quote:
Many more offspring are produced than can possibly live past some unanticipated life-threatening event, is not correct by any means.
So you disagree with the observations of naturalists
the world over for many years?
quote:
I didn't intend to say organisms battle each other.
Nonetheless, that's what the implication appeared to be.
You, on the one hand, say that Darwin's writing is prosaic,
and them on the other take each phrase as a formal description.
The 'battle for existence' is a metaphor.
quote:
Are you saying that plants make an effort to reproduce?
Yes. They must grow, spread out roots to gain nutrients from
the environment in order to develop their seed-bearing
mechanism of choice (flower, spore, what have you), they must
bend their leaf surfaces toward the available light.
There is a quite significant effort involved in a plant's
struggle for survival.
quote:
If there is any effort to a plants reproduction it's on the part of the environment, because effort can only be where randomness is.
The last part lost me ... but how exactly can the environment
extert an effort?
quote:
It can also be in the nervous system of some animal, but maybe that randomnes should be noted as environment to the organism, in stead of as phenotype.
Why can effort only be where randomness is?
Even if everything were predictable in advance, one would still
have to expend energy to survive.
quote:
Tautology is saying the same thing twice.
Having an advantage is the same as having a higher chance of reproduction, and therefore a tautology.
Only if you define 'advantage' as meaning 'higher chance of
reproductive success'. The usual formulation does not
define advantage in that way.
The usual formulation of NS says that those individuals with
an advantage will have a higher chance of reproduction (see
below for more). Advantage leads to greater reproductive success.
quote:
There is no cause(advantage) which leads to an effect (higher chance of reproduction), there is just a varying chance of reproduction.
Think about what you just stated above.
Organisms have a varying chance of reproduction.
This means that some organisms can have a higher chance of
reproduction that others.
A factors which will affect this include any trait which gives
one organism a survival or breeding advantage over another
organims (or group of organisms).
quote:
In many months you have not learned to make your theory general. Your theory does not apply to plants, because plants are not animals. Your biased definition of Natural Selection towards animals
leads you to talk about "effort" to reproduce.
NS, as I have described it, applies to any organism (indeed to
anything that self-replicates and interacts with an environment).
If a plant has a seed with a better flight characteristic, and
seeds stand a better chance of survival if they fall further
from the parent, then the plant has an advantage.
quote:
Now you have double layered selection. First only selection on survival before reproduction (2), and then selection after survival before reproduction, but still before reproduction(3). It's ridiculous.
1. Whether or not a new-born/sprouted/etc. organism has any chance
of reproduction depends upon on it surviving to breeding age/maturity.
2. The number of offspring that any breeding-age organism leaves will
increase with each breeding season through which it survives.
If an 'advantaged' individual bears 3/5 surviving young for 5 seasons
while a 'dis-advantaged' individual bears 2/5 surviving young
for 3 seasons there will be a shift in the overall population
characteristic toward the advantaged trait(s).
quote:
It's strange that you now deny my definition of Natural Selection where before you have accepted this definition.
If the 'definition' of NS you supplied in the previous post is 'your' definition then I have never agreed with this.
I find it somewhat alarming that, after thinking we were moving
toward some common ground, you seem to have discarded all of the
previous line of discussion and started back with 'NS don't work'!!
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