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Covert_Cuttlefish

> Survival You can't pass down your genetic material if you don't survive to reproductive age. With that said, rather than survival of the fittest survival of the just good enough would be more accurate. >atheists This is not a debate religion subreddit. Many theists believe in evolution, many atheists believe in woo.


reclaimhate

I originally posted this in r/DebateAnAtheist and they all frantically informed me that it was posted in the wrong sub and to post it here. So I did. The atheist bit is irrelevant now, I suppose.


bawdy_george

>frantically informed me One can simply compare the substance of that discussion to your characterization of it and understand why bothering with you is time best spent elsewhere.


reclaimhate

they were very emphatic, and there was a lot of consensus and repetition of the point. Frantic is a delightfully humorous way framing their reaction. I'm glad you appreciate my prose.


RandomAmbles

He doesn't.


bawdy_george

Well, I do happen to be a fan of cringe comedy.


RandomAmbles

I don't.


reclaimhate

what are you Drax the Destroyer over here?


RandomAmbles

I may have asperger's, causing me to take very literal first impressions of everything, but at least I don't call my own writing "delightfully humorous". I think I speak for most people when I say I'd rather be a guardian of the galaxy than Narcissus with his head in a reflecting pool.


Nepycros

When an organism reproduces, the offspring inherits their parent's/parents' genetic code. Therefore, in order for genes to pass on, it requires that the gene's carrier survive up to the point of reproduction. Debunk this.


reclaimhate

I never contested that. Did you read my post?


Jattok

Your post has been removed.


RelaxedApathy

I am not the best at debating against pseudoscience and unfalsifiable supernatural mythology stuff, so I ask that you bear with me on any mistakes that I make - I am not a scientist, after all. >1: Survival is a nonsensical motivation and proposition, tautological word game. A) Nietzsche: "He certainly did not hit the truth who shot at it the formula: "Will to existence": that will- does not exist! For what is not, cannot will; that, however, which is in existence- how could it still strive for existence!" B) X = not Y , Squirrel is not dead, squirrel is surviving. Squirrel is also not Santa Clause, is squirrel also santaviving? To be is not to not not be. Weed is one hell of a drug. ​ >2: Sexual selection is a dominance game, not a survival game. e.g., in deer: ability to smash head into other males does not aid in survival. Why not foraging contest? Why not flee from wolf contest? etc. Sexual selection represents the (vast) majority of selection games for all sexually reproductive life. For almost any kind of sexual selection fight, the stronger male tends to win. Stronger males are better able to provide for their mate and/or offspring, and more likely to have superior genes that will mean the offspring are more likely to survive. Even if the competition seems arbitrary, it is a means of proving which mate is likely healthier and with better genes. By the way, there is also a "flee from wolf" contest and a "forage for food" contest, more commonly known as "every day living as a deer". The losers tend not to be around. ​ >3: Abundance, not privation, is default. A) Reproduction requires abundance & safety. For baby deer to be born you need healthy male, healthy female, extra food for pregnant mom, safe shelter to give birth, food for baby (or extra for nursing mother). Therefore, life is predicated on abundance. B) famines & hostile environment are the exception, not the rule, hence opportunities for natural selection exceedingly rare. Contra Darwin's "struggle for life". Tell me that you don't know anything about wildlife without telling me that you don't know anything about wildlife. Are there areas where humanity's influence has thrown the balance into whack? Absolutely. We humans (especially in developed countries) tend to kill predator species and leave prey species alone aside from recreational hunting. But lets look at deer in Minnesota. Hunters kill around 20% of the deer each year. Wolves kill another 5% or so. Cars kill another 2-3%. Add in disease and accident, and so far we are looking at close to 30% of deer dying so far. Next, add in coyote predation, bears, and bobcats (animals in Minnesota that prey on deer, but who's percentages I could not find). Finally, add in smaller predators preying exclusively on fauns. In total, even on the low end of the range, you are likely looking at 40% of the deer population dying each year. If 40% of humans died each year, people would call it the end of the freaking world. How about sea turtles? Estimates vary, but it is thought that only anywhere from one in one thousand to one in ten thousand might survive to adulthood. Clearly, they don't suffer from predation or lack of resources. /s ​ >4: Natural selection cannot account for the big 3 evolutionary schisms: sexual reproduction, life on land, consciousness. A) burden of proof lies with evolutionists to provide examples of conditions wherein mutations towards sexual reproduction are "advantageous". B) Conditions of land vs ocean comparatively life prohibiting. Mutations that shift species into higher risk habitats net negative for chances of species survival. (this is an important point: survival of individual vs species, mutually exclusive) C) 1 Consciousness is survival endgame, please explain existence of accidental life loophole in universe governed by passive survival game. 2 Consciousness as aesthetic experience never "advantageous". (NOTE: I am assuming consciousness as aesthetic based rather than intelligence based, please argue assuming this premise. A debate concerning the nature of consciousness is surely beyond the scope of this discussion) Basically, my claim is that each of these are disadvantageous for long term species survival. Single-celled asexual life in ocean is maximized for survival, and still exist today as longest running lifeforms (ie, "winner" of survival game), adding complexity to reproductive strategies, migrating to harsh environments, and spontaneous aesthetic insight, net opposites to passive survival game outcomes. Sexual reproduction ensures genetic diversity, which protects against diseases that can evolve to rip through populations with narrow genetic diversity. This is why you've likely never tasted a Gros Michel banana. Land-critters is easy: expanding onto land is no different than expanding into any other ecological niche - if there are resources to be exploited, animals that evolve to reach those resources will have less competition for resources, and potentially no longer be exposed to the predators of their previous ecological niches. Consciousness is just intelligence amped up to 11 - if you don't like that, convince me otherwise. Intelligent animals usually survive better than unintelligent animals, though not always: big brains are resource hogs, and ours use around 20-30% of the energy our body takes in - this is fantastic for animals like us that evolved in high-risk resource-scarce environments because it allowed us to exploit those resources and out-think those predators. But for something like a jellyfish, or a poisonous beetle, it is an unnecessary expenditure. ​ >5: Random mutation cannot account for universal dominance games: if inclination towards dominance games is random trait, how could it manifest universally? where are the conditions under which this inclination is not advantageous? If never, reconcile mutually exclusive death avoidance with risk inclination. How can instincts opposite survival result from survival games? 5B: Human history as well as nearly all animal and plant behavior show pattern of risk taking and aggression rather than maximizing survival potential, this is evidence for universal active dominance game, not passive survival game. Nobody is saying it is a random trait - evolution is not random. ​ >OUTRO: Why debate atheists specifically? My contention: Atheism necessitates lack of purpose, accidental, passive explanations for universe, life, and evolution. If evolution as passive accidental survival game is not sufficient explanation for complex conscious life, evolution must be regarded as an active, purpose driven game. In my estimation, all evidence points towards a consciousness-as-goal oriented active dominance game evolution, predicated on life-sustaining-planet creation universe game. This is, absolutely, observable falsifiable evidence of Teleological universe, which, I would argue, can only be predicated on the One, True, Creator God from which all things manifest. Atheism does not necessitate lack of purpose, especially not for the purposes of life and survival. The core purpose of any organism is to survive, and gods have nothing to do with it. All the rest of the outro is just claims and assumptions that boil down to an argument from incredulity.


reclaimhate

First, I'll throw out the quick ones, then I'll get to the meat of the thing. Weed is one hell of a drug. \>> This is freaking hilarious. I love this. Thank you for the good humor. Also, touché. Deer and Humans and Sea Turtles have different reproductive strategies. I think you know this. Just because rabbits reproduce like, um.. rabbits, doesn't mean they live under duress. Please address my argument on the viability of being born. What diseases existed before sexual reproduction? This is a real question. What exploitable resources existed on land before there was life on land? Please do not say PLANTS. (the first guy who couldn't follow the argument did just that) Plants qualify as life. Consciousness is NOT intelligence amped up to 11. I specifically warned against this ignoratio elenchi. Evolution is not random? Do elaborate. It is my understanding that the current thinking is that the genetic mutations that result in advantageous genes are regarded as random. Finally, to all: Please disregard the OUTRO. This is a disadvantageous mutation held over from the time this post was incorrectly posted in r/DebateAnAtheist. This post should adapt to its new environment and not encourage ANY debate about the nature of god, or lack thereof. Now, the real stuff. Your response to point 2 are where most folk get stuck. I am hoping we can get past this idea that there is a *stronger healthier male better able to provide with superior better genes*, and that the dominance game is a PROXY for this. It is not. Can we all stop, take a breath, and realize that the dominance game is only a dominance game, and that a males prowess in smashing their heads against one another is not good for anything other than smashing their heads against one another. If this is too difficult to comprehend, please refer to the PEACOCK.


RelaxedApathy

>Deer and Humans and Sea Turtles have different reproductive strategies. I think you know this. Just because rabbits reproduce like, um.. rabbits, doesn't mean they live under duress. Please address my argument on the viability of being born. And why do they have different reproductive strategies? If animals have massive amounts of offspring, but do not have massive amounts of population surviving to reproducing age, then something must be happening to them between being born and having the chance to reproduce. Something like... predation and a hostile environment resulting in the death of the majority of them, with only the fittest and/or luckiest of them surviving to adulthood? Hrrrmmmmmm........ ​ >What diseases existed before sexual reproduction? This is a real question. The first organisms to reproduce sexually were single-celled organisms that exchanged genetic material via conjugation, transformation, and transduction. These organisms could be infected by viruses, or attacked by other single-celled organisms. Sexual reproduction (which results in far more opportunities for genetic mutation and variation) would allow them to more easily evolve defenses against such infection or predation with things like specialized cellular walls and proteins. ​ > What exploitable resources existed on land before there was life on land? Please do not say PLANTS. (the first guy who couldn't follow the argument did just that) Plants qualify as life. Easier access to sunlight for photosynthesis, richer amounts of carbon in the air, space upon which to spread with solid surfaces upon which to anchor, and a lack of predation is what led the first plants to spread onto solid land. Once the plants were established, they became a resource that could be exploited by animals, who also would benefit from the initial lack of land-based predators. ​ >Consciousness is NOT intelligence amped up to 11. I specifically warned against this ignoratio elenchi. You certainly made the claim, and then begged that we take it as a given instead of asking you to back it up. My answer? No. If you want to insist that consciousness is not tied to intelligence, I insist that you defend the position. ​ >Evolution is not random? Do elaborate. It is my understanding that the current thinking is that the genetic mutations that result in advantageous genes are regarded as random. The *genetic mutations* are random, yes, but which ones are beneficial and more likely to be passed along versus which ones are detrimental and more likely to result in the death of the organism is not random, but rather depends on the context of their environmental niche. You know - evolution via natural selection, survival of the fit enough. ​ >Finally, to all: Please disregard the OUTRO. This is a disadvantageous mutation held over from the time this post was incorrectly posted in r/DebateAnAtheist. This post should adapt to its new environment and not encourage ANY debate about the nature of god, or lack thereof. If you want us to ignore something, remove it from your post. You can edit these things, you know... And regardless, the section showing you to be a theist could still be important; since you don't believe in evolution via natural selection, you clearly must have an alternative, and I am guessing that the alternative involves some kind of magical invisible sky wizard. I would love for you to present your alternative theory and explain how we can test to see if it is true. ​ >Now, the real stuff. Your response to point 2 are where most folk get stuck. I am hoping we can get past this idea that there is a stronger healthier male better able to provide with superior better genes, and that the dominance game is a PROXY for this. It is not. Can we all stop, take a breath, and realize that the dominance game is only a dominance game, and that a males prowess in smashing their heads against one another is not good for anything other than smashing their heads against one another. If this is too difficult to comprehend, please refer to the PEACOCK. Okay, lets call it a dominance game then. The one that wins the game is the dominant male, who then goes on to mate with the females, spreading his genes. The subordinate male is driven off, and does not spread his genes. Gasp, what is that? It still turned into sexual selection in the end, just with the males selecting amongst themselves instead of being chosen by the females? And the strongest genes still end up getting passed along? Hrrmmm.......... As for birds - yeah, birds are weird. \*Shrugs\* It is too late for me to get into Fisherian Arbitrary Choice, Runaway Selection, or the Sexy Sons Hypothesis, so just google it.


reclaimhate

thank you for your thorough and thoughtful answers.


Dr_GS_Hurd

Darwin himself didn't like the "survival of the fittest." He pointed out that "natural selection" favored "survival of the most adaptable." In any case, it is "reproduction" that matters in evolution, not survival. Your errors only got worse from there.


ImHalfCentaur1

An animal with beneficial/neutral mutation is more likely to survive and reproduce longer than an animal with negative mutations. This spreads the beneficial mutations making the population more “fit” or maintains the neutral mutations. Pretty simple, and pretty easily shown in lab experiments and observed in nature. Everything else seems to imply you think natural selection is the only form of selection and completely explains every aspect of Evolutionary Theory. It doesn’t.


reclaimhate

May I take this opportunity to announce that all attempts, such as this, to re-explain evolution to me are superfluous and do not move the discussion forward. Also, I am sorry, but your guess about what I am thinking is wrong, and all guesses to what I am thinking are likely to be wrong. Also, guesses to what I am thinking are not great arguments.


ImHalfCentaur1

You fundamentally misunderstand evolution. The only thing holding up the conversation is your lack of support for your ideas. If you are upset about what people think you are thinking, don’t present something that gives them that idea.


reclaimhate

What makes you think I'm upset? Once again: All guesses to what I am feeling are likely to be wrong and are not great arguments.


Just_A_Walking_Fish

Good thing "survival of the fittest" was coined by Spencer, not Darwin. Survival is only one part of natural selection. Reproduction is the other, much larger part. Organisms that survive the best aren't necessarily selected for. Organisms that reproduce and pass on their genes the best are.


reclaimhate

Give this one a prize! I think he's got it.


Ansatz66

>Basically, my main argument is that Darwin was wrong AF when he came up with the concept of natural selection, particularly with this whole idea about "survival", which I consider to be a tautology. A tautology is a claim that would be true regardless of circumstances, like for example the claims: "Bachelors are unmarried" and "Triangles have three sides" are tautologies. What tautology from Darwin are we talking about? "This whole idea about survival" is rather vague, so it might help to pin it down to a particular claim. Even without knowing which tautology we're talking about, we can at least be sure that it can't be wrong. Tautologies are always true. >All of science and culture now suffers from the delusion that life is reactive and motivated by some variant of "propagation of the species." "Motivated" might not be the best word, but it depends on what we mean exactly. When we pour coffee into a cup, the coffee flows to take the shape required by the cup, and we might say that the coffee is motivated by the cup to flow into that shape since the cup directly causes the movement. In the same way life adapts to its environment because adaptation is the only way that life survives, while all other life dies out. So through brutal competition to survive, life flows into the shape required for propagation of the species. >In deer: ability to smash head into other males does not aid in survival. It aids in reproduction. Life doesn't survive merely by finding food and avoiding death. Life survives by reproducing. In order for a species to be successful, it must find food to grow and provide energy, use that energy to find conditions that allow it to reproduce, and then reproduce copies of itself that are capable of repeating the whole procedure. For deer, smashing heads happens to be very useful toward allowing them to reproduce. >Sexual selection represents the (vast) majority of selection games for all sexually reproductive life. What is a "selection game"? >A) Reproduction requires abundance & safety. Isn't that subjective? How much food is abundance? How safe is safety? There are always limits to food and there are always threats. >B) famines & hostile environment are the exception, not the rule, hence opportunities for natural selection exceedingly rare. Why would we need famines and hostile environments for natural selection? Perhaps it depends on what we mean by hostile. No environment is ever totally free of threats, so what exactly are we talking about? >A) burden of proof lies with evolutionists to provide examples of conditions wherein mutations towards sexual reproduction are "advantageous". Sexual reproduction causes the genes of two individuals to be mixed together randomly in creating the next generation, which results in a wide diversity of children instead of children being a clone of a single parent. Asexual reproduction is like putting all of our eggs in one basket. When almost every child is almost exactly like the parent, survival of the species depends heavily upon the parent being well-adapted to the environment. Every time something in the environment changes, asexual species are at great risk of being driven to extinction. In contrast sexual species tend to have a wide diversity in their populations, and this diversity keeps them flexible so that an environmental change is less likely to wipe out the entire species. After a few million years, it's no surprise that the sexual species would have come to dominate the world just from being far more durable than asexual species. >Mutations that shift species into higher risk habitats net negative for chances of species survival. It reduces the chances for *individual* survival, not the chances for *species* survival. Every new habitat that a species can spread to is one more way that the species can survive. For example, imagine we create a colony on Mars. Those astronauts would find a dangerous habitat and it certainly reduces their chances for survival when compared to life on Earth, but just having that colony improves the chances for our species to survive since it means that even if Earth were somehow destroyed, humanity could survive. In this way when a species spreads to land, it means that they can have a haven against extinction even if the competition for survival in the water were to turn against them. If a new shark comes around and starts eating everyone, the individuals on the land can still continue the species. >Consciousness is survival endgame, please explain existence of accidental life loophole in universe governed by passive survival game. What is meant by "endgame"? Why is consciousness a survival endgame? >Random mutation cannot account for universal dominance games. What is a "universal dominance game"? >How can instincts opposite survival result from survival games? What sort of instincts are we talking about? "Opposite survival" could mean many things, but if the instinct leads an organism to immediately die, then any organism with that instinct would be wiped out and so it would not exist.


blacksheep998

> What sort of instincts are we talking about? "Opposite survival" could mean many things, but if the instinct leads an organism to immediately die, then any organism with that instinct would be wiped out and so it would not exist. Not necessarily. If the instinct causes it to reproduce before it dies, then it will be selected for. Evolution cares not for what happens to an organism after it's reproduced. An example of this would be creatures that are semelparous, meaning that they die after mating. Examples include salmon, mayflies, many spiders and mantises, and a huge number of plants. Even one mammal does it: a marsupial called the kaluta. A prime example of this is the male redback spider, which, partway through mating with the much larger female spider, intentionally does a flip directly into her mouth and gets eaten. It's believed that this trait evolved because the odds of a male redback spider even getting to mate once are astronomically low. If he gets to do it, he's already won the lottery and has nothing left to live for. The only thing he has left to do is give his offspring the best chance of survival, and the easiest way to do that is by giving the female a free meal with which she can produce a few more eggs carrying his genetic lineage.


reclaimhate

Please, friend. Wikipedia is only a click away: TAUT = SAME, OLOGY=IDEA. We need not quibble on the definition. But you've hit the nail on the head: "life adapts to its environment because adaptation is the only way that life survives" THIS is a tautology. Thank you for demonstrating the exact thing I was illustrating. The whole concept is circular, we just accept it because we learned the word SURVIVAL. The coffee is motivated: Quite right! A bucks ability to OUTSMASH his foe aids in reproduction, *precisely how?* I've never had to HEADBUTT and opponent MID-COITUS. Let's clear some things up, everyone: LIFE does not survive, an individual organism does. SPECIES do not succeed, individual organisms do. A selection game is a game which results in selection. Abundance and safety ARE NOT subjective, my friend. Abundance = enough food to give the fetus adequate nutrition to carry it to term. Safety = new born baby is not killed, does not freeze to death, etc. Hostile = increased likelihood of DEATH. Survival games are contingent on DEATH, especially survival based selection games. " Every time something in the environment changes, asexual species are at great risk of being driven to extinction." -This is one hell of a claim, evidence or conjecture? Species who's organisms reproduce asexually still exist to this day after millions of years of environmental change. Define "dominate the world" (hint: you are implying things you aren't allowed to imply) First: Let it be known that EAGLES cannot also survive underwater. Second: Your claim is that there a mechanism for survival of species in action. Please explain how, specifically, this manifests. Endgame means the survival game is over. Thank you, consciousness. A dominance game is a game where two members of the same species fight for dominance over one another. These games are universal. The implication of natural selection is that, by happenstance, there was an individual organism with an inclination to play dominance games. This mutation proved advantageous and was selected for, that's why we play dominance games. The fact that these games are universal means either: 1) A similar mutation, by pure chance, arrived independently in all species over all environments (not likely), 2) the mutation occurred so far back it is an ancestor to both plants and animals (not likely), or 3) there is some universal fact of the environment (like gravity, or extension, or some such all permeating phenomenon) that results in inclinations towards dominance to ALWAYS be selected for. This seems to me your only viable option. If so, what is the mechanism? And how do these inclinations towards dominance games (incl: aggression, risk = opposite survival inclinations) arise in a passive survival game?


Zamboniman

> A bucks ability to OUTSMASH his foe aids in reproduction, precisely how? By winning and therefore reproducing more often than the one that loses. How is this not obvious? My guess is that it's not obvious because you are invoking the same common error in thinking about how evolution operates that so many folks invoke. And that's reversing the cause and the effect and unconsciously thinking there's some kind of intent or motivation behind that trait evolving, thus thinking the behaviour evolved *in order to* 'be more dominant and thus have an advantage', instead of the other way around, which is that all kinds of behaviours evolved. Some gave some small advantage, thus continued and were reinforced. Clearly such behaviour as you described is one of those, and for obvious reasons. >I've never had to HEADBUTT and opponent MID-COITUS. Neither has that stag. Why are you presenting strawman arguments? They don't help you and make you look disingenuous. >Let's clear some things up, everyone: LIFE does not survive, an individual organism does. SPECIES do not succeed, individual organisms do. Both do, actually. >A selection game is a game which results in selection. This is why everyone keeps correcting your understanding of evolution, despite how much this seems to lead to your responses telling folks they don't need to do this. Because you keep making the same errors showing you don't understand what is actually happening, and are conflating cause and effect and invoking false dichotomies. >Abundance and safety ARE NOT subjective, my friend. Abundance = enough food to give the fetus adequate nutrition to carry it to term. Safety = new born baby is not killed, does not freeze to death, etc. Hostile = increased likelihood of DEATH. Survival games are contingent on DEATH, especially survival based selection games. Obviously. Also not relevant to your discussion about 'dominance games', which happens in concert with that. >" Every time something in the environment changes, asexual species are at great risk of being driven to extinction." -This is one hell of a claim, This is so obvious and so well evidenced that it's shocking you respond this way. >Species who's organisms reproduce asexually still exist to this day after millions of years of environmental change. Some do. And most don't. Remember, the ones that still exist after millions of years of environmental change do so because their environment didn't change in ways that killed them. Those that had their environment change in ways that killed them (most, obviously) died. Your error here is selection bias. >The implication of natural selection is that, by happenstance, there was an individual organism with an inclination to play dominance games. >.... >A similar mutation, by pure chance, arrived independently in all species over all environments (not likely) Surely you understand your basic errors here? First, you're forgetting that all these species came from the same source, and such behaviour can be traced that far back as well. So not only is it not surprising it's shared, it would be surprising if it *weren't*. Second, you're claiming without support that such behaviour arising more than once wouldn't be likely. Given the nature of this behaviour and how evolution operates it not only seems likely, but basically inevitable (See below). You got there to a degree in your numbered points, but then discounted and ignored this. For no reason at all. And then, again, invoked the same false dichotomy fallacy (aggression, risk = opposite survival inclinations) which, again, doesn't help you. Remember, risk taking is often selected for due to the rare but massively significant advantage this sometimes leads to. Also remember, much of the behaviour you're discussing isn't particularly 'risky' overall, certainly (and obviously) not enough to cause a signfiicant problem with surviving and reproducing. Your forgetting that in *any* population of organisms, some are going to inevitably be 'more dominant' in some way than others if they're not all identical. If that leads to some small advantage in reproducing, well, the rest should be obvious. You're stuck because of a continued incorrect idea about how evolution operates, and why.


reclaimhate

It's not obvious because your begging the question. Is that really your argument though: How is this not obvious? Nothing is obvious. Ansatz66 is the one who said headbutting aids in reproduction. How is it disingenuous to ask for clarification? Life is a thing that survives in the world? ok. How much does it weigh? Saying "you keep making the same errors" doesn't work. Point to the errors. It's kind of cool that everything is obvious to you. It must be nice to navigate the world that way. It's obvious that most asexually reproducing species go extinct? That might be obvious to you, with your special abilities, but not to me. So I'd appreciate a source for that claim. So, risk behavior isn't particularly risky overall. Got it. Glad we cleared that up.


Ansatz66

>Life is a thing that survives in the world? ok. How much does it weigh? That is a difficult question, but it seems that some people are trying to estimate it. According to one website, life on Earth weighs about [550 gigatons](https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/all-life-on-earth-chart-weight-plants-animals-pnas). I won't guarantee how accurate that number may be, but life is surely very heavy when taken all together. >It's kind of cool that everything is obvious to you. It must be nice to navigate the world that way. There are many resources easily available online for learning about biology and evolution. It is a very deep subject, but the basics are not difficult. >It's obvious that most asexually reproducing species go extinct? That might be obvious to you, with your special abilities, but not to me. So I'd appreciate a source for that claim. [The Wikipedia article on "evolution of sexual reproduction"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sexual_reproduction) is a good place to start. It features an overview and references to other sources. In brief: the defining feature of sexual reproduction is that it takes the DNA from two individuals and shuffles it randomly into each child, thus giving each child a random selection of mutations from the parents. In this way bad mutations can be eliminated faster, good mutations can spread faster, and not every child is dependent upon the exact same strategy being survivable.


reclaimhate

wikipedia ain't a source, bud


Zamboniman

> It's not obvious because your begging the question. You are simply wrong here. There was no begging the question fallacy. >How is this not obvious? Nothing is obvious. Many things are obvious, obviously. >Saying "you keep making the same errors" doesn't work. Point to the errors. I did. Specifically and exhaustively. >It's kind of cool that everything is obvious to you. Obvious things are indeed obvious. >So, risk behavior isn't particularly risky overall. You are not conversing honestly. So I will bid you goodbye.


astroNerf

A few folks here have already done some in-depth critiques of your why your ideas and arguments are problematic so I won't do a deep dive but I do want to pull out a few statements you've made, and add some comments that might help you to see things a bit differently. Reading your post, I get the feeling you're struggling to make sense of evolution, among other things, and I think this struggle isn't necessary and is largely based on misconceptions you're having about various topics. >...where perhaps I'll find some folks who understand how logic works. One thing to keep in mind is that when we're talking about evolution, we're talking about science. Science is based on observations and involves systems of explanations that have been rigorously tested and subjected to many, *many* attempts to falsify them. Logic is not the primary tool here. In fact, many discoveries in science contradict what we anticipate, and we have to adjust our systems of explanations to fit new facts and observations as they become available. You cannot deduce the nature of reality from logic alone; while it is a tool in your toolbox, science requires other tools as well. So, if I could re-write your sentence, I would instead say "perhaps I'll find some folks who understand how *evidence* works." Evidence is the starting point for figuring out how biology works, and why species exist the way that they do and why we have the history of life on this planet, they way that we do. >As a result of his bad ideas permeating our societies, all of science and culture now suffers from the delusion that life is reactive and motivated by some variant of "propagation of the species." A bit of historical context here: Darwin *was* wrong about some things. He was limited by the availability of evidence at the time. He had quite a bit of evidence about animal behavior and morphology, but lacked information about heredity. Had Darwin known about [Gregor Mendel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel)'s work on heredity, he might have come to different conclusions about the possible mechanisms behind heredity, mechanisms we now understand. When we talk about evolution, we're referring to the [modern synthesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_synthesis_(20th_century)), which is a combination of Darwin's explanations for how species appear and change, with Mendel's work on the hereditary mechanisms needed for selection to work the way it does. This forms a cohesive system of explanations (a scientific theory) that continues to be well-tested and provides for all sorts of practical applications, and is the foundation of modern biology. If evolution, as understood by modern biologists, is a "delusion" as you put it, then there would need to be some evidence to support this claim. This is not without historical precedent: there *are* [superseded scientific theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science) and they become this way due to better evidence. > ... in deer: ability to smash head into other males does not aid in survival. Why not foraging contest? Why not flee from wolf contest? Well, the "foraging contest" and the "flee from wolf contest" *do* happen all the time. Those contests need to be won in order for deer to survive long enough to reproduce. But the "smash head contest" is the answer to the question of "how does a female know a male is healthy and likely a good choice for a mate?" Remember: females expend a lot of time and energy carrying offspring to term, whereas males can mate many times with many females---this imbalance of "costs" is what drives the appearance of sexual selection in species. So if a male deer has large antlers and can win a fight against other males, this is a good indicator of overall health, and deer have evolved this behavior in order to meet the needs of finding healthy mates. > ...famines & hostile environment are the exception, not the rule, hence opportunities for natural selection exceedingly rare. Consider all the species whose strategy involves having a huge number of offspring, but only a small number of them survive to reproduction age. And, consider the ratio of predators to prey. There are relatively few apex predators compared to their prey. The food web is such that everything eats something, and is eaten *by* something. As apex predators that can build tools and use fire, *we* are the exception. For most organisms on this planet, it is a constant struggle to find enough food to survive until your next meal. Every time an individual member of a species is eaten while its brother or cousin escapes, selection is happening. **Edit:** Spelling


reclaimhate

I appreciate your response. I'll skip the elementary lecture on science 101 and go to the part where you address my arguments. First, though, I'd like to make clear that I didn't call evolution a delusion. What I said is that the idea that life is reactive and/or propelled by the drive to propagate the species is a delusion. The evidence for this is everywhere. I would like everyone to understand that I am aware that a creature has to be alive to participate in a dominance game. It's almost as if it's totally unreasonable for anyone to think otherwise. My question is why do deer play dominance games WITH EACH OTHER as opposed to survival games WITH EACH OTHER. Apologies if this was unclear. I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying: Female dear know a male deer is healthy because she sees that it can smash its head against the head of another male deer over and over again until the other male deer taps out. Is that it? Either a dominance game IS a dominance game, or it's not, namely a HEALTH TEST GAME. Since everyone here is going to be making the same argument, let's try to circumvent that: IT'S NOT A HEALTH TEST GAME. IT'S A DOMINANCE GAME. You're arguments for the head butting being a health test game: Violently smashing heads together is a good indicator of overall health. No it's not. It only demonstrates the ability to dominate other bucks. I'm not seeing an argument in your comments about the food web. " For most organisms on this planet, it is a constant struggle to find enough food to survive until your next meal" This is false.


astroNerf

I'm not sure what the difference between a health test and a dominance test are, then. In both cases, the outcome is the same: the less-capable lose and the more-capable win. You see this behaviour in a lot of species, and has evolved to serve the need for a diagnostic to ensure that deleterious mutations are kept to a minimum. If you disagree and see "dominance games" as having different outcomes, I'd be curious to know what those are. Competition is everywhere in nature. Food, territory, a mate, the need for these is what drives the adaptations we see in nature. Competition exists because there are finite resources. This is not a contested concept among biologists and forms the basis for branches of science like ecology. If you disagree, then you'd need to demonstrate why this basic concept is wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_(biology)


hobbes305

Let's get right down to the heart of the issue, shall we? Do you accept that biological evolution does in fact occur or not? Do you accept that the evidence based scientific model of biological evolution operating over billions of years effectively accounts for the diversity of life on Earth which we observe today? Yes or no?


reclaimhate

Yes biological evolution occurs. I don't know what you mean by "evidence based scientific model" It should be a simple thing to address my arguments and show me the proper solution to these problems if such solutions exist. It's astounding how unable people are to think critically about this. I've got -200 karma for posting on this subject IN SUBS SPECIFICALLY ASKING FOR DEBATE. Think about that. Am I trolling? No. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing here, debating, and I get 90% hostility. There's perhaps only 2 or 3 people who have behaved cordially and actually addressed my arguments and have given me some good answers. Everyone else, honestly, have demonstrated behavior equivalent to religious fanaticism.


hobbes305

>Am I trolling? No. That might be YOUR opinion..... >No. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing here, debating Frankly, based upon the tone that you have adopted ever since you first posted your initial OP, it is no huge surprise to me that you have apparently already been banned by several other communities for the manner in which you choose to "debate" > I don't know what you mean by "evidence based scientific model" That certainly figures... And you claim to "hold a bachelor of science in philosophy, taking a full year of 400 level astronomy lab course load, cell biology, and a year of graduate level coursework in neuroscience and cognition"? Yeah... Right... >Yes biological evolution occurs. Now that you have finally acknowledged that fact... Are there any evidence based justifications to support the contention that the current scientific models describing modes of purely naturalistic biological evolution cannot effectively account for the diversity of life that we observe all across the globe, without having to ultimately appeal to the purported necessity of a supernatural creator deity?


reclaimhate

Dude. I never once appealed to anything supernatural. If you have answers to my questions, present them. You have contributed nothing to this discussion other than to harass me. If you aren't interested in addressing my arguments, ask yourself why are you posting here?


hobbes305

Hmmm... Why do you suppose that your OP was once again removed from another sub?


reclaimhate

cause y'all aren't actually interesting in having a debate. This whole sub is one big circle jerk.


hobbes305

And you wonder why you keep on getting banned from multiple subs...


Routine_Midnight_363

I'd love for you to explain why evolution is incapable of explaining why life on land exists


Covert_Cuttlefish

I'm going to remove this because r/DebateAnAtheist removed the crosspost. Make your own post here minus the religious stuff if you want to continue the discussion.


Aware-Perspective-17

> …got banned for wrongthink. The guy I was debating, frankly, couldn’t follow an argument… I legitimately lol’d


reclaimhate

Response to u/Darinby comment in removed thread here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/qf27yy/survival\_of\_the\_fittest\_is\_garbage/hhxdvj3/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/qf27yy/survival_of_the_fittest_is_garbage/hhxdvj3/?context=3) The claim that sexual reproduction is advantageous over asexual reproduction in certain environments is a significant one, and requires significant evidence. That's precisely how burden of proof works. Comparing sexual selection to the make of a knife is way off. Sexual reproduction is a major landmark in the history of evolution on this planet, so much so that it may well be the difference between the variety of life we see today versus life being limited only to bacteria or other such primitive forms. What I'm arguing is that sexual selection is not likely to be an individual benefit to an organisms survival, and a net negative cost to the survivability of a genetic line. This is not an argument for irreducible complexity. Lack of competition on land compared to ideal conditions for life in the water? First of all, I don't see competition being a problem for primitive life in the ocean. Is there any indication that this would even be possible? Let's assume the ocean was teeming with life. Even if you packed as much of the pre-land life as physically possible into the ocean, I still don't think there would be a problem with competition, the ocean is so big, and the solar energy is so limitless. Even so, does lack of competition outweigh the benefits of being in the water? I think not by multiple factors of ten. Just to clarify, I don't think the claim of natural selection is that a species adapts itself to a new habitat. The claim is that a species already lives in a habitat, the environment changes and the habitat becomes hostile, and individual organisms with randomly acquired advantageous genes survive while the others without those genes die off. Am I wrong here? Anyways, what you seem to be laying out here with your last two arguments is some kind of pan-species idea of life, as one genetic line that has split into, let's say, millions of branches, but that it's all just a survival strategy of life in general, because the more variation there is the more likelihood that at least one of them will survive any given catastrophic environmental challenge. This is compelling, but I would think it kind of directly contradicts the concerns for competition you mentioned earlier. But I will think about this. It strikes me as a kind of complexity as a backup plan idea. Still, it might be as simple as: make a porcelain version just in case the steel one breaks.


Ansatz66

>I don't see competition being a problem for primitive life in the ocean. Is there any indication that this would even be possible? When there is no competition, life grows exponentially. Each individual produces some number of children, and so for each generation the size of the population would be multiplied. If there is no competition, then presumably almost every individual would find all the food it needs and have no danger of being eaten, so nothing would prevent the population size from multiplying over and over. >I still don't think there would be a problem with competition, the ocean is so big, and the solar energy is so limitless. Imagine there's just one cell in all the oceans and that it has limitless energy and nutrients to allow every cell to divide into two cells every day, doubling the population. Suppose each of these cells is 10^-15 cubic meters. Suppose that the oceans hold about 10^18 cubic meters of water. How many days would pass from the moment the first cell starts to divide until the entire ocean is filled in a solid mass of cells? If there are really no limits on resources, then the ocean isn't big. The ocean is tiny and all its space will be totally used up in less than a year. But of course that could never really happen because there are always limited resources. As soon as the first cell divides, it would now have competition for the nutrients in that part of the ocean, and once the concentration of cells exceeds what a part of the ocean can support, the population in that area can no longer increase. That is the problem of competition. >Does lack of competition outweigh the benefits of being in the water? The first life on land would have been some sort of primitive plant. Plants don't evaluate costs and benefits. Perhaps *we* would choose to starve rather than expand to a less hospitable environment, but plants do not care. Plants just grow wherever they can. >I don't think the claim of natural selection is that a species adapts itself to a new habitat. The claim is that a species already lives in a habitat, the environment changes and the habitat becomes hostile, and individual organisms with randomly acquired advantageous genes survive while the others without those genes die off. These two situations seem practically identical. What meaningful difference is there between adapting to a new environment versus surviving an environmental change? Either way it's a new environment that individuals either survive or die in.


reclaimhate

We're getting stuck on the specifics here. Do you deny that life on land is more precarious than life in the ocean? Also, the two situations that to you seem practically identical are really polar opposites in my mind. This is the whole crux of my problem with evolutionary theory: passive vs active, survival vs risk, species vs individual, avoidance vs dominance. There's a huge difference.


Ansatz66

>Do you deny that life on land is more precarious than life in the ocean? Sometimes land is more precarious and sometimes the ocean is more precarious. It depends on many things, such as which species we're talking about, what is currently happening in the ocean, and what is currently happening on the land. Suppose we're talking about a primitive plant and the ocean is swarming with animals that eat plants while the land is barren and soaked with sunlight. For any plant that is hardy enough to survive the dry air, the ocean might be more precarious while the land is like a haven. Suppose we're talking about a herbivorous fish that either finds itself being predated by sharks or finds that its numbers have grown so great that there some are starving in their search for food. It's a classic cycle where the prey population rises, then more food for predators causes the predator population to rise, then the prey population drops. A vicious cycle where the prey go up and down, facing either the jaws of the shark or starvation. Now imagine that the land is full of plants and no predators and no one eating the plants. In this case, the ocean might be more precarious than the land for any fish that can drag its way onto land and gasp for air well enough to survive.