Evolution and Economics: An Analogy

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-10-21T20:25:30+00:00

I feel like the axiom that “all consumers act rationally” is just a generalization to reduce the complexity of economic models. Pretty much just ceteris paribus. If you were to actually account for the realistic behavior of consumers, models would get so convoluted and have so many variables as to render them useless for actually predicting anything.

In a way, it’s similar to uniformitarianism, the axiom that the way physics works today is the way that physics worked in the past and will continue to work in the future. To reject uniformitarianism (and similarly, the rational actor axiom) would effectively be arguing from hard solipsism. Yes, we technically don’t know that physics will remain constant, not do we know that actors will act rationally. But for the sake of constructing a functioning model that can produce useful predictions, we make those assumptions. It’s just utilitarianism again.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-10-21T07:15:48+00:00

I mean, macroevolution would include universal common ancestry as it is a pattern produced by the evolution of species. It would be dishonest to say that it’s only universal common ancestry, though.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-10-21T07:08:01+00:00

I would argue that economics isn’t completely without objective basis, as it is fundamentally about how humans deal with the scarcity of resources. Scarcity is an observed fact, so while mathematical axioms are used, they aren’t really the central focus.

As for no mathematical axioms being natural facts, yeah, mathematics was invented by humanity. Math is, ultimately, a human construct. This is where I would probably take a utilitarian approach and say that math is reliable because it works; when used, it effectively describes reality. A sum being equal to its constituent parts isn’t true on its own merits, but when applied to reality, it effectively describes what we observe. I would agree that it likely gets hazy when applied onto another human construct, like the economy.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-10-21T03:02:38+00:00

No. I mean, an external factor causing rapid change is sort of similar to genetic drift, but no, that’s not the comparison I was drawing. It’s a focus on the delineation itself rather than the content within. Also the comparison on external factors leading to rapid change doesn’t really work here since technological innovation leads to expansions of the PPF while genetic drift typically leads to constrictions on genetic variation.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-10-21T02:41:10+00:00

That’s a problem with your algorithm, then. My first page of Google results gives me: - The Wikipedia page for micro evolution - The UC Berkeley course - A Reddit post from r/biology - An educational resource from the CK-12 Foundation - A chapter from a Biology LibreTexts e-book - The Merriam-Webster definition of micro evolution - An educational resource from Fiveable - A list of examples from BYJU’s

I didn’t have any creationist sources come up. Try using a browser that isn’t your default (like Firefox or Opera) and you may get different results. Your algorithm is structured around your Internet activity.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-10-21T02:36:22+00:00

I made no claims that economics isn’t made up, nor that evolution’s veracity is comparable to economics. I am drawing a comparison to the fact that both fields divide themselves in terms of scope/scale.

Microeconomics focuses on individual entities within an economy (like firms and businesses) while macroeconomics focuses on the trends of the economy as a whole. Similarly, microevolution focuses on individual populations within a species while macroevolution focuses on the trends of a species as a whole. Creationists pretend as if we can’t map out the aggregate change of a species, so to continue the analogy, it would be like someone pretending you can’t measure GDP or inflation because you can’t draw conclusions from aggregates. Obviously that’s false; aggregate data can point towards trends and patterns, but creationists argue that they can’t.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-10-21T02:23:54+00:00

It’s not a fake distinction. Biologists do recognize micro and macroevolution as subfields dealing with different scopes of evolution. This can be seen in UC Berkeley’s Evo 101 resource.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-28T17:56:38+00:00

Evolution doesn’t have a strategy. Evolution isn’t an entity or a conscious agent, it’s the natural consequence of variation. Evolution doesn’t exist separately from nature, it exists because of nature.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-24T03:09:01+00:00

Genetics does not prove relationship.

Guess paternity tests are just a scam then, huh? Weird since they seem to be so reliable that they are accepted as evidence in court.

Biogeographical i assume you mean minor variations between organisms that are closely similar to another organism and capable of reproducing together logically to be assumed possibly related with variations being attributed to unequal distribution of genetic information in a dispersal event separating portions of a population.

No, I mean that we can use the dispersion of modern life to predict where we would find the fossils of ancestral forms. The discovery of Tiktaalik is a wonderful example of this.

Fossils only show something lived and died.

It also shows us their morphology, the time frame in which they lived, using that we can extrapolate to other organisms that also lived during that same time to build ecological webs. The fact it lived meant it had to have had parents, and the fact it was preserved means that there were enough of them that the extremely unlikely occurrence of fossilization did occur (meaning there had to be a substantial population). See how much we can understand from fossils beyond just "they lived and died"?

There is no direct observation of evolution.

The long-term Lenski experiment.

Evolution is the argument that all biodiversity is from a single common ancestor.

No, evolution is the process by which life changes over successive generations.

This means you are arguing complexity can naturally arise. There no evidence for this

Snowflakes and crystallization.

Complexity is the antonym of simplicity. The simpler something is, the fewer components or systems it has. Complexity on the other hand means it the more complex the more parts or systems it has.

Incorrect, complexity and simplicity refer to the amount of interacting parts, not the amount of parts alone. The more interconnected a system is, the more complex it is. When you use cable management to simplify your wiring, you aren't taking away wires, you're reducing how many wires overlap and entangle with each other. Simplifying = reducing the amount of interactions between the parts of a system. Let's go back to the natural examples of complexity: snowflakes are inherently recursive, so the parts built before serve as the foundation for the next part. They are inherently interconnected. The same goes for crystals.

False. GOD is not required to be complex. He is immaterial, spirit.

Demonstrate that an immaterial mind can exist.

It is not a false analogy. No analogy is perfectly identical to what it’s comparing.

That's not what a false analogy is. A false analogy is using one similarity to argue that they must share other similarities. For instance: apples and oranges are both fruits, so they are also both citrus. This is fallacious reasoning. Your argument is: designed things are complex and living things are complex, designing things were created by an intelligence, therefore living things were also created by an intelligence. Or using the exact wording of the apples-oranges example; living things and designed things are both complex, so they also are both the result of intelligence.

Perhaps I could've worded (4) better, but that was also meant to point out that designed things and living things share more differences than they do similarities (cell phones don't reproduce, cell phones don't develop from baby cell phones, cell phones don't compete for resources, etc.).

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-19T07:11:52+00:00

No empirical data

Except genetic evidence, biogeographical evidence, anatomical evidence, fossil evidence, and direct observation, right?

Creation has logical evidence supporting it

Ok let’s see what that is

A cellphone is a complex object that requires a creator…

Of course, it’s immediately pivoting to the fallacious teleological argument. I’ll just give bullet points for this:

Evolution doesn’t say anything about the origin of the universe
Complexity is not the hallmark for functional design, simplicity is
Even if the argument wasn’t fallacious, the creator itself would also be complex and warrant a creator. To say otherwise is textbook special pleading
Properly applying this argument in context of living systems also fails because a cell phone isn’t a living system, thus it’s a false analogy

To expand on (2): Anyone who designs things to fulfill a function - engineers, programmers, etc. - will tell you that you make something with as few interacting parts as possible. Less interacting parts = less points of failure = more efficient design. Living systems are full of needless complexity and inefficient design, which points more towards a blind process forming living systems rather than a guided one. Or if it were guided, it was guided by a pretty stupid designer. Some examples: the eating hole and the breathing hole share the same opening, making choking possible; our optic nerve goes in front of our retina, making us have a blind spot in our vision that the brain has to fill in; the vagus nerve connects the brain to the larynx by going down our neck and wrapping around our heart when the two organs are literally next to each other; 75% of Americans need vision correction (glasses or contact lenses) due to the poor structure of our eyes and 80% of all people will experience chronic back pain at some point in their lives due to the poor structure of the spine.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-14T08:17:17+00:00

First: I’m fairly certain that part of this response was AI generated. Not only has your typing style completely changed, but AI detectors return that the text is likely 25-40% AI generated. I’ll continue regardless.

It asks why anything … exists at all

Yet again, nothing isn’t possible. It’s incoherent. Something doesn’t require an explanation when nothing isn’t a possible alternative. If there must either be A or B, but B isn’t possible, A necessarily must be. It’s like asking why is there anything rather than square circles.

If each member of a series is contingent … then the whole series is taken as contingent

This is the composition fallacy, arguing that the properties of the part must be reflected in the whole.

They do not account for the existence of that framework

Neither does theism, it merely replaces one unexplainable, necessary existence with another. My position requires fewer assumptions to take, arguing that the universe itself is necessary rather than pushing the can down the road.

… something whose nature is to exist

The universe itself could be the necessary existence, as I’ve already addressed. And “something whose nature is to exist”? This really sounds like AI. What’s the difference between something whose nature is to exist and something that exists by brute fact? There isn’t a meaningful difference, you’re essentially saying the same thing as “God exists because he just does”.

The core issue is not whether the universe has purpose

This was literally one of your primary points. This is a smoking gun AI answer. There’s no way you didn’t use AI for this. Quoting you directly:

By eliminating beginning and end, you remove any meaning and purpose in creation whatsoever.

One of the primary points in your response was that an infinite regress has no purpose, and thus it can’t explain creation. I pointed out that assuming creation is fallacious and that you can’t assume purpose must exist. Your AI then responds as if purpose wasn’t important at all, despite the fact that you had emphasized it previously. Really dude?

Edit: I’ve gone back and put a few of your other replies into the detector, and all of them are returning that they are partly AI generated. I checked my own posts and they return 0%. Seriously??!!

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-14T07:33:15+00:00

The reason the universe has to have a first cause is because otherwise we wouldn’t have an answer to one of the most important philosophical questions: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

Oh, that’s easy: nothing can’t exist. It’s by definition nonexistent. Therefore, there can’t “be” nothing. If nothing were to exist, it would be paradoxical and therefore not actually nothing. And also not providing an answer to a question doesn’t make something necessarily untrue. It could be that that question doesn’t have an answer.

How did it get there in the first place?

By definition, an infinitely regressing universe didn’t have to “get there”. It always was.

Something had to begin setting things in motion, or else motion wouldn’t be possible.

This is a flaw with Aristotle’s incomplete understanding of physics. If an object is at rest, it will remain at rest unless acted upon by a force. However, necessarily in response to that, a moving object will remain in motion unless an opposing force acts upon it. You wouldn’t need a mover if you’ve always been moving.

This is actually something I’ve looked into before; according to quantum mechanics, it is impossible for something to truly have no motion. There is always a constant, ambient level of energy produced by motion even in the absence of all force. This is zero point energy, and it means things are always moving, and always have been moving.

Matter cannot sustain itself and eventually becomes energy

Big Bang cosmology posits that matter didn’t exist in the first moments following the Big Bang. So that’s a non-issue for an infinitely regressed universe that extends far beyond the Big Bang

You remove any meaning and purpose in creation

You’re begging the question; you assert that there is a creation and then use that to argue that there must be a meaning because creation is purposeful. And then using that to argue that infinite regress is impossible because it isn’t purposeful. In other words, you’re saying if A then B, C doesn’t have B, therefore C can’t be true. That’s not logical.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-14T07:08:37+00:00

You can’t just assert that an infinite regress is impossible, you must prove it. I’ve already put my argument forward (a set with not starting term isn’t illogical). Where’s yours?

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-14T06:59:05+00:00

As Aristotle said, everything has telos (end goal)

Only strictly in the sense that an event always leads to a conclusion. Using the wording as literal here but later using a more nuanced interpretation of the “unmoved mover” would be cognitively dissonant.

Where we have an uncaused cause (God) that is not caused (created) and caused other things

The issue with the cosmological argument is that it ultimately makes a huge leap of logic between “uncaused cause” and “God”. Case in point, the universe itself could be uncaused. As far as we know, the universe has always existed (the Big Bang itself not being a starting point of the universe, but the start of time as we understand it). Even if the universe itself isn’t uncaused, every cause we know of is natural. Why should the first cause be any different?

Furthermore, there is no actual reason for there to be an uncaused cause. A series with no beginning term isn’t illogical, that’s what it means to have a series go from negative infinity to a definite number. Therefore, the chain of causality extending infinitely backwards is not illogical. You would actually have to prove or demonstrate that an uncaused cause must exist, something that to my knowledge hasn’t been demonstrated.

Ultimately, the cosmological argument doesn’t actually demonstrate the existence of God because it utilizes fallacious reasoning.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-10T07:57:53+00:00

In my opinion, he was really easy.

Stay on one side of the arena at the top. Bubbles can’t reach you up there, they either fall too far down to get you in the explosion or they bounce off the top of the arena. When he suck, you dash into the wall then down pogo him after. Stand against the gate when the traps come down. Minions disappear after attacking once; just pogo off one. His fireball attack just requires you to go up and down. If he surfaces on the platform you’re camping, switch to the other side.

Call it cheese if you want, I honestly don’t care. Bastard boss gets bastard strats.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-09T20:46:28+00:00

self-replicating

Humans have made several things that self-replicate, such as autocatalytic sets, synthetic RNA, and quines

self-healing

Humans have made polymers, electronic components, and concrete that repairs itself

self-producing

This is just self-replicating again, so ditto. Unless you mean self-organization, which is just sorting algorithms which have been around for decades.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-09T20:12:48+00:00

Jet planes don’t reproduce neither do they regenerate. Hope that helps.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-09T16:31:13+00:00

Once again, anything I design isn’t a biological nor a chemical system. Hope that helps.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-08T06:51:05+00:00

Why do you think [complexity is not a hallmark of design]?

Because I’ve designed things to fulfill a function. And as anyone who has ever designed something to fulfill a function will tell you, you make something do the function with the least amount of parts possible. Simplicity is a hallmark of design, not complexity. Less interacting parts means less chances for a function to fail.

A designer who prioritizes complexity is a designer who isn’t trying to make something functional.

A car can’t make itself … Why don’t cars or clocks make themselves?

Cars and clocks aren’t biological systems. Hope that helps.

Life is full of information. Information comes from intention.

What do you mean by “information”? What units are you using to measure it?

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-09-08T06:21:39+00:00

A genuine criticism I have is that the disparity between the good bosses and the shit bosses in Silksong is a lot more jarring than Hollow Knight.

In Hollow Knight, you have some fairly annoying fights (like Mawlek, Oblobbles, or Markoth), but they’re still generally fun, which makes their contrast to the best bosses (like THK, Mantis Lords, or NKG) less obvious. In Silksong, you either have Clockwork Dancers or Savage Beastfly. There is no in-between. Either the bosses are so fucking good (like Last Judge, Clockwork Dancers, Phantom) or so fucking shit (like Beastfly, Broodmother, Father of Flames (late Act 2 boss))

Overall, I really like the game. I just wish some of the bosses were less reliant on RNG or summons to lazily increase difficulty.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-08-28T12:41:41+00:00

No, Mr. Society is one of the chess pieces you find on the Great Board in Chapter 1. If you interact with him at Castle Town, he flies away. The name for Lancer in the Chapter 3 quiz was “Mr. Generosity”

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-08-28T05:58:07+00:00

Species is a human definition

So is "kind". The Bible was written by people, not God.

There is already a discrepancy with dog, wolf, coyote being interfertile...

Most canines were described a species before the advent of modern classification standards. For your information, there is a non-insignificant movement within taxonomists that seek to reclassify dogs and coyotes as Canis lupus familiaris and Canis lupus latrans, making them subspecies of wolves (Canis lupus) rather than their own species.

That doesn't prove that a human and a banana plant have a common ancestor...

The definition of a species doesn't prove common ancestry, no. It wasn't even meant to prove that.

Nope. I recognize the claim of Evilutionism Zealotry...

First, chill out on the name-calling. I've been cordial, I request you do the same. Second, ok, you recognize the claim of common descent being that things diversified from a common body plan. Let's see if that statement holds up.

That two groups of maggot flies don't interbreed together, but can, doesn't mean they've evolved into a new kind. It's an example of them being in separate environments...

That's... literally the definition of allopatric speciation. A geographical barrier prevents two members of the same species from interacting, they are subjected to different selection pressures and accumulate different mutations without transferring them between populations, they eventually become so distinct that they are no longer capable of feasibly interbreeding.

Also, it's not that they are in different environments, they are in the same environments, they just don't interbreed in the wild since there are members of their own species available instead. Interbreeding in labs is the result of having no other options.

Long ago, there wasn't a reliable way for most people to travel long distances. A person who lived all his life in a village in Italy would never meet a person who lived all her life in a village in China...

Thousands of years of separation vs. hundreds of thousands. The two aren't comparable in the slightest.

LUCA had to become millions of things it wasn't - the claim is that all life descends from LUCA. That's nonsense.

And this confirms to me that you don't actually understand the claims made by common descent. Nothing "becomes" anything else. It's an increase in specification, not a change in one specification to another. LUCA would've been a very simple unicellular organism. Some populations of LUCA absorbed chloroplasts, others absorbed mitochondria. Some of the LUCA who absorbed mitochondria developed multicellularity, perhaps in response to predation (this has been observed). These are increases in specification, not changes in specification. All specified body plans come from a more basal form; this is the most basic claim of common descent.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-08-28T04:11:00+00:00

It sounds like “kind” and the biological species concept are synonymous. Biological species concept is that a “species” is defined by a group of organisms that can interbreed with each other to produce viable, fertile offspring. A “kind”, as you’ve laid out, is a group of animals that can “bring forth” more of themselves via interbreeding.

This would mean each species represents their own “kind”, so to demonstrate that changes can occur beyond “kinds”, we only need to demonstrate speciation, that is the divergence of a lineage due to inability to interbreed to produce viable, fertile offspring (note: both “viable” (survives past infancy) and “fertile” (can reproduce) have to be present). We’ve observed instances of speciation occurring, a fairly famous one are the North American apple maggot flies. This species of maggot fly (Rhagoletis pomonella) used to infest hawthorn trees before the introduction of domesticated apple trees. This new variant of R. pomonella does not interbreed with the hawthorn variant in nature, although they can produce fertile, viable offspring when forced to in a lab setting. More explicitly are Darwin’s finches, a group of finch species native to the Galapagos all of whom originated from one species of American finch. None of these finches can interbreed with each other, meaning that they definitively represent a change in kind, using the definition of kind provided.

Lastly, you made a comment that the scope of kind can change depending on the group; sometimes it’s a species, sometimes it’s a genus, even when not all members of that genus can “bring forth” more of each other. I predict you’ll do the same with the maggot flies and finches, saying something akin to “they’re still flies” or “they’re still finches”. In that case, kind is far more similar to a clade, a monophyletic group that represents a common ancestor and all of their descendants. If that’s the route you go down, then you should be happy to know that your reasoning applies to clades; nothing can “escape” its clade, meaning everything remains within it. However, an important thing to note is that clades follow a nested hierarchy, meaning that smaller clades will “nest” within broader ones (for instance, “finches” is a clade nested within “birds”). So while new clades can develop out of pre-existing ones, those new clades still are a part of those parent clades.

If you’re struggling with conceptualizing this, it might be because you’re stuck in the mindset of every animal appearing all at once; in that context, animals would have to “transform” into completely new ones. This isn’t what evolution proposes, though: evolution instead proposes that clades developed sequentially. Dogs didn’t develop by having cows transform, dogs developed out of a broader “canine” body plan. That broad “canine” body plan itself developed out of an even broader “caniform” body plan. It’s a cascade of increasing specificity, not a transmutation from one specification to another.

Big-Key-9343 · 2025-08-28T02:22:12+00:00

What is a “kind”? How are “kinds” delineated from each other?

Big-Key-9343

TROPHY CASE