Re: Darwin's false dichotomy fallacy.

On May 19, 1:29 am, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 18, 3:49 pm, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Mon, 18 May 2009 15:03:08 -0700, Ray Martinez wrote:
On May 16, 5:30 pm, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 16 May 2009 16:59:36 -0700, Ray Martinez wrote:
On May 16, 10:13 am, "Steven L." <sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
trader100 wrote:
On May 16, 9:01 am, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 23:31:03 -0700, trader100 wrote:
On May 16, 5:04 am, "David Hare-Scott" <sec...@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
You just don't get it do you? How many times must we go
through this seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics"you
have a green light" example. It all depends who says SoF and
what was the intent. What did Spencer mean by SoF , because
you are referring to him right? Because there is no language
without a motive, no tautologies no nothing without intent.
It doesn't matter if Darwin or Spencer intended "Survival of
the fittest" to mean "my icecream just melted", that the phrase
exists says nothing about the modern ToE to anybody except to
you. Please explain how the meaning, or lack of meaning, or
confusion of meaning of this phrase has any consequences for
the validity of the modern ToE.
What is the formally established Theory of Evolution
<snip>

"The probability that a single copy of an allele with selective
advantage s will be fixed in a population of effective size N_e
is 2s(N_e/N)/(1-exp(-4N_es)),
where N is the actual number of individuals."

That's not the formal definition of all of evolution, just a
small, simple part. If you can wrap your head around that, the
rest is pretty intuitive.

I am talking about Darwin , what are you talking about? Which
author are you interpreting.

When we speak of the Theory of Evolution, we mean it as it exists
today, not in its first stated form by Darwin in the 19th century.

--
Steven L.
Email: sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Remove the NOSPAM before
replying to me.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Not true.

According to Gould 2002 the Theory of [how] Evolution [happens] is
100 percent Darwinian, having only been modified by modernity.

Ummm.... if it has been modified, how is it 100% original?

Again, Gould spends 1000+ pages explaining how ToE remains Darwinian.
And Gould is not alone: book shelves are literally packed with
publications defending the claim/fact. For anyone to say that the ToE is
not Darwinian is woefully ignorant of present day mainstream
scholarship. The foundation and structure of Darwin's theory remains
firm while most of his peripheral ideas have been falsified (as Darwin
himself predicted).

Let's see if I can quantify this.

In Barton's _Evolution_, Darwin rates 22 index entries (and Darwinism
has zero). That works out to 48 pages in the textbook that mention
something to do with Darwin, and that in turn works out to 35 unique
pages.

Of these 14 occur in the first 85 pages (part 1), the historical
overview.

The remaining 21 references are spread out through the last 715 pages.

Here's a sample:

"The abundance of heritable variation has long been understood at a
qualitative level. Darwin's strongest evidence for its existence was
the clear similarity between parents and offspring and the striking
success of artificial selection (see pp. 17-19). However, the methods
outlined in this section allow a quantitative survey to be made."

So Ray, let's say that part of your paper focuses on the weakness of
Darwin's qualitative evidence. Careers have already been built
pointing this out, and we now have a much stronger body of quantitative
evidence that was unavailable to Darwin.

Again, we were only talking about the main foundation and structure.
That foundation and structure is the Theory of Natural Selection.
Gould's main point is that natural selection, the core Darwinian idea
and concept, remains 100 percent ratified by modern biology, minus a few
modifications, which DO NOT jeopardize the theory from being recognized
as "Darwinian."

Your quantitative argument misses the two main points: (1) foundation
and general structure remain intact;

No, I don't think that's the case at all.

Darwin provided a big idea and established the initial foundation. That
foundation has been entirely replaced (and one could make the argument
that it has been replaced twice over: once with genetics and the modern
synthesis, and again with molecular biology).

"entirely replaced"

Gould 2002 and a vast majority of mainstream scholars say you are
completely wrong.

So, just for sake of argument, let's assume all Darwin's work on
barnacles, finches, pollination --- all if it is suddenly discovered to
be completely wrong. While that is of historical interest, it wouldn't
affect biology at all, and that's because that data is no longer
foundational.

You could (for sake of argument) work your way through the entire
_Origin_ and show each line was either wrong or unjustified. That is
perhaps a valid and even valuable contribution to the history of science,
but you've not touched biology at all.

Utter nonsense. "Origin" is a biology theory.

The **foundation** and **general structure** of the "Origin" is
vehemently defended by ALL scholars.

If you want to go after evolution, you need to go where the math is.
That's the current foundation.

LOL



Start with nothing later that Motoo
Kimura's "Neutral Theory" and work your way though Tomoko Ohta's "Nearly
Neutral Theory". That's where the foundations currently are for
evolution (to the best of my limited understanding).

(There are many other pieces of the foundation as well; I don't want to
give the impression that Neutral Theory replaces evolution --- it just
happens to explain large swaths of the data we have available. In my
instructor's words, it's a great null hypothesis.)

While the scientific literature is filled with critiques of "Neutral
Theory", there is still room for one more. Critiques of Darwinism will
be relegated to the history shelf, though. That's a respectable place to
be, but it won't change any science.

(2) everything else is more or less
falsified.

Assume that's true: so what? You haven't even started on the genetics,
much less molecular biology. That's the current foundation.

You have provided zero support for your opinions. And your opinions
exist in direct contradiction to Gould 2002. As if the Harvard
Professor was completely wrong (that is what you are saying). How
could a Harvard Professor be so wrong and out of touch? Again, it is
YOU who is so wrong and out of touch with mainstream scholarship.

Sorry Garamond.





My paper, Garamond, focuses on said foundation and general structure.
Modern biology is built on this foundation and general structure (Gould
2002, et. al.) Guess what? When this foundation and general structure
goes everything built on top of it goes with it (= modern Darwinian
biology). This is why Gould named his magnum opus "The Structure of
Evolutionary Theory." That structure was erected by Charles Darwin, and
it was erected on an irreplaceable foundation (natural selection). The
number of books written defending the scientific veracity of natural
selection is staggering.

If you focus on Darwin, the best you can hope for is a critique that
might have generated some notice in 1859.

Gould drives
home this point laboriously over the course of 1000+ pages.

Evidently that wasn't enough pages to make his point clear.

Ray- Hide quoted text -

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Ray- Hide quoted text -

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Ray

I don't think there is a massive contradiction between Garamond and
Gould, they are simply talking about two different things (which you
however tend to conflate). One is a historical account of the theory
of evolution, part 1 of Gould's book. For this, it is a fact of
interest for historians of science just how much of Darwin's original
ideas have survived. The other is the systematic question of what the
theory of evolution is today. For this you don't need Darwin, you need
a good contemporary entry level textbook into evolutionary biology.

Or put differently: It is perfectly _possible_ (though, from a general
knowledge point regrettable) to be a perfectly good evolutionary
biologist without ever having heard of Darwin, let alone having read
Origins. It is _impossible_ to be an a adequate evolutionary biologist
without having grounding in and an understanding of genetics and the
mathematical apparatus that comes with it. These obviously are post-
Darwin.


Gould agrees with this perception. Here a quote:

"substantial changes, introduced during the last half of the 20th
century, have built a structure so expanded beyond the original
Darwinian core, and so enlarged by new principles of macroevolutionary
explanation, that the full exposition, while remaining within the
domain of Darwinian logic, must be construed as basically different
from the canonical theory of natural selection, rather than simply
extended."



.

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