natural selection is wrong

Your right, it is a subjective argument, but when it comes to extracting meaning I only have my own subjective ability to go on, any other readers are welcome to chip in and explain to me why what you are saying is emminently reasonable. Only in your own unique version of Natural Selection, as it is usually understood the selection is between distinct variants within a population. This selection occurs as the result of differing reproductive success but whether any specific individual reproduces or not is not Natural Selection. How can you know this without knowing the exact composition of the coin? It may have two faces but that doesn't neccessarily mean that the weighting of both sides is identical. Are you claiming that people taking as granted that a coin will land heads or tails with roughly equal probability is due to an incredibly detailed analysis of the composition of a coin and the mechanics of coin tossing, rather than being due to the accumulated experiences of coin tossers down the ages? My point is that statistical analysis of previous examples is by far the more reliable and effective measure, and the same is true of Natural Selection, you are falling into exactly the same trap as the teleologically inclined adaptationists, you think you can tell what is best and why without actually testing it. I refer to them as such because they are pressures whose action on the genetic constitution of the population is independent of genetic variance. I don't know what you mean by eating, if you mean either predation or the ability to find food then I would suggest you are entirely wrong and that indeed the ability to find food or to be able to exploit different sources of food is likely to be a common outcome of selective pressure due to competing for food, this is suggested by examples such as Darwin's finches where different beaks allow different food sources to be exploited by otherwise highly similar species, and by the highly variable jaws and feeding niches seen in cichlid fish populations such as those in Lake Victoria.Acts of god such as floods or sudden freak weather conditions may be selectively neutral, it all rather depends upon the specific population and it constituent members. I am still using this terminology because neither you nor the paper gives me cause not to. The paper doesn't say it is meaningless to differentiate between factors which act as selective pressures and effectively random factors which operate independently of the genetic constitution of the population, all it says is that you cannot predict the extent to which all non-selective factors will affect the genetic constitution of a population and thereby predict beforehand how they will interct with selctive pressure towards some optimal strategy. All you can do is detect selective forces in action through statistical analysis of population genetics.TTFN,WK

You can have the word selection refer to what you want, but it would just be a subset of a more general theory. As shown in the post before, the observations are almost exactly the same, the observations should therefore all fall within the scope of a more general theory.John Wilkins on talk.origins used the word sampling in stead of selection, to refer to describing the relationship of the organism to the environment in terms of reproduction without variation.Selection would then become some subset of sampling theory. Mutations, recombinations occur and they are sampled by the environment in regards to their fitness for reproduction. A typical natural selection sceario is then when the environment changes, variant A get's to be resampled in respect to the new environmental factor of increased competition of variant B, which results in exticntion of A. Individual variant B's also get resampled and their reproductionrate is momentarily increased until the population reaches capacity.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

And round we go again to looking at two variants, but individually mind you, none of that nazi like comparison going on around here thank you very much. You can say sampling if you like, but the fact remains that when the likelihood of a particular variant being sampled is greater than that of its competitors then it is effectively being selected. Changing the terms to sampling or filtering does not alter what happens.Could you be more specific in your name dropping? Some sort of usable reference might make it easier to see in exactly how and in what context the term sampling was used. If you are talking about sampling error then this is just back to genetic drift and alleles with no fitness benefit becoming fixed in small populations, I don't know what you mean of course because you only gave the very loosest of references.TTFN,WK

Syamsu,The theory of Natural Selection was originally formulated to explain adaptation. It was subsequently able to explain a range of other phenomena such as evolutionarily stable strategies, stasis, etc. In each case "selection" requires the stochastic action of the environment on different geno/phenotypes within a population resulting in differential reproductive success of some phenotypes over others.I don't deny the type of action the environment has upon individuals & populations that you mention. For example, you mention the deaths of many migratory birds easing competitive pressures for that species. True, it would. But since it acts over the whole population there is no differential reproductive success. The whole population benefits, & as a result there is no adaptation as a result of lessened intraspecific competition. In fact, the only affect such non-selective pressures have is on overall population size.Bringing you back to the reason that the Theory of Natural Selection was formulated, adaptation. The migratory deaths of the birds in question has no efficacy regarding adaptation. It's a bit like talking about the Theory of Gravity by including the strong & weak nuclear forces, along with electromagnetism. True, they are all forces, gravity included, but the gravitational theory pertains to gravity & nothing else. In the same way natural selection pertains to the organism, the environment, adaptation, & the maintainence of systems via selective pressures.Have your theory, if you will, just don't call it "natural selection". The term has already been coined to explain something specific.MarkThis message has been edited by mark24, 06-02-2004 06:16 AM

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

As far as I know, "adaptation" is a vague notional term in Darwinism, it is not measurable. You can't say for instance this organism has an adaptation of 232, or an adaptation of 70 percent. It is therefore useless to argue about it.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I only mentioned John Wilkins name as a sort of proper tribute to him, not as some kind of support in argument. From memory he talked about how Gould used the term selection in regards to species, without referring to variant species. The wordusage is my own responsibility by my acceptance of it, so you can refer to me. Besides, it's just a word, what word do you suggest otherwise?Selection as a subset of sampling would be limited to encroachment. It would mean the one variant causing the other variant not to reproduce, and not mean one reproducing more then the other. It would be based on an identifiable chain of cause and effect, and not based on unidentifiable comparisons. Comparisons don't actually occur in nature. I think it's not really philosphically valid to say that a comparison causes any change in nature.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Syamsu, !Are you saying adaptation doesn't occur? When a wide variation of colours of guppy are placed in waters with predators, & a colour pattern emerges that matches the gravelly bottom, are you seriously saying that we aren't allowed to say adaptation has occurred? Does it matter that we potentially couldn't place a value upon the effect? It's like saying we're not allowed to discuss the fact it is raining without being able to quantify how hard.Natural Selection WAS invoked to explain adaptation of organisms to their environments. That you think it is unmeasurable or not is neither here nor there. Selective pressures force variation in populations to remain stable, increase in frequency, or decrease in fequency. I have mentioned Endlers study of Poecilia reticulata which measured the unmeasurable in a previous thread.We aren't allowed to mention "adaptation" on your say so, now? Unbelievable.The efficacy of NS as an explanation is based upon selective pressures forcing directional change or stabilising equilibria. An environmental phenomena that acts across a population equally doesn't change anything on average except population numbers. It culls, nothing more. It has no explanatory power as regards the above for which NS was formulated, as a driving mechanism for evolution. In effect, it is meaningless to evolutionary theory except as a potential agent of neutral drift, which by definition is non-selective, & is therefore more reasonably removed from NS.MarkThis message has been edited by mark24, 06-02-2004 09:04 AM

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Wow, you suddenly morphed into Brad!!! Even down to name-dropping Gould!!!!

What? Refer to post 25 please, Syamsu.Are you actually saying that I am some sort of greek-god-like stud, and that the raw power of my sexuality has caused some heretofore unknown vista of competition and comparison that ordinarily does not occur in nature?Cuz... y'know, if you are, that's cool.

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"He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

When in doubt, spout gibberish, name drop authors you have never read, and insult everyone. It is a recipe similar to Hungarian goulasch except that it does not taste as good and takes less time to make (not to mention that it is calory free).

Dan and Mammuthus walk into a bar full of good looking women..of course they all are identical since

quote:

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comparisons don't actually occur in nature

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...Mammuthus says "I'm bailing since I have no chance against Greek God Stud Dan" even though Mammuthus and Dan are identical since

quote:

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comparisons don't actually occur in nature

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Dan slips Mammuthus 5 bucks and whispers his thanks that he got his line right.

You shoulda' haggled. I woulda' gone to ten, easy.

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"He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I was making an argument about adaptation, but then I deleted it because I got stranded in the ambiguity of the term.What caused the gravelcolor of the guppy to be an adaptation was the introduction of predators. What caused the spread of gravelguppy's was it's fitness to reproduce.Note again that the reproductionrate of gravelguppy's will go back to 1, just the same as it was with colourguppies before predators were introduced.Starting from the introduction of predators, as natural selection takes place, the reproductiverate of gravelguppies falls to 1, and that of colourful falls to 0 (or might climb to 1 also if some balance is possible).It might also be the case that when predators are introduced both fall to zero. And then you would want to make yet another theory to deal with that scenario, eventhough everybody can see it is one and exact same fundamental principle being applied, sampling for reproduction or no reproduction.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

You have no point, it would be improper for me to claim credit for having coined the word by not mentioning John Wilkins use of it.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Can you and Mammuthus please remove your rubbish from the thread, and excuse yourselves to leave?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu