Is the Darwinistic Selection Principle False?

Is the Darwinistic selection principle false?

  • Yes.
  • Probably.
  • Perhaps.
  • No.
  • I do not know.
0 voters

Thesis:

The Darwinistic selection principle is false, unless human beings were not included.

Darwin’s selection principle means that successful living beings have more offspring than the unsuccessful living beings and live on, whereas unsuccessful living beings have less offspring than the successful living beings and die out. But in the case of the human beings this selection principle can be reversed: successful human beings have less offspring than the unsuccessful human beings and die out, whereas unsuccessful living beings have more offspring than the successful living beings and live on. The human culture/s allow/s to circumvent the Darwinistic selection principle.

Success in nature is measured by the number and quality of offspring. Mankind measures success in terms of monetary income and status. Monetary income and high status doesn’t necessarily equate with genetic success but many successful males have a lot of illegitimate offspring that nobody ever finds out about.

The Darwin principle of evolution has only been a part of what has been altering the nature of life, animal and human. The principle of filtering the strong in and the weak out is entirely situationally dependent. Given the exact same competitive creatures in a different environmental situation, the opposite set could succeed instead. Strength and weakness are not simple concepts when it comes to actual life.

Darwin actually defined strength and success in terms of which ever mutation survived. So actually by definition, the strong always survive more, else they weren’t really the strong. But when it come to human interaction (societies) and reproduction, “strong” has to be thought of in different terms than merely direct conflict. In a Darwin minded society, those who seek to reproduce the most are “stronger” than those who perhaps seek to kill their competition. They are not thought of as being strong because people still think in terms of natural animal competition when they envision strength. And as stated by Pp1, “successful” during this era is mostly an issue of monetary gain or public recognition, not proliferation.

So it all gets very complicated and from one era to another can almost completely change. But there is one aspect that can never change. And that is which ever behaves in a manner that is more anentropic, survives longer. But then ensuring which behavior that really is can be complicated.

So I cannot say that the principle is entirely true nor entirely false. It is partially true and partially false. It is not a “holy”, stand-alone principle and is often reversed. And the intentional effort to go along with it, completely defeats it.

Exactly right. Arminius is equivocating.

Darwin’s selection principle of his theory of evolution itself is an equivocation. It even contains a contradiction, because the humans do do not completely fit it. On the one side humans fit Darwin’s selection principle of his theory of evolution when it comes to human nature, but on the other side humans do not fit Darwin’s selection principle of his theory of evolution when it comes to human culture/s respectively to the modern era/s of human culture/s.

What are you talking about?

What do you not understand?

You misunderstand what "successful’ means. Successful means living to increase your reproductive success. So the argument for natural selection is perfect and even circular.
It’s not part of the theory that you are able to challenge.
It’s not contentious. This part of the Theory is an unimpeachable premise, that is apriori. and aposteriori. unavoidable.

Selection is based on reproductive success, not any other kind.
This entire thread is meaningless.

I think you ,like so many other people who misunderstand Darwinism is that you come from an assumption that suggests evolved = better. When this is simply not the case.
Better is a value judgement that nature is not capable of making. Evolved simply means more “FITTED” to the environment for the means of having viable progeny. The “fittest survive” not the most clever, not the richest, not the most greedy; but simply those more able to have healthy children capable of having healthy children of their own.

Your ideological (modern religious) “statement” is meaningless, because your false god Darwin was partly wrong, regardless whether it is hard for an Darwinistic theist like you to believe it (by the way: Darwin was a theist too - a pantheist).

When it became obvious that the “natural selection” was partly false, the “sexual selection” was invented. When it became obvious that the “sexual selection” was also partly false, the “kin selection” was invented. When it became obvious that the “kin selection” was also partly false, the “social selection” was invented. And so on, and so on … The “natural selection” is - more or less - contradicted by the other “selections”, especially and completely by the “social selection”. The Darwinistic selection principle is merely a farce.

The theologist Darwin was a Malthusian, and Malthus was an economist.

In nature (in nature :exclamation: ) fitness or success is measured by reproduction. Living beings that have the most offspring are the “fittest”, thus are most successfull (because you can merely be most successful, if you are “the fittest”). Success is the consequence of fitness. The success follows the fitness. So when it comes to nature it is absolutely correct to say that successful living beings live on, because they have more offspring than the unsuccessful living beings, whereas successful living beings die out, because they have no offspring or less offspring than the unsuccessful living beings. But when it come to humans, especially to modern humans culture/s, it is not correct to say that, because modern humans are fit, thus successful, when they have no offspring or less offspring than those humans who are not fit, thus unseccessful.

The said “social selection” contains the possibility of selecting against the Darwinistic selection principle. And this happened and happens. Thus it was and is a fact.

This definitely means that the selection principle of Darwin, the Darwinians, and the Darwinianists is false.

The “Political Correctness” wants us to speak of “fitness”. :wink:

This also means that the selection principle of Darwin, the Darwinians, and the Darwinianists is false.

Partially true and partially false scientifically means false, because it has to be regarded as false, if merely one part of a theory is false. It is the theorist who has to provide a correct theory.

Certainly as a logical statement or solitary theory. My point was that Darwinism isn’t a solitary principle when it comes to evolution. There are other principles involved. So as far as being the god of evolution, Darwinism is certainly a false god (aka “incomplete controlling theory”).

And since I first heard of the phrase “survival of the fittest”, I immediately noted that it is actually the “survival of the fitted” (those who fit into their environment at the time).

Darwin was really asking, “Why do we see this variety of creature at this time?” His answer was “because these are the one that survived.” That much of it is unquestionably true. But then the idea got extended and extrapolated (as people seem to not be able to avoid) to suggest that absolutely nothing else was responsible for life being the way it is found. That was over-reaching the principle and certainly false.

What had some truth to it, became preached as a god. People do that with everything that they want everyone to believe in and use as an excuse for what is actually being done behind their backs. Often you hear it preached to the public that evolution is totally random, which is absurd. Such things are preached so as to disguise manipulation.

Yes. What is really very much questionable and partially not true is the selection principle - not more. Darwin*s theory of evolution is based on three principles: (1) variation, (2) heredity, (3) selection.

Those who claim to be “atheists” are antitheists, or theists, or both (that’s possible - cp. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=188125), and in this case Darwin is their false god. There are many of those false gods - as you know; but the main problem are not the false gods themselves but those stupid ideologists (modern-religious zealots) who believe in them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1ufK04tjOI[/youtube]

What he left out was:
4) Environment (the current situation = the MOST critical of all concerns).

Are the producers of that video creationists respectively neo-creationists?

Videos got nothing to do with religion, in the christian sense. It’s got more to due with a new religion called the Church of Neo-Science which is headed by Lord Richard Kraust and worships the god Einstein, living in fear of the Fallen Angel Tesla (the devil of their religion.) Atheists are neo-science’s chosen people, and they must persecute any teaching or group of people that doesn’t promote it, including silencing the belief in any conspiracy, including extra-terrestrials or the harmfulness of GMO’s. In Neo-Science they promote the radical notion that “something is nothing” and that they can measure the distance of stars and existence of black holes using blind-faith.

Arminius,

You are making a mistake here.

Partially true and partially false simply means partially true and partially false, neither completely true not completely false, whether scientifically or philosophically.

Science does not have all answers. In other words, it still not get everything right. But, does this mean that the science is totally false and has not got any single thing right?

Then, how would you evaluate scientific achievements like mobiles, internet and enabling humans to land on the moon! Should we discard all scientific achievements just because it is not completely right!

The same applies to everything else, including Darwin and religions too. Typical Atheists make the same mistake when they hold all religions doctrines useless because they do not give all the answers or some wrong ones.

Let us take things as they are. Accept what is true and useful.

With love,
Sanjay

No. You have misunderstood me, Zinnat.

Yes. That is what I also said, Zinnat.

And here you have misunderstood me. I did not say that the whole science but merely its “theorist … has to provide a correct theory” (see above). The theorist must have the honest claim to provide a correct theory. Otherwise science would choke. Scientists have to do their jobs seriously, that means in the case of theorists to provide a correct theory, and a correct theory means correct according to the current knowledge about logic and observation/experimentation. Referred to Darwinisms scientists know or could know that the Darwinistic selection principle is partly false, and then they have to scrap or to correct the whole theory. Maybe that I did not choose the most adequate translation of my thoughts, Zinnat, but it was no mistake. Science consists of observation/experimentation as praxis and of theory, and the theorists do not have less responsibility than the practicians (observers/experimenters). Probably one can rescue the other two principles of the Darwinistic theory of evolution but not its selection principle, if humans are included in it.

Yes. That is what I also said, although I used some other words and put them in the correct position of the sentence. :sunglasses:

Darwin’s selection principle has not much to do with science in general but with a relatively small part of a scientific theory, if it really is a scientific theory. But the theory is as important as the praxis. If there were no kind of falsification in science, then all theories of the past would still be valid. Many theories are valid, although they are partlially false. So the Ptolemaic system could also be correct, because it is not totally incorrect. But that is not the way how science works. Ironically but not accidentally science works like Darwinism, Social-Darwinism, so to say. So if one says that Darwin’s selection principle is partly false, then this one will get a problem with some powerful people, but that does not mean that this one is wrong. The real reason why some theries are scrapped has more to do with power than with science itself.

No. I did not say that science is totally false.
Again:

And this part is even a relaitively small part of a theory.
But then:

This statement is okay. And as I already said: Many other theories are also merely partly false and regarded as being totally false, but some currently valid theories are regarded as being correct, although they are partly false as well.

A theory is falsified not only then, if a theory is false, but also then, if only one single part of a theory is false.

Technology is an applied science and belongs more to the praxis side of science than to the theory side of science. There have been many examples in the history of science and technology that have showed how theory can be strongly influenced by technology and/or scientifiic praxis (obsevations/experimentations): in some cases a theory got approved, in some cases a theorxy got scrapped (discarded). Allegedly some geological theories got approved by the landing on the Moon because of some rocks that were brought from the Moon to the Earth, whereas other geological theories got scrapped (discarded) by it because of the same rocks. Both science and technology and again both scientific praxis and scientific theory influence each other.

Dariwn’s selection principle insofar as it refers to humans (!) has not lead to any technological (!) success but merely to more belief in it.

Regarding a theory as false, although merely a small part of it is false, has often led to more science success than a conservative defence of it. And false theories are usually not “dead” theories, if science is not “dead”.

But, please, do not forget:
A theory is falsified not only then, if a theory is false, but also then, if only one single part of theory is false.

My question was not meant in a religious sense. Creationists are often but do not have to be religious, Darwinists are much more religious, namely modern-religious, thus ideological.

@ Zinnat.

I do not want to destroy the whole Darwinistic theory. What I want is to find out what happens to that theory without one of its three principles, because that one principles is false, if humans are included in it. This forum is called “I Love Philosophy”. So let’s do some philosophy, Zinnat!