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Talk:Survival of the fittest

How was fitness measured
Other than noting the organism survived how was it's fitness measured ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TongueSpeaker (talk • contribs) 11:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Gene-centric
Removed:
 * They also adopt a gene-centric view of evolution.

("They" referrrs to evolutionary scientists") This is irrelevant to the article, and is inaccurate from what I've heard, where evolutionists generally often focus on the individual organism as the unit of selection. This gets into the issue of "selection of" and "selection for", which are beyond the scope of this article. you are so retard Bold text Small Text AdamRetchless 21:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Haven't you read The Selfish Gene? You ought to.  Individual selection is usually more or less equivalent to gene selection, and it may be simpler to look at it that way, but reductionism is widely accepted. Dunc|☺ 21:47, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the presentation of the idea of 'survival of the fittest' as a tautology. Inherent in the statement is the idea that "those most fit to survive are the only ones who will or should." That's hardly a tautological statement.-McC 03:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

--

You are simply re-arranging the phrase, "those most fit to survive are the only ones who will or should" simply re-presents the same tautological statement. How do you then tell which creatures are the ones most fit? They survived. Its like saying "a circle is round".

 * You're right about the non-tautological character of the idea, but wrong if you think that it necessarily involves a 'should.' Even Spencer's reasoning was not that simply. --Christofurio 20:22, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

 * See my edits. "Survival of the fittest", when naively applied to individuals, is only one part of the story, and this part taken alone is indeed tautological. When the full picture is considered, the tautology falls down.--Thomas Arelatensis 19:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Origin of the phrase
Okay, where does the phrase "survival of the fittest" come from? In this article it says that it was first mentioned in Social Statics. But if you follow the link on that article page to the online copy, and search that for either survival or fittest, then you find nothing. Please, someone with a proper encyclopedia on his/her shelf should look this one up. 80.126.3.128 20:29, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

 * A very good point. Some attribute it to Social Statics and some to First Principles of 1862, but it isn't in online versions of these texts, and a number of sources confirm more credibly that Spencer introduced the phrase “survival of the fittest” in (Principles of Biology [1864], vol. 1, p. 444).. ...dave souza 11:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, then there is a heavy fault in the first sentence, as well as in the article about Herbert Spencer ; The Origins of Species appeared in 1859 ; so before Spencer. 205.236.147.59 (talk) 03:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

 * I'm confused about why Darwin is using the term. After Spencer used it, did Darwin adapt it and change later editions of OoS? 141.14.245.244 (talk) 11:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Publictransport4us (talk) 19:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)Yes you are right. Charles Darwin did not use the term in the 1st to 4th editions. The first time he mentions Herman Spencer coining the term "survival of the fittest" is in his 5th edition published in 1869 (London: John Murray. 5th edition; Chapter III, page 72). You can follow the different editions online

Darwin uses the phrase in 'The Variation Of Animals And Plants Under Domestication' -- Volume 2, chapter XX, first paragraph: "The power of Selection, whether exercised by man, or brought into play under nature through the struggle for existence and the consequent survival of the fittest, absolutely depends on the variability of organic beings." The date for this work is 1868, a year before the sixth edition of the Origin :) Kind Regards Robert Karl Stonjek —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.158.79 (talk) 13:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Tautology
This sentence taken from the current revision of the article:

 * Unfortunately, although in evolutionary biology the word "fitness" has nothing to do with being "fit" as fitness is measured in terms of survival and reproductive success, the similarity with the adjective "fit" leads many to charge the phrase "survival of the fittest" is equivalent to saying "survival of those who survive best" or "reproduction of those who reproduce most", i.e., that it is a tautology.

This can be rewritten as: "although fitness really means better survival and reproduction, some say that 'survival of the fittest' is equivalent to 'survival of those who survive best' or 'reproduction of those who reproduce most'". Well, duh ! Clearly this sentence is problematic.

The modern scientific of fitness is reproductive success (although this can be calculated in different ways). In the deprecated meaning that Spencer had in mind, the expression "survival of the fittest" ("survival of those who are better adapted for survival") is pretty much tautological. In the modern sense of the term ("survival of those who reproduce better"), it does not mean much. This is why scientists have stopped using it.

The fundamental problem with the expression "survival of the fittest" is that it does not take into account the key requirement of heritability. You can have survival of the fittest, and yet have no evolution at all, if this superior "fitness" (whether in the old or modern sense) is not based on heritable traits; but if this superior fitness is indeed based on heritable traits, evolution mechanically ensues. Check out the link to Ridley's explanation in the "external links" section.

 * Yes has been at the page with his somewhat "interpretive" views. You should see what he did to natural selection (see Requests_for_arbitration/Marcosantezana).  Basically, someone needs to go through it with a toothcomb, but there' no point trying to talk to him because won't get any response out of him.  — Dunc|☺ 19:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted his most revecent changes, but we ought to consider reverting to this version and simply reading through his changes for any useful bit. JeffBurdges 18:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Needs source
'The phrase is a metaphor, not a scientific description; and it is not generally used by biologists, who almost exclusively prefer to use the phrase "natural selection". '

Such an argument requires a citation. Could anyone provide that? Aranherunar 12:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

OR/POV
Example: In The Man Versus The State of 1884 Spencer used this phrase to reinforce his social theories, writing "Thus by survival of the fittest, the militant type of society becomes characterized by profound confidence in the governing power, joined with a loyalty causing submission to it in all matters whatever." Companies which offer better goods and services survive better in the marketplace and tend to accumulate an ever-growing market share. Poorly-adapting companies will be forced out by better-adapting ones: "killed" by the competition.

Spencer's work is badly cited here (it's in the postscript to the work)! Furthermore, the second clause about companies does not pertain to the cite provided here. Criticism of Spencer's use of the phrase should be properly sourced according to WP:NOR, after it is explained what Spencer actually meant. Incinerator2.0 22:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Revamped the paragraph. It no longer claims that he was using the phrase to support his theories. In fact you could argue that Spencer's notion of "survival of the fittest" is quite different from Darwin's notion. It sounds like he could be talking about Lamarckian evolution, group selection, memetics, etc... all at the same time. Mistercupcake 04:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

"tautology" section
the "tautology" section was quite obviously written by somebody who has not understood the claim to the statement's tautology, instead going on about a "modern sense of 'fit'" (presumably "physical fitness"), apparently unaware of the generic sense "suited, proper". The example just illustrates the concept all over again without addressing the tautology issue. The gazelle example,
 * The faster gazelle would therefore be "selected", i.e., it would have higher relative fitness than slower ones, etc, but not "because it is selected" but rather because it can run faster and thus can escape better

says'' illustrates an incidence of one criterion for fitness in a certain context, i.e. "fastness". But a fast gazelle is not just fit because it is fast, but because it lives in an environment where speed is beneficial. the same gazelle would not profit from its fastness in another environment (say, on an island with no predators). It is therefore not "fit because it is fast", but proves fit by being selected.
 * In the causality chain that leads from functional differences to higher absolute or realized fitness nothing is tautological, since fitness is simply a measurement of the result of selection, a result that is determined by one's biological functionality.

it is true that fitness is "simply a measurement of the result of selection", which is the entire point. It is unclear why this is supposed to be "not tautological". dab (ᛏ) 18:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: much of the "Is 'survival of the fittest' a tautology?" section appears word for word at http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~txm/thesis/node17.html. It's not clear which is the original. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.41.8.179 (talk) 20:57, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Reproductive success not in Origin
Following the Tautology links section http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA500.html "....What Darwin said is that heritable variations lead to differential reproductive success."

Where did Darwin say this reproductive success and differential appears nowhere in Origin of Species from http://www.gutenbergpress.org ? TongueSpeaker 18:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Weiner appears to be paraphrasing Darwin's writings: a possible source is "Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection." .. dave souza, talk 19:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Possibly because reproductive success on Wikipedia redirects to Natural Selection. I just want to know who formally established that reproductive success means Natural Selection and where was it published. The word Natural Selection did'nt even exist before 1859 or am I mistaken? I know that Artificial Selection was only coined by Darwin in 1859. Reproductive success is one of the most widely used phrases in the Evolution literature and thus it must have it's own page on Wikipedia. What if cows were meant to produce beer instead of milk, would a cow still be a "success"? TongueSpeaker 22:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

 * It'd be ideal if we could track down the origin of the phrase "reproductive success", but I'm really not sure what you're getting at. Are you saying the term is somehow ill-defined? Ask any biologist today, and they'll give you an exact definition of reproductive success and explain precisely why it is the lynchpin of natural selection. The article on pulley says "It is not recorded when or by whom the pulley was first developed", but I think it's safe to say the idea of a pulley is well defined. No clue what that beercow comment is about; reproductive success has nothing to do with what an animal is "meant" to do.89.0.31.110 14:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

In the TalkOrigins link you show above, the paragraph including the statement "What Darwin said is that heritable variations lead to differential reproductive success." is attributed to Weiner, Jonathan. 1994. The Beak of the Finch. New York: Knopf. The term natural means of selection was used by Darwin in his essay of 1842 and his 1844 revision of his essay as published in 1858 includes the term natural selection. The 1842 essay says "But if man selects, then new races rapidly formed," the term artificial selection appears in The Origin in 1859. .. dave souza, talk 01:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

In this thread "What Naturaled and Who did the Selecting" http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/38df9a9a127281a8/733affebf9ef9aca?lnk=st&q=&rnum=3#733affebf9ef9aca I was told that the phrase Micro Evolution in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1911, citing the American Naturalist v. 45, p. 256. The first for Macro Evolution is Dobzhansky's "Genetics & Origin of Species".. Virtually nobody knows this because everybody seems to just invent new phrases as they go along. I still don't know who established Reproductive Success or when was the phrase used for the first time. Did Weiner formally establish this in 1994? And my point as I made still stands, Darwin did not use the word differential, yet everybody thinks he did. To clarify this confusion we should track down the person and first usage of the phrase and how this person formally established this concept in the same way the Fourier established the Fourier Transform. We are told that Evolution or NS is not circular in its argument. It is as though somebody has simply decreed that it is impossible to phrase Evolution, NS, Reproductive Success in a circular manner. In order to demonstrate that we are not using circular or tautological arguments, we must somehow agree on some way of formulating these concepts so that they are circular. Presently anybody and everybody simply postulates that this or that formulation of NS is circular or not, but we are never told who formally established it as such. TongueSpeaker 18:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait, what? Evolution, simplified to omit lateral gene transfer, artificial selection, and all that jazz, is the diversification of life via the combination of mutation (predicated on the heritability of traits) and natural selection. An individual's reproductive success, simply put, is how long its genes remain in the gene pool. Natural selection is the idea that individuals well equipped to survive and reproduce in an environment do, and individuals poorly equipped to survive and reproduce don't. In other words, that creatures equipped for reproductive success in an environment are, indeed, reproductively successful. Exceedingly simple, but hardly circular. 89.0.31.110 14:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Derive Fitness from first principles
Berlinski asked in his book that "Fitness" be derived from first principles: p.277 First edtion Black Mischief: "... In general trouble arises simply because the connection between biological traits and fitness is never derived from first principles. If the pig were to be born with wheels mounted on ball bearings instead of trotters, would it be better off on some scale of porcine fitness?"TongueSpeaker 16:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no scale of porcine fitness. It really isn't that complex, y'know. If the pig passes on its genes, it is fit. The longer the genes stay in the gene pool, the fitter they are. End of story.89.0.31.110 14:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Agreed. The term "fitness" can be troublesome in the finer points (see Dawkins, "The Extended Phenotype", chap. 10), but this quote makes no sense. Nobody cares how the pig gets higher reproductive success, as long as whatever caused this success is heritable. If it is, then it will mechanically propagate throughout the population, and if it is not, then it will mechanically die off. Please read the "tautology" section of this article again.--Thomas Arelatensis 12:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Natural Selection also metaphor!
 'The phrase is a metaphor, not a scientific description; and it is not generally used by biologists, who almost exclusively prefer to use the phrase "natural selection".'  Kind of true but disguises the fact that "natural selection" is more of a metaphor. The word 'natural' in natural selection is often misunderstood. It does not mean natural in the sense of distinguising from the supernatural. It doesn't mean natural in the everyday sense of "the likely course of events without interference". It doesn't even mean "occuring in nature". Strictly, at least according to the original meaning, it means "performed by Mother Nature" and so natural selection is a least as metaphorical as "survival of the fitest"! — Axel147 22:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

In case you thought I was just being pedantic Wallace himself makes this point in a letter to Darwin!

 * My dear Darwin,— I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of number of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, the self-acting and necessary effects of Natural Selection, that I am led to conclude that the term itself, and your mode of illustrating it however beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to impress it on the general naturalistic public...I think [the difficulty in understanding] arises almost entirely from your choice of the term Natural Selection, and so constantly comparing it in its effects to man's selection, and also to your so frequently personifying nature as 'selecting', as 'preferring', 'as seeking only the good of the species', etc., etc. To the few this is as clear as daylight, and beautifully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a stumbling block....I wish, therefore to suggest to you the possibility of entirely avoiding this source of misconception in your great work (if now not too late)...by adopting Spencer's term viz. 'Survival of the Fittest'. This term is a plain expression of the fact; 'Natural Selection' is a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain degree indirect and incorrect, since, even personifying Nature, she does not so much select special variations as exterminate the most unfavourable ones.

— Axel147 20:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

 * This was published as Letter from A.R. Wallace to C. Darwin, July 2, 1866 (James Marchant, Alfred Russel Wallace. Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. I, p. 171, online ) -- 89.247.63.225 (talk) 19:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

"survival of the fittest" and morality
Do we really even need this? It's not POV to omit every bit of grossly fallicious creationist drivel that's about. --Pvednes 18:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Despite your belief, creationism is still widely believed. Besides, this does go into morals. Hitler after all used this thought to kill Jews and promote the perfect Arian race. Not saying that this originally deals with morals, but after such people as Hitler, it is extremely controversial. -Yancyfry 03:12, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, I appreciate that having expressed YEC ideas in Mein Kampf and having promoted Luther's ideas of persecuting Jews Hitler can be associated with creationism, but really these sort of connections are an over-simplification. ... dave souza, talk 18:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone else think that whole paragraph is incredibly argumentative? I think the references (Is/Ought and consequences fallacy) are fine, but this paragraph is basically a detailed refutation of an ill-defined criticism. I also don't the way that capitalism, war, and racism are being umbrella'd together. It just looks like textbook strawman to me. I might take a shot at rewriting the whole thing later, when I have more time.

Tautology Links
Four out of four of the links in the "Tautology Links" section lead to articles all sharing the same perspective. I have added a fifth link to an article sharing the other major perspective. If providing only a single perspective is your idea of balance please delete all links but those leading to articles with the same point of view. 76.29.90.227 03:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)Steve

NS remains a tautology
To say that an airplane is a tautology is meaningless, nor does it stop the plane from flying. So too with NS; traits do lead to differential reproductive success. Of the two types of tautologies, rhetorical and logical, NS remains a rhetorical tautology in reference to its ability to explain genetic information. Just as the word "airplane" is not a tautology unless it is used as an explanation for why aircraft can fly, so NS is not a tautology unless used as an explanation for the origin of genetic information. A thing of itself is not a tautology. A thing used as an explanation for its own traits is a tautology. In fact, a thing used to explain its own traits results in a rhetorical tautology. Rhetorical and logical tautologies are different constructs that produce the same effect: circular reasoning. Circular reasoning results when one attempts to provide an explanation for one's axioms. What I am saying is that NS as an explanation for the origin of species is a statement of faith.

That some die explains not why others survive. That some survive does not explain genetic info. DNA causes replication and variation. The environment causes death. What causes genetic information? The very basis of evolution (reproduction and variation) is the outcome of genetic information. Yet what causes genetic information? The environment causes death, but the fact that some die does not explain why others survive. What causes genetic information? There is no natural selection without genetic information. Yet, what causes genetic information?

In summary, NS is a tautology when used as an explanation for the origin of genetic info, that is, when used to explain the origin of species, because genetic information causes the reproduction and variation from which nature can select. 76.29.90.227 03:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)Steve

 * The problem is that "natural selection" is not what you seem to think it is. Have you read the "tautology" section of this article. Natural selection is not just survival of the fittest". Natural selection is the portion of the variation in reproductive success, that is caused by heritable characters. If variation in reproductive success is not caused by heritable characters, then it's not part of NS. Real NS does explain what you call "genetic information" (which I understand to mean "why useful genes are present in living creatures"). It's true that "survival of the fittest", on its own and taken out of context, cannot. That's no argument against NS. --Thomas Arelatensis 12:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I would really appreciate if somebody found out where the phrase originates, especially since the versions on this page and Spencer's page tell quite different stories. Drivehonor 18:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for picking that up, good point. References added, the origin (but not the quote) is also given in Brittanica and in Desmond & Moore's Darwin. .. dave souza, talk 21:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

No longer accepted?
No... don't come here and yell at me. I'm simply asking this question. I was told recently that "Survival of the Fittest" is being replaced by another phrase.

 * Yes, scientists don't use this expression any more. Rather, the mechanism that drives evolution is called "natural selection" - Darwin's own original term. The reason is in the "tautology" section: "survival of the fittest" is just one part of the process, and on its own it is unable to explain adaptive evolution. Natural selection is, more or less, "increased survival (and reproduction) of the fittest, that is caused by heritable characters". --Thomas Arelatensis (talk) 16:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yup, for a long time it's been seen as problematic because "fittest" in biology means "best fitted" and not the popular modern usage of meaning athletic, or muscle men, or whatever. .. dave souza, talk 18:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's also 4 words to "Natural Selection"'s 2, and scientists are a lazy bunch...217.33.199.77 (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Multi-objective fitness?
Biological fitness is a multi-objective concept hence the statement "fittest" is inappropriate. The following statement is proposed "Survival is mostly for those with non-dominated fitness. E.Ahmed and A.S.Hegazi Mansoura EGYPT.

 * In modern evolutionary parlance, "fitness" is roughly a shorthand for "genetic contribution to future generations" - i.e. how much of his genetic material an individual managed to transmit to future generations. This is a single value, so multi-objective concepts are not needed. (Thomas Arelatensis, 10 Jan 2008)

Survival of the Fit
Would a mention of the phrase Survival of the fit belong on this page? It is actually the more correct phrases since, fittest implies that the evolutionary procecss chooses for perfection, which isn't the case. Also I've read in places that Survival of the fit predates fittest. 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Would a mention of the phrase survival of the fit belong on this page? Being more correct, since the evolutionary process does not result in the selection of the fittest, Wikipedia should welcome the change. 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I did more or less do this in the lead, with the mention of "survival of the fit enough". However, I see that the phrase "survival of the fit" has better referencing available, so I might make some changes along those lines.--Father Goose (talk) 03:04, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

"characters" vs "traits" (or "characteristics")
In the 'Is "survival of the fittest" a tautology?' section, I find the (numerous) use of the term "characters" somewhat confusing and think they should all be changed to either "characteristics" or "traits" -- which I think is what is meant, but is are more prevalent.

In spite of that, when I look up the definition of the word "character", it appears that its usage here is technically correct esp in relation to heredity -- even if uncommon in everyday language:
 * character -- (Genetics) A structure, function, or attribute determined by a gene or group of genes.

Lastly, changing the term as proposed would make it more consistent with the Wikipedia page on heritability only uses the terms "characteristics" or "traits" (mostly the latter).

So, before making this change, I'd like to know others' thoughts. So please add any comments here.

(Martnym (talk) 18:31, 13 November 2008 (UTC))

 * Seems to make sense.--147.188.192.41 (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Popular misconceptions about the meaning of "fit"
The phrase "survival of the fittest" is often used in popular culture to mean "survival of the strongest/fastest/most intelligent." This is of course utterly unscientific, since evolutionary fitness has nothing to do with characteristics that are seen as positive by human beings. "Fitter" does not mean "better" (where "better" is a human value judgement). I believe the popular misconception is common enough that it should be addressed in the lead of the article, so I have edited it accordingly.

Misunderstanding survival of the fittest
Such misunderstandings have been normal rather than the exception ever since 1900. This page unfortunately seems to have misunderstood the meaning the word "fit" had in the 1800s, and it should be radically revised. "Fit" meant suitable or appropriate. For example, women of the middle class could often be considered "not a fit wife for her excellent son"(Anne Bronte's novel "Agnes Grey"). The modern and usual meaning of the word is a product ot the 1900s, and Darwin and Spencer had no concept of physical fitness -- a modern luxury. The old concept "fit" represents in itself a relative quality, relative to something,, just like the verb "to fit", as a lid fits on its box. Darwin wanted such a relative concept, so he adopted Spencer's expression. It expressed "suited or adapted to its environment", which is exactly his basis for natural selection. It follows that he could have written "survival of the fit", it expresses almost the same idea. But "fittest" makes the idea of selection of only the best suited characteristics clearer. Mondin (talk) 16:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

 * That's exactly the point -- it's not the "best suited characteristics" that tend to survive, but just "sufficiently suited characteristics". This is why "surivival of the fit" (or "fit enough") is a better analogy for evolution than "survival of the fittest" is.--Father Goose (talk) 20:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I've tweaked the article a bit to cover the point, hope that helps. . dave souza, talk 23:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Looks pretty good, but could you make the language a little plainer? "...immediate, local environment, tracking changing environments by differential preservation of organisms" is a bit too big-wordy even for me.--Father Goose (talk) 02:32, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Tautology once again
The article writes:

"If certain heritable characters increase or decrease the chances of survival and reproduction of their bearers, then it follows mechanically (by definition of "heritable") that those characters that improve survival and reproduction will increase in frequency over generations."

The problem here is, that you have created a second term of fitness. You officially use fitness as "relative reproductive success" but inofficially you use a second term as "certain heritable characters increase or decrease the chances of survival and reproduction of their bearers". I prefer the notion of fitness as "adaption" or "competencies" in relation to environment, because it is more general. Of course, those competencies should be heritable, but this could include imitation, education etc. (eg heritation of language) as well.

So actually you have nothing solved with fitness = reproductive success. --79.220.172.178 (talk) 18:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

 * This sounds as if you are arguing for the discredited concept of Lamarckism. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 19:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Not at all. Of course I am mentioning "higher" inheritance systems as well, like Jablonka/Lamb are doing this in their book (and you may call this Lamarckism), but my main point was: Defining "fitness = relative reproductive success" plus "certain heritable characters increase or decrease the chances of survival and reproduction of their bearers" does nothing contribute to the "survival of the fittest" tautology problem, because indirectly you then transform the notion of fitness to "certain heritable characters which lead to something". I don't see, why this is better than "adapted to the environment". Sorry for my English, but I am German.--79.220.169.175 (talk) 11:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The difference seems to be that the notion of inheritance of acquired characters, commonly if misleadingly called Lamarkism, has organisms becoming adapted to the environment, while natural selection means that there is a differential advantage in survival and reproduction held be by organisms which happen to fit the environment that they happen to be in at the time. If that advantage persists over numerous generations, then there's a cumulative change in the ditribution of the inherited traits of the population, but no one organism has adapted itself to the environment, every organism has begun with traits which may or may not be useful. Clearer? . . dave souza, talk 11:37, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I don't understand that at all, because you talk about acquired characters, and I don't know where this comes from. Nobel prize winner Manfred Eigen (who worked a lot on eary evolution) mentions in one of his books, that "survival of the fittest" is a tautology, if there is only a simple relation between survival (which is population related) and fitness (which is environment related, he calls it value based). As long as you say in your article, that fitness means "relative reproductive success" you do not have solved the tautology problem. The same is true for your response. You now write "while natural selection means that there is a differential advantage in survival and reproduction held be organisms which happen to fit the environment that they happen to be in at the time" (btw: is this correct English: held be organisms?). Once again you use the notion "fit" without explaining it. So you have nothing won. I understand fitness as something, which is related to environment, not to reproduction or population numbers. And please do not talk about Lamarckism, Creationisms, Intelligent Design or any other favorite topics anymore, my problem is a different one. --79.220.169.175 (talk) 11:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops, fix typo. Perhaps you're missing the point that organisms vary, and some variations can be inherited. If the inherited variation gives some advantage in the environment of the moment, that helps successful breeding so the variation gets passed on to the next generation, and variations can accumulate. If that seems to be a tautology to you, it didn't seem obvious or true to biologists in the nineteenth century, even after Darwin published his theory. . . dave souza, talk 14:19, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The articles writes: "However, the expression 'survival of the fittest' (taken on its own and out of context) gives a very incomplete account of the mechanism of natural selection. The reason is that it does not mention a key requirement for natural selection, namely the requirement of heritability. It is true that the phrase 'survival of the fittest', in and by itself, is a tautology if fitness is defined by survival and reproduction. However, natural selection is not just survival of the fittest. Natural selection is the portion of variation in reproductive success, that is caused by heritable characters."
 * This does not convince me. Survival includes the requirement of heritability or weaker: similarity. The fittest can only survive, if offspring is similar to the fittest, otherwise somebody else survived. The problem still is, that the text does not define fitness. Evolution biology today often uses "fitness = relative reproductive success" which makes survival of the fittest a tautology. What I am saying all the time is: fitness must be defined in relation to environment. The use of 'heritable chararcters' instead does not solve the problem at all!
 * BTW: The exlusive reference to genes is a bit dangerous too. Pizarro onces killed 5000 Indians and put Atahualpa into prison - with just 150 men. Those men survived (if they had children later on), but the indians did not. If you explain this by genes, you end up in racism. The difference here was a technological (cultural) one. This cultural advantage will also be "heritated" to the children, because they grow up within the same culture. Therefore: Evolution can happen without genes being involved at all.--79.220.169.175 (talk) 17:38, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Link Added
I added a link that is more detailed about Evolution as a tautology. There is a lot of consusion here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.67.86.44 (talk) 18:55, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Origin And Nature Of Natural Selection

Longevity Schmongevity Genes

It's Not The Procedure, But The Concept That Is Absurd

Longevity Genes Search Reflects Science Decadence http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/320/122.page#6368

A. For most centenarians, longevity is written in the DNA. A study of people who live past 100 reveals many genetic paths to a long life. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/60772/title/For_most_centenarians%2C_longevity_is_written_in_the_DNA

B. Longevity, survival, natural selection, evolution

- Merriam-Webster OnLine Longevity = a : a long duration of individual life b : length of life

- Longevity is about survival, which is about "natural selection", which is about energy constrainment, which is about life evolution, which is about cosmic evolution. Every mass is destined to become energy to fuel the ongoing cosmic expansion. This is why organisms and black holes etc., eat, digest energy in mass forms, to avoid-postpone conversion to energy. This is evolution, which is natural selection, which is survival, which is longevity.

- All mass formats age. Life is a mass format. Searching for longevity genes is searching for evolution genes...

C. The search for longevity genes is a reflection of the 20th-21st centuries science decadence

Its concepts and terminology reflect the abandonment of basic science for adoption of the pretentious cancerous capitalist 20th-21st century technology culture.

Dov Henis (Comments From The 22nd Century) 03.2010 Updated Life Manifest http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065 Cosmic Evolution Simplified http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427 Gravity Is The Monotheism Of The Cosmos http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/260/122.page#4887 EOTOE, Embarrassingly obvious TOE, expanding the horizon beyond Darwin And Einstein http://www.molecularfossils.com/2010/05/formal-test-of-theory-of-universal.html 93.172.175.72 (talk) 07:57, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Confusion
There is some confusion. The argument of tautology is not about Evolution as a whole, just natural selection as possibly being incomplete or needing to be refined. It is even admitted by scientists that they do not understand what drives natural selection. It would be an arguement in formal logic whether or not natural selection even has a drive, or if the theory is complete but this does not mean that creationism is by default an accurate theory and it seems that whoever has taken charge of this page is convinced that this is the case and is not giving the arguement any credit at all. This is what makes it a paradox is that no one can come to a real conclusion except by consensus which in formal logic is not good enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.67.86.44 (talk) 06:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source for your statement that "scientists [admit] that they do not understand what drives natural selection"? Gabbe (talk) 07:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

 * I cannot yet find what I'm looking for on the internet but I did find one that says scientists are looking to other possibilities to find a different "driving force" behind evolution and that, in different words, natural selection may not be enough. What Drives Evolution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.67.86.44 (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's been a hallmark of the modern evolutionary synthesis since at least the 1940s that natural selection is not the only process driving evolution, and that there are other processes at work (such as genetic drift). Natural selection is not synonymous with evolution, rather, it is one of the processes explaining how (and why) evolution occurs. Gabbe (talk) 11:09, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

 * Yes that's true but natural selection is still the most important drive and that's why it's the center of the tautology debate. There are still some tautologies in the definition of natural selection. For example, on this article:

 * "...natural selection does not simply state that "survivors survive" or "reproducers reproduce"; rather, it states that "survivors survive, reproduce and therefore propagate any heritable characters which have affected their survival and reproductive success"..."

 * 1. Survivors survive
 * 2. Reproduce and therefor propagate

 * These are things that bring the explanation into question and because a tautology ultimately means a paradox, in logical studies, explanatory power is limited and would mean that at some things have to be reconsidered. That's it. No victory for creationism or intelligent design there. It's really just a debate and hasn't changed anything yet so there's no harm that can really be done by making this subject more clear. If this debate were to change anything, it would only help better understand what is admittedly still somewhat of a puzzle. It would not contradict all things evolution like the pseudoscientist claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.67.86.44 (talk) 19:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

71.237.141.241
I so don't want to get involved in this discussion. I would however like to bring to someone's attention that 71.237.141.241 seems to have snuck in an edit that reverses the previous meaning of a paragraph. They appear to have done this on a number of related websites as well as the odd bit of section blanking to remove criticisms of religious concepts. 58.96.94.12 (talk) 03:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Biological validity
The new section had an opening paragraph which misrepresented Darwin, so I've removed it:
 * Survival of the fittest was observed at the level of species by Darwin himself, the most famous example being the finches of the Galapogos Islands, which competed and diversified in response to biological pressure. Another common example is the change in colour frequency of moths during England's industrial revolution are the moths. Since Darwin's observations the effects of biotic pressures have been observed on the scale of individuals, populations and species, however, the influence of competition has not been proven on a larger evolutionary scale.

For a start, Darwin didn't observe the finches competing and diversifying, the famous Galapagos finches were shown to have speciated by Gould who only studied them after Darwin's return to England. The example of peppered moth evolution didn't show competition between moths, it showed differential bird predation depending on how well the moths were camouflaged. Darwin himself meant the "struggle for existence" in a wide sense, including struggle against the environment as well as against other organisms. As for whether there's a larger evolutionary scale, that seems to be in some dispute: speciation is the main focus of evolutionary biology. I've left the Sahney et al. argument in, but have made it clear that this is one paper: more would be needed to overturn the evolutionary understanding of natural selection, whether phrased as survival of the fittest or not. . dave souza, talk 20:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Editions of Darwin's Book
Could someone add a short timetable when the first four editions were published, before his fifth book was published? I need to find out for how long Drawin did NOT use the term "survival of the fittest", as this was a term coined by Spencer. 84.112.136.52 (talk) 22:02, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Labeling Shermer
Is it necessary to introduce Shermer in this article as, "Skeptic Society founder and Skeptic magazine publisher Dr. Michael Shermer". Wikipedia isn't a master of ceremonies, introducing a keynote speaker. - Checking the checkers (talk) 12:34, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Did Darwin regret adopting the phrase "Survival of the fittest"?
Current searches bring up no reference to this issue, but in the past I have read that later in life, Darwin expressed regret that he had adopted the phrase. I remember one such comment cited a letter written by Darwin, perhaps to a son. Can anyone throw any light on this? It would be an informative addition to the page if true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.172.41.108 (talk • contribs) 23:32, 26 July 2015
 * Haven't found any source for this claims: perhaps you're thinking of "But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion & used Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant 'appeared' by some wholly unknown process.". . . dave souza, talk 09:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

"fittest species", evidence for selection by survival
This edit caught my eye, and pointed up this subtopic for me. I'm no topical expert, but it seems to me that the cited supporting source does not support the assertion, "there is little evidence that competition has been the driving force in the evolution of large groups" (this supports that assertion better). Rather, the source cited contrasts (aquatic) species in species-saturated environment with (tetrapod) species in a less saturated environment. Also, if this is (from the edit summary) "Interpreted as expressing a biological theory", it seems to me that WP:DUE urges mention of other viewpoints (e.g., possibly, as expressed here vs. here. I also stumbled across this, which I found interesting but didn't think it was directly on point here). Apologies if this comment was a time waster. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:40, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Misunderstanding survival of the fittest in opening paragraph
The opening paragraph seems to have degraded over time and it shows a serious misunderstanding of the phrase "Survival of the fittest." Firstly, it focuses on "biological fitness" which was not the meaning of "fittest" when the phrase was coined, nor is it the meaning used by modern biologists when they say "Survival of the fittest." In addition, the third sentence says a Darwinian interpretation relates to biological fitness, which isn't supported by the references to Darwin throughout the rest of the article. I looked up the edit that added "In Darwinian terms" and it replaced the phrase "In terms of biological fitness" with no citation, of course. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Survival_of_the_fittest&diff=prev&oldid=663926337

I believe the opening paragraph should either just be the first sentence to avoid confusing the meaning of "fit", or there should be some brief introduction to the original meaning of the phrase and how the phrase is commonly used today to mean something different. User Mondin describes the original meaning of "fit" nicely in the Talk section "Misunderstanding survival of the fittest" created on 16:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC).

The version of the opening paragraph that existed before the change that is linked to above demonstrates such a discussion of the various meanings of the phrase. I've reproduced it here: "Survival of the fittest" is a phrase that originated from an evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. It is more commonly used today in other contexts, to refer to a supposed greater probability that "fit" as opposed to "unfit" individuals will survive some test. In these contexts, "fit" refers to "best adapted to the current environment," which differs from common notions of the binary 'fit' and 'unfit.'[citation needed] These ideas are not related to the biological concept of fitness (defined as reproductive success) which has led to popular misconceptions about the meaning of the phrase. In terms of biological fitness, the phrase is best understood as "Survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations."

title: Talk:Survival of the fittest


text:
User:Bigtrick

Hi!

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Bigtrick


text:
Henry Howarth Bashford

Sir Henry Howarth Bashford (13 January 1880 – 15 August 1961) was a distinguished English physician, becoming Honorary Physician to King George VI. He was also an author, most notably of satirical novels.

Early life
Bashford was born in Kensington, London on 13 January 1880 the son of Frederick Bashford and Henrietta Eleanor, daughter of the Rev. Henry Howarth, Rector of St George's, Hanover Square and Chaplain in Ordinary to Queen Victoria. On his paternal side, his grandfather Lt. J. Bashford (later Captain), Royal Navy, was mentioned in the official list of the wounded at the Battle of Trafalgar in which he took part on board HMS Royal Sovereign (1786).

Bashford was educated at Bedford Modern School, the University of London and the London Hospital.

Career
Bashford was Chief Medical Officer to the Post Office (1933–43) and subsequently Treasury Medical Adviser (1943–45). He was Honorary Physician to King George VI (1941–44) and was the late Honorary President of the Post Office Ambulance Centre, St. John Ambulance Association. He was created a knight-bachelor of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, announced in the King’s birthday honours on 9 June 1938.

Writing
Bashford is now remembered as a writer, in particular of the satirical Augustus Carp, Esq., By Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man (1924), which was first published anonymously. He also wrote some popular poetry.

Family life
In 1908 Bashford married Margaret Eveline, daughter of Ernest Sutton of Basildon, Berkshire. They had one son and three daughters. Bashford died in Easton Royal on 15 August 1961.

Sir Henry is celebrated by a blue plaque in the village of Easton Royal, his last resting place, where he was the much-loved village historian and benefactor.

The National Portrait Gallery has a photographic bromide print portrait of Sir Henry.

Works

 * Tommy Wideawake (1903)
 * The Manitoban: A Romance (1904)
 * The Pilgrims' March (1909)
 * The corner of Harley Street: being some familiar correspondence of Peter Harding, M.D. (1911)
 * Vagabonds In Périgord (1914)
 * Pity the poor blind (1917)
 * Sons Of Admiralty: A Short History Of The Naval War 1914-1918 with Archibald Hurd (1919)
 * The Heroic Record of the British Navy with A. Hurd (1920)
 * Half-Past Bedtime (1922)
 * Augustus Carp, Esq., By Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man (1924)
 * The Happy Ghost and Other Stories (1925)
 * Behind The Fog (1927)
 * The Harley Street Calendar (1929)
 * The Student Life And Other Essays (Intro to work by William Ostler) (1931)
 * The Man On Ben Na Garve [Short story in The Second Century Of Detective Stories Ed EC Bentley] (1938)
 * Doctors In Shirt Sleeves (1940)
 * Fisherman's Progress (1946)
 * Wiltshire Harvest (1953)
 * Easton Royal: A Short History
 * Lodgings For Twelve
 * The Plain Girl's Tale
 * Songs Out Of School

He also wrote as Peter Harding.

title: Henry Howarth Bashford


text: Category:Islands of Norway

title: Category:Islands of Norway


text:
De syv søstre

or is a mountain range on the island of Alsten in Alstahaug Municipality in Nordland county, Norway.

The mountain range consists of seven peaks on the southeastern half of the island. The mountains are (listed from northeast to southwest):
 * Botnkrona, with a height of 1072 m
 * Grytfoten, with a height of 1019 m
 * Skjæringen, with a height of 1037 m
 * Tvillingene ("the twins"), with a height of 980 m for the taller one and 945 m for the shorter one)
 * Kvasstinden, with a height of 1010 m
 * Breitinden, with a height of 910 m

The range is popular with hikers and offers scenic views over the surrounding area.

All the peaks can be ascended using marked paths, and on every summit there is a notebook where visitors can write their name. After visiting all peaks, hikers can contact the local tourist association which will issue a certificate as a testimonial of their achievement. There is no time-limit for climbing all the peaks. The record for the quickest visit to all peaks is under 4 hours.

A good view of the mountain range can be achieved traveling by sea in the "Hurtigruten", as it passes the full length of the range.

title: De syv søstre


text:
Energy Task Force

The Energy Task Force, officially the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), was a task force created by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2001 during his second week in office. Vice President Dick Cheney was named chairman. This group's stated objective was to “develop a national energy policy designed to help the private sector, and, as necessary and appropriate, State and local governments, promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy for the future." The final report was released on May 16, 2001.

The Bush Transition Energy Advisory Team shaped the administration's supply-side energy policy administration and was a precursor to the Energy Task Force.

Background
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham told a National Energy Summit on March 19, 2001 that America was going to face an energy supply crisis in the next 20 years. He believed that if America was not adequately prepared for those demands then the foundations for the prosperity of the country would be threatened. The Energy Task Force was developed to decrease American dependency on foreign petroleum, which the National Energy Policy deemed would have a negative effect on the US economy, standards of living and national security.

The Task Force was composed of Vice President Dick Cheney and the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Energy, as well as other cabinet and senior administration-level officials. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), these members held ten meetings over the course of three and a half months with petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry representatives and lobbyists. None of the meetings were open to the public and no non-federal participants were involved. The first phase of the project was to inform the President of current energy supply problems and changes needed to the economic policy. This was completed on March 19, 2001, while the second phase, the presentation of the National Energy Policy, was completed on May 16, 2001.

The GAO stated that "the National Energy Policy report was the product of a centralized, top-down, short- term, and labor-intensive process that involved the efforts of several hundred federal employees governmentwide". This meant that the cabinet officials members held the authority in developing the report, while working groups drafted sample reports and findings for them.

National Energy Policy
The National Energy Policy Development Group completed its report in the beginning of 2001. The 169- page report, released on May 17, 2001, was titled the National Energy Policy (NEP).

Included in the proposed policy is the importance of energy efficiency and conservation. Using energy wisely is cited as the first challenge for the nation, as this will lessen the burden on our finances and the environment. The second listed challenge was to repair and add to the existing network of refineries, pipelines, generators and transmission lines. It was stated that the refining and distribution of natural gas were affected by an inefficient and inadequate infrastructure and that this issue could be remedied by 38,000 miles of new pipeline and 255,000 miles of distribution lines. The third challenge is "increasing energy supplies while protecting the environment". This section states that although renewable energy is a hope for the future, it will be many years until this energy is sufficient for the nations current needs, and therefore the requirements must be met using the available means.

Foreign energy sources
One of the widely disputed aspects of the proposed National Energy Policy is how the plan suggests balancing needs for future sources of renewable energy with the immediate reliance on petroleum. In Chapter Six of the policy, titled "Nature’s Power: Increasing America’s Use of Renewable and Alternative Energy", domestic energy sources such as wind, geothermal, solar and bio-fuel are cited as necessary to stabilize and protect the United States' interests. Future energy sources such as hydrogen and fusion are also cited as long-term projects. However, the Policy also states the necessity for plans to improve and expand the current pipeline systems within the US, implying that reliance on oil and natural gas will exist for years to come. The plan then goes on to detail American interests in foreign energy resources. In a section titled "Diversity of Supply", the policy explains why diversifying dependence on foreign oil is a key factor in securing short term stability. Canada, South America and the Caribbean, Africa, Russia and Asia were all detailed as having supplies of oil that could add to the supply of resources available to US consumption.

Protecting American energy
During Barack Obama's presidency, America saw an increase in oil production. It was especially high in the year of 2011. The Obama administration took steps to ensure that America's need for oil would also safeguard the protection of the environment as well. Although oil production has increased, America's dependency on foreign oil has decreased. The total consumption of imported oil has decreased from 57% in 2008 to 45% in 2011, which is the lowest it has been for about 20 years.

President Obama made strict guidelines to standardize fuel economy in vehicles, especially passenger vehicles. Statistically, vehicles with fuel economy benefits improve the environment and lower fuel costs. The Obama Administration finalized a new regulation that would require commercial trucks, vans, and buses produced in the years 2014–2018 to be tested for national fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards. Barack Obama has also made investments to manufacture efficient batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles. The Administration is funding research that would help increase the use of natural gas and reduce oil consumption.

Adjusting to climatic changes
Another goal that President Barack Obama had in regards to efficient energy use was to reduce emissions that are unsafe to the environment, which in turn would result in climate change and cause air and water pollution. He made efforts to gather other world leaders, in December 2009, and have them agree to make this an international endeavor. It has been noted that the Obama Administration has made the largest investment in the American history to have clean energy through renewable power generation. One of the ways to ensure this goal is by monitoring greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect sources. President Obama has started a Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, to aid in policies and programs on a Federal level. With the use of interagency decisions can be made on how to protect the environment and local communities against changing climatic conditions. The agency also created strategies that would shield wildlife and freshwater resources.

Protecting the environment as a whole
On the grand scale, President Obama is taking measures to protect the American soil, the bodies of water and the atmosphere from severe pollution and other problems caused by inefficient energy use. He plans to have an interagency collaboration on a Federal level so that the environmental issues facing America could be solved or even brought down. The Recovery Act of 1999 has programs and projects that would entail the protection of our environment through agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior. These agencies oversee funding for many big projects like those that promote going green. The Act also invests in advancing in technology so that American people can enjoy the long-term effects of a clean environment. The National Ocean Policy looks after resources that are critical to America and prioritize them accordingly. They ensure that United States has oceans and coastal regions that healthy that people can enjoy.

In his efforts to preserve and conserve land, Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act in 2009. Through this act he was able to vastly expand American land. The Clean Water Act already does some regulation to protect the American waters. Nonetheless, a draft has been submitted requesting a specific list of those water bodies protected under this list and which ones are considered federally controlled water bodies. The Obama Administration has now modernized the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in order to allow a fair governing on the quality of our environment. The revision is for better and improved efforts by the Federal agencies on protecting communities, the economy and also to find ways to get the American public to be involved in the decision making.

Controversy

Most of the activities of the Energy Task Force have not been disclosed to the public, even though Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (since 19 April 2001) have sought to gain access to its materials. The organisations Judicial Watch and Sierra Club launched a law suit (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia: Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) under the FOIA to gain access to the task force's materials. Additionally, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental advocacy group, filed a suit to obtain the records of the task force meeting in April 2001. In the spring of 2002, the U.S. Department of Energy released approximately 13,500 pages to the NRDC related to the NEP. After several years of legal wrangling, in May, 2005 an appeals court permitted the Energy Task Force's records to remain secret.

In 2001, the energy task force that Cheney had commenced in secret finally went public. Soon afterwards, the United States House of Representatives approved the measures and decided to legalize the new policy set forth by Cheney. Upon revision of the policy it was evident that many of the regulations and recommendations were pro-Oil company. The policy assigned little accountability for mistakes or harmful actions to those in authority, especially the government officials. This policy was to provide very specific guidelines to run the Energy Task Force efficiently and effectively.

The NEP was intended to be a directive with clear instructions on how to proceed with the new task force. Despite the fact that renewable energy was the purpose behind establishing this force, only seven of the 105 recommendations in the final report referenced renewable energy. Many of the big oil companies benefited from the policy. There is some speculation, however, that some of the congressmen profited from the policy due to the major contributions they got from these companies.

On April 4, 2001, representatives of 13 environmental groups, including Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth and Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Group, met with the Task Force (although not with Vice President Cheney personally). Environmental groups have speculated that this meeting was an attempt to appease them, since it is reported that a draft paper had already been produced at the time of this meeting and that half of the meeting was spent on various members introducing themselves. No further meetings between the task force and the environmental groups were reported, although there had been at least 40 meetings between the task force and representatives of the energy industry and its interest groups.

The Washington Post reported on November 15, 2005, that it had obtained documents listing executives from major oil corporations, including ExxonMobil, Conoco, Royal Dutch Shell, and the American subsidiary of BP who met with Energy Task Force participants while they were developing national energy policy. Vice President Cheney was reported to have met personally with the Chief Executive Officer of BP during the time of the Energy Task Force's activities. In the week prior to this article revealing oil executive involvement, the Chief Executives of ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips told members of the US Senate that they had not participated as part of the Energy Task Force, while the CEO of BP stated that he did not know. In response to questions regarding the article, Cheney spokesperson Lea Ann McBride was quoted as saying that the courts have upheld "the constitutional right of the president and vice president to obtain information in confidentiality."

On July 18, 2007, The Washington Post reported the names of those involved in the Task Force, including at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. Among those in the meetings were James J. Rouse, then vice president of ExxonMobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron; Jack N. Gerard, then with the National Mining Association; Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute; and Eli Bebout, an old friend of Cheney's from Wyoming who serves in the state Senate and owns an oil and drilling company.

General references

 * Details surrounding the Task Force per Project Censored
 * Cheney's day before Supreme Court Summary of the case as of April 26, 2004, per MSNBC
 * Cheney Energy Task Force, per Public Citizen on bushsecrecy.org
 * Cheney Energy Task Force, per Public Citizen on bushsecrecy.org

title: Energy Task Force


text:
User:Jill St. Crux

.

title: User:Jill St. Crux


text:
User:Ed Poor/politics

--Uncle Ed (Rod Poe) 16:55, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Ed Poor/politics


text:
The Perfect Kiss

"The Perfect Kiss" is the ninth single by the English alternative dance and rock band New Order. It was recorded at Britannia Row Studios in London and released on 13 May 1985. It is the first New Order song to be released as a single while also included on a studio album (Low-Life). The vinyl version has Factory catalogue number FAC 123 and the video has the opposite number, FAC 321.

Background
The song reached number 46 in the UK charts.

The song's themes include love ("We believe in a land of love") and death ("the perfect kiss is the kiss of death"). The overall meaning of the song is unclear to its writer today. In an interview with GQ magazine Bernard Sumner said "I haven't a clue what this is about." He agreed with the interviewer that his best known lyric is in the song: "Pretending not to see his gun / I said, 'Let's go out and have some fun'". The lyrics, he added, came about after the band was visiting a man's house in the United States who showed his guns under his bed before they went out for an enjoyable night. It had been quickly written, recorded and mixed without sleep before the band went on tour in Australia.

The song's complex arrangement includes a number of instruments and methods not normally used by New Order. For example, a bridge features frogs croaking melodically. The band reportedly included them because Morris loved the effect and was looking for any excuse to use it. At the end of the track, the faint bleating of a (synthesized) sheep can be heard. Sheep samples would reappear in later New Order singles "Fine Time" and "Ruined in a Day".

The song was not performed live between 1993 and 2006 due to the complexity of converting the programs from the E-mu Emulator to the new Roland synthesizer. However, it returned to the live set at a performance in Athens on 3 June 2006.

Sleeve
The Peter Saville sleeve is uniform silver with the word "perfect" embossed on the front side and "kiss The" on the back, like a wraparound band. It was about this time that the photographer Geoff Power [see "Shellshock"] was introduced to Saville. So enamoured was Saville by Power's work that he originally offered the photographer the cover to Low-Life. Then when that fell through, they worked on a cover for "The Perfect Kiss" using one of Power's Grimsby dock's photographs, which can be seen later in New Order's songbook, 'X'. With time running out and Saville's decision not to run with this image – it didn't fit in with his subsequent portraits of the band on Low-Life and also being a colour photograph clashed with the monochrome of the album cover. A year later Power offered the use of a similar image for the New Order release, Shellshock.

Versions
Lasting nearly 9 minutes, the full 12" single version of the song is longer than even "Blue Monday", New Order's 1983 dance epic. This version also appears on the vinyl edition of Substance, with the CD pressings deleting 44 seconds of the climactic finale, due to time limitations of the CD format in 1987 (future reissues of Substance did not restore the missing 44 seconds, even though newer CDs would allow for it). The full version was eventually released unedited on the 2-disc deluxe edition of Low-Life, marking its first appearance on CD.

The version on the original Low-Life and all post-Substance compilations is a 4:48 edit that omits the third verse (the one that mentions the song's title), replaces the original intro with that of the song's B-side, "Kiss of Death", and fades out before the climax. This version is present on the A-side of the 7" single from the Philippines; most 7" issues from other countries have on the A-side a version that is further edited to 4:24 (in some or all cases without the percussion introduction). The UK 7" promo release on Factory Records is a rarely heard edit cut by Ivan Ivan which compresses most of the elements of the full, 8:46 version (including the ending but not the third verse) into 3:50.

There is also a pre-edited recording of the live performance filmed for the music video with later overdubbed mistakes left intact; it is available on the bonus disc included with some editions of Retro and on various promotional vinyl releases.

The song has been remixed by third parties like Razormaid and Hot Tracks and has been covered by bands including Capsule Giants, Nude, International, Paradoxx, Razed in a New Division of Agony, and Amoeba Crunch.

B-sides
"The Kiss of Death" is a typical New Order dub version: it is a mostly instrumental remix of the A-side with added effects; it notably features the opening of the album version. "Perfect Pit" is a short recording of synthesized bass and drum parts that sounds like Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris practicing.

Music video
Jonathan Demme directed the song's video, which depicts the band playing the song from beginning to end in their practice room. According to Factory Records owner Tony Wilson, Demme was looking forward to filming dynamic shots of Stephen Morris behind the drum kit and was dismayed to find that the drums in the song were all programmed.

The 11 minute video features a Joy Division poster for Unknown Pleasures that can be prominently seen behind Bernard Sumner.

The video appeared on the Substance 1989 VHS tape and the DVD A Collection. An edit of the video version appeared on a US 12" single in 1985. The full audio take, including Demme's remarks before and after the performance, appeared on a bonus CD included with early copies of the box set Retro. Since it is a unique live performance, the video version of the song sounds different from other released versions.

Credits

 * Director - Jonathan Demme
 * Producer - Michael Shamberg
 * Cinematography - Henri Alekan
 * Editor - Tony Lawson
 * Studio - Factory Films
 * Distributor - Palace Pictures

Reception
John Leland of Spin wrote, "A dreamy, melancholy melody runs over the electronic and unfortunately guitar-less hooks. But the best part is the end, when they turn all the machines to max and mash the thing up."

title: The Perfect Kiss


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Meghan

Meghan
POV. At best, a redirect; plus do we list names like this? Note "mispelling"! — Bill 16:53, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. "Meghan" gets 507,000 hits on Google; "Megan" 2,550,000. While this is a popular alternate spelling, Wikipedia shouldn't be a spelling redirector for any ole' name (that's what Google's for). Unless there are any articles about anyone named "Meghan", I vote delete. --Jill St. Crux 17:42, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Delete. Wikipedia is not a baby name book. --Improv 19:37, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Comment. Meghan and Meaghan are both quite common variations of Megan. Darksun 22:06, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I NPOVed it up a tiny bit. Anyways, If Megan is kept, this should definately be a redirect.  Redirects are good, especially for alternate spellings  — siro  χ  o  22:16, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
 * I promise to vote delete if Megan is VfD'd. Considering VfDing it myself. --Improv 19:08, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: Ain't no correct way to spell a first name. I spell mine Geogre 18:28, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC).  We are not a book of names, yet.
 * Delete. Ambi 04:28, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - The user is focusing on Megan and Kelly first names - they appear to have some personal interest - Tεx  τ  urε  22:06, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Meghan


text:
United States Barracuda-class submarine (1951)

The Barracuda-class submarines (originally the K-1-class submarines) were the product of Project Kayo, a research and development effort begun immediately after World War II by the United States Navy to "solve the problem of using submarines to attack and destroy enemy submarines." They originally had the hull classification symbol SSK, for "hunter-killer submarine".

These submarines were originally named K-1 through K-3, with hull numbers SSK-1 through SSK-3. They were renamed Barracuda, Bass, and Bonita in December 1955. In 1959 Barracuda was redesignated SST-3 (SST for training submarine), and in 1964 her main sonar was removed. A final redesignation twist was SS-T3 in 1973; for some reason the Navy wished to list her as an attack submarine. Bass was decommissioned in 1957 and redesignated SS-551 in 1959. Bonita was decommissioned in 1958 and redesignated SS-552 in 1959.

Background
It was known that the Soviet Navy had acquired the German Type XXI U-boat and other advanced submarines, and was expected to rapidly put derivatives of them into production. In 1948 the US Navy prepared estimates of the number of anti-submarine warfare (ASW)-capable submarines (SSKs) that would be needed to counter the hundreds of advanced Soviet submarines that were expected to be in service by 1960. Two scenarios were considered: a reasonable scenario assuming the Soviets would build to their existing force level of about 360 submarines, and a "nightmare" scenario projecting that the Soviets could build submarines as fast as the Germans had built U-boats, with a force level of 2,000 submarines. The projected US SSK force levels for these scenarios were 250 for the former and 970 for the latter. By comparison, the total US submarine force at the end of World War II, excluding obsolescent training submarines, was just over 200 boats.

Design
The Barracuda-class SSKs were designed to be smaller than contemporary attack submarines and simpler in design and construction. It was hoped that this would allow them to be cheaply mass-produced in the large numbers it was thought would be needed to combat the growing Soviet Type XXI-derived submarine fleet. It was also thought that this would allow shipyards without submarine experience, and aircraft contractors with experience in the mass production of large complex aircraft, to build these submarines.

The primary innovation created by Kayo was a low-frequency passive bow sonar system, the BQR-4, which was originally to be wrapped around the submarine's conning tower. Testing on USS Grampus (SS-523) showed that self-noise would greatly reduce detection range, and the sonar was relocated to the bow. Due to the large sonar dome above the torpedo tubes, in the Barracuda-class the torpedo tubes remained in their traditional bow position.

Service
In 1951-53 the Barracudas were joined by seven converted Gato-class SSKs. These lost four of their six bow torpedo tubes and two of their four main diesel engines.

The advent of nuclear power, with USS Nautilus (SSN-571) entering service in 1955 and the Soviet Navy responding with the first November-class submarine only three years later, created a revolution in ASW. Nuclear submarines could maintain a high speed at deep depths indefinitely. The conventional SSKs would be useless against nuclear-powered boats, except possibly in shallow water. As nuclear attack submarines were developed and deployed, they took up the ASW mission. All ten SSKs were redesignated and decommissioned or reassigned to other duties in 1957-59.

The SSK program and particularly the Barracuda class were thus overtaken by events after a few years' service. Their sonar, however, proved excellent, with good convergence zone detection ranges against snorkeling submarines; it was retained on the former Gato-class SSKs and fitted on the first nuclear submarines and a few additional diesel submarines. The bow sonar array eventually became a bow sonar sphere, with angled, amidships torpedo tubes to make room for it in the Thresher class and all subsequent US SSN classes.

In 1958 Bonita was used as a nuclear weapons testing target at Eniwetok in the South Pacific, part of Operation Hardtack I. Fortunately, this was designed as shock testing rather than destructive testing, and damage was light except to electronics.


text:
Cray XD1

The Cray XD1 was an entry-level supercomputer range, made by Cray Inc.

The XD1 uses AMD Opteron 64-bit CPUs, and utilizes the Direct Connect Architecture over HyperTransport to remove the bottleneck at the PCI and contention at the memory. The MPI latency is ¼ that of Infiniband, and 1/30 that of Gigabit Ethernet.

The XD1 was originally designed by OctigaBay Systems Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada as the OctigaBay 12K system. The company was acquired by Cray Inc. in February 2004.

Announced on 4 October 2004, the Cray XD1 range incorporate Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGAs for application acceleration. With 12 CPUs in a chassis, and up to 12 chassis installable in a rack, XD1 systems may hold several 144-CPU multiples in multirack configurations. The operating system used on the XD1 is a customized version of Linux, and the machine's load balancing / resource management system is an enhanced version of Sun Microsystems' Sun Grid Engine.

title: Cray XD1


text:
Talk:Trinitarianism

Untitled
This one is going to need some work. Trinitarians of course think that their thinking goes back to Christ, and is hinted at in the Old Testament, and that Arianism was the fourth century innovation. What happened in the fourth century was just a clarification of the existing teaching in order to better highlight Arius's errors. Also, we need to figure out how to divide material between Trinity, trinitarianism, and nontrinitarianism. Wesley 16:58, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Such anticipated work and more was precisely why this article was created; have at. I propose that the Trinity article discuss the Holy Trinity main concept and theology, the Trinitarianism article discuss the people and movements that believe in that concept, along with their part of the dispute against the nontrinitarians, and the Nontrinitarian article discuss the people and movements that do not believe in that concept, along with their part of the dispute against the trinitarians. As an example, I would probably favor moving the "pagan origins" material out of the Trinity article, in favor of more theoretical concepts directly related to the Trinity; you'll see I have already included it in the nontrinitarian article. Hence, I am proposing an arrangement such that, for example, if we were to create a category of "Trinitarian-nontrinitarian controversy" (and, hey, we might actually want to do that, as this turns out to be a fairly big topic touching on several articles), the trininitarian and nontrinitarian articles would be put in this category, but not necessarily the Trinity article itself, other than as an indirect reference. --Gary D 19:23, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

 * I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it sounds like a reasonable way to structure the information, and people should be able to find what they want to know with this arrangement. On the other hand, I'm a little leary of having "pro Trinity" and "anti Trinity" POV articles. Taken together they balance out fine, but in general I think Wikipedia wants to and should aim for each article to be NPOV on its own. This might mean we need to combine the Trinitarian and Nontrinitarian articles into a Trinitarian controversy article or something similar, and have both those articles redirect there. Whether we do that or not, I agree it may be helpful to confine the Trinity article to discussing the doctrine itself and give short pointers to related articles, and have the historical development and controversy type article(s) separated. Hopefully we can get some wider input on this question. Wesley 16:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * I, too, would hope the result would be two NPOV articles on the "pro" and "anti" positions rather than two POV cheerleading articles. Similarly I believe that WP can, and hope WP does, have two NPOV articles on Creationism and Evolution, for example. I think we have three subtopics to cover in these two articles, an entity description for each side along lines beginning with what we have suggested on the Jehovah's Witness talk page for fleshing out the nontrinitarian "flavors" description, and then a discussion of how the two positions interact and any resulting controversy. I think the entity descriptions justify two separate articles, even if the interaction and controversy needs to move to a third article. And I tell ya, you think 32KB is way too far out there to ever matter, and then =bang=, you find you're suddenly schmussed into a phone booth of remaining article space with your face pressed against the glass and the edit window screaming at you that you're about to go over the size limit. My guess is that with the plans we've made we'll fully fill two if not three articles. --Gary D 19:08, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

 * Despite our various opinions and points of view on the matter, it is only responsible to show, at the very minimum, the factual history that surrounds Trinitarianism in the build up to Nicaea and subsequent history. It is also worth noting that Archeological evidence preceding 300 does not explicitly support Trinitarianism; in fact, outside of Catholic provided, and graciously edited, History, there is no support for trinitarianism (see Gospels of Thomas, discovered in 1945 and authored around 100, as an example). I think it is fair to give a recount of that evidence that is not biased. 24.176.6.165 23:40, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * I don't think the Gospel of Thomas really sheds any light on the matter. All it shows is that there were those prior to the 4th century who rejection the notion of the trinity--but we knew that already. Church history is very sketchy for the first two or three centuries, but I find in unlikely the trinitarianism develeped suddenly in the fourth century and in a few years was so widely accepted among the most powerful men in the church that they began stamping out all other doctrine. It's more likely that this debate was going on for some time before Nicea. And that it was going on for exactly the same reason that is goes on amongs Christians today. Even two Christians who agree that the scriptures are accurate and from God frequently disagree over whether or not they teach trinitarianism or not. From a purely Christian theological point of view there are reasons both for and agaisnt the doctrine. I suspect that bishops and other Christian leaders had these disagreements very early on.

The lead sentence is incorrect:

Trinitarianism is the Christian doctrine that God, although one being, exists in three distinct persons (hypostases) known collectively as the Holy Trinity.

hypostasis does not translate as person

greek->latin->english

hypostasis->substantia->hypostasis (hidden spiritual reality)

prosopa->persona->person (persona would be more correct)

Correction: substantia is Latin for Greek Ousios (English substance). I don't know how the Latins translate the Greek hypostasis, they may have just taken it directly as a technical word, which it is. Its meaning in Greek is fairly vague and subject to great debate.

Seems to me Trinitarianism can be expressed in modern English as: One God in Three People: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. There are lots of other technical terms for sure, see the history of the Roman councils, but as a summary of what is actually a fairly complex subject, I think it serves well. Technically One God in Three Personas would be more accurate but I suspect most English Trinitarians would find that awkward.

Redundant
This page shouldn't need to exist; it should redirect to Trinity, in my opinion. Anyway, it appears to be a non-trinitarian page on the doctrine of the trinity. Perhaps the material should be merged with Antitrinitarianism — Mkmcconn (Talk) 22:03, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Trinitarianism


text:
Aris Brimanis

Āris Aldis Brīmanis (born March 14, 1972) is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman from Shaker Heights, Ohio who played seven seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Playing career
At junior level, Brimanis played for Bowling Green State University and then for the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League. He was drafted 86th overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft. As well as the Flyers, he also played for the New York Islanders, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the St. Louis Blues. He played a total of 113 NHL games, scoring 2 goals and 12 assists for 14 points, collecting 57 penalty minutes. In 2005, Brimanis moved to the Swiss Nationalliga A, joining the Kloten Flyers where he spent 2 seasons before joining Hannover in 2007.

Brimanis spent four seasons with the Hannover Scorpions of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga before leaving as a free agent after the 2010–11 season.

title: Aris Brimanis


text:
William Robert Grove

Sir William Robert Grove, FRS FRSE (11 July 1811 – 1 August 1896) was a Welsh judge and physical scientist. He anticipated the general theory of the conservation of energy, and was a pioneer of fuel cell technology. He invented the Grove voltaic cell.

Early life
Born in Swansea, Wales, Grove was the only child of John, a magistrate and deputy lieutenant of Glamorgan, and his wife, Anne (née Bevan).

His early education was in the hands of private tutors, before he attended Brasenose College, Oxford to study classics, though his scientific interests may have been cultivated by mathematician Baden Powell. Otherwise, his taste for science has no clear origin though his circle in Swansea was broadly educated. He graduated in 1832.

In 1835, he was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn. In the same year, Grove joined the Royal Institution and was a founder of the Swansea Literary and Philosophical Society, an organisation with which he maintained close links.

Scientific work
In 1829, at the Royal Institution, Grove met Emma Maria Powles.. They married in 1837.

The couple embarked on a tour of the continent for their honeymoon. This sabbatical offered Grove an opportunity to pursue his scientific interests and resulted in his first scientific paper suggesting some novel constructions for electric cells.

During 1839, Grove developed a novel form of electric cell, the Grove cell, which used zinc and platinum electrodes exposed to two acids and separated by a porous ceramic pot. Grove announced the latter development to the Académie des Sciences in Paris in 1839. In 1840 Grove invented one of the first incandescent electric lights, which was later perfected by Thomas Edison.

Later that year, he gave another account of his development at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Birmingham, where it aroused the interest of Michael Faraday. On Faraday's invitation Grove presented his discoveries at the prestigious Royal Institution Friday Discourse on 13 March 1840.

Grove's presentation made his reputation, and he was soon proposed for Fellowship of the Royal Society by such distinguished men as William Thomas Brande, William Snow Harris and Charles Wheatstone. Grove also attracted the attention of John Peter Gassiot, a relationship that resulted in Grove's becoming the first professor of experimental philosophy at the London Institution in 1841. Grove's inaugural lecture in 1842 was the first announcement of what Grove called the correlation of physical forces, in modern terms, the conservation of energy. In 1842, Grove developed the first fuel cell (which he called the gas voltaic battery), which produced electrical energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen, and described it using his correlation theory. In developing the cell and showing that steam could be disassociated into oxygen and hydrogen, and the process reversed, he was the first person to demonstrate the thermal dissociation of molecules into their constituent atoms. The first demonstration of this effect, he gave privately to Faraday, Gassiot and Edward William Brayley, his scientific editor.

His work also led him to early insights into the nature of ionisation. For observations made in Ref., Grove is credited for the discovery of sputtering.

In the 1840s, he collaborated with Gassiot at the London Institution on photography and the Daguerreotype and calotype processes. Inspired by his legal practice, he presciently observed:

"It would be vain to attempt specifically to predict what may be the effect of Photography on future generations. A Process by which the most transient actions are rendered permanent, by which facts write their own annals in a language that can never be obsolete, forming documents which prove themselves, – must interweave itself not only with science but with history and legislature."

In 1852, he discovered striae, dark bands that occur in electrical breakdown, and investigated their character, presenting his work in an 1858 Bakerian lecture.

On the Correlation of Physical Forces
In 1846, Grove published On The Correlation of Physical Forces in which he anticipated the general theory of the conservation of energy that was more famously put forward in Hermann von Helmholtz' Über die Erhaltung der Kraft (On the Conservation of Force) published the following year. His 1846 Bakerian lecture relied heavily on his theory.

James Prescott Joule had been energized by his investigations into the mechanical equivalent of heat by comparing the mass of coal consumed in a steam engine with the mass of zinc consumed in a Grove battery in performing a common quantity of mechanical work. Grove was certainly familiar with William Thomson's theoretical analysis of Joule's experimental results and Thomson's immature suggestions of conservation of energy. Thomson's public champion, Peter Guthrie Tait was initially a supporter of Grove's ideas but later dismissed them with some coolness.

Though Groves's ideas were forerunners of the theory of the conservation of energy, they were qualitative, unlike the quantitative investigations of Joule or Julius Robert von Mayer. His ideas also shaded into broader speculation, such as the nature of Olbers's paradox, which he may have discovered for himself rather than through a direct knowledge.

"... it is difficult to understand why we get so little light at night from the stellar universe, without assuming that some light is lost in its progress through space – not lost absolutely, for that would be an annihilation of force – but converted into some other mode of motion."

Grove also speculated that other forms of energy were yet to be discovered "as far certain as certain can be of any future event."

"The probability is that, if not all, the greater number of physical phenomena are, in one sense correlative, and that, without a duality of conception, the mind cannot form an idea of them: thus motion cannot be perceived or probably imagined without parallax or relative change of position ... in all physical phenomena, the effects produced by motion are all in proportion to the relative motion. ... The question of whether there can be absolute motion, or indeed any absolute isolated force, is purely the metaphysical question of idealism or realism."

Royal Society politics
As soon as he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1840 Grove was a critic of the Society, deprecating its cronyism and the de facto rule of a few influential Council members. In 1843, he published an anonymous attack on the scientific establishment in Blackwood's Magazine and called for reform. In 1846 Grove was elected to the Council of the Royal Society, and was heavily involved in the campaign to modernise its charter, in addition to campaigning for the public funding of science.

A charter committee had already been established, and Grove joined it. Groves's fellow campaigners included Gassiot, Leonard Horner and Edward Sabine. Their principal objectives were for the number of new Fellows to be subject to an annual limit, and limitation of the power of nomination to the Council. The reformers' success in 1847 led to the resignation of several key conservatives and the establishment of Grove and his associates with domination of the Council. To celebrate, the reformers founded the Philosophical Club.

Though the Philosophical Club succeeded in ensuring that William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse was appointed next President, they failed to get Grove appointed as Secretary. Grove continued to campaign for a single home for all the scientific institutions at Burlington House.

Legal career
From 1846 Grove started to reduce his scientific work in favour of his professional practice at the bar, his young family providing the financial motivation; and in 1853 became a QC. The bar provided him with the opportunity to combine his legal and scientific knowledge, in particular in patent law and in the unsuccessful defence of poisoner William Palmer in 1856. He was especially involved in the photography patent cases of Beard v. Egerton (1845–1849), on behalf of Egerton, and of Talbot v. Laroche (1854). In the latter case Grove appeared for William Fox Talbot in his unsuccessful attempt to assert his calotype patent.

Grove served on a Royal Commission on patent law and on the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers.

In 1871 he was made judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and was appointed to the Queen's Bench in 1880. He was to have presided at the Cornwall and Devon winter assizes of 1884, which would have entailed him trying the notorious survival cannibalism case of R v. Dudley and Stephens. However, at the last minute he was substituted by Baron Huddleston, possibly because Huddleston was seen as more reliable in ensuring the guilty verdict that the judiciary required. Grove did sit as one of five judges on the final determination of the case in a divisional court of the Queen's Bench.

Grove was a careful, painstaking and accurate judge, courageous and not afraid to assert an independent judicial opinion. However, he was fallible in patent cases, where he was prone to become overinterested in the technology in question and to be distracted by questioning the litigants as to potential improvements in their devices, even going so far as to suggest his own innovations. He retired from the bench in 1887. His portrait was painted by Helen Donald-Smith in the 1890s.

Family
Grove married Emma Maria Powles, daughter of John Diston Powles, in 1837, and had several children, including Major-General Sir Coleridge Grove. Groves's daughter, Imogen Emily (died 1886), married William Edward Hall in 1866. His daughter Anna married Herbert Augustus Hills (1837–1907) and was mother to Edmond Herbert Grove-Hills ("Colonel Rivers") and John Waller Hills.

His health perpetually troubled, Grove died at home, 115 Harley Street in London, after a long illness. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

Honours
Grove became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1840, and received its Royal Medal in 1847. He was Vice-President of the Royal Institution in 1844. Receiving a knighthood in 1872, he was given an honorary degree by Cambridge University in 1879 and became Privy Councillor in 1887.

The lunar crater "Grove" is named in his honour. The Grove Fuel Cell Symposium and Exhibition is organised by Elsevier.

title: William Robert Grove