Cornelius Hunter seems very confused.
…This brings us back to the UC Berkeley “Understanding Evolution” website. It abuses science in its utterly unfounded claim that “natural selection can produce amazing adaptations.”
In fact natural selection, even at its best, does not “produce” anything. Natural selection does not and cannot influence the construction of any adaptations, amazing or not. If a mutation occurs which improves differential reproduction, then it propagates into future generations. Natural selection is simply the name given to that process. It selects for survival that which already exists. Natural selection has no role in the mutation event. It does not induce mutations, helpful or otherwise, to occur. According to evolutionary theory every single mutation, leading to every single species, is a random event with respect to need.
He has forgotten what “adaptation” means. Of course he is correct that “Natural selection is simply the name given to [differential reproduction]”. And that (as far as we know), “every single mutation …is a random event with respect to need”.
And “adaptation” is the name we give to variants that are preferentially reproduced. So while he would be correct to say that “natural selection” is NOT the name we give to “mutation” (duh); it IS the name we give to the very process that SELECTS those mutations that promote reproduction. i.e. the process that produces adaptation.
Cornelius should spend more time at the Understanding Evolution website.
ETA: CharlieM points out below that…
When CH says that natural selection does not produce adaptations he is talking about individual organisms. He is discussing mutations in individuals and adaptations in individuals. Natural selection has nothing to do with the first appearance of an adaptation in an individual.
And that of course is the confusion – I hadn’t seen just where Cornelius’s confusion lay. Because, of course, the term “adaptation” is a population-level concept. At the level of the individual, the equivalent would be “advantageous mutation”. And that makes the Understanding Evolution website absolutely correct.
Yes indeed. At population level, adaptation is of individual-level traits.
Go one level further up – say and adaptation may occur at the population level (e.g. colony species, like ants).
It’s a fractal system, potentially, although mostly we talk about population level adaptation of individual level traits.
Arguably the immune system works as a kind of invidual level adaption of antibody level traits.
ETA: which is one of Denis Noble’s points – selection can operate at many levels, and evolvability itself can evolve. As some may know I’m fan of Denis Noble 🙂 I recommended him to ID proponents for years, and they all ignored him. Now they’ve finally picked him up as a stick to beat Darwinists with!
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m talking about your OP.
“He [Cornelius Hunter] has forgotten what “adaptation” means.”
So you’ve accused him of not knowing what an “adaptation” is (or having forgotten).
And to support this charge you offer your own definition of adaptation.
“And “adaptation” is the name we give to variants that are preferentially reproduced.”
Then further added:
“And that of course is the confusion – I hadn’t seen just where Cornelius’s confusion lay. Because, of course, the term “adaptation” is a population-level concept.”
IOW, you have lost sight of your own argument.
In some contexts you are no doubt correct, that adaptation is a population-level concept. I think Mayr takes this view when he isn’t busy contradicting himself. But that’s just not the whole story, as I pointed out in my reference to Sober, and then later multiplied. Do you really think your preferred definition of adaptation is the only correct one?
“Adaptation is “a special and onerous concept that should not be used unnecessarily”.”
“The exact definition of an adaptation is a very contentious issue in evolutionary biology.”
Or I can pull out Sober who will again support me against your stance. And I am willing to bet it doesn’t start [or end] with Sober. I can bring out the Williams book. I’d really prefer not to have to waste my time though. Can we move on?
You were wrong in the OP because you took a narrow and ultimately indefensible view which relied on a singular meaning of “adaptation” as the only possible meaning of “adaptation” and then based your entire case against Hunter on it. Once it fell apart your case against Hunter fell apart. Unless you want to move the goal posts.
This is actually simple logic.
It would appear then, that adaptation can occur at any level other than the individual level.
But if I can just squeeze out another level between the actual trait and the population (let’s call this level the individual level) then there’s no reason to deny that adaptations can occur at the individual level.
Right?
It’s not my own definition. It’s perfectly standard.
um, no. Is this yet another case of you thinking you’ve spotted a contradiction, Mung? Both those statements are true. If a variant is differentially reproduced, that is a population-level statement. As in “this variant of daffodil flowers later than that variant”.
No it is not the only correct one. Most words have lots of meanings. But it is the one relevant to evolution, and the one that Darwin used in the quote I gave, where he relates it to natural selection, which is what we are talking about. Also Darwin.
On the contrary, if Hunter’s point rests on a meaning of adaptation different from that used in evolutionary biology and by Darwin, than he is the one stirring trouble where none exists.
There is no “error” on the page he links to, as he claims. At best, he might criticise them for not making clear that “adaptation is a population level concept”. But he doesn’t say that. He says that natural selection cannot produce adaptations. If all he meant is that natural selection cannot produce mutations then he’d obviously be correct, but then nobody, least of all the page he links to and criticises, is saying, or implying, that it does.
They are simply using it in the standard evolutionary sense, as given in their glossary. Which, as William points out is actually circular, it being the case that natural selection so far from not “producing” adaption can be defined as the process that produces adaptation. Or, conversely, and more coherently, perhaps, that adaption is what occurs when the environment favours some variants more than others, i.e. when natural selection occurs.
ETA: In other words, to claim that natural selection does not produce adaptation is an oxymoron. A self-contradiction. A real one.
I don’t care. This wasn’t the argument you made in your OP. And even if it was your intent to make that argument in the OP, it only begs the question. Either way you have failed to make the case against Hunter.
We’re talking about the word “adaptation” as used by C. Hunter and your accusation that he “has forgotten” what it means. Your claim that the definition you provided is “the one relevant to evolution” is contentious. And that’s putting it lightly.
Are you just not bothering to read the sources I quote and cite?
Way back to my first response in this thread you can find a link to Adaptation that disagrees with your only one true meaning relevant to evolutionary biology meme.
“The exact definition of an adaptation is a very contentious issue in evolutionary biology.”
So much for your claim that your definition is “perfectly standard.”
Here is a case of a you contradicting yourself right here in this very thread.
And here you are admitting to it.
So it’s not like it never happens.
William,
Here’s what Cornelius wrote:
He’s wrong. Natural selection can and does influence the construction of adaptations. As I said:
You wrote:
If selection is essential, then it certainly has an influence. Corny’s statement is therefore wrong:
keiths, what is your definition of adaptation? Do you agree with Lizzie that there is no difference between a feature and an adaptation?
Mung,
I haven’t read the entire thread, but if she said that, then no, I don’t agree. A feature could be a spandrel, for instance.
keiths said:
He didn’t claim it didn’t. NIce misdirection, though. Notice how you are trying to draw an equivalence between “influence” and “build” by substituting the new word.Sorta like how EL inserted “complex” and then “function” when her argument was failing.
keiths:
William:
Yes, he did:
Well, she said it, there should be no doubt about that.
“No, there is no “difference” between a “feature” and an “adaptation”. An adaptation IS a feature…”
And I agree, a feature may or may not be an adaptation. It could be, as you call it, “a spandrel.”
But then she was quick to contradict what she had just said:
“No, there is no “difference” between a “feature” and an “adaptation”. An adaptation IS a feature – but not all features are adaptations.”
Let’s plug in “spandrel” and see what happens:
No, there is no “difference” between a “spandrel” and an “adaptation”. An adaptation IS a spandrel – but not all spandrels are adaptations.
Whatever. I must be hung up on that bit about no difference. Maybe that was just a spandrel.
My bad – you’re right. CH is definitely wrong about that.
keiths, what is your definition of an adaptation? At least Elizabeth took a stance on that.
It doesn’t matter, Mung. Hunter is wrong, as I just demonstrated.
My work here is done. 🙂
Mung, that’s the start of a truly stupid presuppositional spew. Or else it’s an unfunny joke.
Your choice.
Given that only you know what you mean by “adaptations” here, your work here is indeed “done,”
Cornelius Hunter’s post, the subject of this thread, has another extraordinary statement. About the example, the evolution of color change by chameleons:
I can only conclude that Cornelius reasons that nothing can involve natural selection, because natural selection cannot exist. Or else that in this particular case Cornelius has access to some outside source of information that tells him the answer to scientific questions without doing any actual science.
hotshoe_,
I thought it was simply a brief relapse into OldMung and ignored it as such.
hotshoe_,
I am an expert in argument from authority. In fact, I am a recognized authority on the argument from authority. I frequently quote myself to prove it. Are you sure you want to tangle with me on this? Don’t make me appeal to a real authority!
Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority
Appeal to authority is not always a logical fallacy. It is the name of a fallacy, but it does not follow that every appeal to authority is a fallacy. That would be a different fallacy.
I can only conclude that you failed to read [or ignored] what immediately followed the statement you quoted:
“What about the origin of this mechanism? Did it evolve via random mutations and natural selection?”
All the quibbling over terms doesn’t change the fact that Hunter is either stupid or disingenuous, take your pick. Terminology can’t change the historical fact of common descent nor the fact that some features have been shaped by selection.
But neutral change predominates, just as most plants are not topiaries.
Right. Which KN already ninja’d you on. Scroll up.
But Pattrick was commenting on Phoodoo’s asshole behavior, which was to claim that since Corny is a biology PhD (god bless CH’s lying cheating little heart!), he’s an “authority” and therefore automatically better than Elizabeth. It’s irrational to claim that, just because Corny has a PhD – and therefore looks as if he might be a legitimate authority on the subject – his arguments should be taken as gospel rather than the mistaken, ignorant, biased or downright lying that they are.
Phoodoo was wrong in committing both that fallacy and that personal attack against Elizabeth; Patrick was correct to point out phoodoo’s miserable conduct. Even though Patrick could have (and should have, in my opinion) made a much stronger statement against phoodoo’s shitty behavior than he did … but the statement Patrick did make is correct as far as it goes.
And as for you, well, god only knows what you’re up to here.
Well let’s see. I pointed out that Elizabeth’s definition of “adaptation” was suspect and that her “refutation” of Hunter’s post was based on her chosen, but suspect, definition. I think that’s relevant and sufficient to explain what I am up to here.
Patrick:
We need a plugin that automatically labels OldMung and NewMung posts.
“Adaptationism has been a very controversial subject in recent evolutionary biology.”
– Elliott Sober. Philosophy of Biology 2e p. 121
Elizabeth: my definition is “perfectly standard.”
But then what would I have to comment on!! 🙁
“This problem about function becomes more precise when it is formulated in terms of the concept of adaptation. Choose the objects at any level of the hierarchy; for example, consider organisms. To say that a property of an organism is an adaptation is to say that it evolved because there was selection for that property (Section 3.7).”
– Elliott Sober. Philosophy of Biology 2e p. 90
Anyone here still think phoodoo is my sock puppet?
What I wrote was:
Note the scare quotes round “difference”? Note the following sentence? Note also the first word “No”? That is because it was written in response to a question from William:
Compare:
Q: “Would it be safe to say that the difference between a “swan” and a “bird” is its “commonality” in the lake?”
A: “No, there is no “difference” between a swan and a bird. A swan IS a bird – but not all birds are swans”.
If you want to quote me, please quote context – and punctuation.
No, I don’t think that.
All that was “failing”, William, was my attempt to teach you some basic evolutionary theory.
I had assumed that you knew that commonly cited adaptations like fins and flippers and indeed chameleon skin were complex features, the result of many mutations. I assumed when you claimed that natural selection could not “build” adaptations, you understood that such adaptations are indeed “built” up from many mutations, aggregated by selection.
I assumed you did not mean anything as crass as “natural selection does not cause mutations” – which nobody disputes. I assumed you did not mean anything as equally crass as “natural selection does not turn a DNA sequence into a phenotypic feature”.
I assumed you were not confining your definition of “adaptation” to single mutation features (which are indeed adaptations, but not “built”).
I assumed that you understood that the role of natural selection is to filter and aggregate – that it is the name we give to differential reproduction in a given environment, not to the process of variance generation.
But it seems you did not know those things.
And I am still waiting for you to address my point that in the absence of natural selection, which would mean an environment in which no variant had any reproductive advantage over any other, even – especially – in one in which there was no death, there could be no adaptation.
Seriously, we are in married bachelor territory here. A thing cannot be an adaptation and confer no reproductive advantage.
Cornelius, and you, are wrong.
hotshoe_,
I had not enough space in the margin to cover that behavior.
Cornelius Hunter:
Darwin:
CH may not believe Darwin. But he can scarcely fault Understanding Evolution for getting the theory – or the words – wrong. It gets it absolutely right.
And of course, it demonstrably true.
Hunter long ago joined my elite list of stupid smart people. Folks having adequate IQs who piss away their gifts.
One of the reasons Darwin is so quote minable is that he always prefaced his arguments with a strong argument against the very thing he championed. That is the mark of an honest person.
Quote mining is the mark of Cain, the scarlet letter of discourse, the liar’s blush. Anyone who starts an argument by willfully adopting the weakest interpretation of his opponent’s position can and should be ignored.
Elizabeth,
This debate has been going on as long as the terms “random mutation” and natural selection” have been around. It all comes down to belief. When CH writes the following I believe him (as long as by “evolve” he means evolve by RM & NS).
As Ron Brady wrote in 1982:
You believe that RM & NS can produce “amazing adaptations”, but you give no empirical evidence for this save computer simulations. You abstract features of nature such as big ears, trunks, spines, flippers, drip-tips, tendrils and thumbs are claim that they are produced by NS. I believe you in a very limited sense. For example ears can take on various forms to adapt to specific environments. The niche does not produce ears but it does influence the form the ear may take. Flippers are adaptations of the pentadactyl limb to suit aquatic animals, but what niche shaped the human forelimb? It doesn’t appear to be shaped by any one niche, but by a multitude of them. Unless you want to redefine “niche”, the human arm has been retained not because it was adapted for a niche but because of its multifunctionality and this was made possible because of bipedalism. I would say that humans are so successful because we are not adapted to a particular niche. The fact that some organisms are adapted to a very narrow niche and others are extremely adaptable to a wide variety of niches sugests that the primary formative factor lies within the organisms and not in the environment.
My belief is that NS acts analagous to an automatic flight control system in an aircraft. It makes adjustments as required to keep it on track but it does not determine the overall flight path.
And I would say that Darwin’s finches and peppered moths reinforce my belief.
How about the bones of the inner ear?
That’s because we don’t have the privilege of observing the evolution of complex features in real time.
So we have to triangulate by other means. For instance:
From this evidence we know that:
We know that the environment really does “select” adaptive features.
And so, while we cannot say in detail how any given feature evolved, we have a general mechanism that has been demonstrated to work in many different contexts, and no evidence or reason to think that there are any longitudinal limits on what it can do, given enough generations. There may be lateral limits (multicellular organisms probably won’t evolve wheels; now that mammals have the lungs we do, we probably won’t evolve bird lungs) but those very lateral limits are one of the strongest pieces of evidence for common descent and evolution by heritable variation in reproductive success – they are just what you’d expect from the latter – both in terms of what it can do and what it can’t.
Well you make some good points, but I don’t think they support your conclusion. Being a generalist can be as reproductively advantageous as being a specialist. Rats, for instance, can live just about anywhere. The features of rats that enable them to do so helped them survive. Which is, presumably why there are far more rats in the world than pandas! Generalism is a good trick if you can bring it off.
It certainly doesn’t control the overall flight path – I’d say there isn’t one – not in prospect anyway. What there is is constant adaptation and readaptation, specialisation and generalisation. A simple sensitivity to sound becomes a language system in a human and an echolocation system in a bat. But there’s no reason, I’d argue, to postulate that the system has to “know” that in advance in order to get to one of those places. If start a journey and simply take the easier looking road whenever I meet a junction, I will end up somewhere. In retrospect, it will look as though I was guided by something more than “take the easier looking road at every junction”. But that doesn’t mean I was.
I have a holistic understanding of nature where the whole can be seen in the parts. To quote Blake:
Everything is connected. Goethe on seeing a sheep skull fall apart, came to believe that skull bones were transformed vertebrae. Following on from that the bones of the head reflect the bones of the rest of the body. Jaw bones are a higher manifestation of limb bones. (Of a related note – human upper limbs are transformed lower limbs that are put to a higher use). In mammals these are transformed for the higher use of hearing. The femur becomes the stapes, the kneecap the incus and the bones of the lower limb and foot the malleus. The malleus is the “foot” which feels the vibrations.
These bones have not been so fully transformed in reptiles. We do not see the same transformation between jaw and inner ear as they are at a lower stage of evolution.
I cannot make you see these connections, nor would I want to. Modern science is biased towards giving people the impression that nature is just a multitude of disconnected entities. I think science should now turn to a Goethean like science which goes some way towards connecting the dots.
So you are admittin that Hunter’s primary claim is simply wrong.
Hi Elizabeth. At the moment I don’t have time to have a good look at your post. Meanwhile, can you tell me what you think rats have gained in the way of features and attributes which make them more generalists than their ancestors were?
What do you mean by gained?
You are presenting evolution as a process from lower to higher, which is not what biologists claim.
If by that you mean that NS does not produce anything, yes. But what it produces is trivial compared to the glories of nature.
EL said:
What you failed to do was successfully equivocate and divert. You’re not trying to “teach me basic evolution”, EL; all you’re trying to do is win an argument that you lost long ago and have been burying yourself in ever since.
What you seem immune to is the fact that I was talking about features the whole time – features that become adaptations, and the feature aspect of the definition of the term “adaptation”. Features do not have to be complex or even functional – they can be simple and neutral. When you started inserting the terms “complex” and “functional”, you were attempting to equivocate “feature” into “adaptation” by surreptitiously characterizing features as “complex” and “functional” and by attempting to claim that all features were adaptations – which, by definition of the website, they are not.
Of course I understood this, but I think the above can be slightly misleading. NS doesn’t really aggregate mutations, but rather host populations. Carriers of the mutation, if you will, by generating a population where the mutation is common.
No, I didn’t mean those things, but you were the trying to equivocate “feature” and “adaptation” by bringing in the terms “complex” and “functional”. My point was about the actual feature part of the adaptation, not its distribution or preservation via NS. NS didn’t build any feature, no matter how complex or functional it is. Take away mutation, and NS doesn’t generate any new features.
Considering I’ve said exactly that several times in this thread, I don’t see why you would have to “assume” it.
There’s no “it seems” at all. I’ve reiterated exactly that several times in this thread. All you are doing now is rhetoric – trying to paint me as ignorant of evolutionary theory. You’ve also been dragging “Darwin’s words” into the debate as if they are germane to the discussion about CH and what is said on the website he was referring to.
Then you’re not reading my posts. I told keiths that without NS, there would be no adaptation. So? I never said there would be. I said there would be rampant new features, not adaptations, because I was making a point about what it is that actually builds new features – random mutation. NS doesn’t build shit. Take away NS, and RM will generate an explosion of new features; take away RM, and NS does absolutely nothing – except, probably, eventually kill off everything you already have.
You have confused a case I made about what generated new features (pointing to what actually builds features in evolution) with a case you imagine in your head that I was making about adaptations. There are two parts to the definition of “adaptation”; (1) the feature, and (2) it’s commonality in a population. I agree that NS is responsible for (2); but doesn’t build (1) – it cannot, in fact, because NS cannot act on a feature until that feature has been built. Period.
So to assert even by definition that NS has “built” and adaptation is a gross misrepresentation, because it implies NS has built the feature along with preserving and distributing it throughout the population.
You are playing with words.
Let me ask another way. What does a modern rat have or not have compared to its ancestors that has turned it into a generalist?
Must dash.
Do you have an actual argument?
EL said:
Selecting a thing is not building a thing; indeed, you cannot select a thing until the thing is built.
EL said:
Aggregating features is not building the features; indeed the feature cannot be aggregated in a population until the feature has been built.
NS does not build the feature aspect of an adaptation; you can say it builds the feature’s commonality in a population, (which, IMO, is a poor & misleading way of phrasing it) but it did not build the feature.
Since “adaptation” has two parts to its common meaning – “feature” and “commonality in a population”, saying that NS “builds” adaptation is a gross mischaracterization – especially on a site devoted to beginners, because it implies that NS built the feature when it did not.
First of all, evolution is not goal seeking. It is not intentional. It is not building.
If you intend to partake of an adult conversation about evolution, at least try to understand what it is about. Michael Behe, who is qualified and is and IDist, gets it. So why are other IDists unable to understand it?