Re: Natural selection and favorable traits how were they measured ?

On Jan 20, 9:39 pm, Friar Broccoli <Elia...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 20, 9:07 am, backspace <sawireless2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selectiontellsus:
"..... Natural selection is the process by which favorable traits that
are heritable become more common in successive generations ....."

Now other than noting that traits which become common are heritable,
how were their favoribility actually measured?

Your question is answered in a FAQ provided by John Wilkins here:
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html


Darwin: "..I have called this principle, by which each slight
variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term natural selection, in
order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the
expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the
Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient. We
have seen that man by selection can certainly produce great results,
and can adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the accumulation
of slight but useful variations, given to him by the hand of Nature.
But Natural Selection, we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly
ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble
efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art....."

Chris Colby: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html#natsel
The phrase "survival of the fittest" is often used synonymously with
natural selection. The phrase is both incomplete and misleading.

John Wilkins: http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/cc737705dbc10c8e?tvc=1
"... "survival of the fittest" is a verbal shorthand for complex math.
The *math* is not a tautology - for the terms in the equations are
interpreted, which means they are what gives the equations substance.
For SotF to be an *empty* tautology, and not a contentful one (i.e., a
definition), you would need to show that the terms are not
interpretable...."

John Wilkins wrote:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/38df9a9a127281a8/cea310284f6d201c#cea310284f6d201c
"Many were worried about the voluntaristic implications of the use of
the term "selection": this is why Wallace and Spencer insisted on
changing it to "survival of the fittest", which lacks that
implication. Darwin adopted it, but it raised a whole host of other
problems - the main one being that it made the whole thing into a
tautology, which it wasn't. The main difficulty is that our language
*is* voluntaristic, and we don't have a ready made vocabulary without
connontations for talking about an a posteriori outcome. "Goals" are
unfortunately part of the vernacular - we talk about "in order to" in
biology, but we *don't* mean that a particular biological property
thereby happened with that outcome in "mind". Because it achieved that
result, it was retained. That's selection in biology."

--
fnord

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Revised Tautology FAQ
    ... Suggested New FAQ Tautology Page: ... At the heart of the quoted objection is that fittest is defined ... natural selection but only one part. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Revised Tautology FAQ - Thread-2
    ... should be in the FAQ tautology page relating to "SoF as a tautology." ... title of the fourth chapter from "NATURAL SELECTION" to "NATURAL ... OR THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST." ... is not just defined in terms of what survives. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Revised Tautology FAQ - Thread-2 (also ping El Cid)
    ... to me treating natural selection and survival of the fittest as synonyms ... Selection, or Survival of the Fittest", which on the face of it is ... Tautology FAQ ... of a trait that survives in the next generation. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Revised Tautology FAQ - Thread-2
    ... should be in the FAQ tautology page relating to "SoF as a tautology." ... title of the fourth chapter from "NATURAL SELECTION" to "NATURAL ... OR THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST." ... Darwin did nothing of the kind. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Revised Tautology FAQ
    ... The simple version of the so-called 'tautology argument' is this: ... Natural selection is the survival of the fittest. ... Their offspring inherit the advantageous trait. ...
    (talk.origins)
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