Mighty Mag

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• Azou

  July 22nd, 2012 17:27

  "Survival of the Fittest" means surviving to breed. That is literally it. It has nothing to do with a species getting "better" as "better" doesn't really mean anything. A weak insect that is preyed upon by numerous predators is considered "fit" because it reproduces en masse, ensuring that some of its many offspring will survive to reproduce. Because "Survival of the Fittest" means surviving to breed. We are still prone to disease because 1) things like viruses are also evolving to counter our cures and natural defenses and 2) they aren't doing harm to the point where humans cannot survive to reproduce. We therefore are still "fit." Because "Survival of the Fittest" means surviving to breed. Quiz time, Gunther: what is meant by "Survival of the Fittest?"
• Steven J. Thompson

  July 22nd, 2012 19:36

  I'm not sure how one tells one of your or Ray's parodies from an attempt at a serious argument. For example, what is absurd about the claim that if humans are apes, God must be an ape? To me, the absurdity is the assumption that the Maker must be the same "kind" as the made; it doesn't follow from the assumption that God made humans that God is Himself human. Indeed, the entire "argument from biogenesis" for divine creation has this problem: according to Christian theology (Mormons possibly excepted), God is not a biological organism. Of course, if Jesus was God made man, then, human beings being a species of ape, he was necessarily God made ape, as well as God made mammal, God made vertebrate, and God made animal. Perhaps the absurdity is your own assumption that a taxonomical category is an insult.
• Steven J. Thompson

  July 22nd, 2012 19:41

  What Azou said, with a few addenda: fitness is relative to one's ecological niche. This is something even children's books try to convey: the traits (stocky build, thick white fur, small ears) that make an arctic fox fitter for its environment would make a desert fox (with its long limbs, thin coat, and long ears) less fit for its environment, and vice-versa. In domesticating dogs (and cattle, etc.) we created a new artificial environment in which different traits from those favored in the wild were "fitter," and in that new environment traits that would not have survived in the wild were adaptions. This is the point behind Darwin's finches: a given population can give rise to many different groups of descendants, each occupying a different niche in which different traits are "fitter."
• Steven J. Thompson

  July 22nd, 2012 19:49

  Darwin was not the last or absolute word on evolutionary theory. It does not rest on his authority, is not limited to his original ideas, and need not incorporate every idea he ever had. Evolutionary theory is science, not religion; it has researchers and theorists, not prophets. That point aside, Darwin did not propose that evolution was a ladder to perfection, or that populations constantly improved (indeed, as pointed out above, evolutionary theory implies that what is improvement in one environment or situation might be deterioration in another). Over time, populations become better fitted to their environment; that might or might not have anything to do with being "stronger," or "smarter," or "nicer" (although it's pleasant to see an argument that doesn't assume that evolution must be making us crueler and more dangerous all the time -- which again is false). Darwin replaced the "evolutionary ladder" of Lamarck with an "evolutionary tree" in which very different adaptions make different populations suited to different environments. Note that evolution happens to everything: diseases evolve too, and the problem is not that we don't become more resistant to them, it's that they aren't sitting still; as our immune systems become better at killing pathogens, the pathogens become better at evading or surviving our immune system. It's an arms race that can go on for millions of years.
• Steven J. Thompson

  July 22nd, 2012 19:53

  A point I should perhaps bring up: for the most part, Darwin spoke of natural selection or "survival of the fittest" as happening within populations. The environment, as it were, grades on a curve: if you can find food, avoid becoming food, attract a mate, resist diseases and parasites, etc. better than the competition actually in your area, you have a good chance of passing on your genes even if, compared to some far distant (in space or time) possible competitor you're hopelessly outclassed.
• Steven J. Thompson

  July 22nd, 2012 20:04

  Aside from the point that natural selection favors being able to pass on one's genes, and favors intelligence, etc. only insofar as it helps you leave descendants, some of the respects in which you argue that modern humans are inferior to ancient ones are dubious. We have a pretty good idea of how they moved giant blocks of stone, for example; it required sledges and rollers and ramps and teams of workers, not some super-science (or super-strength) beyond our ken. "More complex languages" is a judgment that would require comparing huge numbers of ancient and modern languages; Sanskrit has more cases than any modern Indo-European tongue, but there are non-IE languages that have more. And oddly, powerful, advanced cultures tend to acquire simpler grammars over time (because they conquer other peoples, who have to learn the conquerors' language, and who tend to leave out the frills like unnecessary cases and intricate, irregular verbs: this is why Persian has a simpler grammar than Pashto, for example). I've mentioned that diseases evolve along with us. As for moral progress, it's not clear that evolutionary theory predicts it, at least not over historical, as opposed to geological, time scales. On the other hand, you ought to look into Stephen Pinker's _The Better Angels of Our Nature_; he argues, with a great deal of statistical evidence, that humans have grown less violent over the last couple of thousand years. The level of violence in the last two world wars is something like the human norm in prehistoric and ancient times; they are aberrations compared to the decline in the percentage of violent deaths in our species overall.
• Richard

  July 23rd, 2012 11:38

  Your definition of natural selection is quite good, but it sits on top of a problem. The problem is this: selection means to choose one or more things from a number of options, so in order for 'natural selection' to happen, there has to be a range of options to choose from. Bears are a good example. They have the genetic potential to be black, brown or white. This why we have black bears, brown bears and white bears, but we will never have pink bears or yellow bears. Those options are not available. The selection can only select from what is available. So while you happily claim that 'natural selection' can help germs or plants or animals 'evolve', all you are really describing is change within strict limits. The real reason why we see change within species is because God gave each living thing, from elephants to microbes, a range of options to select from, to help them adapt to a changing environment. There is no evolution, in the Darwinian sense, going on.
• Richard

  July 23rd, 2012 11:43

  You say: "Evolutionary theory is science, not religion." An odd claim, considering there is no empirical science to demonstrate how it could ever happen. The theory is based on faith, and its 'priests' propagate its doctrines as keenly as a Muslim quotes the Koran. In the face of a deteriorating human genome, which is progressively collecting mistakes, evolutionists claim that evolution is always in the direction of increasing information, improvement, upward progress. In the face of a DNA molecule which resists change, evolutionists claim DNA is infinitely flexible and always changing. In the face of a specific, limited number of genes, evolutionists claim that genes are always increasing their options. In the face of fossil evidence showing no transitional forms, evolutionists claim the fossil record is full of transitional forms. Sounds like a religious theory to me.
• Richard

  July 23rd, 2012 11:49

  The problem with this is that the smaller the niche, the less genetic material is available, until in some cases the genes are so poor the species dies out. Darwin's finches have diversified a little from their original genetic stock, but given a change in the environment some of them may revert back to earlier 'models' because they may still have the genetic material to do so, while others will not be able to do so. A good example is the elephant. When God created the elephant, He built into it the genetic capacity to breed hairy,(mammoth) and hairless (Indian, African) As the world's climate changed after the global flood, the genes expressing more hair gave some elephants an advantage in colder climates, so the hairless died out (I presume), while the hairless adapted well in hotter lands. But here's the catch, the genetic material for mammoths has been lost in the African and Indian, so we cannot breed them back to mammoth. In a similar way we cannot breed chihuahuas back to wolf, or great dane, or husky. Once the gene pool is disturbed, something tends to be lost, and quite often it is lost forever.
• Richard

  July 23rd, 2012 11:56

  I think you're taking this far too seriously. God is Creator, and therefore separate and distinct from creation. The Bible calls Him Father, Son and Spirit. He created apes and He created humans. Apes are animals, highly complex and beautifully made, but amoral and driven by instinct - humans are also physical and fleshly, but also bear some likeness to their Creator. Because humans are part of this world they also have some affinity to it - they eat, breathe, drink, and so on, just like all organisms, but humans are also higher than animals in that they have a moral sensitivity. While you argue about these sideline and usually quite trivial things, time is ticking, and your eternal destiny is rushing towards you. I urge you to think more about the death of Jesus on the cross, and consider where you will be spending that eternity.
• Richard

  July 23rd, 2012 12:05

  Survival of the fittest is a term coined a few years ago to describe how an organism 'fits' its environment. For example, if a rabbit has six kits, and one of them is a runt, the small, weak runt will probably die, while the strongest kit may go on to start its own warren. Because the strongest rabbit offspring survived, it is considered to be the 'fittest' and will probably transfer its genetic material to the doe it mates with and produce a similarly strong offspring. As the environment changes the rabbit may adapt, not consciously, but by producing offspring which happen to have a genetic disposition to survive in a different environment because they are larger/smaller/faster/browner, etc - for example, thicker fur for colder climate, or less fur for warmer climate. But the 'sting in the tail' of your question is the implied idea that as organisms adapt and survive, they also change and hence the theory of evolution. The fact is, change has absolute limits, so if an organism has no genetic potential left to change beyond the limits set in its genes, it will not be able to adapt any further, and will die out - become extinct. Survival of the fittest is only viable when there is genetic material available to drive change, but modern science has shown that genetic material does not increase. It either mutates, or clones copies,(as in some bacterium) or it deteriorates. So the idea that 'survival of the fittest' can lead to evolution in the Darwinian sense, is a fallacy.
• BaldySlaphead

  July 24th, 2012 19:08

  "It reminded me of a joke I read, where a little kid asked his Dad “If God made us, and we are apes, then God must be an ape too!” Very logical, and based on the original premise being true, quite consistent, but funny, because the whole question is based on a silly premise." I agree this is based on a silly premise. Your misunderstanding of evolutionary theory is depressing, Richard. Virtually everything you say in the numerous posts above is fallacious. To take but one claim: The runt of a litter dying is unlikely to do with what so-called "survival of the fittest" means in an evolutionary sense. It is likely to be a consequence of a non-genetic developmental issue in the womb. It's going to be genetically very similar to its siblings, yet they survive, so how could it be anything about evolution, which concerns the change in frequencies in alleles in a population? Survival of the fittest relates to the organisms which are most fit for their environmental niche.
• Richard

  July 25th, 2012 12:29

  One of the amazing things about life is the variety, and also the vast amount of variation within life. For example black parents have sometimes produced albino offspring, due to the variation possible within the genes, and hair can be blond, brunette, black, orange and brown. Mutations also occur from time to time, for example the bulging eyes of Japanese goldfish. These fish, bred to express their mutation, could not survive in the wild - they would not 'fit' their environment as well as 'normal' fish. In any litter of six or more offspring born to a dog there is always variation in size, and 'personality', and in the human population this is obviously true as well. Nature loves variety. One of the benefits of variation is the way it offers up to the environment (in a manner of speaking) the potential to adapt to change. On the Galapagos islands, for example, there is a species of finch which has adapted to a changing food supply. As the seasons come and go seeds vary in hardness. Finches which have stronger beaks tend to collect more food, so they survive better than finches with smaller and weaker beaks. The better the beak, the 'fitter' the finch is, relative to its environment. Survival of the fittest, in this case, means finches which 'fit' the environment best have the best chance of survival. Finches which have weaker and smaller beaks tend to fail to survive - extinction of the weakest. The last sentence in your reply is correct, so I think we are in agreement on this point. The problem lies elsewhere. I believe all living things were created, within six literal days, and have since then changed and adapted to a changing environment - whereas you believe Nature is the result of millions of years of accidents. The flaw in your view is the complete failure to account for the origin of life, the origin of DNA -coded, intelligent information, and the origin of new DNA giving rise to new limbs, organs and development of species - from fish to dinosaur. As I see things, the creation model (which admittedly also rests on faith) is consistent with the Nature I can see around me, whereas the evolution model (also resting on faith) is not supported by any good science.
• Richard

  August 8th, 2012 15:30

  Jesus said: "To what then will I liken the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace, and call one to another, saying, 'We piped to you, and you didn't dance. We mourned, and you didn't weep.' For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard; a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Wisdom is justified by all her children." There are many people who mock the Bible and the Christian way, but this says more about the mockers than the mocked.

Trackbacks

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