Help me understand Intelligent Design

then Fisher made no sense, if mutation is not infered, it makes no sense. How can you not see that? Objectively, knowing very well what NS implies?Because what is Natural Selection, really, without the process of mutation? You tell me? NS is a function of Mutation. Everyone on this forum has been agreeing on this...I can only conclude, as Ned would put it, that your claim is dishonest intellectualism. Because you know perfectly well that it would make sense not to infer mutation in that statement.This message has been edited by ausar_maat, 10-11-2005 02:20 PM

It is your assertion about what Fisher meant that makes no sense. Fisher clearly states that it is selection that produces the improbability, so the improbability can hardly refer to an event that occurs before selection.As I said a sensible reading is that Fisher refers to the preservation of a particular set of the many mutations that occur.

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Because what is Natural Selection, really, without the process of mutation? You tell me? NS is a function of Mutation. Everyoneon this forum has been agreeing on this...

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You will notice that my response does not deny that mutations are involved. What I do deny is that the improbability refers to the improbability of a mutation prior to selection.

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I can only conclude, as Ned would put it, that your claim is dishonest intellectualism. Because you know perfectly well that it would make sense not to infer mutation in that statement.

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Quite obviously I am not the one being dishonest.I offer a reading of Fisher's statement that is sensible given what we know of natural selection.
You interpret that as at least some measure of agreement simply on the grounds that mutation is involved.
I then poiont out that your reading is still obviously wrong and you call me dishonest on the (completley ficititoios) grounds that I am claiming that mutation is not involved ! Yet my reading has not changed - It contradicts yours, yet it does not deny that mutation is involved.

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As I said a sensible reading is that Fisher refers to the preservation of a particular set of the many mutations that occur.

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Right, and we both know that this, in and of itself, doesn't take an Extremely High Degree of Improbability.

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Yet my reading has not changed - It contradicts yours, yet it does not deny that mutation is involved.

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So your reading contradicts mine while ackownledging it to be true at the same time. Because, this is what I'm saying, that mutation is involved. Therefore, it must be taken into account for this sentence to make sense.It's like if I said, "I'm taking my car to go to NYC this week end'", it would also imply that I'm going to fill it up with gaz, obviously.This whole NS, as you ackowledged, is a by-product of the mutation occuring in organisms. That much is clear. So the mechanism refered to involves mutation, or else your going to NYC on an empty fuel tank.

No!Please show how mutation is a by-product or Natural Selection?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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No!

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Please show how mutation is a by-product or Natural Selection?

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oh please?easy,just ask, what is being selected naturally?what?you know the answer,mutated organisms.First you mutate them, then you select the fittest to survive among them...let's not be so difficult here, and have to restate the obvious all the time, just because the conclusions wouldn't suit us.This message has been edited by ausar_maat, 10-11-2005 04:19 PM

Let me try again. Please show where mutation is a by-product of Natural Selection.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Fine, so I didn't word it properly.suie mebut you get my point. I know perfectly well you do.

Obviously not. Why don't you try again?Let's start with an agreement that mutation is not a by-product of Natural Selection.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Right, and we both know that this, in and of itself, doesn't take an Extremely High Degree of Improbability.

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On the contrary. Without the effects of cumulative selection it would be extremely improbable. And surely you don't think that Fisher is suggestign that the results are incredibly improbable if the effects of selection are taken into account.

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So your reading contradicts mine while ackownledging it to be true at the same time. Because, this is what I'm saying, that mutation is involved. Therefore, it must be taken into account for this sentence to make sense.

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No, that is NOT what you were saying. You claimed that the extremely high improbability referred to the mutation occurring BEFORE selection. Thus although we both say that mutation is involved we disagree on HOW it is involved.

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On the contrary. Without the effects of cumulative selection it would be extremely improbable.

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Thank you so much for saying that, because that relates directly to Fisher's statement. Once an organism has made some "progress", the adaptive strategy (mutation) remains on as backing for all subsequent tries. That is the cumulative selection at work. Again, a natural process. But if you want to speak about cumulative selection, then that, is also a pre-condition of Natural Selection, not NS itself. The same as for mutation. In fact, CS and Mutation work as a pair. So to use the same arguement that you're using for mutation, Fisher didn't say Cumulative Selection is a mechanism generating..yadayadayada..You INFER THAT...as I infered mutation.The difference is that I agree with you, you couldn't explain the sentence without taking CS into consideration. So it is with mutation. They work as a pair. Because let's remember that CS helps to mesure the affect of "mutation" rate on evolution.Finally we're getting somewhere...This message has been edited by ausar_maat, 10-11-2005 05:23 PM

Natural selection IS an example of cumulative selection.And you seem to forget that your "inference" was directly contradicted by the very statement you quotedJust to remind you:Fisher said: You said:

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The Highly Improbable part, is that it mutates to the point that it would then be naturally selected.

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Message 184Since you decsribe the "Highly Improbable part" as happening prior to selection it cannot be generated by selection and therefore cannot be the high improbability that Fisher refers to.Moreover the Fisher quote - by claiming that natural selection CAN generate "extreme improbability" - undermines any attempt to say that the leaf insects are too improbable to be the product of evolvution. Which was the very argument you were attempting to make..

I thought you started here saying you needed to and wanted to learn somethings. It is clear that you need to.Please explain, in some detail, the quoted statement of yours above. I do not understand what reasoning leads you to say that cumulative selection is a pre-condition of NS.

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I thought you started here saying you needed to and wanted to learn somethings. It is clear that you need to.

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That sounded like a plain insult. Uncalled for Ned.

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Please explain, in some detail, the quoted statement of yours above. I do not understand what reasoning leads you to say that cumulative selection is a pre-condition of NS.

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CS is incremental micro-mutations cumulated by a given genetic population over time. From that point, when that happens, NS can happen.

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Since you decsribe the "Highly Improbable part" as happening prior to selection it cannot be generated by selection and therefore cannot be the high improbability that Fisher refers to.

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In that line of thought, nor can CS then.So there, we'd be both wrong.

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In that line of thought, nor can CS then.So there, we'd be both wrong.

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That would be true if I'd said that CS was the outcome of natural selection. But since I didn't say that your assertion is completely groundless.