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
Biology Darwin and the female body 29 Sep 2009 Paul Griffiths reviews: Natalie Angier Woman: An Intimate Geography, Melbourne, Scribe, 2009 (464 pp). ISBN 9-781-92137-241-4 (paperback) RRP $32.95. Hannah Holmes The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself, Melbourne, Scribe, 2009 (368 pp). ISBN 9-781-92137-252-0 (paperback) RRP $35.00. Read More
Biology Speciation – a brief history: Linnaeus 1 Apr 20145 Apr 2014 One of the fundamental aspects of evolution is speciation. This is the process by which more species come into being, and there are many different definitions and mechanisms that have been proposed by biologists in the last couple of centuries. I aim to write an occasional series on what it… Read More
Evolution Are species life forms? 19 Jun 201719 Jun 2017 This is a section of my forthcoming revision to Species, presented here for comments that I can steal – umm, I mean for peer commentary. The philosophical ideas and terms of Wittgenstein have played an interesting and underappreciated role in the species debate: we saw Beckner appeal to family resemblance… 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..