What could possibly replace Darwinian Evolution?

[Viking]

There's nothing about any of those three premises that is a logical necessity.

The premises are not logical necessities, they can be wrong and if they are proven wrong everything we know about reality is wrong. You are absolutely correct about that. However given these premises evolution is a necessary consequence.

[The Minsky Moment]

everything we know about reality is wrong.

that's a bit of an exaggeration.
I don't think all the laws of physics, for example, hand on whether there is biological inheritance of properties or random mutation.
Similarly re 2 we know that asexual reproduction is possible.  One could conceive of a world where only asexual reproduction occurs.  Indeed, one could easily conceive of a universe that has no life whatsoever and yet all the other laws of science would still hold.

[The Brain]

What's with the sex stuff?

[Viking]

everything we know about reality is wrong.

that's a bit of an exaggeration.
I don't think all the laws of physics, for example, hand on whether there is biological inheritance of properties or random mutation.
Similarly re 2 we know that asexual reproduction is possible.  One could conceive of a world where only asexual reproduction occurs.  Indeed, one could easily conceive of a universe that has no life whatsoever and yet all the other laws of science would still hold.

Think of this as analogy. There is a fact, this fact is "4". Now there are two ways of reaching this fact. You can either count, "1", "2", "3", "4" or you can do math "4 = 2 + 8^1/3". If you somehow find out that you counted wrong then "2 + 8^1/3 =/= 4" At that point it turns out that what you think you know about addition or cube roots or both isn't true.

The reason evolution is such a good theory is that it has been confirmed by virtually every other branch of science at some point and in some way. If it had NOT been true then most if not all of these other branches of science should have disconfirmed it.

[Ideologue]

everything we know about reality is wrong.

that's a bit of an exaggeration.
I don't think all the laws of physics, for example, hand on whether there is biological inheritance of properties or random mutation.

I think you'd find chemistry and therefore physics would have to be different if we were not to have heritable traits.  But I'm not concerned with heritability, I was talking about natural selection.

Similarly re 2 we know that asexual reproduction is possible.  One could conceive of a world where only asexual reproduction occurs.  Indeed, one could easily conceive of a universe that has no life whatsoever and yet all the other laws of science would still hold.

Yes, and natural selection would still occur within a lifeless universe.  You could conceive of a universe where the laws of physics are completely different, yet natural selection would still occur in it, if it were capable of change.

[crazy canuck]

If it had NOT been true then most if not all of these other branches of science should have disconfirmed it

Yes, and natural selection would still occur within a lifeless universe.  You could conceive of a universe where the laws of physics are completely different, yet natural selection would still occur in it, if it were capable of change.

If Viking is right then Ide is wrong unless physics is one of the branches of science that would not be disconfirmed if the theory of evolution is wrong  - in which case JR was right all along...

[Viking]

everything we know about reality is wrong.

that's a bit of an exaggeration.
I don't think all the laws of physics, for example, hand on whether there is biological inheritance of properties or random mutation.

I think you'd find chemistry and therefore physics would have to be different if we were not to have heritable traits.  But I'm not concerned with heritability, I was talking about natural selection.

Just to add a bit here. DNA is a molecule and the copying of that molecule is a chemical process. And to be blunt, chemistry is the physics of molecules and atoms. Biological inheritance is dependent on the fidelity in the copying process of the dna molecule, the properties that are inherited are dependent on the folding properties of the amino acids that the dna molecule acts as a coding catalyst in a different chemical process and mutation is caused in almost every case by the interference of other chemical processes in the dna copy process.

There is a lot of science going on with inheritance and genetics.

Similarly re 2 we know that asexual reproduction is possible.  One could conceive of a world where only asexual reproduction occurs.  Indeed, one could easily conceive of a universe that has no life whatsoever and yet all the other laws of science would still hold.

Yes, and natural selection would still occur within a lifeless universe.  You could conceive of a universe where the laws of physics are completely different, yet natural selection would still occur in it, if it were capable of change.

Indeed bacteria almost always operate with a-sexual reproduction and yet they still have species. It's a process where bacteria steal dna from other bacteria and add it to their own. It's a fascinating process where lateral genetic transfer happens in a stable system of a-sexual reproduction. In multicellular life a-sexual reproduction does happen but is rarely successful or long lasting. One of the largest a-sexual reproducers out there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_whiptail) today is the lesbian lizard, but only really exists, like ligers or mules, as a hybrid of two other species which normally wouldn't be able to reproduce but can.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think we are talking past each other.  The existence of DNA and how it actually works in the world is a matter of empirical fact.  Our scientific understanding of those facts is the result of drawing conclusions based on extensive observation and empirical investigation.  Not as ideologue suggested by conceiving of logical features inherent in any conceivable dynamic system.  If the logic were that compelling, Aristotle would have derived the entire theory of genetics, evolution and postulated the existence of DNA.  Which of course he did not - Aristotlean science instead is kind of cautionary tale of how even the most rigorous application of logic, where insufficiently aided by accurate and replicable empirical observation, can lead to faulty results.

The danger in appealing to inherent logic is that it eliminates the one of the crticial things that makes scientific inquiry distinctive and the thing on which in significant part its claim to some special epestimic prioity rests.

[Viking]

actually if Aristotle had know of mutation, inheritance and selection then in addition to the observed similarity of living things, yes, he too would have gotten to evolution. How do I know this? Because that's all that Darwin had.

[crazy canuck]

actually if Aristotle had know of mutation, inheritance and selection then in addition to the observed similarity of living things, yes, he too would have gotten to evolution. How do I know this? Because that's all that Darwin had.

Didnt Darwin go on some voyage or other on some boat to you know, check things out a bit?

[Viking]

actually if Aristotle had know of mutation, inheritance and selection then in addition to the observed similarity of living things, yes, he too would have gotten to evolution. How do I know this? Because that's all that Darwin had.

Didnt Darwin go on some voyage or other on some boat to you know, check things out a bit?

A bit overblown that.. The voyage gave him lots of data, yes, and if aristotle had had that data then yes he would have had the same conclusion. You see Darwin already belonged to a society that knew about evolution beforehand. Thats the great myth, that he came up with an idea nobody else had thought of before and that idea was evolution. Darwin's great idea was natural selection, not evolution.

Aristotle was the guy who came up with the great chain of being which was the the actual first step in discovering evolution. He already knew that all life was of the same kind and related. Aristotle didn't know about mutation or selection, but he did know about inheritance and similarity. If aristotle had been a pigeon fancier like darwin we would have had a theory of evolution in the 4th century bc. Aristotle not only invented the ideas of species and genus he also knew that man was an animal, an evolved animal which had climbed the great chain of being.

Aristotle was already half way there.

[garbon]

if aristotle had had that data then yes he would have had the same conclusion.

An odd thing to say given Joan's criticism.

[Ideologue]

Not as ideologue suggested by conceiving of logical features inherent in any conceivable dynamic system.

All I was talking about was natural selection, not DNA.  The survival of structures that can survive is inherent in any conceivable dynamic system.

[The Minsky Moment]

actually if Aristotle had know of mutation, inheritance and selection then in addition to the observed similarity of living things, yes, he too would have gotten to evolution. How do I know this? Because that's all that Darwin had.

Didnt Darwin go on some voyage or other on some boat to you know, check things out a bit?

Indeed
Mutation and inheritance were things he observed, selection was an inference he drew to explain observations.

I am actually very surprised that viking of all people is trying to downplay the significance of observation and empirical inquiry and trying to position the natural sciences as a branch of a priori logic.

[The Minsky Moment]

  The survival of structures that can survive is inherent in any conceivable dynamic system.

Clearly not so.
One could conceive of dynamic systems where all things survive but randomly change form, or systems were all things perish and are then reborn.  There are all sorts of dynamic systems that could be conceived in the mind that don't work in accordance with natural selection.