natural selection is wrong

Seems to me like the kind of wonky thinking one expects from a philosophy department.i love when philosophers try to do science. they try to mix mostly unrelated studies and come up with something conclusive. just like capra, it ends up a convoluted mess. unless you have extensive knowledge and understanding of a system, don't try to do new research in it. you'll get it wrong. but then, it's always good for a laugh.to be truthful, it's always interesting to get weird perspectives on things, but it's only constructive in the sense that it will encourage you to respond in an unconventional manner.

Again, we are presuming a stable populationsize when a population reaches capacity, a stable relationship of organisms with the environment. You present a populationsize that is volatile, decreasing or something, but you can't calculate standard reproductive rate also with an unstable relationship like that, let alone my "idiosyncratic" reproduction rate. So equally you are arguing against standard definition of reproduction rate now.from your other post:
"The average reproductive rate of an individual in a population of mosquitos would be the total number of offsrping produced divided by the number of individuals in the population"That is actually my definition you are using. Again, the populationsize, or the relationship of the organism to the environment, is presumed to be stable, both in standard definition and in my definition. So since the populationsize stays the same, then if the population is 100, then 100 need to be reproduced, because all organisms die. 100/100=1 . If we would have any more or less then 100 being reproduced, then the population would increase or decrease.You are of course fooling yourself, because you don't actually count all individuals in the population, you are just counting, like I said, those individuals that have reproduced, which may be just 10 of the 100. The actual numbers produced by individual organisms could look like this (6,7,8,9,10,10,11,12,13,14, the 90 other organisms 0) The average rate of reproduction of the individuals that reproduced was then (6+7+8+9+ etc. )/ 10 = 10, the average rate of reproduction of an individual was (6+7+8+9+etc)/100=1. Maybe you are also fooled by Darwinist talk that some survive while other's not survive. That is of course not true in the long run. In the long run *all* die, no organism survives, so to have a stable populationsize, in a way, *all* must be reproduced.As before to talk about sexual reproduction, you have to go into such issues as, if you only contribute half the genes, then should that be counted as one, or half an offspring etc.I'm just limiting myself to the basic observation that seeing how all organisms die, the individuals in the population with the stable populationsize we see when an population reaches capacity, would have an average reproductionrate of 1.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Yes of course in the conclusion the authors have modified natural selection theory already so that it's not teleological anymore!So there you can get away with saying natural selection is not teleological. But the theory everybody still uses is teleological, according to the authors. It's specially noted that both the adaptionists, and the anti-adaptionists are teleological, and this comprises most all Darwinists.Your moth example is too complex again to really say anything. I never said to ignore camouflage of black wingcolor to black tree, and lack of camouflage of white wingcolor to black tree. What I said was that on equal terms you can now also refer to an example of variation with an equal likelyhood to reproduce as an example of natural selection. It is no more or less valid then to have an example of natural selection that is based on variation with differing likelyhood to reproduce. This obviously makes the inclusion of variation seem pointless, while still being a perfectly valid example of natural selection.You also have a very fundamental political problem here if creationists would gee.... posit an example of variation with equal likelyhood to reproduce as a correct example of natural selection.....then gee.... everybody would have some questions about what they have been told for 150+ years..... Of course, creationists also have accepted and taught teleological natural selection for as long as Darwinists did, but confined to micro-evolution.I agree it is meaningless to look at individual lifehistory to look at evolution, as the author's also say in talking about Li's growthrate formulation. IMO the change is a mutation, or a recombination, and the question then becomes limited to does it reproduce, or doesn't it? You can't possibly be saying that it's meaningless to look at individual lifehistory when looking at likelyhood to reproduce, or else you would seem to be denying most basic biology of observing organisms in terms of survival and consequent reproduction. How are biologists supposed to describe any individual moth for instance, when they can't refer to likelyhood of survival / reproduction?I could interpret your words as to say that some sort of exception needs to be made to Newton's principles to accomodate teleological natural selection theory. Newton's principles are asserted to apply in all sciences, they are meant to be conceived of as general principles, and for this reason the authors can refer to them in biology also. I'm not too sure about the explanatory limits of the principles, but natural selection seems to be well within those limits. We aren't talking about a very sophisticated science here, why even an amateur can do most of it...regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

But the definition of the reproductive rate you've given works with the population staying the same or not. It does not assume that each offspring survives to reproduce, does it?If the rate is the number of offspring divided by the number of parents then the offspring are counted before they die, aren't they?Therefore in a population of 100 rabbits that give rise to 500 offspring, 400 of whom are eaten by wolves, has a rate of 5.

No my definition does not assume that all offspring survive to reproduce.I would count the rabbits that get eaten by wolves in calculating a mean average reproduction rate. Assuming that this cycle of rabbit reproduction endlessly repeats itself, assuming that all organisms die, I would read your example as saying that the population on average consists of 500 rabbits, the reproductionrate 1. The population of 100 rabbits you refer to is just the part of the population that reproduces, and this part reproduces 5 on average yes.(or you might be talking about a population which is not at capacity but which is growing in numbers, but growing populations were not at issue. If it was a growing population, then we would see the average reproductionrate drop back to 1 when the population reaches capacity.)regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Actually all that is said is that non-adaptationists should reject teleology, there is no actual evidence to show thay they do not. If you have some then please present it, otherwise this is an unevidenced claim for which we are to assume the author of the paper has suitable authority, or for which the evidence is so plentiful, for it to be taken as a given, which I don't think they do. This simply shows that you still don't comprehend selection. If a pressure is probabilistically non-selectiv then it is not a selective pressure. If a pressure is selective then it will produce specific trends. Your single incidence of a lightning strike is not an example of natural selection in operation. This makes no sense, there are plenty of possible variants that might be as fit, in reproductive terms, as extant organisms, their theoretical existence in no way argues against the TOE as currently held. Or perhaps I haven't understood your argument. Creationists by their very nature are more teleological than evolutionists, especially the ID camp whose entire raison d'etre is arguably to show teleological forces at work.You seem to have decided that instead of complaining about the value laden nature of evolutionary terms you are going to focus on teleology. That is a much better thing to focus on and a valid criticism of many aspects of current evolutionary thinking, but until you can show any evidence that the prevailing modern view is teleoloogical, which neither you nor this paper have, then it is a straw man as far as knocking down the whole theory of evolution goes, and certainly has no effect on the importance of variation in natural selection.I will whole heartedly agree that the variation that is initially assumed to be the basis for selection, or the selective pressure which has led to the evolution of a given feature, may in many cases be misidentified due to teleological prejudices. This is an error in methodology and individual approach not the fundamental theoretical underpinnings of the TOE, basically most biologists suck at maths, and I say this as both a biologist and someone who sucks at maths. Sure you can when what you need to do is look at the superset of genetic variation in the whole population over several generations. One individual study will never allow you to determine the likelihoood of anything, you can't do meaningful statistics on a population size of 1, and if you agree that NS is a probablilistic phenomenon then you must, now more than ever, allow that the individual is not the correct level of study. Syamsu you would do much better to interpret my words as meaning that you haven't got the first clue about the place of newtonian mechanics in modern science, and then both you and I would be right. Perhaps if you told us exactly which 'principles' of Newton's you were thinking of as being generally applicable to all branches of science it would help.I personally was thinking of the laws of motion as discussed in the paper. They are indeed general principles, general principles relating to the behaviour of bodies at rest and in motion. There is absoloutely no reason to assume they will be generally applicable in biology. Indeed, as I have already pointed out several times, a good proportion of the paper is given over to showing that a newtonian mechanical view is not a suitable way to think of natural selection as selective pressures are not analogous to simple newtonian forces.If you showed even an amateur scientists grasp of having even the faintest idea what we were discussing. Such as the probability of you being able to show how newtonian physics is reconciled with quantum mechanics. Then things would be a lot easier. You seem to blithely assume that we are debating on a level playing field as regards our understanding of science, when in fact you seem to still be in the changing rooms down several flights of stairs, strapping your metaphorical box on.This may not be a fair assessment, but this thread has yet to give me any cause to change it.TTFN,WK

Well you are simply wrong AFAIK, natural selection, as it is now, is not based on variation with an equal likelyhood of reproducing, or with an equal rate of reproduction, but is constricted to variation which has a difference in probability to reproduce, a difference in rate of reproduction. I could show you loads of formulations of natural selection that say this, in Darwin it is expressed as one having an advantage over another. That the authors include variation with equal likelyhood to reproduce in natural selection, where before they were described separately from natural selection in neutral selection or genetic drift or something, is a fundamental shift in theory. Now we can have any story of neutral selection as an example of natural selection.But let's approach this another way, all the simplified examples of natural selection concerning white moths, black moths and black trees etc. are false, when you say that simplified examples with lightningstrikes are false also. Of course the reason that the white/black moths example is false, as well as a solely neutral example is false, is because it is prejudicial. To include one would amd not the other, would tend to lead to think that the other is excluded from natural selection. Consequently most all teaching of natural selection is false, because most all teaching is constricted to examples of one variant having an advantage over another.You are not pointing out exactly where my supposed error in reasoning is.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I think under those circumstances you are right. Are you saying that if a population is constant then the average reproductive rate is 1? That is the total number of individuals born must equal the total n umber of individuals in the parent generation?OK. yea, so?

Dear Syamsu,I can't even tell what point you think you are addressing. I have never said that any formulation of NS was based on equal likelihood of reproducing. What you proposed as a great blow to evolutionary theory was a creationist positing something. In other words you suggested that a hypothetical example of something should be taken as hard evidence for its existence. You could very well have some allele running to fixation which was under no selective pressure at all, perhaps if you knew some population genetics you would realise this. Genetic drift in small populations can fix a non-selective allele.All that including neutral selection in natural selection does is say that all changes in population genetics are examples of NS. If you agree to the top down view of NS as the ultimate sum of all the factors affecting the populations genetics you may make neutral selection a part of Natural Selection, but not the whole of it. If you want to call fixation of neutral alleles from genetic drift as Natural Selection then that is up to you but you still need to study the genetics of the whole population to determine what is happening, studying any particular individual or even one population of variants will never be enough.If you assume that our model has to be perfect then you are correct that all our modern theories of evolution are simplistic and flawed. However by these standards so are absoloutely all of our other scientific models and hypotheses none of which take into account and can explain all relevant features of a system.Teaching may focus on simplified examples because it makes things easier to teach, this doesn't neccessarily make it false, just simplified or incomplete. It is the same with the teaching of all sciences, you start of with simplified systems and as the student learns more more of the deeper workings of the systems are explained to them when they have the tools to understand it. Not all examples are of one variation, if you had ever actually studied evolution you might know that.You have no 'exact' error in reasoning, your errors in reasoning are any and varied. Perhaps if you actually addressed the points I put to you and made it clear what point you were addressing we could actually get somewhere.As to being prejudicial, well this is the same error you have made time and again. Fitness is not predicted in advance based on prejudice, fitness is a post-hoc measure of a variants success in propagating through a population. As a post-hoc measurement there is nothing prejudicial involved, this post-hoc measurement can then be used to predict future trends in the populations genetics, and if these predictions are fulfilled then it is reasonable to assume that the variation is being subjected to selection.TTFN,WK

quote:

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Since the paper includes lightningstrikes as a legitimate example of natural selection

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No it doesn't. Read it again.It states that lightning strikes are NOT involved in natural
selection, but that they affect gene frequencies and so
environmental factors can influence evolution along-side natural
selection.

I view natural selection to be like a populational filter.There are many, many factors which cause change in the
gene-pool of a population, from mutations to global
catastrophy. Any of these, alone, can cause 'evolution'.None of it explains the apparent suitedness of orgnanisms
to their natural environments.Filter the population with an 'environmental relationship'
and we can see the explanation of suitedness.Natural selection IS about the relationship of an organism
to its environment, and evolution IS about descent with
modification.Without the modification/variation part there is no evolution.The removal of variation equates to a 'zero force' law, since
variation is one of the key parameters (not the ONLY one though).

I think lifting the exclusion of events like lightningstrikes from natural selection more represents a simplification of the structure of natural selection theory, rather then an increase in complexity.It is also telling that this comes from seeking consistency with a principle that is much older then natural selection theory. It would be different if there was some new theory that resulted in some change in natural selection theory, like for instance some new theory about the gradual disintegration of biological systems that don't evolve.Aren't actually most all events that influence survival/reproduction of an organism like lightningstrikes, pretty much equally probable to occur to one variant as the other? It would seem so, which would certainly make differential likelyhood to reproduce of special note to students, because it doesn't occur very much in natural selection.I think fitness is predicted in advance just like the flip of a coin is predicted in advance, by observing the sides to be equal, and like observations. Variations are not as simple as a coin, but you can make broad guesses about differential proneness to reproduce in advance.You evidently still use selection as meaning different likelyhood to reproduce, when you say that it is reasonable to assume that the variation is being subjected to selection etc. All variation is subject to selection in the new formulation, and I would add that it can only follow that the restriction of natural selection to apply on allelles that don't vary will also be lifted.Next we might see a paper that argues;
Case1: organism A with good eyesight get's hit by lightning,
organism B with bad eyesight doesn't get hit by lightning.
Case2: organism A with good eyesight get's hit by lightning,
organism B which also has good eyesight doesn't get hit by lightning.Can we really exclude case 2 from natural selection? ....etc.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Yes we can exclude it, for the oft repeated reason that you can't meaningfully select between two identical things. If you are still talking about Newtonian laws of motion then you have yet to show the faintest idea what they are or how they fit into the body of modern scientific knowledge. If you are thinking of something else then it would be helpful if you said what. For once you have it exactly right, however you seem to fail to realise that the basis of predictions about coin tosses is the sum of a large history of observed coin tosses. When you say "Variations are not as simple as a coin, but you can make broad guesses about differential proneness to reproduce in advance." this is exactly the sort of approach which leads to the teleological problems which we have both been deploring, you may make such guesses but without any previous observations of the populations genetics over several generations to use as a basis then guesses is all they are, unless your variants are really starkly differentiated. Your first bit here makes sense but even if we were to allow that most deaths/non-reproductive individuals were due to non-selective pressures, which seems very doubtful( do you have any reason to assume that selection neutral causes are more common?) how can you tell they are non-selective without considerable amounts of population genetics analysis, it is irrelevant, as we have previously been discussing non-selective factors such as lightning strikes are just a statistical factor to be brought in but do not produce the sort of trends associated with selective pressures, since these factors are non-directional they simply add to the noise of the system from which we are trying to extract the signal showing the trend of the selective pressures. If the frequency of lightning strikes were high enough then we might expect to see it working as a selective pressure and the same is true of any other factor.TTFN,WK

Saying that it's not meaningful seems such a subjective argument. As discussed over a year ago, most biology completely ignores any and all variation when describing typical lifehistory of a specie, or population. For example: 30 percent of some bird get killed on the journey to the south, the survivors have a higher chance of reproduction because they have decreased competition from their own sort. It seems meaningful science so you must be talking about something else when you say it's not meaningful selection. You can't have meaningful selection without reproduction, or survival, or retention or like principles. The selection is between reproduction and no reproduction, seems meaningful enough to me.I was talking about the observation of equal sides leading to the predictions about coin tosses, not the observation of many tosses of coins leading to predictions about coin tosses.I don't understand why you still refer to lightningstrikes as a non-selective pressure, in the context of discussing the new formulation of natural selection. I am thinking that things like eating and birds migrating south being hit by storms, mostly also fall into the category of lightningstrikes.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Syamsu,Message 30, please.Mark