Natural Selection is described as “the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype”. To this, some add “blind, mindless, and purposeless environmental process” that nonetheless is imagined turning random genetic mutations into superior new features enhancing descendants’ survivability (fitness). Accumulation of these features supposedly turns one lifeform into another over time. Natural Selection seeks to explain the appearance of design in nature without appealing to a designer.
This definition however fails the simplest test as different phenotypes survive different environments thus delinking phenotype from survivability. In a small farm, only organisms closely related to their wild cousins survive, but agribusinesses select for chickens with oversize breasts and research labs select for populations with specific genetic mutations requiring tight environments to survive. Although all these have different phenotypes, they do not possess an intrinsic phenotype “fitness” independent of the environment. In addition, who decides what is natural and what is not? Darwin considered domestication natural enough to include it as supporting argument. And as far as “blind, mindless, and purposeless”, all these are impossible to prove in addition to being utterly incompatible with the anthropic concepts of “better adapted” and “better fit”, both of which cannot be evaluated independent of survivability anyway.
Natural Selection is supposed to tie both ways survivability with phenotype, but this leaves out the environment which not only affects survivability directly, but also phenotype, itself a sum of genotype plus the environment, and even genotype that is a recurrent function of previous genotypes and the environment again. So in the end, survivability is a recurrent function of genotype, an infinite continuum of environments, and other unknown factors. While survivability can be measured as can be the individual genotype, measuring a population’s genotype is daunting at best, and the impact of the ever changing environment is simply impossible to evaluate. Phenotypes are impossible to define and measure in entirety even for one individual and, in addition, phenotype changes constantly from birth to adult to old age. We do see genetic mutations (unknowable if random) and we do know that, given a similar environment, extreme genotypes reduce survivability, yet we also know that a large variety of genotypes survive just fine in any population.
Fitness is never defined independently of survivability – this renders the fitness concept redundant especially since survivability can be measured while fitness cannot. Evolutionary Fitness is defined as the quantitative representation of natural and sexual selection (reproductive success) of a genotype or phenotype in a given environment. “Survival of the fittest” is interpreted as: “Survival of the form (phenotypic or genotypic) that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations.” Not only is survivability the only measure, but survivability also changes with the environment.
Natural Selection is Intelligent Selection which is always done by an Intelligent Selector such as Darwin’s breeder which is an intelligent and willful player that takes intentional actions to reach preset goals. Predators, plants, birds, insects or bacteria, all show intelligence and the willful pursuit of predetermined goals. When interacting with the inert environment, organisms self-select rather than being selected by this environment. As soon as the organism dies and becomes part of the lifeless universe, all selection of that entity ceases.
Selection is limited to a narrow set of possible adaptations – what is not there, cannot be selected. Among the most common adaptations are body color/size/shape, hair type, antibiotic/chemical resistance, and behavior, and even these are limited in scope. Farmers would like to grow walking chicken breasts the size of hogs that grow much faster and come in various flavors, but this is not happening despite their best efforts. Antibiotic resistant bacteria still cannot survive extreme temperatures and chemical concentrations and their resistance decreases when the stimulus is removed. Rabbits cannot turn green when hopping over grass and white just over winter, despite the clear advantage such camouflage would bring. Size of tails, horns, beaks, trees, etc. are all stable over time as tradeoffs limit their growth. Human intelligence, flying, swimming, venom, and all other desirable capabilities remain restricted to specific organisms. Domestication has greatly helped mankind’s progress, but it has not changed the nature of the target animals and plants despite intensive efforts to accelerate their evolution. Instead, humans only enhanced the built in characteristics of domestic organisms and simply did without – a huge civilization disadvantage – when those plants and animals were unavailable. Hence, selection does not “design”, is limited in scope to a few available characteristics, and is reversed as soon as the selection pressure ends.
Extinct organism were not flawed and their features were not “selected away”. Most characteristics of the extinct survive just fine in current organisms of which some changed so little over time they are called living fossils. Sure, the mammal eye might provide superior vision to insect eye, but nothing comes for free and tradeoffs ensure both survive. Organisms that have completely vanished cannot be characterized as flawed and it would not take much imagination to see them thriving in a current landscape. The environment may have changed dramatically over time, however on a macro scale, the environment affected all organisms making the “natural selection” explanation highly doubtful regarding why some organisms survived in their old form, why some went extinct and why others would survive in a changed form. Humans and apes shared the same environment in Africa so common genotype would not have caused our dramatic differences just as lions are not that different than leopard, the cheetah and the others.
What if anything should replace Natural Selection? Humans have applied the most intensive and targeted selective pressure on us and others with great results for our existence. Yet we have not transformed even one organism into another – not even the lowly eColi after decades of laboratory work (Lenski). Our dogs are still basic canines and our cats are still basic felines, not much different than their wild cousins. If anything, we had to adapt to them rather than them to us. The finch, the moth, the antibiotic resistant bacteria are still the original organisms, their hailed changes having reverted or proven simple adaptations. We are no smarter, more powerful or longer living (in absolute) than out primitive ancestors. Selection is not transformative, much less creative.
Humans would apply the Natural Selection method if feasible. But we don’t because it isn’t. A Natural Selection software would use a random generator and a selection criteria to maximize survivability in an available niche. For instance, a family vehicle should optimize the transport function (survivability) given a set of environmental constraints (regulations) and an existing design as starting point. Random minute changes could be tested and retained if the transport function is improved. However, this method can only remove minor oversights but will never create any new designs. Any significant departure such as a new fuel, material or environment either results in a suboptimal design, or requires a cascade of changes to improve the survivability function. That is why the auto industry, like most other industries, introduces minor redesign annually and major revamps every few years. And while even the minor improvements must come in harmonized packages rather than one off (to reduce negative ramifications), in the absence of those major redesigns a firm would shortly go extinct.
Designs do not transform into better designs without crossing an inevitable optimization gap. Given a certain environment, once a design is optimized for a certain function, it becomes suboptimal as soon as the function, the structure, or the materials changes. Until the new design is optimized for that particular change, it remains inferior to an old design already optimized to that environment. Humans optimize new designs (with multidimensional differences from previous versions) conceptually before abruptly replacing old designs. A Darwinist biologic gradual design transition would thus be impossible hence never observed in nature. Had the compound eye been optimized first, a transition to non-compound eye would inevitably had to be suboptimal for a while and vice versa. Only if all eye designs had started from the same point, each following an independent path and at the same pace would we have so many different designs today, each optimized for its function. This however implies a coordinated original grand design incompatible with Darwinian evolution.
Pro-Con Notes
Con: What about organic design? Isn’t that natural selection at work?
Pro: No. This is just iterative optimization of a given design. In this case, the wing shape, the material, the environmental forces and the optimization target are all given. The algorithm will not generate a new wing shape or material and it will stop converging as soon as the environment is less than perfectly defined. In addition, this design is radically different from the previous one, and the next iteration will certainly be radically different than this one (no gradualism).
Con: You just don’t understand natural selection.
Pro: If “natural selection” were hard to understand it would not be taught to young children. Instead, “natural selection” is more like very bad street magic where the bus is covered with the cloth and we then are asked to imagine it disappeared without even removing the cloth and showing us the empty space.
J-Mac,
After looking over Well’s paper, I did not feel any closer to understanding how a zygote becomes a fully formed animal. I look forward to you closing the gap. As far as killing Neo darwinism, I think that ship has sailed with the genetic information argument.
I get it! But look at it this way: DNA can’t account for this information…
So, where is it coming from? Give me a hint or two!
ETA: are you aware that mitosis and some “mutations” are controlled by quantum mechanics?
J-Mac,
From my understanding of cell division a lot of it is determined by transcriptional proteins. Some partially control their own transcriptions. Stem cells can be produced by the WNT pathway during embryo development. How they get targeted for differentiation is unknown and Well’s did not shed real light on this.
He is right that information can come from small molecules but these molecules do not operate independent of proteins as far as I know. Vitamin D (a small molecule) down regulates cell division and vascular growth but only with other transcriptional proteins. The interesting thing is if all the transcriptional proteins are available and vitamin D is not then transcription does not occur.
Where I would search for quantum effects is in the literature on photosynthesis as we know this is a quantum reaction. I have seen data that hitting proteins with certain frequency of light can get them to change shape.
You have quite a big mountain to climb here but it is interesting. I think your hypothesis that quantum effects are a big part of molecular biology is worth pursuing. I will do some searches and see if I can find anything worth while.
Interesting stuff, thanks. Of course DNA is not the full story – since it’s only 1GB of data, it can’t possibly specify organism development: http://nonlin.org/dna-not-essence-of-life/ .
I agree with colewd:
One thing is clear: Darwinism is too retard for this day and age.
colewd,
You misunderstood my point. Never mind.
Have a look here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15527951
colewd,
Quantum effects in biology will become, and already are, the additional nails in the coffin of Darwinism…
Birds navigation by quantum entanglement, photosynthesis, mitosis, mutations are just the beginning the end… These quantum effects couldn’t have possibly evolved by any known Darwinian mechanisms…
No, I will not be closing that gap…
J-Mac,
I agree but Darwinian evolution starts with functioning life which starts with functioning matter. Quantum mechanics is part of how that matter interacts.
What am I missing?
Why?
Why?
You’re not missing anything, other than the fact that what you just said completely undermines J-mac’s statement with which you apparently agree. So you have no reason to agree with it.
Except for normal positive and negative selection.
How could Darwinian mechanisms possibly differentiate between “quantum effects” and classical physics? It’s really the same physics anyhow.
Glen Davidson
He does. He smears people and then runs swiftly away like a coward when asked to support his scurrilous allegations. Quite the skill.
Wells did not have to publish this blockbuster paper in an online creationist fake journal.
That seems unlikely. Why publish in an online creationist fake journal if there’s an alternative? Of course he could have published in an online pay-to-publish fake journal, but that would scarcely be any better. I mean a respectable alternative.
It’s a false dichotomy. A logical fallacy. He could have not published at all.
That seems like the most pointless possible objection, though doubtless you could easily prove me wrong by making a still more pointless one. It would certainly be preferable, and less damaging to his scientific reputation, such as it is, not to have published at all. My point, however, is that he published in a bogus journal, even though a real journal would have been preferable to him, because no real journal would have accepted that paper.
LOL! Trollbot Mung sweeps the podium again in the Projection Olympics. 😀
Why not address the actual content of the paper rather than where it was published? Are you acquainted with the genetic fallacy?
Papers published in “reputable” darwinist journals can’t be trusted.
See, you misunderstand how science is done these days: if more “scientists” vote for your theory, then it’s true. And “scientists” are of course only the Darwin mob made men.
…and forget about the facts:
1. “Design by multiple choice” is full retard
2. “Multiple choice from ALL random answers” is full retard
3. “Designing without trying” is full retard
4. “Self design” is full retard
5. “Design by incremental optimization” is full retard
I like the method of refutation by saying “full retard” over and over. Even if it won’t work in science journals for the reasons you mention, it’s bound to be a big hit in various ID blogs.
Why don’t you disagree with some thoughtful counterarguments? Explain how those “evolution” claims are anything other than “full retard”.
I guess Biophysical Journal/Cell has become a creationists’ preferred magazine to publish in?
Membrane Patterns Carry Ontogenetic Information that is Specified Independently of DNA
https://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495(13)04558-X
The Biophysical Journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Cell Press on behalf of the Biophysical Society. It covers all aspects of biophysics. The journal was established in 1960.- Wikipedia
Seems Joe Felsenstein publishes there too…
https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/0092-8674(87)90630-1
I think your comment got precisely the response it deserved, and such (ostensibly) substantive remarks you have made on this thread have already been completely decimated.
That’s a meeting abstract, not a publication. Those aren’t peer-reviewed or edited. Good try.
I see you’re unable to distinguish between Cell and other journals from the same publisher, just as you can’t distinguish between meeting abstracts and scientific papers.
Was that irony intentional or not? One can never tell with you.
So… by now… I assume you’d have an argument? If you don’t have it, which I know you don’t, make sure you can live with yourself… If you can..
You said it was published in garbage journals… creationists stuff…Now, it turns out it was published in journals with Joe. Who cares in what form? Your birdie speculations in any form are not there. Why?
Why do you say that, Glen? I’m sure you realise there are some significant differences over all…
1. Conference abstracts aren’t published papers.
2. Those aren’t the same journals. Good clue: the different journal titles.
3. My birdie speculations are published in journals appropriate to my topic, which neither Cell nor Biophysical Journal is.
4. I would also point out that Joe’s publication there was a book review, not a scientific paper.
I guess your birdie speculations must appear closer to truth when they are published in magazines with the agenda that assumes by default they are true even when they are not…
We live in the world where the great majority of people don’t want to know what truth is… why would pro Darwinian mags be any different?
Research in the actual science journals has led to technology that has changed nearly every aspect of modern life. The stuff in the mags and videos you enjoy and like to reproduce here have led to a few hundred hobbyists getting their rocks off with each other on the internet.
That’s the difference, J-mac.
That’s the problem with you: you guess. My birdie speculations, on the other hand, are supported by data and reasoned argument. Nobody assumes they’re true. But they have been confirmed by further testing. Of course, that further testing has been published in real journals, so you will dismiss it without ever bothering to look.
There is no doubt the advancement in technology has changed the landscape of this world… Whether this advancement turns out to be positive or negative, it remains to be seen… I see it first hand every day that the advancement in technology has isolated people; they seem to care more about devices than people. Is that an advancement that was support to benefit humanity? You tell me…
Listen: there is no doubt in my mind you are a really smart guy.
What divides us is our world views. You have devoted your life to birds, I have recently devoted my life to trying to figure out where truth lies…
Where do we come apart?
You say that as if they’re mutually exclusive. Science is a search for truth, or the closest possible approximation thereof.
Mostly your lack of interest in evidence and reason in favor, apparently, of whatever makes you feel good.
Evidence? As you see it? Or more accurately, as you are supposed to see it?
It turns out the word evidence has more than one meaning. No surprise there…
ETA: you are just a puppet that needs to fit the manikin profile in the world of constraints of beliefs…
It’s irrelevant whether it’s good or bad for us over the long term. The advances point to what’s TRUE, not necessarily what’s NICE. For that, there are fairy tales and religious videos.
What do you know? Have you ever done some experiments, like John and I have done?
And that’s exactly what it makes you feel good to believe.
Cough.
This sounds exciting. When will you be submitting the paper on your chicken chase experiment to Cell?
I missed the part where my claims and proofs have “been completely decimated”. Elaborate if you can.
Hey,
Let’s do some birdie experiments together! I’m sure you would like that rather than speculating about when and where the breast bone disappeared not to mention why…
ETA: I’m sure Joe can help with the speculations about population genetics…He can sure make it fit the paradigm as it should…So … it is a win win situation…What do you think John?
I think I’m tired of boring trolls.
Good bye!
J-Mac:
John:
J-Mac:
Endlessly pseudo-flouncing trolls are the boringest of all.
I’m glad you pointed out Harshman as a troll but you may also consider yourself as such…
Think about it! Your future means nothing unless some or something cares…
You don’t care about anything.. neither does Harshman. Why would anybody else care?
Was Darwin dumber than his critics think? Consider this:
Plant and animal breeding is not the “artificial selection” described by Darwin and has nothing to do with any natural process. Breeding requires a desired outcome, selection (just a minor step!) and isolation of successive generations of promising individuals, active mating or artificial insemination, optimization of growth conditions for the selected individuals, and/or other genetic technologies. Without most of these active steps nothing happens. Chihuahua and Poodle have no superior survivability to common dog or wolf, but happened anyway because humans worked hard to make them possible. But no one ensures all these active steps in nature. To take only one example, how could humans have “evolved” distinctly from chimps when no one separated each and every new generation based on a teleological model? Why did the proto-human not mate back with his/her regular chimp cousins to put an end to the split? Who and how could have separately optimized conditions for both chimp and human so both lineages survived in what looks like very much similar environments? ‘Selection’ of both “artificial” and “natural” type is thus the wrong word and should be phased out.
How can one person stuff so much wrong into a single post? Are you trying for some sort of record?
Where are your counterarguments? …unless of course you’re just expressing your feelings.