This post is mainly about falsifying the theory of Natural Selection, which both creationists (if in a limited way) and evolutionists accept, and replacing it with a general theory of reproduction.
My method of investigating the theory of Natural Selection is to first answer the question, what are the minimum requirements that need to be present in nature for the theory to apply?, and second to then look at what physical relationships and properties the theory describes.
From reading some bits here and there, the minimal definition of Natural Selection I found was:
differential reproductive success = 2 variants in a population that have a different "success" in reproducing themselves (in a shared environment).
I will assume these variants reproduce asexually, to keep in line with the rule to look for minimum requirements.
Next come the physical relationships: Do the variants have to increase or decrease each other's reproductive "success" in some way for the theory to apply?
If you accept the theory of Natural Selection, it could be informative to stake a position on this question, yes, no, or don't know, before reading any further. You can check in the next paragraph if your position is the same as that of scientists of which I asked the same question. If you would not stake your position now, then I think it's pretty likely you will just presume to know what the mainstream science position is, where in reality you might not.
In asking this question to some knowledgeable biologists in open forum on the talk.origins newsgroup, the answer I got was that the variants don't have to influence each other's reproduction for the theory to apply. Of course there are many definitions of Natural Selection, and most of them are actually based on competitive reproductive success, in stead of differential reproductive success. In competition the variants would always influence each other's rate of reproduction, but this is not part of the standard definition of Natural Selection in science, or so I'm told.
Differential just means comparative, so to measure differential reproductive success is same like measuring the lightintensity of some stars and calling that the theory of differential lightintensity. This difference in reproductive success can't be called a "mechanism" by any reasonable usage of the word mechanism, just as we can't call it a mechanism that, for instance, the eifeltower is taller then londonbridge (a would be theory of differential buildinglength). For it to be called mechanical, the variants would have to influence each other's rates of reproduction in some way (competition).
So by this argument all the references to Natural Seletion as a mechanism, are either false, or refer to a definition of Natural Selection as competitive reproductive success. As before, the focus in the standard theory is on an essentially platonic comparison on reproductive success. Platonic relationships are somewhat useless in science. I can think up a million or so theories same as differential reproductive success as with stars, buildings etc. etc.
Because the relationship between the variants is essentially platonic (they don't neccessarily influence each other's rate of reproduction), there is no reason anymore to require the variants to be together. So then we can talk of Natural Selection occurring where one variant is in Europe, and another is in the USA. And really, you can also theorize about Natural Selection where one variant is on Earth, and the other variant is on some other planet somewhere in a similar environment. It would do no good to argue that the variants need to share an environment for the theory to apply, hence they have to be together, because that requirement to share an environment has lost all it's underlying reasoning by not requiring the variants to influence each other's reproduction in any way. We can get exactly the same results if the variants were wide apart, and if they were sharing an environment. As far as I know, biologists do this all the time, collect results from labexperiments in different cities, and just add them all together to derive a more accurate mean-average differential rate of reproduction.
So the physical relationship that Natural Selection always describes is the relationship of a variant to it's environment, and not one between variants. The theory then posits another physical relationship of the other variant and how it relates to the same, or similar environment in respect to it's reproduction. But then this second relationship is partly platonic also. It is required that variant B shares an environment with variant A, but then it is unclear to me what this sharing should consist of. If variant A can get resource X, but variant B cannot get resource X at all, does this then still constitute A and B sharing the environmental factor X? In the standard theory of Natural Selection this is considered sharing, although the relationship of B to X is platonic, X doesn't influence the rate of reproduction of B at all. By now it should be obvious to anyone reading this post that Occam's razor can cut a few platonic things in the standard theory of Natural Selection.
All that is really of any scientific merit in the theory of Natural Selection is to describe organisms in terms of the event of their reproduction. So this means that what is valid is a general theory of reproduction, in stead of the special case of reproduction called differential reproductive success. Experience in other discussions tells me that at this point, you might need to think about the scientific merit of describing organisms in terms of the event of their reproduction. This general theory provides the framework for describing most all activity of the organisms, so it really is of central interest in biology. By it you might come to know that white moths sit on white birch trees for cover, and black moths sit on polluted black trees. You could also learn that by the theory of Natural Selection, but then in Natural Selection theory you would ignore all the other attributes the moth has except wingcolor. This is so because the other attributes are much the same, and therefore the theory does not apply to them. In some situations it may be more or less valid to ignore all other attributes, (when the attribute of wingcolor controls the chance of reproduction) but it provides an extremely skewed view of the activity and attributes of the moth in every other situation (most all the time).
If you think this through you will find you can do everything you want to do with a general theory of reproduction, including describing what was originally intended to be covered by the theory of Natural Selection, less it's platonic relationships. It is also possible to reinstate the theory of Natural Selection by reconfiguring the meaning of selection. The new selection would then become to mean, selecting between reproducing, and not reproducing, in stead of the current meaning of selection; one variant reproducing, and the other variant not reproducing.
Is a breeder able to select from a population of one, if need be? I think so, the breeder selects to breed or not to breed for each, and does not neccessarily select to breed the one, and not to breed the other. To select from a population of one is impossible with the theory of Natural Selection, because of it's requirement to have variation present (a breeder may also select to breed 2 from a population of 2, which is also impossible with Natural Selection). On the basis of a general theory, you can see the environment as selecting for each organism to reproduce or not to reproduce. This does not preclude the chance of reproduction of one organism to be interdependent with the chance of reproduction of another organism, (competition), but rather it makes for a flexible basic-theory through which any event of reproduction can be described by adding more and more complicating factors, like sexual reproduction, competition etc. Unlike with the theory of Natural Selection, with a general theory of reproduction you can simply point to any organism you see and look at how this or that event influences their chance of reproduction. You can look at what the main events are in the reproductioncycle of an organism, the events that normally influence the chance of reproduction greatly. You cannot possibly do that with the theory of Natural Selection because of all the requirements for it to apply. The theory of Natural Selection is basicly useless on any fieldtrip, where you will only note stasis in nature by the theory of Natural Selection.
Where a general theory of reproduction has the individual as the unit of selection, the standard theory of Natural Selection has a variational pairing as the unit of selection. I know Darwinists always say that the individual is the unit of selection, but as shown, strictly speaking it is based on a variational pairing, and does not apply when there is just a single organism present, or when there is no variaton between them.
some more points:
- focusing on an essentially platonic "relationship" on reproduction between variants obscures, or makes it very problematical, to consider any actual physical relationships there might be between the variants (such as a competition, or replacement, or mutual benefit on reproduction). Significantly from when Darwin published his book "the origin of species" biologists have tended to move away from describing the web of relationships of organic life to each other. Even relatively recently professor Dawkins wrote some things that make the foodchain seem like a coincedental happenstance, when he argued it is somehow wrong to assign "purpose" to the foodchain. (ie. it is not the purpose of flowers for bees to make honey from)
- to make the difference more clear between a general theory of reproduction, and the theory of Natural Selection I devised an alternative metaphore to the metaphore adopted by Darwinists of "Nature red in tooth and claw" which emphasizes war as the defining characteristic of the econonomy of nature. Based on a general theory of reproduction, this metaphore should in stead read "Nature wet in p*n*s and v*g*n*", which is intended to emphasize reproduction as defining of the economy of nature.
- I would not want a theory of reproductive success as alternate to a theory of differential reproductive success. I would want a theory based on the chance of reproduction, in stead of the rate of reproduction. This is because I think chance more easily denotes that all organisms come to die, they all come to fail to reproduce. A point often missed by Darwinists since it is not in the theory of Natural Selection, eventhough they of course know it to be true. Also when arguing in terms of a rate of reproduction it is often missed that the number of offspring is also an attribute of an organism. (a salmon lays thousands of eggs, a swallow only a few)
Also a theory based on the chance of reproduction, relates well to a would be theory of intelligent design of life. Many people at work with artificial intelligence base their modern definition of intelligence on concepts of randomness, chance, choice etc., in short events where things can go one way or another. Chance is endemic in nature generally, and maybe more so with organic life, through the environment of the nervous systems that many organisms have, and by organisms doing the same thing. Organisms with the same structure go after the same resources, so which one gets the resources in the event is many times left to chance, like with rolling dice. I think a theory of intelligent forming of life is quite likely to have scientific merit, especially with attributes that seemingly relate to the nervous system of some organism as it's environment (mating-attributes).
Strictly speaking any scientific theory of intelligence would incorporate the entire universe as an intelligence, from beginning till end. Like with Einstein's intuition/belief in an illimitable intelligence being manifested in the universe. This sort of theory is popular among Catholic intellectuals, it treats the existence of the universe as a continual uncertainty. ie Matter doesn't "just" exist after having been created, it does something through which it keeps existing. Now only to relate the passage of time to events with several possible outcomes, and even the most literalist creation story can be held as possibly true. This is so because the relative certainties of any kind of organism coming into existence would likely have been set at the beginning of the universe to a very great extent. For instance you could theorise that the likelyhood of a creature with eyes coming into being is 99 percent an after-effect from determinations at the beginning of the universe, and that we have them now is just 1 percent from determinations later then the beginning. So by such a theory it is possible that all major kinds of organisms have been created in one determination, or six determinations, at the beginning of the universe. When professor Hawkings says we don't know what time is, then to relate time to events with several possible outcomes would be a good candidate for a definition of time IMO. When nothing changes, it is as if time stands still.
Determinations/decisions do not actually argue back to God as the decisionmaker, they argue back to a mathematical zero at it's base. The base has to be zero, because otherwise you would end up in endless regress of determinations, which would make the theory meaningless. Any notions of God making the decisions would have to be transcendent, which is still in line with "creatio ex nihilo" theology. Theories of intelligent design are quite speculative of course, but still this speculation is legitimate and invalidates the preconceived notions against intelligent design.
IMO accepting a general theory of reproduction would defuse the evolution vs creation debate. This is not much because a general theory of reproduction relates well to a theory of intelligent design, but mainly because it would stop much of the Social Darwinism stemming from the theory of Natural Selection, which Social Darwinism is especially related to the obscure platonic relationships the theory of Natural Selection sets out. Except for (pretty stale) arguments based on defining words in such a way that any evidence of any link of Social Darwinism to Darwinism is, as per definition, a theoretical impossiblity, every conceivable sort of evidence you may think of that goes to prove such a link, does exist. This includes extensive Social Darwinism of most all influential Darwinian scientists in their main works of science, direct references to Darwinism as justifying this or that action by a large share of politicians, activists, and people in general, teaching of Darwinism in schools as a basis of morality, the express denial of God's existence as a Darwinist finding (general atheism), or the express denial of God having something to do with any particular part of organic life (specific atheism) in mainstream science literature and textbooks etc.
If you would respond to this post, then please note that I might have heared the argument you would like to submit before, and dismissed it with some fairly obvious counterargument. What I mean to say is that you should make both arguments for and against a position before posting as I have done, because if you consistently and solely make arguments on one side, and leave it up to me to make arguments for the other side, then the discussion will inevitably detoriate into a meaningless tit-for-tat fairly quickly. I know not everybody agrees to this rule, in the book "the Blind Watchmaker" Dawkins says he would never make arguments in support of a theory of intelligent design because he thinks it immoral to make arguments in support of a position you don't really believe in. So not respond like Dawkins please. Also since I'm inquiring into the theory of Natural Selection, it is better to make (abstract) examples with the minimal requirements for Natural Selection. If you would give examples with more then the minimal requirements then the added things will lead to confusion over what is covered by the theory of Natural Selection, and what isn't.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu
™ Version 4.2
