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'Survival of the Cutest' Proves Darwin Right
Science Daily ^
| 01/21/2009
Posted on 01/26/2010 2:10:25 PM PST by autumnraine
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To: Brookhaven
OK, when did selective breeding become the same as evolution? The difference is how the selection is done. If the fittest survive to breed, whatever fittest might mean at any given time and place, then it's evolution. If the less desirable are culled or sterilized, while the more desirable; are allowed and encouraged to breed, it's selective breeding.
If the less fit and undesirable are allowed, encouraged, and subsidized to breed, it's liberalism.
21
posted on
01/26/2010 3:13:38 PM PST
by
El Gato
("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
To: muir_redwoods
No one would argue that dairy cows or domestic turkeys are examples of the survival of the fittest Fittest for what? And determined how. They are the fittest for producing lots of milk and providing lots of breast meat respectively.
22
posted on
01/26/2010 3:16:36 PM PST
by
El Gato
("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
To: guitarplayer1953
in this case it is actually intelligent selection as the dogs were already designed
23
posted on
01/26/2010 3:18:55 PM PST
by
ari-freedom
(Obamacare: nananana nananana hey hey hey goodbye!)
To: El Gato
“If the less fit and undesirable are allowed, encouraged, and subsidized to breed, it’s liberalism. “
liberalism punishes the successful more than it rewards the unsuccessful.
24
posted on
01/26/2010 3:21:03 PM PST
by
ari-freedom
(Obamacare: nananana nananana hey hey hey goodbye!)
To: autumnraine
The work of breeders was known before Darwin came along. But all of these dogs are still part of the same species.
Darwin and his contemporaries developed the idea that species themselves were the result of evolutionary change.
So technically, so long as the dogs are all the same species (i.e. can interbreed), Darwin isn't proved right.
Or at least that's what I was able to get from educational television.
It is kind of cool, though, that two dogs can be as diffferent in appearance as dogs and creatures of other species.
25
posted on
01/26/2010 3:24:47 PM PST
by
x
To: ari-freedom
selective breading is done by someone designing the outcome of the dogs.
26
posted on
01/26/2010 3:36:58 PM PST
by
guitarplayer1953
(Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to GOD! Thomas Jefferson)
To: ari-freedom
Ben Stein has a good documentary on one of the movie channels. It shows the leading Darwinist trying to explain the origins of life. They admit we could have been created by aliens or some higher being but they were 98% sure it wasn't God. Stein exposed their bias against any science that pointed toward the possibility of a designer. Their atheism came before their science.
27
posted on
01/26/2010 3:44:33 PM PST
by
peeps36
(Democrats Don't Need No Stinking Input From You Little People)
To: muir_redwoods
No one would argue that dairy cows or domestic turkeys are examples of the survival of the fittest "Fittest" is a bad word choice: what's really meant by the concept is 'survival of the fitted: the critter that's best fitted to its environment survives best. Domestic turkeys are ideally fitted to the environment of a turkey-meat industry.
28
posted on
01/26/2010 3:56:14 PM PST
by
Grut
To: Tublecane
"To my mind, thats a HUGE difference, so much so that youre really not studying the same thing at all. Its the difference between a Blind Watchmaker and Intelligent Design." So, what you are saying is that the way God did his intelligent design is by working according to the laws of evolution. Do you "really" want to go there??
To: Brookhaven
OK, when did selective breeding become the same as evolution?
Natural selection is selective breeding.
To: Cicero
"Its not blind chance that results in different breeds of dog."
It's also not "blind chance" that results in different species. Evolution does not operate by "blind chance." Point mutations do... but they only increase genetic diversity... replacing the genetic diversity lost through natural (or artificial) selection. And that is only half of the process, providing raw material than can then be acted on by selection.
But the selection itself is anything but "blind." It instead is driven by external and objective standards of fitness, driving inexorably towards those standards in a completely deterministic and non-random way.
What the article misses here is actually the key point... modern varieties of dog lay completely outside the natural variation of their wild lupine ancestors. Not only has artificial selection taken advantage of the natural genetic variation of wild wolves, it has also taken advantage of new genetic information that arose during the period of domestication via random mutation.
Dogs are not only the result of selection, they contain a vast amount of evolutionary innovation that cannot be blamed on an "intelligent" breeder.
To: EnderWiggins
Well, actually, Darwinian theory says that each instance of gene selection and mutation IS blind chance. But then “survival of the fittest” intervenes and selects those changes and mutations that are favorable, and the unfavorable ones die off.
—Bean
32
posted on
01/27/2010 11:36:07 AM PST
by
Cicero
(Marcus Tullius)
To: Wonder Warthog
“’To my mind, thats a HUGE difference, so much so that youre really not studying the same thing at all. Its the difference between a Blind Watchmaker and Intelligent Design.’
“So, what you are saying is that the way God did his intelligent design is by working according to the laws of evolution. Do you ‘really’ want to go there??”
No, that’s not what I’m saying at all, and I don’t know how anyone could draw that conclusion from what I said. Humans don’t breed dogs “by working according to the laws of evolution”. Selective breeding is, in fact, anti-evolutionary.
To: EnderWiggins
“Natural selection is selective breeding”
Yes, in that nature is doing the selecting. But when we talk about breeding, we’re talking about an artificial process. It’s humans rather than nature deciding what genes get passed on to the next generation. There are similarities between the two processes, but they’re really not the same thing. And if nothing else, breeding was not what Darwin was on about, and therefore the results of dog breeding wouldn’t prove his points either way.
To: Tublecane
"Yes, in that nature is doing the selecting. But when we talk about breeding, were talking about an artificial process."
Oh? I guess I have spent too much time in a rural environment. There is a vast amount of breeding that goes on without any human intervention whatsoever. I know (for example) of very few people breeding prairie dogs... but they sure seem to be quite adept at reproducing near my home in Colorado.
"Its humans rather than nature deciding what genes get passed on to the next generation. There are similarities between the two processes, but theyre really not the same thing. And if nothing else, breeding was not what Darwin was on about, and therefore the results of dog breeding wouldnt prove his points either way."
The two processes are essentially identical except for the selector determining the criteria for fitness. In one case it is an intelligent selector selecting for arbitrary traits like "cuteness" and in the other it is a non-intelligent selector selecting for traits with genuine survival value like "speed."
They are otherwise the identical process:
1. Random point mutations create genetic variation.
2. Some selection takes place allowing favored genes to survive disproportionally into the future.
Rinse and repeat.
To: Cicero
"Well, actually, Darwinian theory says that each instance of gene selection and mutation IS blind chance. But then survival of the fittest intervenes and selects those changes and mutations that are favorable, and the unfavorable ones die off."
Close... but not quite.
Only the mutation is guided by "blind chance."
The gene selection is not. It is contingent, and will change direction as the environment changes (thus altering the objective criteria for "fitness.") But it is emphatically not blind.
You are confused in that you try to put "selection" at two different places in the process.
To: Tublecane
"Humans dont breed dogs by working according to the laws of evolution. Selective breeding is, in fact, anti-evolutionary." Sure they do. Selective breeding does two things, it isolates a specific phenotype by not allowing breeding with other phenotypes, and the breeder chooses a set of characteristics that will survive, often by killing or neutering those individuals that don't have the desired characteristics. Evolution isolates a specific phenotype by geography (isolated ecosystems) and "chooses" a set of characteristics that will survive best under a certain set of conditions ("survival of the fittest"). The underlying mechanisms are precisely the same in both cases---isolation and selection, which is precisely what "evolution" is. The fact that one is done by a human agent and the other by "impersonal nature" is irrelevant.
To: blam
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Gods Graves Glyphs
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Breeding merely accelerates and/or exaggerates randomness ("diversity") in the genome.Domestic dogs have followed their own evolutionary path, twisting Darwin's directive 'survival of the fittest' to their own needs -- and have proved him right in the process, according to a new study by biologists Chris Klingenberg, of The University of Manchester and Abby Drake, of the College of the Holy Cross in the US. The study, published in The American Naturalist on January 20, 2010, compared the skull shapes of domestic dogs with those of different species across the order Carnivora, to which dogs belong along with cats, bears, weasels, civets and even seals and walruses. It found that the skull shapes of domestic dogs varied as much as those of the whole order. It also showed that the extremes of diversity were farther apart in domestic dogs than in the rest of the order. IOW, selective breeding brought out lots of diversity in shape and so on, which basically negates the idea that it was driven by a search for cuteness. :')
From January. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. Thanks autumnraine.
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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38
posted on
05/22/2010 9:48:03 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
39
posted on
05/22/2010 9:50:25 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
40
posted on
05/22/2010 10:36:58 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
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