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Originally Posted by Fred
Well Carey, if you’re saying that the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are always going to, well, survive and reproduce at higher rates, and that therefore we can always predict that, well, the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are always going to, well, survive and reproduce at higher rates—unless something changes where those individuals/traits no longer have the higher survival and reproduction rates, in which case other individuals/traits will have higher survival and reproduction rates, well then, yes, I’d say that’s a slam-dunk . . . although I still find the circularity less than satisfying.
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You're missing the big picture . . . the whole point is that survival and reproduction are context-dependent - the goal is to understand why particular phenotypes are fit in particular environments, at which point it's quite easy to see that there's nothing circular about selection. Rather, there is a feedback process between gene pools and environments, which is dynamic in time and space due to variation in both elements of the interaction. There is nothing circular about natural selection when you understand it correctly as the result of the interaction of organisms with each other and their surroundings within and across generations.
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Originally Posted by Fred
I doubt that you could persuasively argue that, say, Newton’s laws of motion/gravity and/or Einstein’s general relativity explanations are circular.
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This isn't even relevant to the debate - if you can even call our discussion a debate, as you're not really reading what I'm writing.
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Originally Posted by Fred
I don’t know that your charges of any supposed circularity are terribly relevant—those guys, and I, more or less acknowledge that our deism is a belief, although a belief by those who have studied and understood the mathematics and the science and evidence involving the more profound mysteries of the universe
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Blah blah blah . . . you're just hiding behind your big-name references. A strength of evolution by natural selection is that it actually provides testable predictions, and so can move beyond the realm of "belief"
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Originally Posted by Fred
Dawkins, the credentialed Oxford zoologist (and raging atheist), readily acknowledges—that natural selection is a belief that can’t be proved.
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I have a strong feeling that you have misinterpreted whatever Dawkins was saying - please send me the source material in which you think he stated that natural selection is a belief.
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Originally Posted by Fred
I’d say that we all, more or less, appeal to some sort of authority, and perhaps argue what we perceive to be the most credible/persuasive/convincing points and conclusions made by such authority.
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No, actually, I've been arguing based on principles, while you've just been referring to what others have stated, believing that their clout is proof of their correctness.
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Originally Posted by Fred
Although you seem to acknowledge, to some degree, the circularity of natural selection
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No, Fred . . . go back and read my posts more carefully.