Re: Natural selection is a false term - says Darwin in Origin Species

backspace wrote:

On Oct 9, 4:53 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

AAAS says evolution is by chance, Harshman says no.

AAAS says no such thing.


http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/051fb14fa2c1c401/#
"...n Origins Research (14(1), 1991), Mark Hartwig and Dennis Wagner
evaluate Project 2061: a major educational reform sponsored by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).... Each
type shares properties common to all life, and yet each is different,
as a consequence of millions of years of CHANCE EVOLUTIONARY
EVENTS ...."

The particular sort of chance events this is referring to is mutation.
Mutations are indeed random. Natural selection is not random, however.
Saying that there are chance evolutionary events is not the same as
saying that all evolution is random.

I am gaining some sympathy for your caution about meanings, since it
seems that you are incapable of determining the meanings of things you
read. But you should understand that there are many other people who
don't have this problem. You are projecting your personal incapacity
onto the world at large.

Some say random
natural selection, others non-random natural selection - or in other
words 'directed' natural selection. And when I asked Harshman who did
the directing the selection force perhaps, he said no, nobody did any
directing. In other words he has no intent, motive or will with non-
random, because a synonym for non-random is "directed". That is what
non-random means.

This is again nonsense. Whether natural selection is "directed" depends
on your, umm, pragmatics with "directed".

"non-random natural selection" is your term - you figure out your
pragmatics, I can't do it for you. The synonym for
non-random is "directed" - do you wish to dispute this? And if it is
directed I want to know who did the directing.

Here you are confusing your pragmatics with my pragmatics. I know what I
mean. I don't know what you mean, though you seem to have explained it
here, and I appear to have guessed right below.

I take you to mean that it's a
process overseen by an intelligent entity or force with its own
conscious goals. If you mean something else, say so.

You are begging the question - NS is the term under dispute.

So, apparently, is "directed". In your sense of the word, natural
selection is undirected.

When the surf sorts sand particles by size, who does the
sorting?

Depends on your intent with sort. Read http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com
to understand the difference between the waves "sorting" the sand
being a pattern as opposed to a design. The intent we have with
"sorting" will either be in the "pattern" sense or the "design" sense.
The context in which it used in a sentence will make the intent clear.

If so, this is the only known case of you being able to gain meaning
from context. In the sense you appear to mean, organisms are patterns,
not designs. Natural selection is a form of sorting, in the "pattern" sense.

If by "directed" you mean to imply some intelligent agency,
there is no such agency in natural selection.

Non-random is your word not mine, I don't know what your intent is
with it, merely pointing out that the *semantics* or meaning of non-
random is *directed*. And thus I ask you to clarify your intent with
it. The same with *selection* if you read the talk archives at
Wikipedia on NS you will note the huge confusion amongst evolutionists
themselves.

You are here claiming that there are only two types of events in the
world: random and intelligently directed. I deny this ridiculous dichotomy.

But the materialist priesthood dominating the
council of Europe, public schools and universities makes language to
mean whatever they want it to mean.

This is the nature of language. It means whatever we all agree it means.

Well tell that to Chomsky he is not exactly helping your side by
stating that NS can't explain the origin of language.

This seems to be an entirely separate question that is irrelevant to the
meaning of the term "natural selection".

In 1200AD everybody agreed that *selection* or whatever the word was
for *selection* back then was a synonym
for *choice*, *preference*, *discrimination* and a goal directed
conscious *decision*.

There was no such word back then, so your point is nonexistent.

Why did the semantics of the word have to
change in 1859 ?

Didn't have to, but did anyway. People come up with new meanings for old
words all the time. Some of them enter the language, some don't. This is
no different.

There is nothing new under the sun Mr.Harshman - you
are a pantheist you believe nature is a conscious force.

Despite my constant denials that I believe any such thing? Apparently
language means nothing, since you get no information from anything I say.

We are
dealing with an ancient religion of nature worship as old as man
itself. Throughout the history of mankind there was always somebody
who worshiped a tree - why should modern man rejecting a creator not
subject to his own creation be any different? And if you are not a
pantheist then you can't use the word *selection*.

I can use any word I like. Your accusations are absurd. But there's no
point in arguing with you since you don't even read what I say.

You are the one trying to impose your personal crotchets on everyone else.

And you sir have redefined the meaning of *selection* without
motivating why the meaning or semantics that was fixed for thousands
of years suddenly had to change a 150 years ago.

Nothing was fixed for thousands of years. You are a nut. The English
language has not existed for thousands of years, let alone the word
"selection", which was first attested in 1646. Words are constantly
changing meaning in all languages. God has nothing to do with it.

What was so profound
150 years ago that we actually had to make the word *selection*
undefined? As a result of this language terrorism we had two world
wars. Two world wars because YEC, atheists and pantheists believed in
something which like triangular circles can't possibly exist: Natural
Selection. Is natural selection and the Theory of Evolution Godless?
No, because neither exists and something which doesn't exist can't be
Godless.

Please present some evidence that the term "natural selection" caused
two world wars.

Here you gave us sort of your personal definition of Natural
Selection: HarshmanPragmatics
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/9dcb8542a766e33b/aafde145140fc70f#aafde145140fc70f

"...Natural selection is merely the result of all the various
influences present in the environment...."

That's not a definition, merely an observation.

You do realize that this sentence is unfalsifiable? There always was
and always will be influences in the environment. No matter what
happens you would tell us the exact same thing. What has influences in
the environment got to do with anybody making a goal directed
*choice*, *selection* or *decision*?

Nothing. That's because natural selection does not involve a goal
directed choice, selection, or decision. You are becoming increasingly
incoherent, and you weren't all that coherent to begin with.

Coinage of term "natural selection" was by analogy with the ordinary,
prior meaning of the term "selection". Prior meaning did involve
conscious choice by an intelligent agent. The new meaning did not. The
new meaning is different from the old meaning (which is still with us --
context tells us which meaning is intended, and in fact the word
"natural" is sufficient context). This is something that happens all the
time in all languages. There's nothing wrong with it, and it seldom
causes world wars. (Never, to my knowledge.)

.

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