|
It saddens you greatly? I suspect firmly that is because you were prejudiced against me for some unknown reason when you entered the forum and find that only a few persons here have even an intermediate understanding of the basics of technical evolution or ecology. That's a sloppy hasty guess, incomplete but there's plenty of evidence in the archives to convince me.
I've posted online about evolution for about seven years. A recurring theme is that natural selection does not apply to humans, and that natural selection was not the right term for evaluating the process of a small number of generations. What matters is the emergence of
what we used to call "traits..." but those traits may be no help at all to most species in the 21st Century as humanity expands its effects and numbers to bursting. We are entering the second or third greatest extinction event in the history of life on earth, likely to be accomplished by the end of this century...where
the rating is measured by the percent of species which will likely disappear. This expection is based on wilderness encroachment rates and human population growth rates and per capita consumption growth curves.
Definitions:
SDarinpbossle wrote:
"Competition is defined as the interaction between two species over a limiting resource that negatively affects one or both of their population rates."
If you are quoting a book, yatta realize it might not be the moral equivalent of a commandment from the God of Agnostics...
Competition can be defined in several ways. What you said is one of them in biology.
Succession to a climax community, for example, occurs _not only_ when one species of trees becomes the top canopy, but when most members of that species are unable to get enough light to compete with the bigger members of its own species for soil nutrients or water either, and they stop competing only then.
A "population rate" is a hard thing to grok. What the heck is it?
Daewrin ppodle rwote:
"If so then it appears that you do believe in power structures that abuse their power. I think that in our corporate world today the idea of competition and survival still rule the motto's and creed's our business world. "
Response:
Believe? I think I have had the benefit of some research too, and need not rely entirely on belief ! I've been around the block a couple of times ! In 1969 I read significant portions of books by John King Fairbank and Harrison Salisbury in a course about the history of China. In 1972, I worked in the
campaign of George McGovern for President.
In 1977, I completed 10 credits in economics with 'A' grade while working, mostly full time
in a large scale industrial environment.
But what causes this problem you describe, and what will fix the problem you describe? What if it is within the natural herd tendency of primates top be selfish and not highly managerial? Certainly all the abuses you describe occur in socialism and communism too -- and the typical chimpanzee community, if you license a metaphor without suit and tie !
A mystery...it appears you endorse all that after all, and too hastily, when
daododnpmossw wrote:
" . The rabbit that was too slow to avoid the predator has now lost its ability to reproduce thus ridding the gene pool of its slow running genes. This is not competition or war, in my estimation; it is simply the foundation of natural selection."
Response:
In the real world, many of the fastest rabbits will be caught. Natural selection says that statistically, what will emerge is the composite genepool of what was most successful in meeting the stresses of each generational filter. It is not a value judgement proving superior genes were passed along.
In fact, the historical fact I have come across in mainstream research was that the Nazis, coming to power in a very stressed-out time and crises abounding, practised very off-target pseudo-science and targeted the Jews in part for being the only other tribe in the world which the Nazis perceived, in their ignorance, were considered vigorous enough to compete with the Nazis for world domination. This is not my theory at all. I am reporting something I think is fairly easy to find in the literature, though I don't have a footnote for you this minute.
Notice the word was vigorous, not intelligent, for both sides. That desire to dominate the world comes and goes as a fad in world politics. I'm convinced it's overrated as an advantage in creating the best world.
What Darwin understood 150 years ago is hard for others to comprehend...that nature's filters work over a large number of generations, and that "artificial selection" works best in simple things like the way we want our animals to LOOK...not how their minds will work...the latter being not a highly developed technical profession in human breeding...
but breeding for ruthlessness has sometimes been in fashion .
The enduring shout in a now overpopulating WESTERN world (I only get the grapevine stuff in my own culture) seems to be,"They may be a little bit bad and slightly incompetent, but they're reproducing ! -- so give then the good paying jobs that would otherwise go to a competent,honest person who has not reproduced. And not having a good paying job, maybe now, those less ruthless ones in the second group never will!" By having this policy that rewards ruthlessness more than intelligence, we create an effect with the gene pool. It is a natural conseqence of an artificial system of evaluation fitness to reproduce.
Does that make better life forms? Why did Isaac Newton not reproduce but yonder crocodile does?
"
|
