"Tim Tyler"  wrote in message
news:cfh519$13n4$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> Perplexed in Peoria  wrote or quoted:
>
> > We (the conventionally wise) recognize the existence of a single (ein,
> > one, uno) process capable of producing adaptation to an unlimited range
> > of environments.
> > That process is NS.
> >
> > Some caveats:
>
> Some nitpicks - of varying significance.
>
> > 1. "unlimited range" actually means limited only to
environments that
> > support life.
>
> Some of those evironments where life can exist nontheless result in
> progressive loss of adaptive features - due to too harsh an environment.
>
> In some of the environments that support life, what you will see
> are devolution and unadaptation - rather than evoultion and adaptation.
>
> > 2. The rate of environmental change must be slow - NS is a slow process.
>
> Environmental change can be very rapid - and sometimes adaptations
> will still result.  A rapid pace of change may make adaptations
> more difficult - but it does not make them impossible.
>
> > 3. There is no choice as to what the goal or maximand of the adaptation is.
> > NS can only produce "adaptations" that promote
individual reproductive
> > success.
>
> So - I take it you don't buy all the nonsense about groups and species
> being subjects of natural selection.
>
> I don't think I accept the premise that only natural selection is
> capable of producing adaptations to an unlimited range of environments.
>
> That was one of the points of the recent "one big organism"
discussion.
>
> Conscious selection is much the same as natural selection in this
> respect.
>
> However, it need not work on differential reproductive success of
> individuals, it could work on differential success at persistence
> of patterns of information within a single large organism.
>
> Again, it only works in environments that provide sufficient support
> for such an entity - but that condition is analogous to the one
> required for other forms of life.
>
> I suspect conscious selection might result in living systems taking
> a bit of a different direction to the path they would take if they
> were ruled by natural selection.
>
> The fact that the agent doing the selection was a conscious individual
> would be likely to result in significant differences in the final outcome.
>
> I note that conscious selection has a number of things in common with
> sexual selection (which can itself be done consciously).
>
> As with sexual selection, it can promote the aesthetically pleasing
> over the functional, and - as with sexual selection - it can sometimes
> take organisms into a bit of a cul-de-sac.

I have no problems with any of your nit-picks.  Thanks.
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