Mimicry and neodarwinism

Are you claiming that this was all a fraud and does not in fact exist as a verified phenomenon? If so, you can support that assertion at Peppered Moths and Natural Selection -- it will be interesting to see if you can do any better than randman. Sorry but your incredulity and lack of imagination are not a refutation of observed facts, nor will they have any effect on the theory of evolution. Or any other science. Life goes on regardless of your opinions. What is wrong with "could"? It certainly doesn't amount to "could not" eh?What I find missing (other than the lack of genetic information that the study itself notes) is any study of the predators in the different areas. If there is selection going on (as demonstrated by the different patterns) the question is what is causing that selection eh?Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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You thought it was important enough to post here, and it was demonstrably a logical fallacy -- as was noted upthread. Which has no bearing on the validity of the opinion. This is the "argument from authority" -- another logical fallacy. Who says {X} has no bearing on the truth of statement {X}. Interesting man.
Creations Magazine article "The Rainforests: Beyond Black and White" (click to read)
The Nature Institute article "Seeing the Rainforest" (click to read)
Anthro Press excepted introduction to his book "Eco-Geography - What We See When We Look at Landscapes" (click to read .doc version) or (click to read googles html version)Excerpts from the last link above:

quote:

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On the modification side the Goethean approach generates a view of evolution that considerably circumscribes the role of natural selection in the process as a whole. A direct consequence of the language of form, for instance, is that evolution is not a unidirectional process driven solely by natural selection. In addition to development and adaptive radiation arising out of the selective refining of established lines -- essentially a process of evolutionary aging -- there is a countertendency, which Suchantke, following Julian Huxley, calls juvenilization.

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... So Goethe’s approach to science can be construed as using imagination to read the language of polarity in nature.

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This realization, not as a theory, but as a living experience, is the moving thread that runs through all the essays in this volume. They are the fruits of Andreas Suchantke’s dedicated efforts on his many journeys to take Goethe’s method seriously as a tool of knowledge, to be a living exponent of the ecology of imagination.

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Talk of macroorganisms also points to the kinship Suchantke’s work has with James Lovelock’s Gaia theory. Adherents of the Gaia theory pride themselves on its being a "top-down" approach to planetary ecology, and to a certain extent they are justified in doing so. But there comes a point in any "Gaian" presentation when a reversal will take place and the normal "bottom-up" approach of the neo-Darwinian narrative will reassert itself. ... But weak or strong there will be a cutoff point, and this will usually have to do with the place of mind in this giant organism, and more particularly, the place of humankind as the carrier of mind. In this connection mind is likely to be described as an "emergent property" of Gaia. While this represents a significant modification of the Darwinian position, the implication is nevertheless still there that matter came first, and this leaves the "bottom line" of meaninglessness expressed in the passage by Richard Dawkins quoted earlier firmly in position, no matter how much we move the Darwinian goalposts.

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The clear implication of this is that evolution is a noetic as well as a biotic process, that it is not consciousness, but the forms of consciousness that are emergent, and that the history of this planet is the story of the mutual interactions of these two strands of evolution. This is also a major theme of these essays.

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If Andreas Suchantke is right and the process of juvenilization has created in us the potential to enter into such a partnership with the natural world, this lays a great responsibility on us. It means we have the freedom to develop the sensibilities that meet the needs of the planet -- or not. In this we see the full significance of the ecology of imagination. If there is ever to be a viable threefold organism encompassing the polarity of culture and nature, then imagination will have the role of mediator. Andreas Suchantke, as these essays bear witness, is someone we might emulate on this score

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So we have a sort of new age scientist proposing a theory for an additional evolutionary mechanism to natural selection based an emergent consciousness, which is based on his gestalt {experience\view\imagination} perception: "that evolution is a noetic as well as a biotic process" ...... it seems to me that he is making the same logical error that IDists and creationists make, that because evolution doesn't (yet) explain {X} that {my pet theory, fill in the blank} is correct (in spite of an absolute absence of evidence that any mechanism of pet theory exists).Criticizing theory is part of science. Criticizing the different mechanisms and theories is part of how science advances. Offering alternate explanations and testing the differences in the results to see which is better is part of how science advances.The test is how well they stand up to the evidence, what they can predict that the other theory(ies) cannot. The question is whether the method can add to the knowledge of how things work.Now all we need are a couple of predictions based on his concept that would test it's validity ... something that seems to be in short supply -- do you know of one?On the other hand, I'll bet I have a fair idea what his response would be if you asked him directly if this particular problem puts the whole concept of evolution into jeopardy or if this only involves whether we should consider a "noetic" mechanism in addition to all other known mechanisms for evolution ... Ah yes the "swelled darwinian imagination" that says things like -- "we observe {X} to happen in case {Y}, and we think it happened in other cases similar to {Y}, let's test that and see ..."No theory (whether "darwinian" or any other science) is based on an {absence of evidence} as a foundation, nor is imagination unchecked by testing and validation.Versus your approach that says -- "we have case {Z} that is not explained by current theory {W}, therefore (because we don't know how, and we just can't THINK how it might happen) that it just CAN'T happen and therefore evolution is wrong and the answer MUST be supernatural!BTW, I also noticed that you didn't respond to anything else in my previous post, specifically to: I'll take your non-response to this (and your failure to posting on the above thread) as a tacit admission that you were completely wrong in your statement, and that you hope it goes away if you ignore it so you don't have to admit that you were wrong.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Please do -- you haven't yet, you did not answer the question, nor, it does appear, did you read the site you linked.See Message 121 for a fuller evaluation of your base assertion. I'll take failure to answer on that thread as taking the third option listed. So you agree that it is philosophy and not science. Good. There is absolutely no problem with using philosophy to extend your world view of reality beyond what science can show. Or religion, or faith, etc. etc. etc.But it is a mistake to think that philosophy IS science. Yawn. Your opinion. SNORE. For it to be more than opinion you need to provide something more substantial than assertions of deceit and hypocricy.You can start by answering Message 121 with integrity. Are you really that clueless? Not just about evolution but about science in general?If a theory is {true} then it will be validated by test after test after test. If a theory is NOT{true} then it will (eventually} be invalidated by a test -- although it may take a while to get to the critical test.Nowhere is there any claim that what science can imagine is {true} -- that is left for the realms of belief and fantasy, not science.When science gets to the point where there is insufficient data, the best it can say is "we don't know" or "we think this may be an answer, let's test it" -- and this holds for evolution as much as it holds for any other science. You are conflating Batesian and Mullerian theories on mimicry with all of mutation and natural selection (sexual and survival), a logical error.But, if it is the case -- that mimicry cannot be explained "using Batesian, Mullerian concepts or better combination both of them" -- then the answer is that we don't know what the specific mechanism is, and most especially we don't know if ruling out Batesian and Mullerian concepts rules out ALL mechanisms of mutation and selection.To claim otherwise is to base a conclusion on an absence of information, and that is NOT science.And still your failure to be able to imagine how mimicry can occur by mutation and natural selection is no obstruction to it happening naturally. Then you are down to the wire: either (1) some other as yet unknown natural mechanism hitherto totally unsuspected is behind it, or (2) it is supernatural (by definition = not natural).Either present evidence that (1) is in fact what you are arguing, including for good measure some preliminary description of the mechanism and a discussion of how it can achieve the desired result,ORAdmit that your conclusion (whether explicitly stated or not) is that the mechanism involved -- in the absence of evidence one way or the other -- is supernatural.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : last lineEdited by RAZD, : poyt

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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In other words you admit you have no integrity. None. You just demonstrated that you are not interested in the truth. You can post these false bald unsubstantiated assertions all day, but as we have just seen -- you have no integrity, and are willing to post falsehoods in anything you say. You are not interested in the truth. The manners in which mimicry could arise have been discussed and you have waved them off -- not because you have invalidated the mechanisms, but because you have no integrity. And your opinion is worthless. You have no integrity and are not interested in the truth.Enjoy

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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You of course should realize by now that the peppered moths are just such an example of the effect of predation by birds on the selection of moths that blend better with their prevaling environment -- whether sooty or clean. And that moths are even harder for birds to catch in flight when they fly mostly at night, but that birds have no trouble catching and eating moths when they are at rest.Of course the erratic flight would be another selected behavior due to it's survival value ... As Jar pointed out the logical fallacy of {SOME} for {ALL} fails to be sufficient evidence that it can't happen.There are also birds that eat insects at certain times of the year and not at others - such as when getting ready to migrate (extra protein), or when feeding young - so the reluctance to eat butterflies during parts of the year doesn't mean a total reluctance to eat butterflies.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added feeding young

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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heh, I noticed that too. It's mimicry in action ... It's called restricting other information that invalidates the hypothesis on the pretense that it doens't focus on the issue, but then when more information starts to show the hypothesis really is invalid then introduce lots of new information to try to obscure the points being made.Ignoring all counter arguments is like that too (ie pepper moths show actual natural selection based on preferential predation due to differences in visibility of moth versus background).Edited by RAZD, : No reason given.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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That's quite a jump ... in logic. A logical fallacy, as what this says is that {A} can't become {B} therefore {B} cannot exist, when it has not been shown that {B} cannot come from any NOT{A} -- as PaulK pointed out. (That's the molehill that you think is such a big barrier)But I'll add to the comment that PaulK said, something that may clarify the distinction for you:Both cryptic coloration and aposematic coloration are responses to selection by predation, one to become more camouflaged and the other to become more flambouyant - and badtasting⁽¹⁾.For one to evolve to the become the other they have to climb down the Dawkins Mountain of Fitness to the valley (where their common ancestors with the other insects evolved from), and then evolve up the other mountainside: they must become less fit first.(That's the mountain that is the barrier -- for the conditions in the study you cited)You would get a similar result if you tested aposematic insects to evolve into cryptic by making them taste better first. The tastier ones would get eaten before they could evolve into cryptic forms.To properly test for the effect of natural selection you need to start with an insect that is neutral for visibility and taste. This was not done by the study cited, therefore it doesn't test for this type of evolution.Enjoy.

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⁽¹⁾ - plants are known to have evolved bad taste as a response to being eaten, logical that bugs would do that as well with proper selection pressure. The bad taste is the selected defense mechanism to predation for the aposematic insects, a defense that the cryptic insects don't need.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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And there have been no further replies on the topic since this.This is a typical creationist ploy -- when the evidence gets too dangerous to confront change the topic.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Perhaps tufted titmice (same size as chickadees) don't eat anything as big as grasshoppers, crickets and butterflies.I would look at all the various flycatchers up to kingbirds and shrikes for more rigorous information.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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