Debunking the Evolutionary God of 'Selection'

Instead of using ridicule, why don't you address the actual argument? It seems that we are losing you in that you can no longer address arguments and can only ridicule those who are making the arguments. What is "Darwinian" NS? How does it differ from plain old NS?Also, how are you proposing that mutations be removed from genomes every generation? I was born with about 50 mutations. You were born with about 50 mutations. Everyone was born with about 50 mutations, including our ancestors. If we go back 10 generations that is about 500 accumulated mutations in the lineage that ends with each of us.So how is this reversible? What mechanism is there to go in and remove the mutations we are born with before they can get passed on to the next generation? We can directly observe natural selection occurring in living species. It isn't a belief.

You seem to have evolved from a "dedicated evolutionist" to a full-blown denier pretty quickly.

Bluegenes tends to ascribe some stupid beliefs to me — evidently so that to demonstratively falsify them. A shame. Believing is the portion of creationists and Darwinists; they have a lot in common. While I only believe in the Cartesian principle: Doubt, as far as possible, all things. Darwinian doctrine included.Bluegenes also seems to be obsessed with the eyes issue. O.K. let’s talk eyes. Take a proverbial example of the so-called box jellyfish Tripedalia cystophora (the phylum Cnidaria, the class Cubozoa) which possesses 24 eyes, housed in four rhopalia. Four of the 6 eyes in each rhopalium are simple photo sensors, but two have light-focusing lenses. The primitive creature has elaborate camera eyes with actual retinas, corneas, and lenses!The thing is the box jellyfish possesses amazingly elaborate eyes while it has no brain at all, and so this bizarre creature, in fact, cannot perceive the images generated by its eyes. Indeed, we see rather with our brains than with our eyes. After all, a photographic camera lens properly builds images, yet the device does not see anything.Well, what would Darwinists invent in order to elucidate the strange case of Tripedalia cystophora eyes? Has non-random NS tooled box jellyfish up with the excellent yet absolutely useless eyes? Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add blank lines between paragraphs.

Bluegenes tends to ascribe some stupid beliefs to me — evidently so that to demonstratively falsify them. A shame. Believing is the portion of creationists and Darwinists; they have a lot in common. While I only believe in the Cartesian principle: Doubt, as far as possible, all things. Darwinian doctrine included.Bluegenes also seems to be obsessed with the eyes issue. O.K. let’s talk eyes. Take a proverbial example of the so-called box jellyfish Tripedalia cystophora (the phylum Cnidaria, the class Cubozoa) which possesses 24 eyes, housed in four rhopalia. Four of the 6 eyes in each rhopalium are simple photo sensors, but two have light-focusing lenses. The primitive creature has elaborate camera eyes with actual retinas, corneas, and lenses!The thing is the box jellyfish possesses amazingly elaborate eyes while it has no brain at all, and so this bizarre creature, in fact, cannot perceive the images generated by its eyes. Indeed, we see rather with our brains than with our eyes. After all, a photographic camera lens properly builds images, yet the device does not see anything.Well, what would Darwinists invent in order to elucidate the strange case of Tripedalia cystophora eyes? Has non-random NS tooled box jellyfish up with the excellent yet absolutely useless eyes? Edited by Vlad, : No reason given.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add blank lines between paragraphs.

I'm not a biologist, or scientist.But I also don't understand the point you're trying to make.What's strange about the jellyfish having good eyes and no brain?
You seem to say that this is weird because they can't process images like humans can.But.. well... yeah. Jellyfish aren't humans. They're jellyfish.Why is it strange for a jellyfish to process light and react to those processes without a brain in order to do jelly-fish things?
Why is it strange for a jellyfish (or any creature) to have really amazing eyes and no brain to picture the images in a human way?Why can't a jellyfish have really good eyes for processing light in the jellyfish way in order to do things a jellyfish needs to do?Your "problem" seems more like a issue with the fact that jellyfish aren't human.
That's not really a problem for anyone else. For everyone else, we know jellyfish aren't humans... they're jellyfish.

Well, a Darwinist would ask whether a box jellyfish can survive and reproduce better with these eyes than with no eyes. And a Darwinist would ask whether these eyes can arise through small changes, with each new change conferring a survival and reproductive advantage.As long as the answers are "yes", then that's all the theory of evolution needs to work.

We don't have to invent anything.The only person inventing stuff is you. You are the one claiming that you have to have the ability to reconstruct a mental image in order for eyes to be beneficial, and have no evidence to back it up. We can even find single celled organisms that have an eye, and they are very beneficial for those organisms.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

We have evidence, so belief isn't necessary.

What they have is a neural net:

quote:

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A nerve net consists of interconnected neurons lacking a brain or any form of cephalization. While organisms with bilateral body symmetry are normally associated with a central nervous system, organisms with radial symmetry are associated with nerve nets. Nerve nets can be found in members of the Cnidaria, Ctenophora, and Echinodermata phyla, all of which are found in marine environments. Nerve nets can provide animals with the ability to sense objects through the use of the sensory neurons within the nerve net.

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So this neural net is similar to a primitive brain in function, probably more developed than a flatworm brain ... after all what is a brain but a bunch of nerves networked in one organ? No, his "problem" is that he thinks he knows what evolution is.Enjoy

If you didn't mean what I characterized you as implying, that functional features like complex eyes can be produced without light, what did you mean by "Darwinian NS proves quite random"? Obsessed? No. Natural selection has tooled up the box jellyfish with very useful eyes. You like analogies, so consider "smart" C.C.T.V. cameras that can react to certain complex incoming patterns of light due to programs that are probably far simpler than a box jellyfish nervous system.

The founder of Darwinism once has pronounced: If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. [Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189]
Here we are. Tripedalia cystophora represents just what Charles Darwin had in mind as a most baffling case. The gradualist idea of natural selection is nicely falsified, according to sir Karl (Popper). At that, a non-gradualist idea of NS would hardly be sensible
An imaginary experiment would yet more clarify the matter: let’s make two powerful computer programs — the Deep Thought and the Chess Wizard (each regularly beats grand masters) - compete. At that, assume that the Deep Thought’s decision horizon is deliberately limited so that the program wouldn’t foresee the game prospects beyond the immediate move. That is, being myopic, the Deep Thought resolves rationally here and now, yet it is not able to look ahead. This is why the experiment is conducted with computer programs and not with human chess players. As against a chess program, it wouldn’t be easy to really enforce the short-sighted vision upon a competent player.

You have not even attempted to demonstrate that the Tripedalia cystophora eyes could not have arisen through evolutionary mechanisms. You haven't even tried to demonstrate it's "baffling" to anyone but you.BTW, "baffling" is not synonymous with "impossible".

Besides, the chess players cannot withdraw moves; the process is irreversible. In other words, the Deep Thought program performs just like Darwinian NS that does not plan for the future has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. Then how would the competition advance? Exactly! The myopic Deep Thought would be checkmated, fast and inescapably. And what is more, the short-sighted program would display the quite chaotic performance. In fact, it would demonstrate a random walk. The myopic chess player wanders blindly...
Verstehen Sie? Sehr gut. Then imagine a chimpanzee placed in the pilot’s seat of an airliner: does the ape guide the flight? Sure it does - in a sense This is just the way NS guides biological evolution. And no wonder, the process is now and again interrupted with mass extinctions.
Amusingly, as distinct from Darwinian NS, natural selection among gene alleles is not so random because NS among alleles is quite reversible process. So Darwinian NS actually guides evolution, in the world of asexual reproduction. Alas, it does chaotically and randomly. On the other hand, NS among alleles (microevolution) is not so random, yet it hardly concerns evolution. Wily Mother Nature

Is this your definition of "Darwinian NS" -- that it does not plan for the future has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all ... ?How is this different from plain vanilla standard Natural Selection as used by actual biological, ecological, environmental and evolutionary scientists?Natural selection is not a planning process, but it is a non-random reaction feed-back process: this works here and now, the better adapted organisms survive and reproduce to repeat it in the next generation (non-random feed-back).It "plans" for the present. That doesn't make it random, rather it makes it guided by the existing ecological constraints to improve adaptation. Or even spotted with scattered instances of individual species\population extinctions.Indeed, there is no magic flight plan in evolution, as there is no pilot at all, chimp or otherwise. That, however, does not make it a random process. It is a non-random reaction to the existing ecology using the tools (mutations, existing adaptations) currently available in the population. Again, it is a reaction feed-back process: this works here and now, the better adapted organisms survive and reproduce to repeat it in the next generation (non-random feed-back). ... just the same. It too is a reaction feed-back process: this works here and now, the organisms survive and reproduce to repeat it (feed-back). Those gene alleles in the surviving reproducing individuals get carried along to the next generation. Curiously, reversibility is irrelevant to evolution.Rather than show "Darwinian NS" is random by this argument, you actually demonstrate how non-random it is. The times the gene frequencies are reversed are when the ecological constraints reverse (as occurred with the Peppered Moth), ... and it is by the selection of the phenotype not the genotype that the allele frequencies are reversed. In other words it is reversed by your "Darwinian NS" not by some "magic plan" that the gene alleles possess.Enjoy

Blimey, RAZD already has digested the tricky word reversibility. So he (she) will also learn the term irreversibility soon.
In order to encourage RAZD I’d like to propose one more eyes case. Let’s compare the box jellyfish to the much more advanced Nautilus pompilius - the species of a sea mollusk endowed with the primitive pinhole eye.
The latter case has been considered by good Richard Dawkins. Nautilus is a bit of a puzzle in its own right. Why, in all the hundreds of millions of years since its ancestors first evolved a pinhole eye, did it never discover the principle of the lens? ... What is worrying about nautilus is that the quality of its retina suggests that it would really benefit, greatly and immediately, from a lens. ... Nautilus appears to be sitting right next door to an obvious and immediate improvement, yet it doesn't take the small step necessary. [The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p. 85-86]
It should be commented that, being the adamant Darwinist, Dawkins has repeatedly caused heavy damage to the only true evolutionary doctrine. Of course, altogether unintentionally...
Now add the two cases together: here NS didn’t manage to maintain a simple and demanded improvement, in many millions of years. And there the amazingly complex device has emerged all of sudden though it was flagrantly redundant and absolutely useless. However, bluegenes will easily construe also a case of mushrooms with camera eyes. You see, natural selection
Well, sapienti sat already. Still I am prepared to go on with as much amusing cases.