Re: OT: Evolution (was: Archive search no longer working?)

On Jan 23, 9:40 am, taylor.kings...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
BTW, I'm not here to discuss traditional Darwinism. As you may know,
Kuhn points out that orthodox science clings to their beliefs as long
as their model nearly works--until it completely breaks down.

  Yes, I read Kuhn back in college.

I didn't know you went to kollege! I thought you were a chess bum.


Obviously we're not there yet, but think of these thoughts as being on
the cutting edge of evolution in the same way the Morley-Michelson
experiments were with Newtonian mechanics.

  They don't sound like anything new. You mention "lack of
globalization." Geographical isolation has long been recognized as one
catalyst of speciation, at least as far back as Darwin's study of
Galapagos finches.

Again, here's what is new: not that geographic isolation results in
species (old news, agreed), but that species can result from
"conscious" selection by an organism. Neo-Lamarckianism (sic).

Yes, that's my point.  Now take that to the 'limit' and you'll
conclude that perhaps speciazation

  That neologism grates on my ears. Why the extra syllable? The usual
term "speciation" seems quite adequate without a gratuitous "za"
thrown in.

Well OK, you're the expert on the English language. I speak three
languages equally well (or badly). Working on a worth, but Asian
languages are difficult.


might result from these arbitrary
"social and/or sexual preferences".  Consider that certain African
freshwater fish choose their mates based on arbitrary color (nobody
has found any advantage to a particular color it seems), mix, and
voila, you get a new species resulting from a completely arbitrary
decision.

So evolution is not just random, but not necessarily natural selection
either.

  I really don't see anything new in this, certainly nothing that
makes any dent in the Darwinian model per se.

It depends on how you define the "Darwinian model". If you make it
out of wax, then of course the model is flexible enough to accomidate
any new theory.


As I said, for many
species (including man), social and/or sexual preferences are just as
much a part of the environment, in the sense of all factors that
influence survival and reproductive success, as climate and other
physicial factors. Evolutionary biologists have probably tended to
stress physical factors, but they have hardly ignored the sort of
thing you're talking about.

Let's agree to disagree on this.

  For example, it's been proposed that a selective factor favoring
development of bird wings was their use in courting displays. The
Archaeopteryx who could show off the fullest, healthiest, most
colorful display of feathers got the girl (well, hen). This may have
contributed to the development of wings as aids to flight, even though
the original selective factor was not directly related to that.

But your premise, turned on it's head, supports "my" theory: if
Archaeopteryx (which means, in Greek, "old wing"), showed off its
least fullest, UN-healthiest feathers, and these feathers were
selected by the hen, and these features were associated with a
chromozome making OldWing unhealthy, and, through the miracle of
science and advanced health care, OldWing was able to propigate its
species, then the sickest and unhealthiest member of the species would
propigate. That's point one, and old theory. Now for point two, the
new stuff: OldWing {sick version} would eventually become a new
species, and this species would be less healthy than before. And the
choice would go against Darwin's theory, of the (put crudely)
"survival of the fittest" aka "natural selection".

BTW the preceeding has already happened with humans, although it's
still consistent with traditional Darwinism: if you read Jared
Diamond's "Guns, Germs & Steel", you'll find farmers, who can support
a larger population (the genetic advantage), were sicker than hunters
and gatherers, and in fact expended more energy to get food. But they
made bigger populations (the genetic advantage, consistent with
traditional Darwinism) and they did not turn into another species by
conscious selection (new theory).


Evolution is full of examples of organs useful for one purpose
becoming useful for another.

But what about useless organs for one purpose becoming useless in
another? That is the theory. In short, Darwin assumed a sort of
logic to evolution. But if you read David Raup's book, pointing out
(updated) that all five of the Big Five extinctions were caused by
extraterrestrial events (he posited 4 of 5, but since his book was
published in 1991, recently the other mass extinction--the Late
Devonian extinction-- has been found to possibly be from an Antarctic
meteor strike, though I notice Wikipedia has not been updated to
reflect this speculation), and also extrapolate from this thread,
you'll conclude that some of evolution is complete purposeless.

RL
.

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