A couple of other questions then:
What is devolution? Is that a legitimate word in this discussion, if
not why not, etc
and
Does evolution really just mean change, and if so why is there a
different word for it?
ie:
If evolution means 'positive sustainable change' who is deciding what
is positive and sustainable?
One could argue that aspects of human neurological evolution have
'evolved' a less-sustainable organism, or at least a very problematic
or flawed design. The internal conflicts between different areas of
the brain, often in direct opposition to each other and leading to
personal and large-scale destruction: is that evolution? if so why, etc
Just because we can find out where in our genes this is written, does
that mean it is good?
There is often a confusion between description and purpose.
I'd vote for option C, in Eric's paragraph below: ultimately it must
be "the organism-environment system evolves" or there is an upper
limit to the life-span of a particular trait. Holism is the only
perspective that holds up in the long term.
This is another one of those FRIAM chats that brush against the
intangible. We sure do sort by population here, and we evolve into
something new in doing this. I am changed for the better by reading
and occasionally chiming in, sharpening my vocabulary and writing
skills in this brilliant and eclectic context.
I determined evolution there. Does a radish get the same thrill?
Oh, my taxa are so flexed I have to send this off. Thanks for the
great phrase, NIck-
Victoria
On May 9, 2011, at 5:41 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
Russ,
Good questions. I'm hoping Nick will speak up, but I'll hand wave a
little, and get more specific if he does not.
This is one of the points by which a whole host of conceptual
confusions enter the discussion of evolutionary theory. Often people
do not quite know what they are asserting, or at least they do not
know the implications of what they are asserting. The three most
common options are that "the species evolves", "the trait evolves",
or "the genes evolve". A less common, but increasingly popular
option is that "the organism-environment system evolves". Over the
course of the 20th century, people increasingly thought it was "the
genes", with Williams solidifying the notion in the 50s and 60s, and
Dawkins taking it to its logical extreme in The Selfish Gene.
Dawkins (now the face of overly-abrasive-atheism) gives you great
quotes like "An chicken is just an egg's way of making more eggs."
Alas, this introduces all sorts of devious problems.
I would argue that it makes more sense to say that species evolve.
If you don't like that, you are best going with the multi-level
selection people and saying that the systems evolve. The latter is
certainly accurate, but thinking in that way makes it hard to say
somethings you'd think a theory of evolution would let you say.
Eric
On Mon, May 9, 2011 06:25 PM, Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I'm hoping you will help me think through this apparently simple
question.
When we use the term evolution, we have something in mind that we
all seem to understand. But I'd like to ask this question: what is
it that evolves?
We generally mean more by evolution than just that change occurs--
although that is one of the looser meaning of the term. We normally
think in terms of a thing, perhaps abstract, e.g,. a species, that
evolves. Of course that's not quite right since evolution also
involves the creation of new species. Besides, the very notion of
species is controversial. (But that's a different discussion.)
Is it appropriate to say that there is generally a thing, an entity,
that evolves? The question is not just limited to biological
evolution. I'm willing to consider broader answers. But in any
context, is it reasonable to expect that the sentence "X evolves"
will generally have a reasonably clear referent for its subject?
An alternative is to say that what we mean by "X evolves" is really
"evolution occurs." Does that help? It's not clear to me that it
does since the question then becomes what do we means by "evolution
occurs" other than that change happens. Evolution is (intuitively) a
specific kind of change. But can we characterize it more clearly?
I'm copying Nick and Eric explicitly because I'm especially
interested in what biologists have to say about this.
-- Russ
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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