Destroying Darwinism

I never said endangered species were uninteresting ... please
read posts before responding to them, I find this helps
immensely.I said natural selection on a population without variation
is uninteresting in the sense that:i) The results would only impact population size
and
ii) There are no populations that do no have some variation
(as far as I am aware), due to the high rate of copy errors
when cells divide.I say natural selection without variation is valid, yes.It does not apply to endangered species, however, and no species
on the planet exists without variation. Humans are amongst the
least varied organisms on the planet and look at the phenotypic
variability there.Natural selection can only keep pace if the magnitude and rate
of the environmental changes are small/slow enough.Most endangered species, if not all, are endangered by man,
and the form of the endangerment is either hunting or rapid
destruction of ecosystems. This is akin to the catastrophic
extinction events inferred from the fossil record.Mutations are not uninteresting either, but a single mutation
exhibited by a single organism within a population is not
evolution.Evolution is a species-level effect not an individual level effect.I am different from my parents, not just because I have a mix
of their genes, but because during the process of gamete creation
there will have been copy errors. Recent research suggests that
the number of copy errors can be unexpectedly high.I do not represent the next stage of human evolution though.I simply have a new variation compared to my parents.Evolution happens when a variation that comes about confers
a survival benefit relative to some environmental factor that
gives a tendancy for that variation to be passed to more
of the next generation than would be the case through reproductive
processes alone.Large phenotypic effects can happen, but hopeful monsters are
not generally considered to be the norm. in evolutionary terms.
Maybe there have been instances of such energing and surviving --
I wouldn't like to rule it out entirely, but it seems unlikely to
be the usual evolutionary 'tactic'.

So what does apply to endangered species if not Natural Selection? How are you going to save endangered species, what kind of knowledge, apart from knowledge about politics, are you going to need for that?You will need to know what kind of negative selective pressures are causing the decrease in reproductive success. It is simply selection theory, without the variation.Again, when you say that there isn't a population without variation, then you need to qualify that statement by saying this variation is most always irrellevant to describe, in view of stasis etc.Considering I've argued this with you several times before, it would be good if you would only make arguments that take notice of all counterarguments I have offered before in responding. Otherwise simply don't post.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

My guess is that S, thinks that variation implies at worst heterogenity and at best some solid (i.e. impenetribility) and because it will be a rare Kervran biogist to propose that organisms can split the atom better than WWwildman he simply reverts to saying this "description" has low relative frequency but as you noted YOu had said NS "without variation". It IS true that we ACTUALLY artifically select IN THE PLENIC CONTINUUM and never in ONLY a man-made isolated set of nature. But it would be time not to speak of S's posts but the post itself that is in THIS sod to remain true to a material that may be fluid rather as I suspect it will even be genetically found to be but that indeed is more guess than science.I have not seen really any really good assement of even IF we need use effective population size as it seemed to me to be but two LETTERS that Wright used (nandM?) and the point with or without Syam...appears NOT as you noted in terms of populations to not depend but on what I am thinking of calling the geoartihemetic confused psychology for simply parsing ones words with a veiw on STASIS etc will not avail the continued probe of the existence of the non-political BECAUSE non-economic direction that conservation for instance needs even if not a part of some "sustainable" movement.Richard Lewotin "miss" diagnosed to Soctish Economics in my opninion the lack of development of topobiology precisely because CELL DEATH itself was not SELECTED in some as yet to be revealed if not concealed S-sense. But what are my two buff nicks worth anyway?

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Considering I've argued this with you several times before, it would be good if you would only make arguments that take notice
of all counterarguments I have offered before in responding. Otherwise simply don't post.

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I could say exactly the same ... that's why these threads tend to
get closed.I take note of your counterarguments, pointing out the many flaws,
which you then ignore and carry on.What causes endangered species to be endangered is what you need
to know to help maintain a breeding population.Since the endangerment of species is rarely (these days) a natural
occurrance then we need an approach which targets the man-made
problems that underly drop off in species numbers.You have had it pointed out before that natural selection is not
always acting, nor is it always capable of driving change.If I slaughter more buffalo than are born every season, eventually
there will be none left ... I hardly think that and natural
variability within the populaiton can cope with fur-traders and
butchers.The subject matter of conservationists is not evolution.Natural selection is an observed process thought to drive evolution.They are not linked in any meaningful way.

If I understand you correctly, I agree.Syamsu's view of what is or is not variation seems to be at
odds with biologists view on the same issue.

Just had a thought on some of Syamsu's misunderstandings.'Survival of the fittest' (excuse the ancient and inaccurate
term) does not mean 'there can be only one'.Take ten populations in the same ecosystem where all have traits
that help them survive, but within each population some are
better adapted than others. Each species will be predominated
by those best fit critters ... but not to the complete exclusion
of the not-so-fit (not at first anyhow).All the different populations survive (some using photosynthesis
some not for example) because of their individual relaitonships
with the ecosystem in which they all reside. Some of those
relationships may be with one another (e.g. predator-prey,
parasitic, saprophitic), but there are also any number of other
factors invovled in the daily grind to survive.

If it's a pressure that's simply reducing the population and not promoting the increase of beneficial traits, it's not selection, now is it?Just like it's not selection when I burn everything in the store.

Well I would say of course it is selection also, because it falls within the same logic. Again, you would say white moths are being selected against, if there are black moths in the population, so why not say they are being selected against if there are no black moths in the population? It's basically the same thing happening. You can give it a different name, as some Darwinists have argued, and reserve the name selection solely for replacement/encroachment, but for scientific knowledge such naming would be deceptive IMO. I mean knowledge has to be systemized in science, and to give a different name for something that is really much the same is deceptive.There are lots of changes to the environment all the time, increasing and decreasing the chance of reproduction of organisms in a population. The population could become extinct, it could flourish. That is basically the same as to what happened to the white and black moths, the white moths became extinct, and the black moths flourished.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Now you say "also" but also to what? that we do not yet have any data to support that Peter said "one". I agree correctly without need to correct him but you -S- seem to miss cashfrog's point for a "pressure" as Maxwell understood it need not apriori be any choice but rather the physico-chemistry of repulsions and attractions. I had sent a packet to Will Provine to hope to clear up this kind of a conflicted attidute that probabilism leads in ANY first instance (why is the 2nd law a probablistic study and not based on Hamiltonians etc etc) that DID NOT seperated reversible from nonreversible processes. Cantor's notion of a reveresed fundamental series provides something other than the mathematical challeges to evolution thought in terms of "paramters" as it has NOT been instantiated in any population and yet You S could readJust had a thought on some of Syamsu's misunderstandings.'Survival of the fittest' (excuse the ancient and inaccurate
term) does not mean 'there can be only one'.Take ten populations in the same ecosystem where all have traits
that help them survive, but within each population some are
better adapted than others. Each species will be predominated
by those best fit critters ... but not to the complete exclusion
of the not-so-fit (not at first anyhow).All the different populations survive (some using photosynthesis
some not for example) because of their individual relaitonships
with the ecosystem in which they all reside. Some of those
relationships may be with one another (e.g. predator-prey,
parasitic, saprophitic), but there are also any number of other
factors invovled in the daily grind to survive.to indicate that Gould's reliance IN ANY PROBALISM(S) on the light of Fuytuma's Light to extend the thought in bio-change is NOT correct but that Peter is...This would on my understanding me Wright's not Fisher's insistence of a active gobal trial and error process and beyond Peter I can EASILY read historically but not yet scientifically Boscovich's "dead forces" in a physical but not necessarily biological PRESSURE of Maxwell as part of Fisher's notion of THE SEWELL WRIGHT EFFECT and that would be biology that apart from the data you await IS comprehensible perhaps if only I try again in my less than perspicuous courseness.

{Duplicate of previous message - Content deleted - Adminnemooseus}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 05-30-2003]

Well, it depends on what is killing the white moths. If they're dying because the trees are darker as a result of industrial pollution, but the dark moths are prospering, then that's a trait-related selection. If all the moths are dying because of disease, then that's not selection - at least, not for color. It could be selection for disease resistance, assuming any moths develop it.You have to have a choice to be "selection". If the population loss is indiscriminate it's not selection. Right, but the black and white moths still mate with each other, so they're in the same population. Why assume they're in a different one?Population is the key to this. If mortality factors strain the population without really changing trait frequencies in any survival-related way, it's simply not selection.

Crashfrog,this

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Population is the key to this. If mortality factors strain the population without really changing trait frequencies in any survival-related way, it's simply not selection.

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is one of the most succinct phrasings of this concept that I have heard. IMO, Syamsu has such a limited comprehension of the systems that he is studying that he has to simplify them to the point of unreality.------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz

But it is still selection if other, cohabiting
populations are not similarly affected.Natural selection isn't about changing trait frequencies per-se,
it's a process that produces that result when variation
exists.Although (as above) if you step back another layer, then
the trait frequencies are across populations too.

That is not an answer to my question, so again, you would say white moths are being selected against, if there are black moths in the population, so why not say they are being selected against if there are no black moths in the population? (all else being equal of course to the famous peppered moth example, disease is not at issue, the trees changing from white to black is at issue)Obviously you have selecting for, and selecting against, there is the "choice" in selection you are seeking.Natural Selection also applies to asexually reproducing creatures, so mating basicly has nothing to do with selection.Population is the key? It's strange that you would say this after modern Darwinists have absolutely insisted that selection is about the individual, and not about the group. Strange that you insist on a group for selection again, that the population is "the key". Of course "the key" is really the relationship of an organims to it's environment, in view of it's chance of reproduction.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 06-04-2003]

There is no unreality, since the variation is irrellevant most all the time. Most biologybooks ignore variation within populations, are they unreal too?Neither you or Peter have given a justification for including variation in the definition of NS beyond saying that variation exists. I exist, should I also be in the definition of Natural Selection then?You give a good show, and the reason you can do that is because it is meaningful to describe the relation of an organism to it's environment in regards to the event of reproduction. Besides that it is also meaningful, but deceptive, to talk about replacement until extinction, just like Darwin did in "Descent of Man", and "Origin of Species". But really it is not very meaningful to say this organism reproduces more then the other, to say this building is higher then that building, which is basicly what you are doing. Your basic inanity is hidden among the meaningful things.Frogs reproduce more then elephants. That's your theory really. You can make it look more interesting by saying a large frog reproduces more then a small frog, but it's structurally still the same.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 06-04-2003]