It matters if you find it interesting, it doesn't if you don't. Not sure what 'badness' has to do with it.
Why Did Darwinism Emerge?
- Thread starter phildwyer
- Start date
It matters if you find it interesting, it doesn't if you don't. Not sure what 'badness' has to do with it.
Well, theories of evolution are ancient. No serious observer since Anaximander has doubted the basic fact of evolution. The question is: which theory of evolution is correct.
Darwin's theory of evolution accords with capitalist economics on many levels, perhaps most notably through his contention that it is the actions of individual animals that drive evolution.
It's worth noting that nobody, not even the most committed Darwinists, believe that any longer. This is just one example of many ways that Darwinism has been proved wrong (or superseeded if you want to be polite).
For me the interesting question is: when can we say that so many of Darwin's ideas have been proved wrong that we must speak of a "post-Darwinist" stage of evolutionary theory. I believe we reached that stage in 1980.
If it were true that science somehow "exists above culture," then scientific ideas would be the same in every culture. And yet we find the reverse: scientific ideas change more rapidly than any other kind of idea. That fact alone proves that they are culturally specific.
Contrast this to mathematics, which is indeed the same in every culture.
Exactly.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
In all honesty, I never expected to see a spelling mistake in one of your posts. It's penny-ante to point it out - but most always, you could take your spelling to the bank.
It's possible that Darwin, fashioning the theory in the 19th century, might have had some or many of the details wrong. That doesn't invalidate the overriding theory.
Pobody's Nerfect.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
You making a spelling mistake is like a dentist unable to identify facets on a bicuspid.
Anyway it was the English spelling of whatever it was.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
For your information, I have a very mild form of dyslexia. Please do not mock the afflicted.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Oh, sorry.
The good news is, it only shows up once in every 100,000 words.
Yewsually.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
The validity of the ideas is not culturally specific. Indeed, science is in the end a form of applied mathematics - it relies upon measurement of quantifiable phenomena, and uses mathematics to model them.
If you can give me an example of a scientific theory that is considered valid in one culture but not valid in another, then I'll concede the point. (And I mean not valid, not merely not understood.) I can think of none - and I think there can be none, because scientific ideas ultimately stand or fall by the results of empirical measurement; they are by definition not dependent on culture for the same reason that mathematics is the same in every culture.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Just to correct something I said yesterday.
I said that Gould would have agreed with my stance about natural selection. In fact, I don't think that's quite right. Essentially, the position I was outlining was the more reductionist position of Daniel Dennett, which maintains, I think correctly, that evolution can be reduced to an algorithmic process.
I am in fact unclear at the moment whether or not Gould would have agreed with this. Gould wrote disparagingly about Dennett's position, but mostly it seems because he felt that Dennett had misrepresented Gould's own position. I personally see no contradiction between Gould's more nuanced analysis and Dennett's reductionism. They are merely analyses at different levels of description, I think, and are both essentially right, but I accept that Gould himself probably would not have agreed with me.
I said that Gould would have agreed with my stance about natural selection. In fact, I don't think that's quite right. Essentially, the position I was outlining was the more reductionist position of Daniel Dennett, which maintains, I think correctly, that evolution can be reduced to an algorithmic process.
I am in fact unclear at the moment whether or not Gould would have agreed with this. Gould wrote disparagingly about Dennett's position, but mostly it seems because he felt that Dennett had misrepresented Gould's own position. I personally see no contradiction between Gould's more nuanced analysis and Dennett's reductionism. They are merely analyses at different levels of description, I think, and are both essentially right, but I accept that Gould himself probably would not have agreed with me.
Spud Murfy
Relic
How do you know that nobody believes that it is "the actions of individual animals that drive evolution"? You must have done a very extensive survey of post-Synthesis evolutionary biology to make such a confident assertion. How did you get on with Maynard Smith's The Theory of Evolution? Remember the bit where he says not to bother reading it if your algebra's not up to scratch - was that a problem for you?
How do you explain that Stephen Jay Gould, in chapter 3 of The structure of evolutionary theory, recognises the individual organism as one of a number of levels of selection, and states that Darwin was aware of the possibility of multiple levels, in contrast to Wallace?
What about Steven Rose, who emphasises the the importance of the individual organism's actions in selection? I wouldn't expect Rose to be a ready regurgitator of capitalist ideology - he's a Marxist.
Finally, if the individual as the prime unit of selection was so in tune with capitalist ideology, why did it take until the Modern Synthesis for most biologists to let go of group level selection, or explanations which explained behaviour as for 'the good of the species'?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
This is a good question.
FWIW, my way of thinking about this is that evolution by selection only makes sense where you can identify a reproductive unit. Generally speaking, that's the level of the individual organism, but it doesn't have to be.
Also, a question for dwyer: I admit that I've only read bits of Gould's largest work. But I have read Darwin's work. Have you? What I find remarkable about The origin of species is that its central argument, a very simple idea, is still essentially correct. He nailed it, and the rest has been an expansion and refinement of the idea, a building upon it.
Spud Murfy
Relic
Coming next: was Copernicus's theory of a heliocentric solar system with a far-roaming Earth a reflection of Renaissance-era mercantilism? Was Dawkins's gene-centric popularisation The Selfish Gene secretly influenced by postmodernism, with individual organisms as the 'intersections' of multiple genetic 'discourses'?
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wobbly
no, it does not proove they are culturally specific, it shows that scientific thoughts change as more research is done
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wobbly
to quote you from another thread phil:
because of course, if it's good enough for you to throw out such shit, you can get it back
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Fuck, I can't keep off this thread. Last post of the year:
Dwyer's problem, ultimately, seems to be the idea of 'blind' evolution. He wants there to be room somewhere for Paley's watchmaker. Perhaps the following outline is one possible way that evolution could have started entirely blind to any goal:
If you set a blob of oil in a maze filled with a solution with a pH gradient towards the exit of the maze, the blob of oil will find its way through the maze as if it had an intention to do so. Google it and you can see details - it's just a humble blob of oil with no intentions at all, but it will make it to the end of the maze.
Now let us suppose that as it makes its way through such a maze, it picks up more oil in some way so that it grows to twice its size, and that upon reaching twice its size, it will become unstable and divide into two. A blob floats around and by chance stumbles upon a suitable maze. It negotiates the maze, grows and divides at the exit. Its two 'offspring' float off, and in turn they encounter new mazes. Not all the mazes are the same, so the blobs will disintegrate in many of them. However, the division of the blob into two doesn't make perfect copies of itself - sometimes they will both be of equal size, sometimes not, and these new offspring may not fit into the same maze as their 'parent', but will fit into other mazes, where they in turn will grow and then divide.
So here we have a process of blob growth and division in the presence of various kinds of mazes whereby, from one original blob of a particular size, lots of different blobs of different sizes and qualities emerge, each capable of passing through different mazes. Feature upon feature can evolve from here, as new methods of finding suitable mazes emerge by chance from the uneven division of blobs, and if you didn't know better, you'd think that all these blobs had growth and division as their goal, because looking back retrospectively, that is what you see. Perhaps some blobs will be 'successful' by merging with others to grow and divide outside any maze. Who knows what apparent reproductive 'strategies' will be stumbled upon.
Add to this picture the building blocks of proteins - amino acids - which are probably found throughout the universe, and exist in comets - and perhaps you have the necessary conditions for the start of life through evolution by natural selection, and from there everything flows...
Dwyer's problem, ultimately, seems to be the idea of 'blind' evolution. He wants there to be room somewhere for Paley's watchmaker. Perhaps the following outline is one possible way that evolution could have started entirely blind to any goal:
If you set a blob of oil in a maze filled with a solution with a pH gradient towards the exit of the maze, the blob of oil will find its way through the maze as if it had an intention to do so. Google it and you can see details - it's just a humble blob of oil with no intentions at all, but it will make it to the end of the maze.
Now let us suppose that as it makes its way through such a maze, it picks up more oil in some way so that it grows to twice its size, and that upon reaching twice its size, it will become unstable and divide into two. A blob floats around and by chance stumbles upon a suitable maze. It negotiates the maze, grows and divides at the exit. Its two 'offspring' float off, and in turn they encounter new mazes. Not all the mazes are the same, so the blobs will disintegrate in many of them. However, the division of the blob into two doesn't make perfect copies of itself - sometimes they will both be of equal size, sometimes not, and these new offspring may not fit into the same maze as their 'parent', but will fit into other mazes, where they in turn will grow and then divide.
So here we have a process of blob growth and division in the presence of various kinds of mazes whereby, from one original blob of a particular size, lots of different blobs of different sizes and qualities emerge, each capable of passing through different mazes. Feature upon feature can evolve from here, as new methods of finding suitable mazes emerge by chance from the uneven division of blobs, and if you didn't know better, you'd think that all these blobs had growth and division as their goal, because looking back retrospectively, that is what you see. Perhaps some blobs will be 'successful' by merging with others to grow and divide outside any maze. Who knows what apparent reproductive 'strategies' will be stumbled upon.
Add to this picture the building blocks of proteins - amino acids - which are probably found throughout the universe, and exist in comets - and perhaps you have the necessary conditions for the start of life through evolution by natural selection, and from there everything flows...
dilute micro
esse quam videri
If only it were so easy. "Culture" within science will often resist changing their thinking. Scientists are human and will sometimes, and collectively, put 'want' above empirical evidence.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
YES! dilutes here, the truth will now be found
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Scientists are imperfect. So what?
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wobbly
but phil is seeing the change itself as evidence of cultural influence. not as evidence of the amount of work that is being done in some fields. it's a fairly common failure in thinking among those who want to use science to proove their pet ideas rather than as a tool to find answers, whatever that answer might be.
i think we are also awaiting some evidence of what disciplines other than evolutionary biology, he wants to claim are politically influenced.
dilute micro
esse quam videri
Just correcting the usual bullshit line of the "objective scientist" that always comes about in such threads.
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wobbly
i know the idea of objective scientist isn't a perfect one, but there are at least more attempts at objectivity and peer review to try to ensure that than you get in the sort of performance we see from phil who is blatently manipulating the science to proove a pre determined theory.
dilute micro
esse quam videri
Yeah I know and I pretty much agree with you guys - even lbj - on that.
It's the definition of 'culture' that bothers me. To some degree at the higher end of this argument phil's case does have some weight.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
You start a thread about how Darwinism came about and Darwin's ideas are seemingly not relevant.
Good to see you've got the thinking cap on today, Phil.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
There's a lot more in his writings involving his thoughts on 'artifical selection' (ie. selective breeding of plants and animals in human farming), so there were more influences than the Malthusian thing going on - I don't know so much about the influence of Adam Smith).
I don't know enough about Malthus to know whether his ideas about human population were influenced by early animal ecological ideas, or whether things moved purely in the other direction...
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Or that we'd necessarily want to.
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