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I always like to see it the other way around, it eliminates entities that are not a good fit, and the remainder is what drives adaptation. Of course, people cou

I always like to see it the other way around, it eliminates entities that are not a good fit, and the remainder is what drives adaptation. Of course, people could argue that's just like Michelangelo [1], and we're back at 'designed'. [1] “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

ohwellhere 4y ago
> it eliminates entities But evolution doesn't eliminate entities. Low fitness entities are eliminated by hunger, or predators, or lower reproductive rates. The marble on the other hand is eliminated by Michelangelo. There's a linguistic confusion where because evolution is a noun, we think we can treat it as a subject. But in the person/place/thing/idea delineation, it is an idea. Not only does it not design, not only does it not eliminate: "it" doesn't do anything!
- nautilius 4y ago
  Of course 'evolution' is not an actor, it's just the overall pattern we give a name to. And the pattern we observe is that low fitness entities are eliminated. That plus variation yields adaptation.
  - bernulli 4y ago
    Well, yeah.
jgwil2 4y ago
The process of evolution is more than just the elimination of unfit specimens. That suggests that a tiger is just a tiger, and the only kind of evolution that can occur in the tiger is for it to become a better (faster, stronger) tiger. But in fact there was a time when carnivores didn't even exist, and then some random genetic flux produced an animal that was inclined to start eating other animals and a new ecological niche was discovered. Evolution is therefore a creative process of adaptation and specialization under constantly changing circumstances.
- netizen-936824 4y ago
  In my interpretation entities != organisms Entities could be alleles, genes, or gene products
- nautilius 4y ago
  > That suggests that a tiger is just a tiger, Not at all. Everything can come from variation (mutation, cross over) + elimination of the worst. It's just that 'worst' is not a global minimum. Are we as humans superior to animals in strength, agility, speed, etc? Not at all. But some distant ancestor had some bigger brain, and that gave it all the edge it needed compared to weak and dumber siblings that were eaten, while our ancestor hid on a tree. When some animal mutated to be able to eat meat in addition to plants, it had some advantage and was less likely to be eliminated when food got scarce. That's all you need to eventually arrive at something tiger-like. That said, some animals seem to have reached a local maximum: sharks haven't changed in millions of years, cockroaches seem pretty successful, too. But there's nothing 'creative' about it.

ohwellhere 4y ago

> it eliminates entities But evolution doesn't eliminate entities. Low fitness entities are eliminated by hunger, or predators, or lower reproductive rates. The marble on the other hand is eliminated by Michelangelo. There's a linguistic confusion where because evolution is a noun, we think we can treat it as a subject. But in the person/place/thing/idea delineation, it is an idea. Not only does it not design, not only does it not eliminate: "it" doesn't do anything!

nautilius 4y ago
Of course 'evolution' is not an actor, it's just the overall pattern we give a name to. And the pattern we observe is that low fitness entities are eliminated. That plus variation yields adaptation.
- bernulli 4y ago
  Well, yeah.

jgwil2 4y ago

The process of evolution is more than just the elimination of unfit specimens. That suggests that a tiger is just a tiger, and the only kind of evolution that can occur in the tiger is for it to become a better (faster, stronger) tiger. But in fact there was a time when carnivores didn't even exist, and then some random genetic flux produced an animal that was inclined to start eating other animals and a new ecological niche was discovered. Evolution is therefore a creative process of adaptation and specialization under constantly changing circumstances.

netizen-936824 4y ago
In my interpretation entities != organisms Entities could be alleles, genes, or gene products
nautilius 4y ago
> That suggests that a tiger is just a tiger, Not at all. Everything can come from variation (mutation, cross over) + elimination of the worst. It's just that 'worst' is not a global minimum. Are we as humans superior to animals in strength, agility, speed, etc? Not at all. But some distant ancestor had some bigger brain, and that gave it all the edge it needed compared to weak and dumber siblings that were eaten, while our ancestor hid on a tree. When some animal mutated to be able to eat meat in addition to plants, it had some advantage and was less likely to be eliminated when food got scarce. That's all you need to eventually arrive at something tiger-like. That said, some animals seem to have reached a local maximum: sharks haven't changed in millions of years, cockroaches seem pretty successful, too. But there's nothing 'creative' about it.