Vision and Evolution (A Critique of Dawkins)

[Rahn127]

Ray Comfort is spouting his bullshit on some mindless christian show and he's talking about dog evolution.
I will not show the video clip because it contains too much bullshit to walk through.

He says "Let's say I'm a believer in evolution and after millions of years, the first dog evolves. He's got a tail, legs, teeth, eyes. And it's good that he's got eyes because he needs to find a female. He's been blind for millions of years and now he can see. He's got to find a female. Now this female has to be evolved at the right place, at the right time, with the right reproductive organs and a desire to mate. Because without a female, he's a dead dog."

The mindless crowd cheers for his genius observations.

[Abaddon_ire]

Oh, stop with the lies. You know full well as you posted that it is Comfort and his baloney. If you really were unaware, you would never have made such a guess.

Comfort argued that the banana was designed by god to fit human anatomy. Embarassingly for him, it was pointed out that the banana had been genetically manipulated by humans to be what it is today. He even tried to pretend that it was part of a comedy routine when he was so embarrassingly found out.

But you clearly knew all of this before you posted. So what is your particular motivation for dishonesty?

Correct, knowing about Ray Comfort is why I assumed he's the referent of banana man. However, I'm unfamiliar with his story about male dogs. Therefore, asking Rahn127 to tell me the story is a reasonable thing to do, wouldn't you agree?

Bull. Given that it is one of Comfort's goto arguments against evolution, I am not buying the notion that you have never heard of it.

ETA: And now that Rahn has posted it, you can't claim to be unfamiliar with it.

[Pat Mustard]

Yay, it’s back.

Lads, who's after dragging shit in around here?!

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Oh, stop with the lies. You know full well as you posted that it is Comfort and his baloney. If you really were unaware, you would never have made such a guess.

Comfort argued that the banana was designed by god to fit human anatomy. Embarassingly for him, it was pointed out that the banana had been genetically manipulated by humans to be what it is today. He even tried to pretend that it was part of a comedy routine when he was so embarrassingly found out.

But you clearly knew all of this before you posted. So what is your particular motivation for dishonesty?

Apparently he's an ex-Christian. They do it as naturally as breathing.

Yeah he's an ex-christian in the same way that I'm a world cup winning midfielder (well outside of a modified game of Football Manager, anyway).

[The Grand Nudger]

Why should there be a gene for the english language, and is there any evidence for such a gene.

If my parents speak two languages do I get one, both, or a mix. Would a mix cause me to speak a hybrid language?

If there where no such gene, why should that be an issue for behavior? Wouldn’t it be simpler to say that language fits the extended?

[John 6IX Breezy]

Why should there be a gene for the english language, and is there any evidence for such a gene.

If my parents speak two languages do I get one, both, or a mix. Would a mix cause me to speak a hybrid language?

If there where no such gene, why should that be an issue for behavior? Wouldn’t it be simpler to say that language fits the extended?

It wouldn't be an issue for behavior; only for the boundaries of phenotype. English doesn't exist until someone behaves it, so we're clearly dealing with behavior exclusively and not the environment like a nest or a dam.

Classifying it as an extended phenotype is fine, but the term seems to be used more for things that are out there in the tangible environment. English doesn't seem to be that.

[Abaddon_ire]

Why should there be a gene for the english language, and is there any evidence for such a gene.

If my parents speak two languages do I get one, both, or a mix.   Would a mix cause me to speak a hybrid language?

If there where no such gene, why should that be an issue for behavior?  Wouldn’t it be simpler to say that language fits the extended?

It wouldn't be an issue for behavior; only for the boundaries of phenotype. English doesn't exist until someone behaves it, so we're clearly dealing with behavior exclusively and not the environment like a nest or a dam.

Classifying it as an extended phenotype is fine, but the term seems to be used more for things that are out there in the tangible environment. English doesn't seem to be that.

Sure, take refuge in linguistic gymnastics all you like. But we all see it for what it is.

[GrandizerII]

What is John even saying? English is inheritable, or? I'm missing something here obviously.

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Physically speaking, English refers to the soundwaves that are manifested in such a way that they follow patterns in line with a specific language, generally speaking. These patterns are communicated intentionally and comprehended by a large membership of the human species. You have to teach the language as well. It's not instinct.

[downbeatplumb]

So a nest is not part of a bird but because birds make them it is part of its phenotype. It is a product of their behaviour.

So again behaviour IS part of the phenotype because its in the definition of phenotype.

My confusion arises from Dawkin's (2016) definition of phenotype:

"The manifested attributes of an organism, the joint product of its genes and their environment during ontogeny. A gene may be said to have phenotypic expression in, say, eye colour. In this book the concept of phenotype is extended to include functionally important consequences of gene differences, outside the bodies in which the genes sit" (p. 449). 

And his definition of the extended phenotype:

"All effects of a gene upon the world. As always, ‘effect’ of a gene is understood as meaning in comparison with its alleles. The conventional phenotype is the special case in which the effects are regarded as being confined to the individual body in which the gene sits. In practice it is convenient to limit ‘extended phenotype’ to cases where the effects influence the survival chances of the gene, positively or negatively" (p. 443).

Unlike your definition, a bird's nest would not be traditionally considered part of the bird's phenotype; the idea of the extended phenotype is there to account for it. If a distinction is going to be made between an organism and its environment, it places behavior at an awkward crossroads between the two. For example, there is no gene that takes its expression by producing the English language; there are indeed genes correlated with verbal behaviors such as motor abilities or brain regions for producing language, but speaking English isn't the product of genes. Given your definition, speaking English is a unique trait from speaking Spanish and both are part of the organism's phenotype.

I looked up multiple definitions of phenotype and everyone had behaviour listed as in integral part of the definition.

Wikipedias definition.

The phenotype (from Greek phainein, meaning 'to show', and typos, meaning 'type') of an organism is the composite of the organism's observable characteristics or traits, including its morphology or physical form and structure; its developmental processes; its biochemical and physiological properties; its behavior, and the products of behavior, for example, a bird's nest.

From Collins

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictio.../phenotype
1.
the manifest characteristics of an organism collectively, including anatomical and psychological traits, that result from both its heredity and its environment
2.
a.
a group of organisms having a like phenotype
b.
an individual of such a group

I bolded the psychological which would include behaviours.

From thought co

https://www.thoughtco.com/phenotype-373475

An organism's phenotype (physical traits and behaviors) are established by their inherited genes.

I could go on.

Phenotype does include behaviour by widely accepted definition.

[John 6IX Breezy]

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Physically speaking, English refers to the soundwaves that are manifested in such a way that they follow patterns in line with a specific language, generally speaking. These patterns are communicated intentionally and comprehended by a large membership of the human species. You have to teach the language as well. It's not instinct.

I don't know to what extent English exists physically; I'm tempted to say it exists only in the psychological environment of other minds. It seems impossible to prescribe a pattern that a soundwave must follow for it to qualify as a morpheme of the English language; it has to vary with pitch, length, intensity, tonality, and almost every other feature that can be possibly used as a criteria. This is due to how much people's voices can differ in tone, prosody, accent, etc. Not to mention English has to also account for its visual counterpart as well.

To further argue that English is purely psychological, consider the attached link below (Holdgraf, et al., 2016). The audio first plays an unintelligible sound, followed by a reference clip, and then replays the unintelligible sound again. Notice that the sound is not heard as English until after the listener is given the reference clip. This leads me to believe there is nothing in that soundwave that qualifies as English; English has to be constructed in the listeners mind, and it can do so even with an impoverished stimuli.

https://media.nature.com/original/nature...654-s4.wav

Reference: Holdgraf, C. R., de Heer, W., Pasley, B., Rieger, J., Crone, N., Lin, J. J., Theunissen, F. E. (2016). Rapid tuning shifts in human auditory cortex enhance speech intelligibility. Nature Communications, 1-15.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

It has to account for its visual counterpart? How? Why?

Are you trying to say English words have to match the spelling we put to them? Because that would be about as far off as one could be describing English.

Anyway, Language is not inherited.