So much is starting to make sense!

Ani Osiris · Almost a regular Joined: 03 Nov 2002 Posts: 49 Gender:

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I sure hope you get the book and participate in the discussion!

I should be getting the book in the next day or two, so hopefully will soon have more to contribute than just blind comments.

Speaking of speaking blindly... As far as the question of how a homosexuality gene(s) could persist in a population, I don't think one needs an elaborate explanation of selective pressures and behavioral/social advantages. Unless the society is fully accepting of homosexuality as having a role in society (show me that society!), I don't think homosexuals would necessarily reproduce at a lower frequency than heterosexuals.

I would also question the notion of roving marauders that target females, i.e. going on a raid in order to rape, since my impression is that raiding parties primarilly target males. In other words, the typical tactic (if we assume getting access to females is the idea) seems to be direct confrontation to take out the warriors first rather than sneaking in behind enemy lines as it were (perhaps suggesting that territory/resources are more of concern than reproduction). I suspect most of those confrontations would occur well away from the group's camp, lessening the need for home security.

As a counter to a correlation to aggression and/or need for protection, it's interesting to look at the contrast in behavior between chimps and bonobos where sex (heterosexual and homosexual) appears to be a way of strengthening bonds or re-establishing stressed bonds within the group. Again, suggesting that homosexuality may be primarilly a social issue rather than a reproductive one.

Jeremy1952

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Evolution does not select for anything. Ever. Natural selection is a negative process which can only cull the unfit.

I understand what you are saying and agree in principle. Natural selection is indeed a culling process; however, it is only one part of the evolutionary process. Variation, selection, amplification. The net result is what Dawkins calls "the illusion of design". An allele which causes its body to do a critical task more effectively than another will spread in the population, and it is a handy shortcut to say it (the function related to that allele) has been selected "for".

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Traits only persist in a population if they do not kill the organism (or prove deletrious). That might seem like an overly fine distinction, but it's a crucial one.

I'm afraid this is an overstatement. There are a number of ways in which deletirous traits persist; sometimes they are linked to other traits, sometimes their deletirous effect is not sufficeint to get them selected out. The converse is true and important, though: natural selection cannot select a trait out if it is not fatal or sufficiently deletirous to impact survival rates

Jeremy1952

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A survival strategy is not the same thing as a reproductive strategy.

Survival of individuals is one of the tools that genes use to get themselves replicated. From the point of view of the gene, survival and reproduction are inextricably linked.

Consider r-strategy and K-strategy organisms. Is one right and one wrong? No, they are just different ways of balancing the reproduction/individual survival formula. If they work (in preserving copies of the genes that make them happen), then they persist. If not, they don't. In the current biosphere we have a multitude of examples of each extreme and many shades in between.

BY THE WAY: I don't mean to be pugnacious either, and I genuinely appreciate your analysis and insight.

Chris OConnor

You guys are making it clear I need to read Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" soon. "The Blind Watchmaker" and "Unweaving the Rainbow" were both excellent, as you probably know and agree, but so many people refer to "The Selfish Gene." I just checked Amazon.com and its only $8.71.

Oh, by the way...this is an email I received recently:

HOW WE BELIEVE BOOK SPECIAL & WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS SPECIAL

Recall earlier this summer we had a $5.00 special on the paperback edition of
Why People Believe Weird Things because the publisher is bringing out a new
edition of the book this fall. We shall continue this $5.00 special through
the end of October.

My publisher is now doing the same thing with my book How We Believe: The
Search for God in an Age of Science. They have remaindered the hardback first
edition, which means they shred them. I hate to see paper go to waste like
that, so we bought up the remainders of the hardback edition. (The paperback
edition is out and also available.) The hardback edition normally sells for
$24.95. The paperback edition is $14.95.

You can now purchase the hardback first edition for $9.95.
And you can still purchase the paperback edition of Weird Things for $5.00.

They make good skeptical gifts as well, with the celebration of Newton's
birthday coming up this December 25!

Just go to www.skeptic.com and place the order (both books appear on the
right side of the home page). The normal price will appear on the form (it's
all computerized), but we will only charge you the discounted price.

Some of you might want to take advantage of this discount.

Chris

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 10/30/05 4:12 pm

Ani Osiris · Almost a regular Joined: 03 Nov 2002 Posts: 49 Gender:

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Natural selection is indeed a culling process; however, it is only one part of the evolutionary process. Variation, selection, amplification. The net result is what Dawkins calls "the illusion of design".

Right, but those aspects are always either explicitly or implicity included in the concept of selection.

Dawkins has done some excellent work in population genetics, but he makes a serious mistake when he posits it as a causal influence. Population genetics is a statistical description which can tell us a great deal about what we can expect to see, but it says nothing about the actual causes of the effects and patterns.

Selection, including variation, etc., is still insufficient to explain everything in the evolutionary process. It definitely goes a long way, but it is only a part of the whole deal.

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I'm afraid this is an overstatement. There are a number of ways in which deletirous traits persist; sometimes they are linked to other traits, sometimes their deletirous effect is not sufficeint to get them selected out.

Yes, but I don't think it's much of an overstatement.

If selection cannot exert any pressure on a trait, then it cannot be called a deletrious trait - same goes for beneficial traits (though there, I think it's important to note that selection exerts zero pressure on a beneficial trait). The trait is deletrious only in a future context, but selection cannot anticipate the future so the trait enjoys the same freedom from pressure as a beneficial one. This is basically the idea behind S.J. Gould's concepts of exaptations (and neutral traits in general).

In the case of beneficial traits, selection does not drive their evolution forward because they are beneficial. Rather those traits only undergo adaptive change by virtue of the elimination of less beneficial (read deletrious in comparison) traits. In the absence of differential fitness, nothing happens in an evolutionary sense because selection can only work against traits with a negative effect - which is what we see with drift. The emergence and/or persistence of traits through drift is in no way an adaptive phenomenon. In other words, it may be convenient to put things in terms of selecting "for" a trait, but it is a misleading way of saying it.

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Survival of individuals is one of the tools that genes use to get themselves replicated. From the point of view of the gene, survival and reproduction are inextricably linked.

From the point of view of the gene, there is no such thing as reproduction or survival. There is only replication (by agents external to the gene) and static existence; so while they may be the fuel and/or parts, they are not the engine. In other words, you can't have a selfish gene, you can only have a tag-along gene. Again, that replicating/reproducing processes will inevitably dominate is a statistical law, not an actual force or "motive" driving genes to use the system of which they are a constituent.

Jeremy1952

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that replicating/reproducing processes will inevitably dominate is a statistical law, not an actual force

I don't get the distinction

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or "motive" driving genes to use the system of which they are a constituent.

Of course genes don't have motives! The processes you have so neatly described have the net effect of more genes. As far as what the engine is that drives it all... it is really point of view, analysis, way of looking at things. Bodies "for" genes or genes "for" bodies; "for" doesn't exist in nature. It is metaphor to help us understand a dynamic.

Chris OConnor

Did one of you mail me a package from England? I received a package of published and unpublished material from someone who apparently wishes to remain annonymous. I can respect this wish and not share your personal identity with the board, but it would be nice to know who you are. As of right now I don't have a clue who this stuff is from, which diminishes its importance to me.

Chris

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 10/30/05 4:12 pm

Ani Osiris · Almost a regular Joined: 03 Nov 2002 Posts: 49 Gender:

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I don't get the distinction

You mean the difference between a statistical law and an actual force or cause?

Generally speaking, a law does not have any explanatory power even when it is a 'hard' law, e.g. the inverse square law of gravity. That's simply an observation of a phenomenon that always occurs, but it in no way explains why gravity or why its strength falls off at that ratio with distance, etc., etc. The law cannot be considered a cause in any sense of the word.

This is doubly so with statistical laws which are even further removed from the phenomena occurring within the system. A statistical law is simply a generalized description of a system's behavior as a whole. It does not point to (much less explain) the properties of the constituents of the system; nor can you predict the system behavior from the properties or behavior of the constituents.

For example, it is wrong to say, 'Entropy causes dissipation.' There is no such thing as an entropic force. Similarly, it is wrong to say, 'probabilities cause the penny to land heads half the time,' or, 'population genetics cause genes to evolve replicating processes.'

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As far as what the engine is that drives it all... it is really point of view, analysis, way of looking at things. Bodies "for" genes or genes "for" bodies; "for" doesn't exist in nature. It is metaphor to help us understand a dynamic.

But metaphors are very powerful, as Dr. Bloom has gone to great lengths to illustrate. If the metaphor that helps us to understand something is flawed, then our understanding is flawed. If "for" doesn't exist in nature, then the metaphor is flawed and should be abandoned because it leads to false explanations and understandings.

I don't necessarilly want to make a big deal out this particular example, but just that it's an illustrative one in terms of the way the metaphor plays - it all but forces one to interpret things a certain way and to make certain conclusions which may not be called for and/or supported by the evidence. Of course no one seriously working on the issue believes or intends to suggest that genes have motives, that nature works in a teleological manner, or etc. - that's why motive was put in quotes; but that is the effect in terms of understanding it because the underlying paradigm and theory can only be expressed in such misleading or inappropriate terms.

That's seen in the way admittedly contrived forces and properties crop up everywhere, e.g. "motive" and a "selfish" quality for genes. Those things don't actually exist, but assuming them in some abstract/nebulous form is necessary to understanding the model. I take that as indicative of fundamental flaws in the model that the metaphor represents (else the model would evoke a different metaphor).

I think this is especially the case in evolutionary theories where it seriously does make a difference what the engine is and how it's driven... one can't say it's just a point of view because what occurs is intimately dependent upon irreversible processes. In other words, it's not like a math equation or particicle interactions or relativistic frames of reference where there's an equivalence between the expressions on either side of the equals sign - there is no equals sign in evolutionary processes. If you run the 'calculation' with genes for bodies, say, you get a different answer than you would running it with bodies for genes. With one, you get the sum of the parts, while with the other you get a whole greater than that sum.

Ani Osiris · Almost a regular Joined: 03 Nov 2002 Posts: 49 Gender:

Quote:D --> id one of you mail me a package from England?

That would be telling!

*Ani gets put under the lights*

Would you believe I was kidnapped, taken to England, and forced to become a slave to Kaos agents intent on causing catastrophic confusion by disiminating an overload of information?

Er... Would you believe I flew to England to mail the stuff in order to conceal my identity... hey, I wanted to remain anonymous, right?

Yeah, yeah, ok. Would you believe it wasn't me at all who sent the stuff?

(heeesh, I'm really dating myself with tv allusions, aren't I?)

Jeremy1952

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Generally speaking, a law does not have any explanatory power even when it is a 'hard' law, e.g. the inverse square law of gravity. That's simply an observation of a phenomenon that always occurs, but it in no way explains why gravity or why its strength falls off at that ratio with distance, etc., etc. The law cannot be considered a cause in any sense of the word.

This is doubly so with statistical laws which are even further removed from the phenomena occurring within the system. A statistical law is simply a generalized description of a system's behavior as a whole. It does not point to (much less explain) the properties of the constituents of the system; nor can you predict the system behavior from the properties or behavior of the constituents

Gravity explains why apples fall. It does not explain gravity. All of modern physics is based on statistical laws. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle proves that it cannot be otherwise. Even a law so basic as the conservation of matter and energy is only "true" on a statistical basis; if it were absolute, it would violate Heisneberg. Quantum mechanics explains why the photons-through-splits experiment yeilds distinct lines; it does not explain why particles are both discrete and waves.

ALL scientific laws, theories, explanations point to underlying processes which are the way they are, and do not care whether or how we explain them. Emergent properties of complex organisms are exactly that-emergent properties, based always on the simpler properties of that of which they are built. I still don't understand what "other" you are trying to see in these systems, but science says: it isn't there.


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