clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> One problem with that Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution discussion is 
> that it perfectly fails to realize that evolution can be used as a 
> design method. Virtually everything man-made is a product of 
> evolutionary design.

  I'm not so sure you should be intermixing those two concepts. Just
because the same word "evolution" can be (somewhat loosely) applied
to both doesn't mean that they are related or that the same phenomena
or methodologies happen in them.

  Biological evolution has no driving force, no goal, no direction.
Evolution doesn't "try" to achieve anything, because evolution is not
a conscience with goals and plans. Evolution is a *by-product* of
uncontrolled random natural phenomena. Evolution is emergent behavior.
For this reason concepts like "the evolutionary ladder" and "de-evolution"
(and some sci-fi ideas that DNA has a "memory" of past forms in the
evolutionary history of the species) are nonsense because it would indicate
that evolution has a direction and a goal towards which it aims.

  Biological evolution is, basically, the change in the genes of large
populations of living entities. The changes consist of things like meiosis
and mutations, and some of these changes get naturally selected (by the
simple reason that all the other changes disappear due to extinction),
meaning that beneficial changes build up over time. The beneficial changes
are inherited by subsequent generations.

  The vast majority of the changes are very minute, and become significant
change only by building up over large periods of time (although there are
considerable exceptions to this, as sometimes significant evolutionary
change can happen surprisingly fast, in only a few tens of generations).

  There is no intelligence involved in this. It's simply emergent behavior
that happens naturally.

  Technological progress, on the other hand, is quite different. It has
a goal it aims for, a plan (in other words, the *purpose* of the new
technology or the changes to existing technology is determined *before* it
happens). Change in technology is seldom random, but driven by a specific
goal. Minute changes are not "inherited" because there is no genetic
information being passed from one generation to another. Very large changes
happen from one "generation" to the next, not because of random mutations
or "mixing of genes", but because of external design. There is no natural
selection. One "species" does not change gradually to another over a
large period of time and with numerous in-between generations, driven by
survival pressure and natural selection.

  The slow gradual change in biological evolution can often be somewhat
detrimental to living species. "Parts" cannot just suddenly jump from one
place to another, or suddenly change their shape or function. There are
many, many things in living species which are "poorly designed" and could
be much better, but them being better would require such a sudden drastic
change that it just can't happen. The required mutation would be so
astronomically improbable that it just won't happen (except in very, very
rare cases). A slow, gradual change would cause all the intermediates to
be less fit for survival, and thus it won't happen gradually either
(because these intermediates simply die long before they reach the
turning point and start again becoming fitter than previous generations).
For this reason most species of living beings have parts of their body that
are suboptimal.

  Technology is not hindered by this limitation.

  You could draw a broad similarity between evolution and technology in
that in technology good ideas are preserved while bad ideas are discarded
(similar to natural selection preserving good mutations while getting rid
of bad ones), but that's about it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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