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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Falsification theory of Natural Selection | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Zhimbo Member (Idle past 6038 days) Posts: 571 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
quote: Wait - you claimed that natural selction theory has led people to disregard environmental factors. I gave you work that looked at environmental factors. Now you say that because that work didn't look at *EVERY SINGLE FACTOR* it's somehow lacking? That's actually a question. Your previous sentence implies to me that unless science accounts for all relevant factors in every single case, it's lacking? This can't be what you're saying, is it?
[b] [QUOTE]
You are confusing Natural Selection theory with evolution theory. If we had life that made one copy and then died, which is more or less what the great majority of living beings do (assuming stasis), then we would still have Natural Selection. We would have units of selection which either reproduce or fail to reproduce, hence we would have Natural Selection.[/b][/QUOTE] Natural selection? What's the "selection" at work, then? It's environment, right? Including other indivicuals, competitors, predators, etc? Right? Aren't you arguing that we include these factors? Doesn't this necessarily mean that we need to look at more than a single individual? On the one hand you claim that science is neglecting environmental factors. Then you say that natural selection doesn't need to include competition or other individuals. Then you say we need only look at a single organism. Then you say we need to look at what affects that organism. We all tell you that that's what science is doing, and I've given you a link that overviews some examples. Then you say that's not what you're looking for because it doesn't look at everything, just some things. So, which is it - it seems you're saying we need to look at why an individual reproduces or not by looking at the relevant factors. I'm saying that's already what science does, but it also realizes that this occurs in a natural environment that includes other individuals, which are one of those factors. What's wrong with that?
[b] [QUOTE]
If it were true that the only reason the evolutionary version of Natural Selection is preferred is to support atheism, any scientific argument being absent, then the theory is not value-neutral.[/b][/QUOTE] There is no "evolutionary version" of natural selection. There is natural selection, which has implictions for evolution, and is one of its primary mechanisms. [edited for spelling] [This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 06-28-2002]
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Peter Member (Idle past 1505 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: You have been (with me at least) discussing Natural Selection. By definition that is a topic strongly correlated to evolution. I think I see your problem now. Natural Selection is not a concept aimed at describing organisms,populations or biological systems. Natural Selection is a concept aimed at explaining how evolutioncould happen. By removing variation, you are removing the selectability fromthe equation and are left with nature. I agree that the reproductive cycle is a major part of anyorganisms existence. To say that an organism is 'designed to reproduce' is objectionable to me on philosophical grounds ('design' part way of looking at organisms. But NOT the only meaningful way. If I observe a lion pridehunting, I cannot directly relate any of the behaviour to reproduction ... except by considering that if they do not eat, they will die and therefore be unable to reproduce. OVERALL the problem you have with natural selection is that youare thinking of it as a general concept for the description of organisms. IT IS NOT!! The sole purpose of NS as a concept is to explain how evolution could be driven over time. Check your intent, and if it does not match the intent of ToE andNS, then we have been debating different issue needlessly because you have misunderstood the nature of the concept of NS. [QUOTE]Originally posted by Syamsu:<b> As before, "naked" strands of DNA, without a cell, put on a laboratory dish, will "magically" reproduce themselves. It is no good to describe reproduction as some incedental happenstance which happens when an organism lives "long" enough, when you realise the organism is much based on these reproducing molecules. It's been proved also that at the molecular level, the assembly of a copy is something the DNA does, and not something it's environment does to the DNA. </b>[/QUOTE] That's exactly why natural selection is required by ToE. NS is not about an organism, its about a population. How would you describe a population, and the way it changes overtime ? In the above, yes DNA (or something similar, as I beleive DNA alonewon't just reproduce the way you suggest) replicates. That is not reproduction. Reproduction only makes sense at the level of the organism, thechemical replication of DNA is required for that, but isn't the reproductive act ... even in single celled organism. A whole new cell is divided off, not just a copy of the DNAfrom the cell nucleus. And, if copying were all that went on, species would not changeover time (even YEC's accept speciation so it does happen). It is not interaction between the DNA and the environment thatis selectable, it is between the organism and its environment. http://www.evcforum.net/Images/Smilies/wink.gif[/IMG]-->
quote: Not everything that an organism does is directly motivated bythe need to reproduce, though. Some behaviours increase the likelihood of being able to reproduce, but are not directy targetted at reproduction ... these bahaviours are largely concerned with survival. Another valid way at looking at organisms (figuratively again) is to say they are designed for survival. Body mechanism exits which allow some organisms to tolerate a wide range of climatic conditions for example, or to survive on limited food and/or water, etc. You can focus all of the attention of reproduction, but thatwould lead to as many value judgements and biases as basing on any other one factor.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1505 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: I'm afraid you are the one who is confused. Natural selection is a mechanism which is proposed as the majordriving force behind evolution. Evolution is WHAT happens to populations over time. Natural Selection is HOW evolution happens.
quote: Why do you assume statis ? Do you or any of your friends have children who are identicle to them ? In the absence of variation there is no Natural Selection. So underyour assumptions natural selection does not exists ... but only because you have put forward a 'system' in which there can be no natural selection. Natural selection is NOT simply whether or not an individualreproduces ... check some text books, or do some on-line searching. I know you paid someone to answer a question (you said so), pleasepost the exact question, and the exact wording of the response in case you have mis-stated your question or mistaken the answer ... maybe you haven't, but that's always a possibility. quote: No ... the individual is not the unit of selection in the sensethat you are using that phrase. Natural selection is not simply to breed or not to breed.
quote: It's not true. The idea of natural selection is based upon attempting to explainobserved variation in the Gallapogos islands. 'Hmm, look at all these finches ... they're nothing likemainland finches, and some have woodpecker beaks, some have nut cracking beaks ... how could that have happened I wonder ?' It has NOTHING to do with atheism ... I'm pretty sure Darwinwasn't an atheist and he put forward the ideas. What you seem to be saying is that we should throw out naturalselection because, to some, it challenges the view that God created all life. That's hardly scientific is it ? quote: Ask this instead ... if God created all life as is, why wouldhe create it so that it dies thus necessitating reproduction ?
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
The standard definition of Natural Selection is not just about reproducing or not reproducing, but reproducing or not reproducing is the essence of Natural Selection, even in the standard definition.
I only paid for the answer about if Natural Selection neccistates competition or not, not for the definition of Natural Selection as a whole. The answer (from the same person) was no, then yes, then a tentative no, so no overall. After that some other poster submitted a mathematical formula of Natural Selection that required competition, and when confonted he cut out the competition parts from the formula. It's pretty clear to me now that Darwinists will be forced to clean up their conceptual mess, once a general theory of reproduction is accepted. The general theory of reproduction basicly just describes how organims reproduce, and evolution would show up as a subset to that general theory of reproduction. I guess you are not agreed, but many times it seems you don't agree with anything I say, just for the sake of disagreeing. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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ringostore Inactive Junior Member |
quote: Why did He want to make the sky blue? Or why did He want water and sunlight an essential source for the planet to continue on? Because He wanted to do this and saw it was good.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1505 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: I don't interret the essence of natural selection to be aboutreproducing or not reproducing. I view differential reproductive success as the only meaningfulmeasure of natural selection. The definition which some of us agreed on earlier in this thread,is that NS is about survival ultimately leading to an increased chance of reproduction. I disagree on this descriptive point of NS with you. If I seem tobe hanging on to an accepted definition, it's because it seems to best fit nature to me. Backtracking and basing a theory on a model of nature seems tome a little cockeyed, when the simplifying assumptions you have made are unrealistic. quote: So where did you obtain your base definition of NS as beingto reproduce or not to reproduce ? Re: competition ... it is a possible factor, not an essentialingredient. As with all eco-logical issues, they involve wide-ranging interactionsand cannot be straight forward. quote: If we JUST look at reproduction to describe organisms we will notbe addressing evolution at all. A general theory of reproduction is focussed on individuals,NS is focussed on change in populations ... yes it must mention individuals, but it is not explaining anything about the individual, but about that individual's contribution to its population. quote: I disagree because I do not believe that you are correct. I beleive that you have misunderstood the concept of NS,which MAY indeed indicate a problem with literature on the subject, or, more likely, on your current comprehension of that literature. A general theory of reproduction would achieve ... what, inyour opinion ? What would be the initial AIM of creating such a theory ? You mentioned Newton earlier, is gravitational theory a goodway of describing apples in general ? That is what your suggestions amount to. You want NSto describe organisms in general, when it's aim is to explain how traits in a population change over time. Yes it discusses individuals and their traits (as gravitational theory(GT) applied to an apple discusses the mass etc. of the apple), but it is aimed at describing one particular interaction (as GT is about apples in motion).
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
- most populations are not significantly evolving (puntuated equilibrium)
- standard Natural Selection focuses on an essentially non-physical, comparitive relationship, with is conducive to many errors (*differential* reproductive success) - it's very interesting to see how an organism reproduces, and standard Natural Selection draws away from this focus - standard Natural Selection is not uniformly understood within science, and by lay people To summarize the discussion, I think those are the 4 most significant scientific arguments to have a general theory of reproduction, which would restructure Natural Selection theory as a subset of it. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 5898 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
For the scientifically inclined, I stumbled across an interesting article showing how the survival strategy of a particular organism - the July Gold (Dedeckera eurekensis) - maximizes the survival potential of the individual plant to the detriment of the species as a whole. Since the species's reproductive strategy is integral to this conundrum, I thought it might have some bearing on this discussion.
A slight natural history digression to put things in context. Plants that are adapted to extremely dry environments, such as the Mojave Desert which can suffer decades-long periods of drought, often produce many seeds, which lie dormant until conditions - rainfall - are favorable for germination. The idea here (an r strategy) is that some of those multiple seeds will survive long enough to germinate and perpetuate the species (for example, the desert sunflower Helianthus niveus). Others adopt a strategy where individual plants shut down seed production and concentrate their resources on survival. The July Gold is an extreme example of the logical conclusion of this strategy. When hard times drag on, as they often do in the searing, dessicated rocky terrain where July Gold is found (Inyo Mountains, southern White Mountains, and the Last Chance Range of the northern Mojave), the selection premium is placed on longevity - not reproduction. In the case of July Gold, the longevity strategy - good for the individual, bad for the species - has been pushed by natural selection to being limited to a small number of long-lived but nearly sterile individuals. The surviving plants are individual winners in the game of natural selection, but their individual success has brought their species to the edge of extinction. Reference: Daniel L. Nickrent, Delbert Wiens 1989, Genetic Diversity in the Rare California Shrub Dedeckera eurekensis (Polygonaceae), Systematic Botany, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 245-253
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Peter Member (Idle past 1505 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
What exactly are you attempting to describe with a general
theory of reproduction. I'm starting to think we may be at cross-purposes. I still disagree with your interpretation of Natural Selectionthough. quote: This is actually unknowable, and use of the term 'significantly'places it firmly into the realms of subjectivity/value judgement. Natural selection is what happens when the environmental factorsrelevant to the population in question change. This would tend to suggest that populations throughout South America (for example) are undergoing natural selection. To assess whether evolution IS happening would require a detailed investigation of the population's genetic make-up over several generations in order to see if there is a shift in the allele frequencies observed. If this is being done anywhere I would be interested to know. quote: Differential reproductive success is not the relationship uponwhich natural selection is based. It is the measure by which natural selection can be assessed. If we wish to determine the gravitational constant, we cannotmeasure it directly. We can swing a pendulem and calculate from that. It is a measure which allows us to assess. quote: Agreed. Natural selection does not such much draw focus awayfrom reproduction though, it just has little to do with reproduction for similar reasons to above. The reproductive success is a measure of natural selection in action, not batural selection itself. quote: Most scientific theories are not uniformly understood by laypeople, I don't see that as a problem. Should someone wish to misuse a scientific theory, in a layarena, for their own ends it is the duty of those with scientific knowledge of the field to attempt to explain this. I'm not entirely sure why you would say natural selection is notuniformly understood in scientific communities though. From the response during this thread I think you can see that while the general terminology is slightly different, those of us who consider ourselves scientifically trained, and with an interest in evolution all DO have a common understanding of natural selection. Perhaps there would be some merit to providing a definitive monographon natural selection, but compounding the problem by embedding it within a theory to which it has no direct relevence is a little strange. quote: 1) has no relevence to this discussion. Naturalselection is aimed at describing what happens when poplations ARE evolving, and has no relevence when they are not except as a predictor that change in the environment will promote evolution via natural selection. 2) natural selection does not focus on diff. reproductive success.It is measured by differential reproductive success. The physical process upon which natural selection is based in the very physical interactions between an organism and it's environment. (With the peppered moths, wing colour impacts the chances of being eaten and so natural selection in that case is base upon the physical predator-prey relationship). 3) it IS very interesting to see how organisms reproduce, but thatis NOT what natural selection is for. It is not fundamentally about reproduction and so cannot draw focus from it. 4) understanding in the scientific community is uniform, the descriptions may not be though. If these are your only four reasons, then this is why I disagreewith you. The reason I originaly started debating you, is that it seemed tome that you were suggesting that natural selection, as a concept, was false. This is not the case.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
For practical purposes, Natural Selection=differential reproductive success=false.
Also I don't think evolution should be generally understood to occur from a change in environment, but should be understood to start from a new trait/mutation. It might be very handy for creatures that before lived in the dark, that they have a set of spare eyes which they can now use in the changed light environment, but it's improbable they would have any spare set of eyes for if the environment changed to light. regard,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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John Inactive Member |
quote: You can't have one without the other. The current ToE incorporates both ideas. ------------------
www.hells-handmaiden.com
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Peter Member (Idle past 1505 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: differential reproductive success is a MEASURE of natural selection,not natural selection itself. quote: Without a change in environment there is no GUIDE to evolution. In your example above, should these dark-dwellers have eyes, buttheir environment is dark, then there is no advantage to having the eyes. No survival advantage one way or the other in fact. The distribution of creatures with and without spare eyes would,therefore be based purely on the genetics of the trait (recessive, dominant, co-dominant, what have you). BUT should the environment change, such that there is now light,and those with eyes find it easier to locate prey(say), they would have a distinct survival advantage, and thereby an increased chance of reproducting more offspring. The shift in the trait frequency over a number of generations would tend to illinate those individuals without eyes (though the no eye trait may persist depending on the nature of the gene/allele). Evolution is a mechanism that allows species to adapt to changesin the environment (the stimulus) by making use of heritable traits (the raw material). As John said ... evolution requires both.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
In the typical evolution/natural selection scenario the environment is static, and then lots of mutations are selected in this static environment (some reproduce, many don't). That is a factor more probable to producing mutations that contribute to reproduction, then having mutations of organisms prepared to deal with future mutations (changes) in the environment.
I know this is not so in the famed peppered moth example, but then are we supposed to believe that the blackness of moths didn't confer a contribution to reproduction prior to the trees turning black? I think not. What would this contribution be? I'm sure Darwinists can't tell me, eventhough they have done many studies on these moths. Once again you confirmed to me how useless it is to look at proportions in a population as Darwinists do, over looking at how things (like an eye, or black wingcolor) work in reproduction. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Peter Member (Idle past 1505 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Show me a reference to natural selection that does not includethe concept of a changing environment. That's what natural selection is about. Sometimes this concept is hidden within the idea of twopopulations geographically isolated for some time. BUT assuming one population remains in the original environment and the other moves elsewhere, we have an explicit environment change ... the population has gone somewhere else where conditions are different. quote: Re-read the peppered moths example. Blackness IS stated ascontributing to reproductive success prior to trees turning black. Black moths were more likely to be eaten, and therefore produce less offspring for the next generation, as well as being less evident in the current generation due to being eaten. quote: Once again you show that you do not understand natural selectionas put forward within ToE. How does an eye work in reproduction ? In what way does having an eye or not impact reproductivecapacity ?
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
Sorry, but this is just plainly ridiculous. Maybe you do know more about evolution theory then me, but that is irrellevant here. Your scenario of a changing environment is demonstrably improbable and relatively meaningless (because it doesn't neccessarily introduce a new trait), although it does occur, as explained before.
So how did the blackness of moth work then, prior to the change in environment? Was it also a camouflage color? regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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