[Southack]

Yes, labs really can eliminate selection pressure. So can zoos.

"No they can't. They just change it to select for something else."

You're reduced once again to arguing semantics. Labs and zoos can eliminate selection pressures. Yes, this means that a desired animal is being selected in that circumstance; no, that doesn't mean that selection pressures are necessarily forcing changes upon the beast.

A zoo could maintain the same otherwise-extinct tortoise for millenia, for instance. Must you grumble that the tortoise is merely being selected, as if that has some bearing (it doesn't) on the debate at hand?!

Semantics is only one step above arguing about spelling, which is only one step above name-calling. Surely you want to raise yourself in this debate rather than sink like so many others...

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"You're reduced once again to arguing semantics."

I am using the word selection correctly. You don't get to redefine words to suit your arguments. Selection means a specific thing, species means a certain thing... they don't mean whatever Southack wants them to mean in any given debate.

"Labs and zoos can eliminate selection pressures."

No, they can't.

"Yes, this means that a desired animal is being selected in that circumstance; no, that doesn't mean that selection pressures are necessarily forcing changes upon the beast."

Who says selection forces changes? Selection can be for stasis.

"Semantics is only one step above arguing about spelling, which is only one step above name-calling."

It is not semantics to call you out for making up definitions of words.

"Surely you want to raise yourself in this debate rather than sink like so many others..."

Irony doesn't suit you.