Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

[John53]

So the biological path is selective naturally. I guess you think it includes deformities.

The alternative is a creator God made them on purpose.

 

[YoursTrue]

The alternative is a creator God made them on purpose.

No, it is not. But since you do not believe or understand what the Bible says, obviously you are free to believe what you want.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

We are talking about mate selection here, not survival of the fittest.

I am talking about sexual selection and biological fitness and using the proper terminology applied correctly. As usual, it is difficult to tell what you are talking about. The only consistent feature is your rendering your claims as fact as if you are omniscient and don't need to ask questions, just dispense the revealed truth of your special knowledge.

I think you should be in politics. I believe you could and very likely would argue against something that was happening right in front of you.

Females will select the best male they can find based on traits that signal that a male has the potential for being a good mate and possessing traits that indicate the potential for the greatest reproductive success. Sometimes this sexual selection will lead to exaggerated traits that would seem to be a disadvantage under non-sexual selection like the antlers of the Irish elk, or the fantail of a peacock.

Individual females have no means of predicting the future or rating prospective mates in terms of intelligence, eye sight, and whether or not they will consume the off spring. They roll the dice and take their chances.

No. Mating is not random and a roll of the dice. Females observe males and look for traits that indicate the fitness of the male for reproductive success.

We call the desirability of mates "attractiveness" and this is a perception of numerous traits and appearances.

In so much as some of those "attractive" traits are a surrogate indicator of mate fitness.

I have little doubt that other species use the same sort of concept but it is species and context specific.

Why do you have little doubt about something you don't really have the evidence for? Is this more of the special knowledge of the omniscient?

I have no means of knowing what appeals to a female praying mantis and have always had sufficient difficulty enough figuring out what appeals to women. But it's hardly outrageous to propose that at least in non-human species females tend to seek healthy and typical.

So you believe, but what you believe is not evidence that your belief is valid. Mate selection in invertebrates involves the same sort of selection on traits that occurs with vertebrates, but includes further factors like pheromones, environmental cues, observations of current male mating success and size to name a few. Unlike the image you court, we don't have all the answers yet, even after 200 years of looking, but we do know quite a bit about mate choice in insects and other invertebrates. It is not a random roll of the dice.

Obviously if females started seeking smaller, faster, or clumsier mates that species would evolve but then you have the question of how individual females would get together to change the species.

Speciation is not the result of the decisions of a committee. No evidence for anything as ridiculous as that.

And, as I keep pointing out, no experiment has ever been done to show the females have actually caused a species to evolve through such a "selection process".

I beg to differ. What you really should be saying here is that in your very trivial knowledge of the subject YOU don't know of experiments and studies that demonstrate sexual selection. Your ignorance of the subject is not the benchmark by which the science is determined. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/docum...&doi=699930a7dd33d2112bfee276c86a89b4018080f9

Consciousness doesn't work this way.

You haven't demonstrated a knowledge of consciousness to render meaningful claims about it and aren't going to demonstrate how it works in any event if your history of empty claiming has anything to tell us.

Certainly members of a species have a great deal in common but they do not share a consciousness and no evidence exists that they can tune into God's consciousness assuming there is a conscious God. We are each conscious but we are each on our own. This is why we are conscious: Because we are on our own. We might not have Darwin, God, or magical fairies to protect us from predation and to find food. Species are not alive: Only individuals are alive and we each must do our best to understand and succeed. So why would a female seek sick, lame, disinterested, lazy, or weird mates? She wants to procreate not start a zoo.

This is just more of what I call your revealed truth/special knowledge ramble that you never explain, provide evidence to support or demonstrate in any way other than repeated declaration.

 

[John53]

No, it is not. But since you do not believe or understand what the Bible says, obviously you are free to believe what you want.

Then explain it or withdraw your insult with an apology

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You have still not explained why a group of individuals removed from a population through intention is not exactly the same thing as an artificial population bottleneck.

It is interesting how you set yourself up for a fall by making that statement in response to a post that explains just that.

That artificial selection and a population bottleneck have a trivial similarity based on one feature does not justify using that term to indicate speciation. A bottleneck event eliminates a large body of genetic variation that no longer exists after the event for any chance be brought back into the gene pool through mating. Artificial selection may isolate a small portion of the population from the main population from which it was drawn, but that main population and its genetic diversity still exist. Those selected individuals can still be crossed into that population for whatever reason a breeder determines is useful.

It is the same species before the bottleneck event, during the event and after the event. That is trivially true of artificial selection as well, but with the big exception regarding a still extant gene pool. I've explained this already.

Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

"When individuals are selected for breeding they are removed from that gene pool. Certainly the individuals selected might have bred naturally without having been removed but the odds are very low and then their off spring would have bred into the population." Come to think of it this is what...

www.religiousforums.com

Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

Science doesn't deal in beliefs. It deals in what is most likely / plausible / probable. Beliefs are for the religious. You have accepted what is most likely for what is real. You simply can't tell the difference. I didn't miss anything. I sure noticed your misunderstandings. "The...

www.religiousforums.com

Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

I don't believe in fitness. Sure you can ask if Janice is fit for the big game Monday or if Bob will fit through the door but no such thing as "fitness" exists in change in species. Janice might not be fit for the game but is fit to to trigonometry. Individual differences matter but...

www.religiousforums.com

Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

What? This makes no sense. Other than agriculture being a gradual process that changed with time, the reality of one does not interfere with the reality of the other. I thought, why not check this out. It does not appear to be simultaneous. Agriculture in the Old World appears to have...

www.religiousforums.com

And these are just "already explained" on this thread. There a number of other threads where these explanations have taken place. But there are none so blind than those that refuse to see and already believe they have all the answers.

So long as these individuals and offspring are kept separate from the original population they will "evolve" on their own as surely as Darwin's finches, dogs, sheep, pigs, rice, e coli, and tilapia.

Sure, they will evolve, but the main population and all of its variation remains. Unlike a bottleneck event where it is gone forever. Big difference making a bottleneck a poor choice for secret personal definitions to render it useless. Not that any sort of reason seems to stop you.

I am merely proposing that this observed cause of change in species is the actual cause of change in species.

What observed cause would that be and where have you shown it is a valid and recognized cause?

Since we don't have an experiment we have little choice but to at least consider observation.

But there are experiments. Breeding is an experiment. Natural populations often become unequally divided with a small subset becoming a found in some extension of the existing niche or an entirely new niche. The cichlid superflock of Lake Victoria in Africa evolved from one or a few species due to the formation of the lake creating many new niches for rapid radiation to exploit. One of those many studies that you apparently don't know enough of the subject to realize exists.

When do you think you will stop mining my posts and respond to all of them entirely? Remember, you are the one that claims to respond to all these challenges and dissects these post most diligently and thoroughly. I'm still waiting to see that actually happen for the first time.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The alternative is a creator God made them on purpose.

That seems to be the alternative as nearly as I understand it. Either genetic disease and deformities have a natural origin or they are purposeful results of a creator that leaves no evidence of that creation to recognize the creative action exists.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Then explain it or withdraw your insult with an apology

Good luck. I've not seen this happen yet with any insult levied against those that accept science whether they are atheist, agnostic or theist.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Then explain it or withdraw your insult with an apology

I personally find being talked to by the uninformed like I'm a mindless idiot that knows nothing about my trade and that they know all without any apparent effort to acquire this special knowledge. Equally, I find sound arguments that are dismissed using logical fallacies over and over in the course of these discussions to be insulting.

I've stopped being so courteous to let slide based on the observed weak to absent scholarship, poor and flawed reasoning, evidence-free claims, repetition of the nonsensical or already answered and claims delivered as if fact without the bother to establish that.

It has become tiresome and boring.

 

[John53]

Good luck. I've not seen this happen yet with any insult levied against those that accept science whether they are atheist, agnostic or theist.

I'm sure the best I can hope for is a denial and a doubling down of insults or a claim that the evil evolutionist do worse.

 

[John53]

It has become tiresome and boring.

Yup, you can only read the same old nonsense so many times.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

We are talking about mate selection here, not survival of the fittest.

Mate selection is part of "survival of the fittest".



Remember when I told you that you don't seem to understand what "fit" means in context of evolutionary biology.
The above is a prime example of how we know that you don't seem to understand it.

 

[gnostic]

Females are almost always the individuals that choose their mates. Males will display anywhere any time but females cut them off at the pass.

If males are bigger and stronger than why would nature not want the biggest and strongest progenitors for each generation. You have your answer. I'd wager most individuals in most species know it as well. Sometimes nature does want tuna with good taste instead of what tastes good.

Clearly, you are clueless as to how Natural Selection works.

Fitness is about having traits that are adapted for specific changes to the environment, so it isn’t about just strength or larger size.

You are still thinking with the predator-vs-prey mentality. Natural Selection evolution is about being predator is better than prey, nor about being stronger, nor being about taller or larger, not even about being smarter.

You have really closed-shut your mind about Evolution.

Take for instance, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that wiped out most of the dinosaurs - more specifically the larger non-avian dinosaurs. The extinction event have also wiped out most large non-dinosaur reptiles (except crocodiles), annihilated all large mammals weighing more than 25 kg, and most large marine animals (excepting large sharks).

The K-Pg extinction event was most likely caused by large meteorite impact that threw large quantities of dust particles into atmosphere, that affected large animals than smaller ones, which is why the only surviving dinosaurs were families & species of avian dinosaurs - the birds.

Evolution is more than about being strongest or largest. Natural Selection is about population having traits that are to adapted for environment in certain region.

The butterflies and beetles are as much selected as the ants or praying mantises. The antelopes are as much selected lions. The pigeons are selected as much as the hawks. So it is utterly absurd that you believe only the strongest existed in Evolution.

 

[cladking]

Mate selection is part of "survival of the fittest".

Really?! I wasn't aware of this. When I studied the subject back in the '50's and '60's it wasn't treated as such. It was considered part of the cause of Evolution but not considered part of survival of the fittest or natural selection.

I wonder who died and left females as the architects of "natural selection". Mother Nature?


There are species that the female doesn't or doesn't really have such power. Even in major species there are those where a single dominant male does most of the mating with an entire herd. I seriously doubt any individual female who finds this male unacceptable is going to strike out on her own and start a new herd but then I don't claim to know such things or to have all the answers.

I appreciate the info.

 

[cladking]

That artificial selection and a population bottleneck have a trivial similarity based on one feature does not justify using that term to indicate speciation. A bottleneck event eliminates a large body of genetic variation that no longer exists after the event for any chance be brought back into the gene pool through mating. Artificial selection may isolate a small portion of the population from the main population from which it was drawn, but that main population and its genetic diversity still exist. Those selected individuals can still be crossed into that population for whatever reason a breeder determines is useful.

You are still ignoring the point.

Once a breeding stock is separated from the population there is no need that it continue to exist for the breeder. Dog breeders do not capture wolves to breed new dog species. That they may have early in the process is irrelevant to the point. It is equally irrelevant that they had existed or might continue to exist. If they continue to exist it could become relevant in the future only if the new species can still mate with the original AND they actually do.

This simply is how all known species have been observed to originate. Unusual individuals survive an artificial bottleneck and suddenly create a new species. I am merely proposing this is the exact same way nature does it AND that our ancestor species observed this and duplicated it to invent farming. What is so outrageous other than the way it was discovered? How else would ancient superstitious people come to understand that they could use nature for their own benefit? Why wouldn't ancient people have observed upside down flies or flying cockroaches and then used this knowledge, this theory, to try to create a steady food supply that allowed them to live more efficiently and provide more leisure?

We believe one fly or one cockroach is just like another except that some are more fit than others. We believe consciousness is irrelevant to speciation and even to life itself. We believe we can reason to conclusions that are reflective of reality. We believe there is such a thing as intelligence and we have it in spades while other animals are each lacking individually and collectively. We believe we see reality and if there were any blind spots science will eventually fill them or God will allow us to see when it suits His purpose. But we can't show any of these things and experiment again and again shows them to be false or wholly unsupported (by experiment).

There is no reason to believe anybody can reason to a conclusion free of the starting assumptions. There is no reason to suppose there is such a thing as "intelligence" as we define it. There is no need to believe in survival of the fittest rather than that this belief led inexorably to the "Theory of Evolution". Without any experiment to confirm the theory we merely interpreted the experiments that did exist to support it.

 

[wellwisher]

Clearly, you are clueless as to how Natural Selection works.

Fitness is about having traits that are adapted for specific changes to the environment, so it isn’t about just strength or larger size.

You are still thinking with the predator-vs-prey mentality. Natural Selection evolution is about being predator is better than prey, nor about being stronger, nor being about taller or larger, not even about being smarter.

You have really closed-shut your mind about Evolution.

Take for instance, the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that wiped out most of the dinosaurs - more specifically the larger non-avian dinosaurs. The extinction event have also wiped out most large non-dinosaur reptiles (except crocodiles), annihilated all large mammals weighing more than 25 kg, and most large marine animals (excepting large sharks).

The K-Pg extinction event was most likely caused by large meteorite impact that threw large quantities of dust particles into atmosphere, that affected large animals than smaller ones, which is why the only surviving dinosaurs were families & species of avian dinosaurs - the birds.

Evolution is more than about being strongest or largest. Natural Selection is about population having traits that are to adapted for environment in certain region.

The butterflies and beetles are as much selected as the ants or praying mantises. The antelopes are as much selected lions. The pigeons are selected as much as the hawks. So it is utterly absurd that you believe only the strongest existed in Evolution.

There is also the wild card called consciousness, such as the inner urge for seasonal migration, where the animals move to a better environment to maximize their potential for natural selection. If they stayed put, they may be doomed in the local winter or summer. Migration was important to human evolution, with consciousness making these tough decisions. If you go to a nicer place, you seem to thrive better. And of you go to a harder place to live, it can bring out your best or your worse.

Although just a rough correlation, humans who remained in Africa, did not advance as fast, as those who left Africa. Somehow the change of environments and all the altered selection parameters, resulting from immigration, helped many human to be selected down the fast lane. My guess is a tropical paradise makes life easier with less need to change. While an environment with more wild cards required adaptation which helps to push the brain and advance new behavior.

Evolution is too DNA-centric with higher animals also having brain's. Behavior like females selecting mates is about the brain leading selection. Too many women pick the wrong guys and end in divorce. What is that all about? Is this due to learned social knowledge bettering instinct due to instinct being too unconscious? The brain can also lead to de-evolution; children with baggage not of their own doing, via antagonistic parents.

What about transgender and sex change, which leads to self sterilization. That is not genetic but psychological. One willfully chooses to leave natural selection, by eliminating the future ability to breed. This is also true of gay, lesbian and even celibate. I would like to see evolution explain such social detachments from evolution. This is connected to learned behavior which can have both positive and negative impact on adaptation and selection.

Once human appears natural selection was not the only show in town, with human selection having more and more say. All the dogs breeds are not due to natural selection. Marriage in some cultures are due to arranged marriages. These are all due to the ego, not the inner self, since the inner self is more connected to the DNA; natural human.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Really?! I wasn't aware of this.

We know. And something tells me that while you now seem to acknowledge to have learned something, you'll just continue making the same mistake in the future.

When I studied the subject back in the '50's and '60's it wasn't treated as such. It was considered part of the cause of Evolution but not considered part of survival of the fittest or natural selection.

Think it through. Mate selection.
It's not hard.

I wonder who died and left females as the architects of "natural selection". Mother Nature?

For crying out loud...
"part of natural selection". How does that translate in your head into "architects of"?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Although just a rough correlation, humans who remained in Africa, did not advance as fast, as those who left Africa

Evolution is not a ladder. There is no "more advanced" here.

Somehow the change of environments and all the altered selection parameters, resulting from immigration, helped many human to be selected down the fast lane. My guess is a tropical paradise makes life easier with less need to change. While an environment with more wild cards required adaptation which helps to push the brain and advance new behavior.

Again, your terminology is just way off.
Humans migrating to other environments simply were subject to different selection pressures. This caused them to divert from the original habitat in africa.
Those that remained in africa weren't exposed to such radical different selection pressures. It's not hard.
And again, there is no "more advanced".

Asians, Caucasians, etc aren't "more advanced homo sapiens" as opposed to Africans.

Evolution is too DNA-centric with higher animals also having brain's. Behavior like females selecting mates is about the brain leading selection. Too many women pick the wrong guys and end in divorce. What is that all about? Is this due to learned social knowledge bettering instinct due to instinct being too unconscious? The brain can also lead to de-evolution; children with baggage not of their own doing, via antagonistic parents.

Evolution doesn't care about divorce. Evolution is about reproduction.

What about transgender and sex change, which leads to self sterilization. That is not genetic but psychological. One willfully chooses to leave natural selection, by eliminating the future ability to breed. This is also true of gay, lesbian and even celibate. I would like to see evolution explain such social detachments from evolution. This is connected to learned behavior which can have both positive and negative impact on adaptation and selection.

Homosexuality occurs in pretty much all mammalian species with on average a 10% frequency.
It is not "learned" behavior. It's biological (hormonal etc).
Homosexuality doesn't seem to be genetically inheritable. To my knowledge it is not so that homosexuality is more occurring within specific families as supposed to others. If you have 2 gay parents producing a child, there is no elevated chance that that child will be gay also.

So the idea that evolution would have, or should have, weeded out homosexuality, is a false idea. Evolution can only weed out things that are genetically inheritable.

Once human appears natural selection was not the only show in town, with human selection having more and more say. All the dogs breeds are not due to natural selection. Marriage in some cultures are due to arranged marriages. These are all due to the ego, not the inner self, since the inner self is more connected to the DNA; natural human.

Humans are a social species. They are a natural species also. So whatever they do, is natural behavior. Meaning it is subject to natural selection. It's inescapable.

Behavioral patterns are no different.
I have no clue why you think certain thought processes or brain functions or "consciousness" somehow aren't subject to natural selection.
They very much are.

 

[cladking]

We know. And something tells me that while you now seem to acknowledge to have learned something, you'll just continue making the same mistake in the future.

Again. I not only don't believe in the Theory of Evolution I also don't believe that it is reflective of reality. One of its numerous problems, the reasons it is not reflective of reality, is that they have weird and erroneous definitions and assumptions. When I abandoned the "theory" many many years ago I also abandoned their definitions. I can read the results of an experiment without knowing they believe females engage sexually in "natural selection". I would describe this as "unnatural selection" if I believed in survival of the fittest and such things. Females can control with whom they mate but they can't control the mostly wired parameters for how they make such choices. I am merely suggesting that selection of healthy and typical mates is part of what makes up every individuals and, as such, related to consciousness and language.

No, I probably won't remember that you say that this is part of survival of the fittest because I don't care about it any more than you care whether I believe in God or not or the nature of that God.

 

[cladking]

For crying out loud...
"part of natural selection". How does that translate in your head into "architects of"?

It is YOU suggesting that species change on the basis of fitness and sexual selection differentials.

I believe almost every force exerted by nature on individuals and species is to keep them exactly as they are. Every time a fox chases a rabbit the rabbit and fox are more rabbit and fox than ever. If the fox comes home with a full belly it more likely to reproduce and more likely to reproduce a typical and fit fox. Without a full belly it is more likely to reproduce another day but it didn't come home hungry because it isn't fit, it came home hungry because the rabbit got away. Very few unfit individuals are created and most of these fall by the wayside without reproducing. They are accidents of nature and not the cause of speciation. If they reproduce their off spring are more likely to be unfit so such problems are quickly bred out of populations.

 

[cladking]

Females can control with whom they mate but they can't control the mostly wired parameters for how they make such choices. I am merely suggesting that selection of healthy and typical mates is part of what makes up every individuals and, as such, related to consciousness and language.

Most of Darwin's problems and most of the problem for so many who still agree with him and have created models upon the foundational assumptions is that Darwin anthropomorphized nature itself. He ascribed human characteristics and human beliefs to other living things. A female rabbit hardly administers IQ tests or feats of strength demonstrations to prospective mates. She doesn't even eyeball him because this is a human concept. Rather she observes how closely he is appearing and behaving to her mostly hard wired model of an ideal partner. This model involves countless millions of brain cells and her four dimensional thought will discern things we couldn't see. Rabbits don't create models of their beliefs, their models spring from reality itself and their individual understanding of that reality.

I'm not claiming to know what she's thinking or any specifics of her model but logically she seeks fertile, fit, energetic, aware, and healthy. Since consciousness is the only thing with which any individual was naturally born to prosper it stands to reason she wants the most conscious mate. There is likely a "chemical" attraction as well such as there is in humans as demonstrated by an attraction to individual of the opposite sex with virtually no information about their characteristics or even their appearance. In humans such things probably spring from the amygdala but for all I know it rises up from the heart.