Cornelius Hunter seems very confused.
…This brings us back to the UC Berkeley “Understanding Evolution” website. It abuses science in its utterly unfounded claim that “natural selection can produce amazing adaptations.”
In fact natural selection, even at its best, does not “produce” anything. Natural selection does not and cannot influence the construction of any adaptations, amazing or not. If a mutation occurs which improves differential reproduction, then it propagates into future generations. Natural selection is simply the name given to that process. It selects for survival that which already exists. Natural selection has no role in the mutation event. It does not induce mutations, helpful or otherwise, to occur. According to evolutionary theory every single mutation, leading to every single species, is a random event with respect to need.
He has forgotten what “adaptation” means. Of course he is correct that “Natural selection is simply the name given to [differential reproduction]”. And that (as far as we know), “every single mutation …is a random event with respect to need”.
And “adaptation” is the name we give to variants that are preferentially reproduced. So while he would be correct to say that “natural selection” is NOT the name we give to “mutation” (duh); it IS the name we give to the very process that SELECTS those mutations that promote reproduction. i.e. the process that produces adaptation.
Cornelius should spend more time at the Understanding Evolution website.
ETA: CharlieM points out below that…
When CH says that natural selection does not produce adaptations he is talking about individual organisms. He is discussing mutations in individuals and adaptations in individuals. Natural selection has nothing to do with the first appearance of an adaptation in an individual.
And that of course is the confusion – I hadn’t seen just where Cornelius’s confusion lay. Because, of course, the term “adaptation” is a population-level concept. At the level of the individual, the equivalent would be “advantageous mutation”. And that makes the Understanding Evolution website absolutely correct.
CharlieM,
That does not really answer the question. You appear to be describing an evolutionary scenario, but not wanting to call it ‘evolution’. The totipotency of a zygote is a completely different thing from the assumed totipotency of an ‘ur-cell’. How were giraffe genes and daffodil genes represented in this cell?
I was telling you what I meant by ‘trait’ in that example, for improved communication. You respond by telling me I’m wrong? Good work!
I see another Creationist can’t read for comprehension.
This is also on the site
“Scientists have worked out many examples of natural selection, one of the basic mechanisms of evolution.”
and
“Darwin’s grand idea of evolution by natural selection is relatively simple but often misunderstood. To find out how it works, imagine a population of beetles:
There is variation in traits.
There is differential reproduction.
There is heredity.”
Natural selection is defined a mechanism comprised of variations+differential reproduction+heredity all working in concert. All the Creationist misrepresentation in the world won’t change that.
Why would I not call it evolution, I believe in evolution. Evolution originally meant unrolling as in a rose out of a bud and that is how I see it; as an unfolding of life. So my idea of evolution is probably much more inclusive than yours. I would say that each of us evolves out of a zygote.
The term “ur-cell” may be misleading as this may be equated with the original material organism. The original organism is an expression of the archetype as are its descendents, but this archetype must not be thought of as a material entity. It is a dynamic entity of which every organism is an individual expression. Think of the archetype as a movie and the form of the organism as still from that movie. Not a great analogy but its the best I can come up with.
I was simply stating that a mutation is not a trait. If you were trying to tell me something else then I’m sorry but I misunderstood you.
CharlieM,
Natural selection works on variation (strictly: heritable varation). Mutation is heritable variation upon which NS can work. Different versions of ‘traits’ are heritable variation upon which NS can work. I don’t know what stops a simple mutation from being a ‘trait’.
Sickle-cell ‘trait’ consists of a single nucleotide change.
That’s fine if you want to call it a trait, but I would say the distinguishing feature of sickle cell anaemia is the distorted red blood cells.
Natural selection does not care about the genome, it works on how the phenotype interacts with its environment, in this case how the red blood cells perform their task.
CharlieM,
Sure, I am aware of the genotype/phenotype distinction. But a mutation can be regarded as either or both of a genetic and a phenotypic entity. NS concentrates genotypes, by working through phenotype. A genotype can be a ‘trait’ if NS can distinguish it.
Well I don’t think its worth arguing over.
What I do find interesting is your phrase, “NS concentrates genotypes”. In other words NS is a path to specialisation. It leads from a wider path with more manouverability to a narrower, more restricted path.
This parallels individual development. The original totipotent cells, divide and multiply and some of these daughter cells are selected to do the restricted job of becoming neurons, red blood cells, etc. Selection restricts plasticity.
CharlieM,
There isn’t really a parallel between somatic specialisation and the elimination of variation in a population due to NS/Drift. In fact they are, in many ways, opposites.
Another day, another example of Lizzie playing humpty dumpty with words and expecting everyone to accept that her use of words is the right one.
Natural selection is not a thing. It is not a mechanism. it has no power. It is an idea-an idea to describe the notion that some phenotypes might have more offspring than others. So when Mr. Hunter points out the little sleight of hand word usage in the evolutionists playbook, no doubt he would ruffle some feathers.
The only adaptation that can occur in your precious little thought experiment, is to an individual. Each one either gets a more useful hand or less useful one. Each round, the next individual gets a new hand, no population adaptation, no natural selection acting on anything. Individuals either live or die. The next improvement can only come from an individual, not a population.
Lizzie, Cornelius Hunter has a PHD in Bio Physics, and computational biology. He is articulate and clearly well studied in the subject. You know what you have Lizzie? The claim that you know a lot things.
He knows a fuck of a lot more about the subject than you do-and NOT just because he has the educational background to prove it. The arrogance at which you think you need to tell Mr. Hunter about what he needs to study is simply overwhelming.
I would suggest selection is a process, as is variation. Variation occurs at the level of the gene. Genes are shuffled at meiosis, mutations get into the gametes, and are then material for selection to concentrate or eliminate in breeding populations. The initial source for any variation that can be subject to selection is a heritable genetic change arising in an individual. Adaptation to a niche results from reiterations of variation and selection.
Alan Fox,
That was simply a long way of saying that it is only mutations that do anything. Its a kin to suggesting that winning a football game is a mechanism, a process. That is completely wrong, scoring goals is the process, winning is the result.
Nothing happens except goals.
And yet ID languishes on blogs, instead of bringing these insights to where they would be appreciated. Why do you suppose that is?
There can be no selection without variation to select and there can be no change in allele frequency in a population without a process of selection. For evolution to happen, both processes must occur.
Well, you might be better with thinking that football teams are individuals in a league which represents the population, but as football teams don’t reproduce, the analogy doesn’t really work.
I take it you are referring to American football, in which case I wouldn’t know.
We seem to be getting the usual handwaves.
1. You can’t talk about natural selection because it is not a “thing” or a force, it is just differences in fitness.
Sure, and Brownian Motion is not a force either (just molecules banging into each other). And a landslide is not a thing or force either (just rocks falling down a hill). And heat doesn’t exist either … So you see, say the critics, all thiose geologists, chemists, and physicists are talking nonsense just like the evolutionary biologists.
2. Natural selection doesn’t improve anything, it just eliminates less fit individuals, So it is a negative force (assuming we are allowed by our Semantic Quibblers to say it is a force).
What this leaves out is that the population is growing and runs into a limit on its size. So eliminating less fit individuals necessarily implies, in such a population, that the others, the descendants of the more fit individuals, will necessarily increase in numbers. And increase in frequency in the population. That seems to be mysteriously ignored by the critics.
(Yawn …)
Some fundamentalists seem rather keen on large families.
Absolutely not. People can use whatever words they want to mean whatever they want, as long as they make it clear.
What I am pointing out is that in the sense in which “adaptation” is used in evolutionary theory, it is absolutely correct to say that it is “produced” by natural selection. Cornelius wants to use the word to mean “a novel mutation that turns out to be advantageous”, then he would be correct to say that natural selection does not “produce” that novel mutation. But nobody is claiming that it does. So the Understanding Evolution page is not wrong.
It’s the name we give to a powerful process.
Your last sentence is correct. The rest of your paragraph is garbled. Mutations happen to individuals. Natural selection is the process by which those that promote reproduction increase in prevalence. That increase in prevalence is called “adaptation”, and the important result of the increase in prevalence is that there are now large numbers of individuals in whom a second mutation that increases the effectiveness of the first can happen. And so polygeneic adaptive features, like spines, or big ears, or burrowing habits emerge – i.e. produced by natural selection.
Qualifications do not guarantee against making errors. I would also note that he works at an institution in which certain scientific conclusions are forbidden. I don’t (and wouldn’t). As for my qualifications – they are that I am reasonably smart, reasonably well informed, and have a reasonably good understanding of the theory of evolution – at least enough to spot when someone gets a fundamental wrong.
It’s possible that he knows stuff that I don’t know. But it doesn’t prevent him failing to understand evolutionary theory. I think I understand evolutionary theory better than he does.
It’s not arrogance to point out when someone makes an error. You can demonstrate for yourself that natural selection produces adaptations, as long as when we use the word “adaptation” we are talking about what the page on the Understanding Evolution site is referring to – features of populations that enable its members to thrive in a given environment – webbed feet, for instance. Without natural selection, those features would not emerge.
I’d also point out that if it is invalid for a person with a PhD in one subject to critique experts in another, then Stephen Meyer’s books are invalid.
I think they are junk, not because Meyer isn’t qualified, but because he doesn’t understand the theory he is critiquing.
I think I do.
One might ask — if he knows so much — why he is so consistently wrong.
He’s not listed on Biola’s website as an academic, currently.
Or rather, why is he posting his “work” on a blog rather than publishing it where it might have a chance of some impact?
Oh, right. That’s good. He’s free then.
Hunter is Fellow of the Discovery Institute. He’s a paid shill for Creationism whose job is to spread anti-evolution propaganda every chance he gets. Corny has been corrected on his errors dozens of times. He just doesn’t care that the crap he pushes is dead wrong.
I often get the feeling he’s jealous of the DI’s glamor names like Meyer and Behe while Corny toils for Jesus in relative obscurity.
Elizabeth,
Yes Lizzie, we are all well aware of your dismissal of someones educational background when it suits you, and when not, you can just say, Well, I think I know a lot, besides I have a PHD in music!
Nonetheless, CH knows a hell of a lot more about biology than you do. The fact that you have so little respect for the people who disagree with you means nothing.
And what’s he doing with that knowledge? He published much on why Biology supports ID has he? Or does he only do just the blog posts?
Says who? Phoodoo? How can you tell?
I disagree.
I’ve already explicitly pointed out where EL erred and how CH was entirely correct, given the information given on that selfsame website. As I said before, EL interprets certain groups certain ways, other groups other ways, apparently depending on their ideological alliance.
I know you have “pointed out where EL erred”. Similarly, I have “pointed out” where WJM erred in his pointing.
Cornelius is wrong, and the Understanding Evolution website is correct. Natural Selection does “produce” adaptations as the word clearly is intended to mean on that site. Of course natural selection does not create novel mutations. Nobody thinks that, and the Understanding Evolution website does not say so.
What it does produce are adaptations, where adaptations are defined as feature of a population, e.g. big ears, trunks, spines, flippers, drip-tips, tendrils, thumbs, that help its members thrive in their environment.
GIven that only one of those groups seems to be adding to the sum total of human knowledge it seems there are objective consequences to the particular worldviews espoused by the respective parties.
As far as I can tell, you didn’t respond at all to my pointing out how “adaptation” is defined in the glossary of that website (which doesn’t mention populations or distributions at all), nor to what I said about the point of contention being what the term “produces” is supposed to be referring to in relation to the website’s own definition and use of the term “adaptation”.
You’re the one that is clearly wrong (about what CH said), given how the site itself defines and uses the term “adaptation” and given how CH explicitly explained what he was referring to.
Or did you miss that post?
Quoting Cornelius Hunter in his final paragraph:
It all depends what Hunter means by “produce”. NS will winnow through allelic variation to cause beneficial mutations to spread through a population. Iterations may produce adaptation. Whether they are amazing is perhaps a judgement call.
Depends what Hunter means by “influence the construction of…”. If he means mutations and other sources of variation arising in individuals then it’s correct, though an odd way of putting it.
Hunter seems to be aware of what the process of natural selection is postulated to result in.
It concentrates beneficial alleles and winnows out deleterious alleles in a breeding population.
Nobody who understands evolutionary theory is suggesting this.
or this.
Why include the phrase “leading to every single species”? Genomic changes are postulated to be random with regard to fitness. It is the selection process that ensures the proliferation of the suite of beneficial and neutral alleles through a population that leads to adaptations to particular niches.
Speciation, where sub-populations may bifurcate into separate species initially due to breeding isolation and by occupying or exploiting separate niches is an additional process that incorporates adaptation.
Anything above that William takes issue with?
Can you quote and/or link to the specific definition that you are referring to?
phoodoo,
Appeal to Authority is a logical fallacy. Try defending Hunter’s claims instead of his education.
OK, let me try again. Here is your comment:
OK, let’s assume that.
And the construction of that feature is what natural selection does.
It does not produce the individual mutations that contribute to that feature; nor would we even call it a “feature” if it were not something we observed in multiple members (plural) of a population. In fact we wouldn’t even know it was advantageous.
So an adaptive feature is one that has been filtered and “constructed” by natural selection.
Well, it assumes that we know that it is. As you yourself point out, elsewhere it says so. And under evolutionary theory, that is what natural selection produces – adaptation, hence the teleology. That’s why natural selection is sometimes called “adaptive evolution”, to distinguish it from “drift”. So there is no confusion, unless you don’t think evolution is true, in which case you might think that adaptations were caused by Designers. But it is not ID site, it’s a site about “Understanding Evolution”.
No, it produces – actually “builds” – the feature, except in the rare case where that feature is the result of a single mutation. And it does so BY dint of the fact that genetic variants that contribute to that feature build up in the population. Natural selection (obviously) does not produce the genetic variants, and nothing in that website implies it does.
Yes, it is a “completely misleading statement” which is why nobody made it. You assembled it by plugging phrases from one page into another. NS does indeed produce features; it does so by aggregating genetic variants that contribute to a feature feature.
Ironically, Behe’s whole IC argument is based on this property of natural selection: he argues that without step-by-step concentration of advantageous mutations by natural selection, complex “features” can’t evolve. But WITH step-by-step advantageous mutations, they can – in other words, according to Behe, complex adaptive features can ONLY be formed by natural selection, not by random neutral mutations. Hence his argument that where the only way to a feature is by “unselectable steps”, the feature is IC and unevolvable.
Behe is in fact incorrect – natural selection is important, but it doesn’t have to operate at every step. Neutral, and even deleterious, mutations can contribute to a feature, and be accumulated not by being advantageous but simply by drift.
However, Behe understands what you, and Cornelius do not: that a feature is built up by the aggregation of genetic variants by natural selection That’s the very mechanism that Darwin proposed. The fact that you do not get it is not surprising as you do not claim expertise. But Cornelius does, and he ought to know better: natural selection produces adaptations.
While we are on the subject of PhDs:
PhD programs have been criticised for producing people who “know a vast amount about very little” – a phrase I’ve taken from memory, but near verbatim, from a policy document aimed at funding doctoral training programs that producing people who know slightly less about a whole lot more.
Many people with PhDs are widely knowledgeable. But the system doesn’t foster it – it fosters a kind of OCD obsessiveness with a tiny corner of the world that we don’t understand in order to shed a tiny bit more light on it. At the end of a PhD you know more about that tiny corner of the world than anyone else in it.
But you may well have forgotten that there was anything else in the world. Or even an outside world at all.
Which is why there’s room in the teaching profession for non-researchers.
And why most pop science writing is both more interesting and less careful than journal publications.
The ideal creationist rant is cherry picked stuff that hasn’t been vetted for quote mine ore.
Yeah. I guess I would rewrite some of those Understanding Evolution pages slightly – not because they contain “errors” – they don’t – but because they aren’t bullet-proofed against potential misunderstanding by people who are trying to pick holes.
And the one Cornelius links to is absolutely fine – I wouldn’t change a word. It’s really clear and really good.
The glossary entry for “adapt” is also good, and makes it absolutely clear that “adapt” , in evolutionary terms actually means to “undergo natural selection”. It doesn’t mean “produce a mutation that turns out to be advantageous:
And this is OK too:
The only think I might fault is in the link:
Maybe better would be: “an adaptation is a feature in a population that has evolved by natural selection because it helps the members of the population to thrive in a particular environment”.
What is there is a somewhat unsatisfactory elision between the mechanism of natural selection (advantageous variants become more common) and what a typical adaptation is (a feature common to a population that helps it survive a specific environment).
But that wasn’t the page that Cornelius took issue with, and in any case, he is simply wrong: adaptations in the sense used in evolutionary biology, and given in the glossary, ARE produced by natural selection (at least under evolutionary theory) – they are part of the same concept. Individuals produce offspring with mutations, some of which may be advantageous; populations adapt as a result of the differential replication of organisms carrying those mutations, i.e. the process we call “natural selection”, as beautifully explained in Cornelius’s link.
Unless you have a Ph.D in philosophy — then you’re an expert in how everything fits together, but you’re unable to communicate it!
🙂
You can, but you have to teach everyone philosophy first.
Strictly speaking, this is not quite right, since the fallacy is often misused by “skeptics” about some area of knowledge.
The right way of putting the thought is that an appeal to an authority is not fallacious if he or she has expertise (which may or may not be credentialized) in the domain she or he has, or is claimed to have, making a claim about. That’s why it is a fallacy to say, “So-and-so has a Ph.D, so he must be right about molecular biology” — if so-and-so has a Ph.D. in English literature or paleontology. But if so-and-so has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, then one has good reasons (unless there are other factors to consider) to defer to her authority about some claim about molecular biology.
I’m told it takes years and lots of math to understand quantum theory or general relativity.
I think, however, it is somewhat less difficult to have sufficient understanding to detect bullshit within these fields. Particularly bullshit dealing with things like faster than light travel.
So I would expect philosophers to be able to communicate any important ideas in layman’s language.
EL: You are absolutely incorrect. NS doesn’t build anything. It preserves and distributes what random mutation builds. If a single point mutation is favorable, it is a feature that NS preserves and distributes. If there is an other point mutation that adds to the differential survival of the organism, it is RM that has done the building; NS preserves the structure and distributes it.
NS doesn’t build or construct anything; it preserves and distributes what mutations build – even over millions of years.
You also don’t need to be an evolutionary biologist to understand the Darwin’s theory:
If things reproduce with variance, variants that reproduce better will be reproduced more often.
The neat thing is that it turns out that this even works – works especially well in fact, when the variant-producing mechanism is random with respect to reproductive success.
Moronic.
Selection shapes. Consider a topiary. The form is created by cutting away.
Well, I say you are “absolutely incorrect” William, although possibly because of a communication difficulty, I don’t know.
But let me clarify in case the problem was at my end: let’s say it takes four mutations (a very small number, but this is a toy example) to build a webbed foot in an watery environment.
Mutation number one comes along – a slight elongation of the toes. Without “natural selection” “operating on” that mutation it will probably go extinct. However, because it slightly improves the surface area of the foot, protoducks with this mutation swim slightly faster and get to food before their peers, and leave more offspring. No building so far, just in increase in prevalence.
Mutation number two is already present in the population, and affects skin flexibility, which increased survival rate for some other reason in the population’s past..
Mutation number three alters the way the skin between the toes grows – it grows for longer during development. This doesn’t do much for protoducks without long toes, but in ducks with long toes, it forms a protoweb. So when protoducks with long toes mate with ducks with this protoweb gene, we get a seriously efficient foot. And when these ducks mate with those carrying the already prevalent flexibility gene, we get a nice flexible bit of webbing.
Finally we get a fourth mutation, which wouldn’t have done much had it not been for the fact that the three other mutations were already prevalent because of natural selection, but because they are, this one really takes off – it widens slightly the angle between the toes. This would have done nothing before the toes elongated, nor would have done anything without the webbing. But with both in place, we now have a really good webbed foot.
An adaptation for aquatic life. Built by natural selection from variants, which, in the absence of selection for each one, would have been far less likely to aggregate in the population, and may well have gone extinct shortly after their appearance.
THAT is how what are called “adaptations” work in evolution i.e. they are built through natural selection of the genetic variants required together to build them.
And that’s what the term refers to. And you can observe it in silico very easily – Lenski’s AVIDA does it beautifully. Leave out selection, and while all the mutations required to build the more complex functions arise, they don’t aggregate, so the complex functions don’t evolve. Add selection and you get the complex functions evolving every time.
Yes. It doesn’t have to be a point mutation though. But yes, if it promotes better reproduction, it will tend to become more prevalent in the population.
Well, no. “RM” as you put it, makes the bricks. NS does the building of the structure.
Only by a definition of “NS” that misses the entire point of the Darwin’s metaphor.
Natural selection (the clue is in the word “selection”) is the name we give to what happens when some random mutations make their bearers more likely to breed successfully than others.
If there is no difference in reproductive success between genetic variants, we say there is “no selection”. And in the absence of selection, not much will get built, although a few useless things that result from chance combinations of genetic variants might turn up. However, if there IS a difference in reproductive success between genetic variants, then those variants that promote greater reproductive success will aggregate – and adaptive features will be built.
It’s probably worth noting that most populations have a great deal of genetic variance most of which is neutral (i.e. no selection is going on), and these variants are constantly “drifting” through the population – some going extinct, some going to fixation, all the time. There is constant drip-feed of these neutral mutation into any sizeable population, and they do nothing, and build nothing, until the environment changes.
Then, some that were neutral become beneficial, some that were neutral become deleterious, some that were beneficial become deleterious and some that were deleterious become beneficial, and so on.
Natural selection starts happening, in other words – what was the pool of neutral or near- neutral mutations becomes a pool of beneficial and deleterious mutations – and from this pool “natural selection” builds adaptive features – a deeper beak, longer legs, bigger ears, whatever.
It doesn’t create the variance – mutation does that. That’s part of the theory.
What natural selection does (or rather, what differential reproduction does, which is as much a function of the environment as of the mutations themselves) is to “select” from the pool of population variants those variants that will build adaptive features.
OK, not sure how else to explain this. Except to say that to say that “natural selection doesn’t build” is to completely misunderstand the point of the metaphor.
Differential reproduction, a function of a specific environment, builds adaptation to that environment. ergo, NS builds.
Yes, you could put it that simply.
Or also: most design is selection, whether you think of it as discarding the bits you don’t want or choosing the bits you do.
Or keeping the dogs with short legs and drowning the ones with long.
Or planting the stones of the sweet plums and not the ones that are sour.
It’s why Darwin chose the term.
But you do have to want to understand it…
Whereas to be an IDist, you have to want to misunderstand it. Not that that would be dishonest. Considering Lizzie’s rules.
Yes. Well, you have to not want not to.
Or you have to not to have been exposed to a lot of people brandishing PhDs who tell you that “natural selection can’t build anything, it just stops some things surviving”. It’s a nonsensical misreading of the entire theory.
I do find a lot of ID arguments like this – they make the theory of evolution over abstract, then poke holes in the abstraction. But it’s not a complicated theory – in many ways it’s a statement of the bleedin’ obvious, and doesn’t even need special terms like “random mutation” and “natural selection” – they can just get in the way.
Variants that reproduce better leave more copies of themselves. That’s all it is.
What produces the variation is very interesting but irrelevant to the theory (Darwin didn’t know). It doesn’t even have to be random – designed variants that reproduce better will also leave more copies of themselves, and those that reproduce less will leave fewer.
The key insight was that heritable variance in reproductive success – “descent with modification” would build “endless forms most beautiful” and most beautifully adapted to their surroundings:
From the horse’s mouth: under Darwin’s theory of evolution, it is natural selection that produces “adaptations” not “the mere existence of individual variability”.
Cornelius may consider it wrong, but the Understanding Evolution website is not wrong for saying that it is what evolutionary theory holds.
petrushka says,
The form is not created by cutting away. The form exists already and is only revealed by cutting away.
Quote:
In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.
end quote:
(Michelangelo)
Creation is not in the chiseling but in the seeing.
Section like chiseling is a destructive process it does not create anything. Indeed it can not.
This profound category error of ascribing creative powers to chiseling instead of seeing is at the heart of most misunderstandings of ID.
moronic indeed.
peace