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Evolution by natural selection: Difference between revisions
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{{a|bi| | {{a|bi|{{image|Darwin fish|jpg|Not a peacock, yesterday.}}}}{{quote|“But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection.” | ||
:— {{author|Charles Darwin}}, {{br|On the Origin of Species}}, Chapter 4}}Firstly, bad {{t|metaphor}} watch: be careful of using the word “evolve” when you mean “develop”. [[Evolution]] is the process of spawning and dying, and leaving it to the obstreperous gods of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water to figure out which, [[if any]], of your progeny should survive. | :— {{author|Charles Darwin}}, {{br|On the Origin of Species}}, Chapter 4}}Firstly, bad {{t|metaphor}} watch: be careful of using the word “evolve” when you mean “develop”. [[Evolution]] is the process of spawning and dying, and leaving it to the obstreperous gods of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water to figure out which, [[if any]], of your progeny should survive. | ||
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This seems to be just as analytic as the mathematical statement: the hidden tricksiness is in the notion of fitness. That’s where the hard work is done; that is where all the synthetic work sits. ''What'' counts as “fitter”? How do we predict ''that''? On this, evolutionary theory has nothing to say. It doesn’t predict where organisms are going next; it merely gives an account of how they got to where they are now. Its only prediction is “it is highly unlikely that organisms won’t continue to evolve ''somehow''”. | This seems to be just as analytic as the mathematical statement: the hidden tricksiness is in the notion of fitness. That’s where the hard work is done; that is where all the synthetic work sits. ''What'' counts as “fitter”? How do we predict ''that''? On this, evolutionary theory has nothing to say. It doesn’t predict where organisms are going next; it merely gives an account of how they got to where they are now. Its only prediction is “it is highly unlikely that organisms won’t continue to evolve ''somehow''”. | ||
==Sexual selection== | |||
{{a|people|}}The yang to [[natural selection]]’s yin, and the thing that perhaps more than anything else leads to muted cries that the theory of [[Evolution]] may be not so much universal acid as universal ''arse''. | |||
For natural selection says that all variations are selected for environmental fitness. This, you would think, stands to reason (is ''[[a priori]]'' true); for if it were not, and a variation that ''prejudiced'' one’s environmental fitness could sometimes win out in the genetic lottery, then the reliable [[algorithm]] of incremental, and inevitable, ''improvement'' of a species’ capacity to cope with prevailing conditions would be, in a word, buggered. | |||
A successful variation which prejudices a species’ ability to survive and replicate, would ''[[falsify]]'' the theory of evolution by natural selection, you would think. | |||
Yet, this is exactly what sexual selection purports to do: explain the prevalence of “peacock’s tails” in the genetic record — biological adaptions which confer no survival benefit at all, and indeed, seem to make survival harder. Such as a male peacock’s tail. | |||
There is a theory that the client alert has survived in the great ecosystem of ideas, despite it being read by absolutely no-one except the poor sod commissioned to put it together, and his supervising associate, by dint of some kind of analogue to sexual selection. | |||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||
*[[Efficient language hypothesis]] | |||
*[[Semantic code project]] | |||
*[[Evolution]] | |||
*[[Legal evolution]] | *[[Legal evolution]] | ||
{{ | *[[Client alert]] | ||
{{ref}} | |||
{{c|metaphor}} | {{c|metaphor}} | ||
{{C|Philosophy}} | {{C|Philosophy}} | ||