Is the Darwinistic Selection Principle False?

I voted no by the way. Just because it does not happen much anymore due to human interference/creating does not mean it does not happen or is not capable of happening.

We’re talking about natural selection right? The stronger surviving while the weaker falling?

Personally, I dont think it falsifies it, it is still capable of happening… It is just a matter of timing, one day it will hit hard, well at at least I think so.

Unless you’re asking something else?

The thread title. I am waiting for the case to be made.

Regression, domestication, is not part of evolution?
Dysgenics is not part of eugenics?
Has man stopped evolving because he now determines the standards to measure fitness?
Have you heard of memetic selection?

What happens to millions of years of nurturing, we call nature, does it disappear because in manmade environments we set up rules prohibiting their full expression, or their acknowledgment, or even their recognition?
Training/educating generations to be blind to appearances does not make the apparent go away.
Can we train/educate a chimpanzee to be human, by forcing it to imitate certain behaviors?
Is there no cost to protecting the weak the stupid and the ill from culling?
Is man exempt from world because he can fabricate artificial environments and use words to manipulate abstractions, to the degree that his words no longer refer to anything perceptible, anything experienced?

You are deciding what is most fit by seeing what survives. But Darwin proposed that what survives will be what was most fit. It is a circular definition.

Real people do not define it that way. They propose an idea concerning fitness involving strength, agility, intelligence,… various other applicable talents. The question then becomes one of whether those “already declared to be fit” are really the ones that will survive. That makes it a legitimate question. And the answer to that question is “not always”. And that answer reduces the Darwinian principle down to a “tendency”, not the prevailing “always true” law.

This is not circular logic. That is just saying the same thing two ways. Circular logic would be to define what is fit by using survival, and then defining survival by using fit. The definition of survival is that which does not become extinct, and it is not dependent on the meaning of fit.

If you want to make a definition of fitness, as one used by “real people”, and then refute it, knock yourself out papito.
But then, that’s not the Darwinian principle, is it?

The moment you say ‘most’ it is a concession. That needs to be noted. Then from there, how much of the hate in humans infuses actions that seem to be about other things, but include or are even primarily an urge to destroy? I think it is a lot more than people like to admit. This can be anything from sthe desire to enter war or conflict not simply to gain resources, but because the urge to destroy want to rationalize an outlet…to thinks that destruction is a part of conspicuous consumption - I can throw out so I am cool, powerful, rich, better than you - to destruction for spite. If I cannot have it or cannot be the only one who has it, no one has it. In many ways we destroy for destructions sake or for what we decide destruction symbolizes. And animals other than us do not do this.

I

And warding off, pushing back, even killing when it seems unnecessary to a third party likely is coupled to traits that protect boundaries, keep young safe, keep them in training. But sure animals destroy, but what you are talking about simply indicates that animals are not perfectly efficient machines. They will destroy more than they use. But they cannot create values and symbols to increase this and would not understand why they should. They cannot hate life, seek to spite God or humanity or life.

The phrase beyond nature seems beside the point. There is in our nature, it seems, something that would even be willing to destroy all things, in some moods. We have in us something that is antilife and animals do not, even if they will kill. A cat may take pleasure in slow killing a mouse - I don’t know if this happens in wild animals anywhere but let’s say it does - but may be training, even if it is a rather sick act regardless. Humans will kill whole areas for fun, with no gain. Unless we are preparting to destroy planetary ecosystems or something and this is beneficial in some way.

Of course the mental abilities we have allow us to destory in ways animals can not. But our mental natures and what these have taken in as habits also give us a whole set of intentions I do not encounter in the rest of nature.

Related, but not the same…there is no other animal that would hate its own strength or vitality or desires or emotions. It will use its whole nature and accept its whole nature, not taking pride but accepting and certainly not crushing under its own judgment.

We hate nature in us also and try to destroy that.

This antivitalist thanatonic hate is unique to us.

There is nothing like a platypus. There is nothing like us. But our uniqueness is that we include anti life.

That is exactly what I said. And that is “circular”.
Circular means: A = B because B = A
“fit” = “survived” because “survived” = “fit”

If you want to make a definition of fitness, as one used by “real people”, and then refute it, knock yourself out papito.
But then, that’s not the Darwinian principle, is it?
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The “Darwin principle” implies that what people think of as being fit is what survives. The intent behind its promotion is to define what survives as that which was most fit and thus best. It is an excuse to hide WHY it was that one people survived and another didn’t.

You make a good case, but ultimately it is a difficult thing to measure. There are more variables in this than we’d ever be able to control.
I think it was Daniel Gilbert that said something like, whenever an expert of psychology says “humans are the only species who ------”, some research comes along and proves them wrong, and then they end up looking like fools.

That said, it is clear that we have the potential to cause mass extinction, given that we are indeed doing it, and that we may include ourselves in it, and for a species whose success is entirely based on its intelligence, that seems pretty fucking dumb.

This is an indication that in our evolutionary process we have had explosive growth in some areas, while others remained somewhat rudimentary. Where it was obvious that intelligence (in the mathematical/scientific sense) proved to be an advantage, we put all of our chips on it.
Our history reflects that, how we have made incredible technological progress at an incredible speed, while our social and emotional progress is lagging far behind. A lot of it has to do with all of the shortcuts our brains take in order to keep us thinking fast and being functional, but it is also true that it seems that we have determined that spending the time to understand our emotions is not a worthwhile endeavor, and we’ll continue to suffer the consequences of that stupidity.

However, how does that falsify the selection principle? :slight_smile:

No, that is not exactly what you said.
The definition of survival is independent of the definition of fit.
You can define survival without ever bringing up fitness.
Here is a dictionary definition:
Survival: the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances.
Fit(in darwinism): that which survives.

A = A
B = A

No, it does not. What people think doesn’t matter at all.

You lost me.

I generally take issue with the uniqueness position, but then this is usually around positive traits. IOW me arguing against pomposity or the dimishment of animals.

I think emotions and what is coupled to them is key also. I do not think the self-hate, hate and denial of fear is being dealt with. There are trends in the direction of doing that, especially in some subcultures and there are trends in the other direction.

I wasn’t really focused on the context, just that difference. In general, traits in nature get selected if they fit the ecosystem the animal is in. With humans we transform ecosystems to make it easier for a small number of people’s ideas of what is good. And those people are fucked in the head. (an overgeneralization, since some positive things are done also). So right now, for example, people who do well with repetition, are not creative, do not feel much, are going to do well in the lower classes. Lower than the top, that is. Even the middle class is becoming adjunct to machines, streamlines, overworked, and mechanized.

What we are selecting out are people who are more vital, creative and emotional. There has always been a facet of this, but it is getting very harsh, though polite smiley faced business speak harsh. The elites are also, in general, restructing the environment so they are dependent on an incredible amount of support and are simplifying their own brains also.

We are not being selected by ecosystems, we are being selected by deluded half humans. You have people who are not the most vital, using themselves as models to reform the environment, which in turn selects. If the word natural has any meaning - iow if it means something other than ‘real’ - then this is not natural and does not lead to similar outcomes. Yes, other species may fail to adapt, even die out. But here we have a creature stressing traits that take away from the environment and from itself those factors and things it needs to thrive.

It would be like the buffalo deciding to burn the praries, even before have a good meal. It would also be like the buffalo intentionally cutting one leg off their young. Telling people that four legged buffalo are evil, barbaric.

Of course the buffalo nearly died out and may well yet. But not because they started creating half buffalo or banging their heads on stones because they wanted less brain matter.

Now in my specific beliefs I think their is a kind death introjection and one unique to humans.

Someone that knows more will survive longer than one who is “fit”. In almost any scenario.

Knowing more is a form of fitness, and in genetic terms capacity and interest in learning (whatever part of that is nature and not due to circumstance which would also affect it).

Dysgenics is negative eugenics, and eugenics is positive eugenics.

No poster of this thread said that man had stopped evolving. But I say that man can partly dissociate himself from evoluton and from environment - which means: man is capable of avoiding total adaptation.

Just read the thread.

Have you ever herd of Dawkin’s new after-shave lotion?

No.

There is that cost.

Partly yes.

Yes, it is a circular definition.

Yup.

Exactly.

In addition:

Most of all ever living beings died out. According to the Darwinists they must have been both fit and unfit. They nust have been fit, because they have been well adapted over a long time (offspring), and they must have been unfit as well, because they died out.

This contradiction can only be solved, if the Darwinists give up their ideological (thus modern religious) interpretation of the terms “fit” and “unfit” and accept the right meaning of them.

Here is another example:

That is a contradiction. An evolution theory that explains the present time is no evolution theory, because it has nothing to do with evolution.

Evolution is change in the heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations.

According to you the Darwinism explains merely the present. But if it did, then it would be no evolution theory. So, yeah, then we would have to ask again: Is the Darwinism an evolution theory?

Sorry, but that is nonsense. It is like saying that there “can be fat humans but never a fatter or even the fattest human before the fact, because the knowledge of »the fattest« can only happen after the fact” (?). If there are fat humans, then there are a fatter and the fattest human too, regardless whether the knowledge of “the fattest” happens or not. Why should there not be a fatter and the fattest one? Because the “knowledge of »the fattest« can only happen after the fact”? :laughing:

“Every living species on Earth” can be “fit … right now”, but the “knowledge of »the fittest« can only happen after the fact” (?). This statement can only be interpreted as nonsense, regardless whether it is also an attempt to recsue a dying modern (secular) religion or not. Darwinists, please, when are you going to finally leave the 19th century and arrive in the present century, the 21st century.

"Let’s have a certain species as an evolutionary actor “A”, its environment “E”, and the Darwinist “D” as the modern religious interpreter. A is fit “right now”. Suddenly E changes, and A dies out. D says that “A has not been fit”. … What? … An undertaker would say now: “D, you are fired!” If it is possible to say that every actor of evolution “is fit right now”, then it is also possible to say that a certain actor of evolution “is fitter (than …) right now” and that a certain actor of evolution “is the fittest right now”.

Either one can say something about “fit right now” or not (tertium non datur => exclusi tertii principum); and if one can, then one can also use the comparative and say: “fitter (than …) right now”, “fittest right now”.

Living beings are living in an environment, human beings, who are living beings too, are living in the world, which means that they do not merely live in an environment but in the world, and they destroy their environment, if they want to.

If E (environment) of A (actor of evolution) changes, then it is possible but not necessary that A becomes extinct. If A has become extinct, then this fact does not change anything about A"s fitness or unfitness during A’s lifetime, because during A"s lifetime A has survived, because A has been alive, fit (perhaps fitter than many others or even the fittest), thus well adapted (perhaps better adapted than many others or even best adapted), thus successful, just fitted (perhaps more fitted than many others or even the most fitted). If we knew merely after the last fact, then we would be what we use to call Gods.

If A is a human, then we have to judge a bit differently; because humans do not absolutely depend on their environment and can destroy it on purpose, thus willfully, consciously (other living beings are not capable of doing that in the same way); so the humans’ environment has become a part of humans’ fitness or unfitness; and that means that the former A and E (see the example above) has become A (including E) and W (world) or H (homo sapiens as A + E) and W.

Thanks, my dear poisonous spider, but I hope you have nonetheless noticed that I am not always playing linguistic games. :wink:

Yes, but unfortunately those deluded humans are not half humans.

Homo sapiens has been playing God or, in the words of the selection priciple, the selector of the own species, of their environment, of other species, of the whole world. Many other living beings have become extinct just because of the human beings. These other living beings had not become extinct, if they would not have been negatively selected by the selector homo sapiens. Human beings are not like all other living beings. The human ecologlogical or/and social selection is a political selection and contradicts the natural selection, the sexual selection, the kin selection, … and so on and so forth. It contradicts the concept of adaptation and fitness, because it can and does make out of well adapted and fit living beings bad adapted (maladapted) an unfit living beings, out of bad adapted (maladapted) and unfit living beings well adapted an fit living beings. Homo sapiens can and does select positively (eugenically) and negatively (dysgenically).

So we can rightly say that homo sapiens is a godwannabe. Human beings are naturally more like animals and culturally more like gods. But unfortunately they are not capable of being both or/and each of both in a complete way. Homo sapiens is naturally not capable of being a 100%-animal and is culturally not capable of being a 100%-god. That is the fateful dilemma of homo sapiens.

What I meant by the term was not half animal, half human. I meant, half the animal humans are. REligions, common ‘sense’, education, parenting, culture, psychology, psychiatry, spirituality all have ideas about what parts of yourself you should suppress throw out, deny, remove, control. What we end up with are humans who have disowned ‘half’ of themselves - might be more. Once these partial humans get control of an organization, a group, a policy, they tailor fit it to their own halfness. They certainly loathe anyone who does not agree to carve themselves up the same way, or more, since the elites will always want those lower to cut out even more than they do.

Yes.

Darwinist would answer: “Knowledge is only a facet of fitness”.

Did you mean that half of all animals are humans? :-k

Could you rephrase your post, please?

No. See my reply to JSS.

Nuh nuh. That is a strawmen lil buddy.

Really? Do you want to clarify, then, who is trying to hide what from whom? Hold on, lemme get my tinfoil hat brb.

Yes. So?

There is no contradiction.

Cmon robot, don’t be dense. Explains the present within the context of heredity. I mean that evolution theory is not meant to make presictions on the future, just to understand the past and explain the present when it comes to the diversity of species.

lol right back at you lil buddy.
The only way you would be able to determine who is the fattest human would be if the last human being ever was born just now, and then you have a closed group from which to pick. Every birth is a potential for a genetic mutation that will originate the fattest person who is fatter than the previous fattest, therefore there is only a point in time fattest, the evolution of fattest never ends so long as more individuals continue to be born.

When you manage to make your case for why the selection principle is false. You so far haven’t.

Was fit before E changed, is no longer fit.
You can present arguments for one species being fitter than another at any point in time, and you can even present arguments for who is the fittest at any point in time, but as you know as point in time things go, those arguments are only valid for that point in time, which instantly change from present to past.
Evolution of actual phenotypes happens over long periods of time, but environments can change in an instant. You may spend longer making your argument than it’d take for it to become obsolete.

See above

Yes.

You lost me.

We still depend on the environment and are set to suffer the consequences of destroying it.

Perhaps, but this thread is.