Dover Penn ID trial

[c4ts]

I'll just pop Magneurol pills until my aura turns so blue I can shoot chakras out of my highly evolved nostrils.

 

[PatKelley]

No, you're not. For example, you don't need to assume that the environment cannot support all members - if some variations are more successful than others, they will eventually dominate the population. Voila! Evolution!

If no individuals die, or are removed, and the population only relies upon which reproduces faster, the upper limit of the population supportable by available energy is reached. Once that limit is hit, either some start to die or there is no population change. It has to do with replacement by death in animals because with other populations, the populations are relatively static, and the only way to winnow is removal without replacement. In animals, replacement is also necessary, and explains why populations persist. If traits were not passed generation to generation, the selection pressure would not cause a population change as a new random group would be culled each time.

Darwin talked primarily about slow and gradual changes. That doesn't mean that the more rapid changes separated by periods of stasis postulated by punctuated equilibrium make PE not evolution. Likewise, forms of selection caused by environmental effects acting upon a population distribution are still natural selection, even if they don't match exactly what Darwin was talking about.

Environmental effects on a population are not selection unless part of the population is removed. Whether it is by competetive disadvantage or no, eventually some has to be replaced or again one reaches a static equilibrium.

There's really not much else to be said. I'm really not interested in repeating this simple and obviously correct argument while you hold your fingers in your ears and hum. You're wrong, and that's all there is to it.

Your argument is incorrect, as has been shown several times. A blanket effect upon a population without differentiation is not selection. Death is a process in a population; only when it affects disparately based on traits of the population does it become a selection mechanism.

 

[Ed]

And the reproductively isolated varieties mutate & get selected, remaining varietal. Your assertion that time, random mutations & natural selection lead to useful genotype changes -- macro-ev, a new "species" -- remains an unproven hypothesis.

My understanding is that at the microbiology level, the action occurs not in groups in isolation but in groups of mixed partners-- the more, the merrier.


I'm not the only monomaniac in these discussions. If you find me boring, try Ignore.

I am sorta curious. Do you have a better explanatory model than evolution or are you simply pointing out areas for further research?

 

[Melendwyr]

If no individuals die, or are removed, and the population only relies upon which reproduces faster, the upper limit of the population supportable by available energy is reached.

You're assuming there is such a limit - true about the real world, but not necessary for the argument.

Environmental effects on a population are not selection unless part of the population is removed. Whether it is by competetive disadvantage or no, eventually some has to be replaced or again one reaches a static equilibrium.

No one is talking about that - the whole point is that the environmental effects are selective, affecting some trait combinations more than others. An environmental pressure that acts on a whole population equally obviously will not result in evolution.

Your argument is incorrect, as has been shown several times. A blanket effect upon a population without differentiation is not selection.

That's not my argument. You've resorted to building strawmen.

 

[Melendwyr]

Melendwyr, there may be a similarity between these ideas, but natural selection is a technical term with a precise definition. You don't like it when woos co-opt technical terms from other scientific fields out of context, do you?

No, which is why I'm objecting to the improperly limited use advocated in this thread.

'Natural selection' whenever elements of the environment acting upon a population create a differential viability of trait groupings in that population. The population does not need to be alive, or reproducing; there does not need to be replacement or loss.

Biology only uses the term to refer to living organisms because biology only deals with living organisms.

 

[Melendwyr]

Asked and answered. You even quoted it. Where I use the phrase "my point is..."

That's just a restatement of your position. It doesn't follow from your objection, which in itself leads to no substantive conclusions. You objected for the sake of objecting.

Darwin himself said that natural selection was not the only mechanism of evolution. The change in distribution of traits--evolution--does not mean that the process behind it was natural selection.

Sexual selection, for example. But sexual selection only applies to things that have sex, and anything vulnerable to sexual selection will necessarily also be vulnerable to natural selection.

Natural selection is the most basic cause of evolutionary change. If you can tell us about an even simpler cause, and then explain why it is not included in the concept of 'natural selection', do so.

 

[Mercutio]

Biology only uses the term to refer to living organisms because biology only deals with living organisms.

I keep hoping you will post an example of physicists using the term for stars (or pebbles, for that matter). I seriously would like to learn that I am using the term too narrowly, that all this time I have been in error. That would be cool. But thus far, the only examples I have found have been in Biology, and thus far you have not provided any others.

 

[Mercutio]

That's just a restatement of your position. It doesn't follow from your objection, which in itself leads to no substantive conclusions. You objected for the sake of objecting.

No. You suggested eliminating 1 & 2. My point was that 1 & 2 define natural selection as working on organisms which reproduce and inherit from their progenitors. Stars do not. Pebbles do not. You have removed from Darwin's definition those things which make your examples inappropriate. Your "improperly limited use" is, in fact, the accepted technical definition; the use which you are advocating, by eliminating parts of the technical definition, is an "improperly broad use".

 

[hammegk]

Do you have a better explanatory model than evolution or are you simply pointing out areas for further research?

I'm in full agreement with the parts of The Theory that are fact based, which include inheritance, mutation, survival and on to the offspring.

I accept that common ancestor has reasonable basis, although the actual number of abiogenesis events needed to represent viruses, prokaryotes, and eukaryotes -- and all rna/dna life -- is unknown. Parallel development vs common ancestor is as yet poorly defined.

Another area of interest is the implication in microbiology, sfaik, that environmental stress 'encourages' mutation, and those mutations are not random but occur at specifically defined locations. Are these hints of Lysenkoism in action, and if so, do similar pressures effect mutation in even the most complex creatures?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Let's see what we can find out about natural selection in fields other than biology.

Neither of my physics dictionaries mention it.

Lee Smolin gave a keynote address at the international meeting on genetic algorithms in 1999 titled "Natural selection in physics and cosmology." Here's a bit about it:

http://www.templeton.org/humbleapproach/many_worlds/default.asp

And he wrote a book, The Life of the Cosmos, which talks about universe reproduction and selection via black holes:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/01...1?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Googling "natural selection in cosmology" brings up a few hits.


~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

Let's see what we can find out about natural selection in fields other than biology.

Neither of my physics dictionaries mention it.

Lee Smolin gave a keynote address at the international meeting on genetic algorithms in 1999 titled "Natural selection in physics and cosmology." Here's a bit about it:

http://www.templeton.org/humbleapproach/many_worlds/default.asp

And he wrote a book, The Life of the Cosmos, which talks about universe reproduction and selection via black holes:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/01...1?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Googling "natural selection in cosmology" brings up a few hits.


~~ Paul

From your first link:

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to the search for a quantum theory of gravity. A professor of physics at the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Pennsylvania State University, he is one of a small number of scientists actively seeking to reconcile - or "unify" - general relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, and quantum mechanics, the prevailing theory of matter and motion developed in the 1920s. Among his most fruitful ideas is the loop formation of quantum gravity, which he developed with Carlo Rovelli and other physicists. It led to the prediction that space has a certain discrete or atomic structure at very small distances. He also has worked on cosmology and, in particular, proposed a hypothesis called "cosmological natural selection," in which Darwinian principles of evolution are applied to the universe, providing a possible explanation for some of the properties of the elementary particles and forces. His conjecture is that our universe forms part of an infinite chain of self-reproducing universes whose physical laws evolve through natural processes of self-organization. The black holes created by collapsing stars lead to the creation of new regions of space and time. These events resemble the big bang, and, indeed, the big bang in our past is assumed to be one such event. Dr. Smolin has hypothesized that the daughter worlds that emerge from "dark stars" may differ in small, random ways from their parents. But if, and to the extent, that changes of even the slightest degree affected the production of black holes, evolutionary pressure would favor universes with many of them.

I stand partially corrected. "Cosmological natural selection"...It does, though, sound as if Smolin's hypothesis proceeds from the narrower biological definition of "natural selection", rather than from a broader one which does not include reproduction. Here, "daughter worlds" and "parents" are specifically hypothesized.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Smolin's ideas bring us to a question about selection pressure. There really isn't any pressure in his analogy to natural selection, in the sense that black hole-sparse universes would be killed before they can reproduce, because there is no environment in which the universes reside. Rather, it is simply the case that universes with many black holes will reproduce at a greater rate.

~~ Paul

 

[Melendwyr]

I keep hoping you will post an example of physicists using the term for stars (or pebbles, for that matter). I seriously would like to learn that I am using the term too narrowly, that all this time I have been in error. That would be cool. But thus far, the only examples I have found have been in Biology, and thus far you have not provided any others.

Why do you think creationists always accuse biologists of making claims about the origins of life? Biology only deals with the evolution of biological organisms, but natural selection is far broader. Once you recognize that selective pressures can be responsible for the change in organisms, you must also accept that living organisms can arise from non-living substances through natural selection.

You don't understand your own arguments. Points 1 and 2 did not define natural selection as applying to reproducing organisms. They were just statements of how natural selection applies to reproducing organisms. As I've pointed out several times before, the conclusion of that argument follows even when those assumptions are eliminated.

One final note: quit it with the appeals to authority. Creationists are the ones who argue that because modern biology doesn't use the exact same concepts in the exact same way that Darwin did, Darwinian evolution has been rejected. If you're not willing to apply reason to the perfectly acceptable English words and derive valid conclusions from them, don't bother replying. Natural selection can operate on reproducing organisms in more ways than it can on static populations, but it's still natural selection. If natural selection cannot be applied to a population, no other forms of selection can either - NS is the broadest and most inclusive conceptual form of selection there is.

 

[Bronze Dog]

Another area of interest is the implication in microbiology, sfaik, that environmental stress 'encourages' mutation, and those mutations are not random but occur at specifically defined locations. Are these hints of Lysenkoism in action, and if so, do similar pressures effect mutation in even the most complex creatures?

No, those are fictional. During environmental stress, "good" mutations are just more likely to stick around than they are in stable times, when a species is already doing well. "Bad" mutations are also more likely to be weeded out. The mutation rate is the same. The environment changes, and with it, the selection pressures that act on those mutations.

 

[Mercutio]

Why do you think creationists always accuse biologists of making claims about the origins of life? Biology only deals with the evolution of biological organisms, but natural selection is far broader. Once you recognize that selective pressures can be responsible for the change in organisms, you must also accept that living organisms can arise from non-living substances through natural selection.

First...why do creationists do this? Because it is part of a rhetorical divide-and-conquer strategy to attack on several fronts and take advantage of, say, a biologist's ignorance of cosmology and vice versa. Second, I never limited natural selection to living organisms, merely to reproducing (with heritability) organisms. I have posted on here (months ago) about a wonderful example of natural selection in teddy bears. The means of reproduction was human-mediated, but it fit all of the criteria for natural selection. And your last sentence...unless the non-living substances fit the criteria (reproducing, with inheritable characteristics), then natural selection does not apply until those criteria are met.

You don't understand your own arguments. Points 1 and 2 did not define natural selection as applying to reproducing organisms. They were just statements of how natural selection applies to reproducing organisms. As I've pointed out several times before, the conclusion of that argument follows even when those assumptions are eliminated.

Right...when you redefine it, it fits more examples.

One final note: quit it with the appeals to authority. Creationists are the ones who argue that because modern biology doesn't use the exact same concepts in the exact same way that Darwin did, Darwinian evolution has been rejected. If you're not willing to apply reason to the perfectly acceptable English words and derive valid conclusions from them, don't bother replying. Natural selection can operate on reproducing organisms in more ways than it can on static populations, but it's still natural selection. If natural selection cannot be applied to a population, no other forms of selection can either - NS is the broadest and most inclusive conceptual form of selection there is.

The appeal to authority, in this case, is to legitimate authority, and not fallacious.

My major argument was, and is, that the term "Natural Selection" is used in the literature much more narrowly than you use it in your examples here. Paul has tried to show other examples. You seem to be arguing that the way the term is used by the scientific community is wrong, not that the way I use it is different from how the scientific community uses it.

 

[BillHoyt]

Why do you think creationists always accuse biologists of making claims about the origins of life? Biology only deals with the evolution of biological organisms, but natural selection is far broader. Once you recognize that selective pressures can be responsible for the change in organisms, you must also accept that living organisms can arise from non-living substances through natural selection.

Sorry, this simply isn't so. Your opening sentence, I'm afraid, implies a subject / motive shift. Who cares why a group says a or not-a; it has nothing to do with whether the truth is a or not-a. Regardless of this fallacy, though, "natural selection" is NOT as broad as you claim. In fact, Darwin's original meaning has been NARROWED over the decades. His "natural selection" today is called "directional selection," and now known to be one of three principle selection modes.

 

[Mercutio]

Sorry, this simply isn't so. Your opening sentence, I'm afraid, implies a subject / motive shift. Who cares why a group says a or not-a; it has nothing to do with whether the truth is a or not-a. Regardless of this fallacy, though, "natural selection" is NOT as broad as you claim. In fact, Darwin's original meaning has been NARROWED over the decades. His "natural selection" today is called "directional selection," and now known to be one of three principle selection modes.

If it has narrowed to one of three, is the evolution of stars, metals, etc. (as per the cartoon) contained within any of the three?

 

[BillHoyt]

If it has narrowed to one of three, is the evolution of stars, metals, etc. (as per the cartoon) contained within any of the three?

In a word, no. I think Melendwyr is simply confusing the terms evolution and natural selection. Natural selection is one of the mechanisms we critters use to change over time (that is, evolve).

 

[PatKelley]

You're assuming there is such a limit - true about the real world, but not necessary for the argument.

But it is. Finite numbers are necessary else one never is talking about selection. A population assumes proportion, which as near as I can tell does not allow infinity as the denominator.

No one is talking about that - the whole point is that the environmental effects are selective, affecting some trait combinations more than others. An environmental pressure that acts on a whole population equally obviously will not result in evolution.

That is my point. You spoke of rocks in a streambed. It is precisely this of which you spoke, and it was your example of "selection."

That's not my argument. You've resorted to building strawmen.

You stated that rounding of rocks in a streambed was an example of selection. That is not a strawman; it is your statement. If it fits the definition of blanket effect, it does little good to accuse me of building strawmen when you are the holder of the incorrect analogy "bag" as it were.

 

[Melendwyr]

In fact, Darwin's original meaning has been NARROWED over the decades.

In the field of biology, which has developed more specialized terms to discuss the kinds of selection that take place within populations of organisms.

'Confused evolution and natural selection'? Did you even read my previous posts?