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Author Topic:   natural selection is wrong
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 91 of 276 (112462)
06-02-2004 4:36 PM
Reply to: Message 90 by Dan Carroll
06-02-2004 3:45 PM


Well I fear you may have found the one area in which I can find myself siding with Syamsu, the less said about your wang the better as far as I'm concerned.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by Dan Carroll, posted 06-02-2004 3:45 PM Dan Carroll has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by Dan Carroll, posted 06-02-2004 4:48 PM Wounded King has not replied

  
Dan Carroll
Inactive Member


Message 92 of 276 (112465)
06-02-2004 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by Wounded King
06-02-2004 4:36 PM


That's because you don't know its true power. I have it on good authority from Syamsu himself (by implication, at least) that my wang is a mystic avatar of chaos, the sheer power of which causes otherwise normal women to steep themselves in unnatural practices such as "competition". It accomplishes this through the equally incomprehensible process called "comparison" which, until now, was seeing only in the crazed imaginations of the most deluded Darwin Ideologists.

"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.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Wounded King, posted 06-02-2004 4:36 PM Wounded King has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by Brad McFall, posted 06-02-2004 7:02 PM Dan Carroll has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 93 of 276 (112476)
06-02-2004 7:02 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by Dan Carroll
06-02-2004 4:48 PM


Dan I do not know what kind of computer you use but I did find myself in agreement (a long time ago) with S in an area but I know that if you and I had kids you would not be able to get custody from me if I lived in Florida so I would not try out the old Superbowl commerical again in this line of thought in which I too agree with WK to an extant.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Dan Carroll, posted 06-02-2004 4:48 PM Dan Carroll has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by mark24, posted 06-02-2004 7:42 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 94 of 276 (112487)
06-02-2004 7:42 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by Brad McFall
06-02-2004 7:02 PM


Brad,
Commas.
Mark

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by Brad McFall, posted 06-02-2004 7:02 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Brad McFall, posted 06-02-2004 7:46 PM mark24 has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 95 of 276 (112489)
06-02-2004 7:46 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by mark24
06-02-2004 7:42 PM


Sorry M, I didn't know anyone was listening. It is nice to see you are not the Riddler, this-time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by mark24, posted 06-02-2004 7:42 PM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by mark24, posted 06-02-2004 8:40 PM Brad McFall has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 96 of 276 (112505)
06-02-2004 8:40 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Brad McFall
06-02-2004 7:46 PM


Brad,
NP. I had to be resuscitated reading your penultimate paragraph.
Mark
This message has been edited by mark24, 06-02-2004 07:40 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Brad McFall, posted 06-02-2004 7:46 PM Brad McFall has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 97 of 276 (112533)
06-03-2004 12:02 AM
Reply to: Message 87 by Percy
06-02-2004 1:27 PM


My definitions are all derived from the principle of sampling, derived from viewing the relationship of an organism to the environment in terms of reproduction. It is a systematic approach starting from that point. You could say I am locked into a web of those definitions yes and am not inclined to look at things differently. Most biology consists of describing lifehistory of individuals without reference to variation, it is the mainstay of regular biology also.
Darwinists are stuck in reasoning with archaic terms such as struggle for existence / life. It is not as straightforward as you make it out to be. I don't think the paper I referenced has any chance of changing opinions of Darwinists, regardless if it's true or not, because the debate over it will inevitably sink into absurd exegesis of the works of Darwin and Fischer etc., rather then that people would actually look at nature. My definitions are uniformly understandable, it would be uniformly expressed, while Darwinist definitions are ambigious. Your story is different from Peter, and Peter's story different from Wounded King and so on. Your view on comparisons occuring in nature is wholy your own as far as I know, it is not in Darwinist literature as far as I've seen. Yet you make it out as though I am the one proposing this weird theory, where you are actually positing something quite obscure. An idea of comparisons occurring in nature, which idea tends to relate natural selection to choice. If you want to introduce something like comparison as an observable phenomenon in nature, rather then something in the minds of observers, then you have to abstract it to an exact concept that is generally applicable. For instance you have to ask yourself questions like are the sides of a coin also compared in a coinflip? Is comparison part of outcome realisation of chances? etc. What are comparisons in terms of Newtonian mechanics, or quantum mechanics? Do comparisons also occur between organisms which are the same, or just with organisms which vary?
As said before interesting things keep coming along, which is why I am still in this debate. Now this new paper comes along about lightningstrikes being included as part of natural selection. As shown before, when variation that doesn't correspond to difference in likelyhood to reproduce is included in natural selection, as the paper argues, then this makes the reason to include variation seem pointless. Any neutral selection story is now a natural selection story.
I think it still might be possible that extreme moderation, where every point is arbitrated by the moderator in terms of scientific rigour might result in shifting the advantage to my view of things. If for instance someone says that "some organisms survive to reproduce" then that would be rejected IMO on strict standards of meaning, and the debator would have to reformulate.
1- Some organisms survive to reproduce
2- Some organisms survive to reproduce, other organisms survive to not reproduce
3- Some organisms survive to reproduce, other organisms don't survive to not reproduce
4- Some organisms survive to reproduce, other organisms survive to have a good time.
5- Some organisms reproduce other's don't reproduce.
6- Some organisms survive other's don't survive
Only 5 and 6 are valid, because on equal standards if 1 is held to be valid, then 2,3 and 4, which are obviously nonsensical / teleological, should also be held to be valid.
Moderating this way would force Darwinists to seek a systematic approach rather then the notional approach they now have.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by Peter, posted 06-03-2004 4:41 AM Syamsu has not replied
 Message 101 by mark24, posted 06-03-2004 5:15 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 98 of 276 (112557)
06-03-2004 2:35 AM
Reply to: Message 89 by Wounded King
06-02-2004 3:43 PM


Selection does not describe the relationship of the organism to the environment in terms of reproduction. It describes relative reproductive proneness, or whatever, between variants. The two are not the same, unless you want to throw any measure of precision out the window in science, they are demonstrably not the same.
Are you now saying that you wish that viewing an individual organism in terms of the relationship to it's environment should be called selection? Again, the causes of your anger is a total mystery to me.
As far as I can tell you are simply stonewalling the paper to the point that it says all current Darwinism is teleological. I don't have to go outside the paper and look for teleology in Darwinist literature, because there is no Darwinist literature that includes events which are equally likely to occur to one variant as another, such as lightningstrikes, in natural selection. Since the teleology follows from not indluding those events, all Darwinism is teleological, even that part of Darwinism which sought to constrain the teleology of natural selection, by referring to forces outside of natural selection.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by Wounded King, posted 06-02-2004 3:43 PM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by Wounded King, posted 06-03-2004 3:51 AM Syamsu has replied
 Message 102 by Wounded King, posted 06-03-2004 5:25 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 99 of 276 (112565)
06-03-2004 3:51 AM
Reply to: Message 98 by Syamsu
06-03-2004 2:35 AM


Syamsu,
How can you have been on this forum for so long without having come across the concept of being able to back up your arguments. Yes the paper suggests that all modern Darwinism is teleological, but it has the same failing you do, it makes absoloutely no effort to back up its statement with any evidence.
Your petulant complaints are rather hollow when all I am asking for is a minimal standard of evidence, i.e. any at all, to back up your assertions.
Once again you showcase your ignorance of evolutionary biology and population genetics when you say there is no literature concerned with the effects of non-selective pressures, just look for genetic drift. In fact to save you some time here is what talk.origins has to say on the subject. I would specifically draw your attention to the second last quote.
In any population, some proportion of loci are fixed at a selectively unfavorable allele because the intensity of selection is insufficient to overcome the random drift to fixation. Very great skepticism should be maintained toward naive theories about evolution that assume that populations always or nearly always reach an optimal constitution under selection. The existence of multiple adaptive peaks and the random fixation of less fit alleles are integral features of the evolutionary process. Natural selection cannot be relied on to produce the best of all possible worlds.
(Suzuki, D.T., Griffiths, A.J.F., Miller, J.H. and Lewontin, R.C. in An Introduction to Genetic Analysis 4th ed., W.H. Freeman, New York 1989)
Please show the teleological bias in this statement.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 2:35 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 5:51 AM Wounded King has replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 100 of 276 (112569)
06-03-2004 4:41 AM
Reply to: Message 97 by Syamsu
06-03-2004 12:02 AM


quote:
5- Some organisms reproduce other's don't reproduce.
6- Some organisms survive other's don't survive
In the past you have said that 6 is NOT valid since
no organisms are immortal i.e. No organisms survive.
The concern in evolution is to study the diversity of
life on earth, and to investigate the origins of that
diversity.
If one wishes to study diversity, one cannot neglect the
diverseness. One is stuck with looking at variations
between and within species/populations.
That other areas of biology neglect/filter-out the diversity
is irrelevant, since the prime motivation is generalisation
NOT investigation of diversity.
Some general observations:
1. Organisms are (in some sense) 'born'.
2. Organisms live.
3. Organisms die.
The duration of 2. is dependent on the organisms relationship
with it's environment + inherent limitations.
The environment consists of things which can be overcome given
an approriate structure or strategy (e.g. low-light, high temp.,
etc.) and those which cannot (e.g. lightening, asteroids, etc.).
During 2. some organisms are responsible for step 1. in
their offsprings' cycles. i.e. they reproduce.
Reproduction does not produce perfect copies of the parent
or parents.
Those with longer duration in step 2. have a greater number of
opportunities to reproduce (but may not due to other
environmental factors ... like no mates, not enough food, etc.)
Within a single species, those individuals that have longer
number 2. TEND to leave more offspring (unless they are humans )
Within a single species that exhibits variation (and at some level
ALL species vary) some variants MAY be more plentiful than
others.
There must be some explanation for this.
Diversity = F(survival, reproduction)
Survival = F(environment, traits)
Reproduction = F(environment, traits, survival)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 12:02 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 101 of 276 (112570)
06-03-2004 5:15 AM
Reply to: Message 97 by Syamsu
06-03-2004 12:02 AM


Syamsu,
Regarding message 86, I ask again, what is the point of including a non-directional culling factor to a theory that was formulated for, & still does, provide a mechanism for adaptation?
Mark

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 12:02 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 102 of 276 (112571)
06-03-2004 5:25 AM
Reply to: Message 98 by Syamsu
06-03-2004 2:35 AM


Syamsu writes:
Selection does not describe the relationship of the organism to the environment in terms of reproduction. It describes relative reproductive proneness, or whatever, between variants. The two are not the same, unless you want to throw any measure of precision out the window in science, they are demonstrably not the same.
Demonstrate away!
It is statistically descriptive as it is determined as a post-hoc analysis of the populations genetic makeup over generations, therefore it sums the various environmental pressures on the population, both selective and non-selective pressures and allows trends to be determined. It doesn't describe what happens to every specific organism in regards to every specific instance, but then that isn't what statistical methods do.
Precision in science is only neccessary to the level required for a specific task. For example, to apply Newton's laws of motion to a rolling ball you do not have to understand that behaviour of the sub-atomic particles which make up the ball.
In the wild it is impossible to monitor every single individual in a sizeable population and their interactions with the environment. Population genetics is a versatile tool to retrospectively observe the effects the environment has had on the populations genetic makeup.
Your formulation still makes very little sense. It requires a massive amount of observation and produces data which are completely useless, certainly in evolutionary terms, until you start comparing them and factoring in genetic variations.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 2:35 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 103 of 276 (112574)
06-03-2004 5:51 AM
Reply to: Message 99 by Wounded King
06-03-2004 3:51 AM


I was under the impression that you said the paper didn't suggest that all modern Darwinism was teleological, so the argument was stuck there.
The teleology is that natural selection is in principle relied on to produce the best of all possible worlds, but that other things inhibit this goal of selection, like random fixatation etc.
This goal is based on prejudicially constricting observations to the potential of longterm manipulative effects on populationshare of a variant having a reproductive advantage, as some kind of force. If it is at all a force then random fixatation is equally a part of this force.
And everyone can see that regardless of any more fundamental arguments about teleology being true or not, that Darwinists use a teleological kind of language. "the best of all possible worlds" etc. It is not proper that you pretend nothing is going on in regards to teleology, you have to at the very least recognize this teleological kind of language as special to natural selection, distinct from language of fundamental theories in all other sciences. Other fundamental science theories do not have this apparent teleology, or have papers written about them alleging actual teleology.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by Wounded King, posted 06-03-2004 3:51 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by mark24, posted 06-03-2004 6:23 AM Syamsu has not replied
 Message 105 by Wounded King, posted 06-03-2004 7:32 AM Syamsu has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 104 of 276 (112577)
06-03-2004 6:23 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by Syamsu
06-03-2004 5:51 AM


Syamsu,
"The best of all possible worlds" isn't a teleological statement.
Mark

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 5:51 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 105 of 276 (112583)
06-03-2004 7:32 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by Syamsu
06-03-2004 5:51 AM


I don't see why you should have thought that if you had actually been reading my posts, I have twice said that my objection was to you presenting the fact that the author of the paper makes an unsupported assertion as supporting evidence for the same assertion.
The teleology is that natural selection is in principle relied on to produce the best of all possible worlds, but that other things inhibit this goal of selection, like random fixatation etc.
And here you are making the same unsupported assertion again. This is certainly an approach suggested by the adaptationist viewpoint, but as has been pointed out this is a strongly contested issue and most modern formulations reject adaptationist approaches specifically due to their teleological nature.
Random fixation [i]is[/is] also a part of this 'force' but you give no evidence for its being an equal part. The distinct contribution of various factors to final population genetic outcomes is in fact the entire point of the paper and the paper comes out saying that you can't determine the exact contributions of various factors, hence its suggestion of the correction analogy for evolution from physics being the probabilistic approach of thermodynamics rather than the deterministic approach of Newtonian mechanics. This doesn't mean that you can't still determine evolutionary trends.
The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" is hardly unique to evolutionary biology and in the quote I gave you where the phrase was used the very specific reason for it was to say that this was not the way evolution operated. I believe it was Liebnitz who coined that particular phrase, and not in any sort of biological context.
As to teleology in biology, I agree that it is still a problem. But it is not a problem introduce by Darwinism, in fact Darwinism was a great leap forward in removing teleological notions from biology.
Some small history of teleology in science is covered in this paper (its a PDF by the way so you need acrobat to view it), once again from a philosophy department just to keep things on an equal footing, which talks about teleology in physics.
You have yet to show any teleology inherent systematically in the way natural selection is approached, all you have shown is that adaptationist interpretations of evolution are teleological, which we already knew.
TTFN,
WK
P.S. You have yet to either show any understanding of Newtonian mechanics place in modern science or alternatively retract your ridiculous assertion that all of science must adhere to Newtonian laws of motion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 5:51 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by Syamsu, posted 06-03-2004 11:34 AM Wounded King has replied

  
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