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Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Definition for the Theory of Evolution | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
The following comment is directed at all evolutionists:
When you boil it all down evolution is about a population's success in fixing beneficial alleles. That's all. We know the processes which allow that to happen”natural selection, sexual selection, drift, gene flow, mutation. What matters is the result. A population changes with the fixing of beneficial alleles; who disputes that? What more is there to it? You'd have to be into evo-devo to find another way a population can evolve. I'm not, because I am suspicious of the evo-devo mentality. They want to dodge the genetic-heritability imperative and invoke other means of passing along structure information. If you think the reductionism of genetic heritability is subjective you ought to read some works by Mary Jane West-Eberhard or Simon Conway Morris. Evolution is NOT a change in gene frequencies; the same is a temporal mode. Reductionism (genetics) needs explanation but evolution is about populations and the principle object of selection - the organism. Evolution is inferred (after the alleged fact) by observation. There are plenty of scholars who reject reductionism and explicitly favor the naturalist or traditional understanding of how evolution is identified. The theory of how evolution happens is natural selection. RAZD's present list of scientific concepts for the definition of ToE, with NS thrown in, defies all published scholarship on this issue. It does not matter what any given person thinks how ToE is defined, what matters is how scholarship defines ToE: natural selection. Just about everything in this topic, offered by most evolutionists, is subjective and unsupported by assertion. ”HM
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
I'm not, because I am suspicious of the evo-devo mentality. They want to dodge the genetic-heritability imperative and invoke other means of passing along structure information. I think you are getting evo-devo confused with process structuralism. Unless that is you are talking about epigenetics. TTFN, WK
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
WK wrote:
I think you are getting evo-devo confused with process structuralism.
Perhaps. Could you provide a distinction?
Unless that is you are talking about epigenetics.
Epigenetics, yes. That, too, is obviously heritable. But at its operational core, pursuant to the striped-down definition of evolution theory that RAZD seeks, would you agree that biological evolution is all about populations fixing of beneficial alleles (epigenetics notwithstanding)? ”HM
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The following comment is directed at all evolutionists: Why? If you directed it at creationists, you might succeed in fooling someone.
Evolution is NOT a change in gene frequencies; the same is a temporal mode. Reductionism (genetics) needs explanation but evolution is about populations and the principle object of selection - the organism. Evolution is inferred (after the alleged fact) by observation. There are plenty of scholars who reject reductionism and explicitly favor the naturalist or traditional understanding of how evolution is identified. The theory of how evolution happens is natural selection. RAZD's present list of scientific concepts for the definition of ToE, with NS thrown in, defies all published scholarship on this issue. It does not matter what any given person thinks how ToE is defined, what matters is how scholarship defines ToE: natural selection. Well, that was a load of rubbish, wan't it? "Scholarship" does not "define ToE" as "natural selection". This is why you cannot quote a single scholar offering that as a definition. (Incidentally, I notice that the definition you attribute to "scholarship" is quite different from the one you attribute to Phillip Johnson. Is this, in your opinion, because he is a liar, or simply because he is not a "scholar"?) Evolution is a change in allele frequencies. If you think you can give me an example of evolution without allele frequencies changing, let us know. As for your piffle about genetics, I suspect you've read some half-baked article on the subject and failed to understand it. Evolution is observed as well as inferred, surely you know that? Oh, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead doesn't call the Great Pyramid "the pillar of Enoch". Remember that? Is there anything else you'd like to be wrong about?
Just about everything in this topic, offered by most evolutionists, is subjective and unsupported by assertion. Could we have that again in English? Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Evolution is a change in allele frequencies. If you think you can give me an example of evolution without allele frequencies changing, let us know. Ah, but what is that theory of evolution eh? Are there any scientific sources of definition for the theory that you know (like the Berkeley and the U of Mich definitions)? Whether Ray is mistaken or not is irrelevant in the end: it doesn't mean we need to stop talking about what the real definition of the theory of evolution involves. Enjoy. compare Fiocruz Genome and fight Muscular Dystrophy with Team EvC! (click) we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Okay. The following comment is directed at all evolutionists: Okay. The following comment is directed at all creationists: Creationism is NOT about the work of a divine being creating the Universe, it's about magic pixies in silly hats jumping around on pogosticks shouting "Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!" There are plenty of scholars who reject reductionism and explicitly favor the naturalist or traditional understanding of how creationism is identified. The theory of how creation happens is pixies on pogosticks. Your present list of unscientific concepts for the definition of Creationism, with a supernatural entity thrown in, defies all published scholarship on this issue. It does not matter what any given person thinks how Creationism is defined, what matters is how scholarship defines Creationism: magic pixies on pogosticks. Just about everything in this topic, offered by most creationists, is subjective and unsupported by assertion, whatever the heck that means. --- Hey, you get to make up our opinions, so surely we get to make up yours? That's more than fair, since after all our real opinions are science, and your real opinions involve a talking snake, so I can't help thinking that you'd be getting the best of such a deal.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Why is an insignificant concept like neutral drift included in the definition of ToE? Because the ToE necessarily includes the laws of genetics.
ND is outside of the control of natural selection, which is the definition of ToE. Still wrong, eh?
RAZD has ignored my post saying that ToE is defined as natural selection, but he includes ND in the definition of ToE. And I'm sure he will also ignore any posts in which leopards are defined as "things with spots", while including spots in the definition of leopards. On the question of whether genetic drift is "insignificant", I wrote this introductory article. Look in particular at the section on drift with selection. Note that a beneficial mutation is much more likely to be eliminated by GD than fixed by NS. Also, tell me this. If the mathematics in that article which shows the interaction between NS and GD is not part of the theory of evolution, then what is it? If you're not going to allow us to call the interaction of NS and genetics "the theory of evolution", then would you kindly tell us what we can call it? Only that's what we're actually advocating.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I got the point. Of course we can't list all of the things not involved. However, the things not on that list are not necessarily excluded - they just aren't explicitly included. There are things we don't know about yet which could be influencing evolution so anything not currently in the theory can't be explicitly excluded. They have to be, otherwise the theory is unfalsifiable.
What is the problem with that? Every Creationist I've come across seems absolutely desperate to conceal from his readership what the theory of evolution actually is. I don't see why we should help.
There are millions of definitions that don't explain what the theory of evolution actually is. But not good ones.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
They have to be, otherwise the theory is unfalsifiable. Care to explain how saying 'no help from combustion engines is explicitly necessary' renders a theory unfalsifiable?
Every Creationist I've come across seems absolutely desperate to conceal from his readership what the theory of evolution actually is. I don't see why we should help. Right - we shouldn't help. That's why I was correcting the incorrect statements in Ray's description of the ToE. Is there anything incorrect about what I wrote?
But not good ones. Not true at all. The definition for aardvark is quite good. Also - a definition of the theory of evolution which simply describes the history of the science and what it seeks to explain, is perfectly good.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Care to explain how saying 'no help from combustion engines is explicitly necessary' renders a theory unfalsifiable? No, but I'd be happy to back up any statement I've actually made. A theory which is not well-defined, by excluding what it does not include, is unfalsifiable. If we attribute evolution to NS, genetics, and "maybe some magic evolution pixies, who can say", then there is no observation which can falsify it, since we could always attribute any otherwise inexplicable observation to pixie power.
Right - we shouldn't help. We shouldn't help creationists conceal the theory of evolution, no.
Also - a definition of the theory of evolution which simply describes the history of the science and what it seeks to explain, is perfectly good. Except that putting forward such a definition, "perfectly good" though it might be, would do nothing to inhibit a creationist from lying about what the theory of evolution actually is, nor prevent him from doing so successfully.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
No, but I'd be happy to back up any statement I've actually made. Ah - so what you are saying is that you weren't addressing what I was talking about then?
If we attribute evolution to NS, genetics, and "maybe some magic evolution pixies, who can say", then there is no observation which can falsify it, since we could always attribute any otherwise inexplicable observation to pixie power. I didn't say 'maybe some pixies' I said 'no help from pixies is explicitly necessary'. There is an observation which can falsify that statement.
We shouldn't help creationists conceal the theory of evolution, no. One thing for sure - we shouldn't obfuscate the theory of evolution for the benefit of creationists!
Except that putting forward such a definition, "perfectly good" though it might be, would do nothing to inhibit a creationist from lying about what the theory of evolution actually is, nor prevent him from doing so successfully. I don't see how my definition can prevent or inhibit a creationist lying or obfuscating. All I did was correct the incorrect portions of Ray's definition with correct portions - helping to avoid misrepresentation of the theory not aiding in it! Obviously it wasn't a complete definition of the ToE, including all the mechanisms, evidences and mathematics. It still was not incorrect and I'm having a problem understanding what the problem you are having is. If a creationist wanted to view the theory of evolution as a theory about biology which dose not require a divine creator to work...what is the problem with that? Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Ah - so what you are saying is that you weren't addressing what I was talking about then? I am. You wrote: "anything not currently in the theory can't be explicitly excluded." I say that anything not currently in the theory must be excluded, because otherwise the theory is unfalsifiable.
I don't see how my definition can prevent or inhibit a creationist lying or obfuscating. Nor do I. I can, however, see how giving a definition which says what the theory actually is would handicap a creationist in his attempts at mendacity.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I am. You wrote: "anything not currently in the theory can't be explicitly excluded." In the sense of combustion engines and pixies which are not excluded so much as 'not required'. Ultimately they get cut away due to parsimony but we were talking about how a theory relates to a concept of a divine creator, so it kind of needs to get mentioned.
I say that anything not currently in the theory must be excluded, because otherwise the theory is unfalsifiable. I don't think that is true by the way. The concept of horizontal gene transfer was never specifically excluded from ToE, and a good job too! Perhaps you can start a new thread on it if you want to discuss that further. If you do start a new thread perhaps you could quote this as my position: If I described the whole of evolutionary theory, over 10,000 pages including supporting evidence and the like, and ended my treatise by saying 'pixies and combustion engines and God are not needed, but we cannot absolutely rule any of them out' does that make it unfalsifiable? To me it makes the theory tentative - flexible and able to update in light of new evidence.
I can, however, see how giving a definition which says what the theory actually is would handicap a creationist in his attempts at mendacity. We're having that problem again. There are many valid definitions on what the theory actually is. You are trying to say 'what mechanisms the theory proposes and the general framework of the theory' I suppose. That's fine and dandy and I have put that forward a number of times. However, if in Ray's opinion the most important way to describe a theory is how it relates to a divine creator that's fine. I simply wanted him to understand the correct way the divine creator hypothesis should stand with regards to evolution. As Laplace may have famously said 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' That is all I said. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Cold Foreign Object  Suspended Member (Idle past 3047 days) Posts: 3417 Joined: |
The best I've ever found is that the theory of evolution was the first working non-supernatural account for biological change and the origin of our species. A concept which shocked the world because the origin of man was the last bastion of the Abrahamic God.... Johnson's definition says ToE is an interpretation of scientific data attempting to explain how nature may have created itself without any assitance from a Divine Creator. There is no difference between Johnson and your blue box definition. What are we arguing about? Ray
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Cold Foreign Object  Suspended Member (Idle past 3047 days) Posts: 3417 Joined: |
"Scholarship" does not "define ToE" as "natural selection". This is why you cannot quote a single scholar offering that as a definition. You are unread and completely ignorant.
(Incidentally, I notice that the definition you attribute to "scholarship" is quite different from the one you attribute to Phillip Johnson. Is this, in your opinion, because he is a liar, or simply because he is not a "scholar"?) Johnson is a recognized scholar.
Evolution is a change in allele frequencies. If you think you can give me an example of evolution without allele frequencies changing, let us know. A change in gene frequencies is the geneticist definition of evolution. It is not the only valid definition of evolution.
Evolution is observed as well as inferred, surely you know that? Evolution is inferred; it cannot be observed in real time because it is too slow. What happens in the molecular universe is not falsifiable as one must take the word of the scientist on it, whether an Evolutionist or Creationist. Evolution is not observable. This makes it much like Creationism: we do not get to see exactly when God creates by special creation. Like evolution, special creation is inferred after the fact. Now that I know you are unread and ignorant I will not be reading anymore of your messages. Ray
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