Re: talk.origins faq Hitler claim part 3

hersheyh@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> > Whatever.
> >
> > I must be some kind of magician, because I can well directly observe
> > that blackwingcolor of moths on black trees facillitates reproduction
> > through camouflage from preying birds. You can't.
>
> What you can do is indeed to directly observe a correlation between
> black wing color of moths/ black background coloration/ and
> *differential* reproduction *relative* to reproduction of white moths
> on this background.

No Sir, not compared to non-existant white moths. I can see it when it
goes from the green of the leaves, to the black of the bask of the
tree, that on the bask of the tree it is camouflaged from preying
birds, resting.

> You may suspect that the camouflage of being black
> on a black background is beneficial based on prior knowledge (of the
> role of camouflage and predation), but to actually demonstrate that the
> black wing color *facillitates* reproduction (i.e., increases it beyond
> what would exist in the absence of the black wing color), you do have
> to do the comparative analysis. If all you had were black winged
> moths, you could not demonstrate that *that particular phenotype* had
> any effect at all on reproductive success.

But such is mistaken, because organisms need actual resources to
reproduce. We can well see what resources organisms use for
reproduction. We can see them eat, and we don't need to imagine what
would be if they had no mouths, to observe that the eating facillitates
reproduction.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

<sniff> <sniff>

It's kind of funny, or actually more ironic then funny, in fact it's
not funny at all. (paraphrase from some movie)

> > In Paley's work it is referenced that generally all aspects of
> > organisms facillitate reproduction or survival in some way.
>
> Notice that this is a value-laden assertion in the absence of evidence.
> IOW, *you* are the one making value-laden assertions in the absence of
> evidence. *I* am the one insisting on asking the relevant question:
> "Compared to what?"

Oh of course yes it stops being value-laden once you ask the question
how much better one variant is as another...NOT

That's it, you are stumped, go sit with the rest of my victims, who's
confidence in natural selection theory has been irretrievably broken.

> > Apparently
> > this observation has become much problemized since then. (and for
> > evolution, one only needs to add to this reference the logic that
> > apparently mutation and the event of reproduction, and survival as a
> > subset to that event, shaped the organisms)
>
> This is taking words and putting them in a blender to make mental mush
> that contradicts whatever you been claiming. What is "survival as a
> subset to reproduction"? It doesn't make any sense. What do you mean
> by "shaped the organisms"? Do you mean "determines the frequency of
> different phenotypes"? And how does mutation fit in?

Yeah you don't understand because I'm a creationist. Explain yourself
Paley's reference that generally all aspects of organisms facillitate
survival or reproduction in some way. I'm sure you will take your own
word for it.

If you can't do it, am I to assume that Darwinists can't explain this
observation?

> > Your problem seems to be that you have consigned natural selection to
> > history.
>
> No. I have described how natural selection works.

You have accurately reflected the opinion of Darwinist scientists, I've
no doubt about that.

> > But the explanation for the first black moth is the same as
> > the explanation for the ones now, the black wingcolor facilliates
> > reproduction through camouflage.
>
> The explanation for the first black moth is mutation (an event that
> undoubtedly was repeated many times throughout history). The
> explanation for the change in frequency of black moths is that the
> environment changed, creating conditions that now favored the melanic
> variant whereas the previous environment disfavored the melanic
> variant.

Relative frequency, not frequency.

<snip>

> > IMO you basically admit you have
> > failed with it, when you say you can't observe natural selection, even
> > when it happens here and now.
>
> Huh? Are you mentally retarded? I have said no such thing. I have
> mathematically demonstrated, at great length, how one goes about
> determining the existence of natural selection in the here and now. It
> is, in fact, you who cannot demonstrate natural selection and have to
> simply assert that it exists and is the cause of black wings. How you
> determine that it is due to camouflage (beyond assertion) is unclear.

No you have not found natural selection, you have natural selection and
a whole lot of other things such neutral drift etc. in one mess, which
you can't distinguish one from the other in direct observation.

> > Why you are pointing out your failure
> > with some kind of pride is beyond me. One would not have these problems
> > if you just basicly defined natural selection in terms of shaping the
> > population by the event of reproduction.
>
> You mean like when I describe how natural selection leads to
> directional changes in the frequency of phenotypes over time,
> generation after generation? Funny, I thought that was indeed saying
> that natural selection shapes (change phenotype frequency) the
> population by the process of *differential* reproduction.

Your theory where beneficial variants being destroyed is included in
differential reproductive success, but excluded in natural selection,
while you say that natural selection = differential reproductive
success.

> > Like I said before, I don't agree with Ariew and Matthen's alternative
> > offered.
>
> Understandable. Since you don't even understand the parts you do like.

I understand, I am just consistently driving through the error they
found to it's logical conclusion, a moral imperative.

> > Well I'm not arguing for usefulness, I'm arguing for consistency.
>
> A foolish consistency is the hobgobblin of little minds. [Emerson] I
> guess that tells me all I need to know about the quality of your
> argument. Science, of course, is a very pragmatic discipline and
> rarely bothers with useless analysis other than to point out its
> uselessness.

But natural selection theory is largely inapplicable, that is not very
pragmatic. The pragmatist is the creationist who found that generally
each aspect of organisms facillitate reproduction or survival. If we
had only stuck with that, our knowledge of environmental interaction
would have been so much greater as it is today. Pragmatically useful
knowledge for the here and now, where Darwinists provide generally
meaningless knowledge for histories they don't really have sufficient
evidence to reconstruct.

> > If
> > you define a theory as follows:
> >
> > "this principle by which beneficial variations are preserved, and
> > injurous variations eliminated, I call natural selection" (C. Darwin,
> > Origin of Species)
> >
> > then you should include those results, and those results only in your
> > theory. So it is wrong then to say this is the same as differential
> > reproductive success, because drs includes beneficial variants being
> > destroyed.
>
> As has been pointed out several times (your memory must be a seive that
> allows useful information to flow through unimpeded and retains
> nonsense), Darwin clearly was talking about *tendancies* (at a time
> when statistics was in its infancy). That you keep making this
> disingenuous argument, taking quotes out of historical (and also
> textual) context, says more about your personal qualities than it does
> about what Darwin meant.

Tendencies again? You have before stated that benefical variants not
reproducing falls outside natural selection. There is no tendency when
you don't incorporate the other side of the chance of reproduction,
that is no reproduction.

Again, natural selection as a replacement factor is the most reasonable
interpretation of Darwin's main words. There is nothing dishonest about
such an interpretation, it is logical and reasonable, within context.

> Besides, it is chance, not drs that causes beneficial (which can only
> be determined at the population level) variants to be lost.

You are wrong. Observations of beneficial variants being lost are
included in the averages of differential reproductive success.

> You cannot
> prevent chance events from happening, whether there is natural
> selection or not. IOW, chance events occur in populations undergoing
> drs. The same extent of chance events also occur in populations not
> undergoing drs.

When "chance acts alone", there are still different rates of
reproduction, there is still differential reproductive success, which
may finally lead to some variant sweeping to fixatation. You are in
error to distinguish drs from chance. You may distinguish drs from ns,
as you obviously do in fact, by including "chance acting alone" and
"natural selection" into drs.

> > The usefulness, as by the context of "severe struggles for life", is to
> > calculate a replacement- or encroachment factor. As also in "Descent of
> > Man" natural selection is more or less stated in the beginning of the
> > book as "races or species of man encroaching on one another until some
> > finally become extinct, just as with the lower animals". The racism is
> > not the point here, the point is that Darwin's conception of natural
> > selection is a replacement-factor. That is the main theme, and he
> > meanders his way to include the rest based around that theme.
>
> Keep in mind that Darwin had no idea of Mendelian genetics when he
> wrote this, so he could not have given the modern description. Yet
> another quote taken out of context, both historical and textual.

Those things are just complicating factors. Natural selection can still
operate theoretically on single strand, a-sexual DNA reproducers.

> > So you have to calculate how many less white moths there are, due to
> > the black moths, and then you have the replacement-factor which uh..
> > number you can use to uh.. well wherever numbers are usable, you can
> > use that number, why not?
>
> I have. You don't understand the simple math. The relevant numbers
> are called "relative fitness" and "selective disadvantage". Those
> numbers are *predictive* (in the same environment).

Darwin's use of encroachment until extinction was merely metaphorical?

regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

.

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