Is the Darwinistic Selection Principle False?

That would seem to be all that Darwin said: “It ain’t here because it stopped reproducing. And I am going to call that unfit.

Don’t confuse elegance with simple mindedness. If anything it was fumbling and now words have to be redefined to make it true. It is a typically ill conceived and poorly worded religion.

@ Statiktech.

You need a dictionary!

You have not the tiniest conception of “selection”, let alone “social selection”. “Social selection” is not “sexual selection”. You have no conception of the “selection principle”. So why do you not look for another thread? Currently there are 41032 ILP threads. Good luck!

Yes. Of course. Therefore I always added the words “and so on”:

The classic wave of the white flag without having the balls to admit it.

Yes. It is a poorly worded religion, a very poorly worded religion.

The more the ILP Darwinists post the more I am an Anti-Darwinist. :smiley:

Less offspring can be fine, from a Darwinian perspective, as long that the process continues.

Yes.

No.

Which process do you exactly mean?

The process of having offspring.

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I am interested in getting exactly what your sense of the falsity is. If there is a post that sums it up, let me know. I will hop in here and probe a little.

It seems to me that the moment you have a social mammal, sexual selection and even what might be called natural selection is no longer natural. It is chosen by the society and even by individuals in that society, e ven if it is a society of wolves or ground hogs.

Yes. But if we assume that Darwin’s theory of evolution is not false and that “less offspring can be fine”, then having less offspring can merely be fine in a cultural sense and perhaps for a very short time (!) also in a natural sense but not in the sense of Darwin’s theory of evolution, especially his “selection principle”. So according to Darwin’s theory of evolution having less offspring is always a disadvantage, because it leads to extinction. According to Darwin’s “selection principle” the living beings with less offspring die out because of their unfitness and the fitness of the living beings with more offspring. That is the main point of Darwin’s “selection principle”. Darwin’s theory of evolution refers to developments in the long run - otherwise it would not be accepted as a theory of evolution but “merely” as a theory of breeding - and by the way: the theory of breeding is very much older than Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Yes. Cultures or societies often contradict nature. The so-called “social selection” is the selection of some rulers who decide against nature just because of their own interests - e.g. money, thus power -, just in order to remain powerful. The “social selection” can lead to the extinction of all who are involved in the “social selection”, and in a global society of humans all humans are involved in that “social selection”. Look what the rulers do: they destroy the human’s environment, the whole globe, they sterilise the other humans (by poison and other means), and at last probably themselves too, they murder other living beings, … and so on, … and so on …, just for money, thus power. If this human beings were nothing else than natural, thus living beings that completely depend on nature, then they could not do such nonsense. Humans are relativeley free (not absoluetly free - because they are not gods), so they can decide and act against nature, and they do decide and act against nature.

This “social selection” is mostly directed against the “natural selection”, against nature at all, because those who select, want to exploit and to control anything and everything, thus also nature, want to wield power over anything and everything, thus also over nature.

Human beings are capable of killing alomost all other living beings on our planet. According to Darwin’s “selection principle” this means that the species homo sapiens is the fittest species of all times while most of all other species are the unfittest species of all times, just because of the fact that homo sapiens is capable of replacing most of all other species. But in addition the species homo sapiens is capable of deciding and acting against nature and the so-called “natural selection”. Instead of “fit” one can also say “capable”, “competent”, or “successful”.

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Okay - childish caricature aside. What make you think that evolution has to work with only one means of selection?

None of the means are contradictory.
If I chose a burger i shall have multiple reasons for that. You can describe my selection in terms of hunger, cost, convenience, taste, nutrition, advertising, life-style choice. All of them will be relevant, all of them will have some significance.

I just do not think you are capable of processing subtlety. You can’t even win your vote.

I am not that having less is a problem unless it trails off. I mean from a Darwinian perspective. If those offspring survive and fit their niches and create more. Humans doing just as well as most insects and better than some. I realize that thats a cross species comparison, but I hope it makes my point clearer. Lions were also doing rather well before we came along though they have very few offspring. They were, however, very safe offspring. The only animals that could kill them tended to be slower and not interested - perhaps some snakes were a threat, but clearly not enough of one.

This last part sounds more like Spencer than Darwin. YOu are fit or you are not in Darwinism and even this changes over time. Right now I think even a suicidal attempt to kill all life on earth - including, say, bacteria, earthworms and roaches - would fail. Some hardly little somethings would survive and survive us, since we would have destroyed our food and necessarily our own bodies to kill the bacteria in our intestines. I htink the odds are much better that we will pass away - say, from a gm viral release or a nanomachine accident - and a least some if not many other species will go on after. But being well adapted is to a niche and the niches include other species. I do think humans or AI successors may be able to replace all this, but then we will likely have been replaced via gm or machines. I do not think humans will outlive all other species.

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OK I see what you are getting at. OH, I don’tthink so. The elite is no longer part of most selection. They don’t need many kids. I am not taking about, say, the wealthiest 10% in the West. I am talking about the real power brokers. They can weather any shit they want - and their genes are ALSO going off on the side - and can get along fine with the few kids they have. I would guess to that the real power elites are careful to maintain at the very least their numbers. And good luck getting solid statistics on what they are doing.

This is exactly where your confusion lies.
You actually are saying that the principle is not false at all. In fact you are assuming the principle to be in place.
Your confusion lies int he assumption of a progressive evolution, assuming that intelligence or social success ought to be the selection criteria. Nothing of the kind was ever meant my Darwin.
Finches or tortoises that have different traits on different islands are not better than one another, they are just more fitted to their circumstance.
The principle remains intact; Fitness is the ability to survive to have viable progeny, and your own words demand this to be true. Evolution being an effect of change and NOT a cause of it does not ‘care’ about the consequences, it just does what it does.

Nothing is circumvented. You have not only failed to show the principle false, you are using the principle as a woking assumption.

Only in biology. But biology doesn’t dictate evolution.

Darwinism is NOT the “god of” evolution, merely one of the angels.

@ Levy Mushinsky

You should not merely read your own posts but also the other posts of this thread - and you should read them precisely. I am pretty sure that you have not understood Darwin. Have you read his books? I do not think so. He himself already ascertained some falsities in his theory. Spencer and Haeckel tried to extend Darwin’s theory hoping to be able to eliminate his falsities. Later many other Darwinists tried the same. The last famous one was Richard Dawkins. They all failed - and the later they were the more they failed.

Your “statements” are no arguments. And you are confusing theory of evolution with economy, although that is no surprise, because Darwin himself made the same mistake by referring to Malthus.

If you really wanted (you do not want) to discuss Darwin’s “selection principle”, then you would have to admit (a) that the “natural selection” is at least partly false,(b) that the “sexual selection” is at least partly false and was invented because of the partly false “natural selection”, although they alraedy contradict each other, (c) that the “kin selection” is at least partly false and was invented because of the partly false “natural selection” and the partly false “sexual selection”, although they alraedy contradict each other, and (d) that the “social selection” is at least partly false and was invented because of the partly false “natural selection”, the partly false “sexual selection”, and the partly false “kin selection”, although they all contradict each other and are absolutely contradicted by the “social selection”. We are talking about fitness. And when the fittest die out, and the unfittest live on, then you have no right to speak of a “survival of the fittest”. The whole theory is false then.


And by the way: I warn you again because of your silly personal attacks! Stop behaving childishly!

I’ve had occasion to read Origin of Species from cover to cover twice and The Descent of Man once. I’ve also read some of his papers, especially those he worked on with his cousin Galton; and have also read his biography, his voyage of the Beagle, and his treatise on the human expression.
I studied him in detail three times. Once for a University Access course in 1992;. for a BA in Archaeology in 1995; and again 4 years ago for a Masters in Intellectual History at Sussex University. I can even print out my essays if you like: they are first class.

It is clear that you are totally clueless about his thinking on this topic.

You are totally clueless about Darwin’s thinking on this topic, as I already said several times. There is no doubt. You do not know what you are talking about, because you are talking about a theory of economy and think that you are talking abot a theory of evolution. If they were (they are not) the same, then one of them would be absolutely waste.

Then we are agreement, because that is what I said before, even several times, also in this thread. But what I additionally said is that the other humans are also not or almost not a part of most selection in a Darwinistic sense. No other living being than the human being is capable of circumventing the Darwinistic selection principle.

Yes. But are they fit? :wink:

Yes, I know.

So basically you are confirming my theses.

Does the Darwinism belong to the angel network, James? :slight_smile:

Oh gyahd … :laughing:

One should never study history until one has excelled in the study of propaganda, else one will only learn propaganda. One should never listen to a historian who hasn’t first studied propaganda, else one will hear only propaganda. Historians are infamous for being the mindless targets and puppets of propagandists.

Such decisions wouldn’t be mine to make, but I can’t see how the essential concept, most probably under a different name, wouldn’t be included. The fundamental idea is merely that what survives a given situation is what was suited to survive it. One can’t hardly argue with that. But as “Darwinism”, much more serious implications are promoted (propagandized).

Darwinian propaganda is that you only die out because you were too weak. Everything is your own fault and flaw. No one caused any harm to other peoples (unless specifically taught otherwise, such as white males causing all harm to all other peoples). The only reason anyone dies is because they were not fit enough. They did not listen well enough. They were not smart enough. They did not eat properly. They did not exercise properly. They simply did not live properly. And the harder we make life for all people, especially the strong ones, the better all life will become because the weaker will die out, as they should.

Darwinism and Nietzscheanism go hand in hand.

As usual, something simple, almost too simple to even mention, becomes a tool for ideological propaganda. Propaganda is NOT a part of the Angel Network, except as a study of the methods of deception given to everyone, thus strongly limiting their use.