Destroying Darwinism

Cells exist, why aren't cells in the definition of Natural Selection. There are more planetss in the solary system then just the earth, so you should describe the variety of planets in the solar system when describing the earth's gravitational field. They exist therefore they have to be desccribed, is obviously false argumentation.Obviously in the proto-photosynthesis example it seems that the population is largely split in 2 according to dark and light environment. Why would you want to treat them as one population?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Well you are describing in terms of the photosynthesis trait, and variants without the photosynthesis trait. Is not having photosynthesis some kind of quality of an organism? But that's not what I meant, I meant that for instance you shouldn't include sexual reproduction in the definition of Natural Selection if you want Natural Selection to apply to asexual reproduction as well.If fixation is understood as complete extinction of the other variant, then it just describes encroachment replacement between variants, and your theory is false for prejudicially ignoring other types of relationsips between variants like symbiosis. (as discussed before in this thread) I just guessed fixation meant that it becomes fixed, as in reproducing stably generation after generation is fixed, and a trait that doesn't reproduce generation after generation is not fixed. That seems a common sense use of the word fixed, or you could say that the trait becomes fixed at 60 percent in the population, or it becomes fixed in areas where there is light, and so on.Anyway in looking up the Darwinian definition I came accross this:http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/...ts/human/epfaq/heritability.html"As we have just seen, however, genes that confer a reproductive advantage generally go to fixation. Because their frequency in the population is 100%, the genetic variance at the loci of these genes is zero, so any variance in the corresponding phenotypic traits cannot be attributed to the non-existent genetic variance. Even though such traits are genetically specified, their heritability is zero! Everyone has the same genes."A heritability of zero, eventhough it reproduces all the time, and the offspring inherits the genes. Is'nt it amazing how the meaning of words can change. Wow! AFAIK the predictability problem was an interpretation aspect, it depended on how you interpreted "fittest".regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 06-19-2003]

Well.organisms that reproduce asexually , like the maiden hare fern in my yard, are not part of the same gene pool, therefore you cant have a change in gene frequency! Some would consider each individual a different species. But remember, some animals that reproduce asexually can, and do, under certain circumstances reproduce sexually. eg some psocopterans (Insecta).Natural selection isn’t my theory. But is quite capable of dealing with symbiotic relationships.The scientific literature doesn’t think of fixation as fixed at 60% it has a more precise meaning. See my previous definition in this thread.Heritability is a estimate of the degree of resemblance between offspring and parent. Ie. To what degree a variation in a particular phenotype is due to genes and not to environmental factors. Simply put.. heritability equals genetic variation divided by phenotypic variation.Please do a little background reading! This is getting tedious.

Dear Syamsu,I thought we had covered this before. Of course natural selection applies to cells, if you look at a cancers development it is an obvious example of a heritable adaptation which improves the relative reproductive success of the cancerous cells compared to their neighbouring cells. This is only relevant to the cells in the body though, the cells are not independent living things under normal circumstances. Of course unicellular organisms are just one cell each and natural selection certainly applies to them. What was your point supposed to be? Not everything NS applies to has to be in the definiton, should the definition list all the different species it applies to? It is generally applicable.As to the Earths gravitational field, surely that is simply a property of its composition and dimensions, a better analogy would be the Earths orbit in which all of the various bodies in the solar system and beyond would play their own small part.As to the photo and non-photo example, they must originally arise within the same population, therefore until the respective traits reach fixation in any specific environment they should be treated as one population, unless their photosynthetic trait somehow makes them reproductively isolated. You cant start off with them in different environments if one is supposed to have developed from the other.

S's link refers to "what is generally the case" and yet I have never been aware such is a reliable in claim in any biology, the best is to say that evolution is generally the case...but that is what in and of it self that Creationists themselves can and do challenge. There is a physical effect in the literature of Faraday ONLY finding "bipolarity" which can be reified to any geography and my guess is that this is at fault in any confusion instead.

Again it's amazing what Darwinists can do with words. In common language the frequency of genes in a population can change regardless of sexual or asexual reproduction, but again Darwinist language is special I guess. Just as Darwinism has special meaning for heritability, where heritability is zero eventhough well, the traits are inherited, and special meaning for fitness etc. much different from the common meaning of those words. Look at how the specialness of Darwinist language is related to requiring variation. The heritability is said to be zero, because heritability is held to be relative to another variant. I don't think you're scoring any points when you show that I don't understand Darwinian definitions, because the definitions are nonsensical, and the nonsense much derives from including variation in the definition.The justification for including variation in the definition of Natural Selection is what at issue in this thread, if you haven't got that already. I guess your argument about that is that Natural Selection can deal with symbiotic relationships. How?I don't think you have a definition of Natural Selection anymore that supports your argument about that, where before you were saying the basics were all so simple.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

So now you have shifted your justification for including variation in the definition of Natural Selection, from saying variation exists and therefore it has to be included, to you need variation to describe how one developed from the other.Actually the word you are looking for how one developed from another, is mutation / recombination, not variation. After the mutation comes reproduction or no reproduction as the case may be. Still no variation neccesary there. I still have no clue why you insist on limiting the theory to cover variants, which results in you not being really able to describe an individual with it. Sure you could make a case for defining something like variational selection as a complicated form of selection, but why this ridiculous insistence that variation should be in the standard definition of selection?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Deleted by Author[This message has been edited by Dr_Tazimus_maximus, 06-19-2003]

Heredity according to the oxford dictionary. the passing of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another. The heredity of my fathers green arm( which he got when he spilt paint on it) is zero. And what do you know my arms aren’t green. Is it really that hard to understand. Maybe before you start reading the scientific literature you should read a dictionary.

Natural selection is the name given to the natural observation
that there are factors in environments which affect an
individuals reproductive rate.The consequence of differential reproduction rates is that some
individuals leave more offspring than others.The consequence of this is that the phenotypic make-up of a population
can change over time.The extrapolation of this is that given sufficient time & circumstance
the current diversity of life could emerge from one or more
original organism populations.Variation:: Not required by natural selection.
Required for evolution.
EXISTS.Heritabality:: Required by natural selection.
Required by evolution.
EXISTS.Reproduction:: Required by natural selection.
Required by evolution.
EXISTS.

Please don't be so stupid, what is the result of mutation and recombination if not genetic variation?I'm not shifting my justification in any way. The fact that one variant developed from the other was part of your initial example of the photosynthetic trait.If you don't have variation then what can you possibly be selecting between? If I choose one of two exactly identical apples then what have I selected for?

Just to please Syamsu....Perhaps we could consider NS working on a non variable population (of course this isn’t the NS as considered by astute thinkers in the field (Mayr, Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Sansfield ..and the rest!), . Given phenotypic traits are often qualitative this is difficult. If we use the enormity of genetic complexity in an organism as a guide it would suggest the size of this hypothetical population would consist of one individual. NS then acts to determine persistence or extinction! Allele frequency change is none or infinite! Wow that’s NS..LOL.[This message has been edited by Autocatalysis, 06-20-2003]

Boiling it right down .. you're actually right on the
mark!!!If natural selection is about environmental relationships
which affect reproductive output then we don't need any
kind of variation.I have already suggested this to Syamsu but to no avail!!
(I have had this discussion at least four times in the last
18 months ... with no variation on the theme ... hey maybe
there IS no variation after all ).Consider a population in which all individuals are indentical.(1)There exists a relationship with the environment such that each
individual (because they are all same) dies without issue.result:: extinction.(2) There exists a relationship such that all individuals live to
full life expectancy and each have their maximum number of
offpsring.result:: over-population (or population size limited only by
available resources).That's natural selection within a no-variation population ...
result extinction or over-population.What Syamsu cannot seem to grasp is that, should there be variation
within the population, then some individuals may be category (1)
above and others category (2) (at the extremes).In this extreme case, after a single generation all cat(1)'s
are deceased without issue ... so only cat(2) remain and we
have a phenotypic shift in the population.Add a cat(3) where life span and/or max. offpsring are cut short
and we have a more realistic view of what goes on in nature.I have wondered what ivory tower Syamsu lives in that he can
discount observations of the natural world as being inapproriate
theories!!!!!Syamsu have you ever played Othello (sometimes called Reversi)??

I think you fail to understand heritability in the Darwinian interpretation. I think you have not read what I copied from a webpage about it before."Even though such traits are genetically specified, their heritability is zero!"So Darwinists aren't talking about your fathers green arm having zero heritability, they're talking about your fathers arm having zero heritability because all human beings have arms. The "trait" arm has become fixated in the population and therefore it has zero heritability. Go look back to the webpage I provdided earlier.Maybe you should read the posts you are responding to. It's very typical of people here who endlessly go on about reading the literature, that they don't even read the posts they are responding to.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Of course you can use NS on a population with variation, but simply use NS one time for each variant.You're right that NS would then select between extinction and preservation of a trait, and would not essentially select between organisms.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu