Whoa! Whoa! dhw take notice!!! (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, April 21, 2014, 16:38 (3867 days ago) @ dhw

MATT: I'm stating that without a changed environment, there is NO evolution. The central point to "Natural Selection" is that changes we see in the fossil record happened by the challenge/response relationship between organisms and their environment.
> 
> Our dispute only lies in your use of "Natural Selection", which initially you conflated with changes in the environment, and which here I would replace with "evolution", a word which automatically entails change,whereas "selection" only entails choice between organisms that already exist. I agree that without a changed environment there is NO evolution. Do you agree that without adaptation and innovation there is NO evolution? Do you agree that some creatures do adapt and others don't, and those that adapt survive and those that don't adapt perish? And that innovations that are unhelpful won't survive, and innovations that are helpful will survive? The latter is the phase that rounds off the process, and is the definition of Natural Selection that I offered you: "NS is the process by which those organisms best able to adapt to a particular environment will survive." I can quote you a dozen reference books with similar definitions. To sum up, please see my response to Romansh below:
> -
Do you agree that the definition of natural selection that I have provided neatly encompasses the cases you have raised here? Most dictionary definitions of "Natural Selection" state "The process..." as a leading phrase That's why I chose the word "function." Natural Selection takes organisms, and environmental events, and the repeated application of that function over time leads to evolution. So when I said "Evolution by natural selection" in the preceding post, I was separating out "Evolution" (the observed phenomenon) and focusing on "natural selection" (the mechanism proposed to explain the observed phenomenon.) -If we agree that natural selection is a process, and we can agree that it requires both existing organisms and environmental changes, and that its output are sub-populations with traits that didn't exist prior, then we are in complete agreement. --
> Dhw: I simply cannot see how an asteroid crashing into the earth can be called Natural Selection. 
> ROMANSH: For me natural selection and the environment are inseparable. 
> Asteroids are major step changes in the environment...
> 
> I totally agree. But inseparable does not mean synonymous. Every part of evolution is indispensable and inseparable, from environmental change to adaptation to innovation to NS. My disagreement with Matt is over his apparent definition of NS as a change in the environment, and my question is: why single out one part as being "the most important"?-I think it would be fair to say that my exact formulation of Natural Selection wasn't fully fleshed out until this conversation. It was a bit more ambiguous. I think now, I have it straightened out. 
> 
> A final word to Matt. This is how I see evolution proceeding: environmental change triggers organic change, and NS decides which changes will survive and which ones won't. What is your objection to this description?-I hope my first paragraphs up above explain this: Natural selection is just a mechanism proposed to explain evolutionary change. The mechanism requires organisms and environmental events, and by repeated application of the mechanism, you'll have your explanation for evolution. Admittedly, I get caught up sometimes into conflating evolution *with* natural selection, but that's because it is the only mechanism for evolution that has really been worked on. There are other possible mechanisms, it just happens that the one that usually gets brought up here can't be studied...

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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.\"