In light of some of our recent discussions lets take a look at this link:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100120093525.htm-Artificial selection by humans was able to coax a Pug out of what originally started as a wolf, and according to this study--shows that selection alone can cause a drastic amount of variation within a very short period of time. -In 150 years, crossbreeding and inbreeding has allowed an amazing variety shapes and sizes; if you think of the differences between lemurs and humans, why can't natural selection be used to justify the differences between these two primates? If it takes at worst, 40,000 years to get a pug from a wolf, why can't natural selection be seen as a sufficient force for change? -Any thoughts?

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

In light of some of our recent discussions lets take a look at this link:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100120093525.htm
> 
> Artificial selection by humans was able to coax a Pug out of what originally started as a wolf, and according to this study--shows that selection alone can cause a drastic amount of variation within a very short period of time. -
> 
> Any thoughts?-See 'this one's for david' response of mine on Sat. 00:53; we have a different take. Intelligent selection is much faster than natural selection and much more definitive in rapid changes. Natural Selection is passive, and works only on what variety is offered to it.

DAVID: Natural selection is passive, and works only on what variety is offered to it.-For our general discussion on evolution, this remark seems to me so important that I'd like to expand on it, at the risk of repeating earlier arguments. David is echoing Darwin himself: "...variation is a very slow process, and natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations chance to occur" (Difficulties on Theory, p. 202 in my edition of Origin). -This ties in with the definition of natural selection from The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought:-"...The theory asserts that EVOLUTION occurs because those individuals of a SPECIES whose characteristics best fit them for survival are the ones which contribute most offspring to the next generation. These offspring will tend to have the characteristics by virtue of which their parents survived, and in this way the adaptation of the species to its ENVIRONMENT will gradually be improved. It is now generally accepted that natural selection, acting on MUTATIONS which are in their origin non-adaptive, is the primary cause of evolution."-I don't know if others will agree with this definition, but it's a common one, and in my view reflects many of the problems that bedevil discussion of the subject. Not the least is that it begins at the point where we already have different species. As I shall argue in a moment, the title of Darwin's book is misleading, and this definition doesn't help Darwin. In my view, it also glosses over the huge problem raised by David, and if we don't split evolution into its various phases, we lose sight of the extremely restricted capabilities of natural selection. Let's begin with two major elements:-1) Evolution would not be possible without heredity and the ability of organisms to adapt to their environment. These are not CAUSED by natural selection ... they are used by it. 
2) If natural selection acts on mutations, the primary cause is mutations.-Natural selection on its own is incapable of innovation ... it can only select from what is available. Therefore the causes of change are adaptation and mutation. Since we don't know how heredity and adaptability came into being, and mutations are random (and their creative abilities still a matter of debate), only the process of natural selection can be attributed to non-randomness. Small wonder, then, that some materialists prefer to discuss evolution and natural selection as if they were synonymous.-The title On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection is therefore, in my view, way off target. If adaptation to different environments plus mutations account for the changes, the only function of natural selection is to ensure that the adaptations and the beneficial mutations SURVIVE. In which case, natural selection, indispensable though it is to evolution, plays no part in the origin of anything, including species. At most, it brings about improvements in EXISTING organs by preserving the most efficient adaptations.-None of this is an argument against evolution. It's an argument against the constant misuse of the two terms "evolution" and "natural selection", as if the very mention of them were enough to explain a process that we are barely beginning to understand. It's an argument against statements like the following:-"Natural selection [...] is the primary cause of evolution" (Fontana Dictionary).-The Pigliucci anti-design "fallacy", in which by conflating evolution and natural selection he suggests that evolution does not purport to "explain complexity in the biological world by means of random accidents." (I agree with his support of evolution, but I think his argument is false. We need to know how heredity and adaptation originated before we can talk of a fallacy.)-"Natural selection not only explains the whole of life [...]" (Dawkins, God Delusion p. 116 ... the rest of the sentence supplies no qualification of this statement).- "Natural selection: the process which, as far as we know, is the only process ultimately capable of generating complexity out of simplicity" (Dawkins, God Delusion , pp. 150/1... my bold type).-And most famously ... though I can't find it and am quoting from memory: "Darwininian evolution is the creator of life" (Dawkins, website?).-To sum it up: Natural selection does not generate or innovate. It is the fourth and last phase of evolution, following on from heredity, adaptation and mutation, which provide the mechanisms that drive evolution to create new organs, species and complexities. The origin of the first two is unaccounted for, while the third is random. The non-creative, non-random fourth phase only explains survival of what already exists.-
*** Administrative note: We've now got at least three different threads running on this subject, so may I suggest that for the time being we put subsequent evolutionary posts on this one, and supply references to the others when we quote them.

dhw,-You do an excellent job of speaking clearly about this topic about natural selection, but I'm puzzled in how I should respond, because I don't see anything to debate here. -I will pose a question here to both David and yourself. -What exactly do we mean by mutation? I ask this because the variations allowed by sexual reproduction itself is typically the cause of genetic change. As current evolutionary theory stands, these small modifications from generation to generation are carried forward until something triggers a selection event, where then suddenly, something that was no longer important becomes important. Sexual reproduction is the source of genetic variation in sexual creatures, and mutation for everything else. (Bacterium just copy themselves ad nauseum.) -Why this ties in with dogs is that this statement shows that the reason the forms of life we see are here, is because of a selection event. It explains adaptation. -So do I understand that both you and David would contend that the combinations of sexual reproduction and natural selection are insufficient to describe life's diversity? -If so, exhibit A: Dogs.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"


> What exactly do we mean by mutation? I ask this because the variations allowed by sexual reproduction itself is typically the cause of genetic change. As current evolutionary theory stands, these small modifications from generation to generation are carried forward until something triggers a selection event, -You have quoted evolutionary theory properly, but that doesn't mean the theory is correct. Mutations can be due to cosmic rays, mistakes in translation, duplication, epigenetic factors, and 70%, at least, create bad effects or are neutral. We've been over this before. Punctuated Equilibrium, unless you are talking to Gould followers, upsets some folks, since it points to more rapid changes, not explained in the way you have.
>
> Why this ties in with dogs is that this statement shows that the reason the forms of life we see are here, is because of a selection event. It explains adaptation. -There is no question that DNA changes arrange for adaptation. It is also true that humans domesticated wolves that then became dogs, with DNA 98% like wolves, and in fact dogs and wolves breed easily. I've met wolf/dog combos here in Texas and in Alaska. 
> 
> So do I understand that both you and David would contend that the combinations of sexual reproduction and natural selection are insufficient to describe life's diversity? 
> 
> If so, exhibit A: Dogs.-Dogs were developed actively by human selective breeders. As I have pointed out many times in the past natural selection and mutation are both passive. Mutation depends on chance. Natural Selection depends upon what variations are present, and what challenges nature presents. Species disappear if they cannot respond appropriately.-You state in another note that wolves have never varied like dogs. They have variation depending upon their habitat, but are still wolves. -The two issues, I interpret differently. I am Gouldian in that I'm not sure macroevolution, as you describe it ever occurs. The Cambrian Explosion is, of course, the best example. I don't think wolves and dogs are a different species. They breed easily and one came from the other. Further because of the passivity of mutation and natural selection, I think evolution works in a staccato fashion, not by slow tiny steps, because I think DNA is pre-coded to advance to different very diverse species. And finally, the fossil record may be incomplete, but it currently represents advancement by the method I have described. 
In short, I don't think your wolf approach proves anything. but the underlying article that started the discussion shows what amazing variation can be purposely developed by the intellectual activity of selective breeding. Nature, as we know it, is not very intellectual.

David,-If I understand your position:-1. The actual cause of genetic variance is mutation--mutation plays a more significant role in speciation than genetic recombination? -2. Natural selection only operates via an exterior event. -Why do you think that sexual recombination itself couldn't uncover most of these "mutations?" Take the common ancestor of man and chimps. Whatever this thing was, it had the ability to both become man and chimp. However, the circumstances that lead our paths to diverge could only come about via some kind of selection. I hope I'm talking clearly...-If the genotype existed for both, how could you argue that selection wasn't the reason that some members of the common ancestor went chimp and the other went human? In my understanding it isn't mutations that cause this, but the variations allowed by sexual reproduction combined with a selection event. -And then when we consider that nearly all animal life has the same generic form, why does it not stand to reason that it is selection that forces the hand of creatures to change? To me, it seems that the background DNA is the substrate and selection event is the active force of change--it forces a path for the organism. I think your take is exactly the opposite?-And why can't PE be described simply as a "ramping up" of selection events? I've asked this a couple times, but you've remained silent here. -It sounds to me that epigenetics and such are to explain a ramping up in the rate of mutations, but in the grand scale of things I still don't see how that displaces selection nor provides any kind of basis to argue for a deity. -Going back to dogs, it is true that all dogs can still interbreed and by the definition of species that I am familiar with, a pug isn't a different species than wolf. But my point was the source of variation. Everything inside of a wolf's DNA allows it to be a pug. Only the act of humans breeding for traits made goldens, pugs, poodles, etc. The variations you see from continent to continent in wolves are minor because the selection pressures are minor. The selection pressures for dogs are major and therefore you get all the variations that you see. There's no need in this scenario to posit anything other than sexual reproduction + selection as far as I can see.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

Going back to dogs, it is true that all dogs can still interbreed and by the definition of species that I am familiar with, a pug isn't a different species than wolf. But my point was the source of variation. Everything inside of a wolf's DNA allows it to be a pug. Only the act of humans breeding for traits made goldens, pugs, poodles, etc. The variations you see from continent to continent in wolves are minor because the selection pressures are minor. The selection pressures for dogs are major and therefore you get all the variations that you see. There's no need in this scenario to posit anything other than sexual reproduction + selection as far as I can see.-I'm not arguing the fact above, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to wrap my imagination around the process it took for two wolves to make a poodle, or for two chimps to make a man. I'm sure it's because I just don't have the intelligence it takes to imagine it.

dhw quotes a definition of natural selection from The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought:-"...The theory asserts that EVOLUTION occurs because those individuals of a SPECIES whose characteristics best fit them for survival are the ones which contribute most offspring to the next generation. These offspring will tend to have the characteristics by virtue of which their parents survived, and in this way the adaptation of the species to its ENVIRONMENT will gradually be improved. It is now generally accepted that natural selection, acting on MUTATIONS which are in their origin non-adaptive, is the primary cause of evolution."-Then he deliberately misquotes it:-It's an argument against statements like the following:
 
"Natural selection [...] is the primary cause of evolution" (Fontana Dictionary). -"Natural selection" means nothing without something from which to select. -The full title of Darwin's book is: "On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life".

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GPJ

MATT: What exactly do we mean by mutation? I ask this because the variations allowed by sexual reproduction itself is typically the cause of genetic changes. [...] 
Do I understand that both you and David would contend that the combination of sexual reproduction and natural selection are insufficient to describe life's diversity? If so, exhibit A: Dogs.-Life's "diversity" is too vague for me. My wife tells me there are 25,000 cultivars of daffodil alone! I don't suppose there are that many types of dog, but a daff is a daff, and a dog is a dog. If we're going to talk of variations, every individual specimen is different too, whether flower, animal or human. -The problem as I see it is twofold: 1) innovation, and 2) complexity. Your dogs may be different, but they still have all the organs and basic doggy characteristics of other dogs, and your new breeds are no more and no less complex than your old ones. There is nothing new here ... merely variation. But while you're thinking of dog to dog, I'm thinking of prokaryote to eukaryote to dog, duck, elephant, grasshopper, diplodocus, dormouse, eagle, crocodile...all the way up to Matt. And while you're thinking that it's all thanks to sexual reproduction, I'm thinking prokaryote to eukaryote to sexual reproduction, the senses, the circulatory system, the digestive system, the nervous system, the brain.... -Mutation as I understand it is the production of something new. My starting point is always the primitive forms of life, and then I try to figure out how they evolved to us, the most complex that we know of. The list of necessary innovations is colossal. If you bear in mind that these systems never existed, that the original mechanisms had to figure them out from scratch ... blindly unconscious though they were, and working solely through individual organisms going from one generation to another ... the inventiveness is too immense for us even to imagine, over no matter how many millions of years. And bear in mind that those individuals had already survived and reproduced, so they didn't actually NEED to come up with anything new. I have no idea how much of this innovation is due to random mutation and how much to the influence of the environment on the genetic makeup, or the response of the genetic makeup to the environment, but as I said before, the origin of adaptability in itself is an unexplained mystery. I don't know why you say that "the reason the forms of life we see are here, is because of a selection event. It explains adaptation." I would put it the other way round: adaptation explains why we see the forms of life we see. Natural selection gives precedence to the best adapted forms.-The argument relating to innovation is the same for complexity. Why should a light-sensitive nerve become an eye? If the nerve itself conveyed an advantage, that doesn't mean it needed to improve itself. Natural selection certainly couldn't improve it. All natural selection could do is ensure that the most sensitive nerves survived and were passed on, but what was passed on would still only have been a light-sensitive nerve. And we're not even considering the complexities of how a nerve comes to be a nerve and comes to be connected to the most complex of all the innovations, namely the brain. -This is the point at which one can only speculate. We know that all the organs did come into existence. We all agree that the simple did become more complex (although many simple forms of life have survived unchanged, so change is far from inevitable). But we don't know how, and mumbling the magic formula "evolution wooj wooj natural selection" explains nothing. How the mechanisms that drive evolution have been able to invent, refine their inventions, and add more innovations to their inventions, is still beyond our comprehension. One explanation (for those of us who believe in evolution) is that they were designed and programmed, with possible interventions made by the programmer. Another is that they all came about originally by chance, with a large number of interventions again made by chance. I think both versions accept that anything useful in a particular environment is likely to survive (= natural selection). David is convinced of the first theory, George of the second, and I'm left groping in the dark.

David,
> 
> If I understand your position:
> 
> 1. The actual cause of genetic variance is mutation--mutation plays a more significant role in speciation than genetic recombination? -All changes in DNA coding play a role by whatever mechanism they appear, as previously listed. Point mutation is just one of the ways. 
> 
> 2. Natural selection only operates via an exterior event. -Yes 
> 
> Why do you think that sexual recombination itself couldn't uncover most of these "mutations?" Take the common ancestor of man and chimps. Whatever this thing was, it had the ability to both become man and chimp. However, the circumstances that lead our paths to diverge could only come about via some kind of selection. I hope I'm talking clearly...-You are clear. Selection is the matching of some varient to the natural challenges, and of course it plays a major role in evolution. But underlying variation in a species is a necessary precursor to a selection process. Species have disappeared because there was not enough variation to overcome the sudden environmental challenges. Changes in DNA come because of random mutation but also the other mechanisms that have been more recently discovered as previously listed in part.-The sexual form of reproduction certainly allowed more variation and more diversity of species than either parthenogenesis or simple binary fission. It undoubtedly sped up evolution on a time basis. Sex allowed mutations in both sexes to be in play, increasing the chances for change by mutation to be doubled. How sexes appeared is another mystery.

Going back to dogs, it is true that all dogs can still interbreed and by the definition of species that I am familiar with, a pug isn't a different species than wolf. But my point was the source of variation. Everything inside of a wolf's DNA allows it to be a pug. Only the act of humans breeding for traits made goldens, pugs, poodles, etc. The variations you see from continent to continent in wolves are minor because the selection pressures are minor. The selection pressures for dogs are major and therefore you get all the variations that you see. There's no need in this scenario to posit anything other than sexual reproduction + selection as far as I can see.
> 
> I'm not arguing the fact above, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to wrap my imagination around the process it took for two wolves to make a poodle, or for two chimps to make a man. I'm sure it's because I just don't have the intelligence it takes to imagine it.-Nonsense. Think of the process it takes in the example I was using, getting pugs from what was originally a wolf. -If it makes you feel any better, I have a huge standard poodle, and twice he woke me up in the middle of the night howling like a damn wolf. Scared the crap out of me until I realized that he was sleeping while doing it. Might be a few thousand years apart, but they're definitely anecdotally and genetically related.-[EDITED]-And by "nonsense," I mean that it's nonsense that you can't fathom it.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

GEORGE: dhw quotes a definition of natural selection from The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. [..] Then he deliberately misquotes it.-The original line, which I reproduced in full, was: "It is now generally accepted that natural selection, acting on MUTATIONS which are in their origin non-adaptive, is the primary cause of evolution."-In the list with which I ended my post, I expressed my disapproval of "statements like the following": "Natural selection [...] is the primary cause of evolution."-It did not seem necessary to me to reproduce the whole quote, since this is the part of the statement that I object to, as I had already explained in my post. I clearly indicated the omission, as is customary when one edits quotes. The implication of "deliberately misquotes" is that I have cheated by changing both the words and the meaning. I have not done so, and would hardly have provided the full quote if I had intended to do so.-You go on to say: "Natural selection" means nothing without something from which to select. Quite right. Why have you put this in?-You have provided us with the full title of the first edition of Darwin's book. My own is a later edition without the alternative (which is rarely used), but it doesn't make the slightest difference to the argument, because the title you've quoted still contains the claim that species originated by means of natural selection. I'm sorely tempted to think that your whole post is designed to distract attention from the main argument, not to mention the embarrassing Dawkins quotes, but no, you wouldn't stoop that low, would you, George?

BBELLA: [...] I just can't seem to wrap my imagination around the process it took for two wolves to make a poodle, or for two chimps to make a man.-
Although I accept the theory, I too lack the imagination to get my head round the actual process. However, the story I heard was slightly different.-Once upon a time, in the darkest depths of Africa, there lived a Mr and Mrs Chumpan. They had a son, and for some unknown reason he was different from them. Maybe Mrs Chumpan had been hit by lightning, or had had an affair with Mr Huchi up a neighbouring baobab, or Mr Chumpan had been eating the wrong sort of banana, but anyway their hairless son was what we clever people might call a humpan. He was more primitive than you and me, of course, but to the discerning chumpan eye he was definitely inchumpan. Then the following year, they had a daughter, and she was also different from them. She was covered with hair, and was what we clever people might call a chimpan or even a chimp (do we really care?). But here's something very strange, because it turned out that other Mr and Mrs Chumpans were also producing humpans and chimpans (otherwise there wouldn't have been any more humpans or chimpans), and in due course the humpans produced humans and the chimpans produced chimps, and humans and chimps became so fashionable that eventually chumpans, humpans and chimpans died out altogether and no-one has seen one since. (Although I'm told there have been sightings in town on a Saturday night.)-Now you may wonder what's the difference between chumpans producing humpans and chimpans, and chimps producing humans. And you may also wonder how humpans "in due course" produced humans, but I'm off to have my breakfast, and in any case that's enough stories for one day.

Matt has replied to BBella, who can't imagine how two wolves can produce a poodle: "Might be a thousand years apart, but they're definitely anecdotally and genetically related."-I don't think BBella was questioning that, though she will correct me if I'm wrong. Perhaps the chimps and humans offer us a better example. Like you, I accept the theory that all forms descended from a few, and that humans have monkey-like ancestors. But like BBella I find it hard to imagine how the process took place in real life, bearing in mind that it takes two likes to produce a like, and so if there is a not-alike it will require another not-alike to continue the line of not-alikes. This is what I have tried to illustrate in my little story for BBella. I don't think it's "nonsense", although I'm aware that a possible explanation may lie in epigenesis.


>If it takes at worst, 40,000 years to get a pug from a wolf, why can't natural selection be seen as a sufficient force for change? 
> 
> Any thoughts?-And now a new book with lots of negative comments about Darwin and his theory: -
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527466.100-survival-of-the-fittest-theory-darwinisms-limits.html?page=3-"What Darwin Got Wrong" by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini. Lots of reasonable negative comments after the article, But to me both the article and the comments reinforce my contention that the process is completely passive.