Donald, if natural selection is not a mechanism – and I guess it isn’t – I don’t see that it is anything that can produce new information at all.

Let me put a case to you:

THe case study you write up is quite interesting. Of course as you rightly point it is a case of artificial selection.

When it comes to NS though, there doesn’t seem to be any clear cut definition of exactly what it is, how it works and what it supposed to be doing. Let us take as an example the definition of NS provided by none other than the late Ernst Mayr, considered by many to be the Dean of Darwinism over the past 50 years or so. In his book What Evolution Is he provides the following as a definition for Natural Selection in his Glossary at the back of the book: “The process by which in every generation individuals of lower fitness are removed from the population.” In the chapter on NS in the book, he goes on to explain that fitness functions at the level of the organism.

But consider this from Talk.Origins website (conssidered by many to be the best online authority on evolution):

The current understanding of fitness is dispositional. That is to say, fitness is a disposition of a trait to reproduce better than competitors. It is not deterministic. If two twins are identical genetically, and therefore are equally fit, there is no guarantee that they will both survive to have equal numbers of offspring. Fitness is a statistical property. What ‘owns’ the fitness isn’t the organism, but the genes. They will tend to be more often transmitted insofar as what they deliver is better ‘engineered’ to the needs of the organisms in the environment in which they live. And you can determine that, within limits, by ‘reverse engineering’ the traits to see how they work.

Fitness is in the genes, not the organism. Just the opposite of Mayr. In contrast to the TO definition Mayr writes “…a gene can never be the object of selection. It is only part of a genotype, whereas the phenotype of the individual as a whole (based on the genotype) is the actual object of selection.” (Mayr p 126) He goes to provide other reasons why it isn’t the genes being selected.

Hmmm…but if only you and I understood NS, we’d “get it”.

Bob Dylan?!? Next you’ll be quoting Mark Twain on the history of Palestine.
Don’t get me wrong, I love His Bobness. I’d rather listen to the looniest ravings from the smoke rings of Dylan’s mind than a John Mellencamp ditty where I agree with every word he says.

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats,

Blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,

We’re idiots, babe.
It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

The best advice I ever got from Dylan?

Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parking meters.

Hmm. Is there a third set of people who don’t “follow” anything?

I don’t know about Ms. O’Leary, but I’ve never observed such.

Granted, I’ve observed many people who say they don’t follow anything, but when it came down to it, they actually did. Music, clothing, body modification, sexual proclivity, politics, or any other thing that they could latch onto and be different just like all of their friends. And strangely enough, have the idea that there was objective good and bad things in those chosen areas all the while denying there should be objective good or bad morality.

Or are you saying that it is an essential human quality to follow something “religiously?” Why would that be?

Nature abhors a vaccuum. The human mind cannot cope with true nihilism.

Let me put a case to you:

The superintendent of an apartment building with which I am familiar used to leave the heavy covers off the dumpsters at night, for the convenience of tenants who put out their garbage late.

One outcome was a vast increase in raccoons and skunks (nocturnal creatures). Of course, these animals already existed, but I am not proposing to explain that fact. I am only proposing to explain why they raised heck around those dumpsters, rummaging and scattering garbage in my back garden.

(Unlike the evolutionary biologist or psychologist, I am limited in my explanatory aims … but I do have a grasp of my material.)

As the raccoons and skunks usually ate the good stuff through the night, there wasn’t much left for the squirrels who came round in the day. Also, the squirrels were in comeptition with rats. As a result, we seldom saw many squirrels rooting through the dumpsters.

However, the superindentent was counselled by someone (from the city?) to adopt a different practice, and put the heavy metal covers on at night. (And to hire a rat extermination service pronto.)

Now we see few raccoons or skunks but many squirrels (because squirrels are diurnal, and the covers are typically off during the day).

And something awful happened to the rats soon afterward … something in relation to the Pest Control Ontario truck, I think.

Granted, this is artificial selection, but it is not aimed at the health of raccoons, skunks, or squirrels*, so the sheer randomness of the events in relation to their welfare must be considered.

My point is that this event – like industrial pollution – explains population variances but nothing much else. It would not amount to a big change in information in life forms, only a change in the census.

*There was a definite intention to kill rats, but they are not native, fur-bearing species, so that is legal here, and much encouraged. And I did not count them except as a competitive species to squirrels.

This year has seen perceptions of the virus change from disease-causing villain to evolutionary hero, and the emergence of a new force of evolution – the absence of natural selection.

Let’s see, NS is supposed to be the main engine of Darwinism…except when it isn’t. Denyse, the reason you didn’t understand NS is because there’s nothing to understand. NS is nothing but a convenient phrase to describe certain observations after the fact. If he meant you didn’t understand NS as a mechanism he was exatly right! NS isn’t a mechanism.

Perhaps New Scientist has finally recognized that too!

What is that phrase we so often hear from Darwinists? “There’s no debate that evolution occured, the only debate is to how“, or something to that effect. But when every main tenet of the theory is under intense debate, then perhaps its time to debate the theory itself!

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

Those who think they are only serving themselves are self-deceived.

I understand how it works. It throws stuff out so it doesn’t get perpetuated. How throwing stuff out creates new stuff is what I don’t understand.

jerry, yes indeed, some people do make politics a religion, and that is not good news for world or social peace.

Politics is about the exercise of power in this world, and among the most dangerous of our fellow citizens are those who think that they can somehow “fix” human nature according to a politically driven prescription or “help” God or “get rid of” God – if only they acquire enough power to make everyone do what they say.

Hence the crucial importance of constitutions in limiting the amount and type of power that anyone can acquire. May it always be so!

Now that is not true. I have seen childhood friendships disappear because of politics. A lot of it is that politics now is more an expression of world view than it was before and it seems that for many their self identification is political or world view. And the ID/materialistic divide is a world view phenomena. Yes, some of the people just don’t care either way and a lot don’t really understand the debate but for those who do, there is a ferocity that rivals what and still is for many similar to a religious divide.

The ferocity of the responses also depends upon which environment you are in. Compare the type of responses that the anti ID people make here to the pro ID people and vice versa. Then go to a pro Darwin site and watch the same types of exchanges and the responses.

People who don’t follow traditional religions make a religion out of whatever they follow.

Hmm. Is there a third set of people who don’t “follow” anything? Or are you saying that it is an essential human quality to follow something “religiously?” Why would that be?