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| Author | Topic: Questioning The Evolutionary Process | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days)  Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Well, feel free to voice your opinion, but I've already shown that "Natural Selection" is nothing but a perfect example of personification. Except you haven't. You've asserted it, and you put together a faulty argument based on your wrong impressions of what natural selection involves. It is life, mating and death occurring naturally with the result that some hereditary traits get passed on to following generations more than others due to differential opportunities for survival and mating caused by those traits in response to the ecology involved. Light shines naturally from the sun, and we do not need to personify the sun. Some light gets selected naturally to be absorbed in clouds, while other light gets selected naturally to shine on the land and water on earth, and we do not need to personify clouds. Thus we have naturally occurring patches of light and shade. No supernatural force is needed. See quote from LaPlace in Message 128.
quote:No doubt this sentence suggests something to you, but to me it is utterly meaningless. Natural Selection is "the selection of..." strikes me as tautologous. Well, not even that, since it's saying the same thing with the same words. Creationists typically move the goalposts by changing what they were arguing about while pretending to be on the same theme. In this case you were talking about natural selection being personified and directed by some supernatural force, in effect a Supernatural Selection. The above sentence deals with the discrimination between Natural Selection and Supernatural Selection -- it is selection that occurs naturally. Now if you don't (or want to pretend now that you don't) understand what selection is then that is a different issue
Notice the biological definition, which - seeing as we are discussing the science of biology - we will use (using definitions not used in science leads to misunderstanding or false statements). In Natural Selection we focus on the natural process, while in breeding programs we focus on the artificial process, but the result is the same -- different individuals in any breeding population of any species contribute to the following generation in different degrees due to the hereditary traits they posses.
quote:I hope not, since in fact 'this' is nothing but a litany of hypotheticals that are, in and of themselves, perfectly meaningless. Actually it can be observed to happen, so this makes it far from "hypothetical" -- it is a fact. And again, what you "hope" has little effect on reality, it is perfectly capable of carrying on in complete indifference to what you "hope" one way or the other about reality.
quote:Where in your above-quoted passage do I call "Natural Selection" by "a different name"? Oh let;s not be disingenuous now. What I was referring to was clearly quoted, which I repeat here:
The reason I bring this up is because I believe that "selection" is the 'key word' that defines both of the old paradigms, 'creationism' and 'darwinism', whereas "dynamic response" is key to the paradigm that Bertvan refers to, an organism-centered theory of evolution that might be thought of as, 'developmental evolution'; as opposed to the 'gene-centered' theory of evolution that is called, at least by its believers, "THE" theory of evolution. Calling it "dynamic response" does not change the process. Scientists use standard words that are well defined and well understood. The benefit is that then people learning the science can learn the definitions and the terms used and be able to understand what the science says. Using different terms and definitions leads to confusion at best.
You are, I believe, completely correct to say that "Evolution as a whole is a dynamic response system". Unfortunately, since "Natural Selection" make the organism into the passive pawn of accidental agencies, there is no room in any dynamic, responsive theory of evolution for 'NS'. That is why there are two basic approaches to evolution--the neo-lamarckian 'dynamic organismic response' theory, and the neo-darwinian, 'passive organismic selection' theory. See? When you use non-standard definitions based on poor understanding you end up with confusion, and when you combine it with poor logic (a false dichotomy) you suffer from bad conclusions. Your " neo-lamarckian 'dynamic organismic response' theory" is a meaningless phrase that still suffers from the fact that lamarckism, neo- or not, is invalidated: acquired characteristics are not passed on from generation to generation by hereditary traits, while your "neo-darwinian, 'passive organismic selection' theory" suffers from NOT being a definition of THE theory of (all types of) evolution -- rather it refers to genetic drift instead (a part of evolution). Also see the Neutral Theory of Evolution 101 Mating is not passive, surviving a flood, drought or famine is not passive, being well fed and healthy is not passive, life is not passive.
Now, I believe that evolution is an historical 'process', but surely "NS" is not the same process as 'evolution', or evolution and natural selection become one and the same thing. How is the 'process of natural selection' to be distinguished from the process of evolution itself? What you believe is irrelevant. Mutation is not a part of Natural Selection nor is Genetic Drift. Evolution includes many processes of which Natural Selection is one.
I agree. Butit is the determinist view, and the determinist view is the mechanist view, and the mechanist view is the materialist view, and the gene-centered view of evolution, (call it fisherism, the modern synthesis, RMNS, or what you will), simply falls apart without genetic determinism. And the kneebone is connected to the hipbone... Nope, rather this is a product of poor logic based on confusion. Now you have the opportunity to prove me wrong by substantiating your argument.
That's nice. Can I ask you again.? Just exactly what is this thing that you call "Natural Selection". Do you have a scientific, empirical (as opposed to notional, philosophical)definition for it, or don't you? Several have been given, such as the wikipedia version, but how about we look at what a university teaching evolution says: Page not found
quote: and their Evolution 101 says: Natural Selection - Understanding Evolution
quote: Or from another university teaching evolution: Evolution and Natural Selection
quote: Note that both definitions are consistent with my arguments above.
quote:I am happy to hear that. Please bring on those facts. The fact that I have nowhere found any reason to believe that "NS" is a scientic phenomenon, rather than a fanciful notion, does not mean that I have nhot already searched high and low for such evidence empirical actuality. And my "apparent disinterest" is only apparent to you. No, the "apparent disinterest" in finding out the facts is manifest in your ignorance of the facts, facts which are easy to find. I've already mentioned the Galapagos Finches and the Peppered Moths - which are also mentioned in the wikipedia article referred to above. We also have two threads on this forum where you can discuss these facts in more detail:
Galapagos finchesPeppered Moths and Natural Selection This because you expect that the stuff that you take for 'proof' of the empirical reality of NS as a causal mechanism for evolution SHOULD suffice tol convince me, but hasn't. You then leap to the conclusion that I haven't seen your 'proofs', and that the only way that that could happen is if I hadn't bothered to look. Well, it is true that what you and others consider to be 'proof' of "NS", (without ever defining it scientifically)is thrown about everywhere, Who has not heard of the "peppered moth", or of "Darwin's finches"? Trouble is, I do not draw the same inferences from those cases that you do, and there is no logical or empirical reason why I should. The fact is that beak size in the population of Galapagos Finches as a whole changed from one generation to the next. The fact is that wing color in the population of Peppered Moths as a whole changed from one generation to the next. The fact is that these changes did NOT occur within individuals, NOR from parent to offspring by sudden mutations, rather the fact is that they were due to "Differential survival or reproduction of different genotypes in a population leading to changes in the gene frequencies of a population" (see Berkeley definition above) -- Natural Selection -- between those individuals that had the beneficial beak size or wing color. These are validated observations of fact. So what are your conclusions and how do we test them for validity? If all you are doing is denying the facts then this is NOT an alternative explanation of the facts, it is no explanation, just denial of reality. You've already demonstrated that your logic is poor and your understanding of evolution in general and natural selection in specific is faulty, but here is your opportunity to present your alternative solution so we can see if it can stand.
Gee, and I thought that I had made it clear that I did not need someone to tell me to go somewhere else and read something else. I have no interest in 'argument by link', and I am genuinely offended that you assume that I have not read the wiki, or the TalkOrigins, or the encyclopediae, or the textbook definitions of "NS". I have. But they do not make any scientific sense. They speak of an abstraction as if it were a concrete reality, and that is a logical fallacy. The question is whether you are interested in learning the truth. IF you are interested in learning the truth THEN you will pursue new knowledge. IF you refuse to pursue new knowledge THEN you are NOT interested in learning the truth.
I never said that we needed replace the concept of evolution with anything else. I said that we needed to replace materialism and its offshoots with so9mething else. But since it is the darwinian notion of evolution via 'chance plus genetic determinism plus chance coincidence' that is used to prop up materialism, it has to go as well. So you don't need to change evolution, you just need to change evolution.  Here's an idea: present a secular alternative to "materialism" -- one that can be used by everybody regardless of belief. Otherwise you are attempting to impose some kind of faith on things where it doesn't apply, and that is basically immoral as well as counter productive. Creationists are always moaning about materialism and such, yet they never provide a secular alternative.
My point exactly. Let's stop doing that. After all, 150 years of untested philosophy is more than enough, I should think! Is this kind of denial or wallowing in ignorance worth a response? It has been demonstrated that you are wrong, so the question is whether you will learn from that or ignore and deny it.
quote:Yup. That's why all this 'spontaneous genetic generation' and "Natural Selection" stuff troubles me sometimes, makes me laugh at other times. Just like those Genesis myths, they trouble me to think that otherwise intelligent people take them seriously, but it also makes me laugh out loud that otherwise intelligent people take them seriously. And yet people generally - and intelligent people in specific -ARE capable of learning the facts and determining the truth.
My philosophical position is not fixed in stone. I became a convinced darwinian while in middle school, but the evidence gradually turned me away from that notion and towards a better explanation for evolution. Even so, I was a darwinist for more years than I've been a non-darwinist, neo-lamarckian, 'devo-evo' type. So what is your " non-darwinist, neo-lamarckian, 'devo-evo' type" explanation for the Galapagos Finches and the Peppered Moths? You say you have a better explanation than evolution, so let's see some results.
I've proved that facts and logic can change my mind. So bring on your facts and logic. Have you? I'll get to your replies to my response part 1 later. Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : switched reply and response for consistency and clarity 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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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
A rock is natural. Water is natural. Can a rock "choose" it's location, what it does, or what happens to it? Can water "choose" when to evaporate, when to condense, when to preipitate, and where to go once it hits the ground? If 'natural selection' is 'natural', how come it doesn't pertain to all of nature, but only that part of nature that is alive? Simply because the topic is biological evolution of living organisms, so it would be irrelevant to talk about rocks but not irrelevant to only talk about "that part of nature that is alive" ... and the evidence of past life (fossils, genetics, history, etc).
Now, the word 'selection', up intil Darwin, always meant to intentionally, deliberately, although not necessarily consciously, 'choosing', 'picking', 'taking' one thing in preference to another. Doing that always involved awareness, values/criteria, goals, and ability. These things were always properties of the 'selector', not necessarily the 'selected'. It should be noted that only living, sentient beings possess such properties. Irrelevant. That is why Darwin modified selection with natural, to differentiate selection by natural processes from those that are not natural - intentional selection. In modern biology selection is defined as:
Where it can be either through directed processes (artificial selection) or natural processes (natural selection). This is the terminology used by scientists in discussing the science. Not using this terminology means you are not talking about the science but something else, and in logic this is known as the logical fallacy of equivocation.
Then came Darwin, who tried to make an analogy between the dynamic 'selecting' done by stockbreeders like himself, and what happens to organisms in the wild. What he did was to imply that there was a sentient being, call it "Mother Nature" or "The Great Flying Spagghetti Monster", or what you will, that acted like human stock breeders and picked one creature to live but picked another for drowning, or otherwise eliminating. As a literary or pedagogical device it was quite effective, so long as you didn't take it literally. Taking it literally was mere superstition. Like believing in the 'angel of death', or, 'the grim reaper'. But, of, course, thousands of people did take it literally, just as millions of people take biblical creation myths literally. Except that this is false. Totally false. All Darwin said was that it was selection that occurred naturally. You are the one reading personification into this, not Darwin, not science, not reality. Continuing to espouse false positions after they have been demonstrated to be false demonstrates a refusal or inability to learn. Darwin recognized that not all selection was directed and that a lot occurred naturally regardless of the manipulations of people, and he also realized that this was sufficient to affect life directly.
Now, a few bright souls realised that they were doing with 'natural selection' was just exactly what other people were doing with Adam and Eve, and so went to work on chenging the meaning of the word 'selection' in order to take the 'spirits' out of it. To do that they changed the focus of the word. As I said, 'selection', since the beginnings of the English language, was something dynamic that was intentionally done by someone to something or to somebody. Now it was said to mean something passive, that is, stuff that just happened to something or somebody for any old reason. The problem is that when you modify "selection" with "natural" there is no personification from the start, no changing of the definition -- that is why the modifier is there.
By changing 'selection' from something that was 'done', into into something that was 'done to', the awareness, values/criteria, goals, and ability were eliminated. Stuff can happen to, or be done to, anything at all, even rocks and water, and it can be purly accidental, i.e., random. Yes, by modifying selection to be that selection due to natural processes that is the essence -- "stuff happens" -- whether it is to biological organisms or rocks.
For some reason people just stood by and watched this corruption of the language take place, and so now, here we are with it imbedded in the language like a virus that cannot be gotten rid of. Except that it is not corruption, it is using modifiers to differentiate between different processes that actually happen. Natural Selection occurred before Darwin put the terms together (and he was likely not the first to recognize it), so what we are doing is ADDING to the power of language to describe reality, not corrupting it. This is the way language develops over time, regardless of the topic. You can only talk about corruption if you claim that language can never change, a philosophically ridiculous position (it implies that all knowledge is known).
Well, I don't think we should introduce 'sexual selection', which a/only applies to sexully reproducing organisms and b/ is, in those rare instances in which it is truly present, is a dynamic, intentional activity, as opposed to the passive, accidental experience intrinsic to natural selection, until after we have thoroughly determined the nature of 'natural selection'. So I'm going to skip down a bit. What you think is irrelevant, nature and the universe are totally unimpressed and unaffected. Sexual selection exists. The nature of 'natural selection' is determined, whether you think so or not, and it includes sexual selection in it.
What do you mean by "aspects of natural selection"? Defining characteristics? Natural properties? The phrase was "other aspects of natural selection" and then there was a list of other aspects, different processes by which natural selection occurs and can be viewed to occur..
If 'natural selection' means the experiences that might befall a passive entity, then everything and anything can be an 'aspect' of 'natural selection', including both dying [being killed] right now, and not dying [being killed] right now. Why limit it to passive entities? Natural selection involves experiences that might befall all organisms. Surviving a flood is not necessarily passive, for example.
Kind of makes the term, "NS", both nebulous and vacuous. I think that scientific terms should be a lot more specific, definite, and meaningful than that. Only when you keep applying your straw man version of it instead of the processes that occur to life in general, passive and active.
Well, aside from absurd truisms, such as,-- the sick are not as healthy as the hale and hearty, the stupid are not as bright as the intelligent, the old are older than the young, the slow are not as fast as the swift, the blind do not see as well as the sighted, the weak are not so powerful as the strong,-- and on and on, just exactly what is it that you are trying to say? And yet in spite of these truisms you haven't made the connection that this shows that natural selection happens, that it is fact, because that is what these truisms tell us.
The race is to the swift, the struggle to the strong--usually. We get that. Not really, the "race" goes to those that survive and reproduce more, to those who contribute most to following generations - by surviving from year to year and breeding more than others -- they "win" the "race" to provide the genetic material for following generations.
We get that. It's not rocket science. In fact, it's not science at all. It's just a meaningless fact of life that is probably just as apparent to cheetahs chasing gazelles, and gazelles being chased by cheetahs, as it is to you and me. That's what happens when you talk about facts ... or should be.
In short, anything can affect mortality, and anything that affects mortality can affect reproduction, and anything that affects reproduction affects 'evolution', and since, basically, everything that that affects mortality, from birth defects to broken legs to catching a virus to being bitten by a shark is, in the vast majority of cases, a matter of pure chance, I guess we can reduce this to 'chance=evolution', right? Or is it, "chance=natural selection"? Or is it both, in which case "Chance = natural selection = evolution"? Again, some is chance and results in genetic drift (and the evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation) and some is not chance but related to the ability of the organism due to the hereditary traits. Some organisms have genetic birth defects compared to others, and these will more likely be less able to live and reproduce than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. Likewise, some organisms are genetically endowed with weak bones compared to others, and these will more likely be affected by broken bones than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. And some organisms are genetically more prone to disease than others, and these will more likely be affected by disease than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. And finally, some organisms are genetically not able to swim as fast or change directions compared to others, and these will more likely be affected by predatory sharks than others and thus be subject to natural selection due to their differential ability to survive and reproduce. Thus it is not pure chance rather it is affected by the differential variations in traits between the individuals within the population as a whole. The cheetah does not kill the antelope it cannot catch, so the chance of each antelope being caught is not equal.
As pointed out earlier, darwinian 'natural selection' no longer bears any resemblence to organismic selection, since organismic selection is a dynamic thing that an organism does, whereas 'natural selection' refers to a passive organism that has things done to it; accidentally, by chance, more often than not. As pointed out earlier this is poppycock. None of this applies to natural selection as used in biological evolution, rather it only applies to your straw man, which is falsified above.
Of course I do. That is what the word 'selection' means, and only meant, up until neo-darwinists transmogrified the meaning from active to passive, from 'done' to 'done to', from intentional to accidental, from teleological to ateleological, from value/goal based to random, back in the late 19th century. You darwinists are the only one's who believe that it means anything else. Irrelevant. Selection modified by "natural" does not and never has meant directed - artificial - selection. The irrefutable point is that sciences define terminology used in the science to describe the science. Those definitions are published (Darwin's Origin of Species for example) discussed and agreed to in the professional publications (journals and the like). There are many examples of terms defined for particular sciences, and in this case the term "natural selection" is different from the term "selection" and is well defined and accepted in the science of biological evolution. Live with it or rail against reality. You have gone on for many posts now on this matter, and the simple solution for you is to accept the scientific terminology to be used as it is defined in the science and move on, because only then will you be discussing biological evolution. If you continue to promulgate your "neo-Lamarckian whatever" view based on a false representation of natural selection and other terms then it will bear not relation to reality. It's that simple.
Sorry, but how did we get from 'natural selection' to genetics and the intricacies of genetic inheritance?!? Let's watch out for the 'non sequiturs', shall we? In other words your argument was refuted on selection only being intellectually directed. Trying to call it something else is a red herring logical fallacy and does not deal with the argument.
I'm not "personifying" anything. How can talking about something that persons, (and all other organisms) actually do, be a case of "personification"? Perhaps you are unfamiliar with that word-- I'm well aware of the definition - and the way you used it in your opening posts talking about natural selection. The fact remains that you attribute selection to have an entity behind it when it is not in fact part of the word, just as it is not part of "hunger" - you are the one that keeps insisting on a personality being involved.
Number three is the sense in which Darwin used "Natural Selection". Neo-darwinists, trying to make the term 'scientific' instead of literary, and in keeping with their materialist/mechanist worldview, changed Darwin's personification into that other thing I've already described, above. I'm just sticking with the original, true meaning of the word, 'selection'. I'm not "personifying" things like inanimate objects like "genes", and abstractions like "Mother Nature", with mental abilities they do not possess; the way you darwinists are doing. Except that the falsehood of this assertion has already been demonstrated. Perhaps you are familiar with the way lottery numbers are selected in some states: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/luck.html
quote: Who selects the winning numbers? This has nothing to do with biology, but it still involves selection.
No, I don't elevate "Nature", or any other fanciful abstraction, "to be the source of the intelligent interaction that makes the selection". That's what Darwin did, but not anything I'd ever do. What words of mine ever gave you this false impression? Then provide a quote where Darwin SPECIFICALLY states this. That is how you substantiate an assertion - with evidence. Lacking any quote your assertion will be taken for what it is - a claim that cannot be substantiated, a falsehood.
Uhm, tautologies aren't really that enlightening, you know. This refutes your claim that natural selection is selection done by "nature" personified, and your saying this does not refute the argument that natural selection is selection modified by natural to only pertain to selection that occurs naturally.
Well, to be truthful, the only indisputable thing that can be said here is that they are instances mortality that occurs naturally, as opposed to instances of mortality that occur artificially, as in wars and slaughterhouses. In what sense there is any 'selection' involved, you'll have to spell out for me, unless you mean that neo-darwinian corruption of the word as I described it earlier. See above. And this has been done. Let me repeat it for clarity:
quote: There are differences between individual organisms that make some more likely to survive and reproduce than others, that load the dice in the lottery of life and reduce or eliminate the element of chance. The following applies to Message 143 Well, first of all, unlike you I do not automatically assume the presence of anything labelled, 'natural selection'. All that I do assume is evolution and adaptation. From what I can tell both evolution and adaptation are, like life itself, indisputable empirical facts. However I have heard some people deny evfolution, and I have heard people who accept evolution deny adaptation, and I have heard some peoplewho accept evolution and adaptation deny the actuality of life itself, dismissing it as an 'epiphenomenon'. Apparently some folks will believe what they want to believe, no matter what evidence stacks up to disabuse them of their fantasies. Adaptation is a result of natural selection and both are elements of evolution. Failure to understand this means you do not understand what evolution, adaptation and natural selection are - specifically what they are in the scientific definitions and use of the terms within the science of biology. Science is not a matter of belief, but of what can be tested for validity.
In the case of this universe I do not know and cannot say if there is any long term goal involved. It may be no more than, say, a song that starts, goes on for a while, and then stops. But there is definitely some kind of progression taking place. The same goes for life. It began, it goes on, changing forms along the way, and just looking from archaea to you and me, there is some kind of progression happening. But I am sure that there are lots of people, not all of them creationists, who will insist that I am dead wrong, there is no sort of progression, no real evolution of any kind, merely the appearance of meaningful progress. If people choose to believe that and ignore the evidence, then I can't be bothered to argue with them. Progressions that happen are not necessarily directed - that is a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Consider that IF life began naturally THAT this life started with some very simple reproducing structure based on chemistry, that this results in the simplest structure that can be identified or qualified as "life" -- and that it cannot develop into a significantly simpler form, but that there is no barrier to increasing complexity. Consider that this does not mean that increasing complexity is required but will naturally develop in the course of evolution, while at the same time that simple forms will continue to exist - a condition that would not apply if there is a directed progression. This would also mean that organisms could evolve from more complex to less complex, back towards that simple original life simplicity, and that this would also be counter to any directed progression, and that it is observed to happen.
I tend to ignore people whose opinions depend open ignoring logic and empirical evidence. Given that you have been shown to ignore logic and empirical evidence, the logical conclusion is that you ignore your own opinions.
Getting back to evolution, forget long-term goals as applied to the whole of life itself, and get back to short-term goals linked to actual organisms. I am talking local cases, in which goals are plain and simple and above all,_immediate_; and in which behaviours taken to achieve those goals are immediate and responsive to proximate stimuli. No fortune-telling, no foresight, no 'final answer' involved. That is, evolution considered from a strictly _local_ perspective--one specific organism in its own particular, proximate environment, just trying to survive, thrive, and possibly self-replicate, one moment at a time. Those are the goals that are _usually_ what determines the behaviour of live organisms, an and it is at at this level that adaptation, and by extension, evolution, occurs. By mutation, providing variability in ability to survive and reproduce within the population, and natural selection, of those that are more adapted to the current ecology compared to those that are less adapted due to their naturally occurring variability.
But goals are goals, be they long-term or short, general or particular, and goal-driven behaviour is teleleological. And such goal driven process has already been falsified.
Now, there are a lot of people who say that live organisms have no real motivation to survive, thrive and possibly reproduce, but that it only looks that way. That the fact is that all organisms, including ourselves, do what we do, not becausewe are motivated to do so, but because we are mechanically programmed to do everything we do reflexively, like automatons, thanks either to mechanical determinsm or to divine predestination. I look about me at what people and other lifeforms actually do, and without denying the reality of some mechanical, determined behaviours, I see some behaviours that cannot be said to be inevitable and immutable. I do see some 'acts of choice', of selection, dependent upon the reality of intelligence, volition, and freedom from mechanical compulsion. "Free will", as it were. Others don't. What can I say? That's their philosophical choice. In other words, (some) behavior is instinctual. There is also evidence that some behavior learned.
IAC, 'selection', whether as originally used by Darwin, or as twisted semantically as is the present, neo-darwinian use of the word [see my previous post in response to RAZD], has nothing to do with the dynamic evolution of organisms over time. A position that has also been falsified.
Funny how we always hear about "many, many others", but these two are all we ever seem to get. Considering that there must be gazillions of evolutionary events to choose from, how come darwinists only ever come up with these two old chestnuts? Both of which are extremely dubious support for their hypothesis, IAC? Especially considering that in either case, no actual _evolution_ even took place! The Galapagos Finches and Peppered Moths are well known, so they can usually be discussed with familiarity. They are also prone to entrenched misinformation from those that rely on creationist sources of misinformation. There is also the case of walkingsticks and the evolution of winged forms versus non-winged forms. See Message 18 for some information on the lack of direction in walkingstick evolution. But really, ONE example is enough - logically - to validate the concept eh? After all you asked for an example, not one that meets your changing criteria. The fact is that both Galapagos Finches and Peppered Moths demonstrate natural evolution, and that you have chosen to ask for more examples rather than try to refute this fact. What was that you said earlier?
I tend to ignore people whose opinions depend open ignoring logic and empirical evidence. Including your own?
[qs]Well, no, since there was nothing but statistical change in inherited variation,. there was, contrary to the self-serving population geneticist definition of evolution, no evolution at all. And even thought these were only matters of inherited variation distribution statistics, how can you say that the presence of direction falsifies the notion of direction?!?! Anything that "proceed[s] in one direction [...] but then turn[s] around and proceed[s] in the other direction" obviously has direction. It just doesn't have a fixed, mechanical, predetermined, linear direction. I, for one, have never claimed that it did. [/qs] Well yes, because this is what Natural Selection DOES. Evolution is also defined in the science of evolutionary biology as the change in frequency of alleles in populations from generation to generation, and this is what happened in both instances. An introduction to evolution - Understanding Evolution
quote: Both situations meet this definition, that is a fact.
I can't for the life of me see how you can logically come to that conclusion! I have an old pocket knife I was given as a small boy, many years ago. It hasn't 'evolved' either, but it still serves the same purpose. I think I can say the same thing for, oh, my left eye. Does your pocket knife have a purpose to become something else? Does your left eye? Please. Neither of your examples here even begin to apply to the evolution of organisms over generations and therefore have no bearing on the element of purpose in evolution over generations. This is just an example of a non-sequitur logical fallacy rather than an argument that addresses the issue.
What this actually falsifies is darwinian 'gradualism', wherebye organisms must continuously be changed, at least minutely, [by random, accidental, unceasing genetic mutations], so that evolution gets something to work with via small, incremental alterations that get in under natural selections's radar. By this theory, anything that has been around for 3.5 billion years,anduncountable generations, should be very different now from what it was then--but they aren't. No, it falsifies direction and purpose. Gradualism does not imply direction or purpose, just that whatever changes occur happen gradually. Any organism that is suited to it's ecology such that it is successful with regard to survival and reproduction AND where that ecology does not change does not need to change. In fact evolution would work to maintain such stasis by selecting those that are more fit for the ecology. Gradualism on the other hand is well demonstrated by such evidence as foraminifera: Geology Dept article 3
quote: OK. That's fine by me. Heck, I don't even require that it do that much! I think I've made it plain that neither mechanical determinism nor religious predestination play any role in my view of biological evolution. Fair enough.
What does "self-selecting" mean to you? It doesn't mean anything to me when you are talking about inanimate objects and/or incorporeal, insubsubstantial, intangible properties, qualities, abilities, powers, or forces,-- such as 'intelligence'. Is gravity, 'self-selecting'? Is Life? The question is whether intelligence once having evolved would enable the organisms so afflicted to select for intelligence in their choice of mates, and would there be a feed-back loop for increased selection of intelligence.
Will they be 'fit' because they survive, or will they survive because they're 'fit', and how would you be able to decide? Survive and reproduce -- survival without reproduction would be eliminated eh? Fitness (biology) - Wikipedia
quote: Thus the pre-existing fitness of an organism is measured after the fact by its success.
Not a single bit of this is "fact". All of it iis purely notional, speculative opinion, and extremely dubious opinon at that. In fact, to my ears,(and I mean no offence), it is so divorced from anything empirical that it sounds more like statement of religious faith, couched in vague, mystical terminology, than anything else. What was that you said earlier?
I tend to ignore people whose opinions depend open ignoring logic and empirical evidence. Including yourself?
Depends on the 'faith'. I think you need to take it on faith that the human race is capable of changing its values and 'mode de vie' sufficiently, so that we can get out of this mess in the nick of time. If you can't believe that, if you beliuve that 'human nature' cannot change, that everything is mechanically orreligiously predetermined and that we all really just hapless automatons passively swept along by gods or forces beyond our control, then heck, there's no point in doing anything but ordering another beer. In terms of evolution though, it is irrelevant. Life that does not adapt to it's ecology (or it's ecology to it's life) will go extinct, and any life that survives will continue to evolve. There have been mass extinction events before.
Later 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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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Wow, RAZD, yours has got to be the longest post I have ever seen on a debating bulletin board!! I'll work my way through it, but you will have to temporarily confine your posts to other people until I can catch up, and that might take all week!! Well that is what happens when you post a lot of stuff that is just wrong, and full of logical errors, misrepresentations, and then -- rather than learn from your mistakes -- you repeat them. You also need to reply to Message 134 - the second part of my response to your Message 82, and Message 148 - my response to Message 145, the third of your replies to my Message 128. What you may want to do is sit down with all those responses and glean from them what you consider to be the critical elements for your argument, and then restate your argument in as clear and concise a manner as possible -- short and to the point eh? Support it with evidence and provide clarification on points where your assertions have been refuted. The other alternative is for you to blunder on with the false assumption that what you are saying is still valid. This has been your approach so far, and it fails to deal with the evidence that you are -- to put it kindly -- wrong.
That's fine. Let's not talk about genes and other chemical molecules either, then, since in this sense they are no different from rocks. Red herring fallacy. The topic of discussion is biological evolution, so of necessity it involves biological life, not rocks or molecules or any other things that don't replicate and change.
Irrelevant?!?! You have got to be kidding. Not at all. When a new term is defined in science - say punctuated equilibrium or the big bang - the definition used in science is the one given to it. This applies to Lamarck's definition of acquired traits and to Darwin's definition of natural selection. Failure to understand this has led you to waste a lot of bandwidth railing against something that is really irrelevant to evolutionary biology.
You do not utterly change a word meaning by putting a modifier in front of it--you only qualify it. A natural fountain and an artificial fountain are both still fountains. The meaning of fountain is not changed. It still means water jetting out of the ground. A 'natural' child and a 'legitimate' child are both still babies, the one defined as a baby in exactly the same way as the other. The natural electricity of lightning from the clouds and the 'artificial' electricity from a generator are both the same physical thing. Whereas changing 'selection' from an activity 'performed by' a sentient being into something 'done to' a sentient being is changing the word's meaning entirely, and creating equivocation by giving it two antithetical meanings at once. And that is exactly what darwinists have done to 'selection'. The same applies to "acquired traits" and "punctuated equilibrium" nor does the use of "natural" completely change the meaning of "selection" -- there is still selection going on, not some other process -- rather the meaning is modified to mean only the selection that occurs naturally.
quote:By which I take you to mean, 'darwinism'. No, I mean modern biology, the field of study that has continued to develop since before the time of Darwin. If you don't want to be painted with the same brush as ignorant creationists, then you would be advised to stop using the terminology of ignorant creationists. "Darwinism" -- if the term means anything in the science of biology -- is a subset of evolution which is a part of biology. Modern biology includes genetics, which is not a part of Darwin's work.
quote:Well, there you are then. It's just as I've been telling you. I rest my case. QED. Nowhere do those definitions require a selector. Again your poor logic fails you. From Message 147:
quote: There is no selector being or entity or consciousness that selects the lottery numbers, yet they are selected, and they are selected according to the definitions 1.a. and 1.b. you listed. Note that this simple example completely invalidates your claim of a special meaning to selection, and that continuing to make such a claim is foolhardy, illogical, silly and just plain wrong.
Please note the difference between using 'selection' as an act of choice, contrasted with referring to 'a selection' as a thing chosen. The first sense is active, the second passive. Note that the first sense refers to an act, the second sense to a thing. If "natural Selection" is to take the first sense of the word, it has to take the active, dynamic sense of 'making a choice', and that is the only sense in which it can be considered a causal mechanism. The passive sense refers only to a thing chosen, that is, an effect brought about by a chooser. Now a book may be the 'selection of the month', but it did not 'select' itself. If Darwin meant 'natural selection' to mean the effects, (i.e.,the traits/organisms) we find in the biosphere after the passge of time, then he did no more than point at what is there, he offered no explanationas to how it came to there, i.e., its origins. But I do not think that Darwin was using 'selection' in the passive sense, the sense that might apply to a cat or a dog at a show, or a tie on a rack, or an entree. I think that Darwin fully intended his "Natural Selection" to mean exactly the same kind of active, dynamic selection as that practiced by stockbreeders like himself, show judges, and restaurant patrons. All of whom are sentient beings actively making choices based upon their personal goals and the criteria established for arriving at those goals. I do not know of any earthquakes, floods, inanimate objects, or abstract notions that can make choices. So either admit that "Natural Selection" is a corruption of the word 'selection', by which an intentional and intelligence-based act, choice, is attributed to a non-sentient abstraction,'nature', [personification], or show that your "Natural Selection" is the causal behaviour of some specific, concrete and empirical entity that is just like us human 'selectors', 'judges', 'inspectors', and the like. Or adopt the later, neo-darwinist, corruption of its meaning. Note that this whole rant is invalidated by the lottery example. In addition "natural selection" existed before Darwin's use. SeeEdward Blyth - Wikipedia quote: Or another sourceGenNet.org quote: Again, you keep repeating nonsense instead of dealing with reality, and this is counterproductive.
Actually you are using the old, 'fifty million frenchmen can't be wrong' fallacy. The belief that truth is a function of popularity. Not at all, I am saying that the terms are defined in scientific publications, and that to use different definitions is to equivocate. http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/equiv.htm
quote: You either use the terminology as defined in the science in question or you are equivocating, which leads to meaningless statements not founded on facts or reality.
I am discussing the reality, the truth of evolution, which is not necessarily what darwinists think it is. There is no acceptable reason to accept the lingo that they have devised to support their dubious notion. The only equivocation in evolutionary terminology-- "equivocation ... --originates entirely with them, not me, as I have very clearly demonstrated. Please refer to the definition used by logic, as this was noted as "the logical fallacy of equivocation" -- see above. You want to use a definition of selection that is different from the definition used by science and this necessarily is "the logical fallacy of equivocation." Once again your poor logic fails you and you are illogical, foolhardy, silly and just plain wrong to insist otherwise.
Well, that is exactly what I have just said that he said. Where is this "false" assertion that you claim ?!?! Nobody denies that Darwin created an analogy between human stock breeding and plant cultivation with what happened to organisms in the wild. Unless you deny it that. Do you? What Darwin said in his analogy entailed, (as analogies must if they are to be the least bit accurate), the chief aspects of the subject of that analogy, in his case, 'artificial selection', meaning human selection; meaning intelligent, aware, intentional choice-making according to a pre-set and universally applied criterion. That is what 'selection', as an act, entails. Therefore, if his analogy was valid, his "NS" had to possess these same characteristics. Now "Nature", meaning the biosphere as such, does not in fact, as an abstraction, possess those features. But "Nature", figuratively or superstitiolusly taken to be some sort of semi-divine spirit entity, could.But 'spirit entities' didn't go over well in Darwin's set, and by the time of his death his "Natural Selection" was headed for the scientific rubbish heap; although it remained popular among those who embraced it for religious and political reasons. Eventually it was saved from scientific oblivion by Mendelian inheritance theory, genetics, and the metaphysical speculation that genetic mistakes and accidents could originate and determine the adaptations, novel bioforms, and added complexity and productivity found in the biosphere. Origin by accident. But that's another issue. Oh please, RAZD. The personification is there. It's undeniable. Darwin drew an analogy between the works of nature and the works of man. An analogy is a comparison based upon finding similarities between different things. Such as stock breeding and evolution. When the comparison/analogy seeks to establish a similarity between something non-human and that which is human, that effort is called personification. That's a plain fact. You cannot "read into something" that which is a plain fact. It is there, whether you like it or not.
This nonsense has already been refuted, and repeating falsehoods is foolhardy, illogical, silly and just plain wrong.
That's true. Which is why when I demonstrate, logically and linguistically, that I am right and you are wrong, only to have you repeat the same wrong opinions on the subject, willy-nilly, it can get quite depressing. Except that you have not provided any evidence that what you say is correct. None. Not one whit. Zero. Nada. Zilch. You have also used poor logic that has failed you every time, logic that has been shown to be false and misleading. You say:
Message 82 I've proved that facts and logic can change my mind. So bring on your facts and logic. Yet all you have proved is that you ignore evidence, facts and logic whenever and wherever it contradicts what you want to believe. This in reality is delusion:
What level of delusion is yet to be determined.
Not true. Darwin simply asserted that he believed that not all 'selection' is directed. He was wrong to do that, because it just isn't true. By definition. All acts of 'selection' are directed by goals, values, awareness, and intention. There is no other kind, except in the notional world of Darwin and his disciples. Now, if you want to talk 'mechanical sorting'-- (as in wind and water distribution of stone particles)-- instead of 'selection', that's another matter. Non-sentient agencies can do that. Do you mean "natural sorting" as opposed to "artificial sorting"?
Again, just to belabor the point one more time, from Message 147:
quote: There is no selector being or entity or consciousness that selects the lottery numbers, yet they are selected, and they are selected according to the definitions 1.a. and 1.b. you listed. Note that this simple example completely invalidates your claim of a special meaning to selection, and that continuing to make such a claim is foolhardy, illogical, silly and just plain wrong. Note further that this is NOT an example of "sorting" in any way, and to make such a claim would be foolhardy, illogical, silly and just plain wrong.
You simply do not understand the concept of 'personification', for some reason. Just as soon as you attribute a human property to a non-human entity, such as the biosphere, (here refering to the biosphere as 'nature'), and then assign a human ability [selection] to it, here via the word, 'natural', you have made up a personification. Go back and re-read the definition of the word that I supplied you earlier on, and then justify how you can continue to deny that Darwin personified, anthropomorphised the biosphere, with his "Natural Selection". And then you'll see why that didn't go over, and why the word 'selection' then had to be given a totally new meaning by the neo-darwinists, going from 'the act of selecting' to 'the experience of being selected'. Except that this whole premise is STILL FALSE. "Natural" does not mean "nature did it, ... and btw, 'nature' is some kind of supernatural boogyman" - that you keep repeating this falsified claim means you are not learning.
Therebye propping up the materialist notion that live organisms are essentially no different from dust in the wind, and that everything that happens, 'just happens, that's all'. Very metaphysical stuff. But at least you finally admit that the meaning of 'selection' was altered in order to suit a metaphysical assumption. Except that conclusions based on false premises are false conclusions. Very ordinary logical stuff.
Well, you can go on asserting that, but I have clearly shown that it is just not true. Sticking 'natural' in front of 'selection' does not cause that word to legitimately go from 'directed act of choosing' to 'experience of being chosen'. Added to which if "NS" means 'selection' in the orignalsense, then it means 'a directed act of choosing from among alternatives, based upon criteria linked to values and goals'. I defy you to find me any abstraction that is not quasi-religious, or any inanimate object that is not a human artefact, that can do that. Therefore, if you say "NS" can do that, then you make it quasi-religious, a mystical 'spirit' of some kind. But if you opt for the neo-darwinian version of 'selection', i.e., 'the passively received experience of being chosen', then you've just chucked "NS" as a causal mechanism/explanation, religious or scientific, right out the window. Repeating false assertions does not make them true. The fact remains that "Natural Selection" is well defined in the science of evolutionary biology and that no amount of equivocation or outright falsehood on your part will change that fact. The natural world will continue to ignore your opinion as irrelevant and immaterial, and evolution will continue to occur via, among other processes, natural selection.
Message 148 Evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation. Natural Selection - the differential success of various phenotypes in a specific population and ecology in passing hereditary traits on to the next generation. No matter what you say these processes will not be affected, nor will their meaning in the science of evolutionary biology change. 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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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Looks like you are just going to ignore a lot of comments that refute your position, while you keep stating falsehoods, misrepresentations and the like. That means I will just have to keep repeating the facts that refute your position.
Protest away, but the undeniable fact of the matter is that Darwin personified nature by attributing a human quality/property/trait, (the abilty to select from among alternative choices), to an abstraction, "Nature" , and then the neo-darwinsts took it a step further, and changed the meaning of the word, 'selection' altogether. You can assert that you are talking about "different processes that actually happen", but the fact is, I can show you live organisms making individual choices, aka, acts of 'selection', but you cannot show me an abstraction that does that, nor any inanimate, naturally occuring object or system, that does that. So please stop saying that your mystical "Natural Selection", and/or your mystical, "Nature", does that. As for the neo-darwinist corruption of the word 'selection' meaning, wherebye 'to make a choice' is turned into, 'to become one of the chosen', creating total equivocation as neo-darwinists used this as sophists, perpetually sliding from the active, causal verb form [mechanism] to the passive, noun/effect form [observation of fact], often in the same breath, in order to evangelise their metaphysic. It has already been demonstrated that this is irrelevant refuted nonsense, and continuing to make such claims is foolhardy, illogical, silly and just plain wrong. Nowhere do the definitions of selection require a selector. Again your poor logic fails you. From Message 147:
quote: There is no selector being or entity or consciousness, metaphysical or otherwise, that selects the lottery numbers, yet they are selected, and they are selected according to the definitions 1.a. and 1.b. you listed. Note that this simple example completely invalidates your claim of a special meaning to selection, and that continuing to make such a claim is foolhardy, illogical, silly and just plain wrong. Regardless of what you say, claim, assert or espouse, evolution and natural selection are defined by the science and those definitions are used when discussing the science or you are equivocating or worse.
quote: Something was happening long before Darwin, and human ideas about what was happening were in existence for as long as there were human beings around to think about what was happening, and there were people around thinking about evolution since the ancient greeks, and there were europeans speculating about the causes for evolution for some time before Darwin said a word, and some of those thinkers seemed to have been thinking thoughts very similar to Charles Darwin's [see Erasmus Darwin, et al], but the notion, "Natural Selection", did not actually come into full existence until Chuck put those words together and wrote a book about it. Your problem here is that you cannot see that there is a vast difference between the country and a map of it. Evolution has been going on since the first day of life, and something has been driving it for all that time, and that is 'the country' we are exploring. But Darwin didn't draw his map of it until "OotS", and so "Natural Selection" did not exist before... whatever it was--1859? And yet, aside from being false, this is still totally irrelevant to what evolution in general and natural selection in particular mean. As noted in Message 154 quote: The idea of natural selection was around before Darwin used it, nor did Darwin change its meaning, nor did Darwin imbue it with some false mysticism.
Language evolves, and so long as it evolves naturally, nobody complains. However, when language evolves naturally, word meanings do not become their exact opposites and retain both their original meaning and its opposite, setting up ambivalence, confusion, and communication breakdowm. It takes some "Humpty Dumpty" deliberate tampering to do that, and that tampering, that self-serving corruption, is exactly what the neo-darwinists did, and still do, to the word, 'selection'. The least darwinists could do is to alert their listeners to when it is that they are using 'selection' in the active sense, as a 'cause', and when it is that they are using it in their passive sense, as an 'effect'. But they very carefully letting anyone know that. Yet the term is defined and used according to the definition given. Most people use that definition to understand the meaning of it's use in biology. Apparently you seem to think you need a code book. It would appear that only you have a problem, one that you have invented from misrepresenting words, history and facts.
quote: Good thing thing then that I have never even come close to suggesting that language can never change, isn't it? What I have said is that language can change, and does change, and changes in two very different ways. Legitimately, language changes unintentionally from one sense to another as time marches on, or brand new words [neologisms] are introduced to signify novel things or original concepts. But language can also be changed illegitimately, Humpty Dumpty style, by people who want the word to take on a new sense that is qualitatively different from the sense in common usage. Either way the language ends up changed. Our problem in the present debate is not really about the fact that 'selection' can now mean both a cause and an effect, but the deliberate equivocation of using the 'effect' sense as if it were the 'cause' sense. Make up your minds, is "NS" a causal force, a 'mechanism' that explains observed effects, or is it those effects, the results/effects of some other causal mechanism. (It cannot cause itself, since logically, a cause cannot be its own effect, and vice versa, in one and the same case.) Anyhoo, we've clobbered this one to death, and I cannot think of anything else to add to it, so if you want to believe that it is perfectly legitimate to use the same word, 'selection', in two different senses, interchangeably, that's your prerogative, but, for reasons given and amply explained, I disagree. Disagree all you want, you are and still will be wrong. On the other hand reality will still consist of evolution and natural selection.
quote: No kidding! Good thing I'm not trying to impress and affect "nature and the universe", isn't it? Merely trying trying to express my opinions to you. Not to them. What made you bring up "nature and the universe", anyway? You seemed to think you had some earth shattering truth that would overturn reality. Glad you realize it is just an opinion -- one totally at ODDS with reality.
Yes, it does, although not in nearly so many cases as darwinists think that it does. But when true 'sexual selection' does take place, it totatally conforms to the pre-darwinian sense of 'selection', i.e., sentient beings make intentional choices between alternatives, based upon their ability to discriminate according to criteria based uipon values, with those values derived from their goals. Picking a sexual partner is 'selection' in exactly the same active sense as is picking out what tie you'll wear to work. It is the act of a sentient being, not an abstraction, such as Darwin's "nature" Well, that's your opinion, and I'm sure you'll stick to it, and if you are only speaking of it as a particular ideational position, yours, then in that notional sense, you must be right. However, if you are trying to tell me that your notion and empirical reality map to each other in such perfection that you can say 'natural selection' as if it were some real and actual, physical and a tangible part of this universe, then you are equivocating. Like the song says, "It ain't necessarily so." More falsehoods repeated. Sexual selection is still part of natural selection, and results in the same kind of selection of hereditary traits, and there is still no mystical metaphysical selector.
Sorry, I didn't see that list. I googled 'aspects of natural selection', but couldn't find any. And you think that is an argument?
I did not "limit [natural selection] to passive entities. I expanded the term to include passive entities, as should have been perfectly plain in context. I think that you may may be deliberately throwing up 'non sequitur' objections, just for the sake of having something to say. I hope that that is not the case, since I would like to continue our debate. The point is, does your 'natural selection' apply as appropriately to inanimate objects and immaterial concepts as it does to living organisms, or does it not? Please respond to the point I'm making, and not to some point that I very clearly am not making. The point is and has been that natural selection as used in modern biology applies to living organisms.
No, these truisms only tell us that death is a fact of life, something that doesn't require a 'scientific theory' in order to be observed and accepted into our bank of knowledge. You are trying to advance the notion that a fact of life is a scientific theory about a fact of life, and that is absurd. Yet death before reproduction removes the phenotype from the gene pool. A very real effect that occurs to many organisms..
You are still just listing facts, i.e., effects, and acting as if the existence of these facts explains the existence of these facts. Like I said, that's absurd. Until you give a causal explanation for the fact that some "win" and some "lose", you are not saying anything, you are just talking. Oh look -- you found the list.
Very true, but the we are not talking about facts, but about your hypothesis, "Natural Selection". You cannot debate facts, by definition--they are what they are, no more, no less. Notions about those facts are a whole other matter, but you repeatedly insist upon conflating the facts and your explanation for them, as if they were one and the same thing. They are not. You'll just have to accept that. See that list again. Those are facts.
quote: If 'genetic drift' is something that results from 'natural selection', as you say here, then my reading on 'genetic drift'[i.e, Random fluctuations in the frequency of the appearance of a gene in a small isolated population, presumably owing to chance rather than natural selection."], must have been entirely wrong. Nope. Genetic drift and natural selection are two different mechanisms. Genetic drift is the change in hereditary traits due to stochastic processes, not selection.
Birth defects, like broken legs and meteors dropping from the sky, are facts of life. They are not a theoretical postulate called 'natural selction'. Longevity, mortality, fecundity, and chance are all facts of life. None of them are 'natural selection'. You keep on making the same mistake, i.e., mistaking the actual country for your ideational map of it. It would appear that you would happily point to every aspect of life itself, and call it 'natural selection'. Life = NS? I do not think so. Once again what you think is irrelevant. Birth defects are genetic and thus are directly subject to selection, most often resulting in death before reproduction. Broken legs can be a result of stochastic processes or it can be due to weak bones - a hereditary trait subject to selection. Meteors dropping from the sky are stochastic processes not subject to selection. Let me repeat that list of aspects of natural selection:
quote: It is the differential success of various phenotypes - resulting from existing variations between individual phenotypes - in passing on hereditary traits to the next generation within a specific population and ecology that results in natural selection, regardless of what you think.
Whether or not you can empirically demonstrate that this assertion is true, let alone demonstrate that it is a common, non-anomalous circumstance, (sufficiently common as to constitute a scientific, universal, causal mechanism for evolution), remains to be seen. But what you have admitted is that your "NS" is a negative, subtractive, non-addditive phenomenon that, as Darwin's peers pointed out to him, cannot account for the addition of novel traits to the variations already existing. Which is why Fisher and co. invented the notion of 'adaptation by genetic accident', usually referred to as "RM+NS". The Galapagos Finches, the Peppered Moths, the Walkingstick insects all demonstrate this fact. You can also look at any population of offspring and compare it to the population of the parents and actually measure the genetic differences. RM+NS means random mutation plus natural selection, and not "adaptation by genetic accident' -- once again you are wrong. The random mutation is the part that adds variation to the population and natural selection is the part that removes the less successful variations for that particular population and ecology. As we saw in the Galapagos Finches, the Peppered Moths, and the Walkingstick insects the supposed (by you) "negative, subtractive, non-additive phenomenon" acts in one way in one generation and then the other way in another generation, and thus cannot be truly "negative, subtractive, non-additive" -- instead it is just change, change that selects the phenotypes for adaptation to the ecology.
Which reduces everything that your "NS" gets to 'pick'/'eliminate', into a matter of pure chance. Which, logically, reduces your "NS" to an aspect of pure chance, which is what it was to begin with, anyway. "Chance" is not a scientific mechanism. Being, by definition, irregular and unpredictable. So there goes both "RM" and "NS" as scientific mechqanisms. Into the bin of bad ideas. Sorry. And again the facts show that you are wrong and your poor logic is false.
Since, according to you, these 'differential varitions' are the end product of pure chance, i.e., "random genetic mutations", then it is logically undeniable that they are chance as much a matter of pure chance as are the randomly mutated genes that produced them. Like it or not, you have reduced evolution, and life itself, to a matter of chance accident. But that's where materialism has its primary postulate, so I do not think that this conclusion is accidental, but is 'pre-determined'. And still false. The "'differential varitions'" (sic) occur anew in each generation from random mutation, and thus are not an end product. Nor is any species or organism an "end product" but one in transition. Like it or not we are left with:
quote: Any time you want to discuss your so far not provided concept of neo-Lamarckism we'll be happy to see how it stacks up. I won't be holding my breath however, seeing as you (a) have not replied to all comments on your opinion and (b) have failed to provide any substantiation for your opinions or (c) been able to refute the invalidations of your opinions by facts and substantiated arguements. Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : sp 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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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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