Re: Nando Explains Natural Selection to You!


nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> catshark wrote:
> > Ok, I've spent about a week in the barrel making sure, for the benefit of
> > the lurkers, that Nando's blather doesn't go unanswered. Besides the utter
> > boredom this entails, my head has started to hurt trying to make sense of
> > his stuff. It actually seems to become more incoherent the more he tries
> > to explain.
>
> I suspect the reason your head is hurting is because you are time and
> again caught up in the tautology of the standard formulation of natural
> selection.
>
> > P.S. His reference to Ariew and Matthen is to this article "Two Ways of
> > Thinking About Fitness and Natural Selection"
> > <http://www.philosophy.ubc.ca/faculty/matthen/Two%20Ways%20of%20Thinking%20About%20Natural%20Selection%20.htm>
>
> The example from the paper:
>
> "Consider, then, a case like this: two organisms, O1 and O2, otherwise
> very similar, differ in (vernacular) fitness because O1 has better
> eyesight than O2. Now, contrast the following possible events.
>
> C1. O2's bad eyesight leads to its falling off a cliff. It dies and
> O1 survives.
>
> C2. O1 is killed by a lightning strikeCthe difference of visual acuity
> was irrelevant to this event. "
>
>
> > >Consider the following scenario's, as comparable to the scenario of
> > >Ariew and Matthen. Now which of these are part of the same process, and
> > >which are part of another process altogether?
> > >
> > >good eyed organism - reproduces
> > >bad eyed organism - doesn't reproduce
> > >
> > >good eyed organism - doesn't reproduce
> > >bad eyed organism - reproduces
> > >
> > >good eyed organism - reproduces
> > >bad eyed organism - reproduces
> > >
> > >good eyed organism - doesn't reproduce
> > >bad eyed organism - doesn't reproduce
> > >---
> > >Of course, obviously, they are all scenario's of one and the same
> > >process. One may note the reproduce / does not reproduce possibilities,
> > >that is the event of reproduction, which shapes the population.
>
> I will enumerate some more possible scenario's, which are, of course,
> all instances of one and the same process:
>
> good eyed organism - reproduces
> good eyed organism - doesn't reproduce
>
> good eyed organism - reproduces
> good eyed organism - reproduces
>
> good eyed organism - doesn't reproduce
> good eyed organism - doesn't reproduce

That means, of course, that an organism with a new *beneficial* variant
phenotype (selection works on phenotype directly and genotype only
indirectly) is not *guaranteed* success. And the effect is that the
new mutant allele (we will assume dominantly) that causes the
beneficial phenotype might go extinct (rather than go to fixation) by
pure chance. In fact, it is possible to actually calculate this
probability. Not surprisingly, the probability that a new *locally
beneficial* allele (one that produces a better fit phenotype) will go
to fixation is a function of the *selective advantage* of having the
new *beneficial* allele relative to having the old wild-type or
dominant allele. This is in contrast to the probability of a new
selectively neutral allele going to fixation, which is a function of
the *size of the population*.

In general, then, for small populations, chance alone may be more
frequent cause for the fixation of a new allele (but, because the
chance of a new mutation *occurring* in a small population is smaller,
we tend to get a rate of neutral change over evolutionary time that is
independent of population size and dependent on mutation rate). For
larger populations, selective benefit (or lack thereof) will be a more
important (more favorable) in determining allele presence.

Given that one can generally (selfish DNA sequences are an exception)
account for all the gene sequence differences between related organisms
by saying that they could all be due to chance change alone since the
time of divergence, there is clearly no problem in allowing for the few
examples of more rapid transition due to selective advantage that one
needs in that same timeframe.

> etc. etc. ad nauseum, until we find the basic meaning which covers all
> the possible scenario's:
>
> all organisms die, through reproduction the forms of organisms are
> preserved, therefore
> the event of reproduction, to reproduce, or not to reproduce, shapes
> the population.
>
> Now cut away any single one possible scenario, and I will rightly
> accuse you of bias, accuse of you of violating the rule of general
> applicability of science theories, etc. etc.
>
> What Darwinists insist on, is to compare between variants, for some
> reason best known to themselves, but there are no comparisons occurring
> in nature, and comparison between variants is not a part of the
> underlying process. There is a process in the minds of darwinists to
> compare variants, there exists no such process in nature. (the owner of
> EVCforum would disagree, he said that there are comparisons occurring
> in nature, and ns is descriptive of the comparisons that have an
> objective occurrence in nature. This may lead to thinking that there
> are comparisons on mountainheight occurring in nature, or comparisons
> on lightintensity of stars, why not?)
>
> What Darwinists should do is view traits individually, and other
> "competing" traits as incidental environmental factors. That is to say
> if there would be some mutation that would make an organism spread into
> another environment, the comparison is quite useless.
>
> Ariew in another paper says that the standard formulation of natural
> selection is consistent with "large" mutations, (the new findings on
> control genes and such tends to support that change may be
> "saltationist" on a phenotype level at least, so they had to rescue
> Darwinism from it's tie to gradualism). But Ariew is mistaken, because
> when there is a "large" mutation, we find ourselves, as the saying
> goes, comparing apples and pears (a dutch saying to denote that things
> are not comparable). That is to say there is no point to compare an
> elephant with an ant, just to name a theoretical mega-mutation from
> elephant to ant, to make the point clear that comparison should be
> reasonably limited. The point of comparison is only limited to
> encroachment of one on another. But as with the peppered moth, natural
> selection isn't neccessarily much a matter of encroachment, the black
> moth did not encroach on the white moth much, the white moth became
> less adapted to the environment because of the newly blackened trees,
> and the black moth became more adapted due to the appearance of the
> blackened trees. Only a small part of this is encroachment of one on
> the other, the larger part is the black moth spreading out in an
> environment where their variation contributes to reproduction, the
> environment of black trees.

That is, natural selection leads to optimization of organisms to the
*local* conditions. Not teleologic optimization. Only optimization to
a particular local set of conditions.

> etc. etc. ad nauseum for years and years, to an unwilling audience of
> darwinists who think Occam's razor is only useful for cutting out God
> from an explanation, in stead of organizing knowledge to the minimum
> parameters for a word to apply to it.
>
> regards,
> Mohammad Nor Syamsu

.

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