PZ Myers vs. Adaptationism

No, no, give Dawkins credit. He says "those visible changes that affect survival and reproduction". Not for all changes. And then he goes on "for the functional beauty and "apparently "designed" complexity of living things." Not for every feature of living things. What he's doing is taking an adaptationist view ... of things which actually are adaptations! This is no vice.He does not say (a) that all features are adaptive (b) that, failing that, we can always know which features are adaptive (c) that it is always clear what a feature that is adaptive was adapted for; it is these that I take to be the faults of adaptationism.Having said which, I'm not sure that there are any adaptationists in the sense of someone who would affirm (a) or (b) or (c): there are merely particular cases where biologists have convinced themselves of an adaptive story behind a particular feature of an organism when they are not really warranted in doing so.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

It's not a tautology, adaptive features could have been, oh, let's say magicked that way by some sort of deity. Or produced by front-loaded orthogenesis. Or Lamarkian evolution. Well, that which is functional will in fact be favored by natural selection over that which is less functional.

You said that attributing adaptation to natural selection was tautologous. The fact that we can imagine alternative causes shows that it is not. That may be what you're trying to refute, but it's not what Dawkins said. Because he is talking about adaptation, not about all evolutionary phenomena.

No it doesn't. Lamarkian evolution, as I pointed out, would also produce adaptation. So would front-loaded evolution. So would Michael Behe's invisible Tinkerer With Things.This is why when Darwin explained his theory the response was not everyone in the world saying "You are right by definition and therefore we are unable to argue with you or suggest any alternatives." No, he said "functional beauty and apparently "designed" complexity"

OK, what do you think would happen in his proposed hypothetical situation? You are mercifully free of his preconceptions, let's hear your take on it.

That would explain why I called it "his proposed hypothetical situation", rather than yours.Now, what do you think would happen in a situation such as he describes?