Criticizing neo-Darwinism

Richard Dawkins has an amazing facility to avoid the line of thought represented by Waddington and facilitated variation below. I heard him on NPR a couple of weeks ago in a discussion of what we can believe but can not explain due to ignorance. The issue becomes if the origin of genetic information is not in the phenotype materially and if the plausibility represented beyond neo-Darwinism cannot remain the novelty it was before the Dawkins’ of the world rejected the notion. It seems that the POTENTIAL variation as presented in the Vonyich manuscript might indeed return an answer that can not be simply understood by Dawkinsonian gradualism BECAUSE as Chomsky said, “the Soul sings out the whole Song upon the first hint, as knowing it very well before.”(p15 On Interpreting the World, in “Problems of Knowledge and Freedom THE RUSSELL LECTURES).Perhaps the “pure form” that the origin of genetic information is retained in might be less tainted if read from something like this:

Attempts to make explict from implication of a level of organization supervenient on a supramolecular aggregate (as exists in those biologists who philosophically support organacism) some kind of hierarchicalization of what the relative gene frequency differences are is "outside" neo-D, I would say, is it not? Is not Gould's entire tome on RENAMING neo-Darwinism through associative hierarchies but an example of something so "outside"?This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 03-23-2006 07:54 AM

The problem (in biology (keeping all CvE out for the moment, etc.)) is that bean bag Neo-Darwinisms do have all of this 'biology' that is not simply a version of Dawkinsoniansims as "heritibility." But as Waddington remarks (see the first thumbnail provided above) this is a "fudge factor." It covers any and all not explict by the maths correlations across generations. If the heritbility itself has some strucuture independent of gene frequency changes themselves (and there is some evidence in niche construction that this may indeed be the case). Attempts at hierarchicalization beyond genic selectionism do remand possible strucutures but if the meaning of this supplement IS NOT what RUSSELL called "natural kinds" of discrete units empirically the room is made for CvE of any design. Gould would simply say such meaning is nonsense.Will Provine, despite having edited a book with the title "Synthesis" now thinks that THE synthesis NEVER existed. Mayr removed the bag and got a gabble of genes by assuming that the form of the naming must retain the Haeckel underbelly through some kind of reading of Weismann which rejects the necessity in the extendable names hierarchy might give as being essentialistic or Aristotelian except insofar as his reading of the GROWTH of biological thought is retained. That is too ornithological for me.IC with a kind of theory of language might be outside biology but this would really only be of interest if the rejection of neo-darwinism was apparent to Dawkins himself. We all can assume he knows enough biology to make the judgement of his own habit rather than the projection that I provide so I would suggest sticking to a discussion of alternatives (relative to adaptation say) that is brought up in faciliated variation (see the other pages I provided above).

I think it is CLEAR AND OBVIOUS what NWR means. Did your read the pages I attached in this thread?Dawkins is a neoDarwinist in the "contrary" sense.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 03-23-2006 08:48 AM

PAUL I clearly UNDERSTAND finally what you represent. I think it was mistaken now. I do not have time to prepare this response in text net time so this will have to do till the weekend as I wish that NWR was, not... getting the wrong end of the discussion I know so well. All quotes are from the single source out of the UK at the bottom.Where probability against religious asservation comes from“We have still to consider the arguments from the association of particular probabilities with events and from the Uncertainty principle.“Secondly, Born and the other statistical physicists consider themselves perfectly justified in associating definite probabilities with events while denying any causal basis for their occurrence. Is this legitimate?”This is the same commitment biolgist’s justify contentiously that it was legit for physics it is legit for them.“Secondly, apart from the legitimacy of associaiongn particular probabilities with events in the asbsece of assumption of causation, it seems to me that the whole theory of probability is ultimately founded on causal ideas- e.g. that white and red balls placed in a bag and shaken up shall continue to exist, shall remain red and white, shall collide with one abother according to rigid mechanical rules. If, instead of theorms about the sampling of balls in a bag he theory of probabiolity were founded on the samolign of electrons I an interference fringe, with a view to saying which came thought one slit and which through the toher, we should be unable to perfom the =task of distinguing them and ubnable therefore we should be unable to perform the task of distinguishing them and ubnable to derive any theory of probability at all.The only way such a second”” can exist is if the measure in question contain the difference in the notion of cardinal and ordinal but the reconstruction of the author text with the philosophy of math requires that the membrane and electrolyte be replaced with the insulator and wire “electrotonically” no matter what the feedback through the supposed nich notion is was or will be. I have tried somewhat rather unsucceffully to convey how I think about this interference with impentribility under the octopus eye see other pic below. One has to go BACK from a thought such as Feynman’s or the interference in general to the THEORMS as they probably apply in biology to reach the nexus where ritual replaces asservation but then there IS some psychological fundament if not element involved etc.This is wehere the suffiency of possible ID naming comes in and where NWR is being read beyond. But to get here on must undersand more than a parady of me for instance as Percy relayed etc. We MUST determine the probability. Therefore I questioned if ID had already such probability, ICR said no. AND THIS is what youall at EVC don’t understand. I don’t know why. NWR now has sustained the same difficulty I have over the years to get others to simply not transit across the cve divided but rather the show the evc leads sufficiently while not neceesarily to cve (and without necessary opposite polarization of the positions (in debate).The third aspect of this is victum ization- I am a victim of a movement in academia coming to fuition in the early 1940s (twenty years before I was born) , “ A religious belief may have objective truth behind it; but at least we can say that few if any religious men realise that their own assertion of their convictions is closely parralled by neurotic behavior wher it has been clearly prooved that ritual and asservation are no proof of objective truth or of real motive”In interview I had merely asserted that by reading the Federal papers the interviewee “could not say anything that might affect benefits”. I believe I did so. It was SSI rather, in letter and dollar value that determined what these so-called “benefits” were.I, myself was in the process of explaining how (examined now in retrospect) the relation between disorder or disability had been applied to me clinically through such direct questioning of my person or me with “Have you ever thought that you were Jesus” etc. These medical records existed on me.The records however originated involuntarily in fact and without proper distribution I contend evaluationally such that any finding beyond that of an extant disability, as occurred in the case, must be based on a REAL DISABILITY, not a ritual or an asservation. I do not dispute that indeed and indeeds done that some disability occurred because of failure to organize or order apparent truths in this case but in LEGAL FACT this action has already victimized me (my brother retains a family, a house and a sizable income despite there being little difference in education between the two of us). If I had gone to a less elite school OR had had the decision made in my state of residence it is unlikely that the series of events that entailed would not have occurred as they did as it was not the case that I needed to be where I was when I was still working on the ideas I will publish later.Now for that part that was elide by the elite over I show somewhat sketchyliy below:
Fact or Value Speech by Brad McFallA Persuasive Argument that the form of the content of Intelligent Design is a secular purpose thus potentially useful in developing the understanding of both Creation and Evolution.Introduction-Intelligent Design is the most recent wrinkle in the on-going social controversy between evolution and creation supporters. It grew out of a religious response, in part, to a Supreme Court Ruling in 1987 that the attempts of the Louisiana Legislature to add information to the curriculum so as to permit equal time for the teaching of evolution and creation in the schools was unconstitutional. This new movement in creationism does not say that God created as the older creationisms have done explicitly, but simply says that life is too complex to have arisen by chance/random processes and instead must have been designed. The presumption is that it is some God that did the design, but it might as well be a family of aliens outside our Galaxy. Anyway, the Courts in the US have heard this version of post60s revival of creationism but have not ruled in favor of the change from the older creationist thought, instead affirming in line with the Supreme Court that Intelligent Design known by internet enthusiats as ID is principally religious, the state courts have ruled no secular purpose for ID and thus Intelligent Desgin can not be taught in Public Schools. I will show that the process of naming that secular evolutionar theories themselves require provides at least the motivation for a secular purpose in the very form of any design complex enough to overdetermine life.Body.I. Positive Argument-The notion of design (describe) provides a basis for naming different than a purely chance random experimental process can provide. The motivation of ID may be applied to the secular context (protein naming) when it comes to the USE of naming to differentiate various boundaries in the change of one kind of creature after the other.
A. Bob Dylan’s Song- Man Gave Names to All the Animals- Give a few lines (first animal that man did name, second, animal that man did name . in the beginning long time ago . ) Granted this song is based on a religious concept from Adam and Eve but just think about the naming process. Say you see an evergreen and a deciduous tree (show Picture), what do you think to say on seeing them? What sounds would you make. If someone said “deciduous” then you associate that sound with the difference between that form and the other forms you might be seeing at the same time (the evergreens””).
B. Evolution has an order to names of creatures like this {Fish changed into Frogs into Turtles into Birds into Mammals}(show slides)
C. Biology has been a process of more and more detailed naming(show slides)
1.) THE CELL -gave us the concept of sex
2.) MITOCHODRIA - gave us the concept of
metabolism.
3.)AXON-DENDRITE -gave us the concept of communication among cells .
4)Current biology struggles to NAME protein complexes-II.Negative Argument-
A.Materialist position - KW Craik wrote”A religious belief may have objective truth behind it; but at lest we can say that few if any religious men realize that their own assertion of their conviction is closely parralled by neurotic behavior where it has been clearly proved that ritual and asserveration are no proof of objective truth or real motive.”(Craik 97)
B.Criak’s real motive in calling attention to mental disability appears to hamstring the intelligent believers organization of thought but can be obviated if the “religious man” DOES realize as near as is scientifically possible how close his own conviction is to disabled behaviors. Intelligent design of the nervous system provides just this.
C.I am not going to go into the details but Criak had thought that it was better to think of the communication in the brain between the axons and dendrites I showed above, (show slide again) was closer to the truth if thought in terms of membranes and electrolytes rather than insulators and wires but I think I can show that scientifically this is mistaken. Criak goes into a long discussion of verbal accuracy like in the deciduous tree example comparing that to the sound on the telephone. If I proved that, There is a better science. I have written 3-4 times a day on a web site called EVCFORUM just this and have received positive feedback from a professor in Moscov of physical chemistry , then the the motive for ID is open, religious or not to assist the secular process of naming the proteins involved and being genetically engineered.III. This attempt to show that one may determinatively adjust current scientific discourse such that the negative position against truth behind religious belief if let free and so the positive process of preliminary naming (is a frog different than a toad?) can go forward without potentially prejudicial constraints (by limiting to only naturalistic naming and necessity) is an improvement of this over current use of philosophy to support the culturally the exportaion of ID beyond separated church and state instutuionalizations.I agree with self-proclaimed converted atheist Will Provine of Cornell (and teacher of Evolution) that the ID explanation giving the same depth of naming to each and every molecular combination in an organism to be a very BORING science of biochemistry. The latest test of ID was in Dover PA where Behe, author of Black Box was primarily on testimony but the aspect of his approach was that has been questioned that all protein complexes simply get “named” as “irreducibly complex” without degrees of namable differentiations in the complexity. It was not advanced beyond , as I have suggested here and thus the judge, a Christian did could only conclude that the notion itself must only be religious thus it was ruled against. I find that by attempting to name these integrable components necessarily and definitively to be an advance even though the names might be suffiently no different than the names man gave to the animals themselves as in the way Dylan memorialized Genesis.Conclusion - Naming After The Kinds can be applied to the causality of the effect before the species is named populationally in its kind. Thus ID can be available outside of religious declinations to assist if not in the motivation actually in a legitimate motive for the linguistic connection that associates the symbol the name reifies where current genetic engineering has its object of protein complexes and the systems that express them. The aesthetic considerations of design and form, whether god given or not are thus available for discourse in experimental philosophy and the only impediment (formerly the association of pathology with religious belief) is removed as an inaccurate portrayal of the development of language use in man. I recommend that IDers move proactively in this direction rather than remain defensive and strong in the principle and powers of their own righteousness.Works CitedCraik K.W. The Nature of Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943.
If an admin finds this premature, then delete. This is not my custard pie.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 03-27-2006 01:12 PMThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 03-27-2006 01:17 PM

While NWR may not be seeking a GUTofBiology, I do not think it would be a suprise that I, BSM, do seek to remove the Haekelian stomach ache that biology has suffered, even into the current 2000s...In truth I do understand the point that you make to NWR but if NWR was more than sarcastically suggesting a spandrel for the tail of peacock then I think the particular words he is choosing do require a bit more discussion.There is no doubt that PaulK's reframing of sexual selection (we must recall that NWR is responding to RAZD etc) is on subject but it seems to me that there IS some real problem (look at how DS Wilson thinks of religion and evolution)that is more or less "masked" between the issues of group selection and sexual selection that could indicate that NWR and PAULK were simply speaking past each other. This, that indeed IF (the artifical selection of the deer to turn a different direction locomotionally north is not simply an apparent matching of fitness and geography(which you correctly called for a point of order on) but IS because girl deer happen to always be down sent from males which happens to point north regardless of warming etc. The scenario for intention still seems to apply if natural selection is supposed to be absent of intention itself.The whole and real difficulty in discussing this any further than where the thread is just now, becomes now less about where cve might have overstepped evc but whether we can all agree on what level of brain power equivalence certain creatures posses and that is something all of us (RAZD and ME, You and NWR, PaulK and who knows who) all differ somewhat on. Agassiz differed from Darwin or Gould etc. But yes it would be "a different topic" than from where it started, but can you blame NWR from getting more particular or specific?

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.

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.

Belfry here is another perspective on the restrictive covanent of neo-Darwinism. Stone finished his 326 pages with,

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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

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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.

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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."

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p326
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594031401/...
http://www.scimednet.org/...sN66+/N68DarwinianFairyTales.htm

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(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 {Shortened display form of 1 URL, to restore page width to normal. - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 04-10-2006 11:31 PM

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,

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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?”

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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 .

No one can actually forsee the future. Forcasting natural selection as opposed to artifical selection is even less forgone. Then if natural selection never existed in MAN (as Stove suggests
Page not found - Encounter Books
) and there is still snake evolution, what part biogeography or Godel universers bear on potential changes that would have shown up some how in past changes is yet again more difficult to predict.So aside from the issue of the relative frequency of PE, Dawkins, who was a target, in this thread, an example of a "strict Darwinian", can not really judge what this relative frequency will come to be in the total biological community. This was the actual point to which Gould was arguing for in his "Structure of Evolutionary Theory."
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/GOUSTR.html
Yes, I agree he manages the critical part of his discussion by reference to "contingencies" but this could equally be used or not used by others. Let us keep the politics or national differneces out of it.So, when Dawkins is refering to "minor wrinkle" he could be referring to a proposition or a concept. It is crucial which one. If Dawkins is just playing some extrameme game begging for time with words then whatever the interest is he would have found it to have had littl commerce but to quash some building block of creationist contingencies, in my reading so far. More evidence from Dawkins might change my mind but the case seems stronger on Gould's side to me. But this thread is about the part of criticizing neo-darwinism.Given a contingency by accident then, that embryological development might not be contained wholly in current "evo-devo" by whatever proposition and knowing that Gould argues conceptually beyond a simple propositional formation, I dont think Dawkins' writing about the proportion ("proportion" is different than "relative frequency")... let's say that that "surface wrinkle" applies to Gould's terminological use of "fractal". That itself is interesting but minor in proportion to the whole of Darwinian or Neo-Darwinian theory. That could be one reading of Richard.Now if the "fractal" that wrinkled the surface was simply a conceptual overlay for the bacterial wall and inverted vert/invert internal organ topology (in Gould's book) and Dawkins was not referring to a determined prediction of future agreed on relative frequencies, then Dawkins' quote does not carry the weight needed to do the work of discussion you, extremeophile, call on.Now I doubt the "wrinkle" is a propostion of any form, but if it is then it matters not, that PE brings in additional heirarchical difficulties ONTO ND, as it overviews all previous strucutres of evolutionary theory, hence Dakwins ratioed evaluation at rest. The point of critcism of neo-Darwinism is that Darwinism by failing to heed the diversity of shapes themselves, failed to not class possible embryological changes, that were observed first and continue to be from looking at tissue and levels higher, no matter what the molecular evidence also brings forward.The only sense of Dawkins' statment here, lightweight literature aside, is that he contends against any significant relative frequency. There are some who hold this. But this is not of such a ratio to issues you raise about relative importance of across time changes vs across space changes. Maybe Godel was correct and the world does not have "time"
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/godelk/yourgp.htm
and even though Hawking wanted an ad hoc stay on interdiction of rotating Godel universes the same kind of reasoning would apply between motion to and fro habitats and niches (It would have to occurr both conceptualy in biology and propostionally)no matter what the period the fossil record records for the geologist.For me to try to explain that would require there was no problem in your reading me to this last paragraph .This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-13-2006 07:22 AMThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-13-2006 07:26 AM

Dear Berberry,I have finally got a chance to look into how Stove treats Darwin. It comes out on page 75 when Stove had,

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“It may nevertheless still be true (as I have already said in earlier essays) that Malthus’s principle does hold good for all non-human species, or nearly enough hold good, to make that principle a vital clue to the understanding of their evolution.”

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If I can show that Stove’s reasoning about Fisher develops out of the different mathematical declinations of Wright and Fisher then it might be ALSO that this is NOT the vital clue. I would have a hard time doing this if it is true what Will Provine has said, “ that there is actually no difference between the maths of Fisher and Wright” but I can notice a possible path in the effect on fertility via temperature dependent sex determination. It might be that Newton’s view of life (like an Earth) is the further geneticization of the actual phenotypic variations Mendel-wise that a Darwin-Mathus principle can no longer even artificially support. Such an idea would revolutionize evolutionary theory however, and I am not anywhere near drawing the crucial geometrical vs algebraic difference required of such a design.I have no doubt that something was amiss.I do understand your question now to the point of “genius Darwin” vs “struggle for life theme”. The above paragraph would be towards answering it in the negative as the horses will always be running. I might change my mind but this is unlikely.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-13-2006 08:11 PMThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-13-2006 08:14 PM

Sorry ExP,I was starting to work out a reply and suddenly realized how very difficult it is to understand me. For that I am sorry. I will get back with an answer that is more than simple claims about how "friction" really works in the biology of change. In trying to rephrase everything I wrote immediately above I could recoginze why Simon Levin said that what I was trying to do with development in biology was "too" philosophical. I guess I just didnt realize how much I take for granted the view of any given organism.But since this is about gould vs dawkins it is requireing a little bit more than just me making clear to myself what I think. I'll be back but it might be a week or so, dont hold your horses, if you can.There is a hierarchy problem. I will write it. BEst, brad.

It seems NWR had had a thought, which I did, where Williams named potential inadequAcy-

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Adaptation and Natural Selection by G C Williams

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JAD wanted to exclude the environment a posterioriwhen not already, from ontongeny. Though this might be possible for a creationist it was not pre-lined or meditatied by me (in a past-time) and thus it is harder for me to imagine. I still do not, instead: But as for my own ideas y'll have to wait while I think more about the representation of 1-D patterns;

Thanks,Your paragraph{

quote:

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With the alternative use of intentional language, we can observe that biological systems appear to be in a struggle for survival. But that could be simply an observation about the internal mechanisms of biology. Since the struggle may be unsuccessful (the species could go extinct), there is no reliance on final purpose as part of an explanation. But that use of intentional language does allow us to think of evolution as a kind of trial-and-error learning system, where a species experiments with recombinant DNA in the effort to enhance its odds of survival.

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}and further comments here make me understand why I like your idea as much as I really do do. I often fall back by default into some kind of adaptive algorithm view of change when I am not trying to think outside the box determinatively.I have never given an explict thought to "consciousness" as an academic subject so I am may not have filiation/paternity with your position for the same reasons. But yours is much better to my mind than simple reductionism. I know I always like to learn.I fully understand how you declude final purposes. I have no problem with this position because then it would only constrain me to associate artifical selection with human artifacts (and restrict evolutionary theory to "natural" selection etc) rather than facts of biology sense stricto(at Cornell for instance this is seperated with the Agriculture(Agriculture and Life Sciences) School vs the Biology Dept(also in the Arts School)). As long as the object is a cow, for instance, I care less whether the "data" comes from breeding in barn or in the forest by a water buffalo.