natural selection is wrong

I don't understand how you can apply natural selection to a single organism, or a nonvarying population or nonvarying trait in a population, or in a scenario where variation is not at issue.I mentioned this before, but maybe not to you, Darwin considered changing the name natural selection into natural preservation. Since earlier in the thread you talked about your subjective adherence to the word selection being between variants, I think it might be enlightening to consider that Darwin used the word selection interchangeably with preservation, which word has entirely different connotations then the word selection. Also from Darwin, he used the word struggle individually, as in a plant struggles against the drought. As struggle may be equated to competition, it follows that competition might also be individual, according to Darwin.This exegesis of Darwin, although of course entirely prejudicial, may take away some other subjective obstacles for having an individual theory. Apart from the subjective obstacles, the issue seems quite clearcut in favour of an individual theory.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Dear Syamsu, This is quite a variety of scenarios. But in all cases you could not apply natural selection in an evolutionarily meaningful manner, and I have never suggested that you could. You could if you wished look at the numbers of animals which survive and reproduce in the population, but this is just population genetics.The question isn't whther natural selection is some universal tool which can explain everyhting in biology, it is whether it is a useful tool which allows us to study specific questions and make observations about how populations evolve.All the remainder of your says is that for you this is still all about ideology and semantics and not about science.TTFN,WK

I assume that there is no difference between not being able to apply natural selection, and not being able to apply natural selection in an evolutionary meaningful manner. That it doesn't apply shows that natural selection is not individual, as you baselessly asserted previously, but applies to a pairing of variants.Yes, lacking any obvious counterargument, the cultural context of scienctism and atheism seems to adequately explain why Darwinists deviate from the normal procedure in organizing knowledge, of starting the theory simple and building up to complex scenario's. Starting with a theory that describes organisms in terms of fitness to reproduce to measure their preservation, and deriving from that a comparitive principle about variant reproduction.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Never have said it, never will say it, but I'm glad you've picked up my dislike for baseless assertions, maybe you'll start making a few less of them.What I have said is that Natural selection is the result of all the various individual level instances of birth and death in the popukation, which are in turn affected by the interaction of the vaying phenotypes in the population with the environment, which are in turn determined to some extent by the genotypes within the population.Therefore while the individual events are, when all taken into acount not individually, what produce the raw numbers on which observations of natural selection are based, but I wouldn't consider those individual events themselves ot be natural selection. Its hard to make a counterargument to vague nonsense. If you actually explained in what way you consider evolutionary theory to be departing from how science is commonly practiced then perhaps counterarguments would be offered. Ah, thank you. That is exactly how it is done, as you would know if you had ever actually bothered to learn anything about evolution and natural selection. As I said before, if you knew either how darwins theory had developed into modern evolutionary biology or even if you were conversant with the principles of modern evolutionary biology then you would know that natural selection is not something which is simply taken as a given with no required premises, there are several specific criteria required for NS to apply, these are your simple components of a complex theory.TTFN,WK

But natural selection isn't based on individuals, because it is constricted by the requirements, it is based on a pairing of variants.It's not a baseless assertion when I give an explanation how darwinists deviate from normal procedure, which is to have natural selection theory as fundamental (which you say is very complex, but is generally understood to be very simple actually), in stead of the more simple testing in terms of fitness to reproduce.You are cutting corners to increase credibility by saying such things as that natural selection is complex where in stead generally biologists say it is simple, and saying it is based on individual level instances of birth and death in stead of a pairing of variants.In conclusion the paper referenced equates neutral selection with natural selection. The Darwinist rationale for including variation in the formulation thereby becomes tenuous, which removes another obstacle to getting closer to a more fundamental individual theory which describes organisms in terms of fitness to reproduce. The structure of knowledge shown when the fitness theories are laid side by side, clearly indicates that the individual theory is the best way to go, for reasons of simplicity, focus on physical relationships rather then comparitive relationships, general applicability, scientifc merit / meaningful data produced. Other theories are to be derived as subsets from it.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Dear Syamsu, Oh dear, your aversion to baseless assertions seems to have worn off. It isn't based on a 'pairing of variants' but it does require there to be variation in the population and for evolution to occur some of that variation needs to be genetic, or at least inheritable. And you still seem to totally miss the point which is that while natural selection is not looking at individuals it is looking at patterns within populations which are obviously composed of numerous events happening to individual members of that population, you still don't quite grasp the concept of a statistical approach do you. Your system is simpler, in exactly the same way that population dynamics is somewhat simpler than population genetics and it is similarly inapplicable to the specific question of evolution.And you should really make your mind up about whether the theory is simple or complex. You seem to have decided that NS is simple now rather than that .. as you said in your previous post. Mind you 'consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds' as the saying goes, so your inconsistency is perhaps a positive sign as to the size of your mind. Perhaps you could give us some instances where biologists generally say this, rather than us just relying on your word for it. I am a specific individual instance of a biologist disagreeing with you so shouldn't that be good enough to conclude that all biologists disagree with you? The basic idea is pretty simple, although you still seem to have some problems grasping it, but it is still made up from yet simpler principles and assumptions. The paper does no such thing, that is an inference which you draw from the paper and which you have yet to adequately demonstrate any supporting evidence for. I have on several occasions now drawn your attention to what the paper actually says, and you have just ignored it. The paper arguably says that instances of neutral selection should be seen as part of Natural selection but it does not say that neutral and natural selection are equivalent. Please feel free to show how it does do this however. They can't be derived as subsets of it, you have never shown how this is remotely possible and indeed how can there be a subset of the fundamental instance? They may be built up to be supersets of it, but only with additional analysis of the sort you are trying to rule out.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 06-21-2004 09:20 AM

It would be better if you just wrote a conclusion yourself, in stead of going on and on. You are just posturing now, there is no substance anymore.It has nothing to do with statistics. Statistics also apply to a population of organisms/traits not varying. Your theory is not individual at base it requires a pairing of variants, as also commented in articles about Darwinism.Wounded King:
"The paper arguably says that instances of neutral selection should be seen as part of Natural selection"That is the same bloody thing as equating them.Gee, now you fall back to saying that the environment testing the organism in terms of fitness to reproduce, can't be built up to comparing variants in terms of fitness to reproduce. It's totally ridiculous. You use the simple theory twice, one time for each variant, and divide the results.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Dear Syamsu,The very fact that you think that shows how little you understand. If you think that a equals b is neccessarily the same as a is greater than b then you not only don't understand evolution, you don't even understand simple maths. That isn't what I said you silly person!!!! It can be built up, but the very process of all your building up means that you are simply recapitulating the methods of natural selection. if you are using it to compare variants in terms of reproductive fitness then how have you removed the problems that you associated with the notion of comparative reproductive fitness? You don't build things up into a subset!!! And if you have an individual theory surely you must use it as many times as there are individuals in the population, noting what variant they are, and then divide by the number of the whole population. Which, strangely enough would give you a proportional figure, so you would basically be looking at the gene frequency. And to make it easier to do in practice why not take a random sample rather than the whole populatin and extrapolate from that. Any of this starting to sound strangely familiar yet?All you are doing now is reinventing the wheel. At least when you were just trying to change the language natural selection was framed in your argument made sense, I may not have agreed with it but it made sense. Now you have managed to slew your 'individual theory' round to such an extent, in order to actually be relevant to evolution, that you are simply coming up with natural selection all over again.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 06-21-2004 02:17 PMThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 06-21-2004 02:18 PM

What point would there be in me 'writing a conclusion' it would just be like the hollow declarations of victory people make before hightailing it out of a thread. What I am interested in is actually understanding the particulars of your theory. Your reluctance to get down to brass tacks and actually discuss your theory in detail and indeed to instead veer off onto further attacks on Darwin are why the dabate seems to be going round in increasingly vacuous circles. I realise that your theory is not ostensibly the topic of this thread but you are the one that opened that can of worms. We don't seem to be deviating enough to raise the mods ire though.I agree that we seem to have an unbridgeable gap as to our understandings of what the paper means, I fear people reading this thread would be best off just reading the paper and making up their own minds rather than trying to extract much from our respective diatribes.If I opened a thread specifically to discuss your theory do you think you could actually focus on discussing its methods and particulars rather than just having another bash at discrediting Darwinism?TTFN,WK

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I fear people reading this thread would be best off just reading the paper and making up their own minds rather than trying to extract much from our respective diatribes.

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I don't know about anyone else, but I'm certainly just enjoying the diatribes!What paper? Someone wrote a paper somewhere? (/sarcasm)Who cares anyway, the debate itself is all too entertaining!

Well perhaps my 'concept' of science doesn't have much to do with speculative claptrap. Calling natural selection pseudoscientific just because you happened to learn a new word is humorous. I am assuming you have some research or a paper that backs this up? If natural selection is WRONG then perhaps you can produce a theory that is falsifiable and just as valid in describing how populations could of evolved.

Well now I just feel like a performing seal, *arf* *arf*.

Ok well i didn't have the attention span to do much more than skim most of that, but it doesn't appear that the article even questions the principle of natural selection. I found the paragraph about lightening, it only explains why lightening is not included in the natural selection formula. And remember lightening doesn't strike that often anyway, well i guess worldwide it's always going, but the the chance of it have much of an effect on any population i think is very unlikely.So i will now make an obvious question and point: How is natural selection wrong? If it fits its enviroment best, it survives (generally). How can it be any more simple? Somethings die, some things live, and its obvious to conclude that most of the things that died died because they were weak, and the ones that survived did so cause they were stronger than the weak ones (in which ever niche the enviroment requires), thus it doesn't take much effort to realize that the next generation is a general improved adaptation to the enviroment than the last. ---------- i know it's pretty stupid for me to repeat a concept you all understand, i'm just wondering how anyone can seriously question it. I do encourage questioning, but if you're using logic, it doesn't take much questioning to comprehend natural selection. If you choose to deny it for fun or some other abstract reason ((i'd say the same if you chose to disbelieve in gravity, the only way you can be serious is if you are functioning on a completely different mentallity for some strange (but possibly cool) reason)), rock on, but if you actually think you have scientific proof against it, its probably cause your in denial you cant reconcile the idea with your religous beliefs. Go ahead and propose the 'proof', but i don't see that such has been done in this instance.This message has been edited by PeriferaliiFocust, 06-21-2004 06:48 PM

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It has nothing to do with statistics. Statistics also apply to a population of organisms/traits not varying.

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In which case the null is accepted, and you really don't have meaningful data.

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Your theory is not individual at base it requires a pairing of variants, as also commented in articles about Darwinism.

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SIGH! I have followed this for awhile, and you seem incapable, or more likely unwilling to accept that inheritable traits certainly can be individual, and that it is inherited into individuals who then either may reproduce or not, as natural selection sorts it out.This is rather BASIC science here, and I really hope that you actually understands it. Otherwise, you really don't have much foundation for criticizing the Scientific Theory of Evolution.

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"The paper arguably says that instances of neutral selection should be seen as part of Natural selection"

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That is the same bloody thing as equating them.

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Really? Where did you get that idea. To claim that neutral selections is a subset of natural selection is NOT the same as equating them. Prime Numbers are a subset of all numbers. Are all numbers therefore prime numbers? Red cars are a subset of all cars. Does that mean that all cars are red? And so on.Do you begin to see how silly that argument of yours is sounding?

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Gee, now you fall back to saying that the environment testing the organism in terms of fitness to reproduce, can't be built up to comparing variants in terms of fitness to reproduce.

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Really? That certainly is not what I got out of it. Would you mind actually demonstrating where this occured, rather than just claiming this?

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It's totally ridiculous. You use the simple theory twice, one time for each variant, and divide the results.

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Another claim that really seems weird. Again, can you actually document this postulation?

Any neutral selection story is now a natural selection story, according to the paper. Thereby they are equated into one. Go read a dictionary if you want about the word equated, you won't have much luck denying it. Reading some of the replies, I'm pretty sure your words are misrepresentative of the quite fundamental shift the paper argues for, this should be of some concern to you after you have repeatedly stated I misrepresented the paper.As 10 times before, it can be built into differential reproductive success of variants, it can also be built up to differential reproductive success of same (as with noting populationshares which fall prey to predators, or seasonal bad weather for instance), and loads of other permutations of the fundamental theory. You can't deconstruct natural selection, and then rebuild to come up with the other permutations of the fundamental theory, that is no way to organize knowledge.As 10 times before, it is no good to have a comparitive theory as fundamental, science should be based on physical relationships rather then comparitive. With comparisons a high degree of interpretation tends to set in. Besides Percy wants to have comparison as a real thing in nature. It is therefore double faulty to have a comparison which is essentially not real in a fundamental theory, which confuses with comparisons which supposedly are real (as part of competition, chance outcome determination, chances which mutually exclude each other, or something).As 10 times before, the basis of most all biology is how the invidual organism relates to the environment in terms of fitness to reproduce. How photosynthesis functions in regards to fitness to reproduce etc. etc.That I have to say these things 10 times, is because you don't have a clear counterargument to them.I won't participate in another thread about it, I think it can just be limited to this one. The moderators have previously pointed out that they want to limit the discussion of this particular idea to one thread, and not have it spammed all over. I think to have a paper that argues some fault in natural selection gives some credibility to the idea that a 150 year old theory can contain faults, so it is oppurtune for me to have the discussion in this thread.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu