One reason people have such a hard time believing evolution is progressive is that many primitive organisms like cockroaches and crocodiles, have survived for millions of years so from an evolutionary perspective, aren’t they the superior ones? The Earth is full of simple organisms that have always been simple and always will be simple. They were here long before we arrived and will be here long after we’re gone. So how does it make sense to say evolution drives life towards complexity?
In thinking about this question, I was reminded of a concept in business called “first mover advantage”. The idea being that if you’re the first to enter a competitive landscape, you don’t have to necessarily be the best because you can corner the market before superior competitors get a chance to emerge and you can exploit all the low hanging fruit.
So I think what probably happened in Earth’s history is a lot of really simple organisms lucked into certain ecological niches and specialized in them early. One such ecological niche might being an insect that can eat anything, or being a crocodile that can live in shallow water, thus having easy access to both water and land and all the prey that comes there to drink. Good work if you can get it, and thus animals that were lucky enough to get it, pretty much stopped evolving millions of years ago. Sure evolution tinkered with their phenotypes here and there, but their body plan remained essentially the same.
So people love to think they’re being provocative by saying, “oh cockroaches have survived for millions of years; they’re so adaptable!” But are they though? There’s a difference between being adaptable and adapted. Cockroaches and crocodiles are extremely well adapted to life on earth because first mover advantage allowed them to get some of the best ecological niches, but they’re not adaptable because they never change that niche. It’s so good they don’t need to.
By contrast our ancestors never found that one great niche so we kept on evolving. We never found a lasting adaptive niche so we evolved the ability to adapt. to whatever niche we were in, from the Sahara desert to the arctic tundra, and hopefully one day, other planets.
So yes evolution is progressive, but only if you actually evolve. Many, perhaps most; have stopped evolving millions of years ago.
Pumpkin Person 
“So yes evolution is progressive, but only if you actually evolve. Many, perhaps most; have stopped evolving millions of years ago.”
Are you assuming that only visible morphological changes entail that evolution has occurred? Even if there is no morphological change, evolution is still happening. I’m sure you know that it’s a continuous, ongoing process of change in local environments.
If you want to define it that way, then sure, but most people conceive of evolution as significant morphological change. By your standard Gould’s punctuated equilibrium would be false.
It is compatible with PE though, since it accommodates the fact that evolution operates on multiple levels (like the EES does).
Okay, then I’m talking about the morphological level
So the claim is that evolution is progressive on the morphological level?
I can’t speak for all progressives, but that’s how I’d operationalize it.
But I might add that the morphology has to be genetically caused (either passively or actively). If everyone just goes on steroids, I don’t consider that morphological evolution
So can you operationalize the definition of “evolutionary progress” with what you’re now saying about morphology? Because you’re basically putting forth a form of orthogenesis, and that entails that there is a direction or goal that is being strived toward. But recall my examples from two months back.
Also, how would this operationalizion be used for progress for human races and humans, as your supposed apex, compared to other animals?
Well evolution is hard to measure because organisms are not one dimensional so if it is progressing, it wouldn’t be easy to tell. If the only change were say body size, it would be easy because that can be graphed on a single line but the number of variables are so great, only high dimensional math can quantify it. For example Mongoloids might be more derived in brain size and life history, but they are more primitive in height.
And evolutionary progress does not necessitate a goal. A cheetah becoming faster is an example of progress and that’s not goal driven.
What do you mean by “more derived in life history”? How is a larger brain (accepting that for the sake of the argument) an example of progression? Can you give me an argument?
If evolutionary progress does not necessitate a goal, then a cheetah becoming faster isn’t an example of evolutionary progress. But you said that a cheetah becoming faster is an example of evolutionary progress. So that contradicts the initial premise.
You just dont get it. You even mentioned crocodiles LOL. If the asteroid never hit the earth life on earth at its ‘apex’ would resemble them. I don’t think humans would have evolved with dinosaurs killing them.
And if you look at the crocodile it never evolved into anything resembling higher intelligence despite being older than any mammal. You literally cited the greatest example in ecology – the crocodile – of evolution not being progressive.
And the reason they did not progress is because they found the perfect ecological niche early and more or less stopped evolving tens of millions of years ago. The notion of progressive evolution by definition can only apply to those animals that keep evolving.
Now youre a literally making a circular argument. Your viq is so poor. I really think your viq-quant iq gap is even worse than animes.
Crocodiles literally existed alongside other ‘more evolved’ dinosaurs for millions of years and nothing was happening. Evolution isn’t just about niche filling according to you, but then you turn around and say, evolution is about niche filling…until it isn’t. Youre so garbled and frankly, stupid.
What I’m saying is that advanced life forms are in general more adaptable than primitive life forms but the primitive life forms don’t need to be as adaptable because they have first mover advantage.
I actually agree with you here, TP.
The “first mover advantage” ad hoc, since it is specifically introduced to address the issue at hand without a strong basis in evolutionary theory. And it’s circular when it suggests that organisms aren’t evolving because they found a favorable ecological niche early on, so it assumed the conclusion—that evolution is only progressive if organisms continue to change—and then uses it to explain why certain organisms aren’t considered examples of evolutionary progress.
Puppy have you read Lord of the Rings?
Sadly no. My mom is a big fan of that stuff though
LOL your mom reads more manly books than you do!
I remember that post-Pumpkin made where he predicted Philo’s responses with nearly 100% accuracy.
Meanwhile, Philo consistently fails to understand other’s points of view.
^^Black cock worshipper. This man is half filipino and half white by the way LOL.
“This man is half filipino and half white by the way”
LOL, who are you talking to you dork?
You are literally an embarrassment to both whites and filipinos.
If they saw you in the filipenes or other asian countries and your stupid black cock worshipping, they would think you were mentally ill.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/16/chinese-social-media-filled-with-anti-black-racist-content-says-watchdog
“One video posted on Douyin in April this year shows a woman in an African country washing her hands in a hut, before drinking what is described as homemade alcohol from a muddy blue container. The video, which is captioned “#LifeInAfrica #cleanandhygienic #PrimitiveTribe” has 12,000 likes and several negative comments underneath, such as: “Thank you to my eight generations of ancestors for giving birth to me in China.”
Comment on this story puppy.
Lu had coached the children to recite messages in Mandarin that they didn’t understand, such as: “I am black monster, my IQ is low.”
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Anyways I want to do a high IQ post on evolution more broadly and why you might see it as evidence of progression if you believe in a Creator. Obviously I believe in a Creator and therefore I now have to reconcile it with whether I think the Creator wanted intelligence in lifeforms.
Honestly I don’t know.
If you look at evolution. The best guess is that life evolved from certain combinations of gaseous fluids after the big bang. It wasn’t about ‘finding niches’ but the overall entropy of matter.
I don’t know what the ecological table is. Did everything come from fish? Did insects magically appear separate to reptiles and bacteria and amoeba so on? I have no subject matter expertise. I will just say that the overall bent of evolution from gases floating around in cosmic dust to life on planets around the universe is evidence of progression, and intention.
I’m actually looking forward to this. Hope you do it.
There’s no evidence any God intended progress. My argument is that it happens naturally through trial and error.
So you think ‘trial and error’ led to the big bang and life. Great thinking puppy. What was trialling? What was putting the chips on the table?
The emergence of life was just dumb luck. Exactly the right chemicals just happened to come together at exactly the right time, place and temperature and there’s no evidence it ever happened before or since. Scientists can’t even figure out how to recreate it in the lab.
Well to theists, God created a universe with natural laws and processes so evolutionary progress is part of God’s intention.
“The emergence of life was just dumb luck.”
You said it was trial and error and now youre saying the big bang is ‘dumb luck’. Make up your mind.
No the emergence of life was dumb luck; but once you luck into a system that can self-replicate itself with random variations, nature can progressively select better and better variations each generation until perfection is achieved for a given environment, or at higher levels of evolution, environments in general. Scientists have even programmed computers to create new technologies through a process that mimics the trial and error of Darwinian selection and get technologies more advanced than any genius could invent. No one even understands how or why they work, but they work brilliantly.
You just don’t get it. For some bizarre reason you seperate the emergence of life with the continuation of life. Evolution existed as soon as the big bang and maybe even before the Big Bang, leading to the Big Bang. From cosmic matter to us. Its not dumb luck. Something put that coding into there looking for a certain result.
You just don’t get it. For some bizarre reason you seperate the emergence of life with the continuation of life.
As does virtually every biologist on the planet.
Evolution existed as soon as the big bang and maybe even before the Big Bang, leading to the Big Bang.
You don’t even know what evolution is
From cosmic matter to us. Its not dumb luck. Something put that coding into there looking for a certain result.
LOL!
Well then the biologists are wrong. The process or mechanism was baked in as soon as the universe arrived. ‘Gravity doesn’t exist until human beings are around to observe it’ – puppy’s theory of science. Likewise evolution applied from the start, not just when Darwin discovered it in the 1800s. Your verbal reasoning is literally the worst in the comment section. Evolution applies to gaseous fluids as much as it does to earthworms or life on earth or indeed life on other planets or dimensions.
Well then the biologists are wrong.
The process or mechanism was baked in as soon as the universe arrived. ‘Gravity doesn’t exist until human beings are around to observe it’ – puppy’s theory of science. Likewise evolution applied from the start, not just when Darwin discovered it in the 1800s.
No one’s saying evolution started in the 1800s you dimwit, I’m saying it began with biogenesis.
Evolution applies to gaseous fluids as much as it does to earthworms or life
Your knowledge of basic science is literally the worst in the comment section.
Darwinian selection can’t explain speciation though, and doesn’t explain the arrival of the fittest.
There’s not a scientist of any repute in the last 100 years who would agree with you RR, including Gould.
That’s irrelevant.
Darwin not knowing what genetic drift was does not make Darwin wrong. evolution happened.
Evolution caused life to form. Even the worlds leading biologist says the same thing in his book – Richard Dawkins. Evolution existed as a mechanism before ‘life’ on earth even happened moron. You just don’t get it. Email Marsha and get her to explain it to you. You need her as a kind of translator for me.
You rejected the Forbes list because you believe gentiles like Putin and Arabs have all the money. What a brainwashed useful idiot lap dog for the elite
Evolution existed as a mechanism before ‘life’ on earth even happened moron
It might have existed before life on Earth but it did not occur before life. It’s a theory to explain how all life developed.
See Quora: When did evolution start?
Answer 1:
For many years, the dominant theory had been the RNA-first model: evolution would have started based on self-replicating RNA molecules. The challenge with this model is to explain how free-floating RNA molecules could keep finding the right components in adequate concentrations to ensure their replication. In more recent years, however, the group of Jack W. Szostak has come up with the proto-cell model, which is, in my eyes, much more tenable. In this model, the first proto-cells consisted of simple lipids vesicles, which have a natural tendency to recruit more lipids, and to divide when they reach a certain size. The remarkable thing that Szostak’s group showed is that vesicles that contain macromolecules such as RNA, or proteins for that matter, will grow and divide more efficiently than the empty ones, and can even steal lipids from empty ones because of their inherent higher osmotic pressure. According to this model, the first steps of evolution were thus consisting of simple lipid vesicles competing for lipids, and self replicating RNAs were then incorporated as a second stage, as osmotic pumps that provided those vesicles with a selective advantage.
Answer #2:
As soon as there were a few even vaguely alive proto-cells capable of self-duplication, then the ones with the most stable structures and most effective self-duplication would survive and generate more, and so be selected for. As soon as you’ve got that, then your surviving line or lines are evolving towards greater stability and more effective self-duplication.
In fairness Answer 3, almost agrees with Pill:
According to Modern Theory of Origin of Life i.e. Oparin-Haldane Theory, We had three Stages of Evolution.
Chemical Evolution- Evolution from molecular compounds till the formation of Coacervates (first sole living molecule)
Biological Evolution- Evolution from coacervates to simple cell structure.
Organic Evolution- Evolution from simple cell till now.
So, Yes. Evolution started before the 1st RNA formed. According to the theory first form of life could have come from pre-existing non living organic molecules and then preceded by chemical evolution. And this way Evolution started.
https://www.quora.com/When-did-evolution-start
IF the Big Bang happened 1 million times. Life would form every time because of the mechanic of evolution. It scares me that you can’t grasp the difference between a discovery and a scientific principle.
That’s like saying if we rolled a trillion dice over and over and over again, we’d get n sixes in a row every time. Except we don’t even know the odds of life because Earth is the only confirmed example of it. Until we find another independent case, we can’t be sure if life is a once in a solar system event, or once in a galaxy event, a once in a universe event, or even more rare:
Read Dawkins book. The God Delusion. He uses evolution to explain how the universe created life.
“evolution happened.”
That’s not under contention. My explanation for how speciation happens is untouched.
“IF the Big Bang happened 1 million times. Life would form every time because of the mechanic of evolution.”
How is “evolution” defined here?
Why does RaceRealist believe Darwin was stupid?
>My explanation for how speciation happens is untouched.
it is narcissism to say you came up with the scientific finding of genetic drift
pumpkin what pill is saying is that he is a hard determinist.
He believes that the big band can happen only one way and that all things in the past and future are fixed.
You need to show how the laws of the universe can be different to prove him wrong.
Your dice example only works if the universe is not deterministic but that does not explain the laws themselves. can the past and future be changed?
“You need to show how the laws of the universe can be different to prove him wrong.”
Once again Anime demonstrates SUPERIOR verbal and logical reasoning to Puppy. Exactly my argument.
“How is “evolution” defined here?”
You don’t believe in evolution no matter what way anyone reasonable or even in mainstream biology would suggest.
“Why does RaceRealist believe Darwin was stupid?”
Where did I say this?
“it is narcissism to say you came up with the scientific finding of genetic drift”
What? My explanation integrating saltation, internal physiological mechanisms and decimationism for the rise of species.
“You don’t believe in evolution”
Evolution is a fact. I merely contest the received view of how it happened. See you don’t even know my view.
>My explanation
I don’t think that is the case only you came up with it.
you do not even believe in cloning i.e. (genome don’t matter)
Go ahead and find an instance of that integration in the literature.
Fun fact that clonal species show raised in the same controlled environment aren’t behaviorally similar.
>Fun fact
clone a dog it is a dog not a cat dude
you just cannot admit that genome mater.
cats and dogs have different genomes for a reason. even if they came from a common ancestor the reason is the different genes regulate systems in different ways and rr cannot understand this.
different genes = different regulation
only a stupid person would not understand
What do you think the clonal fish experiments show? Are you going to admit you were wrong when you told me to “quote Darwin or shut the fuck up”? Genes DON’T regulate systems—systems regulate genes. Read some DST and EES literature and quit the reductionism.
All parts of the developmental system matter. No one resource has causal primacy over another. Why don’t you understand that? What’s the response to what I said about speciation and development? I don’t expect a response because you’re quite clearly ignorant to these issues.
If what you’re saying is true then all of the fish in this study—since they had identical genomes—should have shown the same behaviors. But they didn’t show the same behaviors. So what you’re saying is false. (Cue irrelevant bullshit.)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34113-y
>Genes DON’T regulate systems—systems regulate genes.
irrelevant bullshit and twisting of my words
different genes must = different regulation period
different genes = different proteins = different regulation
I don’t give a fuck about your fish study, a dog’s genome will never regulate itself into being a fish.
learn the basics god damn it:
-Genes, proteins, and traits | Inheritance and variation | Middle school biology | Khan Academy
>What’s the response to what I said about speciation and development?
natural selection = god did not do it
even if NS is not a “mechanism” specifically for speciation does not mean God did it you fool.
Darwin believed in the diversification of organisms and this created opportunities for speciation.
(Cue RaceRealist twisting words again)
“>Genes DON’T regulate systems—systems regulate genes.
irrelevant bullshit and twisting of my words”
You must not remember what you type. I didn’t “twist” anything. You said “different genes regulate systems
You even doubled down on it.
“I don’t give a fuck about your fish study”
“I don’t give a fuck about a study that refutes my reductionism.” (You probably didn’t even read it.) Again, if what you were saying is true, the fish would have the same behaviors. But they don’t. So what’s the conclusion?
Keep your middle school biology and keep reading cartoon genetics books, that’s your level.
“natural selection = god did not do it
even if NS is not a “mechanism” specifically for speciation does not mean God did it you fool.”
I never said that. You’re really bad at this. I proposed different mechanisms, and you’ve said absolutely NOTHING to them (the ones on speciation and the role of genes in development), because you’re ignorant because you never got past middle school biology and cartoon genetics books.
“Darwin believed in the diversification of organisms and this created opportunities for speciation.”
He believed that natural selection was a mechanism and responsible for trait fixation and speciation, and he was wrong. I’ve proposed different mechanisms for trait fixation and speciation and you have nothing to say because you’re ignorant since you’ve never gotten past cartoon genetics books and middle school biology Khan Academy videos.
Sad.
Changing any gene no matter how small a change will change the shapes of proteins, meaning regulation will change.
Stupid people do not understand that regulation is based on the interactions of protein shapes. They dismiss anything people try to tell them as reductionism.
Try responding to my comment.
No, RaceRealist
you are too dishonest to accept what I tell you.
you reject the idea of mechanisms of feedback cycles.
you reject that differences exist in them.
“you are too dishonest to accept what I tell you.”
What the fuck? This is an argument. I’ve shown how you’re wrong. You have no response.
“you reject the idea of mechanisms of feedback cycles.”
What the fuck? Do you know what the theory of biological relativity is? Can you explain it to me? I’ve linked it to you literally dozens of times but you haven’t made a peep about it.
“you reject that differences exist in them.”
What is this incoherent nonsense? Can you quote me saying anything even remotely similar to this? (No.) The difference between me and you is that when I make claims, I give references and value arguments in defense of them. You never give references for your empirical claims. Hmm weird…
Let’s recap this discussion. You didn’t respond to the clonal fish paper. You didn’t respond to my argument on how speciation happens. You said that you didn’t say that genes regulate systems when I quoted you and you then doubled down on it. I’m pushing a developmental systems view, and you think that makes me an ideologue who thinks genes “don’t matter”—ALL parts of the developmental system matter, with none of them having causal primacy or privilege over another. This is a valid view in the philosophy of biology literature but you, I guess to not respond to it, call it an “ideology”, even when I’ve linked numerous papers to you on the view, have explained it to you and have given arguments for the view. But I’M the ideologue. Sure thing bro.
I’m sorry that what I’m referencing isn’t a cartoon guide to genes. You actually need to have the requisite knowledge to understand the receipts I’m giving you. But cartoon guides to genetics don’t give that. So you’re ignorant to what I’m saying and call me an ideologue.
And the other day you tell me to “quote Darwin or shut the fuck up.” I then quoted Darwin saying what I claimed along with modern day authors and you had nothing to say, you just pivoted to another thing. Man, it’s clear you’re out of your depth here, because you don’t read any serious literature on this and you especially don’t rest the literature I cite to you. But you call me “dishonest” and an “ideologue.”
Make it make sense.
if genes are different what happens to the feedback system RaceRealist?
I already answered you: even if NS is not a “mechanism” specifically for speciation does not mean God did it
“if genes are different what happens to the feedback system RaceRealist?”
I need more information than this. But I do know that if genes are knocked out then there are mechanisms to compensate for that. I also know that genes are passive and not active causes, and that they don’t do what you claim them to do here.
“if NS is not a “mechanism” specifically for speciation does not mean God did it”
You say I’m dishonest but you’re saying this completely ridiculous thing I’ve never said. I’ve given an explanation on how speciation happens and… You had no response. I even quoted Darwin (“or shut the fuck up) on speciation and natural selection and you had no response. It’s so funny to me that you say I’m dishonest when you can’t even admit you’re wrong or even provide references for your claims or address valid arguments and referenced that go against what you’re saying. The cartoon guide to genetics probably doesn’t talk about it.
“There is a fundamental symmetry between the role of the genes and that of the maternal cytoplasm, or of childhood exposure to language. The full range of developmental resources represents a complex system that is replicated in development. There is much to be said about the different roles of particular resources. But there is nothing that divides the resources into two fundamental kinds. The role of the genes is no more unique than the role of many other factors” (Griffiths and Gray, 1994, p. 277).
So maybe puppy is right. But this specific example of planet earth is not evidence of evolution being progressive. You have to look at the overall universe and other planets and if you take it as a given that some alien life is intelligent. Then yeah, puppy is right.
I do believe in intelligent alien life somewhere out there. I think its visited us.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12740293/Pentagon-outgoing-UFO-chief.html
If you did a hypothetical ecological survey of the entire universe and found that life only evolved into higher intelligence in 5% of planetary cases would that mean evolution is progressive or not?
Answer Puppy.
It wouldn’t tell us anything either way. Intelligence could be so complex that no other planet developed it despite evolution being progressive. Or high intelligence might be common despite evolution not being progressive, because as Gould noted, the longer evolution continues, the more variation there is and intelligence is just part of that variation, but the variation could be random and not progressive.
Qualitatively, higher intelligence is the ‘ultimate evolution’. It allows the organism to adapt to multiple environment like you say. It can’t be a random mutation like Gould says. But on the other hand, higher intelligence is simply not needed perhaps in certain environments e.g. Africa.
Your answer surprisingly matches my own at this point. I think the key to solving the ‘is evolution progressive’ is answering ‘is evolution intended’.
“I think the key to solving the ‘is evolution progressive’ is answering ‘is evolution intended’.”
And we know it isn’t, so evolutionary progress is false.
because of evolution, more intelligence happens.
No surprise the lowest IQ commenter agrees with Puppy that the existence of the universe is ‘dumb luck’.
“And we know it isn’t, so evolutionary progress is false.”
I thought you only believed things with “valid arguments” and “citations”.
I’ve literally argued against that claim for 8 years.
Is that because you are autistic and think that when genes are said to “cause” something means they intentionally choose to do something?
Or that natural selection is supposed to be an intentional selection for specific traits rather than the idea that specific traits survive because they either enhance survival or are not detrimental enough to completely prevent reproduction and survival?
Otherwise you are not arguing against intentionality in evolution at all.
Since, by arguing against natural selection you are actually only left with intelligent design as to why most organisms (their non-mutated or non-deviated phenotypes) have traits that are not completely detrimental or enhance survival.
“think that when genes are said to “cause” something means they intentionally choose to do something?”
Nope.
“Or that natural selection is supposed to be an intentional selection for specific traits”
Well yea that’s how it’s espoused in the literature and how Darwin articulated it.
“specific traits survive because they either enhance survival or are not detrimental enough to completely prevent reproduction and survival”
I’ve quotes Darwin on what he meant by “natural selection” and it’s incoherent. Metaphorical or not, it just doesn’t work as Fodor showed.
“Since, by arguing against natural selection you are actually only left with intelligent design as to why most organisms (their non-mutated or non-deviated phenotypes) have traits that are not completely detrimental or enhance survival.”
Wait. Do you think there are NO alternatives to natural selection?
And it’s 2023 now, we know that neo-Lamarckian inheritance is a major mechanism of evolution and that epigenetic factors, for example, are what cause speciation in regard to PE.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5875917/
Interesting study. I need to learn more about these clone fish.
This study shows that even when genes and rearing environment are identical, there’s still phenotypic variation. That’s not necessarily surprising though because we already know from twin studies that what Flynn called “chance” environment explains 20% of the variation in both childhood & adulthood.
Look into Kate Laskowski’s works on clonal fish.
And it’s not surprising if you’re not a genetic reductionist, I think, because the so-called common knowledge is that genes are causal for phenotypes, but the results of Laskowski’s studies call that into question, with internal and developmental mechanisms.
RR, I don’t know why you think Lamarckianism or epigenetics are somehow contrary to natural selection. Traits are inherited to some degree, and their reproduction and survival is ultimately decided by nature.
The mechanism through which traits occur doesn’t matter if those mechanisms are inherited to some degree and must go through natural selection (weeding out by survival).
What don’t you understand about this?
Your proposed mechanisms cannot “cause” evolution. They will cause changes which must survive and reproduce to be considered “evolution”. So whatever epigenetic trait change occurs will not be carried to the next generation unless it survives to reproduction… which is natural selection.
The only thing you can argue is what degree natural selection decides what traits exist and what degree other factors are in charge, but that’s basically a meaningless measurement because reality is whatever is, and it doesn’t seem we can’t compare it to something else to figure that out. And mutations and imperfection is necessary for natural selection in the first place.
Arguing against natural selection is arguing that survival has no impact on what traits exist… which means traits would exist even if the organisms who had them were dead. So I could have a trait of being born with no heart, and hence never have lived and never have existed, but that would have no impact over whether I existed and was alive… which is a direct contradiction. That’s why natural selection is a tautology.
““Or that natural selection is supposed to be an intentional selection for specific traits”
Well yea that’s how it’s espoused in the literature and how Darwin articulated it.”
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. It’s called NATURAL for a reason. If it were intentional it would be INTELLIGENT selection.
“I’ve quotes Darwin on what he meant by “natural selection” and it’s incoherent. Metaphorical or not, it just doesn’t work as Fodor showed.”
It’s only incoherent to you, because for some retarded reason you think “natural” is a secret Darwinian codeword for “intentional”.
“I don’t know why you think Lamarckianism or epigenetics are somehow contrary to natural selection.”
The Modern Synthesis was formulated to disregard epigenetic mechanisms. Lamarckism need not be at odds with natural selection, you’re right about that (even Darwin thought Lamarck was into something), but the fact of the matter is, when it comes to the modern synthesis, these mechanisms are outright disregarded, which is why we know have an extended evolutionary synthesis and epigenetic synthesis.
“The mechanism through which traits occur doesn’t matter if those mechanisms are inherited to some degree”
Yea it does matter, since we know there are way more inheritance mechanisms than originally thought. But the modern synthesis gatekeepers want to ignore this (like Coyne and his idiotic attack on Noble’s ideas).
“Your proposed mechanisms cannot “cause” evolution. They will cause changes which must survive and reproduce to be considered “evolution”. So whatever epigenetic trait change occurs will not be carried to the next generation unless it survives to reproduction… which is natural selection.”
Again, if natural selection were merely the differential survival and reproduction of organisms there wouldn’t be an argument. Again, what is disputed is the theory’s ability to generate causal mechanistic explanations of the differential reproduction and survival of organisms. T1 moving to fixation is just as consistent as T2 moving to fixation therefore natural selection doesn’t explain which trait moves to fixation and if it doesn’t explain the trait that moves to fixation then it doesn’t predict the trait that moves to fixation. So when two traits are correlated then how would natural selection predict which of the traits moves to fixation when they are deconfounded?
“That’s why natural selection is a tautology.”
Well yea there’s no such thing as natural selection there often intentional selection is a tautology. It presupposes a distinction between selection of and selection for. Remember that for the distinction to be justified there need to be laws of selection for trait fixation. You said last week that reproduction and survival are laws of selection. That’s patently ridiculous. So since there are no laws of selection then natural selection fails in explaining trait fixation. So we need other (actual) mechanisms to explain trait fixation and speciation, and there are a wealth of alternative (actual) mechanisms.
“If it were intentional it would be INTELLIGENT selection.”
How did Darwin develop the theory of natural selection?
“It’s only incoherent to you, because for some retarded reason you think “natural” is a secret Darwinian codeword for “intentional”.”
Is this coherent?
“Natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working … at the improvement of each organic being.”
And by the way, the mechanisms I proposed are valid mechanisms and have much empirical support in the literature.
The fittest survive and those that survive are the fittest. Wow, I bet a lot of predictions can be made. The fact of the matter is, Darwin’s theory is empty, and it’s definitely not a mechanism.
Darwin’s theory is simply the logic of animal breeding except instead of the farmer selecting the fittest, nature does. Do you deny animal breeding too?
No I don’t but there is a mind selecting the animals when it comes to animal breeding and it’s not so when it comes to natural selection. The only way for the distinction between selection of and for to be valid is for there to be laws or selection they hold across all ecologies. But there isn’t. So the natural selection can’t be an explanatory mechanism since it can’t ground counterfactuals that distinguish selection-for from selection of.
“The Modern Synthesis was formulated to disregard epigenetic mechanisms. Lamarckism need not be at odds with natural selection, you’re right about that (even Darwin thought Lamarck was into something), but the fact of the matter is, when it comes to the modern synthesis, these mechanisms are outright disregarded, which is why we know have an extended evolutionary synthesis and epigenetic synthesis.”
When did I ever defend the modern synthesis? Who is really defending it here? I think AK and PP are at most defending genetics as something very important in development. No one is saying that genetics actually intentionally cause anything or that there are no epigenetic effects, punctuated equilibrium, saltation, etc.
“Yea it does matter, since we know there are way more inheritance mechanisms than originally thought. But the modern synthesis gatekeepers want to ignore this (like Coyne and his idiotic attack on Noble’s ideas).”
It doesn’t matter when it comes to natural selection being vital to ANY of the mechanisms that produce new traits.
“Again, if natural selection were merely the differential survival and reproduction of organisms there wouldn’t be an argument. ”
Then stop arguing with people.
“Again, what is disputed is the theory’s ability to generate causal mechanistic explanations of the differential reproduction and survival of organisms.”
So what’s disputed is you not understanding what natural selection is and then applying that misunderstanding to other people and arguing against it.
“T1 moving to fixation is just as consistent as T2 moving to fixation therefore natural selection doesn’t explain which trait moves to fixation and if it doesn’t explain the trait that moves to fixation then it doesn’t predict the trait that moves to fixation.”
Yes, natural selection does explain that if one of those traits is so deleterious to survival that the organism immediately dies upon birth for example, it won’t be found in most of the adult populations.
“So when two traits are correlated then how would natural selection predict which of the traits moves to fixation when they are deconfounded?”
Why does it have to do that? Again you are shifting the goalposts from “natural selection explains that surviving animals tend to have traits that help them survive and tend to have less traits that harm them because traits are mostly inherited, but does not explain through what mechanism those traits are produced or even inherited” to “natural selection explains the generation of traits through genetics which completely and intentionally cause development”.
“Remember that for the distinction to be justified there need to be laws of selection for trait fixation.”
The justification is that traits that cause death will not be reproduced or inherited, and traits that cause survival *might* be.
“You said last week that reproduction and survival are laws of selection. That’s patently ridiculous. ”
It’s not ridiculous at all… that’s literally the whole point of Darwin.
“since there are no laws of selection then natural selection fails in explaining trait fixation.”
Repeating yourself is autistic.
“So we need other (actual) mechanisms to explain trait fixation and speciation, and there are a wealth of alternative (actual) mechanisms.”
The only thing we need is what explains inheritance and what explains mutations/changes to phenotype. Natural selection only describes that intentionality is not necessarily needed to explain why organisms that can mutate and inherit traits have traits that are conducive to their survival (or at least not conducive to their death).
“How did Darwin develop the theory of natural selection?”
The same can be said of everything that is intelligible. Everything we understand about reality is done through intelligence. Therefore, reality is intentional.
“Is this coherent?
“Natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working … at the improvement of each organic being.””
Actually yes it is. Survival and fitness are constantly being tested, and assuming organisms tend to inherit traits to a degree that they are reasonably similar to their parents (which is a very low bar as they inherit almost everything when compared to the rest of the material world), this survival and fitness is being continuously improved each generation. Furthermore… epigenetic effects are part of this. Lamarkism can be applied to natural selection.
Even if development occurs after adulthood, or whenever, if it is reproduced and inherited, it will undergo NS.
“The fittest survive and those that survive are the fittest. Wow, I bet a lot of predictions can be made. The fact of the matter is, Darwin’s theory is empty, and it’s definitely not a mechanism.”
Yes if there is a reliable mechanism for inheritance and a proposed mechanism for mutations. You’ve then explained away the necessity for intentionality (at least in every aspect of development).
“this survival and fitness is being continuously improved each generation. ”
Although obviously punctuated equilibrium and Fodor’s argument go against that, but the point is the general trend of adapting or dying, and that being the reason why organisms are adapted to their environments.
“When did I ever defend the modern synthesis?”
NS is an integral part of the MS.
“Who is really defending it here? I think AK and PP are at most defending genetics as something very important in development”
They’re wrong, because strong causal parity is true (genes aren’t a special developmental resource).
“It doesn’t matter when it comes to natural selection being vital to ANY of the mechanisms that produce new traits.”
Why?
““Again, if natural selection were merely the differential survival and reproduction of organisms there wouldn’t be an argument. ”
Then stop arguing with people.”
The argument is about what natural selection “does” in the literature and how Darwin and others conceptualized it.
“So what’s disputed is you not understanding what natural selection is and then applying that misunderstanding to other people and arguing against it.”
I do understand natural selection, and it’s incoherent since it can’t cash the distinction of selection of and selection for.
“Yes, natural selection does explain that if one of those traits is so deleterious to survival that the organism immediately dies upon birth for example, it won’t be found in most of the adult populations.”
But T1 and T2 are correlated traits, so before an experiment is carried out, how can natural selection explain which trait moves to fixation?
“The justification is that traits that cause death will not be reproduced or inherited, and traits that cause survival *might* be.
It’s not ridiculous at all… that’s literally the whole point of Darwin.
Repeating yourself is autistic.”
What are the laws of selection?
“All else equal, the probability that T would win a trait competition over T’ in ecology E is p” is the type of law of selection Fodor is looking for. Does such a law exist?
““So when two traits are correlated then how would natural selection predict which of the traits moves to fixation when they are deconfounded?”
Why does it have to do that?”
Because natural selection is said to explain why organisms have the traits they do.
How did Darwin develop the theory if natural selection?
“Actually yes it is.”
Personifying natural selection is coherent?
“The fittest are the ones that survive and the ones that survive are the fittest” is a tautology and has no explanatory power—it’s empty.
And of course PE, saltation, decimationism, internal physiological mechanisms, epigenetic mechanisms and Fodor’s argument go against natural selection. That’s the point of the argument I’m making and is how traits eventually become fixed in biological populations and how species arise. We don’t need natural selection to explain that (because natural selection isn’t a mechanism because it doesn’t explain trait fixation or speciation).
Who is really defending it here?
anyone who doesn’t needs to be put in a camp. then deported to madagascar.
“NS is an integral part of the MS.”
“anyone who doesn’t needs to be put in a camp. then deported to madagascar.”
Anyway MS is not the focus here.
“They’re wrong, because strong causal parity is true (genes aren’t a special developmental resource).”
Saying genetics are important because they are integral to determining the phenotype of a organism in all known species as well as passing down that phenotype is not the same as saying they a “special developmental resource”. But if they can’t be replaced, they are special in that way at least.
“Why?”
Because survivalability of a trait determines whether a trait survives…
“The argument is about what natural selection “does” in the literature and how Darwin and others conceptualized it.”
In case you can’t tell for the past couple of years or however long it’s been, this argument is not really going anywhere.
“I do understand natural selection, and it’s incoherent since it can’t cash the distinction of selection of and selection for.”
If the trait leads to death, it will not survive and reproduce. If it leads to thriving, it will. I don’t see the problem here.
“But T1 and T2 are correlated traits, so before an experiment is carried out, how can natural selection explain which trait moves to fixation?”
If they are correlated then they both move to fixation by definition. If they are not, then the one that causes a fitness advantage should move to fixation. What is so hard to grasp?
“What are the laws of selection?”
If a trait increases fitness (and is inherited), all else being equal in the environment, it will move to fixation over the trait that does not increase fitness as much, or decreases it.
The fact that some organisms survive and some don’t show that fitness exists as it defined by continued physical existence. Inheritance is also empirically known.
The only way to show that natural selection is not a law, is to show that nothing is inherited, or that survival (an objective measure of fitness) is not real and so fitness is completely subjective. Obviously you cannot do either of those.
“All else equal, the probability that T would win a trait competition over T’ in ecology E is p” is the type of law of selection Fodor is looking for. Does such a law exist?
Yes. For example:
All else equal, the probability that an organism like me being born without a heart would win a trait competition over me being born with a heart in any known ecology is 0.
“Because natural selection is said to explain why organisms have the traits they do.”
It’s not said to explain every single trait and say “that trait is the best possible trait ever”. Otherwise there would be no vestigial limbs or apparently the extremely long neck laryngeal nerve in the giraffe.
“How did Darwin develop the theory if natural selection?”
I already answered that question mate. I’m not sure what specifically you want to know or why that would be relevant when I’ve answered without using Darwin’s words.
“Personifying natural selection is coherent?”
Yes, in this case the personification aids in understanding how nature could seem to be intentional but actually isn’t. It seems you are missing the whole point of the word “natural” being in natural selection and why it was a profound theory in the first place.
“The fittest are the ones that survive and the ones that survive are the fittest” is a tautology and has no explanatory power—it’s empty.
“And of course PE, saltation, decimationism, internal physiological mechanisms, epigenetic mechanisms and Fodor’s argument go against natural selection. ”
Except I showed that they actually need natural selection. Without natural selection things do not become “fixated”, they are dead ends.
Again, however the traits are produced is not the point of natural selection, it’s whether those traits are adapted or not enough for survival.
“Saying genetics are important because they are integral to determining the phenotype”
Genes don’t determine anything. And no developmental resources can’t be replaced. There’s also the concept of “genetic compensation” where knocked out genes can be compensated for by other mechanisms. Point is, non-genetic factors have the same weight on development as genetic ones.
“survivability of a trait determines whether it survives”
Nice tautology.
“If the trait leads to death, it will not survive and reproduce. If it leads to thriving, it will.”
“If an animal isn’t dead, then it’s phenotype is appropriate for the ecology it’s in.”
Another tautology.
“If they are correlated then they both move to fixation by definition.”
So if T1 is the fitness-enhancing trait and T2 is the trait that doesn’t enhance fitness but catches a ride, what’s the conclusion?
How are you defining “law”? You’re just defining it into existence. That doesn’t work.
“All else equal”
For a statement to qualify as a law, it must hold across all ecologies. Long legs might be helpful for survival in one ecology but not another. They may be helpful for survival in one organism in a certain ecology but not another. So there are no laws of selection for trait fixation. Whether or not a trait increases fitness is massively context-dependent. Laws are counterfactual supporting generalizations. Trait fixation is irreducibly context-dependent.
And yea, NS is said to explain why organisms have the traits they do and speciation.
Quote yourself answering the question I posed asking how Darwin developed the theory.
“The fittest are those that survive and those that survive are the fittest” is what the theory of natural selection reduces to (I know that Darwin didn’t coin that phrase but he used it in subsequent editions of Origin). Tautologies aren’t profound.
“they actually need natural selection”
No they don’t, you’re just presuming that natural selection can explain trait fixation without refuting Fodor’s argument.
(i) To do so would require a notion of ‘selection for’ a trait. ‘Selects for….’ (unlike ‘selects…) is opaque to substitution of co-referring expressions at the ‘…’ position.
(ii) If T1 and T2 are coextensive traits, the distinction between selection for T and selection for T2 depends on counterfactuals about which of them. The truth makers for such counterfactuals must be either (a) the intensions of the agent that affects the selection, or (b) laws that determine the how the relative fitness of having the traits would be selected in a possible world where the coextension does not hold.
(iii) But:
Not (a) because there is no agent of natural selection.
Not (b) because considerations of contextual sensitivity make it unlikely that there are laws of relative fitness (‘laws of selection).
QED (Fodor, 2008)
Selection-for is a causal process.
Actual causal relations aren’t sensitive to counterfactual states of affairs: if it wasn’t the case that A, then the fact that it’s being A would have caused its being B doesn’t explain its being the case that B.
But the distinction between traits that are selected-for and their free-riders turns on the truth (or falsity) of relevant counterfactuals.
So if T and T’ are coextensive, selection cannot distinguish the case in which T free-rides on T’ from the case that T’ free-rides on T.
So the claim that selection is the mechanism of evolution cannot be true. (Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini, 2010: 114)
@lurker
Changing any gene no matter how small a change will change the shapes of proteins, meaning regulation will change in parity with that change. Regulation is based on the interactions of protein shapes in a feedback cycle. Any one change in feedback will affect the whole cycle. A basic cybernetic principle.
RaceRealist believes that no matter what genes change or what changes happen to the genome of any organism that regulation will always remain the same.
This is the whole argument against HBD RaceRealist has fought against ever since he “changed” his mind: that differences don’t matter. It is his ideology that differences do not change anything, genes or otherwise.
You can never reason with a person’s ideology because it is their religion. immune to evidence and rationality.
“Changing any gene no matter how small a change will change the shapes of proteins, meaning regulation will change in parity with that change. Regulation is based on the interactions of protein shapes in a feedback cycle. Any one change in feedback will affect the whole cycle. A basic cybernetic principle.”
The strong causal parity thesis is true, so what you’re saying is inconsistent with it, since there is no privileged level of causation in biological systems. (Cue irrelevant response.) You read “cartoon guides to genetics” and not philosophy of biology so your ignorance is understandable.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3262309/
“no matter what genes change or what changes happen to the genome of any organism…regulation will always remain the same.”
What do you mean by “regulation”? You’ve already said above—and denied and then doubled down—that, and I quote, “different genes regulate systems in different ways.” Genes don’t regulate systems; genes are mere passive causes that are used by and for the system. Remember, you have yet to refute this argument.
(1) If there is no fundamental difference between the causal roles of genetic and non-genetic factors in biology.
Genetic factors are just as important and not special resources compared to other resources and all levels of the system interact for the phenotype to be created (see the works of Denis Noble, Paulo Griffiths, Jablonka and Lamb, David Moore).
(2) if genes do not hold a privileged central position in the shaping of biological traits.
This challenges the notion that genes are the central trait-determiners, since research in fields like epigenetics and theoretical developments in DST show that genes are just as important as other factors/causes/resources in the development of the phenotype and they are also subject to regulation by other factors that also interact with them, so genes aren’t privileged in isolation, but they are a part of the causal network of influences in which are irreducible and untangleable.
Then,
(C) The strong causal parity thesis is true.
The interplay between genetic and non-genetic factors along with gene-environment and gene-gene interactions, along with the fact that biological causation is multi-level and top-down, and with genetic compensation (that we can knock genes out and the MS can’t account for that), and a lot more, we can safely conclude from empirical and theoretical considerations that the strong causal parity thesis is true and that genes aren’t special resources compared to other developmental resources (and, of course, saying that genes are special resources is—your favorite word—reductionist).
“Differences in DNA do not necessarily, or even usually, result in differences in phenotype. The great majority, 80%, of knockouts in yeast, for example, are normally ‘silent’ (Hillenmeyer et al. 2008). While there must be underlying effects in the protein networks, these are clearly buffered at the higher levels. The phenotypic effects therefore appear only when the organism is metabolically stressed, and even then they do not reveal the precise quantitative contributions for reasons I have explained elsewhere (Noble, 2011). The failure of knockouts to systematically and reliably reveal gene functions is one of the great (and expensive) disappointments of recent biology. Note, however, that the disappointment exists only in the gene-centred view. By contrast it is an exciting challenge from the systems perspective. This very effective ‘buffering’ of genetic change is itself an important systems property of cells and organisms.
Moreover, even when a difference in the phenotype does become manifest, it may not reveal the function(s) of the gene. In fact, it cannot do so, since all the functions shared between the original and the mutated gene are necessarily hidden from view. … Only a full physiological analysis of the roles of the protein it codes for in higher-level functions can reveal that. That will include identifying the real biological regulators as systems properties. Knockout experiments by themselves do not identify regulators (Davies, 2009).”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3060581/?report=classic
Maybe the answer to the argument is in your “cartoon guide to genetics.”
“This is the whole argument against HBD that RaceRealist has fought against ever since he “changed” his mind”
Can you repeat my argument back to me?
“difference do not change anything”
I mean, when genetic compensation exists, what do you think that means?
“You can never reason with a person’s ideology”
What is this nonsense? If you really want to get some knowledge on this issue, then read this:
Click to access Griffiths+and+Gray.Developmental+Systems+and+Evolutionary+Explanation.pdf
(Your cartoon guide to genetics doesn’t discuss this issue so you’re probably in the dark to what I’m saying, calling my valid views an “ideology.” Philosophy of biology has the final say on this not cartoon guides to genetics. It’s hilarious that you think that means anything to me, when developmental systems thought refutes your reductionism since strong causal parity is true.)
SADLY!
RaceRealist
said:
November 20, 2023 at 6:08 pm
“When did I ever defend the modern synthesis?”
NS is an integral part of the MS.
“Who is really defending it here? I think AK and PP are at most defending genetics as something very important in development”
They’re wrong, because strong causal parity is true (genes aren’t a special developmental resource).
“It doesn’t matter when it comes to natural selection being vital to ANY of the mechanisms that produce new traits.”
Why?
““Again, if natural selection were merely the differential survival and reproduction of organisms there wouldn’t be an argument. ”
Then stop arguing with people.”
The argument is about what natural selection “does” in the literature and how Darwin and others conceptualized it.
“So what’s disputed is you not understanding what natural selection is and then applying that misunderstanding to other people and arguing against it.”
I do understand natural selection, and it’s incoherent since it can’t cash the distinction of selection of and selection for.
“Yes, natural selection does explain that if one of those traits is so deleterious to survival that the organism immediately dies upon birth for example, it won’t be found in most of the adult populations.”
But T1 and T2 are correlated traits, so before an experiment is carried out, how can natural selection explain which trait moves to fixation?
“The justification is that traits that cause death will not be reproduced or inherited, and traits that cause survival *might* be.
It’s not ridiculous at all… that’s literally the whole point of Darwin.
Repeating yourself is autistic.”
What are the laws of selection?
“All else equal, the probability that T would win a trait competition over T’ in ecology E is p” is the type of law of selection Fodor is looking for. Does such a law exist?
““So when two traits are correlated then how would natural selection predict which of the traits moves to fixation when they are deconfounded?”
Why does it have to do that?”
Because natural selection is said to explain why organisms have the traits they do.
How did Darwin develop the theory if natural selection?
“Actually yes it is.”
Personifying natural selection is coherent?
“The fittest are the ones that survive and the ones that survive are the fittest” is a tautology and has no explanatory power—it’s empty.
And of course PE, saltation, decimationism, internal physiological mechanisms, epigenetic mechanisms and Fodor’s argument go against natural selection. That’s the point of the argument I’m making and is how traits eventually become fixed in biological populations and how species arise. We don’t need natural selection to explain that (because natural selection isn’t a mechanism because it doesn’t explain trait fixation or speciation).
SADLY!
“the longer the comments the smaller the penis.” — FACT!
See, your issue is that you want to pontificate on things you have a “cartoon guide” to understanding of, without reading serious work in the philosophy of biology on this issue. You then want to call me an “ideologue” because I changed my views on psychological hereditarianism. Over the last 5 years, how many of your views have changed?
Have you ever read Susan Oyama, David Moore, Denis Noble, Keith Baverstock, and Ken Richardson on genes and what their role really is in the system, or do you rely on “cartoon guides” to understand things that clearly are much too complex for “cartoon guides”? I bet the answer to this question is “no”, since you clearly haven’t the faintest idea of what I’m talking about and call me an “ideologue” for the views I hold.
“So if the cell activates a gene, then the gene transcribes information (remembering how “information” is conceptualized in Oyama’s DST; this premise establishes a causal relationship between the cell and a gene, with the cell activating the gene since the cell is the active cause and the gene is the passive one). If the gene transcribes its information (of which then ontogeny of information is relational and contextual, emerging through the irreducible actions of the developmental resources), then it produces a protein. So if the cell activates a gene, then it produces a protein (the cell being the active cause and the gene and the protein being passive causes).”
if an organism has proteins in itself not found in other organisms its feedback cycle(metabolism) will not be the same as other organisms.
are you too stupid to comprehend this cybernetic principle?
just answer yes or no: if proteins in organisms are different then is regulation of metabolism different?
Haha this is where your ignorance is apparent. Proteins being different don’t necessarily mean that metabolism is different.
So what is the response to the perfectly valid arguments I’ve given you? What’s the response against the argument that genes are passive not active causes? You call ME dishonest when you continue to dodge my perfectly valid arguments and then call me an ideologue?
Sure man. Put down the cartoon genetics guide and read Griffiths and Gray (1994) and give me a valid argument against them. Then respond to my arguments I’ve given here, then the ones I’ve given for a view of speciation that doesn’t rely on “natural selection.”
If you don’t, it’s clear that you’re the dishonest ideologue and it’s clear that you’re ignorant to work and theories that refute your simplistic cartoon genetics view of genes.
PP, did I not send a response comment yesterday? Maybe I forgot or maybe it was marked as spam or something. I don’t want to type all that out again…
found it in spam and posted it
RaceRealist: Proteins being different don’t necessarily mean that metabolism is different.
sure dude, you don’t even know the basics of biology
RaceRealist: you continue to dodge my perfectly valid arguments
if we can’t establish the basics (like how differences exist) then I cannot discuss complex biological concepts with you
“This is the whole argument against HBD RaceRealist has fought against ever since he “changed” his mind: that differences don’t matter. It is his ideology that differences do not change anything, genes or otherwise.
You can never reason with a person’s ideology because it is their religion. immune to evidence and rationality.”
AK, I agree with you mostly. RR’s views are basically a house of cards waiting to come down (that other people already see as fallen down but he hasn’t ackwowledged). He basically argues against any natural mechanisms that self-organize while claiming organisms self-organize. He argues for free will while claiming only humans have minds (or that there is no reason to think intentional mind exists besides in persons). He uses the existence of intentionality/consciousness arguments when it suits him to argue against natural selection or genetic determinism but still claims to be an atheist, and basically, a nihilist (when it comes to absolute meaning).
I guess he just has a somewhat narrow view of reality that leads to contradictions because he doesn’t understand the scope of his arguments.
“RaceRealist: Proteins being different don’t necessarily mean that metabolism is different.
sure dude, you don’t even know the basics of biology”
Yea I do. I read anatomy and physiology and not cartoon guides to genetics. What I said isn’t wrong. You haven’t contested the fact that genes are passive causes. Because you’re ignorant. Because you don’t read.
“RaceRealist: you continue to dodge my perfectly valid arguments
if we can’t establish the basics (like how differences exist) then I cannot discuss complex biological concepts with you”
Quote me where I denied that “differences exist.” Can you repeat my argument back to me so I’m sure that you understand it? (No.)
Lurker, the views I hold on genes and natural selection, while similar, are different. The views I hold on mind and intentional consciousness are different.
It’s funny because AK is the ideologue because he won’t address any of my arguments on genes, DST or passive causation of genes. Because he doesn’t read.
“Genes don’t determine anything. And no developmental resources can’t be replaced. There’s also the concept of “genetic compensation” where knocked out genes can be compensated for by other mechanisms. Point is, non-genetic factors have the same weight on development as genetic ones.”
So genes are useless and pointless then. Everything is decided by “self-organization” and “developmental systems” yet there is no intentional agent causing any of this. It’s just random and stochastic but also purposeful. Not contradictory at all.
“Another tautology.”
That’s why I don’t understand why you don’t get it.
“So if T1 is the fitness-enhancing trait and T2 is the trait that doesn’t enhance fitness but catches a ride, what’s the conclusion?”
The conclusion is that neither trait kills the organism at least. Which means that just because a trait is found in a population that seems to be conducive to survival doesn’t mean that it was intelligently designed that way.
“How are you defining “law”? You’re just defining it into existence. That doesn’t work.”
Uh yeah, it does if it describes reality. That’s how all laws are discovered…
“For a statement to qualify as a law, it must hold across all ecologies. Long legs might be helpful for survival in one ecology but not another. They may be helpful for survival in one organism in a certain ecology but not another. So there are no laws of selection for trait fixation. Whether or not a trait increases fitness is massively context-dependent. Laws are counterfactual supporting generalizations. Trait fixation is irreducibly context-dependent.”
So environment and fitness are coupled. So what?
The concept of fitness does hold across ecologies. Survival.
“And yea, NS is said to explain why organisms have the traits they do and speciation.”
It explains why intentionality is not necessary actually. It doesn’t explain the specific mechanisms (mutations or epigenetics or whatever else) that are also necessary for development.
“Quote yourself answering the question I posed asking how Darwin developed the theory.”
How about this: Go fuck yourself.
You seem to know everything and why everyone is wrong, so just say whatever you want to say.
““The fittest are those that survive and those that survive are the fittest” is what the theory of natural selection reduces to (I know that Darwin didn’t coin that phrase but he used it in subsequent editions of Origin). Tautologies aren’t profound.”
Obviously people thought they learnt something from NS, so there is utility there.
“No they don’t, you’re just presuming that natural selection can explain trait fixation without refuting Fodor’s argument.”
Fodor doesn’t understand natural selection. Nothing needs to be “selected for”, it can be “selected against”. Selection against traits that kill the organism is the same as selection-for traits that don’t kill them or enhance the survivability of that organism.
“Not (a) because there is no agent of natural selection.
Not (b) because considerations of contextual sensitivity make it unlikely that there are laws of relative fitness (‘laws of selection).”
This is why I mentioned external factors. Intentionality is internal. But there is no intentionality in self-development because there is no intentionality within developing organisms (unless you believe in intelligent design). (Even in humans, our intentionality does not allow us to self-mutate without abusing the laws of physics in an external manner). So A is false.
Given that, “selection-for” is an internal process by an interntional agent, but “selection-against” can be an external process by an intentional agent. (I can’t make you have X trait, but I can select against any trait but X trait, and hence force you to have X trait).
But nature follows laws of physics, so it is deterministic and insofar as it is “intentional”, the intention was already decided (discounting quantum effects).
So we can claim that selection-against by nature does not need constant intentionality and it can lead to seemingly selection-for given enough constraint.
The mechanisms of heritability and change are not covered by natural selection.
Free-riders don’t matter. Or they matter insofar as they detract or enhance fitness. What’s your point? What does anything here have to do with NS not being a mechanism? Because you don’t think there are natural “laws of selection”? That’s the same as saying there are no environments to adapt to and natural means to adapt to them. Clearly there are.
NS is not meant to explain everything about how evolution happens. It’s just meant to show how non-intentionality leads to seemingly intentional outcomes.
“So genes are useless and pointless then”
No part of the developmental system is “useless and pointless.”
The conclusion is that both traits are selected and that we can’t say that T1 was selected-for over T2 due to its contribution to fitness.
How are you defining “law”?
“Survival” isn’t a law of selection for trait fixation.
“It doesn’t explain the specific mechanisms”
The supposed mechanism of trait fixation is natural selection.
“there is utility there”
Tautologies lack explanatory power.
“it can be “selected against””
This is also an intensional notion and also runs into Fodor’s argument.
What “selects against”?
Free-riders do matter, since the free riding trait is correlated (coupled) with the fitness-enhancing trait, so when one is selected so is the other. Thus, we can’t use the theory of natural selection to state which trait was selected-for it’s contribution to the fitness of an organism. Exogenous selectors can’t break the coextension between traits.
And the Modern Synthesis is relevant here because Ernst Mayr—one of the erectors of the MS—said in his book “One Long Argument” that “Selection-for specifies the particular phenotypic attribute and corresponding component of the genotype (DNA) that is responsible for the success of the selected individual.”
“The conclusion is that both traits are selected and that we can’t say that T1 was selected-for over T2 due to its contribution to fitness.”
We can say that neither trait leads to death before reproduction if the parents had it before reproduction and passed it on. That’s predictive.
“How are you defining “law”?”
The same as any scientific law.
“Survival” isn’t a law of selection for trait fixation.
Assuming mutations, inheritance, and a constant environment, it is.
“The supposed mechanism of trait fixation is natural selection.”
Well it kind of depends on the environment and laws of physics. Otherwise there is nothing to adapt. Given an environment, natural selection works.
If the environment is extremely chaotic or not much is inherited, you might say it doesn’t predict much, but then fitness wouldn’t mean anything in particular either if there was nothing to adapt to or improve upon.
“Tautologies lack explanatory power.”
Let’s put it this way: Natural selection shows how things evolved naturally without intentionality, because there is a reliable select-against/select-for mechanism (laws of nature) that could explain why traits that have come to fixation with mindless inheritance and mindless mutations (inheritance and mutations which were taken for granted because everyone already understood they existed empirically).
“This is also an intensional notion and also runs into Fodor’s argument.
“What “selects against”?””
Constraints of the environment obviously.
“Free-riders do matter, since the free riding trait is correlated (coupled) with the fitness-enhancing trait, so when one is selected so is the other.”
So what? No one said otherwise.
“Thus, we can’t use the theory of natural selection to state which trait was selected-for it’s contribution to the fitness of an organism.”
So you’re mad because natural selection by itself doesn’t lay out every possible answer as to what trait would be most fit in every possible environment? You expect natural selection to be a literal deterministic theory of everything in the universe?
“Exogenous selectors can’t break the coextension between traits.”
So what? Fodor’s argument misses the point entirely.
Here’s what I think:
You find natural selection to be very far-fetched in terms of probabilities given the quickness of evolution and its degree of adaptation.
But you don’t believe in intelligent design.
Therefore you have a million concocted theories that themselves explain nothing (quick adaptation events due to endogenous “self-organization”, which also have no laws associated with them).
You favor self-organization, even though it is just as vague and opaque in its final origin and its dynamics as natural selection, because it defeats genetic determinism, and genetic determism is racist, and you don’t want to be known as a racist (consciously or subconsciously).
You prefer the opaqueness of self-organizing developmental systems because its causal parity allows for infinitely many interpretations for the cause-effect dyanmics of development, leading to nihilism and lack of meaning of any particular explanation (because you’ve also thrown God/intentionality out the window), but sounds enlightened to (((scholars))) and is better than being a racist.
“We can say that neither trait leads to death before reproduction if the parents had it before reproduction and passed it on. That’s predictive.”
Another tautology.
“The same as any scientific law.”
How are you defining “law”?
“Assuming mutations, inheritance, and a constant environment, it is.”
This doesn’t address the issue of selection-for since the environment only has access to the trait correlations and can’t decouple the correlation. So if T1 is selected so is T2. If T2 is selected so is T1.
““The supposed mechanism of trait fixation is natural selection.”
Well it kind of depends on the environment and laws of physics. Otherwise there is nothing to adapt. Given an environment, natural selection works.”
Given that Fodor’s argument is sound and you haven’t identified an error in his reasoning, it doesn’t work.
“because there is a reliable select-against/select-for mechanism (laws of nature) that could explain why traits that have come to fixation with mindless inheritance and mindless mutations”
(1) both “select-against” and “select-for mechanism” are intensional, and so that doesn’t work.
(2) Mutations need not be random and can arise due to stress mutations (eg the fact of directed mutations which have been experimentally demonstrated.
“Constraints of the environment obviously.”
The environment only has access to the trait correlations.
“So what? No one said otherwise.”
That’s the whole issue at hand. See premise (4) of Fodor’s argument.
“So you’re mad because natural selection by itself doesn’t lay out every possible answer as to what trait would be most fit in every possible environment? You expect natural selection to be a literal deterministic theory of everything in the universe?”
The issue is that if two traits are correlated where one contributes to fitness and the other doesn’t and just comes along for the ride, there is no way for the exogenous selector (the environment) to break said correlation between traits since it only has access to the correlation of fitness and not the cause of fitness. This fact makes the theory of natural selection crumble.
“So what? Fodor’s argument misses the point entirely.”
See my previous paragraph. How does Fodor’s argument miss the point? Where’s the error in his reasoning?
And I think that since natural selection can’t explain which trait comes to fixation (due to the correlation between T1 and T2), then it doesn’t predict the trait which comes to fixation. I favor self-organized developmental systems because the physiological system guides what occurs during development, using said developmental resources (of which genes are but one of many) to construct the organism during conception. The explanation I’ve given of saltation, internal physiological mechanisms, decimationism, epigenetic processes and integrating it into the EES has more explanatory and predictive power (since the EES already has more explanatory and predictive power than the MS already what I’ve added further increases it). There are a slew of alternative possible mechanisms of trait fixation and speciation that don’t rely on selection. There are “meanings” we can construct for why we observe certain things, but we can’t use natural selection to explain trait fixation or speciation. There are other more plausible mechanisms that explain it, and I think I’ve done a decent job at articulating some of those mechanisms coherently to explain them when natural selection can’t do so. (Note that Fodor’s argument is a priori, so experimentation is irrelevant. Humans have access to which trait increases fitness so, using empirical tests we can find out what is Fitness-enhancing and break the correlation. Since Fodor’s argument is a priori, then that just means that empirical evidence is irrelevant to it. Fodor never denied that humans can break the correlation, just that we can’t use the theory of natural selection to state what was selected-for or against. Again, at best, organisms are what is selected, not traits.)
“There are a slew of alternative possible mechanisms of trait fixation and speciation that don’t rely on selection. There are “meanings” we can construct for why we observe certain things, but we can’t use natural selection to explain trait fixation or speciation.”
“Fodor never denied that humans can break the correlation, just that we can’t use the theory of natural selection to state what was selected-for or against. Again, at best, organisms are what is selected, not traits.)”
I could respond to individual things but this gets to the heart: You are stating that nothing is “selected” because there is no mind to natural selection. Even though clearly, humans break the correlation and understand that traits are selected because of apparent fitness of organisms. How can you believe both of these assertions?
Clearly, nature selects by survival. Clearly, there are environments to adapt to. Inheritance exists, variation exists. Of the various phenotypes, those who survive a specific environment bestow their phenotype to the next generation. Yes, all of this only involves correlations. Over time, correlations may be broken apart by new variations that decouple these traits and outcompete those with free-riders that have fitness costs.
Is any of this likely? Is random stochasity in phenotype coupled with nonrandom inheritance through natural laws enough to explain the fitness or complexity of life? That’s up for you to decide, but if you don’t believe in some sort of intentionality in design, you have no other option than natural selection.
“Self-organizing systems” have no access to specific traits either. That’s why there is no point relying on them if you are going to deny intentionality/intensionality. They can’t explain why traits come into fixation unless they access to select-for those specific traits, right?
Endogenous or exogenous, there is no specifically “selecting-for” or “selecting-against” anything without intentionality, unless you grant that the laws of nature can be considered a type of intentionality. But yet you don’t, and you don’t believe in intelligent design either. That’s why I call you a nihilist, but at least you’re not racist.
serious question:
does rr have down syndrome?
this would explain why he looks chinese yet claims to be 100% italian…
AND
this would explain his low IQ.
also: why was pietro mennea so fucking fast, despite being so un-muscular?
FAS or FAE more likely
“How can you believe both of these assertions?”
Fodor never denied that humans can break the correlation using experiments to see which trait is the fit trait and which merely catches the ride and isn’t causally efficacious for fitness. The claim is that the ToNS can’t distinguish which is causally efficacious and which is the free rider, since the environment (the exogenous selector) only has access to the correlation. So basically, since the organism is selected, therefore, all of its traits are selected with it due to the correlation. Since Fodor’s argument is a priori, empirical evidence is irrelevant.
“Our claim is that, given coextensive phenotypic traits, TNS can’t distinguish ones that are causally active from ones that aren’t. Many of the objections that have been raised against us seem unable to discriminate this claim from such quite different ones that we didn’t and don’t endorse, such as: when traits are coextensive, there is no fact of the matter about which is a cause of fitness; or, when traits are coextensive, there is no way to tell which of them is a cause of fitness; or when traits are coextensive Science cannot determine which is a cause of fitness etc. Such views are, we think, preposterous on the face of them; we wouldn’t be caught dead holding them. To the contrary, it is precisely because there is a fact of the matter about which phenotypic traits cause fitness, and because there is no principled reason why such facts should be inaccessible to empirical inquiry, that the failure of TNS to explain what distinguishes causally active traits from mere correlates of causally of active traits, shows that something is seriously wrong with TNS.
“but if you don’t believe in some sort of intentionality in design, you have no other option than natural selection.”
That’s ridiculous, since NS is personified as being able to select for certain casually efficacious traits for fitness. And the only way for there for traits to be selected-for is laws of selection that hold across all ecologies. Reproduction and survival aren’t the laws that are needed. The explanations I’ve given are valid, there are actual alternative mechanisms to natural selection and what I’ve proposed is valid and can actually explain trait fixation and speciation (especially decimationism and saltation along with epigenetic factors that are causally efficacious for PE).
If speciation events can occur through abrupt genetic changes leading to the emergence of distinct traits, and it internal physiological mechanisms play a significant role in shaping traits independently of selective pressures then speciation can be explained without reliance on natural selection. Trait fixation can occur through falraruon which leads to the stabilization of specific traits within a species and epigenetic processes can influence heritability and contribute to trait persistence.
“To the contrary, it is precisely because there is a fact of the matter about which phenotypic traits cause fitness, and because there is no principled reason why such facts should be inaccessible to empirical inquiry, that the failure of TNS to explain what distinguishes causally active traits from mere correlates of causally of active traits, shows that something is seriously wrong with TNS.”
So if as you and Fagdor admitted, that there is a matter of fact as to what phenotypic traits cause fitness, why are you stating there are no laws of selection that hold across all ecologies? This is contradictory. If it is true that some traits cause fitness, then that implies they cause fitness in some environment, and so in that ecology, there are laws of selection.
Otherwise, as I and others have said before, you are asking for a complete theory and equation of every possible trait in every possible ecology and how they all interact that can be added up to show some sort of fitness value, which is obviously impossible.
If you believe there are traits that cause fitness and survival, and constancy in those traits and their associated environments, as well as some variation so that there are multiple possibilities to select, you believe there are laws of selection.
“That’s ridiculous, since NS is personified as being able to select for certain casually efficacious traits for fitness. And the only way for there for traits to be selected-for is laws of selection that hold across all ecologies. Reproduction and survival aren’t the laws that are needed. The explanations I’ve given are valid, there are actual alternative mechanisms to natural selection and what I’ve proposed is valid and can actually explain trait fixation and speciation (especially decimationism and saltation along with epigenetic factors that are causally efficacious for PE).”
As far as natural selection goes, why does there need to be specific laws for fitness that hold across all ecologies? The laws that would hold be survival and reproduction as well as enough variation for evolution to occur. Otherwise, the traits that are selected are adapted to the specific ecology.
Yes there are alternative natural mechanisms but they don’t explain anything because they don’t offer any explanations about why traits that are inherited and develop tend to help survive to reproduction and serve so many specific fitness functions for the organism compared to any random dysgenic phenotype or inert matter.
“why are you saying there are no laws of selection that hold across all ecologies?”
I said it above, because the exogenous selector only had access to the correlation. So if the ToNS is going to be a causal theory of trait fixation, then it needs to be sensitive to causes vs correlates. The theory needs to offer a different explanation for the fixation of traits compared to correlates of fitness-enhancing traits. Exogenous selection cannot provide a different explanation. Therefore the theory of natural selection as it is currently formulated cannot explain trait fixation. All traits are coextensive. So if all traits are coextensive then it follows that when the organism is selected then all of the traits, too are selected along with that organism. That’s the problem: NS can’t distinguish the fitness-enhancing trait from the one’s that hitch a free-ride. You can also say that some traits are “selected against”, but that’s also intensional and does not refute the argument. The theory which purports to explain trait fixation in virtue fitness needs to distinguish (i.e., give different explanations for) traits that are causing fitness from traits that are correlated with the fitness-causing traits. Exogenous selectors (i.e., predators, ‘the environment’) only have access to the correlation, so they cannot distinguish the fitness-enhancing trait from the linked free-rider. We can break the correlation using experiments, but Fodor’s argument is an a priori complaint against the explanatory nature of natural selection.
“why does there need to be specific laws for fitness that hold across all ecologies? The laws that would hold be survival and reproduction”
Because universal principles that hind actross all ecologies need to be articulated. But what constitutes fitness is massively context-dependent. It needs to offer laws that are universally applicable, and so explanations that are only local for certain ecologies just don’t cut it. Such laws need to not only describe the outcomes but provide underlying causal mechanisms. Therefore without such universal laws, the theory lacks the depth of explanation for why certain traits are favored or disfavored in different environments and ecologies. Also an issue is ad hoc explanations (just-so stories), and so he was critical of situational or specific explanations which are tailored to individual cases. So universal laws help to avoid this issue.
So if there are universal laws of selection that hold across all ecologies, then the ToNS provides coherent and consistent explanations. But if there are no universal laws, then the ToNS needs as hoc explanations for each scenario (since what constitutes fitness for an organism in a specific ecology is massively context-dependent). Universal laws would enhance and indeed give predictive power to the ToNS which allow for accurate predictions of evolutionary outcomes in various ecological contexts. But without universal laws, the ToNS doesn’t predict outcomes across different environments and ecologies. Nomological laws are intensional entities, therefore if there were such laws at the biological level, then a mechanism could make use of the laws and it would be sensitive to coextensive traits. But it’s unlikely that we will discover such laws.
“they don’t exaijnangrihf because they don’t offer explanations about why traits that are inherited and develop tent to help survive to reproduction”
When it comes to saltation, the persistence of those traits caused by saltation are influenced by factors beyond selective pressures, and the novelties occur stochastically. When it comes to internsl physiological mechanisms, they can drive the development of traits that lead to enhanced survival and reproduction in that specific ecology and can also drive stress directed mutations since physiology is environmentally-sensitive, especially during organismal development. And epigenetic mechanisms can also influence the heritability of specific traits which wound then influence trait development and gene expression which would then further influence the whole system during development (like when epigenetic mechanisms lead to saltation and punctuation). So traits that are developed through saltation, internal physiological mechanisms and epigenetic processes are more likely to align with the organisms current environmental context.
“down syndrome” “FAS or FAE”
Hahaha what a joke. PP and Mugabe, post your face or be quiet. My mother isn’t really a drinker, especially not while she was pregnant.
An autistic person believes everything is ‘dumb luck’. Jews control the entire western media – ‘dumb luck’. The universe exists – ‘dumb luck’. Life is robust and not a random mutation – ‘dumb luck’. People invent semiconducters – ‘dumb luck’. Economic policy – ‘dumb luck’.
An autistic person believes everything is ‘dumb luck’.
And a schizophrenic believes everything is intentional. A tree falls in the forest. Someone must have pushed it.
Jews control the entire western media – ‘dumb luck’.
Autistics in my experience can’t see how Jewish interests shape U.S. policy, though a lot of neurotypicals also can’t see it because they’re Jewish and thus don’t want to see it or because they’re good people who don’t want to advance potentially harmful stereotypes.
People invent semiconducters – ‘dumb luck’. Economic policy – ‘dumb luck’.
You’re the one who argued self-made billionaires were just lucky while I have always argued they’re highly intelligent on average.
Once again poor VIQ. I said some billionaires got lucky. I never said all billionaires were lucky. It has a limited relation to IQ. Otherwise Terry Tao would be a billionaire. Most people that are billionaires got it from inheritance or corruption/politics in the world. Are you so socially naive to think a bank account is a literal 1 to 1 link to a persons IQ. What a a fucking idiot.
Are you so socially naive to think a bank account is a literal 1 to 1 link to a persons IQ.
Not only do you have the worst science knowledge in the comment section, but your math is not great. I’ve consistently argued self-made billionaires have IQs around 130 (one in 50 level). If there were a 1 to 1 link, their IQs would average around 170.
You think the Forbes list is definitive and legit. So we’re just not going to agree on anything. Youre basically a stupid person.
Candace Owens:
“I don’t even know what country Nikki Haley is running for president for”.
HAHAHA
Why do you hate blacks so much when they stand up to the elite more than anyone?
Because only blacks are allowed to say their minds.
Yeah, tell that to Kanye West whose net worth was cut in half twice for speaking out or to Mark Lamonte Hill who was fired from CNN.
Because they stand up to everyone more than anyone. They stand up to pregnant mothers more than anyone. They gang up on hapless victims more than anyone. Their wrath is like a black hole that blames everyone but themselves.
Also, they don’t stand up to the elite more than anyone. They just do it more directly. “Walmart is racist!!!”
Look at the fruit they bear. They obviously are not “fighting” the right battles. They think removing law enforcement will make them safer
Or maybe it is just that they prefer to fight rather than actually work and produce something useful. If all you do is fight you are going to be fighting more than others.
I’m telling you, he got cucked or raped. No rational human thinks the way he does without severe mental trauma.
Bro won’t even take a shower.
I reject the Forbes list because its painfully stupid. You have an arch establishment guy named Stephen Forbes who is severely right wing and he gets to cherry pick who goes on the list. If he gets a call from one of his republican friends to take his name off the list because they dont want the IRS up their ass, Steve will do it.
Every single person with an IQ over 100 knows MBS is a multi billionaire as are many many arab royalty. You are the dumbest person in the world if you don’t get that.
If you know who all the billionaires in the world are pill then what is the IQ of the average billionaire?
I don’t expect the Forbes list to be 100% accurate, but the demographics of the list (huge overrepresentation of Ashkenazi, huge overrepresentation of Harvard grads and other high IQ people, almost no blacks) are what you’d statistically expect from a list that was accurate, so it’s close enough. As Mug of Pee says “all models are wrong, but some models are useful” And they need actual evidence to say MBS is a billionaire. Only retards like you state unknowable things as facts because their “psychic powers” tell them it must be true.
Its not “unknowable” LOL. You are so ridiculous its unbelievable.
I said about 50 times the list is accurate in terms of demographics. In terms of the actual people the list is not at all accurate. In terms of the number of people who have inherited wealth, this list is useless because those assets are held offshore or in trusts. For example, nobody in the Rockefeller family is in the list even though JD, and his son David were some of the richest people of all time. This list is basically a Republican Party approved list of the most wealthy. Google Steve Forbes and educate yourself.
The list can not be demographically accurate with being individually accurate. That’s because error attenuates the correlation between money and demographics. So the percent of Ashkenazi on the list is a linear function of the list’s accuracy. The more error on the list (at least non-systematic error) the lower the percentage of the list is Ashkenazi and the higher the percentage will be black.
Also Forbes could know about inherited wealth because when a rich person dies, Forbes estimates the value of the estate after the IRS gets their cut and then divides that value by the number of people who will be inheriting it, thus estimating if any of the heirs qualify. They also look through tax records, newspaper articles, public records of every kind and interview neighbors of rich people to get gossip. Of course there are a lot of low profile ways to invest your inheritance so many heirs might end up billionaires without Forbes knowing.
Are you fucking retarded? Can you read? I said at least 1/3 of the world’s wealth is held offshore about 90 times in these debates about forbes. Do you understand what an offshore bank account is?
The forbes journalists, the IRS, or any other group has no access to those records. Thats the whole point of holding assets offshore in the Caymans or Bermuda or Jersey or Switzerland. Even Mitt Romney has a bank account in the Caymans and he’s a sitting senator.
The list can be demographically correct but the composition is different because of inheritance and bloodlines. Many people on the list may be related to people that are just as wealthy and therefore the list is a good proxy.
I said at least 1/3 of the world’s wealth is held offshore about 90 times in these debates about forbes. Do you understand what an offshore bank account is?
Give me an example of a billionaire no one knew about for decades because their money was in an offshore account.
Putin
A confirmed case, not your opinion
LOL that was literally one of the most famous ever examples. Through offshore whistleblowers they found out he had at least a billion in Cyprus
The same whistle blower who said the U.S. government has dead alien pilots?
What Puppy does is fall into Steve Forbes ‘Ayn Rand’ mythology. Steve basically leaves out all the ‘old money’ and the political elites and highlights only billionaires with massive IQs or whose companies made great products or services.
Forbes is basically saying to the entire population – “See we deserve it. We iz job creaturz. Never tax us”.
In reality based on Piketty’s research which is more rigorous than a fucking Forbes lackey journalist…about 50% of the top billlionaires inherited their wealth. In qualitative terms, its likely the top 10 richest people would be at least 50% inherited. Not 10% inherited like Forbes says as a neoliberal talking point.
n reality based on Piketty’s research which is more rigorous than a fucking Forbes lackey journalist…about 50% of the top billlionaires inherited their wealth.
Is that what he found? Okay that gives us something to work with because Forbes estimates only 32% (of the 400 richest Americans) inherited their wealth (it might be different on their worldwide list). So the difference between these two numbers might give a rough way of guessing how accurate Forbes is.
I’d guess the other 50% are people like Putin, Robert Rubin, MBS, and other political/deep state corruption type things. Not tech people.
” In 1996, Forbes supported a flat tax of 17% on all personal and corporate earned income (unearned income such as capital gains, pensions, inheritance, and savings would be exempt). ”
LOL
This is the guy that curates that list. You are so gullible and naive.
This is the guy that curates that list. You are so gullible and naive.
Says the person who thinks publishing a list proving the 3 richest Americans are richer than the bottom half of the country COMBINED is a great way to get tax cuts for the rich. Are you the village idiot?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2017/11/09/the-3-richest-americans-hold-more-wealth-than-bottom-50-of-country-study-finds/?sh=3316ca63cf86
Youre the one who is brainwashed by Steve Forbes into thinking billionaires are all tech geniuses like Bill Gates and advocates basically neoliberal economic policies as a result.
You’re the poorest person here. You don’t know shit about the rich. Even Anime laughs at your poverty.
I know more about the rich…and every single topic more than you including psychology.
You know nothing; you just make crap up.
“Darwin’s theory is simply the logic of animal breeding except instead of the farmer selecting the fittest, nature does. Do you deny animal breeding too?“
There is a difference between evolution and transformation. A breeder doesn’t change a cow into a horse even if he tries for a long time,
I don’t know much about this subject & I am an atheist. I think evolution is a useful theory, and the only scientific one available now, but it doesn’t seem to me having been proven – and a fortiori being a fact – unless one can see at least one clear proven case of transformation of one species into another one.
i am a vegan except when i eat dog, dolphin, chimp, parrot, etc….
RaceRealist is an extremist, extremists are black and white thinkers. He went from completely for HBD to completely against it without considering that some parts are true well others are not.
@Bruno
Differences do not matter to RaceRealist AT ALL.
There is no “transformation” to him because there is no way to account for them unless we have differences and he rejects differences.
genes are those differences and he rejects it on ideological grounds, it is his religion now. and all ideology is based on irrational emotions, he must believe completely that differences do not matter in his emotional attachment to his ideology. there is no way to reason with extremism Bruno.
“He went from completely for HBD to completely against it without considering that some parts are true well others are not.”
“Differences do not matter to RaceRealist AT ALL.”
“There is no “transformation” to him because there is no way to account for them unless we have differences and he rejects differences.”
“genes are those differences and he rejects it on ideological grounds”
Can you elaborate on this? Can you explain my argument against psychological hereditarianism and genes back to me without strawmanning me, and preferably quite me while you repeat my argument back to me? (No.) It’s “extremism” to believe that genes are passive causes and just as important and on par compared to other developmental resources? You’re the one dodging arguments on the passiveness of genes and strong causal parity and calling it “extremism” without valid arguments against the ones given by me. That’s what I would call “extremism.”
You haven’t responded to the arguments I’ve given to you on the passiveness of genes, for causal parity, alternative (actual) mechanisms to natural selection, how species form, and the argument for causal parity. You can’t quote me while explaining my views back to me (prediction). These views are in the literature. You read cartoon books on genetics and no philosophy of biology. You haven’t read any of the references I’ve given you on genes being passive not active causes. But I’M an “extremist.” Makes sense.
RaceRealist: Can you elaborate on this?
when genes are different then feedback cycles are different. Simple basic fact.
RaceRealist: You haven’t responded to the arguments
you don’t know the basics so why bother?
“RaceRealist: Can you elaborate on this?
when genes are different then feedback cycles are different. Simple basic fact.
RaceRealist: You haven’t responded to the arguments
you don’t know the basics so why bother?”
You’re high or something. When X is different, Y is different. You don’t know shit about developmental systems theories and how it refutes genetic reductionism.
Of course I know the basics, I’ve given you actual in depth explanations but then you go off on unrelated tangents and don’t address the core of my argument. I’ve quoted them above and… Like clockwork, you ignore them. Because you read fucking cartoon genetics books and not philosophy of biology like Griffiths and Gray on how genetic and non-genetic factors are on par.
Your stupid, goodbye
“I have nothing to say. Goodbye.” Fixed it for you.
what a Fucking troll
no. as i have said a bajillion times. i AM a vegan.
BUT!…BUTT!…
i do eat dogs, dolphins, and chimps…and parrots…and peepee sucks at math sadly!
BUT…BUTT!…
there are two interesting questions:
1. SOME animals have minds OBVIOUSLY.
2. SOME others OBVIOUSLY don’t. an oyster doesn’t even have a brain.
3. what sort of animal (animal foods) must one consume for optimal health, supposing he must consume any?
4. recall for the ovo-lactarians that all the male chicks of the egg laying breed are killed as soon as sexed and cows giving milk to anyone other than their calf is perverted and cruel.
5. also recall delicious and making a yuge fuss about being a vegan loses friends.
in a nazi world every human would be a vegan. but dogs would eat beef.
I couldn’t be a vegan, but would be open to being a vegetarian.
Are you a vegan?
I don’t think there’s a point to being a vegan or vegetarian because animals die anyway, and we not magically out of the food chain just because we have language. If you believe in God then clearly God might want you to utilize the dead material of the animals. Animals largely live a life of eat, sleep, sex, and run away from predators.
But we should treat animals well and not have factory farms where they live in tiny encampments and their own filfth and are given all sorts of steroids and antibiotics (which just pass down to us anyway). Especially dogs and other domesticated animals should be treated with some degree of companionship.
Email Santo and tell him Loaded is gone now and he can come back.
Sailer rarely criticises jews unlike Anglin or the other writers on Unz. I find that odd.
you realize i am much much smarter than any of you right. its not even a question of why its just a question of if and you guys fail in every turn.
itd be a better world if you guys just jumped from a bridge
For the sake of discussing the implications, I’ll assume that evolution is progressive, and that the arrow of progress points in the direction of increased intelligence and complexity.
How, then, do we explain the devolution of the Romans into the Italians and the Hellenes into the Greeks? For that matter, how do we account for the sharp regression in the sophistication of Chinese science during the Middle Ages if not by a decline in I.Q.? By the time that the Jesuits arrived, the best astronomers in China were using a flat Earth model (and not merely as an, “as if” device for visualizing the celestial sphere).
I think you’ll admit that the fall from Seneca Minor to Race Realist is one hell of a plunge.
“I think you’ll admit that the fall from Seneca Minor to Race Realist is one hell of a plunge.”
I’ve often wondered if modern italians are anything like ancient Romans or whether ancient Greeks are anything like modern ones. In his book, Hitler says that the ancient races destroyed themselves by intermarrying with ‘lesser’ races.
Hitler accepted Fallmerayer’s theory that the modern Greeks are descendants of Slavic invaders. It’s my understanding that recent-ish genetic testing proves that they’re at least 80% genetically similar to the ancient Hellenes (part Pelasgian, part Germanic). Of course, it’s possible that the upper strata of Greek society changed much more radically than the general population (and the upper strata are precisely ‘the Greeks’ as far as classicists are concerned).
I’ve seen photos of living Greeks and Italians who resemble the ancients (judging by busts and frescoes). I suspect that these were cherry-picked, but I wouldn’t know – I’ve never been to Greece or Italy.
As you agreed, any tendency towards progress is a very long-term general trend with lots of exceptions, not some universal law.
Is your position that evolution is only progressive in that sense, then? If so, I think we agree substantially.
There’s a long-standing trend in the evolution of European languages from the highly inflected and synthetic toward the largely uninflected and analytic. As cases are lost, word order becomes more rigid, sentences become shorter, and emphasis becomes a typographic matter. I consider this linguistic devolution to be reflective of an underlying racial deterioration.
I’m currently translating a passage from Seneca which seems to me to be unrenderable in English. English ‘translations’ of the classics are usually nothing more than paraphrases into which the translator smuggles his own secular humanism.
The only great works of philosophy written over the past 250 years were written in German – a language which retains cases which English (and other major European languages) lost long ago. I note that German contains few loanwords, and its terms for abstract concepts are built up from those denoting concrete concepts. As Heidegger remarked, “The German language speaks Being, while all the others merely speak of Being”.
What are you neandercel some sort of classicist?
No, I’m not a classicist. I probably would have pursued a doctoral degree in classical studies had I been born into a wealthy family.
My dad wanted me to become a lawyer or an educator. I was most recently employed as a warehouse laborer. I was told that I would have a desk job. I won’t call it fraud on my employer’s part, but you’re free to do so if you’d like.
I probably know less Latin than the average undergrad at a decent school would have a century ago. The passage that I believed to be untranslatable turned out to be nothing of the sort.
neandercel must be banned and the much higher IQ commenter LOADED un-banned.
if what neandercel hypothesizes were true then all the great thinkers of the last 250 years would be russians or lithuanians not germans…
AND…
the chinese would be the most genetically deteriorated people on the planet as the dialects termed “chinese” are the most analytic languages on the planet.
“f what neandercel hypothesizes were true then all the great thinkers of the last 250 years would be russians or lithuanians not germans…”
That doesn’t follow, Mug. There’s probably a golden mean with respect to the number of cases in a language. Finnish has too many, and English has too few. German is slightly deficient insofar as its accusative and dative cases are overworked.
The Latin locative case was vestigial by Cicero’s time precisely because its application is far too narrow to warrant its existence.
“the chinese would be the most genetically deteriorated people on the planet as the dialects termed “chinese” are the most analytic languages on the planet.”
Yes, Mandarin barely has anything that we would recognize as a grammar. The Chinese don’t impress normal westerners, so this is a problem only to sinophiles.
and let us not forget that kant SAID HIS OWNSELF that he was inspired by hume AND that he regretted he could not say as clearly in german what hume said in english.
english is the least inflected indo-european language. as a group the romance languages are least inflected.
the name for the process is “deflexion”.
because least inflected and because british empire and because prejudice in favor of new words from foreign languages (vs against) english is the FINAL LANGUAGE. it is the all consuming amoeba language. resistance is futile.
oprah needs to be translated from ebonics to english or whatever language peepee speaks. sad.
because un-inflected english has a very STREAMLINED way of incorporating foreign words and the ideas they represent.
the gay autistic catastrophe of anglo-american “philosophy” of the last 100 years has little to do with the faults of english.
AND recall latin is even more inflected than greek YET the romans are conspicuous for their LACK of reflection/thought…especially vs the greeks. the romans were a PRACTICAL people.
“if you’re so smart shovel more pig shit.” — cicero
“and let us not forget that kant SAID HIS OWNSELF that he was inspired by hume AND that he regretted he could not say as clearly in german what hume said in english.”
Hume is acute, Kant is deep, and Schopenhauer is both. Anglophone philosophy is superficial, Mug – deal with it.
“english is the least inflected indo-european language. as a group the romance languages are least inflected.”
I really hope that you don’t include German and English among the Romance languages, Mug.
” . . . english is the FINAL LANGUAGE. it is the all consuming amoeba language. resistance is futile.”
English is a confused, mongrel tongue for confused, mongrelized humans. Whatever deserves to be said deserves to be said in a better language than English.
“because un-inflected english has a very STREAMLINED way of incorporating foreign words and the ideas they represent.”
No, it doesn’t. The base of the pyramid is Germanic, but all of the higher levels are Greco-Franco-Latinate. When the Germans borrow a word, they generally calque it. A German child can infer the meaning of a term like ‘erhaben’ because it’s constructed from Germanic roots. An American child sees the word ‘sublime’ and has no choice but to reach for a dictionary.
Of course, English has a perfectly good Germanic equivalent of ‘sublime’ – uplifted. ‘Erhaben’ and ‘uplifted’ alike perfectly translate ‘sublimis’.
“the gay autistic catastrophe of anglo-american “philosophy” of the last 100 years has little to do with the faults of english.”
The Anglo-Saxons alone are not at fault. The only serious modern philosophy is German philosophy.
“AND recall latin is even more inflected than greek YET the romans are conspicuous for their LACK of reflection/thought…especially vs the greeks. the romans were a PRACTICAL people.”
Nonsense. Practical Romans vs dreamy Greeks is some retarded nonsense that American high school history teachers made up. Go read Seneca’s letters to Lucilius.
““if you’re so smart shovel more pig shit.” — cicero”
Mug, what’s wrong with you? You’ve posted these bizarre rants on PP’s blog for years. Were you diddled as a kid?
Anglo-American philosophy….is basically dominated by jews.
So calling it ‘anglo-saxon’ is a misnomer. I’ve seen pictures of Kripke with a kippah. What kind of ‘philosopher’ has theist religious beliefs? Wittgenstein, Fodor, I mean you could almost say that the situation is even worse than it being about jews. You could just say that its the 5% of the jews – the jewish autistic community.
I really hope that you don’t include German and English among the Romance languages, Mug.
you can’t speak english or you’re mentally retarded.
english is the least inflected indo-european language. as a group the romance languages are least inflected.
this is a true statement. re-read the above and tell us what it means. i dare you!
imbecile!
if you’re so smart shovel more pigshit is a famous line of the chicom revolution.
i was never diddled. but you diddled.
and the romans SUCK ASS as thinkers.
germans are so retarded their word for “dictionary” is “worterbuch”.
german compared to english is like afrikaans compared to dutch. a primitive shithole language for retards.
english is hard for dumb people who can’t read etymologies. true. BUT this makes it superior to german because the word conveys little immediate confusing sense of its own. the idea has a specific word, not a word that tells you what it is.
onderzeeër vs duikboot vs Unterseeboot vs submarine.
“submarine” is superior and not confusing to non-dumb people.
national sozialistische partei = no calques
“the greatest mistake of my life was my stupid moustache.” — heidegger
This whole thing hinges on the notion of adaptability = progressive evolution.
I feel like it hinges on whether you are a nihilist or not.
The use of the term ‘nihilism’ in this context seems misleading to me.
Aristotle speaks of four causes: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. The final cause (or purpose) is that for the sake of which something exists.
The purpose of the eye is to enable an organism to navigate its environment. The purpose of the nose is to enable the organism to distinguish between the edible and the inedible, the diseased and the healthy.
Purpose is a biological concept and can’t be divorced from the context of its formation, although it can be extended to the environment, habitation, tools, etc. of the organism.
It doesn’t make sense to speak of the purpose of the universe, the biosphere, or an entire species without positing the existence of a deity or something like Hegel’s self-realizing Absolute FOR THE SAKE OF WHICH all of these things exist.
I doubt one has to be a nihilist to not equate adaptability to evolution instead of a very specific application of it.
I’m with Neandercel. Basically if you want to answer whether evolution is progressive you have to figure out what the purpose of it is. And the only thing that gave it purpose in my opinion is some sort of Creator.
I meant to say that the belief in evolution being progressive hinges on whether you are not a nihilist (in some manner). It’s my intuition but basically if you feel that the large arc of evolution is not necessarily progressive (as it leads up to humans) you are probably nihilistic.
One can be a nihilist and still believe evolution is progressive.
@Lurker
My view is that of possibilities, not inevitabilities; in line with my non-deterministic yet still causal worldview. But this isn’t necessarily incompatible with teleological thinking. It simple results in an open ended teleology. The possibility of humans was real and the path leading to them was also possible. But there were also other paths. Why did this path become actual and not the others? I don’t know. Maybe willpower has something to do with, maybe some of it is coincidences that helped the human teleology win out, maybe its something else…
I wonder if RR could be replaced with an AI chatbot (at least for his blog and PP’s comments).
Also PhillyD you said you were going to write an article about various topics many times AFAIK. You should really do it one time, even if short.
Who is philly D?
Even ChatGPT believes in evolution, so that would rule that out.
I’ve never denied evolution in my life. See the EES, that’s an evolutionary theory. And LLMs don’t have beliefs, nimrod.
I literally quoted you denying evolution in the last thread.
It’s Darwinian evolution he doesn’t believe in. He doesn’t believe in natural selection.
Darwinian evolution = evolution.
For some reason, like most people, he equates natural selection with evolution as if they are completely one in the same.
There is no other model.
“He doesn’t believe in natural selection.”
Which doesn’t make sense. Even Fodor belives in Natural Selection.
“There is no other model.”
Sexual selection, dumbass. Natural Selection, Sexual Selection, Genetic drift all lead to evolution, they are not the same thing as evolution
Which doesn’t make sense. Even Fodor belives in Natural Selection.
It’s even weirder than that, Melo. RR believes in artificial selection (animal breeding) but denies natural selection. In RR’s mind selection can only occur if it’s literal selection (a mind actually choosing) as opposed to the metaphor of nature selecting.
How does sexual selection and genetic drift explain the link between survivability in nature and the traits of organisms? Everything listed by you or RR are just ways organisms can gain different traits and then perhaps speciate *given* they *already* have the ability to survive to reproduction in nature.
Melo and RR don’t understand literally page 1 of a biology textbook. Even 400 year old Mendelian genetics is too advanced for them.
“There is no other model.”
Sure there is, I’ve listed a few of them and explained them in depth. Your claim that it’s either natural selection or non-belief in evolution doesn’t follow.
PP, if one were to specify a law of selection that holds across all ecologies then they would discredit Fodor’s argument.
RR, just to be clear, you’re saying evolution CAN NOT occur through natural selection, but CAN occur through artificial selection?
“Sure there is, I’ve listed a few of them and explained them in depth. Your claim that it’s either natural selection or non-belief in evolution doesn’t follow.”
Again none of them select for fitness so they don’t explain fitness (in terms of survivability in the natural environment). At best they show how different species come about, not why they continue and pass on their phenotypes.
“PP, if one were to specify a law of selection that holds across all ecologies then they would discredit Fodor’s argument.”
The only one we know right now is survival. If something survives, it must be adapted to the environment. Specific environments have specific constraints for survival.
All the other factors (epigenetic, sexual selection, decimationism or punctuated equilibrium, saltation) do not show why survival is linked to the traits that are developed and fixated in a population. Yet they are. The only possible explanations are that these fall within the exogenous constraints for survival as a result of some degree of trial-and-error by survival or death (natural selection), or they were intelligently designed to fit the environment.
It’s already been established that “selection-for” is intensional and therefore not coherent. Nonetheless, I’ve explained how this occurs without selection.
“The only one we know right now is survival”
Is that an ex ante ceteris paribus generalization?
“If something survives, it must be adapted to the environment”
“If an organism isn’t dead, then it’s phenotype is appropriate for survival in the environment it’s in.”
Another tautology.
“exogenous constraints”
The exogenous selector only had access to the correlation and can’t break it, so when one trait is selected so is the other and vice versa. That doesn’t work. My explanation for speciation and trait fixation is valid, and doesn’t rely on natural selection since it can’t explain speciation and trait fixation.
It’s already been established that “selection-for” is intensional and therefore not coherent.
It’s a metaphor. Darwin didn’t actually think nature has a mind.
as you can see this “leading proponent” of EES has an earring.
sad.
there are gay italians sadly.
“when algerians stab irish chirren it’s irish pipo’s fault.” — rr
“RR, just to be clear, you’re saying evolution CAN NOT occur through natural selection, but CAN occur through artificial selection?”
As I said above, there is a fact of the matter about which trait is causal for fitness and we humans can break the correlation but natural selection can’t since it’s not sensitive to causes vs. correlates of causes. Laws of selection need to hold across all ecologies but an organism’s fitness is massively context-dependent/sensitive.
“It’s a metaphor. Darwin didn’t actually think nature has a mind.”
But he personified natural selection and was the first to employ what Samir Okasha calls “type I I agential thinking.” Fact is, for selection-for to be valid, there need to be nomological laws. Are there any? If not, we can’t use the ToNS to elucidate causes of fitness vs causes of correlates of fitness since the exogenous selector (the environment) only has access to the correlation and not the cause. Thus, the only coherent thing to say is that whole organisms and not their traits are what is selected (that is, the developmental system).
As I said above, there is a fact of the matter about which trait is causal for fitness and we humans can break the correlation but natural selection can’t since it’s not sensitive to causes vs. correlates of causes.
Humans can tell us what the cause is since they chose it while natural selection can not. However just because natural selection didn’t literally select the cause does not mean the cause is not there. It just means you need to try a lot of experiments to isolate the cause from its correlates.
Right, I don’t deny that. But Fodor’s argument is a priori, so the question is: Prior to any experimental manipulations, how can the ToNS predict which trait is fitness-enhancing?
Right, I don’t deny that.
But you do deny that when you say you don’t believe in natural selection.
Prior to any experimental manipulations, how can the ToNS predict which trait is fitness-enhancing?
It can predict that whatever traits changed the most were on average the most fitness-enhancing. It can’t predict what will happen in any one case. Indeed if it could, we could predict what aliens will look like but we clearly can’t with any specificity. And of course evolution also has a random component (mutation & genetic drift)
So if two traits are correlated, where you have one you have another, how does natural selection explain the trait if it doesn’t predict which of the correlated traits comes to fixation? Trait A is consistent with natural selection just as trait B moving to fixation, so natural selection doesn’t explain whether A or B moves to fixation. So if it doesn’t explain it, then it doesn’t predict it. And Fodor’s argument is a priori so experiments are irrelevant.
So if two traits are correlated, where you have one you have another, how does natural selection explain the trait if it doesn’t predict which of the correlated traits comes to fixation?
Well unless the two traits correlate perfectly, which is rare, the selected trait will reach fixation first.
Is there an answer to the question? The point is, as I’ve already stated, humans can say which trait is selected-for and the only way for the theory to do so is for there to be nomological laws of trait fixation which hold across all ecologies. That’s exactly the point—only intentional states have the power to discern causes from correlates of causes, and there’s no way for the supposed mechanism to do so, since it only has access to the correlation.
So there is a fact of the matter of which trait is selected-for and we can know that, but we can’t use the ToNS to discern that.
I’ve just told you; the selected trait will show fixation first. It will also show greater change. Scientists infer causation all the time in non-intentional systems. It’s one of the biggest applications of science.
And I’m telling you that the argument is a priori and the posed question is what’s at heart of the argument against the ToNS. You’re saying all of these things known after experimentation—Fodor’s argument is a priori.
Trait A and B are both correlated—coextensive—with fitness but only one is fhe cause of fitness. We can discern whether A or B is the cause of fitness, but we can’t use the theory to do so. Natural selection is therefore consistent with all possible outcomes of trait fixation.
We can discern whether A or B is the cause of fitness, but we can’t use the theory to do so
That doesn’t make the theory false, it just makes it insufficiently explanatory for the questions we have today. But it was revolutionary for its time.
Yea it does, it makes it empty since the same story explains why traits A and B went to fixation, because the exogenous selector (the environment) has access only to the correlation. It being revolutionary for its time is irrelevant to the emptiness of the ToNS today.
No Darwin made clear predictions: Bird A had beak B because island C transforms birds into having beak B. We can then take a bunch of birds that don’t have beak B, put them on that island and test his prediction.
Yea there’s a difference between “accommodation”—post hoc explanations— and “prediction.” The idea that island C transforms birds into having beak B is an accommodation to observed patterns, not a prediction based on general laws. And I think Fodor would challenge the notion of taking birds without beak B and placing them on the island, because without nomological laws, the outcomes could vary based on contingent factors which then would make predictions less reliable.
What you’re saying is consistent with fitness being context-dependent/specific (which Fodor allowed) and there not being any nomological laws that hold across all ecologies. So the argument against that would be even if there is a plausible account for specific cases lile bird beak B on island C, they can’t then be elevated to the status of universal laws which hold across ecological contexts. So yea, Fodor allowed there to be explanations based on specific ecologies, since whether or not a trait increases fitness is massively context-dependent. So whether it not T1 or T2 wins a trait competition is massively context-dependent.
The general law is that whatever trait increases fitness becomes more common and more enhanced. Why does Foder expect general laws to make SPECIFIC predictions?
But the trait that increases fitness is correlated with a trait that doesn’t, and so both traits are selected. Because Fodor is a scientific realist, meaning that for a theory to be considered genuinely explanatory, it should not only offer general principles or laws but should also be capable of making general predictions of specific phenomena. He is a nomological deductivist, which means that he thinks that scientific explanations involve deducing specific empirical consequences from general laws. So for a scientific theory to be considered genuinely explanatory, it should not only offer general principles or laws but should also be capable of making general predictions of specific phenomena from those principles. And a scientific theory should account for and predict specific phenomena, so if a theory lacks the power to generate specific predictions, then it’s not really empirically adequate. So here we can see that since using the ToNS T1 and T2 are both selected, then it doesn’t predict which of the traits would move to fixation, so it’s not empirically adequate. Finally, Fodor is concerned with distinguishing explanations from descriptions. So laws that lead to specific predictions allow for testing the theory’s explanatory power against empirical evidence. Thus, if a theory merely describes observed phenomena without making any specific predictions, then it lacks the depth and testability which is expected of scientific explanation.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Fodor’s point is that natural selection can’t distinguish correlated traits, his point is that traits themselves are subjective and so no objective process can “select” them. Traits don’t exist outside our minds because they’re semantic categories, thus only minds can select them.
Yea it is his point that NS can’t distinguish correlated traits. See the below premise (4) from his argument in the book. And I like what toy said about traits and semantic categories, seems a good way to look at it, thanks for that. But I think what I wrote about his nomological deductivism is valid in explaining your previous question.
“So if T and T’ are coextensive, selection cannot distinguish the case in which T free-rides on T’ from the case in which T’ free-rides on T.”
But Fodor admits that there are experiments that can be done to distinguish selected from spandrels and he admits that selection did occur.
That doesn’t hurt the argument though—just because we can discern what was selected-for from what wasn’t doesn’t mean the theory can.
just because we can discern what was selected-for from what wasn’t doesn’t mean the theory can
Aha! You admit selection occurred & thus natural selection is true. I rest my case..
The theory can’t do that, natural selection—as conceived by Darwin and others like the erectors of the MS—isn’t a thing. The theory isn’t sensitive to counterfactuals and can’t distinguish between causes and correlates of causes, and there is a fact of the matter about which traits cause fitness, the fact is that since the ToNS doesn’t have access to the cause and only the correlation, so the ToNS can’t distinguish causally active traits from traits that aren’t. Fodor’s argument is sound.
And Fodor’s argument is a priori so experiments/empirical evidence is irrelevant.
99% of biologists believe in natural selection. 1% of ‘biologists’ believe in analytical philosophy criticisms of natural selection. RR is in the 1% because he believes in the blacks so bad lol.
That’s irrelevant. What’s is relevant is the soundness of Fodor’s argument. “the blacks” aren’t relevant to the soundness of Fodor’s argument.
Its relevant. Natural selection is settled science in the biology community. Only ‘philosophers’ like fodor disagree because they love the blacks.
correct. every premise of fodor’s argument is FALSE and every inference is INVALID. AND he admits he came up with his bullshit, because he “loved the blacks” AND that he never read darwin.
P1 pigliucci is one of the foremost proponents of EES.
P2 pigliucci is a professor of clownology at CUNY.
P3 pigliucci has an earring.
C the EES is FALSE
this argument is incredibly strong!
Fodor’s argument is a priori, not a posteriori, nimrod.
RR, nature has consistent elements. You keep saying fitness is context-dependent, but clearly, given that the laws of physics hold, and genetic change/development generally takes time, and there is quite a LOT of time (billions of years) and organisms for nature to apply selection to the same situations (in a broad sense), the idea that selection pressures would not re-occur and there would be no environmental consistencies, and hence trait-environment fitness couplings, would seem to suggest that you don’t believe virtually anything apart the present is similar to the past.
All the other mechanisms you mentioned *do not* explain why traits are coupled to their environment. They give ways traits develop, but without the organism knowing ahead of time what trait suits what environment, how is it going to know what aids fitness? The fact is that traits in the wild generally aid enough in fitness… so that suggests there is some sort of selection going on, because there are all sorts of creatures one could develop into, and most of those would die in an environment not suited to them (trade places between any aquatic animal and land animal, for example… or cancerous growths that “develop” on the creature but are never helpful).
Selection-for/against is intensional. Natural selection IS intensional. The intension is defined by the tautology of “that which survives is fit”. This leaves room for new variations that might be as fit as old ones, and so its intension is coupling fitness with correlated traits capable of survival, because as you say, it has access to the correlation only (until a variation breaks the correlation and is elimated from the gene pool due to lack of fitness), so it is necessarily simplistic and vague.
The tautology seems “empty” because it leaves out all the details of development and selection and what actually is fit for what envrionment, and hence, the intension of the set “correlated traits that exist in populations because they survived environmental pressures” seems very vaguely defined, but you have to be ignoring the billions of years and trillions of organisms that underwent the process of their “correlated traits” being pruned off by the environment, and the vast amount of repetition within these processes, as well as the consistent laws of physics themselves, that make the intension of the set of “correlated traits that survive” a lot more well-defined on the individual trait level.
Laws of physics aren’t laws of selection.
“so that suggests there is some sort of selection going on”
Reread Fodor’s argument above and tell me which premise is false and why. It’s that simple.
“most of those would die in an environment not suited to them”
Refer back to the tautology above.
“Selection-for/against is intensional. Natural selection IS intensional”
What does “intensional” mean?
Are Darwinists committed to inferring (2) from (1)?
“(1) the claim that evolution is a process in which creatures with adaptive traits are selected and (2) the claim that evolution is a process in which creatures are selected for their adaptive traits.”
P1) Niches are individuated post hoc by reference to the phenotypes that live in said niche.
P2) If the organisms weren’t there, the niche would not be there either.
C) Therefore there is no fitness of phenotypes to lifestyles that explain said adaptation.
Does it follow from the fact that organisms have trait T and organisms were selected, so that organisms were selected-for having trait T?
…Samir Okasha [professor of clownology = imbecile]…nomological laws [all laws are “nomological”. learn english!]. If not, we [who the fuck is “we”?] can’t use the ToNS to elucidate causes of fitness vs causes of correlates of fitness [you don’t need to and it doesn’t need to.] since the exogenous selector (the environment) only has access to the correlation and not the cause [totally irrelevant]. Thus, the only coherent thing to say is that whole organisms and not their traits are what is selected (that is, the developmental system) [yet somehow the set of traits which define the organism are not selected-for.]
Fodor’s argument is a priori, not a posteriori, nimrod
no one said it was either LIAR!
rr needs to be banned for LYING.
“Laws of physics aren’t laws of selection.”
They can be. Prove that they aren’t. They create order. Order is an implicit selection.
“Reread Fodor’s argument above and tell me which premise is false and why. It’s that simple.”
He assumes there are no laws of selection. That is incorrect and completely contradicts the constant organization we see in reality.
“What does “intensional” mean?”
The meaning of the set it describes. I’m using the word correctly, asshole.
“(1) the claim that evolution is a process in which creatures with adaptive traits are selected and (2) the claim that evolution is a process in which creatures are selected for their adaptive traits.”
1 and 2 are the same. They wouldn’t be selected if they didn’t have adaptive traits.
“P1) Niches are individuated post hoc by reference to the phenotypes that live in said niche.
P2) If the organisms weren’t there, the niche would not be there either.
C) Therefore there is no fitness of phenotypes to lifestyles that explain said adaptation.”
Yes, the environment changes if the organism that fills the niche is not there. The niche is still there, however.
If an organism dies without reproduction, it still filled a niche. However it is not “fit”. It is part of the environment, and even part of evolution, but it is not fit.
Fitness cannot be explained except through intelligent design or natural selection. Some organisms die, some don’t. If none die, the only explanation would be intelligent design. However, since some do die and don’t pass on traits, natural selection becomes an explanation.
“They can be”
Explain to me what a law of selection and which law(s) of physics are laws of selection and how they are laws of selection.
“He assumes there are no laws of selection”
No he doesn’t, he argues that there aren’t any. So which premise of his argument is false and why?
“1 and 2 are the same”
No they’re not, quite clearly (1) and (2) are different, and Darwinists are committed to inferring (2) from (1). And the fact that organisms are selected doesn’t mean that organisms are selected-for their adaptive traits. The issue is that individual traits of an organism aren’t selected, but the whole organism is.
“The niche is still there, however.”
If the organism isn’t there then the niche isn’t either. They’re coupled.
“since some do die and don’t pass on traits, natural selection becomes an explanation.”
Now this goes back to (1) and (2) above. You seem to be saying that since organisms with adaptive traits are selected then they are selected for their adaptive traits. That doesn’t follow.
Lurker: Fitness cannot be explained except through intelligent design or natural selection.
by “means” of (Natural Selection)
evolution needs “selection preasures”
a niche is a way by which an organism eats and reproduces.
that means eating and avoiding death until reproduction are the only criteria of selection.
traits can be anything inside the organism.
so adding up traits is just anything inside it
anything inside organisms that helps me not die can only be because of physics.
development is just a feedback system reacting to its internal and external physical processes.
RR, it is obvious what I mean by the laws of physics leading to laws of selection. Whatever organization follows from physics is what they have “selected”.
I already told you what premise of his argument was false, which is the idea that laws of physics don’t lead to laws of selection. I agree that TNS only has access to the correlation of traits but that is misleading because the point of TNS is that it happens over a huge number of iterations, which means the “correlation” that has been selected is likely to be highly sophisticated and adapted in its specific set of traits.
1 and 2 are the same for the reason that if an organism with adaptive traits is selected and it is possible that it wouldn’t be selected (death or relative lack of competitiveness in reproduction) it wouldn’t be “adaptive” and hence the organism is selected for its adaptive traits.
“If the organism isn’t there then the niche isn’t either. They’re coupled.”
Yes but you argue that there is no niche to fill in the first place because survivability has nothing to do with trait fixation, which is clearly false. If whether a trait carries on has nothing to do with adaptation and fitness, then there is no “niche” to fill because trait fixation and niche-filling would have nothing to do with each other. A niche to fill is dependent on that actually providing a reproductive benefit to the organism and hence, passing on its niche-filling traits.
We don’t say dogs fill the chase-their-own-tail niche because that apparently has nothing to with their survival, even if it is a consistent free-riding trait among dogs.
I agree that organisms are coupled with their niches, but it is possible to imagine other similar organisms filling other niches. There are multiple ways to cut down on a rat population. That’s why we can imagine the niche apart from the specific organism.
However, you seem to be arguing that the niche doesn’t exist apart from that exact animal fulfilling that exact role, which is obviously not true. Because it’s not true, we can figure out why specific traits seem to adapted to specific environments.
So again, you seem to just be denying the existence of fitness or adaptation with your useless analytic arguments, which is why I call you a post-modernist or nihilist. Yet you talk from both sides of your mouth and agree that humans can figure out what trait is the fit one and which is the free rider.
Do you believe that survival has anything to do with trait fixation or not? Do you think no traits actually go away because the organism dies and none become fixated and fill niches because the organism survives? Do you think it is just a series of incredibly random events that almost every organism that exists has an environment it is born into that it at least seems to have a fighting chance of surviving in?
Where’s the error in Fodor’s reasoning? Which premise is false and why?
“RR, it is obvious what I mean by the laws of physics leading to laws of selection.”
Define law of selection and explain how the laws of physics are laws of selection. That simple.
“which is the idea that laws of physics don’t lead to laws of selection”
Where did Fodor say this? What’s fhe argument that laws of physics are laws of selection that Fodor is looking for?
“1 and 2 are the same”
No, they’re different claims. (1) states that creatures that have adaptive traits are selected (since whole organisms are selected) while (2) states that organisms are selected for their adaptive traits.
“you seem to be arguing that the niche doesn’t exist apart from that exact animal fulfilling that exact role”
Yes, that is what I’m saying. That an organism has T and and organism was selected, it doesn’t follow that the organism was selected-for because they had T. Do you think we need evolutionary theory to explain why an organism’s phenotype is well-adapted to its ecological niche?
“Yet you talk from both sides of your mouth and agree that humans can figure out what trait is the fit one and which is the free rider.”
That’s not a contradiction because humans can experimentally break the correlation, as I said previously. Because humans have minds and can know which trait is the enhancing trait and which isn’t, but the exogenous selector doesn’t have a mind so it can’t suss out which trait is the enhancer and which isn’t.
But Fodor’s argument is a priori. So the question is: before performing the relevant experiments, how does the ToNS predict which trait will move to fixation when two traits are correlated when they are deconfounded? So how does the ToNS predict which trait is fitness-enhancing and which just catches a free ride?
“Define law of selection and explain how the laws of physics are laws of selection. That simple.”
Why are you acting like such an ignoramus? Organisms are clearly selected and suited to their environments. What could explain that except the laws of physics?
Are you just talking from both sides of your mouth and saying organisms are selected but there is nothing doing the selection? Or are you a nihilist stating that nothing is actually selected even though clearly it is? Organisms survive, their survival depends on their traits, and their traits follow from the laws of physics. Some organisms do not survive, and their lack of survival follows from the laws of physics.
“Where did Fodor say this? What’s fhe argument that laws of physics are laws of selection that Fodor is looking for?”
The argument is that there are only two types of selection: Selection based on constraint, and selection based on purposeful intention (intelligence). The laws of physics are what govern the constraints of reality, so clearly that must be the laws he is looking for.
You quoted him stating that there are no biological laws of selection or something similar.
“No, they’re different claims. (1) states that creatures that have adaptive traits are selected (since whole organisms are selected) while (2) states that organisms are selected for their adaptive traits.”
Which poses no threat to natural selection.
“Yes, that is what I’m saying. That an organism has T and and organism was selected, it doesn’t follow that the organism was selected-for because they had T. Do you think we need evolutionary theory to explain why an organism’s phenotype is well-adapted to its ecological niche?”
We need some explanation and you have none. There are only two options to explain the design of the phenotype and its adaptation to its environment: natural selection (accident that follows from laws of physics) or intelligent design.
Yes, something can survive accidentally or be a free rider, but if you think survival and traits are coupled, then clearly, we need an explanation for why a phenotype is adapted to its ecological niche and furthermore, why it doesn’t die.
You give a bunch of mechanisms that lead to new traits. Great. That doesn’t explain why those organisms are competitive in an environment with limited resources. You need an explanation that couples survival with the traits the organisms tend to have, and why, if trait inheritance and survival have nothing to do with each other, why niches are filled with the same kind of organism rather than other organisms that could spontaneously develop and fill that niche.
“That’s not a contradiction because humans can experimentally break the correlation, as I said previously. Because humans have minds and can know which trait is the enhancing trait and which isn’t, but the exogenous selector doesn’t have a mind so it can’t suss out which trait is the enhancer and which isn’t.”
It doesn’t need to. But there must be explanation as to why selection is apparent (why organisms are adapted to their environments).
“Fodor’s argument is a priori. So the question is: before performing the relevant experiments, how does the ToNS predict which trait will move to fixation when two traits are correlated when they are deconfounded? So how does the ToNS predict which trait is fitness-enhancing and which just catches a free ride?”
Again, there is fitness. Fitness is nontrivial (it requires a lot of resources organized in a very specific way that it cannot spontaneously occur among resources in a natural environment… hence the difficulty of simulating even abiogenesis, let alone generation of complex mammalian structures) and so only occurs due to design.
The design only occurs due to intentionality or accident.
It’s tautological that natural selection is the mechanism that leads to nontrivial fit structures if there is no mind behind the organization.
“Why are you acting like such an ignoramus? Organisms are clearly selected and suited to their environments. What could explain that except the laws of physics?”
Just answer the question.
Organisms are what is selected, at best, and that it’s true that organisms are selected it doesn’t follow that they’re selected-for having the traits they do. That’s the issue.
“The laws of physics are what govern the constraints of reality, so clearly that must be the laws he is looking for.”
I gave an example of the type of law he’s looking for and your response was nonsense.
(2) is the claim under contention, that natural selection can distinguish between causes and correlates of causes (that is, select for the fit trait).
“natural selection (accident that follows from laws of physics) or intelligent design.”
Nice false dichotomy. The mechanisms and explanation I’ve given that link them are more than sufficient.
“we need an explanation for why a phenotype is adapted to its ecological niche and furthermore, why it doesn’t die.”
I did this above, re ecological niches. If an organism isn’t dead the it’s phenotype is appropriate for survival in that ecological niche. Such explanatory power. (It’s a tautology.)
“It’s tautological that natural selection is the mechanism that leads to nontrivial fit structures if there is no mind behind the organization.”
No, it’s not a mechanism since it’s not sensitive to causes vs correlates of causes.
There’s no use arguing with RR about this. The point isn’t whether natural selection has access to the specific traits, because that doesn’t matter as NS theory explains that the traits will be decoupled by variations.
RR’s point is just this: There is no way to state what is selected, because everything that happens is what happens, and there is no other reality to compare our own reality to, so we can never claim something has more fitness than something else, because there never was any case otherwise. If you point out a possible different case to show adaptation, RR will just state that by changing the organism at all you’ve changed the environment and so you must throw away the whole thought experiment.
There is no natural selection in RR’s mind because there is no selection. That’s why his alternatives don’t explain survivability at all. He just states that there are certain structures in organisms that help them survive but he never explains how they got there, or why it is something so unlikely could come about, because he doesn’t care about anything that hasn’t actually came about. All explanations about fitness are “just-so stories” because everything literally has happened just-so, so anything can be dismissed in such a way. His explanations of saltation, internal physiological mechanisms, decimationism, and the EES are all explanations of how organsims can change, rather than explaining why they are successful at all or able to compete in their environments, because he is NOT trying to explain fitness at all, because he doesn’t believe in fitness or selection. Survival is taken for granted and has no impact on evolution or the fixation of traits.
RR doesn’t believe in selection so he doesn’t need to explain fitness. If fitness occurs, it has nothing to do with natural selection, but other processes that are already existing that explain it (nevermind how he explains how epigenetic adaptation came about, he doesn’t bother to), and filtering out of bad traits does not occur, because there is no way it could occur, because genetic determinism is false, so how could anything be filtered out or profilerated from generation to generation if your offspring don’t even inherit your traits?
So he doesn’t need to explain fitness because he doesn’t believe that there is any way to compare the fitness of traits because everything is a just-so story, he doesn’t believe they actually are fit or adapted because there’s no other world to compare to, and he doesn’t think there are any environments or laws that are consistent enough to adapt to. He doesn’t believe in inheritance of traits in a deterministic manner, so natural selection cannot occur.
I kept saying he was basically a nihilist. Let’s not waste more time on this.
“because that doesn’t matter as NS theory explains that the traits will be decoupled by variations.”
How does it do that? Do you have a quote from anyone? (No.)
“That’s why his alternatives don’t explain survivability at all”
Directed mutation does, and there’s empirical (experimental and natural) evidence for its existence.
“filtering out of bad traits does not occur”
All traits are coextensive—correlated—so, again, the only thing that can be logically stated is that organisms are what is selected. I don’t see the issue with rejecting that specific traits can be selected-for and saying that organisms are what is selected. And traits aren’t inherited and genetic determinism implies certain things about genes that just aren’t true due to considerations from DST and the EES.
“How does it do that? Do you have a quote from anyone? (No.)”
Why do I need to quote what is literally the definition of natural selection? Things mutate and the fit mutations carry on. Variations, if possible to decouple, trait fixation will be chosen out of the more fit ones.
“That’s why his alternatives don’t explain survivability at all”
“Directed mutation does, and there’s empirical (experimental and natural) evidence for its existence.”
So nonintentional selection explains survivability? You mean natural selection? Wow thanks!
Where did the capacity for directed mutation come from? (natural selection) How is it able to choose to direct to what survives instead of a cancerous growth that doesn’t? (if it isn’t intentional, then it’s natural selection).
What do you think directed mutation could be? Magic?
“filtering out of bad traits does not occur”
“All traits are coextensive—correlated—so, again, the only thing that can be logically stated is that organisms are what is selected. I don’t see the issue with rejecting that specific traits can be selected-for and saying that organisms are what is selected. And traits aren’t inherited and genetic determinism implies certain things about genes that just aren’t true due to considerations from DST and the EES.”
So your point is that that TNS is false not because of the correlation vs. singular trait problem, which you keep repeating ad nauseum even though it clearly is factored into the way TNS is said to work, but because selection doesn’t actually occur (you deny adaptation) and because you think traits are not inherited so there is no link between survival and specific traits since surviving organisms do not pass on their traits.
Again, pointless to discuss the feasability of TNS with you because you’ve closed off the possibility that we can know anything about states of reality that aren’t the case in the first place. Just state that instead of going in a circle and leading people on about “correlations” and “coextensive traits” or other “explanations” (that don’t explain adaptation) for evolution.
I thought you cared about the truth? Then stop it with the pointless circle-jerking of yourself and Fagdor.
“Variations, if possible to decouple, trait fixation will be chosen out of the more fit ones.”
How does the decoupling happen?
“You mean natural selection? Wow thanks!”
Natural selection doesn’t have anything to do with directed mutation.
“Where did the capacity for directed mutation come from? (natural selection)”
What’s the argument and evidence for this claim?
“What do you think directed mutation could be?”
It occurs due to cues from the environment during development, since physiology is necessarily homeodynamic and able to respond to environmental cues and the goings-on in the environment.
Yea the ToNS is vacuous because it can’t do what it’s proponents claim it does. Traits aren’t inherited, developmental systems are. That’s what’s selected—the organisms and necessarily it’s developmental system. Read some Susan Oyama.
I mean, Fodor was right about natural selection and his detractors really didn’t understand his argument.
And adaptation hypotheses are just-so stories and not scientific.
>Traits aren’t inherited, developmental systems are.
so traits don’t exist? I is confused.
i thought birds had feathers and not cats.
I never saw a cat with feathers (a trait)
Developmental resources, not traits, are what is inherited.
Click to access 2016_moore–shenk_the-herit.pdf
“Aha! You admit selection occurred & thus natural selection is true. I rest my case..”
Yeah I know. He admits it and then doubles down.
Which is why one can only assume the point he’s making (if he is consistent) is that the traits only “appear” selected to our intentional minds without actually being selected in any real or objective sense, hence making him post-modernist, as he’s without belief in objective fitness or adaptation.
And of course if he actually believes we are only picking up the “illusion” or completely relative/contextual notion of “fitness” and there is no actual absolute definition, he is using words in conveniently differing ways than we are because his foundational beliefs differ from ours. We believe in objective fitness because we believe in consistent physical laws.
There is no issue. Fodor doesn’t deny that there are facts about selection-for or that experiments done by us can reveal the causal properties. The issue is that, again, the ToNS doesn’t have access to the cause, only the correlation. People, like Sober, thought that Fodor didn’t think there is a fact of the matter about what is selected-for, but that just misconstrues his argument.
Our claim is that, given coextensive phenotypic traits, TNS can’t distinguish ones that are causally active from ones that aren’t. Many of the objections that have been raised against us seem unable to discriminate this claim from such quite different ones that we didn’t and don’t endorse, such as: when traits are coextensive, there is no fact of the matter about which is a cause of fitness; or, when traits are coextensive, there is no way to tell which of them is a cause of fitness; or when traits are coextensive Science cannot determine which is a cause of fitness etc. Such views are, we think, preposterous on the face of them; we wouldn’t be caught dead holding them. To the contrary, it is precisely because there is a fact of the matter about which phenotypic traits cause fitness, and because there is no principled reason why such facts should be inaccessible to empirical inquiry, that the failure of TNS to explain what distinguishes causally active traits from mere correlates of causally of active traits, shows that something is seriously wrong with TNS.
When two traits, T1 and T2, are perfectly correlated, how does the ToNS predict which will move to fixation when both are deconfounded? The issue is, Fodor’s argument is sound do NS isn’t an explanatory mechanism.
They both will
Good answer, so natural selection doesn’t explain which trait will go to fixation and if it doesn’t explain it then it doesn’t predict which will go to fixation.
In most cases you can just use your common sense. Obviously the heart was selected because it pumps blood and not because it goes thump-thump.
Right, we can use our common sense but we, again, thusly can’t use the theory since it explains selection for pumping blood and thump-thump noises. Fodor’s objection isn’t epistemic, it’s not about what we can know. It’s about selection-for problems and laws that have to govern the selection of traits, as I’ve explained to you above. That’s the issue at hand, and I’ve read probably all of the responses to Fodor and I don’t see that anyone has addressed that very issue.
Right, we can use our common sense but we, again, thusly can’t use the theory since it explains selection for pumping blood and thump-thump noises.
We can’t use the theory alone to explain the evolution of the heart, but we can use the theory in combination with other knowledge.
Fodor’s objection isn’t epistemic
But what’s the point of even making this objection? Why not just accept that the theory is just a starting point from which more research is needed?
Natural selection wouldn’t be doing any of the explaining of the fixation of the trait and the fitness that it confers.
The point of the objection is that it’s vacuous and empty since it lacks explanatory power before empirical content is provided, and there’s also the issue of underdetermination.
But without natural selection theory, scientists wouldn’t even know to look for a selected trait.
Well this is something I’ll touch on in my article on if Darwin didn’t propose his ToNS or if it didn’t exist, but Lamarckism is one alternative and I’m sure you know that such observations were seen before Darwin formulated his theory and, indeed, what was the pretext for the ToNS.
“There is no issue. Fodor doesn’t deny that there are facts about selection-for or that experiments done by us can reveal the causal properties. The issue is that, again, the ToNS doesn’t have access to the cause, only the correlation. People, like Sober, thought that Fodor didn’t think there is a fact of the matter about what is selected-for, but that just misconstrues his argument.”
I read that Fodor response when you posted it before. It reveals that Fodor is an idiot who doesn’t understand empirical science…
Because empirical tests don’t reveal causal properties either. There is no such thing as “revealing causal properties” because everything we do in empirical science is an observation. It doesn’t reveal the deep cause of anything, it doesn’t reveal the generation of reality. That is why laws of physics are not considered “laws of selection” by you.
Even our intentional causes don’t reveal the “deep” cause of anything. It is just a correlation: “I feel like I wanted to do something, and then I in fact did it. Therefore my will to do it caused me to do it.” There is no direct causal mechanism revealed there, unless you already believe your will to do something can cause something. Of course that has nothing to do with empirical science which can’t measure intentions in the first place.
How doesn’t he understand empirical science? The claim is that we can discern what is selected-for and what comes along doe the ride but the ToNS can’t due to the correlation. Empirical tests ALLOW US to discern causality. And go ahead and explain which law(s) of physics are laws of selection and how and why they are and explain how they’re the laws that Fodor is looking for.
The question is—again—before breaking the correlation with an experiment, how can the ToNS predict which trait comes to fixation when it doesn’t explain the trait? So if it doesn’t explain it then it doesn’t predict it. It’s that simple.
“How doesn’t he understand empirical science? The claim is that we can discern what is selected-for and what comes along doe the ride but the ToNS can’t due to the correlation. Empirical tests ALLOW US to discern causality. And go ahead and explain which law(s) of physics are laws of selection and how and why they are and explain how they’re the laws that Fodor is looking for.”
ALL of the laws of physics are what is known as “NATURE”.
Empirical tests don’t allow you to discern causality, every empirical test is an observation from which you draw correlations between two events. I took a fish out of water, it died. It can’t survive out of water. I don’t know the cause. It just happens literally every time. I strike a ball with a stick, it moves. These are all correlations. That’s what physical causation is and that’s what physical laws are. There is no empirical way to figure out the deep cause of them.
“The question is—again—before breaking the correlation with an experiment, how can the ToNS predict which trait comes to fixation when it doesn’t explain the trait? So if it doesn’t explain it then it doesn’t predict it. It’s that simple.”
But it does explain the trait. The trait lead to survival and fitness, and it was passed on. What do you want it to explain?
Oh wait, you aren’t looking for explanations.
So empirical tests can break correlations, but nature testing the survival of two variations in the same environment doesn’t break the correlation between those two animals. Whatever you say.
Again, we can break the correlation through experimentation but Fodor’s argument isn’t epistemic, it’s conceptual (a priori).
It doesn’t explain the trait, because both traits are selected and so if it doesn’t explain it then it doesn’t predict it. Go ahead and take your shot. This is, in my opinion, the heart of the argument.
“Because Fodor is a scientific realist, meaning that for a theory to be considered genuinely explanatory, it should not only offer general principles or laws but should also be capable of making general predictions of specific phenomena. He is a nomological deductivist, which means that he thinks that scientific explanations involve deducing specific empirical consequences from general laws. So for a scientific theory to be considered genuinely explanatory, it should not only offer general principles or laws but should also be capable of making general predictions of specific phenomena from those principles. And a scientific theory should account for and predict specific phenomena, so if a theory lacks the power to generate specific predictions, then it’s not really empirically adequate. So here we can see that since using the ToNS T1 and T2 are both selected, then it doesn’t predict which of the traits would move to fixation, so it’s not empirically adequate. Finally, Fodor is concerned with distinguishing explanations from descriptions. So laws that lead to specific predictions allow for testing the theory’s explanatory power against empirical evidence. Thus, if a theory merely describes observed phenomena without making any specific predictions, then it lacks the depth and testability which is expected of scientific explanation.”
Jews are intelligent, but regardless of their ethnocentrism and levels of self-victimization, which can be argued, their intelligence and liberality is basically of the type where they are “So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn’t Stop To Think If They Should.”
It’s funny because Juden Peterstein swallows circumsized shekels and yet his self-help shtick is about “cleaning your own room”. Given that Jews have never had a place or nation without big daddy White people helping them, while they are personified by the “culture of critique” and love creating philosophical, scientific, and economic ideas that destroy the norms of society, is highly ironic.
I’ve thought a lot about whether jews are good or bad for gentiles at large and in the plus column you have marxism, their inventions, their entrepreneurship and basically the fact that without a smart fraction like them, maybe the West would be a lot poorer economically.
In the negative column basically you have the fact that they don’t see themselves as white people and act like that. They have this weird fascination with the biblical hebrews even though they are well evolved from those people. It just doesn’t make any sense to me to create Israel from Palestine in the first place, but Rothschild and others were very adamant about the whole ordeal.
“[Jews] don’t see themselves as white people.”
96 percent of American Jews identify as white. They are white. There are 5 races in American race talk (white, black, Native American, East Asian and Pacific Islander), so if they’re not white then what race are they?
Yes they’re White in some frames of reference and not White in others. What’s your point?
How many races are there and what are the races? What race, then, would they be?
I have no idea why you’re asking such a stupid/obvious question. Obviously they’re White in some respects and not White in other respects. Both respects involve nontrivial aspects of their phenotypes and histories. They share a lot of history and a lot of DNA/ancestry with the rest of Europe, but they also have their own distinct history as a closed off ethnoreligious nomadic tribe that other Europeans do not share. A Spaniard, a Celt, and a Danish person have important characteristics that separate that one could group them together under as White Europeans, despite their differences, that would exclude Jews, such as not being an ethnoreligious group or historically heavily involved in specific trades or migration from the Middle East.
But even so, I don’t mind divvying up Europeans separately by their nations so that they can rightfully claim to have a right to preserve their culture and homelands just like Jews apparently do, instead of all being clumped under “White” and then forced to take in all of the world’s r-selected “refugees”. If that’s the offer then let’s take it to the logical conclusion.
Genetically they’re about as much Middle Eastern as European.
Maternally they’re South Italian (mostly) and paternally they’re Middle Eastern. MENA people are white in American racetalk. Therefore, they’re white.
And the question of how many races are there is valid, because if they’re not white then which racial category would they fit under?
RR your VIQ is painfully low. People with low or average VIQ are obsessed with labels rather than the ‘spirit of the labels’. Autistic people like Wittgenstein even thought labels needed to be more scientific otherwise people wouldn’t know anything lol.
Jews are ‘white’ by american census standards. By HBD and high IQ standards they are a seperate category by themselves. In fact their DNA shows they are a hybrid race. But the most important thing about creating racial categories even more than phenotype is their physical and intellectual distinctions.
You are a low IQ person so you basically go with whatever Berkeley people say, which in turn is whatever Jeff Zucker/Harvey Weinstein say.
“RR your VIQ is painfully low. People with low or average VIQ are obsessed with labels rather than the ‘spirit of the labels’. Autistic people like Wittgenstein even thought labels needed to be more scientific otherwise people wouldn’t know anything lol.”
“You are a low IQ person so you basically go with whatever Berkeley people say, which in turn is whatever Jeff Zucker/Harvey Weinstein say.”
Blah blah blah.
“Jews are ‘white’ by american census standards. By HBD and high IQ standards they are a seperate category by themselves”
How many races are there and what are the races?
“In fact their DNA shows they are a hybrid race.”
What race are they and what backs the claim that they are a race? My argument that they aren’t a race is that K=5 doesn’t show them, and that if they aren’t white then they would have to be one of the other 4 races, but that’s ridiculous so they have to be white (never mind that they look white).
“But the most important thing about creating racial categories even more than phenotype is their physical and intellectual distinctions.”
So what’s that argument that they are their own race? Are there 6 races and Jews are the sixth along with whites, blacks, East Asians, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders? What justifies the claim that they’re a race? 96 percent of American Jews identify as white, and they’re right, since in American race talk… They are white and there is no other race for them to be.
What race are they and what backs the claim that they are a race? My argument that they aren’t a race is that K=5 doesn’t show them, and that if they aren’t white then they would have to be one of the other 4 races, but that’s ridiculous so they have to be white
By that logic South Asians are white. I think you’re confusing white with Caucasoid.
I’m talking about the American conception of race, per the US census (who defer to the OMB), there are 5 races and they fit Rosenberg et al’s (2002) K=5 run. Nonetheless, 96 percent of American Jews identify as white.
I’m talking about the American conception of race, per the US census
Which defines whites as Caucasoid, which is why even North Africans are considered white by the census. Even South Asians were considered white on the census until 1970 when for political reasons, they were nonsensically lumped in with Mongoloids in the Asian category.
they fit Rosenberg et al’s (2002) K=5 run.
Is that still valid in the age of whole genome sequencing? Nonetheless those were higher level racial categories. Whites are considered a subrace within the Caucasoid so you’d have to do a K spiting of just the Caucasoid race. Perhaps K = 3 would divide Caucasoids into Europeans, Middle Easterners and South Asian aboriginals with Jews being a mix of the first two and South Asians being a mix of the second two.
“Even South Asians were considered white on the census until 1970”
Source?
“Is that still valid in the age of while genome sequencing”
I don’t see any reason to believe it isn’t. What’s the argument that K=3 is valid? Do you see an error on spenders identity thesis?
(2.1) The identity thesis is true if, in OMB race talk, ‘American Indian,’ ‘Asian’, ‘Black’, ‘Pacific Islander,’ and ‘White’ are singular terms, and ‘American Indian’ means Native American, ‘Asian’ means East Asian, ‘Black’ means African, ‘Pacific Islander’ means Oceanian, and ‘White’ means Caucasian.
(2.2) In OMB race talk, the first conjunct in (2.1)’s antecedent is true.
(2.3) In OMB race talk, the second conjunct in (2.1)’s antecedent is true.
(2.4) So, the identity thesis is true.
However there is a possibility that Jews are a race under certain conceptions of the concept of RACE. But if one were to argue they are a race, then certain conditions would need to hold. Then one would need argue why, say, British or Italians or Japanese people aren’t a race but Jews are and also need to argue that the conditions that hold for Jews being a race done hold for the aforementioned groups.
And the OMB wanted it’s racetalk to match Blumenbach’s racial schema. The OMB lumps South Asians with Asians and not whites (see Spencer’s “A Radical Solution to the Race Problem”).
Jews dont see themselves as white dumbass. Why do all the papers and books you read rant about how bad white people are? Youre a fucking moron.
Yea they do. 96 percent of American Jews identify as white.
“Then one would need argue why, say, British or Italians or Japanese people aren’t a race but Jews are and also need to argue that the conditions that hold for Jews being a race done hold for the aforementioned groups.”
They are all different races in some contexts of course.
But if you want a reason why Jews are not “White” while the rest are…
1. Ethnoreligion based on religion from region not in Europe.
2. Middle Eastern DNA and lack of crossbreeding with host populations compared to other Whites.
3. They identify as White but more than any group, hate “Whiteness” and Whites as a general group, which is related to 1 and 2, as they were historically religiously and ethnically separate from the host White populations.
So there are good reasons not to call them White and good reasons to call them White.
They also identify Israel as their ancestral homeland. Whites by definition are from Europe.
No they dont. All the anti white stuff comes from them.
Do you see an error on spenders identity thesis?|
yes. i’m pretty sure spender is an anal “philosopher”.
“Ethnoreligion based on religion from region not in Europe”
MENA people are white in America per the OMB.
“Middle Eastern DNA and lack of crossbreeding with host populations compared to other Whites.”
See above and what do you mean by “lack of crossbredding”? Maternally, they’re something like 80 percent South Italian.
“They identify as White”
So they are white. Can you state what race they are, then, and how you know they are a race? I’m talking a biological race.
“historically religiously and ethnically separate from the host White populations.”
How does this make them not white? Is there a sixth race? What are the conditions for race hood under your model?
“So there are good reasons not to call them White and good reasons to call them White.”
I agree with this and I admit that there could be some race concepts where they wouldn’t be white, possibly, but I haven’t come across any with the rigor that Hardimon’s and Spencer’s arguments have.
“They also identify Israel as their ancestral homeland. Whites by definition are from Europe.”
“Whites” cover Europe, and MENA. Here’s the definition from the Census (who defer to the OMB):
“A person having origins in any of the peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.”
The US meaning of race is it’s referent, meaning the referent from the US census and the US census defers to the OMB. Race means whatever the OMB wants it to mean (what it intends to pick out), and it’s a set of human continental groups. Thus, race in America is a proper name for human continental population groups. (Note there is no theory of race like this for hereditarians.)
Sorry I misremembered—94 percent of American Jews identify as white. And Jews—like the Irish and Italians—were white on arrival to America. See Yang and Koshy (2016):
Our findings help resolve the controversy over whether certain U.S. non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups became white in historical America. Our analysis suggests that “becoming white” carries different meanings: change in racial classification, and change in majority/minority status. In terms of the former, “becoming white” for non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrant groups is bogus. Hence, the argument of Eric Arnesen (2001), Aldoph Reed (2001), Barbara Fields (2001), and Thomas Guglielmo (2003) that the Irish, Italians, and Jews were white on arrival in America is vindicated.
The OMB classifications scheme is garbage. Anyone with a high verbal IQ would not put MENA people and south asians in with whites. Its ridiculous. Use your own brain for once RR. All you do is quote retards.
I consider MENA & South Asians to be Caucasoid but not white since white is only one type of Caucasoid.
“The OMB classifications scheme is garbage”
What’s the argument for this claim?
“would not put MENA people and south asians in with whites”
MENA people are white per the OMB. Do you even know how the OMB defines race and what the referents are in OMB/American racetalk?
Relatedly, what race are MENA people and what’s the theory of race that would identify them as a racial category, what are the conditions that identify them as candidates for race hood?
The OMB is a political organisation you fucking twit. It classifies people according to what donors say, not science. You don’t even believe in science. Why are you asking me about scientific classification?? You dont believe in evolution.
Go ahead and substantiate your previous claim. Can you also explain to me what the OMB says about race and what OMB/American racetalk is?
rr: are you a vegan?
mugabe: rr wants me to say that veganism is the best and the best for everyone. no. athletes should never go vegan.
veganism’s health claims are DUBIOUS.
BUT the claim that most animal foods are immoral is FACT…the opposite of dubious.
rr: there are no moral facts because philosophy…anal philosophy proves satanism is true.
mugabe: americans do not eat horses. some europeans do. another one of the very few ways americans are morally superior to europeans.
indians are commonly supposed to be vegetarians. in fact, it depends on caste. brahmins are vegetarians and poor indians are vegetarians because meat is too expensive. rich non-brahmins eat meat.
dogs will eat beef because dog veganism is NOT optimal…i assume…vegan cats just die…but maybe not beef…maybe whatever species rr belongs to.
st ignatius of antioch was literally fed to the lions by rr’s fake ancestors.
When a fitness trainer and an honor student debate….the result is that the honor student only looks good to other honor students (i.e. 1% of the population).
The vast majority of human beings never developed ‘academic’ intelligence because its not needed to survive (NATURAL SELECTION). Blacks are like the biggest case of this because they only evolved social intelligence to survive, but really most human beings, even whites and east asians, are like this.
About 98% of the white population can’t do advanced math. Of the 2% remaining, 1% are autistic and the other 1% are like me and Jimmy.
You mean like ME and Jimmy. You can’t do advanced math and I’m more like Jimmy than you could ever be.
LOL you are the opposite of Jimmy. You even banned Jimmy for being ‘evil’.
Jimmy understood why he had to go because we both have very high social IQs. You’re just a wannabe trying to tag along. Jimmy thought you were hopelessly autistic, especially for thinking Trump was anti-Semitic, despite him leaving half his fortune to Jews and being so pro-Israel they named a settlement after him.
I can have multiple ongoing conversations about different topics with different people. You just whine about Jewish conspiracy 95 percent of the time. The other rate 5 percent you may have something insightful to say, but you list say “oh ur low VIQ” or whatever bullshit.
^^^stupid people don’t know they’re stupid^^^
>I can have multiple ongoing conversations about different topics with different people.
>Blah blah blah.
>irealivant
>nope
>not coherent
>where is the argument
>that is not what is under contention
>what do you mean
>tautology
>doesn’t work
>ignorance
>not valid
>how do you define
Hahaha
You going to admit that you were wrong about Darwin, speciation and natural selection yet, when you told me to “quote Darwin” and I did?
don’t play dumb RaceRealist, where does Darwin say natural selection is a mechanism? Where does Darwin use the word “mechanism”.
All RaceRealists can do is misrepresent what Darwin said, never giving Darwin’s full argument.
I quoted Darwin at length, but you list don’t understand it. Darwin proposed a theory of causation and the mechanism. When one puts for the a theory of causation, they are implicitly saying suggesting a mechanism, and that mechanism is—auppsedily—natural selection. But Fodor’s argument is sound, so it can’t be a mechanism.
>Darwin proposed a theory of causation and the mechanism.
what page and what paragraph
>When one puts for the a theory of causation, they are implicitly saying suggesting a mechanism
what page and what paragraph
>Fodor’s argument is sound
if Darwin meant that causation was “such and such” then where does he quote Darwin?
Darwin accepted that it was possible that only physics exists and nothing else so nothing can be outside causation when it comes to evolution.
“In fact the belief in natural selection must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations. (1) on its being a vera causa, from the struggle for existence; & the certain geological fact that species do somehow change (2) from the analogy of change under domestication by man’s selection. (3) & chiefly from this view connecting under an intelligible point of view a host of facts.—
When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed: nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial which is the groundwork of the theory. Nor can we explain why some species have changed & others have not”
https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4176.xml
(Cue irrelevancies and gymnastics like when you asked me to “Quote Darwin or shut the fuck up”, and I did and you had nothing to say.)
It’s clear you haven’t read Fodor nor Darwin and you can’t identify an error in Fodor’s reasoning.
Clearly, Darwin understood that things change. He was interested in geology and the fossil record so he could see they changed. He speculated that this change was natural.
It was theorized at the time that a means of inheritance existed like genes, DNA, and chromosomes but we could not see them just like people believed atoms did not exist until Einstein proved them to exist.
Breeding animals can change them but it takes a long time for taxonomies to emerge in the fossil record in the layers of sediments. It was estimated the earth was older than 6 thousand years old as the bible said it was.
“things change”
That’s not under contention.
I don’t need the 6th grade lecture. I gave you the quote you asked for—well? Or is this yet another dodge pole when you asked me for the quote about Darwin, speciation and natural selection? You have never read Darwin, right?
>That’s not under contention.
then what is?
>I don’t need the 6th grade lecture.
why do you think, I do not respond to you? obviously, you look down on those who are less intelligent than you.
What’s under contention is natural selection explaining speciation and trait fixation, not that organisms change over time.
you forgot:
>source?
rr thinks he can discover facts about the world by arguing over the meaning of words.
rr is an autistic imbecile who’s never heard of polysemy or metaphor and couldn’t understand them if he had.
I told RaceRealist to quote Darwin and he thought this meant any random quote would validate his claims. what a moron.
illuminaticatblog said:
November 13, 2023 at 8:57 pm
>The claim is that “natural selection” can lead to speciation.
Please quote Darwin or shut the fuck up.
yes please quote his full argument or shut the fuck up
Now you’re changing what you mean. Dear God you’re so bad at this. I quoted what you asked for, and you of course had nothing to say. I don’t even know what you mean by “quote his full argument.” If you’re so familiar with Darwin as you claim to be, why don’t you? I’ve provided quotes for my claims, you haven’t because you haven’t read Darwin.
I did, nimrod. I specifically quoted what you asked for. Keep showing you’ve never read Darwin.
>I did, nimrod.
I see it now, thanks fellow nimrod.
Lol.
He basically does that plus repeats his blog posts.
Animekitty: when genes are different then feedback cycles are different. Simple basic fact.
Racerealist: You’re high or something. When X is different, Y is different. You don’t know shit about developmental systems theories and how it refutes genetic reductionism.
–
>ak: feedback
>rr: reductionism
That’s implying that genes are special developmental resources, but they’re not. You have no response to Noble’s parity argument, nor do you have a response to the morales of arguments for causal parity and genes as passive causes, so you just ramble on and on about literally nothing to do with the arguments I’ve given you. Because you’re ignorant to developmental systems theory.
“when genes are different then feedback cycles are different. Simple basic fact.”
This is an empirical claim. Did you read Noble 2012 yet and think of a response to it yet or not? Or you’re just not well-read enough to formulate a response? All developmental resources are on par with each other. Genes are passive, not active causes. Nothing you’ve said has refuted that.
So if genes only came later, what, then, is their true role? Emphatically not, it seems, as the “original” recipes, designers and controllers of life, at all. More likely as templates for molecular components needed regularly by the already living thing: a kind of facility for “just in time” production of parts needed on a recurring basis.
As physiologist Denis Noble (2015) explained, “the modern synthesis has got causality in biology wrong. Genes, after all, if they’re defined as DNA sequences, are purely passive. DNA on its own does absolutely nothing until activated by the rest of the system…DNA is not a cause in an active sense…it is better described as a passive data base which is used by the organism to enable it to make the proteins that it requires.” (See also the summary in Noble et al., 2014).
Genes, that is, are servants, not masters, of the development of form and individual differences. Genes do serve as templates for proteins: but not under their own direction. And, as entirely passive strings of chemicals, it is logically impossible for them to initiate and steer development in any sense. Instead, attention has shifted to the “system” – the cells, their physiology, cognition and behavior and (in humans) complex social cognition: a vast, interacting, multi-level locus of control, responding to environmental changes and using genes accordingly.
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/so-what-gene
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0959437X93900038
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/natural-genetic-engineering_b_1511451
(1) If there is no fundamental difference between the causal roles of genetic and non-genetic factors in biology.
Genetic factors are just as important and not special resources compared to other resources and all levels of the system interact for the phenotype to be created (see the works of Denis Noble, Paulo Griffiths, Jablonka and Lamb, David Moore).
(2) if genes do not hold a privileged central position in the shaping of biological traits.
This challenges the notion that genes are the central trait-determiners, since research in fields like epigenetics and theoretical developments in DST show that genes are just as important as other factors/causes/resources in the development of the phenotype and they are also subject to regulation by other factors that also interact with them, so genes aren’t privileged in isolation, but they are a part of the causal network of influences in which are irreducible and untangleable.
Then,
(C) The strong causal parity thesis is true.
RaceRealist: That’s implying that genes are special developmental resources
bullshit
do you even know how feedback systems work?
it is “circular causation” not passive or active
genes do not need to be special they only need to be different dumbass
RaceRealist is implying that the regulation of biological systems can happen without a signaling mechanism. He is denying that pathways of development are possible. No signaling mechanism = no development dumbass.
All developmental resources are different. But you’re implying that they’re special. Circular causation is inherent in Noble’s theory of biological relativity, and he argues that genes aren’t privileged, meaning there is no privileged level of causation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3262309/
Again, the claim is that all developmental resources are on par with each other, with no resource having primacy or privilege over another.
Also, surprise surprise, you again dodged my perfectly valid argument. What else is new? Wonder why?
>you’re implying
no, you are just too stupid to have real conversations
you want me to be implying this strawman of yours so you can win a false victory in the argument.
I am not so you lose.
I mean, it hinges on your response to my argument that you’ve been careful to dodge.
neadercel is so dumb he agrees with me and thinks he disagrees. or he can’t speak english.
a language which habitually calque-ifies is INFERIOR to english which doesn’t so much. it just steals the words and starts speaking them. this is WAY easier to do in english because so un-inflected.
how many words has english borrowed from hindi? hundreds. for example: veranda.
if the germans had ruled india they’d have to translate everything into baby-talk + make up what class of noun or what verb conjugation…english just shovels all new verbs into strong verbs which have only 4 forms + auxilliary verbs and all nouns have the same inflection -s or -es for plural and ‘s for possessive/genitive case. easy!
english pronuciation of foreign words also has easy rules because schwa-ification inter alia.
it’s easy if you try, neandercel…
to stop being a pseudo-intellectual.
i apologize. i meant WEAK verbs obviously. and they have only 3 forms.
borrow a verb stem from whatever language and all english needs to do is…
present = stem anglified, past = past participle = -ed, present participle = gerund = -ing.
voila! your word is now part of english.
schwa-ification = the tendency of all unstessed syllables to have an indistinct vowel symbolized by upside down “e”.
english is so awesome it even has a pejorative for using too many latin (borrowed) words = “latinate”.
in other words (sophisticated) english speakers are perfectly aware of which words are OE or ON derived and which norman french and which latin or greek.
“a language which habitually calque-ifies is INFERIOR to english which doesn’t so much. it just steals the words and starts speaking them. this is WAY easier to do in english because so un-inflected.”
You don’t seem to understand my point, Mug. Direct borrowings are opaque in meaning, whereas calques are transparent (or at least translucent) in meaning. Direct borrowing is only acceptable when it’s from a closely related language such that many/most affixes and roots are shared.
“…english just shovels all new verbs into strong verbs which have only 4 forms + auxilliary verbs and all nouns have the same inflection -s or -es for plural and ‘s for possessive/genitive case. easy!”
What you’ve described isn’t so much a language as it is a pidgin for mulattoes and mart sharters.
“english is a SIMPLIFIED language = PIDGIN.”
A pidgin is not a language. It is DEFINED as being grammatically deficient.
BUT the reason why english ROCKS has nothing to do with english pipo…as i have explained a bajillion times.
england was invaded by celts, then romans, then northern germans, then vikings, then french speaking vivkings from nromandy.
english is a SIMPLIFIED language = PIDGIN.
weltanschauung vs worldview.
the latter is a “calque”. what is the german word for calque?
BUT sophisticated english speakers just use the former.
they pronounce it the same way the germans do except the second (and last) vowels are schwas.
is it “Lehnübersetzung”?
lame!
what a fuck-tarded language!
No, ‘worldview’ is emphatically NOT a calque of Weltanschauung. It’s a crudely approximate translation. World-beholding is a proper calque of Weltanschauung. ‘Worldview’ fails as a calque because it doesn’t render the -ung as -ing.
Similarly, Vorstellung should be calqued as ‘forestanding’. Its translation as presentation is more accurate than the more common renderings (idea, representation).
“what a fuck-tarded language!”
I’m sorry that you’re too low-I.Q. to learn German, Mug.
Animekitty: Without anal philosophy please explain how this developmental process is possible without a feedback signals mechanism in the genes:
RaceRealist:
Genes are on par with all other developmental resources and therefore aren’t special. You assume that they are but have dodged all valid arguments I’ve given to you that show that genes are on par and that they’re passive causes. Because you’re ignorant. Because you don’t read the references given to you and the arguments forwarded to you.
>Genes are on par with all other developmental resources and therefore aren’t special.
why do you need me to believe they are special, because if I don’t you win your stawman argument.
>You assume that they are but have dodged all valid arguments I’ve given to you that show that genes are on par and that they’re passive causes.
genes are involved with circular causes of the mechanism of signaling in the system. if a gene is different it will mean the proteins have shapes that affect the regulation of the system because that signal will not be the same as a gene that allows different shapes to be made in the system. different proteins = different signals
>Because you’re ignorant.
I know exactly what a signal mechanism entails.
it is important to know that in embryo development these signals tell the system parts when to grow and when not to. A or several proteins can tell the fingers to separate in a human and when to grow a hoof in a horse because of the timing of when the different proteins are released.
>Because you don’t read
I read fine.
>the references given to you
I read those when you don’t strawman my arguments.
>the arguments forwarded to you.
You do not post the arguments that prove me wrong,
You only strawman me to win an internet victory.
You do not use your own words either.
Yes or no – genes are special developmental resources. What’s the response to Griffiths and Grey? Have you even read it yet?
All parts of the system are involved in the circular causation of development with no one resource having primacy or privilege over another. Is there causal parity between developmental resources or not?
You don’t read the references given to you, that much is clear.
Yea I did post the arguments that prove you wrong. The arguments about the passiveness of genes from Noble and Baverstock and information from Oyama. You’ve not responded to them, nor have you responded to this.
You don’t even know why quotes are used. And you make empirical claims without providing empirical evidence. Very telling.
>Yes or no – genes are special developmental resources.
why? so you can win your strawman victory? I am not that stupid.
you do not understand my views: genes are not special they are different. that is why a human hand can have five fingers well a hoof can have zero fingers.
>I did post the arguments that prove you wrong.
yes or no RaceRealist
the signaling mechanism in the cell involves genes to regulate it?
>What’s the response
>Have you even read
why do I need to respond to them, I am talking to you not them, again you do not want a real conversation.
“genes are not special they are different. that is why a human hand can have five fingers well a hoof can have zero fingers.”
All developmental resources are different. And that trait isn’t under genetic control because genes don’t control anything. They’re mere dumb templates.
“the signaling mechanism in the cell involves genes to regulate it?”
Nope. And I’d like a source that backs this claim. What regulates is the system, not any resource.
You need to respond to them because they’re valid arguments against your view.
Animekitty: “the signaling mechanism in the cell involves genes to regulate it?”
RaceRealist: Nope. And I’d like a source that backs this claim. What regulates is the system, not any resource.
RaceRealist: You need to respond to them because they’re valid arguments against your view.
Stop making yourself look like a fool in public RaceRealist. Not all signals are about genes but to say genes are not part of signaling in the cell is retarded. Anyone can google gene signaling mechanisms so for anyone reading this just google it yourself like I did and see how RaceRealist is an idiot.
I look like a fool when you’re dodging perfectly valid arguments? Sure thing.
The genome is the organ of the cell, to quote Barbara McClintock, and DNA does nothing on its own until activated by TFs and eg methylation of cytosines. Signals for DNA transcription come from the rest of the cell. Read some Denis Noble and Susan Oyama, because you’re out of your depth here.
>you’re out of your depth here.
unlike you I can use google:
Gene signaling mechanisms can cause a cellular response that involves a change in gene expression. Gene expression is the process of using information from a gene to produce a functional product, usually a protein.
Cell signaling can be divided into three stages:
Reception: A cell detects a signaling molecule from outside the cell
Transduction: The signaling molecule binds to the receptor and changes the receptor protein
Response: The signal triggers a specific cellular response
Signal transduction pathways regulate gene expression by modulating the activity of nuclear transcription factors.
Some mechanisms that regulate cell signaling pathways include:
Ligand-gated ion channels
Receptors with intrinsic guanylyl cyclase activity
Receptors with intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity
Some important signaling pathways in embryonic development include:
Hedgehog, TGFβ, Hippo, Wnt, Notch, ERK.
Try responding to my comment and my argument.
Your argument is that genes are not part of a cells signaling mechanism.
I disproved this using google.
Quote me making that claim. Fact of the matter is, you haven’t responded to any of the devestating arguments against your view. I think we know why that is.
My view is not reductionist but you keep calling it reductionist. I think we know why that is.
Sure. “Different genes regulate systems in different ways.” How is that NOT reductionist? You know that there are perfectly valid arguments that challenge your clearly false view yet you keep dodging.
Scroll back up to see the arguments you didn’t address. I’ll paste them again if you’d like. But you actually need to read some philosophy of biology and DST and not cartoon genetics books. Because your ignorance really shows.
You’re claiming that genes regulate the system but that’s definitely false (and you haven’t given me a reference for that claim when I’ve asked, wonder why).
>You’re claiming that genes regulate the system but that’s definitely false.
sure dude, I posted the google stuff but you reject it.
>“Different genes regulate systems in different ways.” How is that NOT reductionist?
Because if it were a horse hoof with no fingers and a human hand with five fingers, it would be exactly the same phenology. They are not so what I said is true. Different genes must do different things, or this would not be possible.
Ridiculous. I quoted you saying that “different genes regulate systems in different ways”, which is definitely reductionist but for some reason you won’t admit it. Why?
Your folly is ignoring the systems biology/DST perspective in favor of a simplistic view that clearly isn’t valid since you don’t know anything about the aforementioned theoretical framework because you don’t read the references I give you. You constantly make empirical claims which need empirical support and you never cite any even when I ask you. You never responded to the numerous arguments I’ve given you because you’re clearly ignorant to what I’m saying.
if genes are different then they are different for a reason: because they do different things.
you cannot comprehend this, I feel sorry for you.
Surprise surprise—no response.
>no-response
no, you genuinely do not understand what a signaling mechanism is in cybernetic terms.
I am sorry for you.
The myriad arguments I’ve given to you on genes being passive causes and the system remain unanswered. Very telling. Put down the “cartoon genetics books” and read some philosophy of biology and DST. I have some references if you’re interested. (I don’t think you are and it’s clear you didn’t read the genes as passive resources papers since you’ve not even given me a hint of a valid argument against it.)
If RR is basically the best that anti HBD has to offer I’m not scared of debating them. But jews are like RR plus 50 IQ points at which point I’m concerned.
Cringe. You’re just a know-nothing.
Puppy is basically the same as RR. Same religious/moral system but unlike RR he can do math and he can see blacks and jews really are different to other races.
I’m not religious. And all you say is “Jews” cod everything.
You are deeply religious. You have this deep rooted moral belief in the Blank Slate and all humans are equal. You deny science constantly. You side with jewish cranks over the entire biology caste. You brought home an ugly black girl to your family just to prove your ‘with it’ and have an abomination of a baby. Name 1 anti-woke belief you have.
You’re a fucking idiot. You don’t know what my lady looks like. I can at least bring home women, because I take care of myself. “HBD” is mere politics masquerading as science. Imagine what would happen to anyone who called my baby an abomination to my face.
And my view isn’t “blank slatist.” Can you name and quote 3 blank slatists then explain how the quotes are blank slatism? Why is PP’s commentariat so resistant to substantiating their claims?
You look at puppy and his worshipping of a black tv show host….
Oprah propped up Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein for decades. Where was Oprah when these guys were literally beating up women? I can’t wait to destroy Oprah if I ever get into politics. Day 1 I will call oprah a magic negro jewish sock puppet. Lets see what the jewish media will say then: Racist! Anti-semite! These words are losing their power over the goyim.
You look at puppy and his worshipping of a black tv show host….
You worship a white reality TV host
Oprah propped up Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein for decades.
Trump proped up Epstein and Maxwell for decades & they’re a hundred times worse.
Where was Oprah when these guys were literally beating up women?
Where was Trump when Epstein was raping little girls & trying to blackmail elites into bullying the Palestinians?
I can’t wait to destroy Oprah if I ever get into politics.
Pretty sure politics requires you to shower so that’s a non-starter.
Day 1 I will call oprah a magic negro jewish sock puppet.
She might be a sockpuppet for the good Jews who call for peace and love between races, but she’s been a brilliant force against the bad neocons calling for war in the Middle East:
By contrast, your God Trump is a sockpuppet for the bad Jews like Bibi & condemns the progressive Jews for not being pro-Israel enough.
Are you stupid? I never once said I liked Trump. Between Trump and Biden I’d vote for Biden.
But you loved trump for years, much to jimmy’s annoyance
JImmy and I never disagreed on Trump.
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0811/1399355-hawaii-fire-oprah/
This is a publicity stunt dumbass. All Oprah does is prop up psychopaths and pretend to be a good person.
You quoted Irish media on your twitter without fact checking. The fact is – this a publicity stunt.
She props up a lot of good people too: The Obamas, Marianne Williamson, Michael Moore, Fawaz Gerges, Dr. Phil, Toni Morrison. She’s also given HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS to charity, led MILLIONS of sexual abuse survivors to recovery, stood up against the neocons, educated Americans about U.S. foreign policy, got millions of couch potatoes to read great literature, brought great literature to the screen, and brought laughter and love into the homes of millions of lonely housewives & old ladies. She’s quite simply the most talented person in the history of broadcasting. No one has more charisma and emotional range:
If she actually stood up to neocons she wouldn’t be on tv.
They did try to block her show in some markets but she was the most powerful woman in the world at that time so that was not a fight they wanted to pick
OPrah at her peak was maybe 10% as powerful as the neocons. And thats making the big assumption that blacks would listen to her over other black leaders.
The neocons would disagree with you. Ben Shapiro wrote at the time:
Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in America. She decides what makes The New York Times Best Seller lists. Her touchy-feely style sucks in audiences at the rate of 14 million viewers per day. But Oprah is far more than a cultural force, she’s a dangerous political force as well, a woman with unpredictable and mercurial attitudes toward the major issues of the day.
And blacks would have certainly backed her against the neocons since they were already leaning in that direction even before you put a black face on it. And if any black leader opposed her on that issue they’d be seen as an Uncle Tom.
Why would blacks listen to Oprah? To my knowledge blacks in america don’t even care about her. Oprah has basically done nothing for blacks. What does she say about how 90% of black kids have no father? What does she say about black crime (which effects mainly blacks)? Where is her money on anti poverty, anti drug abuse, anti homelessness?
All Oprah seems to do is pal around with certain black celebs like Bill Cosby and Obama and a few others. Other than that she does nothing for the blacks.
Blacks absolutely worship her. Not all of them of course, some hate her, but at her peak she was right up there with Jesus in the black community. Professor Boyce Watkins even said “my grandmother will stab you over some Oprah!”. Jamie Fox famously said “when we die and go to heaven, we gona be so surprised to see that God is Oprah Winfrey”. An entire generation of blacks grew up watching Oprah and she was the first black looking black person many had ever seen in a position of authority and prestige so she holds a special place in the hearts of so many. As Roger Ebert so poetically put it, she was our first black president:
How the hell do you know who a group of people in a country you’ve never been to “worships”?
I just doubt blacks like Oprah at all. Oprah talks about spirituality, eating healthy, family issues and education. Blacks hate all that stuff.
Blacks love sex, drugs, guns and getting fat which is the opposite of Oprah.
Like you said, Oprahs audience was white women. Not blacks.
In the early years Oprah had more of a trashy talk show that blacks & working class whites could relate to, but once she made the Forbes 400, she started targeting a more upper class audience but she still did enough interviews with black celebs to keep much of her black audience from bleeding away. Also, a lot of the spiritual shows appealed to blacks who felt frustrated that they weren’t achieving the career or husband they had dreamed of and Oprah would offer “solutions” like THE SECRET.
77 percent were white women and 17 percent were black.
I found similar numbers (from 2007):
“Winfrey’s influence, in many ways, has transcended race, culture and class. She is most popular among white women older than 55, who make up 40 percent of her audience. Of her 7.6 million daily viewers, 78 percent are white and 18 percent are black, according to Nielsen Media Research.”
I recall seeing stats, perhaps from the 1990s putting blacks at 25% but can’t find that now.
Either way, both blacks and whites are overrepresented among her audience. Immigrants seem to be underrepresented.
Here’s the source I found.
“According to fall 2006 Simmons Research data, white women comprise 77 percent of Oprah’s viewing audience (defined as folks who watched the show one to five times a week). Only 17 percent are black. Also, 41 percent of the viewers are registered Democrats, 31 percent are Republicans and 13 percent are independents.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2007/08/o-is-for-oprah-005473
Here’s some better data (also from 2007):
Although most Americans have a favorable opinion of Oprah Winfrey regardless of their party and political philosophy, more Democrats (69%)
and liberals (69%) have a favorable opinion of her than do Republicans (54%), Independents (56%), moderates (62%) and conservatives (55%).
Blacks are far more likely to have a favorable opinion of her – 84% of blacks view Oprah favorably compared to 57% of whites.
The higher one’s annual income, the more likely one is to have a favorable opinion of Oprah. Americans under age 65 are also more likely to have a favorable opinion of her, as are Americans with at least some college education.
Click to access Aug07a-OPR.pdf
Yea sure, people love “getting fat”—any source for that?
“Blacks absolutely worship her.”
Idk, PP. I’m not going to bash Oprah (I’ve done more than enough of that in the past), but I’ve lived in the South (50% black city) my entire life and I’ve only known one black admirer of Oprah.
On the other hand, several of my family members were huge fans of her show.
^^^peepee^^^
neandercel = peepee = i’m the only commenter = sad.
ToNS is a MATHEMATICAL FACT!
there are only one or two sorts of synthetic a priori truths.
if rr weren’t an imbecile and had read kant he’d know…
1. mathematics
2. logic
but these can be fairly called the same thing.
Mug, you dolt, logic is analytic a priori. You clearly haven’t read Kant.
Kant =/= Bertrand Russell
Your shitposts used to be THE shit, and now they’re just shit 😦
“I just doubt blacks like Oprah at all. Oprah talks about spirituality, eating healthy, family issues and education. Blacks hate all that stuff.”
Blacks love Oprah. Comments like this always make it apparent just how dumb Philo actually is. If a fact contradicts Philo’s worldview the fact must be wrong.
It’s a miserable existence.
<i>Mug, you dolt, logic is analytic a priori.</i>
neandercel knows nothing about logic. sad.
“neandercel knows nothing about logic. sad.”Kant classified logic as an a priori analytic science. He classified mathematics (or at least geometry) as synthetic a priori.You’ve never read Kant. Your position is closer to Aristotle’s.
i strongly encourage peepee to post rr’s version of fodor’s “argument” so we can all have a big laugh.
obviously rr and lurker work at the same jidf troll farm. they may be the same person.
also obviously is darwin was a great philosopher in the sense that mugabe has defined the term. that is, he observed something which is totally obvious, yet no one had articulated beforehand.
ToNS is TRUE A PRIORI.*
so fodor wasn’t only wrong. his conclusion was the polar opposite of the truth.
*or rather ToNS is the best NATURALISTIC (attempted) explanation of the origin of species.
rr: no it’s not because EES and DST.
mugabe: you are an extremely stupid and tiresome person who insists pipo “debate” you on various topics in clownology.
pill is gay and was turned down by a black man he had a crush on…OBVIOUSLY!
gay men aren’t into blacks. They appeal more to straight women rebelling against their racist dads.
^^^CLUELESS UGLY GAY BLACK MAN^^^
“gay men aren’t into blacks.”
Grindr used to have a race filter. I’m confident that it was removed because blacks complained.
I know this because I used to be into trannies.
used to be?
only a fake personality would admit to such a perversion.
why is jidf obsessed with peepee’s blog?
“only a fake personality would admit to such a perversion.”
Nonsense. My reputation is antifragile.
“why is jidf obsessed with peepee’s blog?”
I was a Mossad asset all along. You finally cracked the code.
Yea maybe before the EES and DST were formulated that was true, but it’s not true today (you still had Lamarckian thought which was an actual mechanism, see Eugene Koonin and Peter Ward). And the ToNS doesn’t and can explain trait fixation and speciation. That’s a fact. My explanation does that, without relying on natural selection.
Yea maybe before the EES and DST were formulated
they were NEVER formulated.
you are a compulsive LIAR!
Aren’t you like 50 years old and a childless drunk alcoholic?
Also I’m done arguing with RR for now. It’s clearly going nowhere because he thinks a dichotomy between choosing selection by nonintentionality or intentionality is a “false dichotomy”.
Or he thinks there is no selection/adaptation and nothing to explain. Either way, there’s no point in arguing further is there?
^^^peepee^^^
are you denying you’re rr?
no!
pill also works in a jidf troll farm.
i agree you have insight (((lurker))). it is pointless to argue with hs drop-outs like yourself.
You’re not a high school dropout or from a lower class family and you have a good memory, so what’s your excuse for being a failure? Mental illness? I’m sorry to hear that.
hear what?
oh now i get it. sad.
lurker/peepee is so lower-class she suffers from false-consciousness. she doesn’t have a mind. her mind is controlled by master.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness
that it may be better to “fail” than to “succeed” never occurs to those without minds.
what a FUCKING PROTESTANT CUNT!
peepee wouldn’t know reality if it fucked her in the ass.
what pill says is TRUE and what rr says is FALSE regarding black women and white men. ESPECIALLY if those black women are “successful”.
i don’t even know how many black babies i have. at least 12.
if a doppelganger of harvey wienstein got out of a cardboard box on the street and started hitting on a black woman…
there would be babies, UNLESS..
the harvey weinstein doppelganger dumped her.
sad.
sad but true. pipo who allow rr to comment are crazy horny and creep on chinamen.
rr is lying about his height. he’s shorter than LOADED.
I know some white friends in London that go dumpster diving as a last resort if they can’t get laid. Basically you start messaging black girls on dating apps in that scenario.
I never tell my friends that that is disgusting, but basically they are semi-ashamed of what they are doing.
RR on the other hand is actually proud of bringing home an orc.
Says the single, childless smelly non-shower taker.
It’s crazy that white girls have followed the same evolutionary trajectory as Chickens.
But yeah, because there is a fact of the matter about what trait is the free-rider and which is the fitness-causing trait, then Natural selection partially explains evolution. It’s an incomplete theory. Regarding nomological laws, they probably exist because of convergent evolution. However, whether they could ever be articulated is another question.
^^^peepee^^^
lurker claimed that she is lower class but peepee claimed she is “very upper class”.
which is it peepee?
peepee is jealous of becky with the good hair sadly.
I don’t see how that follows Melo. I agree with the argument in Hornstein (2010), but with all of the ancillary additions, it’s not really natural selection doing the explaining, is it?
I see the angle you’re coming from regarding convergent evolution and nomological laws, but I think it’s a case by case basis to explain why the convergent evolution of similar traits is observed. Further, if nomological laws did exist, then that would imply some kind of deterministic relationship between environment and evolutionary outcomes. But since there are multiple different pathways for convergent evolution to exist, then I think that challenges the existence of nomological laws. And also evolutionary contingency speaks against nomological laws as well. Thus, historical contingencies, structural constraints and chance events need to be looked at regarding specific cases of convergent evolution.
“but with all of the ancillary additions, it’s not really natural selection doing the explaining, is it?”I mean, partially, yeah. We couldn’t explain the existence of some traits without the concept of Natural Selection.
“would imply some kind of deterministic relationship between environment and evolutionary outcomes. “There probably is, but it requires massive amounts of funding and computing power to elucidate what they are.
“We couldn’t explain the existence of some traits without the concept of Natural Selection”
Like?
“There probably is”
I oobviously disagree.
(What’s up with commenting on mobile internet browser? This is horrible.)
Like?”Human Intelligence, for one.”
(What’s up with commenting on mobile internet browser? This is horrible.)”It’s horrible everywhere I don’t know what the fuck Pumpkin has done to this shit.
“Like?”
Human Intelligence, for one.
”(What’s up with commenting on mobile internet browser? This is horrible.)”
It’s horrible everywhere I don’t know what the fuck Pumpkin has done to this shit.
I mean, even if I were to grant that selection can decouple correlated traits, there’s still the irreducibility of the mental to the physical (meaning the mental can’t be selected). I think Nagel’s argument in Mind and Cosmos, also, throws a wrench into that claim.
And I’m not sure PP has anything to do with the crappy layout of the comments, it’s all jumbled and my predictive text doesn’t really work.
You don’t have to grant anything. Some traits simply change more than others over time, and we know that’s because some are selected. Natural selection doesn’t need to know that intelligence is the fitness-causing trait for me to know that it’s the fitness-causing trait. Moreover, if it causes fitness, its continued propagation is, by definition, a product of Natural Selection.
The variation of mental traits is tied to variation in physical ones. The selection of different cerebral architectures will necessarily create mental differences. To use an example that you can understand: Non-human animals lack a “mind” because they lack a set of specific physical traits that we possess. The irreducibility of the mental is inconsequential.
Yea I don’t accept mind-brain identity. There can’t be mechanistic explanations of non-mechanistic traits.
And you can’t use the ToNS to state that A is selected over B, one can only say that A is selected over B without adhering to the ToNS because it’s explanatorily empty. What test establishes whether T is an adaptation and not an expatiation or byproduct? What’s a prediction that would be true if some psychological trait were an adaptation that would be false if it were a spandrel?
RR, you don’t believe in selection in traits at all. Just say it.
There are only two possibilities: Something is intentionally selected, it was unintentionally selected (naturally). If neither of those is true, then it wasn’t selected.
Just say “I don’t believe organisms are adapted or selected which is why I don’t believe in natural selection. I believe every trait is explainable by random mutation events or genetic drifT. Nevermind that I think niches exist to be filled when an animal is killed off and am implicitly admitting that I think organisms can adapt to the environment if competition pressures are reduced (which is natural selection), TNS is not a mechanism.”
Well, it’s a good thing mind-brain identity is irrelevant to what I said, huh?
I think you’re confused. I cannot say that A is selected over B without NS. NS is explanatorily vacuous without ancillary theories, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an essential piece of a selection history.
Regarding predictions, multiple factors could differentiate adaptations and spandrels: 1) You’d expect some universality to the trait. If a trait has high variation, it’s probably not an adaptation. 2) We’d expect the trait to increase the survivability of an organism in a particular environment 3) We’d expect them to have a clear and traceable evolutionary history, showing how they have gradually improved over time to suit the organism’s changing environment better. This can be inferred from comparative studies of related species and fossil records. 4) Adaptations should show a predictable response to environmental change, as they are expected to evolve to match the changing conditions better. For instance, traits that enhance an organism’s ability to find food or avoid predators should become more prevalent in environments with scarce resources or increased predation pressure. Convergent evolution rears its head again.
Lurker, well those are actual mechanisms, along with the others I’ve articulated. Natural selection implies specific things, as I’ve quoted from Darwin, not the differential survival and reproduction of organisms.
Melo, when you say “variation in physical ones”, that’s what I assume. I grant necessary causes but not sufficient ones, re the brain. And we need to look at the individual organism’s natural history, not it’s “selection history”, since history is of course one thing after another. We don’t need intensional biological explanations.
Byproducts and exaptations also exhibit universality. Byproducts and exaptations also contribute to survival. Some traits could lack a clear adaptive purpose despite having an evolutionary history. Further, a trait with a complex history doesn’t guarantee it being an adaptation. Byproducts and exaptations could also exhibit consistent responses to environmental change. Certain features could coincidentally fare well in varied conditions which lead to predictability. Spandrels and byproducts could show adaptiveness in certain contexts.
Imagine a species of bird that has a specific color of feathers. The coloration wasn’t initially an adaptation, but resulted from generic drift or some other mechanism. So over time, due to random factors, a color change emerged. Say the coloration coincidentally provides better camouflage in certain environments, so when the environment changes, like a shift in vegetation or climate, the coloration happens to continue to be advantageous to concealment. So birds with this coloration are less likely to be spotted by predators and as a result have a higher chance of surviving and reproducing. So in this scenario, the trait of coloration of feathers isn’t an adaptation, it’s a byproduct of non-selective processes. But because it coincidentally fares well in varied conditions by providing better camouflage, it exhibits a predictable response to environmental changes. This predictability might lead observers to consider it as an adaptation but further considerations would then lead to the right conclusion that it is non-adaptive. So it shows adaptiveness due to coincidence and not selection.
You make a good point, but it doesn’t help your case. If the bird’s coloration provides a survival advantage and, subsequently, the trait proliferates throughout the population, then doesn’t that mean it’s an adaptation? This could prove that the spandrel/adaptation distinction is false. However, that whole scenario is predicated on the idea that we can differentiate between adaptations and spandrels. Meaning it IS a testable hypothesis. Is it testable with just ToNS? No. But it doesn’t need to be; ultimately, we know some traits exist because of NS. So, if we teleported to an alternate universe where ToNS had never been formulated, you agree that our evolutionary knowledge would suffer, right?
You agree that we can tell the difference between fitness-causing and free-rider traits, so why do you doubt me when I say some traits are adaptations (like intelligence)? Do you not see the contradiction you are making?
“doesn’t that mean it’s an adaptation?”
I don’t think so, because it’s characterized as a byproduct or a trait that fortuitously became adaptive by happenstance. And byproducts can, as I’ve shown, be currently adaptive so current fitness isn’t an indicator of past fitness. Current adaptiveness isn’t a criterion for whether a trait is selected-for. A trait can be an adaptation without being adaptive and can be adaptive without being an adaptation.
Regarding your last question in the first paragraph, that’s an interesting question that I need to think about and write on. Thanks for the prompt. (There’s an interesting book called Darwin Deleted that I read a few years ago that touched a bit on this issue, and he argued that if Darwin were to die young without having coalesced the observations into his theory, that we would have ended up with a similar theory.) But on a mere spitball, of course I think we would have leaned toward Lamarckian/neo-Lamarckian inheritance (which of course is an actual mechanism of evolution, unlike the ToNS in my view).
I agree that intelligence is an adaptive trait (think back to my argument from a few months back), but you know I don’t think that intelligence is reducible to physical processes so it can’t be an object of selection.
While I’m glad I was able to inspire you, you do see your apparent contradiction, right? Like, you can’t doubt my ability to distinguish adaptations and spandrels by posing a scenario that hinges upon us distinguishing between an adaptation and a spandrel.
Moreover, it’s pretty ridiculous to pose a scenario where a trait just coincidentally has all the hallmarks of selection but somehow isn’t selected. The temporal nature of evolution makes distinctions like this tricky. Still, if a trait is conferred a survival advantage, reinforcing its presence in a population, then it’s an adaptation—end of story.
However, you have given me something to think about as well. The spandrel/adaptation distinction is meaningless. All adaptations are spandrels because of the holistic nature of organisms. But that’s not relevant to creating selection histories. We must distinguish between traits that cause fitness and benign or maladaptive traits.
I’ll let you have the last word because This conversation is getting boring, and I have real work to do.
All adaptations are spandrels because of the holistic nature of organisms.
But if you could go back in time and remove the selected trait without removing the spandrel, the organism would not be selected but if you did the reverse, it still would be, so I disagree that the distinction is meaningless.
All traits are byproducts and adaptations, but not all traits are adaptive. Today’s Spandrel could be tomorrow’s adaptation and vice versa.
Melo, my scenario showing a trait that has the features of an adaptation but actually isn’t just proves my point. And I disagree, these things have specific definitions in the context of evolutionary biology. As regards my scenario, the trait is a byproduct of non-selective processes, meaning that it wasn’t an adaptation per se, it was a byproduct that just so happened to become adaptive in a certain ecological context. Traits that are selected-for—adaptations—are distinguished from traits that are selected—byproducts. Therefore byproducts can be currently adaptive, consequently, current fitness isn’t evidence of past fitness.
Do you agree that traits can be adaptive without being an adaptation and be an adaptation without being adaptive?
“Do you agree that traits can be adaptive without being an adaptation and be an adaptation without being adaptive?”
I agree that a byproduct that becomes adaptive and continues to proliferate in virtue, at least in part, of its adaptiveness is now an adaptation.
That’d be an exaptation.
2000s:
Now:
You can’t tell me the bitch below isn’t hotter.
The bottom is definitely hotter.
Erich and RR have peasant taste in women. Praising fat chicks is like shouting, “I’m a genetic dead-end” into the void. Only blacks and poor white trash do so.
I mean, I’m half white trash, so that checks out.
It depends on the face for me.
In terms of body, the one below looks healthier alright. The one above looks about 14 years old.
Let’s not forget Amanda Bynes is half-Jew, and is probably one of those fairly talentless and unattractive people that is passably attractive and got shoved in our faces as very attractive.
If you look at the Friends actors, the least attractive one is Jewish (David Schwimmer). Lisa Kudrow is also Jewish and basically on par with the rest.
Melo wouldn’t know about that though.
Also, yeah, the face is important as a lot of woman can bulk up and get “thicker”. The most important thing to me is overall health and not being a midget (sign of low IQ), as well as a low waist-to-hip ratio (sign of high IQ). Bynes does not have a low WHR. Excessively long limbs are probably a sign of low IQ as well (African ancestry).
Not that it matters that much because none of us are Jeff Bezos and can pick and choose people by their traits, we must go at best, by the correlation of traits that include them being loving mothers, functional adults, and agreeable to us, regardless of their physiology. Also, Jeff Bezos has horrible taste in women given his new girlfriend Lauren Sánchez. Gross. Looks like a reality TV show reject. But still about as attractive as the average Brooklyn hood rat.
Is limb length a sign of low IQ independent of African ancestry? You know taller people are more likely to have longer limbs, right? And again, Jews are white. What race are they if they’re not white and what theory of race justifies it? Are they a biological or socialrace? If biological, what justifies it?
Wanna know where they cluster in clustering studies? Near South Italians.
They cluster in between Middle Easterners and whites.
They cluster right with S. Italians.
Here, see this. Nonetheless, Europeans are white, Middle Easterners are white in American/OMB racetalk, and therefore so are AJs, as I’ve argued.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Principal-Component-Analysis-PCA-on-all-present-day-west-Eurasians-with-ancient-samples_fig3_259441354
Dictionary defines white as European.
I’m talking about OMB American racetalk.
RR is fucking retarded. There is no ‘world authority’ on what is or isnt a race. Its based on common sense.
Obviously jews are a hybrid race like latinos.
“Is limb length a sign of low IQ independent of African ancestry? You know taller people are more likely to have longer limbs, right? And again, Jews are white. ”
I’m talking about long limbs relative to torso length. It’s indicative of African ancestry yes.
“What race are they if they’re not white and what theory of race justifies it? Are they a biological or socialrace? If biological, what justifies it?”
I’m talking about Jewish representation forcing unattractive Jews into the mainstream. The point is not whether or not they are White in whatever context.
It would be the same as when a rich or royal person forces us to worship their ugly countenances upon us because they have the power to.
TP, I’m pluralist about race, do you know what that means? I’m merely asking under what theory of race are AJs a race?
Lurker, is it a sign of low IQ independent of ancestry?
The theory is called the ‘use your fuckin brain’ theory of race and its clear latinos and jews are a hybrid race.
“Latinos” aren’t a (biological) race. And you have no theory. Jews are white.
Latinos are considered a race by 90% of the population. You and a few other homosexual clowns in berkeley don’t even believe in the concept of race so why do you keep asking me for my definition or race??
They’re not considered a race in OMB/American racetalk. You’re not even American so what the hell would you know? Have you ever seen a job form in America or anything that asks about demographics? That’s a basic enough question for you.
“don’t even believe in the concept of race”
Quote me saying that or be quiet. Tell me—what is pluralism about race? (Prediction: No answer.)
And social constructivists about race are realists about race (explain to me what the “homosexual clowns in Berkley) believe about race and, preferably, quite them. (I know you won’t do this, it’s easy as hell to make claims like that but to back them with quotes are obviously too hard for you, since you obviously don’t read).
My claim (which I’ve argued for in depth) is that all theories of race, first and foremost, are predicated on race being a social construct, since there are different race concepts around the world, as I’ve argued for before. Even biological theories of race—like Hardimon’s and Spencer’s (I bet you can’t articulate them) are premised on that claim.
You don’t even know any basic theories of race. You’re clearly a know-nothing.
Latinos are referred to in 99% of the media and academia and social media and everywhere as a race. If you want to get into the weeds, they are a hybrid. Theres nothing more to add. What 1% of the population says in Berkeley, not even other liberals pay attention to.
You didn’t even read what was given to you. “Latinos” aren’t a race. What do you know about how the OMB defines race, and what they say about “Latinos”? Have you ever seen a US government form?
OMB is trash. Nobody cares what the OMB thinks.
Says the non-American who can’t explain to me what the OMB says about race and how it’s used in American life. Because he’s not fucking American so he doesn’t understand it.
Also, the appeal of skinny women is it takes off the fat from their lower face, making their jaw appear small and hence more neotenous relative to the rest of their features, but Bynes is still not that attractive. And the fit of her clothes probably doesn’t do much for her figure here.
The appeal of slender women (‘skinny’ should be reserved for cases of emaciation) is that they don’t have protruding guts. Please stop encouraging western women to get even fatter than they already are.
I didn’t encourage it, and I’m using skinny for how Amanda Bynes is in that picture. I’m talking about women who are excessively skinny. Obviously normal weight people shouldn’t have portruding guts either.
I never liked Bynes at all. I didn’t even know she was half jew. I didnt know half the friends cast was jewish either.
what friends? schimmer was half the cast? you are a half caste gay man into black dudes. sad.
I think she was Dan ‘Foot Guy’ Schneider’s first starlet. He didn’t make his casting decisions on the basis of talent.No wonder she went batshit insane a decade or so ago.”I didnt know half the friends cast was jewish either.”Friends was a de-fanged, feel-good version of Seinfeld. I guess it appealed to young, professional class urban goyim (“Wow! They’re just like me!”)
An article you people will find interesting
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/elon-musks-disturbing-truth/676019/
Thanks for the link PP. I’ve been following it loosely on Twitter anyway, but it’s funny to see the MSM version of events. What a lopsided Jewish tinted (Yair Rosenberg) interpretation.
“That’s because, contrary to deranged delusions of anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists, public policy is not set by the 0.2 percent of the world population that is Jewish, but by the 99.8 percent that isn’t.”
So instead of nuance and admitting at least 0 .2 percent control, let alone more than that, it’s simply “we Jews have no power at all! Now shut up about it Goy!”
So way to ignore the fact that the 0.2 percent are the most rich ethnic group on the planet, and make up 2 percent of the world’s superpower, the US.
But just because Musk’s affirmation of white-nationalist ideology was the unsurprising outcome of his online radicalization spiral doesn’t make it any less devastating—or dangerous. “
So I assume Yair Rosenberg thinks Whites are actually more powerful than their worldwide minority status, which is why he had to point out White Nationalism rather than simply nationalism or anti-semitism. But apparently Jews can’t be, because “they’re only 0.2%!”
Well, Mr. Rosenberg can go screw himself. But Mugabe would probably bow down to him despite his anti-authoritarian views anyway because of the boomer mentality.
Sad.
more to the point; they’re about 35% of the U.S. elite.
Yeah but PP you have to understand, when Jews get all those Nobel Prizes, they are producing a outsized contribution to science and humanity. But when they’re a Rabbi who owns Pornhub, or a banker who commits mega crypto-fraud (SBF), they were just reacting to the whims of the 99.8%.
you can see rr’s autism when he argues over the meaning of the word “white” as if there had to be only one meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysemy
grow up. ban rr.
personalities who must be banned:
rr, melo, lurker, pill.
personalities who must be un-banned:
afro, LOADED, jimmy.
also peepee must ban herself from commenting on her own blog.
RR doesn’t even know how to debate. The other day I tricked him into debating himself when I asked him to spell out a ‘testable hypotheis’ from his anti-racism theory and then when I showed him the empirical data, he backtracked and argued with himself what the meaning of the words in the hypothesis the he propsed actually meant…..LOL
God you’re so clueless. And that wasn’t “the other day” it was more like a month ago. You make empirical claims without evidence to back it up. Hmm why is that?
I gave you the evidence and then when you read it your mind kind of short circuited and you started debating yourself. It was amusing. You just don’t want to stop believing in the blacks so badly. Its a very emotional weight youre carrying.
Does the theory make novel predictions or not?
Are you fucking stupid. It made a predicition and I proved it false with empirical data.
It iobviously makes successful novel predictions, which I’ve shown with references.
Do you know what a “novel prediction” is?
What you just said is a flat out falsehood. It predicted racism causes crime. So therefore less racism must cause less crime.
Do you know what a novel prediction is? Go ahead and pick a part the references that justify the prediction.
So you won’t accept empirical evidence? Idiot.
You’ve never given me a reference when I’ve asked.
I told you – The FBI crime database.
That doesn’t refute the TAAO.
A few days ago phil (or is he called pill?) made an observation that whites are not as good at advanced math. I think he meant…compared to east asians and/or jews. Are they better at advanced physics? Do IQ tests test advanced math or advanced physics or skills at both? Testing skills at these…a good indicator of intelligence, peeps?
Some parts of IQ tests predict math skills, but math is more of an achievement test than an IQ test per se, though the distinction between the two is arguable.
There’s no quantitative difference between achievement and IQ tests though.
Well in some school boards you need a large IQ score > achievement test score to be diagnosed as learning disabled. You might have qualified because your IQ was 108 but you SAT IQ equivalent might have been 62. But in the neurotypical population, achievement tests correlate about as much with IQ tests as IQ tests correlate with one another.
Sorry I meant “No qualitative difference.” And yea, the last part is circular.
Interesting. I usually take ‘learning disabled’ to be a euphemism for retarded / mentally defective. When the term first came into vogue, it referred only to specific disabilities such as dyslexia.
intellectually disabled is a euphemism for retarded.
The fact is Oprah doesn’t really appeal to blacks. Blacks love guys like 50 cent and crackpot pastors and people that are basically barbarians.
Oprah is basically a white woman with a black face. SHE READS BOOKS. 99% of black women in america don’t even know how to read. Even if they did they wouldn’t want to read due to ADD issues and lack of empathy.
And Trump is like a black rapper in white face, but he still appeals to whites.
Trump actually talks like most working class whites. Oprah talks like the top 1% of black women by class.
Oprah really is a very strange black woman when you think about it.
The person you see on TV is a character she brilliantly created. Basically a middle class white woman’s fantasy of what a black person should be.
Agreed
Pill are you a virgin. it would be beyond hilarious if you were.
what are your actual experiences with women.
I actually wondered that about you. I would guess you were the least attractive guy in high school to girls. I wasn’t that great either back in those times either.
maybe physically i look okay i have a good looking face always have but yeah maybe i wasnt desirable because of my height etc.
LOADED, ask RR to train you for free as one of PP’s commenters. Or since you’re monetarily loaded I guess you can pay him his hundred-dollar per hour charge. I bet he could recommend you some amazing hair stylists as well.
i would indeed like 2 do that. i think RR can see these comments so he should definitely lemme reach out 2 him.
it would be a fun little exercise.
Agreed.
Hows the black gf? Has she started smoking crack yet with the child support money?
Do you understand what what I posted means or would you like an explanation since you’re clearly not knowledgeable enough?
rr does not understand that statistics is a tool to find things.
probabilities show the likelihood of something.
if a problem has lots of information in it the likelihood of solving it can increase of decrease depending of how much information a person can deal with.
so if a person can do more they will likely get a higher score on all the tests vs a person who cannot deal with much information so they will likely get a low score.
as per what I said: iq tests try and find the probability of how much information a person can deal with.
How does any of this respond to what was posted? Your issue is you go on unrelated rants against perfectly valid views and you never go at the heart of what was posted. I think we know why… Because you’re out of your element. Try actually responding to what is given and the arguments given to you. That’s a challenge for you, since you just go on unrelated rants.
You only think what I say is unrelated but they are very relevant to the subject of pp’s blog. Math helps us understand things about intelligence.
In the comments below the Twitter post people show that after consecutive trials of random variance, the correlations never reach above 0.55 – IQ tests correlate with themselves about 0.7 to 0.9 this means that IQ is statistically more significant above what would be termed “random”.
Wow, different versions of the same test correlate with each other. Wonder why.
God is mentioned in all books of the Bible, does that mean God exists? And Spearman’s g is falsified and Jensen’s is a tautology.
RaceRealist said: Try actually responding to what is given and the arguments given to you.
Animekitty did and RaceRealist said:
God is mentioned in all books of the Bible, does that mean God exists?
–
sure dude, 0.55 is the same as 0.9 over long periods of time, nice job at maths.
No, you didn’t. IQ tests are predicated on exposure to the knowledge items on the test; there’s no such thing as a culture-free/fair test. What I said about God and the Bible is a valid question regarding factor analysis. So what’s the answer? And we know that other, actual real existing things, have higher correlation with what is interesting, not a reified construct.
And aagain, Spearman’s g is falsified and Jensen’s is an unfalsifiable (and reified) tautology, so what’s left? Have you read Jensen’s 1969 paper?
>What I said about God
“Garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO)
The real issue is if factor analysis is a valid form of maths. Factor analysis is supposed to find high correlations if the data is not random… if you enter random data into the factors they will produce low correlations all the time. So just like any form of math, random data does not help your argument at all if the math is valid or invalid.
RR is basically arguing nobody is more intelligent than another person. ie. intelligence doesnt exist lol.
Why is it so hard for you to answer questions without going off on your weird tangents?
>Why is it so hard for you to answer questions without going off on your weird tangents?
complex subjects require complex answers.
factor analysis is a valid form of math.
Clearly my arguments are too complex for you to identify an error in my reasoning. Different tests correlate with each other because they’re made to do so. That’s not interesting and not evidence for the existence of some factor that, per Jensen, shouldn’t be reified but he then reifies it. (Seriously, have you read Jensen’s 1969 paper?) And the God question is a valid one.
More poor verbal reasoning. If different tests identify the same thing, the thing can actually exist and not just be the tests identifying each other dumbass.
About 99% of psychologist believe in IQ testing. 1% (mainly jewish) don’t. Once again you are in the tiny lunatic fringe.
“If different tests identify the same thing, the thing can actually exist and not just be the tests identifying each other dumbass.”
Looks like poor reading comprehension on your part, dumbass. And that different tests “identify the same thing” isn’t relevant, since test batteries are selected due to their showing positive correlations with others, meaning the tests are built to correlate with each other, along with the fact that new tests are correlated with old tests, so the issue is still the same.
Brains that can deal with more information have higher correlations to the test questions dealing with high information load. I wonder why?
Even though information is quantifiable (literally because everything is information) and the mind processes information, there is nothing quantifiable about the mind. Because you can’t take out a tape measure and show it.
Brains don’t deal with information, selves do.
Why won’t you answer the questions posed to you? Have you read Jensen 1969 or not? Have you read the valid critiques of Spearman’s g being falsified and Jensen’s being an unfalsifiable tautology or not?
The mind isn’t mechanistic.
And that doesn’t touch the critique of g or factor analysis posted above. And doesn’t address Spearman’s or Jensen’s g.
And that’s not the same thing as saying that the mind is mechanistic or that psychological traits are quantifiable and thusly measurable. Those arguments are untouched by that specific claim (eg Michell, Uher, Trendler).
>Brains don’t deal with information, selves do.
what the fuck does this even mean? why are the tests not about dealing with information? if intelligence is not about dealing with information what the fuck is it about?
You’re just committing a mereological fallacy, Brains ALLOW learning, but they themselves don’t learn, selves do. And you’re just skirting around the issue I originally raised. Yawn. Have you read Jensen? Spearman? Critiques of their theories? It’s so funny that you call me dishonest when you dodge perfectly valid questions and arguments against your view and go off on unrelated rants.
WTF
Indians are the most perverted indecent people on the planet. [redacted by pp, 2023-11-28]
LOADED you would make a perfect “chosen person”. You have an extremely overrated view of yourself, and love to put the stupidest groups up on pedestals (Africans), while those who are a little more functional (Mexicans, Indians, Whites, East Asians) and who are more similar to yourself, you hate with a dying passion.
have you had same experiences i have had with regards 2 different groups of people? if not then the entirety of the argument becomes dysfunctional!
i do not like blacks at all i think they are degenerates 2 a maximum but i dont think other races are better in any way.
race supremacism is kind of stupid anyways. whenever i said i support blacks more than other races it was purely out of empathy 4 their struggles.
i am a good person and thats the majority of the whole situation im under.
ive struggled tremendously in life because of others putting me down 4 their envious desires!
i dont really believe in racial supremacy because there is no race that suits this grand belief of greatness!
i dont have an overrated view of myself either i want 2 clear that up i actually follow through on things i say im doing!
its just that many of you have low self esteem or a i have 2 prove sumn attitude that doesnt fly with me!
I used to despise Loaded. Now I find his comments kind of entertaining in a kind of surreal Kafka type way.