Random Politics & Religion #00

When the Evolution definition is rewrote to fit perfectly with genetics, then yea.. Makes it a lot easier to prove..

Genetics
The branch of biology that deals with heredity, especially the mechanisms of hereditary transmission and the variation of inherited characteristics among similar or related organisms.

huh

Pay no attention to the copy and paste post Pleebo.

Uh... no, genetics is the study of the genome. It's about mapping traits to specific sequences of genetic code, deconstructing them mechanisms of procreation on the chemical level. Darwinian evolution hasn't been redefined, it's been refined with ADDITIONAL information from 2 centuries of study.

So your basically saying evolution has now been redefined to line up with something that has been known pretty much forever.

I always thought of evolution in general as being the most common sense thing ever.

I see you guys a lacking some......

That's very similar to evolution. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 demonstrated evolution via the finches and postulated several mechanisms that drive evolution. One of which was found to not always be true, survival of the fittest.

The reason why evolution became able to be proved is because the definition was revised some years ago to the following:


Darwin's definition was about changes in inherited traits that were always beneficial.

In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and still possess.

The mechanics which drive evolution, in a particular instance, will never fully be understood because they don't always work together and sometimes they oppose each other e.g. altruism vs natural selection.

I always thought of evolution in general as being the most common sense thing ever.

Edit: Actually, I think the only reason evolution is even an issue with people is because somewhere along the line evolution became synonymous with the "man from ape" idea, and many religious people fight the general principle of evolution as if somehow the idea that species can evolve somehow disproves God or something.

Nature is intuitive like that, which is why Science can create predictive models so effectively. And since the human brain is optimized for pattern recognition, well, again, nature is intuitive. She has to be, pitiless *** that she is.

You're actually wrong, Survival of the Fittest still applies, as survival of the "Fittest" doesn't mean that which is the strongest, but that which fits into it's niche or environment

One of which was found to not always be true, survival of the fittest.

Uh... no, genetics is the study of the genome. It's about mapping traits to specific sequences of genetic code, deconstructing them mechanisms of procreation on the chemical level. Darwinian evolution hasn't been redefined, it's been refined with ADDITIONAL information from 2 centuries of study.

I'm not wrong. I don't think you read exactly what I wrote.


Altruism is an example in which survival of the fittest is not applicable. Hence why the concept survival of the nicest is presented in genetics courses.

There is no altruism, if you believe there is you need to examine the claims much deeper

Spermatozoa from a single male will compete for fertilization of ova with spermatozoa from another male when present in the female reproductive tract at the same time1. Close genetic relatedness predisposes individuals towards altruism, and as haploid germ cells of an ejaculate will have genotypic similarity of 50%, it is predicted that spermatozoa may display cooperation and altruism to gain an advantage when inter-male sperm competition is intense2. We report here the probable altruistic behaviour of spermatozoa in an eutherian mammal. Spermatozoa of the common wood mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus, displayed a unique morphological transformation resulting in cooperation in distinctive aggregations or 'trains' of hundreds or thousands of cells, which significantly increased sperm progressive motility. Eventual dispersal of sperm trains was associated with most of the spermatozoa undergoing a premature acrosome reaction. Cells undergoing an acrosome reaction in aggregations remote from the egg are altruistic in that they help sperm transport to the egg but compromise their own fertilizing ability.

sperm trains

I think it still doesn't satisfy the condition of Altruism even if competitive males sperm displays this behavior

Around 20% of cells in D. discoideum altruistically sacrifice themselves in the formation of the mature fruiting body.

Exceptional sperm cooperation in the wood mouse

Um, this is not altruism, this is altruistic, in that it is self-sacrificing. You could say that hair and skin cells show altruistic behavior, in that in their death, they provide additional protection for other cells of the organism.

Arguing that cellular level altruistic behavior is the same as high level cognitive behavior (altruism) isn't just misleading, it's also wrong.

Why would selection appear to favor sperm that work together instead of sperm that outright out-competes its competitors, related or not?