Though this ends up having to say that the fittest are people who don’t get too stressed doing boring repetative jobs, who like the TV on during dinner, who try to stay up with fashion and believe a lot of rather idiotic stuff with the little passon they can muster. And they tended to like sitting in rows in school. They feel good in that kind of external disrespectful structure. They fit it. They are suited to being disrespected and being boring and are unfit for something else.
Those whose genes lead them to have trouble with this do not fare so well, are more likely to be diagnosed, and likely will soon have their ‘problematic genes’ isolated and weeded out.
That is a false quotation. You should quote my text correctly, Phoneutria. I said (see above): “… that does not always prove or disorove the real fitness.” So I do not claim or demand a prove or a disprove, the reverse is the case: the Darwinists and nobody else have to prove or disprove, if they want their theory to be accepted. If the Darwinists want their theory to be accepted, then it is up to them to prove or to disprove. And if it is not possible to prove or to disprove a theory, then this theory has nothing to do with science.
Who said that there was a “fitness in present time that is above all others”?
The knowledge of “the fittest” can almost always also not happen after the fact. You contradict yourself. First you say “there’s no ‘proving the real fitness’”, then you say “knowledge of ‘the fittest’ can only happen after the fact”.
I understand “proving” and “knowledge” in a scientific sense here.
Nobody really knows “the fittest”. There are too many parameters.
No. Maybe that you “follow to the obvious conclusion that intelligence is the greatest indicator of fitness”. But I do not:
I said: “not the only one”. Did you not notice that?
If there is fitness, then there must be indicators of fitness, otherwise the concept of “fitness” can never be taken seriously.
The excuse of the Darwinists is, for example, that “fitness is more than fitness”. So they do not want to be taken seriously.
Yeah. Do you consider cockroaches as “the fittest”?
Again: Nobody really knows “the fittest”, Phoneutria.
One can only say after some facts that this or that living being “fitted”. There are some indicators of fitness, as I already said, but in some cases (for example in the case of the human “social selection”) this indicators can also be used as if they were indicadors of unfitness.
The Darwinistic “fitness” concept is problematic, the Darwinistic “selection principle” is partly false, and that includes the possibility of being totally false but also being partly right. I would like to save the right parts of that theory, because I think that it is going to be completely eliminated, if nobody will have eliminated its false parts in order to save its right parts.
I did quote you verbatim and assigned the quote to your name. The “proving the real fitness” part was not between quotes as in being assigned to you, it was in quotes to distinguish it as a phrase.
You meant to say that you can see after the fact that a species fitted, but that does not necessarily prove or disprove the fittest part.
My point was to say that that is nonsensical. When two species are competing for resources and only one survives, that is the fittest of the two. It is called survival of the fittest because the fittest is the one who is left standing.
There is nothing to prove or disprove. So maybe there were extinct species who were way more kickass at something than the remaining ones. It does not matter at all in evolutionary terns unless that kickassedness is put into staying alive
You are incorrect. Theories that can be proved are no longer theories, they become laws. We call it theory of evolution, and not law of evolution, in admitting that as beautiful and complete as it may seem, it is only plausible. There is plenty of room for unproven ideas in science. That is all theories are, an explanation for phenomena that we are not currently able to determine is the only correct explanation with certainty.
Anyway, what, exactly, is up to darwinists to prove?
This is why I asked you above, what exactly do you think darwinists need to prove. It appeared to me that you want proof the whoever survives is the fittest.
I said that there is no one fittest species. Survival determines who is fittest. Survival as in perpetuation.
Forgive me if I sound confusing. I can rephrase. You can say that we are the fittest of the Homo genus because we are the only ones left. This is after the fact because all the other ones are dead.
If you mean that that does not prove or disprove
that we are truly the fittest, I find that nonsensical because survival itself (as in perpetuation) is the very definition of fitness.
Yes I did notice that. Hence I used “we” meaning not you or me, but we as a human population.
I was making a point.
Besides you went on about humans damaging the environment in which it lives in another post and I fail to see how any other species would be different.
Survival.
I am not familiar with that argument.
[quote
Yeah. Do you consider cockroaches as “the fittest”? [/quote]
Which ones? There are about 4600 known species.
No, Phoneutria. You are wrong. Laws are like the instructional parts of any dogmatism and made for dictatorships. I do not care whether some people want to name them “laws”, because (at least to me) laws are superordinated rules and should not have anything to do with science, otherwise science would become a religion (and - unfortunately - it has already partly become a religion).
But I know some people who want it to be a law and why they want it to be a law.
The accent lies on the term “is up to Darwinists” not on the word “what”. If I want to convince you, then it is up to me to prove my statements or to disprove their negation.
Concerning your “what” I already said several times: (1) “selection”, (2) “fitness”.
During the period of Realism and Naturalism (radical realism) almost everything was related to nature, based on nature - it was a reaction to the previous period: Idealism and Romantic.
One can say it, but that does not necessarily prove “our” fitness or disprove “our” unfitness. So it is nonsensical to say it as if it were something like the truth or a law (see above). If you have won a game, then that fact does not necessarily prove your fitness or disprove your unfitness. You may have had much luck or/and help.
Survival is no sufficient indicator of fitness.
The so-called “fittest”!
I have already given several examples. This time I am not going to quote again. … Sorry.
Let me ask you: Is your term “survival as in perpetuation” an objection?
So one would have to get after the “perpetuation itself” in order to get the “knowledge of ‘the fittest’”; but It is not possible to get after the “perpetuation itself”; thus according to your own words it is not possible to know anything about the “fittest”; and that means, for example, Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is nonsense.
No, no. What is nonsense is wanting to have knowledge of the fittest.
That’s not at all what the concept is meant to do.
In fact it is not meant to do anything other than explain the present.
When the population grows from 1billion to 7.5 billion in less than 250 years it is undeniable fact that the selection pressures have been relaxed and that large numbers of unfit mutations are being produced. In fact, to claim that any type of achieved reproduction whatsoever is proof of genetic fitness is a total cop-out. Surely there are degrees and objective standards from which values can be drawn or inferred? Phoneutria’s argument means that a male dwarf who is deaf and blind and a woman with downs syndrome and spina bifida, both of whom are HIV+ and asthmatic, who manage to reproduce will fall into the same category of fitness as two tall and athletic mensa members who reproduce. It is something she obviously doesn’t believe and which begs for a more nuanced analysis but might encroach on territory which is not politically correct and she isn’t willing to tread those waters.
Apologies if I described some poor soul on ILP. You matter.
And how? By weak genes being exposed to harsher environments and predation or culling right? Therefore one can make very reasonable inferences about who is fit and who is not or at LEAST who is fitter and who is less fit. Nothing controversial about that at all, speaking from an evolutionary biology standpoint. But then that would involve you making value judgements on health, beauty, intelligence and all manner of things that you prefer remained mysterious and subjective. Ergo: cop-out.
My value judgments are irrelevant. What I think makes a good human is irrelevant. Nature does not create nicer or harsher environments with the objective of creating better organisms. It doesn’t have a mind.
ONLY under that particular environment at that moment in time.
Change the percentage of oxygen in the air by a few percent and it is possible that an entirely different species would emerge on top of the food chain. So what “value judgements” apply? How can you use the word “fittest” to mean anything but a value judgement that is misleading as it ignores the exact circumstances of the environment at the time.
“Fittest” is an inappropriate and misleading word, inferring blame and discredit where it doesn’t belong.
But what objectively can be demonstrated to have a higher probability of survival in a larger number of environments is not about ‘good humans’ and ‘bad’ humans, it is about ‘fit’ and ‘more likely to exhibit fitness in most conceivable environments’. I doubt you could find one example of an environment where deaf, dumb and blind male midget with cerebral palsy is better adapted that a tall strong man with good eyes, keen sense and a high IQ. Clearly an extreme example and what we are talking about is degrees but denying that you are capable of making a reasonable estimates and value judgements about what is (overwhelmingly likely to be) fit is just your way of saying ‘I don’t like this game, it feels icky, count me out’.
Of course, but given that we have primate cousins and other hominids who have survived for millions of years a change of that magnitude would be far outside of the ‘probable’ range of potential circumstances and thus reasonable inferences can clearly be made. If you are going to build a house in a mild and temperate climate you don’t include contingencies for monsoons and hurricanes.
And even in such a scenario keen senses, efficient nervous and cardiovascular systems and absence of disease would all clearly serve to increase the probability of fitness right?
No, you are just making a poor attempt to infuse politics into science.
This thread is about natural selection.
Fell welcome to go to one of the many threads about race, and post this there.
Otherwise, pardon if I don’t reciprocate.
No sweetpea, I’m just showing that your analysis is factually not objective. In fact, accusing me of politics is very much a projection.
Notice how I didn’t bring race up at all proving that you debate in bad faith and with unjustifiable grudges.
I do find it amusing that you consider race to be unrelated to natural selection though. If we all have common ancestors, and different races emerge, surely the ONLY thing that could cause that is natural selection, right??
Bringing value judgments to a discussion on the theory of evolution is the opposite of objectivity.
No, it proves that I am not an idiot. Also that I have been there a thousand times and no longer have the patience for such antics.
That does not follow from anything I said.
Yes. I am not a race denialist. However you will notice that the subject of this thread is natural selection as a theoretic concept. Not about race. So please stop with the distraction, make another thread if you wish.
Philosophy is the discipline of attributing values. Talking about fitness in the context of unprecedented reproduction and maintaining there is no reasonable way to determine which mutation is fitter than another or most likely to be considered fit is you allowing your egalitarian politics to invade the discussion. Don’t try and turn the tables.
Been where? What are you talking about? The irony is that in your haste to dismiss what I am saying and insert agendas into my plainly written responses, you are in fact exposing your own prejudice.
Yes it does and you know it does. You told me to go elsewhere and talk about race, as though race is unrelated to this topic… even though I never brought it up at all. Can you see how much of an idiot you are making yourself look? Get a grip!
What distraction? I made some comments which accurately described your lacking arguments. Then YOU brought up race. Surely then the only one distracting, provably, is you? Why don’t you try sticking to the topic and not being so lazy as to dismiss my arguments based on your own inapplicable prejudices? That would be nice on a forum called ‘ilovephilosophy’ dontcha think?
No. I can obviously take a swing at which sort of attributes I consider to be the best in an individual.
However, I am not able to predict or guarantee if the environment will stay the same, or which way it will change.
Therefore my values apply exclusively to this very moment in time. They are a drop in an ocean.
We do not select. The environment does.
I am not being hasty. You are being disingenuous.
First you say value judgments must be a part of the conversation.
Then you say that the single most important attribute of human success is intelligence.
Then you start to show charts about which populations have the highest IQ.
Then this becomes a conversation about race.
You go ahead and throw your hands in the air and play innocent about it like this isn’t what you came here to say. Pardon if I don’t reciprocate.
I am not saying that this subject should be censored. I am just asking you to go do this in another thread because this one is about the theory of evolution as written by darwin.
Seriously, read the OP because I think you didn’t even bother to do that. You shot so far out that you are just being plain disruptive.
It smells like fish and it is red.
Being related to the subject is not the same as being pertinent to the discussion.
Sex is related to natural selection, so let me tell you about this beautiful blonde with the huge tits I saw the other day. You fucking dickhead.
I fail to see any accuracy in your posts as it pertains to the current discussion. You threw in a red herring, you acted disingenuous about it, and you now assign blame to me. This is where we say goodbye. Please, don’t cry. It’s not you, it’s me babeh.
