Destroying Darwinism

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

Do you have any support for this as it sounds to me like you did NOT understand clearly, rather in the same way that you missunderstood the frog abstract.------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz

Thank you, I will think about this.

I asked this and Howard Hershey answered, and I paid him a 100 dollars for that answer, then later Ian Musgrave gave a formula for Natural Selection which included competition. When I pointed this out to him, he said that those parts which deal with competition are not part of Natural Selection theory.Can you please give an answer to the question, what, if any, the relationship between the variants is in Natural Selection theory?It seems you're uncertain about what that relationship is, since you don't say what it is.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Your arguments are nonsense. Go post in the guncontrol thread and criticize people there who are against guns, but total hypocrites that they are, still consume alcohol, or smoke cigarettes, or whatever.Apart from Darwinism, you could discuss creationist conceptions of the immutability of species and kinds, in relation to racist conceptions of racial purity.Well you can't actually, since you can't seem to provide any meaningful argument on a subject like that.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

That IS the standard meaning of natural selection!!!So what are you complaining about?If you understand that natural selection is about how different
trait sets affect the chance of leaving offspring carrying those
traits, I really cannot see what you are going on about.

That's the whole point that people have been trying to make
to you.Natural selection is the generic process which describes
the way in which heritable traits are passed down through
the generations. All it really says is if you breed more,
then more of your traits are in subsequent generations.Specific relationships that can lead to such a difference
are details, data.Natural selection doesn't say WHAT affects reproduction rates
at all. It simply states that if something does affect reproduction
rates due to a heritable characteristic then that characteristic
will either increase or decrease in subsequent generations (depending
on the nature of the interaction).

First off, I really do not believe that you paid a researcher $100 for an answer, or that he would take the money under those circumstances unless it was as speaking or consulting fees. And those generally run a little higher. And SYamsu, I do know what I am talking about here as I have worked consulting from both sides of the aisle, both hiring consultants and being hired as one (the area FYI is in Biotechnology Process Development). I note that you did not supply a reference for the Ian Musgrave reply. I have researched him a bit and, at best, it is my opinion that you did not understand him.Now, the answer to your question was very clearly set out in my theoretical explaination of variation, fitness and speciation. Individuals with a different phenotypic makeup have differeing levels of fitness within an environment, the environment included individuals of the same species. And individuals work within the environment, those who are the most successful leave more descendents and the genetic frequencies which make up their phenotype increase within the population. This is what is generally called Natural Selection. Another component of this is what is termed Sexual Selection which IS related to but is not exactly the same as Natural Selection. I actually posted some information to you concerning the interaction between the two earlier in this thread. Now, do you have the ability to address the theoretical model that you requrested, as in subsequent posts I pointed out WHY it is more appropriate than your own, or are you just going to change the subject and try to move the goalposts again?------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz

The goalposts being moved is due to differences in definition, or simply lack of definition, of Natural Selection. You still do not say clearly here what the definition is to the point at issue, the relationship between the variants. And saying what Natural Selection "generally" is, leaves a lot of wriggle room for differing definitions again.Anyway, my argument if you would not require the variants to influence each other's rate of reproduction, would be that you then have no reason anymore not to talk about Natural Selection of variants that are completely separate, like on different continents.If you would require a relationship on reproduction between them, then my argument would be that all sorts of relationships between variants can and do occur besides encroachment/replacement, like symbiosis.No I have no ability to address the formula. I don't understand it, much as I don't understand fitness being relative, in stead of being the chance to reproduce.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I'll try it again ....Natural selection just says individuals chance of reproduction
can be effected by environmental relationships.That's all.Given any population one can investigate the habitat and suggest
traits which may have emerged as the norm due to the process
of natural selection (and many via sexual selection).If I only want dogs smaller than a certain size, I only breed the
adults that are smaller than that size. If the trait is heritable
I eventually get smaller dogs only.IS it really that hard to follow the logic?

You forget that the species black white moth etc., is of the same gene pool. The variants interbreed freely. Any other kind of relationship between populations eg. hybrid zones have naught to do with natural selection. What you seem to be concocting is a form of sympatric speciation. Which isn’t natural selection. To do this you will most likely want to invoke reinforcement theory (if you where an evolutionist). Although, it is somewhat dated and dubiously supported. Also, fecundity isn’t the sole measure of fitness, there are others, like juvenile survivorship and kin selection. The fame of the theory of natural selection is in part, due to its simplicity. It’s just so obvious that when one first learns about it, it’s like finding the bacon that you could smell someone cooking for half an hour. The fixation of an allele in a population is an empirically testable phenomenon (though demonstration populations are usually small) (1), so really we shouldn’t have much to discuss!1. Najera, C; Mensua, JL. 1987. Polymorphisms of inversions and Adh alleles in eye colour mutant experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics Selection Evolution. vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 289-296,[This message has been edited by Autocatalysis, 06-16-2003][This message has been edited by Autocatalysis, 06-21-2003]

I think the simplicity you talk about is illusionary. I've seen that said before how Natural Selection is really very simple, but if you get right down to it and have to state yourself what it says specifically, excluding what it doesn't cover, then you might be busy for several hours phrasing, in stead of like a physicist just copying down a good enough standard formula from a textbook such as f=ma.The standardformula Darwinists now use is differential reproductive success of variants. It is short, but as argued before in this thread, it's unfortunately also as meaningless as the theory of differential buildinglength or whatever. Remember that the influential philosopher Popper criticized some versions / interpretations of Natural Selection for being faulty. It is not as clear cut as you imagine it to be.You talk about fixation of a trait in a population. So then when there is something like a first proto photosynthesis trait, which encroaches and replaces on much of it's original population, except in places where there is no light, then you talk about the photosynthesis trait becoming fixated in the population? Becoming fixated is just yet another word for preservation / persistence / stable reproductive cycle , isn't it?Is there really any need at all to refer to any "variants", when the subject of interest is preservation of the proto-photosynthesis trait? There doesn't seem to be any need. I think now you're going to spend several hours concocting phrases that seem to justify the need to refer to a "variant", when you really mean to describe the fixatation / preservation of the photosynthesistrait. Your final phrasing may seem like something good and scientific, but you will always have that the perspective on Nature attained by your theory, strangely falls in the middle between the variants, in stead of being focused on the relationship of the photosynthesistrait to the environment in terms of reproduction/preservation.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Would that not depend on a DIFFERENCE Faraday and Physical LInes of force of Muller clumped morphospace for any difference of mere and thermal contact which formally can do with or without variation as to a RESOLVED tension between Fisher and Wright. Then both could be correct, YES? COUNTING ions or photons in an electromagentic correlation with mutation would materially differ not at all as regarding your criticism of the current employment of the bIOLOGy (aka Popper) of natural selection for angular MOMENTum is still available for incidental work should the statistic bear more to the right or left in the distribution interpreted as a "variant" or not.

We can talk about mutations if you like, or alleles. But when there are two distinct phenotypes in the same population you have to call them something, even if you just call them 'distinct phenotypes'you don't change the fact that they vary from each other. Obviously in a theoretical homogenetic population there would be no variation and hence no variants. Interest in the 'preservation' of the photosynthetic trait is no more important than interest in the 'preservation' of the non-photosynthetic trait, what is interesting is the way a specific trait may be selected for by the environment. Why should we treat members of one population as if they were members of two? Do you think species should diverge at the nucleotide polymorphism level?

No. Theories don’t describe themselves by what there not!i am an apple not ane orange, pear, high-rise building etc. lolKarl Popper is irrelevant. His argument was with the predictability to the whole theory (not a interpretation/aspect). His arguments are defunct in the modern era.No. fixation isn’t persistence. Fixation is a complete replacement of an allele in a population. You can have persistence of a trait without fixation. If fixation was to occur in a population such as your photosynthesis trait, then the individuals in the dark and in the light would have the trait. Unless they are reproductively isolated or fixation doesn’t happen.A variant is a term that describes genetic/phenotypic differences in a population. We can use different terms if you like, I was responding to your use of it, lol.