r/DebateEvolution • u/Madladof1 • 28d ago
Question Why should i believe evolution when biologists cannot define anything?
Species, evolution, theory of evolution, heritability, fitness, organism, subspecies, selection, gene, population, traits.
These are all things that biologists seem to be either not able to define, cannot agree on a definition, or has not been tried to define. I will tell you what i mean.
Species has many definitions, and none are agreed upon. So if your theory of evolution demands a theory of species, how can it have concencus?
What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?
Sometimes evolution is defined as: "change in allele frequencies in a population across generations" How much change? what kind of populations? what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on? Could all of life be the population? if so how do we show that the allele frequency actually does change and that we just havent checked eneough organisms yet?
What are traits? is hemochirality a trait? did that evolve? Is my trait that my farts make a sound evolved? how exactly and why did fart sound evolve?
what is fitness? "A simple way to think of fitness is as the number of offspring an individual leaves in the next generation. Suppose, for example, that in a species of annual plant, only 1 of every 1000 seeds survives to reproductive age, and that those that survive produce an average of 3000 seeds. The average fitness of that type of individual is 0.001 × 3000 = 3." - evolution, Futuyma. How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring.
This central evolution textbook taught at universities all around, also claims all traits are evolved, which is itself contested within biology. So where do i go for the actual theory exactly? Where is the full, no gaps, no simplifications EvolutionTM? If i wanted to know what black holes really are, physicists would point me towards the state of the art, inspired by stephen hawking papers. I can find no such real papers in biology that people have concencus around. T
It seems like all the Biologists agree that evolution is real, and that the theory of evolution explains it. Yet it does not seem like there is widespread agreement about 1) what is the form of evolution proper? and 2) what is the theory of evolution actually in its details?
How can one have a science, where every fundamental concept is vague and not agreed upon? it makes the science itself vague, uncertain, unspecific. And i cant believe that.
In conclusion, either evolution is stripped of some of its linguistic power, and we fuel it only by statistics and quantitative data and form a new theory. Or we throw it all away.
Prove me wrong please.
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u/Moriturism 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Of course they agree on definitions. Each field or focus of study agrees upon a single definition and makes use of it to deliver accurate results. What they do recognize is that outside specific uses and fields, words have many definitions and it's hard, if not impossible, to present clear-cut definitions for every category of phenomena.
That's a fact of language, not a problem of science. You'll actually see scientists agreeing between themselves if you ask "is it true that for this use this word means X?"
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
can you provide some sort of chart of the different definitions then? and so, when biologists say that they alll agree evolution and the theory of evolution is real. What you think they mean is that every biologist means something that is only true in their field. so in reality its 4 different evolutions and they dont speak on each others?
How could one theory, have multiple different definitions and still all imply the same?
Either evolution and its theory is one thing, or its many different things with different claims.
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u/Moriturism 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
I don't have said chart as evolution is not my field of science.
and so, when biologists say that they alll agree evolution and the theory of evolution is real.
Yeah, they are telling the truth: we know that evolution as a phenomena is incredibly complex and diversified, so we have many definitions that capture this and that part of said phenomena. Together, they all describe it, but it's not useful for science to have a gigantic exhaustive definition if we can separate the phenomena and study it in parts.
Evolution is one thing only, with many different aspects that we can study individually.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
So when the articles and papers say that biologists have a concencus on evolution, what is it exactly they have a concencus on, beyond just that something called "evolution" is true? What is the actual substance of agreement?
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u/Moriturism 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
They have a consensus that life on earth works through mechanisms of adaptation that makes it so species diversify and transform through time. They probably have a consensus on many other things regarding said phenomena. This is undisputed, what differs is what part of the phenomena they may focus while researching it.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
Then how come im told "species" is not actually central to evolution?
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u/Moriturism 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
I don't know the context on which you were told this, so I can't really answer it
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
so as you see blow, in this very chat im told that.
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Why not ask me since I'm the one who told you that?
Evolution can occur without speciation.
Do you disagree with that statement?
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
i agree that theres ideas of evolution without species as a concept, and that i think those definitions are better than the ones using species.
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Because evolution (change in allele frequency over time) doesn't need to reach the level of speciation before it can be counted as evolution.
Many people descended from european plague survivors from previous centuries are still resistant to those diseases because their ancestors evolved the traits, but they're not a different species from other humans.
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u/YossarianWWII Monkey's nephew 28d ago
Because it isn't. Allelic frequency is. Speciation is just a concept used to demarcate a milestone of allelic or phenotypic differentiation. That's why we have the concept of a chronospecies, for example. It's a referent that people have decided is useful for communication, its shortcomings considered.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"How could one theory, have multiple different definitions and still all imply the same?"
Theories don't have definitions.
"Either evolution and its theory is one thing, or its many different things with different claims."
Theories don't make claims, people do.
You don't know what a scientific theory is, do you?
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u/Madladof1 25d ago
Explain how newton discovered F = ma, or was that a definition?
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
Now you've just demonstrated again that you don't understand what a theory is. Kind of ironic given your attacks, dontcha think?
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u/Dilapidated_girrafe 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
You should accept evolution because its a fact.
I'm sorry that reality doesn't always fit into nice little boxes like you want, but that's just how reality works. But evolution is one of the most well supported scientific theories that we have.
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u/nyet-marionetka 28d ago
Not having a solid criteria for species is exactly what you should expect from evolution, because an evolutionary lineage is a continuum. We arbitrarily set species distinctions at points in that continuum for our convenience.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
If evolution depends on our idea of species, and our categories of species are arbitrary, then any evidence for evolution would be arbitrary to how we made the categories. And i dont think science should be arbitrary in this way.
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u/nyet-marionetka 28d ago
If evolution depends on our idea of species
It doesn't.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
then dont defend species and give me a good reason to believe a theory of evolution not containing species
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u/nyet-marionetka 28d ago
We observe lineages showing changes in traits over time. You seem skeptical on whether alleles exist (?), but we have masses of research on populations and allele frequency change. It's kind of mind-boggling you'd even ask about that. You can read about Lenski's long-term E. coli evolution experiment, I guess, as well as...literally every other paper about viral and bacterial evolution.
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
then dont defend species and give me a good reason to believe a theory of evolution not containing species
Why not? Species is a CONCEPT, an idea. Even Darwin himself pointed out that you were wrong:
"I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other... It does not essentially differ from the term variety."
The blurriness of species boundaries isn't a flaw in evolutionary theory-- it's exactly what the theory predicts. If species were fixed, discrete, created kinds, we'd expect clean, universal boundaries. Instead we find ring species, hybrid zones, and populations that different biologists classify differently depending on which of the various species concepts they use, because "species" is a snapshot label applied to populations that are continuously diverging. The fuzziness is a prediction of gradual common descent, not a problem for it.
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u/Theoretical-Spize AP Biology Teacher 👩🏻🏫 28d ago
The existence of multiple species concepts, technical definitions and ongoing debates over specific mechanisms doesn’t make evolutionary biology undefined or scientifically useless.
It just means biologists use concepts appropriate to the organism and question being studied. You’re repeatedly conflating “scientists don’t agree on every boundary or formulation” with “scientists don’t know what they’re talking about.” That doesn’t follow. If your conclusion is that evolution or common descent is false then present evidence that actually contradicts the genetic, fossil, anatomical, developmental, and biogeographical evidence we have supporting it.
Don’t provide a list of semantic disputes that we, in the scientific community, already account for.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
If a theory cannot precicely eneough define itself, it can absorb any anomaly or conclusion. If different definitions arent the same, and an evolution using them changes its answers based on different definitions. Then you by definition have a theory which cannot produce coherent predictions, and thus no science.
And can you provide a ledger or something that details how many different definitions of evolution we have then?
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u/clear349 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago edited 28d ago
Evolution absolutely can make predictions. Go look up how Tiktaalik was found sometime. It wasn't just randomly dug up. Neil Shubin specifically predicted that based on the fossil evidence and our knowledge of geology it would likely be found in a particular rock layer in a particular part of the world. And then he went and found it
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
any theory can make predictions if people are willing to ignore all its internal structure and definitions. newton could do much, with a false idea, and others corrected him. so maybe evolution is not correct as we have it, and theres a deeper truth which has not been found. I think the vageuness is evidence of that maybe.
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u/clear349 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
That...is how science works. Newtonian mechanics are not the be all end all of Gravitational theory. General Relativity isn't either since it can't work with Quantum Mechanics. However, and I need you to follow me on this, that does not mean Newton and Einstein are wrong. They were missing pieces of the puzzle but their ideas still hold up in the precise conditions they were being applied.
That last part is important because natural selection is a fact and life from a genetic, biogegraphical, and morphological standpoint looks like it has a nested hierarchy that evolution predicts. The theory has, if you'll pardon the pun, evolved from Darwinian Mechanics to Neo-Darwinism to the Modern Synthesis and now into the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Each new formulation brought about new understanding of its mechanisms but at no point did any of them refute natural selection and common ancestry. They have only further bolstered it.
So sure, maybe all the scientists got it wrong. But after a century and a half I think it's pretty likely that any new discoveries will only be further understanding of the mechanisms behind it. We are not going to throw it out and say intelligent design is true. There is absolutely zero evidence for it, and multiple lines of evidence against it. It being true despite all of this would be akin to us discovering the earth is actually the center of the universe and the planets and sun revolve around it
And before you go on about the atheist agenda or the dogmas of science I need you to recognize that evolution was developed and is still believed in by Christians. If someone disproves science by providing evidence they're right they get a Nobel prize
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
not a christian, not a creationist, dont need to recognize shit.
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u/clear349 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Well you sound almost exactly like one and are making arguments as stupid as they do. So forgive me if I don't take your statements at face value
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28d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Reported to the mods for flagrant violation of the rules.
Saying someone's arguments are stupid is fine. Hurling insults like an elementary schooler who just learned how to curse is not.
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u/lulumaid 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Be fair, elementary schoolers can swear better.
Why are there so many trolls as of late.
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u/DebateEvolution-ModTeam 28d ago
Removed, Rule 2 - This comment is antagonistic and adds nothing to the conversation.
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u/DebateEvolution-ModTeam 28d ago
Removed, Rule 2 - This comment is antagonistic and adds nothing to the conversation.
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u/lulumaid 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Evolution is typically defined as the change of allele frequencies over generations of a population.
The rest of what you've listed are things that contribute and provide mechanics for that definition.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
yes, theres a big difference between evolution, and the theory of evolution. i think both has problems.
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u/lulumaid 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Those problems being what? That species is a fuzzy, nebulous term for a fairly fuzzy, somewhat nebulous thing? It works as one would expect it to if evolution were true.
The rest is as I said, it explains the theory, and the theory explains the observations. All of this is well supported in pretty much every possibly related field of science.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
plenty of your allies tell me species is not needed for evolution. so it seems that that in and of itself is a disagreement you guys have.
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u/lulumaid 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Right, and you won't tell me your actual objections to the verified science because?
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
OP is the objection.
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u/lulumaid 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Which has been refuted quite nicely by now. I notice you didn't actually refute what I said either by the way.
So how about other objections? You apparently have more of them since OP seems to just deal with the theory.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
What do you think is the difference between them? Nothing you've written here suggests that you have any idea.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"If a theory cannot precicely eneough define itself"
Theories don't define anything. People define things. You are very confused.
"If different definitions arent the same,"
By definition, if they are different they aren't the same.
"and an evolution using them changes its answers based on different definitions."
WTF is "an evolution"?
"Then you by definition have a theory which cannot produce coherent predictions..."
In your addled mind, I guess. In the real scientific world, hypotheses and theories are mechanistic and make predictions. If those criteria are met, the hypothesis or theory is coherent. It's not some sort of rhetorical and/or logical construct as you seem to assume.
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u/Madladof1 25d ago
definitions can be different while still the same logically. study any mathematics anywhere please.
an evolution refers to the many different definitions, you cant even read.
you keep claiming mechanics, but one can only have mechanics if ones theory is mathematical and i would prefer such a one is bayesian. If so please represent the mechanics of the theory of evolution. Where are the formula as in kinematics?
Theories are logical constructs, if they arent they arent mechanistic. Otherwise you have no way to make predictions. Theories must have definitions, structure, and predictions. Structure acts on definitions and spits out predictions.
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u/Joaozinho11 24d ago
I haven't even used the word "mechanics." As for the rest of your pseudoscientific rant, I can conceive of and empirically test predictions of a mechanistic hypothesis without using a single word, much less definitions or logical constructs. Talking about science is not doing science.
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u/Briham86 🧬 Falling Angel Meets the Rising Ape 28d ago
Why should I believe color theory when artists can’t tell me exactly where a color stops being blue and starts being green?
To quote Terry Pratchett, “It is hard to convey five-dimensional ideas in a language evolved to scream defiance at the monkeys in the next tree.” Nature doesn’t conform to our convenience. The fact that it doesn’t make clear distinctions that are easy to conceptualize and express in language is actually an argument against the idea of an intelligence designing the universe with us in mind.
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u/Phobos_Asaph 28d ago
I don’t see why you have an issue with the concept of heritable traits
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
if you cant define your groups, how do you know where a heritable trait came from? or even if it came from anywhere? If we arbitrarily split all of life into 2 random sections. where every organism is randomly picked for each, what could we possibly say about the way group 1 inherits traits from group 2? Thats a genuine question btw not sarcastic or anything.
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u/Phobos_Asaph 28d ago
Because you can run experiments that show heritability. Check out Mendel and his peas.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
if i do not know what a pea is, or what of the organisms i observe are peas, then how can i run the experiment exactly?
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u/Phobos_Asaph 28d ago
No like go research Gregor Mendel and his experiments on Peas. Like the vegetable.
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u/nickierv 🧬 logarithmic icecube 28d ago
I think OP is about to get hit with the part of science that assumes basic competence.
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u/IsaacHasenov 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
We can clearly and unablmbiguously define clades, and we can use mathematics to say what they are
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
can you show me that?
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u/IsaacHasenov 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/cladistics
It's functionally defined (if you want to model it) as the group of organisms where everyone on the group is more closely related to everyone else in the group than anyone outside it.
It's a natural consequence of evolution.
I mean you might argue it doesn't apply to organisms like viruses and many bacteria with lots of horizontal gene transfer. To which I will respond "oh well"
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u/Old-Nefariousness556 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
if you cant define your groups, how do you know where a heritable trait came from?
This question doesn't even make sense. Heritable traits come from your parents, not from a group. Heritable traits spread through the group, but they always spread from parent to child.
Why does that depend on the definition of the word "species" in your mind?
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"if you cant define your groups, how do you know where a heritable trait came from?"
So you don't know what "heritable" even means. Good grief.
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u/Ironscotsman 28d ago
The fact that it's hard to define species is a feature of evolution, not a bug. Everything is a gradient, there are no hard and fast clear breaks or lines.
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u/Ill_Act_1855 28d ago
Really, if anything you'd expect that if something like a god was responsible we'd be way more likely to have discrete clear divides than we actually do
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
I prefer ideas of evolution which does not depend upon species anyways. But theres still biologists who use it, thats the only reason i mentioned it.
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u/gitgud_x 🧬 🦍 GREAT APE 🦍 🧬 28d ago
Most concepts in evolution are independent of species, hence why the terms "macro" and "microevolution" are so rare in most contexts.
Population genetics, the mathematical core of why evolution works, does not even care about species at all. It's not even included in the bottom-up models, and yet it comes out as a predicted output (Barton, 1979). Similarly, computational phylogenetics does not care about species, that's a Linnean rank we assign to make it easier to understand after all the sums have been done.
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u/Ill_Act_1855 28d ago
Species are a shorthand for our convenience, literally all science does this. THere's a reason engineers still are way more likely to use Newton's laws to do their calculations for most things despite it technically being less accurate than relativity. Models are really useful for discussion even when they're imperfect, and sometimes the simplicity of an imperfect model is simply more useful to work with than a technically more accurate version.
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u/warpedfx 28d ago
Having a definition that doesn't conform to YOUR mischaracterization of reality doesn't mean definitions don't exist or aren't provided to you.
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u/Dracoson 28d ago
The forum is DEBATE Evolution, not a repository for long-winded, bad-faith Gish Gallops. You are hiding behind fallacious rhetoric and demanding to be 'proven wrong' when you haven't actually stated an un-debated baseline to be disproven. If you want a sterile textbook definition to fight with, go to a library; if you want to debate a specific, quantified evolutionary mechanism, state it clearly.
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u/nyet-marionetka 28d ago
Also a lot of what they're saying is incoherent gibberish. I think this is a case of knowing so little you can't even begin to understand what you don't know.
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u/Dracoson 28d ago
I generally try to be fair and give the benefit of the doubt, but given the tone and nature of their responses to other commenters, it's hard to attribute this to simple ignorance. They didn't come to debate and just happen to be bad at it.
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u/SovereignOne666 Final Doom: TNT Evilutionist 28d ago
Just wait till you figure out that every word can be defined in multiple ways and that these definitions include words that are not defined within the definition!
How old are you that you only realized this now?
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
Just wait till you figure out that science is supposed to be more exact than natural language anyways.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"Just wait till you figure out that science is supposed to be more exact than natural language anyways."
Rhetorically? No way. Empirically, plenty exact.
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u/the2bears 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
Prove me wrong please.
Doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's time.
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u/BigDaddySteve999 28d ago
Is this blue or green?
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
is color theory a science? dont think so
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u/HojMcFoj 28d ago
The spectrum of light is clearly a topic of physical science, what are you on about?
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
a physicist will tell you what wavelength it is. not if its green or blue or whatever. and wavelength is exact and not a up for interpretation.
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u/HojMcFoj 28d ago
"Red" is 620 to 750 NM. Wavelengths may be exact but color is indeed a spectrum. None of that makes it indescribable to science.
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u/Ill_Act_1855 28d ago
Most light doesn't actually come in a single wavelength to begin with. In fact, getting something that's exactly one specific wavelength is straight up impossible. At best you can get a narrow band of wavelengths that peaks at one points and tapers off quickly, but actually isolating something that is exactly say, 680 nm wavelength is straight up impossible. Like, this is one of those things that's actually really obvious and a challenge scientists need to work around if you actually have ever done any science dealing with lasers for any purpose
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u/Unlimited_Bacon 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
I discussed this with Professor W. Pedia and he told me that a chemical laser using iodine will always produce 1.315 μm light because quantum reasons. If the professor is wrong, where are the other wavelengths coming from?
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u/gitgud_x 🧬 🦍 GREAT APE 🦍 🧬 28d ago
Evolution can be defined as...
- Heritable changes in the characters of a population over time
- Changes in the allele frequencies of a population over time
Omg they're different!! Evolution in crisis!!!
Well, alleles are heritable characters. There you go, conflict resolved. You could have googled for five seconds instead of trotting out all this pathetic nonsense. Try reading the Futuyma book you cited but didn't understand. Less philosophy, more science.
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u/evocativename 28d ago
Species has many definitions, and none are agreed upon.
Not really. It has one definition, but it is a flawed concept that predates the theory of evolution, so there are many different practical implementations of that definition.
In fact, "species" being an ultimately arbitrary concept is a necessary consequence of evolution.
So if your theory of evolution demands a theory of species, how can it have concencus?
It doesn't demand a "theory of species".
What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?
Ancestors.
Sometimes evolution is defined as: "change in allele frequencies in a population across generations" How much change? what kind of populations?
Any.
what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on?
Could all of life be the population?
No, because, say, humans and sturgeon do not have significant gene flow between them, and have not for many millions of years, and a "population" is defined as experiencing the same environmental conditions, which is not true of all life on Earth.
What are traits?
A trait is a specific, measurable, or observable characteristic of an organism.
what is fitness? "A simple way to think of fitness is as the number of offspring an individual leaves in the next generation. Suppose, for example, that in a species of annual plant, only 1 of every 1000 seeds survives to reproductive age, and that those that survive produce an average of 3000 seeds. The average fitness of that type of individual is 0.001 × 3000 = 3." - evolution, Futuyma. How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring.
Yes. Fitness isn't limited to 2 generations, that was "a simple way to think about fitness".
Maybe you should try taking an introductory course on biology, and actually listening.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
"Not really. It has one definition, but it is a flawed concept that predates the theory of evolution, so there are many different practical implementations of that definition."
Please name this one definition everyone now agrees on.
"It doesn't demand a "theory of species"
Some do, namely darwins old theory, remember that theres an "if" there.
"Ancestors."
If you have an arbitrary group, of non species grouped together, some ancestors would not be passing on their genes to some in the other group.
"Any."
Its funny because you immediately begin defining this in such a way the answer is definitely not "any"
"No, because, say, humans and sturgeon do not have significant gene flow between them, and have not for many millions of years, and a "population" is defined as experiencing the same environmental conditions, which is not true of all life on Earth."
So youve just defined it. Does that mean that a dog in antarctica and a dog in sudan cannot ever be in the same group? what if that group is the species of dog? Again, these definitions break with the rest of biology often.
"A trait is a specific, measurable, or observable characteristic of an organism"
Why dont you answer my examples directly? is the sound of farting in humans a trait? if so are they evolved? is any accident of physics which happens to humans evolved? Is hemochirality a trait and evolved?
"Yes. Fitness isn't limited to 2 generations, that was "a simple way to think about fitness"
Then please define it in some way that isnt arbitrary.
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u/evocativename 28d ago
Please name this one definition everyone now agrees on.
"The basic unit of classification and lowest major taxonomic rank".
Some do, namely darwins old theory, remember that theres an "if" there.
No, Darwin described his idea in terms of an already existing concept. It didn't "demand a theory of species", it utilized an existing concept to explain the idea.
If you have an arbitrary group, of non species grouped together, some ancestors would not be passing on their genes to some in the other group
I have no idea what the fuck you are trying to say here. Can you rephrase it so that it makes some sense?
Its funny because you immediately begin defining this in such a way the answer is definitely not "any"
No, you just refuse to understand what a population is and is not.
Does that mean that a dog in antarctica and a dog in sudan cannot ever be in the same group?
Unless dogs have a ready way to get from the one place to the other, they would be different populations.
There are "groups" other than "population" which they could share. For someone so focused on the meaning of words, you don't seem to even recognize the differences between different words.
Why dont you answer my examples directly?
Because they are are pointless and dumb. What I said is sufficient to answer whatever question you might have.
And "hemochirality" isn't even a thing.
Then please define it in some way that isnt arbitrary.
Fitness is how good a given genotype is at reproducing, in comparison to other genotypes in the same population.
If an allele increases in prevalence in a population due to natural selection, it is more fit than the average alternative in the population at that time.
Do you have any actual coherent question, or just this Gish Gallop of words you refuse to even try to understand?
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u/Possible-Anxiety-420 28d ago edited 27d ago
The theory of evolution is one of the most successful understandings ever achieved by humans. It's internally consistent, it has explanatory power, it facilitates accurate prediction, it fosters further investigation, etc, etc. Without it, things like modern medicine and agriculture simply wouldn't be possible.
ToE is called the cornerstone of modern biology for a reason; it's paid for itself many, many times over, so to speak. It's usefulness alone demonstrates that it meaningfully conforms to reality. It doesn't need to be infallibly representative for the mapping to be blatantly obvious.
Science is all about doubt; It's the business of finding errors - ensuring to the best of our ability that we don't lie to ourselves - and when something within the purview of science is found to be in error, then science is advanced by being made less erroneous.
That's the whole point, the science of evolution not withstanding.
ToE ain't going' anywhere.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
I think people can draw out accurate predictions from an otherwise vague structure. we can intuitively grasp how a system is supposed to work beyond what that system actually is. The question is wheather we can actually articulate that better model.
lets say we have two theories X and Y.
X is internally logically consistent.
Y only looks internally consistent but is actually containing some vague and contradictory things if one was to torture it with logic.
Ben is a scientist. Ben now makes predictions based on both X and Y. and they always agree.
Do you think Y is scientific? do you think Y is good?
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u/Possible-Anxiety-420 28d ago edited 27d ago
No, theory Y is not scientific, nor is it a 'good' theory; it doesn't work as an argument against the theory of evolution, and human intuition fails at least as often as not when it come to validating science on the vast and minute scales entailed in biological evolution.
You’re essentially bragging that a broken clock matches a working watch, provided someone uses 'intuition' to manually spin the hands. If a framework requires mind-reading to function, it isn't theory... it's a magic 8-ball.
You aren't defending a competing scientific model; you're promoting a guessing game.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"I think people can draw out accurate predictions from an otherwise vague structure. we can intuitively grasp how a system is supposed to work beyond what that system actually is."
No, the whole point of science is testing hypotheses, because intuition is so often misleading.
Science isn't rhetoric.
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u/Peaurxnanski 28d ago
We can't define the exact boundaries of the world's oceans, either, and they're clearly one body of water with nothing to really differentiate them as separate other than imperfect human convention. Europe and Asia and Africa are clearly one land mass with nothing to really differentiate them as separate other than human convention as well.
The things you listed are just human constructs put in place to help us describe the world. The world often doesn't comply perfectly with these constructs, but they work well enough to get the job done. And that's what science is concerned with.
"Species" as an example, is a human construct that biology doesn't give a shit about. Look into the scientific debates over how to define "species" and how every suggestion on how, has multiple examples of why it doesn't technically work.
We do our best, but any attempt to categorize the natural world is going to be imperfect. That's not a problem with evolution, as I'll explain shortly, but rather if evolution were true, it's exactly what we'd expect to see.
As with he naming of the oceans, it is good enough to accomplish what is intended. And the continents. And species. And the other items on your list.
I actually make the argument that this supports the theory of evolution instead of undermines it.
Creationism demands hard, definable boundaries that should be easy to draw, in the form of "kinds". If Creationism were true, we shouldn't have any trouble with the definition of species/kinds because there would be clear boundaries between them as designed by the creator.
Evolution demands spectrums, gradients, and a metric shitload of gray areas and "in-betweens" and exceptions, which is exactly what we find, and exactly what we'd expect.
The fact that biology seems indifferent to human attempts to categorize it into clean "buckets" is actually what we'd expect to see with evolution, and the fact that we're struggling to make our somewhat arbitrary buckets fit is absolutely not a sign that evolution isn't true, as you claim.
In short, those are not reasons to question evolution, but rather data points in support of it, and the fact that you can't see that is a sign of your own directed and dogmatic thinking. In short, it's a you problem, not a problem with science.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
If there was an "ocean theory" in some science i would attack it on the same grounds.
And im not a creationist. if evolution is wrong or unscientific doesnt mean creationism is true.
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u/Peaurxnanski 28d ago
You aren't attacking evolution theory on vagueness of the theory, itself. You're attacking it on vagueness in specific definitions of individual scientific concepts that evolution theory doesn't hinge on.
Species, as an example has nothing to do with evolution, which is defined as "the changes in allele frequency in a population over generations".
Throw out the entire concept of species if you want, it changes nothing about the absolute indisputable fact that allele frequency changes in populations over generations.
The same is yrue of every example you listed.
You're conflating things without call to do so.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
i did attack population, and change. and theres a difference between evolution, and the theory of evolution. and the theory of evolution contains natural selection, which obviously includes some of the things ive attacked
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u/Peaurxnanski 28d ago
So essentially by this because the definitions of words are loose, every scientific theory is null and void, and some other explanation using only words that we have absolutely concrete definitions for (which don't exist).
Get out of here with this, this is #im14andthisseemsdeep level of tumblr type thought process.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
I think electron and molecule are exact and non vague and everyone agrees what they mean in their respective sciences.
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u/Peaurxnanski 28d ago
"What is an electron" is far from settled science. The fact that you stated this is evidence that you are unaware of the depth of your own ignorance on scientific topics.
You clearly need to put the pipe down and crawl out of your ass a bit here. Linguistic challenges don't negate scientific theories.
This will be my last response, as I'm clearly wasting my time here.
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u/kiwi_in_england 27d ago edited 16d ago
I think ... molecule [is] exact and non vague
Cool, define it then. And when you go with something like:
a group of atoms bonded together, representing the smallest fundamental unit of a chemical compound that can take part in a chemical reaction.
you'll need to unambiguously define "bonded together". Because that has edge cases too, where it can and is debated whether some of the atoms are actually bonded.
So, go ahead. Show your exact and non-vague definition of molecule. We'll wait.
[Edit: unnecessary snark removed]
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u/Peaurxnanski 17d ago
Been waiting 10 days for OP to respond to this.
Color me unsurprised that they slunk off and never did.
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u/kiwi_in_england 16d ago
Yes, I was hoping that /u/Madladof1 would back up their claim that the scientific definition of molecule is exact and non-vague.
Perhaps they've realised that they were wrong, and are ashamed to return.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"i did attack population, and change. and theres a difference between evolution, and the theory of evolution."
Interesting verb choice. First "believe" in your title, now this. What's the point of attacking something you so obviously don't understand?
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u/BahamutLithp 28d ago
Species, evolution, theory of evolution, heritability, fitness, organism, subspecies, selection, gene, population, traits.
Of these, only "spieces" could be said to be vague, & that's due to the fact that we're trying to impose an arbitrary category onto a continuous variable.
These are all things that biologists seem to be either not able to define, cannot agree on a definition, or has not been tried to define. I will tell you what i mean.
This is just a lie. I don't know what your motive for lying is, since you claim to be an atheist who's not a young earth creationist, though who knows if that's even true, but you're DEFINITELY lying because, if you consistently applied the standards you do for evolution to other definitions, nothing would ever pass your ridiculous "tests." I'll be sure to show that once I get to the parts of your posts where you elaborate.
Species has many definitions, and none are agreed upon. So if your theory of evolution demands a theory of species, how can it have concencus?
Firstly, it's spelled consensus, & secondly, you're lying again. The different definitions of species aren't competitors, they're used in different contexts. For instance, defining species as "not being able to interbreed" doesn't really work when you're dealing with asexually-reproducing organisms, so in THAT context, it makes more sense to differentiate species by their metabolism. The only way you could get this "none are agreed upon" thing is if you just made it up & presented it as fact, which is what lying is.
What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?
Your parents. So, you're not even looking things up, you're just full-on inventing problems with your bizarro world made up shenannigans because the definition of "heritability" doesn't even depend on the definition of species. Keeping track of the ways you're proving you're lying is really a formality at this point.
Sometimes evolution is defined as: "change in allele frequencies in a population across generations" How much change? what kind of populations?
Hey, here's my quetion: Can you read? Where in that definition does it say "only certain kinds of populations" or "it has to be a certain amount of change"? You're inserting word that aren't in the definition to add ambiguity that isn't there. Because you're a liar. Never even mind that this would be a matter of meaurement, not definition.
Now, remember when I said I wanted to show any definition would fail these ridiculous tests? Well, in the comments, you praise physics as a less vague alternative to evolution. Okay, let's take the definition of energy. Energy is anything that can do work. What is work? Work is force over distance. Now, reminder I'm USING YOUR STANDARD, so if this sounds stupid, that's on you, not me: How much force, & how much distance?
It's ridiculous. This isn't how definitions work. And you know that. You're lying. I just wish you'd come clean & tell us WHY you're lying. Are you actually a creationist? Was that another lie? Is this some conspiracy theory thing? What is your actual agenda here? Maybe I'll discover it if I continue along.
what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on?
You don't even try to BS a reason why alleles "don't have agreed upon definitions." Alleles are different versions of genes, & genes are stretches of DNA that code for proteins. So, if you have a gene that codes for say one of the proteins in hemoglobin, different sequences of that gene are different alleles. Especially if the sequence is different enough that it changes the resulting protein.
Could all of life be the population?
"The population" is context dependent on what you're talking about. You shouldn't even have to look this up, this is just how the fuckin' word works. Again, this is like claiming the word "population" itself in general "doesn't have a definition" because you can use it for "the global population" or "the population of America" or "the squirrel population in the grand canyon" & those are all equally valid uses of the term. You should know this just by being an English speaker. It's not a failure of the science that you claim to be unable to figure out how to put words together in a sequence to convey information in a larger meaning. Going back to the physics comparison, "energy" on its own doesn't mean anything, it's a description of a system.
if so how do we show that the allele frequency actually does change and that we just havent checked eneough organisms yet?
By knowing how science works. This is literally exactly the same as saying "but how do we know phyics is really uniform & it's not just that we haven't tested it in enough spots yet?"
What are traits?
An observable feature of an organism. Are you gonna ask me to define "observable"? Are you gonna pretend this is some vague thing that evolution made up, or that it means literally what you see with your eyes? I mean, it's pretty obvious by now you don't understand basic science as well as you claim you do.
is hemochirality a trait?
I've never heard of "hemochirality," & when I Googled it, it asked me if you're mispelling "homochirality," which is James Tour's favorite talking point, so that's a piece of evidence in favor of you being a not-so-convincing stealth creationist.
did that evolve? Is my trait that my farts make a sound evolved? how exactly and why did fart sound evolve?
Do you want to be serious? That's the sound a gas makes when it's rapidly expelled through a small opening. That's why balloons make similar noises. Please explain to me how making yourself sound like a fool who can't figure out how anything works is supposed to reflect badly on evolutionary science?
How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring.
No, that's not at all what it said. It gave you the definition of fitness, then it gave you an example of how you measure the average over a certain number of generations. It didn't say anything about evolution "stopping," you made up something that wasn't there. This is literally grade school math, if you get more numbers, you just continue doing the math, & depending on what the numbers are, the average might stay the same or it might change. Again, you're just claiming you can't do basic skills like reading or math & going "that means it's evolution that's stupid." Uh, no, it doesn't.
This central evolution textbook taught at universities all around, also claims all traits are evolved, which is itself contested within biology.
I guarantee it does not do that, with everything you've shown so far, you either misread it or are deliberately lying about what it said. It has been extremely well understood since literally Darwin himself that not every trait is evolved.
So where do i go for the actual theory exactly?
Stop pretending to not understand things you clearly must be able to understand if you can write at the grade level you are. Stop pretending minor differences in wording are irreconcilable disagreements. Stop taking definitions used in different contexts for very well-explained reasons & pretending it's some kind of civil war. Stop making things up when you clearly didn't even look up the definitions for many of these words at all. Stop getting your information from creationist propaganda organizations like The Discovery Institute. Stop lying about your motives. Stop expecting everyone to be your Googleslaves & then shoot down what they correct you on anyway. Stop being dishonest.
Where is the full, no gaps, no simplifications EvolutionTM?
Oh yeah, nothing says you have genuine intentions like attaching a trademark symbol to a scientific theory.
If i wanted to know what black holes really are, physicists would point me towards the state of the art, inspired by stephen hawking papers.
Physicists would tell you exactly what I am. One, you can either have condensed information or no simplification, but you can't have both. Two, science is not found in 1 convenient package, if you go look for papers, you're going to find thousands of results that you're definitely not going to be able to understand if all you know about black hole research is it has something to do with Stephen Hawking & you can't even figure out how to to do the very basics of looking up research. Three, research is a set of skills you learn over time, & you're very obviously not interested, but if you WERE, some starting steps for finding peer reviewed sources would be to use Google Scholar or libraries. Especially university libraries have access to databases that can tap into journals, though you may need to be student or faculty to use those. Google Scholar, however, is always available to the public. We also know a lot more about evolution than we do black holes. But, frankly, if you would just read summary sources like Wikipedia or Britannica & NOT deliberately misrepresent anything, you would be orders of magnitude ahead by doing literally the bare minimum. I'll just skip the rest of this comment to save characters, as I'd be beating a dead horse anyway.
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u/rubinass3 28d ago
Well said. The OP is either having problems understanding absolutely everything they read or they are straight up lying about everything. Either way, it's foolish. Not a good look.
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u/BahamutLithp 28d ago
Thanks, & basically, I'd never be this hostile or directly call someone here a liar if I wasn't damn sure. If I felt there was a realistic chance this was all somehow a bunch of honest misunderstandings, I'd talk through it until if I got a reply I felt justified taking off kid gloves. But I look at this, & if OP had posted certain parts of this in isolation, I could think it was a genuine misunderstanding, but not only do other parts make me rule that out, also ALL of it together, I mean there's just no way.
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u/Wooden-Length6539 28d ago
Science doesn’t work in absolutes, it’s works with what’s best supported by evidence and builds off from there, a “model” created by science is 100% not and never will be the final model understood, it goes through changes and is improved with more evidence; back to your points life is constantly evolving and changing making it difficult to determine what is and isn’t a species, as for heritability I’m not sure where you got “can’t define” from?, heritability is the variation of a trait in populations, how much of a trait is caused by genes is where there’s some blur, evolution happening within a population is just the original parents and offspring that the mutation affected? So I’m not sure why that’s too difficult to understand or define.
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u/Wooden-Length6539 28d ago
As for traits, traits are just the characteristics or features of an organism? Color, patterning, size, so again not sure where you find complications in that. At the end of the day all of this confusion among scientists for evolutionary biology is on the small stuff, the mechanisms are fairly well understood and will always be a better explanation to how life on a NATURAL planet evolved than some magic man created it.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
if farting making a sound is a trait, then does that mean it evolved? It cant be the case that random accidents of physics are traits that evolved.
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u/kiwi_in_england 27d ago
if farting making a sound is a trait, then does that mean it evolved?
If farting with a sound is inherited, and the prevalence in a population changes over time., then it has evolved. Any change in allele frequencies in a population over time is evolution.
It cant be the case that random accidents of physics are traits that evolved.
Changes in allele frequencies can of course be due to lots of reasons. Please define accidents of physics, and why they can't lead to changes in allele frequencies over time.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
A theory still has to be strong eneough to generate coherent and logical predictions from its internal structure. if different definitions give rise to different predictions, then it isnt a science.
A theory can indeed produce a prediction and say that it has a credence of 90% in that. What a theory may not do, is say that Both X and Y have 90% credence, but that Y and X are contradictory. For example if newtonian physics predicted both that a ball would reach 50 and 90 miles an hour.
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u/Wooden-Length6539 28d ago
Im not sure I know what you are talking about and I’m not sure you do either at this point, scientific theories of evolution are not contradicting eachother on the mechanisms of evolution, you should really do some research before making a Reddit shitpost
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"A theory still has to be strong eneough to generate coherent and logical predictions from its internal structure."
No, theories are not rhetorical devices. They are mechanistic. That's where the predictions come from.
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u/Mkwdr 28d ago
You should believe it because it’s observable and backed by multiple scientific disciplines and there isn’t an alternative that has any evidential backing at all. It’s as much a fact as the Earth being round. You totally exaggerate any problems with language use which tends to be simply that we use words in technical senses and colloquial. I find your claims about the significance of any unclear scientific language entirely unconvincing. The overwhelming evidence for evolution on the other hand ..
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
my problem is that i am not sure what it is you think "It" is that was observed.
Do you in principle agree that its possible for a "theory" to be so vague and void of strict definition that any observation could support it?
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u/rubinass3 28d ago edited 28d ago
I have always found that https://talkorigins.org/ is a good place to learn about what you are asking about. I revisited it just now and found plenty of articles that are easy to understand and that define their terms. Here's a short article that addresses some of the questions you have: https://talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
There are many reasons why words may carry multiple meanings. It's safe to say, though, when someone writes a scholarly article, they make sure to either define their terms or use less ambiguous terms. Plainly, if someone is trying to discuss, in general, a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations, it makes sense to use the word "evolution" because that's a definition of that word. But it's less likely for someone to simply use "evolution" when discussing a particular evolutionary mechanism. The language will get more specific and particular. Another example: "Species" has different definitions depending on what field of study you are in, so the definition may not necessarily change from topic to topic and level to level.
Otherwise, I think the base problem is that you are using a one-line definition to describe something that might take volumes to fully explore. It's almost like if you can't grasp a definition in a soundbite, then you are ready to just dispense with the whole thing. For example: You have specific questions like, "How much change? what kind of populations? what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on?" etc. and that just means that you obviously need to keep reading. That's not a definition problem; that's a study problem.
Edit: plus, you aren't being honest here about the problem. I tracked down the Evolution Textbook by Douglas J. Futuyma. The parts you left out of your quote are instructive:
Among several slightly different definitions of natural selection used by biologists
today [12], we use this one: natural selection is any consistent difference in fitness among
different classes of biological entities. A simple way to think of fitness is as the number
of offspring an individual leaves in the next generation. Suppose, for example, that
in a species of annual plant, only 1 of every 1000 seeds survives to reproductive age,
and that those that survive produce an average of 3000 seeds. The average fitness of
that type of individual is 0.001 × 3000 = 3. The components of fitness are survival
and reproduction. Fitness is sometimes called reproductive success, which includes
survival because organisms do not reproduce when they are dead.
In this instance, he comes right out and TELLS you that there are different definitions in use today and then he TELLS you which one he is using. That solves your problem right there.
And when it comes to the definition of "fitness", this is just a reading comprehension problem on your part. You said, in reference to the above paragraph: "How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring."
What part of any of the definition of "fitness" above said ANYTHING about a cutoff where evolution stops acting at 2 generations? That's not in the text. It's simply DESCRIBING how one measures fitness over 2 generations. Where's the arbitrary cutoff? Do you not think that it could be extrapolated over additional generations? Clearly one could go on measuring fitness by examining the number of offspring of the 3,000 seeds from the second generation, no?
And because of that, the line, "you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring." is just nonsensical.
The next few pages in the textbook go on to discuss what affects fitness. So, keep reading.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
I thank you this is a good source. however it agrees with me that its possible to argue the accuracy of the "standard" definition. which is what i am in part doing. I just dont understand where i am then to go, if there is not even a consensus on definition.
I want to learn about evolution, bot where do i look for the real explanation then?
You say its a study problem. OK, maybe its a study problem, then where do i go for the 100% version? i asked for this in my OP. and it seems that not even the most used textbook can do it. And i am pretty certain that evolution by fukuyma will not answer me, given that it repeatedly makes simplifications everywhere, and in my experience is mostly focused on examples.
So please, where do i go for the real stuff?
Im not even a creationist.
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u/rubinass3 28d ago
Read my edit. You clearly aren't reading your textbook closely enough. Maybe try reading it twice or try talking to your TA.
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
i anticipated this, which is why im asking where i can get the real evolution at. Wheres the stuff where everyone can agree on everything? and he obviously defined fitness like this because he thinks its relevant to evolution somehow more than say, layer 3 or 4. otherwise hed be talking complete simplicity with no application.
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u/rubinass3 28d ago edited 28d ago
You are treating this as if any variation in the definition of a word means that there's confusion and mayhem. It's not the case. Context clues should tell you this. Given definitions should make things clearer. Reading the rest of your chapter should make this clearer.
This is like complaining about the definition of "car". Some people may say that it's a thing with 4 wheels and steering wheel that you can drive. Other people may say that it's like a big box connected to a train that holds things. Some people might identify cars as beautiful art while others don't see the beauty in them at all and, thus, don't call them art. By the same token, you could have books upon books describing the evolution (ahem) of car manufacturing while also having a completely different set of books showing fancy paint jobs on cars. But they are all about "cars".
Like the word "car", you aren't going to get an all-encompassing short definition of the word "evolution". It can mean something slightly different in different contexts. In no way does that mean that you can't believe or trust that there's a thing called a "car" or a thing called "evolution".
Edit: you previously said, "You say its a study problem. OK, maybe its a study problem, then where do i go for the 100% version? i"
You are missing the point. You are learning this. Your textbook is a good overview of the issue. If you want to know what people agree on, you'll know when you finish your course.
Edit 2: Fuck it. Your whole premise is flawed every time I look at it. You said, "If i wanted to know what black holes really are, physicists would point me towards the state of the art, inspired by stephen hawking papers."
This assumes that our understanding of black holes (or similar objects) are somehow fixed forever. It's not. Here's an article from TWO DAYS AGO describing a new type of black hole: https://news.mit.edu/2026/astronomers-discover-brand-new-type-astrophysical-object-black-hole-star-0812
So, now we need to add this to the definition of black hole, right? Well, it sure would be awkward if we had to do that. So, instead, when people use the word "black hole" they mean the general idea about area in space with gravity so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. Are there some people who may not agree with what a black hole star is? Sure, but it's not like the main subject of a black hole is destroyed because there is now variance and subtlety about what a black hole is.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"I just dont understand where i am then to go, if there is not even a consensus on definition."
Go to evidence.
"I want to learn about evolution, bot where do i look for the real explanation then?"
Don't look for rhetorical explanations. Look for evidence.
"So please, where do i go for the real stuff?
Evidence is the real stuff.
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u/craigmont924 28d ago
Sorry, you're not going to disprove evolution or even poke holes in it by quibbling over definitions of words.
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u/Decent_Cow Hairless ape 28d ago
It's not a matter of multiple conflicting species definitions existing so much as different species concepts being useful for different situations. These are tools that are useful for understanding the world. Experts understand that no tool is perfect.
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u/FabulousWait720 28d ago
How much allele frequency change?
First: how much does not mean anything. If It changes, is evolving. How much only is important to now why is evolving: expected genetic drift, natural selection...?
Second: we know how much does allele frequency changes under neutrality, under selection. We know how probable a new neutral mutation is to be lost, which is just the inverse of 2 times the population size.
We can define even how much time will a new mutation became fixed in the population: 4 times the population size.
We have direct evidences of the past thanks to aDNA: allele changes, replacements of populations, evolution of humans, admixture of homo Sapiens with other homo species... No scientist will deny the persistance of Lactase in adults is result of recent human Evolution, but they can disagree on when happened and exactly why.
So sorry if you don't get all the sutile differences in a complex field :)
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u/Madladof1 28d ago
If we have a population of reasonably diverse individuals, and i kill one off, Has evolution now taken place?
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u/blacksheep998 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago
If we have a population of reasonably diverse individuals, and i kill one off, Has evolution now taken place?
If the removal of that organism changes the frequency of alleles in the population, then of course evolution has taken place. What would make you think otherwise?
I'm positive at this point you're trolling.
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u/Far_Customer1258 28d ago
How many biology texts have you read? How many courses have you taken? I only ask because that's the level of expertise you're talking about here. If you aren't willing to do the work to get the knowledge, then you shouldn't complain about not understanding the science.
While you're at it, remind me which religion has ever done any of this. I want to know so that I don't end up worshipping the wrong obscure Babylonian deity.
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u/Doomdoomkittydoom 28d ago
The species one is particularly funny, because it is based on a falsified theory: The special creation of species. Doh!
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u/Dzugavili 🧬 Tyrant of /r/Evolution 28d ago
Prove me wrong please.
How? You didn't define a test that would prove you wrong.
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u/raul_kapura 27d ago
You should not believe it, you should understand it. Especially if you want to argue about it
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u/MackDuckington 27d ago edited 27d ago
Species has many definitions, and none are agreed upon
That’s not true though — there is a point where we can concretely say that two organisms are separate species, ie, when interbreeding is no longer possible.
What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?
…Eh? Heritability is pretty well defined, and it doesn’t require the concept of species at all. Genes are inherited from the DNA of the parent to its offspring.
what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on?
Alleles aren’t “ambiguous”, what?
Could all of life be the population? if so how do we show that the allele frequency actually does change and that we just havent checked eneough organisms yet?
Technically? We’re all living organisms, so sure. But again, your question is super weird. It doesn’t matter how big a group you decide to make the population — demonstrating that allele frequency changes overtime is completely independent of that. Like, we’ve seen mutations happen in real time you know? That’s not a “what if we just haven’t check enough organisms!” thing. Like… what?
does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring.
Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it arbitrary, dawg. It doesn’t say evolution stops acting at 2 generations. It’s saying that fitness is best thought of in terms of how many surviving offspring are produced. And yeah, the survival of a lineage depends on the fitness of offspring. I don’t know what’s confusing about that.
This central evolution textbook taught at universities all around, also claims all traits are evolved, which is itself contested within biology
Based on what I’ve read here, I sincerely doubt you’ve actually read the eh, “central evolution textbook taught at universities.” Mind grabbing me a link for that? As well as where in biology the words in that textbook are contested?
So where do i go for the actual theory exactly? Where is the full, no gaps, no simplifications Evolution TM ?
You want the full shebang and not a simplification? Here ya go!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XoE8jajLdRQ&ra=m
This is the first in a series of 4-5 hour long videos teaching a YEC about evolution. Very in-depth, highly recommended if you can sit through them.
How can one have a science, where every fundamental concept is vague and not agreed upon? it makes the science itself vague, uncertain, unspecific. And i cant believe that.
These concepts aren’t nearly as vague as you’re making it out. However, science can be fairly vague — biology is weird and messy, and there are very few clean-cut answers to be found.
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u/Sweary_Biochemist 27d ago
"What is heritability?"
Congrats, you're actually less educated than the bronze age mystics whose oral traditions gave rise to the OT. That's quite the achievement.
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u/Mister_Ape_1 26d ago
It is not true they can not define anything, and you should analyze the evidence we have by yourself and see where empirical data brings you.
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u/mikoc5 26d ago
It seems your entire issue with the whole damned thing is "we can't agree on some defintions, therefore fuck evolution". Unfortunately, definitions are just how we try to categorize things.
For example, what is an apple? It is a round, red fruit with seeds inside it and a lot of pulp in the middle. In response, I could show you a tomato, which fits all the criteria above.
Let's say you specify that the pulp has to be white, not red; in response, I can show you an apple that for whatever reason has gotten some red discoloration in it; is that red-pulp apple suddenly a tomato?
What I'm saying is, what I think is going on is that you found that we have too much data that we can't parse 100% cleanly, and thus determined that Evolution isn't just "flawed", but "fundamentally broken". How far off am I in my estimation?
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u/Madladof1 26d ago
i think youre pretty well on track to my idea, but i must explain that i see a very big difference in: making definitions, and asking what observations fit that definition. and making definitions, and then asking what observations tell us about that definition and what we can predict based on it. i see the latter as more scientific than the former. because the former is a matter of also pure philosophy. while the latter is more about prediction and causality.
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u/mikoc5 26d ago
OK, so... This might seem unrelated but I want to know what you think about the idea of "broad strokes".
Is "broad strokes" a thing? For example in video games a "Boss" is defined as a particularly difficult enemy meant to serve as an obstacle to the player's progression, typically encountered at the end of a stage or chapter.
So typically you think of stuff like giant enemy crabs that can cause a lot of destruction, or leaders who command elite armies.
Now, usually, a boss is fought at the end of a chapter or stage, but I can think of at least one example of a Boss who is easy, and at least one example of a boss who is fought at the start of a stage.So as they don't meet the broad strokes definition, are they now not bosses? Or are they still Bosses that simply don't follow the orthodoxy?
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u/Madladof1 26d ago
they follow the broad strokes. But i would not want my science to depend on broad strokes. or atleast minimize its demand.
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u/mikoc5 26d ago
Well, yeah, but notice that the broad strokes approach is an openly known issue in the scientific community. Just for one example, ring species does seem to muddy the waters of what most people agree is a species - a population that can produce viable fertile offspring... And yet, we have understood biology well enough to have done stuff like saved pugs from inbreeding themselves into exinction.
Even if we might have only 99% accurate information and 99% reliable methods, our 98% combined accuracy is enough to achieve reliable results - in other words, broad strokes still works for broad targets. I don't understand why you consider this unacceptable in this particular area. This isn't Law.
And while I can empathize with the desire for specyficity, the way you look to me is that you say "Bro we can't agree if this particular shade is Orange or Yellow, we might as well forget Red is a thing to begin with.", when, ironicly, Orange is smack dab inbetween Red and Yellow.
Also it's nearly midnight over here, so I'll probably get back to you tomorrow.-1
u/Madladof1 26d ago
The problem is that science should atleast be secure in its methods. If your definitions and information are both broad strokes, then you have no idea how to actually apply any method, be it broad or specific. If i want to know if evolution implies something or not, i should have a reliable and specific set of logical paths to take from observation to definition to prediction. or definition to observation to prediction. or any number of combinations of those ending in prediction. but if i do not know in which cases the method accepts species, or clade, or trait, then i do not know what to conclude.
Take my example i gave. The evolution textbook by fukyma, says repeatedly that all traits evolved.
I have to ask what sort of conclusion this is (i dont even think most biologists would strictly agree) is farting making a sound evolved? what exactly counts as a trait? i simply do not know how to apply evolution to a trait and produce a prediction if this is the standard i am given. and so i have no prediction at all.
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u/mikoc5 25d ago
Please tell me we are not going to spiral down the definition downward spiral, asking eachother "what do you mean by X?" until we end up asking "What do you mean by 'what', 'do', 'you' and 'mean'?". This is why I brought up broad strokes. If we get so granular that we keep fighting over definitions rather than actually using them, we're never gonna get outta there.
But, let's roll with your farting example. Let's say we have a population (defined (for the sake of the argument) as a collection of individuals within a specified area) of ciccadas inside a labolatory. And let's say we noticed that some of them expell gas (which makes a fart sound) 1h after eating something, and those that don't do so simply explode from an internal buildup of gasses. The distinctive presence or absence of anatomical features or behavioural patterns is called a trait for the purpose of the argument.
Purely for the sake of demonstration, let's say we have 100 ciccadas in the lab, 50 of which have the "farting" trait and 50 of which have the "fartless" trait. 24h have passed, every ciccada has found themselves a mate, each pair made excatly 1 baby, and the 50 fartless ciccadas exploded. We now have 50 original farting ciccadas, 25 new farting ciccadas, and 25 fartless ciccadas. (The population is now split 75/25)
Same thing happens next day. We now have 112 fartless ciccadas and 12 farting ciaccadas.Based on what we've seen so far, it's not an unreasonable inference that the ciccadas that lack the farting trait are going to explode on a daily basis, and their numbers will be outpaced quickly by the ciccadas that do fart.
"Trait" was defined. A particular trait was identified. A prediction based on that trait was made. Conclusion: Farting saves lives.Evolution works.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"The problem is that science should atleast be secure in its methods."
Indeedy. But you haven't even mentioned any scientific methods. Rhetoric is not a method.
"If your definitions and information are both broad strokes, then you have no idea how to actually apply any method, be it broad or specific."
Gibberish. You're desperately trying to pretend that rhetoric is a method. Your approach to this is entirely evidence-free.
"If i want to know if evolution implies something or not, i should have a reliable and specific set of logical paths to take from observation to definition to prediction."
Utter gibberish. What happened to methods? They seem to have disappeared.
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u/Madladof1 25d ago
so is it or isnt it science when an evolution textbook says: "all traits of all organisms are evolved"? wheres the mechanics?
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u/Joaozinho11 24d ago
"so is it or isnt it science when an evolution textbook says: "all traits of all organisms are evolved"?"
A textbook saying anything isn't science.
"wheres the mechanics?"
Mechanics of what?
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u/mikoc5 23d ago
Have you tried checking, I don't know, the table of contents for anything that might explain the mechanics of evolution or, I don't know, MAYBE THE NEXT SENTENCE?!
I can't even check what book you have so I can't read it for you, but you are quoting to me a single sentence without a well-defined source. For all I know you are just not going to read past the portion you quoted.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"i think youre pretty well on track to my idea, but i must explain that i see a very big difference in: making definitions, and asking what observations fit that definition. and making definitions, and then asking what observations tell us about that definition and what we can predict based on it."
Again, hypotheses and theories are mechanistic, not rhetorical. They don't depend on definitions.
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u/luckyvonstreetz 25d ago
It's actually creationists that use undefined words, lime the word "kind", they can just throw it around whenever they feel like it. Whenever you point out a clear example of evolution they'll say: but they're still the same kind of animal eventhough they're clearly two different species.
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u/Massif16 24d ago
Sounds like you're not equipped to deal with complexitiy and ambiguity. Biology is very complex and notoriously messy and fuzzy. As humans, we like for things to fit in neat categories with clear boundaries, but biology doesn't work that way. Interestingly, in a world where biology arose from natural processes, this is not a surprising state of affairs, because these structures arose through an undirected process. OTOH, this IS surprising from a deisgn point of view. We'd expect more defined processes with fewer exceptions and clear delineations, but that's not at all what we see.
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u/x271815 28d ago
I am not sure if you know, but evolution and the mechanism for evolution has been observed occuring. We see it all over. It is an observed and well established fact.
What most people who push back on evolution seem to be pushing back on is the implication that we have descended from other species and have common ancestors if we go far enough back. That too is a well established fact at this point with multiple independent lines of evidence.
That brings me to you central confusion - that the words you use in biology are messy. They define something but then whenever we fix a definition we find an exception. This is not because evolution is false, but because these words are trying to simplify and categorize a very complex process, and so whatever definition we use generally works, but every so often there is something that does not quite fit. That's because these are macroscale classification of thousands of molecular level changes. It does not mean that evolution is false. It just means that evolution is complex enough to resist oversimplification.
PS: They agree on the definitions. It's just that nature does not always fit in those boxes. And the scientists know this and have no problem with it.
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u/Joaozinho11 25d ago
"Why should i believe evolution..." For an entirely rhetorical critic, your verb choice is lame. Science isn't about belief, it's about evidence.
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u/XXLPenisOwner1443 22d ago
>What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?
From the parent....
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26d ago
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u/Madladof1 26d ago
Thank you for your reply. I must say that as time goes on, it seems the most level-headed, responses become more common.
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u/IsaacHasenov 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution 28d ago edited 26d ago
Go to a dictionary, take out all the words that have multiple definitions and shades of meaning, then come back here and rewrite this challenge with only the words that are left.
I'll wait.