I can give you one example (that I think it's an example, you may not agree with me), for which I think it is just a bad style. The syntagm "Natural Selection" in Darwin's theory is redundant in a sense that the word "Natural" could/should be omitted, as there is no alternative to nature when we talk about reality, ie not imaginary processes but real processes. — Hrvoje
If we are as natural as the rest of nature, how come the selection that we do is not natural, so that it deserves special attribute, ie "artificial"? Maybe that is the only thing here that is artificial, our notion of artificiality? — Hrvoje
Even more to the point, Darwin opens the presentation of his new theory in On the Origin of Species with a chapter on selective breeding, which had been well-known in England, and had been studied by Darwin before he wrote his magnum opus (he bred pigeons himself). Darwin does not even get to natural selection until the fourth chapter of the book. The very obvious point of his chosen terminology is to draw an analogy between the purposeful actions of a farmer and the unconscious processes elsewhere in nature. He argues that on an abstract level such seemingly disparate phenomena can be described by the same process: variation and selection. So natural selection here is compared with artificial selection (both Darwin's terms). Is it "anthropocentric"? Well, of course it is - appropriately so! — SophistiCat
No. You can derive it from the contents description in his book, the first paragraph of Chapter IV and by reading Chapter IV in its entirety. You can find it when you google "sexual selection" as well. I don't need to repeat verbatim what can be easily found by following the link or using Google. — Benkei
Since it seems posters are distinguishing natural from artificial selection, it's worth noting that we, humans, the master craftsman of the aritificial, have become the single greatest selection pressure in nature. Our ways affect almost every lifeform, from the microscopic to the blue whale. — TheMadFool
OK, so by your definition, natural is something that is performed by non reasonable agents, like non-living things, and we still have to decide what living things qualify as reasonable? — Hrvoje
I'm not debating myself, and I'm not debating Darwin. — karl stone
I reject existence of artificial processes, that are somehow separate from natural processes. — Hrvoje
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