For those who truly understand evolution and who talk about it relatively frequently, I’m sure you’ve often found it frustrating to find that the simplest way to talk about evolution often involves using the concept of ‘purpose’ or ‘teleology’.
Alternatively, some thinkers don’t find teleological language a problem when talking about evolution. It’s not something that needs to be avoided or explained away – purpose can be part of a legitimate paradigm of evolution:
Personally, I think that the purpose and teleology are inappropriate in the context of evolution – evolution has no ‘goal’ whatsoever, and is certainly incapable of ‘intention’ – but I think Nick Lane makes an interesting case. The way I’m reading what he writes is, it’s almost like a re-claiming of the word ‘purpose’ – much like compatiblists use a definition of free will that can work within determinism, perhaps he’s suggesting a conception of purpose that doesn’t depend on intentions or goals, that’s truly compatible with the mindless process of evolution.
Or maybe I’m reading him completely wrong, and he’s just using the standard conception of purpose, in which case he can perform fellatio on a dwarf.
So, in closing, I’d like to link to a series of articles on Evolution that I found incredibly entertaining and also quite insightful: LessWrong
and also I’d like to ask those who understand evolution what you think about the relationship between Evolution and Purpose.
You say evolution has no purpose, and yet every living thing within it does. I expect you’ll also un-include the consciousness factor, and that DNA begins with all that is required for every eventual species. That given increasing consciousness and dexterity in creatures, you get ever greater utility of environments.
I agree that there is probably no overall teleology, but there is general and specific teleology. There appears at least in practice to be a drive which ultimately results in humans [so far anyways]. I mean if everything is trying to improve [the drive] then its only a matter of time [ok many millions of years] before you get opposable thumbs and higher intelligence.
Imho you would actually have to have something there to stop that happening, or its just going to happen ~ but you don’t have that.
Due to the Logic of the Situation, any universe will produce entities of purpose (such as animals and humans) from a prior state of purposeless entities and visa-versa. Evolution is merely an epistemological child of causality.
But despite wishful thinking, such has nothing to do with the God issue, for or against.
Sorry to Amorphos, I didn’t make something clear: I was aiming this thread towards people who have a deep understanding of evolution. Not really interested in the whole ‘Drive to create humans’ thing – quite a strange thing to say, given that there’s been a sample size of 1, and that actually most branches of evolution haven’t resulted in humans…So no, Amorphos, you’re not in my target audience.
I don’t know that any universe will produce entities of purpose…don’t know how you derived that. It may be based on some intriguing ideas that you’ve heard/read, but you’re talking about it like it’s settled science, or obvious fact. I don’t think that that’s the case. In fact, I imagine a good deal of scientists would think that some universes could actually not produce ‘entities of purpose’. But, I look forward to seeing your evidence to the contrary.
I can, to some degree, see how one could see evolution is a process that creates apparent purpose from a prior state of purposelessness (in loose senses of the word) – this is a common view of evolution – how ‘purpose’ can arise without any explicit goal turning the gears.
Not talking about God here. Didn’t mention God once. God is not an issue in this thread. This is about evolution.
And they remain as bad as they were before. You may continue to ramble about your confusions about evolution, you’ll get no arguments from me. I’ve given my only one: there have been millions of different branches of evolution, and only one tiny one has resulted in human life, so it’s nothing short of retarded to take that information and posit that human life is clearly the goal of evolution. That would be like seeing a dice being thrown 6000 times and only seeing a 1 twice, and then saying that clearly the dice is biased towards 1…except it’s like a billion times worse than that. This thread was geared toward those who understand the concept of evolution, and how it is understood to work. It was not geared towards you and the other mystics. I’m not interested in your ideas, so no more arguments from me.
When does it become meaningful to speak of goals in nature - which would be everything to a naturlist empiricist - especially within a deterministic worldview? I can’t see where purpose enters the picture. I can see it as a kind of metaphor, but really we just have an inevitable unfolding of events, both on the macro of evolution and on the micro (or one micro) of individual creatures’ - including humans’ - actions. It seems to me there would be no teleology or purpose anywhere, though perhaps purpose qualia.
From logical consequence. Basically, the universe we have is there because there was absolutely no alternative.
Despite theoretical imaginings, there can be no universe with a different set of physical laws.
Oh you know me. Rational Metaphysics views Science theories in a similar light as Science views 7 day Creationism.
The subject is actually in the realm of Metaphysics/Logic, not Science (verification of hypotheses).
All epistemology is metaphor in one way or another.
We speak of objects “trying” to do things because of the forces within. We speak of “forces”, even though down on the most fundamental level of the universe, there is no such thing as a “force”. We speak of the universe “creating” situations as though it had a design in mind.
Speaking of the universe as though it was a living entity is not actually incorrect, it is merely easily misunderstood. But then equally, speaking of the universe as though it were merely a mechanism is also misleading.
It’s pretty tough to come up with a language of thought that cannot get misconstrued by connotations.
Having studied evolution for many, many years, there are a couple of points.
that need to be remembered.
First, when people think of evolution, they think of EVOLUTION, a grand sweeping
event that moves through history. UH, no. the simple version without all the big words is
when two members of a species mate, the male sperm and the female egg meet, introduce each other,
whisper sweet nothings in each other ear and unite. uniting the written programing each separate
party has, the DNA, is in fact evolution. This uniting, passes traits each party has to the next generation.
Now you may have two people who are very tall and they mate, now chances are the union will produce tall
children, but the key word here is chance. It may turn out the dominant trait passed on in regards to height
might make the children smaller then the parents and the recessive trait of height is passed down to a later
generation which means at some point down the line, the next generation perhaps, suddenly the children will
get tall. this is evolution in a nutshell. The random mixing of information that occurs when the egg and
sperm combine. there is no purpose here, just the chance mixing of information.
The second aspect here is this idea of traits. Traits like being tall or having more or less hair, blue eyes
are passed down from generation to generation via mating. Now traits play a role by allowing
a species to have traits that give it a better chance to survive the current environment that the
species lives in. So if it is cold, a species like wolves have a better chance of surviving the cold
by having long hair. So if that trait is passed down from generation to generation, the wolves
stand a better chance, (there is that word again) of surviving. Evolution from the mixing
of information to withstanding the environment with inherited traits is all about chance, probability.
There is no purpose in chance or probability and evolution is all about chance, probability.
Yes, this is the standard view, one that matches well with the current state of professional thought on evolution.
Sadly, for every creationist who misunderstands evolution to be purposeful, there is an atheist/agnostic out there who claims to accept and understand evolution but makes the same mistake. They will deny the role of chance / probability in evolution, thinking that somehow natural selection necessarily always selects the fittest every single time or some other weird nonsense like that. They often misunderstand evolution as bad as the creationists do.
According to my sources, actually, we have a good mathematical understanding of evolution in regards to our tree of life, and one of the facts about evolution is this: any mutation which gives +x% advantage to an individual only has a 2x% chance of propagating throughout the species. So, in other words, if an individual has a mutation that gives +3% advantage, that mutation only has a 6% probability of becoming a species-wide trait. So, to all those who claim to accept and understand evolution, let’s not attribute to evolution anything other than what it is: a statistical tendency that occurs in self-replicating matter, with a heavy dependence on probability and chance. Let us not try to pretend that natural selection is this purposeful, perfect mechanism. It’s not.
Well now wait. I don’t have anything against the general notion of evolution. But as with all arguments between Science and Religion, there is this tendency to proclaim total ownership of causality from even the most meager theoretical/theological influence.
Earlier it was stated that evolution is NOT purely random chance. That was a true statement. As a result of that condition, evolution does in fact lead toward a “foreseeable” goal or direction (whether foreseen or not). There are specifics that guide the trend into the species and somewhat control the eventual long term consequences. Many of those specifics have absolutely nothing to do with the organism itself, but rather the environment that it happen to be in when it gained its otherwise advantage-trait.
This is relevant in the discussion because a great deal of religious thought is all about that environmental influence. The notion that evolution is MERELY an issue of statistics is just flat out incorrect.
I don’t believe that is doable… for the reasons that I mentioned.
Those figures would be VERY dependent upon the situation in every case. Someone is leaving out the extremely relevant detail concerning the environmental situation and the counter effects that any situation will have.
Oh I didn’t know you were an expert on the math of evolution. Here’s my source:
Haldane, J. B. S. 1927. A mathematical theory of natural and artificial selection.
Where’s yours?
I think you don’t understand what that statement means. The fact that you somehow came to think that I don’t think the environment has any affect on what’s advantageous tells me that you didn’t actually attempt to understand what I was talking about. You just read your own shit into it so you could come up with your retort.
I don’t care that you think it’s not ‘doable’. The study of the math of evolution is not something I just pulled out of my ass. It’s a legitimate field of research, and it’s not new either. The fact that you’re unaquainted with it is forgivable, but the fact that you think it’s ‘undoable’ is ridiculous. You telling me that mathematical calculations about evolution are undoable is akin to a 5 year old telling a mathematics professor that it’s impossible to accurately calculate the area under a parabola – YOU may not be able to calculate the area, but you sure as hell don’t know anything about what’s possible with advanced mathematics.
I really think he’s just waxing romantic about the heart. But I agree there is a need to explain how such intricate and tailored biology developed.
Jacques Monod wrote Chance and Necessity in the sixties (published in 1970), I’m willing to bet there’s been research done since then, if not by then, which goes a long way toward answering this question.
Hold on, it looks like Monod adopted a new concept of purpose, teleonomic, to contrast with teleological. Flannel you should read this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleonomic
James S Saint:
Earlier it was stated that evolution is NOT purely random chance. That was a true statement. As a result of that condition, evolution does in fact lead toward a “foreseeable” goal or direction (whether foreseen or not). There are specifics that guide the trend into the species and somewhat control the eventual long term consequences. Many of those specifics have absolutely nothing to do with the organism itself, but rather the environment that it happen to be in when it gained its otherwise advantage-trait.
K: I hate to break it to you, but no. evolution doesn’t lead toward any goal, “foreseeable or not” it simply doesn’t work that way.
it is about the random mixing of DNA and that random mixing may or may not be able to allow one to survive the environment.
anteaters cannot make their snouts any longer to eat ants which allows their survival, but the anteaters who are born with longer
snouts have an advantage over their brethren who have small snouts. anteaters who have longer snout who bred with
other anteaters with longer snouts will in time (and here comes the key word) possibly have have a better chance of survival in
their environment depending on changes in their environment. there is no certainty in any of this. just probability and chance.
JAMES: This is relevant in the discussion because a great deal of religious thought is all about that environmental influence. The notion that evolution is MERELY an issue of statistics is just flat out incorrect.:"
K: as evolution is mating and the creation of the next generation via the mixing of DNA which is about chance and probability,
evolution really is sex and statistics. religious thought has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution, two separate matters
alltogether.
fuse quoting Nick Lane: But the heart could hardly have evolved ‘for’ anything else; if it didn’t evolve to pump blood, then it is truly a miracle that it happened to become so fine a pump. Monod’s point was that biology is full of purpose and apparent trajectories, and it is perverse to pretend they don’t exist; rather, we must explain them.:
Fuse: I really think he’s just waxing romantic about the heart. But I agree there is a need to explain how such intricate and tailored biology developed.
K: Now we hit the third aspect of evolution which is time. Life has been around for TWO billion years and quite possibly more, so we return
to evolution. Have you ever been in a really old house or church that had doors that were really small, that is because people were smaller
a thousand or two thousand years ago. The average American is 5"7 or 5’8 feet tall, the average roman was 5’2 or 5’3 feet tall. (simply
pull out roman people who were buried and measure their bones, we have lots of them.) This is evolution at work over time. You are different
then your parents and that difference is evolution.
Nick Lane: The question we must answer is this: how does the operation of blind chance, a random mechanism without foresight, bring about the exquisitely refined and purposeful biological machines that we see all around us?
K; given two billion years to refine itself is time enough to create everything around us. Every single generation since the beginning has
somehow change and that is millions upon millions of generations that has changed. our blood, our hearts, our brains weren’t created
in the last twenty minutes. They are the product of millions of generations of change from the beginning of time. the less successful
changes didn’t survive and are collecting dust in museums. Cro Magnon and neanderthals are two examples of hominids that didn’t survive
due to chance and probability. We are relatively efficient beings and that efficiency comes from millions of years of change, not being
created, as religions demand. I have no friggen idea who Nick lane is, but he sounds like a creationist, and they are by definition, confused.
Well, okay guys. From what you have said, I now have the impression that either A) neither of you actually understand evolution beyond the very most simple-minded standpoint or B) what they are calling evolution today is seriously different and less than what it has meant for many years.
So educate me here.
Are you saying that the process called “evolution” is no more than merely the mutation process? If not, what else does it include?
Are you proposing that the process of evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with advancement of a species in any way, such that it is just as likely to retard due to evolution as advance?
Neutral traits should be able to catch on. What would the math be on those?
My math has long since dried up, it’s been too many years, but I have to say I am a little skeptical about this also. Not because the math is wrong, I wouldn’t venture to get into that. It’s just calculating how advantageous something is seems beyond our capabilities. I can see guessing, but given the amount of factors.
But maybe I misunderstood what is meant by the ‘+X% advantage’.