellar system is teeming with life? If so, how so, as I certainly didn't type it that way? And if not, you're simply creating straw constellations. Please desist.

 

[Mendel]

So ? By definition there will always be 1 of anything that has even the most absurdly small chance of occurring.

"people who argue there 'must' be" "1 of anything that has even the most absurdly small chance of occurring" "clearly don't understand probability."

How big is the chance that there was a day with exactly 1000 car accidents in your state? Does this imply that this day occurred?

How big is the chance that at a party/event you went to there were exactly 4 people with the same birthday? Does this mean that happened?

I think the point is that the said scientists ( and, I might add, many others ) don't say ' we don't know...we have no idea' when asked. All the scientists mentioned have made statements 'supportive' of extraterrestrial life....and any statement other than 'we have no idea' is a supportive statement and, I might add, an unscientific one too.

Again, not how probability works.

If you're planning to go to an event attended by 50 people, you may ask yourself whether any of these people share a birthday. You can say two things, 1) "I don't know", and 2) "almost certainly yes", and both statements are true. A statement of favorable probability doesn't mean you know what you don't know.

And when you go to extraterrestrial intelligent life, we can make plausible assumptions, and from these assumptions compute a probability, and depending on the assumptions hold that the alien civilisation is likely or not likely, and the people you've named have done that, but won't explain all of these assumptions in detail on the morning talk show. But that doesn't mean that it's unscientific, or that these people challenge that we don't know.

 

[Mendel]

Once a more complex generic taxonomixal group or class had emerged, it has remained in existence in addition to simpler classes even if individual species within each class have gone extinct and been in a constant state of flux.

I'm pretty sure that's false.

Article:

Extinction and time help drive the marine-terrestrial biodiversity gradient: Is the ocean a deathtrap?

Stratigraphic ranges of 26 extinct clades (with names) vs. extant marine clades. On average, extinct clades originated and went extinct prior to the mean age of extant clades (Table S9). This suggests that extant clades are relatively young, and the oldest marine clades have failed to persist. [...]

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Stratigraphic-ranges-of-26-extinct-clades-with-names-vs-extant-marine-clades-On_fig3_317388289

I'm also fairly sure that I couldn't rank taxonomic classes by complexity, how do you propose to do it?

 

[LilWabbit]

I'm pretty sure that's false.

Article:

Extinction and time help drive the marine-terrestrial biodiversity gradient: Is the ocean a deathtrap?
View attachment 59309
Stratigraphic ranges of 26 extinct clades (with names) vs. extant marine clades. On average, extinct clades originated and went extinct prior to the mean age of extant clades (Table S9). This suggests that extant clades are relatively young, and the oldest marine clades have failed to persist. [...]

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Stratigraphic-ranges-of-26-extinct-clades-with-names-vs-extant-marine-clades-On_fig3_317388289

How does this graph of yours even remotely demonstrate any of the increasingly complex generic classes I mentioned have not evolved in succession or have suddenly ceased to exist?

I'm also fairly sure that I couldn't rank taxonomic classes by complexity, how do you propose to do it?

Roughly: A complex system is a system composed of many components, some of which are less complex subsystems (such as cells of an organism), which interact with each other and enable the system synergistically to behave in multiple and sophisticated ways irreducible to the behaviour of its component parts or even their sum behaviours.

The classes of increasingly more complex organisms in the fossil record roughly follow this definition. It's not that difficult.

 

[Mendel]

To not see a direction towards general complexity in the above macro-process is an act of self-delusion prompted by a belief system whereby any and all directionality sends its proponents' alarm bells into a frenzy.

That's not the point.

The point is that systems cannot form complex and evolve to be less complex; a universe that wasn't god-created with plants and animals, but rather evolved from the big bang according to natural laws, starts simple, and can therefore only grow in complexity as a general trend.

But this trend does not have a cause that you could remove to nullify it.

This comes across a rather sweeping generalization unsupported by evidence. Chimpanzee is a complex dynamic system, and so is a chimpanzee tribe. They're not chaotic in the least but operate according to various predictable patterns. Be as it may, it doesn't really contradict the key points that were raised. We're digressing.

A double pendulum ("chaos pendulum") follows Newton's laws and is predictable, but its motion is still chaotic.
You can't predict what the size of the chimp tribe is going to be in 5 years.
There is nothing you can do to either system to make it attain static equilibrium except to kill it/put it at rest.

Your point was that's possible for the evolution of natural systems to stop if the environment is in a "stable equilibrium". My point was that this cannot happen in a sufficiently complex system, and that this holds across the universe.

As to developmental bias in evolutionary biology, two types have been identified:

Article:

Types of bias[edit]

Developmental constraints[edit]

Developmental constraints are limitations on phenotypic variability (or absence of variation) caused by the inherent structure and dynamics of the developmental system.[1] Constraints are a bias against a certain ontogenetic trajectory, and consequently are thought to limit adaptive evolution.[12][13]

Developmental drive[edit]

Developmental drive is the inherent natural tendency of organisms and their ontogenetic trajectories to change in a particular direction (i.e. a bias towards a certain ontogenetic trajectory).[14][5][6] This type of bias is thought to facilitate adaptive evolution by aligning phenotypic variability with the direction of selection.[15][12]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_bias

In other words, "the underlying architecture of the developmental systems influences the kinds of possible phenotypic outcomes". It's this underlying architecture of these developmental systems -- much like the underlying potential of spherical-shaped objects in the universe -- that's the kind of 'hidden parameter' proposed by this line of theorizing (a.k.a. 'structuralism'). This architecture becomes apparent only through the course of evolution, manifested as increasingly complex species.

No.

From the same wikipidia page:

Article:

However, developmental bias can evolve through natural selection, and both processes simultaneously influence phenotypic evolution. For example, developmental bias can affect the rate or path to an adaptive peak (high-fitness phenotype),[5] and conversely, strong directional selection can modify the developmental bias to increase the phenotypic variation in the direction of selection.[12]

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_bias

Your idea that there's a "hidden parameter" that manifests itself seems to not be supported by that article. This is important in our context because it means models like the Drake equation don't need to take this parameter into account: you can't look at a pristine planet and say, "oh no, this planet is biased against evolution".

But there's more. This diagram accompanied your quote:

Article:

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_bias

Observations:

1. If the optimum shifts because the environment changes, then we must re-evaluate whether a covariance is a constraint or a drive. The bias isn't independent of the environment.

2. You seem to suggest that those underlying characteristics work at a level where a single parameter can effect evolution from the simplest organisms up to intelligent life, but the illustration suggests that the range of these biases is much more limited. It's hard to see how this would have an impact on the length of time required for a planet to evolve intelligent life.

 

[LilWabbit]

That's not the point.

The point is that systems cannot form complex and evolve to be less complex; a universe that wasn't god-created with plants and animals, but rather evolved from the big bang according to natural laws, starts simple, and can therefore only grow in complexity as a general trend.

This statement is so diametrically opposite to the way universe has consistently increased, and continues to consistently increase, in entropy from a highly ordered and complex initial state (singularity) and the way in which the Second Law of Thermodynamics operates that I'm actually dumbfounded.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, roughly, states that any isolated system will necessarily degenerate towards disorder, but this does not exclude the possibility that non-isolated systems may also degenerate. We do not know of any completely isolated system, unless the entire universe is one, but there are many relatively isolated systems, and in these systems, including in the whole universe as a system, the operation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics has always been confirmed. Indeed, this law is one of the most universally verified and highly validated of all laws.

Your point was that's possible for the evolution of natural systems to stop if the environment is in a "stable equilibrium".

No, it decidedly was not. And since you refuse to read carefully and study what's actually written to you, at least show me the courtesy of asking for clarifications before responding to total misreadings representing the imaginings of your own mind. This is not the first time, and this is precisely why our communication always breaks down.

From the same wikipidia page:

Article:

However, developmental bias can evolve through natural selection, and both processes simultaneously influence phenotypic evolution. For example, developmental bias can affect the rate or path to an adaptive peak (high-fitness phenotype),[5] and conversely, strong directional selection can modify the developmental bias to increase the phenotypic variation in the direction of selection.[12]

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_bias

Your idea that there's a "hidden parameter" that manifests itself seems to not be supported by that article. This is important in our context because it means models like the Drake equation don't need to take this parameter into account: you can't look at a pristine planet and say, "oh no, this planet is biased against evolution".

If this is your reading of what I wrote and suggested based on this Wikipedia article, we're really doomed in our attempt to communicate intelligibly to each other.

 

[Ann K]

If this is your reading of what I wrote and suggested based on this Wikipedia article, we're really doomed in our attempt to communicate intelligibly to each other. Wilful ignorance and refusal to ask for clarifications is to blame. Not lack of intelligence.

There you go again, once more expressing a concept in great sweeping walls of obfuscatory language and then insulting those who disagree with or misunderstand you. We have been down this road with you before. If you think clarification is needed, perhaps it is because you did not state it clearly the first time ...or the next ...or the next. You have always been free to explain, but have chosen not to do so. Perhaps the fault lies with the writer rather than the reader.

 

[Scaramanga]

"people who argue there 'must' be" "1 of anything that has even the most absurdly small chance of occurring" "clearly don't understand probability."

How big is the chance that there was a day with exactly 1000 car accidents in your state? Does this imply that this day occurred?

How big is the chance that at a party/event you went to there were exactly 4 people with the same birthday? Does this mean that happened?


Again, not how probability works.

If you're planning to go to an event attended by 50 people, you may ask yourself whether any of these people share a birthday. You can say two things, 1) "I don't know", and 2) "almost certainly yes", and both statements are true. A statement of favorable probability doesn't mean you know what you don't know.

And when you go to extraterrestrial intelligent life, we can make plausible assumptions, and from these assumptions compute a probability, and depending on the assumptions hold that the alien civilisation is likely or not likely, and the people you've named have done that, but won't explain all of these assumptions in detail on the morning talk show. But that doesn't mean that it's unscientific, or that these people challenge that we don't know.

I stand by my words. The fact that you have 1 of something is a tautology. Look...there it is...right in front of you. You are able to argue about its ontology precisely because there is 1 of them and it exists.....unlike with unicorns which have an incredibly low chance of existing but there is not a single example. Given the context ( your reference to ' the earth exists' ) I was clearly referring to things that actually exist, of which one has only 1 example.

 

[Scaramanga]

Did anything in the post you are responding to say that every stellar system is teeming with life? If so, how so, as I certainly didn't type it that way? And if not, you're simply creating straw constellations. Please desist.

I was stating the consequence of having a sample of 1. Am I not allowed to expand on the consequence of assumptions ? Why on earth would the post I was responding to have had to made an assertion either way in order for me to assert ' look, here is the the consequence of taking the earth as our only sample '. My point ( which was clearly missed in all the nit picking ) is that a sample of 1 proves nothing either way. It does not tell us if the universe is teeming with life or we are alone.

 

[jarlrmai]

The very term 'exobiology' implies that there is biology to be exo about......just as Parapsychology has an implicit 'Para' ( beyond ) bit. It just seems to me that the entire tone of the search is the expectancy of finding something. Sort of like setting up a Professorship Of Phlostigon in the 18th century.

We know biology to be a thing though, and we are looking for it in other places than Earth. We knew birds existed in the UK was it pseudoscience to look for birds in America?

Is it the name you object to? What do you think we should call it?

 

[Mendel]

In fact, without mutation, and once the effect of given selective pressures has played itself out, a closed population in a stable environment will quickly converge to a stable equilibrium state (Hardy-Weinberg) in which the proportion of all alleles is constant. Where no further genetic change occurs.

Your point was that's possible for the evolution of natural systems to stop if the environment is in a "stable equilibrium".

No, it decidedly was not.

Aha.

Addendum:

This statement is so diametrically opposite to the way universe has consistently increased, and continues to consistently increase, in entropy from a highly ordered and complex initial state (singularity) and the way in which the Second Law of Thermodynamics operates that I'm actually dumbfounded

My statement dealt exclusively with complexity, and the laws of thermodynamics don't. I have no idea why you're bringing entropy into this.

Article:

One of the many big ideas in physicist Sean B. Carroll's The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself is the concept that entropy can drive increasing complexity. In fact if our universe did not have increasing entropy as one of its fundamental components, we would not have the complex world we see today, including you and me.

Source: https://medium.com/@marktraphagen/entropy-and-complexity-the-surprising-paradox-behind-our-universe-60f11409da9b

 

[Mendel]

I stand by my words, against all your rather absurd nit picking. The fact that you have 1 of something is a tautology. Look...there it is...right in front of you. You are able to argue about its ontology precisely because there is 1 of them and it exists.....unlike with unicorns which have an incredibly low chance of existing but there is not a single example. Given the context ( your reference to ' the earth exists' ) I was clearly referring to things that actually exist, of which one has only 1 example.

Unfortunately, you've missed my main points. There's a reason why I avoided using unicorns as an example, and stuck to examples with an air of reality.

You wrote, "there will always be 1 of anything that has even the most absurdly small chance of occurring." If you're interpreting this to mean, "there is 1 of anything that exists", we're no longer talking about probability.

Unlike unicorns, alien civilisations are something that may or may not exist, and that is why we can make meaningful probabilistic statements about them—same as with car accidents or shared birthdays.

Here's an example to test your reasoning on:
I have 3 identical bags, and 6 balls that are also identical except for their color: 3 white balls and 3 black balls. I put two white balls in a bag, two black balls in another bag, and the remaining black ball and white ball in the final bag. I let you pick one of the bags at random. You blindly reach into the bag you picked, and take out a ball: it is black. What can you tell me about the bag you picked?
(Obviously, bag=universe, ball=planet, black=inhabited, the black ball you took=Earth.)
The question is, can that black ball be evidence for the color of the other ball, or are you limited to saying "I don't know"? If we bet on which of the three bags you picked, what are the odds at this point?

 

[Scaramanga]

Unfortunately, you've missed my main points. There's a reason why I avoided using unicorns as an example, and stuck to examples with an air of reality.

You wrote, "there will always be 1 of anything that has even the most absurdly small chance of occurring." If you're interpreting this to mean, "there is 1 of anything that exists", we're no longer talking about probability.

Unlike unicorns, alien civilisations are something that may or may not exist, and that is why we can make meaningful probabilistic statements about them—same as with car accidents or shared birthdays.

Here's an example to test your reasoning on:
I have 3 identical bags, and 6 balls that are also identical except for their color: 3 white balls and 3 black balls. I put two white balls in a bag, two black balls in another bag, and the remaining black ball and white ball in the final bag. I let you pick one of the bags at random. You blindly reach into the bag you picked, and take out a ball: it is black. What can you tell me about the bag you picked?
(Obviously, bag=universe, ball=planet, black=inhabited, the black ball you took=Earth.)
The question is, can that black ball be evidence for the color of the other ball, or are you limited to saying "I don't know"? If we bet on which of the three bags you picked, what are the odds at this point?

I'm simply going to re-iterate what I have now said a dozen times. You cannot draw any probabilistic conclusions from a sample of one.

 

[Mendel]

I'm simply going to re-iterate what I have now said a dozen times. You cannot draw any probabilistic conclusions from a sample of one.

So, 0:50:50 odds on the bags?

 

[Scaramanga]

So, 0:50:50 odds on the bags?

No. You have a huge bag with one ball in it that you know exists...and nothing whatever about there being one ball in it tells you whether there is more than one ball in it. There might be 20 balls. There might be 200 billion. There might be no other balls. The only scientific answer is 'we have no idea'....and that is all we can say.

 

[Landru]

If you cannot be polite I will close this thread.

 

[Mendel]

No. You have a huge bag with one ball in it that you know exists...and nothing whatever about there being one ball in it tells you whether there is more than one ball in it. There might be 20 balls. There might be 200 billion. There might be no other balls. The only scientific answer is 'we have no idea'....and that is all we can say.

You're evading my question. That means you never get to the point where the single ball is evidence in the simple, easily reasoned example.

Instead you try to recreate the complex example that you can't explain, but fail the analogy because we know quite a bit about the number of balls (it's the black balls we're wondering about). And you abstract away all the other information we also have.

But I can tell you that when someone comes up to me with a big bag of balls, lets me draw one, and then I can bet on whether there's another ball with that color in the bag, I'm going to bet that there is—and so would @FatPhil.

 

[Scaramanga]

You're evading my question. That means you never get to the point where the single ball is evidence in the simple, easily reasoned example.

Instead you try to recreate the complex example that you can't explain, but fail the analogy because we know quite a bit about the number of balls (it's the black balls we're wondering about). And you abstract away all the other information we also have.

But I can tell you that when someone comes up to me with a big bag of balls, lets me draw one, and then I can bet on whether there's another ball with that color in the bag, I'm going to bet that there is—and so would @FatPhil.

I'm not evading anything. I am simply restating my position yet again and avoiding being drawn into irrelevant side arguments. Once again I state...you cannot draw any conclusions from a sample of 1.