Active Users:352 Time:26/04/2025 12:50:38 PM
The complexity of the problem makes it all but impossible to falsify... jh Send a noteboard - 06/08/2011 08:26:06 PM
I'd illustrate the issue with some sort of genetic landscape plot, where all the little details such as "fitness" and likelihood to survive during current conditions is based on a height in the landscape. Now, imagine that you have peaks in this landscape, where breeding and survival rates are higher than everywhere else. Then it follows that the closer individuals of a species is to the peaks in their particular fitness landscape, the more likely they are to pass their genes onwards. This part of the theory is fairly simple; but the problem is the landscape. It will be constantly changing due to billions of factors entering into survival rates/ general fitness - some factors can be rather large, like availability of nutrients and presence of predators (in polar bear form or viruses, it doesn't matter much) and certain other environmental conditions, but a lot of the things are factors you can't really consider unless you are omniscient (red feathers, hard beak :P)... :P So, in short, it is extremely complex to find the fitness landscape for a species at any given time, and as such, it is all but impossible to design an experiment or observation that could falsify the initial assumption. Suffice to say that there has not yet been any conclusive evidence to say that it doesn't work...

Now, to take a Popperesque view of science in this case might be somewhat flawed... complex biological systems simply have too many factors to consider; Poppers views are more properly applied to science where you can churn the numbers for everything involved instead of doing large scale simulations based on approximations.
"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world" - Calvin.
Reply to message
Natural selection - 06/08/2011 03:51:26 PM 1080 Views
selection for suitability - 06/08/2011 04:18:51 PM 728 Views
Thanks for your responce - 06/08/2011 04:41:20 PM 844 Views
I can't speak for LadyLorraine and won't try, but here's how I see it: - 06/08/2011 06:49:49 PM 788 Views
Just a question - 06/08/2011 07:18:09 PM 771 Views
Yes it can - 06/08/2011 07:41:59 PM 647 Views
But how? - 06/08/2011 07:52:10 PM 844 Views
Okay, I think I see what you're saying - 08/08/2011 05:30:43 PM 661 Views
Close - 08/08/2011 05:41:46 PM 859 Views
Re: Just a question - 06/08/2011 07:49:21 PM 865 Views
I'm not sure I understand you - 06/08/2011 08:20:44 PM 769 Views
All tautologies are truisms, but not all truisms are tautologies. - 06/08/2011 09:38:12 PM 789 Views
Then it is still a tautology - 06/08/2011 09:45:33 PM 799 Views
You can know it's beneifical to a particular individual, but it's harder to say for populations. - 06/08/2011 10:18:16 PM 901 Views
Maybe... - 07/08/2011 01:55:54 PM 754 Views
As I understand it - 06/08/2011 06:04:44 PM 719 Views
Better... - 06/08/2011 06:36:38 PM 700 Views
Actually - 06/08/2011 10:13:51 PM 791 Views
Re: Actually - 06/08/2011 10:37:33 PM 929 Views
Re: Actually - 06/08/2011 11:38:52 PM 857 Views
Oeh - 07/08/2011 01:54:19 PM 706 Views
Hmmm... there's some truth to that - 06/08/2011 06:36:35 PM 800 Views
Re: Hmmm... there's some truth to that - 06/08/2011 07:08:25 PM 803 Views
Re: Hmmm... there's some truth to that - 07/08/2011 12:46:23 AM 796 Views
The complexity of the problem makes it all but impossible to falsify... - 06/08/2011 08:26:06 PM 825 Views
The questions go deeper - 06/08/2011 08:38:31 PM 816 Views
Re: The questions go deeper - 06/08/2011 09:10:32 PM 805 Views
I think I know why you don't understand my question. - 06/08/2011 09:38:41 PM 826 Views
TalkOrigins addresses this at length. - 06/08/2011 11:14:52 PM 881 Views
Not very much, but interesting none the less - 06/08/2011 11:38:36 PM 873 Views
Re: Natural selection - 07/08/2011 03:00:30 AM 800 Views
Thanks a lot - 07/08/2011 01:38:39 PM 945 Views
2 things - 07/08/2011 04:00:35 PM 705 Views
Re: 2 things - 07/08/2011 04:33:00 PM 923 Views
Re: 2 things - 07/08/2011 05:48:26 PM 737 Views
My best guess - 07/08/2011 06:00:28 PM 769 Views
Re: My best guess - 07/08/2011 06:37:58 PM 712 Views
Re: My best guess - 07/08/2011 06:47:26 PM 866 Views
Re: My best guess - 07/08/2011 07:02:27 PM 713 Views
Re: My best guess - 07/08/2011 09:09:57 PM 822 Views

Reply to Message