Well let’s look at what natural selection is-
“Natural selection is the result of differences in survival and reproduction among individuals of a population that vary in one or more heritable traits.” Page 11 “Biology: Concepts and Applications” Starr fifth edition
“Natural selection is the simple result of variation, differential reproduction, and heredity—it is mindless and mechanistic.” UBerkley
“Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view.” Dawkins in “The Blind Watchmaker”?
“Natural selection is therefore a result of three processes, as first described by Darwin:
Variation
Inheritance
Fecunditywhich together result in non-random, unequal survival and reproduction of individuals, which results in changes in the phenotypes present in populations of organisms over time.”- Allen McNeill prof. introductory biology and evolution at Cornell University
OK so it is a result of three processes- ie an output. But is it really non-random as Allen said? Nope, whatever survives to reproduce survives to reproduce. And that can be any number of variations taht exist in a population.
What drives the output? The inputs.
The variation is said to be random, ie genetic accidents/ mistakes.
With sexually reproducing organisms it is still a crap-shoot as to what gets inherited. For example if a male gets a beneficial variation to his Y chromosome but sires all daughters, that beneficial variation gets lost no matter how many offspring he has.
Fecundity/ differential reproduction- Don’t know until it happens.
Can’t tell what variation will occur. Can’t tell if any of the offspring will inherit even the most beneficial variation and the only way to determine differential reproduction is follow the individuals for their entire reproducing age.
Then there can be competing “beneficial” variations.
In the end it all boils down to whatever survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce.
Evolutionists love to pretend that natural selection is some magical ratchet.
So what does it do?
The Origin of Theoretical Population Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 1971), reissued in 2001 by William Provine:
Natural selection does not act on anything, nor does it select (for or against), force, maximize, create, modify, shape, operate, drive, favor, maintain, push, or adjust. Natural selection does nothing….Having natural selection select is nifty because it excuses the necessity of talking about the actual causation of natural selection. Such talk was excusable for Charles Darwin, but inexcusable for evolutionists now. Creationists have discovered our empty “natural selection” language, and the “actions” of natural selection make huge, vulnerable targets. (pp. 199-200)
Thanks for the honesty Will.
Chapter IV of prominent geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti’s book Why is a Fly Not a Horse? is titled “Wobbling Stability”. In that chapter he discusses what I have been talking about in other threads- that populations oscillate. The following is what he has to say which is based on thorough scientific investigation:
Sexuality has brought joy to the world, to the world of the wild beasts, and to the world of flowers, but it has brought an end to evolution. In the lineages of living beings, whenever absent-minded Venus has taken the upper hand, forms have forgotten to make progress. It is only the husbandman that has improved strains, and he has done so by bullying, enslaving, and segregating. All these methods, of course, have made for sad, alienated animals, but they have not resulted in new species. Left to themselves, domesticated breeds would either die out or revert to the wild state—scarcely a commendable model for nature’s progress.
(snip a few paragraphs on peppered moths)
Natural Selection, which indeed occurs in nature (as Bishop Wilberforce, too, was perfectly aware), mainly has the effect of maintaining equilibrium and stability. It eliminates all those that dare depart from the type—the eccentrics and the adventurers and the marginal sort. It is ever adjusting populations, but it does so in each case by bringing them back to the norm. We read in the textbooks that, when environmental conditions change, the selection process may produce a shift in a population’s mean values, by a process known as adaptation. If the climate turns very cold, the cold-adapted beings are favored relative to others.; if it becomes windy, the wind blows away those that are most exposed; if an illness breaks out, those in questionable health will be lost. But all these artful guiles serve their purpose only until the clouds blow away. The species, in fact, is an organic entity, a typical form, which may deviate only to return to the furrow of its destiny; it may wander from the band only to find its proper place by returning to the gang.
Everything that disassembles, upsets proportions or becomes distorted in any way is sooner or later brought back to the type. There has been a tendency to confuse fleeting adjustments with grand destinies, minor shrewdness with signs of the times.
It is true that species may lose something on the way—the mole its eyes, say, and the succulent plant its leaves, never to recover them again. But here we are dealing with unhappy, mutilated species, at the margins of their area of distribution—the extreme and the specialized. These are species with no future; they are not pioneers, but prisoners in nature’s penitentiary.
Not such a powerful designer mimic after all.
But there is one thing it can do– it can undo what artificial selection has done.
sez joeg: “In the end it all boils down to whatever survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce.”
That summary is true enough, as far as it goes. But in leaving out most/all of the relevant details, it doesn’t go far enough. Yes, reproduction is a crapshoot—but it’s a crapshoot with loaded dice, where “loaded dice” is a metaphor for “variations which affect the odds of their possessor(s) surviving to produce offspring.” Joeg’s whatever survives to reproduce, survives to reproduce summary is incomplete, and unusably inadequate as a result, because of its implicit presumption that the factors which affect the odds of surviving to reproduce are not important. Sorry, joeg, but those factors are important, and any theory which purports to account for the diversity of life had damn well better take those factors into account.
Joe G, you never did answer this question:
Just to be clear, you accept that natural random mutations can generate new, additional information (a position many in the ID community reject).
As you recall, I asked it in response to this exchange:
Sure, it’s a “crap shoot” but one can see the effects of natural selection (and I will use that phrase). Suppose we have a random-mating population of 1,000,000 individuals, with three genotypes: aa, Aa, and AA whose fitnesses are 1.0, 1.001, and 1.002. We start with one copy of the A allele and all the rest a. The outcome, if there is no migration or mutation, is that the population ends up all aa or all AA. A crap shoot? Yes, as Cubist said, with loaded dice. Casinos base their business model on that.
In fact, if there were no fitness differences the chance of ending up all AA is only 1 part in 2,000,000. But with these fitness differences, does natural selection change that noticeably? Come on JoeG, tell us. There is a simple formula, and you’re the expert, apparently. If it’s enough to say “it’s a crap shoot” and “it’s random” then is it still 1 in 2,000,000? Or more? How much more?
Oh, and yes, this is in an oversimplified model, the Wright-Fisher model. But using such models is the starting point for insight. Insisting that “it’s random” and “it’s a crap shoot” and stopping there is simply the end of attempting to get any insight.
It’s funny that Joe would pick crap shoot as a metaphor when there’s no better example of how a slight advantage will guarantee that all the money will become fixed in one pocket. And it can happen with straight dice.
Elizabeth, if you want your site to die, letting joe post here will surely do it.
Joe,
If NS is powerless to create and, according to you, intervention is not required by the designer past the OOL then from whence comes all the diversity we see about us, if evolution can’t do it without intervention?
Not everything we see could have been packed into a single organism at the OOL, could it?
Who is doing the artificial selecting? Give some specifics. Where did the whale come from, who the selecting that caused it to exist?
Is your “Intelligent Designer” reduced to an “Intelligent Selector” now?
The factors change from day tro day generation to generation. And according to Ernst Mayr whatever is good enough survives.
But anyway I noticed you didn’t present any evidence that demonstrates what natural selection can do.
As I said before first you have to demonstrate that you understand what ID says. You have not done so.
Joe F-
Your fitness levels change- they change from day to day, generation to generation. Then there are random effects that can wipe out even the most fit.
Also fitness is an after-the-fact assessment.
Please stay on-topic.
Please stay on-topic
The advantage changes and there are more than one advantage wrt biology.
Natural selection is the Darwinist magic wand, a supposed universal algorithm-of-the-gaps that explains both X and ~X, convergence and divergence, increased complexity and decreased, gain of function and loss, increased fecundity and decreased, survival and extinction. A theory which explains everything explains nothing.
I’d pay good money to see Joe G do the numbers.
I think you are misled by usage of that word ‘random’. It has many meanings, not all of which are relevant to any given phenomenon. A random process can produce outputs that would be generally agreed to be nonrandom.
To illustrate, we can take the ‘crapshoot’ and model it, if you have Excel. You regard this as ‘random’, and so it is, in exactly the same way that the composite ‘Selection + Drift’ are in populations. Yet, repeated long runs do not lead to a completely different result every time.
In a new spreadsheet, paste the following in A1:
=ROUNDUP(RAND()*6,0)+ ROUNDUP(RAND() * 6,0)
This generates a ‘virtual’ throw of 2 fair dice.
Then, copy the following lines as a block and paste in B1:
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=2″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=3″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=4″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=5″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=6″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=7″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=8″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=9″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=10″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=11″)
=COUNTIF(A:A,”=12″)
These count the frequencies of occurrence of each sum.
Finally, select B1:B11, Pull “Chart” from the “Insert” menu, and pick a line graph.
This is a simple, accurate model of a crapshoot. Every time you press F9, the randomiser generates a new set of random numbers (these are, strictly, pseudorandom, but it does not matter).
With just a single instance of the ‘throw’ in column A, pressing F9 simply moves the single peak about the graph, unpredictably.
Click A1 and drag the bottom right corner down, and you will create a few more ‘throws’ – say 10. Your repeated F9’s will show a jagged graph with little obvious pattern, though peaks will be more towards the centre than the sides. Now keep extending the list of ‘throws’ in A1, as far as you like. I confidently predict that, the longer your set of throws, the smoother will become your graph, converging upon a neat symmetrical triangle, with its apex on “6”. It just wibbles a bit, but doesn’t change much beyond about 20,000.
How can that be so? How can I make a prediction based upon a random process, when it’s all ‘just a crap-shoot’? Now, this is just the Mark 1 version, with no loading of dice. Suppose we then made certain numbers statistically more likely to come up than others? That’s the only thing we add with selection – enhanced/diminished chances of survival associated with different alleles. The ‘Large Numbers” effect – long runs converging upon predictable results – does not disappear, but the convergent graph becomes skewed in favour of one and against the other. The predictable result in a population is that differentials in survival/reproduction WILL, with the same inexorable certainty, converge upon the result we call ‘adaptation’ – enhanced capacity to survive in the selective environment. Whether one calls that nonrandom or not is really a matter of taste. What matters is that differentials operating with any overall consistency over many organism-lives will make organisms ‘fitter’ – even if fitnesses fluctuate daily, or seasonally.
In the model, probabilities are fixed, but you could easily change it to be as messy – as ‘realistic’ – as you like. The fact that, in the messy real world, things such as fitness change day-to-day, and multiple variants exist, does not disallow the possibility of adaptation. You don’t get selection if there is fluctuation about a net zero differential (though you do still get change). ‘Real-world’ adaptation is a longer-term response to the direction of the net differential gradient, rather than absolute value.
Fuck you.
That happens every single time does it?
Seconded. Let’s see if Joe really understands what he claims to understand.
I think it is on topic.
If evolution can do nothing except break things, as you claim, then where does the “Intelligent Designer” come into it?
WJM
ID, anyone?
If you generate a population and create a selective environment in which those with large broods were less likely to propagate their genes, do you think brood size would go up or down?
If you generate a population and create a selective environment in which those with small broods were less likely to propagate their genes, do you think brood size would go up or down?
Of course selection can be involved in BOTH making things more-X and less-X. Why do you think there is diversity? (Oh, I forgot – God’s whim). What is favoured depends on circumstances. And there is also the other ‘magic’ ingredient of Drift. It also causes change, inexorably. Why is that such a problem for you? As Graham Bell memorably said, “Natural Selection is a simple theory that can be understood by anybody. It takes special training to misunderstand it”
I’d pay more money if evos could demonstrate that natural selection can construct new, functional multi-protein configurations that require more than two new protein-to-protein binding sites.
Magical ratchet- they think it is a magical ratchet…
If you have an equation with three inputs- each random- then the output will tend to also be random.
Then there are competeing advantageous traits- changing environments which means what is advantageous will also change- cooperation which makes NS moot and behavioural changes that trump genetics.
Reference please for any ‘evo’ who has claimed that “natural selection” can do that. Please stay on topic.
Well we are trying to figure out what it can do. Obvioulsy we observe functional multi-protein configurations that require more than two new protein-to-protein binding sites and NS is the only proposed designer mimic, so how do evos explain those structures? Sheer dumb luck?
Where and when did I claim that evolution can do nothing but break things?
Obvioulsy you have personal issues that you should seek help for…
Joe G,
Joe,
I can only urge you to try the example, which is a clear demonstration of random inputs producing predictable (nonrandom) outputs.
No – you need to understand genetics. Competing traits will be restricted to those not capable of recombination – those at the same genetic locus. They will indeed interfere. That leaves the rest of the genome to supply independent favourable traits from the selective ‘tournament’. If two alleles at two different loci both promote cold-tolerance, it does not matter which one ‘wins’, the population adapts to cold (assuming that is beneficial). If they deal with a different factor – say one promotes hair growth, the other shivering – they will reinforce. And yes, when environments change, selection will change. That’s kind of the point – adaptation tracks the environment.
The basic problem is that you regard exceptions as universals (when it suits). You think there can be no general adaptation because of these occasional instances that oppose it. And behavioural changes are, by and large, a matter of genetics – they do not ‘trump’ it.
In my view, what makes a site die is preventing people from posting in it.
However, I am prepared to retain control on the inflow rate 😉
What factors, exactly? And make sure they’re on topic.
Appeal to authority? Please stay on topic.
Want to see what natural selection can do, up close and personal? Go to Yellowstone Park, go to the Fishing Bridge area (or pretty much anywhere else in the park), take off all of your clothes, pour a bottle of barbecue sauce all over yourself, and take a hike by yourself. You can even do it without the barbecue sauce. Go ahead, do it, and then come back (LOL) and try to convince me that “nothing in nature selects”.
No. One trait could be to make one stronger and another to make another faster.
But anyway any time you want to post some real-world evidence that demonstrates what natural selection can do, that would be just fine.
In the OP. Don’t you read what you write?
joe isn’t “people”. He’s a rancid mass of projectile vomit. And I’m saying that in honest, good faith.
You said it in the original post on this thread!
What factors? Weather, for one. And no, that was not an appeal to authority however I will take what Mayr says over what some anonymous butthead sez.
And I have been in the woods, killed bear too. And I am still around.
Why don’t you help those poor evos out and come to their rescue with the real answer?
Until and unless you propose a better idea then “sheer dumb luck” I guess the evos will have to stick with what they know.
So how about it Joe? What is the answer?
LoL! THAT was for NATURAL SELECTION and it does not say anything about breaking things.
You lose, as usual.
What part of evolution creates things then, according to Joe?
Such as?
Design is a better explanation and unlike your position, it can actually be tested.
But thank you for proving that you are still clueless.
Do you have this written up in a paper and published?
YOU tell us. Or just admit that your position is total nonsense.
So you don’t have a reference then. Heck, strange that. Go figure.
And who’s “we”? You and your blow-up dembski doll?
How ironic that you would use the words “sheer dumb”.
Please stay on topic.
Why? Obvioulsy there isn’t anything published pertaining to the power of natural selection.
The part of evolution that is designed to create things.
A better explanation for what Joe? “Design” is a label, not an explanation.
Please explain how “design” can be tested as an explanation for the origin of functional multi-protein configurations that require more than two new protein-to-protein binding sites?
You said it, now show it.
Exactly so.
So you don’t have anything but belligerence.
I already have shown it. YOU choked on it, as usual.
Who is “us” Joe? It’s just you. As usual.
I’ll rephrase the question. What, to you, would be acceptable evidence that NS can “do something” other then destroy existing configurations?