Natural selection

From Michael Keas at Synthese: Essay Abstract: There are at least twelve major virtues of good theories: evidential accuracy, causal adequacy, explanatory depth, internal consistency, internal coherence, universal coherence, beauty, simplicity, unification, durability, fruitfulness, and applicability. These virtues are best classified into four classes: evidential, coherential, aesthetic, and diachronic. Each virtue class contains at least three virtues that sequentially follow a repeating pattern of progressive disclosure and expansion. Systematizing the theoretical virtues in this manner clarifies each virtue and suggests how they might have a coordinated and cumulative role in theory formation and evaluation across the disciplines—with allowance for discipline specific modification. An informal and flexible logic of theory choice is in the making here. Evidential accuracy (empirical fit), according Read More ›

Part two of my series looking at Jeffrey Koperski’s paper ‘Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Good Ones’ is now up on my blog. This one is quite in depth, but a couple of interesting issues come up along the way. I examine the concept of soft and hard anomalies in scientific theories and how they might affect theory change. I then look at the claim that ID’s scientific core is too meagre to be considered serious science. The final objection I analyse is the claim that ID violates a metatheoretic shaping principle known as scientific conservatism. In part one of this series looking at Jeffrey Koperski’s paper, Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Read More ›

This week’s post at Design Disquisitions is the first in a series of articles entitled ‘Critic’s Corner’ where I focus on a critic of ID. The main purpose of these posts is to document their work relevant to ID and also to document the direct responses to the particular critic in question, by those sympathetic to ID. These posts will be a useful resource for anyone wanting to find responses to a particular ID critic. This first one is on the work of Kenneth Miller (no stranger to anyone involved in this debate of course). If there are any articles I have missed, do let me know and I shall add it to the page.

You mean the same way that  ghosts in the barn loft are hard to find? From Evolution News & Views: Charles Darwin’s idea that an unguided natural process led to all the beauty and diversity of the world, including its Undeniable appearance of design, guides scientific thinking to this day. But what if his signature mechanism — natural selection — cannot be measured? Without measurement, a theory reduces to anecdote. A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences threatens to do that, at least in regard to “the evolution of human body form.” The implications go far beyond human physiology. Consider limb length. Say you want to deduce how natural selection has affected the dimensions of Read More ›

From Eurekalert: A research team under Dr. Bo Wang of the State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy in Nanjing (China) worked together with paleontologists from the University of Bonn and other scientists from China, USA, France, and England to examine a total of 35 insects preserved in amber. With the aid of grains of sand, plant residue, wood fibers, dust, or even the lifeless shells of their victims, the larvae achieved camouflage to perfection. Some larvae fashioned a kind of “knight’s armor” from grains of sand, perhaps to protect against spider bites. In order to custom-tailor their “camo”, they have even adapted their limbs for the purpose. The larvae were able to turn their legs about 180 degrees, in Read More ›

A friend writes to note what philosopher of science, John Elof Boodin (1869-1950), had to say about natural selection: The principle of natural selection is indeed an important contribution to biology. But it is a negative, not an architectonic, principle. It does not explain why variations appear, why they cumulate, why they assume an organization in the way of more successful adaptation. Organisms must, of course, be able to maintain themselves in their life environment and in the physical environment, in order to leave descendants and determine the character of the race. But that is all natural selection tells us. It does not explain the traits and organization of organisms nor why they become well or badly adapted to their Read More ›

Philosophers call it incommensurability—when the language and underlying concepts are so different, theorists cannot even have meaningful communication. Anyone who doubts the reality of incommensurability need look no farther than this weekend’s “What’s Behind It All? God, Science, and the Universe” debate, where Stephen Meyer explained the random nature of evolution and the limits of natural selection, and evolutionists Lawrence Krauss and Denis Lamoureux denied any such thing, insisting that evolution is not random because, after all, natural selection provides the direction and creates new designs. The funny thing about this particular instance of incommensurability is that the evolutionist’s argument, which is a standard line, is, itself, incommensurate with evolutionary theory.  Read more

… at the Royal Society’s November meet on evolution. From Suzan Mazur interviews eminent ethologist Patrick Bateson at Huffington Post: Sir Patrick Bateson: Zoologists Should Not ‘Hog’ Upcoming Royal Society Evolution Meeting Suzan Mazur: When will the speakers for the November Royal Society event be announced? Patrick Bateson: Very shortly, I think. Suzan Mazur: Can you say what the subject of your talk will be? Patrick Bateson: I want to talk about a subject that has interested me for many years, namely how the organism plays an active role in the evolution of its descendants through its adaptability. When the challenge is one never previously experienced by the organism’s ancestors, the mechanisms generating the plasticity may be inherited but the Read More ›

From Science Daily: Researchers at Michigan State University, with the help of some stickleback fish, have shown that intense competition among males most definitely has a big say in creating new species. The results, featured in the January issue of Ecology Letters, also show that such competition can reverse the process, actually erasing boundaries between species. “Our paper is of special interest because this is the first time that researchers have shown that intense competition between males for the chance to mate with females can have this kind of influence on splitting populations in two or fusing them together,” said Janette Boughman, MSU integrative biologist and the paper’s senior author.More. Good heavens, not the threespine sticklebacks again? Two stories blew Read More ›

If you have a cold. From ScienceDaily: Research suggests that our selfish genes are behind the aches, fever The symptoms that accompany illness appear to negatively affect one’s chance of survival and reproduction. So why would this phenomenon persist? Symptoms, say the scientists, are not an adaptation that works on the level of the individual. Rather, they suggest, evolution is functioning on the level of the “selfish gene.” Even though the individual organism may not survive the illness, isolating itself from its social environment will reduce the overall rate of infection in the group. “From the point of view of the individual, this behavior may seem overly altruistic,” says Dr. Keren Shakhar, “but from the perspective of the gene, its Read More ›

From Trends in Genetics: Evolutionary theory predicts that factors such as a small population size or low recombination rate can limit the action of natural selection. The emerging field of comparative population genomics offers an opportunity to evaluate these hypotheses. However, classical theoretical predictions assume that populations are at demographic equilibrium. This assumption is likely to be violated in the very populations researchers use to evaluate selection’s limits: populations that have experienced a recent shift in population size and/or effective recombination rates. Here we highlight theory and data analyses concerning limitations on the action of natural selection in nonequilibrial populations and argue that substantial care is needed to appropriately test whether species and populations show meaningful differences in selection efficacy. Read More ›

Remember “Why zebras have stripes? This time we really mean it!“?  Yes, same time last year: Further to How the zebra got its stripes, maybe and How the zebra got its stripes (December 18, 2013), this time really (April 2, 2014), we now learn that it depends on the temperature, … Forget all that! Now, from ScienceDaily: Looking through the eyes of zebra predators, researchers found no evidence supporting the notion that zebras’ black and white stripes are for protective camouflage or that they provide a social advantage. … In the new study, Melin, Caro and colleagues Donald Kline and Chihiro Hiramatsu found that stripes cannot be involved in allowing the zebras to blend in with the background of their environment Read More ›

It almost feels like researchers think it is okay now to just doubt Darwin. It seems, we’re a long way from the “Darwin himself said” rubbish that used to deface media releases even a few years ago.* From ScienceDaily: A key concept in Darwin’s theory of evolution which suggests nature favors larger females that can produce greater numbers of off-spring must be redefined according to scientists behind ground-breaking new research. The study, published in the scientific journal Biological Reviews, concludes that the theory of ‘fecundity selection’ — one of Charles Darwin’s three main evolutionary principles, also known as ‘fertility selection’ — should be redefined so that it no longer rests on the idea that more fertile females are more successful Read More ›

A couple of weeks ago a friend forwarded me a link to this recent article about “ongoing research to record the interaction of environment and evolution” by University of California, Riverside biologist David Reznick. Reznick’s team has been studying adaptive changes in guppies. Reznick’s work focuses on tracking what happens in real-world situations in the wild, rather than the somewhat artificial environments in the lab. As a result, Reznick has gathered some of the more trustworthy and definitive data about changes over time in a real-world environment, largely free from the intervention and interference of the coated lab worker. The article states: The new work is part of research that Reznick has been doing since 1978. It involved transplanting guppies Read More ›

Time to ditch natural selection? If NS were a law of nature, we would see every organism trending along the same trajectory: for instance, bearing more offspring. But NS explains opposite outcomes with equal ease (see Oct 1 entry for examples). It explains why the sloth is slow and the cheetah is fast. It explains why the roundworm is round and the flatworm is flat. It explains why some animals bear lots of young and why some bear few. We are led to believe that NS explains up, down, in, out and sideways by some mysterious, aimless force, and whatever results was caused by NS. For some time now, I have been calling NS the “Stuff Happens Law” because NS Read More ›