4 ms·

They're pretty confident in its successor, though. And I wouldn't say that they've rejected it so much as fleshed out the details. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

by m_eiman 18y ago

They're pretty confident in its successor, though. And I wouldn't say that they've rejected it so much as fleshed out the details. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis

Alex3917 18y ago
So why do I get modded down, and then you get modded up for confirming what I said? I don't understand this site sometimes.
- jgrahamc 18y ago
  I think you should back up your original comment with reasoning. In what sense does mainstream science (whatever that means) reject Darwin's theory of natural selection? AFAIK (and IANRD) Darwin's theory has been extensively updated (especially by discovering the work of Mendel on the mechanism), but it has not been rejected. IANRD = I Am Not Richard Dawkins
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    "In what sense does mainstream science (whatever that means) reject Darwin's theory of natural selection?" Darwin basically said that species compete for scarce resources, and the organisms that are the best at competing win. This is entirely wrong. In reality, the organisms that are the best adapted for their niche win-- almost always because they are the best at cooperating, not competing. (With a few salient exceptions such as the deer locking horns on the discovery channel, which make for good TV.) This was Wallace's theory, which was rejected because Wallace was a social reformer who took shots at the aristocracy. Whereas Darwin was a well connected socialite, and his model was favored by the aristocracy because it provided a justification for oppressing the masses. When you embrace Darwin, you're not embracing science, you're embracing fascism. Some quotes on this from Alfie Kohn's book No Contest: Pter Kropotkin: "Competition [...] is limited among animals to exception periods. [...] Better conditions are created by the elimination of competition by means of mutual aid and mutual support. [...] "Don't Compete" -- competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it!" That is the tendency of nature, not always realized in full, but always present. That is the watchword which comes to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean. "Therefore combine -- practice mutual aid!" That is what nature teaches us." -- Mutual Aid, 1902 Marvin Bates: "This competition, this 'struggle,' is a superficial thing, superimposed on an essential mutual dependence. The basic theme in nature is cooperation rather than competition -- a cooperation that has become so all-pervasive, so completely integrated, that it is difficult to untwine and follow out the separate strands." "Not only do animals seek to avoid competition, but their behavior is overwhelmingly characterized by its opposite -- cooperation." "If biologists have been saying this ever since Darwin, why does this seem so surprising to us? First, cooperation is "not always easy to see, whereas competition can be readily observed." Quite frankly, the bird sitting in the hippopotomus's back just doesn't make good television compared to two deer locking antlers or the bear catching the salmon as it tries to jump up the waterfall." "Second, the metaphor of "survival of the fittest" suggests a type of combat, since warfare and struggle is such a salient feature of the human species." John Taylor Gatto's new book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, talks extensively about this as well. Even this week's NYT give Wallace a nod: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html
    - cglee 18y ago
      So to answer the earlier question in this thread, you wouldn't have been modded down had you provided this the first time.
    - Angostura 18y ago
      Firstly, Darwin "basically" said that the best adapted organism will have most offspring, so you are setting up a straw man by suggesting he implied that competition for resources is necessarily the over-riding factor. Secondly you say that "In reality, the organisms that are the best adapted for their niche win-- almost always because they are the best at cooperating". Now, I'm eager to see you give decent examples. How is cooperation in any way involved in the production of poison-resistant rats, the speckled moth transitions, the evolution of the horse's hoof, the eye? Is the first quote above REALLY suggesting that there is no competition for fit mates among mating animals? That birds won't strip a fruiting tree before their compatriots get a chance?
    - jgrahamc 18y ago
      "When you embrace Darwin, you're not embracing science, you're embracing fascism." Bollocks. I embrace Einstein, does that make me a Jew? You quote from "No Contest", an interesting book, but not a book about evolution. You'll also recall from that book that the author quotes Stephen Jay Gould saying that natural selection doesn't imply cooperation or competition a priori. So I think your supporting quotes don't add much to the argument. And, so what if animals have evolved to cooperate with each other? If that's the way natural selection has taken things then so be it. Doesn't take away from natural selection as the mechanism. So, the core of your argument is "Darwin basically said that species compete for scarce resources, and the organisms that are the best at competing win. This is entirely wrong." Perhaps quoting Darwin is the solution: "As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form" "Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring.... I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection" My reading of that is that Darwin is saying that individuals compete to survive and they compete with other 'organic beings' and nature in general. And specifically he is saying any variation that is profitable to the individual. Doesn't exclude cooperation with others. He says that any variation that is beneficial will make that individual survive and that it will be passed on. I read Darwin's struggle as a metaphor. For example, if I am born with a stronger immune system than those around me I may be more likely to survive an epidemic and thus I am more successful in the 'struggle' for life. In no way did I actively compete against my fellow humans. Similarly, if I am born with better vision than my fellow humans I may survive longer because I am a better hunter (or see the bear that wants to eat me before others do). Did I struggle against my fellow human? No.
- m_eiman 18y ago
  Maybe people thought you were saying that evolution is bullshit and that we should all be good boys and girls and do what the priests tell us. There was an article on HN recently about why we should talk about "the theory of evolution" as opposed to "Darwinism", I suppose that's what you were saying? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html [edit: heh, you replied again while I was writing this, so yes - that's what you were saying]
- scott_s 18y ago
  Because it seems like you're being purposefully ambiguous with what you mean by "reject."

by m_eiman 18y ago

Alex3917 18y ago

So why do I get modded down, and then you get modded up for confirming what I said? I don't understand this site sometimes.

jgrahamc 18y ago
I think you should back up your original comment with reasoning. In what sense does mainstream science (whatever that means) reject Darwin's theory of natural selection? AFAIK (and IANRD) Darwin's theory has been extensively updated (especially by discovering the work of Mendel on the mechanism), but it has not been rejected. IANRD = I Am Not Richard Dawkins
- Alex3917 18y ago
  "In what sense does mainstream science (whatever that means) reject Darwin's theory of natural selection?" Darwin basically said that species compete for scarce resources, and the organisms that are the best at competing win. This is entirely wrong. In reality, the organisms that are the best adapted for their niche win-- almost always because they are the best at cooperating, not competing. (With a few salient exceptions such as the deer locking horns on the discovery channel, which make for good TV.) This was Wallace's theory, which was rejected because Wallace was a social reformer who took shots at the aristocracy. Whereas Darwin was a well connected socialite, and his model was favored by the aristocracy because it provided a justification for oppressing the masses. When you embrace Darwin, you're not embracing science, you're embracing fascism. Some quotes on this from Alfie Kohn's book No Contest: Pter Kropotkin: "Competition [...] is limited among animals to exception periods. [...] Better conditions are created by the elimination of competition by means of mutual aid and mutual support. [...] "Don't Compete" -- competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it!" That is the tendency of nature, not always realized in full, but always present. That is the watchword which comes to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean. "Therefore combine -- practice mutual aid!" That is what nature teaches us." -- Mutual Aid, 1902 Marvin Bates: "This competition, this 'struggle,' is a superficial thing, superimposed on an essential mutual dependence. The basic theme in nature is cooperation rather than competition -- a cooperation that has become so all-pervasive, so completely integrated, that it is difficult to untwine and follow out the separate strands." "Not only do animals seek to avoid competition, but their behavior is overwhelmingly characterized by its opposite -- cooperation." "If biologists have been saying this ever since Darwin, why does this seem so surprising to us? First, cooperation is "not always easy to see, whereas competition can be readily observed." Quite frankly, the bird sitting in the hippopotomus's back just doesn't make good television compared to two deer locking antlers or the bear catching the salmon as it tries to jump up the waterfall." "Second, the metaphor of "survival of the fittest" suggests a type of combat, since warfare and struggle is such a salient feature of the human species." John Taylor Gatto's new book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, talks extensively about this as well. Even this week's NYT give Wallace a nod: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html
  - cglee 18y ago
    So to answer the earlier question in this thread, you wouldn't have been modded down had you provided this the first time.
  - Angostura 18y ago
    Firstly, Darwin "basically" said that the best adapted organism will have most offspring, so you are setting up a straw man by suggesting he implied that competition for resources is necessarily the over-riding factor. Secondly you say that "In reality, the organisms that are the best adapted for their niche win-- almost always because they are the best at cooperating". Now, I'm eager to see you give decent examples. How is cooperation in any way involved in the production of poison-resistant rats, the speckled moth transitions, the evolution of the horse's hoof, the eye? Is the first quote above REALLY suggesting that there is no competition for fit mates among mating animals? That birds won't strip a fruiting tree before their compatriots get a chance?
  - jgrahamc 18y ago
    "When you embrace Darwin, you're not embracing science, you're embracing fascism." Bollocks. I embrace Einstein, does that make me a Jew? You quote from "No Contest", an interesting book, but not a book about evolution. You'll also recall from that book that the author quotes Stephen Jay Gould saying that natural selection doesn't imply cooperation or competition a priori. So I think your supporting quotes don't add much to the argument. And, so what if animals have evolved to cooperate with each other? If that's the way natural selection has taken things then so be it. Doesn't take away from natural selection as the mechanism. So, the core of your argument is "Darwin basically said that species compete for scarce resources, and the organisms that are the best at competing win. This is entirely wrong." Perhaps quoting Darwin is the solution: "As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form" "Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring.... I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection" My reading of that is that Darwin is saying that individuals compete to survive and they compete with other 'organic beings' and nature in general. And specifically he is saying any variation that is profitable to the individual. Doesn't exclude cooperation with others. He says that any variation that is beneficial will make that individual survive and that it will be passed on. I read Darwin's struggle as a metaphor. For example, if I am born with a stronger immune system than those around me I may be more likely to survive an epidemic and thus I am more successful in the 'struggle' for life. In no way did I actively compete against my fellow humans. Similarly, if I am born with better vision than my fellow humans I may survive longer because I am a better hunter (or see the bear that wants to eat me before others do). Did I struggle against my fellow human? No.
m_eiman 18y ago
Maybe people thought you were saying that evolution is bullshit and that we should all be good boys and girls and do what the priests tell us. There was an article on HN recently about why we should talk about "the theory of evolution" as opposed to "Darwinism", I suppose that's what you were saying? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html [edit: heh, you replied again while I was writing this, so yes - that's what you were saying]
scott_s 18y ago
Because it seems like you're being purposefully ambiguous with what you mean by "reject."