Natural selection, my ass (Page 15) AchillesSinatra: By the way, your "You're a complete dickhead" argument was fairly accurate. Just not very relevant.  Sir Loin: yeah? The neurosurgeon wanted to name my brain tumour after me. I said "No Way, if it's an unclimbed mountain or a new species of songbird, OK. No fucking diseases! " Sir Loin: if someone said "you're a complete dickhead" At least they used correct grammar, and not your a complete...... Sir Loin: Achillies, I'd love to go to Cebu, so would Asiababe, it's only a bus and ferry ride to her Mum's place from there. Unfortunately neither of us can get time off work. However if you'd like to send us tickets around June, we'd love you long time. (Post deleted by MJ59 ) (Post deleted by MJ59 ) AchillesSinatra: American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Steven M. Stanley was an early convert to the Gould-Eldredge theory of punctuated equilibria. While reading his "Macroevolution: Pattern and Process" it came as no surprise, then, to see him assert on page 193: "The decoupling of large-scale evolution from small-scale evolution led me to make the antireductionist statement that molecular genetics alone cannot explain large-scale evolution." What Stanley, echoing Gould, Eldredge et al, is telling us is that, in his view, the processes traditionally invoked to explain microevolution (molecular genetics) are, by themselves, insufficient to account for macroevolution. So, with one eye on the OP (of my Punctuated Equilibrium thread), what this represents is: * One camp -- that of traditional Darwinian phyletic gradualism (DPG) -- insisting that their theory "fits all the facts". * Another camp -- that of punctuated equilibria -- equally adamant that DPG does not fit the facts of macroevolutionary patterns: Macroevolution is not simply microevolution writ large. Which one of the warring parties has a patent on "THE theory of evolution" is left as an exercise to the reader. What DID surprise me, however, was this candid admission on pages 192-193: "I tend to agree with those who have viewed natural selection as a tautology rather than a true theory (see review by Peters, 1976). It is essentially a description of what has happened, with only weak powers of prediction, in that the kinds of individuals that are favored can often be recognized only in retrospect. The doctrine of natural selection states that the fittest succeed, but we define the fittest as those that succeed. This circularity in no way impugns the heuristic value of natural selection as a generation-by-generation description of evolutionary change." Stanley, then, joins the illustrious ranks of those who, like myself, feel that the principle (or law, or whatever you want to call it) of natural selection is a mere "tautology", that is, a truth of language akin to "all bachelors are unmarried" and "winners win", devoid of any empirical content. Kudos to Professor Stanley for intellectual honesty in going where most others fear to tread. Unlike myself, however, the good professor after granting tautological status to natural selection seems determined to salvage a cherished principle from complete opprobrium: (i) Where Stanley optimistically sees "weak powers of prediction", I see no powers of prediction whatsoever . . . besides the utterly trivial, that is. E.g. "Those better able to survive and reproduce will tend to, um, survive and reproduce more successfully than those less able". (Anyone who doubts the predictive impotence of natural selection is invited to demand that a frothing Darwinian provide a substantive (i.e. non-trivial) prediction regarding the future of, say, cassowaries in southern New Guinea. No guessing now! -- Be sure to demonstrate how this prediction can be DERIVED from your theory. And, hey, how could a vacuous tautology be anything BUT predictively impotent? ) (ii) Where Stanley cheerfully attributes "heuristic value", I attribute explanatory emptiness. After all, what possible "heuristic value" can be imputed to a vacuous truism such as "cassowaries are cassowaries" and "survivors are survivors"?  (Edited by AchillesSinatra) AchillesSinatra: First, a salutary review of exciting events in the thread so far, which will be followed by a trip into space for a stimulating thought experiment. What more could you possibly ask for? Let us proceed, boys and girls, by way of examining two explanations: E1: "The Corona virus is spread (among other things) by shaking hands with carriers" E2: "The Titanic sank because the Titanic sank" E1 would appear to be a perfectly legitimate explanation: Effect (spread of the virus) is explained by cause (shaking hands). This is the kind of substantive explanation we look to science to provide. E2, on the other hand, would appear to be no explanation at all. We cannot, on pain of vacuity, explain a thing by itself. It's what we might, at our most charitable, describe as a pseudo-explanation. My claim in this thread, echoing the suspicions of many other skeptics, is that explanations which appeal to natural selection are of the E2 type, just a little better concealed, that's all. Evolutionary biologists routinely explain survival and (relative) reproductive success by appeal to (relative) fitness. Now, if the former is distinct from the latter then we have a perfectly legitimate E1-type explanation. On the other hand, if the "two" turn out to be one -- two NAMES for one THING -- then they're explaining nothing at all, as in E2. No doubt, for example, you've all heard the increase in numbers of black peppered moths in sooty Victorian England explained by their relative fitness (or adaptedness) in comparison with their white lepidopteran brethren. This, we are told, is natural selection in action. Just another example of the awesome explanatory power of natural selection theory, or so the story goes. But if (relative) reproductive success JUST IS (relative) fitness then precisely nothing has been explained. You'd be "explaining" X by appeal to X. With me so far?  Now, as promised, that trip into outer space.... Suppose we visit a distant planet and observe some exotic creatures -- call them "globs" -- frolicking around insouciantly in the extraterrestrial jungle. Globs are identical except that they come in two varieties: black and white. Let's suppose further that, having nothing better do since all the pubs are closed, we enter into a heated discussion over which variety of globs are the fitter: you say black, I say white. To what fact or facts could we possibly appeal to settle our imbroglio ... without waiting to see how successful they are, relative to one another, at surviving and reproducing? If no such fact or facts exist, then the only conclusion to be drawn is that glob fitness (= adaptedness) is identical with glob survival and reproductive success. When (what we initially take to be) two things, upon investigation, turn out to have all and only the same properties in common, then -- perhaps invoking Leibniz's Law of the identity of indiscernibles -- we conclude that "two" is in fact one. Ain't nuffin' wrong with that, folks. A discovery has been made! The Babylonians, we are told, discovered that "The Morning Star" and "The Evening Star" were actually not two THINGS, but two NAMES for one thing; what we call the planet Venus. Einstein drew a similar equivalence between inertial mass and gravitational mass. Perhaps you discovered once that John Lydon and Johnny Rotten were actually two names referring to the same foul-mouthed punk. And, if there is no way to distinguish between fitness and reproductive success, as seems to be the case, then we've made a similar discovery. What appeared to be two is in fact one. Yippee! We're a little wiser now. But -- and here's the rub -- given that fitness and reproductive success are the same thing, to explain one by appeal to the other would be like explaining the sinking of the Titanic by its submersion into the cold Atlantic water. See the prob yet? So, to you defenders of the "explanatory power" of natural selection, I ask: How do we discriminate between fitness, on the one hand, and survival and reproductive success on the other? (Edited by AchillesSinatra) AchillesSinatra: Recent critiques of my logical argumentantion include: 1. Fak off and die, ya science denier 2. You're an asshole 3. You know nothing about biology. Er, got anything better, Mr Holier-than-thou?  (Edited by AchillesSinatra) (Post deleted by AchillesSinatra ) (Post deleted by AchillesSinatra ) (Post deleted by AchillesSinatra ) (Post deleted by AchillesSinatra ) (Post deleted by AchillesSinatra ) (Post deleted by AchillesSinatra ) (Post deleted by staff ) AchillesSinatra: I suppose we could start with my ass. So you're a deep thinker, too? (Edited by AchillesSinatra) | Science Chat Room 5 People Chatting Similar Conversations |
