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Author Topic:   Clear faults in Darwin's formulation of Natural Selection
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 31 of 42 (33366)
02-27-2003 10:10 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by Peter
02-27-2003 8:58 AM


Indeed they are not the same, one is wrong the other right. When you say NS is about "which" organism reproduces, then you have put the focus of selection on competition or comparison. "Which" implies one or the other. Selection is between reproduction and no reproduction of the one, or survival and no survival of the one, as you have it, not reproduction of one or the other.
I think the setup to include variation this way is also odd. First assume the existence of variation, first assume the existence of a primitive photosynthesis trait, then have it evolve, meaning the traitfrequencies in the population changes. That's nonsense isn't it? The photosynthesis trait evolved, meaning a mutation occured that made it, and then it spread, it reproduced, it was selected for. That's the way it makes sense.
I think there is more to it then just convenience to describe evolution that variation is included in the definition. But what that is, I don't really know.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by Peter, posted 02-27-2003 8:58 AM Peter has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Peter, posted 02-28-2003 4:43 AM Syamsu has replied

Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 32 of 42 (33408)
02-28-2003 4:43 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by Syamsu
02-27-2003 10:10 AM


Guilty as charged!! My wording was just as loose as those
definitions that you complain about.
What I mean by NS (carefully worded this time)::
Natural Selection concerns the environmental factors
that affects the number of offspring produced by an individual.
For NS the focus is not on competition, but on survival to
reproduce.
quote:
The photosynthesis trait evolved, meaning a mutation occured that made it, and then it spread, it reproduced, it was selected for. That's the way it makes sense.
And the above, in a nut-shell, is exactly how evolutionists view
it.
If the photosynthesis trait arrived via a mutation, that means
that the mutation introduced a new variant into the population.
That variant could produce energy from sunlight, H2O and CO2,
while other individuals could not. This gave it an advantage,
and a greater chance of prolonged survival. Thus it left more
offspring with the heritable ps trait than those that coud not
do ps. Each of these generation-2 ps-plants also out-bred
their non-ps peers, and so on.
That is natural selection.
Evolution requires variation. In your example, the mutation
introduced a variation. Not all individuals within the population
suddenly develop the same mutation (unless you are Peter Borger).
Natural selection is about the relationship between traits and
survival (to reproduce).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by Syamsu, posted 02-27-2003 10:10 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by Syamsu, posted 03-02-2003 9:00 PM Peter has replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 33 of 42 (33508)
03-02-2003 9:00 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Peter
02-28-2003 4:43 AM


Ah, you just don't get it. The advantage over, and outbreeding talk is meaningless. You don't actually know what the ancestor to the first plant was and maybe the ancestral form is still around today. If that were true which it might, then your talk about having an advantage, or outbreeding is misleading, deceptive. Your prejudice may be right many times, but science doesn't work that way.
Evolution as defined by Darwinists is a change in populationfrequency of variants. Darwinists do not define evolution in the way I did, that is simply untrue.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Peter, posted 02-28-2003 4:43 AM Peter has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by Peter, posted 03-03-2003 1:57 AM Syamsu has replied

Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 34 of 42 (33518)
03-03-2003 1:57 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Syamsu
03-02-2003 9:00 PM


We have not been talking about evolution, we
have been talking about natural selection.
No 'ancestral forms' are still around today.
All life on earth (currently) has evolved over the
last 2-3 billion years (according to contemporary
science). Two (or more) current organisms may have
a common ancestor, but no living organism is
ancestor to any other living organism (excepting
its own offspring).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Syamsu, posted 03-02-2003 9:00 PM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Syamsu, posted 03-05-2003 10:11 AM Peter has replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 35 of 42 (33697)
03-05-2003 10:11 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by Peter
03-03-2003 1:57 AM


When you talk about advantage related to a variation (the photsynthesis trait), then you're talking about a form, differentiated with the ancestral form, or form of others in the population. You said that the photosynthetic form is more succesful then it's ancestor. What if the first photosynthetic organism is evolved from a bacteria that is still around today in the same form as it was then? Then all your talk about having an "advantage over" is misleading. You could just as well turn it around and argue about the advantage the ancestral bacteria have over their photosynthetic offspring.
Your mistake derives from Darwin's formulation.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Peter, posted 03-03-2003 1:57 AM Peter has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by Peter, posted 03-05-2003 5:37 PM Syamsu has replied

Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 36 of 42 (33718)
03-05-2003 5:37 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Syamsu
03-05-2003 10:11 AM


It is highly unlikely that any creature exists today that
is completely unchanged from it's ancestors 2 billion years
ago.
When cells divide they suffer copy errors.
Natural selection does not preclude two variants surviving
within a population, or of the population splitting such that
sub-population-A stays put and follows one evolutionary path,
while sub-population-B moves on and follows another. The
variation may even make the variants able to exploit different
aspects of the same environment (I would suppose this to be
possible).
If you mis-understand natural selection as a concept, and it's
consequences for evolution that does not mean that the concepts
are wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Syamsu, posted 03-05-2003 10:11 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Syamsu, posted 03-05-2003 11:23 PM Peter has replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 37 of 42 (33736)
03-05-2003 11:23 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Peter
03-05-2003 5:37 PM


It is wrong to say the one form has an advantage over the other form, as you do, when both the one and the other continue to reproduce generation after generation.
Highly unlikely is not impossible, and I believe there are acknowledged to be organisms that don't evolve for this timeperiod. Besides a photosynthetic trait could evolve today, then there is no long time period.
Your concepts derived from Darwin are clearly wrong. You need to think about why you want to look at reproduction of a form or forms, and how you fit this way of looking at organisms with looking at them in terms of reproduction in general.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Peter, posted 03-05-2003 5:37 PM Peter has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by Peter, posted 03-10-2003 2:07 AM Syamsu has replied

Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 38 of 42 (34013)
03-10-2003 2:07 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by Syamsu
03-05-2003 11:23 PM


Just because one variant is at an advantage doesn't
mean that the other variant will be wiped out. It may
become less common, but not necessarily disappear
entirely.
Tell those who object to abiogenesis that highly unlikely
does not mean impossible, please.
Yes, I cannot say for certain, but logic says that since copy errors
happen, then over billions of years it would not be likely
that any species would retain exactly the same genotype.
There are some creatures which are phenotypically unchanged in
any major, species defining feature ... but I don't think anyone
is saying that they are identicle to their ancestors in the way
that you seem to mean.
A PS trait could evolve today, and maybe it did somewhere in the
universe ... who knows, and what point were you making?
You keep falling in back on this 'Darwin is wrong' thing, without
being very clear as to why.
Severla people here have described the most common understanding
of natural selection to you. Whether you quible over how formal
the definition is or not, NS happens and has been observed to
happen.
Organisms can only reproduce if they are alive.
In a population there IS variation.
Some variants will be able to stay alive longer than others.
Those that stay alive longest will have the most opportunity for
reproduction.
Those that leave the most offspring will have the most impact
on the genetic make-up (gene pool) of the future population.
Where is the problem in that reasoning?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Syamsu, posted 03-05-2003 11:23 PM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Syamsu, posted 03-10-2003 3:49 AM Peter has replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 39 of 42 (34022)
03-10-2003 3:49 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by Peter
03-10-2003 2:07 AM


Well it's hopeless if you don't care for systemacy of knowledge, as any scientist has to. But as in another thread, I can justifiably call your and Darwin's formulation of Natural Selection wrong, pseudoscience, by that standard of systemacy. If variation is not required for selection, as you acknowledge, then it's out of the basic definition, and you are misrepresenting the workings of Natural Selection for including it.
I would only talk about having an advantage over another if there was a competitive situation, where the one variant influenced the reproductive success of another variant, otherwise to put it that way results in deception. Or otherwise I would talk about advantage as in a relation to the environment that contributes to reproducion, without mentioning any variant at all.
Darwin in his muddled thinking besides requiring variation also required competition in his formulation of Natural Selection applied to people, where he talked about one race or species of man encroaching on one another as the basic working of Natural Selection.
So then you have a very very different looking formulation where it is required that for Natuaral Selection you talk about one variant being better then the other, and the superior encroaching on / killing the inferior. Very very different, and all because Darwinists quite arrogantly refuse to abide by standards of systemacy of knowledge that are simply accepted without question in other sciences.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by Peter, posted 03-10-2003 2:07 AM Peter has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by Peter, posted 03-10-2003 4:51 AM Syamsu has replied

Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 40 of 42 (34025)
03-10-2003 4:51 AM
Reply to: Message 39 by Syamsu
03-10-2003 3:49 AM


You don't have to be in competition to have an
advantage over another individual.
Advantage does not mean that one impacts the potential of
reproductive success of the other. In fact, that's largely
why there is an emphasis on survival.
You don't seem to be understanding the way NS operates
no matter how I (and others) try to explain it. It's not
about competition (although that can feature as an environmental
pressure).
Darwin does(did?) NOT require variation for natural selection,
but for evolution!! Please re-read the section that YOU
quoted to see this!
Niether did he require competition ... and as discussed before
his comment on the races of man encroaching on one another
was a dispassionate view of the way of the world, not a suggestion
that different races of man were in direct competition and that
one was better than the other.
Darwin's approach, if it lacks systemacy, was not due to arrogance,
but due to that being the way science was conducted in his day.
I don't find there to be a problem with the formal defintion
of natural selection, but I agree that many popular press
descriptions do not clearly de-couple NS from evolution.
That is understandable since NS is almost exclusively discussed
as a mechanism for driving evolution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by Syamsu, posted 03-10-2003 3:49 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by Syamsu, posted 03-10-2003 6:00 AM Peter has not replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 41 of 42 (34033)
03-10-2003 6:00 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by Peter
03-10-2003 4:51 AM


The next sentence after the quote which includes variation reads something like, "this mechanism I have opted to call Natural Selection". It is not Natural Selection including variation so it is suited for evolution, but simply basic Natural Selection. You have no argument.
As mentioned several times before:
It is simply untrue that works from the same timeperiod, such as that of Mendel, were not formalized, besides you insist on a wrong version that includes variation here and now.
It is not dispassionate to note when it is allowed for superior people to kill inferior, what the highest state of morality is, to say that you shouldn't marry inferior etc. What is it then but enormous arrogance to talk with scientific certitude about all these things? It's only lawyers for Darwin who think that is dispassionate, but in any other science those things would not be allowed to pass.
It's not understandable at all that you include variation, but not require variation. That is simply wrong. Again, you had better come up with a good reason to require variation in Natural Selection. Personal interest in evolution doesn't count.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Peter, posted 03-10-2003 4:51 AM Peter has not replied

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Message 42 of 42 (34039)
03-10-2003 8:24 AM


Closing This Thread
The discussion seems to be stuck.
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