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Author Topic:   Questioning The Evolutionary Process
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 136 of 160 (433152)
11-10-2007 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 134 by RAZD
11-10-2007 11:07 AM


Re: reply part 2
RAZD writes:
Notice the biological definition, which - seeing as we are discussing the science of biology - we will use
I've already given the biological dictionary definition in post 89.
Here's the child's reply:
Elmer writes:
Why are you citing the dictionary? I never claimed that darwinian biology has not co-opted the word to serve its purposes. Everybody knows that it has. I simply point out that they did it illegitimately, and show why their/your usage is illegitimate, albeit common, and now, after 150 years, is pretty much entrenched in the language.
BTW, the above description of 'selection' in the darwinian sense boils down to--"Any old thing that results in some organisms having more offspring than others do". Well, duh?!?
Be warned, RAZD, that we should be speaking Elmerish, not English, in this particular schizophrenic's world.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 134 by RAZD, posted 11-10-2007 11:07 AM RAZD has not replied

  
Woodsy
Member (Idle past 3373 days)
Posts: 301
From: Burlington, Canada
Joined: 08-30-2006


Message 137 of 160 (433153)
11-10-2007 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by Elmer
11-10-2007 9:05 AM


Re: response part 1
Then came Darwin, who tried to make an analogy between the dynamic 'selecting' done by stockbreeders like himself, and what happens to organisms in the wild. What he did was to imply that there was a sentient being, call it "Mother Nature" or "The Great Flying Spagghetti Monster", or what you will, that acted like human stock breeders and picked one creature to live but picked another for drowning, or otherwise eliminating. As a literary or pedagogical device it was quite effective, so long as you didn't take it literally. Taking it literally was mere superstition. Like believing in the 'angel of death', or, 'the grim reaper'. But, of, course, thousands of people did take it literally, just as millions of people take biblical creation myths literally.
Here is Darwin's actual text (I note that you have already ignored it once.)
If during the long course of ages and under varying conditions of life, organic beings vary at all in the several parts of their organisation, and I think this cannot be disputed;
if there be, owing to the high geometrical powers of increase of each species, at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed;
then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of existence, causing an infinite diversity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them,
I think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variation ever had occurred useful to each being's own welfare, in the same way as so many variations have occurred useful to man.
But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life;
and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised.
This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection.
This in no way implies that there is any intention involved in what he labeled Natural Selection. Only someone accustomed to thinking in superstitious terms could suppose that it did.
I ask you again, what part of this can you refute, and how?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by Elmer, posted 11-10-2007 9:05 AM Elmer has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 138 of 160 (433157)
11-10-2007 12:14 PM
Reply to: Message 122 by crashfrog
11-09-2007 1:09 PM


Re: Antibiotic resistance!
Besides there not being either viruses or hosts in the situation the paper describes? I wonder if you even read the abstract.
Because a virus can do the same thing. Is it the same for the virus, in other words?
quote:
"... groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups."
So when an peripheral offshoot of the original becomes isolated from the dominant population, and they can no longer reproduce together, that is when they are officially a new "species?"
If a wolf and the common housedog can produce fertile offspring, is this evidence that one is the ancestral specie, while the other is a subspecie?
And conversely, is the mule, since it is not sterile, evidence of speciation between donkey's and horses?
How precise or imprecise a thing are we even dealing with? There is no scientific consensus concerning what constitutes a species, as opposed to a subspecies. Some allege that failure to interbreed is evidence of speciation, while others would contend that it is much more complicated. Do we have a clear archetype for describing exactly what a species and a subspecies is?
For as much as you say "dogs never beget cats" or whatever, the fact that it's somewhat ambiguous about what it means to be a cat or a dog is proof that we're not looking at separate, created "kinds," but rather organisms who share some characteristics and are divergent in other characteristics because they evolved separately from a single ancestor.
The word "kind" is equally as ambiguous as Darwin's conception of species, to which he said that, basically, if it looks the same, I just call it a species for convenience. Since no one really knows just what in the heck either of them constitute, I am searching for a little more clarity. Because as of now, I really don't see much difference, cladistically speaking, from a species from a subspecies.
The singular of "species" is "species", as we continually remind you. There's no such thing as "subspecie".
I beg to differ. What in the world do you think a Wolf next to a Husky is? It isn't different species; they are different subspecies. Its the same with cats, the same with horses, same with various insects, same with almost any organism.
The "species problem" seems alive and well. I enjoyed the quotations made even by notable scholars on it.
"I was much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary is the distinction between species and varieties"-- Charles Darwin
"No term is more difficult to define than "species," and on no point are zoologists more divided than as to what should be understood by this word".-- Henry Nicholson
"Of late, the futility of attempts to find a universally valid criterion for distinguishing species has come to be fairly generally, if reluctantly, recognized"-- Theodosius Dobzhansky
"The concept of a species is a concession to our linguistic habits and neurological mechanisms"-- John Scott Haldane
"The species problem is the long-standing failure of biologists to agree on how we should identify species and how we should define the word 'species'."-- Jody Hey
"First, the species problem is not primarily an empirical one, but it is rather fraught with philosophical questions that require-but cannot be settled by-empirical evidence." --Massimo Pigliucci

“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

This message is a reply to:
 Message 122 by crashfrog, posted 11-09-2007 1:09 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 139 by crashfrog, posted 11-10-2007 12:44 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 139 of 160 (433168)
11-10-2007 12:44 PM
Reply to: Message 138 by Hyroglyphx
11-10-2007 12:14 PM


Re: Antibiotic resistance!
Because a virus can do the same thing.
Do what same thing? Band together with other individuals to form a multi-cellular colony with specialized cells doing unique functions?
No, viruses can't do that, NJ. Did you even read the paper?
So when an peripheral offshoot of the original becomes isolated from the dominant population, and they can no longer reproduce together, that is when they are officially a new "species?"
Yes. When the two populations can no longer hybridize, they're recognized as separate species.
Before that time, when they're separated by geography or behavioral barriers, and they don't seem to recognize each other as mates (but can be stimulated to create fertile hybrids), we generally recognize them as "subspecies", or sometimes "clans" or other such terms.
If a wolf and the common housedog can produce fertile offspring, is this evidence that one is the ancestral specie, while the other is a subspecie?
For fuck's sake, NJ, it's "species". Dogs are a subspecies. Wolves are a species. One is a species. They're both in the same species.
A species. Two or more species. Do you get it, yet? You sound like an idiot, I'm just saying. The singular of "species" is "species." "Specie" is a word from chemistry with an entirely different meaning.
But, to address your point, you could have looked it up. Had you, you would have seen that the gray wolf is Canis lupus, and the dog is Canis lupus familiaris, indicating that, yes, domesticated dogs are a subspecies of wolves because they can produce fertile hybrids.
And conversely, is the mule, since it is not sterile, evidence of speciation between donkey's and horses?
Mules are sterile, and as such, they indicate that the horse (Equus caballus) and the donkey (Equus asinus) are two different species of the genus Equus.
There is no scientific consensus concerning what constitutes a species, as opposed to a subspecies.
That's not true. The Biological Species Concept, which I have defined for you, represents the consensus view among biologists about what constitutes a species.
The problem, of course, is that the BSC has limits to its utility; for instance, how do we determine the species boundaries of populations we know only from fossils? How do we determine species boundaries for populations that are not sexual? In these corner cases, we use different species concepts to represent the same idea that a species represents a local cluster of individuals on the continuum of variation.
The word "kind" is equally as ambiguous as Darwin's conception of species, to which he said that, basically, if it looks the same, I just call it a species for convenience.
In the 200 years since Darwin invented evolution we've had some time to pin down clearer definitions of what "species" means in practice. I've given you the most common definition, and some ways of using that definition to identify species boundaries.
On the other hand, creationists have never been able to define "kinds" in a way that could discern whether or not two organisms were members of the same "kind", and indeed, you can't even get two creationists to agree on any definition of the word whatsoever.
Because as of now, I really don't see much difference, cladistically speaking, from a species from a subspecies.
I thought I explained this. Individuals who are members of the same reproductive community are in the same species. But as a reproductive boundary emerges between two sub-populations, we recognize one of them as a subspecies.
I beg to differ. What in the world do you think a Wolf next to a Husky is?
A subspecies. Not a "subspecie."
Do you see the difference? The missing "S". How many times do you have to be told that the singular of "species" is still "species"?
A species. Some species. A subspecies. Some subspecies. Get it, yet? You look like you don't know the first thing about biology when you say "specie" or "subspecie."
Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 138 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-10-2007 12:14 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2641 days)
Posts: 1909
From: MO
Joined: 06-06-2007


Message 140 of 160 (433181)
11-10-2007 1:19 PM
Reply to: Message 134 by RAZD
11-10-2007 11:07 AM


Re: reply part 2
RAZD, I have always admired your patience and tenacity. Anyone who can take on Murkywaters in a Great Debate gets a gold star in my book.
Be forewarned, tho.
Creationists are one thing. Teenage creationists quite another.
Best of luck.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 134 by RAZD, posted 11-10-2007 11:07 AM RAZD has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 141 of 160 (433188)
11-10-2007 2:07 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by Elmer
11-10-2007 9:05 AM


Re: response part 1
Elmer writes:
I'm just sticking with the original, true meaning of the word, 'selection'
You're using lots of words to mean things which are not actually their original meanings. Do you come from some bizarre religious sect which has a tenet that "selection" is the one word in the English language that must be used only in its original sense?
Or do you try to use all words in their original sense?
Stuff can happen to, or be done to, anything at all, even rocks and water, and it can be purly accidental, i.e., random.
Why have you brought "quilted material worn under chain mail" into the discussion? That is the "original true" meaning of the word stuff.
Could you either use all words with their original meanings, or write in modern English. Either one or the other, but be consistent.
Nature is often described as if she has an active and even conscious role. This is because she can appear to behave like a person, not because anyone thinks she is one. Language is not strictly literal at all. Other inanimate things get the same treatment.
NATURE EMPLOYS:
Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds,
But animated nature sweeter still,
To soothe and satisfy the human ear.
William Cowper
ABHORS:
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Francois Rabelais (c. 1494-1553), French monk, humanist, satirist, physician.
SENDS and LOVES:
Nature is fine in love, and where ’t is fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
INSTRUCTS:
I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest, against your opinions, with a constancy that became me.
Edmund Burke (1729-97)
THEN FORGETS:
Forget thee .
Never”
Till Nature, high and low, and great and small
Forgets herself, and all her loves and hates
Sink again into Chaos.
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
And for Darwin, she selects.
None of these people, obviously, meant to imply that there was a sentient being called "Mother Nature".
Elmer the linguist writes:
Then came Darwin, who tried to make an analogy between the dynamic 'selecting' done by stockbreeders like himself, and what happens to organisms in the wild. What he did was to imply that there was a sentient being, call it "Mother Nature"
Yet it seems to suit your purpose to pretend that one of them did.
Why are you playing word games? Does showing the world that you have a naive understanding of language prove something about biology?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by Elmer, posted 11-10-2007 9:05 AM Elmer has not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 142 of 160 (433205)
11-10-2007 3:32 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by crashfrog
11-09-2007 8:52 PM


Re: plain evolution ...
So now you are telling me that positive differential reproduction which is the direct result of heritable ( by which I assume you mean 'genetically determined') physical advantages equals the origin of novel morphological and behavioural variations in organisms. Umh, I don't agree with this.
...and? So what? Agree or not, we have abundant physical evidence that this is the case.
Actually Crash I don't think you were saying this at all. You were saying that the changes in the population they were causing were evolution. The origin of the variations in the first place is mutation in all likelihood. This isn't the first time Elmer has made this weird conflation between the spread of traits and the origin of traits.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by crashfrog, posted 11-09-2007 8:52 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 144 by crashfrog, posted 11-10-2007 4:31 PM Wounded King has not replied

  
Elmer
Member (Idle past 5903 days)
Posts: 82
Joined: 01-15-2007


Message 143 of 160 (433206)
11-10-2007 3:51 PM
Reply to: Message 128 by RAZD
11-09-2007 10:37 PM


Re: response part 1
Well, I'm back to take another bite, RAZD. You say--
quote:
It's simple to demonstrate that the obverse is false. Assume evolution is directed towards a purpose, then each step, each stage, each result of selection must be in the same direction, always building on previous selections step by step towards the goal.
Well, first of all, unlike you I do not automatically assume the presence of anything labelled, 'natural selection'. All that I do assume is evolution and adaptation. From what I can tell both evolution and adaptation are, like life itself, indisputable empirical facts. However I have heard some people deny evfolution, and I have heard people who accept evolution deny adaptation, and I have heard some peoplewho accept evolution and adaptation deny the actuality of life itself, dismissing it as an 'epiphenomenon'. Apparently some folks will believe what they want to believe, no matter what evidence stacks up to disabuse them of their fantasies.
In the case of this universe I do not know and cannot say if there is any long term goal involved. It may be no more than, say, a song that starts, goes on for a while, and then stops. But there is definitely some kind of progression taking place. The same goes for life. It began, it goes on, changing forms along the way, and just looking from archaea to you and me, there is some kind of progression happening. But I am sure that there are lots of people, not all of them creationists, who will insist that I am dead wrong, there is no sort of progression, no real evolution of any kind, merely the appearance of meaningful progress. If people choose to believe that and ignore the evidence, then I can't be bothered to argue with them.
I tend to ignore people whose opinions depend open ignoring logic and empirical evidence.
Getting back to evolution, forget long-term goals as applied to the whole of life itself, and get back to short-term goals linked to actual organisms. I am talking local cases, in which goals are plain and simple and above all,_immediate_; and in which behaviours taken to achieve those goals are immediate and responsive to proximate stimuli. No fortune-telling, no foresight, no 'final answer' involved. That is, evolution considered from a strictly _local_ perspective--one specific organism in its own particular, proximate environment, just trying to survive, thrive, and possibly self-replicate, one moment at a time. Those are the goals that are _usually_ what determines the behaviour of live organisms, an
and it is at at this level that adaptation, and by extension, evolution, occurs. But goals are goals, be they long-term or short, general or particular, and goal-driven behaviour is teleleological. Now, there are a lot of people who say that live organisms have no real motivation to survive, thrive and possibly reproduce, but that it only looks that way. That the fact is that all organisms, including ourselves, do what we do, not becausewe are motivated to do so, but because we are mechanically programmed to do everything we do reflexively, like automatons, thanks either to mechanical determinsm or to divine predestination. I look about me at what people and other lifeforms actually do, and without denying the reality of some mechanical, determined behaviours, I see some behaviours that cannot be said to be inevitable and immutable. I do see some 'acts of choice', of selection, dependent upon the reality of intelligence, volition, and freedom from mechanical compulsion. "Free will", as it were. Others don't. What can I say? That's their philosophical choice.
IAC, 'selection', whether as originally used by Darwin, or as twisted semantically as is the present, neo-darwinian use of the word [see my previous post in response to RAZD], has nothing to do with the dynamic evolution of organisms over time.
quote:
Now we look at the evidence and we see events like the Galapagos Finches and the Peppered Moths (and many many others)
Funny how we always hear about "many, many others", but these two are all we ever seem to get. Considering that there must be gazillions of evolutionary events to choose from, how come darwinists only ever come up with these two old chestnuts? Both of which are extremely dubious support for their hypothesis, IAC? Especially considering that in either case, no actual _evolution_ even took place!
quote:
where we see evolution proceed in one direction (larger beaks, dark wings) but then turn around and proceed in the other direction (smaller beaks, light wings). This falsifies direction.
Well, no, since there was nothing but statistical change in inherited variation,. there was, contrary to the self-serving population geneticist definition of evolution, no evolution at all. And even thought these were only matters of inherited variation distribution statistics, how can you say that the presence of direction falsifies the notion of direction?!?! Anything that "proceed[s] in one direction [...] but then turn[s] around and proceed[s] in the other direction" obviously has direction. It just doesn't have a fixed, mechanical, predetermined, linear direction. I, for one, have never claimed that it did.
quote:
We can also look at organisms like cyanobacteria that are virtually the same as they were 3.5 billion years ago, they have not evolved into something else. This falsifies purpose.
I can't for the life of me see how you can logically come to that conclusion! I have an old pocket knife I was given as a small boy, many years ago. It hasn't 'evolved' either, but it still serves the same purpose. I think I can say the same thing for, oh, my left eye.
What this actually falsifies is darwinian 'gradualism', wherebye organisms must continuously be changed, at least minutely, [by random, accidental, unceasing genetic mutations], so that evolution gets something to work with via small, incremental alterations that get in under natural selections's radar. By this theory, anything that has been around for 3.5 billion years,anduncountable generations, should be very different now from what it was then--but they aren't.
quote:
Well, I don't believe than "man [was created] to rule earth". I don't believe that anything was created to rule earth. That does not mean that I believe that that the universe, the earth, and the biosphere exist for no reason, no point, no purpose.
That is your prerogative, however that doesn't mean that evolution needs to be involved in any way other than to provide a source of sufficiently intellectually developed creatures able to contemplate your philosophy.
OK. That's fine by me. Heck, I don't even require that it do that much!
quote:
It doesn't have to result in humans.
I think I've made it plain that neither mechanical determinism nor religious predestination play any role in my view of biological evolution.
quote:
The question you will tend towards is whether intelligence is self selecting or provides a benefit such that any creature with a sufficient level of intelligence will reach the desired result.
What does "self-selecting" mean to you? It doesn't mean anything to me when you are talking about inanimate objects and/or incorporeal, insubsubstantial, intangible properties, qualities, abilities, powers, or forces,-- such as 'intelligence'. Is gravity, 'self-selecting'? Is Life?
quote:
Yet those organisms that survive whatever ecological and climatic change occurs will be fit, selected naturally to continue living and breeding.
Will they be 'fit' because they survive, or will they survive because they're 'fit', and how would you be able to decide?
quote:
You can try to ignore this aspect, but that will not change the fact that natural selection will continue to occur, selection that will occur naturally to differential between the "fit" and the "unfit" in the coming generations.
Not a single bit of this is "fact". All of it iis purely notional, speculative opinion, and extremely dubious opinon at that. In fact, to my ears,(and I mean no offence), it is so divorced from anything empirical that it sounds more like statement of religious faith, couched in vague, mystical terminology, than anything else.
quote:
So you agree that any "faith-based" approach is counter productive?
Depends on the 'faith'. I think you need to take it on faith that the human race is capable of changing its values and 'mode de vie' sufficiently, so that we can get out of this mess in the nick of time. If you can't believe that, if you beliuve that 'human nature' cannot change, that everything is mechanically orreligiously predetermined and that we all really just hapless automatons passively swept along by gods or forces beyond our control, then heck, there's no point in doing anything but ordering another beer.
Which reminds me. Later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 128 by RAZD, posted 11-09-2007 10:37 PM RAZD has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 144 of 160 (433217)
11-10-2007 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 142 by Wounded King
11-10-2007 3:32 PM


Re: plain evolution ...
This isn't the first time Elmer has made this weird conflation between the spread of traits and the origin of traits.
I guess you're right. It's so stupid that I didn't even see that he was doing it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 142 by Wounded King, posted 11-10-2007 3:32 PM Wounded King has not replied

  
Elmer
Member (Idle past 5903 days)
Posts: 82
Joined: 01-15-2007


Message 145 of 160 (433342)
11-11-2007 1:35 PM
Reply to: Message 128 by RAZD
11-09-2007 10:37 PM


Re: response part 1
Back again, RAZD;
Here goes. You say--
quote:
No, it is a difference, a characteristic, a condition, that distinguishes one type of organism from another. Having a tail would not be a trait if not having a tail was not a trait.
Well, since you insist that any noticeable characteristic at all constitutes a 'trait', (eg., both long sideburns and short sideburns are traits, and red lipstick and pink lipstick are both traits, as is no lipstick at all), and in that sense it's true, then I won't argue the point. You can hold to that position logically and semantically, but it renders the word 'trait' useless and pointless, since if anything and everything empirically detectable and identifiable constites a 'trait', then nothing is, in se, sufficiently specified and qualified to make any difference to our understanding.
That means the difference that makes a material difference must be found in the qualifiers attached to that word. In the case of Wiesmann's neo-darwinian mice, I see that you use the word "acquired" to modify the word, "trait". So let's look at his use of the term, 'acquired'.
The word 'acquired' is defined, in standard usage, as a form of the verb, 'to acquire'. To acquire is to gain, achieve, come by, take possession of. It always takes a dynamic sense, the sense of "to get by one's own efforts". But somewhere, somehow, its cognate, 'acquired', received a special meaning unrelated to the standard meaning. It was changed from "to get by own's own efforts", into, "to get thanks to the efforts or actions of others". That is, changed from 'earned dynamically' to 'received passively'. That is, that which meant 'endogenously earned' now also meant 'exogenously imposed'. Since these two meanings for the same word are antithetical, (just as the two senses of 'selection', (that is, the standard and the darwinian senses of 'selection') are antithetical), we again get a great deal of confusing equivocation.
Now, I don't know if the passive sense of 'acquired' was invented by Weismann personally, or if it had come into being with the rest of modern materialism, but it is certainly ingrained in the language today. Divorced arbitrarily from the verb, 'to acquire', we now find that the cognate, 'acquired', is said to mean any thing/trait/identifier that is not congenital, (i.e., not inherited, but which comes into being 'after birth', by any means or under any circumstances). Since this division in meaning is founded upon the sole distinction of inherited/not inherited, I have to suspect that it began with the darwinian hypothesis about evolution;-- that is, that evolution is the passively endured effect of things done to organisms by externally sourced agents called "Natural Selection", just as what has happened to dogs and horses over time is the passively endured effect of things done to them by human stock breeders. The 'new' sense was probably an intended response to Lamarck, who said, using the original sense of, 'to acquire', that organisms, _by their own efforts_, dynamically acquired novel adaptive traits. By equating imposed, passively recived traits with the dynamically created, self-generated traits of Lamarck, and calling them both, 'acquired', the neo-darwinists contrived a neatly sophisticated semantic subterfuge for attacking lamarckian theory.
Very dishonest, but highly effective, and extremely successful. They've fooled _almost_ everybody into believing that Lamarck's meaning for 'acquired' is their meaning for 'acquired'. But I'll stick to the original lamarckian understanding of 'acquired traits', thank you very much, and in that sense neither anything that anyone or anything does to anything else by way of changing one or more of its traits, if that change is not effected or derived from any effort or desire of its own, then that 'trait' is not 'acquired', but only 'artificially imposed'.
I'm sure that Weismann's poor, mutilated mice would agree with me. That 'experiment was a disgusting sham, a publicity stunt designed to spin anti-lamarckism/neo-darwinism to the public, and had no drop of science in it, since it did not deal with Lamarck's hypothesis, but only Weismann's 'strawman' of that hypothesis.
quote:
"I have seen Lamarckism, but nowhere in Lamarck's 200 year old understanding of evolution did I see anything that suggested that organisms re-expressed the physical deformities accidentally acquired by their forebears. Weismann was a sophist who set up a strawman of Lamarkian theory, (albeit that Lamarckian theory was quite primitive in modern terms), in order to sell neo-darwinism at a time when Darwin's original 'theory', "Natural Selection", was falling into public disfavour. "
Yet it is an historical fact that Lamarkism, whether it was promoted by Lamark or by Darwin, involved the concept of inheritance of acquired characteristics,
**
Yes, in their sense that 'acquired' meant endogenously earned characteristics.
quote:
it is an historical fact that experiments with cutting off the tails of mice occurred to test it, and it is also an historical fact that this concept has been invalidated.
Wrong. As I've explained, 'acquired traits' in the lamarckian sense had nothing to do with exogenously imposed, passively received traits. That was was Weisman's dishonest, phony, 'strawman' caricature of the lamarckian sense of 'acquired trait'.
Weismann, for neo-darwinian political purposes, discredited his own strawman and fooled the public into believing that he had discredited Lamarck. His 'mouse' experiment is to evolutionary biology as Haeckel's drawings are to developmental biology, as Kettlewell's pinned peppered moths are to scientific field work, and as the 'piltdown man' is to paleontology and the archaeological fossil record. A deliberate fraud, pure and simple.
quote:
Now you say that "Weismann was a sophist who set up a strawman of Lamarkian theory," yet the theory was that "organisms gained aquired traits through use and disuse" and cutting off tails would certainly result in disuse and prevent all use of tails.
And now you are, intentionally or unknowingly, indulging in the same semantic sophistry that Weismann used, and that all neo-darwinists have used ever since. As above.
quote:
Selection that occurs naturally. The result of normal (natural) differential success in living and mating of different individual organisms within a population.
IOW, anything and everything that affects the death and birth rates of organisms. I'm sorry, but I find this too nebulous and all-encompassing to be meaningful.
quote:
"BTW, I've heard some geneticists refer to 'selection' as something operating at the genetic, molecular level. And at the cellular level. Indeed, I'm sure some of them refer to nucleotides in terms of 'selection'. None of which tells us what 'selection' actually is."
Those elements may contribute to the normal (natural) differential success in living and mating of different individual organisms within a population, but they won't be all the factors involved (this is why selection occurs on the phenotype not just the genotype).
How does your darwinian 'selection' operate on genes, alleles, and other molecules? If molecules and aggregations of molecules can 'select' each other, then I guess planet earth 'selected' the moon, and was itself the product of the sun's 'selection' activity.
I guess darwinian 'selection' is everything and anything which can be said to bring about absolutely any old kind of change, in any old ways, means, or fashions. Am I right? I hope not, since would be just too, too, absurd.
quote:
Natural selection creates change in species from generation to generation, far from nothing, but there is no creative force behind it -- purpose and direction being already refuted.
Now that you've stated your beliefs as to what it is not, I'd like to hear your opinion on what it is. In specific empirical terms, please.
quote:
For now the main point is natural selection is selection that occurs naturally.
As I said before, such tautologies as this are vacuous, and so do not advance our understanding one whit. Therefore is impossible for me to accept that they constitute a 'point' of any kind.
Looking forward to your response.
Edited by Elmer, : typoes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 128 by RAZD, posted 11-09-2007 10:37 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 146 by crashfrog, posted 11-11-2007 1:56 PM Elmer has not replied
 Message 148 by RAZD, posted 11-11-2007 3:49 PM Elmer has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 146 of 160 (433345)
11-11-2007 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 145 by Elmer
11-11-2007 1:35 PM


Re: response part 1
Elmer -
In your view, what would represent an experiment that would test Lamark's hypothesis as you view it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 145 by Elmer, posted 11-11-2007 1:35 PM Elmer has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 147 of 160 (433364)
11-11-2007 2:55 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by Elmer
11-10-2007 9:05 AM


response part 1 reply 1 & 2 response
A rock is natural. Water is natural. Can a rock "choose" it's location, what it does, or what happens to it? Can water "choose" when to evaporate, when to condense, when to preipitate, and where to go once it hits the ground? If 'natural selection' is 'natural', how come it doesn't pertain to all of nature, but only that part of nature that is alive?
Simply because the topic is biological evolution of living organisms, so it would be irrelevant to talk about rocks but not irrelevant to only talk about "that part of nature that is alive" ... and the evidence of past life (fossils, genetics, history, etc).
Now, the word 'selection', up intil Darwin, always meant to intentionally, deliberately, although not necessarily consciously, 'choosing', 'picking', 'taking' one thing in preference to another. Doing that always involved awareness, values/criteria, goals, and ability. These things were always properties of the 'selector', not necessarily the 'selected'. It should be noted that only living, sentient beings possess such properties.
Irrelevant. That is why Darwin modified selection with natural, to differentiate selection by natural processes from those that are not natural - intentional selection. In modern biology selection is defined as:
se·lec·tion -1.a. The act or an instance of selecting or the fact of having been selected.
- b. One that is selected.
2. A carefully chosen or representative collection of people or things. See Synonyms at choice.
3. A literary or musical text chosen for reading or performance.
4. Biology A natural or artificial process that favors or induces survival and perpetuation of one kind of organism over others that die or fail to produce offspring.
(American Heritage Dictionary)
Where it can be either through directed processes (artificial selection) or natural processes (natural selection). This is the terminology used by scientists in discussing the science. Not using this terminology means you are not talking about the science but something else, and in logic this is known as the logical fallacy of equivocation.
Then came Darwin, who tried to make an analogy between the dynamic 'selecting' done by stockbreeders like himself, and what happens to organisms in the wild. What he did was to imply that there was a sentient being, call it "Mother Nature" or "The Great Flying Spagghetti Monster", or what you will, that acted like human stock breeders and picked one creature to live but picked another for drowning, or otherwise eliminating. As a literary or pedagogical device it was quite effective, so long as you didn't take it literally. Taking it literally was mere superstition. Like believing in the 'angel of death', or, 'the grim reaper'. But, of, course, thousands of people did take it literally, just as millions of people take biblical creation myths literally.
Except that this is false. Totally false. All Darwin said was that it was selection that occurred naturally. You are the one reading personification into this, not Darwin, not science, not reality. Continuing to espouse false positions after they have been demonstrated to be false demonstrates a refusal or inability to learn. Darwin recognized that not all selection was directed and that a lot occurred naturally regardless of the manipulations of people, and he also realized that this was sufficient to affect life directly.
Now, a few bright souls realised that they were doing with 'natural selection' was just exactly what other people were doing with Adam and Eve, and so went to work on chenging the meaning of the word 'selection' in order to take the 'spirits' out of it. To do that they changed the focus of the word. As I said, 'selection', since the beginnings of the English language, was something dynamic that was intentionally done by someone to something or to somebody. Now it was said to mean something passive, that is, stuff that just happened to something or somebody for any old reason.
The problem is that when you modify "selection" with "natural" there is no personification from the start, no changing of the definition -- that is why the modifier is there.
By changing 'selection' from something that was 'done', into into something that was 'done to', the awareness, values/criteria, goals, and ability were eliminated. Stuff can happen to, or be done to, anything at all, even rocks and water, and it can be purly accidental, i.e., random.
Yes, by modifying selection to be that selection due to natural processes that is the essence -- "stuff happens" -- whether it is to biological organisms or rocks.
For some reason people just stood by and watched this corruption of the language take place, and so now, here we are with it imbedded in the language like a virus that cannot be gotten rid of.
Except that it is not corruption, it is using modifiers to differentiate between different processes that actually happen. Natural Selection occurred before Darwin put the terms together (and he was likely not the first to recognize it), so what we are doing is ADDING to the power of language to describe reality, not corrupting it. This is the way language develops over time, regardless of the topic. You can only talk about corruption if you claim that language can never change, a philosophically ridiculous position (it implies that all knowledge is known).
Well, I don't think we should introduce 'sexual selection', which a/only applies to sexully reproducing organisms and
b/ is, in those rare instances in which it is truly present, is a dynamic, intentional activity, as opposed to the passive, accidental experience intrinsic to natural selection,
until after we have thoroughly determined the nature of 'natural selection'. So I'm going to skip down a bit.
What you think is irrelevant, nature and the universe are totally unimpressed and unaffected. Sexual selection exists. The nature of 'natural selection' is determined, whether you think so or not, and it includes sexual selection in it.
What do you mean by "aspects of natural selection"? Defining characteristics? Natural properties?
The phrase was "other aspects of natural selection" and then there was a list of other aspects, different processes by which natural selection occurs and can be viewed to occur..
If 'natural selection' means the experiences that might befall a passive entity, then everything and anything can be an 'aspect' of 'natural selection', including both dying [being killed] right now, and not dying [being killed] right now.
Why limit it to passive entities? Natural selection involves experiences that might befall all organisms. Surviving a flood is not necessarily passive, for example.
Kind of makes the term, "NS", both nebulous and vacuous. I think that scientific terms should be a lot more specific, definite, and meaningful than that.
Only when you keep applying your straw man version of it instead of the processes that occur to life in general, passive and active.
Well, aside from absurd truisms, such as,-- the sick are not as healthy as the hale and hearty, the stupid are not as bright as the intelligent, the old are older than the young, the slow are not as fast as the swift, the blind do not see as well as the sighted, the weak are not so powerful as the strong,-- and on and on, just exactly what is it that you are trying to say?
And yet in spite of these truisms you haven't made the connection that this shows that natural selection happens, that it is fact, because that is what these truisms tell us.
The race is to the swift, the struggle to the strong--usually. We get that.
Not really, the "race" goes to those that survive and reproduce more, to those who contribute most to following generations - by surviving from year to year and breeding more than others -- they "win" the "race" to provide the genetic material for following generations.
We get that. It's not rocket science. In fact, it's not science at all. It's just a meaningless fact of life that is probably just as apparent to cheetahs chasing gazelles, and gazelles being chased by cheetahs, as it is to you and me.
That's what happens when you talk about facts ... or should be.
In short, anything can affect mortality, and anything that affects mortality can affect reproduction, and anything that affects reproduction affects 'evolution', and since, basically, everything that that affects mortality, from birth defects to broken legs to catching a virus to being bitten by a shark is, in the vast majority of cases, a matter of pure chance, I guess we can reduce this to 'chance=evolution', right? Or is it, "chance=natural selection"? Or is it both, in which case "Chance = natural selection = evolution"?
Again, some is chance and results in genetic drift (and the evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation) and some is not chance but related to the ability of the organism due to the hereditary traits. Some organisms have genetic birth defects compared to others, and these will more likely be less able to live and reproduce than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. Likewise, some organisms are genetically endowed with weak bones compared to others, and these will more likely be affected by broken bones than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. And some organisms are genetically more prone to disease than others, and these will more likely be affected by disease than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. And finally, some organisms are genetically not able to swim as fast or change directions compared to others, and these will more likely be affected by predatory sharks than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce.
Thus it is not pure chance rather it is affected by the differential variations in traits between the individuals within the population as a whole. The cheetah does not kill the antelope it cannot catch, so the chance of each antelope being caught is not equal.
As pointed out earlier, darwinian 'natural selection' no longer bears any resemblence to organismic selection, since organismic selection is a dynamic thing that an organism does, whereas 'natural selection' refers to a passive organism that has things done to it; accidentally, by chance, more often than not.
As pointed out earlier this is poppycock. None of this applies to natural selection as used in biological evolution, rather it only applies to your straw man, which is falsified above.
Of course I do. That is what the word 'selection' means, and only meant, up until neo-darwinists transmogrified the meaning from active to passive, from 'done' to 'done to', from intentional to accidental, from teleological to ateleological, from value/goal based to random, back in the late 19th century. You darwinists are the only one's who believe that it means anything else.
Irrelevant. Selection modified by "natural" does not and never has meant directed - artificial - selection. The irrefutable point is that sciences define terminology used in the science to describe the science. Those definitions are published (Darwin's Origin of Species for example) discussed and agreed to in the professional publications (journals and the like). There are many examples of terms defined for particular sciences, and in this case the term "natural selection" is different from the term "selection" and is well defined and accepted in the science of biological evolution. Live with it or rail against reality.
You have gone on for many posts now on this matter, and the simple solution for you is to accept the scientific terminology to be used as it is defined in the science and move on, because only then will you be discussing biological evolution. If you continue to promulgate your "neo-Lamarckian whatever" view based on a false representation of natural selection and other terms then it will bear not relation to reality. It's that simple.
Sorry, but how did we get from 'natural selection' to genetics and the intricacies of genetic inheritance?!? Let's watch out for the 'non sequiturs', shall we?
In other words your argument was refuted on selection only being intellectually directed. Trying to call it something else is a red herring logical fallacy and does not deal with the argument.
I'm not "personifying" anything. How can talking about something that persons, (and all other organisms) actually do, be a case of "personification"? Perhaps you are unfamiliar with that word--
I'm well aware of the definition - and the way you used it in your opening posts talking about natural selection. The fact remains that you attribute selection to have an entity behind it when it is not in fact part of the word, just as it is not part of "hunger" - you are the one that keeps insisting on a personality being involved.
Number three is the sense in which Darwin used "Natural Selection". Neo-darwinists, trying to make the term 'scientific' instead of literary, and in keeping with their materialist/mechanist worldview, changed Darwin's personification into that other thing I've already described, above. I'm just sticking with the original, true meaning of the word, 'selection'. I'm not "personifying" things like inanimate objects like "genes", and abstractions like "Mother Nature", with mental abilities they do not possess; the way you darwinists are doing.
Except that the falsehood of this assertion has already been demonstrated. Perhaps you are familiar with the way lottery numbers are selected in some states:
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/luck.html
quote:

Who selects the winning numbers? This has nothing to do with biology, but it still involves selection.
No, I don't elevate "Nature", or any other fanciful abstraction, "to be the source of the intelligent interaction that makes the selection". That's what Darwin did, but not anything I'd ever do. What words of mine ever gave you this false impression?
Then provide a quote where Darwin SPECIFICALLY states this. That is how you substantiate an assertion - with evidence. Lacking any quote your assertion will be taken for what it is - a claim that cannot be substantiated, a falsehood.
Uhm, tautologies aren't really that enlightening, you know.
This refutes your claim that natural selection is selection done by "nature" personified, and your saying this does not refute the argument that natural selection is selection modified by natural to only pertain to selection that occurs naturally.
Well, to be truthful, the only indisputable thing that can be said here is that they are instances mortality that occurs naturally, as opposed to instances of mortality that occur artificially, as in wars and slaughterhouses. In what sense there is any 'selection' involved, you'll have to spell out for me, unless you mean that neo-darwinian corruption of the word as I described it earlier. See above.
And this has been done. Let me repeat it for clarity:
quote:
Some organisms have genetic birth defects compared to others, and these will more likely be less able to live and reproduce than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. Likewise, some organisms are genetically endowed with weak bones compared to others, and these will more likely be affected by broken bones than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. And some organisms are genetically more prone to disease than others, and these will more likely be affected by disease than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. And finally, some organisms are genetically not able to swim as fast or change directions compared to others, and these will more likely be affected by predatory sharks than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce.
There are differences between individual organisms that make some more likely to survive and reproduce than others, that load the dice in the lottery of life and reduce or eliminate the element of chance.
The following applies to Message 143
Well, first of all, unlike you I do not automatically assume the presence of anything labelled, 'natural selection'. All that I do assume is evolution and adaptation. From what I can tell both evolution and adaptation are, like life itself, indisputable empirical facts. However I have heard some people deny evfolution, and I have heard people who accept evolution deny adaptation, and I have heard some peoplewho accept evolution and adaptation deny the actuality of life itself, dismissing it as an 'epiphenomenon'. Apparently some folks will believe what they want to believe, no matter what evidence stacks up to disabuse them of their fantasies.
Adaptation is a result of natural selection and both are elements of evolution. Failure to understand this means you do not understand what evolution, adaptation and natural selection are - specifically what they are in the scientific definitions and use of the terms within the science of biology. Science is not a matter of belief, but of what can be tested for validity.
In the case of this universe I do not know and cannot say if there is any long term goal involved. It may be no more than, say, a song that starts, goes on for a while, and then stops. But there is definitely some kind of progression taking place. The same goes for life. It began, it goes on, changing forms along the way, and just looking from archaea to you and me, there is some kind of progression happening. But I am sure that there are lots of people, not all of them creationists, who will insist that I am dead wrong, there is no sort of progression, no real evolution of any kind, merely the appearance of meaningful progress. If people choose to believe that and ignore the evidence, then I can't be bothered to argue with them.
Progressions that happen are not necessarily directed - that is a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Consider that IF life began naturally THAT this life started with some very simple reproducing structure based on chemistry, that this results in the simplest structure that can be identified or qualified as "life" -- and that it cannot develop into a significantly simpler form, but that there is no barrier to increasing complexity. Consider that this does not mean that increasing complexity is required but will naturally develop in the course of evolution, while at the same time that simple forms will continue to exist - a condition that would not apply if there is a directed progression.
This would also mean that organisms could evolve from more complex to less complex, back towards that simple original life simplicity, and that this would also be counter to any directed progression, and that it is observed to happen.
I tend to ignore people whose opinions depend open ignoring logic and empirical evidence.
Given that you have been shown to ignore logic and empirical evidence, the logical conclusion is that you ignore your own opinions.
Getting back to evolution, forget long-term goals as applied to the whole of life itself, and get back to short-term goals linked to actual organisms. I am talking local cases, in which goals are plain and simple and above all,_immediate_; and in which behaviours taken to achieve those goals are immediate and responsive to proximate stimuli. No fortune-telling, no foresight, no 'final answer' involved. That is, evolution considered from a strictly _local_ perspective--one specific organism in its own particular, proximate environment, just trying to survive, thrive, and possibly self-replicate, one moment at a time. Those are the goals that are _usually_ what determines the behaviour of live organisms, an
and it is at at this level that adaptation, and by extension, evolution, occurs.
By mutation, providing variability in ability to survive and reproduce within the population, and natural selection, of those that are more adapted to the current ecology compared to those that are less adapted due to their naturally occurring variability.
But goals are goals, be they long-term or short, general or particular, and goal-driven behaviour is teleleological.
And such goal driven process has already been falsified.
Now, there are a lot of people who say that live organisms have no real motivation to survive, thrive and possibly reproduce, but that it only looks that way. That the fact is that all organisms, including ourselves, do what we do, not becausewe are motivated to do so, but because we are mechanically programmed to do everything we do reflexively, like automatons, thanks either to mechanical determinsm or to divine predestination. I look about me at what people and other lifeforms actually do, and without denying the reality of some mechanical, determined behaviours, I see some behaviours that cannot be said to be inevitable and immutable. I do see some 'acts of choice', of selection, dependent upon the reality of intelligence, volition, and freedom from mechanical compulsion. "Free will", as it were. Others don't. What can I say? That's their philosophical choice.
In other words, (some) behavior is instinctual. There is also evidence that some behavior learned.
IAC, 'selection', whether as originally used by Darwin, or as twisted semantically as is the present, neo-darwinian use of the word [see my previous post in response to RAZD], has nothing to do with the dynamic evolution of organisms over time.
A position that has also been falsified.
Funny how we always hear about "many, many others", but these two are all we ever seem to get. Considering that there must be gazillions of evolutionary events to choose from, how come darwinists only ever come up with these two old chestnuts? Both of which are extremely dubious support for their hypothesis, IAC? Especially considering that in either case, no actual _evolution_ even took place!
The Galapagos Finches and Peppered Moths are well known, so they can usually be discussed with familiarity. They are also prone to entrenched misinformation from those that rely on creationist sources of misinformation.
There is also the case of walkingsticks and the evolution of winged forms versus non-winged forms. See Message 18 for some information on the lack of direction in walkingstick evolution.
But really, ONE example is enough - logically - to validate the concept eh? After all you asked for an example, not one that meets your changing criteria. The fact is that both Galapagos Finches and Peppered Moths demonstrate natural evolution, and that you have chosen to ask for more examples rather than try to refute this fact. What was that you said earlier?
I tend to ignore people whose opinions depend open ignoring logic and empirical evidence.
Including your own?
[qs]Well, no, since there was nothing but statistical change in inherited variation,. there was, contrary to the self-serving population geneticist definition of evolution, no evolution at all. And even thought these were only matters of inherited variation distribution statistics, how can you say that the presence of direction falsifies the notion of direction?!?! Anything that "proceed[s] in one direction [...] but then turn[s] around and proceed[s] in the other direction" obviously has direction. It just doesn't have a fixed, mechanical, predetermined, linear direction. I, for one, have never claimed that it did. [/qs]
Well yes, because this is what Natural Selection DOES. Evolution is also defined in the science of evolutionary biology as the change in frequency of alleles in populations from generation to generation, and this is what happened in both instances.
An introduction to evolution - Understanding Evolution
quote:
Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life.
Both situations meet this definition, that is a fact.
I can't for the life of me see how you can logically come to that conclusion! I have an old pocket knife I was given as a small boy, many years ago. It hasn't 'evolved' either, but it still serves the same purpose. I think I can say the same thing for, oh, my left eye.
Does your pocket knife have a purpose to become something else? Does your left eye? Please. Neither of your examples here even begin to apply to the evolution of organisms over generations and therefore have no bearing on the element of purpose in evolution over generations. This is just an example of a non-sequitur logical fallacy rather than an argument that addresses the issue.
What this actually falsifies is darwinian 'gradualism', wherebye organisms must continuously be changed, at least minutely, [by random, accidental, unceasing genetic mutations], so that evolution gets something to work with via small, incremental alterations that get in under natural selections's radar. By this theory, anything that has been around for 3.5 billion years,anduncountable generations, should be very different now from what it was then--but they aren't.
No, it falsifies direction and purpose. Gradualism does not imply direction or purpose, just that whatever changes occur happen gradually. Any organism that is suited to it's ecology such that it is successful with regard to survival and reproduction AND where that ecology does not change does not need to change. In fact evolution would work to maintain such stasis by selecting those that are more fit for the ecology. Gradualism on the other hand is well demonstrated by such evidence as foraminifera:
Geology Dept article 3
quote:
Adherents of Darwin's theory of gradualism, in which new species slowly branch off from original stock, should be delighted by what the FSU researchers have found. The foram record clearly reveals a robust, highly branched evolutionary tree, complete with Darwin's predicted "dead ends" -- varieties that lead nowhere -- and a profusion of variability in sizes and body shapes. Moreover, transitional forms between species are readily apparent, making it relatively easy to track ancestor species to their descendants.
In short, the finding upholds Darwin's lifelong conviction that "nature does not proceed in leaps," but rather is a system perpetually growing in extreme slow-motion.
OK. That's fine by me. Heck, I don't even require that it do that much!
I think I've made it plain that neither mechanical determinism nor religious predestination play any role in my view of biological evolution.
Fair enough.
What does "self-selecting" mean to you? It doesn't mean anything to me when you are talking about inanimate objects and/or incorporeal, insubsubstantial, intangible properties, qualities, abilities, powers, or forces,-- such as 'intelligence'. Is gravity, 'self-selecting'? Is Life?
The question is whether intelligence once having evolved would enable the organisms so afflicted to select for intelligence in their choice of mates, and would there be a feed-back loop for increased selection of intelligence.
Will they be 'fit' because they survive, or will they survive because they're 'fit', and how would you be able to decide?
Survive and reproduce -- survival without reproduction would be eliminated eh?
Fitness (biology) - Wikipedia
quote:
fitness (often denoted w in population genetics models) is a central concept in evolutionary theory. It describes the capability of an individual of certain genotype to reproduce, and usually is equal to the proportion of the individual's genes in all the genes of the next generation. If differences in individual genotypes affect fitness, then the frequencies of the genotypes will change over generations; the genotypes with higher fitness become more common. This process is called natural selection.
An individual's fitness is manifested through its phenotype. As phenotype is affected by both genes and environment, the fitnesses of different individuals with the same genotype are not necessarily equal, but depend on the environment in which the individuals live. However, since the fitness of the genotype is an averaged quantity, it will reflect the reproductive outcomes of all individuals with that genotype.
As fitness measures the quantity of the copies of the genes of an individual in the next generation, it doesn't really matter how the genes arrive in the next generation. That is, for an individual it is equally "beneficial" to reproduce itself, or to help relatives with similar genes to reproduce, as long as similar amount of copies of individual's genes get passed on to the next generation. Selection which promotes this kind of helper behaviour is called kin selection.
Thus the pre-existing fitness of an organism is measured after the fact by its success.
Not a single bit of this is "fact". All of it iis purely notional, speculative opinion, and extremely dubious opinon at that. In fact, to my ears,(and I mean no offence), it is so divorced from anything empirical that it sounds more like statement of religious faith, couched in vague, mystical terminology, than anything else.
What was that you said earlier?
I tend to ignore people whose opinions depend open ignoring logic and empirical evidence.
Including yourself?
Depends on the 'faith'. I think you need to take it on faith that the human race is capable of changing its values and 'mode de vie' sufficiently, so that we can get out of this mess in the nick of time. If you can't believe that, if you beliuve that 'human nature' cannot change, that everything is mechanically orreligiously predetermined and that we all really just hapless automatons passively swept along by gods or forces beyond our control, then heck, there's no point in doing anything but ordering another beer.
In terms of evolution though, it is irrelevant. Life that does not adapt to it's ecology (or it's ecology to it's life) will go extinct, and any life that survives will continue to evolve. There have been mass extinction events before.
Later
Enjoy.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by Elmer, posted 11-10-2007 9:05 AM Elmer has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 149 by Elmer, posted 11-11-2007 10:00 PM RAZD has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 148 of 160 (433375)
11-11-2007 3:49 PM
Reply to: Message 145 by Elmer
11-11-2007 1:35 PM


Re: response part 1 reply 3 response
Well, since you insist that any noticeable characteristic at all constitutes a 'trait', (eg., both long sideburns and short sideburns are traits, and red lipstick and pink lipstick are both traits, as is no lipstick at all), and in that sense it's true, then I won't argue the point. You can hold to that position logically and semantically, but it renders the word 'trait' useless and pointless, since if anything and everything empirically detectable and identifiable constites a 'trait', then nothing is, in se, sufficiently specified and qualified to make any difference to our understanding.
If Lamarckism were true. In terms of evolution though, selection for these characteristics would not select any hereditary traits. The result would be the same as it was for the mice tails.
That means the difference that makes a material difference must be found in the qualifiers attached to that word. In the case of Wiesmann's neo-darwinian mice, I see that you use the word "acquired" to modify the word, "trait". So let's look at his use of the term, 'acquired'.
The word 'acquired' is defined, in standard usage, as a form of the verb, 'to acquire'. To acquire is to gain, achieve, come by, take possession of. It always takes a dynamic sense, the sense of "to get by one's own efforts". But somewhere, somehow, its cognate, 'acquired', received a special meaning unrelated to the standard meaning. It was changed from "to get by own's own efforts", into, "to get thanks to the efforts or actions of others". That is, changed from 'earned dynamically' to 'received passively'. That is, that which meant 'endogenously earned' now also meant 'exogenously imposed'. Since these two meanings for the same word are antithetical, (just as the two senses of 'selection', (that is, the standard and the darwinian senses of 'selection') are antithetical), we again get a great deal of confusing equivocation.
In terms of biology in general, and Lamarck in specific, this would mean a trait was acquired when it was passed on to following populations.
Lycos
quote:
For instance, scarce prey might lead to the need for a hawk to search the ground more carefully from a greater height. The increased use of its eyes would, according to Lamarck, improve the hawk's eyesight. Furthermore, this acquired improvement would be inherited by the hawk's offspring over time.
The fact that these traits are NOT passed on to offspring and following generations means that they are NOT acquired to the full extent proposed by Lamarck, and the concept is therefore falsified.
Now, I don't know if the passive sense of 'acquired' was invented by Weismann personally, or if it had come into being with the rest of modern materialism, but it is certainly ingrained in the language today. Divorced arbitrarily from the verb, 'to acquire', we now find that the cognate, 'acquired', is said to mean any thing/trait/identifier that is not congenital, (i.e., not inherited, but which comes into being 'after birth', by any means or under any circumstances). Since this division in meaning is founded upon the sole distinction of inherited/not inherited, I have to suspect that it began with the darwinian hypothesis about evolution;-- that is, that evolution is the passively endured effect of things done to organisms by externally sourced agents called "Natural Selection", just as what has happened to dogs and horses over time is the passively endured effect of things done to them by human stock breeders. The 'new' sense was probably an intended response to Lamarck, who said, using the original sense of, 'to acquire', that organisms, _by their own efforts_, dynamically acquired novel adaptive traits. By equating imposed, passively recived traits with the dynamically created, self-generated traits of Lamarck, and calling them both, 'acquired', the neo-darwinists contrived a neatly sophisticated semantic subterfuge for attacking lamarckian theory.
Irrelevant nonsense. Lamarck defined how the term was applied and this definition was used.
Very dishonest, but highly effective, and extremely successful. They've fooled _almost_ everybody into believing that Lamarck's meaning for 'acquired' is their meaning for 'acquired'. But I'll stick to the original lamarckian understanding of 'acquired traits', thank you very much, and in that sense neither anything that anyone or anything does to anything else by way of changing one or more of its traits, if that change is not effected or derived from any effort or desire of its own, then that 'trait' is not 'acquired', but only 'artificially imposed'.
Except that you are wrong, Lamarck defined how the term was applied and this definition was used.
I'm sure that Weismann's poor, mutilated mice would agree with me. That 'experiment was a disgusting sham, a publicity stunt designed to spin anti-lamarckism/neo-darwinism to the public, and had no drop of science in it, since it did not deal with Lamarck's hypothesis, but only Weismann's 'strawman' of that hypothesis.
Not according to Lamarck. Your "thought experiment" involving lipstick and sideburns also shows that the concept is invalid.
Yes, in their sense that 'acquired' meant endogenously earned characteristics.
And passed on to future generations, as traits that were not so passed on would be irrelevant to evolution eh? Any organism can acquire a trait in an individual, but the acid test it passing that trait on to offspring and following generations. This element necessary to Lamarckism is where the concept fails to predict the results: falsified.
Wrong. As I've explained, 'acquired traits' in the lamarckian sense had nothing to do with exogenously imposed, passively received traits. That was was Weisman's dishonest, phony, 'strawman' caricature of the lamarckian sense of 'acquired trait'.
Then let's see the evidence of an acquired trait being passed on to offspring and following generations. Sideburns and Lipstick?
Weismann, for neo-darwinian political purposes, discredited his own strawman and fooled the public into believing that he had discredited Lamarck. His 'mouse' experiment is to evolutionary biology as Haeckel's drawings are to developmental biology, as Kettlewell's pinned peppered moths are to scientific field work, and as the 'piltdown man' is to paleontology and the archaeological fossil record. A deliberate fraud, pure and simple.
Which you can demonstrate by an example of an acquired trait that was passed on to offspring and following generations.
And now you are, intentionally or unknowingly, indulging in the same semantic sophistry that Weismann used, and that all neo-darwinists have used ever since. As above.
Which you can demonstrate by an example of an acquired trait that was passed on to offspring and following generations.
quote:
Selection that occurs naturally. The result of normal (natural) differential success in living and mating of different individual organisms within a population.
IOW, anything and everything that affects the death and birth rates of organisms.
Not "anything and everything that affects the death and birth rates of organisms" ... just those that are natural processes.
I'm sorry, but I find this too nebulous and all-encompassing to be meaningful.
And again this has no bearing on the behavior of biological systems, the evolution of life, and reality.
How does your darwinian 'selection' operate on genes, alleles, and other molecules? If molecules and aggregations of molecules can 'select' each other, then I guess planet earth 'selected' the moon, and was itself the product of the sun's 'selection' activity.
As noted at the beginning of this debate, selection operates on the phenotype.
I guess darwinian 'selection' is everything and anything which can be said to bring about absolutely any old kind of change, in any old ways, means, or fashions. Am I right? I hope not, since would be just too, too, absurd.
Nope, evolution is the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation, natural selection is the "Differential survival or reproduction of different genotypes in a population leading to changes in the gene frequencies of a population" (the Berkeley definition given in Message 134).
Now that you've stated your beliefs as to what it is not, I'd like to hear your opinion on what it is. In specific empirical terms, please.
Evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation.
Natural Selection - the differential success of various phenotypes in a specific population and ecology in passing hereditary traits on to the next generation.
As I said before, such tautologies as this are vacuous, and so do not advance our understanding one whit. Therefore is impossible for me to accept that they constitute a 'point' of any kind.
Then deal with the issues.
Looking forward to your response.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : .
Edited by RAZD, : definitions

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 145 by Elmer, posted 11-11-2007 1:35 PM Elmer has not replied

  
Elmer
Member (Idle past 5903 days)
Posts: 82
Joined: 01-15-2007


Message 149 of 160 (433418)
11-11-2007 10:00 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by RAZD
11-11-2007 2:55 PM


Re: response part 1 reply 1 & 2 response
Wow, RAZD, yours has got to be the longest post I have ever seen on a debating bulletin board!! I'll work my way through it, but you will have to temporarily confine your posts to other people until I can catch up, and that might take all week!! However, one small bite at a time, here I go--
quote:
Simply because the topic is biological evolution of living organisms, so it would be irrelevant to talk about rocks but not irrelevant to only talk about "that part of nature that is alive" ... and the evidence of past life (fossils, genetics, history, etc).
That's fine. Let's not talk about genes and other chemical molecules either, then, since in this sense they are no different from rocks.
quote:
"Now, the word 'selection', up intil Darwin, always meant to intentionally, deliberately, although not necessarily consciously, 'choosing', 'picking', 'taking' one thing in preference to another. Doing that always involved awareness, values/criteria, goals, and ability. These things were always properties of the 'selector', not necessarily the 'selected'. It should be noted that only living, sentient beings possess such properties."
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant?!?! You have got to be kidding.
quote:
That is why Darwin modified selection with natural, to differentiate selection by natural processes from those that are not natural - intentional selection.
You do not utterly change a word meaning by putting a modifier in front of it--you only qualify it. A natural fountain and an artificial fountain are both still fountains. The meaning of fountain is not changed. It still means water jetting out of the ground. A 'natural' child and a 'legitimate' child are both still babies, the one defined as a baby in exactly the same way as the other. The natural electricity of lightning from the clouds and the 'artificial' electricity from a generator are both the same physical thing. Whereas changing 'selection' from an activity 'performed by' a sentient being into something 'done to' a sentient being is changing the word's meaning entirely, and creating equivocation by giving it two antithetical meanings at once. And that is exactly what darwinists have done to 'selection'.
quote:
In modern biology
By which I take you to mean, 'darwinism'.
quote:
selection is defined as:
se·lec·tion -1.a. The act or an instance of selecting or the fact of having been selected.
- b. One that is selected.
Well, there you are then. It's just as I've been telling you. I rest my case. QED.
Please note the difference between using 'selection' as an act of choice, contrasted with referring to 'a selection' as a thing chosen. The first sense is active, the second passive. Note that the first sense refers to an act, the second sense to a thing. If "natural Selection" is to take the first sense of the word, it has to take the active, dynamic sense of 'making a choice', and that is the only sense in which it can be considered a causal mechanism.
The passive sense refers only to a thing chosen, that is, an effect brought about by a chooser. Now a book may be the 'selection of the month', but it did not 'select' itself. If Darwin meant 'natural selection' to mean the effects, (i.e.,the traits/organisms) we find in the biosphere after the passge of time, then he did no more than point at what is there, he offered no explanationas to how it came to there, i.e., its origins.
But I do not think that Darwin was using 'selection' in the passive sense, the sense that might apply to a cat or a dog at a show, or a tie on a rack, or an entree. I think that Darwin fully intended his "Natural Selection" to mean exactly the same kind of active, dynamic selection as that practiced by stockbreeders like himself, show judges, and restaurant patrons. All of whom are sentient beings actively making choices based upon their personal goals and the criteria established for arriving at those goals. I do not know of any earthquakes, floods, inanimate objects, or abstract notions that can make choices. So either admit that "Natural Selection" is a corruption of the word 'selection', by which an intentional and intelligence-based act, choice, is attributed to a non-sentient abstraction,'nature', [personification], or show that your "Natural Selection" is the causal behaviour of some specific, concrete and empirical entity that is just like us human 'selectors', 'judges', 'inspectors', and the like.
Or adopt the later, neo-darwinist, corruption of its meaning.
quote:
4. Biology A natural or artificial process that favors or induces survival and perpetuation of one kind of organism over others that die or fail to produce offspring.
(American Heritage Dictionary)"
As above, case closed, QED.
quote:
Where it can be either through directed processes (artificial selection) or natural processes (natural selection).
What do you mean by "it". And what word did you leave out, before or after "either"? If you meant to insert 'done' before 'either', than "it" is an after affect of the doing. It is a product or result of selection, a chosen thing, and not the act of choosing, and certainly not the 'chooser' that does the 'choosing'. In this sense you would intend an effect, not a cause, and so are not talking 'mechanism', but observation of fact. I believe that Darwin thought that he was talking about a causal mechanism that accounted for the origins of bioforms. Sadly for him, his contemporaries pointed out that his "NS", being a non-empirical abstraction, a personification, a figure of speech, was not an empirical cause, and that all of the examples he raised were only instances of the effects of unspecified empirical causes, and not an identifiable, universal causal agency. He had no causal mechanism for origins in his "Natural Selection", only terms for decribing the the world as it is, as in 'that which has been selected' by a non-existent, notional 'selector', using a mystical, inconstant, unidentifiable set of criteria called 'fitness' that apparently changed with every case. A quasi-religious concept as ever was. And more than a little nightmarish.
quote:
This is the terminology used by scientists in discussing the science. Not using this terminology means you are not talking about the science but something else, and in logic this is known as the logical fallacy of equivocation.
Actually you are using the old, 'fifty million frenchmen can't be wrong' fallacy. The belief that truth is a function of popularity. I am discussing the reality, the truth of evolution, which is not necessarily what darwinists think it is. There is no acceptable reason to accept the lingo that they have devised to support their dubious notion. The only equivocation in evolutionary terminology--
"equivocation
noun
1/The use or an instance of equivocal language: ambiguity, equivoque, euphemism, hedge, prevarication, shuffle, tergiversation, weasel word. Informal waffle. See clear/unclear.
2/An expression or term liable to more than one interpretation: ambiguity, double-entendre, equivocality, equivoque, tergiversation. See clear/unclear." [bold added] [source Houghton Mifflin]
--originates entirely with them, not me, as I have very clearly demonstrated.
quote:
"Then came Darwin, who tried to make an analogy between the dynamic 'selecting' done by stockbreeders like himself, and what happens to organisms in the wild. What he did was to imply that there was a sentient being, call it "Mother Nature" or "The Great Flying Spagghetti Monster", or what you will, that acted like human stock breeders and picked one creature to live but picked another for drowning, or otherwise eliminating. As a literary or pedagogical device it was quite effective, so long as you didn't take it literally. Taking it literally was mere superstition. Like believing in the 'angel of death', or, 'the grim reaper'. But, of, course, thousands of people did take it literally, just as millions of people take biblical creation myths literally. "
Except that this is false. Totally false. All Darwin said was that it was selection that occurred naturally.
Well, that is exactly what I have just said that he said. Where is this "false" assertion that you claim ?!?! Nobody denies that Darwin created an analogy between human stock breeding and plant cultivation with what happened to organisms in the wild. Unless you deny it that. Do you?
What Darwin said in his analogy entailed, (as analogies must if they are to be the least bit accurate), the chief aspects of the subject of that analogy, in his case, 'artificial selection', meaning human selection; meaning intelligent, aware, intentional choice-making according to a pre-set and universally applied criterion. That is what 'selection', as an act, entails. Therefore, if his analogy was valid, his "NS" had to possess these same characteristics.
Now "Nature", meaning the biosphere as such, does not in fact, as an abstraction, possess those features. But "Nature", figuratively or superstitiolusly taken to be some sort of semi-divine spirit entity, could.
But 'spirit entities' didn't go over well in Darwin's set, and by the time of his death his "Natural Selection" was headed for the scientific rubbish heap; although it remained popular among those who embraced it for religious and political reasons. Eventually it was saved from scientific oblivion by Mendelian inheritance theory, genetics, and the metaphysical speculation that genetic mistakes and accidents could originate and determine the adaptations, novel bioforms, and added complexity and productivity found in the biosphere. Origin by accident. But that's another issue.
quote:
You are the one reading personification into this,
Oh please, RAZD. The personification is there. It's undeniable. Darwin drew an analogy between the works of nature and the works of man. An analogy is a comparison based upon finding similarities between different things. Such as stock breeding and evolution. When the comparison/analogy seeks to establish a similarity between something non-human and that which is human, that effort is called personification. That's a plain fact. You cannot "read into something" that which is a plain fact. It is there, whether you like it or not.
quote:
Continuing to espouse false positions after they have been demonstrated to be false demonstrates a refusal or inability to learn.
That's true. Which is why when I demonstrate, logically and linguistically, that I am right and you are wrong, only to have you repeat the same wrong opinions on the subject, willy-nilly, it can get quite depressing.
quote:
Darwin recognized that not all selection was directed
Not true. Darwin simply asserted that he believed that not all 'selection' is directed. He was wrong to do that, because it just isn't true. By definition. All acts of 'selection' are directed by goals, values, awareness, and intention. There is no other kind, except in the notional world of Darwin and his disciples.
Now, if you want to talk 'mechanical sorting'-- (as in wind and water distribution of stone particles)-- instead of 'selection', that's another matter. Non-sentient agencies can do that.
quote:
The problem is that when you modify "selection" with "natural" there is no personification from the start, no changing of the definition -- that is why the modifier is there.
You simply do not understand the concept of 'personification', for some reason. Just as soon as you attribute a human property to a non-human entity, such as the biosphere, (here refering to the biosphere as 'nature'), and then assign a human ability [selection] to it, here via the word, 'natural', you have made up a personification. Go back and re-read the definition of the word that I supplied you earlier on, and then justify how you can continue to deny that Darwin personified, anthropomorphised the biosphere, with his "Natural Selection".
And then you'll see why that didn't go over, and why the word 'selection' then had to be given a totally new meaning by the neo-darwinists, going from 'the act of selecting' to 'the experience of being selected'.
quote:
"By changing 'selection' from something that was 'done', into into something that was 'done to', the awareness, values/criteria, goals, and ability were eliminated. Stuff can happen to, or be done to, anything at all, even rocks and water, and it can be purely accidental, i.e., random."
Yes, by modifying selection to be that selection due to natural processes that is the essence -- "stuff happens" -- whether it is to biological organisms or rocks.
Therebye propping up the materialist notion that live organisms are essentially no different from dust in the wind, and that everything that happens, 'just happens, that's all'. Very metaphysical stuff. But at least you finally admit that the meaning of 'selection' was altered in order to suit a metaphysical assumption.
quote:
Except that it is not corruption, it is using modifiers to differentiate between different processes that actually happen.
Well, you can go on asserting that, but I have clearly shown that it is just not true. Sticking 'natural' in front of 'selection' does not cause that word to legitimately go from 'directed act of choosing' to 'experience of being chosen'. Added to which if "NS" means 'selection' in the orignalsense, then it means 'a directed act of choosing from among alternatives, based upon criteria linked to values and goals'. I defy you to find me any abstraction that is not quasi-religious, or any inanimate object that is not a human artefact, that can do that. Therefore, if you say "NS" can do that, then you make it quasi-religious, a mystical 'spirit' of some kind. But if you opt for the neo-darwinian version of 'selection', i.e., 'the passively received experience of being chosen', then you've just chucked "NS" as a causal mechanism/explanation, religious or scientific, right out the window.
Anyhoo, I'm getting sleepy. Must toddle off. Later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 147 by RAZD, posted 11-11-2007 2:55 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 150 by molbiogirl, posted 11-11-2007 10:09 PM Elmer has not replied
 Message 151 by Percy, posted 11-12-2007 9:43 AM Elmer has not replied
 Message 152 by bluegenes, posted 11-12-2007 10:47 AM Elmer has not replied
 Message 154 by RAZD, posted 11-12-2007 12:38 PM Elmer has not replied

  
molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2641 days)
Posts: 1909
From: MO
Joined: 06-06-2007


Message 150 of 160 (433420)
11-11-2007 10:09 PM
Reply to: Message 149 by Elmer
11-11-2007 10:00 PM


Re: response part 1 reply 1 & 2 response
RAZD's just getting warmed up, buster.
You're in for a wild ride.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 149 by Elmer, posted 11-11-2007 10:00 PM Elmer has not replied

  
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