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Author Topic:   Darwinism Cannot Explain The Peacock
Panda
Member (Idle past 3712 days)
Posts: 2688
From: UK
Joined: 10-04-2010


(1)
Message 61 of 165 (689107)
01-28-2013 7:18 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Bolder-dash
01-27-2013 10:25 PM


You put a lot of effort into being wrong about everything, but at least you are playing to your strengths.

"There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god." J. B. S. Haldane

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-27-2013 10:25 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


(3)
Message 62 of 165 (689110)
01-28-2013 7:44 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by Bolder-dash
01-27-2013 9:57 PM


Hey Pebbles, you just love to twist everything sideways, don't you.
. . . men prefer dainty woman with small noses, woman exist in all sizes roughly the same anyway, so natural selection doesn't work?
Of course you knew that men's preferences come in all shapes and sizes also, right? But allowing this would not further your game. After all, you are not here to discuss or argue or (heaven forbid) learn. You are here to inflame. You're a troll.

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rueh
Member (Idle past 3660 days)
Posts: 382
From: universal city tx
Joined: 03-03-2008


Message 63 of 165 (689117)
01-28-2013 9:52 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by Bolder-dash
01-26-2013 10:11 PM


Beard length
Beard length is determined by the rate of growth vs the rate of loss. Most people reach a terminal length where these two rates are balanced and no additional length is acuired. The photos of men with extermely long beards are abnormal. The typical beard does not grow that long.
I myself have had a beard for 6 years. At about 4 years of growth, I reached a terminal length where my beard stays the same length.

'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX
It takes all kinds to make a mess- Benjamin Hoff

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-26-2013 10:11 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(4)
Message 64 of 165 (689132)
01-28-2013 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by Bolder-dash
01-27-2013 9:57 PM


Hi, Bolder-dash.
We may be getting a bit far from the topic, but I think this conversation is still related, so I'll pursue it a little further.
Bolder-dash writes:
Not one of them has anything close to the type of facial hair humans have. I can't even see a hint of a moustache in fact. Certainly not compared to what a human looks like if they haven't shaved for 15 years.
But, this isn't the point I was trying to refute. Your original point was:
Bolder-dash writes:
This can't be some kind of chimpanzee creature because basically none of them have facial hair
Message 53
Now, your point seems to have changed into "None of them have facial hair that looks like a human's beard if they haven't shaved for 15 years."
If your point is that chimpanzee beards are different from human beards, then say, "chimpanzee beards are different from human beards"; and don't say, "chimpanzees don't have facial hair."
But, even if your point was that chimpanzee beards are different from human beards, I still think you're wrong: those chimpanzee beards look a whole lot like human beards to me, and I do see mustaches (admittedly, not very dense mustaches; but there is hair on their upper lips).
It's true enough that your photos of human men had much longer beards and much thicker mustaches than these chimpanzees have. But, I wasn't arguing that females chimpanzees had more facial hair than human men do: I was pointing out that female chimpanzees have beards. And so do female orangutans and female gorillas.
Remember when you were completely incredulous about RAZD's idea that human "hairlessness" is due to sexual selection? This is what you said:
Bolder-dash writes:
You are suggesting there was a time when all the females must have had significant facial hair, just like the men. Do you think this was when they were humans or when they were still some previous ape?
Then some females got a mutation that lead to much less facial hair...
Message 53
And, you were right: RAZD was suggesting that there was a time when all the females had significant facial hair. This is supported by the observation that, in all of the purported close ancestors of the human species, females do, in fact, have significant facial hair.
If I didn't know better, I would think RAZD was actually selecting the fairy tales he believes in based on how well they fit with available evidence. What kind of asshole chooses his fantasies that way?
Edited by Blue Jay, : My links to the orangutan and gorilla photos were screwed up.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-27-2013 9:57 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-28-2013 4:51 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Arriba
Junior Member (Idle past 3610 days)
Posts: 22
From: Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Joined: 01-24-2013


Message 65 of 165 (689139)
01-28-2013 1:08 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Blue Jay
01-25-2013 12:02 PM


Re: The story is not complete.
I was somewhat surprised at the number of responses. I'm quite active on another debate forum and I typically receive only one response a week. With due apologies to everyone that has contributed, obviously I cannot answer everyone. I have selected your post, Blue Jay, since it seemed to be the most complete and thoughtful one.
I noted in your post the claim: "The second paper shows that ornamentation does indeed have a positive impact on reproductive fitness, but with considerably less precision than was previously thought. So, fine-scale variation in ornamentation does not influence female decision, but large-scale variation does."
This result is really not surprising. The term to describe this is "regression to the mean." A simple look at The Truth Wears Off | The New Yorker shows a very similar situation. Danish zoologist Anders Mller finds that female barn swallows were far more likely to mate with male birds that had long, symmetrical feathers. Since symmetrical features implies "good" genes everyone was excited. It was easily measured, widely applicable, and females seemed to gravitate it. Evolutionary biologists swooned with delight, but on page 3 the problems start. Despite being validated 9 times over the next 3 years it became more and more difficult to validate the theory. As we read in the article: "In 1994, there were fourteen published tests of symmetry and sexual selection, and only eight found a correlation. In 1995, there were eight papers on the subject, and only four got a positive result. By 1998, when there were twelve additional investigations of fluctuating asymmetry, only a third of them confirmed the theory. Worse still, even the studies that yielded some positive result showed a steadily declining effect size. Between 1992 and 1997, the average effect size shrank by eighty per cent."
This is a surprisingly similar situation to the paper you quoted, isn't it? The study is "replicated" (sort of) but with a smaller effect. Why does this happen? The article mentions publication bias. The article continues: Leigh Simmons, a biologist at the University of Western Australia, suggested one explanation when he told me about his initial enthusiasm for the theory: I was really excited by fluctuating asymmetry. The early studies made the effect look very robust. He decided to conduct a few experiments of his own, investigating symmetry in male horned beetles. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the effect, he said. But the worst part was that when I submitted these null results I had difficulty getting them published. The journals only wanted confirming data.
-----------------------------
Personally I feel that this example is very relevant because it is about what we are talking about: Sexual selection and its supposed confirmation. Sure it gets confirmed - because of selection, reporting, and publishing bias. So what does that prove except that scientists are very good at finding the results they want/need to find? Little by little other studies that confirm it but with lesser and lesser strength will appear until the purported effect will only exist as a myth in the minds of militant evolutionary apologists in debate forums such as this one.
Natural selection is, at best, a tautology. Anyone can state that the fittest will survive as long as you can define what "fit" means after you know who does and does not survive. Similarly there is no shortage of ad hoc hypotheses used to explain away the effects of this study. It is possible, some claim, that long ago females really did prefer more ornate tails but evolution has moved on and the train is a trait that will fade away over the next million years of natural selection. It's a great theory, from a certain point of view, as it explains everything and cannot be refuted without waiting a million years.
Of course with ad hoc hypotheses you can also explain away failures in astrology, clairvoyance, ESP, divination, and other pseudoscientific theories that have less prestige than Darwinism does. Your last paragraph is a case in point, where you seem to indicate that I must either provide some alternative theory of peacocks or find myself beholden to support the prevailing scientific fad of our times. Sorry, but I'm not afraid to say, "I don't know."
I must say, though, I admire your faith that somehow somewhere science will complete the story. It's touching in its naive simplicity.

"...nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific..." - Imre Lakatos

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Blue Jay, posted 01-25-2013 12:02 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-28-2013 1:58 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 67 by Tangle, posted 01-28-2013 2:01 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 68 by AZPaul3, posted 01-28-2013 3:29 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 69 by New Cat's Eye, posted 01-28-2013 3:56 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 72 by Blue Jay, posted 01-28-2013 6:31 PM Arriba has replied
 Message 101 by Taq, posted 01-30-2013 4:16 PM Arriba has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 66 of 165 (689145)
01-28-2013 1:58 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Arriba
01-28-2013 1:08 PM


Fantasy v. Data
What you have done is construct a rather elaborate fantasy to explain how the data we have might support the sexual selection hypothesis, and the hypothesis might still be wrong. This fantasy extends to imagining what will be reported in papers not yet published reporting studies which have not actually been done.
Well, I have less faith in your powers of clairvoyance than you do, and the fact is that the data we have at present do support the hypothesis. So for now I would place my money on it being correct.
Certainly to announce "Darwinism Cannot Explain The Peacock", as you do, seems premature. You should instead have titled the thread: "According To The Data Before Us, Darwinism Can Explain The Peacock, But I Have A Touchingly Nave Faith That Other Data Will One Day Be Produced Showing That It Can't".
I presume that your objection to Darwinism is purely ideological, since you are not saying the same thing about other propositions in biology such as that smoking is bad for you --- although you might if you chose, based on the same form of wishful thinking. For your method of reasoning (and I use the term loosely) would allow you to ignore any hypothesis supported by statistical data, no matter how true it is.

This message is a reply to:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 67 of 165 (689146)
01-28-2013 2:01 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Arriba
01-28-2013 1:08 PM


Re: The story is not complete.
Arriba writes:
Natural selection is, at best, a tautology. Anyone can state that the fittest will survive as long as you can define what "fit" means after you know who does and does not survive.
No.
We can predict natural selection and show it actually happen. There are many repeatable experiments with bacteria and of course the peppered moth studies have shown it in the wild.
If you want to see more - for example wall lizards diet and mouse camouflage colour, go have a look at the evolution of novel features threads.
Natural selection is an easy part of the ToE to find really good evidence for, you don't have to rely on linguistic argument - you can see it.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 68 of 165 (689155)
01-28-2013 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Arriba
01-28-2013 1:08 PM


Re: The story is not complete.
Natural selection is, at best, a tautology. Anyone can state that the fittest will survive as long as you can define what "fit" means after you know who does and does not survive.
Again, like Bolder-dash, someone comes in here to do battle with evolution not knowing what it is or how it works.
Arriba,
"Fit" has a very specific definition in evolution. It is not "defined" or "determined" after the fact. The individual, the whole individual, is determined to be "fit" to some degree or "not-fit". One either matches the definition or one does not.
Phenotypic traits have no "fitness." They are enhancers to fitness to some degree or detractors to fitness to some degree or totally neutral to fitness. Some positive traits have a greater positive effect on fitness than others and some negative traits have a greater negative effect than others.
Once you understand what "fitness" means, combined with genetics, then you will understand why strongly positive traits must expand in the population and why strongly negative traits must disappear from the population.
You hear biologists argue over where on the sliding scale of fitness a trait may impact the individual and the views are so different you figure they don't know what they are talking about, when in fact it is you who does not know what the biologists are talking about since you have no idea of the concepts being discussed.
In science, especially biology, there are always studies showing this and counter-studies showing that. Two items: peer review and time. It often takes many studies, many reviews and much time for the facts to reveal themselves. In the case of evolution, the various forms of natural selection and the genetics that underpin it all, there is not longer any doubt.
Just because there is room to argue the details does not diminish the efficacy of the theory.
You are trying to fight against proven reality with your brain tied behind your back.
Go find out what "fitness" actually means.

This message is a reply to:
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 69 of 165 (689161)
01-28-2013 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Arriba
01-28-2013 1:08 PM


Re: The story is not complete.
Sorry, but I'm not afraid to say, "I don't know."
Well hold on; You didn't say "I don't know". You said:
quote:
The theory of peacock sexual selection has been falsified.
and the title is:
quote:
Darwinism Cannot Explain The Peacock
And you've based this on one paper. You've fallen for the same confirmation bias that you're accusing all of biology of.
Your last paragraph is a case in point, where you seem to indicate that I must either provide some alternative theory of peacocks or find myself beholden to support the prevailing scientific fad of our times.
On the surface, evolution is not that complicated. We know animals come from other animals, and that they vary from generation to generation, and that not all of them reproduce. There really isn't any other way for the peacock tail to have emerged other than it evolving. Now, the specifics of exactly how it evolved might not currently be understood, but we don't have to throw away all of the knowledge we do have because of one piece that we can't currently explain in detail.
That's why his question is good: if you want to say that it didn't evolve, then how the hell else could it have gotten here?
Now, you also get into the whole "regression to the mean"... would you rather talk about that than the specifics on how the peacock tail might've evolve?
I must say, though, I admire your faith that somehow somewhere science will complete the story. It's touching in its naive simplicity.
Hey, don't be so condecending!

This message is a reply to:
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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3629 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 70 of 165 (689182)
01-28-2013 4:51 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Blue Jay
01-28-2013 12:13 PM


Ok Blue Jay, so you are claiming that chimpanzee females have mustaches and beards. So do you believe that the male chimpanzees tend to have sex with females who have less beards? Do you think the ones who have these mustaches that you see are at a real disadvantage in their population?
I feel you also selectively ignored the further points of my post-like for instance that if males selected child-like traits that that would contradict men liking wide hips and large breasts. And thus this is how science is these days in the realm of evolution-they ignore what they don't want to see, just as Arriba has suggested.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Blue Jay, posted 01-28-2013 12:13 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 73 by Blue Jay, posted 01-28-2013 7:25 PM Bolder-dash has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 71 of 165 (689190)
01-28-2013 5:36 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by Bolder-dash
01-28-2013 4:51 PM


Ok Blue Jay, so you are claiming that chimpanzee females have mustaches and beards. So do you believe that the male chimpanzees tend to have sex with females who have less beards? Do you think the ones who have these mustaches that you see are at a real disadvantage in their population?
No, 'cos they're not human, and are not subject to sexual selection by humans.
In humans, men tend not to be attracted to women with beards. And lo and behold, by and large women do not have beards. Now if you could demonstrate that if by attaching an artificial beard to an otherwise passable woman you would make her more attractive to men, or at least that men would be neutral in their selection with respect to this variation, then you'd have a point.
But by and large women look approximately like men think they ought to look. For which I for one am thankful.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-28-2013 4:51 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(3)
Message 72 of 165 (689202)
01-28-2013 6:31 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Arriba
01-28-2013 1:08 PM


Re: The story is not complete.
Hi, Arriba.
Arriba writes:
This result is really not surprising. The term to describe this is "regression to the mean."
"Regression to the mean" is a phrase I'd heard before, but I never knew what it was. I spent a little time pottering around on the internet, trying to understand the idea. I'm still not sure I understand it, but the it seems to be only marginally more substantive than the claim that the "gold-standard" p-value of 0.05 isn't sufficiently stringent to prevent false positives: I don't see how it amounts to the grandiose condemnations of the entire biological sciences that you believe it to be.
-----
Arriba writes:
This is a surprisingly similar situation to the paper you quoted, isn't it? The study is "replicated" (sort of) but with a smaller effect.
Well, no, it wasn't a smaller effect size that they reported: it was the scale at which the difference was important. What they reported was that there is a natural range in certain feather-train characteristics, and females don't discriminate between these natural values. But, if feather-train characteristics deviate outside that typical range, females do discriminate.
-----
Arriba writes:
Your last paragraph is a case in point, where you seem to indicate that I must either provide some alternative theory of peacocks or find myself beholden to support the prevailing scientific fad of our times. Sorry, but I'm not afraid to say, "I don't know."
If all you can do is appeal to your own ignorance, then you have nothing to offer: should the need arise to appeal to ignorance, we already have plenty of our own lying around to appeal to. Nor are we afraid to admit it.
No, fear of the unknown isn't what distinguishes us: we both have admitted that we don't know what's going on with the peacock feather-train, and neither of us seems to be on the verge of a major life crisis because of it. Where we differ is in our prognosis for the state of our knowledge in the future.
Your position seems to be that ignorance is perfectly acceptable as a long-term strategy. Basically, not only do you not know, but you have no intention of even trying to find out. And, that's perfectly fine: there's no particular reason why you should have to know what peacock feather-trains are for.
But, several researchers would much prefer to alleviate their ignorance. So, they are using the current understanding of the world and currently-accepted "best-practice" reasoning to try to learn more about peacock feather-trains, and are hoping that, in the process, they might even help improve on our current understanding and on our "best practices."
You claim to have discovered fundamental flaws in both our current understanding of the world and in our currently accepted "best practices." But, as usual, you provide no alternative ideas that are demonstrably better. Until somebody can find a hypothesis that is clearly "right," all we can really do is try to decide which of our current hypotheses is "least wrong."
-----
So, let me ask you again: why do peacocks have long feather-trains? And, how do they manage to persist when they have such an apparent handicap?

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Arriba, posted 01-28-2013 1:08 PM Arriba has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by Arriba, posted 01-29-2013 11:19 AM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


(5)
Message 73 of 165 (689213)
01-28-2013 7:25 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by Bolder-dash
01-28-2013 4:51 PM


My terms
Hi, Bolder-dash.
Bolder-dash writes:
I feel you also selectively ignored the further points of my post-like for instance that if males selected child-like traits that that would contradict men liking wide hips and large breasts. And thus this is how science is these days in the realm of evolution-they ignore what they don't want to see, just as Arriba has suggested.
Forgive me if this gets too personal and too far off-topic, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let you jerk me around in a debate like you clearly want to.
You make far too many points and spend far too little time elaborating on each one. So, I make no attempt to engage them all. For example, you managed to squeeze four distinct topics into the 109 words of the post I am currently responding to:
  1. Male chimpanzee sexual preferences
  2. Adaptive value of mustaches
  3. Variable neoteny in human females
  4. Pro-evolution bias in science
This is a classical "Gish gallop." You make too many points for me to answer, and when I pass over some of them, you accuse me (and, in this case, all my colleagues) of intellectual dishonesty. In this case, you are also using it to deflect attention away from the comically wrong claim you made about chimpanzee facial hair.
Well, guess what? You were wrong: female chimpanzees have beards. I have presented photographic evidence of this. If you will clearly concede that you were wrong on this point, then I will proceed to engage the rest of your argument.
Edited by Blue Jay, : As much as I disagree with a person, I feel it a basic act of decency to spell his name correctly

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-28-2013 4:51 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-29-2013 9:36 AM Blue Jay has replied

  
rueh
Member (Idle past 3660 days)
Posts: 382
From: universal city tx
Joined: 03-03-2008


(2)
Message 74 of 165 (689258)
01-29-2013 7:45 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Dr Adequate
01-28-2013 5:36 PM


Now if you could demonstrate that if by attaching an artificial beard to an otherwise passable woman you would make her more attractive to men, or at least that men would be neutral in their selection with respect to this variation, then you'd have a point.
I'ld still hit it :{)}}

'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX
It takes all kinds to make a mess- Benjamin Hoff

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-28-2013 5:36 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3640 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 75 of 165 (689259)
01-29-2013 7:49 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Bolder-dash
01-27-2013 12:07 PM


Hello BD,
Then some females got a mutation that lead to much less facial hair-which looks like a child (purely un-evidenced conjecture, but ok, let's go with your story). This can't be some kind of chimpanzee creature because basically none of them have facial hair
You believe that humans originated from 'chipanzee creatures'? Surely you can't be this un-informed? No wonder your arguments make little sense!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-27-2013 12:07 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by Bolder-dash, posted 01-29-2013 9:24 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
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