stinking functionalists

t byfield tbyfield at panix.com
Wed Oct 6 10:11:15 PDT 1999



> Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 09:46:34 -0400 From: "Charles
> Brown" <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
>
> Isn't it true that biologists have no direct proof of any
> specific trait of any animals being developed by natural
> selection ? Is Darwinism falsifiable as formulated ?

yes and no, respectively, with the caveat that your second question would have been better put: 'is darwinism falsifi- able as understood (by me)?' and the answer to that would be: it's hard to say...

the meaning of 'trait' is hardly self-evident. a hand with an opposable thumb is a trait, as are the convolutions in your brain, as is a latent characteristic, as is DNA that serves no known purpose, or maybe serves no purpose at all.


> Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 15:26:07 +0100 (BST)
> From: "Mr P.A. Van Heusden" <pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk>


> Also, of course, antibiotic resistance in bacteria is clearly a
> demonstration of natural selection at work (and this trait is used by
> geneticists for various purposes - leading to interesting interactions of
> the 'biological' and the 'social').

another such interaction: people who walk on hot coals.


> Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 10:45:46 -0400
> From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>


> Charles: I mean empirical proof. Yes, I recall this
> experiment, but , you know, Darwinism claims to explain
> the origin of every or many, many species of any type
> going back to the beginnings of life. There is no way to
> prove empirically that such a delicate and precise
> "instrument" as the eye of many species( to give one of
> Darwin's examples) actually developed by the mechanism of
> natural selection because critical elements of the
> empirical evidence are gone.

afaik, darwinism claims to explain *some of the dynamics that govern differentiation*, which is quite different from the theological debates you seem to be pursuing.


> Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 10:03:20 -0500
> From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>


> This is the essential point to keep in mind to avoid teleology -- the
> equation of natural selection with some Nature God/Goddess. The
> appearance of a trait is purely contingent; its *preservation* a matter
> of selection and/or piggy-back riding on other traits.

thank you!


> Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 12:02:20 -0400
> From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>


> Purely contingent on what ? Random mutations ? Is
> "preordained" the logical equivalen of your "teleology" ?

i think darwin was more interested in theorizing the machanisms that govern historical morphology than in justifying the entire world, of which random mutation is only a subset.


> But once a trait arises as an expression of genes, it's
> recurrence is not contingent, but determined. There is no
> need for positing God/Goddess for this.

it's not at all determined: genetic expression is hardly as mechanical as you make out--it's contingent on count- less factors, as is the interaction between the results of that expression and its environment.


> The notion that a trait arises within an organism and is
> passed on to the next generation as result of the needs of
> the parent organism is LaMarckian , not Darwinian.

<sigh>


> I don't see how Darwinian analyses make any teleological
> error, as you describe it. It is just not a common problem
> for Darwinists.

carrol didn't say anything of the sort.

cheers, t



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