(split) Atheism and acceptance of science

[S.A.M.]

I'll post it for the third time:

survival of the fittest what? The fittest organism? The fittest group? The fittest species? The answer: the fittest genes.


But thats not correct, genes with higher fitness become more common. There is no winner.

As fitness measures the quantity of the copies of the genes of an individual in the next generation, it doesn't really matter how the genes arrive in the next generation. That is, for an individual it is equally "beneficial" to reproduce itself, or to help relatives with similar genes to reproduce, as long as similar amount of copies of individual's genes get passed on to the next generation. Selection which promotes this kind of helper behavior is called kin selection.

And unless you're ignoring the fact that there is individual variation through several mechanisms including crossover in sexual reproduction, there are no copies.

And natural selection does not work at the level of the gene. Stephen Hawkings intelligence "gene" if there is one, is pretty useless in the face of the fact that they come prepackaged with crippling disease. How many women you think wanna have his babies?

 

[wesmorris]

lol.

the phrase "toying with her prey" comes to mind for some reason. hmmmm.

pardon.

 

[Dub_]

But thats not correct, genes with higher fitness become more common.

What the hell? That's exactly what I'm saying! That's natural selection operating on genes in a nutshell.

And unless you're ignoring the fact that there is individual variation through several mechanisms including crossover in sexual reproduction, there are no copies.

Nonsense. Crossing over only affects how genes get allocated. Crossing over is not equivalent to gene mutation. There are copies of genes. Most genetic material is copied without mutating.

And natural selection does not work at the level of the gene. Stephen Hawkings intelligence "gene" if there is one, is pretty useless in the face of the fact that they come prepackaged with crippling disease. How many women you think wanna have his babies?

For one, the example you offered has nothing to do with natural selection at the gene level. Second, there are clearly separate genes at work in this case. Hawkins is not physically paralyzed by his massive intellect. Beneficial genes can be and are grouped with detrimental genes all the time. It happens, and the theory predicts it. Dawkins uses a clever metaphor of a team of oarsmen in his book to illustrate this point. Dust off your copy (if indeed you have one) and read it.

And to answer your final question: I would bet on a lot.

 

[S.A.M.]

What the hell? That's exactly what I'm saying! That's natural selection operating on genes in a nutshell.

Nonsense. Crossing over only affects how genes get allocated. Crossing over is not equivalent to gene mutation. There are copies of genes. Most genetic material is copied without mutating.

For one, the example you offered has nothing to do with natural selection at the gene level. Second, there are clearly separate genes at work in this case. Hawkins is not physically paralyzed by his massive intellect. Beneficial genes can be and are grouped with detrimental genes all the time. It happens, and the theory predicts it. Dawkins uses a clever metaphor of a team of oarsmen in his book to illustrate this point. Dust off your copy (if indeed you have one) and read it.

So which oarsman is going to save Prof Hawkings fit genes?

There are copies of genes. Most genetic material is copied without mutating.

:facepalm:

 

[Dub_]

So which oarsman is going to save Prof Hawkings fit genes?

No one says they have to be saved at all. If a beneficial gene gets grouped with a detrimental gene, well, shit happens. Too bad. Presumably the beneficial gene was not the only one of its kind in the gene pool -- but even if it was, that's also just too bad. You're once again displaying your ignorance of the theory's substance.

But to run with the example, I would say that his stunning genius and impressive material wealth make him a very attractive mate in spite of his disease.

:facepalm:

Feel free to show that I'm wrong.

 

[S.A.M.]

No one says they have to saved at all. If a beneficial gene gets grouped with a detrimental gene, well, shit happens. Too bad. Presumably the beneficial gene was not the only one of its kind in the gene pool -- but even if it was, that's also just too bad. You're once again displaying your ignorance of the theory's substance.

So you just proved all by yourself, that the fittest gene may not always survive,

Congratulations.

Feel free to show that I'm wrong.

Ceteris Paribus

 

[Dub_]

So you just proved all by yourself, that the fittest gene may not always survive,

Congratulations.

Your ignorance is stunning. The theory does not predict that the fittest gene will always survive. It predicts that the fittest genes have a higher probability of surviving and propagating, and thus over huge stretches of time they tend to dominate the gene pool. Is this really the root of your objections? This is incredibly basic.

 

[S.A.M.]

And you just proved that this is only true as a collective. Not as an individual gene.

When the logic of an argument requires that the empirical world operate in a certain manner and nature then refuses to cooperate, unwavering supporters often try to maintain their advocacy by employing the tactic of a conjectural "as if" -Gould

In my opinion, if your proposition is empirically falsified, you just provided evidence against it.

 

[CharonZ]

Of course genes are not transmitted individually but by the organism. The question is, from the viewpoint of the gene, does its influence increase the overall chance of the organism to procreate (and hence increase the prevalence of the gene in the gene pool)? The selfish gene theory just stresses the fact that fitness is not tied to the survival of an organism, but rather the survival of its genes.

It also does not make particular sense to view the fitness of the individual gene, but only in context of the organism in question. The given examples (especially with regards to Hawking, who apparently is the prime target for bad examples lately) are thus extremely poor.

 

[Dub_]

And you just proved that this is only true as a collective. Not as an individual gene.

How the hell do you think natural selection works? It operates on collectives! In this case, it works on the collective of individual genes. It would make no sense at all for natural selection to operate on a single entity -- there would be no pool of alternatives from which to select!

To rephrase what I said earlier, it answers the question: survival of the fittest what? The fittest organisms (within the collective of organisms)? The fittest groups (within the collective of groups)? The fittest species (within the collective of species)? The answer: The fittest genes (within the collective of genes). I had assumed to this to be understood all along, since the alternative makes no sense whatsoever, but apparently I must spell everything out in simplified English.

 

[S.A.M.]

How the hell do you think natural selection works? It operates on collectives! In this case, it works on the collective of individual genes. .

That is the worst ceteris paribus dodge I have ever seen.

A herd of individual elephants! A culture of individual bacteria! A swarm of individual bees!

:roflmao:

Gnite

 

[spidergoat]

And natural selection does not work at the level of the gene. Stephen Hawkings intelligence "gene" if there is one, is pretty useless in the face of the fact that they come prepackaged with crippling disease. How many women you think wanna have his babies?

At least one, which is all it takes. Hawking's penis still works, and his brain works. However, that is beside the point. Hawking may share a gene for intelligence with his relatives. If the gene is truly beneficial to the organism, it's copies will become more numerous in spite of the few times it may occur in conjunction with genes that are not beneficial. If Hawking's gene for intelligence always occurs with the paralyzing gene, then that gene will become less numerous in the gene pool (at least historically- modern medicine may change the prospects of people with this disease). Genes are not strictly speaking individual units, they can be sets of units, parts of which are shared with other genes.

 

[S.A.M.]

Of course genes are not transmitted individually but by the organism. The question is, from the viewpoint of the gene, does its influence increase the overall chance of the organism to procreate (and hence increase the prevalence of the gene in the gene pool)? The selfish gene theory just stresses the fact that fitness is not tied to the survival of an organism, but rather the survival of its genes.

It also does not make particular sense to view the fitness of the individual gene, but only in context of the organism in question. The given examples (especially with regards to Hawking, who apparently is the prime target for bad examples lately) are thus extremely poor.

Hi Charon, I just refreshed and saw you online.

The selfish gene theory just stresses the fact that fitness is not tied to the survival of an organism, but rather the survival of its genes.

So when a species goes extinct, its the genes that have not survived? Or the organism?

Genes are not strictly speaking individual units, they can be sets of units, parts of which are shared with other genes.

Yeah, its a rather redundant definition, I have issues with that too. How many parts? Working units of DNA is fine, but we're no longer of the opinion that the non-working parts are as redundant as previously believed. Or that there are not distant effects from local processes.

 

[Dub_]

A herd of individual elephants! A culture of individual bacteria! A swarm of individual bees!

:facepalm:

Should it be a herd of groups of elephants? A culture of aggregates of bacteria? A swarm of couples of bees? What do you think collectives are comprised of?

 

[iceaura]

But I'm speaking specifically about the level of the gene as described in The Selfish gene, not about Darwinian evolution. Reproduction as described in the selfish gene assumes that parental material is passed on to an offspring.

No, it doesn't. It doesn't care how the copy gets into the progeny - any mechansim, from direct bequeathment of the parental genome entire to third party copy and reconstruction, is just fine.

Is every gene that "survives" directly linked to the processes that aid its survival?

I predicted trouble from that odd qualification, "direct".

The theory doesn't care how "direct" the linkage is.

After all, no gene is directly involved in anything other than RNA transcription
”
Voila!

Hence my argument with the whole model

? No. Hence nothing. You are ascribing great significance to mechanistic circumstance.

But thats not correct, genes with higher fitness become more common. There is no winner.

More common = winner, quite often. It's one of the strongest predictors. When the major selection events show up, the most common are the most likely to make it simply by luck - they have an advantage.

And you just proved that this is only true as a collective. Not as an individual gene.

Lots of biological individuals at all levels survive by being good little herd, pack, school, team, hive, body, organ, etc, members. Some even reproduce - as individuals. As he has pointed out, another title for Dawkins's book could have been "The Cooperative Gene".

So when a species goes extinct, its the genes that have not survived? Or the organism?

Some of its genes - the unique ones - die off with the species (and all the organisms in it). Others, more fit in this sense, live on in other species.

 

[GeoffP]

survival of the fittest what? The fittest organism? The fittest group? The fittest species? The answer: the fittest genes.


But thats not correct, genes with higher fitness become more common. There is no winner.

? Of course there is. Within each "round" of selection (or a set of several rounds) those genes that become more common are indeed 'winners'. What are you on about here? If you want to say that there are not winners because the process is ongoing: again, of course. When natural selection takes a holiday, then the process will naturally end. But each "winner" experiences a trend of increase and eventual possible fixation.

And unless you're ignoring the fact that there is individual variation through several mechanisms including crossover in sexual reproduction, there are no copies.

There certainly are. Look, I'm all for the partial disruption of the old Fisherian dogma (and am publishing some papers on one possible mechanism), but you can't deny that a coefficient of fitness or phenotypic differentiation translates into at least a partial trend in selection advantage. In a flat or nearly flat environmental phase space, I would expect that even scalar differences in gene function would translate into major selective advantage. It's no different than gaining power in linear analysis from replication among different environments with no crossover of phenotypic means.

And natural selection does not work at the level of the gene. Stephen Hawkings intelligence "gene" if there is one, is pretty useless in the face of the fact that they come prepackaged with crippling disease. How many women you think wanna have his babies?

Sure it works at the level of the gene. Severely disadvantaged genes will be selected against, naturally, but crossover events serve to break up linkage disequilibrium where it exists.

 

[noodler]

I detect a possible lack of understanding of certain statistical theories.

Can we discuss the stochastic nature of evolution, with genes as "simple structures", even when they are not? Sure we can; just select a gene or two and watch it get all stochastic (but not in isolation).

Let's start with something that all organisms have a copy of, a cytochrome...?

p.s. perhaps asking questions isn't the way to get into the discussion; maybe I need to post something "controversial" as if I believe it wholeheartedly? Say something like: "Proteomics is actually the internal gene-altering process; an individual alters genes proteomically before passing them on, inherited genetic material is never a close or exact copy, it depends on how much proteomic variation occurs during sexual maturation. Different [classes of, and individual] organisms vary genetic material per lifetime, at different rates".

Howzat..

 

[CharonZ]

Please, do not use "proteomics" in such a context. It makes my eyes bleed. Proteomics is an analytical field dealing with the analysis of proteomes.

So when a species goes extinct, its the genes that have not survived? Or the organism?

This is a bit of an erroneous distinction. However in a simplified way one can say "both".

 

[noodler]

Proteomics is supposedly distinct from genomics, as a discipline. Except it isn't a separate mechanism; proteins alter genes, this is well-known.

Until recently it was believed that genetic material (sexually transmitted, say) was "immune" to proteomic alteration/variation. There is evidence that this will need revising - organisms mutate their genes before passing them on; reproduction at time t1, will have a slightly different genetic inheritability than at time t2 because the inherited material will have been (proteomically and genomically) varied. The fixed inheritance model is out of date.

That means, organisms can pass on "uninherited" variations. Evolution includes changes in an organism's genome during its reproductive life.

 

[S.A.M.]

This is a bit of an erroneous distinction. However in a simplified way one can say "both".

Because a species has genes that are unique to the species? If we are containing ourself to the level of the gene alone, why does the packaging as a genome bear context? And if we are at the level of the species, why not the organism?

?translates into at least a partial trend in selection advantage. In a flat or nearly flat environmental phase space, I would expect that even scalar differences in gene function would translate into major selective advantage.

For whom? The particular genes? Or the organism? How would you estimate the trend in selection advantage? What would be your target of interest?