i'm just updating some posts, and i want to resummarize something that i've posted about a few times, because i think it's one of the more substantive ideas i've posted in this space over the years.

natural selection should always be treated as a hypothesis to be demonstrated, and should never be treated as an assumption to be uncovered.

i'm not actually arguing with the modern evolutionary synthesis, although i might be reproportioning it - all biologists agree that randomness and selection don't just work at cross-purposes, but are necessary for each other. what i'm actually trying to do is formalize this, because so much of what happens in evolutionary biology really isn't actually science, for the reason that they're so hardwired into their assumptions.

so, let's say you have a species of spider that eats it's mate before it breeds, and this behaviour is observed to decrease reproductive rates. oops. i've read papers where serious biologists try to argue that this is natural selection at work, which is retarded, but why are they doing that? because the synthesis has it drilled into them - everything is selection.

but, everything is not selection, and a spider that eats it's mate before it fucks it is obviously malfunctioning at a pretty brutal level. pointing out that this is obvious, while obvious, is not actually science either, though. so, what is science?

well, you need to throw a statement down and try and disprove it! that's how you do science, and the exact opposite of what evolutionary biologists do on a day-to-day basis.

science, in context, means doing this - you assume drift, and try to prove it wrong. it's only once you've ruled out drift that you can deduce selection.

in fact, this is obvious, and no biologist would disagree with me, when presented in such flamboyant terms as this. so, why don't biologists just fucking do it right, then? why do they need a logician, of all things, to yell at them to use the scientific method?

it's cultural. no, really, that's the right answer; biology is less removed from religion than the other sciences are. that's the actual correct answer, here. but, this excuse is fading, and even reversing.

nowadays, biologists are far more data driven than, say, physicists are. it's the physicists that are stuck with unfalsifiable theories nowadays, and the biologists that are basically doing applied chemistry.

so, this is a call to the field of evolutionary biology to clean itself up and start being more rigorous. you can't just assume any old trait is selection - you have to actually prove it.