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

Note that I modified some of the links you provided to be more
direct.

On Jan 20, 4:59 pm, backspace <sawireless2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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/msg/1b039385d37c84fb
"... "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/msg/67ee14eb6cca4fab
"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."

I am a bit puzzled by all of the above. I would like to hope
that you have presented the foregoing to indicate that you now
understand the point, however, I fear that you believe you
have seen some contradiction and intend to place it before me to
see if I can untangle it.

I will admit to considerable personal discomfort dealing with
this approach (if indeed that is your intent).

It is, in general, my belief that words are imperfect and
imprecise pointers to reality. I am therefore very suspicious
of word definition games and much more comfortable discussing
the direct evidence for the position I am defending.


Since I haven't followed your discussions much I have spent a few
minutes searching your old messages attempting to figure out
what you position is. Reading between the lines of the
following:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/0c8300c0d3e9c4ef

I get the impression that you (like Behe) accept common descent
and discount pure Natural Selection (NS), preferring some form of
Theological Evolution. Is that correct?

If it is, I won't argue the point. I believe in NS and believe
the evidence points strongly in favour of NS, but I know I
cannot prove that God does not sometimes intervene in the
process.

Do you think that you and I disagree on some substantive
point?

PS: The "fnord"s in your post serve no purpose. The DIG has
already WHITELISTED you.


Cordially;

Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com

--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------

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