Do individuals evolve?

Google’s yellow brick road recently took me to this site Science Against Evolution, which self-describes its own position on the matter. A post to this site led me there; it addresses my proposed OP question: Do individuals evolve? The author of this post agrees with Darwin: “Individuals do not evolve, but populations do.” And in his post he makes this broad and obvious statement:

quote:

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Evolutionists and creationists generally agree that once an individual is born, it remains that same species for the rest of its life.

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Done deal? Or not? Maybe the OP question is just too easy to bother with. Isn’t it rather nave and a little pop-sci to insist that the individual is where evolution by natural selection occurs? One might ask reasonably that if individuals don't serve as hosts for evolution then what does? But does that mean that they themselves evolve? Or are individuals just the expendable carriers of heritable information, which is precisely that thing that does evolve. Of course evolution needs individual organisms to work, but individuals don’t last long enough to evolve.* It’s their combined allelic contribution to the population that evolves.At least this is my stand on the matter. And maybe it's trivial. But I would be interested in any argument that seriously threatens it.”HM*For another angle on this see Why a person doesn't evolve in one lifetime, from Nature (September 21, 2007).Edited by Hoot Mon, : Reposted Message 4 here to replace the original OP.

You may be right, Wounded, but I still like my spin on it. I'll drop it there and spare the forum of yet another Hooterism.

Google’s yellow brick road recently took me to this site Science Against Evolution, which self-describes its own position on the matter. A post to this site led me there; it addresses my proposed OP question: Do individuals evolve? The author of this post agrees with Darwin: “Individuals do not evolve, but populations do.” And in his post he makes this broad and obvious statement:

quote:

---

Evolutionists and creationists generally agree that once an individual is born, it remains that same species for the rest of its life.

---

Done deal? Or not? Maybe the OP question is just too easy to bother with. Isn’t it rather nave and a little pop-sci to insist that the individual is where evolution by natural selection occurs? One might ask reasonably that if individuals don't serve as hosts for evolution then what does? But does that mean that they themselves evolve? Or are individuals just the expendable carriers of heritable information, which is precisely that thing that does evolve. Of course evolution needs individual organisms to work, but individuals don’t last long enough to evolve.* It’s their combined allelic contribution to the population that evolves.At least this is my stand on the matter. And maybe it's trivial. But I would be interested in any argument that seriously threatens it.”HM*For another angle on this see Why a person doesn't evolve in one lifetime, from Nature (September 21, 2007).

"It's good to be king."I thought I was doing what would please your Highness. So, I'll go a step further. I'll make Message 4 the OP, delete the text of the original OP in Message 1, and replace it with the new OP in Message 4. It's not that important, though. There are better thread ideas.

Well, then put it in the Coffee House forum where you had no trouble approving the Meet Me In Indy: Or put it wherever you like. I could make other suggestions. Or delete it. I don't want to see you suffer over it anymore.”Hoot Mon