A dispute needs to have two sides. I cited the standard definitions from the main textbooks on the topic. If you would like to start a dispute about the definition of evolution, then it is now your turn to cite your sources and authorities.
If you don’t understand how my comments on cultural evolution relate to your comment, please explain further. We are both talking about cultural evolution, yes? What aspect of my post do you fail to see the relevance of?
The actual question is not “what does the word “evolution” really mean?”, but “is the paper wrong on that particular point?”. Wrong about reality, not about the usage of words. Disputing definitions is utterly useless for resolving the latter question. My comment was trying to resolve the message about reality behind the ambiguous words, by pointing out that the stricter sense of “evolution” was probably used.
“Stricter”? You mean the definition that disagrees with the textbooks?
The paper does not concern itself with the definition of evolution. It’s a computer modelling paper. The observation of multiparental inheritance in cultural evolution doesn’t seem to me to directly contradict the paper—since the modern world doesn’t satisfy the authors’ supplied definition of stability.
Your proposition appears to be, “evolution::culture can stably involve more than two parents, therefore evolution::genetic can stably involve more than two parents.”
To put it mildly, this conclusion does not follow. “Parent” and “offspring” mean completely different things (if they are even cogent concepts) in evolution::culture than they do in evolution::genetic. The article is quite clearly refering to evolution::genetic, so the fact that evolution has multiple definitions is not relevant.
I may have cited multiple definitions of evolution—but it was not to point out the differences between them. It was to pile on evidence from a range of sources.
I don’t agree with your statements about the role of parent and offspring in cultural evolution. Nor—as far as I am aware—does anyone else in the field. Parent and offspring share heritable Shannon mutual information. The parent is
the source of the information, and the offspring copies from it.
Your proposition appears to be, “evolution::culture can stably involve more than two parents, therefore evolution::genetic can stably involve more than two parents.” the article is quite clearly refering to evolution::genetic, so the fact that evolution has multiple definitions is not relevant.
To put it mildly, this conclusion does not follow. “Parent” and “offspring” mean completely diferent things (if they are even cogent concepts) in evolution::culture than they do in evolution::genetic.
And again you are disputing definitions. It doesn’t serve the purpose of communication and doesn’t relate to my comment above.
A dispute needs to have two sides. I cited the standard definitions from the main textbooks on the topic. If you would like to start a dispute about the definition of evolution, then it is now your turn to cite your sources and authorities.
If you don’t understand how my comments on cultural evolution relate to your comment, please explain further. We are both talking about cultural evolution, yes? What aspect of my post do you fail to see the relevance of?
The actual question is not “what does the word “evolution” really mean?”, but “is the paper wrong on that particular point?”. Wrong about reality, not about the usage of words. Disputing definitions is utterly useless for resolving the latter question. My comment was trying to resolve the message about reality behind the ambiguous words, by pointing out that the stricter sense of “evolution” was probably used.
“Stricter”? You mean the definition that disagrees with the textbooks?
The paper does not concern itself with the definition of evolution. It’s a computer modelling paper. The observation of multiparental inheritance in cultural evolution doesn’t seem to me to directly contradict the paper—since the modern world doesn’t satisfy the authors’ supplied definition of stability.
Your proposition appears to be, “evolution::culture can stably involve more than two parents, therefore evolution::genetic can stably involve more than two parents.”
To put it mildly, this conclusion does not follow. “Parent” and “offspring” mean completely different things (if they are even cogent concepts) in evolution::culture than they do in evolution::genetic. The article is quite clearly refering to evolution::genetic, so the fact that evolution has multiple definitions is not relevant.
I may have cited multiple definitions of evolution—but it was not to point out the differences between them. It was to pile on evidence from a range of sources.
I don’t agree with your statements about the role of parent and offspring in cultural evolution. Nor—as far as I am aware—does anyone else in the field. Parent and offspring share heritable Shannon mutual information. The parent is the source of the information, and the offspring copies from it.
Your proposition appears to be, “evolution::culture can stably involve more than two parents, therefore evolution::genetic can stably involve more than two parents.” the article is quite clearly refering to evolution::genetic, so the fact that evolution has multiple definitions is not relevant.
To put it mildly, this conclusion does not follow. “Parent” and “offspring” mean completely diferent things (if they are even cogent concepts) in evolution::culture than they do in evolution::genetic.
Duplicate comment.