Darwin's Illusion

[TagliatelliMonster]

And those that are better at surviving and prospering are more likely to successfully breed (AKA survival of the fittest).

It's hard to imagine that there are people unable to comprehend such a simple concept.
Yet here we are, confronted with exactly such stubborness.

I have a hard time taking it seriously, inclined to call "poe" or "troll"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes. If there is an individual that is faster, smarter, etc, etc it has a slightly higher chance of surviving

Evolution is not a ladder towards "faster, stronger, smarter, bigger".
It's like you can't get anything right.

but as I keep pointing out; all individuals are fit

That so insanely demonstrably false that I can't take it seriously. I tell myself that you are trolling because I really do have a hard time to believe you actually don't understand this.

and the differences are not what drives change in species.

"differences don't drive change".

For crying out loud....

What then does drive change? Cloning / exact copies?

If niches lasted for millions of years maybe survival of the fittest really would cause a species to change but niches just don't last. They change and they evolve. The change makes adaptation a moving target and the evolution makes it even harder to hit.

The environment determines selection pressures.
Environments change. As a result selection pressures change.
When selection pressures change, local optimums move.
As species approach their local optimum, natural selection prefers the status quo and evolution slows down.
Changing selection pressures moves the local optimum. Natural selection no longer favours the status quo. Evolution speeds up again.
Repeat.

This is the basis of punctuated equilibrium.

It's not hard. It's not rocket science.

Are people reading these posts?

And shaking their heads while doing it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Then why weren't any of these "people" acting human until 40,000 years ago?

Who says they weren't?

 

[cladking]

Your "logic," which I haven't seen written out explicitly, cannot be standard logic if you think it justifies your beliefs.

A bee's waggle dance is logical. It is impossible to say anything logical in modern language. Everything can be parsed in an infinite number of ways in which some are right and some wrong.

Reality is logical. Reality is logic manifest. All other life, all other consciousness, is logical. Homo omnisciencis can not be.

Here's where "fitness" comes in. Fitness as understood in biology off course. Not the weird strawman you double down on.

As "defined" by biology "fitness" is "survival". It is the fact of having been "naturally selected". This is assumed to apply to the individual even before selection. You don't have to worry about killing the best because by such definition you can't. The fit aren't harder to murder, they are impossible to murder. Of course even most of their offspring can be fragile little easy to kill things.

How many times have I tried to explain to you that "survival of the fittest" is more closely related to a species' ability to adapt to changes in the environment rather than the sudden changes in species wrought by bottlenecks? Significant change in species as seen in the "fossil record" doesn't care if individuals are fit or not because all individuals are fit. The changes care about what the individuals do which is a product of individual genes as expressed in behavior? Just as all life is a product of consciousness so is the mechanism by which species change. I'm confident you don't understand the concept because your beliefs prevent you from even parsing the words as are intended. You instead assign new meanings to every word I use. You turn the words into thin soup and tell me I'm ignorant and stupid.

Simple words a child can understand but you will provide no relevant response.

 

[cladking]

Who says they weren't?

Most anthropologists put the onset of human behavior between 40.000 and 80,000 years ago.

Yes, I am aware that anthropology is not real science. But they still dig up real evidence which anyone can use to create hypotheses.

 

[cladking]

Your "logic," which I haven't seen written out explicitly, cannot be standard logic if you think it justifies your beliefs.

We each use our models and beliefs in an attempt to approximate the logic of consciousness and life. My models built from my beliefs not only show a difference in the nature of change in species but its cause as well. I have shown that the theory is supported in several ways and that Darwin's assumptions are wrong.

The biggest difference between my results and yours have little to do with results but more that most of my "logic" is deductive where most of yours (and Darwin's) is inductive. My basic tenet and axiom that "reality exists" is hardly earthshaking. Inductive reasoning is great for creating experiment or even interpreting results but it fails utterly for assembling the big picture because we see what we believe instead of the magic of experiment. Experiment does not support Darwin.

 

[YoursTrue]

A bee's waggle dance is logical. It is impossible to say anything logical in modern language. Everything can be parsed in an infinite number of ways in which some are right and some wrong.

Yes, I don't think anything thinks that bees taught other bees and they passed it down. (And continued teaching how to waggle or become a worker bee.) Who knows at this point? Maybe scientists think bees taught other bees -- Any idea is possibly possible as an idea (I have to make that clear...)

 

[Dan From Smithville]

For the sake of the lurkers, expecting that nothing I post will otherwise receive any sort of rational rebuttal.

1. Stable populations was not an assumption of the theory of evolution that Darwin formulated based on observations of the evidence. And his work on the subject is science, but we can come back to that.

The idea that Darwin assumed stable populations doesn't make any sense considering he developed a theory of change in living things. Stable populations would not be under heavy selection and would remain functionally static. Stable populations would not exhibit the changes that are apparent in the evidence like the fossil record. Which, by the way, examination of it is not reading tea leaves. Another nonsensical and meaningless criticism for the sake of criticism.

I've listed the assumptions of Darwin's theory and those of modern synthesis several times on this thread to no apparent avail, given that the same erroneous claims continue to be repeated as if they were facts.

2. Fitness is not a philosophical position or a measure of how strong, or fast or pretty some organism is. It is the measure of reproductive success. Those organisms best adapted to their environments are statistically more likely to reproduce in higher numbers thus ensuring that their genes get passed on. Having a lower fitness does not mean that there is no reproduction for a particular individual. It just means that they don't reproduce as well on average than another member of the population with higher fitness. Fitness can be zero and there is no successful reproduction and that particular genome is removed from the population when the reproductive capability reaches its end.

That people claim others not of their group are subhuman, not as good, worthy of disdain or much, much, much worse is not an application of biological fitness. Ironically, it is often the populations that get targeted for such human bias that achieve greater reproduction compared to the groups that exercise that bias.

3. And yet another empty claim that has been routinely addressed, must be addressed yet again. All change in living things is not sudden. It can be in some instances, depending on the change being examined, but it can be very slow. Sudden for all not only means things are quick, but that all change is the same speed. There is no evidence that would support this and NONE has ever been offered.

Claiming that such change is sudden compared to cosmological events like galaxies colliding may be true, but that change still varies and relative to use ranges from sudden to beyond our own lifespans. So the comparison is ridiculous and meaningless and doesn't alter the fact that change is not sudden and varies from event to event under consideration.

4. There is no evidence or experiment that demonstrates that consciousness is required or involved in speciation. It simply doesn't exist as a phenomenon to base that claim on and have it be something of substance. Given that the majority of living things don't have consciousness this makes sense and fits the evidence.

Behavioral changes in a species is not an indication that those that exhibit the change are a new species. If a behavior develops in species A, it does not suddenly become species B. Speciation is a population level phenomenon that does not express in existing individuals. Never in history has anyone observed or provided evidence of dogs suddenly becoming cats, or pigeons suddenly becoming hawks or lizards suddenly becoming snakes and so forth, by any means including changes in behavior.

Is the adoption of new behavior a step along the way in the potential evolution of a new species? Sure. But it isn't done in a single step and for speciation to take place it requires more than a single behavioral change. Species like humans can exhibit a wide variety of behaviors that vary from population to population, place to place and even over time. Yet, we can all still manage to successfully breed when it is available. So, if Homo sapiens developed more advanced behaviors starting back 100,000 to 40, 000 years ago, those individuals and populations were still Homo sapiens. We have been the same species for roughly 300,000 years. Just because one of us in the past learned some new and exciting way to scratch his or her butt, doesn't mean they changed species. What claims like that tell us is the person making them doesn't know much about biology and definitely doesn't understand speciation. And that is all they tell us.

5. Experiments are used in science to generate data used to draw conclusions and to acquire new knowledge. But they are not the sole means of acquiring this information. Experiments do not represent some "true" science and everything else is not "true" science. It is all science, whether the observations come from experiments or from study of the natural world. The science of epidemiology was launched from an observational study of cholera in Soho, London over 100 years ago. No organized, controlled experiment needed.

And Darwin carried out science in developing his theory of evolution. No experiment needed. It is based on sound science.

However, in contrast to claims to the contrary, there have been lots of experiments conducted since then in support of or derived from the theory. I've posted several times on experiments that demonstrate natural selection for instance and many of us have mentioned the famous and widely known Lenski experiment. When these come up, it is crickets from the creationists or references to the availability of bulk agar from China that masquerade as rational responses.

This is not belief, it is fact, but that won't stop the word games, denial, fantasy pseudoscience and repetition of empty claims that have become the standard response of creationists and others that deny science.

 

[YoursTrue]

For the sake of the lurkers, expecting that nothing I post will otherwise receive any sort of rational rebuttal.

1. Stable populations was not an assumption of the theory of evolution that Darwin formulated based on observations of the evidence. And his work on the subject is science, but we can come back to that.

The idea that Darwin assumed stable populations doesn't make any sense considering he developed a theory of change in living things. Stable populations would not be under heavy selection and would remain functionally static. Stable populations would not exhibit the changes that are apparent in the evidence like the fossil record. Which, by the way, examination of it is not reading tea leaves. Another nonsensical and meaningless criticism for the sake of criticism.

I've listed the assumptions of Darwin's theory and those of modern synthesis several times on this thread to no apparent avail, given that the same erroneous claims continue to be repeated as if they were facts.

2. Fitness is not a philosophical position or a measure of how strong, or fast or pretty some organism is. It is the measure of reproductive success. Those organisms best adapted to their environments are statistically more likely to reproduce in higher numbers thus ensuring that their genes get passed on. Having a lower fitness does not mean that there is no reproduction for a particular individual. It just means that they don't reproduce as well on average than another member of the population with higher fitness. Fitness can be zero and there is no successful reproduction and that particular genome is removed from the population when the reproductive capability reaches its end.

That people claim others not of their group are subhuman, not as good, worthy of disdain or much, much, much worse is not an application of biological fitness. Ironically, it is often the populations that get targeted for such human bias that achieve greater reproduction compared to the groups that exercise that bias.

3. And yet another empty claim that has been routinely addressed, must be addressed yet again. All change in living things is not sudden. It can be in some instances, depending on the change being examined, but it can be very slow. Sudden for all not only means things are quick, but that all change is the same speed. There is no evidence that would support this and NONE has ever been offered.

Claiming that such change is sudden compared to cosmological events like galaxies colliding may be true, but that change still varies and relative to use ranges from sudden to beyond our own lifespans. So the comparison is ridiculous and meaningless and doesn't alter the fact that change is not sudden and varies from event to event under consideration.

4. There is no evidence or experiment that demonstrates that consciousness is required or involved in speciation. It simply doesn't exist as a phenomenon to base that claim on and have it be something of substance. Given that the majority of living things don't have consciousness this makes sense and fits the evidence.

Behavioral changes in a species is not an indication that those that exhibit the change are a new species. If a behavior develops in species A, it does not suddenly become species B. Speciation is a population level phenomenon that does not express in existing individuals. Never in history has anyone observed or provided evidence of dogs suddenly becoming cats, or pigeons suddenly becoming hawks or lizards suddenly becoming snakes and so forth, by any means including changes in behavior.

Is the adoption of new behavior a step along the way in the potential evolution of a new species? Sure. But it isn't done in a single step and for speciation to take place it requires more than a single behavioral change. Species like humans can exhibit a wide variety of behaviors that vary from population to population, place to place and even over time. Yet, we can all still manage to successfully breed when it is available. So, if Homo sapiens developed more advanced behaviors starting back 100,000 to 40, 000 years ago, those individuals and populations were still Homo sapiens. We have been the same species for roughly 300,000 years. Just because one of us in the past learned some new and exciting way to scratch his or her butt, doesn't mean they changed species. What claims like that tell us is the person making them doesn't know much about biology and definitely doesn't understand speciation. And that is all they tell us.

5. Experiments are used in science to generate data used to draw conclusions and to acquire new knowledge. But they are not the sole means of acquiring this information. Experiments do not represent some "true" science and everything else is not "true" science. It is all science, whether the observations come from experiments or from study of the natural world. The science of epidemiology was launched from an observational study of cholera in Soho, London over 100 years ago. No organized, controlled experiment needed.

And Darwin carried out science in developing his theory of evolution. No experiment needed. It is based on sound science.

However, in contrast to claims to the contrary, there have been lots of experiments conducted since then in support of or derived from the theory. I've posted several times on experiments that demonstrate natural selection for instance and many of us have mentioned the famous and widely known Lenski experiment. When these come up, it is crickets from the creationists or references to the availability of bulk agar from China that masquerade as rational responses.

This is not belief, it is fact, but that won't stop the word games, denial, fantasy pseudoscience and repetition of empty claims that have become the standard response of creationists and others that deny science.

Looking a bit at the description of the Lenski experiments, I see so far it has to deal with changes within bacteriae. And again I say -- they still remain bacteriae, don't they?

 

[cladking]

Behavioral changes in a species is not an indication that those that exhibit the change are a new species.

As I've said many times homo omnisciencis is the odd man out. Changes in behavior in other species is not a speciation event. But our species is very very different because we are not logical as is every other species and every individual within those species. Their consciousness is tied to the logic of nature where our consciousness is tied to our individual beliefs.

But the "tower of babel" was STILL a speciation event because each individual grows a broccas area in the brain. Homo sapiens acted differently than any living person but all living persons act differently than one another. Homo sapiens looked and acted different than us but pretty alike others of the species. Individual differences existed these were the chief determinant of their occupations. They simply drifted to the right place in society where we might land almost anywhere.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating these differences but I seriously doubt it. I believe every homo omnisciencis and every homo sapien could pick either species out of a crowd. I would call this a significant difference. I'm beginning to believe that Ancient Language and every one of the 7 billion modern languages would sound sufficiently different to both species that even its sound could be used to tell us apart. Our language would sound staccato, fractured, foreign to them and theirs's would sound more like a bird's song to us. It is impossible to translate either language into the other because they are incompatible.

The look in the eye and aspect would be the dead giveaways. We are controlled, reserved, and our eyes move continually. They would peer and their actions would seem as random as a dog sniffing mailboxes.

All these same considerations apply to music, art, writing, and other pursuits of man. Where we treat each other, the future, and the past with utter carelessness these were of primary importance to homo sapiens. Where we have ceremony they had ritual. Where we mourn the dead they quickly changed from mourning to reverence. They were eager to forget evil people and sought to remember the greats forever so they added them to the language itself. They would remember greats like Martin Luther King Jr but would quickly forget those who seek to drive a wedge between people.

We have vast advantages over homo sapiens but most of these have been acquired only since the invention of experimental science. We have mathematical understanding that allows technology and the ability to abstract and reason inductively. While search engines were destroyed a couple months back we also have the rest of the net. But most importantly we have the potential to regain everything that was lost at the tower of babel and combine it with what we already have. We can become a far more powerful force of nature than our ancestors could have dreamed. They made bees and their waggle dance look like nothing more than mere insects trying to be naturally selected through consciousness.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I forgot to add, that there is no such thing as Homo omnisciencis or homo omnisciencis. Or however someone chooses to write it out. It is entirely contrived and not based on any substantive facts of evidence or experiment. Changes in behavior in Homo sapiens have occurred during the course of the existence of our species, but it remains the same species. Anyone saying different cannot provide the observation, evidence, experiment and theoretical basis to support that wild and entirely useless nomenclature that isn't even presented following the rules of nomenclature. As a population we have shown ourselves more than capable of acquiring and implementing a variety of different behaviors that exist within and across populations and have even exchanged behaviors between cultures. All as the same species. The breadth of this trait makes it a poor choice to use to base a species concept on.

Our species is no different than any other with regards to speciation. No evidence supports that speciation occurs in humans differently than it does in other organisms. No evidence indicates that modern humans are different species than that which existed 40,000 to 100,000 years ago. No experiment demonstrates the existence of such a difference. There isn't even any logic behind it. According to this nonsense, contemporary uncontacted people that do not exhibit the behaviors of the more technologically advanced and aware global populations wouldn't be the same species. And that simply has no basis to be supported.

What makes this ability to exhibit and alter behavior possible is the large brain that evolved in our species. That is one feature that does set us apart from other species. A feature shared by all Homo sapiens for 300,000 years.

Largely these days, I ignore the repeated efforts to proliferate pseudoscience that is being passed off as science on this thread, but as a PSA to the lurkers, so that they are not mislead into thinking these imaginative musings are science, I figure it is important to get the facts straight.

I've posted on this many times before. But since no one listened to me in the past, then I'm not going to waste my time on debating their impotent claims now or goring forward. However, I do see that is something that needs to be corrected by those with actual training, experience and expertise in science.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

As "defined" by biology "fitness" is "survival".

No.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Most anthropologists put the onset of human behavior between 40.000 and 80,000 years ago.

Define what you mean by "human behavior" in this context.

Yes, I am aware that anthropology is not real science.

lol

Off course it is science.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Largely these days, I ignore the repeated efforts to proliferate pseudoscience that is being passed off as science on this thread, but as a PSA to the lurkers, so that they are not mislead into thinking these imaginative musings are science, I figure it is important to get the facts straight.

Agreed. One needs a different reason to be doing this than trying to teach those who resist learning, like the creationists, and I'll bet you have a few. I do. I didn't view Claddy that way. The Helen Keller analogy was apt in my opinion. Helen didn't fight learning. She was difficult to get through to for other reasons, and I was hoping to do something similar for him. He's not the first poster I've tried that with and failed.

But mostly, I post for people like you, and your posting is useful to me. Your recent summary posts were a nice recap of the discussion to date. You're somebody who can find meaning in my words and possibly some value - maybe a new fact, maybe a new way to present an old idea, maybe a different attitude or disposition in posting, maybe a turn of phrase ("turn of phrase" is a pretty good one). We learn from one another even if those we address directly don't benefit.

I don't feel the need to correct the deliberately scientifically unknowing as much as I do those who demean atheism or empiricism (scientism, they scoffingly call it), or who claim reason and evidence underlie their faith-based beliefs. Those posters can generally expect a reply from me every time, but there is a limited number of times one should respond to "but they're still bacteria," which I recently ignored upon reading.

A bee's waggle dance is logical.

The bee isn't using logic, just instinct. Instinct isn't logical. Nature isn't logical. Logic belongs to reasoning minds, minds that actively make decisions based on circumstances and understanding (prior experience). We may say that nature seems logical to us - mathematical even - but that doesn't mean nature uses logic or math to keep planets in orbit around their stars, for example.

It is impossible to say anything logical in modern language. Everything can be parsed in an infinite number of ways in which some are right and some wrong.

Fuzzy. What does that word mean? As you say, it can be understood in more than one way. It describes some caterpillars. It describes the way one might feel when light-headed. How can we decide? Individual words have fuzzy meanings, but strung together by a competent linguist, they can become increasingly specific and their fuzziness approach zero to an alert (not fuzzy-headed), competent reader or listener.

Our language would sound staccato, fractured, foreign to them and theirs's would sound more like a bird's song to us. All these same considerations apply to music, art, writing, and other pursuits of man.

You reminded me of something I learned about the origins of classical music in the West, which arose principally in the Germans (including the Austrians) and the Italians, the former pioneering instrumental music (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart) and the latter more focused on opera (Verdi, Puccini).

I was taught that this was because German is a guttural, staccato language (mach schnell!) and more difficult to sing, whereas Italian is mellifluous to the point that speaking it sounds like singing (atsa espicia meataballa - English, not Italian, but you get my point).

Maybe. An interesting idea. There's some cross-over. Germans wrote opera (Wagner, Mozart), too, likely following the Italian's lead, and Italians wrote instrumental music (Vivaldi, Monteverdi), but I think the observation is valid.

 

[cladking]

Define what you mean by "human behavior" in this context.

This is everything that is highly complex which humans (homo omnisciencis and sapiens) have done that no other species do and require learning. metaphysics, and complex language.

This would include such things as writing the same "words" in caves all over the world tens of thousands of years ago.

It means very highly complex behavior that can only be passed down by means of the complex language(s) that define "human". This means Ancient Language and all seven billion modern languages.

 

[cladking]

I don't feel the need to correct the deliberately scientifically unknowing as much as I do those who demean atheism or empiricism (scientism, they scoffingly call it), or who claim reason and evidence underlie their faith-based beliefs.

I can't speak for others but I don't believe anyone here is "demeaning science". Rather the faith based beliefs in science are being held up as being false and unsupported. "Atheism" as the belief there is no God is just another belief system. Those who think you can live your life according to science are not only missing the big picture but they believe they are the only ones looking. It is those who see the "big picture" who are no longer even seeking truth.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

This is everything that is highly complex which humans (homo omnisciencis and sapiens) have done that no other species do and require learning. metaphysics, and complex language.

This would include such things as writing the same "words" in caves all over the world tens of thousands of years ago.

It means very highly complex behavior that can only be passed down by means of the complex language(s) that define "human". This means Ancient Language and all seven billion modern languages.

This is much too vague.
Try again.

Be specific this time.

 

[cladking]

The bee isn't using logic, just instinct.

For most practical purposes there is no such thing as "instinct". It's just another of Darwin's false assumptions. Certainly there are behaviors hardwired into all other life forms (this exists in homo omnisciencis as well but most individuals suppress it). Very little animal behavior is driven by instinct. They act as they do because that is way life acts when it doesn't perceive reality in terms of beliefs. When birds are eating on your feeder they are thinking, learning, and acting on their knowledge which is always growing and becoming more refined. When a sparrow raises an alarm they all scatter and this is instinct mostly. But some birds will not and this is consciousness that knows exactly why a sparrow raised the alarm and knows it was wrong.

"Instinct" plays almost no role in most individuals. Darwin believed in instinct because it's just easier to attribute complex behavior to the same lack of consciousness he ascribed to almost every individual in nature.

We've talked about this a few times but apparently nobody parsed my words correctly and remembered them.

 

[cladking]

This is much too vague.
Try again.

Be specific this time.

"This would include such things as writing the same "words" in caves all over the world tens of thousands of years ago."

People simply are incapable of seeing what they can't believe.

 

[cladking]

How can we decide? Individual words have fuzzy meanings, but strung together by a competent linguist, they can become increasingly specific and their fuzziness approach zero to an alert (not fuzzy-headed), competent reader or listener.

This could be parsed to mean only those trained in linguistics need bother to try to communicate. So if you get a doctorate in the non-science we call "linguistics" you can talk otherwise it doesn't matter what you say.

Oddly (it's not funny) when I started reverse engineering the pyramids I was told it was impossible for me to understand the English translations of Ancient Language because it required a doctorate in Egyptology!!!

Every three year old in the world weeps.