Robert Tulip wrote:
The worst mistake is to say that science is only about facts and not about values. That anti-value attitude which Interbane approvingly described as Harrison’s value-neutrality is in fact anything but neutral. Invoking logic to stand against values creates anti-values, undermining potential achievement of good results by denigrating human exceptionalism.

Scientists and philosophers and the broader community should support absolutely on faith the values of the intrinsic worth and dignity and potential of humanity to achieve a universal evolutionary purpose against which our emergence on earth to date is only a small achievement.

Excellent post, Robert. However, it seems to me that we start to veer into more subjective value territory in these last couple of paragraphs. It's certainly necessary to base our values on evidence, but the broader view of humanity and achieving our "universal evolutionary purpose" as you say is an area increasingly outside the realm of empirical data, and thus subject to the same relevantism and factionism that we see in religion. In other words, your vision of human purpose will differ from other visions because it's no longer grounded by evidence.

I do agree that Harrison at times presents a somewhat sterile, value-less overview of the science. Although certainly, by promoting critical thinking, he is guided by concern for our future. Even so, I think this is less a book of philosophy and more of a basic primer to critical thinking (which requires an understanding of science). And there's value in seeing humans on par with the earthworm as an exercise in pure objectivity. I see it as a given that homo sapiens are extraordinary from an evolutionary perspective and certainly from our own anthropocentric perspective. I miss Carl Sagan's poetic and rapturous outpourings of awe and wonder as he considers the immensity and beauty of our universe. That we are a way for the universe to know itself. He had a real knack for presenting evidence and facts from a very human perspective.

Robert wrote:That anti-value attitude which Interbane approvingly described as Harrison’s value-neutrality is in fact anything but neutral. Invoking logic to stand against values creates anti-values, undermining potential achievement of good results by denigrating human exceptionalism.

If I invoke logic to stand against your values, I'm anti-values? Before I go further, keep in mind I'm playing devil's advocate. My mind is loose on this topic. I'm exploring it.

My point was that your values are not the only values. You're certain your values are correct, and so are other highly intelligent people with different values from your own. As an exercise in objectivity, we see that the best place for an assessment is value-neutral territory. That doesn't mean rejecting values. It means clearing our heads so we can think clearly.

I agree that humans are exceptional. We're a different type of organism in my book. But what worries me is that we'll turn out to be exceptionally destructive. That we're an evolution-spawned extinction event in the flesh.

The concept of purpose that you have raised is corrupted by traditional religious creationist use, by the old argument of design that God created all species to fulfil their purpose or telos. Because the public debate about the existence of purpose in nature tends to bring this supernatural view into the frame fairly quickly, the idea that purpose and direction to fully exploit a niche is inherent in evolution has not received the attention it deserves.

Do you mean potential instead of purpose? The conceptual definition of the word purpose requires intention. Which begs the question of who does the intending. I see where you're going Robert, but I don't think you've stripped away enough fat from your chosen language. This isn't just semantics in my book. A single word is the difference between two competing worldviews. It's a marker. The ecological potential of species sounds better.

But I still disagree with the idea there is progress. Even towards this potential. It may be backwards progress in terms of a comfortable life(again, I'm not using logic against either set of values here - I'm pointing out that there are more values than your own). Too much competition, too much nature everywhere, red in tooth and claw. A less complex ecosystem may be a more pleasant place to live - at least for those complex creatures capable of experiencing stress and discomfort. If you say there's progress, why do you measure it by complexity rather than equilibrium or harmony or visual profundity? Isn't a balanced scale better than dropping weights on either side endlessly, watching the scale buckle and bend?

Robert Tulip wrote: Harry, this view you have expressed that “natural selection knows no purpose or direction” is a claim widely taken on faith within modern secular metaphysics. But if we dig deeper it is highly contestable.

An environment has a potential ultimate inherent complexity, although of course we cannot definitively know what that potential may ultimately be. However, it is reasonable to presume that organisms within an environment tend to evolve toward its real potential. It therefore makes sense to argue that evolution contains an inherent goal, what Aristotle called entelechy, which is the maximum feasible complexity physically obtainable within an ecosystem.

This is interesting. Others may have heard it before, but I have not. I see the point - there is a potential, and a process which tends to fill potentials, and the combination acts like a purpose. This is speaking loosely, of course, since a process which was actually guided by an intention to get to greater complexity would work much more quickly. That is the point about the Anthropocene - now culture exists, and it does act with much more telos.

There are a couple of problems with this way of talking about the matter. One is that it may be literally necessary to clear the planet of previous "peak" organisms (e.g. dinosaurs) in order for the space for a new and more complex process (e.g. placental mammals) to emerge. This requires catastrophes to happen often enough, but not too often or too severe, or the process could get "stuck" short of its potential.

Another is that the "telos" is not a real one - we are in no sense "battling uphill" or "fighting nature" if we decide not to pursue Artificial Intelligence due to its ultimate potential to displace us.

Robert Tulip wrote:We see this real biological directionality clearly in the multiple independent evolution of eyes, where the physical causal constraints and processes determine how organisms with better vision are able to emerge repeatedly in the fossil record due to the adaptive superiority of sight.

I would take that further and argue that if a sufficiently rich ecological niche can be found, it is likely that mental construction of an inner model of the world is likely to eventually emerge. Once the energy and complexity barrier is passed, the value of a good mental model is so high that it drives itself relatively quickly in geological terms. The number of branches of the hominids (hominems? I forget the term) that keep turning up is testimony, I think, to the rapid succession of contributing adaptations which have added momentum to the process, as Harrison's list attests.

Robert Tulip wrote:The concept of purpose that you have raised is corrupted by traditional religious creationist use, by the old argument of design that God created all species to fulfil their purpose or telos.

Indeed, but also corrupted by claims that the white race "must be" superior due to its greater fulfillment of the telos of human emergence, which is rot. In the 19th century it was quite common for scientists to claim that Europeans were more evolved.

Robert Tulip wrote:What this means is that humans are the co-creators of our own evolutionary niche, and can actually shape the purpose and direction of terrestrial evolution.
We, meaning the world community as a whole, can decide whether to transfer enough carbon into the air to boil the seas, or whether to shift to a sustained cyclic culture of natural abundance. This is a new paradigm brought about by the evolution of brains, with their primary conscious values of evidence, logic and doubt.

Gives a whole new dimension to the question of the existence of purpose.

Robert Tulip wrote:Part of this conundrum is the central role of human will and motivation and hope in achieving our own success.
The worst mistake is to say that science is only about facts and not about values.

The way I put it is that questions of value are not settled by the methods of science. Persuasion about values does not happen by empirical replication, but by connections between justice (reciprocity) and ethical issues, and secondarily between facts and values. "Ought to" implies "can" as some philosopher (Kant?) observed.

Robert Tulip wrote:Scientists and philosophers and the broader community should support absolutely on faith the values of the intrinsic worth and dignity and potential of humanity to achieve a universal evolutionary purpose against which our emergence on earth to date is only a small achievement.

Well, I think scientists tend to be pretty thoroughly committed to the intrinsic worth of humans. I am not sure I agree with you about commitment to evolutionary purpose. Maybe if you explained what you have in mind.

According to one scientist, long ago sponges lost their brains and their nerves!

And that was really smart as they didn't need them to survive. If consciousness is related to brains, they must also have figured that where ignorance is bliss it's folly to be wise.

Another scientist disagrees on the first interpretation of the evidence but his ideas raise their own questions.

Either way I give up on this subject, but you may find the article interesting.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150424 ... eir-brains

It wouldn't be the first time a spineless creature lost their nerve!

But seriously, it wouldn't be the only case of capacities disappearing when they are useless. It takes a lot of energy to support the nervous system, so most cave-dwelling species tend to evolve into sightless variants. Just to give a well-known example.

Harry Marks wrote:It wouldn't be the first time a spineless creature lost their nerve!

But seriously, it wouldn't be the only case of capacities disappearing when they are useless. It takes a lot of energy to support the nervous system, so most cave-dwelling species tend to evolve into sightless variants. Just to give a well-known example.

It's true that creatures can lose abilities like the blind cave fish in response to the environment as you say Harry. I think in this case the evidence is more on the side of Leonid Moroz the neuroscientist that sponges likely never had neurons to begin with.
Richard Dawkins has waded into the U.S. presidential debate publicly berating Ben Carson for not believing in macro-evolution.
R.D.in an interview on C.N.N. trotted out his usual line on genomic similarities and relatedness being clear cut and overwhelmingly supporting common ancestry etc.
As Moroz points out the jelly comb has been found to be unique genetically so much so that he calls them aliens.
Shhhh! don't tell Richard.
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/11/ ... evolution/

Flann wrote:As Moroz points out the jelly comb has been found to be unique genetically so much so that he calls them aliens.
Shhhh! don't tell Richard.

And yet Moroz, his team, and every other evolutionary biologist is able to keep this in perspective. They don't doubt "macro" evolution. Ben Carson should be berated.

Interbane wrote:And yet Moroz, his team, and every other evolutionary biologist is able to keep this in perspective. They don't doubt "macro" evolution. Ben Carson should be berated.

Overall they don't doubt it Interbane though there are many scientists who now consider the neo-Darwinian synthesis incomplete and in need of modification.
The bacteria to man theory holds sway and all evidence is interpreted through that prism even though there are problems with the evidence.
Moroz reckons jelly combs evolved neurons and a complex system of nerves. It should be that sponges and jelly combs have a common ancestor. How is the jelly comb unique genetically then?
Shouldn't they be genetically similar as Dawkins maintains the comparative genomes show?

Flann 5 wrote: The bacteria to man theory holds sway and all evidence is interpreted through that prism even though there are problems with the evidence.
Moroz reckons jelly combs evolved neurons and a complex system of nerves. It should be that sponges and jelly combs have a common ancestor. How is the jelly comb unique genetically then?
Shouldn't they be genetically similar as Dawkins maintains the comparative genomes show?

Yes, cladistics has verified over and over that structural tracers go along with common genetic elements.

Sounds like an interesting puzzle.

I think Dawkins has trouble accommodating multi-objective approaches to big worldview gestalts. For him, there is only one aspect of the question which matters: what is the evidence? And that is a salutary attribute for a natural scientist. But it doesn't help him understand people.

I personally think Carson is seriously wrong, and we should be at least a little worried about someone who is willing to set aside so much evidence for his priority on scriptural authority. But I think Dawkins takes it a bit too far.

Flann wrote:Overall they don't doubt it Interbane though there are many scientists who now consider the neo-Darwinian synthesis incomplete and in need of modification.
The bacteria to man theory holds sway and all evidence is interpreted through that prism even though there are problems with the evidence.

The key here is to keep it in perspective. There are problems with every theory. Consider general relativity. It is close enough to the truth that we use it to perform calculations for GPS satellites. However, it still requires modification. It doesn't mesh with quantum physics.

Keeping it in perspective means that the things general relativity accounts for must still be accounted for. The evidence must all be accounted for, even as the theory shifts to accomodate new evidence. There is far more evidence to show life has evolved than there is for general relativity. Any new model or theory must still account for this fact. Life has evolved. The methods in which life have evolved will shift, of course. The paths life has taken in the last billion years will give us new surprises. But what won't change is the fact that life has evolved. The evidence shows this to be true beyond a reasonable doubt.

With such a vast and complex field, it's easy for someone like Carson to lack perspective. Maybe in spirit of Harrison's book, we could point out where he deviates from good thinking. I personally don't believe it's possible to have as much knowledge as Carson has, yet also be a good thinker. These two things aren't possible if a person also rejects a theory that has such a massive amount of convergent evidence from so many various scientific fields.