Venus of Willendorf
Can you say “breast implants”? Standard of beauty same as 30,000 years ago. That is more than 1,000 generations of NO “evolution”!
When no one can address their “fitness” function – because there is no such thing as a “fitness” function – it’s clear that “evolution” is dead in the water and nothing more needs to be added to disprove the failed hypothesis. And yet proponents never learn. Still, shooting the Darwinist fish in a barrel is fun. Enjoy.
- Sexual selection tries to explain sexual dimorphism and more. According to the theory, certain conspicuous physical traits, such as pronounced coloration, increased size, or striking adornments have “evolved” through sexual selection. The selecting sex often displays similar but subdued ornaments, indicating a sort of sexual selection leak from the selected to the selecting if the theory is true. Sexual selection is independent and often in conflict with “natural selection” when the sexually selected traits appear detrimental to general survival of the species. The extinct Irish Elk Deer is the standard example of detrimental sexual selection.
- At least two incompatible mating behaviors have been randomly grouped under “sexual selection”. One is “select the display”, while the other is “fight for mating rights”. The first one looks somewhat like selection. In the second case the dominant male mates indiscriminately, so there is no selection of the female and the female cannot turn down the dominant male, so there is no selection there either. Other schemes are “save the sperm” and “adopt a male”, both of which are not associated with any selection.
- Sexual selection would be just “natural selection” if such thing existed, contrary to Darwin’s contrived distinction. Fighting males for instance do not give females any choice. The “better fit” simply has more offspring by force. The female, predator, pray, parasites, community, and the environment in general, they all “select” the “best fit” whatever that means. If sexual selection were true, then there were also be predator selection as well as pray, parasite, community, kin, and so on ad infinitum selection, all conflicting with each other. Or to sum, no “natural selection”. No wonder Alfred Russel Wallace thought the idea of sexual selection as a driving force in “evolution” crazy.
- There is no sexual selection distinct from ‘Attraction to Universal Beauty’. Our tastes differ from bugs to humans in large part due to sensory limitations. But otherwise we all have the same standards of beauty. All organisms are intrigued by shapes, colors, contrasts, movements, sounds. We like other beautiful organism and inanimate objects. The cat likes the mouse and the mouse appreciates the cat’s beauty. Just as humans like both the dangerous lion and the cute, tasty pig. And everyone finds everyone’s babies more attractive. What animals like in one another is hard to tease due to their limited communication, but humans like the peacock as the peahen does, the lion as the lioness, the butterfly, the puppy, kitten, dragonfly, cricket, pup seal, cub bear, and many, many more as their own kind do. We can’t even get enough of the ugliest – pug dog, sphynx cat, lizards, snakes, vultures, and more – devoting much to bring them near us. And if we humans like them all, they would probably appreciate each other too across all species, were it not for fear, sensory and intelligence limitations. ”At least humans are not sexually attracted to animals” would be the counterargument. Would any human have sex with a peacock? A rabbit?? A cat, bat, fish (well, mermaid)??? Oh no, they would… as erotic animal costumes show. What a shame!
- Contrary to sexual selection that is expected to drift randomly, the standards of beauty remain essentially unchanged. Consider an “evolutionary” proto-bird. Million of years later, suppose the proto-bird split due to random events and various environments into the many bird species we see today. Then – to take one example – the current beautiful peacock is just the product of a series of random events and of its own female’s search for beauty. There is nothing in its current environment that demands that particular look. And why exactly is the peahen so desperate for that particular look? She isn’t. There is nothing in her little skull, genes, environment, or anywhere else that demands that particular look. She is only intrigued by beauty like the rest of us. Any beauty, not just the standard peacock beauty. If some peacock decides to build a beautiful bower (not suddenly, just amassing shiny objects in a first gen) or another peacock finds his voice, another becomes more protective, or goes for a modern look, she’s liable to fall for that new fellow and change the course of peafowl history. Which in the end turns out to be no different than random. So why does the peacock look the way he does? Just random. Why do all dimorphic birds look and behave as they do? Just random. Why the lion’s mane, the woman’s breasts and on and on? Random again and again. Yet the “just random” Darwinist reply does not work as “easy come, easy go” – “random come, random go” whereas the standards of beauty remain essentially unchanged. As Venus of Willendorf shows, the human standard of beauty has not changed in at least 30,000 years or 1,000 generations, these days aided by breast and buttock implants. A hypothesized trend (“evolution”) that doesn’t budge for that long cannot be a real trend.
- Whatever happens to organisms is outside their control, hence sexual selection cannot shape organisms as Darwin imagined. The peahen is not responsible in the slightest for the peacock’s plumage. Even if it had an objective, the “selecting” sex has no means to get to that objective. The best example of what selection can do and cannot do is breeding. Human breeders indeed have the long term targets and the best technology available. Yet all they can do is fragile deformed variants of the wild that require a lot to survive and propagate and that under no circumstance will “diverge” into new “species”. Contrast that with the “selecting” bird. Why is she having sex? She doesn’t know. What is she looking for? She doesn’t know… whatever her beauty instinct tells her. She doesn’t read, write, or talk. Cannot correlate the beauty seen to underlying health of her peer. Doesn’t know she will have offspring, let alone how to improve their lot… if she even cares. We know all these because we, the humans, are also automatons with regard to our descendants. We know very little and can influence almost nothing. Countless number of parents hope for more from their children, yet are badly disappointed. Where are the descendants of famous rulers, scientists, artists, and athletes? Nowhere in particular. They all regressed to the mean. And it is even worse for some of those afflicted by “reason” as they decide to “save the planet” by not even having any offspring at all.
- Incorrect assumptions drive the confused “evolution through sexual selection” narrative: that the selection has a direction – without a direction, there is no output different than random; that the selected passes most of his characteristics to the progeny – this disregards regression to the mean as well as the contribution of the other parent, meaning the selector; that the phenotype is entirely encoded in the genotype – if this were the case, we would be able to control 100% of the phenotype by changing the genome, but it’s clear that’s not possible even theoretically; that successive mutations can accomplish anything as long as sexual selection guides the output – this is clearly false as breeding shows when comparing the robustness of crossbreeds with the feebleness of purebreds. Of course Darwin was clueless about genetics. But even with our current best knowledge of genetics – knowledge that the selecting sex completely lacks – it is not clear what sexual selection accomplishes, given that the Y chromosome is just a very small percentage of the genome. After all, offspring inherit both lineages regardless of sex. So if the male progeny is attractive like the male parent (a positive), that may be offset by both the male and female offspring becoming more attractive to the predator too (two negatives). For instance, in some peafowl, even the peahen has some conspicuous blue streaks that cannot help her camouflage.
- In conclusion, “evolution” by sexual selection is one confused mess because:
- The distinction between sexual selection and “natural selection” (if such thing existed) is contrived
- Incompatible mating behaviors are incorrectly grouped under the same banner
- Attraction to Universal Beauty is what is incorrectly interpreted as sexual selection
- The standard of beauty is essentially unchanged contrary to the Darwinist narrative
- Whatever happens to organisms is outside their control, hence sexual selection cannot shape organisms as Darwin imagined
- Darwin’s sexual selection hypothesis is based on a number of incorrect and ignorant assumptions
Links:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/224257/the-evolution-of-beauty-by-richard-o-prum/
https://www.britannica.com/science/sexual-selection
https://www.treehugger.com/ugliest-animals-on-the-planet-4869328
https://www.amazon.com/peacock-costumes-women/s?k=peacock+costumes+for+women
https://www.amiclubwear.com/costume-animal.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf#/media/File:Venus_of_Willendorf_-_All_sides.jpg
Then what are adaptations? What do they change? If they do not change the ability of the organism in question to survive what is the point of them?
If there is no such thing as selection then what ‘tells’ the organism it’s time to trigger it’s in built adaptation mechanism?
The fact is you don’t know that this mechanism even exists. You just need it to exist so that evolution won’t be true. That’s a bit sad really, convinced many people have you?
You really can’t tell, can you? Those three pair of quotes contradict each other. You are not keeping your story straight.
Why is it an open question? Viruses are built from the same stuff as cellular organisms, they reproduce and they “look Designed”. What are they lacking that makes you to doubt they are living beings?
Is that really semantics, I wonder? It’s such a peculiar lament. Perhaps the virus will not change without somebody willing it in Nonlin-world?
It became semantics with the sole definition he rolled up with, I think, involving personal assistance and ignoring the many occasions we use it in an impersonal sense. It was the sense of ‘helping it spread’ that seemed to be the trigger, rather than helping it change. But I dunno, really.
Nonlin.org,
Don’t all rush at once. Think of the poor servers.
It does.
Actually, “change” is incorrect. A brand new organism(?) is formed.
Yes you are. Don’t forget math (including logic) too.
Is that other nut some sort of authority to you? That won’t do.
Yes.
That’s the math undoing you.
You’re misrepresenting again.
Yes, you do.
No. THAT doesn’t follow.
OMagain,
Stupid questions galore.
Show how if you can. Too bad logic is not your ally.
Homeostasis for once. Metabolism for seconds. Are you that uneducated?
Nonlin’s inability to progress beyond bald assertions is becoming father tedious.
No matter. If you cannot see the contradictions in those juxtaposed quotes, then you are beyond the help of any logic.
No, I think those are fine criteria for deciding whether something is alive. In fact, I use those criteria as well.
But then we have an issue. SARS-CoV2 definitely shows descent with modification: it is indisputably reproducing and changing. It isn’t alive, so it has no objective of its own but it does have function and it does have complexity. So what is its purpose and who is making it change?
Alan Fox,
When you’re totally incompetent as you are, better… Ah, never mind.
Cut the crap.
Reproduction is not change. Very basic.
Ask your fellow poet zombies.
Meanwhile, sexual selection is crap. Your definition is totally untenable, and you still don’t have a “fitness”. You lose.
@ Nonlin
Your comment is puerile. My suggestion is that repeating unsupported assertions and insulting fellow TSZ members is not persuasive. Can’t you make more of an effort?
SARS-CoV-2 is both reproducing and changing. Also very basic.
I am asking you.
Danth’s law:
“If you have to insist that you’ve won an Internet argument, you’ve probably lost badly.”
Alan Fox,
What insult Alan? You are overstepping your bounds again.
Populations change. Individuals reproduce. They do not “change” when born as they never existed before. You can’t mix and match, and that’s as basic as it gets.
Sadly, there are no winners when you lose your minds, Corneel. I’m just the messenger.
This is correct. What follows?
phoodoo,
See moderation issues thread. You must know the rules by now, phoodoo, surely.
This couldn’t be lamer. Anything to avoid admitting that SARS-COV2 is evolving, even making a fool out of himself.
This must be the most lucid thing you have ever written on this site. Correct, individual viruses multiply and do not have the plasticity to change. It is the population that changes because its composition is altered with time; A gradual change in its heritable characteristics.
And then you write this. This does not follow at all. Could you please explain?
I find that when the participants cease to view an internet discussion as a competition, but rather take it as an opportunity to learn something, everybody wins.
‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Stop “translating” into nonsense.
If so, you don’t understand much of what you read.
Agree. But are you following your own advice?
You have nothing.
You’ve convinced nobody.
Your flip to insults instead of even trying to make your case has been noted. Given up have we?
In short, you lose. Science does not and will never care about your ideas. Why should it when you yourself don’t care sufficiently to even make a case for them?
I guess this is a claim that you have written other stuff that is correct. That may be so but it also struck me how the phrase:
“Populations change. Individuals reproduce. They do not “change” when born as they never existed before.”
is correct. Genomes for individual organisms that reproduce sexually are determined when gametes fuse. Evolutionary change occurs when numbers of individuals carrying particular genomes increase or decrease. Extinction and fixation are the two extremes.
I’m just surprised you can get this right and so much else wrong.
Do we not agree that SARS-CoV-2 has changed since it was first detected in Wuhan? Did these changes not occur because of the rise of novel variants? Are these changes not heritable?
Absolutely. Now tell me, what is the purpose of SARS-CoV2 and who is making it change?
This bullshit is misrepresenting your own “theory”. Which apparently you don’t even understand what it claims. Hint: gene frequency is not it.
What “rise” and what “novel”? This is nonsense.
“Heritable” is not the right word as explained. Virus-es do not have parents.
Anyway none of these relates to something I said. So stop misrepresenting.
Stupid questions unrelated to anything I said, much less to this topic. Which is how sexual-selection in no way supports “evolution”.
My layman’s understanding is that sexual selection refers to organisms that have two sexes, and occurs when one sex systematically prefers certain characteristics in the other sex when selecting a mate.
As such, it seems pretty clear that such a preference is effectively identical to any other aspect of an organism’s environment in which some characteristic(s) are more likely to be passed to offspring than others. Sexual selection falls into the same bucket as selection for specific foods, selection in different abilities to evade predators, differential ability to adapt to temperature variation, etc.
And accordingly, since “evolution” refers to how one generation differs from the previous generation (even if very very slightly), sexual selection can result in such differences.
(Incidentally, viruses do indeed have ancestors. Even viruses don’t appear by spontaneous generation. Often, a mutated virus will be ancestor to a mutated virus population, AKA a “variant”.)
I might add that there are common understandings of the use and meaning for such words as theory, gene, frequency, rise, novel, and heritable. If you assign entirely idiosyncratic meanings to all these words, this confuses only you.
This is very odd. I point out that a statement of yours, Nonlin, is more-or-less correct and now you are calling that bullshit. How odd!
Perhaps it’s not what was said, but rather who said it. Recall that Obama sometimes asked Republicans what they wanted, and proposed exactly that. Only to have Republicans vote unanimously against their own platform! It wasn’t the substance of the proposal, it was entirely a question of who made it. I see a parallel here, where nonlin will dismiss as bullshit even his OWN statements, if they are repeated by a member of the despised enemy.
“Rise” means “increase in numbers”. “Novel” is a difficult word for “new”. An example would be the rise of the so-called UK variant which did not exist prior to September 2020 but is now the most prevalent variant in my part of Europe. Hence, there has clearly been a change in the composition of the viral population, agreed?
I am sorry, but I missed that explanation and seem unable to locate it. Where exactly did you explain that “heritable” is not an appropriate term for the transmission of genetic traits in viruses?
Then what do you call the virus whose RNA is used for synthesizing the negative-sense RNA template? And what do you call the genomic RNA copies that are newly synthesized from this template if not the offspring?
The questions are about evolution, which makes them very relevant to all stuff you say here at TSZ including this topic. Why do you feel the questions are stupid? Do they make you feel uncomfortable? Do you find it confronting that you cannot answer them?
Been away for a bit; I see Nonlin is still talking about something other than what anyone else understands by the term ‘evolution’ when he references “evolution”. Those double scare-quotes make a difference to someone, I suppose.
I’ll see myself out.
Stanley Johnson loophole? Somewhere nice, I hope.
Wales, for a week’s hiking. They just reopened the border (strange thing to write; I cycled across it unmolested twice a term while at uni in Bangor!).
You don’t even know your “theory”. Hint: it’s not just “change”.
Also, ‘can’ but ‘doesn’t’ as shown here.
Those meanings MUST make sense. They never do in “evolution”.
Alan Fox,
The bullshit statement was: “Alan Fox: Evolutionary change occurs when numbers of individuals carrying particular genomes increase or decrease.”
To which I replied: “This bullshit is misrepresenting your own “theory”. Which apparently you don’t even understand what it claims. Hint: gene frequency is not it.”
So you increase in number when you rise from the bed. Hmm…
What looks “novel” to you might not be so.
“Viral population” is improper if they’re not alive as it seems the case.
Looks like you didn’t miss it after all. You can call those templates, models, etc. if you like. But parent?!? No way.
Not “all stuff” and not this topic. Btw, “stupid” is not “uncomfortable”. Wtf?
This is most amusing, but not very productive. Everybody can see that you are desperately trying to sabotage this discussion. Why are you so afraid to discuss this topic?
My claim is that individual’s genomes are fixed but the prevalence of different alleles and the differential breeding success of phenotypes is the driver of change within populations. You seemed to understand this with your comment:
But you now say this is bullshit.
As you don’t supply any reasoning for your bullshit claim, there’s not much more I can say to that than:
Tough!
No. Just to set you straight. I know, I know, mission impossible.
And anyway, the topic here is sexual-selection to which you contributed only a very flawed definition. Then you left in anger when I pointed its failures.
Sure we can talk viruses, but why not do it in its own thread? I’m not a fan of mixing and tangents.
This is the utter bullshit part.
You may even think so but that is what you need to argue against if you are to make headway in advancing your new paradigm. “It’s bullshit” isn’t reallly getting you anywhere.
So when you suddenly forgot the meaning of the word “rise”, you were actually trying to “set me straight”? Hogwash! You are just squirming.
You are not a ventilator? I don’t understand what you mean.
Anyway, would you not agree that SARS-CoV-2 has changed since it was first detected in Wuhan? Did these changes not occur because of the rise of novel variants? Are these changes not heritable?
And no, none of the words in these questions are limited to living organisms, nor are the words “population”, “parent” or “child”.
But if you won’t allow Nonlin to play with terms, then SARS-COV-2 would be an undeniable example of evolution, and that’s not nice.
Squirmy McSquirm. ‘Population’ does not have to refer to living organisms, nor does ‘parent’/’child’ refer solely to them either.
An odd world in which SARS-CoV-2 could only “evolve” if it was a bacterium? Except it couldn’t, because, per nonlin, nothing can, and you know how influential he is.
Note to self: engage less with turkeys unless properly cooked and well stuffed.
Er, when did this “engaging” happen?
But how to deal with your compulsion to say something … anything?
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-darwin-sexual.html
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-females-supercharge-sperm-evolution-animals.html
Haha.