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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2017 23:29:48 GMT
How natural selection cant explain the arrival of the fittest. It's still a puzzle scientists are struggling to solve. Natural selection is not supposed to explain the origins of life. So no, it would be a stupid point that assumes he doesn't know what the theory of natural selection actually is. De Vries adds further: "And if we do not know what explains its arrival, then we do not understand the very origins of lifeβs diversity.β
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Post by π΅ on Jun 1, 2017 23:32:15 GMT
"Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest"~ Hugo de Vries no. It never made a valid point all it did was demonstrate the speakers lack of knowledge regarding the theory of natural selection. I disagree. In Darwin's time and for a few decades after, de Vries's criticism was quite reasonable, for several reasons: (1) Natural selection required hundreds of millions or billions of years to produce the diversity of life seen today; on this point, Darwin was heavily influenced by the uniformitarian tradition in geology promoted by Charles Lyell. But this contradicted the best estimates of the age of the Earth from physicists like Kelvin. For instance, it was believed that the Sun's energy was produced by gravitational contraction, which allowed a lifetime of only a few tens of millions of years. Of course, today, we know that the Sun is powered by nuclear fusion. (2) There was good empirical evidence that there were limits to how much a species could change. If you take a population of dogs and keep breeding bigger and bigger ones, you'll find that the average body size in the population rapidly increases. But that increase soon slows down. There will come a point where you just can't get bigger dogs. You'll never breed a dog to be the size of an elephant, for example. So some scientists like de Vries concluded that the emergence of new species is not produced by gradual changes due to natural selection, but rather sudden, large "macromutations" - the vast majority of which are deleterious, but a few of which are fit. It's important to bear in mind that in Darwin's time, there was very little understanding of genetic variation, inheritance, mutation, etc. (3) There was evidence of nonadaptive traits - i.e. traits that are useless or even deleterious to the organism. Birds with inconveniently long tails, for example. Of course, Darwin explained some of this in terms of sexual selection; a fine explanation to be sure, but just one explanation among many, and the evidence at the time was highly equivocal. There were various other perfectly legitimate criticisms of Darwinism*. But those are a few reasons why many biologists held that natural selection may well explain why certain organisms and species survive, but it's not so good at explain how they arise in the first place. Now, none of these criticisms are persuasive anymore. But up until the Modern Synthesis in the 1930s, it was quite sensible in my view to be sceptical of Darwinism. And that was the attitude that most scientists took. * Just to be clear, by "Darwinism" I mean the view that the primary mechanism of evolution is natural selection. Darwin successfully persuaded the scientific community that evolution occurs. But he did not persuade them that the primary mechanism of evolution was natural selection.
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Post by gadreel on Jun 1, 2017 23:37:50 GMT
no. It never made a valid point all it did was demonstrate the speakers lack of knowledge regarding the theory of natural selection. I disagree. In Darwin's time, de Vries's criticism was quite reasonable, for several reasons: (1) Natural selection required hundreds of millions or billions of years to produce the diversity of life seen today; on this point, Darwin was heavily influenced by the uniformitarian tradition in geology promoted by Charles Lyell. But this contradicted the best estimates of the age of the Earth from physicists like Kelvin. For instance, it was believed that the Sun's energy was produced by gravitational contraction, which allowed a lifetime of only a few tens of millions of years. Of course, today, we know that the Sun is powered by nuclear fusion. (2) There was good empirical evidence that there were limits to how much a species could change. If you take a population of dogs and keep breeding bigger and bigger ones, you'll find that the average body size in the population rapidly increases. But that increase soon slows down. There will come a point where you just can't get bigger dogs. You'll never breed a dog to be the size of an elephant, for example. So some scientists like de Vries concluded that the emergence of new species is not produced by gradual changes due to natural selection, but rather sudden, large "macromutations" - the vast majority of which are deleterious, but a few of which are fit. It's important to bear in mind that in Darwin's time, there was very little understanding of genetic variation, inheritance, mutation, etc. (3) There was evidence of nonadaptive traits - i.e. traits that are useless or even deleterious to the organism. Birds with inconveniently long tails, for example. Of course, Darwin explained some of this in terms of sexual selection; a fine explanation to be sure, but just one explanation among many, and the evidence at the time was highly equivocal. There were various other perfectly legitimate criticisms of Darwinism*. But those are a few reasons why many biologists held that natural selection may well explain why certain organisms and species survive, but it's not so good at explain how they arise in the first place. Now, none of these criticisms are persuasive anymore. But up until the Modern Synthesis in the 1930s, it was quite sensible in my view to be sceptical of Darwinism. And that was the attitude that most scientists took. * Just to be clear, by "Darwinism" I mean the view that the primary mechanism of evolution is natural selection. Darwin successfully persuaded the scientific community that evolution occurs. But he did not persuade them that the primary mechanism of evolution was natural selection. As you see in my response to Cody I clarified my position, I am not convinced that Darwinism was ever meant to describe how things arrive only how they change and suggest a mechanism for that change. Given your position though I am willing to concede that he had a point at the time, having said that I also know that Cody is a YEC and I suspected that he was trying to debunk evolution, in the light of that the quote has never had a point.
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Post by π΅ on Jun 1, 2017 23:38:00 GMT
I'm not quite sure what that means. Is he saying natural selection can't explain abiogenesis? If that's the case, then sure, but natural selection isn't really used to explain abiogenesis. I don't know the context of that quote, but given what I know of de Vries's views, I would assume he's saying that natural selection doesn't explain the origin of new species. It doesn't explain how you get from, say, an Archaeopteryx to a carrion crow. So: natural selection doesn't really explain what Darwin used it to explain. On this point, de Vries was wrong. But he wasn't unreasonable in my opinion, given the evidence and theories available at the time.
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Post by gadreel on Jun 1, 2017 23:39:46 GMT
How natural selection cant explain the arrival of the fittest. It's still a puzzle scientists are struggling to solve. Natural selection is not supposed to explain the origins of life. So no, it would be a stupid point that assumes he doesn't know what the theory of natural selection actually is. Actually he is being a bit disingenious, he is not asking if darwinism explains the meaning of life, but instead if it explains how the fittest become the fittest.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2017 23:44:09 GMT
"Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest"~ Hugo de Vries Well yes. That would be variation, rather than natural selection.
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Post by π΅ on Jun 1, 2017 23:44:47 GMT
I disagree. In Darwin's time, de Vries's criticism was quite reasonable, for several reasons: (1) Natural selection required hundreds of millions or billions of years to produce the diversity of life seen today; on this point, Darwin was heavily influenced by the uniformitarian tradition in geology promoted by Charles Lyell. But this contradicted the best estimates of the age of the Earth from physicists like Kelvin. For instance, it was believed that the Sun's energy was produced by gravitational contraction, which allowed a lifetime of only a few tens of millions of years. Of course, today, we know that the Sun is powered by nuclear fusion. (2) There was good empirical evidence that there were limits to how much a species could change. If you take a population of dogs and keep breeding bigger and bigger ones, you'll find that the average body size in the population rapidly increases. But that increase soon slows down. There will come a point where you just can't get bigger dogs. You'll never breed a dog to be the size of an elephant, for example. So some scientists like de Vries concluded that the emergence of new species is not produced by gradual changes due to natural selection, but rather sudden, large "macromutations" - the vast majority of which are deleterious, but a few of which are fit. It's important to bear in mind that in Darwin's time, there was very little understanding of genetic variation, inheritance, mutation, etc. (3) There was evidence of nonadaptive traits - i.e. traits that are useless or even deleterious to the organism. Birds with inconveniently long tails, for example. Of course, Darwin explained some of this in terms of sexual selection; a fine explanation to be sure, but just one explanation among many, and the evidence at the time was highly equivocal. There were various other perfectly legitimate criticisms of Darwinism*. But those are a few reasons why many biologists held that natural selection may well explain why certain organisms and species survive, but it's not so good at explain how they arise in the first place. Now, none of these criticisms are persuasive anymore. But up until the Modern Synthesis in the 1930s, it was quite sensible in my view to be sceptical of Darwinism. And that was the attitude that most scientists took. * Just to be clear, by "Darwinism" I mean the view that the primary mechanism of evolution is natural selection. Darwin successfully persuaded the scientific community that evolution occurs. But he did not persuade them that the primary mechanism of evolution was natural selection. As you see in my response to Cody I clarified my position, I am not convinced that Darwinism was ever meant to describe how things arrive only how they change and suggest a mechanism for that change. Given your position though I am willing to concede that he had a point at the time, having said that I also know that Cody is a YEC and I suspected that he was trying to debunk evolution, in the light of that the quote has never had a point. Yeah, Darwinism never tried to explain abiogenesis. What I'm saying is that back in the 1800s and early 1900s, there were perfectly good reasons to reject the claim that natural selection is the primary mechanism of evolutionary change. I think that de Vries and other critics did have "valid points" against Darwinism. As for debunking evolution - well, almost all of the criticisms raised against Darwinism have since been adequately rebutted. If Cody is trying to debunk evolution, appealing to quotes from scientists working over a century ago is pretty weak. I don't know Cody, and I don't know what his intentions were with this thread.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Jun 1, 2017 23:44:53 GMT
I'm not quite sure what that means. Is he saying natural selection can't explain abiogenesis? If that's the case, then sure, but natural selection isn't really used to explain abiogenesis. I don't know the context of that quote, but given what I know of de Vries's views, I would assume he's saying that natural selection doesn't explain the origin of new species. It doesn't explain how you get from, say, an Archaeopteryx to a carrion crow. So: natural selection doesn't really explain what Darwin used it to explain. On this point, de Vries was wrong. But he wasn't unreasonable in my opinion, given the evidence and theories available at the time. You seem quite well versed on the topic. Was biology your major?
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Post by π΅ on Jun 1, 2017 23:46:23 GMT
I don't know the context of that quote, but given what I know of de Vries's views, I would assume he's saying that natural selection doesn't explain the origin of new species. It doesn't explain how you get from, say, an Archaeopteryx to a carrion crow. So: natural selection doesn't really explain what Darwin used it to explain. On this point, de Vries was wrong. But he wasn't unreasonable in my opinion, given the evidence and theories available at the time. You seem quite well versed on the topic. Was biology your major? No, philosophy. But I focus on philosophy of science, in particular philosophy of biology, and I'm very interested in the history of biology.
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Post by captainbryce on Jun 1, 2017 23:46:44 GMT
Natural selection is not supposed to explain the origins of life. So no, it would be a stupid point that assumes he doesn't know what the theory of natural selection actually is. De Vries adds further: "And if we do not know what explains its arrival, then we do not understand the very origins of lifeβs diversity.βOkay, that seems like it is reinforcing my point. So then you agree with me that the statement is stupid then (given that the theory never set out to explain the origins of life in the first place)?
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Post by lowtacks86 on Jun 1, 2017 23:47:20 GMT
As you see in my response to Cody I clarified my position, I am not convinced that Darwinism was ever meant to describe how things arrive only how they change and suggest a mechanism for that change. Given your position though I am willing to concede that he had a point at the time, having said that I also know that Cody is a YEC and I suspected that he was trying to debunk evolution, in the light of that the quote has never had a point. Yeah, Darwinism never tried to explain abiogenesis. What I'm saying is that back in the 1800s and early 1900s, there were perfectly good reasons to reject the claim that natural selection is the primary mechanism of evolutionary change. I think that de Vries and other critics did have "valid points" against Darwinism. As for debunking evolution - well, almost all of the criticisms raised against Darwinism have since been adequately rebutted. If Cody is trying to debunk evolution, appealing to quotes from scientists working over a century ago is pretty weak. I don't know Cody, and I don't know what his intentions were with this thread. He's using a lame appeal to authority fallacy to back his ID/creationist beliefs. I suspect he also might be quote mining De Vries.
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Post by captainbryce on Jun 1, 2017 23:50:42 GMT
As you see in my response to Cody I clarified my position, I am not convinced that Darwinism was ever meant to describe how things arrive only how they change and suggest a mechanism for that change. Given your position though I am willing to concede that he had a point at the time, having said that I also know that Cody is a YEC and I suspected that he was trying to debunk evolution, in the light of that the quote has never had a point. Yeah, Darwinism never tried to explain abiogenesis. What I'm saying is that back in the 1800s and early 1900s, there were perfectly good reasons to reject the claim that natural selection is the primary mechanism of evolutionary change. I think that de Vries and other critics did have "valid points" against Darwinism. As for debunking evolution - well, almost all of the criticisms raised against Darwinism have since been adequately rebutted. If Cody is trying to debunk evolution, appealing to quotes from scientists working over a century ago is pretty weak. I don't know Cody, and I don't know what his intentions were with this thread. That makes sense!
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Post by thorshairspray on Jun 2, 2017 0:26:45 GMT
"Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest"~ Hugo de Vries No. They are basically the same thing. Unless you are talking about the origin of life, it which case, evolution has nothing to say.
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Post by Marv on Jun 2, 2017 0:43:21 GMT
I know and care very little about natural selection and even I know that quote belongs on a bumper sticker...and nothing more.
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Post by scienceisgod on Jun 2, 2017 5:12:13 GMT
It doesn't need to. Genetic mutation supplies the random variation. Genetic mutation? Is that like divine intervention?
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Post by theoncomingstorm on Jun 2, 2017 5:42:30 GMT
It doesn't need to. Genetic mutation supplies the random variation. Genetic mutation? Is that like divine intervention? Is it possible for you to post anything other than stupid shit?
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Post by lowtacks86 on Jun 2, 2017 5:47:30 GMT
Genetic mutation? Is that like divine intervention? Is it possible for you to post anything other than stupid shit? He does have a rather odd posting style. He'll post some weird gibberish, someone will call him out on it, typically he won't respond. It's like drive by retardation.
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Post by scienceisgod on Jun 2, 2017 6:04:31 GMT
Is it possible for you to post anything other than stupid shit? He does have a rather odd posting style. He'll post some weird gibberish, someone will call him out on it, typically he won't respond. It's like drive by retardation. Arguing on the internet, special Olympics... Anyway, scientists have this little trick they do this all the time, "fudge factors". Data doesn't fit the theory? It's their version of divine intervention. Do you know how trivial it would be to attribute all racial differences in intelligence to "genetic mutation"? Seriously, is a German Shepard more intelligent than a bulldog because it was raised in a more stimulating environment?
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Post by phludowin on Jun 2, 2017 6:06:52 GMT
"Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest"~ Hugo de Vries Is it true? Maybe. Is it relevant? Maybe not. I might as well say "Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it doesn't explain how my alarm clock works".
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Post by lowtacks86 on Jun 2, 2017 6:14:47 GMT
He does have a rather odd posting style. He'll post some weird gibberish, someone will call him out on it, typically he won't respond. It's like drive by retardation. Arguing on the internet, special Olympics... Anyway, scientists have this little trick they do this all the time, "fudge factors". Data doesn't fit the theory? It's their version of divine intervention. Do you know how trivial it would be to attribute all racial differences in intelligence to "genetic mutation"? Seriously, is a German Shepard more intelligent than a bulldog because it was raised in a more stimulating environment? "Arguing on the internet, special Olympics..." And yet you still do it anyways, way to stick by your ideals. The fact that you typically give up midway doesn't change this. "Do you know how trivial it would be to attribute all racial differences in intelligence to "genetic mutation"?" Oh I see, this old song and dance. What's your standard for intelligence? Standardizing testing? By your reasoning, does this mean Asians are genetically superior to whites?
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