Natural Selection 1 Evolution 0

When I read the article I can see how the OP got confused. I am of the opinion that Natural Selection actually isn't related to evolution...

Working on proof. Lot's of research to be done.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by one_enlightened_mind]

reply to post by one_enlightened_mind

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"Evolution" describes what has happened to a species after extended periods of natural selection. Period. Saying they're two different things is like saying engines have nothing to do with automobiles.

Let me break it down for you.

Lets say we have an imaginary species called the blabla. The blalba, through circumstances beyond our understanding, finds itself living in a marine environment. They have two "arms", at the end of which we find 5 "fingers".

Now, unfortunately for the blablas, the yaddayadda finds them to be quite tasty. The blablas always try to swim away when the yaddayaddas come around, but they're just not fast enough. There's a few blablas however, that always manage to get away. You see, they were born with a "defect". This "defect" is described as a piece of connective tissue, or "web" between each of their "fingers". This defect had a nifty side effect of making these particular blablas much faster swimmers than the rest.

Soon, the only blablas left were the defective ones with the webbed fingers, as the yaddayadda's caught the rest.

This is natural selection. The "webbed" blabla's are "naturally selected" to survive.

Once all that remains are webbed blablas, and newly born blablas are all born with webs because both their parents are webbed, it's called evolution. The blabla species evolved, through natural selection, to survive their environment, which included predatory yaddayaddas.

I wish you good luck proving that natural selection and evolution don't have anything to do with one another though, everyone needs a life ambition, and this one will surely be with you for the rest of yours.

reply to post by Unit541

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Of course natural selection works as you described with the "blablas" and "yaddayaddas," and I accept that example as a provable and testable scenario. It's been observed in nature.

Here is why that scenario cannot be used to explain biological evolution; the blablas will never be anything more than blablas. The webbing, while it would seem to be a defect, is not actually so. It existed within the blasblas genetic code, and could have remained dormant in the greater population for various reasons (one being that environmental pressure had not presented itself yet). In any case it was there in their genes. You can argue and say it was a genetic mutation... but you must present a scientific genetic proof that such a feature was never, ever, previously coded for. Ever.

If you were to succeed in your proof I would still be perfectly happy conceding that an observable and proven form of natural selection helped a species survive, but biological evolution has not occured. Why not? Because the webbing has the potential to fade away. This has been observed in the wild. Proving evoluton a fact is only possible when you can demonstrate with actual undeniable genetic evidence of a blabla evolving into a whatchacallit (In other words, a brand new organism).



[edit on 22-7-2009 by one_enlightened_mind]

blablas may indeed become something other than blablas, in time and with enough change accumulation.

You are assuming that all individual changes are as trivial as webbed fingers in some individuals and non-webbed fingers in others. That's as trivial a change as dark skin or some humans and light skin on others. One change does not a species split make.




Well there are dominate traits and non-dominate traits, non-dominate traits can and do percolate in and out of the population as expressed. But if the adaptation is important enough it will stick around permanently, or at least until it becomes more advantageous to do something else. And that something else maybe a return to a previous state.

It is only after much time and an accumulation of many such adaptations that a species split is said to occur. And don't be mislead into thinking that all the little changes are occurring in sequence. They occur in massively parallel abundance. During major environmental change, natural selection has a huge genetic pool to choose from. The existence of Whales, dolphins, and other aquatic mammals is a demonstration of this.



This has been done. DNA evidence shows it clearly and unambiguously that both humans (known to science as whatchacallitus humanus) and apes (watchacallitus chimpanseeus) have a blabla (ancestorus commonus) as an ancestor.

"Proving" the "Modern Evolution Synthesis Theory" involves showing that it describes reality better, and produces better predictions, than alternate theories.


[edit on 24/7/2009 by rnaa]