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Reasoned Faith
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« on: November 22, 2007, 07:45:17 AM » |
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At the Huffington Post, Dan Agin has announced that Dawkins’s selfish gene is tossed out, terminated, laid to rest: Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human BehaviorFor nearly half a century, the evolution of human behavior has been presented to the public framed by the ideas of Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and a cohort of sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, and media gene-mongers. The scientific basis for the frame is the idea that the focus of Darwinian natural selection is the selfish gene, selection always acting within groups and never between groups — individual selection rather than group selection, the unit of selection the gene. From this has followed the selfish-gene evolutionary analysis of various human behaviors, especially the analysis of altruism.
Well, it seems that the father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson has changed his mind: in the current issue of New Scientist (November 3, 2007), evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson effectively end the hegemony of the selfish gene idea: they review the field and declare in a voice loud and clear that group selection was mistakenly cast aside during previous decades, that the evidence for group selection is too strong to be ignored, and that the current ideas about how evolution works need to be revised.
The scientific revision, well-known to professional biologists, has actually been in the works for more than a decade (see, Wilson, D.S. & Sober, E. (1994). Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(4): 585-654) but with this new article in the popular media the public revision begins. With the acknowledgment of the inconsistencies with the selfish gene concept and admission of the incongruence to observed behavior in the world around us, the materialist worldview is dealt a significant blow, because genetics no longer so nicely accounts for behavior the way Dawkin's wanted us to believe. |
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daedalus 2.0
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« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2007, 08:18:00 AM » |
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My dear, RF, must you always insert your supernaturalism in every gap? Just because one aspect of some hypothesis is challenged doesn't default to some completely untested and irrational proposition.
This doesn't challenge materialism, it challenges a small aspect of behavior, which, if you read the article (and not the commentary on article) then you'd realize that there are explanations.
Your, "Magic Man Done It" is NOT an explanation.
I would have thought you'd understand that this is exactly whyscience is the best method for discovery. And here you thought there was a conspiracy against anything anti-Darwinian - it certainly destroys your hypothesis! tossed out, terminated, laid to rest.
Oh, wait, no, since there will always be Gaps, there will always be RF ready to insert Supernaturalism.
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« Last Edit: November 22, 2007, 03:56:55 PM by daedalus 2.0 »
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\\\\"SUCK IT, JESUS!\\\\" Kathy Griffin
\"Hitler burns Anne Frank for a day, and it\'s Evil.
God burns Anne Frank for eternity, and it\'s Just.\"Anon
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Reasoned Faith
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« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2007, 09:24:31 AM » |
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My dear, RF, must you always insert your supernaturalism in every gap? Just because one aspect of some hypothesis is challenged doesn't default to some completely untested and irrational proposition.
This doesn't challenge materialism, it challenges a small aspect of behavior, which, if you read the article (and not the commentary on article) then you'd realize that there are explanations. The explanations don't answer for the inconsistencies. They don't suddenly bring materialism in alignment with the way people actually behave Your, "Magic Man Done It" is NOT an explanation. I don't see anything about a creator in this topic. However a creator is an explanation, it is a hypothesis and even Dawkins admits that when he said, "The presence of a creative deity clearly is a scientific hypothesis". I would have thought you'd understand that this is exactly whyscience is the best method for discovery. Science is one of many pathways to truth. It is not by any means the best. There are many truths that science can and will never discover because they are outside the domain of the scientific method. And here you thought there was a conspiracy against anything Darwinian - it certainly destroys your hypothesis! tossed out, terminated, laid to rest. You are a despicable liar to continue to repeat the same unfounded accusations when I repeatedly ask you to support your accusations or stop. |
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daedalus 2.0
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« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2007, 03:58:39 PM » |
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yes, sorry, i meant an anti-darwinian conspiracy of the scientific community that you accuse them of, or an anti-materialist conspiracy. either way, the point stands.
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\\\\"SUCK IT, JESUS!\\\\" Kathy Griffin
\"Hitler burns Anne Frank for a day, and it\'s Evil.
God burns Anne Frank for eternity, and it\'s Just.\"Anon
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Reasoned Faith
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« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2007, 04:30:01 PM » |
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I have not and do not accuse anyone of conspiracy. I do see individuals and groups acting independently in accordance with a common bias.
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jpn of Seattle
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« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2007, 04:33:56 PM » |
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I have not and do not accuse anyone of conspiracy. I do see individuals and groups acting independently in accordance with a common bias. You ought to go to your local Church sometime. You'll see whole crowds of people acting dependently in accordance with a common bias. On the other hand, science acts in an opposite way, testing biases with data at every point. |
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What you got is everything-and I mean everything—run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis. --John DiIulio, former White House official
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IamMe
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« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2007, 08:53:56 AM » |
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At the Huffington Post, Dan Agin has announced that Dawkins’s selfish gene is tossed out, terminated, laid to rest: Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human BehaviorFor nearly half a century, the evolution of human behavior has been presented to the public framed by the ideas of Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and a cohort of sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, and media gene-mongers. The scientific basis for the frame is the idea that the focus of Darwinian natural selection is the selfish gene, selection always acting within groups and never between groups — individual selection rather than group selection, the unit of selection the gene. From this has followed the selfish-gene evolutionary analysis of various human behaviors, especially the analysis of altruism.
Well, it seems that the father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson has changed his mind: in the current issue of New Scientist (November 3, 2007), evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson effectively end the hegemony of the selfish gene idea: they review the field and declare in a voice loud and clear that group selection was mistakenly cast aside during previous decades, that the evidence for group selection is too strong to be ignored, and that the current ideas about how evolution works need to be revised.
The scientific revision, well-known to professional biologists, has actually been in the works for more than a decade (see, Wilson, D.S. & Sober, E. (1994). Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(4): 585-654) but with this new article in the popular media the public revision begins. With the acknowledgment of the inconsistencies with the selfish gene concept and admission of the incongruence to observed behavior in the world around us, the materialist worldview is dealt a significant blow, because genetics no longer so nicely accounts for behavior the way Dawkin's wanted us to believe. In The Ancestor's Tale Dawkins talks about a phenomenon called 'clade selection'. He says he's uneasy with it because it sounds a bit like evolution having foresight but says he doesn't want to dismiss it outright. |
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\\\\"Anarchism is the ideal to which all societies should approximate\\\\" - Bertrand Russell
If you strike me down I shall become more dead than you can ever imagine.
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IamMe
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« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2007, 08:58:21 AM » |
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I don't see anything about a creator in this topic. However a creator is an explanation, it is a hypothesis and even Dawkins admits that when he said, "The presence of a creative deity clearly is a scientific hypothesis".
Taken out of context, of course (because that's what creationists do). Dawkins says this to make the point that the God Hypothesis should be subjected to the same standards as all other scientific hypotheses. I don't see how this helps your case - unless you believe that all hypotheses are true. |
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\\\\"Anarchism is the ideal to which all societies should approximate\\\\" - Bertrand Russell
If you strike me down I shall become more dead than you can ever imagine.
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scripto
Newbie
Karma: +7/-6
Posts: 38
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« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2007, 01:14:45 PM » |
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At the Huffington Post, Dan Agin has announced that Dawkins’s selfish gene is tossed out, terminated, laid to rest: Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human BehaviorFor nearly half a century, the evolution of human behavior has been presented to the public framed by the ideas of Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and a cohort of sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, and media gene-mongers. The scientific basis for the frame is the idea that the focus of Darwinian natural selection is the selfish gene, selection always acting within groups and never between groups — individual selection rather than group selection, the unit of selection the gene. From this has followed the selfish-gene evolutionary analysis of various human behaviors, especially the analysis of altruism.
Well, it seems that the father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson has changed his mind: in the current issue of New Scientist (November 3, 2007), evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson effectively end the hegemony of the selfish gene idea: they review the field and declare in a voice loud and clear that group selection was mistakenly cast aside during previous decades, that the evidence for group selection is too strong to be ignored, and that the current ideas about how evolution works need to be revised.
The scientific revision, well-known to professional biologists, has actually been in the works for more than a decade (see, Wilson, D.S. & Sober, E. (1994). Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(4): 585-654) but with this new article in the popular media the public revision begins. With the acknowledgment of the inconsistencies with the selfish gene concept and admission of the incongruence to observed behavior in the world around us, the materialist worldview is dealt a significant blow, because genetics no longer so nicely accounts for behavior the way Dawkin's wanted us to believe. Did I miss the part where non-material processes are suggested as a mechanism for group selection? I don't know how to break this to you but evolutionary theory is full of competing ideas regarding the processes that have lead to descent with modification. This is the mark of a robust theory and why the work continues to be done. |
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3.5 billion years from a puddle of goo
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Reasoned Faith
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« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2007, 03:54:34 PM » |
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I don't see anything about a creator in this topic. However a creator is an explanation, it is a hypothesis and even Dawkins admits that when he said, "The presence of a creative deity clearly is a scientific hypothesis".
Taken out of context, of course (because that's what creationists do). Dawkins says this to make the point that the God Hypothesis should be subjected to the same standards as all other scientific hypotheses. I don't see how this helps your case - unless you believe that all hypotheses are true. It helps a great deal because critics (even illogical one) like barney don't go after the substance of my argument since they can't, instead they claim that it is not a scientific premise since it is a claim for a creator. Well, here Dawkins acknowledges that even a creator is a scientific hypothesis. Kind of takes the wind out of the sails of even a fallacious critique. |
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Reasoned Faith
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« Reply #10 on: November 30, 2007, 04:05:09 PM » |
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At the Huffington Post, Dan Agin has announced that Dawkins’s selfish gene is tossed out, terminated, laid to rest: Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human BehaviorFor nearly half a century, the evolution of human behavior has been presented to the public framed by the ideas of Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and a cohort of sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, and media gene-mongers. The scientific basis for the frame is the idea that the focus of Darwinian natural selection is the selfish gene, selection always acting within groups and never between groups — individual selection rather than group selection, the unit of selection the gene. From this has followed the selfish-gene evolutionary analysis of various human behaviors, especially the analysis of altruism.
Well, it seems that the father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson has changed his mind: in the current issue of New Scientist (November 3, 2007), evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson effectively end the hegemony of the selfish gene idea: they review the field and declare in a voice loud and clear that group selection was mistakenly cast aside during previous decades, that the evidence for group selection is too strong to be ignored, and that the current ideas about how evolution works need to be revised.
The scientific revision, well-known to professional biologists, has actually been in the works for more than a decade (see, Wilson, D.S. & Sober, E. (1994). Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(4): 585-654) but with this new article in the popular media the public revision begins. With the acknowledgment of the inconsistencies with the selfish gene concept and admission of the incongruence to observed behavior in the world around us, the materialist worldview is dealt a significant blow, because genetics no longer so nicely accounts for behavior the way Dawkin's wanted us to believe. Did I miss the part where non-material processes are suggested as a mechanism for group selection? I don't know how to break this to you but evolutionary theory is full of competing ideas regarding the processes that have lead to descent with modification. This is the mark of a robust theory and why the work continues to be done. You aren't telling me anything I don't know. However you should get the news to the many critics of ID who continuously claim that the Darwinian Evolutionary theory has no scientific critics and there are no alternatives. Furthermore this is quite significant in that it exposes yet another significant inconsistency between the narrative and actual observation. Modern evolutionary theory is increasingly being challenged for its failure to produce deductive evidence by way of experiment and repetition that supports the idea that evolutionary processes and natural selection is capable of producing the diversity we observe. |
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daedalus 2.0
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« Reply #11 on: November 30, 2007, 10:04:50 PM » |
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RF, when you say these things (almost word or word off the DI site), you really are asking to be labelled a loon.
It is incredibly obvious that you have no interest in keeping up to date with the science, but only care about the ID propaganda.
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\\\\"SUCK IT, JESUS!\\\\" Kathy Griffin
\"Hitler burns Anne Frank for a day, and it\'s Evil.
God burns Anne Frank for eternity, and it\'s Just.\"Anon
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Reasoned Faith
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« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2007, 05:06:56 AM » |
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RF, when you say these things (almost word or word off the DI site), you really are asking to be labelled a loon.
It is incredibly obvious that you have no interest in keeping up to date with the science, but only care about the ID propaganda.
OK, barney, let's see who is keeping up to date with science. I claim this statement I made is correct and up to date. Modern evolutionary theory is increasingly being challenged for its failure to produce deductive evidence by way of experiment and repetition that supports the idea that evolutionary processes and natural selection is capable of producing the diversity we observe. In responding to that post the way you just did you are suggesting my statement is not up to date. So, please provide deductive evidence that demonstrates evolutionary processes can produce observed diversity within the timeframe that the geologic record indicates it occurred. |
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daedalus 2.0
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« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2007, 12:00:45 AM » |
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\\\\"SUCK IT, JESUS!\\\\" Kathy Griffin
\"Hitler burns Anne Frank for a day, and it\'s Evil.
God burns Anne Frank for eternity, and it\'s Just.\"Anon
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Reasoned Faith
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« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2007, 05:12:07 AM » |
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What? A rendition of Schneider's evolutionary algorithm should be counted as deductive evidence for mutation and selection by way of experiment and repetition? If you are suggesting that evolutionary processes along with natural selection works the same and can traverse the same evolutionary pathways that are achieved in the program you are going to have a very difficult time substantiating that.
The program is and will remain an invention of imagination until it can be demonstrated that evolutionary pathways are available the way the programmer assumes they are. The thing is if these pathways existed then we would observe evolution traversing these pathways in the laboratory. Trouble is we don't, the fact that you offer a hypothetical scenario rather than empirical evidence is telling in itself.
Are you suggesting that imagination is a good and valid substitution for scientific evidence?
You are aware that the program itself was designed by a designer and that the program backloads information into the algorithm. This algorithm was designed and that is the primary reason why it works.
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