http://edge.org/conversation/the-false-allure-of-group-selection
A good argument against the position that humans being are a socially selected/selecting species.
Yes but it is and was via imposition, not nature. Similarly, moderns are bombarded with absurd social memes that distort and demonize logical and objective thinking about these subjects. What we have emerging is an upper/ruling class who can live freely and acknowledge these facts and a lower class who are taught to aim for a frictionless social utopia where every person with every possible type of behaviour (there are exceptions: think outspoken conservative) is received and accepted without any value judgements being permissable. Safe-spaces, fat and slut-shaming and micro-aggressions all symptoms of this trend.
Which, as I say, reduces fitness to the level of mere existence and denies that any nuance is relevant to the the OP. This is why she is a dishonest dimwit who cannot be taken seriously.
True. And you and I are not the only ones with an eye on this…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones
That is the question. The “social state” as the selector according to the “social selection” does “select” against the Darwinistic “selection principle”, thus against the “natural selection”.
But so what? If left to natural devices, how would
more complex and unnaturally developed people
survive the very changes, which bring about complexity? Intellectuals for one may be thwarted in their effort to overcome their short comings. These
in turn may deficit the use of their artifacts with
which would diminish on account of the adege,:‘use it or, loose it’
I personally see this as something deliberate, not as the by-product of largess and over-achievement. The state wants dumb, illogical drones but will allow a technocratic, managerial class to rule over them. I think it is impossible for this class, with unimaginable information at their fingertips, to be propagating this new social morality and peer-pressure based ignorance with anything other than ill-intentions. This class is rational to the point of psychopathic, but they promote Sentimentalism, hyper-sensitivity and hysteria.
Nobody said that humans are independent of nature. Knowing me, you should know that I never said that humans are absolutely free, but that I always say that humans are relatively free. They can do something against nature, they fight gainst nature, they destroy nature, and they “select” against the “natural selection”. But this does not mean that they are at last more powerful than nature. Humans are no gods but want to be (like) gods.
Arminius, I will reply to your full post, but for now I want to just grab this little piece to make a comment:
This is not exclusive to humans. There are several examples in nature and I can give you a common one. The massive tail of the male peacock disrupts its ability to fly and makes it slower and clumsier and morenprine to predation. It serves no purpose other than to attract females. That is an example of sexual selection.
As to human power to destroy its own ecosystem, we do it because we can. If other creatures could modify thenenvironment to suit them, they would. Ine example is thenbeaver, who blocks and alters courses of rivers and floods massive amounts of space in forests just to make it easier to move around.
Yes, that is true, and as I know you, I would add that this is almost to a T a substantiation if someone saying that in the process of shift fro, natural to social selection, the product no longer resembles the agent . I was only trying to lay a logical foundation to a premature hypothesis. it just indicates the quality of the transition, and does not indicate a break. Sorry Arminius to have given that impression.
We all know this examples, Phoneutria, but I do not want to go in too many details again, because I have already mentioned those and similar examples in other posts. But “sexual selection” and “social selection” are different types of selection. Animals have no politics that can destroy the whole planet or eleminate some other animals just because of their social status or their color of skin, hair, eyes and so on and so forth.
As I said several times.
Of course, they would, but they do not. It is a question of quality. And there is no other living being that is capable of acting against nature in a threatening extent. Only human beings are capable of doing that. In that case the difference between humans and animals is more than huge. Humans are the only creatures on this planet that can be so much threatening that they even accept to murder 99% of them or to completely die out.
Never mind, Orbie.
Actually they do, but not consciously.
Rabbits nibble the buds off tree buds and sapling but do not eat them. This maintains grassland where they can see predators coming; it also helps the grass remain pasture.
And of course all ruminants by nibbling grass, and defecating on the same spot maintain prairies; also trampling saplings in the migrations.
Many animals make beds, dens, nests etc… The number of examples goes on and on…
Arminius, I read your post again, and it seems that your objection to darwinistic selection principle is that the indivicuals with the best features in a species are not always the one who are getting selected.
Leaving out of the discussion the notion of what the best might be, since we can only evaluate what the best might or not be from a human from the 21st century point of view, basically yes. That is true. How does that falsify the principle?
It doesn’t. In fact it asserts it. The principle is a natural occurrence not affected by Arminius’ view about what is or is not “best”.
Nature selects what is ‘best’ not because it is ‘best’. It IS best because it is selected! There is no calculation about value or worth- just simply reproductive success.
I think the confusion lies in his head as he is coming from a teleological theistic perspective that assumes that nature is purposeful.
NS: the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin, and it is now regarded as be the main process that brings about evolution.
The adaption is simply measured by reproductive success, and that is what is meant by adaptive.
I have given the answer already several times, Phoneutria. Just read the posts, please. In addition: I have no time now … because I have to get the airplane …: … Holiday … 
Arminius, none of your posts prove the darwinistic selection principle to be false.
Enjoy your holiday, even if it is just a cover for your human disguise, robot.
Your statement is false, Phoneutria.
Try again.
Thank you.
Maybe you are interested in the place where I spend my holidays.
It does not matter how many times you say a falsehood. It does not get more true by repeating it.
The statement he made asserts the truth of Natural selection. And whilst your posts make you think you have refuted it, in fact they assert it.
The principle is a natural occurrence not affected by Arminius’ view about what is or is not “best”.
Nature selects what is ‘best’ not because it is ‘best’. It IS best because it is selected! There is no calculation about value or worth- just simply reproductive success.
I think the confusion lies in his head as he is coming from a teleological theistic perspective that assumes that nature is purposeful.
NS: the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin, and it is now regarded as be the main process that brings about evolution.
The adaption is simply measured by reproductive success, and that is what is meant by adaptive.
Nature doe not “know” what is best. Nature does not “know” at all. And the law of Natural Selection is not intensional. What is selected, is simply by definition what remains.
I think, Lev, wer’e begging the question here. wHat is ‘best’ is defined as the best quality in nature, what is selected, right?
And , what is selected is, the best survival value, right? I can not get out of the convertibility of the terms, yet, not the concepts.
If beautiful woman chooses an inferior man , on basis of other than survival value, and the have offspring, does this mean, that. Within the woman’s genetic heritage there is more beneficial survival adaptable value? The male may , indeed be the product of less then optimal genetic value, in this regard, and may be on the verge of a disappearing genetic strain. Perhaps , had he not met this particularly stunning and succeful line in this woman,
The whole family line may have died out as a result. Happens all the time. But this woman chose him above all alpha males, other then on basis of survival value. She may not cared about it consciously, nor had let. Herself be driven by her own inherent natural impulses, fueled by sexual selection.
Here is a not too uncommon example, where the adaptability index may be offset by other than survival value based on genetic traits. I can question , whether survivability, as a conscious force in natural selection can be entertained as general rule.
Here, at least, a suspension of it is called for. Perhaps, this may also occur in lower species. If the above criteria would hold through , coming up from the annals of time, by now, nature would always present the most excellent of species, and inferior types would never present themselves, they would most certainly would have been weeded out by now.
I agree with Lev on this point. Most people have Darwin and natural selection backward. They’re approaching the idea from the wrong side. What is “best” is measured by female’s selection of males, not the inverse. The problem is that people invert this dyanmic, and blame “the evil white man!!!” irrationally.
Imagine for a moment that no males, not a single one on this planet, “Choose” to mate or reproduce, but that it is entirely and completely a female endeavor.
Just imagine, do a thought experiment. What does the world look like, through this lens, through this possibility?
What then can you say about Darwin and natural selection? How about sexual selection?