Philosophy Now Forum

PauloL wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:40 pm You put it that people have different hair colors because of variation, that's fine, then you admit the hypothesis of a disease that wipes out all people without red hair, that's right, and then you take that as an explanation why all humans have red hair, that's correct. I believe this is an example of evolution for you (what you call "different point"), unless I'm missing something, as you seem to contradict that now.

Yes, we would then say 'humans had evolved to all have red hair', but this would not imply there was some sort of genetic intention to have red hair, that having red hair was an improvement. It only became advantageous because of the disease that killed all the non red haired humans. A different selective pressure would have picked out a different characteristic for survival, then we would describe that as having evolved.

According to Darwin's paradigm, you evolve by random variation and wiping out unfit specimens. No one is talking about intention. This is what I mean with the analogy with computers: I ask why all humans hypothetically have red hair, and they tell me the other ones were wiped out by disease and call this evolution (that's the same I ask how to build a computer and they say it's this simple: select defective ones, wipe them out and in the end you have perfect computers ready to run). I know this is not a simple task to understand, but at first I couldn't understand the meaning of nothing, not even time or dimensions, outside the universe and now I can.

The problem with your analogy is that computers have a specific purpose. You write 'in the end you have perfect computers ready to run'. But evolution is not about perfecting an organism. As I write above, the selective pressures could be anything; entirely red haired humans are not more prefect than ones with variable hair colour, some later selective pressure might turn having red hair into a disadvantage. Unlike computers, no particular configuration is better than any other. A species either survives or it doesn't; evolution is indifferent.

PauloL wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:48 pm No other paradigmatic scientific theory suffers so many flaws as Darwin's. You can't say such a thing about Newton's gravity or Einstein's relativity.

Look at the tenets of natural selection:

(1)Individuals within populations are variable
(2)Variation is heritable
(3)Organisms differ in their ability to survive and reproduce
(4)Survival & reproduction are non-random

Where's Achilles tendon here? Right on the first premise. You start with a variable population to explain that a population evolves because of variation. Could it be more circular than this?

As I suggest with my previous post, the population does not do anything. It does not evolve by means of variation, rather variation may allow some members of the population to survive selective pressure. If the selective pressure is maintained, then eventually the population will only consist of members who have that original variation. (But they will still vary in other respects).

We can see this in domestic animals, where we humans provide the selective pressure. We can take a population with normal variability and by only allowing the animals with a particular characteristic to reproduce we can create distinct breeds. In some cases, the change may be such that the members of this new breed become unable to reproduce with the original stock. Then we might say that 'a new species has evolved', but it was us, the selective pressure, that caused this evolving .

thedoc wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:07 am
Just because an argument is circular does not make it false, Show us where the premise is false.

You're absolutely right. A circular argument is not false. Neither true.

A circular argument is invalid. Period.

Londoner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:30 am

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I'm sorry that the computer analogy isn't that good to illustrate my point.

My question is: demonstrate how a new specimen shows up. You tell me: the "new" specimen was already there. The others wiped out.

[Forget about populations and so on. Take the example as dynamically as you like, add as many reproductions as you wish, it will change nothing. You start with a variety of specimens and end up with one type only whatever path you take. This is how evolution is accepted following Darwin's tenets]

Any empirical example with living beings is an illusion that I synthesize in my Mycobacterium tuberculosis post. That's nothing more than the circular argument in Darwin's tenets. But I like very much these examples and find them spectacular indeed. The best one I like are domestication of foxes by Lyudmila Trut in Siberia you can read in Scientific American May 2017 (p. 62-67).

I'll tell the only example of evolution that I accept as scientifically sound.

Incorporation of mitochondria and chloroplasts by Eukaryotes through endosymbiosis more than 1.45 billion years ago.

This is evolution. In the end you have a new cell with new capabilities that didn't exist before.

[But how on earth you had all the ingredients for endosymbiosis? I wouldn't ask poor Darwin].

It's like you having oxygen and hydrogen and in the end you have water. This is quite different from telling me that there were already water molecules dispersed, then all the rest wiped out, and this is how water was created. Only one step better than any typical explanation from the Middle Ages.

I also hope that this will help understand that I'm not a creationist, as someone called me rhetorically by [ab]using affirmation of consequent fallacy to cut legs off, as I told before. In fact, I don't pertain to any group whatsoever except in some people's fertile imagination. But if I pertained to any group at all, that group had do adhere to scientific protocol in the first instance.




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PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:35 pm
My question is: demonstrate how a new specimen shows up. You tell me: the "new" specimen was already there. The others wiped out.

I do not think I used the word 'new specimen' and I am not sure what you are asking.

All species already have variability. This arises because they reproduce sexually, so the offspring does not duplicate either of its parents, or through errors in duplication of the genetic material. Unless the particular type of variation is fatal, as long as the individual can produce viable offspring, the variation will persist. But if there is selective pressure, then some variations may be eliminated.

So the 'new' population with this variation was already there. What is new would be the elimination -by natural selection - of the part of the population without that variation.

I think you tend to miss the 'natural selection' bit, but that is the mechanism that is central to Darwin.

I'll tell the only example of evolution that I accept as scientifically sound.

Arising of mitochondria and chloroplasts through endosymbiosis more than 1.45 billion years ago.

This is evolution. In the end you have a new cell with new capabilities that didn't exist before.

[But how on earth you had all the ingredients for endosymbiosis? I wouldn't ask Darwin].

No, we wouldn't ask Darwin because Darwin lived before we had any understanding of such things. Darwin doesn't really address the origins of life. He seems to have thought it could have arisen from inorganic compounds, but that is not part of Darwinism. One could take the view that life was originally created by God, that would not be incompatible with Darwinism since Darwin is describing the subsequent development of species, not the origins of life.

As I have written before, it would be as well to avoid confusing the questions of evolution by natural selection and how life might have emerged.

It's like you have oxygen and hydrogen and in the end you have water. Not telling me that there were already water molecules dispersed, all the rest wiped out, and this is how water was created. Only one step better than any typical explanation from the Middle Ages.

Is this a point about natural selection or about how life might have emerged?

Whichever, I wouldn't see that any explanation is necessary. It is the nature of oxygen and hydrogen that if they are combined they form a molecule with certain properties i.e. water. In other words, a full explanation of what these two elements are would include 'they combine to make water'. And vice-versa; What is water? A combination of oxygen and hydrogen. Why? Because that is what 'water means. If it wasn't that combination it wouldn't be water.

More generally, I think there may be a fundamental problem around the idea of selection. We could argue that everything in the universe is 'selected' in that it must conform to what is possible. Life is 'selected for' in the sense that living things must also conform to those rules that apply generally.

But 'selection' in biology is different. In biology we have already made an artificial distinction between living and non-living. And we can go further and make an artificial distinction between kinds of living thing. So, if asked 'where does life come from?' in one sense the answer is 'us'. We choose to put certain replicating chemicals in a different mental box to other chemicals.

So, to study 'the origin of species' is to refine our understanding of those mental boxes, so that when we differentiate between two species we are clearer about what we mean, about what the word 'species' implies. As a result of Darwin we came to understand what the significance might be of certain observable differences, for example why although a whale and a fish closely resemble is each in many ways, a whale might still be better connected to land mammals. That organisms can change, so physical similarities and differences may not be reliable indicators of kinship.

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Londoner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:59 pm No, we wouldn't ask Darwin because Darwin lived before we had any understanding of such things.

So Darwin's ideas are outdated to the point that they can't explain the existence of Eukaryotes and mitochondria so that endosymbiosis could take place. But people keep using them dogmatically to explain everything, except the primordial cell. Would Galileo take this as science?

Londoner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:59 pm Is this a point about natural selection or about how life might have emerged?

I feel it hard to make me understood. I'm not talking about emergence of life. I'm discussing arguments. And assuming an argument as correct as you claim, I use it to explain how water shows up just for the sake of demonstrating its infinite absurdity.

Londoner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:59 pm So the 'new' population with this variation was already there. What is new would be the elimination -by natural selection - of the part of the population without that variation.

As I told you before, take the example as dynamically as you wish. Add natural selection and whatever you like. The answer keeps circular. You can't demonstrate how a new variation emerged, but solely why only one variation survived. This isn't evolution however goodwill I may lend to it.




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There is nothing circular about evolutionary theory.

You ask, how does one get a new specimen? Do you mean new species? Because individuals do not evolve, only populations.

Take a single species. A subpopulation of the species physically splits off from the main population and goes its own way. Now, in a different environment, it faces different selection pressures and it is no longer interbreeding with the original population. Over time different advantageous mutations spread through the subpopulation, whereas the main population does not have these mutations. Over time if the two populations come tother again, the changes in their respective genetic makeups may make it the case that they can no longer interbreed. They are now two different species. This is allopatric speciation.

Nothing circular about that.

Ok. That helps a lot. Nothing circular indeed. Not even a little so. That's squared.

Sorry you don't like the helpful responses I am giving you -- even to the point of complaining about links! Yet it's obvious you didn't read the page on allopatric speciation to which I linked -- you wouldn't have had time, given the rapidity of your latest (non) response. Are you allergic to learning, preferring instead to spout off in an uninformed way?

What is circular about allopatric speciation?

Isn't it quite something that you, some internet rando, imagines that he has spotted a circularity in evolutionary biology that has escaped the notice of every biologist beginning with Darwin. Once word gets out, we'll have to close all the biology departments worldwide. Legions of evolutionary biologists will find work as Uber drivers, maybe.

PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:08 pm .So Darwin's ideas are outdated to the point that they can't explain the existence of Eukaryotes and mitochondria so that endosymbiosis could take place. But people keep using them dogmatically to explain everything, except the primordial cell. Would Galileo take this as science?

Darwin did not write about that subject, so I don't think we can say his ideas are outdated. As for those 'people', they will have to speak for themselves.

I feel it hard to make me understood. I'm not talking about emergence of life. I'm discussing arguments. And assuming an argument as correct as you claim, I use it to explain how water shows up just for the sake of demonstrating its infinite absurdity.

Well, I hope I addressed that.

Me: So the 'new' population with this variation was already there. What is new would be the elimination -by natural selection - of the part of the population without that variation.

As I told you before, take the example as dynamically as you wish. Add natural selection and whatever you like. The answer keeps circular. You can't demonstrate how a new variation emerged, but solely why only one variation survived. This isn't evolution however goodwill I may lend to it.

I cannot think how else to put it.

We know it is the case that variations within a population do emerge; we only have to look at our own children. We understand why they emerge, in that we understand chromosomes and so on. So 'new variations' are constantly emerging; it is a 'brute fact'!

I did not exactly say that 'only one variation survived'. I said that there may be selective pressure that favours individuals with one particular variation, but those individuals will still vary in other ways. So, for example, if for some reason there was selection for blue eyes, the blue eyed descendants would still retain their variability in all other respects, and create still more variations - provided these variations didn't prevent them from having viable offspring.

Consider dog breeding. You would presumably accept the way we create breeds? That we select within normal range of variation amongst dogs for particular characteristics, and then only allow those selected individuals to breed, until we have created a group that thereafter will 'breed true'. Is there something in this explanation of how we create breeds that you find circular?

davidm wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 4:58 pm

David, that was just a little joke to stimulate your humor.

Yes, I did read your linked pages and thank you for the trouble in finding them.

Allopatric speciation is nothing new to me and it adds nothing to the discussion. I told before that you can add whatever you want to the example, allopatric speciation included if you like, Darwin's tenets remain circular. Further, that's an elaborate particular case of evolution that requires a complex population in the first instance, and that helps nothing indeed to undo Darwin's circularity.

Uber drive is a very good alternative, I think so. They wouldn't exchange their posts with an evolutionary biologist, I'm sure.

Londoner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:15 pm
I cannot think how else to put it.

Me neither.

Londoner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:15 pm We know it is the case that variations within a population do emerge; we only have to look at our own children. We understand why they emerge, in that we understand chromosomes and so on. So 'new variations' are constantly emerging; it is a 'brute fact'!

I did not exactly say that 'only one variation survived'. I said that there may be selective pressure that favours individuals with one particular variation, but those individuals will still vary in other ways. So, for example, if for some reason there was selection for blue eyes, the blue eyed descendants would still retain their variability in all other respects, and create still more variations - provided these variations didn't prevent them from having viable offspring.

I'm sorry, but that's again the same thing put in other words. You need a population with variation to show me that evolution results from variation.

Londoner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:15 pm Consider dog breeding. You would presumably accept the way we create breeds? That we select within normal range of variation amongst dogs for particular characteristics, and then only allow those selected individuals to breed, until we have created a group that thereafter will 'breed true'. Is there something in this explanation of how we create breeds that you find circular?

I think my example on foxes is still more spectacular. You can read about that in an excellent article from Scientific American May 2017 (p.62-67 in EU, p.68-73 in US).

You start with a population of wild foxes and select, generation after generation, the traits you wish to keep, and which were there right in the beginning, and in the end you have tamed foxes. I don't take this as evolution by no means. However, I acknowledge how dear this example is to Darwinians (the people), but that only discloses how poor their argumentation is.

You start with a population of multicolored hens. Then you let them reproduce and select red ones (a recessive trait lets assume, not even present phenotypically in starting population to make things more spectacular), generation after generation, so that in the end you have a hennery all red. You call this evolution? What's new here that wasn't present in the native population, except for a quantitative difference in the pool of genes?

After rereading this, it's funny that you even start with a population that is more complex than the final one, as by selecting out genes you simplified the genetic pool. This could be the opposite of evolution, but not worth discussing that.

PauloL wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 7:52 pm

davidm wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2017 4:58 pm

David, that was just a little joke to stimulate your humor.

Yes, I did read your linked pages and thank you for the trouble in finding them.

Allopatric speciation is nothing new to me and it adds nothing to the discussion. I told before that you can add whatever you want to the example, allopatric speciation included if you like, Darwin's tenets remain circular.

How are Darwin's tenets circular?