Misuse of evolution

What Bin Laden said is obviously conducive to thoughts about genocide and racism, as you point out. And so is races of man encroaching on one another until some finally become extinct applied to your own situation, obviously conducive to genocidal and racist thinking. This (edited to clarify: this means the theory of racial encroachment) was what Darwin posited at the beginning of his book, saying that this will be proved to be true in the rest of his book.Whether or not the Quran is conducive to that sort of thinking, then you would have to look at the Quran. Psychologists would have to investigate what thoughts come up on account of specific texts with numerous subjects reading those texts.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu[This message has been edited by Syamsu, 07-28-2002]

I exchanged Nazism for Darwinism in your argument. This shouldn't have been a problem if your logic actually worked, which it doesn't.Now you bring in *many* more arguments. You have to lead arguments to a conclusion, before bringing in new ones.Since you do not acknowledge your mistakes I will not respond to you any further.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Actually, as I realise now, there is a relatively easy way in which races of man encroaching can be understood in a non-racist way. As far as I know when you have plants with 3 (heritable) leaves, and a plant with 4 (heritable) leaves, you have already 2 races of plants, irrespective of what other heritable differences the plants might have. So by this definition of race there are thousands of human races, each person belonging to many different races at once. It's a shame that Darwin didn't use this more consistently accurate, and less conducive to racism way of describing. In retrospect he spent too much of his effort on thinking about inferior should not marry superior and things like that, and not enough time formalizing his theory.Again I would change my opinion on this issue if research by psychologists would show otherwise, or if you or anybody else on this forum would demonstrate their thoughts on account of it, and they wouldn't come up with racist or genocidal thoughts on account of it. You are wrong to repeat an accusation/argument without acknowledging my previous counterargument. You do not apply Darwin's racial encroachment to your own situation, therefore no evidence has been provided by which I could change my opinion. Please acknowledge your mistake in not acknowledging my counterargument in repeating your accusation/argument.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I have already expressed exactly how I think current theory is conducive to valuejudgements elsewhere in this thread.You have to stop shifting from argument to argument and mixing arguments up. If you acknowledge below then that would invalidate most of what you previously have brought up as counterargument.Do you now acknowledge that the question of "races of man encroaching on each other until some finally become extinct" leading to racist or genocidal thinking is irrellevant to the question when the first instance of racism or genocide was?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

You are using an entirely wrong way to formulate scientific theories. A general theory of reproduction neither denies or affirms competition. There is competition, mutual benefit, and mutual loss between organisms, and independent reproduction besides that. Differential reproductive succes prejudices to see things only in terms of competition, and not the others. Especially since the world of living beings is much unique a general theory of reproduction as the basis is much more usefull. You can add the complicating factor of competition to the general theory of reproduction whenever you see it.Differential reproductive success of variants is the current standard way of describing in Darwinism. You say not to agree with the current standard.Again, please respond to any realworld, or theoretical example where the variants through their variation use different resources. What is the use of comparing in such a situation?Again, a general theory of reproduction doesn't ignore competition, it just doesn't assume it. All it does is describe how organisms reproduce. If competition is a part of reproduction, then it will be described by the general theory of reproduction with the added factor of competition.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Your original argument was that since there was racism and genocide before there was Darwinism, as with Ghengis Kahn, that this proves that Darwinism does not lead to genocidal or racist thought because racism and genocide can happen without Darwinism.I am not mixing up Darwinism and Social Darwinism, I am arguing that Darwinism is conducive to valuejudgements, as I have explained numerous times.I don't see any benefit in discussing this issue any further with you.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

As before......... you already have the event of reproduction for measuring, or the number of offspring.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

The cause in change of heritiable features of a population is mutation. Some work to reproduce, others don't.Currently many species are going extinct. Who cares about proportional frequencies here? Environmentalists, fundamentally, have to look at how organisms reproduce, what they need for reproduction, that should obviously be the main thing in any theory of reproduction. Seen like this, to have a special case of reproduction as the main thing, differential reproductive success of variants, is quite bizarre.Again, I already acknowledged that to my best guesses comparison between variants is valid in so far as they compete for the same resources.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Again, this is not how science is supposed to work. You make a general theory, which applies all the time. You don't make a theory which seems to apply very much with something that has your peculiar interest (evolution). That is being prejudicial.Elsewhere you have yourself suggested that a general theory of reproduction can serve as an umbrella theory for neutral selection and natural selection. Why you now play ignorant to what you already have seen yourself, and also forget about all the other theoretical possible situations we have previously discussed in which variation is not wholy competitive, is beyond me.Differential reproductive success of variants- almost never applies, since there is almost never meaningful variation (variation that has a relative reproductive success over other variants) present in a population most of the time- is misleading to apply with variations that have a balancingpoint in a population, with variations that do not encroach until extinction- is misleading to apply with variations that go into a different environment then their ancestor through their variation being applicable to different resources- leads to false thinking of incremental or gradual change which is based in the longsince discarded theory of blended inheritance, where Mendel's theory shows discrete heritable factors being able to give rise to discrete changesThere are of course many more reasons why a peculiar theory of reproduction would be misleading to have as the fundamental theory, in stead of a general theory of reproduction. For instance it has priority to look at what happens to the same creature in different environments, over looking at what happens to variationfrequencies in a population, in the same environment.Darwinists are making people look to organisms in a comparitive way making them say one is better then the other, which obviously is conducive to valuejudgements. You can know that it is conducive to valuejudgements by thoughtexperiment, but I guess this should be proved by psychologists researching the subject. A superficial survey of the most influential Darwinist literature, such as that of Haeckel, Lorenz, Dawkins, Darwin, Galton, Singer etc. shows most of them to make valuejudgements on account of Darwinist theory.Same as with Schrafinator, all the questions you ask, have already been answered by me. Unless your bring something new then I don't think it is worth responding anymore.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

The reason examples of very vile and violent pre-Darwin racism and genocide were brought up was because they showed that racism and genocide could not have possibly originated with Darwin, but was alive and well for millenia before Darwin was even born.---The reason examples of very vile and violent pre-Nazi racism and genocide were brought up was because they showed that racism and genocide could not have possibly originated with Nazism.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

The previous argument raised still lets it open for Darwinism to be just as conducive to racist and genocidal thought as Nazism. Therefore in the context of this discussion the argument is meaningless.This has been one of yours and many other's main arguments, and therefore much of yours and other's counterargument should be discarded as meaningless. Please acknowledgeregards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I agree, this discussion is definitely finished. So I will just leave with the thought for people to try to apply a general theory of reproduction, because all the benefits I am talking about should be immideately obvious on application.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu