Evolution quotes 15 Apr 2010 Natural Selection is not Evolution. Yet, ever since the the two words have been in common use, the theory of Natural Selection has been employed as a convenient abbreviation for the theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection, put forward by Darwin and Wallace. [Ronald Aylmer Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, 1930: 1] Evolution History Quotes EvolutionHistoryQuotes
Evolution Peace in our time! 18 May 2008 I have been called, for my denial of outright atheism, a Chamberlainist. Well I never felt so much like Neville Chamberlain today as I walked through the corridors of the Seat of Learning* with a contract from the publishers for my book Species: A history of an Idea. I felt… Read More
Biology Atavisms and phylogeny 15 Sep 20094 Oct 2017 “Everybody knows” that species can lose features through evolution: snakes, whales and sea cows all lost hind limbs. But occasionally, they can “revert”, like the snake shown in the photo below, which has grown one limb. However, many people are confused as to why this happens. Read More
Biology A leading philosopher blogs… about cuttlefish! 4 Jul 20124 Jul 2012 Peter Godfrey-Smith is one of the leading philosophers of biology and science, and he is presently Distinguished Professor of philosophy at CUNY’s Graduate Centre. He also blogs! It’s nice to see that employed academics are catching up with the rest of us. What’s really interesting is that Peter is focussing… Read More
Also, isn’t it about time we dispense with the ‘natural’ part and just leave it as ‘selection’? There’s no fundamental difference between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ selection anyway, as humans are nowadays well accepted [by reasonable people] to be as much part of nature as anything else. There’s only one selection, the ‘natural’ is rather superfluous IMO… Added to the equation of selection with evolution is also the utter neglect of non-selective processes and a rather horrible teaching thereof at lower levels (drift is generally taught as this unimportant thing that happens only in remote endangered species populations or something…), and get the epic facepalm that is the inability even of some professional biologists to grasp evolution properly…
Whether or not it is of significance for our understanding of organic evolution, there is a reasonably clear distinction between artificial and natural selection. In cases of the former there is an effective intention to influence the relative frequencies of different types in a population. In cases of the latter, intentions do not play such a role.
Yeah, but what did this Fisher guy know, eh? I mean, he wasn’t even a biologist – he was a bloody mathematician! and a theologian. Just like Dembski. They both even invented concepts of information (hm, actually Fisher was a bit of a waster, only inventing one).
Putting Darwin on a pedestal and proclaiming him to be the saviour of biology certainly didn’t help in getting this across to the public at large..