Re: Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an 'RNA World'

Richmond wrote:

j.nobel.daggett@gmail.com (LDagget) writes:

Richmond wrote:
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John Harshman <john.harshman@gmail.com> writes:

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JTEM has his own vocabulary. By "evolution" he means the modern
synthesis, also called (which JTEM would detest) neoDarwinism. What he
seeks to attach Darwin's name to is Lysenkoism or neoLamarckism. If
you make all those switches what he says is more or less correct.
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Not sure whether Mao or the CCP adopted Lysenkoism, but it doesn't
seem out of the question.
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The phrase "survival of the fittest" has always seemed suspect to me. We
hear it repeated to justify capitalism. But there isn't any requirement
to be 'fit' as far as I can see. There is only a requirement (for genes)
to survive. For example the camel which sits on the calf of its rival
and crushes it to death, or the chimpanzee which kills and eats the
infant offspring of its rivals. In what way is it 'fit'? A biologist
would define it as merely fit to survive, but then the phrase becomes
redundant as survival of the survivor. And we see the same results in
captialism with corporations swallowing up rivals rather than competing
with them.

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You want to argue against a metaphor by considering it literally.

It's not a metaphor.

Let's quote a fellow named Darwin:
[quote]
Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined that natural selection
induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life. No one objects to agriculturists speaking of the potent effects of man’s selection; and in this case the individual differences given by nature, which man for some object selects, must of necessity first occur. Others have objected that the term selection implies conscious choice in the animals which become modified; and it has even been urged that, as plants have no volition, natural selection is not applicable to them! In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a false term; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of the elective affinities of
the various elements?—and yet an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it in preference combines. It has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active power or  Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature; but I mean by Nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With a little familiarity such superficial objections will be forgotten.
[end quote]  look up 6 lines "metaphorical expressions"
 <https://charles-darwin.classic-literature.co.uk/the-origin-of-species-by-means-of-natural-selection/ebook-page-54.asp>
or if you prefer
[quote] It may metaphorically be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages, and then so imperfect is our view into long-past geological ages, that we see only that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were.
[end quote]
<https://charles-darwin.classic-literature.co.uk/the-origin-of-species-by-means-of-natural-selection/ebook-page-56.asp>
Darwin, Charles Robert. The Origin of Species.  I think that Darwin saying that it is a metaphor is more compelling than
you asserting it isn't.

That
is some mix of dishonest, foolish, and stupid.

Oh please fuck off.

I find that as compelling as your denial that it's a metaphor, and of similar intellectual rigour.