[FRIAM] random v stochastic v indeterminate

[┣glen┫]

I haven't been receiving posts... but perhaps it's just me.

Roger sez:
> The theory of natural selection does not explain the origin of variety,

Exactly.  And I think this  is all Wagner's preface quote implies.  And it's that which makes Nick's response inadequate.  It should be fairly obvious that selection is separate from what's being selected, *except* in the constraining/guiding sense you mention below.


> however it does depend on variety existing and continuing to exist.  If
> natural selection led to runaway fixation of genotypes in a population, it
> would be game over.  One would expect that the fingerprints of natural
> selection should be found everywhere that living organisms might modulate
> the origin and maintenance of variety in their populations.
> 
> As for the origin of innovations, I'd say that's a value system which has
> nothing to do with natural selection, it's a moral aesthetics that has to
> do with measuring progress, curating shiny baubles from evolutionary
> history for the purposes of arguing with other curators of shiny baubles.

Heh, it's a nice juxtaposition for you to use the metaphor of natural selection's fingerprints, then balk at the metaphor of innovation. 8^)


On 08/23/2017 11:32 AM, gⅼеɳ wrote:
> So, perhaps the problem lies in "innovation-as-organism" versus "innovation-as-lineage"?  Selection clearly causes lineage (via synthesis/assemblage/construction), built from the building blocks of organisms that survive to reproduce.  But selection clearly does not cause/construct those organisms.  Yes, as Robert points out, selection guides or constrains which organisms can arise at any given point, based on the shape of the space that is the environment (aka fitness).  But selection doesn't construct the organism.  Other parts of the evolutionary conception do that (mutation, crossover, etc.).
> 
> By that reasoning, both sides are right and (again): Brevity is the soul of stupidity.  Selection does *and* does not create innovations.  It does create (novel) lineages.  But it does not create (novel) organisms.
> 
> On 08/22/2017 06:34 PM, gepr ⛧ wrote:
>> But none of this seems to indicate that *selection* or survival to mating age *creates* the new attribute. Survival to mating age only preserves whatever phenotype was constructed by the genes and ontogeny. Whether you call genes and ontogeny random or not is irrelevant. We could easily call it 'ignorance'... i.e. ignorance constructs the phenotype, then the environment decides its fecundity.
> 
>>>> "Natural selection can /preserve/ innovations, but it cannot create them."
> 

-- 
␦glen?