What exactly is "natural selection"?

[sfs]

how can something be right, and wrong, at the same time?
welcome to the world of evolution that's how.
i gave koonins statement, and how i interpreted that statement

You've made more than one statement about Koonin. One of your statements was correct; that's the one I said was right. One of your statements was incorrect; that's the one I said was wrong. It really isn't very complicated.

i presented a paper in post 52 which attempts to give a definition for genome complexity.
you agreed with all of that.
the authors seems to use genome and organismic interchangeably.
it doesn't take much on my part to see that organismic complexity is not driven by natural selection.
you say this is both right and wrong.
actually you said it was right, until i wanted you to verify that i wasn't misrepresenting koonin.
then it became wrong.

When did I say it was wrong? Lynch does indeed say that major increases in organismal selection required relaxation of selection, rather than being driven by it. Presumably Koonin shares this view. I'm not positive that's it's true, but as far as I know it's a accurate statement about Koonin. But that's not what I've objected to: I object to your statement that Koonin (or current evolutionary theory) rejects natural selection as the critical driver of adaptive evolution. Once again, two different statements, one right and one wrong.

he gives a few examples in the mentioned paper that questions the idea.
i believe certain aspects of the evolution of the pandas thumb was one of them.

Gould argued that not all traits were adaptive or produced by natural selection. That's very different from claiming that no traits are produced by natural selection.

this was the motivation for his punctuated equilibrium hypothesis.

No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Punctuated equilibrium and non-adaptive evolution are distinct hypotheses, and have virtually nothing to do with one another. In fact, Gould's model for punctuated equilibrium depends heavily on the action of natural selection.

 

[whois]

That statement about Koonin was correct.

you didn't specify, but i'm assuming post 5 and my interpretation of it.
apparently i understand what koonin was talking about because i presented a link in post 52 that you said is most likely koonins view.
in this regard, am i misrepresenting koonin?

Your statement that I quoted above was not correct. That's why I said it wasn't accurate.

i wish you would include at least a post number so i can have a reference.

 

[whois]

Gould argued that not all traits were adaptive or produced by natural selection. That's very different from claiming that no traits are produced by natural selection.

where have i even hinted at zero natural selection?
i AM saying genetic drift can easily have more of an effect than natural selection, as a matter of fact natural selection might not be the dominate player in evolution.

No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Punctuated equilibrium and non-adaptive evolution are distinct hypotheses, and have virtually nothing to do with one another. In fact, Gould's model for punctuated equilibrium depends heavily on the action of natural selection.

when gould says bone structures evolve that have no function, i would call that non adaptive evolution.
furthermore, these structures had to be in place for the next round of evolution, vis the pandas thumb.
this is why he indtroduced PE.
apparently this transformation happened with a few generations, and gould explains this with spandrels.

 

[SkyWriting]

How do creationists get through the day?

All the live long day without pointless questions.

 

[SkyWriting]

As a juror, would you refuse to accept forensic evidence such as DNA evidence?

That would depend on the point that was being made about the evidence.
Testimony would come first. If the DNA supported the testimony
then it might be considered. If it opposed the testimony, then
it might be discounted.
---------------------------------
"The DNA test results challenged everything she knew about her family. Yes, her boyfriend was the father of the children, and, yes, they were all related, according to the DNA, except for Fairchild. She was told she wasn't the mother (of her own children). "
-------------------------------------
How did the Houston police crime lab stack up?
"It's the worst I've seen," says Thompson. "This doesn't meet the standard of a good junior high school science project."
"I found consistent distortions of the statistical certainty of the DNA evidence. I found instances that looked like fudging of results, to fit the prosecution's theory of the case. And I found a lab that consistently failed to use appropriate scientific procedures."

 

[sfs]

you didn't specify, but i'm assuming post 5 and my interpretation of it.
apparently i understand what koonin was talking about because i presented a link in post 52 that you said is most likely koonins view.
in this regard, am i misrepresenting koonin?

i wish you would include at least a post number so i can have a reference.

I've told you repeatedly what you're getting wrong. Once again: You disagree with the statement that almost all adaptive evolution is driven by natural selection, and attribute that view to Koonin. That is incorrect, both as a statement about adaptive evolution and about Koonin's view of it. Further, your statement, "apparently genomes do not evolve adaptively", if taken at face value, is completely wrong. All evolution involves the evolution of genomes -- that's what changes in evolution. So to say that genomes do not evolve adaptively is exactly equivalent to saying that there is no adaptive evolution.

 

[sfs]

where have i even hinted at zero natural selection?
i AM saying genetic drift can easily have more of an effect than natural selection, as a matter of fact natural
selection might not be the dominate player in evolution.

Now that statement is correct, at least as far as organisms like humans are concerned. It's also completely uncontroversial, so it's nothing that's going to upend evolutionary biology.

when gould says bone structures evolve that have no function, i would call that non adaptive evolution.
furthermore, these structures had to be in place for the next round of evolution, vis the pandas thumb.

Correct.

this is why he indtroduced PE.
apparently this transformation happened with a few generations, and gould explains this with spandrels.

That's the part that's incorrect. Where does Gould suggest that the Panda's thumb evolved in a few generations?

 

[whois]

I've told you repeatedly what you're getting wrong. Once again: You disagree with the statement that almost all adaptive evolution is driven by natural selection, and attribute that view to Koonin.

not just to koonin, but also to, Kimura, Ohta, Jukes, Crow, Gould, Lewontin and Noble.

 

[DogmaHunter]

not just to koonin, but also to, Kimura, Ohta, Jukes, Crow, Gould, Lewontin and Noble.

And continue to do so, even when Koonin is emailed about it and clarifies that that is not what he is saying.

 

[sfs]

not just to koonin, but also to, Kimura, Ohta, Jukes, Crow, Gould, Lewontin and Noble.

If you attributing that view to these people as well, then yes, you're wrong about that as well. I don't know about Jukes and don't care about Noble, but the others all had(*) conventional views about the importance of natural selection to adaptive evolution. Do note that I'm talking only about adaptive evolution here, not about all evolution.

(*)Present tense in the case of Lewontin.

 

[whois]

is post 5 correct, yes or no sfs.

 

[sfs]

is post 5 correct, yes or no sfs.

It could be taken the wrong way, but yes, I'd say it's correct. That's why loudmouth agreed with it.

 

[whois]

It could be taken the wrong way, but yes, I'd say it's correct. That's why loudmouth agreed with it.

how can post 5 be misinterpreted?
there is empirical evidence that says natural selection has little to no effect on the vast majority of genomes of organisms.

there can't be any question about the complexity of the record either.
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.

a link i presented (post 52) has this to say about genome complexity:
So, what does determine organismic complexity? Levine and Tjian, 2003 argue that organismic complexity correlates with an increase in the ratio and number of transcription factors per gene.
-ibid.
notice the link uses genome and organismic interchangably
you said this was most likely koonins view too.

all of the above is clear proof that natural selection is not even close to being even a minor player in evolution.

 

[Loudmouth]

how can post 5 be misinterpreted?
there is empirical evidence that says natural selection has little to no effect on the vast majority of genomes of organisms.

That is also non-controversial and part of the Modern Synthesis. The Modern Synthesis states that natural selection is critical to adaptive evolution. That has been the position since Darwin wrote "The Origin of Species". What Darwin was trying to explain is how species changed to better fit their environment. Natural Selection is still the critical mechanism in that process.

there can't be any question about the complexity of the record either.
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.

What record are you talking about? The fossil record? If so, that is not what Koonin is talking about. As a comparison, the much less morphologically complex amoeba has a much more complex genome compared to humans. The human genome is just 3 billion bases. The amoeba genome is over 600 billion bases. As you can see, genomic complexity and physical complexity are two different things. Please don't equate them.

a link i presented (post 52) has this to say about genome complexity:
So, what does determine organismic complexity? Levine and Tjian, 2003 argue that organismic complexity correlates with an increase in the ratio and number of transcription factors per gene.
-ibid.
notice the link uses genome and organismic interchangably
you said this was most likely koonins view too.

However, it doesn't link overall genome complexity. If you add transcription factors and genes together, you are still only talking about 10% of the genome at best. Koonin is also talking about the other 90%. Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

all of the above is clear proof that natural selection is not even close to being even a minor player in evolution.

However, it is a major player in adaptive evolution.

 

[whois]

www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

phys.org/news/2015-03-genes-permanently-silenced-small-rnas.html

 

[Loudmouth]

www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

phys.org/news/2015-03-genes-permanently-silenced-small-rnas.html

This is a discussion forum, not a suggested reading forum.

 

[whois]

This is a discussion forum, not a suggested reading forum.

when i first introduced epigenetics to this forum, your arugement was they weren't fixed into DNA.
i provided further evidence on how they can be.
next.

 

[Loudmouth]

when i first introduced epigenetics to this forum, your arugement was they weren't fixed into DNA.
i provided further evidence on how they can be.
next.

How does this relate to natural selection?

Do you think epigenetics will allow a chimp to give birth to a modern human? Or are the physical differences between the species due to differences in the DNA sequences of their genome?

 

[whois]

How does this relate to natural selection?

It might not be immediately obvious why this has such profound implications for evolution. In the way it's generally understood, the whole point of natural selection – the so-called "modern synthesis", is its beautiful, breathtaking, devastating simplicity.
In each generation, genes undergo random mutations, making offspring subtly different from their parents; those mutations that enhance an organism's abilities to thrive and reproduce in its own particular environment will tend to spread through populations, while those that make successful breeding less likely will eventually peter out.

Yet epigenetics suggests this isn't the whole story. If what happens to you during your lifetime – living in a stress-inducing henhouse, say, or overeating in northern Sweden – can affect how your genes express themselves in future generations, the absolutely simple version of natural selection begins to look questionable. Rather than genes simply "offering up" a random smorgasbord of traits in each new generation, which then either prove suited or unsuited to the environment, it seems that the environment plays a role in creating those traits in future generations, if only in a short-term and reversible way.
www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

the second link shows how these changes can become fixed in DNA.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yet epigenetics suggests this isn't the whole story. If what happens to you during your lifetime – living in a stress-inducing henhouse, say, or overeating in northern Sweden – can affect how your genes express themselves in future generations, the absolutely simple version of natural selection begins to look questionable.

Are you saying that animals as different as humans and bears boils down to epigenetics? Are you saying that if a bear was exposed to the same environment as humans that they would give birth to humans?

the second link shows how these changes can become fixed in DNA.

And? They are your references. It is up to you to present them.