

Optimism in Evolution - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/opinion/13judson.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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ehmunro
Why is it that science writers for the New York Times seem unable to grasp
basic concepts like eugenics? (I'm speaking of course of the claim of
evolutionary proof in human hunting of bighorned rams resulting in rams being
born with smaller horns. No shit, sherlock, if I took over Sweden and began
hunting down and killing the blondes there will be a whole lot fewer born as
the gene markers are winnowed from the available pool.)

Has the New York Times joined American police forces in setting a limit on the
IQ of their employees lest they be too intelligent?

(Just to forestall argument all the mentioned case actually proves is that
traits are inherited, and that the subset of rams less desirable to human
hunters have outbred the more desirable ones, which is basic common sense.
Their greater numbers assure greater numbers of offspring and that their
genetic traits will predominate.)

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robg
The writer is a evolutionary biologist.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Judson>

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ehmunro
So? The case is still one of eugenics and inherited traits and not really
related to evolution. (Unless she's making the claim that "Evolution predicts
that genetics works", except that I doubt that even the most moronic of
creationists would deny that.)

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jsmcgd
Agreed. Also, evolution should be taught because it's rock solid fact.

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Retric
I think evolution should be treated as an approach for understanding a type of
complex system. Take collage football over time several ideas have competed
and while talent and drive are always important the top team’s strategies have
clearly spread around, competed, and mutated. No single approach is always
optimal the top team today would still crush the top team 30 years ago because
changes in the quality of the players alters optimal strategy etc. Anyway, as
a framework it helps to explain how things are going to change from year to
year which is useful outside of biology.

PS: It also works the other way it's easy to see how a successful strategy
(single play) only works within a framework which helps people understand the
creation of new species.

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j2d2
Evolution, change we can believe in!

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ars
As usual, people talking about evolution are unable to distinguish from macro-
evolution and micro. One evolves one species to another, then other basically
amplifies changes that are already there, but doesn't create them/say where
they came from.

No one has any problem with talking about micro-evolution, so the article is
basically a straw-man argument, and thus pointless.

Macro-evolution is much more controversial.

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byrneseyeview
I don't think that a tolerance for high levels of alcohol, or the ability to
spread among humans, could be considered an 'amplified' trait. I also don't
think it's useful to argue that there is a difference between believing in
small changes from one generation to the next, and the large changes that
result from the sum of this process. It's like saying that you believe in
counting, but there's a big difference between that and believing that 41,217
comes after 41,216.

