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Author | Topic: Misuse of evolution | |||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Yes, I agree that this is true, but please explain to me how this invalidates the original point? You are claiming that modern Evolutionary Biology actively promotes racism. Support this claim or be quiet.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Syamsu, you "missed" replying to several of my messages. I will repeat the really important questions here, for your convenience. Please respond:
From message #108: "Gould accepted differential reproductive success as correct. Show me in-context quotes by Gould which say otherwise. While you are at it, why don't you provide quotes for those "many Darwinist philosophers" you referred to to support your assertion that they think that darwinism contains value judgements. While you are at it, why don't you answer all the other points and questions you have avoided answering?" From meassage #109:
quote: Nobody has ever denied that Darwinism has the potential to influence racism, but this is only when people MISUNDERSTAND and MISUSE the theory. Besides, this is not what you were claiming. You were claiming that Darwinism ACTIVELY PROMOTES racism. If all you want to say is that Darwinism has the potential to influence people who misunderstand it to think in a racist way, then so what? The same thing can be said of practically any religion or philosophy. You are blaming Dawkins for the stupidity of some people. From message #110:
quote: The only "correct" answer is the one you have come up with, right? Because the answers we have come up with are different from yours, they are wrong. Don't you see a problem with this? Considering that many of us have actual advanced University training in Biology and science, and you have no college level science at all (if I remember correctly) perhaps you don't want to be so confidenct that you are applying the theory correctly. In fact, I know you aren't applying the theory correctly. We have repeatedly pointed out your errors of confusing social darwinism with actual science, but you continue to confuse the two.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
[QUOTE]Again, a general theory of reproduction doesn't ignore competition, it just doesn't assume it. All it does is describe how organisms reproduce. If competition is a part of reproduction, then it will be described by the general theory of reproduction with the added factor of competition.
regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu[/B][/QUOTE] This is what is already being practiced by Evolutionary Biologists. Reproductive success is affected by many factors; competition is but one factor. We have told you this over and over again, but you ignore it. You have twisted your misunderstanding of science and your obsession with social darwinism together, thinking you have come up with something novel, but you haven't. What you are really doing is insisting incessantly that scientists change the name of what they already do but continue to do exactly the same thing they have always done. (sidenote: at this point you have already said: 1) the terms "sucess", and "competition" can be used by science in a non-value laden way. IOW, racism is not automatically understood to be an outcome if the theory is being understood and used properly. 2) competition is, indeed, a factor which affects reproduction. You told me flat out that there is competition for resources between parent and offspring. Please, in ALL future discussion, remember that you have agreed to these things being correct, so we don't cycle through, yet again, a long series of posts where you deny these things.) [This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-28-2002]
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
Your original argument was that since there was racism and genocide before there was Darwinism, as with Ghengis Kahn, that this proves that Darwinism does not lead to genocidal or racist thought because racism and genocide can happen without Darwinism.
I am not mixing up Darwinism and Social Darwinism, I am arguing that Darwinism is conducive to valuejudgements, as I have explained numerous times. I don't see any benefit in discussing this issue any further with you. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Now there's a shock! The meaning ascribed to text is somehowrelated to the definitions of the words, who woulda guessed? quote: So in Darwinism 'superior' and 'success' are qualified in away which makes them value nuetral. So how can value neutral discourse be cited as a cause forvalue laden political agendas ?
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Try measuring time without a comparison.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
As before......... you already have the event of reproduction for measuring, or the number of offspring.
regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: But that tells you nothing in terms of potential causesfor changes in extant features of a population. If breed my pet rats, and want a particular coat color, I notewhich breeding pairs produce the most offspring of the desired type ... and then breed those. I have made a comparison of offspring numbers in order tohone my selections. Looking at the number of offspring from one breeding pairtells me nothing about the traits I am interested in, nor how they affect my 'population'. Sometimes a comparison is the only meaningful measure forwhat you wish to observe. That's why control engineers use derivatives ... a comparisonbetween previous and current values indicative of a rate of change ... in order to produce complex control strategies.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
The cause in change of heritiable features of a population is mutation. Some work to reproduce, others don't.
Currently many species are going extinct. Who cares about proportional frequencies here? Environmentalists, fundamentally, have to look at how organisms reproduce, what they need for reproduction, that should obviously be the main thing in any theory of reproduction. Seen like this, to have a special case of reproduction as the main thing, differential reproductive success of variants, is quite bizarre. Again, I already acknowledged that to my best guesses comparison between variants is valid in so far as they compete for the same resources. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: It's not mutation alone though. There has to be selection as well. In any case, how does the number of offspring of one individualtell us anything about the change of heritable features in the population? quote: Surely they have to look at ALL of the factors that enablesurvival. It doesn't matter what a mountain gorilla needs to reproduce ifa poacher blows its brains out. quote: You need to develop a measure that is meaningful to what youwish to study and/or explain. Differential reproductive success (which can be measured by trait frequncies if you like) is the only meaningful indicator of natural selection. Once we have found a set of dominant phenotypes we can look atenvironmental factors that make those phenotypic features beneficial or not. If we trace this over a sufficient number of generations we have an indicator for evolution.
quote: When do variants NOT compete for the same resources ?
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Syamsu:
[B]Your original argument was that since there was racism and genocide before there was Darwinism, as with Ghengis Kahn, that this proves that Darwinism does not lead to genocidal or racist thought because racism and genocide can happen without Darwinism.[/QUOTE] No, sorry, that was not the original point. YOU originally attempted to make the point that since some people have misused the ToE in order to make their racist opinions seem more legitimate, that meant that the Theory WAS racist, and was a big source of racism in the world. The reason examples of very vile and violent pre-Darwin racism and genocide were brought up was because they showed that racism and genocide could not have possibly originated with Darwin, but was alive and well for millenia before Darwin was even born.
quote: ...and you agree that those value judgements would NOT be a result using the theory correctly, right, because you have already agreed that science can use words like "success" and "competition" in a non-value-laden way? Why do you blame a scientific theory, which is meant to be used to decribe without value jugments, if some people incorrectly understand the theory and put value judgements in terms that aren't supposed to be there?
quote: I'll bet you don't! I have finally realized that asking you simple, yes and no-type questions which refute your claims, then holding you to your admissions is the best way to debate with you. Point by point allowed you too much wiggle room to go around and around in cirrcles, and also allowed you to avoid addressing important points.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
[QUOTE]
When do variants NOT compete for the same resources ?[/B][/QUOTE]
So far, Syamsu has agreed that: Mates compete with each other for resources.Offspring and parents compete with each other for resources. Yet, in spite of his agreement that these scenarios occur, he still repeats the same thing he has always repeated; that cometition isn't important to reproduction. I don't have any idea, save complete inability to learn new information, why or how Syamsu can agree with the above and still say that competition isn't important to reproduction. Be careful. You might end up on "around the same block with Syamsu" for the third or fourth time. I have lost count of how many times this has gone around.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
Again, this is not how science is supposed to work. You make a general theory, which applies all the time. You don't make a theory which seems to apply very much with something that has your peculiar interest (evolution). That is being prejudicial.
Elsewhere you have yourself suggested that a general theory of reproduction can serve as an umbrella theory for neutral selection and natural selection. Why you now play ignorant to what you already have seen yourself, and also forget about all the other theoretical possible situations we have previously discussed in which variation is not wholy competitive, is beyond me. Differential reproductive success of variants - almost never applies, since there is almost never meaningful variation (variation that has a relative reproductive success over other variants) present in a population most of the time - is misleading to apply with variations that have a balancingpoint in a population, with variations that do not encroach until extinction - is misleading to apply with variations that go into a different environment then their ancestor through their variation being applicable to different resources - leads to false thinking of incremental or gradual change which is based in the longsince discarded theory of blended inheritance, where Mendel's theory shows discrete heritable factors being able to give rise to discrete changes There are of course many more reasons why a peculiar theory of reproduction would be misleading to have as the fundamental theory, in stead of a general theory of reproduction. For instance it has priority to look at what happens to the same creature in different environments, over looking at what happens to variationfrequencies in a population, in the same environment. Darwinists are making people look to organisms in a comparitive way making them say one is better then the other, which obviously is conducive to valuejudgements. You can know that it is conducive to valuejudgements by thoughtexperiment, but I guess this should be proved by psychologists researching the subject. A superficial survey of the most influential Darwinist literature, such as that of Haeckel, Lorenz, Dawkins, Darwin, Galton, Singer etc. shows most of them to make valuejudgements on account of Darwinist theory. Same as with Schrafinator, all the questions you ask, have already been answered by me. Unless your bring something new then I don't think it is worth responding anymore. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
The reason examples of very vile and violent pre-Darwin racism and genocide were brought up was because they showed that racism and genocide could not have possibly originated with Darwin, but was alive and well for millenia before Darwin was even born.
--- The reason examples of very vile and violent pre-Nazi racism and genocide were brought up was because they showed that racism and genocide could not have possibly originated with Nazism. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Peter Member (Idle past 1479 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I have had a sense of de ja vu a few times now
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