A right set-to at RD.net

[klr]

Currently in progress - RD v. assorted begrudgers and malconents:

Discussion about Richard on talkrational

[JimC]

Very interesting! A debate on which I am basicaly on Richard's side, because of a weird tendency in a few recent researchers to regard natural selection as a vampire regards garlic...

[Ayaan]

It's the most Professor Dawkins has participated in a thread in quite some time. It's bound to draw a crowd. I just hope it doesn't turn into a flame war.

[JimC]

It's the most Professor Dawkins has participated in a thread in quite some time. It's bound to draw a crowd. I just hope it doesn't turn into a flame war.

If it does, I will be on the Prof's side!

His enemies will feel the wrath of the treefrog!

[Ayaan]

It's the most Professor Dawkins has participated in a thread in quite some time. It's bound to draw a crowd. I just hope it doesn't turn into a flame war.

If it does, I will be on the Prof's side!

His enemies will feel the wrath of the treefrog!

I don't doubt it for an instant, Jim.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's the most Professor Dawkins has participated in a thread in quite some time. It's bound to draw a crowd. I just hope it doesn't turn into a flame war.

If it does, I will be on the Prof's side!

His enemies will feel the wrath of the treefrog!

I don't doubt it for an instant, Jim.

I got the frog's back.

[JimC]

I just posted this on that thread:

The clearest example I can come up in this debate is those magnificent creatures, the stick insects. Anybody who observes them in an arboreal habitat could not doubt the non-random selective processes which have honed their structure to be extremely difficult to spot amongst twigs and branches (let alone the beautiful behavioural adaptations which involve a progress in fits and starts, like a twig affected by the wind)

But for any given species, the particular position of the swellings which mimic some twig features has a strongly random component, a result of historical contingency which delivers the magnificent variation of this amazing tree of life.

The features of any given species of stick insects are not the result of some random drunkard's walk in the potential genotype of their ancestors, nor are they a remorselesly determined, robotic accomplishment of some mythical "selection uber alles". They are a historical reality, with rational antecedents and a good helping of sheer chance, but their core feature would not exist without the ruthless pruning of their lineage by keen-eyed predators.

[Psi Wavefunction]

Actually, I agree with Dlx2's position there...

Happen to be a strong supporter of neutral evolution, and it's influence on constructive traits... not that it needs much support anyway!

[klr]

Predictably, RD has had quite enough of this:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 6#p2414686

Words, as Twatsworth rightly says, often have more than one meaning, sometimes related meanings. Confusion, and even patronizing abuse, can result when somebody adopts one meaning and presumes that another person is using the same meaning. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives two definitions of the adjective 'random'. In this order:

1. Not sent or guided in a special direction; having no definite aim or purpose.

2. (statistics) Governed by or involving equal chances for each of the actual or hypothetical members of a population.

Meaning 2 is the one adopted by statistically-minded members of this Forum, not surprisingly since that is the technical definition used in their profession.

Meaning 1 is the one used and assumed by everybody except professional statisticians. It is the one I have consistently followed in all my books, and the one understood by the kinds of people I am trying to communicate with: the kinds of people who need to be convinced of the truth of evolution, or who need better comprehension of what evolution means.

The two halves of Meaning 1 are themselves open to confusion. Meaning 1b ('having no definite aim or purpose') is the meaning assumed by creationists, who therefore regard evolution by natural selection as random, because it has no definite aim or purpose (which they assume to mean intelligently designed aim or purpose). Meaning 1a ('not sent or guided in a special direction') is the meaning adopted by most biologists, who therefore regard natural selection, but not mutation or drift to fixation, as nonrandom because it sends or guides evolution in the direction of adaptive improvement. It has been a large part of my life's work to dispel the confusion between 1a and 1b. So engrossed was I in the battle between 1a and 1b, I was momentarily taken aback by a sudden outflanking manoeuvre from an unexpected source, namely Meaning 2 (which I was aware of but had largely ignored and even forgotten about).

After some reflection, I shall continue to use Meaning 1, and shall continue my efforts to disentangle the confusion between 1a and 1b. I might think about possible ways to clarify the side issue of the confusion with Meaning 2. I don't think it is unkind to say that the postings to this forum by partisans of Meaning 2 are not well-adapted to enlighten laypeople. I can't help wondering whether it would be wise even to attempt to explain Meaning 2 to laypeople, while the more important confusion between 1a and 1b remains the dominant barrier to general understanding of evolution.

And now, I don't know about the rest of you but I've had enough of this. I'm going back to work. Goodbye.

Richard

Emphasis mine.

[JimC]

*This post and the following five posts were moved from here: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 99#p257099 - Charlou*

I sometimes toy with the idea of annoying Algis and co on the Aquatic Ape thread but I don't have the energy.

Does our old mate David McC still post, I wonder?

He knew his onions...

I think he does. A good egg but he did argue in favour of group selection, as I recall. Bad show.

At least he's not one of the "population genetics is a stochastic process, so natural selection is random" lunatics...

[Clinton Huxley]

I sometimes toy with the idea of annoying Algis and co on the Aquatic Ape thread but I don't have the energy.

Does our old mate David McC still post, I wonder?

He knew his onions...

I think he does. A good egg but he did argue in favour of group selection, as I recall. Bad show.

At least he's not one of the "population genetics is a stochastic process, so natural selection is random" lunatics...

Oh, those guys deserve a thrashing.

[leo-rcc]

But population genetics is a stochastic process, so natural selection is random.

[JimC]

LP wrote:

Sorry Jim, I'm sympathetic towards that group. They don't deny that adaption happens, or fail to recognise straightforward adaptions - they just hold that natural selection is a stochastic process - which it is. What Richard said was a touch inaccurate (specifically saying that Natural Selection is 'the exact opposite' of random), and they were right to point that out - obscure mathematics notwithstanding.

You may have missed the point here. No one, including Richard or myself, would deny that the iteration of alleles through the generations is a stochastic process. The confusion is over the term "random." Richard uses a well-understood meaning saying that random means without any bias towards a set of outcomes, which means that natural selection is clearly non-random in this sense of the word. In terms of avoiding confusion and dispute with creationists, this is the correct approach.

More than that, the group I allude to has some deep diferences with the school of evolutionary biology that Richard adheres to, and that I support. They give natural selection a minor supporting role, and insist that evolutionary processes are dominated by genetic drift. They also tend to favour the primacy of mathematical modelling over real world biology...

[lordpasternack]

Richard uses a well-understood meaning saying that random means without any bias towards a set of outcomes, which means that natural selection is clearly non-random in this sense of the word. In terms of avoiding confusion and dispute with creationists, this is the correct approach.

Would it also be the correct approach to engage creationists with their more widely known meaning of 'theory' - perhaps telling them that evolution isn't a theory ("it's a fact") - rather than explaining the situation more accurately?

More than that, the group I allude to has some deep diferences with the school of evolutionary biology that Richard adheres to, and that I support. They give natural selection a minor supporting role, and insist that evolutionary processes are dominated by genetic drift. They also tend to favour the primacy of mathematical modelling over real world biology...

Well, evolutionary processes encompass more than adaptive evolution, as you well know. One would hope that people would base their adherences and insistences on what drives evolution as a whole on the evidence... And I can't really validate what you've said about their proclivities towards maths and biology.

[JimC]

Richard uses a well-understood meaning saying that random means without any bias towards a set of outcomes, which means that natural selection is clearly non-random in this sense of the word. In terms of avoiding confusion and dispute with creationists, this is the correct approach.

Would it also be the correct approach to engage creationists with their more widely known meaning of 'theory' - perhaps telling them that evolution isn't a theory ("it's a fact") - rather than explaining the situation more accurately?

More than that, the group I allude to has some deep diferences with the school of evolutionary biology that Richard adheres to, and that I support. They give natural selection a minor supporting role, and insist that evolutionary processes are dominated by genetic drift. They also tend to favour the primacy of mathematical modelling over real world biology...

Well, evolutionary processes encompass more than adaptive evolution, as you well know. One would hope that people would base their adherences and insistences on what drives evolution as a whole on the evidence... And I can't really validate what you've said about their proclivities towards maths and biology.

Your first point has merit, although I don't think the analogy is that close. It is essential that evolutionary biology be presented as a true science, with many areas of current disagreement and true complexity, and by being too simplistic, we could be exposed to attack. However, the "random" view of natural selection is truly built on abstruse mathematics, and does not communicate the consistent bias applied by selection on top of the stochastic processes...

As for the second point, it is all a matter of emphasis. Their group likes to attack the straw man of the "uber-selectionist", when the Dawkin's school is quite accepting that a variety of other processes than NS play their part. When viewing complex adaptive structures, however, natural selection is the dominant mechanism.