Inference and its role in NS (General)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, January 21, 2011, 14:14 (5053 days ago) @ dhw

Dhw; -I am in agreement that natural selection is generally a passive process. However I think we both might be arguing over semantics. if we agree that natural selection is the filter--then we really only care about what the output of the filter is. -Input: organism
Output: organism that passed through natural selection.-When I learned biology, I learned that natural selection encompasses changing environments, organisms moving to new environments, and competition over resources or species.-So according to theory, organisms only undergo changes under stimuli to change.-What we call a horse now, we have 14 snapshots of its development. In what I learned, while natural selection is not the organism changing itself, its the conditions that put the organism into that situation--the cause. If we can agree on something here we can dive into Dawkins' mind regarding his inference (as best I can.)

--
\"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.\"