Re: Evolution article in BioScience Encyclopedia
- From: "John W Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:09:56 -0500 (EST)
sciencebioresearch <sciencebioresearch@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Evolution article in BioScience Encyclopedia -
http://www.bioscience.ws/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Evolution
Critical omission within the above website:
The only way to empirically refute Darwinian evolution (which remains the
only refutable theory of evolution that we have) is to force the total
number of infertile forms raised to fertile adulthood per parent per
population to remain exactly the same. I term this critical, final but 100%
omitted from Neo Darwinism fitness "Total Darwinian Fitness" (TDF). It
provides the only falsifiable frame of reference that evolutionary theory
has.
My comments of quoted text follow:
1)" In biology, evolution is the changes seen in the inherited traits of a
population from one generation to the next"
The units of selection is not a single gene and the Darwinian mechanism of
evolution, i.e. "natural selection" cannot operate directly on each genomic
gene as a supposed independent selectee, only on fitness dependent groups of
genes and only via the phenotypes that these gene groups happen to code for.
While Mendelian traits do separate on an independent basis at meiosis, this
does not mean that such traits must also be independently selected.
2) "The modern evolutionary synthesis defines evolution as the change over
time in this genetic variation" .
Only simple additive change in genetic variation is considered heritable and
therefore selectable within critically oversimplified population genetics
models so only changes in just additive genetic variation over time can
define Neo Darwinistic, oversimplified, uncorrected concepts of evolution.
Non additive heritable variation is known as "genetic epistasis". Almost all
of it was deleted within Haldane's oversimplified, basic population genetics
equations because he argued that these dependent non additive effects would
be lost by the shredding of the genome at meiosis. However, empirically, it
was shown that this is not necessarily case. C. H. Waddington demonstrated
experimentally that non additive traits can be conserved and provide a high
and a low gearing for evolutionary change. He termed the protection non
additive epistasis can provide against genetic additive change
"canalization" and the acceleration it provides, "assimilation. The
Darwinian fitness of any trait is epistatically coded. This means that
fitness of any one trait is never the sum of the fitness of the sub traits
that comprise it, no matter how you define fitness, e.g. the fitness of a
hand is never the simple sum of the fitness of each finger and thumb.
Waddington was the first to amend Haldane's basic population genetics
equations to include a critical variable for genetic epistasis. This
amendment remains ignored to this day.
3) "There are three basic mechanisms of evolutionary change: natural
selection, genetic drift, and gene flow. "
There is only the one NON random process which can produce evolutionary
change: natural selection: the default set intersection of all TDF fitnesses
per population and absolutely nothing else. The random processes of genetic
drift and mutation can only provide temporal and spatial heritable
_variation_. Falsifiable Darwinian theory combines these within the _one
same theory_ such that the evolution of groups can be produced via the
independent natural selection of fertile individuals within each group (only
fertile forms can possibly pass on their genes). Just individuals can be
selected and only populations of them can evolve and not the reverse. This
view I term the classical Darwinian monocentric theory because it allows
just the one unit of selection: the fertile adult form. OTOH oversimplified
models of this falsifiable moncentric theory allow multiple units of
selection so I term them polycentric.The cost polycentricity is
irrefutability which is just a massive cost. This is produced by allowing
more than just the one fitness maximand per theory which inevitably allows a
contradictory evolutionary theory (which does not matter at all to the
mathematics!). Within Neo Darwinism the non random process of natural
selection has become decoupled from the one, same theory within which just
random processes form a vital part, only providing heritable random
variation and selection as separate, mathematical processes. Note: A
maximand is any value which must be maximized, e.g. the velocity of light.
The net result of this is that random forms of evolution have become allowed
reducing evolutionary theory to the status of just another irrefutable
belief, i.e. on par with creationism.
4)
"Natural selection is the process by which genetic mutations that enhance
reproduction become, and remain, more common in successive generations of a
population. It has often been called a "self-evident" mechanism because it
necessarily follows from three simple facts: Heritable variation exists
within populations of organisms. Organisms produce more offspring than can
survive. These offspring vary in their ability to survive and reproduce."
JE:-
There is nothing "self evident" about natural selection. In fact, Darwin's
proposed non random mechanism for producing evolutionary change when
critically coupled with random, heritable variation within the one same
theory, is not sufficiently understood by the majority of researchers. The
only values being compared per population are Total Darwinian Fitnesses
(TDF's). These were not defined by Darwin but are empirically: the total
number of just fertile forms raised to fertile adulthood by each parent per
group and absolutely nothing else. Once established these fitness totals
remain fixed for every parent per group over time because they represent
fitness constants per parent per population. If all the heritable traits
could be known per parent per population, just a simulation could reproduce
empirical evolution.
5)
"The central concept of natural selection is the evolutionary fitness of an
organism. This measures the organism's genetic contribution to the next
generation. However, this is not the same as the total number of offspring:
instead fitness measures the proportion of subsequent generations that carry
an organism's genes.[51] Consequently, if an allele increases fitness more
than the other alleles of that gene, then with each generation this allele
will become more common within the population. These traits are said to be
"selected for". Examples of traits that can increase fitness are enhanced
survival, and increased fecundity. "
The preferred Neo Darwinian fitness which "measures the proportion of
subsequent generations that carry an organism's genes" always remains just
an ongoing variable and requires all epistatic gene fitnesses to remain
deleted as an uncorrected, critical oversimplification of the falsifiable
theory which absolutely required them and provided a constant fitness per
selectee per population. The net result is that Neo Darwinistic theory is
reduced to polycentricity in just a futile attempt to make empirical sense.
We end up with Hamilton's minimally tri-centric inclusive fitness concept
allowing Dawkins selfish genes which have to (absurdly) combat the very same
phenotype they are required to exist within, in order to win. The net
result: the more they win the more that they must lose. Neo Darwinian
fitnesses as typified within Hamilton's Rule, have no fitness constant frame
of reference. The net result of this is that a relative gain providing just
an absolute loss cannot be differentiated from the same relative gain which
provides an absolute gain, i.e. an altruistic donation cannot be empirically
differentiated from an selfish investment.
6) An active area of research is the unit of selection, with natural
selection being proposed to work at the level of genes, cells, individual
organisms, groups of organisms and even species.[57][58] None of these
models are mutually-exclusive and selection may act on multiple levels
simultaneously.[59]
JE:-
As just, irrefutable, oversimplified MODELS they are not
"mutually-exclusive" but within the one falsifiable theory from which all of
these models were are derived via the process oversimplification, they
remain _absolutely mutually-exclusive_. IOW the misuse of mathematics has
reduced empirical theory to just mathematics in order to evade
falsification. Polycentric models as contesting empirical theories of nature
remain _self contradictory_.
7)
"Although natural selection is responsible for adaptation, the relative
importance of the two forces of natural selection and genetic drift in
driving evolutionary change in general is an area of current research in
evolutionary biology.[64] These investigations were prompted by the neutral
theory of molecular evolution, which proposed that most evolutionary changes
are the result of the fixation of neutral mutations that do not have any
immediate effects on the fitness of an organism.[65] Hence, in this model,
most genetic changes in a population are the result of constant mutation
pressure and genetic drift.[66]"
JE;-
The above is the product of gross model misuse. The elevation of a naked
random process to become an evolutionary event in it's own right and not
just a heritable variation event, requires the critical decoupling of the
non random process of natural selection from the random processes of drift
and mutation such that, instead of forming just the one, same, _falsifiable_
theory, they are now forced to form two competing non falsifiable theories
grounded in just, mathematics. Mathematics is not a science.
8) "Organisms can also respond to selection by co-operating with each other,
usually by aiding their relatives or engaging in mutually-beneficial
symbiosis."
JE:-
Darwinian Fitness mutualism was and remains the most important selective
force that any fertile form can experience. Here TDF's are mutually but
hardly ever equally, increased. Because polycentric Neo Darwinism has no
constant fitness proposition per selectee per population (so it has no
falsifiable frame of reference) it cannot separate mutualism from
selfishness or even, proposed altruism! Thus the overriding importance of
true, falsifiable fitness mutualism remains ignored within Neo Darwinism. In
falsifiable theory the Baldwin Effect can provide a massive selective force
allowing expanding cooperation within expanding competition. Most of our
human history deals with the mass effect fitness mutualism has provided.
9) "Adaptations are structures or behaviors that enhance a specific
function, causing organisms to become better at surviving and
reproducing.[7] "
JE:-
"Surviving and reproducing" cannot _both_ constitute a fitness maximand. One
must reduce the other to just an optimum for the other. Either nature
maximizes survival (life spans) OR to reproduction using finite resources.
Quite clearly, reproduction is the fitness maximand and not survival. The
reproduction of what exactly? Darwin answered this by arguing that each
parent has to raise as many children to adulthood as possible. IOW,
fecundity is not a fitness maximand just the reproduction of parents (which
have to be fertile just to be able to constitute a parent) is. Counting
infertile forms within a total fecundity count is out by thousands of
percentage points because only a tiny fraction of most parents offspring can
be raised to fertile adulthood.
This means that infertile forms can be selected against but not selected
_for_. In gene centric terms this means that the genes within infertile
forms are selected for only within the soma of the fertile parent from
whence they came and never within the body of an infertile offspring.
End Part One.
I will finish this when I have time.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
Edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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