- Automated selection usenetPost Google is now in the habit of removing entire usenet threads! This is an archive copy.
This page to be merged with Purposeless purpose and (natural means of competitive selection) (the concept discussed in this section is actually the law of excluded middle, I did not realize this at the time of writing - see Logical fallacies)) Natural Selection can symbolically represent a meaningful concept in terms of the Pattern or design dichotomy with Preferential decision, because no word, term or sentence has an actual meaning, they only represent ideas as semantic relations between individuals in language communities such as theists, YEC. - Sentences have no meaning. JohnWilkins stated that every idea has a history and only a history. The historical idea with Natural Selection was the metaphorical proxy for the full sentence Survival of the Fittest as creatures engaged in PatrickMatthew's natural means of competitive selection (or survival, accumulation , preservation) in 1872. It was viewed as random, absolute empire of accident(CharlesKingsley), Aristotle): natural <=> accident,Chance process and was specifically not a non-random,directed, purpose or any teleological goals.
In the usenet thread at talk.origins on Automated Selection I used natural selection1 in the preferential decision making sense.
There was a man who had to make a choice between cake or banana at a convention. His guests expected him to make a choice, selection or decision between either of these, since he had a preference for cake, he made a preferential or natural selection for it.
It all depends what we mean in the pattern/design , cause/effect , natural/supernatural or preference/non-preference sense. From Charles Hodge Darwin used natural as the semantic opposite of supernatural.
In this context 'preferential' is a dissimilar term to 'natural' used to refer to an phenomena that is a pattern with a Purpose1. IN another context 'natural' is a term used in the majority Metaphor sense to symbolically represent un-intentionality.
Howards subset concept[]
HoWard1 views Design1 as a subset of pattern. This is just as Meaningless sentence as saying: supernatural is a subset of natural. Supernatural is defined as the semantic opposite of natural and design(patterns with a purpose) is defined as the opposite of pattern(pattern without a purpose).
Our volitional type language expressed ideas in this dichotomous sense, the previous 5850 years. With the last 150 years of Newspeak Meaningless sentences an attempt was made to destroy this so that a person reaches the state where he can't think at all - George Orwell.
Society and atheists start saying things like 'natural selection is only an effect' - ChrisColbyPragmatics. If we take ns as a metaphor for SoF then we have another [Meaningless sentence]] from Chris Colby(wrote articles at http://www.talkorigins.org on ns). SoF is neither a cause nor an effect, but a rhetorical tautology, it says the same thing twice.
Howard on selection[]
thread Does random mean non-directed: http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/8f032783b61ed263/c9567c76911f0c6e?q=backspace+talk.origins#c9567c76911f0c6e
> lets map : natural<=>preferential, selection <=> decision.
"Natural", in this case, means "in the absence of human action" or "existing in or formed by nature". As opposed to "artificial" in this case. There is no connection or map at all that relates "natural" and "preferential". Note that this is the very first definition of "natural". http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/natural Sometimes the word "natural" means "having a real or physical existence, as opposed to one that is spiritual, intellectual, fictitious, etc." See definiition 8. In that sense, even selection designed by humans, or "artificial selection" is "natural." The word "selection" in the phrase "natural selection" only implies that a discriminative or a differential *outcome* has occurred because of some property of the natural environment, not that some entity has made a choice by virtue of its decision making ability. It is used in the same sense that one can say that that the pattern of magnetism (you have already described "magnetism" a process which is 'pattern' rather than 'design' in your odd world) is to *selectively* attract certain metals and not other objects. That is, there is a differential
- outcome* when the pattern process of magnetism is applied to a
mixture of iron and most glass.
Usenet notes[]
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/4aaab26afabe2b5e/c768fb89ee7b51f0
Can't understand why it took me 4 years of research to finally grasp this: the wordy term and grammatical gargoyle 'natural selection' was only a metaphor for 'survival of the fittest' which in turn was an apt short hand for Patrick Matthew's competitive selection process as creatures adapted via slow imperceptible *differential* small accumulative changes, transforming into different species over millions of years. Problem with this story is if the other creature came to dominate the ecological niche we would be told the exact same thing making the proposition indisputable and thus unfalsifiable. It is when Natural selection( a term ) isn't used as a metaphor that its usage in a sentence results in a meaningless sentence: http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Meaningless_sentence. Since sentences have no meaning, no word or term actually means anything, one is free to use 'natural selection' as a metaphor for anything as I did with http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Preferential_decision If we can agree on this , I think we would have finally answered Jerry Fodor's question: What then is the intended meaning of natural selection? http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/TauTology has been updated.
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