Re: Why 'survival of the fittest' is not a tautology

Friar Broccoli <EliasRK@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 4, 2:48 pm, "rmj" <gle...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
"Friar Broccoli" <Elia...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:52c4f779-a85f-4966-a683-029466f40585@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



On Jan 4, 1:10 am, "rmj" <gle...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

The problem I see with this analysis is that the above could be
shortened to:

"the ability to survive is what determines the course of evolution"

I cannot see that the word "fittest" adds anything to the meaning.

Wouldn't "the ability to reproduce" be better?

Yes, I completely agree. I kept survive only because we
were discussing the phrase "survival of the fittest". I
personally prefer something like "replication of the best
adapted"

Yet even this is not absolutely true. Consider a species that
endures an abnormally severe drought in a region for a decade.
Those that can handle the lack of water best will predominate.
Now the rains return and those survivors do okay but they do
not thrive, and in the next year or later some members of the
species who did not suffer by the drought migrate into the
region, and predominate.

The drought survivors had the ability to survive and the
ability to reproduce, but were eliminated. And this in a
miniscule amount of time geologically speaking.

I don't think any evolutionist would deny that luck (mostly bad)
plays a huge role in evolution.

I also wanted to ask about a point you made here:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/9fd4ab8e1bc0b238

Paul J Gans said:
However, they never offer any proof of that, nor has any
turned up. The frequent claim that you never saw a horse
give birth to a bat (or the equivalent) is their claim for
the inviolability of a kind.

You replied:
Likewise science has not offerred proof for (or even posited
plausible pathways) for the rise of any innovative biological
feature through point mutations? At best there are the
experiments with bacteria that resurrect former functions.

I could not tell if this is your position or if you were simply
presenting another ridiculous creationist position. It is a
long time since we have had an exchange, but as I recall you
accept the tree of descent, but reject selection from "natural"
variation. Could you clarify please?

You have a good memory, except I don't reject natural selection through
random mutation, rather I see it as only one mechanism, and likely it is not
the most important. Certainly for human evolution, the mind has come into
play, and I believe also that this is true for mammals, birds and many other
creatures. Oh, and by mind, I include the Divine.

While I don't really have a problem with this position, I do think
your emphasis on selection from designed characteristics over
selection from randomly mutated elements is misplaced.

If design really was the primary mechanism for evolution, why is
the process so slow? Why for example did God spend 2 billion
years getting bacteria right before starting to work on us
multi-cellular creatures?

Also if design is the primary mechanism why do so many species
go extinct?

Consider that:
- 177 (known) species of canids out of 214 have gone extinct
since Hesperocyonine dogs first showed up in the fossil
record 40 million years ago.
- every one of perhaps a thousand Ornithischian dinosaur
species are now gone.
- More than 15,000 species of Trilobites lived over a period
of almost 300 million years. This entire class of animals
comprising
nine orders went extinct 250 million years ago.

How can design be the primary mechanism given these facts?

Layoffs in the design team? General Motors ran the project?
Too many changes in the specs after the contract was let?
Computer failure?

Take your pick.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why survival of the fittest is not a tautology
    ... Now the rains return and those survivors do okay but they do ... except I don't reject natural selection through ... species are now gone. ... Damn it Wilkins, you turned a joke into a serious statement ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Why survival of the fittest is not a tautology
    ... Now the rains return and those survivors do okay but they do ... but reject selection from "natural" ... species are now gone. ... The marketing department was in charge of the design. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Why survival of the fittest is not a tautology
    ... Now the rains return and those survivors do okay but they do ... except I don't reject natural selection through ... species are now gone. ... nine orders went extinct 250 million years ago. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Why survival of the fittest is not a tautology
    ... Now the rains return and those survivors do okay but they do ... except I don't reject natural selection through ... species are now gone. ... The marketing department was in charge of the design. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Question for geneticists: Aging
    ... population size that is able to prolong the existence of the species. ... I hate to point this out, but that's another group selection argument. ... individuals or selected against them must have gone extinct. ...
    (talk.origins)