Re: Harshman says successful reproduction is natural selection

unrestrained_hand@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 11, 12:15 pm, backspace <Stephan...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://groups.google.co.za/group/talk.origins/tree/browse_frm/thread/...

Harshman:

But the ones that successfully reproduced
best are those with the advantageous traits.
................
..................
..... This is natural selection .......
Zoe:
"....is good health an advantageous trait? Or is it that new good
mutations are the only source of successful reproduction?..."

Both Zoe(ID, creationism proponent) and Harshman failed to notice the
tautology:
1)... those that successfully reproduced best are the ones with the
advantageous traits..
2) Those with the advantageous traits , produced the best.

Those athletes who are taller, tend to win at basketball; those who
win at basketball tend to be taller.

People who commit violent crimes are more likely to be male; males are
more likely to commit violent crimes.

Theists are more likely to attend churches regularly; people who
attend churches regularly tend to be theists.

Are these tautologies?
Are they complete explanations of these subjects?

The phrase "tend to win" implies a probability of winning.

It seems that probability comes into evolution in several places: The probability of an organism of a population being born with a favorable mutation; the probability that this organism will survive long enough to reproduce (it still may get eaten by a predator); etc.

I searched talk.origins for "probability," but I didn't find any explicit discussion of the role of probability in evolution.

It seems that this is one of the main things upsetting the creationists and even theistic evolutionists. That if you started up life on Earth all over again from 4 billion years ago and let time and evolution take their course, by now you wouldn't get Homo Sapiens--you might not even get a sentient species, who knows. Which truly means that Homo Sapiens is here on Earth by a lucky set of random probabilities--there's nothing necessary about our being here.



--
Steven L.
Email: sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

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