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Author Topic:   Human Evolution
Elmer
Member (Idle past 5903 days)
Posts: 82
Joined: 01-15-2007


Message 17 of 36 (443485)
12-25-2007 10:51 AM


Another way of looking at the question raised in the OP is this--If Natural Selection is true, then why aren't humans the only species of primate extant? Put another way, why is it that anything besides archaea exist?
This question arises from the reasoning that follows, 'reductio ad absurdum', out of the principle, 'survival of the fittest'. According to this principle, only the ablest, most productive members of a certain set of bioforms can survive, and so, only they can have offspring. That is, any bioform/genotype differing from the best, the ideal, must be 'weeded out' by 'natural selection' with each new generation. The difficulty with this notion being that in fact, no such thing actually happens in the real world, because "Natural Selection" is a local, not a universal, phenomenon.
That means that, unlike scientific causal forces like gravity and the electromagnetic force and the nuclear forces, "Natural Selection" is not a universal causal mechanism, even though it is constantly put forward as if it were such. NS being in truth, no more than a label for any strictly local, relative, anomalous and particular mortality event, biodiversity is neither generated nor prevented by it.
The only way to square the notion of 'natural selection' to the fact of biodiversity is to appeal to isolation from one another, [wrt groups and individuals], so that they are not 'competing' with each other. It is the elimination of this, 'natural selection', considered as a universal causal mechanism-- [which Darwin based on the Malthusian laissez-faire capitalist doctrine of 'competition for limited resources'],-- from any further scientific consideration, that admits for the fact of biodiversity, and therefore, for the fact of evolution, itself.
And this fact, biodiversity, is why Fisher, Haldane, and above all, Sewall Wright, had to come up with 'random genetic mutation' as the non-scientific, non-mechanismism that supposedly explains the orgins of biodiversity. They realized, as had so many before them, that "NS" can only explain biodiversities limitations, including its absence and elimination.
Problem remains, however that 'chance' is incompatible with the regularity and predictability required of any scientific mechanism. Which is why the notion of "NS" as the supplier of this requirement persists, even though the fact of biodiversity shows, as above, that "NS" events are every bit as relative, local, irregular, unpredictable, anomalous and chance-based as any random genetic mutation. "NS" does not render "Random Genetic Mutation" scientific, because they both suffer, separately and together, from the exact same fatal flaw--they are both anomalous matters of chance. There is no regularity and universality in them, neither in the one, the other, or in any proposed "synthesis" of the two.

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by NosyNed, posted 12-25-2007 11:17 AM Elmer has not replied
 Message 19 by Chiroptera, posted 12-25-2007 11:23 AM Elmer has not replied
 Message 20 by Taz, posted 12-25-2007 7:45 PM Elmer has not replied
 Message 26 by Vacate, posted 01-15-2008 2:49 AM Elmer has replied
 Message 27 by Quetzal, posted 01-15-2008 9:43 AM Elmer has replied

Elmer
Member (Idle past 5903 days)
Posts: 82
Joined: 01-15-2007


Message 28 of 36 (448933)
01-15-2008 6:18 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Vacate
01-15-2008 2:49 AM


Re: Natural Selection
Hi vacate;
You say--
quote:
Which is why the notion of "NS" as the supplier of this requirement persists, even though the fact of biodiversity shows, as above, that "NS" events are every bit as relative, local, irregular, unpredictable, anomalous and chance-based as any random genetic mutation.
Your kidding right?
Um, whatever gives you that impression?!?
Unpredictable? Tell me what happens to a brown rabbit in the winter
anomalous? See above
What's your point?
chance based? see above
What's your point, again? Nobody is denying 'evolution' and 'adaptation' here. Just the mechanism that drives them--ostensibly RM and NS. IOW, how come snowshoe hares, arctic hares, and other animals--[but not bunny rabbits]--are brown-furred in summer, white-furred in the snowy months? Random genetic mutation plus random predation [aka, "Natural Selection"]? Prove it.
And yes, I've heard all the darwinist fairy-tales [just-so stories] about how, once upon a time, these creatures did not live in snowy climates, until one happy day a normal brown animal suddenly was touched by a magic genetic mutation that caused white fur when the winter came, but reversed itself with the snow-melt, and that complex but fortuitous genetic mutation enabled/compelled him/her to move north in the winter for camouflage purposes--to a place where, previously, all the brown-furred animals were wiped out soon after the first fall of snow, because they weren't snow white. Duh!!
Biodiversity shows that there is a diversity of environments. Environments can change in unpredictable and irregular ways so its no suprise to say that natural selection is also irregular (so I would agree with that point, along with relative and local)
Does gravity change "in unpredictable and irregular ways"? Does electro-magnetism or the nuclear forces? I think not. So how in the world can darwinists keep insisting that their "NS" is on the exact same level of causality as the four accepted 'forces'? It quite plainly is no such thing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Vacate, posted 01-15-2008 2:49 AM Vacate has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Elmer
Member (Idle past 5903 days)
Posts: 82
Joined: 01-15-2007


Message 31 of 36 (448982)
01-15-2008 8:30 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Quetzal
01-15-2008 9:43 AM


Re: Natural Selection and Biodiversity - An Example
Hi quetzal;
You say--
I work with biodiversity, at least conceptually, on a nearly daily basis. Even as we speak, I'm in the throes of designing study protocols for a biodiversity conservation project that simply would not work if NS didn't influence biodiversity (IOW, I'm goofing off on EvCForum instead of working). Apologies for the length of this response, but I think it pretty illustrative of how NS influences and changes biodiversity.
Well, so far that still remains to be seen.
One of the critical problems facing conservation biologists and ecologists trying to develop effective techniques for monitoring biodiversity is the simple physical fact that you can’t - with the best will in the world - observe and count every single individual of every species that might be of importance or interest. In other words, we have to come up with ways of monitoring and measuring the ecological integrity of a particular area that don’t rely on direct observation.
Too bad. I'm a great friend of empiricism in science, myself. Computer simulations lead to too many suppositions passed off as facts, IMHO.
This isn’t as easy as it sounds. There has been a tremendous amount of ink spilled over the issue. What we have to find are critters or guilds (a number of different species that taken together occupy a particular niche or fulfill a specific ecological function - for instance, the guild of fruit eating birds, etc) that can serve as “stand-ins” for the overall biodiversity of a site.
In my case, I have chosen to focus on the dung beetle guild (subfamily Scarabaeinae) as a viable stand-in for ecological integrity and ecosystem health (not real sexy, I know, but hey - whatever works). These beetles play an absolutely crucial role in decomposition and nutrient recycling. If they didn’t exist, we’d have to invent them or be hip-deep in rotting poop. A number of species in this guild have adapted to the loss of large mammals (during the Pleistocene extinction) and hence the loss of large-mammal-poop by developing obligate saprophagous (rotting fruit) or necrophagous (rotting cadaver) behavior. What makes these critters so useful for conservation is that in the same geographic areas, the taxonomic composition of the guild within forests is completely distinct from that in areas where the forest has been cut or otherwise disturbed. The internal structure and organization is also different. It’s possible to differentiate between guilds found in disturbed habitat, undisturbed habitat, and transitional habitat.
Like I always say, adaptation and evolution are wonderful things. They just don't have anything to to with "Natural Selection"--unless you've found a novel definition for "NS" that I have yet to hear. Have you?
Here’s where natural selection and biodiversity intersect: changes in organization, structure and composition over time serve as valid and accurate indicators of change within each type of habitat.
Sounds redundant [or tautologous] to me--'change in ecology equals change in ecosystem'. If you are trying to say that change in biodiversity in an ecosystem correlates to changes in that ecosystem, that's true, and that correlation/correspondence is adaptation-dependent. But adaptation is not "natural selection", as NS has always been described to me, [whenever it is advanced as a cause, a 'mechanism', rather than as an 'effect', an observation of fact, which is the case just as often]. Or are you claiming that 'adaptation' and 'natural selection' are the same thing?!
Actually, the best 'causal' case that can be made for "NS" is that it is whatever local circumstance necessitates adaptation in a particular taxon population. But necessity is not, in and of itself, an efficient cause. The need for a change is not the actual mechanism that produces the necessary change. The need to adapt is not what physically generates the adaption. But if that is all that "NS" is, then that efficient cause, that mechanism, is not natural selection.
Moreover, it is a principle of darwinism that environmental stimulus is only coincidentally connected to adaptation and evolution. That traits, the things upon which adaptedness depends, are stricll the results, outcomes, of random genetic accidents. Random wrt adaptedness, that is. That environmental stimulus drives organismic adaptation/evolution would be pure lamarckism. So let's not go there in the name of 'natural selection'.
The guild clearly reflects anthropogenic (human-caused) change: defaunation, fragmentation, ecosystem simplification, introduction of exotic and/or domestic animals (e.g., cattle), etc. Not only will it reflect negative changes in the habitat, but we can use it to track positive changes due to management intervention (including re-forestation, landscape restoration, the effects of the reintroduction of locally extinct species, etc).
As above. I never deny the fact that environmental change is real, that organismic adaptation is real, and that organismic evolution is real. I merely point out that 'natural selection', as the mechanical cause of organismic adaptation to changed or 'different' environments [and hence, evolution], is a fantasy.
A difference is not the mechanism, nor even the motivation, that explains that difference. An effect cannot be its own cause. Pointing out that any change in one element of an ecosystem brings about changes in other elements of that ecosystem, some greater than others, is so elementary as to be a truism--a triviality. At least it is if all you are doing is quantitatively 'bean-counting'. That is, if there are 10 red jelly-beans in a bowl and ten black ones, and you eat only black ones, the ratio of red to black is going to change. That is not some scientific principle,-- it's just a simple fact!! If you drain the marsh and pave it over, the number of ducks nesting there will fall off dramatically. If an organism, any organism, doesn't get enough to eat, it starves to death.
You call that, "natural selection"!?! Why does it need a scientific-sounding label? We already have the word, 'mortality', and it is every bit as explanatory. What does "NS" add to our scientific understanding of anything whatsoever?
Now why is this? Because selection pressures (i.e., natural selection) are subtly different in each type of habitat.
Well, no, that's just talk. The only fact is that different organisms are suited [fitted, adapted] to different environments. Change their environment and you change their level of adaptedness, and hence, their mortality rate. A simple truism, as above. No need for fanciful literary allusions to some allegorical 'selecting agency'. Adaptedness is a fact of life, and adaptedness, or the lack of it, is not 'natural selection'.
Natural selection either eliminates or promotes whole populations of different species of this guild, thus reflecting changes in selection pressures and causing changes in guild composition, diversity and population density.
So you say. I think perhaps you need to tell us just what it is that is this 'natural selection' that does all this. All you are saying is that we see 'populations' increasing or decreasing [which in and of itself does not change biodiversity--only extinction and evolution do that], and we arbitrarily assign causation for these statistical alterations to an abstraction called, 'natural selection'. I personally think it very wrong of anyone calling themselves 'scientists' to assign causation to anything that cannot, via the scientific method, be demonstrated to be a universal force, just like the four physical forces have been demonstrated empirically to be universal, constant, and predictable in all cases.
And we can watch the change occurring right before our eyes.
Watching change is not explaining change. Attributing the cause of organismic, [or even ecosystemic], change, to a literary analogy, a trope, a figure of speech, is not explaining anything.
If NS had nothing to do with biodiversity as you state, how could I use the Scarabaeinae to monitor ecosystem integrity?
Since all you seem to be doing is biometrics [and I'm not being disrespectful--biometrics is very useful to ecology, and ecology is desperately important to us all, these days!], and biometrics is just measuring effects that have quite obvious physical causes [eg., guns and bulldozers], or unknown biological causes [evolution], I suggest that you could do your job without ever once having to invoke a mystical agency called, 'natural selection'.
If you want to discuss this any further, we need to take it to a new thread.
Well, if you're game to start such a thread, I'll be happy to participate.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Quetzal, posted 01-15-2008 9:43 AM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Quetzal, posted 01-16-2008 1:11 PM Elmer has replied

Elmer
Member (Idle past 5903 days)
Posts: 82
Joined: 01-15-2007


Message 33 of 36 (449107)
01-16-2008 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Quetzal
01-16-2008 1:11 PM


Re: Natural Selection and Biodiversity - An Example
Hi;
Sorry, wrote a long post in reply, accidentally touched the wrong key, and lost it in the ether. Happens to me on a regular basis.
Now I'm too ticked at myself and my antique computer to start over.
At this point I say that your "NS" is meaningless. Perhaps you can define it in some way that makes it meaningful, instead of an empty catch-phrase representing everything and nothing at all?
Unless and until you can give me a definition of "NS" that carries some scientific substance as a causal force that explains, [as opposed to describes], any biological phenomenon, we have no place to go with this.
Now I'm going to take some aspirin and cool off. That lost post was both long and carefully composed. GRRRR!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Quetzal, posted 01-16-2008 1:11 PM Quetzal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by Quetzal, posted 01-16-2008 7:12 PM Elmer has not replied

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