Limitations of Darwinian selection

 

Natural selection is the cornerstone of modern biology, a fundamental mechanism of evolutionary change, the main process responsible for the complexity and adaptive complexity of the living world. According to philosopher Daniel Denett, he describes evolution by natural selection as "the best idea ever conceived".

1. Darwin believed that evolution could be explained by the differential survival of organisms following changes in nature - a process he called 'natural selection'.

2. According to this view, the offspring of organisms differ from each other and from their parents in ways that are heritable - that is, they can genetically pass on differences to their offspring.

3. Furthermore, in nature, organisms typically produce more offspring than they can survive and reproduce given the limitations of food, space and other environmental resources.

4. If a given offspring has traits that give it an advantage in a given environment, that organism is more likely to survive and pass on those traits.

5. As differences accumulate over generations, populations of organisms diverge from their ancestors.

What is wrong with this interpretation?

1. Darwin believed that evolution could be explained by the differential survival of organisms following changes in nature - a process he called 'natural selection'.

Following changes in nature is precisely not conducive to long-term evolution, because natural selection's strategic goal is to respond immediately to the challenges of an ever-changing environment, by selecting for those best suited to that environment. So the divergent survival of organisms has nothing to do with the imaginary evolution that takes millions of years to evolve from some stem cell into millions of organisms with complex structures that can adapt to their environment.

2. According to this view, the offspring of organisms differ from each other and from their parents in ways that are heritable - that is, they can genetically pass on differences to their offspring.

Genetic transmission of offspring differences from their parents does not in the short term imply any qualitative difference, since it occurs within the same species and produces only one type of variation, exploiting the genetically programmed potential for variability or variation in the species.

The genetic transmission of differences is arrested and even reversed the moment the selection pressures of a changing nature change direction. The direction of adaptive change depends on the environment. Changes in the environment can neutralise or damage previously advantageous traits, and vice versa.

"It must be understood that the relative suitability of different properties depends on the current environment. Thus properties that are suitable now may become unsuitable later if the environment changes." /Understanding natural selection: basic concepts and common misconceptions/ - https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0128-1

Where does evolutionary theory get the idea that nature can guarantee one-way selective pressures over extremely long periods of time, over many generations?

The genetic differences in the offspring of parents are absolutely environment dependent, if a change in environment occurs, the differences of offspring from their parents will be reversed and the differences will be eliminated or minimised.

Genetic differences within a given species are precisely a function of the direction of selection pressure, and genetic differences cannot be multiplied in one direction only and exclusively, as evolutionary theory arbitrarily does.

This statement, >Favourable mutations increase proportionally from one generation to the next because, by definition, they happen to contribute to the survival and reproductive success of the organisms that carry them,< absolutely ignores the fact that mutations are also environmentally dependent, and not long-term factors of chance.

This claim: >Beneficial mutations increase proportionally from one generation to the next because, by definition, they happen to contribute to the survival and reproductive success of the organisms that carry them.< completely ignores the fact that mutations are also environmentally dependent, and not factors that are serendipitously compounded over the long term.

3. In addition, in nature, organisms typically produce more offspring than they can survive and reproduce given the limitations of food, space and other environmental resources.

More offspring does not guarantee an increase in evolutionary genetic divergence, because it is not determined by the number of offspring, but by the variation and strength of the direction of selection pressures. That is a constantly changing factor, and genetic changes are a function of those factors, not of more offspring.

The fact that a living organism produces more offspring cannot be generalised, since it is a fact that in a given case the parent will produce fewer offspring if it detects negative changes in nature.

Change is a constant process in ecosystems, driven by different natural forces. In general, a single individual can evolve different phenotypes when exposed to different environments. [Phenotype: the set of visible, describable, measurable external and internal characteristics of an individual.]

The environment is dynamic because it is constantly changing. Seasonal and long-term climatic changes alter the environment. The process of change is the only constant in any ecosystem. Populations of plants and animals are constantly changing in response to all kinds of environmental influences.

Thus, the excess number of offspring is not yet a factor on which to build the genetic transmission of change in the long term, since the process itself is fundamentally influenced by environmental factors.

4. If a given offspring has traits that give it an advantage in a given environment, that organism is more likely to survive and pass on those traits.

That offspring may differ from their parents in certain respects that they can genetically pass on, this is true, but there are limits to this that natural selection could only break through if it had far-reaching strategic goals, but it does not. And the requirements of immediate survival are in a state of perpetual change, so you cannot stack differences on top of each other - as imaginary evolution does - so that the genetic transmission of differences is a perpetual accumulation in one direction.

It is precisely the one-way accumulation that is the extraneous factor on which the theory is based, but it does not take into account that the accumulation is necessarily two-way, since environmental changes are also at least two-way. [In practice, it is much more than that.]

The beak size of those famous finches shows that the changes were bidirectional as a function of environmental influences, because they were reverting to the baseline and there was no unidirectional accumulation. Yet evolution relies on this theoretical strategy - completely without credibility.

Advantage and disadvantage balance out in the long run, creating equilibrium.

5. As differences accumulate over generations, populations of organisms diverge from their ancestors.

According to this view, evolution only increases, never decreases.

It is precisely the unidirectional nature of accumulation that belongs to the realm of fantasy, since it is imagined as a bottom-up stair-step, since accumulating differences also accumulate or stagnate in reverse.

I wonder how the colourless or at most faintly yellowish, withered-eyed and fragile fauna of caves evolved, if not because the ancestors of cave animals were creatures that evolved in the soil and deep rock fractures, adapted to the dark and humid closed environment.

Groundwater or rainwater then washed these animals into the developing cave systems. The new environment suited them so that they not only survived but also evolved as they became better adapted to their environment. This evolution has continued, and continues today, in the direction of simplification of their organisms.

The cave crab Stenasellus hungaricus, for example, has completely 'lost' its eyes, but its olfactory senses have evolved strongly. But the crayfish remained the same crayfish, it just developed intraspecific variability.

The fact that the eyes of the newt have atrophied has nothing to do with a stem cell climbing up the evolutionary ladder to become a completely new species, say a newt - as evolutionary order dictates - but with the newt's own anatomy changing in response to environmental influences. But its ability to change is genetically given.

The unused organ will atrophy, but the organ itself will not evolve if it has no genetic basis. So the organs of living things are not evolved, but are given [creation], which can then be shaped by selection pressures.

Biceps augmentation cannot create the biceps muscle itself, and what evolution supposedly created by stacking is the coming into existence of things that did not exist before, according to a non-existent recipe. Dust and all those discarded cans just happen to pile up, but the millions of different organic particles of life do not. That requires a strategic plan that dictates the rate and direction of stacking, accompanied by the long-term maintenance of favourable selection pressures.

You can trip over stacked tins, but that the same chance will build a complex [or more accurately, millions of] organisms from the accumulation of differences alone, without a planned direction and stable, controlled selection pressures, is pure fantasy. Then selective breeding by humans would also work according to undirected, blind accumulations, but this method is not known for relying on random accumulations for the success of breeding for strategic purposes. And that is what evolution is famous for.

Darwinism has its place among Grimm's best fairy tales, and modern evolutionary biologists are the storytellers who tell people the nice evolutionary stories that make them fall asleep. They even snore to the beat dictated to them.