Re: What is it with tautologies and NS?

On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:27:07 -0700 (PDT), odin <odinoodin@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Idiots keep stating that NS is a tautology like it is some kind of
weakness.

There are two types of Tautologies:

1. In propositional logic, a tautology is a statement that is
intrinsically true in all cases (independent of any proposition). For
example, the statement "A logical tautology is never false" is a
logical tautology (a definition in fact). So if NS is a logical
tautology, that certainly does not prove NS to be false.

Some of the tautological formulations:

1. The survivor's survive. (simple grammatical redundancy)
2. The fit survive or they don't survive because they were not fit.
(in logic: P or not P)
3. Survival of those who are better equipped to survive. (rhetorical
tautology)

In science one of the biggest problems with tautological formulations
is that they have near zero content. They lead nowhere.

Faithful darwinians usually define "fitness" and "survival" in terms
of each other and as such "survival of the fitest" is hopelessly
tautological AND content free. However while tHE gramatical structure
and formulation of tautologies make them logically true, this is
unrelated to whether such statements model real nature.

The fastest, strongest, healthiest, tallest, smartest don't always
survive. Natural selection which turns out to be nothing more than
"differential survival" conjoined to "differential reproductive
success" has never been shown to drive random mutations in any
progressive, coherent direction. Natural selection inherently
conserves the variability that exists within the genome of some
population.






2. In rhetoric, a tautology is a redundant repetition of duplicate
meaning that is said more than once multiple times. So if NS is a
rhetorical tautology, it may be annoying, and it may be true or false,
but being a tautology in and of itself does not prove NS to be false.

The tautology argument... how stupid is that?

-loki

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: What is it with tautologies and NS?
    ... a tautology is a statement that is ... logical tautology. ... Natural selection which turns out to be nothing more than ... Sometimes natural selection conserves variability; sometimes it reduces variability. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is it with tautologies and NS?
    ... logical tautology. ... That the survivors survive is both true and vacuuous. ... Furthermore the costs that Odin refers to works against any and all ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is it with tautologies and NS?
    ... logical tautology. ... Which is not how natural selection is defined. ... success" has never been shown to drive random mutations in any ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is it with tautologies and NS?
    ... intrinsically true in all cases. ... logical tautology. ... which is not part of evolution ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is it with tautologies and NS?
    ... logical tautology. ... Some of the tautological formulations: ... rhetorical tautology, it may be annoying, and it may be true or false, ...
    (talk.origins)