What exactly is "natural selection"?

[OldWiseGuy]

Is it a force, a plan, a grand design?
Is it internal or external?
If internal how does it affect things external?
If external how does if affect things internal?
Can it be isolated and identified materially?
Where and when did it originate?
Does it have creative powers?
Is it still working today?
What does it have planned for us?

 

[crjmurray]

Dude, seriously.....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

 

[Loudmouth]

Is it a force, a plan, a grand design?
Is it internal or external?
If internal how does it affect things external?
If external how does if affect things internal?
Can it be isolated and identified materially?
Where and when did it originate?
Does it have creative powers?
Is it still working today?
What does it have planned for us?

Natural Selection is a model for how environmental conditions affect the reproductive success of organisms as part of a population.

 

[Jan Volkes]

Is it a force, a plan, a grand design?
Is it internal or external?
If internal how does it affect things external?
If external how does if affect things internal?
Can it be isolated and identified materially?
Where and when did it originate?
Does it have creative powers?
Is it still working today?
What does it have planned for us?

I respectfully suggest that you read a few books, you won't be pleased with them because they will tell it how things are and not how you would like them to be.
If you want to continue to believe that something miraculous made everything then carry on thinking as you do.
Being ignorant today about things is a choice some people make, there is no need for it because you have the world of knowledge at your finger tips.

Perhaps after all this time it would be best if you remained believing as you do right up until the end.

 

[whois]

Is it a force, a plan, a grand design?
Is it internal or external?
If internal how does it affect things external?
If external how does if affect things internal?
Can it be isolated and identified materially?
Where and when did it originate?
Does it have creative powers?
Is it still working today?
What does it have planned for us?

I would say that Dr. Koonin's essays on where evolutionary biology is today are quite close to the the mark. The concept of natural selection as the foundation of evolutionary change has been largely superseded, mostly through the work of Motoo Kimura, Tomoko Ohta, and others, who have shown both theoretically and empirically that natural selection has little or no effect on the vast majority of the genomes of most living organisms.
evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2009/11/modern-synthesis-is-dead-long-live.html

from koonin:
There is no consistent tendency of evolution towards increased genomic complexity, and when complexity increases, this appears to be a nonadaptive consequence of evolution under weak purifying selection rather than an adaptation.

 

[Loudmouth]

I would say that Dr. Koonin's essays on where evolutionary biology is today are quite close to the the mark. The concept of natural selection as the foundation of evolutionary change has been largely superseded, mostly through the work of Motoo Kimura, Tomoko Ohta, and others, who have shown both theoretically and empirically that natural selection has little or no effect on the vast majority of the genomes of most living organisms.

That's right. Natural selection deals more with phenotypes that affect fitness. The bulk of changes to genotype are neutral and natural selection has no affect on them. This is entirely in keeping with the Modern Synthesis.

 

[whois]

This is entirely in keeping with the Modern Synthesis.

uh huh, keep clinging to your beliefs loudmouth.

Kimura, Ohta, Jukes, and Crow dropped a monkey wrench into the "engine" at the heart of the modern synthesis — natural selection — and then Gould and Lewontin finished the job with their famous paper on “the spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm”. The rise of evo-devo over the past two decades has laid the groundwork for a completely new and empirically testable theory of macroevolution, a theory that is currently facilitating exponential progress in our understanding of how major evolutionary transitions happen. And iconoclasts like Lynn Margulis, Eva Jablonka, Marian Lamb, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, and David Sloan Wilson are rapidly overturning our understanding of how evolutionary change happens at all levels, and how it is inherited.

 

[Loudmouth]

uh huh, keep clinging to your beliefs loudmouth.

Kimura, Ohta, Jukes, and Crow dropped a monkey wrench into the "engine" at the heart of the modern synthesis — natural selection — and then Gould and Lewontin finished the job with their famous paper on “the spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm”.

How so? Nothing in the Modern Synthesis requires every base in the genome or every physical characteristic to be under selective pressure.

The rise of evo-devo over the past two decades has laid the groundwork for a completely new and empirically testable theory of macroevolution, a theory that is currently facilitating exponential progress in our understanding of how major evolutionary transitions happen.

Evo-devo is entirely within the classical theory of the Modern Synthesis. It does a beautiful job of explaining how mutations in regulatory genes cause changes in adult morphology.

And iconoclasts like Lynn Margulis, Eva Jablonka, Marian Lamb, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, and David Sloan Wilson are rapidly overturning our understanding of how evolutionary change happens at all levels, and how it is inherited.

How does this change the fact that natural selection does occur?

 

[whois]

welcome to george washingtons axe.
the head has been replaced once already, and the handle 3 times, but it's still george washingtons axe.

 

[Loudmouth]

welcome to george washingtons axe.
the head has been replaced once already, and the handle 3 times, but it's still george washingtons axe.

Can you show us one reference that states the Modern Synthesis requires every base in the genome to be under selective pressure?

 

[Jan Volkes]

welcome to george washingtons axe.
the head has been replaced once already, and the handle 3 times, but it's still george washingtons axe.

If George Washington owned the axe through all the changes then it is still George Washington's axe, if he didn't then it's not George Washington's axe.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

If George Washington owned the axe through all the changes then it is still George Washington's axe, if he didn't then it's not George Washington's axe.

But that's quibbling about what words mean, not about what happened.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Is it a force, a plan, a grand design?

It is a consequence of reproduction and limited resources.

Is it internal or external?

Both.

If internal how does it affect things external?
If external how does if affect things internal?

Because its both, it can affect both.

Can it be isolated and identified materially?

Humans can force selection to certain key things, such as enhanced ability to smell and track, giving us bloodhounds.
Since selection is a process, it doesn't have material things to "identify".

Where and when did it originate?

Whenever life started.

Does it have creative powers?

Not alone. It is part of the mechanism for evolution and the diversity of life.

Is it still working today?

Of course, nothing can stop natural selection from happening.

What does it have planned for us?

It is not an entity that makes plans.

 

[sfs]

uh huh, keep clinging to your beliefs loudmouth.

Kimura, Ohta, Jukes, and Crow dropped a monkey wrench into the "engine" at the heart of the modern synthesis — natural selection — and then Gould and Lewontin finished the job with their famous paper on “the spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm”. The rise of evo-devo over the past two decades has laid the groundwork for a completely new and empirically testable theory of macroevolution, a theory that is currently facilitating exponential progress in our understanding of how major evolutionary transitions happen. And iconoclasts like Lynn Margulis, Eva Jablonka, Marian Lamb, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, and David Sloan Wilson are rapidly overturning our understanding of how evolutionary change happens at all levels, and how it is inherited.

Kimura, Ohta et al did nothing at all to displace natural selection as the engine of adaptive evolution. What they argued -- persuasively -- was that for many organisms, there's lots and lots of evolution going on that has nothing to do with adaptation. This was an interesting and important discovery, but it did not change the central insight of Darwinian evolution, which is that adaptation is the result of natural selection.

 

[whois]

Kimura, Ohta et al did nothing at all to displace natural selection as the engine of adaptive evolution. What they argued -- persuasively -- was that for many organisms, there's lots and lots of evolution going on that has nothing to do with adaptation. This was an interesting and important discovery, but it did not change the central insight of Darwinian evolution, which is that adaptation is the result of natural selection.

they not only argued it, they proved it, both theoretically and empirically.
maybe you missed post 5.

 

[sfs]

they not only argued it, they proved it, both theoretically and empirically.

You can't prove a model of the physical world. All you can do is test it to see whether it is consistent with observation. What they (especially Kimura) did was to develop a theoretical framework for describing neutral and nearly neutral evolution, and show that it explained observations that were then being made. It's now accepted that the neutral theory is a good description for most evolution in organisms like humans. It's not a good description for bacterial or viral evolution, where most of the genome is often under selective constraint.

maybe you missed post 5.

No, I read post 5. Are you under the impression that it somehow contradicts what I wrote? Most evolution in vertebrates is neutral. Adaptive evolution is almost always driven by selection. Both of those things are true.

 

[whois]

You can't prove a model of the physical world. All you can do is test it to see whether it is consistent with observation. What they (especially Kimura) did was to develop a theoretical framework for describing neutral and nearly neutral evolution, and show that it explained observations that were then being made. It's now accepted that the neutral theory is a good description for most evolution in organisms like humans. It's not a good description for bacterial or viral evolution, where most of the genome is often under selective constraint.

i believe the nearly neutral theory is the prominent one.

No, I read post 5. Are you under the impression that it somehow contradicts what I wrote? Most evolution in vertebrates is neutral. Adaptive evolution is almost always driven by selection. Both of those things are true.

not according to koonin.
he seems to think adaptation is some sort of by product of evolution, that is if i understood him correctly.
apparently genomes do not evolve adaptively.

 

[sfs]

i believe the nearly neutral theory is the prominent one.

It depends on who's doing what, but mostly, no; for example, Google Scholar returns ten times as many hits for "kimura neutral" as for "ohta nearly neutral". Kimura's application of diffusion theory to population genetics was the more ground-breaking and influential. While Ohta's extension of it is undoubtedly more accurate, it was also motivated by a rather narrow issue about the molecular clock.

not according to koonin.
he seems to think adaptation is some sort of by product of evolution, that is if i understood him correctly.
apparently genomes do not evolve adaptively.

You have misunderstood him. He's saying that genome complexity -- basically, how big a genome is -- has little to do with adaptive evolution. That's very different from dismissing the importance of selection in adaptation.

I've spent years studying natural selection in a range of organisms, and know the field pretty well. The centrality of selection to adaptive evolution has not changed. One thing that has changed, however, is an increased awareness that neutral evolution (drift) often also plays an important role in adaptation, by giving an organism access to many genomic paths. But it is still selection that ultimately makes adaptation possible.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

It is a consequence of reproduction and limited resources.


Both.


Because its both, it can affect both.



Humans can force selection to certain key things, such as enhanced ability to smell and track, giving us bloodhounds.
Since selection is a process, it doesn't have material things to "identify".



Whenever life started.


Not alone. It is part of the mechanism for evolution and the diversity of life.

Of course, nothing can stop natural selection from happening.
It is not an entity that makes plans.

Thanks for trying.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I respectfully suggest that you read a few books, you won't be pleased with them because they will tell it how things are and not how you would like them to be.

Things are the way they are.

If you want to continue to believe that something miraculous made everything then carry on thinking as you do.

Thanks. I will.

Being ignorant today about things is a choice some people make, there is no need for it because you have the world of knowledge at your finger tips.

I spent a lot of time perusing "Gray's Anatomy". My conclusion is that man is a product of special creation.

Perhaps after all this time it would be best if you remained believing as you do right up until the end.

I pray that I will.