Dog Trainer comes up with Anti-evolution idiocy

[Promethean]

http://naturaldogtraining.com/blog/natu ... mment-6345

One aspect of your question I failed to fully address is what about the poor deer that gets eaten by the wolf? Because it’s all part of adding energy to the network, the predator being the heart of any given ecosystem, the genes of the deer are “rewarded” by the network and it maintains its network niche. The deer can’t evolve beyond its niche unless that benefits the network. You can see this playing out this fall when camouflaged hunters climb trees to slay deer walking underneath that can’t evolve the survival mechanism to look up for danger, even though for millions of years cats, Neanderthals and now camouflaged weekend hunters have been dropping down from above to kill them. Predators have to eat too.

[KevinBehan]

No this misrepresents my position. I'm pro-evolution, I just don't believe it happens by way of RANDOM mutation. Mutation as in genes that change according to environmental/emotional parameters, but not at random. Perhaps you've heard of epigenetics. Hope this clarifies.

[canalon]

Yep it makes it clear that you do not understand anything about modern evolution theory. Epigenetics might have a role in evolution, but it not driving it.

[Promethean]

Behan's 'consciousness' is reminiscent of another anti-evolution idiot... Superport and his MINDS

[KevinBehan]

You are assuming that things evolve separately from each other, whereas my reading of animal behavior indicates that all things evolve as one whole entity. I never said epigenetics is driving evolution. My point is that epigentics is a powerful indication of evolution as one whole process in that the environment and emotional context can turn an individual's genes on and off, and the timing of genes is proving to be more and more critical in the physical expression of genes. Also, I'm not conflating the mechanism of evolution with the reason for evolution as you are with the notion that random mutations are both the mechanics and the cause of evolution. For example, I don't know why the universe is expanding as one whole unit, I just know that it is expanding. You're stuck in an old paradigm that if evolution isn't caused by random mutations, it therefore must be directed.

[canalon]

You are assuming that things evolve separately from each other, whereas my reading of animal behavior indicates that all things evolve as one whole entity. I never said epigenetics is driving evolution. My point is that epigentics is a powerful indication of evolution as one whole process in that the environment and emotional context can turn an individual's genes on and off, and the timing of genes is proving to be more and more critical in the physical expression of genes. Also, I'm not conflating the mechanism of evolution with the reason for evolution as you are with the notion that random mutations are both the mechanics and the cause of evolution. For example, I don't know why the universe is expanding as one whole unit, I just know that it is expanding. You're stuck in an old paradigm that if evolution isn't caused by random mutations, it therefore must be directed.

Where did I say any of this?
I have a problem with your assertions from here and the post linked in the OP that seem to assume that evolution comes is driven/explained by an energetic network interconnecting all life forms.
Nope. Evolution acts only on individuals and is genetic (and epigenetic too, to a degree that is not completely evaluated). Mutations and horizontal genetic transfer, and in some degree epigenetic modifications of the sexual cells content, are what allows evolution, in a sense that they generate the diversity that will be selected from by the natural selection, i.e the ability to survive and to pass on genes to next generations.
Your emphasis on energy is the really weird part.

[KevinBehan]

I see it as interconnected because all animals have a universal operating code of consciousness, which shouldn't be possible if a gene is the smallest unit of information and since species can't interbreed. My premise is that there is a more fundamental kind of information. In my "article" quoted above about deer I'm making the point that over millions of years deer haven't evolved the capacity to look up for danger, which is why bow hunters climb into tree stands every fall. Surely there must be a mutation inching in that direction and that would have conferred some adaptive advantage to such a fortuitous deer since that very mechanism is touted as the source of all evolved adaptations, and yet it's never happened. In my reading of animal behavior nature is not a realm of limited resources whereby natural selection cuts like a scythe as one individual competes against another. In my view, when animals communicate via their common code (this behavioral platform is most vivid in the behavior of dogs and this is a conclusion I believe modern research will ultimately arrive at since modern science is beginning to understand that there is something unique about dogs)then they progress in the sense of adaptive success to the challenge of life on earth. This is how I believe natural selection actually works. I'm not arguing against evolution, simply that all living things evolve as a whole, not as individuals. By way of example, the on/line industry evolves as a whole in terms of the Internet as its universal operating system. The businesses didn't evolve to form an internet, the internet as a network protocol and medium came first, and then the niche players filled the various slots now made available.

[canalon]

Okay. I will admit that the OP put a wrong title on the topic, you are not anti-evolutionist, but your theory is at least deep in the realm of the weird and way away from any respectable scientific understanding of evolution.

What the hell is that ?

a universal operating code of consciousness

As for your deer example it simply shows that the cost of evolving the ability to look up in deers (maybe changing the neck articulation or the location of the eyes, I am not a specialist of deer anatomy) is higher than the chance of being attacked by predators in trees. If you imagine the possibility of mutations as a landscape with peaks and valley, and the higher the peak, the higher the fitness in the particular environment. The deers might very well be stuck (wrt to this particular characteristic) on a small peak that is far from the overall optimal, but if a higher peak can only be attained by multiples mutations that will put then for a long time in valleys even worse than their local optimal, the overall maximum will never be reached, and the deers will be stuck with a suboptimal local maximum.

And yes nature is

a realm of limited resources whereby natural selection cuts like a scythe as one individual competes against another.

I witness that everyday when I grow my bacteria and they lose the abilities that I have tried to breed in them because the modification make them considerably less fit than any other bacteria that would lose or deactivate my favourite gene

[KevinBehan]

I developed my theory on dogs, although deer are encompassed, and so I'm simply saying in regards to this one specific point that it seems hard to believe that if survival advantage is to be held as a prime mover in evolution, that deer wouldn't evolve the means to search high for danger given that all manner of predator have dropped down from above over millions of years. In contrast, I believe that what determines adaptive value is in terms of the organism's contribution to the "network," the whole, rather than in terms of individual survival or reproductive advantage. This is why there is no network value in deer evolving to look up. Sometimes the two run in parallel, especially in more primitive organisms, but in dogs we can see the more fundamental network principle to which I'm alluding most vividly and that it trumps survival and reproductive mandates.
A universal code of consciousness is emotion, and this means that there is a basic template organizing any and all animal interactions and which makes it possible for animals of different species to not only communicate but to connect. So for example, when two dogs meet, they aren't establishing dominance or competing for resources, or even being "friendly," they are in fact achieving the basic emotional states of prey relative to predator, as these are the primal traits of temperament. These complementary traits of differentiation make advanced sociability possible by facilitating the development of complex personality traits as the interaction proceeds and possibly has the chance to develop over the long term.
At any rate, my theory may not interest you however I appreciate the acknowledgment that I'm not arguing against the notion of evolution, just the mechanics of it.

[Promethean]

Your arguments are reminiscent of creationist that questions why evolution hasn't come up with a cheetah that runs 1000 mph? It's the silly notion that there is a drive toward optimization. A serious misunderstanding of the science.

There is nothing unique about dogs, or at least not unique in away that other animals aren't also unique.

[KevinBehan]

So running 1000 mph is the same as asking why there isn't a deer that looks a 1/8 millimeter higher, then another one a 1/8th millimeter higher yet, given that variability is supposedly at random in the deer genome, and given that so many animals do look upward for danger, i.e. big horn sheep, so that an effective upward gaze evolves over a million years in response to their major predator? Hardly asking deer to see to the moon. And if other animals were capable of running 999 mph, then yes we would have to wonder why cheetahs can't run 1000mph.

Dogs are "unique" in that they are the most vivid manifestation of what all animals have in common. They go more by feel (as opposed to instinct) than other animals which is why they are able to live among mankind and adapt so fully.

[enarees]

Yep it makes it clear that you do not understand anything about modern evolution theory. Epigenetics might have a role in evolution, but it not driving it.

Where do you find these greenhorn users?