Syamsu's Objection to Natural Selection...

Syamsu,Assume you have a hundred turtles and 25% die young-- without reproducing-- due to some unknown factor. That is natural selection. These animals died for some reason, while the others did not. This leaves you with 75% of the original population to reproduce and start the next generation. Since that ill-fated 25% never reproduced, those genes were lost to the next generation or reduced in frequency. Each new generation is made up of the children of the animals that didn't die too young to breed, or each generation is made up mostly of the children of the animals who made the most babies. I don't know how it could be more obvious.1) Natural Selection
a. Stuff dies and hence does not reproduce. These genes are lost.
b. Stuff doesn't die but has slower than average reproduction rates. The frequency these genes occur are reduced in the next generation.2) Evolution.
a. Natural selection and a lot of time, as well as drift, etc.------------------
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Like I said I've stopped trying to discuss what natural
selection is/isn't and am trying the tack of pointing
out that natural selection isn't a theory but a description
of what happens in nature.

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It is going to be tough to do this while Syamsu doesn't understand what NS is.------------------
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phenotypic plasticity and environmental factors could both contribute to variation

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I ask myself, "How does environment produce variation?" The only answer I have is that food supply, for example, can effect an animal's size, which brings us to phenotypic plasticity. And that is a fine target for NS, which you admit. But how can you have NS and not consequently have a change in gene frequencies in the population?------------------
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Hi John, actually it turns out that in certian circumstances that the environment can have a degree of influence on mutations.

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Ok. I know that environmental stress can trigger an increase in mutations, but how does that make sense in context? For Wounded King, these things are NOT good for evolution. A population under extreme stress needs to gamble. That IS good for evolution.------------------
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The entire point was that if the variation is environmental/ phenotypic alone

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Simply isn't possible-- short of severed limbs or such. There are genetic components to any phenotypic variation even when highly influenced by the environment. For example, a population which finds itself living with a very poor food supply will probably experience stunted growth of some kind. This is environmental, but genetic factors such are metabolism, fat cell response, etc are important.------------------
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I would disagree with this...

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Told ya I was going to have to start picking fights with the evolutionists.

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clones vary from one another i.e. cloned cows have different coat color patterns even though they are genetically identical.

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Such as the location of particular spots on a calico cat? hmmm... not sure if this is an appropriate example. Pretend it is. Lets say we clone such a cat. Lets clone about a thousand of them. We remove all the cats with white spots on their foreheads, and breed the rest. The frequency of white-spot-foreheadism will not have changed?

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There is stochastic variation in the development process that is purely environmental, not heritable, and not genetic.

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Such as mutations in the developing embryo? Ok. That makes sense. hmmm.... but that would be genetic? And, depending on when the mutation occured, might be heritable-- but not always. That leave us with developmental weirdness caused by lead exposure, say? Wouldn't there be a genetic component to susceptibility to this sort of thing?

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Epigenetic variation is heritable (in some cases) but can alter phenotype without genetic alteration.

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But unless it is the heritable type, the variantion would be irrelevant to evolution, yes? Ok. It is starting to make more sense.------------------
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The frequency of white spot foreheadism should not be changed in the following generation, thats right.

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Ok. I have to ask how this has been determined? What sort of experiments have been done? ( Not specific to cats, of course. )------------------
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