Evolution for Drummachine

A reply to message # 138 in the "Faith and Belief" forum, "Let Us Reason Together" thread, please.Funny, that discussion talks about the very points you are talking about here, yet you have dropped it.

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- If all organisms reproduced then the earth would be overrun.

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This is false because we could have (sexually reproducting)organisms reproduce 2 organisms each, then have the parents die,
have the offspring reproduce 2, and so on, and the earth would never be overrun, eventhough all organisms in it reproduced.

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The proposal above seems to require an organism that produces two
offspring at a time, one of each gender, and that both parents
die (male upon cenception perhaps, female upon delivery).If organisms worked this way I think they would die out very
quickly, unless there was some special gender determination
system at work.Regardless ... the statement you are responding to wasn't saying
that you could not design/concieve of a population that, should
each individual reproduce, would not cause a population overrun.It was saying that that is what would happen on Earth with our
current flora and fauna, should every individual successfully reproduce.

I think Syamsu is talking about immortality here.S/He views not-dying to mean never dying, ever. Try talking
to him/her about survival sometime

You seem to be very much mistaken about science being about making models, constructing knowledge, about the real world, or that the real world is science.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Right. However, the thing that causes the death of all but about 1% of Olive Ridleys IS natural selection. Which is why, if you look back at the OP, you'll see is the point.

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This is false because we could have (sexually reproducting)organisms reproduce 2 organisms each, then have the parents die, have the offspring reproduce 2, and so on, and the earth would never be overrun, eventhough all organisms in it reproduced.

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Please provide any data at all where you sexually reproducing pairs which only produce two offspring and then die. I do not think that you can do it because as far as I know there are no such creatures (except for man who can choose to do it, and then they reach a stable population, most third world countries though do not reach a stable population, even with higher infant mortality, because they have MORE than two children during the reproductive cycle or a mated pair).

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Where the above may be a bit theoretical, there are also realword situations where all organisms in a population do actually reproduce.

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and then

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For the rest you are simply showing prejudice again, ignoring situations where there is a wealth of resources.

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OK Syamsu, since you seem to understand the simpler concept like death as well as basic resources I want for you to provide me with data or references for a system with unlimited resources. Because with your simplistic view of ecology that is what you are going to need. The problem with your approach (assuming that you can not provide the requested data) is that, as resources become limiting you begin to get differential reproductive success. A pair may only breed once during their reproductive cycle vs three times with a fitter pair. Only 30 % of the offspring may survive to reproductive age, stopping the flow of the genes of those who died, ect.

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It's strange that you do so because I thought the latest evolutionary just so stories depended much on there being largely empty environments (empty of competitors) after some mass extinction.

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Actually thank you for supporting my arguements. Radiation of species into new demes, followed by a slowing of speciation as the demes fill up and resources become limited (all of this is seen in the fossil record by the way, just look after the K-T border) fits PE, and to some extent, Neo-Darwinian theories quite well. The difference between the two being mainly rates of speciation. FYI this is also the biggest bone of contention now, namely the rates at which the radiation into new ecological systems occured.Oh, and in your reply to Q you did not offer a counter arguement, unless you consider your statements that I have demolished here to be your counter arguement. Obviously we can do the math, and it supports us far better than you .------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz

Your logic is again faulty because when resources are plenty you can also get differential reproductive success, just as well as you can get differential reproductive success when resources are limiting. It is prejudice yet again for you to focus differential reproductive success on limited resources.The rest is non responsive to arguments already raised, or simply non-argumentative to the point at issue.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Your logic fault is not just an abstract mistake in theory, I've think I've shown enough now that it is related to a mistake in focusing on situations of limited resources over focusing on situations of plenty resources, which prejudice can cause real scientific errors, or actually it is a scientific error already.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

You have suddenly changed your argument. In this post you now say that "because when resources are plenty you can also get differential reproductive success". Before you were positing (the never observed) phenomenon whereby every individual in a population will produce two offspring i.e. everyone has a fitness of 1.0. and would therefore overrun the planet. Now you are admitting that there can be differences in reproductive success i.e. there are those with fitness of between 0 and 1....you are in effect confirming what Quetzal has been saying. That differential success in reproduction will determine the genetic makeup of the population so that alleles and hence traits will come to predominate...it's called evolution...what causes the differential success is called natural selection..got it?

Good grief Syamasu. The OP was a simplified version of natural selection. I stated in the OP that it was simplified. Resource competition is ONE aspect - and the most easily understood - of natural selection. If you'll note, I also neglected to mention genetic polymorphism in my discussion of variation and heredity; I didn't discuss metapopulation dynamics and extinction vortices; I didn't discuss gene flow, migrational meltdown, population density, dispersal, habitat use, or niche construction; and I didn't discuss linkage disequilibrium, genetic imprinting, marginal vs absolute fitness or any other of the myriad details a detailed discussion of natural selection would entail. THE OP WAS A SIMPLIFICATION. There is no theoretical error. There is no failure of logic. There wasn't even a flipping "focus" one way or the other. Get over it. Sheesh.I'd appreciate it if you would cease your attempts to derail the thread. Thanks.

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Your logic is again faulty because when resources are plenty you can also get differential reproductive success, just as well as you can get differential reproductive success when resources are limiting. It is prejudice yet again for you to focus differential reproductive success on limited resources.

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Symasu, please take a look at the following abstract,
speciation
What the paper discusses is basically a matter of rate and degree of speciation. And speciation is a factor of environmental and reproductive success, with both parts playing a role in what we term natiural selection. Like most biology it is a matter of degree and rate of action. In case you need more interpretation: the greater the stress of a given population the greater the chances of one of two things, change or extinction. Now, what part of that is unclear. Your attempts to distract from this the real

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simply non-argumentative to the point at issue.

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Do you have a response other than to re-make your mistaken claims re: reproduction, ecology and population statistics/biology.Oh, and you STILL have not provided any references or data to back up your claims re: pair for pair replacement strategies or unlimited resources.Changed for a prettier URL
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"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz[This message has been edited by Dr_Tazimus_maximus, 03-28-2003]

It hasn't yet been mentioned in this thread (unless I missed it) but the issues Syamsu has raised regarding growing populations and limited resources is the primary point of Malthus who so influenced Darwin's thinking.--Percy

No I don't get it, it's wrong.- there is differential reproductive succes when resources are plentyaddress this please- reproduction only adds organisms. It is logically wrong to say that by adding less you can prevent a theoretical collapse of the earth under the weight of turtles, because you are only adding turtles still.address this please- there are situations in nature where all organisms in a population reproduce such as in seasons where resources are plenty, or after mass extinction (I would add to guess that many bacteria populations also go through these phases much where they all reproduce)address this please
(note that when Taz addressed mass extinction he said that speciation *slows down* when resources become limited, this I take to be substantiating my argument, unless he made a typing error and meant to say speciation speeds up when resources become limited)It occurs to me that you could argue that if organisms reproduced faster then they died, that you could still have a model where the earth collapsed, even if all organisms in it were to die. But this argument is then still weaker then the argument I made about reproduction only adding organisms, IMO.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Syamsu, I don't understand.If you put ten mice in a box and only feed them enough food for ten mice, you will always have an average of ten mice in the box. Sometimes you may have 15, sometimes 5 or 6, but the average is going to be limited by the food supply. They are NOT going to over-run the box. They will starve to death first.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

That's not true Quetzal. It was a complicated scenario of Natural Selection requiring variation and competition for limited resources, all in a big mess IMO.You don't have to mention the other things, but when you mention limited resources then you have to mention scenario's of plenty resources also, otherwise it's misleading.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu