Re: talk.origins faq Hitler claim part 3

nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> hersheyh@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > > 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, then, are *comparing* the reproductive success of black moths on
> > black tree trunks versus their success on green leaves. What you will
> > learn from this is that black moths are more successful in one niche
> > than in another. You will learn something about the constraints on
> > where black moths can successfully live. That is NOT ns by *any*
> > definition of ns.
> >
> > Because you are not God, but merely a foolish and ignorant person (as
> > am I), you do not get to redefine terms as you wish. You have to live
> > with the definitions that have been agreed upon. Sometimes that means
> > knowing what scholars mean by a term and how that differs from
> > vernacular or common-useage meanings. The word "theory", for example,
> > has a different meaning in science than it does in common-useage. But
> > your understanding of "natural selection" is sui generis; it is
> > divorced from *any* understanding of the term, whether common-useage or
> > professional.
>
> As before I already explained my use of selection with shaping of a
> studentpopulation by aptitude in biology. All students may have exactly
> the same aptitude, all may pass the test, yet still selection has taken
> place, something which is impossible in natural selection the way you
> define it.

*If* you have a population which has no variance in any relvant
features (*all* the students are absolutely the same wrt aptitude and
capacity) then there is nothing about the *students* that determines
their fate. The stochastic probability of any student getting any
particular grade *in a specified environment* is identical. Under
these conditions, there can be nothing that can be called natural
selection. There is certainly nothing that causally and differentially
affects the student's grade *in a (single, one) specified environment*.
The only thing that determines the fate of a student *in a specified
environment* under the condition that the students are phenotypically
identical in all relevant features is chance and chance alone.

That means that the population is subject to neutral drift, but there
is nothing that can be defined as natural selection "shaping" or
changing frequuencies in the population, because there is nothing in
the population to be shaped or changed. Your initial assumption is
that there is nothing in the population that varies. The only thing
working in this case is selectively neutral drift.

> The original artificial selection of which natural selection derives,
> also has breeders selecting every last one offspring for reproduction,
> or selecting none for reproduction, as the case may be, which is also
> impossible in natural selection the way you define it.

What makes you think that either artificial or natural selection
*requires* all or nothing selection rather than a stochastic
probability (or tendancy or preference to use the pre-statistics
terms)? This is as ignorant as assuming that natural selection can
occur in a population with no phenotypic variation. Since you are both
claiming that natural selection (as understood by science) can occur in
the absence of *any* variation in the population being selected and
claiming that selection is all or nothing (based on the absence of any
variation), and claiming that selection works to shape the non-existant
variation in the population, you have three strikes against you right
at the start.

> You have no case, selection may occur individually, by common language
> also. The added criterium to select the "best" is what leads to your
> confusion.

Open your bloody stupid ears, you ignorant ...! I have been explicitly
and *repeatedly* NOT using the term "best" and have given you many
reasons why I don't use it. And here you come back with this bloody
ignorant and brain-dead opinion that I have been adding the criteria
(this is the correct term) of "best" despite my repeated statements. I
don't seem to be the one who is confused and incapable of listening
here. You seem to be deaf to anything anyone *actually* says,
prefering to keep the council of your own inner demons and voices.

> The best then simply becomes a selective factor against the
> others, it is a complicating factor, but not the basic meaning of
> selection.
>
> Of course someone who groteskly perverts the meaning of choice,
> selfish, and a whole lot of words besides, is nobody to talk about
> defining words in a way which is not confusing.

Where have I perverted the meaning of choice, selfish, and other words?
Isn't choice a matter of differentially (not necessarily
intelligently) picking one *feature* over another? Who says that the
chooser or choosing agency has to be an intelligent agent other than
the fact that most people use the term wrt human choice? Isn't a
selective choice made by a sieve wrt which type of objects get
retained? Isn't it a selective choice when made by E. coli when it
differentially prefers glucose to arabinose (which is a simple
consequence of biochemical structures and feedback mechanisms)? Now
that useage may seem strange to someone who only thinks of choices made
by people. But it is hardly as strange as someone who claims that
*natural selection* occurs even when there is no variation at all in a
population of organisms. That is because one of the necessary (but not
sufficient) conditions for there to be natural selection is *variation*
in a population. Right from the beginning use of the term by Darwin.
No *variation*, no *natural selection*.

> > > 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
> >
> > If you are *comparing* the relative fate of black-winged moths on black
> > trunks versus green leaves, you are doing a comparative analysis that
> > can determine that these moths do better on black trunks. You cannot
> > (because there is no variation) claim that you have *evidence* that the
> > reason that they do better on the black trunks is *because of* their
> > black coloration. You have not tested whether coloration makes a
> > difference because there is no organismal coloration variable. You
> > have only tested and discovered that the background coloration makes a
> > difference. This is science 101.
>
> As before, actual resources, going into reproducing actual new
> organisms. I can't believe we are even discussing if we should compare
> mouthed with non-mouthed before we can ascertain if a mouth
> facillitates reproduction.

A very large number of organisms reproduce without having a "mouth" of
any sort, including a number of large multicellular organisms (think
plants and fungi and the deepsea 'worms' near hydrothermal vents) as
well as most unicellular organisms. And, of course, there are
organisms with mouths who do not use them for feeding, much less
reproduction (think adult mayflies). So, yes, I agree that many times
we have enough background knowledge from *previous* scientific studies
to know what features are likely to be important. But you cannot
demonstrate that black coloration, in particular, is the reason for
greater reproductive success in one environment relative to a different
environment without there being any variation in coloration in the
population. You can demonstrate that the organism, which *only* has
black coloration reproduces better when in one environment (black tree
trunks) than another (green leaves). That tells you something about
the environmental niche this organism will be successful in.

But the differential effects of two or more *different environments* on
an invariant population is NOT *natural selection*. There is no way
that the invariant population (all black) can be shaped by its
environment because there is no variation in the population to be
shaped. You cannot *significantly and differentially* affect the
reproduction of members of a population that are all identical. The
stochastic fate (probability of reproductive success) of all its
members is statistically identical. The only possible influence on
such a population is chance. There is no variation *within the
population of organisms* upon which *a* (single, one) specified
environment can *differentially* exert an effect.

> > Now I certainly agree, based on past knowledge about the role of
> > predation in reproductive success and the role of camoflauge in
> > reducing predation, that you would have a reasonable *hypothesis* that
> > the moth's coloration matching the background is probably the reason
> > for the relative success of black moths on black backgrounds as opposed
> > to green backgrounds. But you have not presented any *evidence* that
> > the moth's coloration (that is one variable) makes a difference in this
> > case. You have only presented evidence that the moth's background
> > (that is another variable) makes a difference.
>
> It makes a difference that it is not seen by preying birds on the black
> background.

But that only tells us what kinds of *environments* these moths
differentially reproduce. It does not tell us what kinds of moths do
well in a specified environment. You need the latter to have natural
selection. You *must have* variation in the population for there to be
natural selection in *a* (single, specified) environment. Variation in
the population is a *necessary* condition for there to be natural
selection. That is how the term natural seleciton has been defined
right from the beginning. Natural selection is not about what effect
different *environments* have on organisms, useful though that is. It
is about the effects a specified environment has on different variants
within a population of organisms.

> > But what does this have to do with natural selection, even by your
> > definition? If there is no variation in the organism, how can you
> > determine that natural selection "shapes" the organism? Rather, all
> > you seem to be doing is pointing out that there are "limits" where the
> > organism can successfully live; that they only survive in specific
> > niches. Hell, if you asked whether black moths can live next to a
> > sulfurous superheated underwater vent as opposed to gree tree leaves
> > you would find an even more extreme loss of moths in one of these
> > niches.
>
> As before, through reproduction the *form* of an organism is preserved
> over certain death. The organism does not succesfully live, you seem to
> forget that, it dies. And that is the way we should look at organisms
> in terms of natural selection. We see them in terms of the event of
> reproduction, so that we may know how the next generation is shaped.

And how can a population without variation be shaped? Natural
selection shapes populations *because* it differentially affects which
variants are more successful than others. No variants means that *a*
specific environment cannot have any differential affect and thus
cannot shape a population. Variation in the population is and always
has been a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for natural
selection, just as it has always been a necessary condition for
artificial selection.

What you are looking at is the effect of *different* environments on a
non-variant population. That is NOT natural selection. Never has
been. That is a measure of the carrying capacity of different
environments for a particular organism, how well a particular
*invariant* population works in a particular environmental niche.

> > > Oh of course yes it stops being value-laden once you ask the question
> > > how much better one variant is as another...NOT
> >
> > I can only determine that one variant is better than another in a local
> > environment. There are plenty of variants that are better in one
> > environment and the alternative is better in a different environment.
> > Take frequency-dependent selection where something as simple as the
> > frequency of alternative alleles make a difference wrt which allele is
> > better. There is not even a hint of any absolute (using the -est
> > rather than -er and not specifying the conditions) value-laden
> > terminology in ns. Only better under certain conditons, with
> > conditions changing all the time.
>
> Again you have replaced simple reproduction, with being better then the
> other, as the fundamental criterium in natural selection.

Well, duh. Again, variation in the population is and always has been a
necessary criteria for natural selection.

> A fundamental
> criterium of being better then, does much imply a moral imperative
> eventhough it is weird for organisms yes. As before it implies it of
> rocks, when rocks are said to struggle rolling down the hill the
> furthest, and the one's rolling down the hill most far are said to be
> the best.

Except that the shape of the hill, in the case of natural selection,
can change, either suddenly or slowly over time. By your strange
logic, you would be claiming that the rock furthest down a hill is
*morally* superior to a rock that has not rolled as far, even if it is
nestled in nice little local niche. Thus, by your strange logic,
gravity is a moral force and friction and inertia are forces for moral
depravity preventing the morally superior position for rocks (which is
on the bottom in the missionary position). And you complain about my
use of metaphor?

> > > 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.
> >
> > You have no argument. You are irredemably confused and in a state of
> > negative knowledge (what you think you know ain't so). You are
> > desperately trying to redefine what ns selection is so that you can
> > argue against a strawman.
>
> I support my alternative definition, there is no strawman. It is
> natural selection when a partly maladapted organism reproduces, the
> form is preserved through reproduction over certain death.

What the hell is this supposed to mean? Natural selection's properties
can only be stochastic in nature and measureable and defineable only as
a population value. The reproduction of any single individual, whether
partly maladapted or not, can only be assigned a probability of
occurance. You are confusing population level and individual level
again, a point which A & M warned people about.

> > You have failed even to understand the
> > basics of scientific experimentation (you need variables in order to
> > test a hypothesis) and cannot even keep your own mental mush straight.
> > Pathetic. Yet you arrogantly think you have broken someone's
> > (anyone's?) confidence in ns theory.
>
> Yes, I well know a person can't really stand a mental blow of having
> pointed out a fault that comparing variants and saying one is better as
> another makes the theory less value-laden.

I don't regard the direction toward which selection works (toward local
adaptation) as having any value or goal other than continued
reproductive success (which is simply a necessary condition for there
to continue to be life).
>
[snip]

> Science has more then it's share of lunatics, and it is kind of an
> occupational hazard.

It is even more of a hazard among religious zealots.

> I remember reading Einstein admitted he nearly
> drove himself insane in thinking up relativity. Knowing that there is
> much lunacy in people, and that science tends to increase it, it
> becomes all the more urgent to insist on standards in formulating
> theory.

Science, indeed does have standards in formulating theory. Theory must
agree with the (vast majority of) available evidence.

> That it is abstracted, systematic. That we can see at a glance
> the logical structure of it, so that we may distinguish it from the
> lunacy of the scientists.

That is indeed what science does and require. Which is why scientists
don't listen to netloons like you who talk about natural selection in
the absence of one of the necessary conditions for there to be ns
(variation in the population, *a* specified environment), or listen to
the other ignorant religious zealots who poof their ideas out of thin
air rather than by well-designed experiment and observation.

> I can't say that your assertions of a
> purposeless, dumb, natural selection choosing which is better, is up to
> standard of an abstracted formalized scientific theory. I can't see the
> logical structure of such meanderings at a glance.

Science requires intelligence. I have specified the necessary
conditions under which ns can be tested to determine whether it occurs.
You ignore these and try to redefine ns so that you do not need to
have variation in the population and instead look at reproductive
success in different environments. That is not and never has been ns.

> I would like to
> actually observe natural selection directly, know if or not when the
> theory applies, and when some other theory such as neutral drift
> applies.

I have done that. The requirements for both neutral drift and
selection are the same: Variation within a population. A specified
environment. The difference is that neutral variation is smaller and
not causally related to the variation whereas ns is significantly
larger and is causally related to the variation *within the
population*. Not variation in environments, but phenotypic (and for
evolution, the phenotypic variation must be related to genotype)
variation in the population. That is and always has been the way that
ns has been defined. The *variable* is variation within the population
and analysis of the way a specific environment affects that variation:
either significantly and differentially or non-significantly and
randomly.

> That is just a matter of organizing knowledge systematically,
> so that this observation falls under that theory, the other observation
> under another theory, etc.

Done. Long before you were born. And even longer before you tried to
redefine ns so that it doesn't involve variation within a population
but instead involves something you have yet been able to describe.

> By systemizing Dawkins' selfishness hypothesis, it is shown that he
> illegitemately posits altruism vs selfishness as some kind of good vs
> evil hypothesis.

You may have done that. All Dawkins did was claim that reproductive
success is the only "natural" goal that all life shares. I agree
*because* reproductive success is actually part of what distinguishes
life from non-life.

> In nature, besides altruism and selfishness, we find
> also mutual benefit, mutal destruction, and aid without loss, and
> destruction without gain, and relationships that doesn't effect
> survival at all.

Yes?

> These are all relationships that are in the same
> category as selfishness and altruism, they describe relationships
> between organisms in terms of the effect on chances of survival. Yet
> Dawkins omits them for the obvious reason to reinforce the value-laden
> nature of the words selfish and altruism, which words he uses in a
> moral context as well, denoting selfish as bad, and altruism as good.

Have you read Dawkins? I ask because your comments above indicate that
you understand him about as well as you understand everything else.
Namely if it isn't filtered through the voices in your mind, it isn't
true. My understanding of Dawkins would be that 'selfish' wrt genes is
good, and self-sacrifice (altruism) is generally bad (unless you save
more than two siblings or more than four cousins ;-)).

> > > 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.
> >
> > I have no doubt that many (but not all) aspects (and certainly the most
> > fundamental aspects) of organisms evolved to and are retained because
> > [they] facillitate survival and reproduction. That is what Darwin
> > proposed *as the mechanism* to explain why organisms are generally
> > well-adapted to local conditions. He called that mechanism natural
> > selection.
>
> In Paley's work there is already the basic logic of natural selection
> (which logic he rejected) since the logic was already prevalent at the
> time.

Too bad for Paley. If he hadn't rejected it, he might be more than a
long running joke.

> To this basic logic Darwin added the logic of competitive
> encroachment.

Huh? Any evidence of this?

> But what then happened was that Darwinists replaced
> competitive encroachment with the basic logic of selection. The basic
> criterium of survival for what organisms are produced, became in stead
> survival of the fittest. So the organisms were not shaped anymore in
> terms of the event of survival, they were shaped in terms of being
> better than other organisms, fitter.

And how, other than differential survival, is being fitter determined?

> Having lost the basic meaning of
> selection, consequently Darwinists became lost in a tautology. And
> after going round the circular logic a few hundred times, the social
> darwinist finds the escape from this circle in equating fitness with a
> moral goodness.


You really do live in a historical fantasy world. None of the above is
historically true.

> Is it not true then, that all organisms die, and that the shape of the
> next generation, if any, depends on which organisms reproduce?

Yes. But there can only be the possibility of change if there is
variation within the population. No variation, no change in the shape
of the next generation.

> Is it
> not true that when a partially maladapted organism reproduces, nature
> selects a maladapted organism for reproduction? And when a well adapted
> organism does not reproduce, is it not true that nature selects against
> such well adapted organism?

Selection is stochastic. A maladapted organisms *means* that its
probability of reproducing is *lower than* the probability of a
well-adapted organism. At the individual level, that means that some
(but fewer) maladapted organisms will reproduce and some (but fewer)
well-adapted organisms will not. That is, there will be significant
*differential* reproduction *favoring* the reproduction of the
well-adapted. You are again confused and trying to use a population
level measurement (a stochastic probability) at an individual level.
That is your ignorance, not that of biologists.

> You see I can directly observe using my formulation of natural
> selection, no problem.

All you have observed is two individuals whose fate ran counter to the
stochastic probabilities for such organisms. At the level of the
population, you must find (in a specified environment) that the
well-adapted organism will be significantly and differentially favored
over the maladapted, or you could not have assigned them these
descriptives.

> > Paley's mechanism, that these features were poofed into
> > existence by some supernatural agent, is not science and is a denial
> > that natural selection occurs. Generally it also denies the existence
> > of any mutation that could be beneficial in any circumstance, since
> > doing so would deny the design of the designer. Antibiotic resistance
> > and pesticide resistance demonstrate that natural selection arising by
> > variants produced by mutation simply means that Paley's view of the
> > invariance of species over time is wrong.
>
> There is no mention of poofing in Paley's work, as far as I know. He
> mentions as objection to "natural selection" that the species fall into
> classes, and generea etc. It is of course basically correct to say the
> classes of organisms were predetermined from a point far, far in the
> past. A decision falling at the beginning of the universe perhaps. A
> blind, unpurposeful decision, even though from that point on, it was
> relatively certain that classes of such organisms would appear on the
> earth, which was already relatively certain to appear from a decision
> prior, perhaps.

Clean the above up; it is all very vague. How did Paley define natural
selection? Cite the book and page as well as his exact wording. If
his definition was different from that of Darwin, here is your chance
to prove it. And exactly how does his claim that species fall into
classes, etc. argue against what *he* defines as ns?

> > > If you can't do it, am I to assume that Darwinists can't explain this
> > > observation?
> >
> > You mean that you really thought that Darwinian evolution by natural
> > selection could not explain the fact that most organisms are
> > well-adapted to local conditons? Bizarre.
>
> Your inability to describe an organism in view of the event of it's
> reproduction, without comparing to variants, leads me to believe that.

So clarify what *you* mean by ns. I have specified the necessary
conditions for what I mean by ns, namely variation in a population and
a specified local environment and what other observations (significant
differential reproductive success of different variants in the
population) are needed for there to be ns as I define it. My
definition of ns has, as the variable, the phenotypic variance in the
population.

To the extent that I can understand what you mean by ns, there does not
need to be any variance in the population and the variance is in the
environments. And somehow it involves only looking at individuals
rather than populations. Beyond that I have no idea what you mean by
ns.

Most ns, of course, is conservative. It is noticed every time a
deleterious variant phenotype dies or fails to reproduce. This is a
consequence of the relative slowness with which environments change and
the rarity of changes in a population that provide benefit beyond
current variants.

> > > Relative frequency, not frequency.
> >
> > All frequency (fraction of the total population) is relative (a
> > fraction of a total is always affected by the numbers of the
> > alternative possibilites). Add "frequency" to the list of terms you
> > don't understand. How can we discuss population terms with someone who
> > doesn't even know the meaning of "frequency" yet arrogantly thinks he
> > understands ns better than generations of people who actually studied
> > it? At least discuss it intelligently.
>
> That you reconstruct all terms into relative meaning, because of your
> reliance on comparison, doesn't mean that such is the appropiate use.
> Frequency just commonly refers to how many of them there are.

Yes. A fraction of the total to be precise. But when something is a
fraction of a total, its value is relative to the number in the total.
Not everything is relative. But anything that is a fraction of a total
is relative. And a stochastic probability is a fraction of a total. I
can't help it that these are values that are population values that
depend on relationship (between the number in a category and a total
number) and is, thus, relative. This merely points out how utterly
ignorant of science and even basic math you are.

> Why am I talking to someone who proposes that is is impossible to know
> a mouth contributes to reproduction, unless one compares with an
> organism which has no mouth.

I certainly know that a mouth is important for success for some
organisms. I know this from background knowledge. But if all
organisms in a population have mouths, there cannot be any natural
selection occurring wrt mouths, since one of the necessary conditions
for ns is that there be variation in the population. It is your novel
(to say the least) re-definition of ns so that one does not need
variation in a population that is of interest here. You are, to
repeat, not looking at variation in a population nor any genetic
changes in a population. You are looking at relative reproduction in
different environments, *controlling for* variation in the population.
That is NOT natural selection as it has been defined by anyone. That
is why your definition is idiosyncratic and private and not any sort of
valid definition that has any historical relationship to what anybody
that I know of calls ns.

> > > 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.
> >
> > I have said, and all your readings also, that ns is a *population*
> > measure. It is not applicable to individual cases.
>
> And yet originally it is individual traits that you seek to explain.

On a population level, not on an individual level.

> Now apparently we can suffice with the population black wing trait, as
> a proportionial trait of a population.

Except there is no variation in wing color in your examples. As far as
I can tell the proportion of black wing trait is 100%. The only
feature that varies in your description is the environment.

> It becomes very clear why you
> can't see how organisms reproduce, it is because you don't look at
> individuals.

Individual fates are only important to the extent that, cumulatively,
they produce the population values such as fraction of the total with
trait A that successfully reproduce relative to the fraction of the
total with trait B that successfully reproduce.

> > At the
> > *population* level, I have explicitly pointed out how one can, in fact,
> > distinguish ns from drift. It is done by virtue of determining that
> > the observed variation is too great to be by chance alone. This also
> > determines the direction of ns and how strong it is. But, just as
> > knowing that an honest die has a 1/6 probability of producing a one
> > does not mean that you can predict, with certainty, that a one will
> > arise in a particular roll of the die, so too you cannot determine, *at
> > the individual level*, whether a particular individual loss is due to
> > selection or chance (except of course that, if you have determined that
> > one trait is favorable at the population level, it cannot be lost *by
> > selection* at the individual level; losses of that trait must, by
> > definition, be due to chance, since benefit means less loss). It
> > really is only the losses of detrimental traits where you cannot
> > distinguish, at the individual level, whether that loss is due to
> > selection or chance, since both are producing the same effect, loss.
>
> But you are mistaken because it is not solely due to blackwingcolor
> that a black moth reproduces.

Of course. Which is why other traits need to be randomized or
controlled so that we can look at the effect of black wing color
independently of other phenotypic factors. However, if all the wings
are black, then wing color is not a variable and we cannot learn
anything about the effect of wing color in a specific environment.

> You may only attribute selection to a
> case of a beneficial variant reproducing, in so far as the reproduction
> was caused by the advantage.

And that there is a beneficial variant is only determinable at the
population level, not at the individual level. And there can only be a
"beneficial" variant if there are more than a single phenotype in the
population; i.e. that there are more than one variant. Again, you seem
to be saying that there can be a beneficial variant even if there is
only one phenotype. You cannot have beneficial unless you also have
something to compare it to.

> The rest is chance, by the same standards
> that you exclude the injurous reproducing from selection as a matter of
> chance,

Anyone who could read this in what I said, which is a bizarre twisting,
is clearly only hearing the imaginary voices in his head. At the level
of any individual, one can only say that an individual with phenotype x
has y probability of reproducing. Words like "exclude" imply an
absolute difference rather than a stochastic probability.

> because the injurous is presumably the same as the beneficial,
> except for the differing advantage.

An individual with a trait that has been determined to be (relative to
another trait) deleterious (or beneficial) is just as likely to be
struck by lightning as an individual with the other trait. That is,
losses due to 'being struck by lightning' are chance losses wrt the
traits. OTOH, losses that *selectively* and *differentially* and
*significantly* occur to individuals with the trait that is deleterious
are due to selection. At the individual level, it usually is not
possible to partition out the *differential* effect of selection on a
deleterious individual from the effects of chance losses alone. Losses
are losses. At the population level, however, it is easy to partition
the effects of chance alone and selection.

But your definition of ns does not include populations that have
variation in phenotype or does not compare phenotypes when there is
such. Variation in a population is not what your definition of ns is
about, as far as I can tell.

> So when you exclude the injurous
> whole, by same standards you must also exclude that part of the
> beneficial in so far as it is the same as the injurous.

I never excluded the injurious whole. NS, as it has been understood
ever since the term was invented, AFAIK, involves variation in a
*population* and no variation in environment (selection is controlled
for environmental factors by specifying that we are dealing with a
specified environment). So you should be, according to your private
and idiosyncratic definition, unconcerned about differences in
phenotype in a population.

> But it is of course not chance, because most of the rest of the
> organism facillitates reproduction as well, causing the reproduction.
> It is just that the same attributes gives an equal chance, normally.
> Again, you would do better to consider actual numbers in stead of
> relative numbers.
>
> > > 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.
> >
> > Why would I expect someone who doesn't even understand the term
> > frequency to understand that? Let's be simple (anyone who cannot
> > understand what frequency means needs to start from a simple place).
> > Start with a monthly paycheck of $5000 for both Wilma (W) and Brenda
> > (B). This is like the case where we start with equal numbers of
> > fertilized eggs from black (B) and white (W) moths (we will ignore
> > diploidy). At the end of the month, both W and B will have spent money
> > for rent, food, heating, travel, etc. In some of these variables they
> > will spend amounts that are insignificantly different from each other.
> > In others, because of local conditions (B lives within walking distance
> > of work, whereas W lives in an outer suburb), the amounts each spends
> > may be significantly different. At the end of the month, W has $100
> > and B has $1000 left over for the future. Money was being spent
> > throughout the month. But there is a differential amount of money left
> > over for the future. B was *differentially* successful with respect to
> > saving for the future. This is like the case where B moths are
> > *differentially* successful in contributing their genes to the future,
> > despite the fact that *most* of the fertilized eggs that B produced are
> > spent without contributing to the future. Note that I was able to
> > determine that there was *differential* success in saving money even
> > though $1000 is significantly less than $5000. In the same way, I can
> > determine that black moths are *differentially* successful in
> > contributing its genes to the future even though most of the fertilized
> > eggs of the black moth are "used up" and "spent" without contributing
> > to the future.
> >
> > Obviously, my next step would be determing precisely which
> > environmental factors led to this *differential* success and how they
> > did so.
>
> Your next step of determining precisely is by your own words impossible
> within the context of natural selection. You have to step outside of
> your theory for that, since you don' know when it comes to individual
> observations.

I would know that there is some environmental cause for the difference
in the effects and could design experiments that showed which it was.
I would have no reason to do so if both W & B wound up with $100 at the
end of the month. However, in this case, because I was dealing with two
individuals rather than a randomized population, I would have to
consider the possibility of two variables affecting the results in such
a way as to balance out.

> > > I understand, I am just consistently driving through the error they
> > > found to it's logical conclusion, a moral imperative.
> >
> > Nope. You don't understand what they said because you are reading it
> > through the Waring blender of your mind, consistently adding in your
> > own errors to reach an illogical conclusion.
>
> Ah, you and they are simply dishonest to acknowledge that a value-laden
> goal may lead to a moral imperative.

Again, the only "goal" that organisms consistently have in common
relative to nonliving features of our envioronment, is the drive to
reproduce. Thus the only things that are considered "good" in these
terms are features that increase the probability of reproducing. If
you consider that to be a "value-laden goal", please present your
argument that reproduction is not "good" from a strictly biological
perspective.

This does not mean that human societies need consider this 'goal'
(reproductive success in a local environment) as the only 'goal' worthy
of attainment or the only imperative one should consider. But you have
to make the case that, from a strictly biological perspective,
reproductive success is not the goal of organisms. I don't have to
make the case that it should be a moral imperative wrt human societies,
because I am not talking about morality in human societies. I am
talking about biology only.

> Lying is what it is, there's no
> other word for it. Even when there is a truckload of Darwinist racist
> pseudoscience, from some of the most influential Darwinist scientists,
> you bluntly deny any relation at all to a moral imperative.

I simply fail to understand what you think ns is. You have proposed a
ns that has no variation in a population and that varies environments
instead. That is not ns. Never was.

> The errors
> are mostly on the part of Darwinist science, much as they whine about
> being misunderstood. We can justifiably say they share responsibility
> for the Columbine massacre, where a confused highschool student, who's
> notebook revealed an obsession with natural selection theory, went on a
> killing rampage.

Then I can say that Christians share a responsibility for slavery,
pogroms against Jews, the crusades, autocratic kingships, and other
such atrocities, including child rape (David Koresh) and mass murder
(Jonestown) and terrorist atrocities done in the name of some God or
other. Why should I take responsibility for a mentally ill teenager
who obviously arrogantly thinks he is nature (or God) and should get to
decide who lives and dies. BTW, he was not exactly reproductively
successful, was he?

> It is science's responsibility to keep to it's own
> standard of a science free of valuejudgement. That standard includes
> that denial of values, denial of the spiritual as affecting the
> material, is out of bounds. You forget this when you assert
> purposelesness as some kind of scientific fact of nature.

Who is insisting that science come up with conclusions that suit his
sense of morality (rather than nature's)? Not me. And what makes you
think that ns is "purposeless". NS specifically aims to increase
adaptation to local environmental conditions by allowing modification
of populations in the direction that increases fitness. That doesn't
sound like "purposelessness" to me. Why does it to you?

> And apart from the odd massacre, the number of people who become
> somewhat depressed upon reading Darwinism and have some spiritual
> crisis, is rather large. It's a common theme in Hollywood movies how
> depressing Darwinism makes everything seem. A review of Dawkins book by
> a reader that attests to the scientific accuracy of Dawkins
> pseudoscientific hypothesis of selfishness, but nevertheless complains
> of a spiritual crisis on account of the book, get's about 200+
> supporting votes. The phenomenon of the encroachment of science into
> the domain of religion is a real and broad, and the people responsible
> are generally the darwinists.

I thought your complaint was that science was value-laden? Seems to me
your complaint really is that science does not produce the values you
want it to; that science does not produce the uplifting cries of "God
exists is valid science", "This is the best of all possible worlds", or
whatever else you think that it should produce.

Sorry that science does not produce the results you want. It doesn't
do so because it is firmly rooted in reality as opposed to fantasy.

> Thank you for allowing me to believe that God exists. But now I wish
> still further to believe that God may if he so pleases turn out any
> decision of people, or any decision falling in nature, the way he sees
> fit. It would not be appropiate here to make ignorant argument about if
> or not it denies free will when God can influence the way a decision
> turns out. Your role here is as a scientist. And by that you simply
> have to drop your assertions of purposelesness someplace, which
> assertions belong to atheism.

I make no assertion of "purposelessness" anywhere. Quite the opposite.
NS is the very antithesis of "purposelessness". The goal it tries to
reach, however, is purely local and is not an ultimate or final goal.
And the process involves death and loss (differentially, of course, in
the case of ns, but non-differentially in the case of neutrality) all
the way down.

> > > 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.
> >
> > So does natural selection. In fact, unlike creationism, whose
> > mechanism of generating these aspects is magic and instantaneous
> > poofing, ns *is* an observable and testable mechanism that *will*
> > necessarily *produce* organisms well adapted to local conditions. If
> > creationism were true, then organisms would be unable to adapt to
> > changes in local conditions.
>
> You mean unobservable because it is in the past, and because you can't
> observe individuals directly with it.

NS is observable today. Magical poofing of organisms into existence is
not observable today. NS also produces observable effects in the
present if it occurred in the past. So does neutral drift. These are
observed. OTOH, magical poofing has nothing that can be predicted.

> > > 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.
> >
> > Pure fantasy. Creationism has *no* mechanism (not even an invalid
> > one); it relies on magical poofing. Both creationism and a biota
> > produced by natural selection would be equally likely to be
> > well-adapted to local conditions. But creationism cannot explain
> > adaptation to *changed* conditions (except by saying that God would
> > cause one species to cease to exist and poof a modified one into
> > existence), whereas natural selection can. Creationism cannot explain
> > the role of historical constraint, given the omnipotent powers of its
> > creator. It cannot explain why pigs don't fly; evolution by natural
> > selection can. It cannot explain why flying mammals still have four
> > limbs (like bats) rather than six (like pegasus); creationism can't
> > (except by reference to the inscrutable will of the creator, which is a
> > nonanswer). Creationism cannot even deny that ns, as it is defined by
> > scientists, occurs and leads to changes in the "shape" of organisms.
>
> All choices depend on the "mechanism" of "poofing" yes.

No. Nature also selects without poofing. Witness the activity of
sieves. If you wish to limit the use of the word "choice" to choices
made by an intelligent agent, O. K. But selection or "choice" in the
absence of intelligent agency still occurs in the real world.

> That is a
> choice is not an effect of a cause, for such would predetermine the
> outcome, and would not allow an alternative. The choice is, materially,
> of zero, ex-nihilo. Further some identity issues may be disscussed
> about choices. A choice may be hateful, or loving etc.

The above is a bizarre definition of "choice". According to it, if I
choose to eat I would have to poof the food into existence from
nothing. And do it lovingly (with the appropriate value-laden
perspective as opposed to the inappropriate one, apparently).
>
> Why don't you study some creationist literature, to understand the
> appropiate meaning of choice, in stead of your grotesk metaphor of it
> in terms of natural selection, further mangled by evolutionary
> psychologists conceiving of emotions as mechanical.

Not "grotesk" but "grotesque". And I am sorry that material reality
does not meet your expectations. I have no idea what you think a
"morally-correct" natural selection would look like, but I do know
that, using the standard definition of ns, it is a description of
material reality rather than your hand-waving fantasy signifying
nothing.

> Quite clearly the origin of the universe depends on this poofing
> mechanism that is not a mechanism.

What does natural selection, which requires life as one of the
conditions (a prerequisite to there being a population of organisms
with variation), possibly have to do with the origin of the universe?

> It is an "uncaused cause". And as
> you have learned in the passage previous, choices must be uncaused. So
> the universe comes into being by decision, and we may not doubt the
> goodness of such decision.

We have no knowledge that the universe came into being due to a
decision or a choice. For all we know, "the universe is just one of
those things that happens from time to time" (that is not my quote; I
read it in a paper on cosmology in Nature back around 1983 or so). And
what does natural selection have to do with it?

> > > 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.
> >
> > I do incorporate it. You keep forgetting that chance losses of a
> > phenotype (chance relative to other phenotypes) continue to occur even
> > when there is selection.
>
> I never forget this. At one time you include chances losses into
> natural selection by saying it is a tendency, at the other time you
> exclude them.

What I said was that, once you have determined which phenotype is
relatively beneficial *at the level of population*, you have determined
that this phenotype is selectively *retained* by cause and losses at
the individual level, thus, must be due to chance. This is no more
than saying that, because you have determined that the wind is blowing
east, you cannot then declare that it is blowing west. If the trait
selectively retained, its loss (at the level of the individual) cannot
be *said to be due* to its selective retention without the word
retention meaning both retention and loss. OTOH, if, at the population
level, a trait is determined to be selectively *lost* by cause that
does not mean that all losses of that trait need be due to selection.
Some, perhaps even the majority of losses at the level of the
individual could be losses due to chance. You cannot always determine,
at the level of the individual without further evidence, if a
particular loss is due to selection or chance. The wind blows in the
same direction in this case.

> > Both processes are going on. Chance losses
> > (losses that are independent of phenotype) cannot be prevented. For
> > many organisms, like insects, these chance losses are large in an
> > absolute sense. These organisms are r-selected. They produce large
> > numbers of progeny and place great weight on reproduction. Humans, in
> > contrast, are K-selected.
> >
> > And you are repeatedly trying to use a term that has been defined on a
> > population level as if it were meaningful at the individual level.
> > When I say that a variant that has been *determined* at the population
> > level to be 'beneficial', that means, by definition, that, to the
> > extent that selection works, it is preferentially being preserved, not
> > lost. That there is natural selection does not mean that there will be
> > no losses of that feature; it only means that the losses will be due to
> > chance and not selection. That is a matter of what the definition of
> > 'beneficial' means. In the other direction, if, at the population
> > level, a trait
>
> > > 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.
> >
> > Again I will try to be real simple. Averages are population level.
> > That is where you *determine* that there is selection and which traits
> > are beneficial. The traits that are *defined* as being beneficial are
> > being selectively and differentially maintained beyond the losses due
> > to chance. At the level of an individual, loss is always due to chance
> > or *caused by* the extra added push of having a detrimental trait. By
> > definition, a loss at the individual level cannot be *caused by* the
> > presence of a "beneficial" trait. Losses of beneficial traits will
> > occur, but the *cause* of the loss cannot be due to the beneficial
> > trait.
>
> Ah now you say it yourself, in natural selection you only see the
> effects that are due to a beneficial trait.
>
> > > Darwin's use of encroachment until extinction was merely metaphorical?
> >
> > Do you mean replacement of one trait by another? Remember that
> > selection is largely conservative, preserving traits in a species that
> > has already become well-adapted to current (and past) relatively
> > constant environments. We usually only notice ns when the
> > environmental conditions have changed. This, of course, happens quite
> > often in the case of frequency-dependent selection.
> >
> > But the question was how one goes about calculating fittness and
> > selective disadvantage. You claimed I hadn't when I had. Your comment
> > was irrelevant to the point being made. Do you or do you not think
> > that relative fitness and selective disadvantage are useful numbers
> > that are predictive in a specified environment?
>
> Relative numbers are not useful and deceptive when the population is in
> the process of going extinct, further they are deceptive / meaningless
> when one variant is diverging (it is not useful to compare apples with
> oranges). And in the end the meaningful knowledge is the relationship
> of the organism to the environment in terms of reproduction, in real
> terms, and a differing variant is just another environmental factor to
> the organism under observation.

The above is meaningless gibberish. It is the *absence* of a mechanism
of producing variation and selection in favor of variants that are
locally useful would mean that would ensure that a species would be
unable to adapt to a changed environment. A species without the
capacity to modify its genome to adapt to new conditions would
inevitably go extinct. And your definition of ns, in which there is no
variation (or need for variation) within a population, but only
adaption or not to different environments, would ensure extinction. NS
does not *ensure* that a species will not go extinct. It merely
provides a means by which it can adapt to changed environments. You,
and your idea of ns, doesn't provide a means by which a population can
be modified to adapt to changed conditions. In your world, if the
environment changed to exclude the black tree trunks, the melanic moths
would simply go extinct.

But differing variants are not "just another environmental factor".
They are, in fact, what is necessary for organisms to adapt to *a*
(single, one) specific environment. All you have done is held
organismal variation constant and looked at reproduction in different
environments. That is not natural selection and never was. It would
also ensure extinction and failure to adapt.

> regards,
> Mohammad Nor Syamsu

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Natural selection acts on the individual
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  • Re: Challenge to evolutionists
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    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Neo Darwinisms utility.
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    (talk.origins)
  • Re: talk.origins faq Hitler claim part 3
    ... > reproductive success) that inhabit these environments. ... > reproduction tries to prevent the creation of variants (but only to the ... >> proccess of natural selection in nature, Darwinists are comparitive, ... > organisms that inhabit that environment. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: talk.origins faq Hitler claim part 3
    ... >> I must be some kind of magician, because I can well directly observe ... not compared to non-existant white moths. ... > black wing color *facillitates* reproduction (i.e., ... confidence in natural selection theory has been irretrievably broken. ...
    (talk.origins)