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Author Topic:   Criticizing neo-Darwinism
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 76 of 309 (299492)
03-29-2006 9:17 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by nwr
03-28-2006 11:15 PM


Expanding my, um, muddled thoughts on sex ...
I have never found these "sexual selection" accounts to be persuasive.
Natural selection is supposed to be non-intentional. Once you introduce sexual selection, you introduce intentions.
I think you have a bit of a strawman there. It comes down to the level at which intention is applied. In a survival selection situation the organisms will intend to survive to the best of their ability, what you don't have is the intentional cultivation of survival specific features before a survival event. It does not rule out intentional behavior of individuals, whether that behavior is intended for day-to-day survival or for sex.
Let me expand on why I think sexual selection is (a) more important than survival selection, (2) tends to create species stasis in a fixed environment and (III) can make features that are unnecessary for survival.
First off, sexual selection occurs with every (sexual) mating -- no waiting around for some survival stress test or other to show up -- and any organism that fails to reproduce has ended it's (individual) genetic career no matter how good a survival specialist it is.
At it's simplest {form\level\degree} it means not wasting mating {time\behavior\energy} on non-viable mates -- mates of other species where offspring would be sterile at best.
We also see that "species recognition" can define a (new) "species" before genetic isolation occurs -- as we see with the Asian greenish warbler ring end varieties -- and this indicates an active sexual choice that does not have a (strict) genetic nor a survival basis.
Second, sexual selection is a way of finding the healthiest mates rather than just having indiscriminate sex with anyone. The healthiest mates are also those that are best fit to the specific environment at hand, especially if it is fairly fixed in characteristics, so sexual selection picks the fittest mates for the most mating -- even in total absence of any survival stress selection testing.
This 'fine-tuning' of the species for the environment at hand means that it is selected to fit the environment even as it changes on a large (geological?) time scale -- even though such changes are not to the level of survival stresses. With this mechanism, when the environment is (relatively) fixed, the active sexual selection is for species stasis (because those are still the healthy mates).
Of course, for sexual selection to work there needs to be some means of distinguishing {healthy} from {non-healthy} individuals. While this can be fairly obvious for very {sick\weak\malnourished} individuals, there is a threshold of {well\strength\nourished} that most individuals in a (relatively) fixed environment would be capable of meeting, and to distinguish the {healthiest} between them could take extensive testing (courtship rituals).
Thus you see herd animals having male competitions to determine who is the healthiest, best fit specimen in the neighborhood, and who passes the sexual selection test. Essentially "Alpha" individuals are the individuals (pre-)selected for sexual mating by their individual health.
Such mating behavior is unnecessary for species reproduction, and the reason it exists is because it works to 'fine-tune' the species population in a way that indiscriminate sexual mating would not.
For comparison, look at Bonobos: they practice indiscriminate sex at the drop of a hat, and compared to Chimpanzees they are less well adapted to their environment (smaller populations, more marginal areas, probably headed for extinction even without the hunting by humans).
A less exhaustive method of determining individual health than head-butting, is to have signal features. These can be fairly simple: the gloss of the fur and the fullness of the hair, the glow on the cheeks (whichever ones you prefer).
These can also involve distinctive features that advertise their signal qualities: the bright yellow of American goldfinches -- all mating plumage -- signals good health and readiness to mate.
In some cases the signal feature may become selected for beyond the level needed to advertise health, even to the point of jeopardizing it. The peacock tail is just one of these feedback signal features: the healthiest males have the biggest and most colorful tails to the point where it endangers their individual survival.
I think you would do better to say that the peacock tail is a spandrel.
But the key point is that without a full tail the male peacock doesn't get any. It's become necessary for the male to have tail to get tail.
That's not a spandrel, that's a key feature, essential for passing on the individual's genes to the next generation.
It is there because of sexual selection.
Enjoy.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by nwr, posted 03-28-2006 11:15 PM nwr has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by nwr, posted 03-30-2006 1:29 AM RAZD has replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 77 of 309 (299515)
03-30-2006 12:48 AM
Reply to: Message 70 by Wounded King
03-29-2006 3:51 AM


Re: Holey fitness lanscapes Batman!!
You seem to have suddenly decided to discuss a completely different topic entirely.
That's what you should have expected.
I have not claimed that neo-Darwinism is false, nor that I would refute it. Generally, a theory is a construct that fits reality. My complaint is that it doesn't fit very well. Thus we should see example of poor fit in many aspects of the theory.
There is a frequent argument (against ID, for example) that a theory has to make testable predictions. But the same reasoning should favor a theory that makes strong predictions over a theory that makes vague or weak predictions. I am arguing that neo-Darwinism is a poor fitting theory that often makes only weak predictions. We should be able to do better.
As PaulK so cogently points out, if the only change that is going on is in the location of the deer then there is no evolution going on.
Right. So you reach into your grab bag of fudge factors, to declare that the theory doesn't apply in this case. It's a sign that the theory is a poor fit. The same sort of argument, if made by a creationist, would he called "add hoc reasoning".
You seem to want neo-darwinism to do much more than it has ever claimed to be able to. In fact you seem more to want some sort of grand unified theory of biology.
I'm not looking for a grand unified theory. I am skeptical of such. But a theory that deals with adaptation should recognize that one way of adapting is to move to an environment where the organism is already adapted.

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 78 of 309 (299516)
03-30-2006 1:22 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by nwr
03-30-2006 12:48 AM


Re: Holey fitness lanscapes Batman!!
Whether the deer move noeth or not is outside of the theory. On he behavioural side it mgight fall within the theory given sufficient information about the past - but whether it is geograpically possible for the deer to move north or not is clearyl outside of evolutionary theory.
quote:
I'm not looking for a grand unified theory. I am skeptical of such. But a theory that deals with adaptation should recognize that one
way of adapting is to move to an environment where the organism is already adapted.
Of course the theory does, but it simply isn't interested in that case, because so far as the theory is concerned it is the environment that is important, not the geographical location of that environment. This is not a "fudge factor" as you call it - it is a simple recognition that what you decribe is a null case so far as the theory is concerned.

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 79 of 309 (299518)
03-30-2006 1:29 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by RAZD
03-29-2006 9:17 PM


Re: Expanding my, um, muddled thoughts on sex ...
My reservation about sexual selection, is that when I see this used in an explanation it always seems ad hoc.
At it's simplest {form\level\degree} it means not wasting mating {time\behavior\energy} on non-viable mates -- mates of other species where offspring would be sterile at best.
In such a case you have a fitness explanation. So why bring in sexual selection?
We also see that "species recognition" can define a (new) "species" before genetic isolation occurs ...
Again, that seems to be a fitness explanation.
Many of your other examples seem to be fitness explanations.
For comparison, look at Bonobos: they practice indiscriminate sex at the drop of a hat, and compared to Chimpanzees they are less well adapted to their environment (smaller populations, more marginal areas, probably headed for extinction even without the hunting by humans).
That seems like a weak argument. You can find other species probably headed for extinction, where sex is not so indiscriminate.
The question of sexual selection is probably a side issue, and perhaps should have a separate thread if you want to discuss in more detail.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by RAZD, posted 03-29-2006 9:17 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 80 of 309 (299532)
03-30-2006 4:24 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by nwr
03-30-2006 12:48 AM


Fudge for everybody!!
Right. So you reach into your grab bag of fudge factors, to declare that the theory doesn't apply in this case.
\
Eh?
There is no change in the genetics of the population, there is no change in the morphology of the population, there is no change in the constitution of the population, all there is change in is the location of the population. Why would an evolutionary model be expected to predict this? You seem to have a radically new interpretation of the very concept of evolution, you are asking why neo-darwinism can't predict something no one except you seems to think it should. Where is there any fudge factor?
I am arguing that neo-Darwinism is a poor fitting theory that often makes only weak predictions. We should be able to do better.
Have you considered that the limitations may not be in the theory but in our ability to apply it. There are extreme problems with trying to estimate or measure the strength of selection of any given variable on any given trait. When you consider the number of traits and variables both independent and interdependent involved in even a very small environmental niche the necessary computations become hugely complex.
That the possible resultant predictions are weak is just as likely to be due to an inability to provide exact input values as it is to a weakness in the subsequent processing.
I am skeptical of such. But a theory that deals with adaptation should recognize that one way of adapting is to move to an environment where the organism is already adapted.
But that in itself is in no way evolution. The behavioural mechanisms which lead a population to migrate or seek a comfortable environment may well be evolutionary products whose development can be modelled, but a particular population migrating is not evolution in any sense that I can see, if you think it is then perhaps you can explain that position?
TTFN,
WK

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 81 of 309 (299544)
03-30-2006 6:47 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by PaulK
03-30-2006 1:22 AM


a sense of the place out of place?
So I take it that you do not have much of a thought of or for vicariance biogeography or ancestral area biogeography? I take it you must hold that Croizat did not see *anything* of statistical regularity in panglobal distributions even though Nelson made something, albeit different, than Croizat intended out his notion of "generalized track."
Null with respect to hypothesis as in Criak above I understand and disagree with but after the fact of little use of biogeography in evolutionary theory (neodarwinism) I do not.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 82 of 309 (299548)
03-30-2006 7:53 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by nwr
03-30-2006 12:48 AM


on adapting to have been the fit
yes.
It seems to me that the difference principally is in the rejection of further analytic introspection and the rigidity that precise defintions might provide. PaulK's approach (and that of the elite defensive position) does not worry so much that post-modern epistemology may indeed be in the process of outstripping their last century gains in ontology. While it is no argument to simply look at creationism and claim or create an asservation that the milky way of neodarwinism can not survive a natural catastrophe, a subjective social comparision of the people groups invovled CAN motivate changes in ontological confidence. The burden however is in this millenium on the cver not the evcer but this is all that WK and PK are really getting to say. I admit that but find that the physicality of geography itself is to blame for the failure to introspect more precisely not the problematic issue of the synthetic a priori. So it does become of one to address specifically WK's point about weakness of the theory itself at some point, other than a comparision to unfinished naming in ID, but I myself have thought long and hard about THAT and I do think that work can be done to predict better beyond neod.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 83 of 309 (300353)
04-02-2006 6:13 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by nwr
03-30-2006 1:29 AM


Re: Expanding my, um, muddled thoughts on sex ...
In such a case you have a fitness explanation. So why bring in sexual selection?
Because plain vanilla fitness doesn't explain why the two ring varieties in the overlap zone do not mate.
Sexual selection on the other hand explains the mating choices in the overlap area, where both are otherwise viable choices: both are fit for the ecological niche and both are healthy specimens.
And it gives a mechanism for how "fitness" is judged by the participants without wasting energy in trial and error. This leads to more {energy\resources} left for raising young, and so is more beneficial to species with longer gestation times and lower reproductivity rates, resulting in positive selection for such behavior.
On the other hand "fitness selection" has always seemed to me to be more of an after the fact catch-all mechanism -- it gives me the image of (the males anyway) going around mating with everything that moves without regard for the results and only the fit matings producing viable offspring ... if there are viable offspring then the parents must have been fit?
This is fine for 'mindless' species like plants, and others that broadcast eggs and sperm (or whatever), wholesale, but it does not explain the lack of mating behavior in closely related species or the reduced mating behavior between varieties within a species population.
Again, that seems to be a fitness explanation.
Many of your other examples seem to be fitness explanations.
But how does "fitness" work? It seems to me that sexual selection is one of the mechanisms by which individual fitness is judged by potential mates.
It's more than just health and vigor, but some species specific signal that says: "hey sailor, new in town?"
That seems like a weak argument. You can find other species probably headed for extinction, where sex is not so indiscriminate.
Of course it is just an anecdotal correlation at best (with the information available), but my reason for using it is that these are two very closely related species living in similar habitats, with very little to distinguish them other than sexual behavior and a slight difference in size.
One could argue that both are headed for extinction at the hands of their major predator (man), but one is clearly closer than the other, and the other has also diversified into 3 varieties ... by the mechanism of sexual selection?
But the point is not that one is (or both are) headed for extinction, the point is the difference in adaptation to the environment, where the one that is less discriminating sexually is less {diversified\fit} to the ecology, matching my thesis that sexual selection helps fine tune a species to its environment in an on-going feed back.
The question of sexual selection is probably a side issue, and perhaps should have a separate thread ...
There is one available, the {Sexual Selection, Stasis, Runaway Selection, Dimorphism, & Human Evolution} thread.
But the issue you raised on neo-darwinism is the mechanisms by which novel genetic changes become expressed in populations.
One answer is sexual selection.
Of course this only applies to those things that individual organisms use to distinguish mate preference, whether it is long lustrous head hair in humans, vibrant peacock tails, yellow feathers on goldfinces, blue butts on baboons ... or the slight difference in coloration and song between West Siberian greenish warblers (P. t. viridanus) and east Siberian greenish warblers (P. t. plumbeitarsus) ...
Plain vanilla "fitness" selection doesn't have the cajones to explain either these choices or these features, while sexual selection not only explains their existence but the extremes that some (novel) signal features get to in their expression, and it explains why they are effective mechanisms for fine tuning a species to it's ecology.
Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by nwr, posted 03-30-2006 1:29 AM nwr has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by nwr, posted 04-04-2006 10:50 PM RAZD has replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 84 of 309 (301013)
04-04-2006 10:50 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by RAZD
04-02-2006 6:13 PM


Re: Expanding my, um, muddled thoughts on sex ...
The question of sexual selection is probably a side issue, and perhaps should have a separate thread ...
There is one available, the {Sexual Selection, Stasis, Runaway Selection, Dimorphism, & Human Evolution} thread.
Thanks for the reference. I did find it an interesting thread.
But the issue you raised on neo-darwinism is the mechanisms by which novel genetic changes become expressed in populations.
One answer is sexual selection.
In my opinion, it cannot explain all (or even most) novelty.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 85 of 309 (302615)
04-09-2006 12:26 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by nwr
04-04-2006 10:50 PM


Re: Expanding my, um, muddled thoughts on sex ...
In my opinion, it cannot explain all (or even most) novelty.
It only needs to explain some to be a mechanism that causes novelty.
(at first I though you 'moved the goal posts', but I checked the original question).

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 86 of 309 (302957)
04-10-2006 1:51 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Belfry
03-23-2006 2:31 PM


Another Book criticizing neo-Darwinism
Belfry here is another perspective on the restrictive covanent of neo-Darwinism. Stone finished his 326 pages with,
quote:
Gwen Raverat was a daughter of Charles Darwin's son George. She wrote a wonderful book entitled Period Piece(1952) about her childhood and her numerous Darwin relatives. Late in that book she remarks that the Darwins in general "were quite unable to understand the minds of the poor, the wicked, or the religious."14
This is most profoundly true. And it is true not only that Darwins, or of Darwinians of the blood royal such as Galton, buit of all Darwinians of what might be called the "pure strain" of intellectual descent from Darwin: for example, Fisher, Darlington, E.O.Wilson, and Richard Dawkins. And it means, of course, a rather large gap in their understanding of human life; since the poor, the wicked, and the religious, must make up, on any estimate, at least three-quarters of all human beings.
But true as Gwen Raverat's remark is, and far as it goes, it does not go nearly far enough. For there are many and large classes of people who are neither poor nor wicked nor religious, but who are still a closed book to the characteristically Darwinian cast of mind. They are the heros, the adpotive parents, the men who do not kill every enemy they successfully fight, the intelligent mothers who detest kidnappers..but you know only too well by now how long the catalogue of our error goes."
quote:
p326
404 Not Found
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594031401/...
http://www.scimednet.org/...sN66+/N68DarwinianFairyTales.htm
(Students at Cornell know "pure strain" as "the unknown" and my grandfather called the "stragglers"). I was such a closed book and being one it was easier to have me committed than to shelve a piece of paper.
Making out the actual criticism is somewhat much more involved than being singled out as not being a part of neo-Darwinism. In," A World Without Time" Palle Yourgrau discussing the forgotten legacy of Godel and Einstein laments about how much Kant, Godel was not given credit for understanding, after a label of "pre-critical" was attached to him rather than "idealistic." For some reason there must have been two closed books because I too was labeled first idealistic and then without criticism was involuntarily removed from "the books" of higher education. Recently I heard the interim President of Cornell refer to "error" of the religious that would "encroah" anyway and so the use of this term by Stone in the book still carries more than a token of its own weight, no matter how turned in the chance casino we all submit to as life.
This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-10-2006 01:52 PM
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This message is a reply to:
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berberry
Inactive Member


Message 87 of 309 (302997)
04-10-2006 5:42 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by Brad McFall
04-10-2006 1:51 PM


Re: Another Book criticizing neo-Darwinism
That book by Stove sounds interesting, Brad. Do you agree with him that Darwin's theory is mostly accurate, but that human nature stands in contrast to some of Darwin's themes like the survival instinct?

This message is a reply to:
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Belfry
Member (Idle past 5086 days)
Posts: 177
From: Ocala, FL
Joined: 11-05-2005


Message 88 of 309 (303077)
04-10-2006 10:10 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by Brad McFall
04-10-2006 1:51 PM


Re: Another Book criticizing neo-Darwinism
Thanks for the links, Brad, I'm always looking for more to read... or more to pile onto my "to read" stack, anyway.
BTW, I grew up in Ithaca, as a "faculty brat." My dad taught Entomology at Cornell.

This message is a reply to:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 89 of 309 (303309)
04-11-2006 4:46 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by berberry
04-10-2006 5:42 PM


Re: Another Book criticizing neo-Darwinism
Well Berberry,
I will answer you rather slowly. Let’s start with the 2006 cover, knowing that this might not have been Stove’s choice. I too was at Harvard as a kid an saw Wilson’s ant display. There was something odd about it. But back then I merely attributed any odd academic thing as an indication of my own ignorance and lack of experience.
Roger Kimball opens the introduction with an observation I have made many times at Cornell.
There was no reason why Kraig Adler could not decide for himself if cutting up snake heads could reveal anatomical connections not formerly found as he 20yrs later immediately on meeting me in the street got me in contact with the owner of pet snapping turtle. There absolutely no reason for Amy McCune to kick me out of a PUBLIC invitation to meet with Berkely’s D.Wade in her home because in her words I would talk too much about Croizat AFTER SHE agreed to be a faculty advisor for the study of his biogeography and Wade was somewhat more familiar with it than her. Simon Levin without a Wittgensteinian bone in his body could not assert that the form of the project I had devised was thus off limits but instead had no reason except to see philosophy where the difference of Hilbert, Russell, and Godel was, which was mathematical (AND HE WAS THE BEST MATHEMATICIAN and biologist at Cornell at the time)and worst of all Will Provine, the creature of strict neo-Darwinism understanding, 20yrs later , after I met him ,could not find even a minute to consider NOT MY WORK WHICH IT WAS HIS JOB TO CONSIDER (and he did not, he simply said it was “random”) refused to even look at the Russian work of Georgi Gladyshev.
The observation was that Kimball said that he could “understand” the ”psychology’ of the immediate response of Darwinians to criticism. Well, in my case this was not an observation looking in. I was looking OUT at these people and THEIR PSYCHOLOGY was culturally transferred to me such that I sought more and more detailed PHYSICAL MECHANISMS that could be simply presented to them so that they would stop responding and start reacting. I tried to show LP Williams why the particular physical notions of Feynman was not suitable to show evolutionists how color patterns form in snakes by using Gothe’s subjective approach to Newton but as I learned from posting on EVC Williams could not understand, not because he was not a religious person, he was, but because he ONLY would have a mind for Faraday TO field theory and not FROM field theory. And when I explicitly tried to invoke quantum mechanics while doing experiements for Hopkins where we could observe electric fish swimming in curved lines like iron filings showed, he immediately and on the spot, said I sounded, schizophrenic.
In today’s time, after creationism has moved through ICR into this different kind of media about ID, it is possible to “observe” all of this but more so from the religious perspective looking BACK at a time when civil rights fought for education, even though more truth can be upturned by arguments from within, but if one admitted to the psychology, then one remits against religion. This is the sad plot that was ployed and observed by Kimball on showing Stove’s book to a , dare I say, ”random’ evolutionist.
So leaving aside the issues of evolutionary psychology as Holmes would have had it fundamentally and as I can easily question the subsequent work of DS Wilson for me Kimball is really only “marketing” the book by speaking to the ID polticos. Martin Gardner chimed in on the back of the book and yet any reader of EVC can find pros and cons to Dawkins’ ideas readily available.
Now, I would like to address your question more particularly as I read through the book, but I can say given that Kimball writes,
quote:
How surprising, then, that David Stove should turn out to be an ardent anti-Darwinian. Wasn’t Darwin on the side of all of us Enlightened, no-nonsense, scientifically educated folk? If David Stove criticizes Darwin’s theories, doesn’t it make him an irrationalist, an ally of those school boards in Kansas that (or so we are told) want to replace science with scripture?”
Well as long as I am an irrationalist so-called,( and I can see no way to interpret nor understand Provine’s current congeniality but completely turgid failure to respond to ANY science he was presented with, and he refused even when it was his job, not to decide the science but merely to grade the student. Richard Boyd also years later continued to refuse to discuss CHEMISTRY in my presence, even though he had earlier touted me as the best thing since sliced bread and turned me over to Will Provine. Also Hofmann’s refusal to discuss the largest issues of beauty and science with me until I had a COURSE in quantum mechanics AT THE SAME TIME that Stu Kaufman encouraged by use of actual infinites in theoretical biology and Hofmann’s best or better, Von Weiskacker wrote the Cornell Administration that I had valid questions, correctly criticizing himself on his attribution to Aristotle what belonged to Cantor on the use of infinity in QM have not been rationally overcome in my discousing since,) I will have to read the book closely to see Stove does not come off as an “irrationalist” in this sense I can synthesize. He does not from the perspective of the 80s but that is not why I am reading him. I already know that.
I started writing ,often ,on the internet at the time of “Kansas”affair, after reading how parallels were being drawn right down the evolutionary discussion group line (Not evc cve stuff) between creationism in Kansas and failure to follow up on Croizat’s lead (need I remind everyone the very person who wanted to know more about the BIOLOGY of Croizat, also prevented scientific communication about the same), so I see what Kimball was getting at. I however do not admire Darwin probably as Stove did. I learned, not at first from creationist literature but from THE MIND of Croizat, how less Darwin was to be trusted. My own reading of his “power of motion in plants” confirmed for me that Croizat is more correct than the Darwin prop that is dropped by the elite. But it might be that Stove has it both ways as Croizat did. I will have to read to find out.
On a fast look at Chapter 10, where Kimball had referred the IDist, there might needs be some subtle Kantian twists made. I will be reading it for how his ideas bear on the potential artifical selection towards natural products GIVEN a natural purpose he may or may not have idea or belief or knowledge in. I will have to read. I know that Mayr did not deal with “natural theology” correctly and that Gould made it into a religious effort of scurrilous Tibetan monks arranging colored sand, butt to butt., so it seems that Stove’s interest in Hume might have not prepared himself post mortem for what I might say. I will have to see if he otherwise keeps me as awake as Kant did from Hume to all of us. I went to Cornell to BE an evolutionary THEORIST, not a mere evolutionary biologist, so YES I do agree towards work investigating the CONCEPT of biological change, but in pursuit of the difference of change by artifical imposition and direct laws of nature I found darwinism unchallengable biologically while creationally criticized. This always appears backwards to me, but the intellectual flow goes faster than this in this "backward" direction. So I am not sure exactly what you mean to show a difference between some "theme" and "whatever Darwin said". Indeed in earlier thoughts I did think that Darwin was simply mistaken about the notion of the 'wedge' and this seems to have been carried beyond neo-darwinism into niche construction in terms of returning curves on peturbation, but this theoretical point fully within Darwinian heritage can not be made to do the general work of criticism.
If you want me to go into this further then perhaps we should address it somewhere else as I do not know how much of the book bears on my own interest in criticizing neo-Darwinism. There might be a lot in there but then again .

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by berberry, posted 04-10-2006 5:42 PM berberry has not replied

  
extremophile
Member (Idle past 5595 days)
Posts: 53
Joined: 08-23-2003


Message 90 of 309 (303560)
04-12-2006 2:11 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by nwr
03-25-2006 9:50 AM


Re: Why prejudge?
I've read almost the entire thread right now (I'm reading backwards, to the beginning), and there’s a statement I did not understand quite well:
The biology shows how complex structures can arise, but the gradualism of the neo-Darwinist model seems to argue against it.
How come "biology" explains complexity apart from neodarwinism? It is supposed to mean embryologic development?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by nwr, posted 03-25-2006 9:50 AM nwr has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by nwr, posted 04-13-2006 7:42 PM extremophile has replied

  
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