Syamsu's Objection to Natural Selection...

Hi WK,
I only brought up skewed X inactivation since I worked on it in a roundabout way long long ago...but I also realized that we were talking with Peter about a 50:50 chance developmental effect that is non heritable that a locus (still not defined yet) can skew the ratio and Xce alleles are heritable. However, I have not heard of this in cats..only mice. A heterozygous X linked coat color gene with skewed X activation would lead to a predominance of one color over the other...but it would still hold that you could not predict what the pattern is since it is only skewed..not 100%...and you could not pass your pattern on...

The articles you refer to are interpretation again, we would need to see the actual computercode to determine the formulation of Natural Selection used.Anyway I can imagine there would be some programs that are said to simulate NS that do use comparison. For instance calculating the shortest distance between two points on a complex roadmap by simply trying different roads many times, and then comparing the distance with the shortest distance achieved so far, and then saving the shortest distance, and then try again, and again etc. But the comparing in a program like that is simply for competition, which would mean the definition used is like competitive reproductive success, in stead of differential reproductive success.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Well then show us a program which simulates natural selectipon with absoloutely no recourse to comparison. The articles aren't actually interpretation, they are written by the people who write the code and state the fundamentals fairly plainly. You might argue that the relevance of the simulations to how natural selection actually occurrs is open to interpretation, but unless you think they are lying I think we must assume the people who write the code know what parameters they used.Did you look at the supplemental data on the PNAS site? That goes into more specifc details of the logic operations performed and the program setup. There is also further information here which also includes links to the avida program and the configuration files they ran on it. You can get the source code to Avida at sourceforge.Can you explain the difference between your competitive and differential reproductive success. Suppose instead of the one shortest route you took the top five shortest and tried again, would that then be differential.[This message has been edited by Wounded King, 08-17-2003]

I think I see my mis-understanding here ....When I say 'breed for' I mean select parents in the hope
of getting offspring with a particular trait.When you say 'breed for' I suspect you mean that in a more
deterministic sense. In which case I agree with you.

As far as I can tell there could be a comparison in deriving the "computational merit" value, since otherwise there seems to be no reason to have a "computational merit" value. It's still not clear to me.I have no clue it that would be comparitive or competitive.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

What I meant was can you clarify what you think of as competetive as opposed to differential reproductive success?You seem to have been doing a lot of guessing lately, care to come down to discussing actual facts and evidence?

Competitive is when through reproducing the one causes the other not to reproduce.Differential is a comparison of reproductionrates, it doesn't neccesarily result in anything. I mean I wouldn't know what a computerprogram would do with this value, other then maybe providing this information to the user.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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Competitive is when through reproducing the one causes the other not to reproduce.

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And when competitive means through reproducing one produces 100 kids and the other 1 and the 100 kids produce 100 each and the 1 produces 1 for n generations? By your logic, if one variant reproduces then no other is able to which is not in line with reality.

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Differential is a comparison of reproductionrates, it doesn't neccesarily result in anything.

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No...it does not result in anything except the higher representation of a variant/allele (higher fitness) in a population...oops you cornered yourself into admitting there are selective differences in the population

Well once again we come back to the concept of carrying capacity and the fact that there is a limit to the population size.

Careful my friend. Syamasu doesn't believe in carrying capacity or the logistic models of population growth. Ya see, that would mean there was competition. And competition is bad, doncha know. It would also mean there might be variation. And variation leads to competition. And, as has been stated, competition is a bad thing.Good luck.[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 08-18-2003]

Syamsu,Please address message 300.Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

That is misrepresentative.Once again, the formulation without variation is more inclusive. You are excluding looking at individuals from selection, I'm not excluding anything.So I should ask why is looking at how individuals relate to the environment in terms of reproduction a bad thing, why do you *always* have to look comparitively how variants relate to the environment in selection?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I think the point here is to say that camouflage contributes to reproduction (a positive selective factor), and that those with camouflage diminish the chance of reproduction of those that don't have camouflage (a negative selective factor).regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Syamsu, How do the camouflaged individuals diminish the chances of the non-camouflaged individuals ability to reproduce? The only factor that has changed is the presence of the predator. Surely it is this that is applying the selective pressure, not other members of the same species?Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

Hi, Mark!I gotta say that I side with Syamsu on this one. His statement has all the qualities his posts usually lack: clarity of expression, relevance, and an accurate application of the evolutionary framework. I know it's tough to accept that someone who has never in the past been able to correctly string two words together would finally get something right, but hey, it's a big universe, anything can happen!I look at it this way. Say the population is of size n and that the population is uniform in terms of camouflage. A predator needs a meal and is going to hunt until it finds one of these individuals. Each individual has a 1/n chance of being the unlucky winner.Now lets say half the population possesses camouflage, removing themselves from consideration. The predator is still going to hunt until it finds a meal, and so the chances of any uncamouflaged individual being the unlucky winner is now 2/n, or twice as great. This would appear to me to, as Syamsu says, "diminish the chance of reproduction."--Percy