Evolution for Drummachine

S: But you are just arguing yourself in a hole to include limited resources, because Natural Selection does actually apply to scenario's of plenty resources also. It is still no argument to the point at issue.M: LOL...so your argument is to not address any of Quetzal's points i.e. he writes a detailed description of the support for his position and you just handwave...and your second strategy is to ignore direct experimental evidence that demonstrates your points are just flatly wrong i.e. my post preceding Quetzal's...well ignorance is bliss I guess...thanks for dragging the thread off topic with your nonsense.

What, then, is science about?

Do you have a reading comprehension problem, or are you being deliberately obtuse? Reread the post. You will see that the definition of carrying capacity that I used includes both scenarios. The formula applies in both cases - it is simply K in our equation that has a higher limit if more resources are available.If you are attempting to postulate that there exists on earth any environment or ecosystem that has unlimited resources - in other words, where the formula would NOT apply - then provide references. Otherwise, your objection to assumptions 1 and 2 in the OP has been shown to be erroneous.

Quetzal did provide something scientific looking, he however, just like you, did not address the issue.Does natural selection apply when there are plenty resources so all in the population can reproduce, such as in seasons like spring or summer, or after mass extinction, or when moving into a new environment etc?My answer: yesYour answer: yesBut then this somehow, some way, doesn't lead you to conclude that the defining Natural Selection in terms of limited resources where only a (small) part can reproduce, is misleading. Pure politics/cowardice of course.What did it say in the first post again, something like: these things must be true in order for evolution to be true. 1 resources are limited not all can reproduce otherwise the earth would collapse.Then in post 58 you come with examples of evolution with unlimited resources. And now you laugh at what actually?(edited to take into account Mammuthus post 58)regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 03-31-2003]

Syamsu, I have to say that I am finding this simply pathetic. There are obviously a number of factors which you do not understand, I can use the following quote to illustrate one.

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Does natural selection apply when there are plenty resources so all in the population can reproduce, such as in seasons like spring or summer, or after mass extinction, or when moving into a new environment etc?

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1) Natural selection is always there, OK.
2) Your statement, "all in the population can reproduce" contains a fatal flaw w.r.t. how natural selection and reproduction works, namely if an organism was fit enough to be able to mate then it obvioulsy will reproduce, that does not mean that all of its offspring will be either fit enough or lucky enough to survive to reproduce or able to attract a mate.Earlier in this thread you calimed that you had given numeous examples of an entire population reproducing. I have reviewed all of your posts in this thread and they are not present here. Please link or post the loaction of these examples. You have made sufficient postings on this board that finding them by hunt and peck would be ridiculous.In post 45 you claim that you had destroyed/refuted/ect many on my statements concerning natural selection. you have done no such thing, please pick any statement which I have made a provide a refutation that is not just "your logic is faulty". I have provided a couple of links and references to where I find faults in your statements, please demonstrate, with backing, where you have found faults in my logic or lose by default.In post 60 you claim that "you read somewhere" claims contrary in interpretation to what Quetzal posted. Please provide the reference or withdraw the statement.Enough og the unsubstantiated BS Syamsu, please put up.------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz

S: Quetzal did provide something scientific looking, he however, just like you, did not address the issue.M: Quetzal and I both addressed the issue. You have in no way scientific or otherwise demonstrated why either Quetzal or myself are incorrect. Please do so now or desist from keeping the thread off topic.Soes natural selection apply when there are plenty resources so all in the population can reproduce, such as in seasons like spring or summer, or after mass extinction, or when moving into a new environment etc?My answer: yesYour answer: yesM: And the point?S: But then this somehow, some way, doesn't lead you to conclude that the defining Natural Selection in terms of limited resources where only a (small) part can reproduce, is misleading. Pure politics/cowardice of course.M: You know, you sound like a broken record. You neither demonstrate how this is misleading, you do not demonstrate anything that is faulty in the experimental data I presented and you only handwaved away Quetzal's post as opposed to addressing what he wrote. As to your claiming I am a coward, if that is the logical connection that you make because I think you are wrong, then I have to conclude you are mentally debilitated.S: What did it say in the first post again, something like: these things must be true in order for evolution to be true. 1 resources are limited not all can reproduce otherwise the earth would collapse.M: And this is incorrect because? Give examples where there is no differential reproduction in a population or one in which every new trait or mutation survives regardless of its fitness.S: Then in post 58 you come with examples of evolution with unlimited resources. And now you laugh at what actually?M: Actually, there is a limitation to resources even within the experiment, in a culture flask bacteria can only reach a certain density beyond which they cannot expand any further...but that is irrelevant for the experiment as it was intentionally set up so that competition would not depend on resource limitation. Quetzal has also maintained that natural selection works in systems where resources are not limiting. Why do you ignore this "politics/cowardice"?Whatever your lack of comprehension is on this issue sounds more like a semantics game for the purpose of flaming the board rather than a debate of a scientific issue.

You should (if you haven't already) check out the various
and numerous discussions that Syamsu has had with myself and
others on natural selection.S/He neither understands natural selection as a concept, nor
is S/He willing to accept descriptions of natural selection, claiming
them to lack scientific rigour and thus not match what is seen
in nature!!Her/His objection to natural selection and Darwin in general, seems
to be that S/He finds it racist ... despite how others have tried to
point out that while Darwin's ideas may have been subverted by politically motivated individuals, the ideas themselves are
intended dispasionately.Note to Syamsu :: I will not be drawn into this discussion with
you again (iteration 3 or is it 4), or at least I'll try not to.

You do realize the the availability of natural resources is not the only factor that can impact on an organisms ability to reproduce, don't you?Sexual selection, for instance, could result in only certain members of a population leaving offspring.------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

My examples where all reproduce are the scenario's I mentioned, seasons etc.. You yourself and Mammuthus also mentioned some scenario's of plenty resources where all can reproduce (when you talk about speciation speeding up when resources are plentiful).Take a look at Quetzal's logic again."First off, there are some very basic statements that, for evolution to be true, must be true. All provide potential pathways for falsification. All lend themselves to development of testable hypotheses. All have (scientifically) predictive value:1. If all the offspring that organisms can produce were to survive and reproduce, they would soon overrun the earth.2. As a consequence, there is competition to survive and reproduce, in which only a few individuals succeed in leaving progeny."So what all of you want Drum to believe is that when there is differential reproductive success of variants of waterplant covering the newly enlarged pond where all offspring reproduce, that this is still consistent with " a few individuals succeed in leaving progeny".Basically you want Drum to believe that "a few individuals succeed in leaving progeny" is equal to "all individuals succeed in leaving progeny".Besides that Quetzal's logic tends to ignore scenario's of plenty resources, he would also likely ignore scenario's of extinction. That is because his logic states that all reproducing is not possible, but a small share reproducing is possible. But similar to that sometimes it is true that all reproduce, it is also only sometimes true that a small share can reproduce. The pond could just dry up, and none of the waterplants would reproduce then.Sorry but you, Quetzal, Mammuthus, Peter, John have not yet presented any actual argument to the point at issue.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Reread my post above, Syamasu. The equations apply to both high resource and low resource areas. The equations apply where there is high predation, and low predation. And etc, so on, and ad nausea.As far as the pond drying up, you obviously missed the description of density independent limiting factors in my post. Try again.As far as not addressing your points - so far it doesn't appear you have any that haven't been completely shot down in flames.Goodbye, Syamasu.

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So what all of you want Drum to believe is that when there is differential reproductive success of variants of waterplant covering the newly enlarged pond where all offspring reproduce, that this is still consistent with " a few individuals succeed in leaving progeny".

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One BIG and one little error here, allow me to correct them for you
Syamsu

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So what all of you want Drum to believe(not believe, understand, this was your little error) is that when there is differential reproductive success of variants of waterplant covering the newly enlarged pond where all (this is your big error, please substitute some) offspring reproduce, that this is still consistent with " a few individuals succeed in leaving progeny".

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That correct makes your following statement meaningless

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Basically you want Drum to believe that "a few individuals succeed in leaving progeny" is equal to "all individuals succeed in leaving progeny".

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Now that this has been shown to be an erroneous understanding of evolution do you understand the mistakes that you have been making?Q also addressed plenty of resources in an ealier post. Like one which I posted near the beginning it (availability of both resources and unfilled demes) has to do with both the rate and the degree of speciation.------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz

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I think any number of creationists will be very happy that you see the earth as a closed system, to which the second law of thermodynamics then applies.

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I really wish you would read what I write and take the time and effort-- yes, effort-- to understand it.What I said was that the Earth is not recieving any (significant) new material. I have repeated stated that ENERGY IS ENTERING THE SYSTEM, so this quip about the second law is ridiculous.

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I explained why the earth is not overrun before, several times, in this thread.

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Because they all die? ... your post #2.Several people, including myself, have explained why this is an inadequate explaination.1)If this is the ONLY factor, you can't have population growth at all. And we certainly do see population growth.2)The fact that most animals reproduce far more than one offspring per parent per generation, means that populations will increase faster than individuals die off-- in the absence of predation, disease, etc. You are removing these factors from the equation, thus the Earth should have been overrun long ago.

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Again, if you want serious argument then you address if Natural Selection applies with limited resources or not.

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?????????What? This is the issue. Are you that lost?

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You and all the rest including Darwin were simply wrong to focus on limited resources where only a (small) part of the population reproduces.

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Long term, resources are always limited. You can't ignore that and expect to be taken seriously.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

Okay Syamasu, you want to talk about extinction. Tell you what, I'll discuss population extinction, natural selection, in the context of the equations I used above. Then you no longer have a flipping leg to stand on AT ALL.Local populations are often not persistent. In other words, representatives of a species may be present in one of these local patches one year but may be completely absent the next (or the next generation, or n generations down the road). There are many reasons for this phenomena, but the key thing to remember is that these populations individually represent only a fraction of the total number of individuals of a given species. In other words, with reference to the overall size of the species, these populations are small. In addition, the quality of the habitat represented by each of these patches is not uniform — some habitat patches are better at supporting a population than are others. The better habitat will sustain larger — and theoretically more persistent — populations than the poorer quality habitat. They have a higher carrying capacity for the species. The extinction of local patch populations is offset (all other things being equal), by recolonization when conditions are favorable from other, occupied patches. This phenomenon is known as winking, because it resembles lights winking on and off in the local patches as they are emptied and then re-filled.As is intuitively obvious, small, local populations in marginal habitat are at greater risk of local extinction than are larger populations in good habitat. There are four general causes of local population extinction:1. demographic: random events may cause a decline in the birth rate or rise in the death rate to the point where statistically the population is no longer viable.2. environmental: random events that cause high mortality in a given population (weather effecting food supply, etc).3. genetic: Both genetic drift (the random walk of allele frequency in a small population) and inbreeding depression (the result of ever-smaller populations being forced to reproduce only with each other until the mutational load of harmful recessives reduces survivorship and the overall fitness of the population). What is interesting about the latter is that populations that have historically been isolated in small populations but survived have purged their mutational load and are actually quite resistant to in-breeding depression. The depression effect is most noticeable in newly fragmented or isolated populations which had once been larger.4. Deterministic (non-random) effects that disrupt the environment on a large scale, such as habitat fragmentation or loss, contamination, etc, or in some cases biological succession (for instance, after a major fire there is a sequence of re-colonization of the burned area where each successive wave of colonizers is pushed out by the next).All of these effects can combine, causing what is termed an extinction vortex (or death spiral). An extinction vortex occurs if populations become too small, so that inbreeding occurs, causing populations to become even smaller, making them even more vulnerable to having large fractions wiped out by random environmental or demographic effects, which would result in even more inbreeding, and so forth: a negative feed-back loop that causes extinction.In a metapopulation, these small, local extinctions don’t really mean much. As long as there are refugia, core areas, or source populations, the metapopulation itself isn’t effected by which or even how many local populations wink out. However, the ability of a source or core population to recolonize a patch is dependent on a number of factors, including distance between habitat patches, dispersal ability of the species (including willingness to disperse), size of the source population, physical barriers, availability of corridors/stepping stones (intermediate terrain that can be temporarily occupied or provide safe transit routes), cost/benefit issues, etc. If any one of these factors is changed such that it prevents dispersion — whether a physical or behavioral barrier — a local population that winks out will not be replaced.As local populations within a metapopulation fluctuate in size, they become vulnerable to extinction during periods when their numbers are low. Extinction of local populations is common in some species, and the regional persistence of such species is dependent on the existence of a metapopulation. As well, metapopulations are the sum of their subpopulations. Patch occupation depends on individuals moving to unoccupied patches and the formation of new subpopulations is balanced by extinction of subpopulations. Small populations are more likely to go extinct than are large populations. When individuals move frequently between patches, fluctuations are minimized and changes in subpopulations mirror that of the larger metapopulation. A high rate of migration among patches transforms metapopulation dynamics into the dynamics of a single large population. When individuals do not move between patches, the subpopulations behave independently. At intermediate levels of migration, the metapopulation exists as a shifting mosaic of occupied and unoccupied patches.To understand metapopulation dynamics extinction, I want to take a look at derivation of the logistics equation I used above. Consider that within a given time interval, each subpopulation has a probability of going extinct (e). If (p) is the fraction of suitable patches occupied by subpopulations, then subpopulations go extinct at the rate e*p. The rate of colonization of empty patches depends on the number of empty patches (1 - p) and the fraction of patches sending out colonists (p). The rate of colonization can be expressed as a single rate constant (c). The equilibrium proportion of occupied patches is p-hat and p-hat = 1 - e/c This equilibrium is stable because when p is below equilibrium, colonization exceeds extinction. This equation shows the critical importance of the relative rates of extinction and colonization. When e = 0 and p-hat = 1, all patches are occupied. When e = c, p-hat = 0 and the metapopulation moves towards extinction. Intermediate values of e (greater than zero but less than c) results in a shifting mosaic of occupied and unoccupied patches. When colonization exceeds extinction, the fraction of patches reaches some equilibrium between zero and one. When extinction exceeds colonization, the metapopulation goes extinct.And that is how the formulae for natural selection effects metapopulation dynamics AND extinction. Hopefully this answers Syamasu’s pointless digression about extinction.(edited to add: Aw shucks. I forgot to mention variation so Syamasu can drag in another strawman. Okay, Syamasu - the relative extinction rates reflect variation in the different subpopulations AND variation in the quality of habitats available. Better?)(edited a second time to add: Oh, BTW, funky, if you're out there, this post is the bulk of the essay on natural selection and extinction I was writing for you. So this one's for you, too.)[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 03-31-2003][This message has been edited by Quetzal, 03-31-2003]

Sure you can talk about extinction, but it just doesn't figure with your statement that not all can reproduce but some can reproduce, which allegedly "must" be true.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Sure you can talk about extinction, but it just doesn't figure with your statement that not all can reproduce but some can reproduce, which allegedly "must" be true.It's perfectly possible to make a simplification of Natural Selection that is not misleading/prejudicial, but your simplified statements are simply wrong.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu