dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (05/14/85)
>> [Paul DuBois] >> We say "Natural selection - Ah! Now I understand." But do we? Of >> course we don't. What do you understand? It's a buzzword that tells >> us exactly nothing except that what happened, happened. Now, surely we >> could have deduced that without natural selection. I'm not denying the >> concept _per se_. Of course selection occurs. But the real question >> is why one thing should be selected and not another. >> >> I don't get it. You guys all KNOW this. I'n not telling you one >> single thing that you don't already know. Yet this pretense of the >> idea that natural selection means something or tells us something, is >> maintained. Why? Why do you do it? > [Mike Huybensz] > Natural selection IS being intensively studied. Studies of predation, > parasitism, preferred foods and their nutritional values, quantitizing > factors of reproductive success, and a host of other things illustrate > the factors that compose and give direction to natural selection. I am aware of that. Some time back it was observed that "the number of arguments is irrelevant unless some of them are correct." I would like to suggest a corollary: "The amount of research done is irrelevant unless some of it produces a result." It is perfectly possible that some of this large corpus of work to which Mike refers means something. As he has not shown what, however, the vague assertion above means absolutely nothing to me. Nor, I suppose, does it mean anything to anyone who was not already convinced before it was said. -- | Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois --+-- | In the human instantiation, the image is the substance. |
long@oliveb.UUCP (A Panther Modern) (05/23/85)
> [Paul DuBois] > We say "Natural selection - Ah! Now I understand." But do we? Of > course we don't. What do you understand? It's a buzzword that tells > us exactly nothing except that what happened, happened. But isn't the whole basis of creationism that natural selection did not happen? I thought that creationism held that species were created essentially as they are now. In what way does natural selection support that hypothesis? > Now, surely we > could have deduced that without natural selection. I'm not denying the > concept _per se_. Of course selection occurs. But the real question > is why one thing should be selected and not another. Something is selected because it enables a group to succeed better than an- other group, which leads to an increasing amount of the population having that success trait compared with the decreasing amount of the population without it. This positive-feedback situation results in the 'selection' of a trait. Natural selection is not active, it is passive. Dave Long -- {hplabs,fortune,idi,ihnp4,tolerant,allegra,tymix}!oliveb!long