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Evolution answers

Reality Check said:
We are forced by the real world to disagree with Darwinism was abandoned a century ago for the reason that Darwinism was replaced by the modern evolutionary synthesis between 1936 and 1947 which is more like about 70 years ago.
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That would be my mistake. I was speaking somewhat imprecisely--I didn't remember the precise dates, and 70 years is close enough to a century for the purposes of this discussion (meaning, it was still multiple generations of researchers ago). The actual events are fairly complex; Darwinism sensu stricto was one of a number of competing evolutionary theories for quite some time, and withouit a mechanism it had a pretty fatal flaw. With de Vrise' work and the re-discovery of Mendel's work, Darwinian evolution had a mechanism and was able to formulate rigorously testable hypotheses, which turned out to be true.

justintime said:
But Dinwar said Darwinism was abandoned about a century ago. So why are you still referring to Darwin.
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This is not my error. Darwinism refers to a specific scientific theory that was abandoned. However, science is in no way obliged to discard ideas wholesale--we are more than willing to discard some parts of an idea, but retain others. In this case, we actually retained most of it, building the Modern Synthesis from the vast majority of Darwin's ideas with the addition of numerous other ideas that were only recently discovered or re-discovered. Just about the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that was abandoned from Darwin's original theory was the implicit strict Uniformitarianism (and more specifically, the Uniformity of Rate).

Rejecting a theory does not mean rejecting all its component parts. Darwinism was rejected not because it was wrong, but because it was incomplete. Thus it is entirely appropriate to discuss Darwin in a discussion of evolutionary theory; his data are still valid.

That is the trouble with people who are too willing to leave it to so called experts.
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I absolutely hate these arguments. First, because it's cowardly--the arguer is not brave enough to openly state the argument, and hides behind implication. It's my least-favorite argument style. Second, the argument boils down to the idea that careful study of a subject decreases one's knowledge of it. The concept is simply nonsensical. The fact that someone knows a topic cannot be rationally used as grounds for dismissing what they have to say.
 
Dinwar said:
I absolutely hate these arguments. First, because it's cowardly--the arguer is not brave enough to openly state the argument, and hides behind implication. It's my least-favorite argument style. Second, the argument boils down to the idea that careful study of a subject decreases one's knowledge of it. The concept is simply nonsensical. The fact that someone knows a topic cannot be rationally used as grounds for dismissing what they have to say.
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But I heard somewhere that chimps were better computer users than college students.

Doesn't that imply that the more you learn, the smarter nearby chimps become?

;)
 
justintime said:
I have linked my Unified Theory of Evolution. It has a section on Chimpanzees too.
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I already saw that, and its subsequent dissection. I should have asked, what else have you got? It seems you're just repeating the same stuff that's already been debunked.

Also, attempting to discredit people more knowledgeable than you doesn't give you license to make stuff up.
 
justintime said:
It is the experts who want you to believe they are experts. But if you are aware that 65% of the science papers studied were found fraudulent, you would be less intimidated by those so called experts.
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You are an outright liar. You constantly repeat the lies after being corrected on them several times. There's nothing more dishonest than that, but it is a trait common among creationists.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
Any idea what he did that got him banned? I certainly didn't agree with him, but I was still finding the debate rather informative.
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I can't find the post, but one of the mods said it was an accumulation of 28 warnings and 5 suspensions in only 1200 (?) posts
 
jimbob said:
A question about the highlighted bit, why would sexual selection *not* be considered natural selection?

One reason for the OP is that is so obviously right - remember Huxley's comment about how incredibly stupid to have not thought of it before.

We know how selective breeding works, natural selection is similar but the only trait it selects for is success in breeding as only those organisms which manage to breed, breed. Axiomatically, these are the best at breeding.
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I think most scientists and nonscientists today would include sexual selection under the classification of natural selection. However, that is just a matter of semantics. Charles Darwin used the phrase 'natural selection' a little different from how we define it today.


Charles Darwin used the phrase 'natural selection' to exclude 'sexual selection'. He distinguishes them in his book, the ascent of man. There he claims that bird plumage is not a product of natural selection, but of sexual selection.

Darwin's use of 'natural selection' is clear due to the context in the book, 'Ascent of Man'. He apparently included in 'natural selection' only processes which kill organisms. However, sexual selection involves the organisms 'choice' of mate. It actually reduces the probability of an organism conceiving offspring.

There are several processes important in evolution that reduce the chances of conception without killing any living organism. There is also impotence. This effects selection, too.

This doesn't call into question any of the scientific conclusions of Darwin. This is just a matter of jargon.
 
Darwin123 said:
I think most scientists and nonscientists today would include sexual selection under the classification of natural selection. However, that is just a matter of semantics. Charles Darwin used the phrase 'natural selection' a little different from how we define it today.


Charles Darwin used the phrase 'natural selection' to exclude 'sexual selection'. He distinguishes them in his book, the ascent of man. There he claims that bird plumage is not a product of natural selection, but of sexual selection.

Darwin's use of 'natural selection' is clear due to the context in the book, 'Ascent of Man'. He apparently included in 'natural selection' only processes which kill organisms. However, sexual selection involves the organisms 'choice' of mate. It actually reduces the probability of an organism conceiving offspring.

There are several processes important in evolution that reduce the chances of conception without killing any living organism. There is also impotence. This effects selection, too.

This doesn't call into question any of the scientific conclusions of Darwin. This is just a matter of jargon.
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Thanks.

And of course it isn't just the numbers of offspring, but reproducing offspring (grandchildren etc) otherwise social insects would be even more successful than they are.
 
justintime said:
But Dinwar said Darwinism was abandoned about a century ago. So why are you still referring to Darwin.
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It's simple Justin. Darwin's work was over simplified. Like most scientific discoveries, the work with evolution may have started small, but over time it has been built on by other scientists so much that it is largely no longer adequate to describe what we know about evolution. Darwinism may have been abandoned, but the theory of evolution of species most certainly was not abandoned. It was simply replaced by modern evolutionary synthesis. Modern evolutionary synthesis does contain in large part Darwin's work, but it also contains so much more.

ETA PS I think you already know Darwinism is over simplified by your previous comments. What I think you are missing is that the "so much more" must undergo the same intense scrutiny before it can be added to Modern evolutionary synthesis. Your "Unified Theory of Evolution" has not managed to go through that intense scrutiny successfully. Thus it can't be considered part of Modern evolutionary synthesis.
 
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jimbob said:
Thanks.

And of course it isn't just the numbers of offspring, but reproducing offspring (grandchildren etc) otherwise social insects would be even more successful than they are.
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Number of reproducing relatives rather than just reproducing offspring. Kin selection acts between siblings as well as offspring. In fact, an offspring can on occasion evolve to protect its parents. The relatedness is roughly determined by the percentage of polymorphic genes in the relative.


That is why a disproportionate number of haplodiploid insects have eusocial behavior. A worker been 'serves' her mother, the queen bee, because the queen bee shares 50% of her genes. The queen bee favors her son, the drones, because the drone shares 100% of his genes with the queen bee.

Kin selection is a subset of evolutionary theory. Some scientists hypothesize that it is not true all the time. However, kin selection does appear to explain how behaviors analogous to altruism have evolved.

The zoologist Hamilton developed kin selection theory. That was part of the 'synthesis' of evolution that occurred after Darwin presented his theory. This model does not contradict Darwin's theory of evolution in the least.

'Kin selection' is detail that was added to Darwin's theory. I would compare it to Hooke's Law for elastic materials. Hooke did not disprove Newton's Theory of Mechanics as outlined in 'Principia'. However, Newton did not come up with a general theory of elastic materials. Hooke's Law extended the range of Newton's mechanics. Hooke's did not replace Newton's mechanics because Hooke's Law is a special case. Kin selection is a special case of Darwin's Theory of evolution.
 
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