When I searched “Natural Selection” I found this illustration depicting the components of natural selection.
What would you say it is missing? Or is it adequately broad in your view?
George
There is nothing here to say how selection works, in particularly, selection for survival.
@gbrooks9
Of course, so why are you being so defensive about Darwin and Newton. I fear that scientists have become so defensive because of invalid criticism of Darwinian evolution that they do not want to accept valid criticism. Also Dawkins and Dennett have philosophical and theological reasons for defending their version of evolution. so they are hardly disinterested scientists, if they have been “practicing scientists” at all.
The Ptolemaic model for a earth centric universe was good for its time, but now everyone makes fun of it. The issue for Galileo was not science vs religion, but old science vs new science.
You ask me why I’m being so defensive about Darwin? Because you are being so provocative. Just read what you wrote about Darwin:
You say that scientists should be less defensive about “valid criticism” - - your words don’t seem to fit that model.
Frankly, I don’t think “Survival of the Fittest is bad science.” is one of your best statements.
Let’s review what is said about the phrase in the Wiki article:
" “Survival of the fittest” is a phrase that originated from an evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. . . . understood as “Survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations.” Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin’s biological ones, writing…"
"The phrase “survival of the fittest” is not generally used by modern biologists as the term does not accurately describe the mechanism of natural selection as biologists conceive it. Natural selection is differential reproduction (not just survival) and the object of scientific study is usually differential reproduction resulting from traits that have a genetic basis under the circumstances in which the organism finds itself, which is called fitness, but in a technical sense which is quite different from the common meaning of the word… . . "
“Evolutionary biologists criticise how the term is used by non-scientists and the connotations that have grown around the term in popular culture. The phrase also does not help in conveying the complex nature of natural selection, so modern biologists prefer and almost exclusively use the term natural selection. The biological concept of fitness refers to reproductive success, as opposed to survival, and is not explicit in the specific ways in which organisms can be more “fit” (increase reproductive success) as having phenotypic characteristics that enhance survival and reproduction (which was the meaning that Spencer had in mind)…”
" Skeptic Society founder and Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer [says] . . . that scientific principles like natural selection are testable and falsifiable by virtue of their predictive power. Shermer points out, as an example, that population genetics accurately demonstrate when natural selection will and will not effect change on a population. Shermer hypothesizes that if hominid fossils were found in the same geological strata as trilobites, it would be evidence against natural selection."
It would seem there is a general awareness that “survival of the fittest” is not the best phrasing. Why do you think you have some sort of “special insight” that the phrase should be used to demolish Darwin as a scientist?
To sum up:
- It’s a phrase that wasn’t coined by Darwin.
- It’s a phrase that many scientists agree is not the best way to express how natural selection actually works.
- But these scientists do not “trash” Darwin because he supported the phrase coined by someone else.
I think the reason scientists have become defensive is having to endure aggressive criticism while being very “shy” about how the science can be improved.
POSTSCRIPT: Your comment about the illustration of elements of Natural Selection: "There is nothing here to say how selection works, in particularly, selection for survival."
So… if you were going to make a similar illustration for the HOW of natural selection, what might it look like? Or what might it say?
George,
You are not telling me anything that I don’t know.
Look if you are really interested in knowing what I think on these topics, read my book, Darwin’s MYTH. That is why I wrote it, to explain how I think instead of playing games on the internet.
Send be your contact information by private message and I will send it to you.
1 Like
Offer accepted - - gratefully. You now have my address. Thank you, Roger.
This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.