Role of reproduction or survival in evolution

[Bill Thompson 75]

Small quiblle: the word 'goal'.

Goals may be nutrition, environment, concealment, etc. which are sought by nearly all life forms from the microscopic to the largest.

[X]

Goals may be nutrition, environment, concealment, etc. which are sought by nearly all life forms from the microscopic to the largest.



There is only one goal: To have offspring.

Everything else is only there to help achieve that goal.



(It's really more akin to the driving force behind evolution, but I think the term "goal" fits, too.)

[Bill Thompson 75]

There is only one goal: To have offspring.

Everything else is only there to help achieve that goal.

(It's really more akin to the driving force behind evolution, but I think the term "goal" fits, too.)

For most life forms survival goals are much more immediate than reproduction.
Mating is a goal and parenting is an instinct.
Reproduction is an evolutionary developed process that is protected by achieving the goals of survival.

[X]

For most life forms survival goals are much more immediate than reproduction.
Mating is a goal and parenting is an instinct.
Reproduction is an evolutionary developed process that is protected by achieving the goals of survival.



Survival falls under the umbrella of reproduction.
If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.


Reproduction itself is not an evolutionary developed process (although the techniques used certainly are).

Reproduction is what enables evolution to happen. Offspring further your genetic material in a population. Variations occur. Most are benign, and make no difference. Some are harmful, and are weeded out. But a very few are useful, giving the individuals with those helpful changes a better chance of producing more offspring. Which in turn carry that helpful mutation, and spread it further into the population.

Without reproduction, the genes go nowhere. The species (or at least the individual's line) dies out.


Reproduction is the key to evolution.

The species that are most succesful, therefore, are not the ones that live longest, but the ones that reproduce best. You only have to live long enough to ensure your offspring survive. No longer. The numerous species that don't survive after mating or bearing young are a testament to that.

Anything else, such as a long lifespan after fertility is over, is gravy.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Survival falls under the umbrella of reproduction.

That is saying that reproduction includes hunting, gathering, sheltering, disguising, etc. It is more appropriate to place reproduction under the umbrella of survival (family, clan, society increase the survival chances of the individual).


If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.

That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual.


Reproduction itself is not an evolutionary developed process (although the techniques used certainly are).

I'm pretty sure that the reproduction of primates has developed beyond that of the amoeba and I think evolution is the process behind it.


Reproduction is what enables evolution to happen. Offspring further your genetic material in a population. Variations occur. Most are benign, and make no difference. Some are harmful, and are weeded out. But a very few are useful, giving the individuals with those helpful changes a better chance of producing more offspring. Which in turn carry that helpful mutation, and spread it further into the population.

Without reproduction, the genes go nowhere. The species (or at least the individual's line) dies out.

Thanks for the grade school course in evolution.


Reproduction is the key to evolution.

The species that are most succesful, therefore, are not the ones that live longest, but the ones that reproduce best. You only have to live long enough to ensure your offspring survive. No longer. The numerous species that don't survive after mating or bearing young are a testament to that.

Anything else, such as a long lifespan after fertility is over, is gravy.

Evolution is the variation of traits and the selection of those traits by survival of the individual (and throw in some random genetic drift). Reproduction does not cause the first and only indirectly helps with the second.

Very few species mate because they have a goal of having offspring.
The goal is to satisfy the urge to mate.

[Pup]

Originally Posted by X http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=6067772#post6067772)
If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.


That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual.

I'd take it back a step further, though, and say that the reason the individual's primary goal is to survive, is because it's been bred into him by being the offspring of a long line of people who had an urge to survive, the rest having failed to live long enough to reproduce and raise their young.

It's like the old joke about a chicken just being an egg's way of making another egg.

[jimbob]

Survival falls under the umbrella of reproduction.

That is saying that reproduction includes hunting, gathering, sheltering, disguising, etc. It is more appropriate to place reproduction under the umbrella of survival (family, clan, society increase the survival chances of the individual).


We are not talking about any "goal" of any particular *organism*. I'd avoid the word altogether.

As Thomas Huxley said, "how stupid of me not to have thought of that". In retrospect evolution is simple, to the point that it is hard to avoid tautological statements.

If a gene doesn't reproduce it will not take part in evolution.

Natural selection selects those carriers of genes that reproduce. Variation acts on the genetic material, and selection acts on the expression of this material.








If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.

That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual.

Not in all cases.

There are whole areas of biology devoted to the genetic advantage of altruistic behaviour. For example, most honeybees do not reproduce as they are workers; the survival or death of a worker bee doesn't impact whether its genes propagate, except in as much as it impacts on the reproductive success of its sister queen or brother drones.

If dying improves the reproductive success of the genes, then there will be an evolutionary pressure towards dying in the manner most likely to boost this. For example octopodes are often considered to be some of teh most intelligent invertibrates, but in many species, the mother dies after looking after her brood, mainly because she starves to death in guarding it.


You can also look at cancers as the flip side of this, because a mutation in the DNA of a cell propagates itself at the expense of the parent organism. In fact with
Devil facial tumour disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease) the cancer has outlived its parent, and looks as if it might only die out with its species.





Reproduction itself is not an evolutionary developed process (although the techniques used certainly are).

I'm pretty sure that the reproduction of primates has developed beyond that of the amoeba and I think evolution is the process behind it.


I'd disagree.

That is just because we can notice large life.

They have been evolving for the same length of time, (from a common ancestor) but the amoeba has had tens of thousands of times as many generations to evolve in.




Reproduction is what enables evolution to happen. Offspring further your genetic material in a population. Variations occur. Most are benign, and make no difference. Some are harmful, and are weeded out. But a very few are useful, giving the individuals with those helpful changes a better chance of producing more offspring. Which in turn carry that helpful mutation, and spread it further into the population.

Without reproduction, the genes go nowhere. The species (or at least the individual's line) dies out.

Thanks for the grade school course in evolution.


Reproduction is the key to evolution.

The species that are most succesful, therefore, are not the ones that live longest, but the ones that reproduce best. You only have to live long enough to ensure your offspring survive. No longer. The numerous species that don't survive after mating or bearing young are a testament to that.

Anything else, such as a long lifespan after fertility is over, is gravy.

Evolution is the variation of traits and the selection of those traits by survival of the individual (and throw in some random genetic drift). Reproduction does not cause the first and only indirectly helps with the second.

No, selection occurs on the carriers of genes, and variation occurs on the genes themselves. Evolution is driven by reproduction.


Very few species mate because they have a goal of having offspring.
The goal is to satisfy the urge to mate.
This is back to front. Organisms have the urge to reproduce because any that didn't reproduce didn't successfully reproduce and thus took no part in evolution.

[X]

That is saying that reproduction includes hunting, gathering, sheltering, disguising, etc. It is more appropriate to place reproduction under the umbrella of survival (family, clan, society increase the survival chances of the individual).


Yes and no, depending on how you are defining "survival".
Are you reffering to survival of an individual, or of the species?

If an individual survives long enough to reproduce, it's succeeded. If it can reproduce more than once and/or have multiple offspring, it's succeeded to an even greater degree.
If it survives, but does not reproduce, then all the good genes it has will not enter the population. And it's line will be selected against.



That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual.


Of the individual? Yes.
Of evolution? I still think that survival long enough to reproduce is what is most important.

Again, I re-iterate: This is a loose interpretation of "goal". The term "goal" implies strategy. Evolution is merely a process, akin to a filter in my mind, but those species which reproduce better prosper. So "goal", while imprecise, is workable from that perspective.



I'm pretty sure that the reproduction of primates has developed beyond that of the amoeba and I think evolution is the process behind it.


Which is why I said the techniques used are evolved.



Thanks for the grade school course in evolution.


You're welcome. I figured it would be helpful to go over my thought processes on this. Just in case I'm wrong somewhere, or we turn out to be looking at the same thing from a different angle.



Evolution is the variation of traits and the selection of those traits by survival of the individual (and throw in some random genetic drift). Reproduction does not cause the first and only indirectly helps with the second.


And here, I think, is where we differ in our approaches.
You say survival of the individual, and I would say succesful reproduction of the individual.
If the individual leads a long and healthy life, but does not reproduce (or does not reproduce very succesfully), where does evolution occur?
However, if another individual does reproduce (or reproduces more succesfully), even if it lives a shorter life, in time, that individuals genes will win out in the population.

Evolution works through reproduction, in conjunction with random variation. But you need to have reproduction.
Anything which favours reproduction will be selected for.
Anything which doesn't, will be selected against.




Very few species mate because they have a goal of having offspring.
The goal is to satisfy the urge to mate.


I never said species mate with the goal of having offspring.
But the urge to mate results in offspring. And thus I say: If anything can be termed the "goal" of evolution, it is to have reproduce.

[Bill Thompson 75]

First, I notice that you tend to mix reproduction of a member of a species and genetic reproduction. And it almost sounds like you are equating gene evolution to species evolution.

We are not talking about any "goal" of any particular *organism*. I'd avoid the word altogether.

Well, yes we were.


As Thomas Huxley said, "how stupid of me not to have thought of that". In retrospect evolution is simple, to the point that it is hard to avoid tautological statements.

If a gene doesn't reproduce it will not take part in evolution.

Natural selection selects those carriers of genes that reproduce. Variation acts on the genetic material, and selection acts on the expression of this material.

I think this is called a tautology.


Not in all cases.

There are whole areas of biology devoted to the genetic advantage of altruistic behaviour. For example, most honeybees do not reproduce as they are workers; the survival or death of a worker bee doesn't impact whether its genes propagate, except in as much as it impacts on the reproductive success of its sister queen or brother drones.

If dying improves the reproductive success of the genes, then there will be an evolutionary pressure towards dying in the manner most likely to boost this. For example octopodes are often considered to be some of teh most intelligent invertibrates, but in many species, the mother dies after looking after her brood, mainly because she starves to death in guarding it.

You can also look at cancers as the flip side of this, because a mutation in the DNA of a cell propagates itself at the expense of the parent organism. In fact with
Devil facial tumour disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease) the cancer has outlived its parent, and looks as if it might only die out with its species.

It looks like you found a couple of exceptions to the millions of non-exceptions.


I'd disagree.

That is just because we can notice large life.

They have been evolving for the same length of time, (from a common ancestor) but the amoeba has had tens of thousands of times as many generations to evolve in.

So, taking humans as an example of a primate, are you saying that the biological systems of the human anatomy have not evolved or that the amoeba is a completely different organism now from what it was thousands of generations ago?


No, selection occurs on the carriers of genes, and variation occurs on the genes themselves. Evolution is driven by reproduction.

How does reproduction cause variation or selection?
Also, I checked a couple of convenient online science sites and none seem to agree with your idea that reproduction drives evolution.


This is back to front. Organisms have the urge to reproduce because any that didn't reproduce didn't successfully reproduce and thus took no part in evolution.

So, you are saying that organisms have an urge to reproduce to satisfy their urge to evolve?

[Maia]

First, I notice that you tend to mix reproduction of a member of a species and genetic reproduction. And it almost sounds like you are equating gene evolution to species evolution.



Well, yes we were.



I think this is called a tautology.



It looks like you found a couple of exceptions to the millions of non-exceptions.



So, taking humans as an example of a primate, are you saying that the biological systems of the human anatomy have not evolved or that the amoeba is a completely different organism now from what it was thousands of generations ago?



How does reproduction cause variation or selection?
Also, I checked a couple of convenient online science sites and none seem to agree with your idea that reproduction drives evolution.



So, you are saying that organisms have an urge to reproduce to satisfy their urge to evolve?

Okay, this really needs to be split off as an entire thread, IMHO. I can see why off-topic discussions are coming up (the original arguments really don't make any sense anymore), but it just doesn't have anything to do with the original topic, either.

[jimbob]

Before this splits...

First, I notice that you tend to mix reproduction of a member of a species and genetic reproduction. And it almost sounds like you are equating gene evolution to species evolution.

Speciation occurs as a result of evolutionary pressures, but "species" don't really evolve - the descendants of an organism evolve, and this causes the speciation.






Not in all cases.

There are whole areas of biology devoted to the genetic advantage of altruistic behaviour. For example, most honeybees do not reproduce as they are workers; the survival or death of a worker bee doesn't impact whether its genes propagate, except in as much as it impacts on the reproductive success of its sister queen or brother drones.

If dying improves the reproductive success of the genes, then there will be an evolutionary pressure towards dying in the manner most likely to boost this. For example octopodes are often considered to be some of teh most intelligent invertibrates, but in many species, the mother dies after looking after her brood, mainly because she starves to death in guarding it.

You can also look at cancers as the flip side of this, because a mutation in the DNA of a cell propagates itself at the expense of the parent organism. In fact with
Devil facial tumour disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease) the cancer has outlived its parent, and looks as if it might only die out with its species.

It looks like you found a couple of exceptions to the millions of non-exceptions.

No, I gave a couple of examples off the top of my head, without even using google.

Social insects are pretty significant, and only a small proportion of their populations are "breeders", the rest reproduce their genes by supporting their breeding siblings.

The Naked Mole rat is another interesting example in that it is the closest to a mammalian hive organism, where there is a dominant mother, and lots of offspring. One would have thought that as the non-breeding females are not actually clones, it might be a "better bet" for their gene propagation if they independently bread, but this is (obviously) not the case. Due to inbreeding, the siblings are genetically more close to each other than a naive estimate assuming that their parents were unrelated.

There has also been discussion about how the human menopause evolved, because again (at first sight) it would seem to make reproductive sense for a woman to keep breeding until death intervenes. Various reasons have been proposed, which all come down to mechanisms that would otherwise reduce the reproductive success of granddaughters.

The survival instinct has only evolved because it helps reproduction. There are many situations where it hinders reproduction, and then it is absent.




No, selection occurs on the carriers of genes, and variation occurs on the genes themselves. Evolution is driven by reproduction.

How does reproduction cause variation or selection?
Also, I checked a couple of convenient online science sites and none seem to agree with your idea that reproduction drives evolution.


I'd be interested in which sites.

In Darwinian Evolution but not Lamarckian, you have an initial population of organisms with some variation: these all "try" to reproduce but most will fail. Those that succeed in reproducing are by definition sufficiently well-adapted to the environment to reproduce.

Imperfect copies of these successful organisms are made (further variation is introduced). This new population then "tries" to reproduce, and again most will fail. Again, by definition, any organism that does reproduce is sufficiently well adapted to its environment. This is repeated over each generation, and variations ("traits") that increase reproductive success will evolve.



The "carriers" of the genes are the organisms. In asexual reproduction (because it is conceptually simpler), the

If you had to determine which organisms "win" at natural selection, what criteria would you use? I'd say that not leaving any descendants is "losing" in this case. (Hence the digression about altruistic behaviour). Leaving descendants involves reproduction.

Most Popes (even when they live to a ripe old age) have been evolutionary dead ends.Although I understand that this mightn't have always the case in the middle ages.

Reproduction isn't the important bit, it is no good having non-reproducing offspring, so a horse that mates with a donkey might produce offspring, but these are famously infertile.


This is back to front. Organisms have the urge to reproduce because any that didn't reproduce didn't successfully reproduce and thus took no part in evolution.

So, you are saying that organisms have an urge to reproduce to satisfy their urge to evolve?

No.

Organisms have an urge to reproduce because any organisms that lacked this urge would not reproduce (ignoring rape or analogues for simplicity).

Restricting the argument to mammals: Sex is enjoyable because those organisms that didn't want to mate didn't produce offspring. There is no urge to evolve, I'd guess that with most organisms (including many human parents) there is no urge to "reproduce". There is an urge to mate, which happens to lead to reproduction. In mammals, there is an urge to look after one's offspring, but that is separate to "reproduction", even though it is part of producing offspring that reproduce.


An analogy might be useful:

I am an engineer, and evolutionary algorithms are becoming more mainstream in my field. In this case you describe an initial design in parameters (genes) and then copy the design but make (pseudorandom) changes to the parameters. You then test how the implementations of the design performs against some criteria and then select the best to "breed" from.

You copy these best designs and make some further random alterations to the "genes" and repeat this process several hundred times.

The variation is in the "design" (analogue of the gene) the selection occurs in the testing of the implementation of the design (analogue of the organism).

[LashL]

As requested, several posts have been split to a new thread from this (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=177556) thread. If I've missed any posts that participants think should be moved here, please report them or PM me and they can be moved as well.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Speciation occurs as a result of evolutionary pressures, but "species" don't really evolve - the descendants of an organism evolve, and this causes the speciation.

Members of a species evolve but species do not. To use your phrase, this is back to front.


The survival instinct has only evolved because it helps reproduction. There are many situations where it hinders reproduction, and then it is absent.

The survival instinct helps selection, which may or may not lead to reproduction.


I'd be interested in which sites.


http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SoMv31Wr_UoJ:www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090126203207.htm+science+what+drives+evolution&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NCkiaSj2ttIJ:www.livescience.com/strangenews/090507-top10-greatest-mysteries-1.html+science+what+drives+evolution&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a


If you had to determine which organisms "win" at natural selection, what criteria would you use? I'd say that not leaving any descendants is "losing" in this case. (Hence the digression about altruistic behaviour). Leaving descendants involves reproduction.

Leaving descendants is driven by variations which create winning competitors and by selection which defines the nature of the competition.


Most Popes (even when they live to a ripe old age) have been evolutionary dead ends.Although I understand that this mightn't have always the case in the middle ages.

Reproduction isn't the important bit, it is no good having non-reproducing offspring, so a horse that mates with a donkey might produce offspring, but these are famously infertile.

No.

Organisms have an urge to reproduce because any organisms that lacked this urge would not reproduce (ignoring rape or analogues for simplicity).

Restricting the argument to mammals: Sex is enjoyable because those organisms that didn't want to mate didn't produce offspring. There is no urge to evolve, I'd guess that with most organisms (including many human parents) there is no urge to "reproduce". There is an urge to mate, which happens to lead to reproduction. In mammals, there is an urge to look after one's offspring, but that is separate to "reproduction", even though it is part of producing offspring that reproduce.

Mating and reproduction are two separate things. In most mammals if there is an urge, it is to mate. Humans can completely separate the two: mating without reproduction, reproducing without mating (in vitro, surrogates, etc.).


An analogy might be useful:

I am an engineer, and evolutionary algorithms are becoming more mainstream in my field. In this case you describe an initial design in parameters (genes) and then copy the design but make (pseudorandom) changes to the parameters. You then test how the implementations of the design performs against some criteria and then select the best to "breed" from.
Good analogy.
Variation:

You copy these best designs and make some further random alterations to the "genes" and repeat this process several hundred times.

Selection:

The variation is in the "design" (analogue of the gene) the selection occurs in the testing of the implementation of the design (analogue of the organism).

[jimbob]

Speciation occurs as a result of evolutionary pressures, but "species" don't really evolve - the descendants of an organism evolve, and this causes the speciation.

Members of a species evolve but species do not. To use your phrase, this is back to front.
No - individuals don't evolve. Their DNA, might change due to mutagenic agents, but evolution acts on populations over generations.



The survival instinct has only evolved because it helps reproduction. There are many situations where it hinders reproduction, and then it is absent.

The survival instinct helps selection, which may or may not lead to reproduction.
You need to survive long enough...

Long enough for what?

Long enough to breed (and for your (fertile) offspring to become independent).

A mayfly that breeds is not an evolutionary dead end, whilst a Pope is.

Similarly, whilst Galapagos tortoises were adapted to their particular lifestyle, their individual longevity is not evidence of better adaptation than a short-lived organism (say a rabbit).



How does reproduction cause variation or selection?
Also, I checked a couple of convenient online science sites and none seem to agree with your idea that reproduction drives evolution.

I'd be interested in which sites.


http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SoMv31Wr_UoJ:www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090126203207.htm+science+what+drives+evolution&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NCkiaSj2ttIJ:www.livescience.com/strangenews/090507-top10-greatest-mysteries-1.html+science+what+drives+evolution&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a



Paraphrasing the first site, it is saying that genetic drift is important. This is undoubtedly true. Indeed I have argued ad nauseam that this is important in other threads:

Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=4437175&highlight=lenski#post4437175) for example, or search my posting history evolution and probabilistic, or "fitness landscape".

A summation of my position in these threads is that there are complex feedback loops in which the fitness landscapes alter as a result of other organisms, and is probabilistic (so that some "seemingly fitter" organisms fail to breed - seemingly less fit organisms tend not to bread because the dice are loaded so strongly against reproduction anyway). The net result is that some form of adaptation is inevitable but what shape this form takes is not.

The Long term Evolution Experiment (key pdf paper here (http://myxo.css.msu.edu/lenski/pdf/2008,%20PNAS,%20Blount%20et%20al.pdf)) has set out to answer this question.





If you had to determine which organisms "win" at natural selection, what criteria would you use? I'd say that not leaving any descendants is "losing" in this case. (Hence the digression about altruistic behaviour). Leaving descendants involves reproduction.

Leaving descendants is driven by variations which create winning competitors and by selection which defines the nature of the competition.

And how do you leave descendants?

By reproducing.

Reproduction is implicit in the process of natural selection. Indeed, I have stated elsewhere that imperfect self-replication is necessary and sufficient for evolution. The imperfections in copying provide the variation, and the attempted self-replication provides the selection, failure to replicate is an evolutionary dead end.

On a lighter note, reproduction's necessity is well accepted, even within "popular" culture:

http://www.darwinawards.com/rules/

Rules

So how are the Darwin Awards actually determined?

Nominees significantly improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human race in an obviously stupid way. They are self-selected examples of the dangers inherent in a lack of common sense, and all human races, cultures, and socioeconomic groups are eligible to compete. Actual winners must meet the following criteria:

Reproduction
Out of the gene pool: dead or sterile.
Excellence
Astounding misapplication of judgment.
Self-Selection
Cause one's own demise.
Maturity
Capable of sound judgment.
Veracity
The event must be true.


The second site is talking about another very interesting factor, which is how genes are expressed in different environments.

This is important, but I would argue that this just shows an additional layer of complexity in the template that is coded for in the genes.


Most Popes (even when they live to a ripe old age) have been evolutionary dead ends.Although I understand that this mightn't have always the case in the middle ages.

Reproduction isn't the important bit, it is no good having non-reproducing offspring, so a horse that mates with a donkey might produce offspring, but these are famously infertile.

No.

Organisms have an urge to reproduce because any organisms that lacked this urge would not reproduce (ignoring rape or analogues for simplicity).

Restricting the argument to mammals: Sex is enjoyable because those organisms that didn't want to mate didn't produce offspring. There is no urge to evolve, I'd guess that with most organisms (including many human parents) there is no urge to "reproduce". There is an urge to mate, which happens to lead to reproduction. In mammals, there is an urge to look after one's offspring, but that is separate to "reproduction", even though it is part of producing offspring that reproduce.

Mating and reproduction are two separate things. In most mammals if there is an urge, it is to mate. Humans can completely separate the two: mating without reproduction, reproducing without mating (in vitro, surrogates, etc.).

True, but I would argue that is immaterial (there are discussions about what the evolutionary advantages of human sexual behaviours are, especially when compared to our nearest cousins, Chimps and Bonobos).





An analogy might be useful:

I am an engineer, and evolutionary algorithms are becoming more mainstream in my field. In this case you describe an initial design in parameters (genes) and then copy the design but make (pseudorandom) changes to the parameters. You then test how the implementations of the design performs against some criteria and then select the best to "breed" from.
Good analogy.
Variation:

You copy these best designs and make some further random alterations to the "genes" and repeat this process several hundred times.

The alteration to the design is the variation, true.


Selection:

The variation is in the "design" (analogue of the gene) the selection occurs in the testing of the implementation of the design (analogue of the organism).
What do you do with the "selected" designs? If you just say "I have selected this" then nothing really happens, especially in the first generation.

You take the selected designs then copy them with further (pesudo)random alterations to their design. These are then tested, and the process repeats.

At the end, you "select" a design, which you might then copy as a production design.

[Dancing David]

Goals may be nutrition, environment, concealment, etc. which are sought by nearly all life forms from the microscopic to the largest.

Hi, it was a small quibble, evolution is blind, the benefits to reproduction are unknown to the organism, evolution is blind, so that is all I meant in response to

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6064551&postcount=2623
known chemical reactions --> known chemical reactions producing electricity --> known primitive growth-oriented processes --> known evolutionary processes --> 500 million years --> known advanced goal-oriented processes --> humankind

Which one of these commonly accepted scientific concepts do you disagree with?


So I was just pointing out that evolution through reproductive success is blind to "advanced goal-oriented processes". I was not agreeing with Radrook. :)

ETA: I just got back from vacation, sorry I missed this.

[Dancing David]

For most life forms survival goals are much more immediate than reproduction.
Mating is a goal and parenting is an instinct.
Reproduction is an evolutionary developed process that is protected by achieving the goals of survival.

Yes and no, which is why organisms can detroy themselves and their environment as long as they reproduce, evolution only cares about reproduction.
So cholera can kill its host as long as it reproduces.

[Dancing David]

Evolution is the variation of traits and the selection of those traits by survival of the individual (and throw in some random genetic drift). Reproduction does not cause the first and only indirectly helps with the second.


Sorry Bill, in the ToE all that matters is reproduction , many examples exist that show that. Honeybees have non-reproductive members, because there is the one that reproduces.

Many critters breed and then die, many other critters don't care about survival of the individual at all, only that they reproduce, that is why for hundreds of thousands of some insects only a few will reproduce, for reptiles and amphibians, and a few out of hundreds. same for all organisms, it is not the survival of the individual that leads speciation but reproduction.

Why else would ebola kill its host? (becuase like cholera the mechanism that spreads the reproductive units is what kills the host.)

[Bill Thompson 75]

QUOTE=jimbob;6080374]No - individuals don't evolve. Their DNA, might change due to mutagenic agents, but evolution acts on populations over generations.[/QUOTE]

I should have made that more clear but that was your statement that you were contradicting.


Reproduction is implicit in the process of natural selection. Indeed, I have stated elsewhere that imperfect self-replication is necessary and sufficient for evolution. The imperfections in copying provide the variation, and the attempted self-replication provides the selection, failure to replicate is an evolutionary dead end.

Nearly every member of nearly every species can reproduce. Evolution generates improvements by the elimination of the "reproductions" that do not survive.

The selection process is the key to determining which variations survive to contribute to the evolutionary process.

Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

Variation and selection are necessary to the evolution of a species beyond its mere unchanging continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.

[Bill Thompson 75]

...in the ToE all that matters is reproduction...

...it is not the survival of the individual that leads speciation but reproduction.


Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.

[Dancing David]

Nearly every member of nearly every species can reproduce. Evolution generates improvements by the elimination of the "reproductions" that do not survive.


Not so, the vast majority of variation is neutral, some benefit reproduction, some detriment it.

[Dancing David]

Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.

Quite so, I was stressing that evolution is more about the reproductive success rather than 'survival'.

[jimbob]

As Dancing David has said, the statement that 'Nearly every member of nearly every species can reproduce.' is simplistic.

If you consider population's importance by total biomass, then hive insects are huge. Only the queen (and drones) could reproduce.

A simple Malthusian treatment can show that the vast majority of individual organisms will fail to reproduce. The population will grow until it is limited by resources (including food, mates and space), predation (which could include disease), or (in humans) birth control.

The selection process is the key to determining which variations survive to contribute to the evolutionary process.

Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

But what form does this selection take?

The "template" is in the form of DNA. Only the DNA that is within living organisms is "in play".

If this DNA is within an organism that has no chance of reproducing, then it is "out of play".

Lonesome George (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geochelone_nigra_abingdoni), is still alive, and could have another century or so of life, but he isn't breeding, so his genes are in an evolutionary dead end. In the unlikely event that he breeds, then he will have "passed the selection test".


Variation and selection are necessary to the evolution of a species beyond its mere unchanging continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.

This is back to front (see the link about Lonesome George above).

The subspecies of "Pinta Island Tortoise (Geochelone nigra abingdoni)" is currently surviving without reproduction. But it can't evolve without reproduction.

And how does the variation get introduced?

By reproduction.

In some organisms, some of the variation can come from mixing genetic material from two parents. In all organisms, there is variation due to replication errors in copying DNA*

What evolves over time is the information that is passed from generation to generation.



There is a reason why papers about evolution or evolutionary algorithms talk about "[evolutionary] generations" - it is because the selection manifests itself by selecting the information that is copied into the next generation.

Sticking to asexual organisms for simplicity:

These should all be clones of their mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and so on, for lots of generations. This isn't the case because there are mistakes in the DNA copying process (mutations). This is where the variation is introduced.

The DNA that is in the living organisms is that which is "in play". How is this passed to the next generation, with some variation? By reproduction.






*Some viruses mutate very quickly because their genetic material is carried by RNA, and despite the fact that they aren't technically alive, they do imperfectly self-replicate and do definitely evolve (rapidly).

[Bill Thompson 75]

As Dancing David has said, the statement that 'Nearly every member of nearly every species can reproduce.' is simplistic.

If you consider population's importance by total biomass, then hive insects are huge. Only the queen (and drones) could reproduce.

A simple Malthusian treatment can show that the vast majority of individual organisms will fail to reproduce. The population will grow until it is limited by resources (including food, mates and space), predation (which could include disease), or (in humans) birth control.

It looks like you found some of the exceptions I accounted for and hoped we could ignore as irrelevant.


But what form does this selection take?

The "template" is in the form of DNA. Only the DNA that is within living organisms is "in play".

If this DNA is within an organism that has no chance of reproducing, then it is "out of play".

Lonesome George, is still alive, and could have another century or so of life, but he isn't breeding, so his genes are in an evolutionary dead end. In the unlikely event that he breeds, then he will have "passed the selection test".

It seems quite irrelevant.
We already know that selection is important.


Variation and selection are necessary to the evolution of a species beyond its mere unchanging continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.


This is back to front (see the link about Lonesome George above).

Which of those two statements do you view as inaccurate?
Do you claim that variation and selection are not necessary to evolution?


The subspecies of "Pinta Island Tortoise (Geochelone nigra abingdoni)" is currently surviving without reproduction. But it can't evolve without reproduction.

You seem to be saying that reproduction is necessary to evolution. Well, if anyone disagreed with this it would be relevant.


And how does the variation get introduced?
By reproduction.

This is false. See my comment following.


In some organisms, some of the variation can come from mixing genetic material from two parents. In all organisms, there is variation due to replication errors in copying DNA*

What evolves over time is the information that is passed from generation to generation.

Variation comes from two sources: the recombination of genes from parents and mutations. Reproduction does not cause, initiate, or introduce either of these. Both variations occur in the genes whether or not an offspring is produced. Reproduction passes genes on whether there is variation or not.


There is a reason why papers about evolution or evolutionary algorithms talk about "[evolutionary] generations" - it is because the selection manifests itself by selecting the information that is copied into the next generation.

Sticking to asexual organisms for simplicity:

These should all be clones of their mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and so on, for lots of generations. This isn't the case because there are mistakes in the DNA copying process (mutations). This is where the variation is introduced.

The DNA that is in the living organisms is that which is "in play". How is this passed to the next generation, with some variation? By reproduction.

If you limited your evolutionary studies to reproduction how far do think you would get as a scientific evolutionist?

In evolution, reproduction is the vehicle but variation and selection are the drivers.

[jimbob]

It looks like you found some of the exceptions I accounted for and hoped we could ignore as irrelevant.

How are insects irrelevant?

In biomass, termites alone tend to out-mass vertebrates within their territories.

There are more species of ants alone (about 8000) than there are mammals (about 5,500)



Barring mutagenic effects, the vast majority of genetic variation occurs during DNA replication, because it is an inherently error-prone process.

If the DNA doesn't get passed on it is in an evolutionary dead end.

I don't understand what you are proposing natural selection is, if it isn't reproduction.


Would you say that Lonseome George has been "selected"?

[Bill Thompson 75]

How are insects irrelevant?

In biomass, termites alone tend to out-mass vertebrates within their territories.

There are more species of ants alone (about 8000) than there are mammals (about 5,500)

The debate is about the importance of different features of evolution and you presented insects as a species that has features that do not advance the debate.


Barring mutagenic effects, the vast majority of genetic variation occurs during DNA replication, because it is an inherently error-prone process.

If the DNA doesn't get passed on it is in an evolutionary dead end.

I don't understand what you are proposing natural selection is, if it isn't reproduction.

Natural selection is the process for differentiating which individuals will survive healthily and long enough to engage in reproduction and which will not.


Would you say that Lonseome George has been "selected"?

Not yet.

[Dancing David]

Again billthompson75, survival is not as crucial as reproduction, a half assed organism that reproduces quickly will tend to dominate a well made one that reproduces more slowly.

You are right survival to reproduction does matter, yet reproducing matters most.

There is no 'advancement' between species, ants and other social insects are very highly evolved, as are viruses and bacteria, there is no hierarchy in progress.


Again survival of one in ten thousand~one hundred thousand insects does not matter as much as the rate at which they reproduce.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Again billthompson75, survival is not as crucial as reproduction, a half assed organism that reproduces quickly will tend to dominate a well made one that reproduces more slowly.

You are right survival to reproduction does matter, yet reproducing matters most.

There is no 'advancement' between species, ants and other social insects are very highly evolved, as are viruses and bacteria, there is no hierarchy in progress.


Again survival of one in ten thousand~one hundred thousand insects does not matter as much as the rate at which they reproduce.

And now the topic has become survivability.

[Dancing David]

That really depends again, if only one in a hundred thousand survive and that is enough to keep the species going, well in that case reproduction matters more.

Not a very strong argument, on my part. And I can also argue that in most species, the most members do not successfully reproduce. It only takes a few that are survivng to reproduce to perpetuate the species.

[Bill Thompson 75]

That really depends again, if only one in a hundred thousand survive and that is enough to keep the species going, well in that case reproduction matters more.

Not a very strong argument, on my part. And I can also argue that in most species, the most members do not successfully reproduce. It only takes a few that are survivng to reproduce to perpetuate the species.

You're talking about continuation, not evolution.

[X]

Evolution:
Descent with modification.


Descent. Not survival.
It's the offspring which contain the next generation of genetic changes.
Always.

No offspring -> No changes -> No evolution.

Random variation in genetic material is unavoidable.

The only thing that can be controlled is reproduction.

Does a variation help a population of the species reproduce more successfully than their rivals? It will be selected for.

Survival only matters insofar as surviving long enough to reproduce and ensure the offspring have their chance.

After that, it is in the offspring's hands (metaphorically speaking) to reproduce.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Evolution:
Descent with modification.

Descent. Not survival.
It's the offspring which contain the next generation of genetic changes.
Always.

No offspring -> No changes -> No evolution.

Random variation in genetic material is unavoidable.

The only thing that can be controlled is reproduction.

Since, historically, evolution has not been controlled your statement clearly shows that reproduction is not the key factor in evolution.


Does a variation help a population of the species reproduce more successfully than their rivals? It will be selected for.

You finally identified evolution: variation and selection.


Survival only matters insofar as surviving long enough to reproduce and ensure the offspring have their chance.

This will not result in evolution.


After that, it is in the offspring's hands (metaphorically speaking) to reproduce.

[jimbob]

Bill,

I'll go for the classic example:

How did the peacock tail evolve? It is actually an handicap and reduces the "survivability" of the peacock.

The reason is that that, due to sexual selection - those peacocks with the most impressive tails tend to be more successful in mating with the peahens.

There are many social animals where the top animals have better reproductive success, many ruminants fall into this category, where a single stag will have a territory containing access to several females, and will fight other males for access to these females.

Avoiding fights would be a way of surviving longer, but a gene that increases this fight avoidance (say by reducing testosterone-linked aggression) would die out in these animals as the prospective father wouldn't get any mates. He would be likely to live longer, but "fruitlessly".

The common side blotched lizard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_side-blotched_lizard#Mating_strategy) mating strategy is very interesting in this case.

Biologist Barry Sinervo from the University of California, Santa Cruz has discovered a rock-paper-scissors evolutionary strategy in the mating behaviour of the side-blotched lizard species Uta stansburiana. Males have either orange, blue or yellow throats and each type follows a fixed, heritable mating strategy:[1]

Orange-throated males are strongest and do not form strong pair bonds; instead, they fight blue-throated males for their females. Yellow-throated males, however, manage to snatch females away from them for mating.
Blue-throated males are middle-sized and form strong pair bonds. While they are outcompeted by orange-throated males, they can defend against yellow-throated ones.

Yellow-throated males are smallest, and their coloration mimics females. Under this disguise, they can approach orange-throated males (though not the stronger-bonding, blue-throated specimens) and mate while the orange-throats are engaged in fights.

This can be summarized as "orange beats blue, blue beats yellow, and yellow beats orange", which is similar to the rules of rock-paper-scissors.

The proportion of each male type in a population is similar in the long run, but fluctuates widely in the short term. For periods of 4–5 years, one strategy predominates, after which it declines in frequency as the strategy that manages to exploit its weakness increases. This corresponds to the stable pattern of the game in the replicator dynamics where the dynamical system follows closed orbits around the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium[citation needed] (Sinervo & Lively, 1996; Sinervo, 2001; Alonzo & Sinervo, 2001; Sinervo & Clobert, 2003; Sinervo & Zamudio, 2001).



A key insight of the Modern evolutionary synthesis, is that it doesn't matter what happens to the organism, but whether the genes propagate.

These propagate by reproduction

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill,

I'll go for the classic example:

How did the peacock tail evolve? It is actually an handicap and reduces the "survivability" of the peacock.

The reason is that that, due to sexual selection - those peacocks with the most impressive tails tend to be more successful in mating with the peahens.

There are many social animals where the top animals have better reproductive success, many ruminants fall into this category, where a single stag will have a territory containing access to several females, and will fight other males for access to these females.

Avoiding fights would be a way of surviving longer, but a gene that increases this fight avoidance (say by reducing testosterone-linked aggression) would die out in these animals as the prospective father wouldn't get any mates. He would be likely to live longer, but "fruitlessly".

The common side blotched lizard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_side-blotched_lizard#Mating_strategy) mating strategy is very interesting in this case.


A key insight of the Modern evolutionary synthesis, is that it doesn't matter what happens to the organism, but whether the genes propagate.

These propagate by reproduction

You presented some interesting exceptions.

You noted that propagation does not mean evolution.

And from your cited reference we have

"Natural selection is by far the main mechanism of change"

which has always been my main point.

Thank you

[jimbob]

You presented some interesting exceptions.

You noted that propagation does not mean evolution.

And from your cited reference we have

"Natural selection is by far the main mechanism of change"

which has always been my main point.

Thank you


And how is this selection manifset?

We are saying that it is manifest by reproduction.

What are you saying.


Where did I note note that propagation doesn't mean evolution?

I stated that propagation of genes is how evolution is driven. This is what constitutes natural selection. Survival of any organism is only important in as much as it facilitates the survival of a gene.

In that natural selection is not evolution, just a vital component, I would agree that reproduction is not evolution.

Now the genes in a hypothetical immortal organism might be surviving, but if it is also sterile, there will be no more change, so there will be no more evolution of that organism's genes.

Looking at how animals age, in the context of the survival of the genes, it is counter productive for an animal to evolve a life span that is far greater than what a lucky one might live in the wild before dying. A mouse that could live to 80 if in captivity would have no selective advantage in the wild over a normal mouse that might live for 2-years in captivity, but would usually be eaten within three months. Indeed, as there will have to be metabolic effort involved in repairing the body, it would probably be at a slight selective disadvantage. Especially if it matured slightly later.

There is a lot of discussion about why humans are one of the few species where the females experience a menopause. The answer *has* to be that infertile grandmothers managed to have more grandchildren that survived compared to fertile grandmothers, where their babies would be competing with their daughters*' babies, and probably that the later-born babies tended not to survive anyway.

Having an additional child that dies young is no good for survival of one's genes. Having an additional grandchild that survives to reproduce obviously is good from this point of view. Even better would be to have an additional child that survives to breed as opposed to grandchild, as offspring share 50% of a parent's genes, whilst grandchildren only share 25% (unless the parents are cousins).


*I am talking about daughters because maternal grandmothers can be certain that their grandchildren are actually theirs. This raises another set of interesting questions that can again be answered with the approach of gene propagation.

[X]

You finally identified evolution: variation and selection.


How does "variation" enter the equation?
(hint: it begins with "R")

What does it mean to say "selection"?
(hint: successful R_________)





@ Jimbob (and indeed, I had something similar written before trying simplicity):
To paraphrase Richard Dawkins, it is all about the Selfish Gene




Edit: Why isn't this in the Science forum?

[jimbob]

Another example:

The bonobo is the only large primate where infanticide (by males) has never been observed.

There is a perfectly simple explanation for this, and why male infanticide often does make evolutionary sense.

A newly dominant male lion will kill lion cubs. This doesn't improve the survival prospects of the male lion, in fact there must be a finite risk associated with this course of action.

However the lioness will be nurturing cubs which are not the newly dominant lion's. If her cubs die and she stops suckling, then she will become fertile again, so the newly dominant lion that practices infanticide will have more offspring.

Similarly with chimpanzees and gorillas. Why not bonobos?

These are very promiscuous animals, the females will mate with all the males (and have frequent recreational or bonding sex) with each other, as will the males. The only sexual activity that hasn't been observed is Mother-Son, which again makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, as that is about the only relationship with a guaranteed high level of inbreeding and a chance of conception.

Because of the sexual activity, any bonobo male who kills any infants is likely to be killing his own offspring.

These observations would make no sense if "survival of the organism" was the driving factor in evolution, but make perfect sense in the context of gene survival, which requires reproduction.

[Bill Thompson 75]

And how is this selection manifset?
We are saying that it is manifest by reproduction.
What are you saying.

Same thing, reproduction is necessary for selection, regardless of variation.


Where did I note note that propagation doesn't mean evolution?

You said "it doesn't matter what happens to the organism, but whether the genes propagate" without any reference to variation.


I stated that propagation of genes is how evolution is driven.

Your reference clearly said otherwise.


This is what constitutes natural selection. Survival of any organism is only important in as much as it facilitates the survival of a gene.

This is continuation, not evolution.

[Bill Thompson 75]

How does "variation" enter the equation?
(hint: it begins with "R")

What does it mean to say "selection"?
(hint: successful R_________)


How can you distinguish between continuation and evolution without variation and selection?
(hint: you can't)


Edit: Why isn't this in the Science forum?

No clue.

[X]

Do me a favour:

Define continuation and evolution.

I have a feeling I'm defining one of them differently than you...

[Bill Thompson 75]

Do me a favour:

Define continuation and evolution.

I have a feeling I'm defining one of them differently than you...

I use continuation for successive generations without necessarily any factors of variation or selection involved.

I use evolution for successive generations with the factors of variation and selection involved.

[Dancing David]

I think we have to be very careful about judging such things, one as continuation and the other as evolution.

Except in the case of life forms with very short life spans, it is really hard to tell what effects are occuring. So in many cases an actual change in the variation being selected for is not going to be apparent.

[jimbob]

And how is this selection manifset?
We are saying that it is manifest by reproduction.
What are you saying.

Same thing, reproduction is necessary for selection, regardless of variation.

So why the hang up about survival when I stated that reproduction is what is important? (see also later on in this post too).



Where did I note note that propagation doesn't mean evolution?

You said "it doesn't matter what happens to the organism, but whether the genes propagate" without any reference to variation.


I should have added "as far as natural selection is concerned".



I stated that propagation of genes is how evolution is driven.

Your reference clearly said otherwise.


If you are quoting what I think you are quoting, the statement

"Natural selection is by far the main mechanism of change"

is talking about Natural selection.

Earlier in this post you stated Same thing, reproduction is necessary for selection, regardless of variation.

The only additional feature is that what is important is that the genes reproduce, not the organism.



This is what constitutes natural selection. Survival of any organism is only important in as much as it facilitates the survival of a gene.

This is continuation, not evolution.

This is natural selection. Not variation.

DNA copying is inherently imperfect, variation is introduced at this stage too.

[jimbob]

No - individuals don't evolve. Their DNA, might change due to mutagenic agents, but evolution acts on populations over generations.

I should have made that more clear but that was your statement that you were contradicting.


(fixed your quotation syntax)

I wasn't contradicting myself:

this is the full quote:

First, I notice that you tend to mix reproduction of a member of a species and genetic reproduction. And it almost sounds like you are equating gene evolution to species evolution.


Speciation occurs as a result of evolutionary pressures, but "species" don't really evolve - the descendants of an organism evolve, and this causes the speciation.

Members of a species evolve but species do not. To use your phrase, this is back to front.
No - individuals don't evolve. Their DNA, might change due to mutagenic agents, but evolution acts on populations over generations.

I was stating that species don't evolve, populations evolve over time in other words over different generations. Individuals certainly don't evolve in any meaningful Darwinian sense.

A difference between "genetic evolution" and "species evolution" seems to me to be very similar to "microevolution" and "macroevolution". There is no difference between the two, except in the eye of the beholder.

[jimbob]

I use continuation for successive generations without necessarily any factors of variation or selection involved.

I use evolution for successive generations with the factors of variation and selection involved.


Fine, except that there are no successive generations without necessarily any factors of variation or selection involved


You could start with a population of clones, By the second generation there is variation due to mutation.

There is always natural selection in every reproductive generation. Natural selection manifests itself as to whether the organism reproduces or not.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Fine, except that there are no successive generations without necessarily any factors of variation or selection involved

You could start with a population of clones, By the second generation there is variation due to mutation.

There is always natural selection in every reproductive generation. Natural selection manifests itself as to whether the organism reproduces or not.

Fine, except that there are no successive generations without necessarily any factors of variation or selection involved


You could start with a population of clones, By the second generation there is variation due to mutation.

There is always natural selection in every reproductive generation. Natural selection manifests itself as to whether the organism reproduces or not.

Maybe you misinterpreted what I said.

Variation does not necessarily occur. The circumstances which cause natural selection to occur do necessarily exist.
It is possible that in an environment from one generation to the next there are no mutations and there is no environmental characteristics that give one individual a survivability advantage over another.

Then this species will continue to reproduce without evolving.

Variation and selection are the factors which distinguish this continuation of reproduction from evolution.

[jimbob]

Maybe you misinterpreted what I said.

Variation does not necessarily occur. The circumstances which cause natural selection to occur do necessarily exist.
It is possible that in an environment from one generation to the next there are no mutations and there is no environmental characteristics that give one individual a survivability advantage over another.

Then this species will continue to reproduce without evolving.

Variation and selection are the factors which distinguish this continuation of reproduction from evolution.

It isn't practically possible that there will be no mutation>

Assuming this (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2836558/) produces an accurate estimate (quite a straightforward paper for an engineer to read )

Then the mutation rate per base pair seems to be greater than 1×10−5 per base pair per generation.

One of the smallest plant genome yet found according to this link (http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/Arabidopsis.html) has 115,409,949 base pairs of DNA.

Therefore the probability for there to be no mutation in a single generation you can take the "Non mutation rate" , which is slightly lower than 1-(1×10−5= 0.99999 per base pair per generation) and raise that to the power of the number of base pairs 115,409,949.

You can evaluate this using logarithms: this is equivalent to exp(ln(0.99999)*115409949)
ln(0.99999) is -1.000005 × 10-5

Which is e-1154.10526

There is effectively zero chance of there being no mutation per generation.


This comes out as being very close to zero, in fact so much that there probably hasn't been a mutation-free generation in any organism with that number of base pairs in the history of life on Earth.



Reproduction is the source of variation and is how natural selection is manifest.



Anything else is just gravy, as far as evolution is concerned.

[Taffer]

I honestly can't see what Bill's problem is.

Variation is introduced through mutation.
Variation is selected by survival of the genes.
Survival of the genes is caused by propagation.
Propagation requires reproduction, unless individuals are immortal.
If organisms are immortal, they fail to evolve because they fail to replace lost members of the population.

[Bill Thompson 75]

I honestly can't see what Bill's problem is.

Variation is introduced through mutation.And other mechanisms.
Variation is selected by survival [B]of the genes./B]Variation determines survivability
Survival of the genes is caused by propagation.Survival allows propagation
Propagation requires reproduction, unless individuals are immortal.Immortality wouldn't eliminate propagation or reproduction.
If organisms are immortal, they fail to evolve because they fail to replace lost members of the population.
The concept of immortality does not imply loss of reproductivity or loss of genetic diversity. It does imply that members are not lost.

This all goes back to the claim that the key to evolution is reproduction.
I rebutted with the claim that the more commonly recognized key factors or mechanisms in evolution are variation and selection.

[Bill Thompson 75]

It isn't practically possible that there will be no mutation>

Assuming this (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2836558/) produces an accurate estimate (quite a straightforward paper for an engineer to read )

Then the mutation rate per base pair seems to be greater than 1×10−5 per base pair per generation.

One of the smallest plant genome yet found according to this link (http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/Arabidopsis.html) has 115,409,949 base pairs of DNA.

Therefore the probability for there to be no mutation in a single generation you can take the "Non mutation rate" , which is slightly lower than 1-(1×10−5= 0.99999 per base pair per generation) and raise that to the power of the number of base pairs 115,409,949.

You can evaluate this using logarithms: this is equivalent to exp(ln(0.99999)*115409949)
ln(0.99999) is -1.000005 × 10-5

Which is e-1154.10526

There is effectively zero chance of there being no mutation per generation.

This comes out as being very close to zero, in fact so much that there probably hasn't been a mutation-free generation in any organism with that number of base pairs in the history of life on Earth.

Reproduction is the source of variation and is how natural selection is manifest.

Anything else is just gravy, as far as evolution is concerned.

If you mean that variation and selection are just minor participants in the panorama of evolution then you are wrong.
Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.

[jimbob]

Bill, I am confused,

Have you changed your position or not?

I often do when presented with new evidence.

This following post suggests that "survival" is what is important. To me this looks as proposing that organisms evolve towards survival, and not towards reproductive success:

For most life forms survival goals are much more immediate than reproduction.
Mating is a goal and parenting is an instinct.
Reproduction is an evolutionary developed process that is protected by achieving the goals of survival.

That is saying that reproduction includes hunting, gathering, sheltering, disguising, etc. It is more appropriate to place reproduction under the umbrella of survival (family, clan, society increase the survival chances of the individual).



That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual.


<snip>
Evolution is the variation of traits and the selection of those traits by survival of the individual (and throw in some random genetic drift). Reproduction does not cause the first and only indirectly helps with the second.



The survival instinct helps selection, which may or may not lead to reproduction.

Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.

Since, historically, evolution has not been controlled your statement clearly shows that reproduction is not the key factor in evolution.



But here you seem to be agreeing that maybe reproduction is actually what defines "selection".

Same thing, reproduction is necessary for selection, regardless of variation.



Now you are disagreeing again.


This all goes back to the claim that the key to evolution is reproduction.
I rebutted with the claim that the more commonly recognized key factors or mechanisms in evolution are variation and selection.



If you mean that variation and selection are just minor participants in the panorama of evolution then you are wrong.
Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.

Reproduction is where variation comes from and reproduction is the mechanism of selection.


Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.

No: reproduction is differentiated from evolution because reproduction is the process of creating new organisms with (somewhat imperfect) copies of the parental genes. Evolution is the process of change taking place over many generations that leads to optimisation of reproductive success.

[Taffer]

And other mechanisms.

Such as?

Variation determines survivability

I suppose you could put it like that...

Survival allows propagation

Survival until reproduction, sure. But without reproduction there is no propagation.

Immortality wouldn't eliminate propagation or reproduction.
The concept of immortality does not imply loss of reproductivity or loss of genetic diversity. It does imply that members are not lost.

I meant that immortal organisms need not reproduce, by your thinking, because they would "survive" forever.

This all goes back to the claim that the key to evolution is reproduction.
I rebutted with the claim that the more commonly recognized key factors or mechanisms in evolution are variation and selection.

What causes selection?

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill, I am confused,

Have you changed your position or not?

No, you are mixing different issues together.

My points are:

1) For most species the goals of members are survival and mating, not reproduction.

2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.


No: reproduction is differentiated from evolution because reproduction is the process of creating new organisms with (somewhat imperfect) copies of the parental genes. Evolution is the process of change taking place over many generations that leads to optimisation of reproductive success.

What you have stated here is that reproduction is differentiated from evolution by 'reproduction is the process of reproduction' and 'evolution is the process of evolution'.

Yeah, that's true.

But if you still want to insist that evolution is drive by reproduction then it would be more appropriate to say that evolution is driven by dirt. How many species are there that cannot evolve without dirt?

[Bill Thompson 75]

Such as?

Read the literature.


I suppose you could put it like that...

And because its important to put it the correct way.


Survival until reproduction, sure. But without reproduction there is no propagation.

And propagation still does not cause survival.


I meant that immortal organisms need not reproduce, by your thinking, because they would "survive" forever.

Even so, the immortality point is still irrelevant.


What causes selection?

Nature.

[X]

My points are:

1) For most species the goals of members are survival and mating, not reproduction.

2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.





I agree on both points.


However:

1) The goals of members of a species are largely irrelevant when it comes to evolutions. Just so long as they live long enough to mate.

2) Evolution is indeed more than simply reproduction, but without reproduction evolution can not occur. So what is selected for in evolution? Reproductive success. Because the genes that lead to better reproduction will be the ones most abundant in the gene pool.



Finally, I have put some though into your differentiation between continuation and evolution. In my view, since variation occurs any time reproduction happens, and selection occurs (some genes get passed on, others don't, depending on a myriad of factors), evolution is always happening. Regardless of whether or not it is manifest in detectable changes.

[jimbob]

I would argue that, given a finite system, then imperfect self-replication is necessary and sufficient for evolution to occur.

[Bill Thompson 75]

I would argue that, given a finite system, then imperfect self-replication is necessary and sufficient for evolution to occur.

Evolution usually refers to variation (imperfection) and selection.

Selection becomes irrelevant if the system presents no circumstances to favor any imperfections (variations).

Evolution without selection may result in changes that may or may not allow the species to die out.

If a species dies out then evolution ends.

So you have necessity, sufficiency, but not guarantee.

[Taffer]

Read the literature.

I have. I want you to be specific.

And because its important to put it the correct way.

I disagree that that is the best, or most correct, way to phrase it.

And propagation still does not cause survival.

Not of the individual, of course. But evolution does not happen at an individual level. Propagation is survival of the population.

Even so, the immortality point is still irrelevant.

Fair enough.

Nature.

That is a non-answer. Please be specific. What causes selection? What is the mechanism of selection? Can you quantify it? Can you equate it? Can you model it?

[Bill Thompson 75]

I have. I want you to be specific.

I disagree that that is the best, or most correct, way to phrase it.

Not of the individual, of course. But evolution does not happen at an individual level. Propagation is survival of the population.

Fair enough.

That is a non-answer. Please be specific. What causes selection? What is the mechanism of selection? Can you quantify it? Can you equate it? Can you model it?

There are no substantial disagreements here. The requests for information would create no new debate unless your opinions on the subject are unconventional.

[jimbob]

So you have necessity, sufficiency, but not guarantee.

This is not the usual usage of these terms - sufficiency *is* a guarantee:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_and_sufficient_condition

A necessary condition of a statement must be satisfied for the statement to be true. Formally, a statement P is a necessary condition of a statement Q if Q implies P. For example, the ability to breathe is necessary to a human's survival. Likewise, for the whole numbers greater than two, being odd is necessary to being prime, since two is the only whole number that is both even and prime.
A sufficient condition is one that, if satisfied, assures the statement's truth. Formally, a statement P is a sufficient condition of a statement Q if P implies Q. Thus, jumping is sufficient to leave the ground, since an intrinsic element of the concept jumping is leaving the ground. A number's being divisible by 4 is sufficient (but not necessary) for its being even, but being divisible by 2 is both sufficient and necessary.

[Bill Thompson 75]

This is not the usual usage of these terms - sufficiency *is* a guarantee:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_and_sufficient_condition

What part of "imperfect self-replication" would select for survival as opposed to extinction?

[Taffer]

There are no substantial disagreements here. The requests for information would create no new debate unless your opinions on the subject are unconventional.

I beg to differ. You seem to fail to acknowledge the conventional view that reproduction and reproduction success is the mechanism of selection in reproducing organisms.

[Bill Thompson 75]

I beg to differ. You seem to fail to acknowledge the conventional view that reproduction and reproduction success is the mechanism of selection in reproducing organisms.

In the literature that doesn't seem to be the conventional view.

For example, from New World Encyclopedia, Online,

"It is useful to make a distinction between ecological selection and sexual selection. Ecological selection covers any mechanism of selection as a result of the environment, such as temperature, predation, humidity, competition, and so forth. Sexual selection refers specifically to competition between organisms for mates. Sexual selection includes mechanisms such as mate choice and male-male competition..."

[Taffer]

In the literature that doesn't seem to be the conventional view.

For example, from New World Encyclopedia, Online,

"It is useful to make a distinction between ecological selection and sexual selection. Ecological selection covers any mechanism of selection as a result of the environment, such as temperature, predation, humidity, competition, and so forth. Sexual selection refers specifically to competition between organisms for mates. Sexual selection includes mechanisms such as mate choice and male-male competition..."

You consider an encyclopedia to be literature?

No matter. You misunderstand the terms.

Selection refers to environmental (or other) 'pressures' which result in fitter individuals producing more offspring. The mechanism of selection has an environmental (or other) cause, and acts directly on reproductive success. The whole thing is the mechanism.

For example, say, for instance, the temperature in a particular clime changes. There is now a selective pressure, 'caused' by the temperature difference, which acts on organisms. The more fit organisms survive to produce more offspring. That is where propagation enters into the equation. Since evolution cannot act on any single generation, it requires further generations for the selective pressures to translate into evolutionary change.

[Complexity]

What part of "imperfect self-replication" would select for survival as opposed to extinction?


And thus you demonstrate that you have missed the entire point.

Why do you engage in these discussions?

[Dancing David]

doppo

[Dancing David]

I honestly can't see what Bill's problem is.

Variation is introduced through mutation.
Variation is selected by survival of the genes.
Survival of the genes is caused by propagation.
Propagation requires reproduction, unless individuals are immortal.
If organisms are immortal, they fail to evolve because they fail to replace lost members of the population.


This is Taffer's post BillThompson75, you stated there are other mechanisms of variation.

Taffer asked you what they were,
you said 'read the literature', which was a weak response to begin with, now you are just avoiding supporting your POV?

[Dancing David]

What part of "imperfect self-replication" would select for survival as opposed to extinction?

What are we suddenly in Religion and Philosophy?

Imperfect self replication is a possible source of variation and now you are making some bizzare question? Huh?

Evolution is blind. Why would imperfect self replication care either way for survival or extinction. It is imperfect.

[Bill Thompson 75]

You consider an encyclopedia to be literature?

No matter. You misunderstand the terms.

Selection refers to environmental (or other) 'pressures' which result in fitter individuals producing more offspring. The mechanism of selection has an environmental (or other) cause, and acts directly on reproductive success. The whole thing is the mechanism.

For example, say, for instance, the temperature in a particular clime changes. There is now a selective pressure, 'caused' by the temperature difference, which acts on organisms. The more fit organisms survive to produce more offspring. That is where propagation enters into the equation. Since evolution cannot act on any single generation, it requires further generations for the selective pressures to translate into evolutionary change.

I responded to what you posted not, apparently, to what you wish you had posted.

[Bill Thompson 75]

And thus you demonstrate that you have missed the entire point.

Why do you engage in these discussions?

What fallacy is that where someone claims that you missed the entire point and gives absolutely no rational for such a claim?

[jimbob]

This is not the usual usage of these terms - sufficiency *is* a guarantee:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_and_sufficient_conditionWhat part of "imperfect self-replication" would select for survival as opposed to extinction?

The selection will be for self-replication, not survival. This is what I have been saying.

[jimbob]

Bill, I am confused,

Have you changed your position or not?

No, you are mixing different issues together.

My points are:

1) For most species the goals of members are survival and mating, not reproduction.

2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.



Most organisms don't have goals, they have inherited behaviours that have evolved because they maximised reproductive success.

Again you are trying to ask what the difference between reproduction and evolution.

DNA self-replication is sufficient but not necessary for evolution. This is a subset of possible self-replication systems.



No: reproduction is differentiated from evolution because reproduction is the process of creating new organisms with (somewhat imperfect) copies of the parental genes. Evolution is the process of change taking place over many generations that leads to optimisation of reproductive success.

What you have stated here is that reproduction is differentiated from evolution by 'reproduction is the process of reproduction' and 'evolution is the process of evolution'.

Yeah, that's true.

But if you still want to insist that evolution is drive by reproduction then it would be more appropriate to say that evolution is driven by dirt. How many species are there that cannot evolve without dirt?

I really don't understand your point. Evolution and reproduction are processes, "dirt" is a material.

The process of evolution works because some organisms reproduce, and the offspring tend to resemble their parent(s) but with some differences. The process of "choosing" which organisms reproduce is the process of Natural Selection.

I'll say this again.

The process of "choosing" which organisms reproduce is the process of Natural Selection. Natural selection only acts to optimise reproductive success, this can sometimes be maximised by traits that improve an organism's survival. Sometimes reproductive success is better guaranteed by producing lots of offspring, with a low chance of individual survival, as opposed to a single offspring with a better chance of survival. Sometimes it is better to breed young, others to breed late.

[Taffer]

I responded to what you posted not, apparently, to what you wish you had posted.

No, you responded to what you think my post means. Please try again.

If reproduction is not the mechanism for selection in replicating organisms, then what is?

Please remember that the environment produces selective pressure on organisms, which is expressed as reproductive success.

ETA:
The process of "choosing" which organisms reproduce is the process of Natural Selection. Natural selection only acts to optimise reproductive success, this can sometimes be maximised by traits that improve an organism's survival. Sometimes reproductive success is better guaranteed by producing lots of offspring, with a low chance of individual survival, as opposed to a single offspring with a better chance of survival. Sometimes it is better to breed young, others to breed late.

QFT

[Bill Thompson 75]

The selection will be for self-replication, not survival. This is what I have been saying.

I understand that, but then the selection can just as likely move towards extinction as towards continued propagation.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Most organisms don't have goals, they have inherited behaviours that have evolved because they maximised reproductive success.

Organisms' behaviors are directed to eating, mating, surviving, but not generally reproduction.


Again you are trying to ask what the difference between reproduction and evolution.

That difference reveals what drives evolution.


DNA self-replication is sufficient but not necessary for evolution. This is a subset of possible self-replication systems.

DNA self-replication alone is not sufficient. If there is not the appropriate selection the organisms line will as likely die out as not.
DNA replication is necessary. If there is no DNA replication at all the line discontinues immediately.


I really don't understand your point. Evolution and reproduction are processes, "dirt" is a material.

Few things reproduce without nutrition which most commonly originates in dirt. (or a variation of dirt for sea animals). So consumption of dirt is more fundamental to evolution than reproduction is.


The process of evolution works because some organisms reproduce, and the offspring tend to resemble their parent(s) but with some differences. The process of "choosing" which organisms reproduce is the process of Natural Selection.

I'll say this again.

The process of "choosing" which organisms reproduce is the process of Natural Selection. Natural selection only acts to optimise reproductive success, this can sometimes be maximised by traits that improve an organism's survival. Sometimes reproductive success is better guaranteed by producing lots of offspring, with a low chance of individual survival, as opposed to a single offspring with a better chance of survival. Sometimes it is better to breed young, others to breed late.

That optimization is the key mechanism driving evolution.

[Bill Thompson 75]

What are we suddenly in Religion and Philosophy?

Imperfect self replication is a possible source of variation and now you are making some bizzare question? Huh?

When discussing evolution if the question of selection is brought up then it would be bizarre to consider that question bizarre.


Evolution is blind. Why would imperfect self replication care either way for survival or extinction. It is imperfect.

Evolution discussions generally focus on the processes which aid a species to propagate, not die out.

[Bill Thompson 75]

You consider an encyclopedia to be literature?

Where I come from we consider works of non-fiction to be literature.

[Bill Thompson 75]

No, you responded to what you think my post means. Please try again.

If reproduction is not the mechanism for selection in replicating organisms, then what is?

Please remember that the environment produces selective pressure on organisms, which is expressed as reproductive success.


The environment tests candidate organisms to see if they have traits that will aid in survival. The test includes factors such as temperature, predation, humidity, and competition. The environment then passes the candidates which perform satisfactorily on the test and lets them reproduce, and fails the others by killing them. The test is the mechanism for this process called natural selection.

[Taffer]

The environment tests candidate organisms to see if they have traits that will aid in survival. The test includes factors such as temperature, predation, humidity, and competition. The environment then passes the candidates which perform satisfactorily on the test and lets them reproduce, and fails the others by killing them. The test is the mechanism for this process called natural selection.

No, the result of this is natural selection. Natural selection is a phenomenon, not a force.

[jimbob]

No, the result of this is natural selection. Natural selection is a phenomenon, not a force.

Bill, I think this type of conflation of ideas is the source of much of your confusion (on several threads). For example you seem to be trying to distinguish between reproduction and evolution




2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.


But you are missing the main point: Reproduction is a process that is enacted by individual organisms. Evolution is a process that acts on populations of organisms over generations.

This is because the change is between generations i.e. between ancestors and offspring. Each incremental change only happens at the point of reproduction. "Successful" traits are those whose carriers reproduce.

[jimbob]

The selection will be for self-replication, not survival. This is what I have been saying.

I understand that, but then the selection can just as likely move towards extinction as towards continued propagation.

Are you stating that adaptation towards reproductive success can move towards extinction?

This is wrong: Reproductive success is by its very nature the antithesis of extinction.

To keep it concrete, lets talk about animals. I have mentioned Lonesome George before in this thread.

Lonesome George is a Galapagos tortoise. He is the only known living member of his sub-species. At the moment he does not seem in imminent danger of death and will probably outlive me, and possibly my children, and their hypothetical children. By this measure he is surviving and surviving well - he is already 90-years old.

It might be possible for a tortoise of a closely related sub-species to mate with him. This has ben tried, but so far hasn't been successful, and is looking increasingly unlikely. If he fails to mate his germline will die out and his sub-species will become extinct.

Genghis Khan is dead and has been so for about 800-years. However he managed to leave a lot of descendants, so that one estimate puts him as direct male ancestor* of about 8% of the males alive in a large part of Asia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_Genghis_Khan#DNA_evidence_-_Genghis_Khan_Effect). His germline doesn't seem to be in imminent danger of extinction.

Genghis Khan died on campaign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#Death_and_burial) and it is arguable that he might have lived longer if he hadn't been on this campaign.

Pope Benedict is older than this, so has "survived better", but he won't leave any descendants so his germline will become extinct with him.




*By "direct male ancestor" it is meant "grandfather-father-son" all the way back, which can be seen in the y-chromosome that is passed in the male line because only males have y-chromosomes. Direct female ancestor means grandmother-mother-daughter, and can be seen in mitochondrial DNA, which comes from the egg, and thus is only inherited from the mother. (In other words slightly more genetic material comes from the female than the male).

[Taffer]

Where I come from we consider works of non-fiction to be literature.

That is incorrect when talking about scientific literature. Scientific literature is definitely not an online encyclopedia. Peer reviewed articles are the preferred medium.

[Dancing David]

What fallacy is that where someone claims that you missed the entire point and gives absolutely no rational for such a claim?

As was your statement, 'it is in the literature'.

[Dancing David]

I understand that, but then the selection can just as likely move towards extinction as towards continued propagation.

And that is the point, the ToE and natural selection do not care. Many adaptations can be shown to be harmful to the success of the individual as a survivor, as long as the species reproduces.

Selection often does not benefit the individual, where are you getting your idea? Natural selection through reproductive success is not to the benefit of the individual, which seems to be implicit in your statement.

[Dancing David]

Organisms' behaviors are directed to eating, mating, surviving, but not generally reproduction.

depends on the organism and the mechanisms of reproduction, not a general rule.

....



DNA self-replication alone is not sufficient. If there is not the appropriate selection the organisms line will as likely die out as not.

And that points out your basic error, or seeming error again, NSTRS (natural selection through reproductive success) does not care. The selection is based solely upon reproductive success, even if it is to the detriment of the individual.

...



Few things reproduce without nutrition which most commonly originates in dirt. (or a variation of dirt for sea animals). So consumption of dirt is more fundamental to evolution than reproduction is.

No, that is bad reasoning, nuclear fusion and QM probability are just as supportive of life.




That optimization is the key mechanism driving evolution.

Optimization of reproduction.

[Dancing David]

The environment tests candidate organisms to see if they have traits that will aid in survival. The test includes factors such as temperature, predation, humidity, and competition. The environment then passes the candidates which perform satisfactorily on the test and lets them reproduce, and fails the others by killing them. The test is the mechanism for this process called natural selection.

Have you read Gould or any modern ToE? (Gould is a little dated but a good starting point.)
In particulat Gould talks about the four errors of thinking about the ToE: progressivism, determinism, gradualism and adaptionism.

Seriously, you seem to have some interesting notions of what make NSTRS.

[Complexity]

Where I come from we consider works of non-fiction to be literature.


This guy I know, he comes from a place where some people not only lie, but they lie compulsively and continuously: lie to pretend they were right, lie to be contrary, lie for absolutely no reason at all.

[jimbob]

1) For most species the goals of members are survival and mating, not reproduction.

Do you claim that "species" have "goals" or that individual organisms with species have goals? The first is utterly wrong, there is no goal for the human race as a whole. There is no goal for any species as a whole.

The second is untrue in the vast majority of cases - humans have goals; I'd argue that some other higher animals have goals, and that's it. If you are *very* elastic with your definition of "goal" you might say that most vertebrates and some invertebrates (cephalopods, for example) might have some limited goals.

No plant has goals. No fungus has goals. No bacterium has goals. Viruses are generally considered to not even be alive, and they evolve.

[jimbob]

Most organisms don't have goals, they have inherited behaviours that have evolved because they maximised reproductive success.

Organisms' behaviors are directed to eating, mating, surviving, but not generally reproduction.


This is where you are missing a subtlety in what I said. Most organisms have no nervous system at all so can't think. They do have "behaviours" in that they respond to stimulii. The only inherited behaviours that organisms have are ones that were carried by their ancestors, which by definition had successfully reproduced. Why does a motehr octopus protect her eggs, tending them until she dies from lack of food? It isn't because she has a "goal" of survival. It is because her ancestors did this, and it improved the survival of their genes. The genes that carry this trait originated due to natural selection and survive in the descendants.





Again you are trying to ask what the difference between reproduction and evolution.

That difference reveals what drives evolution.

But one is a process that individual organisms enact, and the other acts on populations over generations. It is like asking what the difference between life and democracy.

Or a better example, asking the difference is between the water cycle and evaporation.






DNA self-replication is sufficient but not necessary for evolution. This is a subset of possible self-replication systems.

DNA self-replication alone is not sufficient. If there is not the appropriate selection the organisms line will as likely die out as not.
DNA replication is necessary. If there is no DNA replication at all the line discontinues immediately.


Why is it not sufficient? It is fair to assume that we are talking about DNA replication in this universe, in which case it will be resource-limited. In other words, even if nothing else stopped a lot of the replication, eventually the carriers of the DNA would run into resource limitation, which would mean that there would be competition between these carriers, and you would get natural selection.


I really don't understand your point. Evolution and reproduction are processes, "dirt" is a material.

Few things reproduce without nutrition which most commonly originates in dirt. (or a variation of dirt for sea animals). So consumption of dirt is more fundamental to evolution than reproduction is.



But we are talking about processes here.

What is the difference between an elephant and purple?

As you chose "dirt", may I ask what level of scientific knowledge you have, because it seems a little simplistic.

If we were discussing what was needed for life, then the general consensus is that water is one of the key ingredients. There is speculation that ammonia might play a similar role in very cold planets, but water is vital for terrestrial life.



The process of evolution works because some organisms reproduce, and the offspring tend to resemble their parent(s) but with some differences. The process of "choosing" which organisms reproduce is the process of Natural Selection.

I'll say this again.

The process of "choosing" which organisms reproduce is the process of Natural Selection. Natural selection only acts to optimise reproductive success, this can sometimes be maximised by traits that improve an organism's survival. Sometimes reproductive success is better guaranteed by producing lots of offspring, with a low chance of individual survival, as opposed to a single offspring with a better chance of survival. Sometimes it is better to breed young, others to breed late.

That optimization is the key mechanism driving evolution.
Optimisation towards reproductive success.

ETA:

Optimization of reproduction.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Survival falls under the umbrella of reproduction.
If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.....(As has been pointed out already) not if you contribute to the reproduction of your genes via a group member that also shares the same genes.

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
The only thing that can be controlled is reproduction.

....Fun fact: Believe it or not, there is at least one mechanism some microorganisms control mutation rates. They can turn off their genetic repair mechanisms when exposed to a toxic environment. The result is an increase in mutation rates when adaptation is needed.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here's another fun fact: Genetic variation is selected for in slowly reproducing populations. If it wasn't, then the species would likely die out at the first environmental change. Selection of variation goes against selection of an individual's genes.

For example, when the plague epidemics occurred in Europe, if there was not already genes within the population that could survive the infection, you would lose all your reproducing adults. Who would be left to reproduce the needed mutation?

With microorganisms, they can increase mutation rates when needed (see above post). But with organisms that are not born able to reproduce, the variation has to already be in the population. This has resulted in genetic variation being naturally selected. Yet it depends on the genetics of the group, not the genetics of the individual. How can that be?

[jimbob]

Fun fact: Believe it or not, there is at least one mechanism some microorganisms control mutation rates. They can turn off their genetic repair mechanisms when exposed to a toxic environment. The result is an increase in mutation rates when adaptation is needed.

Here's another fun fact: Genetic variation is selected for in slowly reproducing populations. If it wasn't, then the species would likely die out at the first environmental change. Selection of variation goes against selection of an individual's genes.

For example, when the plague epidemics occurred in Europe, if there was not already genes within the population that could survive the infection, you would lose all your reproducing adults. Who would be left to reproduce the needed mutation?

With microorganisms, they can increase mutation rates when needed (see above post). But with organisms that are not born able to reproduce, the variation has to already be in the population. This has resulted in genetic variation being naturally selected. Yet it depends on the genetics of the group, not the genetics of the individual. How can that be?

These might be interesting:


Protein stability promotes evolvability Jesse D. Bloom*,†, Sy T. Labthavikul*, Christopher R. Otey‡, and Frances H. Arnold*,† PNAS April 11, 2006 vol. 103 no. 15 5869-5874 (http://www.pnas.org/content/103/15/5869.abstract)




Robustness promotes evolvability of thermotolerance in an RNA virus, Robert C McBride , C Brandon Ogbunugafor and Paul E Turner BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:231doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-23 (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/8/231)


And I believe similar results have been extended to more complex organisms.

I think the argument is that the mutation rate is fairly constant, but chaperone proteins keep slight variations in genes expressing very similar proteins under normal conditions, but when stressed, these chaperone proteins don't work so well so more variation is unmasked, just at the time when the "normal" approach isn't working so well.

[Bill Thompson 75]

No, the result of this is natural selection. Natural selection is a phenomenon, not a force.

I was using "force" the way that is commonly used by evolutionists, since that is the issue under discussion.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill, I think this type of conflation of ideas is the source of much of your confusion (on several threads). For example you seem to be trying to distinguish between reproduction and evolution

But you are missing the main point: Reproduction is a process that is enacted by individual organisms. Evolution is a process that acts on populations of organisms over generations.

This is because the change is between generations i.e. between ancestors and offspring. Each incremental change only happens at the point of reproduction. "Successful" traits are those whose carriers reproduce.

Yes, I have tried to use the terms continuation or propagation to distinguish between evolution and failure to evolve in a species.

Variation and selection are the factors which distinguish evolving from not evolving.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Are you stating that adaptation towards reproductive success can move towards extinction?

This is wrong: Reproductive success is by its very nature the antithesis of extinction.


This is factually wrong. Many species have reproduced until extinction.
Okay, I may be mistaken, but I think that all species reproduced until extinction.

[Bill Thompson 75]

And that is the point, the ToE and natural selection do not care. Many adaptations can be shown to be harmful to the success of the individual as a survivor, as long as the species reproduces.

Selection often does not benefit the individual, where are you getting your idea? Natural selection through reproductive success is not to the benefit of the individual, which seems to be implicit in your statement.

Congratulations, it looks like you've found some exceptions to the rules.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Have you read Gould or any modern ToE? (Gould is a little dated but a good starting point.)
In particulat Gould talks about the four errors of thinking about the ToE: progressivism, determinism, gradualism and adaptionism.

Seriously, you seem to have some interesting notions of what make NSTRS.

If by interesting you mean peculiar then I am not sure why you would think that variation and natural selection are interesting concepts within the ToE.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Do you claim that "species" have "goals" or that individual organisms with species have goals? The first is utterly wrong, there is no goal for the human race as a whole. There is no goal for any species as a whole.

The second is untrue in the vast majority of cases - humans have goals; I'd argue that some other higher animals have goals, and that's it. If you are *very* elastic with your definition of "goal" you might say that most vertebrates and some invertebrates (cephalopods, for example) might have some limited goals.

No plant has goals. No fungus has goals. No bacterium has goals. Viruses are generally considered to not even be alive, and they evolve.

By "members" I thought it was clear that I meant "individuals".

Consider goal to mean the target of a behavior.

[Taffer]

I was using "force" the way that is commonly used by evolutionists, since that is the issue under discussion.

That does not change the fact that you are wrong. The result of differentially successful breeding in organisms is natural selection. Couple natural selection with inheritable traits and variation, and you have evolution. Reproduction, or at least inheritablity of traits, is key to the function of evolution. If there is no reproduction, and thus no inherited traits, there can be no evolution of a species.

[Bill Thompson 75]

This is where you are missing a subtlety in what I said. Most organisms have no nervous system at all so can't think. They do have "behaviours" in that they respond to stimulii. The only inherited behaviours that organisms have are ones that were carried by their ancestors, which by definition had successfully reproduced. Why does a motehr octopus protect her eggs, tending them until she dies from lack of food? It isn't because she has a "goal" of survival. It is because her ancestors did this, and it improved the survival of their genes. The genes that carry this trait originated due to natural selection and survive in the descendants.

But one is a process that individual organisms enact, and the other acts on populations over generations. It is like asking what the difference between life and democracy.

Or a better example, asking the difference is between the water cycle and evaporation.

This resulted from the loose usage of "reproduction" which I tried to avoid by using with "continuation" or "propagation".


Why is it not sufficient? It is fair to assume that we are talking about DNA replication in this universe, in which case it will be resource-limited. In other words, even if nothing else stopped a lot of the replication, eventually the carriers of the DNA would run into resource limitation, which would mean that there would be competition between these carriers, and you would get natural selection.

I said it would not be sufficient because your statement on imperfect self-replication did not allow for a mechanism of selection. You have now corrected yourself.


But we are talking about processes here.

What is the difference between an elephant and purple?

As you chose "dirt", may I ask what level of scientific knowledge you have, because it seems a little simplistic.

If we were discussing what was needed for life, then the general consensus is that water is one of the key ingredients. There is speculation that ammonia might play a similar role in very cold planets, but water is vital for terrestrial life.

Optimisation towards reproductive success.

ETA:

It seems to be a matter of phrase usage.

How about this:
Variation and selection optimize reproductive success.

[Bill Thompson 75]

That does not change the fact that you are wrong.

Will you give the Encyclopedia Logica Fallacia permission to use your statements as an example of "moving the goalposts"?


The result of differentially successful breeding in organisms is natural selection.

Couple natural selection with inheritable traits and variation, and you have evolution.

Exactly, we can stop here.


Reproduction, or at least inheritablity of traits, is key to the function of evolution. If there is no reproduction, and thus no inherited traits, there can be no evolution of a species.

[Taffer]

Will you give the Encyclopedia Logica Fallacia permission to use your statements as an example of "moving the goalposts"?



Exactly, we can stop here.

Um, hello? Without reproduction, there is no natural selection. Thus reproduction (or inheritance if traits) is vital to evolution.

Which is exactly what I just said...

[Bill Thompson 75]

That is incorrect when talking about scientific literature. Scientific literature is definitely not an online encyclopedia. Peer reviewed articles are the preferred medium.

It's so telling, the sweeping generalizations that are made as rebuttals.

Here we have the clear implication that online encyclopedias are not peer reviewed.

First, for any encyclopedia to be successful it must have a reputation that scholarly articles are written by scholars.

Second, many online articles started as print articles.

Third, when an online encyclopedia claims that its articles are peer reviewed maybe there should be a assumption that that is not a lie.

Fourth, do some research.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Um, hello? Without reproduction, there is no natural selection. Thus reproduction (or inheritance if traits) is vital to evolution.

Which is exactly what I just said...

Nobody has ever argued that reproduction is not necessary.

But to quote you, "Couple natural selection with inheritable traits and variation, and you have evolution".

And this is what you said:

Your claim: Natural selection is a phenomenon, not a force.

My claim: I was using "force" the way that is commonly used by evolutionists, since that is the issue under discussion.

Your claim: That does not change the fact that you are wrong.

My claim: Where's the goalpost going next?

[jimbob]

Yes, I have tried to use the terms continuation or propagation to distinguish between evolution and failure to evolve in a species.

Variation and selection are the factors which distinguish evolving from not evolving.

There is variation and natural selection in ever population of organisms that has ever lived. A "population" being defined as more than one organism. See my sums earlier about the chance of a non-mutated genome.

The selection will be for self-replication, not survival. This is what I have been saying.
I understand that, but then the selection can just as likely move towards extinction as towards continued propagation.


Are you stating that adaptation towards reproductive success can move towards extinction?

This is wrong: Reproductive success is by its very nature the antithesis of extinction.
This is factually wrong. Many species have reproduced until extinction.
Okay, I may be mistaken, but I think that all species reproduced until extinction.

Not quite: By definition, in all extinct species, no representatives of the last generation reproduced.

Reproductive success is the antithesis of extinction.

By "members" I thought it was clear that I meant "individuals".

Consider goal to mean the target of a behavior.

But behaviours don't have "targets" or "goals". Why do peahens choose to mate with peacocks with brightly coloured tails? Because those peahens that mated with the peacocks with the brightest plumage had more reproductive offspring. Why? Partly because any male offspring would tend to have brighter plumage, and this translates into reproductive success.


There was no "goal" it was just another beneficial trait that evolved. It adversely affects survival chances, but increases reproductive success.

[Bill Thompson 75]

There is variation and natural selection in ever population of organisms that has ever lived. A "population" being defined as more than one organism. See my sums earlier about the chance of a non-mutated genome.

Not quite: By definition, in all extinct species, no representatives of the last generation reproduced.

Reproductive success is the antithesis of extinction.

Right up until it results in extinction.


But behaviours don't have "targets" or "goals". Why do peahens choose to mate with peacocks with brightly coloured tails? Because those peahens that mated with the peacocks with the brightest plumage had more reproductive offspring. Why? Partly because any male offspring would tend to have brighter plumage, and this translates into reproductive success.

There was no "goal" it was just another beneficial trait that evolved. It adversely affects survival chances, but increases reproductive success.

I'm not sure why you are mincing word meanings. The peahen targets the brightest peacock for reproduction.

[Dancing David]

I was using "force" the way that is commonly used by evolutionists, since that is the issue under discussion.

Citations, references, who said force where? 'evolutionists'?

You are getting out there.

[Dancing David]

It's so telling, the sweeping generalizations that are made as rebuttals.

Here we have the clear implication that online encyclopedias are not peer reviewed.

First, for any encyclopedia to be successful it must have a reputation that scholarly articles are written by scholars.

Second, many online articles started as print articles.

Third, when an online encyclopedia claims that its articles are peer reviewed maybe there should be a assumption that that is not a lie.

Fourth, do some research.

Irrelevant and desperate.

[Dancing David]

If by interesting you mean peculiar then I am not sure why you would think that variation and natural selection are interesting concepts within the ToE.

Nice dodge regarding your frequent fallacies and poor word usage.

Obviously you are scant on the ToE.

[Dancing David]

The environment tests candidate organisms to see if they have traits that will aid in survival. The test includes factors such as temperature, predation, humidity, and competition. The environment then passes the candidates which perform satisfactorily on the test and lets them reproduce, and fails the others by killing them. The test is the mechanism for this process called natural selection.

Well you forget that the mechanism of 'natural selection' is 'reproductive success.'

So your whole post shows a gross misunderstanding the ToE. Which is why I questioned how much modern, non-press release, encyclopedia written by non-experts you have read; on the ToE or biology?
Seriously Bill Thompson 75, your post and many others previous shows a gross misunderstanding.

"environment tests candidate organisms", no it does not, the environment 'exists', an organism may experience stress or non-stress, but the 'environment' does not 'test'. This is sort of a major anthropomorphization on your part.
Organisms, especially aerial plankton but all organisms end up in a variety of environments. They either succeed or fail in separate events and task in that environment. They are not tested, they exist.

"environment then passes the candidates ", this is talking rather poorly, especially for the SMT forum, not the Religion and Poetry forum.’Passing' again is too anthropomorphic and it neglects teh wide variety of things that can happen to an organsism. Organisms can do very very poorly in an environment and still reproduce, that is 'natural selection'.

'fails the others by killing them', my gosh, how much anthropomorphizing can you engage in, as well as your own personal idiomatic statement of what natural selection is.

So that is the main problem I have, you are using emotional anthropomorphic statements that are poorly stated and show a rather shallow and ignorant understanding of the ToE, as well as population dynamics.

That is a huge error in this arena, the SMT and a discussion of the ToE, where so far most or your arguments are rather philosophical and lacking depth.

That would be okay but you gloss over all attempts to communicate with you.

So do you understand that your usage of natural selection is your own personal one, and while it may have been in line with much of popular understanding of the ToE fifty years ago; it is not the current usage (amongst the people who work in the field)?


In the ToE, currently natural selection is solely reproductive success.

[Dancing David]

What part of "imperfect self-replication" would select for survival as opposed to extinction?

And again here you show another gross misunderstanding.

Any 'self replication' drives 'evolution' regardless of the 'perfection' or 'imperfection', and in fact the world is full of half assed mechanisms/organisms that are poorly functioning, self destructive and replicate imperfectly and haphazardly.

That is the point and why your concepts similar to 'determinism' and 'progressivism' blind you to understanding the ToE, 'evolution' does not care if the organisms and species self destruct, survival is needed to reproduce, but there are lots of trade offs, infrequent survival can be compensated for by huge reproduction.

[Dancing David]

What causes selection?

Nature.


And here is your repeated error again, writ small.

All the 'selection' is in the ToE is reproduction and especially success in reproduction. Period. Full stop. End.

That is all, the environment and survival only matter in terms for 'reproductive success', that is ALL the selection in the ToE, you can be the best survivor in a wide variety of environments but if you do not reproduce well then there will be zero 'selection'.

Selection, natural selection is only based upon reproductive success. (In the ToE)

[Dancing David]

2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.


And here is the most glaring mis-statement of all, so here you go, this is your own personal idiomatic usage, it is not 'natural selection' in modern biology. So please show your citations to relevant research and teaching publications that show your vision of 'selection' is not personal and idiomatic; but is used by people who research and teach in the field.

[Taffer]

It's so telling, the sweeping generalizations that are made as rebuttals.

Here we have the clear implication that online encyclopedias are not peer reviewed.

First, for any encyclopedia to be successful it must have a reputation that scholarly articles are written by scholars.

Second, many online articles started as print articles.

Third, when an online encyclopedia claims that its articles are peer reviewed maybe there should be a assumption that that is not a lie.

Fourth, do some research.

I'm sorry, but apparently you have never been to university. If I had offered an online encyclopedia as a citation without proper journal article support, I would have been told to do it again.

[Taffer]

Nobody has ever argued that reproduction is not necessary.

But to quote you, "Couple natural selection with inheritable traits and variation, and you have evolution".

And this is what you said:

Your claim: Natural selection is a phenomenon, not a force.

My claim: I was using "force" the way that is commonly used by evolutionists, since that is the issue under discussion.

Your claim: That does not change the fact that you are wrong.

My claim: Where's the goalpost going next?

No.

Natural selection is a phenomenon. Natural selection occurs when environmental 'pressures' result in differential reproductive rates. Without reproduction, there is no natural selection. Thus, I was perfectly accurate, and moved no goalposts, when I said that natural selection and variation of inheritable traits leads to evolution. Just as I was perfectly accurate when I said that reproduction is required for evolution.

[jimbob]

There is variation and natural selection in ever population of organisms that has ever lived. A "population" being defined as more than one organism. See my sums earlier about the chance of a non-mutated genome.

Not quite: By definition, in all extinct species, no representatives of the last generation reproduced.

Reproductive success is the antithesis of extinction.

Right up until it results in extinction.

Reproductive success doesn't result in extinction, reproductive failure does.

Of course extinction is the eventual fate of all gene lines. But this is when they suffer reproductive failure not success.



But behaviours don't have "targets" or "goals". Why do peahens choose to mate with peacocks with brightly coloured tails? Because those peahens that mated with the peacocks with the brightest plumage had more reproductive offspring. Why? Partly because any male offspring would tend to have brighter plumage, and this translates into reproductive success.

There was no "goal" it was just another beneficial trait that evolved. It adversely affects survival chances, but increases reproductive success.

I'm not sure why you are mincing word meanings. The peahen targets the brightest peacock for reproduction.
No it doesn't.

Hell, some humans manage to reproduce without intending to.

Peahens choose peacocks to mate with because of instinct. This evolved because those with the brightest plumage produced offspring with the best reproductive success.

I am not mincing my word meanings, I am being very precise.

[jimbob]

This is where you are missing a subtlety in what I said. Most organisms have no nervous system at all so can't think. They do have "behaviours" in that they respond to stimulii. The only inherited behaviours that organisms have are ones that were carried by their ancestors, which by definition had successfully reproduced. Why does a motehr octopus protect her eggs, tending them until she dies from lack of food? It isn't because she has a "goal" of survival. It is because her ancestors did this, and it improved the survival of their genes. The genes that carry this trait originated due to natural selection and survive in the descendants.

But one is a process that individual organisms enact, and the other acts on populations over generations. It is like asking what the difference between life and democracy.

Or a better example, asking the difference is between the water cycle and evaporation.

This resulted from the loose usage of "reproduction" which I tried to avoid by using with "continuation" or "propagation".

The only loose usage of the word reproduction has been by you.

As has been pointed out before, something seems to have a stable form doesn't mean that the organism isn't subject to evolutionary pressures.

Variation exists in every population. Natural selection acts in every population.



Why is it not sufficient? It is fair to assume that we are talking about DNA replication in this universe, in which case it will be resource-limited. In other words, even if nothing else stopped a lot of the replication, eventually the carriers of the DNA would run into resource limitation, which would mean that there would be competition between these carriers, and you would get natural selection.

I said it would not be sufficient because your statement on imperfect self-replication did not allow for a mechanism of selection. You have now corrected yourself.

No, you actually said there would be "sufficiency but not guarantee", which implies that you don't know what "sufficient" means:

Evolution usually refers to variation (imperfection) and selection.

Selection becomes irrelevant if the system presents no circumstances to favor any imperfections (variations).

Evolution without selection may result in changes that may or may not allow the species to die out.

If a species dies out then evolution ends.

So you have necessity, sufficiency, but not guarantee.

I did not "correct myself", I had made the following statement:
I would argue that, given a finite system, then imperfect self-replication is necessary and sufficient for evolution to occur.
You didn't realise the implications of this statment, so I expanded on them later on and gave some reasons.






But we are talking about processes here.

What is the difference between an elephant and purple?

As you chose "dirt", may I ask what level of scientific knowledge you have, because it seems a little simplistic.

If we were discussing what was needed for life, then the general consensus is that water is one of the key ingredients. There is speculation that ammonia might play a similar role in very cold planets, but water is vital for terrestrial life.

Optimisation towards reproductive success.

ETA:

It seems to be a matter of phrase usage.

How about this:
Variation and selection optimize reproductive success.

Again, this seems a very odd choice of words. You can't separate reproductive success from natural selection. Natural selection is manifest in the act of reproduction.

And there is a fundamental difference between stating that evolutionary pressures all drive towards reproductive success and stating that "evolutionary pressures drive towards survival".

The first is true, the second is a misunderstanding.

What level of scientific knowledge do you have?

ETA: Dancing David - post#111 nominated...

[jimbob]

What part of "imperfect self-replication" would select for survival as opposed to extinction?

And again here you show another gross misunderstanding.

Any 'self replication' drives 'evolution' regardless of the 'perfection' or 'imperfection', and in fact the world is full of half assed mechanisms/organisms that are poorly functioning, self destructive and replicate imperfectly and haphazardly.

That is the point and why your concepts similar to 'determinism' and 'progressivism' blind you to understanding the ToE, 'evolution' does not care if the organisms and species self destruct, survival is needed to reproduce, but there are lots of trade offs, infrequent survival can be compensated for by huge reproduction.

Indeed, the self-replication ensures natural selection. The imperfections in the copying ensure variation.

[Dancing David]

ETA: Dancing David - post#111 nominated...

Thanks. :blush:

Your post have been careful and well spoken.

[jimbob]

Well you forget that the mechanism of 'natural selection' is 'reproductive success.'

So your whole post shows a gross misunderstanding the ToE. Which is why I questioned how much modern, non-press release, encyclopedia written by non-experts you have read; on the ToE or biology?
Seriously Bill Thompson 75, your post and many others previous shows a gross misunderstanding.

"environment tests candidate organisms", no it does not, the environment 'exists', an organism may experience stress or non-stress, but the 'environment' does not 'test'. This is sort of a major anthropomorphization on your part.
Organisms, especially aerial plankton but all organisms end up in a variety of environments. They either succeed or fail in separate events and task in that environment. They are not tested, they exist.

"environment then passes the candidates ", this is talking rather poorly, especially for the SMT forum, not the Religion and Poetry forum.’Passing' again is too anthropomorphic and it neglects teh wide variety of things that can happen to an organsism. Organisms can do very very poorly in an environment and still reproduce, that is 'natural selection'.

'fails the others by killing them', my gosh, how much anthropomorphizing can you engage in, as well as your own personal idiomatic statement of what natural selection is.

So that is the main problem I have, you are using emotional anthropomorphic statements that are poorly stated and show a rather shallow and ignorant understanding of the ToE, as well as population dynamics.

That is a huge error in this arena, the SMT and a discussion of the ToE, where so far most or your arguments are rather philosophical and lacking depth.

That would be okay but you gloss over all attempts to communicate with you.

So do you understand that your usage of natural selection is your own personal one, and while it may have been in line with much of popular understanding of the ToE fifty years ago; it is not the current usage (amongst the people who work in the field)?


In the ToE, currently natural selection is solely reproductive success.

The highlighted bit is the nub of the issue I think.

So do you understand that your usage of natural selection is your own personal one, and while it may have been in line with much of popular understanding of the ToE fifty years ago; it is not the current usage (amongst the people who work in the field)?

Interestingly enough, my Dad has a copy of the (pelican books) Theory of Evolution by Maynard Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Evolution)(first published in 1958) which was aimed at the educated layperson, and that doesn't have this issue. Indeed, Richard Dawkins has written a preface to the newest edition.

In other words, the understanding is more than 50-years out of date compared to what an interested amateur could find out.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Citations, references, who said force where? 'evolutionists'?

You are getting out there.

Wow, can't you do anything for yourself?

ScienceDaily.com

"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D., the John and Rebecca Moores professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston."

Getting out where?

Not everyone posts like you, which appears to be without any concern that there may be truth behind what is being said.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Irrelevant and desperate.

The fact that online sources may be peer reviewed by authoritative scholars would be irrelevant to someone who has no concern for accuracy and truth.

Why are you so desperate to hide this truth?

[Bill Thompson 75]

Nice dodge regarding your frequent fallacies and poor word usage.

Obviously you are scant on the ToE.

Could you expand on your contention that variation and selection within the ToE are fallacies?

[Bill Thompson 75]

Well you forget that the mechanism of 'natural selection' is 'reproductive success.'

So your whole post shows a gross misunderstanding the ToE. Which is why I questioned how much modern, non-press release, encyclopedia written by non-experts you have read; on the ToE or biology?
Seriously Bill Thompson 75, your post and many others previous shows a gross misunderstanding.

The encyclopedia I read is written by the guys down at the tire retreading factory during their lunch hour.
The online encyclopedias, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, probably have not been updated since they were posted, about 50 years ago.
I just hope the professor at the local university isn't using a textbook to teach out of because it would certainly would not contain yesterday's press releases.


"environment tests candidate organisms", no it does not, the environment 'exists', an organism may experience stress or non-stress, but the 'environment' does not 'test'. This is sort of a major anthropomorphization on your part.
Organisms, especially aerial plankton but all organisms end up in a variety of environments. They either succeed or fail in separate events and task in that environment. They are not tested, they exist.

"environment then passes the candidates ", this is talking rather poorly, especially for the SMT forum, not the Religion and Poetry forum.’Passing' again is too anthropomorphic and it neglects teh wide variety of things that can happen to an organsism. Organisms can do very very poorly in an environment and still reproduce, that is 'natural selection'.

'fails the others by killing them', my gosh, how much anthropomorphizing can you engage in, as well as your own personal idiomatic statement of what natural selection is.

So that is the main problem I have, you are using emotional anthropomorphic statements that are poorly stated and show a rather shallow and ignorant understanding of the ToE, as well as population dynamics.

I will avoid the complex concept of analogy in the future just for you.

That is a huge error in this arena, the SMT and a discussion of the ToE, where so far most or your arguments are rather philosophical and lacking depth.

That would be okay but you gloss over all attempts to communicate with you.

So do you understand that your usage of natural selection is your own personal one, and while it may have been in line with much of popular understanding of the ToE fifty years ago; it is not the current usage (amongst the people who work in the field)?

In the ToE, currently natural selection is solely reproductive success.

I have never claimed more than that variation and selection are critical factors in the theory of evolution. Can you cite the date in the last 50 years when this was no longer true? And what was the event that caused so many evolutionists/biologists to miss the announcement?

[jimbob]

Bill, you seem to be arguing that natural selection is a mechanism in itself. In fact it is simply the inevitable result of reproduction.

You also have problems with the phrase "peer review" which Taffer has been using in the commonly accepted manner. Taffer could also have mentioned the concept of a "primary source". These concepts are not unique to science, but to acaedemic endeavor in general. And at a fairly basic level - I remember first coming across this in either history or geography in early secondary school.

Do you know how to post links? If not you can copy the address from you browser address bar (I know that firefox has one) and add in the link to your post. It will save us time in pointing out where you have misunderstood what the link has been saying.

I would be more willing to believe that you did know what you were talking about if you didn't make statements that were bordering on being category errors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake) like the following:



2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.




Then, when Dancing David asked about forces, you provide a link (no you don't ) quote an article in the popular press, that uses a metaphor. Electrostatic attraction is a "force". Hatred of Jews was a "driving force" in Hitler's Germany

Wow, can't you do anything for yourself?

ScienceDaily.com

"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D., the John and Rebecca Moores professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston."

Getting out where?

Not everyone posts like you, which appears to be without any concern that there may be truth behind what is being said.

[Dancing David]

The highlighted bit is the nub of the issue I think.



Interestingly enough, my Dad has a copy of the (pelican books) Theory of Evolution by Maynard Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Evolution)(first published in 1958) which was aimed at the educated layperson, and that doesn't have this issue. Indeed, Richard Dawkins has written a preface to the newest edition.

In other words, the understanding is more than 50-years out of date compared to what an interested amateur could find out.

True but I am thinking of like the newspaper articles and magazines. 'Survival of the fittest" is an old meme.

:)

[Dancing David]

Wow, can't you do anything for yourself?

Whine much when asked to source your material?

ScienceDaily.com


"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D., the John and Rebecca Moores professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston."

You do know that ScienceDaily while much beloved is a press release source?

Not really what I would call 'cutting edge' now is it. And also contradicts (in the article what you have said about survival
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071004100013.htm)


Getting out where?

In uneducated press release land and the land of straw. :D


Not everyone posts like you, which appears to be without any concern that there may be truth behind what is being said.

No you present a lot of bluff and bluster and resort to spinning the minute you are caleld on it.

It is not up to me to pretend there is some truth in what you say, it is up to you to show teh vaklidity of your outdated and error fileld notions.

[Dancing David]

The fact that online sources may be peer reviewed by authoritative scholars would be irrelevant to someone who has no concern for accuracy and truth.

Why are you so desperate to hide this truth?

Why do you abandon you poorly thought out statements and get into some sort of spinning dance move?
Can't defend your actual statements?

This is the JREF, WHO preformed that alleged peer reveiw and why aren't you defending your ideas?

that is what the majority of my posts were about, funny how you aren't addressing them. :D

[Dancing David]

The encyclopedia I read is written by the guys down at the tire retreading factory during their lunch hour.
The online encyclopedias, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, probably have not been updated since they were posted, about 50 years ago.
I just hope the professor at the local university isn't using a textbook to teach out of because it would certainly would not contain yesterday's press releases.

Irrelevant, I notice you aren't defending your own statements and you are directly avoiding critiques of your statements.




I have never claimed more than that variation and selection are critical factors in the theory of evolution. Can you cite the date in the last 50 years when this was no longer true? And what was the event that caused so many evolutionists/biologists to miss the announcement?


You have repeatedly argued that the 'selection' in 'natural selection' is something other than reproductive success, have you not?

Or do you want to keep dodging the facts of what you posted?

This is not R&P your cute little Jedi mind tricks are no use here.

[Dancing David]

Could you expand on your contention that variation and selection within the ToE are fallacies?

Oh how wonderfully obtuse!

You are not using the standard defintition of natural selection, you repeatedly argued that it is something other than reproductive sucess.

But so far that is just your own idiom.

[Dancing David]

All other factors being equal, we have a population that reproduces at 1:1 per cycle, we start with 100 individuals after 70 generations, we have 100 individuals.
OTOH we have a population that increase at 1% rate over 1 so 1:1.01, after 70 generations we have 200 individuals.

So if that second population doubles every 70 generations
100:100 zero =50%
100:200 70-66%
100:400 140-80%
100:800 210-88%
100:1600 280-94%
100:3200 350-96%
100:6400 420-98%
100:12800 490-99%

So after 490 generations the second populations with a growth rate of just 1% more than the other population will be 99% of the total population.

If we give a higher growth rate of 10% then doubling is every seven years and the population will be 99% dominated in 49 generations.

Conversely if we have a growth rate of .1% the same thing will happen after 4,900 generations.

And even a growth rate of 1% of 1% it will happen after 49,000 generations.

So if you are a bacteria that generates once per day that is 134.24 years. At just .01% growth.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill, you seem to be arguing that natural selection is a mechanism in itself. In fact it is simply the inevitable result of reproduction.

Which came first, natural selection or reproduction?


You also have problems with the phrase "peer review" which Taffer has been using in the commonly accepted manner. Taffer could also have mentioned the concept of a "primary source". These concepts are not unique to science, but to acaedemic endeavor in general. And at a fairly basic level - I remember first coming across this in either history or geography in early secondary school.

I assume you are referring to online encyclopedias which, when they claim to be peer reviewed, you claim that they are not reviewed by peers.


Do you know how to post links? If not you can copy the address from you browser address bar (I know that firefox has one) and add in the link to your post. It will save us time in pointing out where you have misunderstood what the link has been saying.

I would be more willing to believe that you did know what you were talking about if you didn't make statements that were bordering on being category errors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake) like the following:

By your definition of category error, "A property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property", then it is not even possible for variation and selection to be factors in evolution.


Then, when Dancing David asked about forces, you provide a link (no you don't ) quote an article in the popular press, that uses a metaphor. Electrostatic attraction is a "force". Hatred of Jews was a "driving force" in Hitler's Germany

I would disagree that science does not use metaphors.

Godwin's Law prevents me from remarking on the comparisons.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Reproductive success doesn't result in extinction, reproductive failure does.

Of course extinction is the eventual fate of all gene lines. But this is when they suffer reproductive failure not success.


No it doesn't.

Hell, some humans manage to reproduce without intending to.

Peahens choose peacocks to mate with because of instinct. This evolved because those with the brightest plumage produced offspring with the best reproductive success.

I am not mincing my word meanings, I am being very precise.

You refute my claims with restatements of my claims.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Oh how wonderfully obtuse!

You are not using the standard defintition of natural selection, you repeatedly argued that it is something other than reproductive sucess.

But so far that is just your own idiom.

Are you saying that the natural selection and reproductive success are identical concepts?

[Taffer]

Are you saying that the natural selection and reproductive success are identical concepts?

You are comparing apples with oranges. Natural selection is the phenomenon which arises from differences in reproductive success and inheritable traits.

[Dancing David]

Are you saying that the natural selection and reproductive success are identical concepts?

Still obtuse aren't you, reproductive success it the way that natural selection manifests itself.

Your focus on 'nature selecting traits through survival' is incorrect, natural selection in the ToE is the effect of how reproductive sucess creates larger groups sharing traits in a population.

I still notice that you aren't defending your own ideas or trying to show how they are in line with the ToE.

[Dancing David]

I assume you are referring to online encyclopedias which, when they claim to be peer reviewed, you claim that they are not reviewed by peers.


I assure you that you are still engaging in a continuing appeal to authority because you can't support or defend your own ideas.

[Bill Thompson 75]

You are comparing apples with oranges. Natural selection is the phenomenon which arises from differences in reproductive success and inheritable traits.

I've seen this before where someone confuses a question with a claim.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Still obtuse aren't you, reproductive success it the way that natural selection manifests itself.

Your focus on 'nature selecting traits through survival' is incorrect, natural selection in the ToE is the effect of how reproductive sucess creates larger groups sharing traits in a population.

So then reproductive success causes natural selection?


I still notice that you aren't defending your own ideas or trying to show how they are in line with the ToE.

Multiple times I have stated that my claim is that variation and selection are important factors in evolution, but you don't respond with an explanation of why that is not true.

[Taffer]

I've seen this before where someone confuses a question with a claim.

So? I pointed out why your question is poor. Do you disagree with my explanation?

[Bill Thompson 75]

I assure you that you are still engaging in a continuing appeal to authority because you can't support or defend your own ideas.

I notice you do not want to admit to the fact that respected scientists place their work in resources that are respectable but may say something that disagrees with you.

[Taffer]

So then reproductive success causes natural selection?


Variable reproductive rates and inheritable traits result in the phenomenon of natural selection, yes.

[Taffer]

I notice you do not want to admit to the fact that respected scientists place their work in resources that are respectable but may say something that disagrees with you.

An encyclopaedia is not a primary source.

[Bill Thompson 75]

So? I pointed out why your question is poor. Do you disagree with my explanation?

No, it is a misleading characterization. Natural selection is more than just an observable result. It is a distinct process through which traits become more common in a population.

[Bill Thompson 75]

An encyclopaedia is not a primary source.

Yeah, and journals don't reprint articles from other journals.

[jimbob]

You are comparing apples with oranges. Natural selection is the phenomenon which arises from differences in reproductive success and inheritable traits.

I'd say that the comparison is between "apples" and "purple".

Not quite but...

[Dancing David]

So then reproductive success causes natural selection?



Multiple times I have stated that my claim is that variation and selection are important factors in evolution, but you don't respond with an explanation of why that is not true.

Natural selection is a description of the long term effects of differential reproductive success.

For the third or fourth time, it is you use of the term 'selection' that is in error, I pointed to it specifically and can do so again.

Survival is part of reproducing but natural selection is through the process of reproduction.

In your posts you have repeatedly focused on survival and stated that you feel that nature selects through survival.

While in the ToE, natural selection is the end result of generations of differential reproductive success.

So continue to pretend that you can't understand what I have said and as though you did not say what you have said. It makes your argument look weaker. The fact that you are dodging and engaging in semantic shifting while avoiding the points raised by myself and others just makes it apparent that you won’t defend your statements.

[Dancing David]

I notice you do not want to admit to the fact that respected scientists place their work in resources that are respectable but may say something that disagrees with you.

Except what really makes that statement weak is no citations to defend it. So rather pointless and empty on your part. So 'who' is the 'respected scientist' that you are reffering to that you cited? Hmmm? You do know that the ScienceDaily article was not written as more than a PR piece by someone who writes PR pieces?

So either you are spinning to cover the fact that you want to pretend an online encyclopedia article is a reputable research journal or just covering for the fact that you haven't done much reading in the modern field of the ToE.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Variable reproductive rates and inheritable traits result in the phenomenon of natural selection, yes.

This also seems to be misleading characterization of the correlation between reproductive rates and inheritable traits.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Except what really makes that statement weak is no citations to defend it. So rather pointless and empty on your part. So 'who' is the 'respected scientist' that you are reffering to that you cited? Hmmm? You do know that the ScienceDaily article was not written as more than a PR piece by someone who writes PR pieces?

So either you are spinning to cover the fact that you want to pretend an online encyclopedia article is a reputable research journal or just covering for the fact that you haven't done much reading in the modern field of the ToE.

For you to make this post you must assume that no respected scientist would care to have their work made available in a primary source of educational information to millions of students, young and old, by appearing in an encyclopedia. I have never heard of that scientist.

A quick and easy citation:

Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/275670/human-evolution

Author: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RBmgb8OTWcQJ:anthropology.uchicago. edu/faculty/faculty_tuttle.shtml+Russell+Howard+Tuttle+Biograp hical+Information+Professor+of+Anthropology,+of+Ev olutionary+Biology,+of+the+Biological+and+Social+S ciences,+University+of+Chicago,+Illinois.+Author+o f+Apes+of+the+World:+Their+Social+Behavior,+Commun ication,+Mentality+and+Ecology+and+others.&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[jimbob]

Variable reproductive rates and inheritable traits result in the phenomenon of natural selection, yes.

This also seems to be misleading characterization of the correlation between reproductive rates and inheritable traits.

What does this mean?

Taffer, whom I understand to be a geneticist, was merely that inherited traits affecting reproductive success is the mechanism by which natural selection is caused.

I'd slightly disagree with Dancing David here about the level of understanding, because even Lamarck's theories involved the heritability of acquired traits. He was wrong about this - basically the Just So stories are just stories, but even he had realised that evolution worked over generations, and only those that reproduced contributed to future evolution.

So a poor 19th Century understanding of non-Darwinian evolution.

[jimbob]

Yeah, and journals don't reprint articles from other journals.

Bingo.

(Letters to) Nature publishes original research. Applied Physics Letters does too. Medical Hypotheses publish original *ideas* that can't get published in more mainstream journals. There are potential issues with peer review, but this is not the place to discuss that.

It is also immaterial to this discussion. You are misunderstanding those "links" that you have posted.

[jimbob]

Reproductive success doesn't result in extinction, reproductive failure does.

Of course extinction is the eventual fate of all gene lines. But this is when they suffer reproductive failure not success.


No it doesn't.

Hell, some humans manage to reproduce without intending to.

Peahens choose peacocks to mate with because of instinct. This evolved because those with the brightest plumage produced offspring with the best reproductive success.

I am not mincing my word meanings, I am being very precise.

You refute my claims with restatements of my claims.

and the full text:

There is variation and natural selection in ever population of organisms that has ever lived. A "population" being defined as more than one organism. See my sums earlier about the chance of a non-mutated genome.

Not quite: By definition, in all extinct species, no representatives of the last generation reproduced.

Reproductive success is the antithesis of extinction.

Right up until it results in extinction.

Reproductive success doesn't result in extinction, reproductive failure does.

Of course extinction is the eventual fate of all gene lines. But this is when they suffer reproductive failure not success.



But behaviours don't have "targets" or "goals". Why do peahens choose to mate with peacocks with brightly coloured tails? Because those peahens that mated with the peacocks with the brightest plumage had more reproductive offspring. Why? Partly because any male offspring would tend to have brighter plumage, and this translates into reproductive success.

There was no "goal" it was just another beneficial trait that evolved. It adversely affects survival chances, but increases reproductive success.

I'm not sure why you are mincing word meanings. The peahen targets the brightest peacock for reproduction.
No it doesn't.

Hell, some humans manage to reproduce without intending to.

Peahens choose peacocks to mate with because of instinct. This evolved because those with the brightest plumage produced offspring with the best reproductive success.

I am not mincing my word meanings, I am being very precise.


First highlighted bit:

Reproductive success doesn't result in extinction any more than finding water in a desert results in death. Reproductive success postpones extinction for at least another generation.

Second highlighted bit: You writing implies that the peahen has a "target" of reproducing, this is wrong.

In general :
I am not sure whether you are misinterpreting what I everyone else in this thread have has written or what you yourself have written.

[Dancing David]

For you to make this post you must assume that no respected scientist would care to have their work made available in a primary source of educational information to millions of students, young and old, by appearing in an encyclopedia. I have never heard of that scientist.

A quick and easy citation:

Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...uman-evolution

Author: http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...ient=firefox-a


Ah yes the fact that you were defending the articles you cited earlier makes no difference at all to you, now you cite new articles and change the goalposts, rather funny Bill Thompson 75.

This is what you cited earlier, is it not?
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Natural_selection

So who was this respected scientist in the original citation that you quoted?

[Dancing David]

Taffer:

here is the source for this idea from the New Encyclopedia article
"Evolutionist Ernst Mayr (2001) defines natural selection as "the process by which in every generation individuals of lower fitness are removed from the population."

Which I am guessing is from here:
http://www.amazon.com/What-Evolution-Ernst-Mayr/dp/0465044255

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

(And I will get some sauce for my words.)

[Dancing David]

This also seems to be misleading characterization of the correlation between reproductive rates and inheritable traits.

Except for the fact that differential rates of reproduction are what lead to the dominant inheritable traits in a population.

[Taffer]

No, it is a misleading characterization. Natural selection is more than just an observable result. It is a distinct process through which traits become more common in a population.

Can you please elaborate on the mechanism of this distinct process of selection?

This also seems to be misleading characterization of the correlation between reproductive rates and inheritable traits.

Can you please elaborate?

[Taffer]

Yeah, and journals don't reprint articles from other journals.

That's beside the point. If you actually understood the difference between, for example, an encyclopedia and a journal article, you would know that a reprint verbatim of a journal article is just as acceptable as the primary source, as long as it was first published in a peer-review journal. It is important to include the entire text of the article for it to be considered primary source, because we need things such as methodology, interpretation, results, etc, to validate a claim which relies on that citation. Encyclopedias do not provide this material.

[Taffer]

Taffer:

here is the source for this idea from the New Encyclopedia article
"Evolutionist Ernst Mayr (2001) defines natural selection as "the process by which in every generation individuals of lower fitness are removed from the population."

Which I am guessing is from here:
http://www.amazon.com/What-Evolution-Ernst-Mayr/dp/0465044255

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

(And I will get some sauce for my words.)

Gladly.

I can only go from the quotes of the book I can find on amazon, and the quote you posted here.

Starting with your quote, I'd say that it appears to be a simplification written for the average layman. Knowing what I do about Mayr, I suspect that this sort of generalization and anthropomorphization are probably intentional to make the concept easier to grasp for those who are not educated in higher-level evolutionary theory. As we both know, evolution is not as black and white as this quote suggests it is. There are a multitude of reasons why less-fit individuals may survive to reproduce, and why more-fit individuals do not. Similarly, less-fit genotypes are not removed in their entirety every generation, as evolution is a slow process, and loss (for fixing) of alleles at a particular locus takes more than one generation. Further, it is easy to fall into the trap of ontological definitions when it comes to evolution; i.e. genotypes which are more fit are those which survive. This is a problem which is difficult to overcome, and is both linguistic and conceptual in nature.

IMHO, a more accurate rendering of the above quote could be: "Natural selection is the phenomenon wherein individuals which are more fit for the environment tend, on average of many generations, to propagate more successfully than those which are less fit."

Below are a few selected quotes I found from reviews of the book on amazon.

"sweeping generalisations are rarely correct in evolutionary biology" p271.

Very true!

"Selection seems able to to recruit genes in new developmental processes that previously had seemed to have other functions" p113.

An unfortunate anthropomorphization. Selection does not recruit anything, as it is not a physical entity. However, the sentiment is correct.

"most of the variation of genotypes available for natural selection in a population is a result of recombination, not of mutations" p280.

Indeed, and this is something which seems not to be taught until university-level genetics. Recombination, doublication, etc, of large sections of a chromosome are one of the most powerful mechanisms for gaining variation in a population.

[Dancing David]

Thanks, Taffer, now I am just a layman with a great interest in the ToE and paleotology.

But since reading Gould's essys in natural History over decades, I have become very used to teh idea that adaptation is blind.

Now I could be very incorrect but i do not feel that any organsim is 'ideally fitted' to the environment it is in. They may be very good at sort of surviving in it, they may have traits thata re very beneficial to living in that environment, but there are many if not more things that make for a 'poor fit', than make for a 'great fit'.

The one I really hate is the 'mosiac of life evolved to the environment'. To me it seems that so many of the organsisms are just haphazard where they are.

So to me the understanding that it is 'reproductive success' that gives the benefit of greater numbers makes more sense. Especially in non changing ecosystems.

Very nice neutral statement
"Natural selection is the phenomenon wherein individuals which are more fit for the environment tend, on average of many generations, to propagate more successfully than those which are less fit."

and one that is more inclusive than my notion of natural selection, I must ponder.

[jimbob]

Thanks, Taffer, now I am just a layman with a great interest in the ToE and paleotology.

But since reading Gould's essys in natural History over decades, I have become very used to teh idea that adaptation is blind.

Now I could be very incorrect but i do not feel that any organsim is 'ideally fitted' to the environment it is in. They may be very good at sort of surviving in it, they may have traits thata re very beneficial to living in that environment, but there are many if not more things that make for a 'poor fit', than make for a 'great fit'.

The one I really hate is the 'mosiac of life evolved to the environment'. To me it seems that so many of the organsisms are just haphazard where they are.

So to me the understanding that it is 'reproductive success' that gives the benefit of greater numbers makes more sense. Especially in non changing ecosystems.

Very nice neutral statement
"Natural selection is the phenomenon wherein individuals which are more fit for the environment tend, on average of many generations, to propagate more successfully than those which are less fit."

and one that is more inclusive than my notion of natural selection, I must ponder.


Now I could be very incorrect but i do not feel that any organsim is 'ideally fitted' to the environment it is in. They may be very good at sort of surviving in it, they may have traits thata re very beneficial to living in that environment, but there are many if not more things that make for a 'poor fit', than make for a 'great fit'.


This post shows my take on this: In summary, if you are optimising the fit to a complex set of functions, then it is possible to get local optima, where any small change is worse, but a large change is significantly better, thinking of a simple fitness landscape with only two parameters as like a map, then a small hillock would be akin to a local optima. In reality there are a lot more dimensions and more chance for these.

Taking a *really* global view, I guess that one could consider each species as occupying a different region in the multi-dimensional fitness landscape, each with their own private local optima.

Anyway, one other factor to consider is that if the environment is new (say after a significant alteration in the fitness landscape, as organisms were pretty well adapted to the previous landscape, they would be sitting in positions that are no longer optimal. More changes are likely to be beneficial, and the rateof evolution would be quicker. Once near a local optima, more changes are likely to be deleterious, and the evolution rate will slow.

Furthermore, I'd argue that a perfectly adapted organism would have 100% of its many offspring reproduce. It would use up all its resources in this reproduction and there would be no waste. It could always do better.


I don't think that is needed, although certain bacteria do seem to do something similar.

Forgive me for talking "engineer" but, I can't deny what I am...

If you make the simplifying assumption that there is a single parameter that is to be optimised, and it is a smoothly varying function, then as you approach the optimum the gradient will flatten, so a slight variation the parameter will not produce such a strong variation in the response:


For example the optimum is the highest value on that line...
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/144944681ecda952f5.png

This means that for a well-optimised solution, the rate of evolution is slow.

The rate will be a function of the gradient... also any larger variations are likely to be less optimal than their parents. In this situation, a mutation that affects this parameter is likely to be harmful.

Now the environment changes, and suddenly the parents are less well optimised. You are in a region where a mutation has an increased chance of being beneficial (assuming any offspring at all survive, however food might be harder to come by, but the organism's predators are likely to also be under increased pressure too). The evolution rate is faster.

There is also fossil evidence in some molluscs to support this. counting the acquisition of "advanced traits" in these molluscs, the rate was initially fast, then tailled off. (Maynard Smith the theory of evolution, unfortunately my Father's copy).



BTW: In this post, I'd like to clarify that my "disagreement" with Dancing David is only for rhetorical effect...



I'd slightly disagree with Dancing David here about the level of understanding, because even Lamarck's theories involved the heritability of acquired traits. He was wrong about this - basically the Just So stories are just stories, but even he had realised that evolution worked over generations, and only those that reproduced contributed to future evolution.

So a poor 19th Century understanding of non-Darwinian evolution.

[Bill Thompson 75]

First highlighted bit:

Reproductive success doesn't result in extinction any more than finding water in a desert results in death. Reproductive success postpones extinction for at least another generation.

If half of a population dies every generation would you call this reproductive success?

If half of a group finds water then what keeps the other half from dieing of dehydration?


Second highlighted bit: You writing implies that the peahen has a "target" of reproducing, this is wrong.

In context the implication was that a peacock targets/chooses a peahen for mating (reproductive activity).

Now your statement that
"Why do peahens choose to mate with peacocks with brightly coloured tails? Because those peahens that mated with the peacocks with the brightest plumage had more reproductive offspring."
implies that a peahen makes an informed choice based on the offspring count of other peahens.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Natural selection is a description of the long term effects of differential reproductive success.

If selection is the effect, what is the cause of the differential?


For the third or fourth time, it is you use of the term 'selection' that is in error, I pointed to it specifically and can do so again.

Survival is part of reproducing but natural selection is through the process of reproduction.

How do you describe the process of reproduction so that selection is within that process?


In your posts you have repeatedly focused on survival and stated that you feel that nature selects through survival.

My focus on survival has been that it is necessary to reproduction, the implication being that it is not necessary after reproduction has started.


While in the ToE, natural selection is the end result of generations of differential reproductive success.

If natural selection is the end result then what caused the differential along the way?

[Bill Thompson 75]

So either you are spinning to cover the fact that you want to pretend an online encyclopedia article is a reputable research journal or just covering for the fact that you haven't done much reading in the modern field of the ToE.

This is factually wrong and I'm guessing an intentional misrepresentation.


Ah yes the fact that you were defending the articles you cited earlier makes no difference at all to you, now you cite new articles and change the goalposts, rather funny Bill Thompson 75.

"Moving the goalpost" is generally considered the continual request for more evidence. My post to "cite new articles" would be to hit your moving goalposts.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Can you please elaborate on the mechanism of this distinct process of selection?

It is generally the factors within an environment that affect the selection of the organisms that will reproduce.


Can you please elaborate?

You are separating out natural selection as a by product of two evolutionary factors, as if it is not involved.
Whereas, natural selection affects the appearance of factors which lead to variety in reproductive rates and it affects the rate of occurrence of heritable traits in a population.

[Bill Thompson 75]

That's beside the point. If you actually understood the difference between, for example, an encyclopedia and a journal article, you would know that a reprint verbatim of a journal article is just as acceptable as the primary source, as long as it was first published in a peer-review journal. It is important to include the entire text of the article for it to be considered primary source, because we need things such as methodology, interpretation, results, etc, to validate a claim which relies on that citation. Encyclopedias do not provide this material.

First, I don't think what we are doing in this thread can accurately be called research. To say that we need "methodology, interpretation, results, etc", and then we can evaluate those to validate a claim is probably a little overboard.

Second, you implied a conclusion that an encyclopedia does not provide current, accurate information. I would claim that your conclusion is factually false.

[Lithrael]

Now your statement that
"Why do peahens choose to mate with peacocks with brightly coloured tails? Because those peahens that mated with the peacocks with the brightest plumage had more reproductive offspring."
implies that a peahen makes an informed choice based on the offspring count of other peahens.
No, it implies that the peahen has inherited the trait of 'likes bright plumage' from its successfully reproductive antecedents. As long as the hens who like bright plumage end up reproducing more successfully than hens who don't, there will be more hens who like bright plumage than hens who don't. And more boys with bright plumage will get laid.

ETA: Basically I think the 'because' in jimbob's statement is expandable to 'because there aren't many hens left who don't like bright tails, because the more successful bright tail likers have been so successful that they are now the majority of the population.' Not 'because she's been monitoring the relevant rates of reproductive success.'

[Taffer]

It is generally the factors within an environment that affect the selection of the organisms that will reproduce.

You still talk as though natural selection is a physical entity, or a physical force. This is false. If it was correct, you would be able to explain to me what natural selection is, without invoking any other mechanisms.

You are separating out natural selection as a by product of two evolutionary factors, as if it is not involved.
Whereas, natural selection affects the appearance of factors which lead to variety in reproductive rates and it affects the rate of occurrence of heritable traits in a population.

Through reproduction. Without reproduction, you will not have natural selection, but you can have reproduction without natural selection (as long as there is no variation in the population). You still think of natural selection is a separate physical force, where it is not. Natural selection is an emergent phenomenon.

[Taffer]

First, I don't think what we are doing in this thread can accurately be called research. To say that we need "methodology, interpretation, results, etc", and then we can evaluate those to validate a claim is probably a little overboard.

You were the one to first suggest that your encyclopedia constitutes "the literature", and I pointed out that that, in the strict scientific sense, is incorrect.

Second, you implied a conclusion that an encyclopedia does not provide current, accurate information. I would claim that your conclusion is factually false.

Wrong, I implied no such thing. I did imply that an encyclopedia article, on its own, provides no way to evaluate the factuality of its information.

[jimbob]

"Why do peahens choose to mate with peacocks with brightly coloured tails? Because those peahens that mated with the peacocks with the brightest plumage had more reproductive offspring."
implies that a peahen makes an informed choice based on the offspring count of other peahens.

No, it implies that the peahen has inherited the trait of 'likes bright plumage' from its successfully reproductive antecedents. As long as the hens who like bright plumage end up reproducing more successfully than hens who don't, there will be more hens who like bright plumage than hens who don't. And more boys with bright plumage will get laid.

ETA: Basically I think the 'because' in jimbob's statement is expandable to 'because there aren't many hens left who don't like bright tails, because the more successful bright tail likers have been so successful that they are now the majority of the population.' Not 'because she's been monitoring the relevant rates of reproductive success.'

Yup.

I am not anthropomorphising in saying that for many mammals at least, sex is enjoyable. It is enjoyable because only those mammals that mated had offspring. Blind instinct can work in simple animals, but is a bit inflexible. In these mammals, it seems that the most reproductive success was achieved when the animals "wanted" to mate.

It is perfectly valid to say that male chimpanzees have a goal of mating, and will engage in complex "political"* behaviour in order to achieve that goal. Their goal isn't reproductive success. They just like getting laid. But any male that doesn't like getting laid, won't. And he won't have and offspring. But there is a fair chance that such a male would be better fiteed to survive, as he would only want to protect his access to food, so would avoid much conflict.



*By this I mean that they will form complex alliances, some which last a long time, and others which are short-lived, in order to deal with potential rivals, or get some of the "victor's spoils" as a trusted lieutenant. I'd strongly recommend reading Frans de Waal's seminal book "Chimpanzee Politics (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XsrhU2vV5PIC&dq=chimpanzee+politics&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=4GhBTNG7DIr00gTTiPylDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false)" (my wife as an anthropologist described it as a seminal text).

[jimbob]

Actually sexual selection in peahens (and other animals) is interesting, because there is usually a cost involved in producing the "best" display - being more obvious to predators and with an ungainly display as well.

However the fact that there is a cost means that only the healthiest males can produce a good display. This document: Age-advertisement and the evolution of the peacock's train (http://www.gbwf.org/pheasants/peacock-train.pdf) suggests that it is partly the age that the peacock is advertising, in other words, the peacock with the most impressive display will be demonstrating that he has managed to live longer than his competitors, so offspring would have the best chance if they had similar traits.

One doesn't need to worry about any age-related degradation in the peacock's sperm, because in the wild, most animals die well before this happens. The old and slow either starve or get eaten.

Peahens do not need to make any explicit decision on this. They just need to prefer those with the display that best signals the males fitness, which will also include those male that peahens prefer. There is a feedback.

[Dancing David]

This is factually wrong and I'm guessing an intentional misrepresentation.




"Moving the goalpost" is generally considered the continual request for more evidence. My post to "cite new articles" would be to hit your moving goalposts.



Well it could be this is the start of the chain where I responded to a comment you made to Jimbob

I assume you are referring to online encyclopedias which, when they claim to be peer reviewed, you claim that they are not reviewed by peers.


I assure you that you are still engaging in a continuing appeal to authority because you can't support or defend your own ideas.

So far you are citing a encyclopedia which is referencing a piece of popular science, yay or nay?

So how would it be peer reviewed?

And your changing the topic is moving the goal post. :)

ETA:

Here is jombob's post for reference:
Bill, you seem to be arguing that natural selection is a mechanism in itself. In fact it is simply the inevitable result of reproduction.

You also have problems with the phrase "peer review" which Taffer has been using in the commonly accepted manner. Taffer could also have mentioned the concept of a "primary source". These concepts are not unique to science, but to acaedemic endeavor in general. And at a fairly basic level - I remember first coming across this in either history or geography in early secondary school.

Do you know how to post links? If not you can copy the address from you browser address bar (I know that firefox has one) and add in the link to your post. It will save us time in pointing out where you have misunderstood what the link has been saying.

I would be more willing to believe that you did know what you were talking about if you didn't make statements that were bordering on being category errors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake) like the following:



2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.




Then, when Dancing David asked about forces, you provide a link (no you don't ) quote an article in the popular press, that uses a metaphor. Electrostatic attraction is a "force". Hatred of Jews was a "driving force" in Hitler's Germany

Wow, can't you do anything for yourself?

ScienceDaily.com

"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D., the John and Rebecca Moores professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston."

Getting out where?

Not everyone posts like you, which appears to be without any concern that there may be truth behind what is being said.

[Dancing David]

So again, to be pedantic, Taffer mafe a call for literature (orinally in another context but one I commented upon), which yu took to mean popular science, then when asked for evidence that people who study evolution refer to 'force', you presented another popular science article.
Jimbob made a reference to your quote of a popular science source, I then called you on a statement you made about it, so besides the fact that you are not making your argument well, you seem to have claimed that ScienceDaily is peer reviewed.

More later, busy day.

[Dancing David]

Brief interlude that I will expand later:

BillThompson75, I think I have begun to understand that basis of your belief and I might know the possible sources of it:

1. POV that death is the largest factor in selection. IE the moths in urban areas (being eaten because of pigmentation) or antibiotic resistance (vulnerability to antibiotics). So that if one views this as the primary determinant of who reproduces and who does not, then 'survival', not being selected to die is important.

** The counter being that often it is a lotto who lives and who dies.

2. That the vast majority of changes/variation will be detrimental to the organism, so that in the lottery of variation, the obvious failures will be selected out.

Now there are others I am sure but I will try to not be blatantly argumentative to get this discussion proceeding, really I will back off for the sake of discussion.

I think that these two POVs focus on two very small parts of what living organisms do.

[Bill Thompson 75]

You still talk as though natural selection is a physical entity, or a physical force.

Since the previous is false
The following is irrelevant.

This is false. If it was correct, you would be able to explain to me what natural selection is, without invoking any other mechanisms.


Is there any process that doesn't have "mechanisms"?


Through reproduction. Without reproduction, you will not have natural selection, but you can have reproduction without natural selection (as long as there is no variation in the population).

Is this what you are saying?
1) If there is no population then natural selection has no population to select upon (this seems somewhat tautological).

2) As long as there is no variation in the population or in the environment then reproduction is guaranteed. Does this mean that perfect self-replication is sufficient for evolution?


You still think of natural selection is a separate physical force, where it is not. Natural selection is an emergent phenomenon.

Life is an emergent phenomenon. Are there some aspects of evolution that are not?

[Bill Thompson 75]

You were the one to first suggest that your encyclopedia constitutes "the literature", and I pointed out that that, in the strict scientific sense, is incorrect.


Your quote of the the phrase "the literature" would imply exclusivity, which I definitely did not imply.
If you define scientific literature to exclude encyclopedias then it does, but I would disagree with that definition.


Wrong, I implied no such thing. I did imply that an encyclopedia article, on its own, provides no way to evaluate the factuality of its information.

Your prior statement that

"we need things such as methodology, interpretation, results, etc, to validate a claim" is equivalent to saying that an encyclopedia as an information source is unreliable.

Your current statement that

"an encyclopedia article, on its own, provides no way to evaluate the factuality of its information" is equivalent to saying that an encyclopedia as an information source is unreliable.
I miss the distinction.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Well it could be this is the start of the chain where I responded to a comment you made to Jimbob

Let's review the actual chain.

Taffer challenged me with:

Natural selection is a phenomenon, not a force.

I responded:

I was using "force" the way that is commonly used by evolutionists, since that is the issue under discussion.

Then you:

Citations, references, who said force where? 'evolutionists'?

Then me:

ScienceDaily.com
"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D."

Then you began the claim that if a scientist is quoted in a popular source it is not reliable.

I assume you know about all the scientists that have been quoted in Omni, Discover, Scientific American, etc.

The change of topic came with the continued claim that science information must be peer reviewed, for which I then pointed out that there are peer reviewed encyclopedias.

And you tried to comingle those two separate claims to refute my arguments.

This is where I needed to hit the goalposts that were being moved.

[Bill Thompson 75]

So again, to be pedantic, Taffer mafe a call for literature (orinally in another context but one I commented upon), which yu took to mean popular science, then when asked for evidence that people who study evolution refer to 'force', you presented another popular science article.
Jimbob made a reference to your quote of a popular science source, I then called you on a statement you made about it, so besides the fact that you are not making your argument well, you seem to have claimed that ScienceDaily is peer reviewed.

More later, busy day.

See my prior response to see why this is a misrepresentation.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Brief interlude that I will expand later:

BillThompson75, I think I have begun to understand that basis of your belief and I might know the possible sources of it:

1. POV that death is the largest factor in selection. IE the moths in urban areas (being eaten because of pigmentation) or antibiotic resistance (vulnerability to antibiotics). So that if one views this as the primary determinant of who reproduces and who does not, then 'survival', not being selected to die is important.

** The counter being that often it is a lotto who lives and who dies.

2. That the vast majority of changes/variation will be detrimental to the organism, so that in the lottery of variation, the obvious failures will be selected out.

Now there are others I am sure but I will try to not be blatantly argumentative to get this discussion proceeding, really I will back off for the sake of discussion.

I think that these two POVs focus on two very small parts of what living organisms do.

I generally agree with 1. and 2., but I apparently see them as having a more primary role in the process of evolution than you do.

And as I have previously stated, in the grand scheme of evolution my primary contention is that variation and selection (both through various processes) are critical to evolution, which I take to mean the idea of successful changes (as opposed to those leading to extinction) in a population.

I do note a little anthropomorphization in the "lottery".

[jimbob]

Bill, I think you have missed what Taffer was saying:

here is my post about it agian:

Bill, you seem to be arguing that natural selection is a mechanism in itself. In fact it is simply the inevitable result of reproduction.

You also have problems with the phrase "peer review" which Taffer has been using in the commonly accepted manner. Taffer could also have mentioned the concept of a "primary source". These concepts are not unique to science, but to acaedemic endeavor in general. And at a fairly basic level - I remember first coming across this in either history or geography in early secondary school.

Do you know how to post links? If not you can copy the address from you browser address bar (I know that firefox has one) and add in the link to your post. It will save us time in pointing out where you have misunderstood what the link has been saying.

I would be more willing to believe that you did know what you were talking about if you didn't make statements that were bordering on being category errors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake) like the following:



2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.




Then, when Dancing David asked about forces, you provide a link (no you don't ) quote an article in the popular press, that uses a metaphor. Electrostatic attraction is a "force". Hatred of Jews was a "driving force" in Hitler's Germany

Wow, can't you do anything for yourself?

ScienceDaily.com

"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D., the John and Rebecca Moores professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston."

Getting out where?

Not everyone posts like you, which appears to be without any concern that there may be truth behind what is being said.

[Dancing David]

I generally agree with 1. and 2., but I apparently see them as having a more primary role in the process of evolution than you do.

And as I have previously stated, in the grand scheme of evolution my primary contention is that variation and selection (both through various processes) are critical to evolution, which I take to mean the idea of successful changes (as opposed to those leading to extinction) in a population.

I do note a little anthropomorphization in the "lottery".

Other than 1 and 2 do you have other ideas in the role of 'survival' as selective in the ToE?

Sure lottery is an anthropomorphization but it has relevance, in that say larval plankton, a huge majority will die, baby turtles a huge majority will die, fish eggs and fish fry a huge majority will die, insects the huge majority will die: all basically random and very little actual selection for traits, just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as opposed to the right place (randomly far away from the predator) at the right time.

So in those cases very little actual trait selection leading to survival, to reproduce, just random selection based upon distribution of predators and disease processes.

And in many ways this will prove true of many traits, that in regards to the vast majority of traits to 'survival' they will have no input.

Now what I am thinking more of, is why flowers and fruits? So if 'survival' is mostly random regards to traits, then why these stragt6egies that emphasize reproductive traits.

Why the peacock's tail, it is a huge detriment to personal survival?

More later, I am playing at the role of plumber today.

[jimbob]

Is this what you are saying?
1) If there is no population then natural selection has no population to select upon (this seems somewhat tautological).

2) As long as there is no variation in the population or in the environment then reproduction is guaranteed. Does this mean that perfect self-replication is sufficient for evolution?


1) If there is no variation there is no difference between organisms, so there is no evolution. A "lucky" organism might reproduce, and an "unlucky" one mightn't but there would be no difference in their descendants so it wouldn't matter. There would be no evolution.

I would have a slight difference in semantics with Taffer here, as I would say that there is still natural selection, it just does nothing, as the choice makes no difference.

2) The first part see above.

Highlighted bit: I don't see how you get to this; perfect self-replication would mean that there was no change between generations, and no evolution. (I suppose one might argue that maybe an analogue of sexual reproduction just mixes the available variation, but offspring are not perfect copies of their parents).

I would argue that imperfect self-replication is necessary and sufficient for Darwinian evolution.

The imperfections provide the variation, the self-replication provides the natural selection (hence my semantic difference from Taffer).

Those organisms that reproduce, are (axiomatically) adequately adapted to their environment. Those that don't reproduce, don't have offspring to take part in the next generation.

This is what natural selection is.

[Taffer]

Since the previous is false
The following is irrelevant.


How is it false?

Is there any process that doesn't have "mechanisms"?

Phenomena do not have mechanisms, in the way you seem to imply it.

Is this what you are saying?
1) If there is no population then natural selection has no population to select upon (this seems somewhat tautological).

2) As long as there is no variation in the population or in the environment then reproduction is guaranteed. Does this mean that perfect self-replication is sufficient for evolution?

You obviously have not understood what I said. If there is no variation and no environ changes, then reproduction will result in "null" selection (I am correctly myself, as jimbob is most correct). In other words, without variation, reproduction results in reproduction only. With variation in the population, and variable environmental conditions, but no reproduction occurs, then no natural selection occurs and no evolution occurs. (A form of selection will still occur, but not natural selection as meant by the theory of evolution)

Life is an emergent phenomenon. Are there some aspects of evolution that are not?

No, life is a physical result of emergent phenomena. Evolution is an emergent phenomena. Natural selection is an emergent phenomena. Variation is a physical property of physical things.

[Taffer]

Your quote of the the phrase "the literature" would imply exclusivity, which I definitely did not imply.
If you define scientific literature to exclude encyclopedias then it does, but I would disagree with that definition.

Your prior statement that


Your current statement that

I miss the distinction.

Exactly. "The literature", when used in scientific debate, means peer-reviewed journal, where articles are published which include all relevant information required to evaluate the validity of the conclusions. An encyclopedia is not peer reviewed (you have only claimed that it is, you have yet to provide evidence you are correct). Even if an encyclopedia were peer reviewed, unless it publishes the experiment batim, then it is not a primary source. If you wish to use an encyclopedia as a starting place, that's fine, but when asked to cite "the literature", you should cite actual scientific literature from scientific journals. You would know this if you went to grad-school, or even studied science at university, which is why I wonder if you have done either of these things. (I could be wrong, of course. I had classmates who, even in grad-school, didn't understand the proper usage of the null-hypothesis, for example.)

Encyclopedias are also written in a way which makes it easy for the average Joe to understand the material. As such, the way certain ideas are expressed are not always, in a technical sense, correct. Often, metaphors are used to make difficult concepts easier to grasp. It appears you are reading such a case, and then attempting to argue that it is actually the correct formulation of theory. To use jimbob's example, Electrostatic attraction is a "force". That is, it is a physical property, which can be measured, manipulated, quantified, etc. Hatred of Jews was a "driving force" in Hitler's Germany. This is a metaphor. Similarly, it is metaphorical to talk about natural selection as the "driving force" of evolution.

[Bill Thompson 75]

1) If there is no variation there is no difference between organisms, so there is no evolution. A "lucky" organism might reproduce, and an "unlucky" one mightn't but there would be no difference in their descendants so it wouldn't matter. There would be no evolution.

I would have a slight difference in semantics with Taffer here, as I would say that there is still natural selection, it just does nothing, as the choice makes no difference.

2) The first part see above.

Highlighted bit: I don't see how you get to this; perfect self-replication would mean that there was no change between generations, and no evolution. (I suppose one might argue that maybe an analogue of sexual reproduction just mixes the available variation, but offspring are not perfect copies of their parents).

I would argue that imperfect self-replication is necessary and sufficient for Darwinian evolution.

The imperfections provide the variation, the self-replication provides the natural selection (hence my semantic difference from Taffer).

Those organisms that reproduce, are (axiomatically) adequately adapted to their environment. Those that don't reproduce, don't have offspring to take part in the next generation.

This is what natural selection is.

I agree with most everything.

However my earlier post was

2) As long as there is no variation in the population or in the environment then reproduction is guaranteed. Does this mean that perfect self-replication is sufficient for evolution?

Here's what I was getting at with that question.

If an organism is already well adapted to its environment and the environment does not vary then can an organism evolve?

[Taffer]

If an organism is already well adapted to its environment and the environment does not vary then can an organism evolve?

Organisms do not evolve.

However, if we imagine a situation where there is no variation in a population, no mechanism for gaining variation in our hypothetical population, and no environmental changes, then no, there will be no evolution.

ETA: In fact, the environmental clause is not necessary. If a population has no variation, and no mechanism for gaining variation (lets assume perfect reproduction, perfect DNA repair, no migration, etc), then evolution will not occur. Even if the organism is not perfectly adapted for its environment, without variation in the population, evolution will not occur.

[Bill Thompson 75]

How is it false?

I do not refer to natural selection as having a physical presence, but I do refer to it as a force, the same way it is referred to as a pressure. This usage is not uncommon.


Phenomena do not have mechanisms, in the way you seem to imply it.

A phenomenon is an observable event or feature of the environment.
A mechanism is the functionality of an object or process to affect another object or process.

I was implying that all processes and phenomena are affected by their environment, which is true.


You obviously have not understood what I said. If there is no variation and no environ changes, then reproduction will result in "null" selection (I am correctly myself, as jimbob is most correct). In other words, without variation, reproduction results in reproduction only. With variation in the population, and variable environmental conditions, but no reproduction occurs, then no natural selection occurs and no evolution occurs. (A form of selection will still occur, but not natural selection as meant by the theory of evolution)

No, life is a physical result of emergent phenomena. Evolution is an emergent phenomena. Natural selection is an emergent phenomena. Variation is a physical property of physical things.

Could you provide a definition of "emergent phenomena" that does not include "life" and "variation"?

[Taffer]

I do not refer to natural selection as having a physical presence, but I do refer to it as a force, the same way it is referred to as a pressure. This usage is not uncommon.

But you do so while not understanding that it is a metaphor.


A phenomenon is an observable event or feature of the environment.
A mechanism is the functionality of an object or process to affect another object or process.

Correct.

I was implying that all processes and phenomena are affected by their environment, which is true.

A phenomenon is the result of the environment. It is the environment. Can you explain what the mechanism of selection is without invoking reproduction? Remember, with natural selection, genes which are more advantageous continue, and also remember that organisms do not evolve, populations do.

Could you provide a definition of "emergent phenomena" that does not include "life" and "variation"?

"Life" is a particular assemblage of chemicals, with self replication, etc. Variation is a property of populations. These are physical things. The pattern that life takes, and the pattern of variation in a population, are emergent phenomena (or rather, more accurately, emergent properties).

[Bill Thompson 75]

Exactly. "The literature", when used in scientific debate, means peer-reviewed journal, where articles are published which include all relevant information required to evaluate the validity of the conclusions. An encyclopedia is not peer reviewed (you have only claimed that it is, you have yet to provide evidence you are correct). Even if an encyclopedia were peer reviewed, unless it publishes the experiment batim, then it is not a primary source. If you wish to use an encyclopedia as a starting place, that's fine, but when asked to cite "the literature", you should cite actual scientific literature from scientific journals. You would know this if you went to grad-school, or even studied science at university, which is why I wonder if you have done either of these things. (I could be wrong, of course. I had classmates who, even in grad-school, didn't understand the proper usage of the null-hypothesis, for example.)

You claim that when debating a scientific issue in an online forum the only acceptable evidence must come from peer-reviewed journals with accompanying "things such as methodology, interpretation, results, etc, to validate a claim".

I claim "get real".


Encyclopedias are also written in a way which makes it easy for the average Joe to understand the material. As such, the way certain ideas are expressed are not always, in a technical sense, correct. Often, metaphors are used to make difficult concepts easier to grasp. It appears you are reading such a case, and then attempting to argue that it is actually the correct formulation of theory. To use jimbob's example, Electrostatic attraction is a "force". That is, it is a physical property, which can be measured, manipulated, quantified, etc. Hatred of Jews was a "driving force" in Hitler's Germany. This is a metaphor. Similarly, it is metaphorical to talk about natural selection as the "driving force" of evolution.

You make three claims about encyclopedias
1) If they are not a primary source then the information is not complete enough to be usable.
2) They are technically incorrect.
3) They use metaphors that represent incorrect formulations of theory.

I claim that any shortcomings of peer reviewed encyclopedia articles apply to peer reviewed magazine articles.

Several examples of peer reviewed encyclopedias:

Online Encyclopedia Britannica is peer reviewed and includes access to articles from peer reviewed journals.
Online Scholarpedia is peer-reviewed.
Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is peer reviewed.

[jimbob]

2) As long as there is no variation in the population or in the environment then reproduction is guaranteed. Does this mean that perfect self-replication is sufficient for evolution?

Here's what I was getting at with that question.

If an organism is already well adapted to its environment and the environment does not vary then can an organism evolve?

Firstly, there is no guarantee of reproduction. A stupid example below:

If I managed to make a group of female camel clones (and hypothetically managed to fix all replication-induced variation) then I would have a population of camels that are well adapted to a desert environment.

If I put these in a desert environment with no males anywhere nearby, there is a guarantee that none would reproduce.

Even if I did have fertile, asexually reproducing organisms, in my opinion, reproduction is best viewed probabilistically: different traits "load the dice" in different ways and affect the overall chance of reproducing, but don't guarantee it. They could get unlucky.

For example, suppose I had 1-million cod fry, and assume that they are all identical, and well adapted to their environment, but there is less than a 50% chance that at least one would survive to breed (http://www.cdli.ca/cod/history4.htm). (Rough calculation based on the conservative figure of 2-million fry per mother, so 1-million per parent and knowing that the population is declining slightly, so that on average less than one per parent survives).






If an organism is well adapted to its environment, its descendants can still evolve, yes.

For example, the ancestors of amphibians were fish, and were well adapted to their environment. Amphibious traits opened up a new niche.

[Taffer]

You claim that when debating a scientific issue in an online forum the only acceptable evidence must come from peer-reviewed journals with accompanying "things such as methodology, interpretation, results, etc, to validate a claim".

I claim "get real".

No, I never claimed it was only acceptable "when debating a scientific issue in an online forum". I do claim they are only acceptable when you are supporting your claim that "the literature" supports your position, considering that, to a scientist, "the literature" does not mean an encyclopedia of your choice.

You make three claims about encyclopedias
1) If they are not a primary source then the information is not complete enough to be usable.

Incorrect. I claimed that if the information is not complete enough to be evaluated, then it is not primary source. You have some straw there.

2) They are technically incorrect.

I never made this claim. You have quite a lot of straw.

3) They use metaphors that represent incorrect formulations of theory.

No, I said that, since they are often written for the layman, they may use metaphors which are not technically correct, but which get the general concept across. This is fine 90% of the time, but you are arguing very specifically and technically. When that is the case, we should do away with metaphors which may confuse the issue.

I claim that any shortcomings of peer reviewed encyclopedia articles apply to peer reviewed magazine articles.

My problem is not with peer review, per se, and I have explained this at least twice.

Several examples of peer reviewed encyclopedias:

Online Encyclopedia Britannica is peer reviewed and includes access to articles from peer reviewed journals.
Online Scholarpedia is peer-reviewed.
Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is peer reviewed.

Fair enough. This does not, however, falsify the fact that encyclopedias are not considered "the literature", that encyclopedias, unless they reproduce the study verbatim, are not primary source, and that your claims of being supported by "mainstream scientists" is unsupported by evidence to date.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Those organisms that reproduce, are (axiomatically) adequately adapted to their environment. Those that don't reproduce, don't have offspring to take part in the next generation.

This is what natural selection is.

An organism that reproduces is adequately adapted to the environment that exists prior to the reproduction of offspring.
The offspring may not be well adapted for changes in the environment that its parents were well adapted for.

Would you say that reproductive success is a measure of how effectively a member of a population has survived prior to reproducing offspring?

[Bill Thompson 75]

But you do so while not understanding that it is a metaphor.

It is a metaphor the same as "pressure" is.


Correct.

A phenomenon is the result of the environment. It is the environment. Can you explain what the mechanism of selection is without invoking reproduction? Remember, with natural selection, genes which are more advantageous continue, and also remember that organisms do not evolve, populations do.

Natural selection is the process by which environmental factors affect a population to increase the occurrence of heritable traits in succeeding generations.


"Life" is a particular assemblage of chemicals, with self replication, etc. Variation is a property of populations. These are physical things. The pattern that life takes, and the pattern of variation in a population, are emergent phenomena (or rather, more accurately, emergent properties).

Her is some of the ideas that I pick up from your "definition".

A particular assemblage is not a pattern.
Life and the property of self-replication are physical things.
Variation is a physical property but the pattern of variation is an emergent property.
A phenomena is a feature but if it is a property it cannot be emergent.
A phenomenon "is" and "is the result of " the environment.

What a morass of contradictions and overlapping definitions.

[Dancing David]

Natural selection is the process by which environmental factors affect a population to increase the occurrence of heritable traits in succeeding generations.


Yet I ask again, why flowers and fruits?

The trait selected for is is one that involves reproductive success.

Which part of the 'environment' selected the peacock's tail?

If death is largely random in its distribution, as to which plankton reproduces (by not dying) or which fish egg (by not dying) lives to spawn, then how is the environment selecting?


ETA:
Now if we just kludge in reproductive success

V1
"Natural selection is the process by which environmental factors and variable traits of the organisms affect the rates of reproduction by members of a population to increase the occurrence of heritable traits in succeeding generations. "

[Dancing David]

Would you say that reproductive success is a measure of how effectively a member of a population has survived prior to reproducing offspring?


Yes and no, some members will be very poor at living in an environment but manage to reproduce, and if as is often the case there is a huge measure of random placement in who gets eaten, injured, diseased, starved, etc... then there are many cases where the matter of 'survival to reproduction' is essentially random and not subject to selecting biological traits.

[jimbob]

Those organisms that reproduce, are (axiomatically) adequately adapted to their environment. Those that don't reproduce, don't have offspring to take part in the next generation.

This is what natural selection is.

An organism that reproduces is adequately adapted to the environment that exists prior to the reproduction of offspring.
The offspring may not be well adapted for changes in the environment that its parents were well adapted for.

Would you say that reproductive success is a measure of how effectively a member of a population has survived prior to reproducing offspring?

"The offspring may not be well adapted for changes in from the environment that its parents were well adapted for. "

I guess that this is what you meant - the other reading that the parents were well adapted to the changes in the environment doesn't make sense.

The version in italics is true, but has no bearing on this discussion, as the same would hold true whether the parents were optimised for "survival" or "reproductive success".



A phenomenon is the result of the environment. It is the environment. Can you explain what the mechanism of selection is without invoking reproduction? Remember, with natural selection, genes which are more advantageous continue, and also remember that organisms do not evolve, populations do.

Natural selection is the process by which environmental factors affect a population to increase the occurrence of heritable traits in succeeding generations.
I'd guess that you mean "beneficial" rather than "heritable".

Even so it doesn't really say anything.

The next question is "How do these increase the occurrence of beneficial traits?"

The answer is, "The mechanism by which these beneficial traits spread is because their carriers have more reproducing offspring per parent".

Which gets you back to reproductive success.

This might work, but is clumsy:

Natural selection is the process by which some traits that improve the reproductive success tend to be inherited and spread through the population because carriers of these traits tend to have better reproductive success, which can be defined in terms of number of offspring per parent that reproduce

I am talking about "some" beneficial traits, because suppose an individual cod fry had a mutation that was vastly beneficial, and increased its chances of reproducing a thousandfold, then there would still be less than one in a thousand chance of this cod fry actually reproducing. Should this cod fry actually get lucky and reproduce, then it would be most likely to have about a thousand reproducing offspring, and the trait would be very nearly certain to spread.


Most new traits, even if they are beneficial, will be lost in the first generation, and even more will be lost within a few generations. In reality the benefit is often as small as a fraction of a percent not a thousandfold, but over time some beneficial traits will spread and almost all deleterious ones will die out very quickly.


Could you provide a definition of "emergent phenomena" that does not include "life" and "variation"?

"Life" is a particular assemblage of chemicals, with self replication, etc. Variation is a property of populations. These are physical things. The pattern that life takes, and the pattern of variation in a population, are emergent phenomena (or rather, more accurately, emergent properties).

Her is some of the ideas that I pick up from your "definition".

A particular assemblage is not a pattern.
Life and the property of self-replication are physical things.
Variation is a physical property but the pattern of variation is an emergent property.
A phenomena is a feature but if it is a property it cannot be emergent.
A phenomenon "is" and "is the result of " the environment.

What a morass of contradictions and overlapping definitions.

Taffer isn't saying what you think.

I'll answer your question, because the fact that you asked it shows a slight lack of understanding:

Could you provide a definition of "emergent phenomena" that does not include "life" and "variation"?

Some systems have relatively simple rules governing interactions between members of the system, but demonstrate complex behaviour as a result of the total effects of these simple interactions. The emergence of these complex behaviours from simple rules governing interactions is described as emergent phenomena.

Notice how there is nothing to do with life in this above statement.


"Life" is a property that is unique to living organisms. These are particular assemblages of chemicals that demonstrate certain behaviours, including respiration, excretion, reproduction, and response to stimuli.

[Taffer]

Thanks jimbob, for more eloquent answers than I could provide. I am leaving for a vacation today, and so will not be following this thread. Bill, jimbob is more than qualified to answer in my place. Please refer to his post for answers to mine.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Fair enough. This does not, however, falsify the fact that encyclopedias are not considered "the literature", that encyclopedias, unless they reproduce the study verbatim, are not primary source, and that your claims of being supported by "mainstream scientists" is unsupported by evidence to date.

My post to read "the literature" simply referred to the literature that is readily available and will support a claim that I made in an online forum.
An online discussion of science (I do not consider this discussion to be heavily technical) does not require citations from state-of-the-science journals.
I have noticed (without copying and pasting CV's) that mainstream scientists do have their work appear in encyclopedias, online and otherwise.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Natural selection is the process by which some traits that improve the reproductive success tend to be inherited and spread through the population because carriers of these traits tend to have better reproductive success, which can be defined in terms of number of offspring per parent that reproduce

I find this equivalent to saying that reproductive success is a measure of the effectiveness of natural selection as a key mechanism for evolution. This has always been my primary point and I have not seen a strong counterpoint.


Taffer isn't saying what you think.

Some systems have relatively simple rules governing interactions between members of the system, but demonstrate complex behaviour as a result of the total effects of these simple interactions. The emergence of these complex behaviours from simple rules governing interactions is described as emergent phenomena.

Notice how there is nothing to do with life in this above statement.

"Life" is a property that is unique to living organisms. These are particular assemblages of chemicals that demonstrate certain behaviours, including respiration, excretion, reproduction, and response to stimuli.

In contrast to Taffer's position that life is not an emergent phenomenon, your description of emergent phenomenon, describes life exactly ("complex behaviours from simple rules governing interactions").

[Dancing David]

And reproductive success is likely to be the primary mover.

[jimbob]

Natural selection is the process by which some traits that improve the reproductive success tend to be inherited and spread through the population because carriers of these traits tend to have better reproductive success, which can be defined in terms of number of offspring per parent that reproduce

I find this equivalent to saying that reproductive success is a measure of the effectiveness of natural selection as a key mechanism for evolution. This has always been my primary point and I have not seen a strong counterpoint.


Taffer isn't saying what you think.

Some systems have relatively simple rules governing interactions between members of the system, but demonstrate complex behaviour as a result of the total effects of these simple interactions. The emergence of these complex behaviours from simple rules governing interactions is described as emergent phenomena.

Notice how there is nothing to do with life in this above statement.

"Life" is a property that is unique to living organisms. These are particular assemblages of chemicals that demonstrate certain behaviours, including respiration, excretion, reproduction, and response to stimuli.

In contrast to Taffer's position that life is not an emergent phenomenon, your description of emergent phenomenon, describes life exactly ("complex behaviours from simple rules governing interactions").

Bill, when you say:
"I find this equivalent to saying that reproductive success is a measure of the effectiveness of natural selection as a key mechanism for evolution. This has always been my primary point and I have not seen a strong counterpoint."

My reading is that you were talking about selection as separate from reproduction (below). Is this wrong, if so what did you mean?




The survival instinct helps selection, which may or may not lead to reproduction.

[Dancing David]

I cetainly got that impression as well, environment selects those that survive, then they reproduce.

[jimbob]

My post to read "the literature" simply referred to the literature that is readily available and will support a claim that I made in an online forum.
An online discussion of science (I do not consider this discussion to be heavily technical) does not require citations from state-of-the-science journals.
I have noticed (without copying and pasting CV's) that mainstream scientists do have their work appear in encyclopedias, online and otherwise.

This isn't helpful. Instead of arguing with you, we could have just stated that your initial position was wrong, and that could be shown by reading the literature or by reading more accessible books on the subject.

In discussions about science, "the literature" (note the use of the definite article) usually refers to scientific papers. Other types of sources can be quoted as background "scene setting" but quoting someone else's interpretation of a paper is frowned upon unless you are discussing their interpretation. This is because of the "Chinese whisper" effect.

But you do so while not understanding that it is a metaphor.

It is a metaphor the same as "pressure" is.

Driving force is a metaphor that is in common use and might occur in popular articles, about evolution, but it means exactly the same as it means in other situations.

Selective pressure has a narrower meaning; a selective pressure means that a particular type of trait has a selective advantage (which can be quantified).




"Life" is a particular assemblage of chemicals, with self replication, etc. Variation is a property of populations. These are physical things. The pattern that life takes, and the pattern of variation in a population, are emergent phenomena (or rather, more accurately, emergent properties).

Her is some of the ideas that I pick up from your "definition".

A particular assemblage is not a pattern.
Life and the property of self-replication are physical things.
Variation is a physical property but the pattern of variation is an emergent property.
A phenomena is a feature but if it is a property it cannot be emergent.
A phenomenon "is" and "is the result of " the environment.

What a morass of contradictions and overlapping definitions.

A lot of your questions on this and other threads seem to be a difficulty with statements about items belonging to more than one category.

For example, I could state that I am a UK citizen. I could also state that I am a man. This does not mean that my wife is not a UK citizen.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Yet I ask again, why flowers and fruits?

I guess, why not?


The trait selected for is is one that involves reproductive success.

Reproductive success is what happens after the trait is selected.


Which part of the 'environment' selected the peacock's tail?

The part that found it advantageous.


If death is largely random in its distribution, as to which plankton reproduces (by not dying) or which fish egg (by not dying) lives to spawn, then how is the environment selecting?

It selects on the small part of death that is not random.


ETA:
Now if we just kludge in reproductive success
V1
"Natural selection is the process by which environmental factors and variable traits of the organisms affect the rates of reproduction by members of a population to increase the occurrence of heritable traits in succeeding generations. "

This is good.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill, when you say:
"I find this equivalent to saying that reproductive success is a measure of the effectiveness of natural selection as a key mechanism for evolution. This has always been my primary point and I have not seen a strong counterpoint."

My reading is that you were talking about selection as separate from reproduction (below). Is this wrong, if so what did you mean?

All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not.

But selection is a concept separate from reproduction.

[Bill Thompson 75]

I cetainly got that impression as well, environment selects those that survive, then they reproduce.

I'm not sure that "selects those that survive" is not redundant, but it does make clear that reproductive success can be a measure of selection.

[Bill Thompson 75]

This isn't helpful. Instead of arguing with you, we could have just stated that your initial position was wrong, and that could be shown by reading the literature or by reading more accessible books on the subject.

In discussions about science, "the literature" (note the use of the definite article) usually refers to scientific papers. Other types of sources can be quoted as background "scene setting" but quoting someone else's interpretation of a paper is frowned upon unless you are discussing their interpretation. This is because of the "Chinese whisper" effect.

Okay, I should have said "Read some literature."


Driving force is a metaphor that is in common use and might occur in popular articles, about evolution, but it means exactly the same as it means in other situations.

Well, no, not even exactly close.


Selective pressure has a narrower meaning; a selective pressure means that a particular type of trait has a selective advantage (which can be quantified).

So, to clarify my point, "pressure" is a metaphor for "advantage".


A lot of your questions on this and other threads seem to be a difficulty with statements about items belonging to more than one category.

Taffer tried to separate assemblages, variations, and properties as physical things distinct from patterns and phenomena, and then equated phenomena with properties. The difficulty is that there are probably a dozen arguments to be made why his imprecise statements create a mess.


For example, I could state that I am a UK citizen. I could also state that I am a man. This does not mean that my wife is not a UK citizen.

And it does not mean that your wife is not a man.
And it does not mean that you are not a wife.
And it does not mean that a UK citizen is a man or a wife.

Sometimes a little more precision is a little more helpful.

[jimbob]

I find this equivalent to saying that reproductive success is a measure of the effectiveness of natural selection as a key mechanism for evolution. This has always been my primary point and I have not seen a strong counterpoint.



The highlighted bit is where you are wrong. The definite article is required there, in which case it would be just clunky.

Reproductive success is the measure mechanism of behind natural selection.

The above phrase is ugly, but isn't really wrong.


All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not.

But selection is a concept separate from reproduction.

I'd agree that one can talk about reproduction without talking about natural selection. But the converse isn't true. If you try to analyse natural selection, you will need to look at reproductive success.



I cetainly got that impression as well, environment selects those that survive, then they reproduce.
I'm not sure that "selects those that survive" is not redundant, but it does make clear that reproductive success can be a measure of selection.

This is what Dancing David is saying he reads your view to be.

I'll flip the question:

If reproductive success is a measure of selection, then that implies there are others. What are they? It isn't really a measure, but the mechanism behind natural selection.

[jimbob]

All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not.

But selection is a concept separate from reproduction.

And this is wrong again.

The selection process is manifest in reproduction. In other words, only one organism reproduces, the other doesn't - so it isn't "naturally selected".

[Bill Thompson 75]

And this is wrong again.

The selection process is manifest in reproduction. In other words, only one organism reproduces, the other doesn't - so it isn't "naturally selected".

In this particular example, the selection process had no affect on which organism reproduced, so it wasn't naturally selected or rejected, and the selection process was not manifest in reproduction.

[jimbob]

Bill,

What do you think the selection process is, then? One organism reproduced, the other didn't and the difference *is* natural selection. Just because one might have been "lucky" has nothing to do with it. Almost any organism that reproduces is lucky. Each spermatozoon is independent for some time, and the only lucky ones get to fertilise an egg.

the selection process had no affect on which organism reproduced

What did the selection process have an effect on in this example then?

[Dancing David]

I guess, why not?

So how do they help the 'survival' of the organsism, your theory bias?

Reproductive success is what happens after the trait is selected.

there are many traits not a sociated with survival, i.e. flowers and fruit are selected for through reproductive success.

Are you actually reading or just responding?

The part that found it advantageous.

Which part of 'survival' found the peacock's tail advantageous?

It selects on the small part of death that is not random.

And what is that in plankton in the ocean where survival is random?

This is good.


Sure.

[Dancing David]

All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not.

But selection is a concept separate from reproduction.

Only to you and in fact reproduction will always win out in numbers, but I know you ignored that post.

Reproductive success is natural selection.

Even a 1% advantage in reproductive success will lead to dominance of traits in the population.

Most animals survive in a pseudo-random fashion, their traits are not selected through survival.

You keep saying that, so give an example of how a trait is selected through survival.

[Dancing David]

I'm not sure that "selects those that survive" is not redundant, but it does make clear that reproductive success can be a measure of selection.

Bill survival does not influence the evolution of species as directly as you seem to think, give an example.

[Bill Thompson 75]

The highlighted bit is where you are wrong. The definite article is required there, in which case it would be just clunky.


I was using the indefinite article to refer to reproductive success as a type of measure but not as one to imply there are many measures of natural selection.


Reproductive success is the measure mechanism of behind natural selection.

The above phrase is ugly, but isn't really wrong.

I'd agree that one can talk about reproduction without talking about natural selection. But the converse isn't true. If you try to analyse natural selection, you will need to look at reproductive success.

Of course you would use any metrics available to analyze a process.


This is what Dancing David is saying he reads your view to be.

I'll flip the question:

If reproductive success is a measure of selection, then that implies there are others. What are they? It isn't really a measure, but the mechanism behind natural selection.

A mechanism usually means something that precedes a process, but reproductive success does not precede the selection of organisms that are having reproductive success.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill survival does not influence the evolution of species as directly as you seem to think, give an example.

An organism must survive to reproductive age before it contributes to the evolution of a species.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill,

What do you think the selection process is, then? One organism reproduced, the other didn't and the difference *is* natural selection. Just because one might have been "lucky" has nothing to do with it. Almost any organism that reproduces is lucky. Each spermatozoon is independent for some time, and the only lucky ones get to fertilise an egg.

What did the selection process have an effect on in this example then?

I think the idea of natural selection is separate from the idea of luck selection.

[Dancing David]

An organism must survive to reproductive age before it contributes to the evolution of a species.

And what selection traits does that involve? That was a vague answer, so how does it influence the accumulation of variation in traits that leads to evolution?

And not specifically a younger sibling (which shares 50% genetic material) can care for an older sibling's offspring and thereby improve similar genetics chances of reproductice success.

[Dancing David]

I think the idea of natural selection is separate from the idea of luck selection.

So maybe survival doesn't drive evolution as much as reproductive success.

Say that an individual's sperm is enzymatically more likely to penetrate the ovum, that trait has no influence on the survival of the donor, but it does have to do with the reproductive success of the donor, especially if there are multiple donors.

Just like flowers and fruits are not likely to benefit the survival of an individual but they are likely to have benefit to reproductive success.

[jimbob]

An organism must survive to reproductive age before it contributes to the evolution of a species.

As Dancing David has said,

If survival is the key factor, traits that increase reproductive success at the expense of survival wouldn't evolve. The peacock tail would not evolve.

Evolution optimises towards reproductive success not survivability.

[jimbob]

Bill,

What do you think the selection process is, then? One organism reproduced, the other didn't and the difference *is* natural selection. Just because one might have been "lucky" has nothing to do with it. Almost any organism that reproduces is lucky. Each spermatozoon is independent for some time, and the only lucky ones get to fertilise an egg.

What did the selection process have an effect on in this example then?

I think the idea of natural selection is separate from the idea of luck selection.

Why? How does one make the distinction?

Remember, that there may be a million cod fry per parent and (currently) on average less than one per parent manages to reproduce. The differences between the "fit" fry are dwarfed by luck. In such a harsh environment, optimisation towards reproductive success drives towards a lot of offspring, with low investment per offspring. In a different environment, fewer offspring with more investment per offspring might be more successful.

For example the great white shark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_white_shark#Reproduction) maximises the investment per offspring that is born by having the siblings engaging in inter-uterine cannibalism. By the time they are born, each shark has a fair chance of reproducing - certainly compared to an individual cod fry.

[Bill Thompson 75]

And what selection traits does that involve?
That was a vague answer, so how does it influence the accumulation of variation in traits that leads to evolution?

And not specifically a younger sibling (which shares 50% genetic material) can care for an older sibling's offspring and thereby improve similar genetics chances of reproductice success.

That would be completely dependent upon the specific organism and its specific environment.

[Bill Thompson 75]

So maybe survival doesn't drive evolution as much as reproductive success.

But it is absolutely necessary.

[Bill Thompson 75]

As Dancing David has said,

If survival is the key factor, traits that increase reproductive success at the expense of survival wouldn't evolve. The peacock tail would not evolve.

Evolution optimises towards reproductive success not survivability.

I have never claimed that survival is a key factor, but without it there would be no head or body for the tail to be attached to.

Evolution optimizes the reproductive success that already exists, primarily through multiple avenues of variation and selection.

[Dancing David]

But it is absolutely necessary.

Yeah so is water, that does not mean that water is natural selection, now does it?

[Dancing David]

I have never claimed that survival is a key factor, but without it there would be no head or body for the tail to be attached to.

Evolution optimizes the reproductive success that already exists, primarily through multiple avenues of variation and selection.

This is low hanging fruit, you are now just pretending that you did not post what you did. I think you know this, and I am painting. But you have now pretended to change your stance.

[Bill Thompson 75]

This is low hanging fruit, you are now just pretending that you did not post what you did. I think you know this, and I am painting. But you have now pretended to change your stance.


"pretending that you did not post what you did"
"pretended to change your stance"

A point without direction points nowhere.

[Dancing David]

Now funny that I should have to mention this but the title of the thread is


Role of reproduction or survival in evolution

So all mentions of survival and reproduction relate to that point.

But it is fait to note that a mod named the thread splt after the discussion began so the first page may not be covered by the title.

Now what started this that I called on BillThompson75’s use of the word ‘goal’ in relation to evolution.

The start of the split:

Small quiblle: the word 'goal'.

Goals may be nutrition, environment, concealment, etc. which are sought by nearly all life forms from the microscopic to the largest.

Which came from here:
known chemical reactions --> known chemical reactions producing electricity --> known primitive growth-oriented processes --> known evolutionary processes --> 500 million years --> known advanced goal-oriented processes --> humankind

Which one of these commonly accepted scientific concepts do you disagree with?

Small quiblle: the word 'goal'.

Which was thread about Evolution being stupid.

But there at the top, we have Bill Thompson 75’s statement about evolution

Goals may be nutrition, environment, concealment, etc. which are sought by nearly all life forms from the microscopic to the largest.


To which the only response is

Gee Bill Thompson 75, there are no goals in evolution, evolution is blind.

[Dancing David]

I have never claimed that survival is a key factor...

Oh you sure did Bill Thompson 75

And these are just page one
Page one:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6067883&postcount=5

That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual.

in response to the statement of X “If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.”

Same post

Evolution is the variation of traits and the selection of those traits by survival of the individual (and throw in some random genetic drift). Reproduction does not cause the first and only indirectly helps with the second


After the split:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6082720&postcount=18

Nearly every member of nearly every species can reproduce. Evolution generates improvements by the elimination of the "reproductions" that do not survive.

The selection process is the key to determining which variations survive to contribute to the evolutionary process.

Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

Variation and selection are necessary to the evolution of a species beyond its mere unchanging continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6082730&postcount=19

...in the ToE all that matters is reproduction...

...it is not the survival of the individual that leads speciation but reproduction.


Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.


[/quote]

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6085918&postcount=31

Since, historically, evolution has not been controlled your statement clearly shows that reproduction is not the key factor in evolution.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Now funny that I should have to mention this but the title of the thread is

So all mentions of survival and reproduction relate to that point.

But it is fait to note that a mod named the thread splt after the discussion began so the first page may not be covered by the title.

Now what started this that I called on BillThompson75’s use of the word ‘goal’ in relation to evolution.

The start of the split:

Which came from here:

Which was thread about Evolution being stupid.

But there at the top, we have Bill Thompson 75’s statement about evolution

To which the only response is

Gee Bill Thompson 75, there are no goals in evolution, evolution is blind.

You go a long way to show how confused you are.

If you had read and paid attention you would have accurately concluded that the point about goals referred to individual organisms, not evolution of species, as my statement you quoted demonstrates:

"Goals may be nutrition, environment, concealment, etc. which are sought by nearly all life forms from the microscopic to the largest."


And that makes your point here pointless,

"Gee Bill Thompson 75, there are no goals in evolution, evolution is blind. "

because many individual organisms are not blind.

[jimbob]

But *most* individual organisms don't have goals.

What is the goal of a tree? What about a sponge? A fungus? A tiger shark? A termite? An octopus?

I'd say that some mammals (and birds) could fit into this if you are generous, and most of them won't have a goal of "survival". Even chimps and bonobos probably don't want to "reproduce", though they might be pretty keen on sex.

[jimbob]

For example, I could state that I am a UK citizen. I could also state that I am a man. This does not mean that my wife is not a UK citizen.

And it does not mean that your wife is not a man.
And it does not mean that you are not a wife.
And it does not mean that a UK citizen is a man or a wife.

Sometimes a little more precision is a little more helpful.

That was the point I was making - you drew logical conclusions from Taffer's post that were not warranted. I was merely illustrating what manner of error this was. Stating that a cat has four legs does not preclude a dog having four legs. It does not preclude some cats having fewer legs (or indeed, more legs). If my definition of "cat" included it always having four legs then a three-legged cat would not meet that definition.

I am reminded about the early Greek philosophy question about the definition of "man".

Someone came up with the statement that a man was an animal without feathers that walked on two legs. Someone else plucked a live chicken and said that it was therefore a man.

For pedantry, I'd say that the word "wife" applies to women. Even in same sex partnerships, I've only seen men referred to as husbands, and women as wives.


Here is the full quote:






"Life" is a particular assemblage of chemicals, with self replication, etc. Variation is a property of populations. These are physical things. The pattern that life takes, and the pattern of variation in a population, are emergent phenomena (or rather, more accurately, emergent properties).

Her is some of the ideas that I pick up from your "definition".

A particular assemblage is not a pattern.
Life and the property of self-replication are physical things.
Variation is a physical property but the pattern of variation is an emergent property.
A phenomena is a feature but if it is a property it cannot be emergent.
A phenomenon "is" and "is the result of " the environment.

What a morass of contradictions and overlapping definitions.

A lot of your questions on this and other threads seem to be a difficulty with statements about items belonging to more than one category.

For example, I could state that I am a UK citizen. I could also state that I am a man. This does not mean that my wife is not a UK citizen.

A particular assemblage is not a pattern.
Where does Taffer say this?
A phenomena is a feature but if it is a property it cannot be emergent.
Where does Taffer say this?
A phenomenon "is" and "is the result of " the environment.
Where does Taffer say this?

I have never claimed that survival is a key factor, but without it there would be no head or body for the tail to be attached to.

Evolution optimizes the reproductive success that already exists, primarily through multiple avenues of variation and selection.


What does this actually mean? What are the mechanisms of selection? I'll repeat that reproduction is the mechanism of selection, it is not the measure, but the mechanism.

[Dancing David]

The context was everything Bill Thompson 75, and just keep ignoring the fact that you stated repeatedly that reproduction does not matter to natural selection:
I have never claimed that survival is a key factor...

Oh you sure did Bill Thompson 75

And these are just page one
Page one:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6067883&postcount=5

That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual.

in response to the statement of X “If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.”

Same post

Evolution is the variation of traits and the selection of those traits by survival of the individual (and throw in some random genetic drift). Reproduction does not cause the first and only indirectly helps with the second


After the split:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6082720&postcount=18

Nearly every member of nearly every species can reproduce. Evolution generates improvements by the elimination of the "reproductions" that do not survive.

The selection process is the key to determining which variations survive to contribute to the evolutionary process.

Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

Variation and selection are necessary to the evolution of a species beyond its mere unchanging continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6082730&postcount=19

...in the ToE all that matters is reproduction...

...it is not the survival of the individual that leads speciation but reproduction.


Reproduction is necessary to the continuation of a species. It contributes nothing more to evolution than what it already contributes to continuation.

A species can continue through reproduction but it cannot evolve without variation and selection.




http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6085918&postcount=31

Since, historically, evolution has not been controlled your statement clearly shows that reproduction is not the key factor in evolution.

[Dancing David]

Page 2 Bill Thompson 75 continues to deny reproductive success in natural selection: And please note it is your strawman which kept saying reproduction rather than reproductive success….


http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6102950&postcount=48

This all goes back to the claim that the key to evolution is reproduction.
I rebutted with the claim that the more commonly recognized key factors or mechanisms in evolution are variation and selection.


http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6102965&postcount=49

If you mean that variation and selection are just minor participants in the panorama of evolution then you are wrong.
Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.


http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6106341&postcount=52

No, you are mixing different issues together.

My points are:

1) For most species the goals of members are survival and mating, not reproduction.

2) Variation and selection are the critical factors which distinguish evolution from reproduction.


http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6110511&postcount=77

The environment tests candidate organisms to see if they have traits that will aid in survival. The test includes factors such as temperature, predation, humidity, and competition. The environment then passes the candidates which perform satisfactorily on the test and lets them reproduce, and fails the others by killing them. The test is the mechanism for this process called natural selection.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Oh you sure did Bill Thompson 75

And these are just page one
Page one:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6067883&postcount=5

in response to the statement of X “If you don't survive long enough to reproduce, you don't reproduce. Which makes you an evolutionary failure.”

Same post

After the split:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6082720&postcount=18

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6082730&postcount=19



http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6085918&postcount=31[/QUOTE]

Here is what your post clearly supports:

1) As I have noted numerous times, variation and selection are the key mechanisms of evolution.

2) As I have noted numerous times, survival is necessary to evolution (which of course would be ridiculous to deny).

[Bill Thompson 75]

But *most* individual organisms don't have goals.

What is the goal of a tree? What about a sponge? A fungus? A tiger shark? A termite? An octopus?

I'd say that some mammals (and birds) could fit into this if you are generous, and most of them won't have a goal of "survival". Even chimps and bonobos probably don't want to "reproduce", though they might be pretty keen on sex.

How about the goals of accessing sunlight, ingestion, mating, flight from predators, etc?

[Bill Thompson 75]

That was the point I was making - you drew logical conclusions from Taffer's post that were not warranted. I was merely illustrating what manner of error this was.

There were no logical conclusions to be drawn from the post. I pointed out it was a mess.


For pedantry, I'd say that the word "wife" applies to women. Even in same sex partnerships, I've only seen men referred to as husbands, and women as wives.

Check the Urban Dictionary.


Here is the full quote:

Your quote is incomplete.

Remember that Taffer claimed that emergent phenomena do not include life and variation.


Where does Taffer say this?

"Life" is a particular assemblage...These are physical things.
The pattern...are emergent phenomena"


Where does Taffer say this?

"Variation is a property of populations...
the pattern of variation...are emergent phenomena or emergent properties."


Where does Taffer say this?

"A phenomenon is the result of the environment. It is the environment. "


What does this actually mean? What are the mechanisms of selection? I'll repeat that reproduction is the mechanism of selection, it is not the measure, but the mechanism.

The mechanism of a process cannot follow a process, unless you have a way to reverse causality.

[Bill Thompson 75]

The context was everything Bill Thompson 75, and just keep ignoring the fact that you stated repeatedly that reproduction does not matter to natural selection:

This did not happen repeatedly, it did not happen once, and since you are aware that your search failed to provide any examples to the contrary your false claim makes you a liar falser.

An example of a failed example:
You present my quote:
BT75: "I have never claimed that survival is a key factor..." (The complete quote is referring to evolution.)

DD: "Oh you sure did Bill Thompson 75"
You present the following quote as evidence:

BT75: "That is why survival is the primary goal of the individual."

Note that you completely confused evolution of a species with survival of individual.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Page 2 Bill Thompson 75 continues to deny reproductive success in natural selection: And please note it is your strawman which kept saying reproduction rather than reproductive success….

I think the strawman appears when you try to restate the claims I have made.

Here is one of my claims:

Success in the process of natural selection will result in reproductive success.


http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6102950&postcount=48
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6102965&postcount=49
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6106341&postcount=52
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6110511&postcount=77

Thank you, I stand by my prior posts.

[jimbob]

Bill, It is hard to work out what you are actually saying, because in one post you claim that your position is equivalent to ours, and in another demonstrate that it is materially different.


I think the following is the key problem:

"All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not"

This is not the same as the conventional position that reproduction is the mechanism behind natural selection.



All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not.

But selection is a concept separate from reproduction.

In this particular example, the selection process had no affect on which organism reproduced, so it wasn't naturally selected or rejected, and the selection process was not manifest in reproduction.

I think the idea of natural selection is separate from the idea of luck selection.

How do you separate the two? I've asked this before.



Here is one of my claims:

Success in the process of natural selection will result in reproductive success.



How do these two posts below tally?


"Success in the process of natural selection will result in reproductive success."

The post above states that success in natural selection results in reproductive success, whilst the post below states that some organisms which survive the selection process do not reproduce. Unless you are using an eccentric definition of "reproductive success", these two posts contradict each other.

"All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not"

I'd argue that the first is not completely wrong, but that it does put the cart before the horse*. Successful reproduction is success in natural selection.



*This is a metaphor, and not arguing that the mechanism of evolution literally requires horse carts.

[Dancing David]

Success in the process of natural selection will result in reproductive success.



And again Bill Thompson 75, this ignores the multitude of case where you version of 'natural selection as survival' runs right into the peacocks tail, it does not increase the survival of the individual, it decreases the survival of the individual, it is therefore counter to your claim, as are a multitude of others.

So, how does that work, we have a trait that is a detriment to the survival of the individual, yet it was selected for, and there are plenty of others.

So how does that work?

So why fruits and flowers (not a detriment but a resource drain), why harem behavior in some herd animals, why the whole plethora of traits that are directly detrimental to the survival of the individual? Are you saying that they are not a product of natural selection?

[Iteration 3.3]

[jimbob]

And again Bill Thompson 75, this ignores the multitude of case where you version of 'natural selection as survival' runs right into the peacocks tail, it does not increase the survival of the individual, it decreases the survival of the individual, it is therefore counter to your claim, as are a multitude of others.

So, how does that work, we have a trait that is a detriment to the survival of the individual, yet it was selected for, and there are plenty of others.

So how does that work?

So why fruits and flowers (not a detriment but a resource drain), why harem behavior in some herd animals, why the whole plethora of traits that are directly detrimental to the survival of the individual? Are you saying that they are not a product of natural selection?

[Iteration 3.3]


And why the separation of "luck selection" from natural selection?

What does "luck selection" even mean?

[Dancing David]

And why the separation of "luck selection" from natural selection?

What does "luck selection" even mean?

I believe that is some reference to my use of plankton and other 'lots of units' of reproductive strategies.

I pointed out that in 'survival' there is often just a huge amount of random chance who gets 'selected' for death, in plankton, insects and many prey species there is not 'selection' for 'survival' when it comes to death, it is basically a random variation based upon proximity to predators and diseases.


So for many selected traits 'survival' has zero input.

[jimbob]

I believe that is some reference to my use of plankton and other 'lots of units' of reproductive strategies.

I pointed out that in 'survival' there is often just a huge amount of random chance who gets 'selected' for death, in plankton, insects and many prey species there is not 'selection' for 'survival' when it comes to death, it is basically a random variation based upon proximity to predators and diseases.


So for many selected traits 'survival' has zero input.

Indeed.

In my view, the classic example is given by cod, where at fertilization, each individual organism has about a one in a million chance of reproducing.

[Bill Thompson 75]

Bill, It is hard to work out what you are actually saying, because in one post you claim that your position is equivalent to ours, and in another demonstrate that it is materially different.

I think the following is the key problem:

"All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not"

This is not the same as the conventional position that reproduction is the mechanism behind natural selection.

How do you separate the two? I've asked this before.

How do these two posts below tally?

"Success in the process of natural selection will result in reproductive success."

The post above states that success in natural selection results in reproductive success, whilst the post below states that some organisms which survive the selection process do not reproduce. Unless you are using an eccentric definition of "reproductive success", these two posts contradict each other.

"All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not"

The two posts are not contradictory when read in context.
At one point, on a side track, I noted that even if an organism survives the processes of natural selection it may not be lucky enough to reproduce.
As an example, the organism that may be the most valuable to its species in reproducing, but may get hit by a meteorite and fail to reproduce. This says nothing about survival, natural selection, or reproductive success.


I'd argue that the first is not completely wrong, but that it does put the cart before the horse*.

How does reproductive success occur before natural selection?


Successful reproduction is success in natural selection.

I doubt that anyone equates the concepts of reproduction and natural selection, successful or not.

*This is a metaphor, and not arguing that the mechanism of evolution literally requires horse carts. [/QUOTE]

[Bill Thompson 75]

And again Bill Thompson 75, this ignores the multitude of case where you version of 'natural selection as survival' runs right into the peacocks tail, it does not increase the survival of the individual, it decreases the survival of the individual, it is therefore counter to your claim, as are a multitude of others.

I do not recall ever posting 'natural selection as survival'. Did you make this up also?


So, how does that work, we have a trait that is a detriment to the survival of the individual, yet it was selected for, and there are plenty of others.

So how does that work?

So why fruits and flowers (not a detriment but a resource drain), why harem behavior in some herd animals, why the whole plethora of traits that are directly detrimental to the survival of the individual? Are you saying that they are not a product of natural selection?

[Iteration 3.3]

You will need a few more exceptions to disprove the Theory of Evolution.

[Bill Thompson 75]

And why the separation of "luck selection" from natural selection?

What does "luck selection" even mean?

It means that if you are just about to reproduce with your significant other and you get hit by lightning, then you have been deselected.

[Bill Thompson 75]

I believe that is some reference to my use of plankton and other 'lots of units' of reproductive strategies.

I pointed out that in 'survival' there is often just a huge amount of random chance who gets 'selected' for death, in plankton, insects and many prey species there is not 'selection' for 'survival' when it comes to death, it is basically a random variation based upon proximity to predators and diseases.

There is 'selection' for 'survival' when it comes to life, which can be extended by having traits which assist in avoiding predators and diseases.


So for many selected traits 'survival' has zero input.

If survival has zero input, what do you mean by "selected trait"?

[jimbob]

Bill, It is hard to work out what you are actually saying, because in one post you claim that your position is equivalent to ours, and in another demonstrate that it is materially different.

I think the following is the key problem:

"All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not"

This is not the same as the conventional position that reproduction is the mechanism behind natural selection.

How do you separate the two? I've asked this before.

How do these two posts below tally?

"Success in the process of natural selection will result in reproductive success."

The post above states that success in natural selection results in reproductive success, whilst the post below states that some organisms which survive the selection process do not reproduce. Unless you are using an eccentric definition of "reproductive success", these two posts contradict each other.

"All that meant was that for two identical organisms which survive selection processes one may have the opportunity to reproduce and another may not"

The two posts are not contradictory when read in context.
At one point, on a side track, I noted that even if an organism survives the processes of natural selection it may not be lucky enough to reproduce.
As an example, the organism that may be the most valuable to its species in reproducing, but may get hit by a meteorite and fail to reproduce. This says nothing about survival, natural selection, or reproductive success.


I'd argue that the first is not completely wrong, but that it does put the cart before the horse*.

How does reproductive success occur before natural selection?

I'll answer with what is immediately below in your post:


Successful reproduction is success in natural selection.

The above quote is ugly, and not really how I'd look at evolution, but isn't incorrect.



Successful reproduction is success in natural selection.

I doubt that anyone equates the concepts of reproduction and natural selection, successful or not.



As I said it is an ugly phrase, but again you aren't reading what is written. I did not say that reproduction is natural selection but that successful reproduction equates to success in natural selection. There is a (not very) subtle difference in meaning there.

The two posts are not contradictory when read in context.

So it is an eccentric use of the word "will" then... More like "may".

Being born will result in dying. Falling may result in injury. One will always happen, the other might happen.

"Success in the process of natural selection will result in reproductive success."

Which is unfortunate, because otherwise that quote above would have almost been conventional, even if put backwards.

[jimbob]

You still haven't explained what you mean by "survives the process of natural selection". If you don't mean reproduction.

You say that an organism could "survive the process of natural selection" yet fail to reproduce because it is unlucky. I say that this organism has failed to reproduce, so if you want to look at it in an odd fashion, it wasn't naturally selected. It didn't "survive the process of natural selection".

At one point, on a side track, I noted that even if an organism survives the processes of natural selection it may not be lucky enough to reproduce.

I'll try again.

If survival was the key factor, then whenever a trait caused a tradeoff between evolving towards reproductive success or towards improved survivability, then the trait would evolve towards improved survivability at the expense of reproductive success. This is opposite to what is observed, where many traits have evolved that are detrimental to the organism's survivability but improve reproductive success. For example the peacock's tail.

As to "luck selection" - that doesn't exist. Most organisms are fairly similar to their siblings, and yet only a small fraction reproduce. Those that do so are both lucky and adequately adapted. This is natural selection, which is a "percentage game" and probabilistic in nature.


If survival was the key, then why are cod so bad at it? Any individual cod fry has less than a one in a million chance of surviving to reproduce. The reproductive strategy has evolved that means that more fry spawn, whereas if individual survival was the driver, fewer fry would spawn, but with more "investment" of parental resources that would improve the odds of survival.







You will need a few more exceptions to disprove the Theory of Evolution.

No, this is your interpretation of the theory of evolution. Where did you get this from? Because I suspect you have misunderstood what someone has told you, or you have misunderstood what you have read.


We are pointing out that evolution works in a different manner to the way that you think.

It is valid to point out exceptions that your mechanism can't account for, but which the standard understanding can.

We have given you examples where your proposed mechanism couldn't produce the results seen in nature. A lot of discussion in biology involves determining how certain traits can have reproductive benefit. For example, if* there is a genetic element, then homosexual behaviour seems to not have any evolutionary benefit. Several mechanisms have been proposed for a benefit, these usually invoke increased success with heterosexual relationships for people with this trait, or their kin.

*This is an example, I don't have much of an opinion either way in the nature-nurture debate, except that I understand hormones sometimes do seem to play a part, which could imply a genetic component. There are threads devoted to this I think.