This seems like such a non-Darwinian topic for The Scientist (shades of structuralism!):
There is a debate raging in ecology about whether there are ecological laws, analogous to the universal rules that underpin physics and mathematics. This discussion is important for a number of reasons. According to some, laws are the true mark of a scientific discipline, so ecology’s status as a branch of science hinges on the outcome. The existence of ecological laws could also make a difference to the practice of ecology.
If there are no laws to be discovered, ecologists would seem to be in the business of merely supplying a suite of localized models. These models would be assessed for their empirical adequacy in specific contexts, but not for their ability to capture universal truths. If, on the other hand, ecology does have laws, this invites further exploration into what these laws are and what their utility might be in describing ecological dynamics.
Mark Colyvan, John Damuth, and Lev R. Ginzburg, “The Dawn of Universal Ecology” at The Scientist
Sounds promising. If physics depends on mathematics and chemistry depends on physics and biology depends on chemistry, why could not be laws be derived that help us understand ecology?
But then Malthus betrays the authors, as he misled Darwin:
Take the core ecological principle that, when resources are unlimited, populations grow exponentially. This principle, posited by Thomas Malthus in 1798, could be regarded as the cornerstone of population ecology. Ecologists have every reason to believe that this principle is perfectly generalizable. After all, it is a logical extension of the idea that every organism produces as many offspring as it can. A failure of exponential growth would require a systematic reduction in the overall reproductive output. In a system with limitless resources, such a decline would be inexplicable. Mark Colyvan, John Damuth, and Lev R. Ginzburg, “The Dawn of Universal Ecology” at The Scientist
If the authors consider humans an organism, how do they account for the fact that we famously do NOT produce as many offspring as we can? What grew exponentially was human civilization; numbers are a variable factor.
Do we actually know that most life forms produce as many offspring as they can? Some of us would suggest more study.
No, Malthus was wrong. Many species are observed to limit their reproduction when the location gets crowded. Many plants produce less seed under crowded conditions. I believe the same rule has been observed in animals too. By contrast, during times of drought, oaks produce more acorns. So there is active control over Malthus’ law.
Robert – if you write “Malthus was wrong” it’s not helpful to then write something that agrees with Malthus.
The notion that a debate about laws in ecology is raging is nonsense. I know this because I wrote a paper on this about 15 years ago, and it’s been cited 25 times and only once since 2015): to put that in context, I’m a co-author on a paper about fire in the Carpathians which was published in 2017, and has been cited 27 times already. Frankly, most ecologists don’t care, they’re too busy doing ecology.
As to:
In regards to that comment, it is interesting to note that, “Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. ,,, there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”
And the primary reason why nobody has ever been able to build a realistic mathematical model for Darwinian evolution, (and therefore turn evolution into a ‘hard science’), is simply because there is no known ‘law of evolution’ within the physical universe for mathematicians and physicists to ever build a realistic mathematical model for evolution upon. As Ernst Mayr himself conceded, “In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences.”
Roger Highfield makes much the same observation as Ernst Mayr and states, ,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology.
Professor Murray Eden of MIT, in a paper entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory” stated that “the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.”
In fact, not only is there no ‘law of evolution’ within the known physical universe for Darwinists to build a realistic mathematical model upon, the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science, almost directly contradicts the primary Darwinian claim that greater and greater levels of functional complexity can easily be had and/or ‘naturally selected’ for over long periods of time. Indeed, entropy’s main claim is that, over long periods of time, everything in the universe will decay into simpler and simpler states until what is termed thermodynamic equilibrium is finally reached.
Thus, not only does evolution NOT have any known universal law to appeal to in order to establish itself as a hard science, evolution is almost directly contradicted, if not directly contradicted, by one of the most powerful laws in science. Namely, the second law of thermodynamics. Whereas, on the other hand, recent advances in quantum information theory, advances that have finally verified Maxwell’s demon thought experiment, have shown that Intelligent Design is very much compatible with the second law of thermodynamics. Specifically, as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
Again to repeat that last sentence,“Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
Simply put, these developments go to the very heart of the ID vs. Evolution debate and directly falsify, number one, Darwinian claims that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from some material basis. And number two, these experimental realizations of the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment go even further and also directly validates a primary claim from ID proponents that an Intelligent Designer, (i.e. an outside observer), who imparts information into a biological system, via ‘purposeful choices’, is necessary in order to circumvent the second law and bring the biological system to a state that is far from thermodynamic equilibrium
As to ecology in general. The definition of ecology is as such:
In regards to “the relations of organisms to one another”, Charles Darwin claimed that “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”
Here is the logic of natural selection if graphic form
Yet Darwin’s claim that the general law of relationships between organisms, (i.e. the ‘ecology’ between organisms). will be one that is primarily driven by competition wherein “the strongest live and the weakest die” is shown to be false by numerous lines of evidence.
In fact, Darwin himself offered this following ‘anti-altruism’ standard as a falsification criteria for his theory, “Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species”… and even stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.”
And yet, directly contrary to Darwin’s claim that “Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species” or it would annihilate his theory, it is now known that “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it.”
Moreover, it is now shown that bacteria themselves do not live in competition with each other, as Darwin had presupposed, but that bacteria live in a relationships that are mutually beneficial and interdependent. The following researchers said they were ‘banging our heads against the wall’ by the contradictory findings to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that they had found. In fact that even went so far as to utter this blasphemous heresy against Darwin, ,,, “Maybe Darwin’s presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong.”,,, (I hope they are still lucky enough to have jobs after daring to publicly doubt Darwin as they did),,,
Moreover, and again directly contrary to the central ‘survival of the fittest’ assumption of Darwinian evolution, we find that bacteria, instead of eating us, are also directly helping us in essential ways that have nothing to do with their own survival of the fittest concerns:
As well, it is now known that “Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides.”
None of this pervasive altruistic behavior of bacteria, between themselves, and for our benefit in particular, makes any sense on the Darwinian evolution scheme of things and in fact directly contradicts the primary ‘prediction’ that Darwin had made in regards the ecological relationships between species. , i.e. “let the strongest live and the weakest die”,
Again, if Darwinian evolution were a normal science instead of basically being a pseudo-scientific religion for atheists, these findings of pervasive altruistic behavior in the relationships between bacteria and even in the transformation of the environment itself by bacteria for the benefit of humans, (and for other multicellular organisms) should count as yet another powerful falsification of their theory.
Well, OK, but then we must also consider Aid from Foreigners, which is not quite the same as “foreign aid”.
Back in the 1970s, there was “international” (i.e., Western Europe, the USA, and associated tag-a-longs) interest in “combating” the famine in Somalia. Whole buncha folks did concerts and stuff, the USA sent uncountable tons of “surplus” agricultural products, and doctors and such flew in to provide free medical help. The result: ENDLESS famine, because in the middle of a countrywide “famine”, Somalia DOUBLED its population in a single generation (20 years). This would clearly drive poor Mr. Malthus bonkers.
Why did the population double? Because the lesson the Somalian people learnt from their “disaster” was that stupid foreigners would PAY THEM to continue having babies neither they nor their government could FEED without perpetual aid from foreigners.
And so the Somali population will double AGAIN in a decade or so, even though the ONLY “local business enterprise”, i.e., Somali Pirates, has gone bust. In general, having DESTROYED the VERY successful colonial (European-run) farms in Rhodesia and South Africa, the population of all of black-run Africa will double in the 21st century with no hope of feeding these people. Only Westerners see this as a problem.
Vmahuna – Somalia? No, the famine was in Ethiopia.
Earth to Bob O’H- there was also a famine in Somalia.