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The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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ant

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Re: The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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Dexter wrote:Because it's not the first time you've come across as an evolution skeptic, but as usual you're quite squirrely about your actual position. It would be odd for someone who has no problem with evolution to refer to people as Darwinian puppets.
oh. So youre all in on free will, eh wot?
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Dexter

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Re: The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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You started a thread on evolution that had nothing to do with free will, calling out "Darwinian puppets"

Did you have a point?

You're not willing to acknowledge the basic facts of evolution?
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Re: The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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Have I ever denied evolutionary "facts"?

Show me where I have
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Dexter

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Re: The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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We've tried to pin you down on stating something clearly before. It's really difficult.

You got all worked up because Dawkins talked about being descended from a fish-like creature, which is completely uncontroversial in biology. I guess because the entire evolutionary tree hasn't been constructed yet in sufficient detail, or because people are using the word "fact" and you don't think that's appropriate. We never really figured it out I don't think.

http://www.booktalk.org/richard-dawkins ... 14319.html
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Re: The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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Dexter wrote:We've tried to pin you down on stating something clearly before. It's really difficult.

You got all worked up because Dawkins talked about being descended from a fish-like creature, which is completely uncontroversial in biology. I guess because the entire evolutionary tree hasn't been constructed yet in sufficient detail, or because people are using the word "fact" and you don't think that's appropriate. We never really figured it out I don't think.

http://www.booktalk.org/richard-dawkins ... 14319.html
I have distinguished between a theory and a hypothesis before here. Did you miss it?
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Re: The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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It strikes me as odd that Richard Dawkins considers low fidelity replication of memes an objection to the theory. Why is this?
If I understand correctly the "purpose" of genes is their replication and survival, in his view.
So we have this very complex thing the cell containing D.n.a's coded instructions complete with translation,transcription and corrective mechanisms working towards precise cell replication and corresponding phenotypes.
Yet the creative force of evolution is something that undermines it,random mutations such as errors in sequencing or transcription.
Critics point out that random errors in computer codes tend to degrade the function of the program and likewise random mutations tend to produce analogous defects in biological organisms.
However they reply, every once in a blue moon a mutation improves an organism in some way and over aeons of time we get evolutionary development.Nevertheless the "purpose" of the genes and cell and its elaborate mechanisms have essentially been subverted by an error.
Mutations become the creative force of evolution and natural selection favours the best adapted variations to survive and reproduce their mutants creations.
How does natural selection drive evolution? Some question the power of natural selection as Richard Dawkins sees it in it's blind watchmaker role, and Dennett as sifting and thriftily saving advantages cumulatively.
Some see natural selection as essentially neutral in relation to mutations at the molecular and larger level of plants and animals.
I'm obviously sceptical about the theory but in any case here is the argument in relation to natural selection and it's role or non role as the case may be.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinis ... -be-false/
Last edited by Flann 5 on Sat Oct 11, 2014 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The start of a conceptual shift with how evolution is understood.

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Yet the creative force of evolution is something that undermines it,random mutations such as errors in sequencing or transcription.
This is like saying that phosphorus, essential for life, just so happens to be toxic, and calling it a contradiction. The more you learn about evolution, the more you see that the processes happening today do so at mixed proportions. Millions of years ago, spandrels of the evolutionary tree had far too little fidelity. Others had far too much. Neither exist any more, and we're left with what appears to be a balance.

Similar understanding is applied to the issues found in the article you linked. Mutual exclusivity of trait selection. Would speed be selected for, or smarts? Well, there's an inherent misunderstanding here. Let's pick something other than smarts, since that is primarily cultural evolution. Speed or strength then. The article suggests that selection of traits is linear, you get one or the other. But we know the phenotypes of a child are a rough hodgepodge of her parents, a blended mix that is anything but linear.

I read the next section of the article as well. Why does this stuff get repeated as if there aren't ample resources showing how it's wrong. Haldane's dilemma? Christ Flann, that was in 1957, and has been shown false for nearly as long as I've been alive.

Before you post stuff like this, hoping it bolsters your position, search for responses to it. This might get depressing after a while, because there is nothing anywhere that is an argument against evolution in general yet hasn't been addressed.

You keep mentioning Dawkins and Dennett. There are thousands of other prestigious names you could add to the list here, who all come to the same consensus. Authors and professors galore. These two might be two of the more famous ones, but there are many others that are more humble with an arguably greater grasp on evolution.
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