Talk:Natural selection

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I just archived again, this page was again increadibly long. --KimvdLinde 02:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where are we going from here?

Ok, where are we going from here? I suggest that people like Axel, who know so perfectly which definition is the only correct one and are so strong on using a specific (Darwinian) version despite the different usage among scientists, are going to rewrite the article to a good one. KimvdLinde 04:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice Guy Vs The Jerk

Why hasn't evolution selected for sexy girls who are into a guy's brains?

Evolution by mutation and natural selection works very slowly. Evolution by artificial selection works much faster. In the last 15,000 or so years, artificial selection has produced hundreds of distinct breeds of dogs, whereas wild dogs have hardly changed at all.

Since humans are the product of natural selection rather than artificial selection, our DNA has barely changed in the past 15,000 years. The women of today, therefore, have emotional brains (and the resulting mating strategies) optimized for reproductive success in the Pleistocene. The modern woman instinctively wants a guy who has what it takes to survive as a cave man.

Back then, life was tough. If a man wasn't strong and healthy, it didn't matter how smart he was. There wasn't much technology around for a smart brain to work with. Weak guys didn't survive long enough to compete. Strength was a non-negotiable requirement. After that, brains determined the final pecking order. A smart strong guy could usually beat a dull strong guy.

In surviving stone-age cultures, usually the chief or headman of the tribe (who gets more wives than the subordinate males) is the guy with the best combination of strength and smarts. Something like a modern football quarterback, who has to be strong to play the game and withstand the hits, smart enough to learn the complex playbook, and socially dominant to gain the respect and obedience of his team.

Sexy girls *are* in fact "into a guy's brains," as you can easily demonstrate by noting how most women quickly reject actual retards. A man needs some minimum amount of intelligence to appeal to women, but women don't seem to place a high premium on exceptionally high intelligence which exceeds the minimum requirement. Unless a man makes it amount to something that the female emotional brain can recognize as being relevant.

This isn't too hard to make sense of, when you consider that even as recently as 150 years ago, most people survived by working on farms, using minimal amounts of technology that the average person could master without much "book larnin'." A smart strong farmer was usually more successful than a stupid strong farmer, but a weak smart farmer would have been worthless unless he could persuade strong stupid farmers to do the work for him.

Back then, for example, having the ability to program computers wasn't much good, because there weren't any computers yet. Even today, the ability to program computers is usually so specialized, and so slow to begin with, that it doesn't have the kind of everyday value that really makes a huge difference in a person's life. A programmer, when he is off the clock, might not live that much differently than a busboy off the clock.

At least in adolescence, where the most important mating decisions are made, and where the decision-making is most instinctive (not yet modified by much life experience), the Pleistocene mating strategy of girls severely devalues physically effete boys. The stereotypical nerd who lacks physical prowess and social dominance is not instinctively recognizable to girls as a good reproductive bet. For the nerd to have a chance, he must first produce something with his intelligence, for example by becoming a rock star, or by starting a successful company and getting rich. Unfortunately for the nerds, it can take years and years of hard, tedious work to gain the kind of social status recognizable to female emotional brains through intellectual effort alone.

Somebody should summarize this into the article

--SeductionReport.com 07:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um, I don't think that off-of-the-cuff sociobiological "just so stories" about American dating is really something that needs to be included in an article on natural selection. --Fastfission 18:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, Yes, it the above has that crap odor. However, content resembling 'sociobiological "just so stories" about American dating' have potential to get people to read more about evolution. :) And, infact, there is much research which says "We expected X based upon essentially sociobiological ideas, we surveyed/studied people and found X". However, such things belong in Sociobiology, Evolutionary psychology, Human behavioral ecology, etc. How about lets replace the above garbage with:

Is there some way to work mention of Sociobiology, Evolutionary psychology, and Human behavioral ecology into this article, as they are current topics of active research?

So it'd be some small addition to "Impact of the idea". Or maybe "Scope and role of natural selection" which might also mention "Units of selection" and/or memes. Anyway, I'm not sure how the current edit war with Macros goes, so I'm not sure how many peopel are interested in working on it right now. JeffBurdges 13:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's unencyclopedic, and would belong in Sexual selection if it were fixed acceptably, but there is already plenty of human content in that page. Off the top of my head, the vast majority of EP research is on sexual selection, rather than natural selection, so I don't see the need to bend over backwards to fit it in here. As for memes, yeah I suppose that would fit in there with the content in "Scope and role"... such as it is... Pete.Hurd 14:00, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we first better get this article in good shape, and I think it will lead itself from there whether and what we should include from this idea. KimvdLinde 15:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, sure, Sexual selection sounds like a fine place for such things. Sexual selection obviously must be linked from here, so all seems well as far as presenting the science. However, if you talk about contraversy of the idea, the existance of such things as EP does actually fit well into the "christian anti-materialist" position, i.e. anti-evolutionish. Not sure how much space you want to give the christian position, nor how much attention they pay to EP & such, but its worth thinking about.. as you like. JeffBurdges 18:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

heh, I see those links area lready there. nice. :) JeffBurdges 20:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Intro again (sigh)

Intro: Where is this "irrefutable evidence" exactly? Not stated in the article for sure. Please leave any claims that are not carefully and meticulously explained and argued to creationists and proponents of intelligent design. I feel tempted to go through this article and remove everything that is not authoritatively referenced and logically coherent. This is an important article to get rightGleng 22:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Gleng's concerns above, but I am perfectly happy for Marcosantezana to describe natural selection as an 'evolutionary force': for me this implies propagation of change. — Axel147 10:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Natural selection and creation of new species

Perhaps I've misunderstood something all my life, but I thought natural selection was only a weeding-out process - not a creative process. That is, I though Darwin's theory was two fold:

something (then unknown) causes new species to come into being; and,
natural selection causes successful species to increase in population and unsuccessful species to decrease in population

This sets up a relationship between natural selection and species creation, but not a cause-and-effect relationship. That is, the weeding out process never causes a new creation to come into being.

Would someone please clarify for me which parts of my understanding correspond to either Darwin's writings or to modern biological theory? --Uncle Ed 18:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Natural selection weeds selectively, mutations create new options. Most mutations are not really helpful, or just plain bad, but some are an improvement. If a mutation gives a beter change of surviving and reproducing, it remains in the population, otherwise, NatSel will eliminate it.... Hope this explains. KimvdLinde 18:27, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than "weeding", Darwin's insight was to see it as "breeding" in a parallel to farming husbandry or pigeon fanciers, which can be perceived as a "creative" process in forming new breeds or refining a pedigree, but equally consists only of selecting from available variations over many generations. ..dave souza, talk 19:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and we know now that nature does not actively decide what to select, but that it is a pure passive mechanism in which only the best adapted survive. KimvdLinde 19:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your helpful attitude helps, as always Dave, but I'm still a bit perplexed. With humans breeding pigeons or dogs or horses, they usually have a specific idea in mind of what they are trying to get. Like faster, or better at hunting, or more affectionate toward human children. I'm given to understand that "natural selection" differs on two counts:

It's not deliberate. It's more like erosion: it just happens automatically and inexorably.
It's not something which is performed (as by a being), but simply a principle, like gravity causing the tides.

So I'm still wondering whether natural selection is seen as causing any new species to come into being. Pigeon fanciers just make new breeds of pigeons. They haven't made any new species yet. Or am I making too much of the microevolution/macroevolution distinction? ;-) --Uncle Ed 21:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

O yes, just imagine that a population of a single species is subdivided in two seperate populations due to for example the rise of a mountain range. The environment at both sides differ, and so there are different environments, hence different natSel forces working on both populations. Over time, these species get more and more different, and when they meet again (after the mountain has eroded enough), they do not recognize each other anymore. And voila, you have a speciation event. The distinction between micro and macro is the casle, not the mechanisms, and some put more in it than biologists do in general. KimvdLinde 21:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ed, you are right about it not being deliberate or "performed." But maybe your use of erosion is misleading you. It is fine as an example or metaphor as long as it is not taken to be a compete or perfect example or metaphor - then, you might think we are talking about a purely destructive force. There is no reason why it must be destructive. There is no logical reason why something "not deliberate" and "not ... performed" must be solely destructive and not creative. The theory of evolution can be understood precisely as showing how something not deliberate or performed can be productive. Your example of pigeons and breeding is also misleading you. Just because on can deliberately, by performing acts, do something creative does not mean that all creative things must be done deliberately through performances. It simply does not logically follow. That process x can lead to result y does not mean that process x is the only way to effect result y. It just is not nlocially necessary. If you are looking for metaphors, perhaps this can help: erosion is from one perspective destructive. But if you view the grand canyon as a natural work of art, then the non deliberative, unperformed even destructive process of erosion created something beautiful. Or, erosion while tearing away mass can also in effect produce mesas. Now, these are metaphorical examples. If you try to apply them literally or generalize entirely from them you won't get any closer to understanding evolution or natural selection. I am only trying to follow your example of using some metaphors to show you how you can look at things a little differently than the way you have been looking at them, that is all.Slrubenstein | Talk 22:20, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, about pigeon fanciers creating new breeds but not species. Ed, ask yourself, how long have humans been breeding pigeons (or sheep, or dogs)? I do not know, but I would bet it is far less than 10,000 years, perhaps even less than 5,000 years. Now, how long do you think it takes for a new species to evolve? In some cases, fairly rapidly (if the hawthorn fly turns out to be an example, which looks like it is the case) but this is because fly generations go by much faster than pigeon (or sheep or dog) generations. You have to think in terms of how fast a species reproduces, the rate at which generations pass, this is a critical factor. For animals that reproduce far las quickly than flies, whose generations last far far longer than flies, the evolution of a new species can take over a million years. Now, it is easy to get lost when thinking about big numbers, but you surely can appreciate the differende between 5,000 and 1,000,000 years! (especially when you then translate that into number of generations). Slrubenstein | Talk 22:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New version of Natural selection

Kim van der Linde and Gleng have developed a updated version of the Natural selection article at User:KimvdLinde/Natural selection. At the talk page there:

This page shows a proposed new version of the article on Natural Selection. This has been developed using parts of the existing version by Kim van der Linde and Gleng, following the discussions on the Natural selection talk page. We have tried to produce an article that will be both clear and rigorously accurate. If there is general agreement that this version is an improvement over the existing version, then we will replace it. Please put any comments and criticisms about this proposed new version on this Talk page, and in particular please indicate your support for, or opposition to, replacement of the existing version. Please do not edit this version except for any minor corrections at this stage.

Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the new version. Let's go with it. Guettarda 23:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

what is born out of spite...

"A well-known example of natural selection is the development of antibiotic resistance in microorganisms."

let's dissect the very first sentence above: "an example of selection is the development of antibiotic resistance..."

kim, i thought you agreed that selection is not evolution !? now the whole new article is full of such high-school-level imprecisions and sloppy formulations.

and, possibly more serious, the new article is mainly about evolution !

everybody should welcome additions and revisions to the existing article as long they are done orderly and carefully.

but one must correct any imprecisions, and one must refocus back to selection any additions that focus mainly on evolution.

note that i am an evolutionary biologist but i couldn't care less about selection for scientific reasons that are not simple.

however, the article about selection must be about selection, i.e. about the generation of fitness differences. Marcosantezana 04:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Axel147 on new version

I generally like it!! Here are some hopefully constructive comments...

I think the example is given too much prominence and is a bit scary for the layman.
On Sober's distinction the emphasis should be 'cause of selection' vs. 'free rider' (not trait vs. individual).
I think I object to the sentence 'For Darwin, fitness was equivalent to survival'. Darwin did not really use the term 'fitness' obviously undertood the importance of fecundity so I think this is misleading. ('Fittest' is really Spencers.) And is it survival of individuals or families of indiviuals etc.?
The article descibes natural selection in different places as a 'process', 'principle' and an 'idea'. Is this consistent?
The wider defintion is also a 'mechanistic' one: it is just that the mechanism of selection is combined with a mechanism for propagation (inheritance).
I hadn't read Petri Krohn trivia up until now! If only Darwin had used the term 'natural preservation' we wouldn't have had the mass discussions on this page! I'm not so sure this is trivial though as this confirms (if there was any doubt) that Darwin meant natural selection in the wide sense. However 'preservation' is not quite synonymous with 'evolution by natural selection'. New variation is required for (substantial) evolution but not for preservation. So let's get this part right!

— Axel147 19:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]