They give the very basic defintions of evolution which I've tried to address in my arguments against the ToE. I really can't fathom how they apply to their topics which are all about cultural expressions ih human populations, but I'm glad to see that they do make such a connection so that I can accept that they haven't just skipped on to some other whole definition of evolution to make their particular points.
"Evolution is a change in gene frqeuencies in a population over time"
That's the accepted definition, and they list the familiar "mechanisms of evoltuion" that are regarded as the way it all works, staring with Mutation which is of coruse always considered to be the very basis of the creation of DNA.
Mutation
Gene flow
Migration
Selection, which seems to be treated as synonymous with Adaptation
They do mean by this that they are the mechnisms of MICROevolution, which is synonymous with what I mean by variation, but to them it is just the first staage of species-to-species evolution, there being nothing in the theory to keep change from progressing indefinitely. Even the boundaries of the genome don't suggest boundaries to them for some reason.
The first thing I want to say here is that, although I think evolutionary theary is a monumental fraud on humanity, utterly wrong and pernicious, I like Bret and Heather, they often say some of the sanest most reasonable things about today's political situation, and I'm sure that their thinking in their book is also sane and reasonable given their assumptionjs about evolutionary theory, no matter how much I object to the theory. They are also liberals, so they are certainly not in my camp, but it's nice to know there are some sane liberals out there.
As I've addressed these basic principles of evolution I try to show that they simply have nothing whatever to do with evolution in the sense of Species evolving from other Species. What they are describing is not evolution, it's variation within a Species or Kind, and it's an amazing piece of intellectual deception that fuels the whole evolutionary edifice. The deception starts with co-opting the normal variations possible within a genome, through normal sexual recombination at least, to the idea of evolution from species to species. They so automatically subsume all these processes under the ToE I don't know what sort of intellectual bomb might set them free from it, but it would take some such drastic event in most cases.
You need genetic change, real change, not just variation on a theme, to make the theory work, and you do not have anything remotely approaching the sort of change you need. They pin the whole thing on Mutation as the mechanism they assume brings about such changes -- and I emphasize that they do in fact assume it, there being nothing about observed mutation that justifies this article of faith.
But the statement of faith is potent. As Heather puts it, "Mutation is the origin of all change." Mutationon is credited with the creation of DNA, all the genetic material that provides the recipe for the construction of a given organism. It's easy to see how it work. It's a mechanism for genetic change of a sort, the only one really. Most of the time it doesn't bring about change in the phenotype, or the organism itself, only in the chemical sequence of the DNA which apparently has quite a bit of built-in redundancy, and when it does bring about change in the organism it's most often a bad change, a disease to add to the long list of genetic diseases that has been accumulating. And every once in a great great while it appears to make a chanbge that's actually beneficial to the organism. And on this slim basis they erect the whole edifice of the evolution of DNA.
What are these very occasional beneficial changes mutation brings about anyway? When they're not busy destroying the organism. Sorry. Beneficial changes. Hm. Well, they are changes in the sequence of the DNA, and the sequence of DNA is a formula of sorts for a particular protein, and the protein is what somewho or other ultimately translates into a specific trait in the organism a particular genome belongs to. It changeds the expression of a gene in other words. It makes a variation on that gene. if the gene determines the shape of a fingernail, the new sequences will affect the shape of the fingernail. Am I wrong? I guess you could have a sequence that messes up two genes in succession rather than just one, and I'm not sure what happens then, but my guess is that mistakes in replication, which is what mutations are, have made corpses out of the gchanged genetic materio, relegating them to the very large cemetery in every genome known as Junk DNA. Or perhaps zombies in the casae of those that appear to retain some kind of spasmodic function.
But I digress. The point was that even a beneficial change doesn't amount to anything really new, it's just a variation on whatever that sequence of DNA does in the organism. An U wribg? Are such issues even discussed anywhere? isn't all this just assumed and taken for granted and if anyone actually addressed what actually happens the whole shebang would come crashing down?
None of the other "mechanisms of evolution" can be said to make anything but variatqions that are already built into the genome. Gene flow just shuffles the deck of possible variations, so does Migration, they bring about changes in gene frequ3encies in new populations. Changes in gene frequency are in fact ways of shuffling the deck so as to bring out new and interesting variations in a Species or Kind. They don't create anything new, they only make new combinations. And these can be quite interesting and dramatic, which can SEEM like something new although it's nothing but recombination of existing general material. Mutation is the only "mechanism" that changes something genetic which makes it seem like it must be THE agent of change that is capable of fueling evolution. It's all an illusion though.
Then we come to Selection. Around 44:30 they say "Selection is what builds complexity" and that randomness can't do that. This sounds to me like another unsubstantiated article of faith, but I really don't know what they mean. I'm perplexed as to what they mean by "complexity" since it seems to me that randomness is really the main engine of variation.
I have no clue as to how they get from biological evolution to culture through genetics, but on the biological level seletion amounts to the reproductive isolation of a gene pool or set of gene frequencies. Most often this must be a random "selection," the classical Natural Selection being very rare because it's costly. If a predator eats up all the newts except those that are poisonous then the poisonous ones proliferate, but that entails a great loss to the gene pool at large. A loss of what? A loss of genetic diversity. You are losing all the genetic material that belongs to the population of nonpoisonous newts. Actually I argue that the loss of genetic diversity is in fact the main driver of populatiohn change. When a set of gene frequencies, a gene pool, is reproductively isolated over enough generations it will bring about a new phenotypic expression in the populatiohn at large, even a new subspecies. That'has to be how Ring Species develop: each from a small portion of the genetic material from the previous population. This portion is a new set of gene frequencies and as it recombines over some number of generations in isolation from other populations it brings out a new phenotypic character in the new population. In the process it's lost genetic diversity. It has to. Genetic diversity interferes with the development of a new populationj characteristic. Gene flow interferes. It's only when a set of gene frequences is "selected" or reporductivgly isolated that you get a population level change. When a few raccoons get separated from the main population of raccoons they develop a new look as they breed among themselves for generations. that's how you get domensitc breeds. You isolate them from animals with any characteristics you don' want in your breed so that those you do want become characteristic of the breed you are creating As far as I can see, there is nothing more or less complex about a population created from a randomj set of gene frequencies and one created by a strict selection, Seems to me the degree of change in a new breed or new population however originally formed, has to do with the limiting of the genetic divrsity which is what all selection processes do, whether random or more purposeful.
I've argued this to death elsewhere so maybe that's enough for now.
So I'm sure Bret and Heather have written some fine bits of human observation in their book, but in my opinion it can only be in spite of their adherence to the theory of evolution, and lamentably restricted, even crippled by it.
