Destroying Darwinism

The encroaching is Darwin's justification for including variation in Natural Selection.First of all you should acknowledge that it is worthwile to look at how an organism reproduces. That is the subjectmatter of a cutdown theory of selection. How an organisms reproduces is that there are relations to the environment that contribute to reproduction, and relations to the environment that diminish reproduction (this I then call positive and negative selective pressures). These relationships make for a chance of reproduction of the organism. (which I call it's fitness)One of the negative selective factors on an organism might be competition from other organisms in the population with a differing trait. (which is then a negative selective factor). The organism may also be limited in it's production by being preyed upon by another organism from a different species. (which is another negative selective factor). There is no fundamental difference in the relationship between an organism of a different species, and an organism with a differing trait in it's own population, they both diminish the chance of reproduction. (the organism is selected against in relation to both those very differerent organisms). When an organism is preyed on, exactly the same thing happened as when a variant takes it resources. The reproductive success of those that prey is increased, as well as the reproductive success of the variant that took the food.Now why should I want to compare the reproducionrates of the organism with the variant? And what about comparing the reproductionrate of the organism with the organism that's preying on it? I don't know why.To put this in an extreme form should provide some insight. Why not compare the rate of reproduction of frogs and elephants as well? Why is that so bizarre?First, it's bizarre because the frogs and elephants each have their different way of reproducing. So then Natural Selection depends on the difference between organism being very small, otherwise if the difference were big, as big as that between frogs and elephants, then it would be bizarre.Second, the frogs and elephants do not influence each other's rate of reproduction at all.It's not neccesarily true for a variant of the same population to influence the rate of reproduction of the organism in question (to encroach). For some part like elephants and frogs, each variant can have their own niche, so encroachment can be no justification for comparing.Differences between variants being small, is a largely subjective argument, which can't be part of a theory. There is no law of gradualism in nature. Mutations are discrete, and the consequences for reproduction eratic with different mutations. I guess the gradualism between variants that is there, is more likely to be part of an acquired trait for gradualism, rather then that gradualism is a fundamental property of heriditary material. I think that the subjective gradualism in the definition of Natural Selection, is what caused Darwinists to oppose Mendellian genetics for up to 72 years.So if I would compare then I would get the proportions in the population. But then this can be deceptive beacause the variants may be to some extent in separate populations, have their own niche.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 06-09-2003]

First of all, it is totally lame for you to say it is inappropiate to captitalize Natural Selection. People are free to capitalize as they see fit, and IMO it makes it more clear to capitilize that word. Please control your controlling behaviour.The encroaching is from the opening of "Descent of Man". The meaning of competition in Darwinism is a bit vague to me, for it can also be used like "a plant is competing against the drought" so that's why I use encroaching. By encroaching I refer to a variant being a negative selective pressure on another variant.C.Darwin Descent of Man
"The enquirer would next come to the important point, whether man tends to increase at so rapid a rate, as to lead to occasional severe struggles for existence; and consequently to beneficial variations, whether in body or mind, being preserved, and injurious ones eliminated. Do the races or species of men, whichever term may be applied, encroach on and replace one another, so that some finally become extinct? We shall see that all these questions, as indeed is obvious in respect to most of them, must be answered in the affirmative, in the same manner as with the lower animals."the logic of Darwinists:
increase at rapid rate....struggle for existence....beneficial preserved....injurous eliminated...encroach and replace....become extinct.So if I just produced a short version of Darwinism, why then is the short version not the standard version, with variants being treated as an incidental complicating factor to the short version, just like sexual reproduction?Note that what is observed in populations most all the time is stasis, the variation is mostly inconsequential to evolution. So the short version would apply to stasis, but the complicated version requiring comparison between variants obviously doesn't meaningfully apply. Besides what is lost sight of in the standard definition, is that the organism may stay the same, but the relationship to the environment changes. We could have differential reproductive success of same organisms in different environments, but unfortunately this falls outside the scope of the theory as well. Apart from that, look at Darwin's rationale for selection again. It is a struggle for existence, and then the one is encroaching and replacing the other. This really only applies to variants to the extent that they use the same resources. So it is not really good to describe evolution of say, a first proto-photosynthesis trait with (assuming that there is not so much gradualism between some photosynthesis and no photosynthesis), but it's meant for slighly different photo-synthesis traits encroaching and replacing one another. So you see it even doesn't describe evolution very well. So by all of this and more, the standard definition of Natural Selection provides an extremely prejudicial view, where large parts of Nature are ignored.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Well maybe the differential reproductive success of photosynthesis/nonphotosynthesis was a million to one. Some microbe in the ocean getting the trait and then spreading wildly. Of course there's supposedly a cost with maintaining the photosynthesis trait, so we can assume that in the dark caves along the shore the photosynthetic trait will not penetrate. So what you have as a Darwinist is the 1000000 to 1 figure, which wrongly leads you to suspect that the original population will be wiped out, as by Darwin, will be encroached upon and replaced, until it finally becomes extinct. With encroachment to replace carries the wrong presumption that the populationsize remains stable. It becomes more clear how wrong it is to compare when the trait is more unique, applying to a different resource. Obviously it's better to describe the non-photo and photo-organisms separately. You just end up comparing apples with oranges, frogs with elephants, microbes in dark caves, with photosynthetic microbes in the light outside.You just have no argument as far as I can tell.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Can you present your argument in a formulaic structured way? It's not clear now what your argument actually has to do with Natural Selection. There is no point in your argument now, since you don't relate your argument to the application of Natural Selection theorySo for instance when you write:"Looking at two populations in completely different environments is very different from looking at two populations or sub populations in the same environment."then you add to it things like:"Natural Selection doesn't apply when the variants are in different environments. Natural Selection only describes encroachment and replacement of a variant on another variant."regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Your emotional incoherent babble, does not refute my argument, nor the argument of historians like Fischer about the relationship between Darwinism and Nazism, and general argument about the relationship of Social-Darwinism to Darwinism.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I think it would be enlightening to formalize more.The relationship of variants in terms of influencing each other's reproduction.Where - (minus) means one variant reduces reproduction of the other variant"-/- encroachment/replacement
-/0 encroachment/replacement
0/0 neutral variation
+/+ symbiotic relationship
+/- predator-prey relationship
+/0 I don't know what to call that, but I believe it exists somewhere in the richness of NatureSo seemingly you are ignoring 4 out of 6 in this row, maybe 5. With encroachment until extinction the -/- relationship is only temporary, since obviously when a variant is extinct it can't limit reproduction anymore of the other variant.It has to be understood, that a +/0 relationship means that one variant has increased reproduction through the other variant it's presence, but not vice-versa.So you see that you're doing something very odd from the point of view of organizing knowledge. Why don't you have a theory of Natural Symbiosis for instance, why just focus on encroachment and replacement?I think you were too quick to agree that Natural Selection only applies to to variants to the extent they use the same resources.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

The only reason you're angry is because you insist on more authority then your argumentation merits. You're very bad at theory, abstraction, systemization.The relationship of Islam to some attrocities is not at issue, nor the relationship of alcohol consumption to violent behaviour. Darwinism is.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I don't think that "this seems to occur much more then that" is a valid enough reason to focus on the one and ignore the others. This is supposed to be science, and science is supposed to be a type of highly formalized and systemize knowledge about the world.Environmentalists are always talking about a minimum amount of variation being required for preservation of a species. So then the relationship of variants is not seen by them as cannonfodder to encroach and replace to extinction the other variant, but as an essentially symbiotic relationship where variants increase each other's chance of reproduction long term, possibly even escaping extinction by it.Since those endangered species are at carryingcapacity or you might say they are above carrying capacity, it is shown that there still can be symbiotic +/+ relationships at caryingcapacity.So what is a +/0 relationship called? And can you give some examples of a persistent -/- relationship between variants?I think you may have missed the point that + doesn't refer to the relationship of the variant to the environment whole, it just refers to the relationship to the other variant.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Well I'm happy that you're not angry, but your posts are still not clear enough for me to respond to. I did respond to your frog paper, which you just dumped without any argumentation. Again, if it is shown that small and large have their own niche, then the paper is deceptive IMO. And I provided more argument then that, which you just dismiss as misdirection and whatever, without actually meaningfully engaging my arguments.If you're able at theory, abstraction and systemization, then present an example of A's and B's as Natural Selection, in the context of whatever else can happen to A's and B's in regards to reproduction/evolution/selection, why don't you.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Of course none of you has said anything remotely meaningful about the relationship between Darwinism and Social Darwinism in this thread.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Obviously you have much more flexibility when you describe from the point of view of the individual, then if you describe from the point of view of a differential pairing of variants. Nature is complex, that's why the definition of selection needs to be simple, so it has more flexibility to deal with the complex.Also Darwinists have long campaigned to have equal status with physics as a hard science, with some success. You're opinion that it's more soft-science is not shared commonly in biology AFAIK.When I said that populations have no variation, in the context I said to mean that what is observed most all the time is stasis. But talk about inconsistency, your theorizing is based around variants encroaching until extinction. If a variant encroaches untill extinction then obviously it becomes uniform in the population. You insist on variation being present for encroachment and replacement to then destroy, so your requirement for variation is a bit duplicit.Again, the variants help each other not to become extinct. So then they do this by avoiding inbreeding apparently, and by resistance to disease. Like with resistance to malaria, which resistance causes it's own problems, but solves more problems then it creates when faced with malaria.So your argument is then that the heterogenity doesn't favour all variables equally. So what. It's still fundamentally a +/+ relationship. That becomes very clear when it is said that it saves the species from extinction. I don't understand how you can twist this around to effectively say it is -/0 or -/- relationship between the variants. That is fundamentally untrue.Besides on a broader point, are you denying that +/+ relationships exist between variants within populations in Nature whole? That reminds me of Dawkins saying what he calls "real" altruism (not reciprocal) doesn't exist between variations. But since Dawkins writes the way he does, I don't have a clue what Dawkins words mean in terms of plus and minus relationships. It could be he's saying +/- relationships don't exist. It could be he's simply cheating, and saying that +/- relationships don't exist when one of the variants is going extinct. Secretly switching from describing the relationship between variants, to describing the relationship between a variant and the envrionment whole.So are you saying that commensalism doesn't exist in populations also just like symbiosis? What is your argument now actually?Sure I have to prove their existence, since I hypothesize they do exist. I ask around to people who know biology, it's more convenient that way then going out to do fieldwork or scanning literature for it.I guess it is more easy to find +/- relationships among asexually reproducing organisms like bacteria. But with sexually reproducing organisms, what about traits that tend to overuse resources inefficiently for reproduction. The overuse is then a negative to the other variant, and the positive is that after the environment is decimated, there are enough of the modest variants left to save the glutters from extinction. A population of only glutters would destroy the environment and become extinct. This can be stable, I think...Anyway, I feel that a vague reference to the richness of Nature is good enough for this forum. I mean you also before talked about the complexity of nature, so in all this complexity there isn't a +/- relationship?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Phrasing the way the abstract does in the context of Darwinian theory suggests that small frogs become extinct. Extinction is a significant event in terms of preservation, where population increases and decreases don't neccesarily say anything yet about preservation. Perhaps you could make a second paper on exactly the same events titled: Balancing Selection among differently sized frogs. So which would be the true Darwinian description then?I don't understand your example, and I don't have to I think. You're ignoring more fundamental issues about the theory, and going into the complex things that have been built on the fundaments. All I can say is that the wordusage of fitness like you use it seems totally inconsistent with the common meaning of the word from which it is derived.If A's and B's are not really appropiate, then how appropiate are the works of Darwin by the same standards? Very inappropiate it seems, they are about a lightyear removed from anything as structured as Gaussian formula's.Mendel had A's and B's as variants and put them in a neat and clear formulation. I don't see any fundamental difference between Darwinism and Mendellism that you can't, as the fundaments, have that sort of explanation of Darwinism as well. Gaussian formula's doesn't seem to me to be near the fundaments of Darwinism.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Of course it is a bit duplicit to insist on variation to be there, and at the same time have it be destroyed. It basicly says Natural Selection is limited by it's influence by other things like the mutationrate. Would Natural Selection still apply if black moths produced white moths?I already showed evidence with the environmentalist example of variation being required to be there to save the species from extincton. Notice that they typify variation generally as having a symbiotic quality. They are not saying like it is an exception for variation to have a symbiotic quality. I still have no clue what your arguments against this example is. You seem to have turned it around by saying something like symbiosis is actually based on competition, but that is just plain deception as far as I can tell.The inefficiency of the glutters compensates for any increase in reproductive rate that might result from using more resources, so that they still can have equal reproduction. You said that was important, so I just put the equality in there, just in case. It doesn't seem to me that it's neccessary actually, because they can also have separate niches. The total net relation should be positive, so it doesn't matter if modest inhibit the reproduction of glutters a little, since the total of the relationship is still that they contribute to the glutters reproduction.I ignore the allelle frequencies because I don't see the point. I woulf first talk about the real number of a variant, that is more fundamental.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

But I'm not denying that the way variation prevents extinction is by providing resistance to several diseases, or to prevent inbreeding. I'm just saying that is still symbiosis of one variant to another variant.We're examining similar relationships to Natural Selection, and if they exist, and if they are on an equal footing with Natural Selection theory in the structure of knowledge, like "Natural Symbiosis". Of course it would help to know what Natural Selection actually says about the relationships between variants and environment whole in terms of reproduction. That is not clear to me now. Note that several biologists have told me that Natural Selection says nothing about the relationship between variants in terms of reproduction. They said the variants need not influence each other's rate of reproduction at all, for Natural Selection to apply, that competition is not required for Natural Selection to apply.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Howard Hershey and Ian Musgrave. This was not something very interpretative on my part, the subject at issue was if competition or any other relation on reproduction at all between variants was part of Natural Selection theory. The answer was no, Natural Selection just states that the reproducionrates of variants are different, and doesn't say anything about variants influencing each other's reproduction.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu