'the evolutionary scapegoat'

[QUOTE][b]Your missing my point. These traits {spinal ridges, eyebrows, mens nipples} have virtually no effect in increasing the probability of reproduction. I know they serve an important purpose but they dont increase the probability of reproduction so how can they increase reproductive success?[/QUOTE][/b]You're overlooking something. If it serves "an important purpose" then it contributes to reprodution. Simply put, if it helps keep you alive or helps you in any way, it improves reproductive success.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gene90:You're overlooking something. If it serves "an important purpose" then it contributes to reprodution. Simply put, if it helps keep you alive or helps you in any way, it improves reproductive success. [/B][/QUOTE]In theory yes. but in actual real world circumstances I dont beleive it would have any effect. Keeping the hair out of my eyes is helpful, but its not going to win over the ladies.This is the flaw I see in NS. Evolving a new tear duct is very helpful but it is not going to have an impact on my reproduction rate.

[QUOTE][b]Keeping the hair out of my eyes is helpful, but its not going to win over the ladies.[/QUOTE][/b]I doubt someone who has shaved their eyebrows would agree. For one thing, it makes people look strange, thereby harming you in the mate selection department, and since people are social it could cause you even more trouble if you are ostracized all the time or even banished from the group. Another problem is that if you can't keep sweat out of your eyes, you can't see, so it can get difficult to flee from predators. When you get eaten, you cannot produce more offspring. Even a small disadvantage between you and your peers will harm the chances of a particular allele being propagated through a population.

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Originally posted by Jonathan:
These traits have virtually no effect in increasing the probability of reproduction. I know they serve an important purpose but they dont increase the probability of reproduction so how can they increase reproductive success?

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Sorry, but they do effect reproduction. Anything that gives you a survival edge gives you a reproductive edge as well.

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I think if you were to apply the body to a "garden of Eden" lifestyle it may me more than sufficient.

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So if we were to live naked in a forest with no worries, no need to hunt or farm, and with plenty of food just hanging off of the trees we'd be ok? Oh, and no predators, or bad weather, or disease?------------------
www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by John:
So if we were to live naked in a forest with no worries, no need to hunt or farm, and with plenty of food just hanging off of the trees we'd be ok? Oh, and no predators, or bad weather, or disease?

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Right.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gene90:I doubt someone who has shaved their eyebrows would agree. For one thing, it makes people look strange, thereby harming you in the mate selection department, and since people are social it could cause you even more trouble if you are ostracized all the time or even banished from the group. Another problem is that if you can't keep sweat out of your eyes, you can't see, so it can get difficult to flee from predators. When you get eaten, you cannot produce more offspring. Even a small disadvantage between you and your peers will harm the chances of a particular allele being propagated through a population. [/B][/QUOTE]If you were the first person ever with eyebrows you would look strange. Its easy for you to make conjectures now to justify the survival advantage of eyebrows but in reality I dont think its going to make much difference. If you put two naked men in the forrest and one with shaved eyebrows is it fair to say that the one without is at a disadvantage? Come on now, lets be realistic.

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[This message has been edited by Jonathan, 07-16-2002]

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Originally posted by Jonathan:
Right.

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Wow.... that's quite a theory!------------------
www.hells-handmaiden.com

[QUOTE][b]If you put two naked men in the forrest and one with shaved eyebrows is it fair to say that the one without is at a disadvantage? Come on now, lets be realistic.[/QUOTE][/b]Yes. We've already mentioned three different purposes for eyebrows, that is more than enough to demonstrate reproductive advantage.

Sticking with my "argument from incredulity" theme for the day...

Jonathan writes:

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If you put two naked men in the forrest and one with shaved eyebrows is it fair to say that the one without is at a disadvantage? Come on now, lets be realistic.

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Gene replies:

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Yes. We've already mentioned three different purposes for eyebrows, that is more than enough to demonstrate reproductive advantage.

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The argument from incredulity is only valid prior to the introduction of evidence. Once evidence has been introduced the original argument from incredulity is invalid. You can express incredulity at the evidence, but it is no longer valid to continue to approach the original argument with incredulity. In a debate based upon evidence, "Oh come now" and "Right" don't really have much of a role.--Percy

No, your right. I agree I was out of line in my responses. It just frustrates me when people refuse to see the possible errors in thier theories and pass them off as infallible just because it is thoretically possible. Yes all of these theories sound good and would hypothetically work. But so do the plans the A-Team or Matlock has. They look good on paper but in actual real world practice "I believe" they would fall far short of their expectations.Again I apologise for my attitude.

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Originally posted by gene90:
[QUOTE][b]If you put two naked men in the forrest and one with shaved eyebrows is it fair to say that the one without is at a disadvantage? Come on now, lets be realistic.[/QUOTE]

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[/b]

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Yes. We've already mentioned three different purposes for eyebrows, that is more than enough to demonstrate reproductive advantage.

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But how significant is this advantage? Would it be enough to have a significant impact on his or her reproductive status?

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Originally posted by Jonathan:

But how significant is this advantage? Would it be enough to have a significant impact on his or her reproductive status?

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I think you might be thinking on too small of a scale over too short of a time frame.If you can concede that the existence of eyebrows is advantageous at all, then over time, why wouldn't it confer a survival (thus reproductive) advantage?Just a few posts ago, you claimed that the ToE predicts the existence of useless features, like a third nonfunctional ear on our backs.Now you seem to think that it has a problem explaining the existence of eyebrows, which do have a purpose and confer a small advantage.This is contradictory.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Originally posted by Jonathan:
In theory yes. but in actual real world circumstances I dont beleive it would have any effect. Keeping the hair out of my eyes is helpful, but its not going to win over the ladies.

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This is the flaw I see in NS. Evolving a new tear duct is very helpful but it is not going to have an impact on my reproduction rate.

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One individual has a better functioning tear duct than another individual.The individual with a better ability to wash debris out of their eye is more likely to avoid eye injury and infection. (As it is, humans use eye protection to this day as our eyes are very vulnerable to scratching and getting stuff in them) Injury and infection can lead to loss of vision, which would certainly affect the individual's ability to find food and avoid predators and injury. Earlier death means fewer opportunities to breed.A disfigured eye would probably be repulsive to potential mates, thus reducing the potential to breed.Therefore, the better-functioning tear duct confers a reproductive advantage and since the better tear duct individual will tend to breed more frequently, their better tear duct genes tend to proliferate throughout the population.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

I see your point. All of these traits can theoreticaly offer a survival advantage. However I dont think that the "advantage" they offer would have much impact on their ability to reproduce.Sure I can see how opposable thumbs can be extreamly advantageous to survival/reproduction. But if all of your species have no spinal ridges (and you are the first to have these) then for this to be advantagous to you all of the others in your species would have to be regularly suffering from spinal injuries otherwise you would have very little advantage over the others. You compared this to a disfigured eye being repulsive to all other mates but if you were the first to have a tear duct then the rest of your species would have disfigured eyes, not you.If natural selection works as well as you theorize then why do we have genetic predispositions towards obesity, poor eyesight, poor hearing even baldness? These traits have a much greater impact on their survival/reproductive success then say spinal ridges, eye lashes, eyebrows or any other trait with low "survival influence."You can call it incredulity but I just dont think that your model for reproductive success will work like you plan. Just because an individual has an improved design (tear duct, eye brow)over the others does not AUTOMATICALLY mean that he will have a reproductive or survival advantage over the others.

[QUOTE][b]If natural selection works as well as you theorize then why do we have genetic predispositions towards obesity, poor eyesight, poor hearing even baldness? These traits have a much greater impact on their[/QUOTE][/b]I'm glad you asked. Obesity is such a problem today because people are now more sedentary than they are "supposed" to be (as they would be in nature, where we evolved) and eat fat-choked food that they were not supposed to. Our bodies store surplus calories from food because, in the wild, there would be times when food is not so plentiful. Now that most people in industrialized nations eat three times a day, our bodies store more fat than they should. The concept that we could be killed off by too much food just never manifested itself in nature so modern nations are victims of their own success.Eyesight, being something more likely to fail later in age, past the point of reproductive years, is not subject to strong selection pressures. Age 40 is usually the approximate life expectation in the wild (and in very poor nations today) so macular degeneration is rare, people just don't live long enough for it to happen often. That is why, when we live longer, we develop more medical problems in old age: we have genes that would have been better for us had our ancestors lived long enough for the negative effects to show, and therefore allowed the poorer ones to be weeded out. Same with hearing loss and baldness, both traits that are most common later in life. By the way, this also contributes to the high rates of cancer and heart disease in people who are no longer young. [QUOTE][b]Just because an individual has an improved design (tear duct, eye brow)over the others does not AUTOMATICALLY mean that he will have a reproductive or survival advantage over the others.[/QUOTE][/b]But we are dealing with statistics here, and yes, such a population will be at a disadvantage. And yes, you are being inconsistant in your arguments. See the other post above.

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[This message has been edited by gene90, 07-26-2002]