>>> t byfield <tbyfield at panix.com> 10/07/99 11:12AM >>>
> Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 14:03:29 -0400
> From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
> > 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.
<...>
> Charles: What is your meaning of "trait" ?
i trait is a distinguishing characteristic, which in this case is probably inherited. but traits are expressions of the interaction between an organism and its environment, not inevitable expressions of genes. a good example would be average height, which varies considerably according to historical changes in diet among a given people.
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Charles: My approach is always that the phenotype is the result of nature and nurture, heredity and environment. The genotype does not entirely determine the phenotype. It "partially" determines the phenotype. None of my posts contradict this principle.
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> > 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.
<...>
> Oh and where do you infer that I think Darwin is justifying the
> entire world ? If you are proving that I am so wrong, such an
> obviously inaccurate portrayal of what I say makes it easy to
> demonstrate your comments don't touch what I say. <...>
you had asked...
> > > Purely contingent on what ? Random mutations ? Is
> > > "preordained" the logical equivalen of your "teleology" ?
i meant to point out, which i could have done more clearly, that traits are the result of environmental factors as well as mutations. darwin wasn't theorizing 'why' environmnental factors--potentially the entire world--are what they are.
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Charles: The above was a response to something Carrol said. I don't feel like going back and seeing the whole chain of comments. However, my comment to Carrol did not imply that I thought a species range of phenotypes was entirely determined by its range of genotypes. There is a range of genotypes in a species that in part is contingent upon genetic mutations accumulating. There is a range of phenotypes in a species that reflects this genotypic variation and then further is contingent on the actual ontogenies of individual organisms, their interactions with their environments as they grow up and through their lives and experience. This is a, b, c and I didn't contradict it in my post to Carrol.
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> > > Charles:> 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.
> Charles: I didn't say fully determined by genes, oh genius.
well, 'determined' doesn't mean much when it stands in for 'determined by contingent factors,' does it?
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Charles: You seem to be confusing levels of analysis here. There is contingency in the determination of traits (phenotypes) at the level of the contingent origin of changes in genotype (mutations) and at the level of environmental ontogeny of a genotype. The final phenotypes are the result of two levels of contingency. Carrol and I were discussing the first level. You seem to think that by discussing that level that I don't know about the second level of contingency, which is ridiculous, because nature and nurture, heredity and environment, is common sense in today's academic training to the level of high school. As if I think there is only nature and no nurture.
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> Charles: Carrol and I talk about this all of the time.
good to know that you're responding to the person isntead of what she write.
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Charles: You are not very logical. What a strange conclusion. I say Carrol and I talk about this all of the time and you conclude that Carrol would let me not respond to what he writes and continue to talk with him. Why don't you ask Carrol if he thinks I don't respond to what he writes ?
Of course it is possible that I didn't understand what Carrol wrote, but because we have discussed this topic repeatedly, that is less likely. That is why I mentioned that we discuss it all of the time in reply to your claim that I misrepresented what Carrol said.
CB