That British Amateur Naturalist had it all Wrong

[Sasaki Kojiro]

The first two are fascinating. I'm not sure what the third guy is smoking though. We say "selecting" just for lack of a better word.

****

I find the points raised in the first to be vastly more intuitive than the plain theory of natural selection on it's own.

[Centurion1]

survival of the fittest is right. ann coulter is just an idiot. its being stomped upon by medical science though. And wars screw with it because often the strong die and the weak survive.

supposedly we are getting stronger and smarter but i bet in 100 years we will have atrophied limbs except for texting thumbs.

[gaelic cowboy]

God said to Dawkins go create your own life.

Dawkins said ok all I need is some dust.

God replied get your own dust

[ajaxfetish]

supposedly we are getting stronger and smarter but i bet in 100 years we will have atrophied limbs except for texting thumbs.

You don't want to confuse 'stronger and smarter' with 'the fittest.' Chickens aren't particularly strong and aren't particularly smart. I suspect whatever wild cousins they have beat them out on both strength and intelligence, yet good luck matching the numbers of domesticated ones. Of course, Louis has already suggested the very concept of 'the fittest' may not mean much, since its definition is pretty circular. Anyhow, strength and intelligence are not necessary for biological success. Successful reproduction is the measure.

Ajax

[Centurion1]

You don't want to confuse 'stronger and smarter' with 'the fittest.' Chickens aren't particularly strong and aren't particularly smart. I suspect whatever wild cousins they have beat them out on both strength and intelligence, yet good luck matching the numbers of domesticated ones. Of course, Louis has already suggested the very concept of 'the fittest' may not mean much, since its definition is pretty circular. Anyhow, strength and intelligence are not necessary for biological success. Successful reproduction is the measure.

Ajax

You mean faster reproduction as well. And im talking about how people are growing taller, supposedly smarter, etc.

But i walk into my calculus class and i'm not so sure.

Basically im saying weaker genes are being passed along because of science. Now this isnt a bad thing all people deserve to live but the results are what they are. Even reproduction isnt fail safe with tihngs like artificial insemination.

[ajaxfetish]

You mean faster reproduction as well. And im talking about how people are growing taller, supposedly smarter, etc.

But i walk into my calculus class and i'm not so sure.

Basically im saying weaker genes are being passed along because of science. Now this isnt a bad thing all people deserve to live but the results are what they are. Even reproduction isnt fail safe with tihngs like artificial insemination.

The genes used in artificial insemination need to come from somewhere. If that's what it comes to, then whatever makes someone most likely to be a successful sperm donor is whatever would make them 'fittest.' Ultimately, the only measure is whether your genetic material survives in subsequent generations. Whatever got it there (physical prowess, intelligence, knowing the right people, having a good health plan, having rich parents, etc.) is irrelevant.

Ajax

[Centurion1]

but what if weaker genetic material survives and reproduces?

No it doesn't, war is actually beneficial to reproduction of the strongest.

Yes, the best usually ends up dead. But who cares? Because of their status as ideal genes they've already found a partner and reproduced themselves. Whether they're still alive beyond that point is irrelevant.

not necessarily. Especially in western society most young men (18) are not married and have not reproduced yet. and im sorry to say many of the weaker men are then given desk jobs because they cannot fight. They rarely die. The stronger ones are left to be front line combat troops and in that position they have a higher chance of being killed before they can reproduce and pass on their genes.

Myth. People are actually just as tall as they ever were and could be genetically. It's just more stable diets have allowed us to grow to our maximum height.

True i didn't even think about it, like the difference between the mongol invader compared to the average chinese.

[HoreTore]

not necessarily. Especially in western society most young men (18) are not married and have not reproduced yet. and im sorry to say many of the weaker men are then given desk jobs because they cannot fight. They rarely die. The stronger ones are left to be front line combat troops and in that position they have a higher chance of being killed before they can reproduce and pass on their genes.

I'm talking historically, as the prestige of the soldier has collapsed over the last decades, to say the least....

EDIT: And anyway, natural selection is an observation of how things work, it is by no means a guide on how to organize our society or anything like that.

[ajaxfetish]

but what if weaker genetic material survives and reproduces?

How exactly do you plan to measure the strength of genetic material? Is it gonna lift weights or something? The only way we have to measure genetic strength is success or failure in reproduction. Thus the only metric we can use does not allow the possibility of weaker genetic material surviving while stronger genetic material fails to reproduce. Failure to reproduce is genetic weakness.

Ajax

[Furunculus]

he may be 'wrong', but he had a good innings.

[naut]

And im talking about how people are growing taller

Myth. People are actually just as tall as they ever were and could be genetically. It's just more stable diets have allowed us to grow to our maximum height.

The second is particularily interesting, and it is especially true in plants. Chloroplast in plant cells are believed to have evolved from cyanobacteria.

[HoreTore]

And wars screw with it because often the strong die and the weak survive.

No it doesn't, war is actually beneficial to reproduction of the strongest.

Yes, the best usually ends up dead. But who cares? Because of their status as ideal genes they've already found a partner and reproduced themselves. Whether they're still alive beyond that point is irrelevant.

[Husar]

And wars screw with it because often the strong die and the weak survive.

That's kinda rubbish, it's survival of the fittest, not the strongest, and whoever survives is the fitter/more fit per definition.

The OP is quite...well, I hope Louis's genes can't infect me over the internet, I'd suddenly start telling everybody how bad others historically were to promote all things french.
Of course Darwin isn't the best explanation we have anymore but he laid the foundations.
Point two I already heard of, at least concerning microorganisms IIRC.
And point three has been obvious for quite a while.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The OP is quite...well, I hope Louis's genes can't infect me over the internet, I'd suddenly start telling everybody how bad others historically were to promote all things french.
Of course Darwin isn't the best explanation we have anymore but he laid the foundations.
Point two I already heard of, at least concerning microorganisms IIRC.
And point three has been obvious for quite a while.

Oh, where's your sense of fun? Surely there's no merit in some E-tough rubbishing of the claims of an Alabama pseudo-scientific creationist.

No, fun is to chop away at one of the corner stones of our own secular-philosophical thought.


As for German history - I really do think you've come under the spell of internet variants of it that take ancient propaganda and several fundamentally erroneous views, condense them, and then spread this pointless substract ad nauseum on the internet. It's boring, patently incorrect and ultimately unproductive. If you believe all of that, then obviously I'm a Germanophobe who is trying to whitewash the many crimes of the French and the Jews and the Bolshevists.
As for me promoting all things French: as Strike once said, he's not here to promote Kansas or Nebraska.

[Beskar]

The thread is misleading, as I pretty much already said the punchline before Louis even bothered to clarify himself. Science has moved on from Darwin, so the original works of Darwin are not accurate, however, evolution is not wrong.

I might as well go "Thread: That Greek Astrocrat Amateur Thinker had it all Wrong" and write about how Plato is wrong.

In short, bad thread, and bad cover from New Scientist. It gives contrary information by removing the obvious contextual information.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

These ideas have been current for a couple of years, I read a book by a British science writer that gathered some of them together. He was brutally and viciously attacked by Dawkins, of course. Sadly. I have lost the book; but I do remember that the Lamarckist approach was suggested by an Australian about 10 years ago.

I think the key problem with Darwinian evolution is that there is no evidence for the evolution of beneficial, purely random, traits. That rather undercuts the theory.

[Husar]

Oh, where's your sense of fun?

I'm german, did you forget already?

No, fun is to chop away at one of the corner stones of our own secular-philosophical thought.

Except that you aren't really.

As for German history - I really do think you've come under the spell of internet variants of it that take ancient propaganda and several fundamentally erroneous views, condense them, and then spread this pointless substract ad nauseum on the internet. It's boring, patently incorrect and ultimately unproductive. If you believe all of that, then obviously I'm a Germanophobe who is trying to whitewash the many crimes of the French and the Jews and the Bolshevists.
As for me promoting all things French: as Strike once said, he's not here to promote Kansas or Nebraska.

And I do think you're a victim of French propaganda and revisionism, it's aggravating, patently incorrect and will only lead to WW3. At that point, survival of the fittest will decide the debate.
As for me promoting all things German: as Husar once said, he's not here to promote the Kaiser.

[Centurion1]

You're treating nature as if it doesn't include human beings. 'Man's science' is now a part of nature. It is a part of our environment. In nature, they are able to reproduce, and since they do so, they are 'the fittest.'

Ajax

no science tampers with the way we are supposed to interact with nature and almost allows us to twist it. Why is a man who is supposed to be unable to reproduce but because of science is saved natural.

not that that is a bad thing of course.

[ajaxfetish]

no science tampers with the way we are supposed to interact with nature and almost allows us to twist it. Why is a man who is supposed to be unable to reproduce but because of science is saved natural.

not that that is a bad thing of course.

Should we also claim the genetic material in farming cultures is weak? After all, it's 'man's science' that allowed those cultures to achieve genetic success.

Treating science as something unnatural is as ridiculous as treating beaver dams and termite colonies as unnatural. Humans are a part of this world. We are part of its ecological makeup. We developed along natural processes. We share most of our genome with other creatures. The ways we interact with this world are no more natural or unnatural than those of any other creature. Part of how we interact with nature is informed by science. How is that unnatural? And what do you mean by 'supposed to be unable to reproduce'? Supposed by who? He's either able to reproduce or he isn't. In your example, it seems he is able to reproduce. So there's apparently nothing weak about his genes.

Ajax