Re: How Our Brains Ignore Unpleasant Facts was: Re: The Reasonable

On Dec 19, 8:04 pm, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Evopeach" <keaton1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:7e110e55-3f04-4a60-9e7d-17daa486edfd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx





On Dec 18, 11:49 pm, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Evopeach" <keaton1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:25f4d7b6-1df1-4e2d-9146-abfc609882fc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Dec 18, 10:25 pm, "R. Baldwin" <res0k...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Evopeach" <keaton1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:d2f8f547-ab46-4697-9c52-f91cca0b4b32@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Dec 17, 7:51 pm, John Vreeland <vreej...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:58:24 -0800 (PST), hhyaps...@xxxxxxxxx
opined:
[snip]

Two evolutionists or more can easily converse intelligently
provided
they limit the subject to drinking coolaid.

Why do you think remarks such as this are reasonable? Or are you
failing
to
hold up to your own standards of conduct?

Have you stopped to examine the fact that there are 25 posters who
send insults to me daily without a whit of intellectually honest
content...just cut and paste from the TO archives and content without
reference to same.

It does seem to me that you yourself launched into insults rather early
in
this thread. You insulted me, for example, when I had not insulted you -
and
you haven't addressed any of the substance I posted, none of which was
out
of the TO archives (most of which seem intellectually honest to me).

Yes, there are insulting posters on Usenet. That is what Usenet is like.
But
if you will go back to your original post in your thread, you indicated
you
were going to try to avoid behaving that way.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I have tried off and on for about 20 years to engage several of these
evo groups in conversatoin and I have yet to see one instance of
civility, one ounce of humility in consideration of evolutions small
place in the overall scheme of life and the universe, any semblance of
intellectual honesty, anything other than peoples feeble attempts to
play gotcha, demonstrate to their teammates how smart they are.

There are plenty of sciences to discuss and they tend to be more
mathmatical rather than semantical in nature, their tenets don't
undergo revision every few weeks, their academic presentations are
accurate, honest, up-to-date, and stick to the subject at hand.

If Newtons Laws changed constantly, were revised to cover a plethora
of exceptions based on incongrous observations, and confirming
observations could be counted on one hand...would most sane people
believe they were the end all be all and absolute fact.

Within this thread, some of your respondents were rude, and some were
polite. There has been a great deal of substance offered to you, yet I
haven't noticed you engaging in polite converstation with those posters. Do
you think that represents intellectual honesty on your part? Do you think it
is reasobable for you to be rude to everybody because some people are rude
to you?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I asked for NS to be defined:

The environment contains factors that result in differential
reproductive
success for an organism by acting on phenotype. When phenotype stems
from
genotype, the frequency of alleles in the population tends to change
from
one generation to the next.


IANA biologist but here goes:
The idea that when various inheritable traits--behavioural or
physical--are present in a population, and one or more of those
traits
enhances or retards reproductive success in the extant environment,
then
the numbers of the population with the specific trait(s) will
increase
or decrease respectively.


The process that changes allele frequencies in a population through
differential reproductive success causally correlated with genotype.



Natural selection is the process by which favorable traits that are
heritable become more common in successive generations of a population
of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable
become less common. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the
observable characteristics of an organism, such that individuals with
favorable phenotypes are more likely to survive and reproduce than
those with less favorable phenotypes. If these phenotypes have a
genetic basis, then the genotype associated with the favorable
phenotype will increase in frequency in the next generation.

The American Heritage Science Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share
This
natural selection The process by which organisms that are better
suited to their environment than others produce more offspring. As a
result of natural selection, the proportion of organisms in a species
with characteristics that are adaptive to a given environment
increases with each generation. Therefore, natural selection modifies
the originally random variation of genetic traits in a species so that
alleles that are beneficial for survival predominate, while alleles
that are not beneficial decrease.


Simply put, natural selection is a consistent difference in survival
and reproduction between different genotypes, or even different genes,
in what we could call reproductive success. [A genotype is a group of
organisms sharing a specific genetic makeup.] Futuyma

These appear to be significantly different from Darwin's original
definition.

They appear to be in some cases truisms and none define adaptation,
fitness, or survival.

Telling me that genetic based traits which benefit differential
reproduction result in more offspring is not explanatory although
always true.

None of these seem to square with Dawkins insistance that NS is at the
gene level for an individual and not at the population level.

A google would permit about 50 additional definitions from the evo
literature all taking a crack at some NS defintion with no apparent
unifying principle that is testable or falsifiable.

After 100 years why can't a theory whose one driving paradigm is NS
propound a single universally agreed upon definition with all terms
clearly defined.

Classical mechanics, chemistry, electrical science all have their
basic laws which have not changed in formulation in decades.

f=ma....e=ir.....etc. on and on.

Is there one definition of NS that is not lame, not metaphysical, not
tautological, is testible, is falsifiable and stands alone as
authoritative If not ..why not?

.

Relevant Pages

  • 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: How Our Brains Ignore Unpleasant Facts was: Re: The Reasonable
    ... success for an organism by acting on phenotype. ... differential reproductive success causally correlated with genotype. ... of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable ... and reproduction between different genotypes, or even different genes, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How Our Brains Ignore Unpleasant Facts was: Re: The Reasonable
    ... success for an organism by acting on phenotype. ... differential reproductive success causally correlated with genotype. ... of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable ... and reproduction between different genotypes, or even different genes, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: talk.origins faq Hitler claim part 3
    ... >>> variant compared to is actually extinct already. ... there's no choosing in natural selection. ... The blackwingcolor facillitated reproduction, the form is ... Organisms do not optimize, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How Our Brains Ignore Unpleasant Facts was: Re: The Reasonable
    ... success for an organism by acting on phenotype. ... Natural selection is the process by which favorable traits that are ... of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable ... and reproduction between different genotypes, or even different genes, ...
    (talk.origins)