7 ms·

Evolution has two main components. The random variation was already there. The natural selection is doing its part now.

by gowld 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Hamuko 5y ago
A man with a gun doesn't sound like "natural selection".
- Spivak 5y ago
  Humans are animals and predators like any other in this situation.
  - ricktdotorg 5y ago
    Why downvote parent? A human is a "natural" predator just with different methods of attack/more intelligence than "animals". Why is a human predator (an "apex predator" if you will) any less "natural" than a T-Rex? Or any other animal that forced evolutionary change?
    - jwhitlark 5y ago
      Because of civilization. While the word "artificial" is certainly overloaded, this is basically what we've designated the word to mean. That's not to say a human couldn't be a "natural" predator, if you assumed an isolated tribe, but that's certainly not what's happening here. If we call this natural, there is no longer any meaning you can ascribe to artificial.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Why not? I often see people draw this distinction between humanity and nature, as if we weren't part of nature, and there is something deeply misanthropic about it. Of course we are part of nature. We may be screwing over the habitat of other animals -- like rabbits in Australia or pythons in the everglades -- but we are certainly part of nature and this is a textbook case of natural selection at work.
  - klodolph 5y ago
    That is exactly what the distinction "natural / artificial" means... it's not some kind of judgment. In this sense of the word, artificial just means "by humans".
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      That is also an incoherent distinction. If humans ferment milk to make cheese, then this is "artificial" food? No, I think people use "natural" and "artificial" to mean "traditional practice" versus "modern practice", but humans do all of it.
      - klodolph 5y ago
        Yes, it turns out that the English language is full of incoherent distinctions. Words mean radically different things in different contexts, have definitions that are not really self-consistent, and tons of exceptions that we have to memorize. And yet, we must make sense of it to navigate. If I were a philosopher, or if I wrote dictionary entries, I might decide to spend the time to come up with a rather clever definition for "artificial". Feel free to come up with a definition yourself, if that's your fancy.
        rsj_hn 5y ago
        I think the underlying bugaboo is "untested", particularly when referring to something considered "fragile". People trust traditional techniques of preparing food because they have proven successful at their intended goals. When you start messing with people's food, they become suspicious as to whether you know the full repercussions of what you are doing. So the injection of a novel element is considered "artificial" - despoiling the "natural" -- e.g. time-tested technique, and possibly disturbing something fragile -- e.g. human health. Similarly, people are quite reactionary when it comes to open spaces and nature because they see a system that appears to be in balance and has survived the test of time. They oppose altering the current state of affairs because they are sure some unintended side effect will screw things up. On the one hand, it's laudable to have these goals, but if they used the standard language of conservatism, traditionalism, etc, they would be branded as reactionaries, so the spirit of the age is to invent new words like "artificial" and "natural" that are less loaded with politics, even though it is all just conservatism at its roots.
klodolph 5y ago
This is selective breeding / artificial selection, not natural selection.
- qorrect 5y ago
  ... Evolution has three main components
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Sure, and two of them are identical from every practical and theoretical perspective.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  No, it's not. People are not choosing pairs of elephants to breed.
  - klodolph 5y ago
    It may be unintentional, but it is still artificial.
    - selcuka 5y ago
      Define "artificial".
      - klodolph 5y ago
        Oof, that's a tall order, isn't it? I'm no professional philosopher, and not somebody who works all day making dictionary definitions, but the general sense of natural / artificial here is "not by humans" versus "by humans", although that's not very precise and you'll get into trouble if you read too much into much into it. There are loads of ways in which you'd need to refine this definition in order to account for various exceptions (due to convention) or the ways in which the sense is incompletely explained (e.g. it would be "natural" for me to drink water, but "artificial" to manufacture sunglasses). Words like "natural" and "artificial" don't admit tidy definitions, and you know that, which is why you demanded that I define it for you, presumably so you could poke holes in whatever definition I provided.
kuhewa 5y ago
There are more main components than that. Sometimes forces like drift are stronger than adaptive selection.
what_is_orcas 5y ago
I thought evolution's components were sexual selection (who fucks) and natural selection (who dies). Random variation can change genes, yeah, but evolution is driven through the dis/advantages of the resulting phenotype (do they succeed at finding a mate, do they raise as man offspring to sexual maturity and do they survive long enough to do the aforementioned).

Evolution has two main components. The random variation was already there. The natural selection is doing its part now.

by gowld 5y ago

Evolution has two main components. The random variation was already there. The natural selection is doing its part now.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Hamuko 5y ago

A man with a gun doesn't sound like "natural selection".

Spivak 5y ago
Humans are animals and predators like any other in this situation.
- ricktdotorg 5y ago
  Why downvote parent? A human is a "natural" predator just with different methods of attack/more intelligence than "animals". Why is a human predator (an "apex predator" if you will) any less "natural" than a T-Rex? Or any other animal that forced evolutionary change?
  - jwhitlark 5y ago
    Because of civilization. While the word "artificial" is certainly overloaded, this is basically what we've designated the word to mean. That's not to say a human couldn't be a "natural" predator, if you assumed an isolated tribe, but that's certainly not what's happening here. If we call this natural, there is no longer any meaning you can ascribe to artificial.
rsj_hn 5y ago
Why not? I often see people draw this distinction between humanity and nature, as if we weren't part of nature, and there is something deeply misanthropic about it. Of course we are part of nature. We may be screwing over the habitat of other animals -- like rabbits in Australia or pythons in the everglades -- but we are certainly part of nature and this is a textbook case of natural selection at work.
- klodolph 5y ago
  That is exactly what the distinction "natural / artificial" means... it's not some kind of judgment. In this sense of the word, artificial just means "by humans".
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    That is also an incoherent distinction. If humans ferment milk to make cheese, then this is "artificial" food? No, I think people use "natural" and "artificial" to mean "traditional practice" versus "modern practice", but humans do all of it.
    - klodolph 5y ago
      Yes, it turns out that the English language is full of incoherent distinctions. Words mean radically different things in different contexts, have definitions that are not really self-consistent, and tons of exceptions that we have to memorize. And yet, we must make sense of it to navigate. If I were a philosopher, or if I wrote dictionary entries, I might decide to spend the time to come up with a rather clever definition for "artificial". Feel free to come up with a definition yourself, if that's your fancy.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        I think the underlying bugaboo is "untested", particularly when referring to something considered "fragile". People trust traditional techniques of preparing food because they have proven successful at their intended goals. When you start messing with people's food, they become suspicious as to whether you know the full repercussions of what you are doing. So the injection of a novel element is considered "artificial" - despoiling the "natural" -- e.g. time-tested technique, and possibly disturbing something fragile -- e.g. human health. Similarly, people are quite reactionary when it comes to open spaces and nature because they see a system that appears to be in balance and has survived the test of time. They oppose altering the current state of affairs because they are sure some unintended side effect will screw things up. On the one hand, it's laudable to have these goals, but if they used the standard language of conservatism, traditionalism, etc, they would be branded as reactionaries, so the spirit of the age is to invent new words like "artificial" and "natural" that are less loaded with politics, even though it is all just conservatism at its roots.

klodolph 5y ago

This is selective breeding / artificial selection, not natural selection.

qorrect 5y ago
... Evolution has three main components
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  Sure, and two of them are identical from every practical and theoretical perspective.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
No, it's not. People are not choosing pairs of elephants to breed.
- klodolph 5y ago
  It may be unintentional, but it is still artificial.
  - selcuka 5y ago
    Define "artificial".
    - klodolph 5y ago
      Oof, that's a tall order, isn't it? I'm no professional philosopher, and not somebody who works all day making dictionary definitions, but the general sense of natural / artificial here is "not by humans" versus "by humans", although that's not very precise and you'll get into trouble if you read too much into much into it. There are loads of ways in which you'd need to refine this definition in order to account for various exceptions (due to convention) or the ways in which the sense is incompletely explained (e.g. it would be "natural" for me to drink water, but "artificial" to manufacture sunglasses). Words like "natural" and "artificial" don't admit tidy definitions, and you know that, which is why you demanded that I define it for you, presumably so you could poke holes in whatever definition I provided.

kuhewa 5y ago

There are more main components than that. Sometimes forces like drift are stronger than adaptive selection.

what_is_orcas 5y ago

I thought evolution's components were sexual selection (who fucks) and natural selection (who dies). Random variation can change genes, yeah, but evolution is driven through the dis/advantages of the resulting phenotype (do they succeed at finding a mate, do they raise as man offspring to sexual maturity and do they survive long enough to do the aforementioned).