Talk:Natural selection

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[edit] Autopoietic systems

"However, natural selection does not occur to autopoietic systems."

Isn't that nonsense? Living organisms are autopoietic, according to the definition. And natural selection happens to living organisms. I will revert that until it is explained more clearly. --tk 15:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Too late. :-) --tk 15:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Granted, yes, living organisms are autopoietic systems, but, natural selection still applies to them as living organisms must ultimately reproduce, as well as interact with other organisms and the immediate environment. The only way natural selection could not apply to a living organism being an autopoietic system is if a) the living organism is totally independent of the ecosystem it lives in and b) if the living organism does not reproduce. The only organism I can think of that would come close to being such an example would be the legendary chi-lin, a flying, scaly unicorn from Chinese myth that tries to never alight on the ground for fear of trampling innocent plants or insects.--Mr A. 16:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I understand it needs more explanation, since it is not clear to everyone that autopoietic systems are not genetically determined but rather engage in an epigenetic dynamic, where adaptation is invariable. Please consider internal link to natural drift.--Workingale

Of course it is clear that any biological systems are not genetically determined. But "genetically determined" is not a necessary condition for "natural selection".

As I understand it, there are several components to evolution, two of which are natural selection and genetic drift. The sentence you wrote ("natural selection does not occur to autopoietic systems") sounds as if you want to only allow the second. That was the reason why it needed clarification.

Maybe "autopoietic system" is an idealized construct, separated from reality, which does only have genetic drift by definition, since there is no environment which could naturally select in it? Kind of like a "closed system" in thermodynamics? In that case, living organisms would not be autopoietic, but you did not disagree when Mr. A and I said they were. --tk 10:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

There are several systemic considerations we usually bypass in the way we understand and teach (and defend) evolution. This situation, together with the furious defense of modern synthesis against pseudoscientists, seems to fuel critics from creationists that believe that when attacking modern synthesis they do it to organic evolution. I hope EvoWiki could serve to deepen evolutionary conceptions amongst biologists, rather that sticking to a paradigm to fight nonsense.

As defined, natural selection requires:

1. Population variablity in some dimension of an observed trait. However that trait is often seen as a snapshot in some point of ontogeny, thus allowing the implicit delineation of a gene --> trait linear relationship, rather than considering it as a constantly-developing part of a system.
2. That trait must be heritable (however, to face the inconsistencies of the one-gene-one-protein "dogma of molecular biology" genetists have added the "evironment" to the magic formula: Phenotype= Gentopype + Environment, and weird concepts such as the "extended phenotype" or the "meme" have been generated, without caring about the systemic nature of living beings, where the genotype is a component, not a program. The genopype can only follow the phenotype).
3. The differential expression of that particular trait must increase fitness (here lies, to my opinion, the largest harm, not only to organic evolution thinking, but to humankind. From the original notion of hostile struggling nature "in the claw and blood", where only the fittest would survive in a population, to the Malthusian economic notion of limited resources and competition, horrendous forms of Eugenesis, Fascism, and the globalized economic neo-liberalism have invoked evolution.

We need a systemic new paradigm!!!

It seems pretty clear that nowadays many people are familiar with the notion of Autopoiesis . However, a central part of the idea is the systemic structural coupling i)between its internal parts, and ii)with its environment (niche). So, I'm sorry Mr.A, but your dragon wouldn't pass either.

And, since there exists this never-ending structural dynamic of the organism WITH the niche, the environment can never act as a sieve filtering anything (specially not genes), so the whole "selection" word must be consciously revised by all of us that want to improve our understanding of biology.

Dear tk, Autopoiesis is a conceptual abstraction (as every other human notion, of course!!) to sistemically characterize organisms. It describes the kind of interactions ocurring i) within the system and ii) with their enviroment. There is not only genetic drift, but a general drift, since it is the system as a whole which is conserved in time, not any particular part of it (like genes). It is the particular interaction of the organism and its surroundings (the ontogenic phenotype: every process ocurring throughout the ontogeny, not a snapshot nor a movie, a lifestyle) that: if changes in a generation and is maintained in the descendence generates a new lineage.

What has been conserved and changed in the history of life, since the common ancestor, are lineages, not populations.

Please note that there is not a particular part of the system, not even the genotype, that governs the overall dynamics. The diversity of autopoietic organisms we see today may well be understood by considering the conservation and changes of ontogenyc phenotypes . That's why natural selection does not occur to autopoietic systems. There may well be cases of genetic alterations that result in a persistent change in ontogenic phenotypes, and lead to the emergence of a lew lineage, no problem to recognize. But it is far from being the main cause of evolution. Workingale.

Firstly, the "::" at the beginning of the lines is for making it easier to readers to see who is answering what. You are supposed to use one more ":" than the person you are answering, not jump from one level to the next. I corrected that.

I have to say that I am underwhelmed.

• "We need a new paradigm" is the sort of empty rhetorics pseudoscientists use. It doesn't mean much more than "I don't like/understand what scientists usually say, and I want something else but I can't tell you exactly what that is. Anyway, my way is progress, and those who don't agree are the orthodox roadblocks on the way of science".
• You seem to be motivated by ideology in opposing natural selection, instead of by facts. Dropping the working and confirmed mechanism of natural selection because you don't like its consequences and replacing it by some vague concept that does not seem to make any predictions is pretty much the same thing creationists do. "Itssystemic" and "Goddidit" don't seem to differ that much to me. The supernatural component is gone, but the mysticism is still there.
• "The diversity of autopoietic organisms we see today may well be understood by considering the conservation and changes of ontogenic phenotypes" is not a good reason for natural selection not occurring. Natural selection works, and another working mechanism will not destroy it, even less the mere possibility of such a mechanism ("may well be understood").
• Using different approaches is fine. If analyzing complex systems helps us understand evolution, that's great. But it is a fact that certain differing genes in Drosophila melanogaster change the appearance or behaviour of the organism, and it's a fact that the wrong shape is a disadvantage to an organism. Natural selection is a fact and a logical necessity. Rhetorics, mysticism, and wishful thinking can't change that. You can hide the connection among the other connections in the vast web of systemic interconnectedness, but that's actually not the goal of science.

I am not saying that your approach does not have merit, I'm just saying that the reasons you give for it are really bad. Unless you have better ones, you won't convince many scientists. --tk 10:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your "::" corrections

Sorry for "underwhelming" you.

I can now taste the bitterness of intransigency, I will not argue with you here whether "systemic" and "god-did-it" are same kind of argumentation. However, the sentence "natural selection is a proven fact" is as rethoric as saying "epigenesis is all that can happen to an organism". Maybe if you could do the intellectual exercise of freeing yourself from considering "natural selection" as a "logical necessity" you may envision what systemic biology means.

• It was not my intention to convince or change your thoughtfull reflections on evolution, as we all seek to inspire further reasoning, but when you degrade autopoiesis theory to "rethoric, mysticism and wishful thinking" you continue with the exclusion and censoring tradition tracing back to the XIX century. You will never intimidate non-alligned biologists by comparing them to creationists.
• It is clear that science need empiric argumentation, but by focusing our efforts in fighting creationists there will always be the risk of defending personal beliefs rather than a logical thinking, as seems to be the case.
• I am of the opinion that the realm of creationism is due, to a great extent, to the intransigencies of modern synthesis and the passionate (sometimes blind) allignment of their practicers and defenders.
• At least we agree on refusing supernatural explanations (no room for a "selecting" entity, right?)

please do not take it personal, but there is an increasing number of biologists honestly re-thinking biological phenomena, as there is no need to stick to any particular paradigm, is it?. Workingale...

I did not say that autopoiesis is "rhetoric, mysticism and wishful thinking". I said the arguments you used here are.

1. This is the rhetorics: "We need a systemic new paradigm!!!"
2. This is the wishful thinking: "From the original notion of hostile struggling nature "in the claw and blood", where only the fittest would survive in a population, to the Malthusian economic notion of limited resources and competition, horrendous forms of Eugenesis, Fascism, and the globalized economic neo-liberalism have invoked evolution."
3. The mysticism is just using a word ("systemic") which says nothing and predicts nothing.

You can blame those you fail to convince and call them "intransigent" or "passionate" or "blindly aligned" but this is not really helpful. We are used to such tactics because pseudoscientists use them too. What I am missing is the sound reasoning.

Rethinking is ok. --tk 11:18, 31 March 2008 (BST)