Emergence of Species and the Ascent of Man, On Darwinian Natural Selection

[Jonathan]

(excerpts)



Emergence of Species and the Ascent of Man
On Darwinian Natural Selection


Evolution and the Modern Synthesis

One of the architects of the modern synthetic theory of evolution was
Ernst Mayer. Here is Mayer’s clear statement of the synthetic theory of
evolution (quoted by Stephen J. Gould in The Logic of Life: The
Challenge of Integrative Physiology, by C. A. R. Boyd and D. Nobel,
Oxford Press, 1993, Chapter Two ‘ Evolution of Organisms’ by Stephen J.
Gould, p. 17):

The proponents of the synthetic theory maintain that all evolution is
due to the accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural
selection, and that transpacific evolution is nothing but an
extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within
populations and species. – from Ernst Mayer, Animal species and
evolution. (1963), p. 586

Gould, a critic of the synthetic theory, talks about his initial
fascination with the theory and how, over time, he abandoned it,
regarding it as ‘effectively dead’ as a theory:

The synthetic theory beguiled me with its unifying power when I was a
graduate student in the mid-1960s. Since then I have been watching it
slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution. The molecular
assault came first followed quickly by renewed attention to unorthodox
theories of speciation and by challenges at the level of macroevolution
itself. I have been reluctant to admit it — since beguiling is often
for ever — but if Mayer’s characterization of the synthetic theory is
accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively
dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy. – from ‘ Evolution
of Organisms’ by Stephen J. Gould, in Boyd and Nobel 1993, p. 18.


Darwinian Reductionism vs Punctuationist Hierarchy


Following the above statement, Gould went on, under the heading
‘Reduction and Hierarchy’ to state:

The modern synthetic theory embodies a strong faith in reductionism. It
advocates a smooth extrapolation across all levels and scales — from the
base substitution to the origin of higher taxa. – from ‘ Evolution of
Organisms’ by Stephen J. Gould, in Boyd and Nobel 1993, p. 18.

This reductionism is based on a faith in mutational gradualism and
natural selection alone as the forces that determine speciation and
evolution.

Why did the origin of multicellular life proceed as a short pulse
through three radically different faunas rather than as a slow and
continuous rise of complexity? The history of life is endlessly
fascinating, endlessly curious, but scarcely the stuff of our usual
thoughts and hopes. – Stephen J. Gould in his classic, Wonderful Life:
The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, p. 60.

Gould argues for an alternative approach to evolution, an approach based
on layered hierarchies underlying organismic anatomy and physiology,
with each layer in the hierarchy having its own semi-autonomous nature
and power to control and select the transformation and propagation of
lower level causal events in response to lower level physiological
processes. In Gould’s own words:

The general alternative to such reductionism is a concept of hierarchy —
a world constructed not as a smooth and seamless continuum, permitting
simple extrapolation from the lowest level to that highest, but as a
series of ascending levels, each bound to the one below it in some ways
and independent on others. Discontinuities and seams, characterize the
transitions: ’emergent’ features, not implicit in the operation of
process at lower levels may control events at higher levels. The basic
processes — mutation, selection, and so on — may enter into explanations
on all levels (and in that sense we may still hope for a general theory
of evolution), but they work in different ways on the characteristic
material of diverse level [see Bateson (1978) and Koestler (1978) for
discussion on the inadequacies and on hierarchy and its antireductionist
implications]. – from ‘ Evolution of Organisms’ by Stephen J. Gould, in
Boyd and Nobel 1993, p. 18-19. Note: Brackets in the original.

Referring to the process of the controlled creation of proteins as
sequence of triplet encoded codons, Gould writes:

Molecular biologist are groping to understand this higher control upon
primary products of the triplet code. In that understanding, we will
probably obtain a basis for styles of evolutionary change radically
different from the sequential allelic substitutions, each of a minute
effect, that the modern synthesis so strongly advocated. . . The
synthesis is now breaking down on both sides of this argument. Many
evolutionists now doubt exclusive control by selection on genetic change
within local populations. Moreover, even if local populations alter as
the synthesis maintains, we now doubt that the same style of change
controls events at the two major higher levels: speciation and
evolutionary trends across species. – from ‘ Evolution of Organisms’ by
Stephen J. Gould, in Boyd and Nobel 1993, p. 19-20.

Thus there is emerging significant doubt about the adequacy of classical
Darwinism and it modern synthesis. This doubt is accompanied by new
approaches to thinking about and modeling evolutionary processes. What
is most in doubt is the gradualist and progressive nature of evolution.
These are discussed sequentially below.

On the Progressive Nature of Evolution

If the evolution of species is truly the product of random forces both
within the organism and within the organism’s external environment, why
is it that organisms never devolve to more primitive forms but instead
progressively evolve into more and more complex and refined organisms
with more complex and refined organs and functional systems? Beneath
this emergence of complex life forms are fundamental laws of biology,
known and yet to be discovered. So say Ludwig von Bertalanffy:

So, evolution appears to be more than the mere product of chance
governed by profit. It seems a cornucopia of évolution creatrice, a
drama full of suspense, of dynamics and tragic complications. Life
spiral laboriously upwards to higher and ever higher levels, paying for
every step. It develops from the unicellular to the multi-cellular, and
puts death into the world at the same time,. It passes into levels of
higher differentiation and centralization, and pay for this by the loss
of regulability after disturbances. It invents a highly developed
nervous system and therewith pain. . . .

From the standpoint of science, however, the history of life does not
appear to be the result of an accumulation of changes at random but
subject to laws. This does not imply mysterious controlling factors
that in an anthropomorphic way strive toward progressive adaptation,
fitness, or perfection. Rather there are principles of which we already
know something at present, and of which we can hope to learn more in the
future. Nature is a creative artist; but art is not accident or
arbitrariness but the fulfillment of great laws. – from Problems of
Life: An Evaluation of Modern Biological and Scientific Thought, by
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Harper Torch Books; The Science Library, Harper
& Brothers, New York, 1952, pp. 108-109

On Darwinian Gradualism

As for Darwin’s principle of ‘gradualism.’ This concept is inherently
imprecise, for it is not clear whether it means to imply (a) the the
origin of new species is a process of gradual ‘evolution’ (whatever that
may mean beyond the concept of differential species survival) or whether
it means to imply (b) that all species changes, when they do occur
(which is non-predictable), must occur slowly and incrementally over
long geological time frames, or both.

In fact, the geological record shows actual stasis (long periods of
stability with no apparent evolutionary change) of certain species, and
at the same time (during the same time period, as measured within the
same geological strata) relatively rapid or ‘sudden’ emergence and
proliferation of multiple new species (apparently from a common root
parent species). This phenomenon which at least leads to the questioning
of gradualism as sufficient or even necessary as a component of
evolution, has been called punctuated equilibrium by its theoretical
advocates, S. J. Gould and N. Eldredge. See ‘Punctuated Equilibria: An
Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism.‘ The theory of punctuated
equilibrium is a dramatic alteration and augmentation of Darwinism, and
is rightly called a flavor of Neo-Darwinism. Again, how and why
punctuated equilibria occur is not yet understood by paleontologists and
evolutionary biologists. Stasis, now being shown to be the norm and not
the exception, leads paleontologists to doubt the dominance or even
relevance of gradualism. S. J. Gould explains this concept in his book
Punctuated Equilibrium thusly:

This elevation of stasis to visibility, respectability and even to
expectation, has generated subtle and interesting repercussions for
gradualism. Then gradualism enjoy high status as a virtually
definitional consequence of evolution itself, few researchers thought to
question such an anticipated result (but simply rejoiced in any rare
instance of affirmation). However, once stasis emerges as an
alternative norm, with gradualism designate as uncommon by the same
analysis, then gradualism itself must fall under scrutiny for the first
time. – Stephen Jay Gould, in Punctuated Equilibrium, The Belknap Press
of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2007, p. 123.

Gould argues that the paradox of gradualism should have been apparent
from the beginning and should have been suspect and regarded as rare
rather than regarded as the mechanism underlying macroevolution.

With this shift of perspective, a parade that should have been obvious
from the start finally emerged into clear view: gradualism, prima facie,
represents a “weird” result, not an anticipated and automatic
macroevolutionary expression of natural selection — thus, perhaps,
accounting for its rarity. Punctuated Equilibrium, p. 123.

Beyond it rarity, Gould asserts, that gradualism is simply too slow to
explain natural selection in local populations.

Geological gradualism operates far too slowly to yield any workable
effect at all when properly scaled down and translated to the immediacy
of natural selection in local populations! (See Jablonski, 1999, for a
forceful assertion of this paradox.) – Parenthetical in the original.
Punctuated Equilibrium, p. 123.

From a different perspective, it may be seriously argued that
‘gradualism’ was introduced into Darwin’s theory as an ad hoc argument
to defend itself against the empirical evidence, or rather lack thereof,
of any mechanism or principle that could naturally account for the gaps
in the geological record, i.e. intermediate transitional forms between
differing levels of living organic organization. So the actual cause(s)
of evolution are still mainly unknown. This is not to question the
principle of evolution of ‘advanced’ or ‘complex’ species from earlier,
supposedly simpler species or forms, but only to question Darwinian
gradualism as a real contributing principle underlying the origin of
species.

On Darwinian Tree of Evolution

As for the so-called ‘tree’ of evolution, it is a misleading bias to (1)
first show the evolutionary tree as a unified bottom-up process, where
the latest forms of life are at the leaves, not the roots, i.e. to show
that evolution is a broadening or divergence and not a narrowing or
convergence of life forms and functions, and then to call the leaves
examples of ‘descent’ and (2) to fail to specify that as far as the
geological record is concerned, there appear to be multiple ‘trees’
evolving in parallel, and (3) To describe evolution as a descending
process, as a ‘descent’ of an extant species from earlier species.
Surely, a better term would be ‘ascent’. For the species at the
‘leaves’ of the trees are typically more advanced in terms of structure
and function, with new structures leading to new functions, ascending to
higher level of function and structure from the more primitive
structures and functions of the lower level species.

Teleological Explanation and Darwinian Evolution

Darwin appears to have wanted his theory to be philosophically
consistent with the established dominant views of physical sciences,
with their explicit base in random, purposeless motion at the base of
physics and their total rejection of teleology (i.e., final cause in the
Aristotelian sense) and the conception of life as itself manifesting a
strategy. On the concept of life manifesting an intrinsic strategy, see
Clifford Grobstein’s The Strategy of Life, W. H. Freeman and Company,
1965. As to the relevance of teleology and its potential for providing
deeper and more convincing clarity in biological analysis, methodology,
see chapter VII, entitled ‘Teleological Systems, Behavior and
Explanation’ in The Biological Way Of Thought, by Morton Beckner, (First
Printing, Columbia University Press, 1959), University of California
Press, 1968, in which Beckner argues:

.. . . The essence of teleological explanation lies in the
epistemological priority of knowledge of the goal in relation to the
content of the explanation. . . . This comes very close to saying that
the goal is an agent in its own realization — the formulation so
unacceptable to many philosophers. But, of course, the future is not
acting upon the past, nor is the goal itself an agent. It is true,
however, that in specifying the details of the feedback mechanism,
deviations from the norm in terms of which the goal is defined are
assumed to possess causal efficacy. – from The Biological Way Of
Thought, pp. 152-153.

And later in that chapter, in a context directly relevant to evolution
theory:

There is, nevertheless, another side to the development of biological
theory which is aided to an incalculable extent by teleological
explanations, even those which are post hoc and non predictive.
Teleological explanations provide , not general hypotheses, but data, of
a natural historical character, data which in turn suggest and provide
evidence for further hypotheses. This aspect is most evident in
teleological explanations within evolution theory. For notice that the
process of change or of persistence that is subject to teleological
explanation my not be short and isolated, but may be long, even if
measured by geological time, and may leave in its wake a altitude of
collated effects. . . . This topic will be resumed when we come to
discuss evolution there, where it will be shown that evolving
populations are teleological systems, and that many explanations
utilizing the principles of neo-Darwinism are teleological explanations.
– – from The Biological Way Of Thought, pp. 154-155.

The False Dichotomy of Determinism versus Randomness

Stephen Gould wrote his book Wonderful Life to offer an alternative to
the false doctrine that either the causes of events are deterministic or
the causes are random (or some combination of these two extremes).
This is the axis (or as Gould called it the ‘line’) that biologists were
to walk if they were to to achieve credibility in mechanistic
reductionist biology. Gould argues for a third scientific approach, an
empirical approach that takes seriously into account the contingency of
current states and potentialities on future states and their evolution.
This approach, according to Gould, is simply the historical approach,
taking seriously the history of an evolved organism based on the many
contingencies that influenced its possibilities and actualities
throughout its evolutionary history. In Gould’s words:

I write this book to suggest a third alternative, off the line. I
believe that the reconstructed Burgess fauna, interpreted by the theme
of replaying life’s tape, offers powerful support for this different
view of life: any replay of the tap would lead evolution down a pathway
radically different from the road actually taken. But the consequent
differences in outcome do not imply that evolution is senseless, and
without meaningful pattern; the divergent route of the replay would be
just as interpretable, just as explainable after the fact, as the actual
road. But the diversity of possible itineraries does demonstrate that
eventual results cannot be predicted at the outset. Each step proceeds
for cause, but no finale can be specified at the start, and none would
ever occur a second time in the same way, because any pathway proceeds
through thousands of improbable stages. Alter any early event, ever so
slightly and without apparent importance at the time, and evolution
cascades into a radically different channel. Stephen J. Gould,
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, p. 51.

NOTE on Astronomy: It seems to the bioperipatetic that this same line
of reasoning can be fruitfully applied to the evolution of the cosmos.
Astronomers, like biologists are misled by the seemingly inescapable
axis (Gould’s ‘line’) with determinism (equated with ‘causality’) at one
pole and randomness (equated with ‘non-causality’) at the other. We
know that there is more to the universe than Newtonian laws of motion
acting on passive material objects. We know that matter itself is not
so well know as once assumed; that energetic matter (called plasma)
exists and has its own causal origins and consequences. See
particularly the work of Hannes Alfvén on plasma dynamics. See also the
recent work of Mordehai Milgrom on his theory of modified Newtonian
dynamics (MOND).

NOTE on Gould: It can be reasonably argued that Gould’s is a diachronic
approach as contrasted with a synchronic approach to the study of evolution.

A diachronic study or analysis concerns itself with the evolution and
change over time of that which is studied; it is roughly equivalent to
historical. – from Glossary developed by Constantin Behler, of Univ. of
Washington

Modern Darwinian Explanations as Ideological

Given the preceding perspective and analysis, a better title for
Darwin’s opus might be: ‘The Assent of Species and the Emergence of
Man.’ Surely this is a more objective formulation and summation of
Darwin’s theory of evolution. But, given this new proposed title, what
would have been the social ideological impact of Darwin’s theory?
Surely a more positive and conservative one that does not so seriously
degrade the stature of man in his ascent as one of the most complex,
diversified, adaptive, and capable of all species, the only species
capable of reason, concept formation, volitional consciousness, abstract
language (including mathematics) and, last but not least, the
development of science itself, (including of course the science of
paleontology).

But, based on modern presentations of Darwinism, such a positive
perspective of mankind was not, it would seem, Darwin’s aim. He meant,
if we take modern interpretations of his theory and its statement
seriously and literally, to demean the stature of the phenomenon of
life, and by implication, of man and to relegate mankind (and all forms
of life for that matter) to the meaningless heap of random cosmic
history. But was this Darwin’s true ideological view and the true
spirit of his work, or does it rather represent the impact of current
ideology on science’s interpretation of Darwin’s theory as well as those
theories, such as that of the nature of DNA, that today extend and claim
to ‘complete’ the Darwinian program?

In his book, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom
Down, Nobel Laureate Robert B. Laughlin has this to say about how
Darwin’s theory of evolution has in modern times come to be embraced as
an unquestionable doctrine and ideology rather than as a corrigible
scientific theory:

A key symptom of ideological thinking is the explanation that has no
implications and cannot be tested. I call such logical dead ends anti
theories because they have exactly the opposite effect of real theories:
they stop thinking rather than stimulate it. Evolution by natural
selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a
great theory, has lately come to function more as an anti theory, called
upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize
findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong.
Your protein defines the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your
complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chick? Evolution?
The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate?
Evolution is the cause? . . . We often ask ourselves nowadays, whether
evolution is an engineer or a magician — a discoverer and exploiter of
preexisting physical principles or a worker of miracles — but we
shouldn’t. The former is theory, the latter anti theory. – from A
Different Universe, pp. 169-170.

For a book that directly addresses Laughlin’s charge that evolutionary
theory as well as genetic theory have jointly shared a dark ideology of
purposeless determinism dominating the ideas taught and practiced in
todays biological institutions, see Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of
DNA, by R. C. Lewontin, Harper Perennial, 1991. In this book we learn
the prevailing doctrine that Darwin’s view of the relationship of the
organism to the environment is that of the environment dominating the
organism and the organism struggling to survive and adapt to but never
overcoming nor rising above the mechanistic, random, purposeless forces
of the environment.

... . . [I]n Darwin’s view, organisms were acted upon by the environment;
thy were the passive object and the external world was the active
subject. This alienation of the organism from its outside world mean
that the outside world has its own laws that are independent of the
organisms and so cannot be changed by those organisms. Organism find
the world as it is, and they must either adapt or die. – from Biology
as Ideology, p. 12.

Later in the book we see another example of an ideology replacing or
overwhelming science, positing mechanistic principles as the sole (or
certainly the key) determinant of the life of organisms. In this case
it is not only evolution, with its external restraints on survival of
any organism, but also DNA and its internal determinate powers that
overwhelm the organism and fully constrain and define its nature and
capabilities. The power of DNA cannot be overcome by the organism, but
rather is the organism’s deterministic master.

Living beings are seen as being determined by internal factors, the
genes. Our genes and the DNA molecules that make them up are the modern
form of grace, and in this view we will understand what we are when we
know what our genes are made of. The world outside us poses certain
problems, which we do not create but only experience as objects. The
problems are to find a mate, to find food, to win out in competition
over others, to acquire a large part of the world resources as our own,
and if we have the right kinds of genes we will be able to solve the
problems and leave more offspring. So in this view, it is really our
genes that are propagating themselves through us. We are only their
instruments, their temporary vehicles through which the self-replicating
molecules that make us up either succeed or fail to spread through the
world. In the words of Richard Dawkins, one of the leading proponents
of this biological view, we are “lumbering robots” who’s genes “created
us body and mind.” – from Biology as Ideology p. 13.

The Loss of Direct Realism in Neo-Darwinism

Meanwhile, modern biology has widely embraced the Darwinian (or
Neo-Darwinian) view of cognition, from perception through
conceptualization, which holds that all tools of knowledge are the
product of competitive environmental and inter-species adaptation to
stress and to threats to survival, thus all knowledge and all tools of
knowledge are the ultimate product of Darwinian pragmatic selection.
This was the view held by Karl Popper:

In sum, there is a clear conflict with Mach’s insistence that’ all
sensations are immediately given and are certain [a form of Direct
Realism]- “as if their character were independent of the way in which
they were identified, or misidentified ” Such a theory, such an
“epistemology which takes our sense perceptions as ‘given’, as the
‘data’ from which our theories have to be constructed”, Popper [Karl
Popper in Objective Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 1972, pp.
145-6.] denounces as “pre-Darwinian “, as failing “to take account of
the fact that the alleged data are in fact adaptive reactions, and
therefore interpretations which incorporate theories and prejudices…
there can be no pure perception, no pure datum… Sense organs incorporate
the equivalent of primitive and uncritically accepted theories, which
are less widely tested than scientific theories. – from Philosophy of
Biology versus Philosophy of Physics by William W. Bartley, III, in
Fundamenta Scientiae, Vol. E, No. 1, 1982, p. 66. (Bracketed enhancement
added by bioperipatetic.)

This Neo-Darwinian view of the nature of knowledge and epistemology held
by Karl Popper and Konrad Lorenz, author of Behind the Mirror: A Search
for A Natural History of Human Knowledge, is called “evolutionary
epistemology”, so named by American psychologist, Donald T. Campbell.

Evolutionary Ideology and Man’s Biological Nature

From a cultural perspective Darwinism speaks loudly to the irrelevance
of all that makes man unique, including his rational form of
consciousness, which makes possible all of human civilization and human
culture, including philosophy, theology, science, (including most
relevantly for this bioperipatetic, the biological and psychological
sciences), mathematics, arts, and engineering (including all of the
applied sciences).

The one science focused on man’s nature as a conscious being, possessing
reason, volition, intentional essence, is (or should be) the science of
psychology. Unfortunately, psychology has over the entire history of
its development into various competing schools, has repeatedly
surrendered its subject matter to the biological and physical sciences.
Most relevant to the current topic is the relationship between
relatively recent (and still dominant) schools of psychology that align
themselves with Darwinism. The most explicit of these is behaviorism,
especially the radical form of behaviorism advocated by B. F. Skinner.
Here we see Skinner’s argument that behavioral conditioning via operant
reenforcement is microcosm of Darwinism, and presages his new scientific
behaviorist utopia.

We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles
the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic
characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by
their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded
through reinforcement. . . . As a characteristic of the social
environment this practice modifies the behavior of members of the group.
The resulting behavior may affect the success of the group in
competition with other groups or with the nonsocial environment.
Cultural practices which are advantageous will tend to be characteristic
of the groups which survive and which therefore perpetuate those
practices. Some cultural practices may therefore be said to have
survival value, while others are lethal in the genetic sense. – from B.
F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior, Chapter XXVIII:Designing a
Culture, (1953) Free Press, 1965, p. 430.

When we ask what science has to say about ‘concepts as individual
freedom, initiative, an responsibility. . . we do not find dry
comforting support for the traditional Western point of view. ‘ p. 447.

The hypothesis that man is not free is essential to the application of
scientific method to the study of human behavior. The free inner man
who is held responsible for the behavior of the external biological
organism is only a prescientific substitute for the kinds of causes
which are discovered in the course of a scientific analysis. All these
alternative causes lie outside the individual. The biological
substratum itself is determine by prior events in a genetic process.
Other important events are found in the nonsocial environment an in the
culture of the individual in the broadest possible sense. These are the
things which make the individual behave as he does. For them he is not
responsible, and for them it is useless to praise or name him. It does
not matter that the individual may take it upon himself to control the
variables of which his own behavior is a function or, in a broader
sense, to engage in the design of his own culture. He does this only
because he is the product of a culture which generates self-control or
cultural design as a mode of behavior. The environment determines the
individual even when he alters the environment. – from B. F. Skinner,
Science and Human Behavior, Chapter XXIX:The Problem of Control, pp. 447-448

Skinner’s most unabashed book on behaviorist utopia, entitled Beyond
Freedom and Dignity, (where beyond means implicitly ‘the denial of the
reality of”) contains the following passage:

An experimental analysis shifts the determination of behavior from
autonomous man to the environment — an environment responsible both for
the evolution of the species and for the repertoire acquired by each
member. . .. Is Man then ‘abolished’? Certainly not as a species or as
an individual achiever. It is autonomous inner man who is abolished,
and that is a step forward. – from Beyond Freedom and Dignity,
(Knopf 1971) Bantam/Vintage 1972, p. 205

We see in Skinner the unification of behaviorism with materialism with
consequence that the entire idea of autonomous man is rejected as
‘unscientific.’

If behaviorism and materialism possess a common ground, it is that upon
which rejections of autonomous man have always stood firm. Both have
judged the very idea of autonomous man to be laden mysticism,
religiosity, and superstitious musing. The notion of “free will” in a
determined universe violates every canon of parsimony, scientific unity,
objectivity, and positivism. . . . The mind, itself, has come to be
treated as a metaphysical fiction designed to obscure the essential fact
of our determined, material, and temporary lives which, like the planet
hosting them, are accidents of mindless creation. – from An
Intellectual History of Psychology, p 452-453.

Thus the individual organism is, according to modern Neo-Darwinian
doctrine, including behaviorist psychology, the passive victim whose
fate is controlled by two deterministic forces, one internal: DNA
(dubbed by Dawkins our “selfish genes”), and one external: Natural
Selection, which is the ultimate arbiter of which genotypes will survive
and which will perish. As for man, his inner autonomy is destroyed by
Darwinian psychology, and with glee.

It is autonomous inner man who is abolished, and that is a step forward.
– B. F. Skinner in Beyond Freedom and Dignity

From the perspective of Darwinian biology and psychology man is no
longer viewed as a rational, independent, responsible, moral, autonomous
being. Man is now viewed as a passive victim of deterministic genetic,
environmental and evolutionary forces which shape his very being, body
and mind, therefore man’s very ontology and epistemology. All that is
allow to exist, under the materialist doctrine, is deterministic matter
in motion. Thus mind as purposeful and the creator of design is
rejected as an illusion and abolished from ‘science.’

Failing to find purpose and design in our world, we question the
existence of purpose or design in ourselves. Looking everywhere and
discovering only matter in motion, we begin to see the same in the
mirror. It is one of the quiet triumphs of the human mind that it can
exhaust itself in attempting to refute its existence. – from An
Intellectual History of Psychology, p 453.

Given the implicit materialist reductionist philosophy of Neo-Darwinism,
a darker view of man’s nature is hardly imaginable!


https://bioperipatetic.com/notes-on-darwinian-evolution/

[John Harshman]

On 5/25/16 5:21 PM, Jonathan wrote:
>
>
>
> (excerpts)
>
>
>
> Emergence of Species and the Ascent of Man
> On Darwinian Natural Selection
>
>
> Evolution and the Modern Synthesis
>
> One of the architects of the modern synthetic theory of evolution was
> Ernst Mayer. Here is Mayer’s clear statement of the synthetic theory of
> evolution (quoted by Stephen J. Gould in The Logic of Life: The
> Challenge of Integrative Physiology, by C. A. R. Boyd and D. Nobel,
> Oxford Press, 1993, Chapter Two ‘ Evolution of Organisms’ by Stephen J.
> Gould, p. 17):

It's Ernst *Mayr*. My confidence in this essay is waning.

> The proponents of the synthetic theory maintain that all evolution is
> due to the accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural
> selection, and that transpacific evolution is nothing but an
> extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within
> populations and species. – from Ernst Mayer, Animal species and
> evolution. (1963), p. 586

"Transpacific"? You might want to check that word. Confidence going down
again.

> Gould, a critic of the synthetic theory, talks about his initial
> fascination with the theory and how, over time, he abandoned it,
> regarding it as ‘effectively dead’ as a theory:
>
> The synthetic theory beguiled me with its unifying power when I was a
> graduate student in the mid-1960s. Since then I have been watching it
> slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution. The molecular
> assault came first followed quickly by renewed attention to unorthodox
> theories of speciation and by challenges at the level of macroevolution
> itself. I have been reluctant to admit it — since beguiling is often
> for ever — but if Mayer’s characterization of the synthetic theory is
> accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively
> dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy. – from ‘ Evolution
> of Organisms’ by Stephen J. Gould, in Boyd and Nobel 1993, p. 18.

You might want to recheck textbook orthodoxy.

Somewhere around here I became too bored to go on. If this is just a cut
and paste, stop doing that. If this is an original essay of yours, get
to the point more quickly. If there is a point.

[Jonathan]

What does that mean? You're response is as weak
as it gets, a spelling flame worthy of a jr high
school dropout.

Next time I'll include some dancing girls for you
or maybe a reference or two to Nascar if that will
help.

> If this is just a cut
> and paste, stop doing that.

I'll let you know when you can tell me what to do.
Who do you think you are?

> If this is an original essay of yours, get
> to the point more quickly. If there is a point.
>

I doubt you could grasp any point, no matter how
simple.



s

[John Harshman]

What I mean is that textbooks would no longer agree with Mayr's
understanding of evolution. Try, for example, Futuyma's Evolutionary
Biology. As for the spelling flame, it suggests that the writer, whoever
it may be, wasn't really paying attention.

Perhaps an actual point would be more useful.

>> If this is just a cut
>> and paste, stop doing that.
>
> I'll let you know when you can tell me what to do.
> Who do you think you are?

I'm your intended audience. If you want anyone to pay attention you
should listen.

>> If this is an original essay of yours, get
>> to the point more quickly. If there is a point.
>
> I doubt you could grasp any point, no matter how
> simple.

Another bit of advice: Expressed contempt for your intended audience
also doesn't go over well. If your message isn't getting across,
consider the possibility that it isn't well stated.

[Jonathan]

So you want me to read the entire textbook?
And you say I have trouble making a point?
How does that text differ? How does it refute
the point of my post that synthetic theory
is dying?

I'm quoting Stephen J Gould btw, why do you think he
is wrong for saying that?

As for the spelling flame, it suggests that the writer, whoever
> it may be, wasn't really paying attention.
>

As with any spelling error, that should go without
saying. So why say it?

The point was stated clearly by Gould, the theory
this ng cherishes is dead or dying as is reductionism
in general. It's being replaced by emergence, but like
any dogma the true believers hang on to the old ideas
to the bitter end and utterly refuse to entertain
the new sciences.

Emergence is taking over, collective behavior is
replacing reductionist facts. Fundamental laws
/are no longer relevant/ to a coevolutionary
system, as such systems make their own 'laws'
as the go.

Everything you thought you knew is being replaced
and you're completely oblivious to the sea-change
in scientific thought that's sweeping the globe.

>>> If this is just a cut
>>> and paste, stop doing that.
>>
>> I'll let you know when you can tell me what to do.
>> Who do you think you are?
>
> I'm your intended audience. If you want anyone to pay attention you
> should listen.
>
>>> If this is an original essay of yours, get
>>> to the point more quickly. If there is a point.
>>
>> I doubt you could grasp any point, no matter how
>> simple.
>
> Another bit of advice: Expressed contempt for your intended audience
> also doesn't go over well. If your message isn't getting across,
> consider the possibility that it isn't well stated.
>

I find they become even more determined to find
errors in what I write, which is what I want.
Unfortunately the replies here tend to be without
content, mostly sweeping dismissals and ignorant
insults. I only respond positively when someone
offers a reasoned opinion, just hearing ...
'you're full of shit' doesn't cut it with me.

If they don't state why they think so, I'm going
to 'Trump' their sorry asses.



Jonathan



s

[John Harshman]

No, just raising an example against your second-hand claims of textbook
orthodoxy. You don't have to read anything. But if you aren't familiar
with Futuyma, just what textbooks are you familiar with?

> And you say I have trouble making a point?
> How does that text differ? How does it refute
> the point of my post that synthetic theory
> is dying?

It refutes the point of your quotation of Gould. You are switching meanings.

> I'm quoting Stephen J Gould btw, why do you think he
> is wrong for saying that?

I think he was being careful in qualifying his claims by attaching them
specifically to the quote from Mayr and saying "...if Mayr's
characterization of the synthetic theory is accurate...". If Mayr's
characterization is accurate, I agree that it's dead. But if instead you
choose to interpret that as saying anything about modern evolutionary
theory, you are playing fast and loose with definitions. Most
importantly, it's now recognized that a great deal of evolution is
neutral or nearly so.

> As for the spelling flame, it suggests that the writer, whoever
>> it may be, wasn't really paying attention.
>
> As with any spelling error, that should go without
> saying. So why say it?

Why should anyone pay attention to you if you don't pay attention to
your own words? A typo is one thing; a consistent misspelling is
something else.

But that wasn't Gould's point at all. You're playing very fast and loose
with terms and concepts.

> Emergence is taking over, collective behavior is
> replacing reductionist facts. Fundamental laws
> /are no longer relevant/ to a coevolutionary
> system, as such systems make their own 'laws'
> as the go.
>
> Everything you thought you knew is being replaced
> and you're completely oblivious to the sea-change
> in scientific thought that's sweeping the globe.

If it's sweeping the globe, how come biologists (me, for example) don't
know that? You make vast, though vague, claims on little or no evidence.

>>>> If this is just a cut
>>>> and paste, stop doing that.
>>>
>>> I'll let you know when you can tell me what to do.
>>> Who do you think you are?
>>
>> I'm your intended audience. If you want anyone to pay attention you
>> should listen.
>>
>>>> If this is an original essay of yours, get
>>>> to the point more quickly. If there is a point.
>>>
>>> I doubt you could grasp any point, no matter how
>>> simple.
>>
>> Another bit of advice: Expressed contempt for your intended audience
>> also doesn't go over well. If your message isn't getting across,
>> consider the possibility that it isn't well stated.
>
> I find they become even more determined to find
> errors in what I write, which is what I want.
> Unfortunately the replies here tend to be without
> content, mostly sweeping dismissals and ignorant
> insults. I only respond positively when someone
> offers a reasoned opinion, just hearing ...
> 'you're full of shit' doesn't cut it with me.

I hope that I have sufficiently explained several reasons why you're
full of shit. Notably, here, that you seriously misunderstand the import
of your little Gould quote.

> If they don't state why they think so, I'm going
> to 'Trump' their sorry asses.

Fan of the Donald, are you? Not surprising.

[jonathan]

On 5/26/2016 9:27 PM, John Harshman wrote:

> On 5/26/16 5:41 PM, Jonathan wrote:


>>>
>>> Perhaps an actual point would be more useful.
>>
>> The point was stated clearly by Gould, the theory
>> this ng cherishes is dead or dying as is reductionism
>> in general. It's being replaced by emergence, but like
>> any dogma the true believers hang on to the old ideas
>> to the bitter end and utterly refuse to entertain
>> the new sciences.
>
> But that wasn't Gould's point at all. You're playing very fast and loose
> with terms and concepts.
>

Am I too long winded and dry, or too fast and loose?
It appears to me you're parsing and dodging
the issue, an emergent frame is quite different
and requires an open mind, not defensiveness
and denial.

>> Emergence is taking over, collective behavior is
>> replacing reductionist facts. Fundamental laws
>> /are no longer relevant/ to a coevolutionary
>> system, as such systems make their own 'laws'
>> as the go.
>>
>> Everything you thought you knew is being replaced
>> and you're completely oblivious to the sea-change
>> in scientific thought that's sweeping the globe.
>
> If it's sweeping the globe, how come biologists (me, for example) don't
> know that? You make vast, though vague, claims on little or no evidence.
>

Read my post entitled 'The age of emergence' it gets to the
point better I think.

>>>>> If this is just a cut
>>>>> and paste, stop doing that.
>>>>
>>>> I'll let you know when you can tell me what to do.
>>>> Who do you think you are?
>>>
>>> I'm your intended audience. If you want anyone to pay attention you
>>> should listen.
>>>
>>>>> If this is an original essay of yours, get
>>>>> to the point more quickly. If there is a point.
>>>>
>>>> I doubt you could grasp any point, no matter how
>>>> simple.
>>>
>>> Another bit of advice: Expressed contempt for your intended audience
>>> also doesn't go over well. If your message isn't getting across,
>>> consider the possibility that it isn't well stated.
>>
>> I find they become even more determined to find
>> errors in what I write, which is what I want.
>> Unfortunately the replies here tend to be without
>> content, mostly sweeping dismissals and ignorant
>> insults. I only respond positively when someone
>> offers a reasoned opinion, just hearing ...
>> 'you're full of shit' doesn't cut it with me.
>
> I hope that I have sufficiently explained several reasons why you're
> full of shit. Notably, here, that you seriously misunderstand the import
> of your little Gould quote.
>

You haven't justified you're criticism at all.
Just saying that wasn't Gould's point isn't
an explanation of anything, no more
than me saying it is his point.

Yes it is - no it isn't aint debating it's
children in the sandbox.

Grow up and debate like an adult.

>> If they don't state why they think so, I'm going
>> to 'Trump' their sorry asses.
>
> Fan of the Donald, are you? Not surprising.
>

Hardly, but the level of replies are so weak
some tough love is called for.


s

[John Harshman]

On 5/26/16 7:19 PM, jonathan wrote:
> On 5/26/2016 9:27 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>
>> On 5/26/16 5:41 PM, Jonathan wrote:
>
>
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps an actual point would be more useful.
>>>
>>> The point was stated clearly by Gould, the theory
>>> this ng cherishes is dead or dying as is reductionism
>>> in general. It's being replaced by emergence, but like
>>> any dogma the true believers hang on to the old ideas
>>> to the bitter end and utterly refuse to entertain
>>> the new sciences.
>>
>> But that wasn't Gould's point at all. You're playing very fast and loose
>> with terms and concepts.
>
> Am I too long winded and dry, or too fast and loose?

You really like to play with words as if you were saying something real,
don't you?

> It appears to me you're parsing and dodging
> the issue, an emergent frame is quite different
> and requires an open mind, not defensiveness
> and denial.

Gould wasn't talking about any such thing. And your smugness is showing.

>>> Emergence is taking over, collective behavior is
>>> replacing reductionist facts. Fundamental laws
>>> /are no longer relevant/ to a coevolutionary
>>> system, as such systems make their own 'laws'
>>> as the go.
>>>
>>> Everything you thought you knew is being replaced
>>> and you're completely oblivious to the sea-change
>>> in scientific thought that's sweeping the globe.
>>
>> If it's sweeping the globe, how come biologists (me, for example) don't
>> know that? You make vast, though vague, claims on little or no evidence.
>
> Read my post entitled 'The age of emergence' it gets to the
> point better I think.

That doesn't answer the question or address the complaint.

Have you read the letter the Gould quote comes from? It's about
punctuated equilibria and species selection, plus a little flirtation
with macromutation. Where's the emergence in that?

And Gould was wrong in detail. PE and species selection have very little
to do with the obsolescence of Mayr's views. The former is dubious and
the latter is probably a minor factor in evolution.

>>> If they don't state why they think so, I'm going
>>> to 'Trump' their sorry asses.
>>
>> Fan of the Donald, are you? Not surprising.
>
> Hardly, but the level of replies are so weak
> some tough love is called for.

You do have much in common.

[David Canzi]

On 05/26/16 19:25, Jonathan wrote:
> On 5/26/2016 12:09 AM, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 5/25/16 5:21 PM, Jonathan wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> (excerpts)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Emergence of Species and the Ascent of Man
>>> On Darwinian Natural Selection
>>>
>>>
>>> Evolution and the Modern Synthesis
>>>
>>> One of the architects of the modern synthetic theory of evolution was
>>> Ernst Mayer. Here is Mayer’s clear statement of the synthetic theory of
>>> evolution (quoted by Stephen J. Gould in The Logic of Life: The
>>> Challenge of Integrative Physiology, by C. A. R. Boyd and D. Nobel,
>>> Oxford Press, 1993, Chapter Two ‘ Evolution of Organisms’ by Stephen J.
>>> Gould, p. 17):
>>
>> It's Ernst *Mayr*. My confidence in this essay is waning.
>>
>>> The proponents of the synthetic theory maintain that all evolution is
>>> due to the accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural
>>> selection, and that transpacific evolution is nothing but an
>>> extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within
>>> populations and species. – from Ernst Mayer, Animal species and
>>> evolution. (1963), p. 586
>>
>> "Transpacific"? You might want to check that word. Confidence going down
>> again.

[...]

>>> but if Mayer’s characterization of the synthetic theory is
>>> accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively
>>> dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy. – from ‘ Evolution
>>> of Organisms’ by Stephen J. Gould, in Boyd and Nobel 1993, p. 18.
>>
>> You might want to recheck textbook orthodoxy.
>
> What does that mean? You're response is as weak
> as it gets, a spelling flame worthy of a jr high
> school dropout.

It was obvious to me that "transpacific" should actually
be "trans-specific" or perhaps "transspecific". Why wasn't
it obvious to the author of that web page? Why wasn't it
obvious to you?

Gould wrote those words in 1980. He was referring to the
"textbook orthodoxy" of 36 years ago. He commented on his
words later: "Given the furor provoked, I would probably
tone down - but not change in content - the quotation that
has come to haunt me in continual miscitation and
misunderstanding by critics..."

sandwalk.blogspot.ca/2013/12/is-modern-synthesis-effectively-dead.html

--
David Canzi | Eternal truths come and go.

[Robert Camp]

A quick question, if you don't mind. What group of people do you imagine
to be best positioned to notice a "sea-change" in scientific thought as
it pertains to the theory of evolution? Do you suppose evolutionary
biologists might be among the first to, y'know, pick up on that?

<snip>