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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/25/2006 1:59:49 AM
From: Mike McFarland	Respond to of 69300

<multiplied absurdities> God is infinite...

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 1:45:27 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

Issue #1 Life based on genes? No other forms of life have been found on this planet. (including plants, not just animals). Since all the niches are already pretty well occupied it is unlikely that life based on another process would be able to bootstrap itself while fending off the DNA based lifeforms. I suppose a fully formed process could be imported from outer space or something. It makes for a great Sci-Fi story, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Space is a really really big place and the odds of one lifeform getting from hither to yon is consequently pretty small. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 1:50:55 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

issue #2 advantage that her child should be adopted’ Too small a sentence fragment to know what the heck it refers to. It certainly would be an advantage to passing genes if a child were adopted as opposed to being dead. Context is everything for this kind of statement. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 1:56:39 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 69300

issue #3 All communication is ‘manipulation of signal-receiver by signal-sender.’ Maybe this is just a gut-overreaction to the word manipulation. Of course the signal-receiver is changed by the communication or else it would just be ambient noise. Maybe you think manipulation always means something bad when all it means is that the object was changed in some way. This sounds like a shallow understanding of the english language more than a critisism. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 2:05:31 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

issue #4 Homosexuality in social animals ... Darwin warned the "social scientists" of his day (like Spencer) that complex behaviors like homosexuality are not strictly controlled by genes. This takes them out of the realm of natural selection and into a more Lamarkian evolution. Genes are just information sequences, and natural selection explains the changes in that information based on the life and reproduction or death of those genes. Complex human interactions also depend upon information sequences learned, taught, and modified in the human brain while the person is alive and so are not nearly as simple as specie's body plans. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 2:15:04 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

issue #5 the degree of altruism depends on the proportion of genes shared. The studies cited are about social insects (like bees and ants) and not social 'mammals'. Still, the study is accurate when applied to genes. Saving several relatives can be as good a way to pass on genes as having offspring of your own. When you want to apply this to mammals or especially humans you get back into the gene-meme distinctions again. Humans are likely to sacrifice to save "ideas" as much as they will sacrifice to save "genes". This is not a Darwinian study because ideas can change and modify without the holder of the ideas having to be born or die. This makes memes much more fluid and not subject to the fairly simple ratios that define altruism in creatures with few brain cells to spare for an idea. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 2:23:36 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 69300

issue #6 no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person... This is the same as issue #5 except that the critic has latched onto a specific quote used for emphasis. The context again was genes. You don't pass on the clan bald spot better by saving one brother, but you might if you save several in the clan. That doesn't mean that people only think about their genes. People (or social insects) don't always make the best choices. Natural selection just means that those who consistently make bad choices tend to be underrepresented in the next generation. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 2:38:59 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

issue #7 Every organism has as many descendants as it can. I don't think this is a direct quote of anyone. Certainly individuals have their own strategies. Species too fall into a spectrum of either having the greatest possible number of offspring at one time that their metabolism can muster, or to have fewer and save some of that energy to nurture and protect the offspring they have. For it was always obvious, to everyone who understood his theory, that a universal striving-to-the-utmost-to-increase is an essential part of that theory: No, this is only obvious to those who mis-understand the theory. One of the delights of studying evolution is looking at the usual cases and then the exceptions. Most creatures do tend to have a larger next generation than the current if conditions permit. There are some, however, which control the size of the next generation much more closely. For example there are several creatures which are good to eat, but they have evolved to look a whole lot like creatures that are bad to eat. They get some protection from predators who have experience eating the bad ones. If, however, the good to eat ones become too numerous the predators will begin taking more chances and eat more of them. They have evolved to limit their offspring if they see too many of their own kind and not enough of the bad tasting creatures they are mimicing. while it is or may be true of most species of organisms, is obviously not true of ours. This is just flat wrong. The human population on this planet has been growing and growing and growing. Humans have more ability than most to control their breeding but quantity is still winning out to quality. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 3:04:34 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 69300

issue #8 Malthus - . Both Darwin and Wallace were influenced by Malthus. This whole issue seems to hinge on the words "All" and "Always" to make some really weak rationalization. Of course the numbers of any given creature ebb and flow. There are a lot more cows in the Midwest than there were 200 years ago, and a lot more corn. There is however, a lot fewer buffalo and bluestem grass. Evolution is usually in a state of equilibrium for the reasons that Malthus wrote. There are great or small events that put ecosystems into crisis mode, and then the landscape can undergo great changes. Consider a schematic example. Suppose there is a population, with a constant food-supply, This example is in a word, Bogus. The food supply for humans has not been constant since the invention of agriculture, perhaps 5000 years ago. Malthus own assumptions were that population would increase with increasing resources and it has. The day when the food supply does not keep up with the population will be tense. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 3:15:20 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 69300

issue #9. This doesn't seem to be about Darwin or his ideas at all, although his name gets sprinkled through it. It seems to be upset that wealthy people often don't have as many children as poor people. Family planning (or lack thereof) of more a product of memes than genes. As a strategy, if you lack the resources to push even one child out of the lower economic rungs, then there is an advantage to having many children since you aren't depriving them of something they would have got with fewer siblings, and maybe one will be lucky. TP

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1253)	2/27/2006 3:35:22 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

issue #10 variation. Darwin, and modern biological scientists, all agree that variation is at the heart of evolution. Variation by definition means that not all the life is the same, so they can't all be flawless in every way. This critic is once again trying to way too far with absolutes. A living organism need only be perfect enough to reproduce in the next generation. Even what constitutes a least degree of injury can vary according to environment. A fish eye necessary in a mountain stream is waste of metabolism for a fish in a cave. Minor flaws do tend to disappear over time, not necessarily within one individual or one generation. In a time of growing resources an individual may not need to compete very hard and can establish an expanding legacy of offspring. If times get tough again, those progeny who still exhibit a flaw may find it just a bit harder to make a contribution to the next generation. TP