Doesn't darwinian theory fall apart on ontological grounds?

: David Sloan Wilson's lifelong quest to redefine "group selection" in such a way as to sow maximum confusion--and even to confuse the normally wise and sensible Edward O. Wilson into joining him--is of no more scientific interest than semantic double talk ever is. What goes beyond semantics, however, is his statement (it is safe to assume that E.O. Wilson is blameless) that "Both Williams and Dawkins eventually acknowledged their error [that the replicator concept provides an argument against group selection]...I cannot speak for George Williams but, as far as I am concerned, the statement is false: not a semantic confusion; not an exaggeration of a half-truth; not a distortion of a quarter truth; but a total, unmitigated, barefaced lie. Like many scientists, I am delighted to acknowledge occasions when I have changed my mind, but this is not one of them. D.S. Wilson should apologize. E.O. Wilson, being the gentleman that he is, probably will.

Gracious! What a hierarchical guy! Dawkins acts as if he is the No. 2 monkey, kowtowing to the No. 1 monkey (Ed) while dishing it out to the No. 3 monkey (me)! As Ed commented to me after reading Dawkins' comment, "What does he think--that you slipped me a Mickey?

This passage has all the earmarks of fundamentalist rhetoric, including appropriating the deity (Darwin) for one's own cause. Never mind that Darwin was the first group selectionist. Moreover, unlike The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype was written by Dawkins for his scientific peers, not for a popular audience!

It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe, yet an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing [a high degree of] the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection (p. 203)

...until we finally regained Darwin's ground, the position that I am characterizing by the label

But your questions might include 'does life evolve towards higher and higher states of intelligence because this is an underlying aim or telos of the evolutionary process', or 'apart from the evolution of the species of homo sapiens, does the consciousness of individual humans and of the species as a whole continue to evolve?'

Do you think these are scientific questions?

The first question would be outwardly rejected as completely incompatible with science. Not simply that very very few species have evolved towards "higher states of intelligence", so this question would imply "superiority" and "inferiority" based on intelligence (and this is a nonscientific value judgment) -- but rather the fact that teleology is altogether incompatible with everything we understand about natural processes.

Did the subject show evolution toward higher states of intelligence, during it's ontogeny ?

Did the subject show evolution toward higher states of fat depositon in certain cells compared to other cells , during it's ontogeny ?

Is Intelligence heritable ?

paulhanke, even though we can say that theories are in competition, and that one wins over the other, as being "better", that's rather irrelevant.

A tree frog is not copying a leaf when he folds himself into the crevice, nor can we say the purpose of the action is to copy a leaf.

On another note; if you say his act is a fooling of predators, then we would have to assume that he knows the stats on frogs picked when fooling vs. frogs picked when not fooling, and then chooses the wiser action.

The second question IS a scientific one. Of course the answer can only be ascertained up until the present moment, and the real question is over what timescale are you interested. There is ZERO reason to believe that humans are any more intelligent in 2009 than they were in 5000 BC, which is an utterly insignificant trifle in evolutionary time (with some notable exceptions for major selective sweeps). We make spaceships now and made only crude tools back then, but this is also because technology builds on itself and there weren't sedentary societies with nearly as much industry then.

I think it can be said that a person that acquires advanced technologies for thinking (logic, math, etc.) is more intelligent than one that is not ... and as we continue to improve our technologies for thinking, I think it can be said that human intelligence continues to evolve

how about a question like: Did the subject show evolution toward higher states of intelligence, during it's ontogeny ?

How about: Did the subject show evolution toward higher states of fat depositon in certain cells compared to other cells , during it's ontogeny ?

And I disagree. If you take 1000 cro-magnon children, teleport them to the future, raise them in 2009, send them to prep school, send them to Yale, there is every reason to believe that they would function identically to modern children.

... not from a philosophy of science perspective - from that perspective, it is precisely what is relevant ... for example, it is relevant that Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" hypotheses about the priority of genes and how individual genes exclusively produce phenotypic traits is viewed as outdated in light of the discovery of the relatively small number of genes (with respect to the information needed for human development), the discovery of gene regulation networks, group selection being taken more seriously, etc. ... what is not relevant here is Dawkins' aggressive self promotion and his societal opinions on how scientific knowledge should be disseminated ...

so with each new scientific observation, who is it who is the "victor"

Neo Darwinian cultism has obscured the approach to understanding the meaning of the signs, that philosophers need to distinguish.

... agreed - an individual tree frog does not know it is fooling a predator ... my thought is more along the lines of what is the tree frog species doing when it evolves the species toward such camouflage ... given that there is "memory" and inter-species cooperation/competition within an ecology involved, can a species be said to "know" (at some rudimentary level) what it is doing? ... from an AI perspective, evolutionary algorithms are considered intelligent algorithms - but the term "intelligence" as it is technically used in AI has changed radically as AI has learned more about what it is to be intelligent (for example, ant colonies are considered to be intelligent systems) ... a question then is how complex an intelligent system has to be before it can be said to "know" ... is "knowing" gradually accumulated as intelligence is gradually increased?; or is it a punctuated phase change that occurs when the dynamics of intelligence reach a point of self-organized criticality? ..

... but if the scientific answer is strictly biological, then doesn't the question remain a philosophical one? ... that is, even if our biological being hasn't changed in 7,000 years, I think it can be said that a person that acquires advanced technologies for thinking (logic, math, etc.) is more intelligent than one that is not ... and as we continue to improve our technologies for thinking, I think it can be said that human intelligence continues to evolve ... can the same be said of consciousness? ...

Intelligence when formally defined usually refers to biological potential. This isn't solely genetic, because acquired events (like fetal alcohol syndrome or near-asphyxia) can obviously impair intelligence, and it's known that cultural factors and being in an intellectually nurturing environment can alter scores on intelligence tests.

That said, inherited technology is never regarded as intelligence to my knowledge in any system, setting, or discussion I've ever seen.

Were humans "dumber" during the dark ages than they had been during the time of Greece and Rome before and the Renaissance after? After all, they had lost technology, they had lost continuity with a technologically (and intellectually) greater time. No, they were no less intelligent. They were just less developed.

The first question would be outwardly rejected as completely incompatible with science. Not simply that very very few species have evolved towards "higher states of intelligence", so this question would imply "superiority" and "inferiority" based on intelligence (and this is a nonscientific value judgment) -- but rather the fact that teleology is altogether incompatible with everything we understand about natural processes.

The second question IS a scientific one. Of course the answer can only be ascertained up until the present moment, and the real question is over what timescale are you interested. There is ZERO reason to believe that humans are any more intelligent in 2009 than they were in 5000 BC, which is an utterly insignificant trifle in evolutionary time (with some notable exceptions for major selective sweeps). We make spaceships now and made only crude tools back then, but this is also because technology builds on itself and there weren't sedentary societies with nearly as much industry then.

Of course one can say that there is no evidence that spruce trees, rosebushes, mushrooms, paramecia, yeasts, amoebae, bacteria, coral, scorpions, cartilaginous fish, salamanders, or beavers are getting any more intelligent with time -- so intelligence MUST be seen as an advantageous survival strategy for a huge minority of species.

And one can even speculate that there is a serious selective disadvantage to intelligence at our level, because it has led to rapid overpopulation, pollution, and efficient killing methods -- so the human species might actually thrive better (i.e. be more evolutionarily advantaged) if the median intelligence were considerably lower.

I can't really address this question as posed -- you use the terms "subject", "evolution", "higher states", "intelligence", and "ontogeny" in ways that make it unclear what you're actually asking.

Again, what is your subject? Is it a frog? Is it a cross-sectional look at one population at one point in time? Or is it a longitudinal look at a population over many generations?

What is a "higher state"? Do you mean quantitatively more?

What is "ontogeny" in this scenario? Are you referring back to the origin of life? To the origin of the universe? Or to the divergence of two evolutionary lines?

That said, inherited technology is never regarded as intelligence to my knowledge in any system, setting, or discussion I've ever seen.

Were humans "dumber" during the dark ages than they had been during the time of Greece and Rome before and the Renaissance after? After all, they had lost technology, they had lost continuity with a technologically (and intellectually) greater time. No, they were no less intelligent. They were just less developed.

Yes, well, you took my words out of context. Your question being and as I had not addresed "Victors with each new observation", I turned it into a question reflecting what I had said. Which is again, not what you are talking about now. I attempted to show a powerful figure in our society, claiming victory for his side, and writing his own version of what happened.

... if Dawkins does not respond to recent scientific discoveries that challenge and/or falsify the hypotheses he presented in "The Selfish Gene", then yes - he can be said to be guilty of trying to uphold flawed hypotheses against growing evidence to the contrary ... but for him to do so would be career suicide, so I doubt that he would ... and in that sense, he is "reading" from the same book of nature that all other scientists are "reading" from (even if he is more irritatingly vocal about it) ... that's not to say that there has never been a scientist who took advantage of position to push a flawed hypothesis when there was refuting evidence as well as a better hypothesis available (e.g., Lysenko) - but that's not science, that's politics and greed ...

It must not be forgotten that...morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual...yet an increase in the number ...will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. ... would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection (p. 203)

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, economics, politics, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English Speaking circles. Indeed in Britain and the United States at "one time Spencer's disciples had not blushed to compare him with Aristotle!"

No, I'm talking about the part quoted where he is claiming that Neo Darwinists recaptured "Darwin's Ground", the Selfish Organism grounds of Individual Level Selection only. that statement compared to Darwin's own statements

If Science cannot even be said to be able to deal with questions of measuring and heritability and ontogeny and subject of "giraffe neck"

Science 21 May 2004: Vol. 304. no. 5674, pp. 1160 - 1164

Genetic Structure of the Purebred Domestic Dog

Heidi G. Parker,1,2,3Lisa V. Kim,1,2,4Nathan B. Sutter,1,2Scott Carlson,1 Travis D. Lorentzen,1,2Tiffany B. Malek,1,3Gary S. Johnson,5Hawkins B. DeFrance,1,2 Elaine A. Ostrander,1,2,3,4*Leonid Kruglyak1,3,4,6

We used molecular markers to study genetic relationships in a diverse collection of 85 domestic dog breeds. Differences among breeds accounted for 30% of genetic variation. Microsatellite genotypes were used to correctly assign 99% of individual dogs to breeds. Phylogenetic analysis separated several breeds with ancient origins from the remaining breeds with modern European origins. We identified four genetic clusters, which predominantly contained breeds with similar geographic origin, morphology, or role in human activities. These results provide a genetic classification of dog breeds and will aid studies of the genetics of phenotypic breed differences.

1 Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Post Office Box 19024, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, D4-100, Seattle, WA 98109-1024, USA.
2 Division of Clinical Research, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Post Office Box 19024, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, D4-100, Seattle, WA 98109-1024, USA.
3 Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, University of Washington, Box 357275, Seattle, WA 98195-7275, USA.
4 Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Box 351800, Seattle, WA 98195-7275, USA.
5 Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
6 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, D4-100, Seattle, WA 98109-1024, USA.

PNAS December 28, 2004 vol. 101 no. 52 18058-18063

Molecular origins of rapid and continuous morphological evolution

1. John W. Fondon III* and
   
2. Harold R. Garner
   

+ Author Affiliations

1. Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development and Department of Biochemistry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390-8591
   

1. Communicated by Marc W. Kirschner, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, November 2, 2004 (received for review August 30, 2004)
   

Abstract

Mutations in cis-regulatory sequences have been implicated as being the predominant source of variation in morphological evolution. We offer a hypothesis that gene-associated tandem repeat expansions and contractions are a major source of phenotypic variation in evolution. Here, we describe a comparative genomic study of repetitive elements in developmental genes of 92 breeds of dogs. We find evidence for selection for divergence at coding repeat loci in the form of both elevated purity and extensive length polymorphism among different breeds. Variations in the number of repeats in the coding regions of the Alx-4 (aristaless-like 4) and Runx-2 (runt-related transcription factor 2) genes were quantitatively associated with significant differences in limb and skull morphology. We identified similar repeat length variation in the coding repeats of Runx-2, Twist, and Dlx-2 in several other species. The high frequency and incremental effects of repeat length mutations provide molecular explanations for swift, yet topologically conservative morphological evolution.

You see, the worker at Walmart ( a bluecoat ) can tell me what size of shoe I need now...asking: what further use are you guys ( the whitecoats) than that, if you do not engage on the philosophical level ?

I think that even a single human specimen's behavours can be seen to have greatly affected the genomes of some populations.

... but for some contemporary philosophers of cognitive science (most notable, Andy Clark, who's been writing on the topic for over a decade), inherited technology is viewed (from a systems perspective of intelligence) as contributing to intelligence ... Rockwell then picks up where Clark leaves off and takes the plunge into theorizing (in the philosophical sense) about the same holding true for consciousness ...

in your estimation, which time was able to respond more intelligently to the issues at hand? ... that is, which culture was more intellectually developed? ...

-- but this is vastly different than the traditional concept of intelligence as something that is biologically innate.

It can. Go read the Science and PNAS papers about the genetic determinants of morphologic diversity in dogs. Long nose vs short nose, big vs small body, long vs short hair, etc, all comes down to repeating motifs in a tiny number of genes.

Let's get REAL. If Science cannot even be said to be able to deal with questions of measuring and heritability and ontogeny and subject of "giraffe neck", how the heck are you guys able to make such definite pronouncements on Lamarckism ?

The "philosophical level", at least as I read it on this forum, misquotes, misattributes, and misunderstands science nearly constantly. At the level of professional and academic philosophers, I think they're careful enough to try and understand any subject outside their field before putting their neck out.

Sure -- like eradicating the moa. Or by nearly exterminating some species you create a genetic bottleneck.

The proverbial dotted line mimicking the Monarch Wing at times...
On Behaviours of G Khan and populations.

you forget sexual and mating behavours and the concubines, a veritable Grand BeachMaster of the human species.