tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post5120747977908472977..comments2024-03-27T14:50:47.345-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: Templeton gives $8 million to prove that there's more to evolution than natural selectionLarry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-72132289073848409132017-11-12T03:30:35.005-05:002017-11-12T03:30:35.005-05:00SRM - I have no clue who or what this organisation...SRM - I have no clue who or what this organisation is, but going by your comment, I can't see what your objection and/or complaint is. They say:<br /><br />1) Don't want to disprove evolution (You agree)<br />2) Science doesn't know everything (You agree)<br />3) There are other ways of knowing things (You agree) <br />4) We should not just impulsively disregard those other ways (You agree)<br />5) Science is (evidently) not an immediate and direct pathway to "absolute truth" (You agree)<br />6) No Scientist would contradict (or say the opposite) to the above. (You agree)<br /><br />None of this can hardly be considered "soft-sell version of anti-science". So perhaps it's something else?<br /><br />Your third paragraph wasn't altogether clear, but i'll try to interpret it the best I can. <br /><br />7) *If* the scientific method can discover some numinous and mysterious qualities exist in nature, or make some discoveries that were not anticipated by strictly scientific predictions, accounts or conventions this tends to support a limitation on science (or is positive for religion). (You agree, that science has some limitations in your last sentence, so I'll go with "religion", as the 'anti-science' element that you think this last statement implies). <br /><br />So given that it is after this comment, you make a comment about them being anti-science, I am guessing this is the correlation or connection. <br /><br />But surely (7) is not "anti" Science, if it merely points out that scientific inquiry has limitations, even you seem to grant that. But perhaps you think this because you are a person who thinks that, whatever scientific limitations exist, that science remains to be seen as: "the only reliable pathway to knowledge of human beings", which is just a soft form of a dressed up, reincarnated Scientism.<br /><br />It is not that surprising that an adherent of such a view-point would consider such mild commentary to be "softly anti-science". But pointing out science has restrictions, or that Science could run into phenomena that were not predicted that vindicate some luminous quality to reality, nature, the universe or our existence, is perhaps the softest way or form of actually saying of testing the parameters of scientific knowledge, in other words if it is found true, we can *confirm* even in an indirect *scientific manner* that some things are outside of scientific comprehension. That is literally the simplest "test", one could construe of in order to test the scope of the scientific paradigm. Again it's totally neutral in principle (even if a religious organisation says it). And you yourself are inclined to admit these limitations (however minimal) do exist. So that can hardly be anti-science. <br /><br />I suppose that one consequence of that, is that it may corroborate a religious notion. But this is hardly exclusively a religious claim. There are many Atheists and Theist alike who think that life has an ultimate paradoxical or mysterious element. And there are countless irreligious people (among them materialists, agnostics and atheists)who think that science can't explain a whole bunch of stuff, e.g. consciousness phenomenology, even (in that case) including Sam Harris. <br /><br />So it seems from what I've read, I haven't seen anything even "subtly" scientific. But I do see a kind of "anti-religion" sentiment here, which seems to be the driving force of this conclusion that doesn't follow any of it's premises. Dkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09580303281053125767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-6009418289406201882016-04-25T12:18:31.812-04:002016-04-25T12:18:31.812-04:00It really isn't. I shows that G&L did not ...It really isn't. I shows that G&L did not have a firm grasp of neutral theory, Gould was too far removed from population genetics and Lewontin thought that the high degree of polymorphism was likely due to balancing selection rather than a high number of neutral alleles at the time. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04521153536420798640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-69400964623712810732016-04-25T11:11:21.697-04:002016-04-25T11:11:21.697-04:00Well, the "fad" got going with Goulds Ph...<i>Well, the "fad" got going with Goulds Phylogeny and Ontogeny.</i><br /><br />No, it didn't. The "fad" part is only about 20-25 years old. Before then, were no calls for revising fundamental evolutionary theory based on evo-devo.<br /><br />Gould's book, and subsequent discoveries, are mostly concerned with the history of life on Earth. Developmental biology helps us make sense of the particular paths that modern lineages took to get where they are today. <br /><br />But let's say you are correct. Let's assume that our understanding of developmental biology has been incorporated into modern evolutionary theory beginning with Gould. If that's true, then why all the fuss in 2016 about expanding the Modern Synthesis by adding evo-devo?<br /><br />The EES proponents want to add "evolvability" to evolutionary theory. That's something that Gould rejects on good solid grounds based on modern evolutionary theory. That debate is fifteen years old and evo-devo lost. <br />Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-15892826862251796362016-04-25T10:36:12.050-04:002016-04-25T10:36:12.050-04:00I cringe when I read their #1, precisely because s...<i>I cringe when I read their #1, precisely because stating that the probability of fixation is 2s is usually wrong (sometimes by a lot) ...</i><br /><br />This is called nitpicking ...Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-92058114827156999862016-04-25T06:42:08.491-04:002016-04-25T06:42:08.491-04:00I've used historical development of language a...I've used historical development of language as an analogy here, so I'm aware of some parallelism. To suggest that it is a failure of biological evolutionary theory to spend more time on cultural evolution is not a valid conclusion from the fact of that parallelism and its occasional usefulness.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-21006156303099750762016-04-24T23:11:13.602-04:002016-04-24T23:11:13.602-04:00There's now a substantial literature on Darwin...There's now a substantial literature on Darwinian cultural evolution. Cultural evolution and organic evolution share lot more than just the word 'evolution'. The general theory of evolution covers them both. If you don't think there's much overlap, you have some literature to catch up on.<br />Tim Tylerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06623536372084468307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-19318176752724386812016-04-24T22:40:59.238-04:002016-04-24T22:40:59.238-04:00They do discuss constraints, of course, but it'...<i>They do discuss constraints, of course, but it's not a "misrepresentation" of Gould & Lewontin to say that they were also aware of random genetic drift and neutral alleles.</i><br /><br />It is a misrepresentation to claim that that was their main point, I cringe when I read their #1, precisely because stating that the probability of fixation is 2s is usually wrong (sometimes by a lot) and the way you stated this in your post (and they did as well) implies that 2s is reasonable for small populations (when it is a limit for infinitely large populations - and small s, but they still need to be somewhat larger than 1/N and well out of near-neutral range, in fact it's the tail end of the distribution for selection coefficients - for mitochondiral genes in Primates you can estimate that 1 in 40 million mutations has a positive selection coefficient that large. Here's how not to make an argument for the importance of "no selection at all": Use an approximation that is only valid when there is rather strong positive selection. Anything for which 2s is a reasonable probability of fixation is certainly adaptive).<br /><br /><i>It's the concepts of constraints—limitations on the power of natural selection—that are important and these concepts were around long before the modern "evo-devo" fad got going.</i><br /><br />Well, the "fad" got going with Goulds Phylogeny and Ontogeny. Evo-devo is certainly not limited to understanding that there are constraints, but one of the key question revolves around how developmental and phyletic constraints are linked.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04521153536420798640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-67569897505650001582016-04-24T21:05:51.000-04:002016-04-24T21:05:51.000-04:00The fact that biological evolution and cultural ev...The fact that biological evolution and cultural evolution share a word does not mean they share a great deal that is important about the science of biological evolution.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-39065145027195486812016-04-24T21:02:16.620-04:002016-04-24T21:02:16.620-04:00In pop science, adaptationists fetishize natural s...<i>In pop science, adaptationists fetishize natural selection as the fundamental law of nature, superior to historical stuff like random genetic drift.<br /><br />***<br /><br />PS Modern gravitational theory, aka general relativity, plays little or no role in studies on the history of our solar system. Orbital mechanics does, but it's still Newtonian. The development of orbital mechanics was based on astronomical observations, not laboratory experiments nor theoretical models. Doesn't affect your point, of course, just compulsive neatness on my part.</i><br /><br /><br />What a load of ignorant bollocks. Drift and selection emerge from the same population genetics equations, and both explain the historical evolutionary record. There is no division between law and history such as you are trying to conjure.<br /><br />As for orbital mechanics being based on historical observation rather than experimentation or theoretical models, is your education so impoverished you really think Galileo did no experiments, nor Newton any theoretical models?judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-52968897547038181172016-04-24T18:49:05.059-04:002016-04-24T18:49:05.059-04:00The "problem" humans have with evolution...The "problem" humans have with evolutionary theory is that it is humans that are trying to study it using human cognition. <br /><br />Humans cognition evolved. Unfortunately during that evolutionary process, sensory systems became strongly biased to detect "agency", even when it is not there. This is understandable, because ancestors that had many false-positive detections of predators have many more descendants than the non-ancestors with too many (as in one too many) false-negative non-detection of a predator (who are non-ancestors because they were eaten by that single false-negative). <br /><br />Human hyperactive agency detection compels human cognition to try and find “the agent” that is “causing” the “thing that needs explanation”. The Templeton organization feels that this necessary “agent” is God. For a while it was thought that life required a mythic “vital agent” as in Vitalism. That has pretty much been abandoned for the concept of “homeostasis”, a not-quite mythic “agent” that sort-of does the same thing; keep everything in a living organism “alive”. <br /><br />Many researchers now, are trying to find “the agent” in the “genome”, or in “development”, or in “junk DNA”, or in “something”. This is the same problem that those trying to find the “agent” of consciousness are having, and so they are looking for it in quantum woo-woo. There isn't an “agent” of consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent property of an assembly of matter. There is no “top-down agent” of consciousness. <br /><br />An “agent” is a top-down causal agent. The problem with looking for a top-down “cause” of development is that before development happens, there is no “top”. With no “top”, there can be no “top-down development”. There is no homunculus that is the “agent” of consciousness, or the “agent” of the cell, or the “agent” of the genome, or the “agent” of evolution. daedalus2uhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10416564922288784455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-84423992589462731062016-04-24T16:47:22.707-04:002016-04-24T16:47:22.707-04:00I did not say that the Spandrels paper was only ab...I did not say that the Spandrels paper was only about random genetic drift and neutral theory. I mentioned it because it is a famous paper that promotes nonadaptive mechanisms and those mechanisms were not a part of the Modern Synthesis. <br /><br />They cover several alternatives to adaptationism and #1 is "no adaptation and no selection at all." In that section they mention fixation of alleles by random genetic drift, fixation of deleterious alleles in small populations, and the inefficiently of natural selection when the selection coefficient is small (because the probability of fixation is approximately 2s). <br /><br />They do discuss constraints, of course, but it's not a "misrepresentation" of Gould & Lewontin to say that they were also aware of random genetic drift and neutral alleles. <br /><br />There are two kinds of constraints; phyletic constraints and developmental constraints. Both of these ideas come from studying whole organisms and their development. It's the concepts of constraints—limitations on the power of natural selection—that are important and these concepts were around long before the modern "evo-devo" fad got going. <br /><br />If the only contribution of "evo-devo" is the idea of constraints then we clearly don't need to "extend" the Modern Synthesis based on recent discoveries in the field of evo-devo since Gould (and others) already new about that over 35 years ago. In fact, Gould wrote an entire book about the subject in 1977. Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-2672328179417668702016-04-24T14:46:04.856-04:002016-04-24T14:46:04.856-04:00GR reduces to NM for low speeds and gravitational ...GR reduces to NM for low speeds and gravitational effects. Therefore orbital mechanics is GR, just not the hard version. Jon Fleminghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08191822787220580152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-43407245631259211372016-04-24T12:53:29.518-04:002016-04-24T12:53:29.518-04:00And again with the misrepresentation of Gould... T...And again with the misrepresentation of Gould... The Spandrels paper does mention some problems with adaptionism, but the main focus of the paper is the particular problem with adaptionism that arises from Evo-Devo. As G&L look at Weismanns view that natural selection is omnipotent, their key objection is that this misses constraints imposed by development, which do lead to a general non-independence of "traits" (which they identify as usually not taking into account organismal development). In later work Gould gave the use of the umbilicus as a brooding chamber in some snail species as an example for exaptation of a spandrel. It's worth noting here that the shell morphospace introduced by Raup was based on growth patterns in mollusks (also see <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2006.00614.x/full" rel="nofollow">Erwin, DH (2007) "Disparity: Morphological pattern and developmental context</a> for a more recent view). Raup uses a 3D-Morphospace, which nevertheless recovers most shell morphologies. This means that most of the "traits" one could identify when looking at mollusk shell morphology are not independent from each other. And relevantly, umbilici arise in a substantial fraction of the morphospace (and doe show up in s substantial number of taxa as well). It's worth noting that most theoretical morphospaces are based on developmental pathways (so you get branching patterns for plants from their growth patterns for instance). Hence pointing out that umbilici are not a trait, but a byproduct of the way shells are produced by organisms during their development given a sizable subset of parameters makes the argument that they are adaptations to current utilizations incorrect.<br /><br />You can not make the claim that evo-devo does not make a significant contribution to evolutionary theory and then cite the Spandrels paper in support, because it is vehemently arguing the opposite.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04521153536420798640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-29208733749881818252016-04-23T18:49:15.729-04:002016-04-23T18:49:15.729-04:00What has that got to do with anything? Cultural ev...What has that got to do with anything? Cultural evolution is critical to the evolution of our own species. If you are trying to make out that cultural evolution is somehow not important, you are sorely mistaken.<br />Tim Tylerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06623536372084468307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-22337480981244456272016-04-23T17:19:03.336-04:002016-04-23T17:19:03.336-04:00I've always thought that the objective of scie...I've always thought that the objective of scientific research and experimentation was and still is to reveal the truth and not to support preconceived ideas...<br /><br />If Larry, Coyne and many others believe the above, why would they fear other scientists trying to prove what they already know to be the truth? Unless...Jmachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04392421995310271733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-45581217931266272782016-04-23T12:47:54.487-04:002016-04-23T12:47:54.487-04:00Evolutionary theory has to do with biology and gen...Evolutionary theory has to do with biology and genetic inheritance. Cultural evolution, not so much. <br /><br />-jaxkayakerKeithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03141027405807111565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-12623328997935410162016-04-23T10:22:42.603-04:002016-04-23T10:22:42.603-04:00There are more than 10 million species. How many h...There are more than 10 million species. How many have been significantly affected by cultural evolution in the past one thousand years? Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-30816847778610499972016-04-23T09:31:00.249-04:002016-04-23T09:31:00.249-04:00What about their "extended inheritance" ...What about their "extended inheritance" section? Evolutionary theory failed to get to grips with cultural evolution until fairly recently. That's pretty big, important and is fairly directly to do with evolutionary theory.Tim Tylerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06623536372084468307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-34733948181741459392016-04-23T08:28:20.895-04:002016-04-23T08:28:20.895-04:00Do these biologists not know and keep up with curr...<i>Do these biologists not know and keep up with current ideas in evolution?</i><br /><br />It would appear not.Faizal Alihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00937075798809265805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-37846177639754991242016-04-23T08:02:05.433-04:002016-04-23T08:02:05.433-04:00I see. There's mere history and there's re...I see. There's mere history and there's real science. The real science is predictive, experimental, laboratory tested and the other is just stories. <br /><br />In pop science, adaptationists fetishize natural selection as the fundamental law of nature, superior to historical stuff like random genetic drift. In pop science, it's why sexual selection is all about fitness markers, i.e., adaptationist. It's why Jerry Coyne's recent pop science discussion of zebras can dismiss the notion that the stripes are not adaptive. Natural selection is the fundamental law, like gravitational theory. <br /><br />PS Modern gravitational theory, aka general relativity, plays little or no role in studies on the history of our solar system. Orbital mechanics does, but it's still Newtonian. The development of orbital mechanics was based on astronomical observations, not laboratory experiments nor theoretical models. Doesn't affect your point, of course, just compulsive neatness on my part. S Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11610068751705809284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-57916404387412328332016-04-22T22:40:18.405-04:002016-04-22T22:40:18.405-04:00Do these biologists not know and keep up with curr...Do these biologists not know and keep up with current ideas in evolution? I understand they have new ideas to improve evolutionary claims and now some money. Public taxpayers pay for evolutionist research and no creationist stuff.<br />this group might have a religious agenda and not support ID/YEC.<br />why not support free money to researchers in these things?<br />Everybody these days thinks the old evolution ideas don't work. so this is another group looking for reform as opposed to revolution.<br />However iD/YEC is the revolution.<br />Robert Byershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05631863870635096770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-91624820116941831362016-04-22T22:13:20.564-04:002016-04-22T22:13:20.564-04:00No, it wouldn't be that they hope to disprove ...No, it wouldn't be that they hope to disprove evolution, the goal is more subtle. <br /><br />It is basically an attempt to show that "science doesn't know everything" at any given time (big surprise, eh). This opens the door to the notion that, just maybe, other ways of knowing things should not be discarded too hastily, since science is evidently not an immediate and direct pathway to absolute truth. Ridiculous of course, since no scientist would ever make such claims anyway.<br /><br />At the same time, if new discoveries can be made in what is (they think) settled science, this opens the door to the idea that maybe there are mysterious and numinous aspects of life that escape conventional science.<br /><br />It is basically a soft-sell version of anti-science by people who a) don't understand the scientific process and b) cannot accept that the scientific process, whatever its limitations, is the only reliable pathway to knowledge for humans.SRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299706694667706149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-44138729083415244882016-04-22T16:49:18.867-04:002016-04-22T16:49:18.867-04:00The history of the formation of our particular sol...The history of the formation of our particular solar system and gravitational theory are not the same thing.Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-86140614427738996682016-04-22T16:17:15.507-04:002016-04-22T16:17:15.507-04:00So basically, "$8 million to prove that there...So basically, "$8 million to prove that there's more to evolution than natural selection" sounds like a complete joke. It's already proven, and any serious evolutionary biologists knows this well. Those who don't won't influence the field anyway.Bjørn Østmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08859177313382114917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-21882296547753563922016-04-22T16:15:35.086-04:002016-04-22T16:15:35.086-04:00To me the whole thing is a non-issue. but that may...To me the whole thing is a non-issue. but that may be because I have only been doing evolutionary theory for a little over a decade. I simply don't have all the baggage of the modern synthesis, but wholly embrace evo-devo, evolvability, plasticity, and stochasticity (how we should properly think of drift vs. selection, in my opinion), etc. I suspect that this is true for the recent and coming generations of biologists who actually learn about evolutionary theory, rather than those who just create phylogenies from molecular data, for example.Bjørn Østmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08859177313382114917noreply@blogger.com