Roger, So, here's what I think of as a good example of a stupid question. Why does someone introduce the theme of a book with the question of whether complex living systems are plausible??? Is that really our problem, or theirs? Do the things we observe really need us to have satisfactory explanations for them? Sometimes I wonder what possesses us to think that way!
I don't quite get your observation about discontinuity though. For me what makes discontinuities in growth curves would need to include that strict continuity in physical processes is always just a useful idealization anyway. I'm probably just thinking of it from another point of view, but I don't quite see your suggestion. How do you see accretion and rearrangement (terms which seem to accurately describe most kinds of growth processes) contributing to interruptions of the usual flowing shapes in their measures? On 1/14/07, Phil Henshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Nick, Hi. Yea, thinking about the difference between instrumental (physical) and abstract (theoretical) causes of even perfectly well behaved things is a tough climb. I'm glad if anyone is willing to put the two on the table at the same time at all. No I haven't read those, but I'm always interested in the new angles people try. The usual place I find the Darwinian models to break down is in assuming the environment somehow has the future shapes of things built in and a mold pressing process of random variation and atrition is how those shapes are transfered to organisms. To me that leaves the question as to where the shapes come from unanswered. I also haven't found anyone who has connected the fact that evolution is a sequential extension of a growth process, with any particular mechanism of growth. Can you give me a snapshot of what you found satisfying in either one of them? Hah. The Plausibility of Life was on my Christmas wish list. From the back cover: "Complex living systems are plausible only if evolution can plausibly generate them. The authors show how this has been achieved by providing many detailed examples to illustrate their theory of facilitated variation. The reveal what might be called the grammar of evolved systems, the flexible organization of processes which allows change by accretion and rearrangement. What emerges is the interesting consequence that it is life by [intelligent] design that is implausible." Sydney Brenner, Salk Institute "Change by accretion and rearrangement" sounds like it might make discontinuities in growth curves. -- rec --
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