natural selection is wrong

As soon as you address my point, I'd be happy to.You said that comparisons don't occur in nature. I gave you an example (41 posts before you said it) in which a comparison occured in nature. (Unless, as has been posited as a possibility, my wang is some sort of unnatural force akin to the apple of dischord. Which, as always, I'm perfectly comfortable with.)Calling it rubbish doesn't mean you're not dodging.

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"He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I will if you will

You compared the women in your imagination. When you consider your imagination part of nature, then I guess you could say that comparisons occur in nature.There is no comparison on rate of reproduction between variants in nature, these comparisons also only happen in the minds of Darwinists. This is why in modelling natural selection on a computer no comparison on reproductive rate is coded in getting the world of digital organisms to function.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Guys, ease up on Sy. After all, he's the one who came up with the reformulation of natural selection that will make it so much easier for scientists to gauge whatever it is they gauge when they look at Nature, and without the ideological value judgments about 'adaptation' and 'fitness' and 'evolution' that Darwinism brings to the table.All a biologist will have to do in Syamsu-world is keep a log of every single organism in existence, then put a check mark next to its name if it reproduces. It doesn't matter how much it reproduces, because in Syamsu-world we're not interested in gauging its reproductive success in the context of other organisms. See how easy this is?Now sexual reproduction (like among those mammal things) will, admittedly, make things a little tricky in Syamsu-world. Since this practice reportedly involves more than one organism, it will certainly necessitate another column or two on the organism checklist. However, we're still not going to include comparison or anything, because comparisons don't happen in Nature. For those of you who say it will be difficult to determine which male has, in fact, sired an offspring in populations where the female is likely to have multiple male partners, I say you should go away. There will be no need to 'compare' genomes or any such Darwinist nonsense. We'll think of something and get back to you. After you go away.All this effort is so much easier than taking samples of a population and calculating which alleles are increasing or decreasing in frequency from previous samples. In Syamsu-world, once we have a tally of the reproductive success or failure of every single organism in existence, we can tell...uh..well, we can draw our conclusions from the data obtained.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Actually, in my wang. There's a big difference.You see, my sexual response to one was greater than to the other. Therefore, sexual activity took place with one, and not with the other.My goodness, it's almost like competition and comparison took place. Unless, as always, my wang is some sort of supernatural force.Don't get me wrong, Syamsu. I would love it if we lived an ideal world, where I could have told them, "Ladies, ladies, please! Let's not go introducing judgemental language! Instead, let's find away that we can keep both your reproductive rates at 1!"Sadly though, they wouldn't have gone for that.

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"He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

As before all Darwinists, both adaptionists and their opposers, use a teleological conception of natural selection."The idea is that if natural selection were to act on its own, it would achieve optima. Evolution does not always produce optima, however, because natural selection is opposed by constraints.But this is an illegitimately teleological way of conceptualizing the action of natural selection, that is, by specifying a result, and a value-laden one at that. (Of course, the critics of adaptationism would say that their opponents bear the blame for this. Still, they seek to mitigate the teleology of their opponents by putting brakes on it. This is not the right move: they should reject the teleological conception right from the start.)"regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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See how easy this is?

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It's even easier than that. We can simplfy the world by denying that there are any genetic or phenotypic differences among individuals of a species. Thus Dan and I are both Greek God Sex studs (and I want my 5 bucks back!). And since there are no differences among individuals, those that are sterile due to mutation reproduce at a rate of 1 and those that are are fertile reproduce at a rate of 1. And when you put a check next to each individual that reproduces, you can under no circumstances indicate to which individual the offspring belong. One might inadvertantly identify a trait that favors reproduction over other variants and then we would be stuck again in this comparison thingy that we must avoid lest reality intrude in our dillusional world.

Thats great Syamsu, now please give me an actual reference for Wilkins use of the term, ideally one more specific than the whole of talk.origins, so I can see what the context was. I sincerely doubt that Wilkins coined the word 'sampling' and until you show me the particular instance you are talking about I am highly skeptical that he was the first to use it in the context of evolution without selection between variants.TTFN,WK

Most impresive Syamsu, you have managed a post with absoloutely no informative content. First you make a bald assertion with no evidence to back it up and then repeat a quote from a paper whose reasoning, we have already established, you have severe problems in understanding which also makes a bald assertion with no evidence to back it up.Shows us the prominent teleological aspects of modern evolutionary theory? What is the teleological conception of natural selection used by all Darwinists?I am quite happy to agree that the term selection can be said to have teleological overtones, which was why Alfred Wallace objected to natural selection as a term. This does not mean that Natural Selection is a teleological phenomenon.Show us some evidence that the widely held paradigm in evolutionary biology is that NS on its own would result in the evolution of optima.TTFN,WK

I humbly have to admit that I made an error in that in my example I was not assuming a stable population and I made the assumption that we were looking at only those individuals that actually did reproduce. My fault. I think I understand your point though and it really tells us nothing. The average reproductive rate of a population is of little value if we do not take into account who is doing the reproducing. But then again since, in your opinion, variability within a population is nonexistent, I guess you think simply knowing that an average reproductive rate equals one is a meaningful number. Ummmin the strictest since I guess this is true. However, you are way oversimplifying what is truly happening to the point that it’s beyond just stupidyou’ve entered the realm of mega-stupid. As Nosy Ned did in an earlier post, I too will ask you: so what? A stable population would have a birth rate that equals its death rate. Saying that the average reproductive rate is one really tells us nothing.
In the real world, the number of offspring actually produced (again, I’m assuming a sexually reproducing population) would most definitely NOT be one birth per individual in the population. It absolutely could not be one, because despite your ridiculous claim, not everyone reproduces, and accidents happen. You can’t simply dismiss reproductive choice in the manner that you are attempting.
I guess another question now would be: what’s your point? Do you need to stick to this rather ridiculous claim in order to support your assertion that variation does not matter? It’s stupid. It doesn’t happen that way. For example, do the words dynamic equilibrium mean anything to you? What in the hell are you talking about?
Fooled by Darwinist talk that some survive while others do not survive? Fooled? Are you flippin insane? You can’t honestly believe this crap. I am completely flabbergasted. I am stumped for a reply. This should be nominated for post of the month. Are you really saying that the chances of surviving to a ripe old age is the same for everyone? Are you really saying that because all organisms die, that if a population is stable everybody reproduced? Are you really saying that there is no variation within a population? Holy Crap! You really do not have clue do you? I refuse to accept that you believe thisyou have to be just throwing our garbage in hopes of getting a reply (and apparently it worked ) Let me come right out and ask you these two questions:
1) Do you, Syamsu, believe that in a stable population every newborn survives, and that death only comes to the old and that the only means of death is old age (whatever that is)?
2) Do you Syamsu, believe that there is no variation in a population or that if it does exist, it plays NO role in determining who survives and/or reproduces and who does not? You just don’t get it, do you? And I’m limiting myself to the basic observation that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Syamsu, Thank you, that's all I needed. The guppy population adapted to it's environment. See, you didn't need to have figures to 10 decimal places to understand retrospectively that adaptation occurred, after all! All things being equal this is correct. It's also neither here nor there.My last two posts stand. Allow me to reiterate.

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mark24 wrote:

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The theory of Natural Selection was originally formulated to explain adaptation. It was subsequently able to explain a range of other phenomena such as evolutionarily stable strategies, stasis, etc. In each case "selection" requires the stochastic action of the environment on different geno/phenotypes within a population resulting in differential reproductive success of some phenotypes over others.

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I don't deny the type of action the environment has upon individuals & populations that you mention. For example, you mention the deaths of many migratory birds easing competitive pressures for that species. True, it would. But since it acts over the whole population there is no differential reproductive success. The whole population benefits, & as a result there is no adaptation as a result of lessened intraspecific competition. In fact, the only affect such non-selective pressures have is on overall population size.

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Bringing you back to the reason that the Theory of Natural Selection was formulated, adaptation. The migratory deaths of the birds in question has no efficacy regarding adaptation. It's a bit like talking about the Theory of Gravity by including the strong & weak nuclear forces, along with electromagnetism. True, they are all forces, gravity included, but the gravitational theory pertains to gravity & nothing else. In the same way natural selection pertains to the organism, the environment, adaptation, & the maintainence of systems via selective pressures.

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Have your theory, if you will, just don't call it "natural selection". The term has already been coined to explain something specific.

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Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Hi Syamsu! Adaptation is a valuable descriptive term. Adaptation of a species to its environment is what happens when the guppies best suited for that environment survive to reproduce. The two terms, adaptation and survive to reproduce, are not independent. It is not a case of conflicting terms where only one can be used and not the other. They complement each other in helping us describe the nature of evolution.Comparison is another valuable descriptive term, though I don't know if you could actually consider it part of evolutionary technical jargon. Comparisons happen all the time in nature. The faster vulture captures the prey and eats, the slower vulture starves. Nature has just made a comparison of speed of the two vultures. Or in the case of peacock tailfeather displays, the peahen compares the displays and makes a selection.The term natural selection arose because of its clear relationship with the artificial selection practiced by breeders. In artificial selection, breeders select who reproduces and who doesn't. The criteria are whatever qualities the breeder considers desireable, such as appearance, or leanness of muscle. In natural selection, nature selects who reproduces and who doesn't. The criteria are whatever qualities permit the organism to survive long enough to reproduce and pass his genes on to the next generation.I think you may be caught in a web of terms of your own definition. Even if you don't like the currently accepted definitions, you must use them or you'll simply continue as you've done for the past two years. As someone once said at town meeting (that's how local government happens in small towns in New Hampshire), one sure sign of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting something different to happen. Your persistance is admirable, but it might be well past time to evaluate your strategy with an eye toward modifications.--Percy

I have searched for it some time ago, but couldn't find it. Once again it is irrellevant. If you have some objection to the word sampling for describing the relationship of the organism to the environment in terms of reproduction, then say what your objection is, and suggest another word maybe.I have no idea why you seek to pursue such a completely meaningless point of wordusage with such snide insinuations as if I did a terrible thing.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

We will never know how 'terrible' what you did was as there is absoloutely no way for us to find out just what the hell you were talking about!I agree the terminology is irrelevant, that was my point, you are the one who has ideological prejudices which render you incapable of accepting the term selection, thats the word I would suggest by the way since it is already in common usage to describe exactly the phenomenon we are discussing. Also sampling is already a term with a soecific uasge in the study of population genetics, which is the context I suspect Wilkins was using it in and which renders your representation of his usage completely off base. Which is hardly surprising given your complete missing of the point behind the paper this thread is about, a paper you seem to have given up discussing just so you can reiterate all your usual cant.TTFN,WK

He also steadfastly refuses to acknowledge my wang.

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"He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.