Syamsu's Objection to Natural Selection...

Surely if that were the case Syamsu then there would be no variation in the computer models either. That,'and mutation', is telling; how do you accomodate mutation in your model without allowinf for variation and a possible differential in redproductive success amongst the variants? Even if all of your mutants are deleterious embryonic lethals they still show NS acting upon variants via differential reproductive success.

What it shows is interpretative, what the program instructs the computer to do isn't. There is no instruction for differential reproductive success in the program as far as I know. ( and I don't know, I'm just guessing)I'm guessing the program also shows times when there isn't variation, it shows all sorts of things, basically it shows that differential reproductive success is just a peculiar instance of mutation and reproduction which has a much broader scope.Anyway why I do bother to raise an interesting topic, what formulation Natural Selection would have if we would translate it from the programmingcode of simulations of Natural Selection, when all I get is the defensive Darwinist blather?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 08-10-2003]

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You should work up on theory, on the fundamentals of science let alone biology.

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You should work on your logic skills and at the same time actually address the questions posed to you...otherwise you continue to look like a fool.

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Yes you can apply selection to a single individual, you can even apply it to part of the life of an individual if you switch from looking at reproduction to looking at survival as the means of continuation.

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Oh really, and what exactly is the heritable trait of survival that you are looking at selectively in this model? How is the representation of that phenotype/genotype increasing as a result of ignoring reproductive success?

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In science you are constructing knowledge, it's a technical task, you should make decisions about the fundamentals of the theory, and not keep with vague notions like you have.

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Oh really? That is very interesting for me as a scientist to hear what such a great wit as yourself has to say about science...thanks for the revelations and your clear concise accurate and responsive posts..where would we be without you..

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That seems SO COMPLETELY USELESS to calculate comparitive reproductive success. It seems to me you only need to program reproduction as a consequence of some interaction with the environment, and mutation to make a model of Natural Selection.

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..."some interaction with the environment" which YOU yourself have made a prerequisite of your demented ideas...and that some interaction is the selection on VARIANTS in the population that have more or less ability of spreading their phenotype/genotype to the next generation...you can't even keep your own stupid definintions consistent and have to add vague statements about "some envirnonment effects" etc....do you ever actually think about what you are typing or do you just post to be in opposition to what everyone else is saying?

You huff and puff about your authority as a scientist, I present logical argument. You have no argument Mammuthus, no argument about how you invalidate the basic biology of looking at individual organisms by insisting on selection being comparitive to variants, no argument about differential reproductive success not actually being in the code of computerprograms that simulate Natural Selection.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Syamsu,So far you have made no clear argument for mammuthus to rebut. You still have to show one single area of fundamental biology to which variation is detrimental. Presumably the entirety of medical biology is out since all medical conditions could be viewed as a variation from the normal functioning of the body. Genetics is obviously out. So which particular fundamental areas of biology were you thinking of? Please make it clear, your refusal to do so and then claiming that no one counters your arguments isn't getting us anywhere.Thanks,Wounded

Well this shouldn't be too hard to work out, I'm sure I can find a wealth of papers detailing the construction of various evolutionary computer models, I'm not a hardcore techy type though, anyone out there up to interpreting the actual programming code for us if we can find it?I agree with you that this is a fruitful area to look at Syamsu, do you have any models you are aware of that you want to mention?TTFN,Wounded

Here's one with a link to the Nature website for online access to the full paper for those with a subscription. This model contains competition for energy as a factor. and an extract

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You huff and puff about your authority as a scientist,

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Versus the blather and drool of a fundie with not only zero authority, but no grasp of logic that is visible....personal attacks finished..now on to the rest

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I present logical argument

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You have not. You suggest that you can generate diversity without allowing for variation which is a logical fallacy. You have no explantion for how certain traits reach high frequency in the population because you claim there are no variable traits. When pressed, you introduce exactly the opposite of what you claim, that there are environmental factors (which you cannot describe) interacting with no variation (but somehow there is selection for something you cannot describe) which produces variation in success of traits. To sum it up your non-variant variants cannot achieve the outcome you predict without the environment selecting for certain variants. You merely attempt to assert that they did not vary i.e. stupid statements like gazelles don't vary, but in the end you require that they vary...and top it off by somehow associating differential reproduction of phenotypic/genotypic variants as somehow connected with social Darwinism....you are profoundly confused Sy....for yet another example...

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You have no argument Mammuthus, no argument about how you invalidate the basic biology of looking at individual organisms by insisting on selection being comparitive to variants,

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first...no I don't have anarugment about how I invalidate basic biology since I have not invalidated it...second, your fixation on the individual is amusing...so if you die without reproducing...or even if you do reproduce...do you think the H.sapiens will become extinct?..since you believe each individual is a population this is the fallacious but logical outcome of your pet idea.In any case, as Wounded King has pointed out, you have not presented a coherent or logical argument for me to rebut. You have continuously repeated fallacious statments that you cannot support and have failed to rebut a single post from anyone who has engaged you...on the other hand, it is pretty amusing

Here is another model, this time of competition between two different varieties of unicellular organism to see what factors might favour the evolution of multicellularity. This model is a bit like Conway's 'game of life'.

We are up to a pretty high number of posts now, is this thread in danger of destabilising like the previous one? Do we need to passage this thread?[This message has been edited by Wounded King, 08-11-2003]

Why impossible?The trait is basically genetic, it's just that the
expression has some either random or as-yet-not-understood
element.You can improve your chances of success by getting the right
kind of parents together, but you cannot gaurantee success,
and (in the case of blazed berkshire rats) breeding from those
that show the trait isn't necessarily the best way to go.You can breed for it (i.e. deliberatly select couples with the
highest chance of producing the trait), you just cannot
gaurantee to get what you want.{Added by edit}
It occurs to me that this is the basic difference between
natural selection and artificail selection.In artificail selection one can look back a number
of generations and infer 'best chance' pairings for
certain traits (sometimes unexpectedly). So you can then
mate to get source traits that improve the chance of getting
the trait you actually want.Maybe there is some generalisation of that that would help
to support/illiminate the possibility of intelligent
intervention in the modern diversity of life on earth.[This message has been edited by Peter, 08-11-2003]

It may be possible to breed for a white spot on the forehead, but not one due to the X inactivation patterning seen in a calico cat. Unless you managed to somehow dramatically change the mechanism of X inactivation.

Syamsu,Please address message 300.Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

actually, there is a way to do this, in mice at least, with the Xce locusMol Cell. 2003 Mar;11(3):731-43. Related Articles, LinksXite, X-inactivation intergenic transcription elements that regulate the probability of choice.Ogawa Y, Lee JT.Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA.Allelic expression differences contribute to phenotypic variation. In X chromosome inactivation (XCI), unfavorable XCI ratios promote X-linked disease penetrance in females. During XCI, one X is randomly silenced by Xist. X chromosome choice is determined by asymmetric expression of Tsix whose antisense action represses Xist. Here, we discover a cis element in the mouse X-inactivation center that regulates Tsix. Xite harbors intergenic transcription start sites and DNaseI hypersensitive sites with allelic differences. At the onset of XCI, deleting Xite downregulates Tsix in cis and skews XCI ratios, suggesting that Xite promotes Tsix persistence on the active X. Truncating Xite RNA is inconsequential, indicating that Xite action does not require intact transcripts. We propose that allele-specific Xite action promotes Tsix asymmetry and generates X chromosome inequality. Therefore, Xite is a candidate for the Xce, the classical modifier of XCI ratios.There are Xce alleles that can dramatically skew X inactivation...however, this is usually seen when makes interspecific hybrids such as M. musculus x M. spretus F1s...

Cool, but skewing the ratio still wouldn't guarantee you getting a white blaze, but perhaps there are even more complicated ways you could get X inactivation to go in a specific direction in a specific region, I can imagine ways you might do this transgenically but not with classical breeding.I look into Peter's rat example and that isn't linked to x inactivation but appears to be caused by different routes, some genetic and some solely phenotypic.