Re: talk.origins faq Hitler claim part 3
- From: hersheyh@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 31 Aug 2005 21:39:13 -0700
nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> catshark wrote:
>
> > As far as I can tell Nando's claims have boiled down to:
> >
> > 1) Some people may interpret that as saying you think you are allowed to
> > shoot people, which is, of course, *your* fault for self-identifying with
> > "accuracy".
> > 2) Hitting anything you aim at is the same "process" as missing what you
> > aim at, therefore they are both chance and it is bias to talk about the
> > rifle being "accurate" because "averages don't make up reality".
> >
> > Ow. I think I just hurt myself.
>
> Yeah whatever, but your conception of natural selection is still
> illegitemately goalbased towards the best. John Wilkins knows it, Ariew
> and Matthen know it, and I know it. You could know it, very simply, by
> applying logic and common sense.
>
> Starting from Darwins conception of natural selection as beneficial
> preserved and injurous destroyed,
Net. Or tendency. Not in every single individual case. And only in
the conditional sense in a defined environment.
> towards natural selection *solely*
> acting by and for the good of each being.
Natural selection only prefers the birth of individuals from
individuals who were well adapted to *their* local environment.
Natural selection does not act *for* the good of each being. It is
simply the fact that individuals well adapted to a local environment
are more successful at reproducing than individuals who are less well
adapted to that environment.
> The omission of beneficial
> being destroyed, and injurous being preserved is quite apparent, when
> you consider this is supposed to be construed in terms of chance.
The tendency or net effect in a *population* defines and determines
which of the two traits being compared is 'beneficial' and which is
'detrimental'. The one that is more reproductively successful is
'beneficial'. You can argue that being a poorer reproducer should be
called 'beneficial', but that would be decidedly Orwellian.
> Chance may turn out one way or another, and does not *solely* work
> towards a single result of the best.
Do you know what the word "tendency" means? Apparently not.
> Natural selection therefore needs
> to be redefined to take account of beneficial not being preserved.
It is. What the hell do you think the word "tendency" means? It means
that not every individual with a trait will reproduce, but, *when*
there is natural selection, individuals (note the plural; this means a
population) with one trait will *tend* to reproduce at a significantly
higher rate than inidividuals (note plural again) with the alternative
trait.
> The
> only way to do that is to fundamentally define selection as between the
> possibilities of reproduction and no reproduction for the organism.
To determine whether selection is occurring, one must measure it in
*populations* of individuals (plural), some having one trait and some
the alternative, not in a single individual. And even in individuals,
it may be more useful to use number of successful progeny rather than a
simple reproduce-no reproduce dichotomy.
> The
> event of reproduction shapes the population,
The summary values of reproduction of the many individuals in a
population (or sample thereof) is what you measure. A population is
not "shaped" by a single event of reproduction. It is shaped by the
reproduction of the entire population.
> leading to a subset of
> many population actions, of which competitive encroachment of
> variants(standard natural selection) is just one possibility, depending
> on the value of the parameters in the actual scenario.
Reproduction obviously also affects the size of a population, depending
on the carrying capacity of the environment. But that is not natural
selection. Neither is neutral drift, which is the *absence* of a
significant environmental cause that distinguishes between two
phenotypes.
> And by your willful ignorance of this knowledge, now clear before you,
> you are indeed in effect supporting racist Darwinist pseudoscience.
The only one showing profound ignorance of what natural selection is is
some guy called Nando.
> What line is there between you who ignorantly conceives of a process in
> nature that supposedly moves towards something you say is "best", when
> actually that process doesn't neccessarily go towards what you say is
> "best",
Nature always *tends* toward retaining phenotypes that are *better*
(note comparative rather than superlative) than the alternative in the
local environmental conditions. It does so by the fact that
individuals with phenotypes that are better fit/adapted to their
environment tend to reproduce significantly more than those with the
alternative phenotype. To the extent that the phenotype is genetically
based, this will tend to produce progeny that look like their parents
(only the successful ones are parents, remember). This process does
not guarantee that their progeny will be successful in the environment
that *they* exist in. If the environment that the progeny face is
significantly different from the one the parents faced, having their
parents phenotypes may not be 'beneficial'. Natural selection is a
process that only looks backward toward the success of the parents. It
does not look forward to the success of the progeny; there is no
teleological foresight in biology.
> and an actual Darwinist racist,
Now there certainly have been Darwinist racists. But there certainly
have been Christian racists as well. In fact, all the American
Southern racists I knew used the Bible to justify their racism and
pro-segregationist arguments and hated evolution (prefering Jack Chick
to Huxley). The KKK, for example, regards itself as a Christian
organization. And I am quite certain that it was not Darwin that the
Boers used to justify apartheid. So I would not automatically make a
connection between Darwinism (although it should be called having an
understanding of evolution as a science) and racism. And I fail to see
how the self-fulfilling prophecies of racists meet the standards of
*natural* selection rather than, at its worst, a form of *artificial*
selection by a self-declared (based on circular reasoning) superior
race. Be that as it may, your *desparate need* to redefine natural
selection so that it is absolute and determined at the level of the
individual is your problem, not that of evolutionary biologists. I
won't allow you to make a strawman version of natural selection because
you can't argue against the real version.
> who says that natural selection
> is the eternal will of nature driving towards what is best.
The environment always is affecting phenotypes and suppressing
potential reproductive capacity (Malthus told us that last), sometimes
differentially, sometimes not. That cannot be prevented. That is a
simple fact of nature. Sometimes the comparison tells us that there is
no significant difference between phenotypes. Sometimes one phenotype
is significantly better in that particular environment (or some aspect
of that environment) than the alternative. Only the latter is "natural
selection". But there is nothing that says or guarantees that the
phenotype successful in one environment will be significantly better in
a different environment. There is no such thing as "best" in an
absolute sense. There is only "better than the alternative" under
specified conditions. And because this is science and not fantasy, we
can only compare alternatives that currently exist.
> The
> difference between the actual workings of natural selection, and
> natural selection working for the best, you cover by an implicit ought
> in your bias to limit the operation of natural selection to the victory
> of the best, and gee so does the Darwinist racist too cover that by an
> ought.
Again. The *environment*, *when* it has a significant effect on
differential reproductive success, will produce both a winner and a
loser by the metric of reproductive success. We say that the phenotype
which produces more progeny than the other is "beneficial". What would
you call a phenotype that, on average, produces significantly more
progeny than the alternative it is being compared to? Detrimental?
That would be Orwellian. And, to reiterate for the umpteenth time,
natural selection does not produce the "best" phenotype in an absolute
sense. It only produces a larger frequency of the "better" phenotype
under the specified conditions. And it has no "will" to do so because
the process is always backward looking, producing progeny well adapted
to the environment their parents faced. There is no teleologic
foresight in natural selection. It can only deal with the variants
available at the time, not some "best" variant that could possibly
exist.
Rather than continue to argue against some fantasy version of natural
selection, why don't you take your meds and argue against reality and
the meaning of natural selection that is commonly agreed upon? Do you
really think you are so brilliant that you understand natural selection
better than *everyone else* in the whole wide world? Especially since
you do recognize that your definition of natural selection is different
from everybody else's.
All I see is a net loon who is trying to invent a completely bogus
nonsensical definition of natural selection so that he can argue
against his own bogus nonsensical invention. It is really easy to find
a definition so ignorant and such a bogus strawman that even an idiot
could argue against it. But I guess that is the best you can do.
> regards,
> Mohammad Nor Syamsu
.
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