Natural selection, my ass (Page 10)

AchillesSinatra: "Read any Michael A. Corey?"

No, what does he have to say?


As for " fitness-impacting heritable variations actually exist"....

I know of no one who would deny this, and we hardly need science to tell us. The problem is that fitness is "multiply realizable", as they say in the business. Thus, it doesn't seem amenable to any (non-trivial) general characterization.

AchillesSinatra: What I mean to say is that if we zoom in on any particular species in a given ecology, of course these traits which are advantageous are (at least in principle) identifiable.

But can we generalize over all species in all ecologies? I don't think so. At least not without succumbing to vacuity again.

theHating: "and S. J. Gould, can't remember which essay."

I cant blame you

AchillesSinatra: Oh, he's a terrific writer.

It was called "Beyond Darwin" or something.

I've got it upstairs, but too much effort atm.

AchillesSinatra: Check out Richard Lewontin, too

If I said the things he said, you'd call me "anti-science". LOL

theHating: Natural selection - take 1,312,847

Is...

The process of organisms having sex (sometimes with themselves) and passing down heritable traits which ...

Are stable enough to exist in a natural environment.

AchillesSinatra: How many characterizations of natural selection does that make now?

It might help if its defenders could agree on what it is.

AchillesSinatra: Lol @ "sometimes with themselves"

theHating: Bananas do this

AchillesSinatra: Times like these I wish I was a banana.

theHating: Think of a banana boning another banana...

Oh the bananity

AchillesSinatra: LOL

Hey don't knock it. The banana has almost as many genes are we do. Kinda humbling.

AchillesSinatra: I believe the rice plant has even more genes than us.

theHating: That's bananas

theHating: "It might help if its defenders could agree on what it is."

There seems to be many interpretations.

AchillesSinatra: Keeps them off the streets, I suppose

theHating: I dont think they disagree though, maybe subtly, but natural selection rules out the existence of a fit frog singing Sinatra.

AchillesSinatra: "I love you when you sing, Frank. You're an angel when you sing. You're honest when you sing. Why don't you just sing?"

-- Ava Gardener

AchillesSinatra: Another fellah you should check out is the late Aussie philosopher, David Stove. Try his "Darwinian Fairytales".

That man was fiendishly clever. And funny, too

theHating: Are you just dropping made-up names, now?

theHating:

AchillesSinatra: Nope. I believe you can read the whole thing online.

Sociobiology (Dawkins ) takes the brunt of his wrath. But Darwin takes a few punches, too.

Obviously with the greatest of respect.

AchillesSinatra: What happened to the Beaver, by the way?

theHating: I didnt learn social biology in school, so I dont think i can take a position on that atm.

Beavs is a born again wireclubber with a new enthusiasm for the lifestyle. We'll seem him in a couple days, im sure.

AchillesSinatra: Sociobiology is the discipline of making up stories about our Pleiocene past.

"You see, the reason we like music is that it was advantageous to our ancestors because [insert some shite here]"

All entirely untestable, of course.