Rand and Evolution

[Clawg]

I want to add to add that while the question of whether life on earth came about by an evolutionary process cannot be shown in a test tube (that would need too much time) it can be simulated on the computer in a very convincing way.

In the simulation "Tierra" (read here, here and here more about it) each simulated "lifeform" consists of a number of computer instructions which do nothing but reading and copying itself back into the memory. Introducing low level radiation (randomly flipping bits) the system developed smaller (and therefor faster) programs, 'parasites', cooperation between computer programs, 'hyperparasites' that feed on other parasites etc.

It is believed that the first 'living' entities on earth were simple molecules that had the chemical properties to create a 'negative' of themselves (similiar to RNA / DNA). The more stable and better protected the molecule (against other chemicals in the sea), the more copies it produced. The next step were (as in the simulation) parasites that had chemical properties to steal the harvested molecule parts of other molecules, then those molecules survived that had protection against that, ... an arms race which resulted in cell membrans, cell colonies, and finally animals and plants.

[Galileo Blogs]

Thanks everyone for an excellent discussion exposing the sophistry of the ID "argument."

I don't have any special training in biology, but I am a real admirer of the achievements of biological science and the theories of evolution and genetics that are at the root of so many amazing achievements today, such as the decoding of the human genome, genetic testing of diseases, individualized drugs based on individual chromosomes, etc.

Having said that, in the 1980s when I was in college I heard a lecture by a visiting professor from the University of Miami (Florida?) who conducted experiments trying to create life in a test tube. His goal was to simulate the geologic conditions and atmosphere of primordial earth, and then see if he could create life.

According to him, he failed, but the "creatures" he did create displayed many of the characteristics of life. They looked like small microorganisms. They had self-locomotion. They took in "food" and emitted "waste." I do not know if they reproduced. They also lacked a genetic code. If I recall correctly, it was for the last two reasons that these creatures were not life.

These creatures were organic. I have also heard of other experiments where very complex organic compounds, which are a necessary building block of life, have been created in different simulations of the primordial "soup."

If anyone from more knowledge cares to comment on these experiments, I welcome your thoughts.

From my very limited base of biological knowledge, I took these experiments as providing a great deal of experimental validation for a process by which life could have emerged on the primitive earth.

As for responding to the ID argument, it is not necessary to prove how life could have emerged. The burden of proof squarely lies on their shoulders to prove that God exists. They cannot do that, so the entire ID "argument" can be dismissed for that reason alone. Of course, exposing and refuting the biological fallacies is still very worthwhile. I am fascinated by these experiments on how life could have emerged, not so much as a weapon to attack ID, but simply because it is so damn interesting!

[Clawg]

I don't have any special training in biology, but I am a real admirer of the achievements of biological science and the theories of evolution and genetics that are at the root of so many amazing achievements today, such as the decoding of the human genome, genetic testing of diseases, individualized drugs based on individual chromosomes, etc.

Well, the main application of the theory of evolution (besides giving the theoretical base to understand how things came about) is in business. Many larger projects where one has to coordinate many different jobs, customers, vehicles etc. can be optimized with evolutionary algorithms much better than with traditional methods.

According to him, he failed, but the "creatures" he did create displayed many of the characteristics of life. They looked like small microorganisms. They had self-locomotion. They took in "food" and emitted "waste." I do not know if they reproduced. They also lacked a genetic code. If I recall correctly, it was for the last two reasons that these creatures were not life. These creatures were organic.

Mmh... that would be news to me that such lifeforms were created. I'll digg a little in my resources if I can find something on that.

I have also heard of other experiments where very complex organic compounds, which are a necessary building block of life, have been created in different simulations of the primordial "soup."

Yes, that's true. The ancient 'sea' was a mixture of various chemicals, very different from what we today know as 'sea' (our sea is filtered by numerous different lifeforms for billions of years), and when they used lightning organic molecules were formed. And with only one single copy of a self-replicating lifeform life developed on earth.

And God saw that it was good because he wasn't needed.

Grab a copy of "The egoistic gene" from Richard Dawkins, there is a chapter on this subject.

As for responding to the ID argument, it is not necessary to prove how life could have emerged. The burden of proof squarely lies on their shoulders to prove that God exists. They cannot do that, so the entire ID "argument" can be dismissed for that reason alone.

Well, afaik ID is more general. ID argues that "someone/something" "intelligent" put life on earth. But even if you can prove the existence of that intelligence you have to wonder how that intelligence developed. So you don't even need to demand a proof of the existence of the 'Creator' but simply point out that it's a circular argument.

Of course, exposing and refuting the biological fallacies is still very worthwhile. I am fascinated by these experiments on how life could have emerged, not so much as a weapon to attack ID, but simply because it is so damn interesting!

Yes, it is

A word about the "increase of information". Maybe it helps to look at it in a different way. The 'information' that evolution "creates" cannot be compared to as what we know as "knowledge".

In the basic model evolution also applies to entities that are not 'alive'. Take for example a river where you throw in a number of objects. When you return 100 years later you will find that only those objects "survived" that had properties that made them resistent against the constant flow of water (e.g. gold). Did an intelligent being decided which ones will survive? No, the laws of nature work automatically.

It is simply the nature of reality that only those entities that act (or have properties) according to reality tend to 'survive' and those who don't tend to be destroyed. And I guess that basic philosophical fact (which is also a major part of Objectivism) is what proponents of ID or creationism actually are fighting against.

[Galileo Blogs]

This is the man, Prof. Sidney Fox. He did his work in the 1960s building on the earlier work of Dr. Stanley Miller who synthesized amino acids in a test tube.

Scroll a little bit down on the page for the discussion of Dr. Fox.

He created "protenoid microspheres" that "look like primitive cells." He called them "protoalive," not technically life, but nearly so.

I remember seeing a slide show or video during his presentation, and the damn things moved around just like living things, took in "food" and emitted "waste." Extremely interesting.

[Robert J. Kolker]

Well, the main application of the theory of evolution (besides giving the theoretical base to understand how things came about) is in business. Many larger projects where one has to coordinate many different jobs, customers, vehicles etc. can be optimized with evolutionary algorithms much better than with traditional methods.

Mmh... that would be news to me that such lifeforms were created. I'll digg a little in my resources if I can find something on

The so-called genetic algorithms used in software generation are a cartoon of real genetic systems which are far more complicated. Genetic inheritance is much more complicated than the simple Mendelian model. That is because real processes take place which are constrained by least action principles which manifest as combinatorial selection rules.

All sorts of extravagant claims have been made for genetic algorithms and "fuzzy logic". Very few are really valid.

Bob Kolker

[Clawg]

The so-called genetic algorithms used in software generation are a cartoon of real genetic systems which are far more complicated. Genetic inheritance is much more complicated than the simple Mendelian model. That is because real processes take place which are constrained by least action principles which manifest as combinatorial selection rules.

Yes, they are more complicated and also more powerful than a simple evolutionary algorithm (gene activation, self-repair, specialized crossover etc.). But this is actually an argument against ID, not for it, because we can see the extraordinary results that even a simple implementation of evolutionary algorithms produces. All it takes is a system of 'molecules' with the ability to copy itself and external forces that destroy that system over time. That alone can produce better results in less time than standard approaches with deterministic algorithms that come from mathematics.

All sorts of extravagant claims have been made for genetic algorithms and "fuzzy logic". Very few are really valid.

Well, I work in that field and I know that there are many working applications. My guess is that you are using the products of evolutionary algorithms on a daily base.

@Galileo Blogs: Thanks, I'll check it out

[whig]

Well, I have enough knowledge of evolution through popular science books, and a rough idea from geneticists I know that there isn't really a controversy among scientists, they all accept the theory of evolution. Those interested in it shd read Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene, and Matt Ridley's The Red Queen and The Origin of Virtue.

When I met Yaron Brook, and there was an hour for questions, I got mine in near the end. Where most before me concentrated on the political philosophy of Objectivism, I asked about evolution. One of the concepts of hers I disagree with is the tabula rasa, and I don't think Objectivism takes enough account of evolutionary causes of humans' psychological makeup. I said that I thought there was too much an appeal to the Aristotelian notions of the divisions in nature between plants, animals and humans in her writing. I was satisfied enough with Yaron's answer, that our genes affect us, but we're not determined by them, much as evolutionary biologists would say, tho I'm still not so sure that Rand would quite be of the same opinion.

[Mimpy]

When I met Yaron Brook, and there was an hour for questions, I got mine in near the end. Where most before me concentrated on the political philosophy of Objectivism, I asked about evolution. One of the concepts of hers I disagree with is the tabula rasa, and I don't think Objectivism takes enough account of evolutionary causes of humans' psychological makeup. I said that I thought there was too much an appeal to the Aristotelian notions of the divisions in nature between plants, animals and humans in her writing. I was satisfied enough with Yaron's answer, that our genes affect us, but we're not determined by them, much as evolutionary biologists would say, tho I'm still not so sure that Rand would quite be of the same opinion.

Just trying to understand: so you think that man is not born tabula rasa? Do you instead think that he holds some form of innate knowledge? And if so, what is your argument for this and how does evolution have anything to do with it?

When you say that Objectivism does not take into account the "evolutionary causes," I am not sure what you mean. Evolution is the metaphysically given. How we individually came to exist cannot be changed and instead must simply be dealt with. So how do you find that evolution might affect us in more ways than we recognize?

[DavidOdden]

One of the concepts of hers I disagree with is the tabula rasa, and I don't think Objectivism takes enough account of evolutionary causes of humans' psychological makeup.

Of course the latter fact is because Objectivism is a philosophy, not a scientific theory of human evolutionary history. I do take into account human evolution, but also have concluded that humans are indeed born "tabula rasa", that is, without any innate knowledge. Do you have a good argument to the contrary? Note that humans are born with the ability to digest food, but you would not want to say that this is "knowledge". Most people who I know of that try to defend the notion of inborn knowledge in humans end up either confusing knowledge with neural reflexes (which don't involve the mind at all and thus don't count as "knowledge") or else "faculty", e.g. the rational faculty which is not itself knowledge. Do you have a reason to claim that humans are actually born with knowledge in advance of experience? Edited December 30, 2007 by DavidOdden

[agrippa1]

Do you have a reason to claim that humans are actually born with knowledge in advance of experience?

I don't know...

Man is born with two eyes (for depth/distance perception) and orbitally articulated eyeballs with a sensor matrix (for directionality) at the (adjustable) focal point of their lenses. One could infer that these constitute a "knowledge" of the positional nature of reality, and that our ability to detect distance and direction informs our spatial conceptualization of reality. Further, our visual cortex seems to have evolved with the "knowledge" that entities can be detected through light/color discontinuities and boundary detection, reflecting what we hold as a basic quality of entities in reality. Our visual sense has evolved over millions of generations of mutations (or so the theory goes), by the process of Darwinian survival, which, in effect, eliminates contradictions between awareness and reality to increase the efficiency of behavior, much as reason eliminates contradiction through real-time differentiation and integration.

Tabula rasa is an interesting principle because it rejects the possibility that some sort of knowledge is relayed to us through our DNA. It is clear that information about us is relayed through DNA, and that information about the nature of reality on Earth is implicit in our consequent physical structure, so can one really eliminate the possibility that knowledge is "planted" in our brains prior to independent perception? Of course, this possibility begs the question as to the origin of such knowledge, since it could not (by our current understanding) have originated from conscious perception, but only by the randomly-generated process of elimination of contradictions.

One could argue away the contradiction by pointing out that the information is not properly "knowledge" because it is not relayed to us by perception, but instead is a part of us, i.e. that what we are is the tabula which is rasa. This seems to be a narrowing of the definition of "knowledge" to match the preconceived notion of tabula rasa.

Kant took the argument of spatial awareness to argue for an a priori "knowledge" of the spatial nature of reality, which he then projected into the notion that space (and time) are merely organizational concepts used to process our perceptions, and not necessarily actual qualities of reality. From there he questioned reality itself, and thus reopened the door to God, soul, spirits, and the other hobgoblins of mysticism (which apparently was his original intent).

It seems to me that even taking the foregoing evolutionary take on development of our tools of perception as including information about reality, there is a rational argument at hand that an evolutionary process of non-contradiction would provide us with an ever-increasingly "true" perception of reality, which we extend and define through rational thought.

Edited December 31, 2007 by agrippa1

[Mammon]

Does the fact that babies cry count as being born with innate knowledge. They know if they cry, someone will come to them and take care of them? Or is that the first thing they actually learn, therefore still being tabla rasa.

[DavidOdden]

Man is born with two eyes...

One could infer that these constitute a "knowledge" of the positional nature of reality....

Uh, no, and that pretty much sums up the way in which folks try to argue that man has innate knowledge. Man is born with tools, but must gain knowledge through experience.

Tabula rasa is an interesting principle because it rejects the possibility that some sort of knowledge is relayed to us through our DNA.

Yes, it does.

can one really eliminate the possibility that knowledge is "planted" in our brains prior to independent perception?

Yes, one can.

[John McVey]

Man is born with two eyes (for depth/distance perception) and orbitally articulated eyeballs with a sensor matrix (for directionality) at the (adjustable) focal point of their lenses. One could infer that these constitute a "knowledge" of the positional nature of reality, and that our ability to detect distance and direction informs our spatial conceptualization of reality. Further, our visual cortex seems to have evolved with the "knowledge" that entities can be detected through light/color discontinuities and boundary detection, reflecting what we hold as a basic quality of entities in reality. Our visual sense has evolved over millions of generations of mutations (or so the theory goes), by the process of Darwinian survival, which, in effect, eliminates contradictions between awareness and reality to increase the efficiency of behavior, much as reason eliminates contradiction through real-time differentiation and integration.

...

Kant took the argument of spatial awareness to argue for an a priori "knowledge" of the spatial nature of reality, which he then projected into the notion that space (and time) are merely organizational concepts used to process our perceptions, and not necessarily actual qualities of reality. From there he questioned reality itself, and thus reopened the door to God, soul, spirits, and the other hobgoblins of mysticism (which apparently was his original intent).

It seems to me that even taking the foregoing evolutionary take on development of our tools of perception as including information about reality, there is a rational argument at hand that an evolutionary process of non-contradiction would provide us with an ever-increasingly "true" perception of reality, which we extend and define through rational thought.

The complexities of the actual mechanics of perception, and how they evolved, are considerably more complicated than you specify - a Kantian would have a field day. Were I a philosophy lecturer, I'd set as an assignment question for final-year undergrad or first-year postgrad students in an epistemology class the determination of what is right and wrong about Richard Dawkins' discussion of perception and conclusions about consciousness as presented in the chapter entitled "Reweaving the rainbow" in his book "Unweaving the rainbow," plus other works by him and others on the matter. Heck, that (and other sources) might even make good material for a grad student looking for a thesis topic.

JJM

[agrippa1]

Uh, no, and that pretty much sums up the way in which folks try to argue that man has innate knowledge. Man is born with tools, but must gain knowledge through experience.

I'll buy that...

The definition of terms is where existentialists seem to get lost - like Kant saying that "all bodies are heavy" represents innate knowledge, when, in fact, it merely defines the consciously created concept "body."

[Clawg]

Evolution works by elimination and selection not by creation. If I throw three different objects in the bed of a river and return a few hundred years later, then the object with the highest resistance will have survived. Does that object have 'knowledge' about resisting the flow of water?

No. And it can be argued the same way with anything that is built into our genetic code. It just represents that which has survived.

Another example would be 'memes', i.e. information. Just because a meme was very successful and still exists today says nothing about its validity, take for example 'God', 'the Bible' or 'Christmas': very successful memes but certainly no 'knowledge'.

[agrippa1]

Evolution works by elimination and selection not by creation. If I throw three different objects in the bed of a river and return a few hundred years later, then the object with the highest resistance will have survived. Does that object have 'knowledge' about resisting the flow of water?

I think you mean: "Does that object "have" knowledge about resisting the flow of water?"

I would argue that the object contains, in its form, information about resisting the flow of water. A rational mind would be required to use that information to discover the concepts required to understand resistance, etc.

There is a similarity between information of this sort and proper knowledge, but it seems that there is always a clear delineation between the two. There is also a similarity between our conscious differentiation and integration, and the processes that govern evolution.

Your example of memes leads me to questions that I was pondering when I awoke this morning. I'm not an expert on the origins of religion, but I would guess that it has something to do with perceiving things we can't explain, like the big white disc that rises at night, and elk wandering randomly into hunting grounds. I believe these have to do with causality, or their failure to obey the principle of causality.

So the questions are:

How does man come to the conclusion of an unseen causer? This isn't just a long-held meme, I believe its virtually universal in human cultures, and there's good evidence that man will develop a God-concept independently. Once it has been conceptualized, any random event reinforces the concept, but how was it conceptualized in the first place? Is there an evolutionary reason for the concept of God? Was it developed to give man a place holder for reason so he wouldn't be paralyzed in the face of a random catastrophe, wondering, for instance, what's causing that mountain to spew fire and smoke (rather than getting the hell out of there screaming supplications)? If it's not an innate concept planted in our brains by our DNA, then it must derive from some other concepts. An argument could go that we see causality in things within our physical grasp, and therefore we assume causality in things outside of direct grasp, but wouldn't differentiation of events in terms of proximity provide a rational "explanation" absent causality?

There seems to me to be an innate understanding of the universality of causality that leads us to form the concept "God." Is universal causality an organizing tool (that happens to provide us with a grasp of a fact of reality), or is it knowledge? Causality seems to be perceivable in the interactions of objects of reality, but how do we go from that to a universality of causality?

So, it appears not to be universality of causality, since causality can be discerned through the differentiation and integration of the action of objects. Perhaps it's universality itself.

Universality appears to be a good organizing tool - I believe it is the basis for our ability to recognize conceptual contradictions and to correct them.

Is universality, non-contradiction, consistency, whatever you want to call it - is it "knowledge?" And, is it innate?

[DavidOdden]

I would argue that the object contains, in its form, information about resisting the flow of water.

Another horrible anti-concept of the modern age is "information". Objects don't contain or have information. Information depends on consciousness -- it is facts grasped and held by a mind, especially reduced to an objective representational form.

[Clawg]

Your example of memes leads me to questions that I was pondering when I awoke this morning. I'm not an expert on the origins of religion, but I would guess that it has something to do with perceiving things we can't explain, like the big white disc that rises at night, and elk wandering randomly into hunting grounds. I believe these have to do with causality, or their failure to obey the principle of causality.

The origin of Christianity (and most other religions) is Sun/Moon/Star worship in connection with astronomy and the use of hallucinogenic drugs (ESPECIALLY the latter ). The stories in the Bible can be understood as knowledge about stars and plants woven into stories that can easily be remembered, recounted and to a certain degree hidden from the common folk or outsiders in general. I recommend watching this video.

How does man come to the conclusion of an unseen causer? This isn't just a long-held meme, I believe its virtually universal in human cultures, and there's good evidence that man will develop a God-concept independently. Once it has been conceptualized, any random event reinforces the concept, but how was it conceptualized in the first place? Is there an evolutionary reason for the concept of God?

The first 'Gods' weren't "unseen causers" but very real. Take for instance the sun ('the son/sun of god') which was and is worshipped in many different cultures. I guess the 'invisible' God is a more modern (less than two thousand years) theological concept which was probably politically motivated (i.e. the church wanted more control over people's minds so they declared it a heresy to worship any concrete form of deity).

The only thing that would qualify for a biological cause to believe in god are neural diseases (or drugs) which cause hallucinations (also called "religious experiences").

[agrippa1]

Another horrible anti-concept of the modern age is "information". Objects don't contain or have information. Information depends on consciousness -- it is facts grasped and held by a mind, especially reduced to an objective representational form.

Thanks for the post on information. Adam Reed's definition is what I have in mind when I use the term. I don't accept that the usage is an anti-concept. I distinguish information from perception-based knowledge (which is what I think you define above), in that information is knowledge gained from or given to another consciousness. Information implies action, of encoding knowledge into language and transmitting the encoded language across a physical medium to another consciousness. To say that the thing being transmitted - whether it be pressure waves in air, symbols on paper or patterns of photons in a glass fiber - is not (or does not contain) information is, in my opinion, an incomplete view of the concept. What term would you give the "information" in transit? Certainly not "knowledge" since the air, paper and fiber are not conscious of it. Certainly not "arbitrary, not meaningful" data?

Now, if I get you correctly, what you really object to is using the term for "information" which is not relayed from or to a consciousness, such as genetic "information" encoded in DNA. That would be a fair objection, and a definition of information would stipulate the "to or from consciousness." But then we find a trap, for what happens when man decodes the genome and is able to gain, from only its DNA code, useful knowledge about a species or individual, without direct perception? I can see how the concept of information in that context might make one uncomfortable.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Is universality, non-contradiction, consistency, whatever you want to call it - is it "knowledge?" And, is it innate?

No, there is no innate knowledge. The law of non-contradiction does not apply to existence per se, but rather to our consciousness -- i.e. one cannot say that the apple is all red and all blue at one and the same time. In reality, things are what they are and do what they do without having any knowledge of anything -- i.e. the rocks in a river have no knowledge and no information regarding the flow of water or what will happen to it over time when it is submerged into flowing water.

Regarding evolution, sure we have some very advanced sensory and processing abilities. This ability arose over millions of years of natural selection, so that we perceive things clearly as entities, especially with our eyes; but this did not involve knowledge of existence. Our sensory and processing equipment is automatic. One can say that we have them due to our genes, and even including the possibility of having a rational consciousness because we have the equipment, but none of this is knowledge nor does it require knowledge of existence for those possibilities to exist. Everything that we are strictly biologically comes from evolution, but there was no intelligent designer and there was no knowledge about reality that is pre-encoded that we can then access with our minds -- i.e. our DNA is not like an encyclopedia, though it is sometimes referred to as that.

Look at it this way too, one might think that because man is so well developed that evolution has a direction; that everything would eventually evolve into some kind of intelligent conceptual living being. But that isn't the case. Worms, for example, have been around for many millions of years longer than man, but they are unable to perceive existence as clearly as we do, and they most certainly cannot conceive of existence at all.

I think one needs to clearly differentiate the strictly biological from the conceptual. That is, the fact that holding your hand near a fire brings pain, and therefore an impulse to remove one's hand from the fire does not require any knowledge. The pain is felt, and one reacts. It is not the same thing as a thought: "If I hold my hand in a hot fire, the flesh will burn off!"

In short, do not confuse biological functionality -- i.e. digesting food, which does not require any knowledge of biology or cell development -- with conceptual abilities -- i.e. knowledge which must be acquired via a volitional conceptualization of existence. Biology and biological functionality is not innate knowledge and did not require any knowledge of it to develop.

[The Wrath]

Deviating a bit from the current discussion:

It's been mentioned that Rand was uncomfortable with evolution, because she didn't like the idea that humans were related to other animals. As a staunch atheist, she didn't believe in divine creation. Well...what else is there? This doesn't strike me as an issue where you can just say "maybe the real answer hasn't been found yet." This seems like a pretty cut and dried dichotomy where it has to be either one or the other, unless you want to take the position of the ancient Greeks, who thought that the human race was eternal.

Edited January 1, 2008 by Moose

[DavidOdden]

But then we find a trap, for what happens when man decodes the genome and is able to gain, from only its DNA code, useful knowledge about a species or individual, without direct perception?

There's no trap. Every kid knows how to unlock the "information" contained in baking soda and vinegar. Scientists have stills and centrifuges and all sorts of nifty catalysts that they use in their laboratories, in order to liberate the "information" lurking in piles of ore and buckets of muck. A dead fish at the bottom of the sea 10 million years ago really isn't "information". It is simply a fact, one which I can study and eventually use as the basis for drawing a conclusion. Information is knowledge that is created and represented by a consciousness, and god didn't make DNA, petroleum or fossil fish.

[agrippa1]

There's no trap. Every kid knows how to unlock the "information" contained in baking soda and vinegar. Scientists have stills and centrifuges and all sorts of nifty catalysts that they use in their laboratories, in order to liberate the "information" lurking in piles of ore and buckets of muck. A dead fish at the bottom of the sea 10 million years ago really isn't "information". It is simply a fact, one which I can study and eventually use as the basis for drawing a conclusion. Information is knowledge that is created and represented by a consciousness, and god didn't make DNA, petroleum or fossil fish.

I'm not getting your meaning here. I thought I could at least get you to agree that "information" in the medium of communication is still information.

"Information" is not identical in meaning to "knowledge." The examples you give above are all examples of objects of reality subject to perception, not the encoding, in any meaningful measure, of "information" about them that is not tied to direct observation, which DNA is.

I'm not arguing that God made DNA. I'm an atheist, from a philosophical and scientific viewpoint, and I think it's important to delve into the areas where objectivism (which I consider to be "truth" rather than "a philosophy") might reveal contradictions. This is off-topic a bit, but the attacks on Kant by objectivists seem misdirected to me. The biggest threat to objectivism in my view is the interpretation of quantum mechanics, which rejects physical reality beyond the observable and opens it to the possibility of "random" (i.e., non-causal, non-rational) effects. The combination of QM with chaos theory allows for macro effects from non-deterministic causation, which in effect opens the door to mysticism.

I look at the Kantian effects of QM on reality and I understand why Einstein objected that "God does not play dice with the universe."

[Phil]

This is my first time here and already I love where the topic is going. I would just like to say that there seems to be alot of misunderstanding of these physical terms. Up to this point I would like to say that when you suggest things like the preservation of information and the universiality of causality and claim that our abilities are not innate, I just think about some of the books I've read that answer fully these questions. Not to slow things down than, I shall comment on the last update. Quantum Mechanics tells us that according to the Uncertainty Principal, we will never know too much information about a particle at one given instant i.e. its position and moment. When we start looking at things outside this context we must be careful of interpolating this fact on logic itself! These terms you are throwing like dice are in reality mathematical concepts that have meaning specifically in science. And scienctific philosophy is probably the hardest of them all. For example Choas is not randomness! One of the first words ayn rand utters in INTRO to EPIST is that our minds are mathematical and this is the only way to describe our surroundings. It is because religious people do not understand systems and axiomatic relations that makes them inferior. To discuss evolution is to create a logical foundation for how life is brought about in the universe, meaning, armed with the axiomatic principals itself we must derive life in order to understand it. This is very hard.

[Mammon]

Deviating a bit from the current discussion:

It's been mentioned that Rand was uncomfortable with evolution, because she didn't like the idea that humans were related to other animals. As a staunch atheist, she didn't believe in divine creation. Well...what else is there? This doesn't strike me as an issue where you can just say "maybe the real answer hasn't been found yet." This seems like a pretty cut and dried dichotomy where it has to be either one or the other, unless you want to take the position of the ancient Greeks, who thought that the human race was eternal.

Or the ancient Indians (Native Americans) who thought that man sprang up from cornsprouts one day.

Personally, I think a giant bluish green blob hiccuped out a Air Jordans shoe box full of play doo and it fell on some DNA and BAM -- LIFE! The FSM was involved somewhere in there.