CraigHubley

<a href="http://nytimes.abuzz.com/interaction/s.231537" target="_blank">http://nytimes.abuzz.com/interaction/s.231537</a>
is an abuzz debate entitled "intentional and thoughtful evolution" wherein I made some claims about ethical and sexual evolution being good enough to describe things that would be mistaken easily for "intent" and "thought". I ended the thread paradoxically arguing that Godel's version of the Ontological Proof of God is valid... [I will put that in another thread for challenge] but be clear that to me God is the ultimate molecule!

[OK all this didn't get in there but those folks aren't as smart you, obviously, so why scare 'em]

We know what survival evolution is, and it has got perhaps too much attention, Victorians skipped over its twin:

Sexual evolution is as Darwin and others defined: aesthetic or equally untraceable mate choices that for instance reinforce violence in males.

Ethical evolution could be viewed as slow changes in moral inhibitions that alter chances to mate - and survival probability of offspring potentially. Very slow since it is subordinate to the above.

Are these three forms of evolution (body survival, sexual aesthetic, ethical consistency) sufficient to describe the biosphere, including us, as it now exists? What does it say about the whole universe?

liquid

Do you know what?

You aren't making any sense whatsoever. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Peez

I think that you may be confused about what evolution is. It may be defined as a change in gene frequency in a population over time. The "forms" of evolution that you name do not make any sense to me, and I have never seen them before.

There are two or three processes that may lead to evolution: natural selection, mutation and genetic drift. Mutation only provides new genes (this changes the gene frequency, of course). Genetic drift is the random increase or decrease in a gene's frequency due to "sampling error" (typically only an important force when natural selection is weak or absent, and population size is small).

Natural selection is the only mechanism known that may produce adaptive evolution (evolution of traits that adapt an organism to its environment). Natural selection may be defined as a relationship between trait values and the average number of offspring left to the next generation in a population (though it can be more complex than that). There are, of course, many ways that a trait value can influence the number of offspring left: the organism must survive long enough to reproduce, if sexual it usually must acquire a mate, etc. Sexual selection is just a subset of natural selection (natural selection that involves the acquisition of a mate).

Hope this helps.

Peez

tronvillain

While I wouldn't go so far as to say you aren't making any sense whatsoever, your description of evolution does seem somewhat confused.

Darwin never defined anything called "sexual evolution" - as Peez points out you may be thinking of sexual selection. This "ethical evolution" you refer to is more of a mystery, but it seems to be something along the lines of selection affecting the inclination for certain behaviors. If this is the case, I don't really see why you brought it up.

Anyway, these are not accurately described as "three forms of evolution", but evolution does seem sufficient to explain the state of life on this planet.

tronvillain

Well, I don't recall Darwin defining "sexual evolution" anyway. That's not to say it couldn't be defined in a reasonable way, like "the evolution of "the evolution of characteristics relating to sex." As far as I can tell the term has been used to describe relatively recent changes in human sexual behavior, so that's probably not the definition used.