Is artificial selection considered "evolution"?

[Modular Moog V]

Trolling me, right?

Hopefully not. No wishes to be bit by badgers. Should have read the earlier posts already bringing the ant/fungus argument.

Still, if the ants create changes in the species they farm through forced selection, but are not considered artificial, how can
we be considered artificial when we do the same thing?

[The Grand Nudger]

Neither the word natural or artificial needs pruning. Your understanding of the differences between the two either need to go through heavy vegetative, or is being intentionally pruned.

The ants have no understanding of what they are doing. The moisture levels of their mounds is the result of those ants which did not keep their mounds at this temperature and moisture level not being able to farm said fungus. What the ants feed the aphids has to do with the aphids not dying a terrible death. You are describing a symbiotic relationship between two creatures that have no conceptual understanding of that relationship whatsoever. Now this isn't to demean their accomplishment, they simply lack the processing power required to call this "artificial". Not only do they not understand what they are doing, they are physically incapable of understanding what they are doing. Our own processing power, in and of itself, was not capable of understanding this, we had to augment it. Ants do not hybridize their aphids, and they are wild captures. There is no central ant aphid breeding program. Other ants, which do not capture and keep them for milking and eventual death nevertheless milk aphids that they find out in the brush. Why is it that ants who farm fungus don't learn to farm fungus from other ants that do? Again, because a conceptual understanding is not how this behaviour emerged in the first place, to the best of our understanding.

Lets count the ways that aphid farming and cattle farming are similar.

1, we call them both farming
2, there is no two, one is it.

Help me out here, in what way am I failing to describe the distinction between what we call natural selection, and what we call artificial selection? Now, I love to talk about aphid farming, and all of the other things that animals do that might knock our own idea of ourselves down a peg. It doesn't take a whole lot of brains to keep cattle or aphids. But that isn't what we're talking about. NS, AS. They are simply words, they denote a difference in the process. How might I word this so that it becomes more clear?



Natural selection is on the left, artificial selection is on the right.

[NoMoreFaith]

Seriously, artificial selection is to natural selection, as a brain is to a computer chip. Similar in function, but vastly different processes of creation.

[Modular Moog V]

Neither the word natural or artificial needs pruning. Your understanding of the differences between the two either need to go through heavy vegetative, or is being intentionally pruned.

The ants have no understanding of what they are doing. The moisture levels of their mounds is the result of those ants which did not keep their mounds at this temperature and moisture level not being able to farm said fungus. What the ants feed the aphids has to do with the aphids not dying a terrible death. You are describing a symbiotic relationship between two creatures that have no conceptual understanding of that relationship whatsoever. Now this isn't to demean their accomplishment, they simply lack the processing power required to call this "artificial". Not only do they not understand what they are doing, they are physically incapable of understanding what they are doing. Our own processing power, in and of itself, was not capable of understanding this, we had to augment it. Ants do not hybridize their aphids, and they are wild captures. There is no central ant aphid breeding program. Other ants, which do not capture and keep them for milking and eventual death nevertheless milk aphids that they find out in the brush. Why is it that ants who farm fungus don't learn to farm fungus from other ants that do? Again, because a conceptual understanding is not how this behaviour emerged in the first place, to the best of our understanding.

Lets count the ways that aphid farming and cattle farming are similar.

1, we call them both farming
2, there is no two, one is it.

Help me out here, in what way am I failing to describe the distinction between what we call natural selection, and what we call artificial selection? Now, I love to talk about aphid farming, and all of the other things that animals do that might knock our own idea of ourselves down a peg. It doesn't take a whole lot of brains to keep cattle or aphids. But that isn't what we're talking about. NS, AS. They are simply words, they denote a difference in the process. How might I word this so that it becomes more clear?



Natural selection is on the left, artificial selection is on the right.

You could sum it up to changes caused by human predation. We usually intend to eat the farmed critters, even dogs and horses, though changed for other purposes are not off the menu in tough times.

[The Grand Nudger]

But they are not changes based solely on human predation. They are changes directed by human beings with knowledge of what they are affecting (and possible alternatives) often in complete and utter disregard for the creature, not beneficial in any way except to be kept as livestock or crops. Often infertile, sometimes genetically modified, and done, all the while, by a conscious agent of change. The products of natural selection and artificial selection themselves are remarkably and noticeably different.

Nature is not a conscious agent of change. It does not select upon the metrics that we might (and even phrasing it this way is only an attempt to make it seem more easily understood to us), and while we are natural, not everything that we do conforms to the process by which nature has "formed" life. We are capable of inserting ourselves and exploiting. Ultimately, what we do is a product of nature, as it is a product of ourselves. That doesn't mean that it is not artificial selection. Oftentimes words mean different things in different areas, especially so of science. The mechanism by which nature facilitates evolution is called "natural". When that mechanism is deliberately tinkered with, it is called "artificial" (because it was here before us, handled the job before us, and gets to claim credit-).

Think, artifice, artifact, artificial.

[Modular Moog V]

But they are not changes based solely on human predation. They are changes directed by human beings with knowledge of what they are affecting (and possible alternatives) often in complete and utter disregard for the creature, not beneficial in any way except to be kept as livestock or crops. Often infertile, sometimes genetically modified, and done, all the while, by a conscious agent of change. The products of natural selection and artificial selection themselves are remarkably and noticeably different.

Nature is not a conscious agent of change. It does not select upon the metrics that we might (and even phrasing it this way is only an attempt to make it seem more easily understood to us), and while we are natural, not everything that we do conforms to the process by which nature has "formed" life. We are capable of inserting ourselves and exploiting. Ultimately, what we do is a product of nature, as it is a product of ourselves. That doesn't mean that it is not artificial selection. Oftentimes words mean different things in different areas, especially so of science. The mechanism by which nature facilitates evolution is called "natural". When that mechanism is deliberately tinkered with, it is called "artificial" (because it was here before us, handled the job before us, and gets to claim credit-).

Think, artifice, artifact, artificial.

Yes, but all these artifice's are entirely natural to us. We can certainly make a distinction between our own tinkering VS nature in one sense, useful for classifying things from a science perspective, yet I believe we have to surrender to the ultimate issue of evolution itself, which gave rise to our ability to do the tinkering in the first place.

Was this kind of what the OP was asking? It is merely my opinion humans are not, and can do nothing beyond nature, no matter how grandiose it gets in the future. If we create advanced "artificial intelligence", and it takes over, replicates and improves, what has changed? The new forms will still have to deal with the limits of this planet, or wherever they might go. Like us, they will still go extinct.

[The Grand Nudger]

Will they? What other perspective are we considering, evolution, by ns or as, is a scientific perspective. Not only is AS different than NS, it is often a process which we don't have any evidence that NS could perform. Mull that round a little bit. Not only have we created things that do not exist by natural means (and again, I'm using this language very specifically), in some cases, we have every reason to determine that NS would be incapable of such a thing. It really is a profound difference, is it not? Combine the mechanical process of nature with one of it's more notable products, and an entirely new type of creature can be created. What can be said then about the limitations of this sort of creature, what assumptions can we make about those limitations by reference to our own? Engineered life has been, and may continue to be a complete game changer. On the other hand, we may just off ourselves, engineered life, and everything else in the process. Total pandaras box situation, and thus extremely fascinating, to me.

[Anomalocaris]

We are natural, we can never be anything but natural, everything we do is natural. Period

[Minimalist]

Why not, are we not natural?

Some people are downright unnatural, Chuck.

[The Grand Nudger]

Are we arguing semantics or science here? If science, incorrect. If semantics, I couldn't care less. I concede the argument, you win. All things are natural, and all colors are red, even if they are blue, because ultimately it's just light.