wrote in message
news:20031019060131.D3A8ADF035{at}mail1.acenet.com.au...
> This is my hobby horse, the inconsistent and confusing use of the jargon
of evolutionary
> biology in textbooks and the popular press.
>
> From Curtis & Barnes; Invitation to biology, 5th edition, p 344. Worth
Publishers.
> "Natural selection results in adaptation, a term with several meanings in
biology.  First, it
> can mean a state of being adjusted to the environment.  Every living
organism is adapted
> in this sense, ....  Second, adaptation can refer to a particular
characteristic, ....  Third,
> adaptation can mean the evolutionary process,  ..."
>
> The authors consistently describe natural selection as a process, but I
suggest that a
> process must be definable before it is undertaken and that the result
should be predictable.
> Natural selection cannot be defined in advance of implementation, and the
result  is no
> more predictable than the result of a dice game, therefore natural
selection is not a
> process.
>
> Suppose I were to present the following to my class:-
>
> "Evolution is the outcome of a mutant feature in one or more individuals
being inherited by
> descendants because the feature was benign or apt in the environment of
the time.
>
> Depending on the degree of competition for resources in the environment,
the mutant
> population may survive at the expense of the unchanged population
(survival of the fittest),
> or both populations may coexist and ultimately diverge into two species.
>
> When the environment changes, features that were apt may no longer be apt,
and the
> competition is restarted under new rules."
>
> Have I made errors or omissions?

I don't see that you have.
>
> And which part is natural selection?

In respect of your last question: Here are 2 tied-together "things" for you
to contemplate and reply to

1. What do you think about: natural selection as a way or explaining the
outcome of interactions between all the factors (often dialectically
interrelated) of an "evolutionary pressure totality"?

2. What do you think about: that an understanding of "EPT"
requires [or that
"an EPT understanding" requires :-) -- jokes aside, I was hinting at a
*proposed* unifying understanding] that one can accept that
"Pressures" (and
the P in the middle of the "concEPT" :-) is generally defined as, and is a
*convenient metaphor* for:

- Different pragmatically delineated (i.e. chosen to be theoretically and/or
philosophically workable) types (or kinds) of in the past, present, and
future figuring _"pattern realization preceeding"_ factors.
?
--

By the way:
In the case of what "evolution" usually and on the whole refers to
(including non-biological evolution), I believe that the meaning of "pattern
realization preceeding factors" (=Pressures) typically and generally
*should* imply that 'a succeeding pattern' (i.e., the at one stage or time
not yet evolved, but preceeded by "evolutionary pressures",
pattern) is more
complex, or at least different whilst no less complex*, than an immediately
locally preceeding, or by descent related, pattern. Else the word, and
meaning of, "devolution" applies.

With regards,

P

P.S. I seem to share some of your attitudes!

Examples of what you wrote that I liked are:

"Most "advanced" behaviours are an intricate combination of
genetics and
environment, with learning playing an important role."

"Why do you say the behaviour has nothing to do with evolutionary biology?"
+ what followed

And here is an example of what you wrote that I cannot swallow
whole-heartedly but don't diasagree with either:

"The authors consistently describe natural selection as a process, but I
suggest that a
process must be definable [!?]before it is undertaken[?!] and that the
result should be predictable.
Natural selection cannot be defined in advance of implementation, and the
result  is no
more predictable than the result of a dice game, therefore natural selection
is not a
process."

If by "before it is undertaken" you meant to say: ..before people undertake
to talk or write about it as being a process..., then I can see myself as
_almost_ fully aligned with the above paragraph of yours.

The reason why I felt I had to write "almost fully aligned" is,
that natural
selection *is* what you yourself described; Also, that the only sense in
which "natural selection" has explanatory meaning worth mentioning is as a
principle with 'post hoc predictive' (revelatory with the benefit of
hind-sight and after its actual factual results  - e.g. fundamental
physical, molecular, physiological, psychological, and social patterns)
power. That is, as a principle that is part of the process of Evolution. It
is of course always important that we know what is, or can, be selected
from; and by which evolutionary (~ naturally selective:) pressures.


Since you mention your hobby horse I will mention what mine is: To try to
point to what we with the benefit of both hindsight and 'here-and-now sight'
can know about what any biosphere similar to ours will tend to evolve as a
matter of a sub principle to Darwin's super principle (not process); And
that we by this kind of thinking can gain some further philosophical insight
into ourselves.

I have pragmatically contrived to call this recognition {same sub principle)
something like: 'ambi-advantageous trait evolution'. And, I am using an even
more crude and grammatically contorted version, "ambi-advantageously
evolved", to construct the acronym AEVASIVE.

By help of this sub principle and some auxilliary "concEPTs" I seek to
reflect my recognition that given a long enough run and/or a large enough
number of new and mutated generations/individuals, a survival advantage is
then always gained by to ambi-advantageous adaptiveness mutated individual
relative to a competing non-ambi-advantageously mutated/adapted individual,
given that both affected by the same or a similar "selective Hibernation
imploring type situation".

This 'ambi-advantageousness principle' primarily and most especially
corresponds to the obviously frequent events, and the evolution theoretical
logic, of slowly impacting "selective Hibernation imploring" type [a subset
of "adversity type"] situations that constitute an evolutionary pressure
which often coincide and as if combine with some (one or more) "opportunity
type" evolutionary pressure(s), such as 'near at hand' environmental
niches-for-the-taking; And, to that such potential niches can become better,
or for the first time, exploited as a result of genetically-mutationally and
physiologically likewise "near at hand" patterning potentials.
---
The thus defined "principle of ambi-advantageous evolution" will, 'in
principle', tend to produce, given enough time (and not 'too many'
astrophysically caused mass-extinction events), the "AEVASIVE" trend or
strange attractor within "the growth of any (earth-like) Evolutionary
('Phylogenic') Tree".

In this way I highlight that, and explain why, and, with the addition of the
'neurobehavioural' part of EPT (EPT also being used for refer to my entire
"explanatory philosophical take" on What Is going on), how, we
humans happen
to have the by far most AEVASIVE behaved and functioning phenotype of all
species.

D.S.
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