On Darwinism

[Orton's Arm]

You missed my point. "Anthropocentric bull sh--" referred to this unproven hypothesis you have of "The rules don't apply to us because we're human beings."...this whole humans-don't-evolve-because-we're-techonolgocal thing you're trying to explain. That's nothing but a hypothesis...and not a very good one, seeing that it's basis is nothing more than an argument of "But we're special!" Who says we're special? Who says evolution stops when you achieve technology? Who says technological achievement isn't evolutionary in itself? Where does it say that competitive selection of advantageous traits stops when a species can affect its environment? I can shoot down the basic premise of your argument - that evolution doesn't apply to a species that can technologically affect its environment - with three simple words:

 

Beavers bulid dams.

Woolley's point is perfectly valid, and it doesn't just apply to human beings. Some breeds of domesticated animals have lost many of the traits that allow their non-domestic counterparts to survive. A wolf that can't run at high speeds over long distances will be weeded from the gene pool. The same is not the case for Yorkshire terriers. If Yorkshire terriers are successful in going feral, I haven't heard of it. This suggests the terrier has become something which can succeed only in a domesticated environment; never in the wild.

 

To what extent have human beings domesticated themselves? As Woolley has pointed out, people who would be weeded out "in the wild" are perfectly able to have children due to the nature of modern society. Some of this is due to technology masking genetic defects, some to social programs, and some is due to other factors.

 

One factor in particular is that the benefits of technology advances are generally shared. Consider a scientist who makes a major discovery. The benefits of this discovery are shared by humanity or some random subset; and not by the scientist or by those who have the most in common with him genetically. Genetic traits which lead people to make major discoveries aren't being selected for. Because smart people tend to have fewer children, such traits are actively being selected against.

 

The domestication of the Yorkshire terrier is sustainable so long as humanity is able to continue to support such animals. The same is not necessarily true of humanity's domestication of itself. In modern society, both smart and unintelligent people benefit from the discoveries and engineering of the very brightest. Both altruistic and selfish people alike benefit from those willing to deny themselves to benefit the greater whole. The people who produce these benefits aren't receiving genetic rewards; and are often being genetically punished for the traits that make them beneficial to the group.

[DC Tom]

No, I was trying to sort-of redefine evolve. Our species is evolving, but not in the way species of rodents evolved millions of years ago or whatever. Our species is evolving...we're getting bigger, right?...but that's not genetics, that's nutrition. We're living longer lives, but that's because of medicine, and not because are genes are getting any "better". So there is evolution, and it's driven by technology, which is not itself a natural force, but an artificial one.

 

Which I got (technology being an artificial and not natural force). And again, I say: says who?

 

Part of the problem is "technology" is ill-defined in our discussion. What is technology? Beavers build dams. Otters use tools (yes, they do - they're known for using rocks to break open mussels. Not smashing the mussel agains the rock, but smashing the rock against the mussel). Bees build communal structures to the betterment of all the community. Ants communicate and cooperate to gather resources. In one sense, those are not technological, because they are "instinctive" rather than "rationalized" (e.g. beavers are "born knowing how" to build a dam rather than having to think through the engineering - though I could very well imagine it being a learned skill as well. Makes me wonder if anyone's ever studied it...) In another sense, they can be considered technological, as they are all a means of acting on the environment...which, it seems to me, is precisely the sense that applies in a discussion on evolution. To argue that, although beavers and humans build dams, beaver and human "technology" have different evolutionary impacts because beavers build instinctively but humans rationalize is, again, anthropomorphic nonsense. Both are nothing more than ways for a species to affect its environment to gain an evolutionary advantage.

 

 

Apparently me?

 

If you don't think we're special, that's fine. So we're no more speical than the average dandelion. That is independent of the points I'm making. Forget the special bit. Does technology guide are species? Is there real competition amongst humans in reproducing? Are there real stresses that make it difficult for the young to grow to reproductive age and reproduce? Do circumstances (what social class, economic class, political climate) have more to do with the quality, even quantity, of our lives completely independent of our genes?

You say "circumstances". I say ENVIRONMENT. Same damn thing.

 

Babies, in a vacuum, aren't going to grow and be technological, but if they grow in a technological world, it will become an acquired trait.

 

I fail to see what that has to do with evolution. You seem to think that anything that requires rationalization (i.e. the ability to think rationally) is unnatural, ergo not an evolutionary feature. I can't even begin to see why that should possibly be true. Hell, I can think of a lot of reasons why it wouldn't be true. Ever seen a squirrel try to get to a squirrel-proof bird feeder. Squirrels are pretty !@#$ing dumb...but watch them reason through getting to a bird feeder; that's some pretty good rationalizing skills there. Cats, crows, parrots...even better (better than some people I know).

 

 

Now, tell me what competitive selection of advantageous traits is currently happening world wide in our species.

 

You're kidding, right? Competitive selection is everywhere. Ever work in an office? Hell, ever go clubbing?

[DC Tom]

Some of this is due to technology masking genetic defects, some to social programs, and some is due to other factors.

 

In short: ENVIRONMENT

[DC Tom]

You are good at one thing: taking a single isolated example, and extrapolating it to the entire group/population just to prove your asinine point, no matter how wrong it is. Genetic fitness is going to depend on the environment, not the gene.

 

I can put those same bacteria into a host that has a short life span. What happens? the "normal bacteria dont reproduce enough before the host dies. The fast reproducing bacteria reproduce enough to spread before the host dies. Hence the mutated bacteria are better.

 

And thus, we've discovered that other principle: co-evolution. Also known as "nothing happens in a vacuum."

[Orton's Arm]

Yeah, I did miss that part. I tend to not read his posts too closely, as he rarely has anything rational to say.

 

Regardless...there's also real-world examples of that sort of mutation I'm aware of (though I can't quote them in detail off the top of my head). And in truth...the same effect generally happens. The fail or succeed based on the environment and not the mutation. Faster reproduction is not necessarily a survival advantage. Again, it depends on the environment.

I'll start supplying thoughtful responses when HA starts having thoughtful conversations. Boy needs to go back to the children's table.

Your utter arrogance would be easier to excuse if if was backed up by intellectual rigor. But both in this discussion and in most of our previous ones, the objections you've attempted to raise displayed either a) a basic lack of understanding of what the other poster was saying, b) a misunderstanding of the underlying concept, or c) both. For example, someone will clearly and coherently explain concept A. You, on the other hand, are fixated on your understanding of concept B. You mistakenly assume 1) that concepts A and concept B contradict each other, and 2) that the person with whom you're disagreeing is an idiot for not understanding concept B. (You interpret silence about B to indicate ignorance.) Then instead of laying out your deeply flawed thought process for everyone to see, you'll simply write, "You're an idiot," or something to that effect.

 

Given the childishness and immaturity of your own behavior, I'm a little surprised you feel yourself in a strong enough position to make accusations against others. Then again, people with high levels of inner weakness and insecurity often have a need to put down others. People who have reached a deep level of maturity don't have that need.

[Ramius]

Suppose there's a trait out there for, say, height, which is 80% determined by parents' observable traits, and 20% determined by environment, random chance, or recessive genes. Under those circumstances, if two parents were 100 units above the average height, their children would, on average, be 80 units above the population's average.

 

 

Those who disagreed with me made a number of silly claims. The anti-Darwinistic implication was one of them. Currently, relatively unintelligent people are having more children than smart people. I feel reversing this situation would improve the quality of the gene pool; and our nation's long-term future. Others argued that changing these childbearing patterns would produce no long-term improvement in average intelligence levels. They pointed out that if people with very high I.Q.s have children, those children will, on average, be smart, but not quite so smart as their parents. Likewise, if two exceptionally stupid people have kids, the kids are also expected to be stupid, but not as stupid as their parents. Based on these two facts, those who disagreed with me concluded current childbearing patterns aren't a source of concern; nor could an altered childbearing pattern be a source of hope. Either way, the thinking went, the nation's gene pool with respect to intelligence will remain the same over the long run. If this logic is correct, it would undermine the basis for Darwinism. I'm not aware of any trait that's 100% narrow-sense heritable; so all or nearly all characteristics experience the regression toward the mean I've described.

 

 

Woolley was dead-on right. He was saying that whether you take good care of yourself or not, your underlying genetics will remain the same. The genes you're passing onto your kids will be the same. Natural selection works by giving those with the best genes more opportunities to survive or reproduce. And that's correct.

 

But, you might respond, what about a situation where animals have roughly the same genetics, but radically different environments? Clearly those who had the best environments will tend to have a strong advantage for survival and reproduction. But this type of natural selection does not improve the gene pool, and therefore does not result in Darwinistic evolution. Darwinism deals strictly with how genetically-based reproductive or survival advantages gradually change species' genetics.

 

The articles you found indicate that if person A and person B both eat the same meals; their bodies will likely respond in different ways due to their genetic differences. That's also correct; but not something that contradicts anything written by Woolley.

 

Just to prove you are wrong, here are direct quotes from my genetics textbook.

 

1. "Heritability for IQ is commonly accepted as 0.60. heritability is a stat pertaining to a population, and has NO meaning when applied to an individual. It is therefore NOT correct to say 60% of a person's IQ is determined by genes and 40% is determined by environment."

 

2. "heritability estimates pertain only to variation within the specific population, and NOT to variation between populations. A heritability of 0.60 does NOT mean that 60% of the differences between IQ scores between 2 separate populations is due to different genes."

 

3. "Heribility of a characteristic is NOT a permanent characteristic of a population. It pertains to a given time, under the currently prevailing conditions."

 

4. "Heritable does not mean inevitable"

 

5. "The heritbility of intelligence , even with an estimate as high as 0.60, is an inadequate foundation on which to base claims and construct social policy."

 

6. "For a complex trait such as intelligence, there is no readily discernable chain of cause and effects events leading from genotype to phenotype, such as ther is in albinism of hemophelia."

 

Looks like you have been proven wrong, once and for all. Thanks for playing.

 

And for good measure: when you claim that your regression to the mean beliefs clash with darwinism, that tells us that your regression analysis and beliefs are bull sh-- and wrong, NOT darwinism.

[DC Tom]

Your utter arrogance would be easier to excuse if if was backed up by intellectual rigor. But both in this discussion and in most of our previous ones, the objections you've attempted to raise displayed either a) a basic lack of understanding of what the other poster was saying, b) a misunderstanding of the underlying concept, or c) both. For example, someone will clearly and coherently explain concept A. You, on the other hand, are fixated on your understanding of concept B. You mistakenly assume 1) that concepts A and concept B contradict each other, and 2) that the person with whom you're disagreeing is an idiot for not understanding concept B. (You interpret silence about B to indicate ignorance.) Then instead of laying out your deeply flawed thought process for everyone to see, you'll simply write, "You're an idiot," or something to that effect.

 

Given the childishness and immaturity of your own behavior, I'm a little surprised you feel yourself in a strong enough position to make accusations against others. Then again, people with high levels of inner weakness and insecurity often have a need to put down others. People who have reached a deep level of maturity don't have that need.

 

Are you on drugs?

[DC Tom]

Just to prove you are wrong, here are direct quotes from my genetics textbook.

 

1. "Heritability for IQ is commonly accepted as 0.60. heritability is a stat pertaining to a population, and has NO meaning when applied to an individual. It is therefore NOT correct to say 60% of a person's IQ is determined by genes and 40% is determined by environment."

 

2. "heritability estimates pertain only to variation within the specific population, and NOT to variation between populations. A heritability of 0.60 does NOT mean that 60% of the differences between IQ scores between 2 separate populations is due to different genes."

 

3. "Heribility of a characteristic is NOT a permanent characteristic of a population. It pertains to a given time, under the currently prevailing conditions."

 

4. "Heritable does not mean inevitable"

 

5. "The heritbility of intelligence , even with an estimate as high as 0.60, is an inadequate foundation on which to base claims and construct social policy."

 

6. "For a complex trait such as intelligence, there is no readily discernable chain of cause and effects events leading from genotype to phenotype, such as ther is in albinism of hemophelia."

 

Looks like you have been proven wrong, once and for all. Thanks for playing.

 

And for good measure: when you claim that your regression to the mean beliefs clash with darwinism, that tells us that your regression analysis and beliefs are bull sh-- and wrong, NOT darwinism.

 

But can you read it on a Stanford web page? Because if you can't, it's wrong.

[Orton's Arm]

Just to prove you are wrong, here are direct quotes from my genetics textbook.

 

1. "Heritability for IQ is commonly accepted as 0.60. heritability is a stat pertaining to a population, and has NO meaning when applied to an individual. It is therefore NOT correct to say 60% of a person's IQ is determined by genes and 40% is determined by environment."

 

2. "heritability estimates pertain only to variation within the specific population, and NOT to variation between populations. A heritability of 0.60 does NOT mean that 60% of the differences between IQ scores between 2 separate populations is due to different genes."

 

3. "Heribility of a characteristic is NOT a permanent characteristic of a population. It pertains to a given time, under the currently prevailing conditions."

 

4. "Heritable does not mean inevitable"

 

5. "The heritbility of intelligence , even with an estimate as high as 0.60, is an inadequate foundation on which to base claims and construct social policy."

 

6. "For a complex trait such as intelligence, there is no readily discernable chain of cause and effects events leading from genotype to phenotype, such as ther is in albinism of hemophelia."

 

Looks like you have been proven wrong, once and for all. Thanks for playing.

 

And for good measure: when you claim that your regression to the mean beliefs clash with darwinism, that tells us that your regression analysis and beliefs are bull sh-- and wrong, NOT darwinism.

Statements 1 - 3 are mainstream. I'm not going to argue with them, except to say that there have been different estimates for the heritability for intelligence; many of which are higher than the 0.60 your textbook mentioned. The American Psychological Association has accepted a heritability estimate north of 0.70, for example.

 

It's also true heritability estimates are made for the individual, not the group. A heritability estimate of 0.70 means that, on average, 70% of differences in intelligence can be explained by genetics. That percentage could be lower or higher for any given person.

 

Statement 2 was made with race in mind. Just because, say, 60% or 70% of within-group variation is the result of genetic differences does not imply that exactly 60% or 70% of intelligence differences between races are caused by genetics. The two subjects are separate.

 

Statement 3 is correct, because of the way heritability works. In a situation where the relevant environment differs radically from one person to the next, heritability estimates will be low for any given trait. Your height, for example, might have more to do with whether you were malnourished as a child than with your genetic predisposition to height. When environments become more similar, genetics play a larger role in determining differences between one person and the next. Hence, the heritability estimate for height is a lot higher in populations where everyone receives good nutrition than it is for populations where many people grow up half-starved.

 

Statement 4 could have been worded better. It should read, "heritable does not necessarily mean inevitable." There are times when it does. For example, physical traits are heritable enough that most people can't become NFL offensive linemen no matter how hard they try. The heritability of physical or mental traits means certain life options are inevitably denied. While heritability creates an inescapable ceiling for all of us, it doesn't create an inevitable floor. Your parents might be talented athletes, but if you grow up malnourished, or don't exercise enough, you won't achieve as much as them.

 

With statement 5, the author of your genetics book compromised his or her intellectual integrity to kowtow to the pressures of political correctness. If, for example, the discussion turned toward a relatively uncontroversial topic (such as dog breeding) there would be no argument that selectively breeding dogs for a given trait will produce the desired result. That remains true even when the trait is hard to quantify; such as aggressiveness, or a tendency to herd sheep, or to help people in water rescue, or intelligence, etc. But once the subject turns to human beings, intelligence, and social policy, the lessons learned in dog breeding somehow go out the window.

 

Statement 6 (the poorly understood relationship between genotype and phenotype) was presumably written in an attempt to support statement 5. Yes, the relationship between genotype and phenotype is better understood for some traits than for others. But selective breeding programs targeted at animals produce results for all targeted traits, regardless of how well or poorly geneticists comprehend the underlying mechanisms at work.

[DC Tom]

Statements 1 - 3 are mainstream. I'm not going to argue with them, except to say that there have been different estimates for the heritability for intelligence; many of which are higher than the 0.60 your textbook mentioned. The American Psychological Association has accepted a heritability estimate north of 0.70, for example.

 

It's also true heritability estimates are made for the individual, not the group. A heritability estimate of 0.70 means that, on average, 70% of differences in intelligence can be explained by genetics. That percentage could be lower or higher for any given person.

 

Statement 2 was made with race in mind. Just because, say, 60% or 70% of within-group variation is the result of genetic differences does not imply that exactly 60% or 70% of intelligence differences between races are caused by genetics. The two subjects are separate.

 

Statement 3 is correct, because of the way heritability works. In a situation where the relevant environment differs radically from one person to the next, heritability estimates will be low for any given trait. Your height, for example, might have more to do with whether you were malnourished as a child than with your genetic predisposition to height. When environments become more similar, genetics play a larger role in determining differences between one person and the next. Hence, the heritability estimate for height is a lot higher in populations where everyone receives good nutrition than it is for populations where many people grow up half-starved.

 

Statement 4 could have been worded better. It should read, "heritable does not necessarily mean inevitable." There are times when it does. For example, physical traits are heritable enough that most people can't become NFL offensive linemen no matter how hard they try. The heritability of physical or mental traits means certain life options are inevitably denied. While heritability creates an inescapable ceiling for all of us, it doesn't create an inevitable floor. Your parents might be talented athletes, but if you grow up malnourished, or don't exercise enough, you won't achieve as much as them.

 

With statement 5, the author of your genetics book compromised his or her intellectual integrity to kowtow to the pressures of political correctness. If, for example, the discussion turned toward a relatively uncontroversial topic (such as dog breeding) there would be no argument that selectively breeding dogs for a given trait will produce the desired result. That remains true even when the trait is hard to quantify; such as aggressiveness, or a tendency to herd sheep, or to help people in water rescue, or intelligence, etc. But once the subject turns to human beings, intelligence, and social policy, the lessons learned in dog breeding somehow go out the window.

 

Statement 6 (the poorly understood relationship between genotype and phenotype) was presumably written in an attempt to support statement 5. Yes, the relationship between genotype and phenotype is better understood for some traits than for others. But selective breeding programs targeted at animals produce results for all targeted traits, regardless of how well or poorly geneticists comprehend the underlying mechanisms at work.

 

Maybe you should write textbooks, then...

[Ramius]

Maybe you should write textbooks, then...

 

Holcomb's arm knows more than published geneticists. got it.

 

I like the touch of refuting scientific fact with his own small minded retarded beliefs.

 

Holcombs arm logic: "If my stance goes against mainstream science/math, then mainstream science and math are wrong."

[Wacka]

He's quoting the American Psychological Association on genetics?

[DC Tom]

Holcomb's arm knows more than published geneticists. got it.

 

I like the touch of refuting scientific fact with his own small minded retarded beliefs.

 

Holcombs arm logic: "If my stance goes against mainstream science/math, then mainstream science and math are wrong."

 

Hey, just because you're a PhD in microbiology reciting from a graduate-level genetics textbook written by an authority on the subject, doesn't make you right.

[Ramius]

Statement 6 (the poorly understood relationship between genotype and phenotype) was presumably written in an attempt to support statement 5. Yes, the relationship between genotype and phenotype is better understood for some traits than for others. But selective breeding programs targeted at animals produce results for all targeted traits, regardless of how well or poorly geneticists comprehend the underlying mechanisms at work.

 

its not just a non-understanding of the mechanism. Its that there is no DISCERNABLE mechanism to get from genotype to phenotype!. We dont know how the hell intelligence is determined from genetics and environment, and there is no indisputable effective way to assign a numerical value to intelligence, so theres no way you can successfully selectively breed for it.

 

The genetic/environment aspects of intelligence are so highly unknown that it is impossible to even attempt to successfully breed for it. And dont give me any IQ BS either. Using IQ as a basis for intelligence is so highly debated it carries no scientific merit.

 

Methinks you would have been better off living in 1940's germany, herr holcomb.

[DC Tom]

its not just a non-understanding of the mechanism. Its that there is no DISCERNABLE mechanism to get from genotype to phenotype!. We dont know how the hell intelligence is determined from genetics and environment, and there is no indisputable effective way to assign a numerical value to intelligence, so theres no way you can successfully selectively breed for it.

 

The genetic/environment aspects of intelligence are so highly unknown that it is impossible to even attempt to successfully breed for it. And dont give me any IQ BS either. Using IQ as a basis for intelligence is so highly debated it carries no scientific merit.

 

Methinks you would have been better off living in 1940's germany, herr holcomb.

 

No, because, you see, if you take 80% of the rolls of a die, they're wrong, because they're not the true value of the die of 3.5. That proves it.

[Orton's Arm]

Maybe you should write textbooks, then...

An interesting comment coming from someone who ridiculed a statistics textbook's quote about regression toward the mean.

[Orton's Arm]

its not just a non-understanding of the mechanism. Its that there is no DISCERNABLE mechanism to get from genotype to phenotype!. We dont know how the hell intelligence is determined from genetics and environment, and there is no indisputable effective way to assign a numerical value to intelligence, so theres no way you can successfully selectively breed for it.

 

The genetic/environment aspects of intelligence are so highly unknown that it is impossible to even attempt to successfully breed for it. And dont give me any IQ BS either. Using IQ as a basis for intelligence is so highly debated it carries no scientific merit.

 

Methinks you would have been better off living in 1940's germany, herr holcomb.

The objections you've raised didn't stop dog breeders from using selective breeding to create a breed of dog disposed toward high levels of intelligence, hard work, and the tendency to herd other animals. Can you or anyone else quantify the genotype/phenotype relationship for a tendency to herd sheep? People were able to use selective breeding to get more or less whatever kind of dog they wanted. You want a dog that specializes in water rescue? No problem--that's been hardwired into some breeds of dogs. You want a dog that will retrieve prey without harming it? That exists too. Different breeds have different temperaments, different predispositions to obey orders (as opposed to thinking for themselves), etc. Selective breeding worked, despite dog breeders' inability to develop quantitative measurement systems for the traits they were breeding for. Selective breeding worked long before people had heard words like "genotype" and "phenotype."

 

The very first chapter of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species discusses how selectively breeding animals resulted in strong differences between one breed and the next. Darwin used this observation to support his theory of evolution. Darwin's work was published long before Watson and Crick discovered the DNA double helix. Darwin may not have been able to answer genotype/phenotype questions about any characteristic, but he understood evolutionary forces apply to all characteristics.

 

Your "1940's [sic] Germany" comment implies a) that modern Darwinistic forces don't apply to human intelligence, and b) that anyone who believes otherwise is a Nazi. Unfortunately, that particular form of ignorance is not only tolerated, but actively encouraged by an intellectually undisciplined culture. People are taught humans evolved from apes. People are not taught the same evolutionary forces which turned apes into humans could just as easily turn humans into apes. Natural selection caused some subset of apes to gradually get smarter, until finally modern humans emerged. If through artificial selection the least intelligent people have the most children, that same process will reverse itself.

 

Maybe you'd be tempted to respond by mockingly pointing out that it will be a very long time before humans degenerate into something with only a chimp-level of intelligence. But there's no reason to wait until we get to that point before taking action. Moreover, artificial selection can work very quickly; as evidenced by the large differences that exist in various animal breeds. Natural selection works more slowly, because an individual's reproductive success is largely due to chance. A mouse that has a unique allele helpful for cat avoidance might still get unlucky and be eaten by a cat anyway. Given the large disparities between the fertility rates of smart versus unintelligent women, humanity's degeneration comes closer to following the accelerated pace of an artifical selection program instead of the generally slow pace with which natural selection works.

[DC Tom]

An interesting comment coming from someone who ridiculed a statistics textbook's quote about regression toward the mean.

 

 

I didn't ridicule the textbook. I ridiculed you. For not understanding the textbook.

 

And, of course, you're doing it again. You are a veritable demigod of functional illiteracy.

[Orton's Arm]

I didn't ridicule the textbook. I ridiculed you. For not understanding the textbook.

 

And, of course, you're doing it again. You are a veritable demigod of functional illiteracy.

Your exact words were

Wow. As impressed as I am that you finally read a book, you managed to find a textbook that's actually more wrong than you are.

But keep telling us you'd never ridicule a textbook.

[woolley]

You are good at one thing: taking a single isolated example, and extrapolating it to the entire group/population just to prove your asinine point, no matter how wrong it is. Genetic fitness is going to depend on the environment, not the gene.

 

No, it depends on both.

 

Saying that genetic fitness is not dependent on the gene (you know, the word that makes up the word genetic) is ridiculous.

 

How many spontaneous abortions occur due to genetic abnormalities? Or how about birth defects that render life difficult, end lives after a few months? Would you posit that in a better environment such persons would be genetically fit?

 

I get your point. Why can't you get HA's point?

 

-Woolley