A new approach to evolution

[torridon]

You are now misrepresenting me deliberately!   

The idea of consciousness and panpsychism are mine. They are not Noble's. Noble merely states that Natural Selection is a metaphor and cannot be seen as selecting anything in reality. By thinking of NS as a real mechanism we are overlooking the real and active mechanisms by which organisms choose their traits.

"It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection."

This means that real intended selection is being overlooked by attributing the process to Natural Selection (unintended).  He has stated elsewhere (see the OP) that the real process of evolution is Lamarckian inheritance, epigenetics, plasticity etc.

So the Delta variant of Sars-Cov-2 evolved into Omicron not because of 'natural selection' but because it 'intended to'.  Think again, you're just wrong.

[Outrider]

You are now misrepresenting me deliberately!

I promise you I'm not - I might have it wrong, and if so I apologise, but it's not deliberate. I'm a conceptual thinker, I don't hold lists of information well, so when you make a claim but don't give me a concept to hang that on I struggle. 

The idea of consciousness and panpsychism are mine. They are not Noble's.

OK.

Noble merely states that Natural Selection is a metaphor and cannot be seen as selecting anything in reality. By thinking of NS as a real mechanism we are overlooking the real and active mechanisms by which organisms choose their traits.

I'm not sure you're understanding that correctly. He's saying that there isn't something consciously making a selection, but that filtering (his word) process is happening - natural selection is a real mechanism, the use of the phrase 'natural selection' is a metaphor for the filtering process that's actually happening.

"It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection."

This means that real intended selection is being overlooked by attributing the process to Natural Selection (unintended).  He has stated elsewhere (see the OP) that the real process of evolution is Lamarckian inheritance, epigenetics, plasticity etc.

No, it doesn't mean that. It means that people think there is a selector, but there isn't - he then contends that there are OTHER selective forces which he fails (in that paper, at least) to adequately flesh out.

O.

[Sriram]

I promise you I'm not - I might have it wrong, and if so I apologise, but it's not deliberate. I'm a conceptual thinker, I don't hold lists of information well, so when you make a claim but don't give me a concept to hang that on I struggle. 

Its okay....

I'm not sure you're understanding that correctly. He's saying that there isn't something consciously making a selection, but that filtering (his word) process is happening - natural selection is a real mechanism, the use of the phrase 'natural selection' is a metaphor for the filtering process that's actually happening.

No, it doesn't mean that. It means that people think there is a selector, but there isn't - he then contends that there are OTHER selective forces which he fails (in that paper, at least) to adequately flesh out.

O.

Please refer to my post 216.

Let me repost it for you....


And...I am not alone in calling NS a metaphor.....

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-021-09405-3

**************

Charles Darwin (1859) introduced the idea of natural selection (a non-intentional filter) as a metaphorical comparison with artificial (intended) selection. There is no actual selection carried out by natural ‘selection’. Nature – in this case the different rates of survival – is simply a passive filter. Yet it is often presented as the active driver of evolution.

There are active drivers of evolution, to which I will return later, but it is an illusion to think that ‘blind’ natural selection is really ‘selecting’ or could be an ‘active’ driver. It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection. As I have already noted, this move to exclude genuine agency was first made in the nineteenth century by Alfred Russel Wallace, leading him to disagree with Darwin’s distinction between natural and artificial selection.

I think Darwin was right and was brilliantly foresighted to resist Wallace’s attempt to subsume intentional sexual (and by implication other forms of social) selection to natural selection. Brilliant because I think he must have been aware of the importance of the distinction he was making. He did not use the word agency, but I think he would have agreed with biosemioticians that the concept is necessary to understand the meanings organisms give to the signs and communicative paradigms they use (Tønnessen 2015a).

***************

[Sriram]

So the Delta variant of Sars-Cov-2 evolved into Omicron not because of 'natural selection' but because it 'intended to'.  Think again, you're just wrong.

The intent is to survive and reproduce. Towards this instinctive objective....organisms tend to change their phenotype in line with environmental requirements (plasticity, polyphenism)....with the genotype remaining the same. 

It is a deliberate attempt to survive and reproduce in changing environments through suitable adaptations. It is not just chance and randomness. 

[torridon]

The intent is to survive and reproduce. Towards this instinctive objective....organisms tend to change their phenotype in line with environmental requirements (plasticity, polyphenism)....with the genotype remaining the same. 

It is a deliberate attempt to survive and reproduce in changing environments through suitable adaptations. It is not just chance and randomness.

Incorrect.  A virus does not have a brain and so is incapable of complex emotional states like needs or desires.  By the strictest definition, a virus is not even a living thing.  The Omicron strain is a viral population whose pattern of mutations due to inexact copying is such that it happens to be better an bypassing the human immune system.  It is classic Darwinian evolution by natural selection, and you are talking uneducated nonsense.

[torridon]

Charles Darwin (1859) introduced the idea of natural selection (a non-intentional filter) as a metaphorical comparison with artificial (intended) selection. There is no actual selection carried out by natural ‘selection’. Nature – in this case the different rates of survival – is simply a passive filter. Yet it is often presented as the active driver of evolution.

This simply refers to people like you who don't seem to 'get' the concept of metaphor.

[Sriram]

Incorrect.  A virus does not have a brain and so is incapable of complex emotional states like needs or desires.  By the strictest definition, a virus is not even a living thing.  The Omicron strain is a viral population whose pattern of mutations due to inexact copying is such that it happens to be better an bypassing the human immune system.  It is classic Darwinian evolution by natural selection, and you are talking uneducated nonsense.

Why don't you get it....!? It is not a conscious objective. Organisms are driven to do what they do, by their instincts.

[torridon]

Why don't you get it....!? It is not a conscious objective. Organisms are driven to do what they do, by their instincts.

A virus does not have 'instincts'.  An instinct is a complex unlearned behaviour, such as nest building, parental care, hibernation etc. A virus does not have complex behaviours, either learned or unlearned.  Viruses are simply stretches of genetic material that interact deterministically via biochemical processes with living cells.

[Sriram]

Instinct is just a word ...that refers to an innate impulse in organisms. There is no reason why it cannot refer to the tendency to replicate or reproduce in simple organisms.

There is thereby an innate objective in all organisms towards which they act. 

[Gordon]

Instinct is just a word ...that refers to an innate impulse in organisms. There is no reason why it cannot refer to the tendency to replicate or reproduce in simple organisms.

There is thereby an innate objective in all organisms towards which they act.

No - to 'act' in any certain way toward any 'objective' implies agency:  and viruses don't have agency.

[torridon]

Instinct is just a word ...that refers to an innate impulse in organisms. There is no reason why it cannot refer to the tendency to replicate or reproduce in simple organisms.

There is thereby an innate objective in all organisms towards which they act.

A virus does not have impulses or instincts.  it's reproduction is an entirely deterministic process; it is not something that it might 'tend' to do, it cannot help doing it.  By your reasoning balls tend to roll downhill rather than uphill. These things are not tendencies or instincts, they are deterministic.

[ProfessorDavey]

Instinct is just a word ...that refers to an innate impulse in organisms. There is no reason why it cannot refer to the tendency to replicate or reproduce in simple organisms.

There is thereby an innate objective in all organisms towards which they act.

You seem unable to describe simple organisms and viruses (that aren't really living) except through the language of human higher consciousness. Viruses and bacteria aren't just mini-humans with instincts, objectives, impulses. As Gordon has pointed out, those attributes require consciousness and agency which simple organisms lack.

So bacteria and viruses don't have objectives, nor impulses (innate or otherwise), nor instincts. Nope what they do exhibit is the ability to demonstrate certain chemical processes depending on the particular conditions. And of course should those processes change, for example due to mutations in DNA/RNA in such a manner that it makes that simple organism better able to survive and replicate then those new processes will be selected for. But not due to any kind of objective, impulse or instinct, but just because there is now an evolutionary advantage. Just as likely (in fact almost certainly way more likely) other mutations will render the organism less likely to survive/replicate or may have no difference. In the former case those traits (and those organisms) will not survive - so under your bizarre view then there must be an objective, impulse of instinct for non-survival.

Where changes may no effect they will likely be retained (somewhat dormant) in the gene pool, but if there are alterations in the environment those changes may reveal themselves as being advantageous or disadvantageous etc, providing evolutionary advantage or disadvantage.

[Outrider]

Its okay....


Please refer to my post 216.

Let me repost it for you....


And...I am not alone in calling NS a metaphor.....

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-021-09405-3

**************

Charles Darwin (1859) introduced the idea of natural selection (a non-intentional filter) as a metaphorical comparison with artificial (intended) selection. There is no actual selection carried out by natural ‘selection’. Nature – in this case the different rates of survival – is simply a passive filter. Yet it is often presented as the active driver of evolution.

There are active drivers of evolution, to which I will return later, but it is an illusion to think that ‘blind’ natural selection is really ‘selecting’ or could be an ‘active’ driver. It is an illusion with important consequences because it can lead people to think that real selection, by organisms themselves with the power to do so, cannot even exist. ........ That idea is itself an illusion generated by a conceptual mistake, which is to confuse the metaphor of selection with reality. If all evolutionary change is produced by natural (unintended) selection, then no organisms can have the power of real, intended selection. As I have already noted, this move to exclude genuine agency was first made in the nineteenth century by Alfred Russel Wallace, leading him to disagree with Darwin’s distinction between natural and artificial selection.

I think Darwin was right and was brilliantly foresighted to resist Wallace’s attempt to subsume intentional sexual (and by implication other forms of social) selection to natural selection. Brilliant because I think he must have been aware of the importance of the distinction he was making. He did not use the word agency, but I think he would have agreed with biosemioticians that the concept is necessary to understand the meanings organisms give to the signs and communicative paradigms they use (Tønnessen 2015a).

***************

I've read it. He's not saying what you say he's saying. Yes he's saying that the phrase 'natural selection' is a metaphor.

He's not saying that it's not happening. He's not saying that it doesn't have the exact effects that science suggests it has. He's saying that nature isn't actually making a choice, because nature doesn't have that capacity.

Where he differs from me (and, I'd suggest, from conventional scientific wisdom) is that he's saying the variation upon which natural selection operates is not random, that organisms have some capacity to preordain their variation or... something, it's not very clear exactly what he is suggesting, from this.

Essentially, the natural selection part is a metaphor, it always has been, he's calling that out because - he says - people misinterpret that mean that nature is choosing, and it isn't.

He doesn't think variation is random for... reasons... and conventional scientific wisdom thinks that, at the scale of evolutionary biology, it functionally is random.

O.

[Stranger]

And...I am not alone in calling NS a metaphor.....

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-021-09405-3

So, the Sriram comedy of ignorance just goes on and on.   

You quote the article by Noble: "Charles Darwin (1859) introduced the idea of natural selection (a non-intentional filter) as a metaphorical comparison with artificial (intended) selection. There is no actual selection carried out by natural ‘selection’. Nature – in this case the different rates of survival – is simply a passive filter."

So, even this guy, who is widely regarded as wrong about most things about evolution (see my post #1), is basically telling you that you're wrong to dismiss natural selection as a metaphor. Only the name is metaphorical. It is actually a (non-intentional) filter. This is exactly what I've tried to tell you multiple times and you keep on dismissing it, For example here: "Natural selection is a very real filtering process on variations." and here: "There is no intelligence doing a deliberate selection, nevertheless, some traits do spread through populations and some die out, so there is a filtration process."

Much of the rest of what Denis Noble believes has already been dismissed by most experts but in this respect he's entirely right and you're entirely wrong.

[Stranger]

The intent is to survive and reproduce. Towards this instinctive objective....organisms tend to change their phenotype in line with environmental requirements (plasticity, polyphenism)....with the genotype remaining the same.

It is a deliberate attempt to survive and reproduce in changing environments through suitable adaptations. It is not just chance and randomness. 

Don't be so utterly silly. We know the genotype changed, that's how the variant was identified. We also know the exact genotype mutations that have led directly to many, many cases of evolution, including the classic peppered moth example of natural selection.

We know that genotypes change by mutation in evolution otherwise everything would have the same genotype. Your ideas make the word 'absurd' seem totally inadequate.

There is no intention to survive and reproduce. Any organism that isn't good at surviving and reproducing it the environment won't survive and reproduce, so will die out. That is pretty much what natural selection means.

[Sriram]

The very concept of polyphenism is about changes in phenotype to suit environmental conditions, without corresponding changes in genotype.

[Stranger]

The very concept of polyphenism is about changes in phenotype to suit environmental conditions, without corresponding changes in genotype.

I know what it is, Sriram, and it obviously exists, but it simply can't be the main driver of evolution. It can't account for the Sars-Cov-2 example because we know that it was a genetic mutation. One of the main tools for detecting and responding to variants was genetic sequencing. It also can't possibly account for vast numbers of other evolutionary change that we know were caused by genetic mutations and exactly what those mutations were (e.g. trichromatic vision). Neither does it even account for speciation.

Even Denis Noble basically accepts natural selection as a real filtration process - something you appear not to understand even when quoting a passage from him that directly says so.

Your total ignorance about evolution is astounding, obviously self-inflicted due to your own dogmatic beliefs, and totally impervious to reason and solid evidence. In other words, you are relying on blind faith and must protect the ignorance that allows it to exist.

[ProfessorDavey]

The very concept of polyphenism is about changes in phenotype to suit environmental conditions, without corresponding changes in genotype.

FFS Sriram, what are the mechanism that control these abilities and how do these mechanisms arise?

Sure the ability for an organism to adapt to altered environmental conditions can confer survival advantage, but these mechanisms are the product of either genomic or epigenetic processes - and the latter involve either the ability for the genome to be altered (which is ultimately genomic) or proteins to be altered and those proteins are coded by DNA, so also ultimately genomic.

So rather than these mechanisms sitting outside the classical evolutionary approach they are simply examples of it.

[Sriram]

FFS Sriram, what are the mechanism that control these abilities and how do these mechanisms arise?

Sure the ability for an organism to adapt to altered environmental conditions can confer survival advantage, but these mechanisms are the product of either genomic or epigenetic processes - and the latter involve either the ability for the genome to be altered (which is ultimately genomic) or proteins to be altered and those proteins are coded by DNA, so also ultimately genomic.

So rather than these mechanisms sitting outside the classical evolutionary approach they are simply examples of it.

You are trying to have your cake and eat it too.  The point is that evolution is not just a chance based process relying entirely on random variations and chance environmental conditions. It is a process where organisms adapt and develop traits to suit the environmental conditions. Simple. 

[ProfessorDavey]

You are trying to have your cake and eat it too.  The point is that evolution is not just a chance based process relying entirely on random variations and chance environmental conditions. It is a process where organisms adapt and develop traits to suit the environmental conditions. Simple.

I'm not having my cake and eating it, just explaining how evolution works.

Imagine a random mutation in the gene for a protein arises which means that protein is now sensitive to e.g. temperature or pH or osmotic conditions etc and that protein is part of a physiological network that might regulate a cell's ability to function under altered temperature or pH or osmotic conditions. Those members of that species, through that random mutation are now better able to adapt to changes in temperature or pH or osmotic conditions. That may well confer a survival advantage and if so those members of the species with this random mutation are more likely to survive and reproduce so that gene mutation becomes dominant within the population of that species.

The random mutation confers the ability to adapt to environmental changes and as it is at the genome level that ability to adapt is heritable. This is standard evolutionary theory - No cake-ism needed.

[Stranger]

You are trying to have your cake and eat it too.  The point is that evolution is not just a chance based process relying entirely on random variations and chance environmental conditions. It is a process where organisms adapt and develop traits to suit the environmental conditions. Simple.

Yet another utterly absurd and ignorant claim. It's been explained to you exactly how evolution by natural selection works many times, and I see the Prof has just done so again. You always totally ignore them and continue with your mindless, dogmatic nonsense.

Instances where individual organisms adapt to an environment are very limited, in both scope and heritability, and simply cannot account for vast amounts of evidence. Only genetic variation and natural selection can do that.

[Sriram]

I'm not having my cake and eating it, just explaining how evolution works.

Imagine a random mutation in the gene for a protein arises which means that protein is now sensitive to e.g. temperature or pH or osmotic conditions etc and that protein is part of a physiological network that might regulate a cell's ability to function under altered temperature or pH or osmotic conditions. Those members of that species, through that random mutation are now better able to adapt to changes in temperature or pH or osmotic conditions. That may well confer a survival advantage and if so those members of the species with this random mutation are more likely to survive and reproduce so that gene mutation becomes dominant within the population of that species.

The random mutation confers the ability to adapt to environmental changes and as it is at the genome level that ability to adapt is heritable. This is standard evolutionary theory - No cake-ism needed.

I am not contesting that advantageous adaptations enable an organism to survive. That is obvious.

I am contesting your claim that evolution entirely happens through random mutations because of which an organism happens to have a certain phenotype and because of which it happens to survive and reproduce in a specific environment. 

Organisms adapt and change their phenotype to suit the environment. It is a deliberate attempt to survive and reproduce and not something that just happens by chance.   

[torridon]

I am not contesting that advantageous adaptations enable an organism to survive. That is obvious.

I am contesting your claim that evolution entirely happens through random mutations because of which an organism happens to have a certain phenotype and because of which it happens to survive and reproduce in a specific environment. 

Organisms adapt and change their phenotype to suit the environment. It is a deliberate attempt to survive and reproduce and not something that just happens by chance.

Most species are incapable of deliberate adaptation.  This is anthropomorphising on steroids.  Humans may plan ahead how to better survive, but we have no evidence of cauliflowers or cucumbers plotting or planning ahead, for instance.  Humans are unusual in this ability, most life forms cannot plan ahead.

[Sriram]

Most species are incapable of deliberate adaptation.  This is anthropomorphising on steroids.  Humans may plan ahead how to better survive, but we have no evidence of cauliflowers or cucumbers plotting or planning ahead, for instance.  Humans are unusual in this ability, most life forms cannot plan ahead.

I think I have discussed this already. You just don't want to get it.

Deliberate adaptation is not a conscious effort of the organism sitting at a drawing board and planning things out. It is an inner drive an inner objective that makes the organism do what it does.

Now...don't ask me how this inner drive happens because I'll tell you that it is the inner consciousness (collective consciousness) working through its DNA. You will not accept it.

[torridon]

Deliberate adaptation is not a conscious effort of the organism sitting at a drawing board and planning things out. It is an inner drive an inner objective that makes the organism do what it does.

'Deliberate' implies an inner conscious effort. This is what the word means.  Cucumbers are not capable of deliberation, neither are carrots or cauliflowers.  Did the Delta variant evolve into the Omicron variant because of an inner objective ?  of course not, it evolved as a consequence of mutations that gave it a competitive advantage.  It did not go out looking for mutations to acquire.  It just happens though copying errors.