Re: The Paradox of Speciation



AC wrote:
On Sat, 1 Dec 2007 23:08:54 -0800 (PST),
treusdrie@xxxxxxxxx <treusdrie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
treusdrie@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

John Harshman wrote:

treusdrie@xxxxxxxxx wrote:


John Harshman wrote:


treusdrie@xxxxxxxxx wrote:



Sorry, no. Small changes that don't significantly reduce reproductive
compatibility can build up over time into big changes that do.


And when the big change finally manifests itself, it will be selected
against in favor of reproductive continuity.


That's silly. The big chanage doesn't finally manifest itself. It creeps
up little by little, each change a small one. Never is the previous
generation all that different from the next generation.


That's a distinction without a difference. The selection pressures
remain.

Only if (and even assuming your scenario) there is never an advantage
from some new trait that is not greater than the amount of decreased
interfertility it hypothetically also causes.

Okay. However, when the variable of backward compatibility of the
reproductive system is isolated for, the net effect is as described,
i.e. the selective advantage goes to greater compatibility, and
speciation (i.e. backward incompatibility) is an unadaptive trait as
far as the physiology of reproduction per se (all else being equal) is
concerned.

You have a rather long-winded way of saying simple things. But yes,
considered in absolute isolation from anything else, reproductive
compatibility is an advantage, and incompatibility is a disadvantage.
The point is that you can't consider it in isolation.


Of course you can. The adaptiveness of different structures and
functions are differentiated to a significant extent.

At any rate, your scenario assumes that the environment never changes,
either between allopatric populations or between ancestors and
descendants. Why would you assume that?


As has been
asked of you already, who was the first person to speak French? And how
did he manage to communicate when everyone else was speaking Latin?


It's irrelevant. French is the product of intelligent design, not
natural process.

Hardly. Who designed French? The evolution of languages is in many ways
an excellent analogy to biological evolution, including the feature I
was making use of, gradual and nearly imperceptible transformation that
adds up to mutual incomprehensibilit/infertility.

The literate class of the French speaking region had a significant and
intentional influence. Your example does not apply to this issue.

Rather than argue this point, let me switch to any other language. Just
to be safe, how about a language that had no "literate class" until
quite recently, like Cherokee?

They had an equivalent tradition in the spoken medium.

Are you saying, for instance, the sound changes contained in Grimm's Law were in
fact consciously, intelligently selected for? Are you saying that at some
point in the past when Proto-Indo-European, one group decided to pronounce
the number ten "sentum" while another went "centum"?

Was Cherokee a product of intelligent
design?

Yes.

Could you define the precise agency involved in intelligently designing a
language? For instance, let's talk about the evolution of the German
languages. Who decided on the sound shifts?


Who was the first person to speak Cherokee,

Give me a definition of what you mean by Cherokee that differentiates
it from all other closely related but distinct languages.

Isn't that the crux of the problem, and the very point trying to be made.


and how did he
manage to communicate when everyone else was speaking proto-Cherokee, or
whatever language preceded it?

By being somewhat long-winded.

What a silly reply.

--
Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxx

fnor

I was going to get into the Elizabethian era in the develpoment of
English, but I'm ready to conceed this absurdist side-argument about
the development of languages. Sorry.

.

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