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Author Topic:   PZ Myers vs. Adaptationism
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 38 of 49 (765420)
07-28-2015 9:48 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by 1.61803
07-28-2015 5:27 PM


Re: The Emperor's Fashion Sense
.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 37 by 1.61803, posted 07-28-2015 5:27 PM 1.61803 has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 39 of 49 (765421)
07-28-2015 10:02 PM


I've watched about a third of the video and may eventually watch the rest. It's interesting to me mostly because the argument against adaptationism makes somewhat similar points to my own in my argument that evolution reduces genetic diversity so has a natural stopping point. I keep being amazed that this obvious fact is never ever mentioned though. Even if mutation really were the source of novel alleles, there have to be many stages in the processes of variation where it is fueled entirely by the elimination of competing alleles. Natural selection is one way competing alleles are eliminated, but as Myers is saying, NS isn't as big a factor in evolution as has been claimed. Simple recombination accounts for a lot of variation and most traits develop randomly. All of this requires the loss of competing alleles in any case. Funny how the discussion continues as if new traits could arise without the reduction of genetic diversity.
As for adaptation, seems to me I've made a good case that it isn't the organism adapting to the environment, as often as it is the environment's offering enough of a range of possibilities to whatever traits arise randomly in the organism, to account for most of the cases of observed adaptation.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 44 by nwr, posted 07-29-2015 7:29 PM Faith has not replied

  
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