dkomo  wrote or quoted:

> Maybe, but I see a philosophical problem with talking about selection as 
> though it were a physical force like electromagnetism, using phrases 
> like "pushing an adaptation."  Selection is not a force.  It
is only an 
> abstraction.  If Wilkins were still around, he'd light up this 
> fallacious way of speaking in a big way.
> 
> The only thing that *physically* happens is that population of animals 
> acquire different traits through mutations and have different numbers of 
> offspring as result, causing some traits to become more common, and 
> others less.  There's nothing out there in the environment that reaches 
> out and "selects" one animal versus another.

It depends on the environment.  In the case of female choice, there
really are conscious agents in the environment that literally
"reach out" - and select one animal versus another one.

In other cases, "selection" is a metaphor.  People are not expected
to believe that mother nature is personified - and spends her days 
"picking" which  organisms to feed to the grim reaper.  That 
interpretation would be ludicrous.  Instead they are supposed to
draw an analogy with the type of artificial selection that Darwin
talked about at length in the first chapters of "The Origin", using
the examples of pigeons and dogs.

It's the same with "selfish genes" and "favoured
traits" - and so on.

It's pointless trying to tell biologists that they can't use this
sort of terminology because it's anthropomorphic.  They use it every
day - and for excellent reasons.
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