X-Message-Number: 10198 Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 08:40:35 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #10195 - #10197 Hi everyone! To Tim Freeman: First of all, evolution is NOT a noisy channel at all. It is true that for relatively long-lived animals such as human beings, the results of evolution take a while to show themselves. But those who engage in unhealthy actions don't do as well in multiplying themselves as those who do. This is not noise. It is simply a delay. The main problem with evolution is that it works on a group of genes rather than single genes. You are a group of genes. This means that if you have some kind of unfitness, then any good genes that you also have can get wiped out with the rest. If we continue to be groups of genes, the selection can only act on the result of the entire group; but as selection, it is not noisy at all. (Besides which, a single gene cannot be good or bad in isolation, it must work with the othefr genes). After all, it is the group of genes together that produces you, the phenotype. And evolution selects phenotypes, not genotypes. What would it mean for evolution to be noisy? That some animals survive despite a poor phenotype, while others fail to survive despite a good one... whatever poor or good may mean here. Some of that appearance may come because the phenotypes evolution selects aren't those we would select --- so much the worse for US. It's telling us something, not just giving noise. And of course, in the length of a present human life, almost by definition we do not see much change. But its still happening. Frankly, though I disagree with Ettinger, I will say that using evolution as a means to derive "ought" from "is" does give a link. It is not a LOGICAL link, and cannot be used for a priori argument in any particular case. Not only that, but our own ideas of what "ought" to be may conflict badly with the results of selection. Too bad for those ideas. If evolution isn't going where we want it to go, then (only after we fully understand what is happening!) the thing to do is to change circumstances so that it does. (Genetic modification is irrelevant here: a phenotype does not become any more favored just because we've used modern methods to make it). Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10198