The egg came first

I'd say that succinctly sums up the difficulty that lies at the heart of this entire discussion. It is a fine example of what Dawkins referred to as: "the tyranny of the discontinuous mind".

I have to say that I share an observation I've seen made by some others here: that your posts tend to offer interesting parsing challenges. My initial intuitive impression (after viewing an admittedly limited number of them) is that your often cryptic contributions do not bear the signature of the deliberate obscurantist; the author of what I like to call: "excrementitious polysyllabic terminological esoterica". Rather, I get the impression that I am seeing ideas supported by broad grasp of facts and depth of thought, but which have not been fully expanded after having been transmitted, in compressed form, through a narrow channel. I look forward to seeing this tentative hypothesis fail to be falsified. I don't think so. I can quote Dawkins, but I certainly can't presume to speak for him; having aired that disclaimer: I'm willing to venture that he was referring to something that runs deeper than that; something that emerges as an artifact of the most essential of 'meme substrates': the architecture of the human brain, at the lowest levels of organizational structure. I predict that we might be able to engage in stimulating dialogue on the nature of meaning and the extent to which it is a property which resides with sender versus reciever... but I doubt if this particular thread is the appropriate place.

Perhaps this is just an example of the sort of parsing difficulty I mentioned above, but statement 3 appears to be an idea about legal theories, placing it in direct contradiction to statement 1. Taken as an instance of a class of questions with broader implications for the meaning of meaning it's interesting, and I've engaged in many discussions about this with various people. Whether or not I could engage YOU on it would seem to depend a lot on my ability to parse (let alone understand) your responses. I still have some reservations about that, but I think one of the things that fascinates me about the subject is the difficulty I have had in reaching firm conclusions, and I'm always hopeful that hearing it from a fresh perspective may help.Taken alone as question about theoretical biology and its truth, it's trivial -- in fact, comically so. Draw boundaries around categories in any manner you find convenient (good luck doing so without resorting to some degree of arbitrariness) but recognize that these are artificial constructs, and don't be surprised when the real-world members of those categories refuse to conform (say, by exhibiting fertility as a continuum, with occasional success in producing fertile crosses between members of what you were perfectly comfortable regarding as members of separate categories). Fail to recognize that, and it's about as interesting as watching a dog chasing his own tail; mildy amusing perhaps, but only for a short time. The question is: "which came first, the first adult YOU WOULD ACCEPT as a bona fide chicken, or the first egg YOU WOULD ACCEPT as a bona fide chicken egg?"Catholic Scientist answered it quite satisfactorily in post #2 in the thread: "it depends on your definition of a chicken egg".

Of course it can. In fact, it can be done in a number of ways, just as is the case with defining "chicken" (which really is the challenge). That's the problem. Whether you apply the "biological species concept", the "morphological species concept", the "folk species concept", or any other you care to propose (genetic, paleontological, evolutionary, phylogenetic, biosystematic, whatever), you still encounter the same difficulty: it is not possible to establish the boundaries of your definition perfectly -- yet this is exactly what would be required in order to answer the question in its most rigid, literal sense. In that sense it is a question about a SINGLE chicken and a SINGLE egg. It's a philosophical question masquerading as a biological one. I have become rather involved in the EVC 'debate'; it's one of those things I sort of watch myself doing, with as much interest in understanding why I do it as in understanding the peculiar quirks of human cognition/psychology that permit the creationist/IDist to cling to his bizzare and glaringly flawed ideas. It probably has something to do with the powerlessness I have often felt when I watched people (several close to me) be "assimilated" by this parasitic, mind-sucking meme-set, and I guess I'm hoping that through practice, I may (to the extent that it is possible to do so) find ways to win some of them back. After all, the theory of evolution they reject isn't the same theory that biologists accept, but a sloppily constructed strawman sold to them by grinning preachers. One of its most glaring flaws is an underlying assumption which also serves as the basis for the ridiculous question "which came first, the chicken or the egg": that speciation is a single-step process. I may not have gotten long lines of people to follow me out of the revival tent, but I believe I have managed to disabuse one or two of them of that notion. Gotta start somewhere. None of us can realistically hope to make that claim. I mean... it may be possible to be an expert on at least some aspects of the current state of theoretical biology, but the state of theoretical biology itself has yet to reach a level of 'expertise"; in many regards, we have barely scratched the surface. Tools with sufficient power to conduct deep investigations into various unresolved areas of biology have come into our hands only within the last few decades, and much important work has barely begun, at best. With the above qualification in mind, I consider that quite possible. I think Gould touched on this (somewhere or other), pointing out that the work of dedicated amateurs has traditionally contributed much to the science of biology -- as can be said for astronomy, geology, paleontology, etc. The amateur can often benefit from a certain degree of freedom from many of the demands and constraints placed upon the professional. At this point though, some of the tunnels we've bored into the mountain of biological mystery are fairly deep, and the most important new material to be uncovered is likely to be the result of efforts on the part of the highly trained specialist who dedicates years of his life to pursuit of a specific path of investigation. There's an interesting paradox here: the deeper we dig into these mysteries, the greater the degree to which the implications of the findings are likely to be appreciable only to the highly trained specialist -- yet those same findings may have even greater import for an area outside his scope of expertise. What we need, I suppose, are individuals who are highly trained specialists in every field. But there seems to be a logical barrier to that.I dream of a world in which it is as easy to strike up a conversation with the common man you meet on the street about protein folding or transposons as it is to get him talking about football or baseball or hockey. Ask him about those, and he'll often display an appreciation for subtlety and an attention to detail that would be a credit to any biologist. Hmmm... well, maybe he IS a biologist, just in a very, VERY narrow sense. I would consider the value of asking those questions to be roughly equivalent.

I don't know why you ask, nor what it is about that that you don't understand, and so am unable to respond. Well, I didn't want to say anything, but given the context, that first graphic reminded of nothing so much as the patterns I used to see on the floor of my chicken-house (yes, I actually did husband chickens at one time, and I miss having them. You can learn a lot from watching chickens. One of the things I regard as a genuine chicken-mystery is how such small brains can house so much personality, but I suppose I need to be on the alert for observer bias in this area). I didn't see the relevance of the second graphic, and still don't.Your idea:
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"...use topobiology to mediate a claim about the extracellular matrix such that one might propose FOR BIRDS (that have at least feather reminants) that the egg definitely came first."
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sounds interesting, especially in the light of your follow-up:
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"...apply Quantum compelentarity to idviduate reducts of population variance INTO an individual organism and attach an irrational number say to EACH living creature."
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So it sounds like you want to index every organism on the planet. Admirably ambitious, but I don't yet see how such a method can hope to do more than simply quantify the ambiguity through a 'fuzzy logic' approach. Maybe I'm just a bit locked-in on preconcieved ideas about the difficulty being fundamentally insurmountable. And no, I don't know much about Topobiology. Does anyone? I'm eager to learn more, though I appreciate the fact that you may have better things to do than walk me through it step-by-step. Perhaps once I've done a little more of that footwork, I will be better able to discuss those details. In the mean time, feel free to elaborate as much as your inclination inspires you and time constraints permit (I'm about due for a break myself). All I'm saying is that in order to classify an egg as either a "chicken egg" or a "non-chicken egg" it would be necessary to first define "chicken", though the wording of the question may make it less than obvious that this is the real challenge. That question, in turn, deferrs to whatever methodology is employed in arriving at answers to the broader class of questions to which it is a member: i.e;: how do we define species? Unfortunately, we seem to intuitively default to something very much like Platonic essences, which works to some degree in a practical sense despite not holding up well to thorough logical scrutiny. It is perhaps in fact because such an approach is not without a certain practical value that we are reluctant to abandon it; when biologists cannot decide what is and what is not a chicken, someone like Jedd Clampett can come along and make the call in an instant. That may happen. I long ago resigned myself to the fact that any hope of making progress in these discussions depends to some degree on a willingness to patiently go around in circles until a point of resolution is reached on whatever is currently acting as an impasse. (I'm maybe a little OCD, which probably helps). Part of the problem is the way the discussions tend to spawn tangential discussions. The only way I see to avoid that is to simply let some things drop by the wayside, and pick up anything I missed when requested to do so, such as here:I have no problem regarding seeds and eggs as functionally equivalent for the purpose of this discussion. Here, I must strongly disagree. I not only consider the role of philosophers as vital to interpretation of the scientist's findings -- at every level -- but I would be quick to point out that there are impressive gaps in our knowledge regarding the specifics of many important processes, cell differentiation and protein folding being only the first two that come to mind.

Brad,Although I continue to experience some parsing difficulties (missing referents seems to be a lot of it) I find your contributions fascinating. You appear to have a mind that simply leaps at things, even if the intermittent placement of the resulting footprints does make tracking you somewhat tricky. I feel that I have good reason to hope to learn much from your contributions -- and much perhaps as a result of my attempts to express my reasons for disagreeing with you, when I do. Which may be often. But while I expect to continue to find much in your posts to which I would like to respond, I do not want to do that in a hasty manner.I'm afraid I may already have done that, and now have cause to regret it. (Some days, if I go a dozen posts without giving myself some reason for apologizing, I'm doing good). I apologize for so casually waving away the value of whatever effort you'd care to make toward "explaining how the egg could be singled out of the population". It was rude. I admit, I don't think you can do that (certainly not in the way implied by the most literal interpretation of way the chicken/egg question is framed) and I still have a hard time regarding the question as anything but silly and trivial. But I've been wrong before. I'm willing to try my best to set aside my bias if you're willing to try to make your case a little more intelligibly. I'm not sure I can set aside my bias long enough to enable me to hunt down all the places you've presented the argument before (things I consider important, I try to keep well organized and close at hand, but maybe that's just me). It's up to you to decide whether you think it would be worth the effort. If not, no hard feelings, honest. Maybe some other time. Maybe dole it out in bite-sized pieces. Whatever. Might go smoother anyway once my 'Bradspeak' has improved enough to give me a better chance of grasping the full meaning of phrases like: "So it does matter to some extent that one can remove one’s mammalian bias when discussing strictly the duky problem you got but not I, in your syringe."I hope you won't feel pressured to respond yourself. I mention this because some of your posts look like they were composed in a hurry; if so, this may be a factor contributing to some of the trouble I (and, apparently, some others) have in following you. I'd like to reassure you that I'm not going to suddenly lose interest. You are obviously very dedicated, and whether I agree with you or not, I have great respect for that; but the conclusions you reach are only worth as much as your ability to communicate them. If you do decide to proceed, take your time. I'll be here, even if it's just to read. (I hope you won't take offense at this suggestion, but if you'd take a little more trouble with spelling here and there, I think that might help a lot). Naturally, if what I'm seeing is simply the posting style you're comfortable with, then of course please don't give another thought to what I think.I was delighted by your statement: "I wouldn't have written as much if you didnt care", because I was thinking much the same thing. Even if you fail to persuade me that the chicken/egg conundrum (about which I've already said much more than I would have if not for your involvement) can be (or needs to be) solved, I will still look forward to trying to figure out what the heck you're talking about on questions I do regard as more deserving of the attention.