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Intelligent Evolution?

articulett said:
Humans are part of the real world Paul.
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Well gee, I am sure glad you told me that, telling someone who does not believe in any so-called god needs to be told this. Still human actions on breeding are still not natural.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
Once again, natural selection on the whole will select those traits that will help the organism survive in the real world. Many of these traits selected by humans will not last long in the nature.

Paul

:) :) :)
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And once again, why does the fact that a trait will not survive in the wild make any difference to the analogy? Simply explain that the traits selected for by humans are like the traits selected for 'by nature', except that in one the traits aid survival directly, and in the other the aid survival by bieng kept by humans.

The fact that human-selected traits are not selected for by a different selection criterion does not mean that the two processes are not analogous.
 
mijopaalmc said:
But original analogy (i.e., the one in the OP) no longer holds if you remove the intelligent agent from technological development.
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I disagree. I would start with the development of something like aircraft. Then explain that, in nature, new traits are essentially randomly added to the population. This is like taking an aircraft and randomly adding modifications to wing design. Most will not be as well designed as the original, but a few will be better.
 
Paulhoff said:
Well gee, I am sure glad you told me that, telling someone who does not believe in any so-called god needs to be told this. Still human actions on breeding are still not natural.

Paul

:) :) :)
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Please define "natural".
 
Sorry but they are not, if dogs are left out on their own, with no pain in the ass human around, within only a few generations the traits that we love so well will disappear.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Taffer said:
Please define "natural".
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Indeed... leaf cutter ants grow their own fungus gardens from the leaves they stow. They eat the fungus... the fungus grows because of the farming by the ants. Choral reefs are also communities that ensures the survival of all sorts of things that could not survive without them-- and, of course, that is true of humans too. And lots of things don't survive that would have survived had we not come along and changed their evolution or hastened their extinction.
Cows evolved from wild oxen (?)ancestors-- there aren't any anymore... survival of the fetist bovine genomes ended up being todays cows--because they are cared for and bred by humans--mostly because they are cheap large forms of tasty meat in a very docile animal.. and they provide milk (which humans only recently evolved the ability to digest because those who could preferentially survived.)

Todays cows would not exist if not for us... but we would not exist if not for our last common ancestor--nor would our technology-- maybe different people would exist with different inventions-- but not us... our most recent common ancestor was just going about his life and could not have known that he was the beginning of all this.

That's the power of natural selection. And we ARE part of nature, so we are naturally selecting by virtue of existing in an environment where information (in genes and ideas) is copied or not--in part or in whole-- perfectly or imperfectly.

Yes, if not for humans, we wouldn't have human inventions... but if not for spiders, there'd be no such things as spider webs... if not for bees, there'd be no such things as beehives. Living things evolve communities and other systems by virtue of doing what their genomes program them to do.
 
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Paulhoff said:
Sorry but they are not, if dogs are left out on their own, with no pain in the ass human around, within only a few generations the traits that we love so well will disappear.

Paul

:) :) :)
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Why are you only considering traits which aid survival in our current environment?
 
articulett said:
Indeed... leaf cutter ants grow their own fungus gardens from the leaves they stow. They eat the fungus... the fungus grows because of the farming by the ants. Choral reefs are also communities that ensures the survival of all sorts of things that could not survive without them-- and, of course, that is true of humans too. And lots of things don't survive that would have survived had we not come along and changed their evolution or hastened their extinction.
Cows evolved from wild oxen (?)ancestors-- there aren't any anymore... survival of the fetist bovine genomes ended up being todays cows--because they are cared for and bred by humans--mostly because they are cheap large forms of tasty meat in a very docile animal.. and they provide milk (which humans only recently evolved the ability to digest because those who could preferentially survived.)
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Yes before humans can around computers where only 8080's and cell phones where only black and came with a cord.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
Gee, are you related to edge.

Paul

:) :) :)
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Heh.

But it's an important point, I think. People tend to think anything except human activities as "natural" with no real reason. We are, after all, entirely natural. We are products of nature and evolution, just like any other animal.
 
Paulhoff said:
Sorry but they are not, if dogs are left out on their own, with no pain in the ass human around, within only a few generations the traits that we love so well will disappear.

Paul

:) :) :)
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I wonder if this is necessarily true. It seems likely that they would evolve into something like wolves again..except we could change the "normal" path of natural selection by introducing a full pack of domestic of dogs,(instead of an individual), whose loyalty to each other proves a more survivable trait than behaviour we would normally associate with wolves or dingos.
 
Taffer said:
Heh.

But it's an important point, I think. People tend to think anything except human activities as "natural" with no real reason. We are, after all, entirely natural. We are products of nature and evolution, just like any other animal.
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Still many traits that we like will go away it they left on their own, to have a 2 lbs dog with no hair is not a trait that any dog would want if it knew better.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Taffer said:
I will never understand this. Humans are not the center of the universe, by any stretch of the imagination. Similarly, we are not 'above' or 'superior' to nature in any way. We are, by definition, natural.
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Insert cannibalism joke here.
 
Paulhoff said:
Still many traits that we like will go away it they left on their own, to have a 2 lbs dog with no hair is not a trait that any dog would want if it knew better.

Paul

:) :) :)
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And that is irrelevant to the analogy.

Perhaps this will help: Selective breeding is just natural selection with selective pressures for and against particular traits being different then those found in natural selection. The process, however, is exactly the same as if the 'natural' environment were to favour 2lb dogs with no hair (for whatever particular reason). Just because humans were involved doesn't make it any different from natural selection in the fundamentals.
 
Taffer said:
What is the difference between a beehive and a cellphone by your reasoning?
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So are you saying that everything we do is normal and is OK to do. Burn all the coal, throw crap into the ocean, it is normal and is OK.

You can play this game, I will not, you win, it is all yours, hurray.

Paul

:) :) :)

There is a so-called god and kiss his ass.
 
Paulhoff said:
So are you saying that everything we do is normal and is OK to do. Burn all the coal, throw crap into the ocean, it is normal and is OK.

You can play this game, I will not, you win, it is all yours, hurray.

Paul

:) :) :)

There is a so-called god and kiss his ass.
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:confused:

When did I say that? Burning all the coal and throwing crap into the ocean is detrimental to our survival. Why would we want to do it?

And what does that have to do with the discussion?

The point raised by articulett is that other animals modify their environment, and change reproductive fitnesses away from what might otherwise be expected of particular traits in the wild. If other organisms do it and it is considered "natural", why, when we do the exact same thing through selective breeding, is it not?
 
Raphael said:
I wonder if this is necessarily true. It seems likely that they would evolve into something like wolves again..except we could change the "normal" path of natural selection by introducing a full pack of domestic of dogs,(instead of an individual), whose loyalty to each other proves a more survivable trait than behaviour we would normally associate with wolves or dingos.
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There are packs of feral dogs and dingos were domesticated dogs that reverted... lots of islands have feral dogs that are friendly with people and live off their scraps, but not friendly like our pets... different traits are selected for... when we have pets we love, we pay their vet bills and allow crazy things to be breed into them that couldn't exist in the wild (the flat faces of bulldogs are a deformity that makes their births difficult-- but we love the look--the same with flat faces cats...)... Heck, we breed fainting goats that would be dinner in the wild-- and what could a dalmation blend in with except a pile of soccer balls? We aid the preferential survival of animals we like just as we aid the preferential survival of the trillions of bacteria that live in our gut that we just recently learned about.

Just because a human thought is involved in some way, doesn't really make the selection process special or different. It allows us to feel more in control of the direction... and maybe we are... but it's all still bottom up design... humans can only build on what it there so far...just like the common ancestor could only spawn kids from his own genome...

Yes... we recognize matter that is organized into a design...whether a beehive, a city, or a spider web-- BUT all of that design we see is built on information that evolved over time. All of it.
 
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