Is there more than one definition of natural selection?

Allopatrik, you replied to my question: But then you replied differently to another question: Why the 180?”HM

Allopatrik, you replied to my question:HM wrote:Do you think thermodynmaic entropy should be included in the concept of biological evolution?Allopatrick: No. It has little, if any relevance to the understanding of evolutionary principles.But then you replied differently to another question:HM: Is there any reason why biological evolution should obey thermodynamic laws?Allopatrick: Who says it doesn't?Why the 180?There is no 180.
In the second answer AP is simple saying that as chemistry and physics the underpinnings of biology obey the laws of thermodynamics.This first is saying that knowing that has little or nothing to do with understanding evolution. I guess an analogy might help. (sometimes they do :S)I know that the combustion in my car obeys the laws of thermodynamics. However, I would not spend much or any time on that if I wanted to help you understand how my car works. I could just say "The pistons are moved by the expanding gases from the combustion of fuel". After that I would have to spend a long time explainiing how that is converted to forward motion; why there is a tranmission; what the ignition timing does; the behavior of a differential and on and on. The fact that the expanding gases have behavior following the rules of thermodynamics never has to come up.There is no 180.

Hoot,Ned's answer is spot-on. It seems to me that you are trying to conflate the concepts of thermodynamic and informational (i.e, genetic) entropy. They are not equivalent.A

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Natural Selection is not Evolution-- R.A. Fisher

Nosy offers: Don't bother mentioning the cooling system or the exhaust system that are needed to manage your car's entropy production.Nosy, do you think that biological evolution cares a twit about thermodynamics? I have studied this question extensively, coming away without a clear resolution. Sure, biological life must adhere to all the thermodynamic stipulations of the seond law and so on, but it must also adhere to all the electomagnetic and quantum-mechanical stipulations of molecular bonding. Those are perfunctory, aren't they?Just how much should I expect the second law of thermodynamics to influnece the evolving infrastructures (populations, genomes) of genetically coded biololgical life? Maybe Ohm's Law would be more relevant. Do the processes of selection, drift, mutation, and evolution involve entropy production? Any more so than just those mundane, cellular biological operations? Or is evolution more of a quantum-mechanical thing? These questions contine to bug me. Well, OK, maybe just a 90 degree spinoff?”HM

I admit that you may be right. But I am not the only one who is so foolish to suppose that thermodynamic entropy production and information communication through networks can be associated theoretically. Claude Shannon did it to model the operations of of comunication systems. And many good biologists”including Odum and Margelef”have attempted to model biological and ecological networks using information theory.Should I disregard this? I'm not trying to be flippant here; I'm only saying that we cannot all agree on how to look at biological evolution. We are still at the stage of formulating good questions about it. I noticed it took S. J. Gould 1,433 pages to explain The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), but without formulating a concise and unambiguous conclusion as to what evolution is. I also noticed that Ernst Mayr took just 318 pages to explain What Evolution Is (2001) without really saying concisely and unambiguously what it is and how it works. And I suspect Mayr and Gould can't even agree on where microevolution ends and macroevolution begins.Is there a biologist among us who is absolutely sure what evolution is and how it works?”HM

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I admit that you may be right. But I am not the only one who is so foolish to suppose that thermodynamic entropy production and information communication through networks can be associated theoretically.

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I don't recall saying you were foolish. It's true that thermodynamic and informational entropy can be associated theoretically; my point is the underlying causal dynamics for each may be different.

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Should I disregard this? I'm not trying to be flippant here; I'm only saying that we cannot all agree on how to look at biological evolution.

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Is there only one way of looking at evolution?

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I noticed it took S. J. Gould 1,433 pages to explain The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), but without formulating a concise and unambiguous conclusion as to what evolution is. I also noticed that Ernst Mayr took just 318 pages to explain What Evolution Is (2001) without really saying concisely and unambiguously what it is and how it works.

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Should descriptions of the structure of the theory and how it works necessarily be concise? Should Mayr (an ornithologist by training) and Gould (a paleontologist) have the same perspectives on evolution as, say, a molecular biologist, or ecologist?A

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Natural Selection is not Evolution-- R.A. Fisher

Quantum mechanics, thermodynamics etc. all apply of course.The point is that you may just accept that stuff as under there somewhere. Above it is the chemistry of DNA etc. For the most part you may ignore that too. It is just the background.Evolution is based on inherited variation. That variation may come from quantum mechanical uncertainty or whereever. An understanding of evolutionary processes does NOT require that this be given any consideration.

I think this is quite a perceptive observation. It may explain why we're having such difficulty agreeing on what are really very basic questions (i.e., definition of natural selection, what level it operates on, etc). Biology, and all of its associated sciences and related disciplines, attempts to understand and provide explanations for what we see in the natural world. Since each science etc. is in some ways looking at different "pieces of the puzzle", it would stand to reason that the descriptions, models, etc, used by each would be slightly different. They are all describing the same thing, but address the issue in different ways.To repeat your concise and very cogent question:

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Is there only one way of looking at evolution?

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I'd say the answer is a resounding "No!".

Care to count thy ways? Make a list? Let's see, there's:1. Darwinism2. Lamarckism3. Creationism4. Disneyism...”HM

The only way I can see to relate thermodynamic and "genetic" entropy (of whatever statistic it be described under/for) is to demonstrate Gladyshev's view. By doing this it may even be possible to reason that the view is too retro and needs to steped up by a Wolfram-Weiner cybernetic meme. But first topological nearest neighboor first, I always say. It may be that feedback loops, synergism and the tao of disspation are not required.Gould's tome was about the persistant HETERODOXY, not about the standard neo-Darwinian orthodoxy, thus evolution was already in the offening for that Gould. One only need read some of his other works to notice that difference. Defintions were not required. Mayr said in "What Evolutio Is" why he differed from Gould. It has to do with populations themselves. Mayr never finished he second book after "The growth of biological thought" and "what it is" is simply his own view on how all the loose ends are sent down the brain drain.They dont agree because they have different perspectives particularly on how "the synthesis" translates into the anti-Soviet advance of Western Science. Mod was correct to say about Gould proping up gradualism to be knocked down by him but he also does the same for "adaptationism" and formed a pact with Provine (against Mayr) about how to read pre-synthesis biology categorizing Mayr as Lamarkist turned Darwinist. Mayr however was from an older than the molecular time Gould is still somewhat of a throwback as towards your own interest.Just so that you know where my own biology comes from: Aside from my teachers I have focused on two different things that I try to bring together. One is the geographic distribution of organisms and the desire to try to see if some kinds of rules can be extracted from this raw data about either the transformation or lack thereof of change over time. The other is to try to figure out how, if organisms in fact do remain within the same lineages for millions of years, what physically is it that keeps the forms from dissipating, dissolving, and being taken to the four winds of the earth. Can some idea of such a design be used to extract energy from these formal stabilities. Could one develop a QM demolecularizer that extracts energy from the forms of creatures that evolution built? Now, that would be a great contribution of evolutionary theory to humaninty and much of the useless debate would then disappear. We might even then be able to use insects caught in car grills to fuel our autos if such existed.Alas we do not have this, but I have taken my study of how evolution would have to work for such to be possible quite far, in truth, somewhat further than is possible in the purely secular community. It is hard for me to keep all of the trails to each rabbit however.

"Natural selection" is only a vague conception, nothing more. It is so vague and flexible that even darwinists themselves used it weirdly. Heikertinger has given a nice example of it, how it is used. He quoted an observation done by N.Banks.Banks found in nests of sphecidae Pelopoeus 400 spiders, from which 3 had cryptic coloration. It means 397 had no protective coloration. So he considered the phenomenon this way - it is fully underestandable, because wasps searching spiders are deceived as men are. Then occurs him an idea, that mass consummation of non-cryptic spiders should have decimated their populations. Because this is obviously not the case they must have some other advantages... the taxa have greater proliferation...Dahl continues and he sees everywhere advantages, protective means etc. Some quality has advantage and an opposite quality has it too.
"A great animal...has great advantage..."
"But also having small body give significant advantage..."
"There is no doubt that moveability, agility give great advantage."
"But also absecnce of moveability, agility give great advantage..."

Which is why natural selection is not dependent solely on the organism, but on the relation of the organism to the ecology. When you only look at one side of an equation you will always fail to solve it.Enjoy.

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Hi Martin!!I received this, thinking it was spamregardless, I clicked anyway to the blog, where one can read...

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At the time of the Origin’s release, Darwin the scientist appealed to God by saying that his own theory accords better with what we know about God, than the theories of others.

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I guess, it was not spam after all things.I am strarting to be sensitive to this reading of Darwin's use of infinite complexity WHILE arguing for Natural Selection AND setting aside special creation, not in the context of his own time but in the heritage of my generation, two away from, the modern synthesis.In the thread on Natural Selection and Definition, one can read Modulous quote Larry Moran at . etc . , "It should not distinguish, for example, between Lamarckian evolution and Darwinian evolution even though we know that one of these explanations is incorrect” and yet there is certainly a sense accepted by Provine and Phil Johnson (evo and creo)where Dobshanksy had already discoursed (available on request, in Lewontin ed book) that may indeed show that the emailer may have been saying something real, despite the simple quote mining technique used.Mayr says HE WAS a Lamarkian and unless someone can correct me . , it seems to me that he and others became “Darwinian” through what Moran said was now known. I know that this difference is what separated my Grandfather’s generation of biology (and Mayrs’) and my own, which is being caught up by yet another younger one . The vagueness, outside of JUST saying what Darwin was trying to say ad nauseum about Natural Selection was made obvious by Wright ( I will get the full quote) where he said what space evolution moves about in, by noting that it used to be thought that change occurred via homalleic states being fixed by mutation rather than there being multiple alleles at a loci and and species being regarded as sums across all loci.Within this propositus (Wright’s word) under Dobshansky’s understanding and sounding indeed ,there can be a “vagueness" or weirdness where a lethal effect is considered to have ZERO fitness value(what if it has macrothermodynamic chemical affects by being eaten after dying but not "digested" instead being incorporated into the decomposers chemistry). This is however all within some kind of first phase synthetic history and not Darwin’s per say.Darwin’s may apply more directly to the spiders because then Darwin’s use of “number” applies, but then one need not get the sense of controversy without the more nearly uptodate informations.However, the use of natural selection to different levels, today, makes the weirdness replicate beyond the historical anathema of US inspired eugenics etc.One really needs to be very careful in what way one is using it.It seems to be possible to restrict the hierarchical uses under a given consistent genetical reference such that one can USE Darwin”” to open the creationist bag of wishes but I am in no optimum to make this sparkle as of yet.This does not seem to mean that one can do away with some kind of fixation of alleles in microevolution(a better conclusion could be written but I am a bit tired just now).Edited by Brad McFall, : to beEdited by Brad McFall, : letter

Thank you Brad.The blog Kakistocrat seems to be interesting. I'll check it more closely later.My point is - and always has been - that Natural selection play no role in evolution. I hope I will introduce some arguments regarding crypsis and protection soon. I have bought the book from Franz Heikertinger "Das Raetsel der Mimikry und seine Loesung: Eine kritische Darstellung des Werdens, des Wesens und der Widerlegung der Tiertrachthypothesen" Jena 1954. The book summarizes H. views on the matter and is largely unnoticed, because strangely enough the book was published in communist part of Germany in 1954.There is also an interesting article from H. available at Ukrainian science academy on-line library from 1932. Here H. adressed the problem of supposedly poisonous protection of ladybugs. He repeated some experiments done by selectionists and obtained different results. The article is very interesting, full of information about ladybugs going into the medieval age.Heikertinger was of opinion that every species (plant or animal) pay some kinf of tax (Tribut) to its predators. No matter if species is protected, aposematic, poisonous or whatever. Predators are very often specialised to only few kind of species, often to only one (many larvae of butterflies). So everyone has it's own predator. To this predator poisonous or protective quality of the species seems to be pleasant. He support his observation by many facts. Very often at the same environment (anthill) live next to each other and thrive non-mimic and mimic species very well.

“The basic postulate of the biological theory of evolution is that evolutionary changes are governed by natural selection. The environment presents challenges to which the species or a population responds by alterations of its gene pool. Natural selection acts as a cybernetic control mechanism, which transmits information about challenges of the environment to the gene pool of the population. The classics of evolutionism described natural selection as the survival of the fittest. We prefer to describe it as differential perpetuation of genotypes or of genetic systems. Geneotypes whose carries differ in Darwinian fitness in a given environment are transmitted from generation to generation at different rates. This last statement is frankly tautological, and yet it is illuminating.” ADAPTATION AND FITNESS by T. Dobshanksy in Population Biology and Evolution edited by Richard Lewontin.Now if one considers that cybernetics is NOT (what I do..) how axes of a relation between gene frequencies in a population and gene combinations per individual are related, given any logical (dyadic, tetradic, etc) governor of places in the space of the changes theoretically, then, if there is some Earth common environment being thought in this older meditation on translation in space and form-making then one IS open to other views on the role of this formerly considered such NS and . I am not certain that an economic metaphor/ analogy (tribute etc) obviates the POSITIONAL relations this so retro teachable natural selection played in Darwins and some more recent thoughts tracing paternity back there.By finding the closer nexus of geometry and algebra under biogeographic space seems to be just as rigorous mentally as challenging the environment of evos with a different theoretical base. I am not sure that the work you are referring to could cause me to think that simply Lysenko’s views on trees is any better than Kants.Now if one tries to think of it all outside of a certain historical tracing, I have tried to sustain throughout and instead one tries to think of “evolution” as simply a dynamic phenomenon of birth and death and information transfer then perhaps some tribute could be paid to what you are researching but I find that one needs to simply argue from the older (synthesis) view statically UNTIL a better ability to manipulate the quanta is possible. That seems to me to be a preferable material way than a psychologically dominant desire for the same. I don’t know the politics of central European biology very well. I do know that Croizat was read a bit more correctly there than in Anglo-Saxon literature generally.It may be that "tax" and my idea about macrothermodynamics may be related, but I am not sure.The next paragraph of Dobshansky was,

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"The Darwinian fitness (also called selective vaule or adaptive value) is not synonymous with adaptedness. As mentioned above, the adaptedness is, in principle at least, measureable in absoulte units. The Darwinian fitness of a geneotype is always relative to the Darwinian fintess of other genotypes. Darwinian fitness, like adaptedness, depends on the environment. The point is, however, that the Darwinian fitness is not necessarily predictable from information concerning adaptedness or vice versa. A geneotype which is lethal in a given environment will, of course, have a zero Darwinian fitness. Yet a genotype with zero fitness may nevertheless be viable and fertile

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Perhaps a tax can be attrributed to that portion of text. The issue is if we can get enough chemcial knoweldge such that a common evironment is being more than adumbrated. I think this is possible. That is only an opinion at this point however.