On Jul 12, 2009, at 3:23 PM, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>> the neodarwinian synthesis really did not exclude
>> punctuated equilibrium---gradualism and rapid change both could be
>> accomodated in the theory. Gould it seemed to me was really
>> marketing or branding his approach, to make it look more important
>> an advance than it was.
>
> My impression of Gould is that earlier in his career he did
> seem to think that punctated equilibrium did constitute
> a radical challenge to the neo-Darwinian synthesis but
> that he later came around to Mayr's position which was
> that it was simply an ammendment to neo-Darwinism.
>
It was never anything else, because Gould was always an adamant
opponent of catastrophism. He thus could come up with nothing better
than an accelerated gradualism, which was no better than orthodox
Lyellian (neoDarwinian) gradualism in coping with the evidence of
massive extinctions at moments of radical evolutionary change.
>> However, because incrementalism for many
>> was taken to be dogma, maybe his 'aggresive' marketing campaign was
>> neccesary to get heard. More recently many mathematical models
>> make punctuaTEd equilibrium quite plausible for many simple genetic
>> models. This idea is similar to mathematical chaos (ie apparently
>> random behavior of deterministic systems) which previously was
>> thought to be nonexistant or uncommon (with the view that the
>> Newtonian universe was clocklike---it can be seen that way, but like
>> real clocks they eventually accumulate small errors that diverge to
>> infinity, and hence are apparently random.
>> Even planetary motions often are chaotic over long periods of
>> times).
>>
>> I thought that 'species selection' was gould's most interesting idea
>> because that seems to really stretch evolutionary theory
>> conceptually outside the way its usual way of thinking, of acting on
>> individuals, or groups. Its possible to conceive of that in the
>> usual gene-based terms, but its a stretch (to me).
>
> Dawkins, as I understand him, does lend some credence to
> the notion of 'species selection', at least in terms of natural
> selection among species in terms of their 'evolvability'.
>
> I also understand Dawkins as nor denying punctuated
> equilibrium as such, but as not thinking that it is as
> common or as important as Gould thought it to be.
>
>> My impression is
>> Gould really did not enter or give justice to group selection
>> controversies/arguments, even though he did write on units of
>> selection. He seemed to stay out of that debate (possibly because
>> it was heated, between d s wilson and dawkins, williams, etc.)
>>
>> Lewontin said in NYRB that he had fired Rashevsky at U Chicago in
>> the 60's and also that Rashevsy's work (in math biol) has had zero
>> impact on the literature. That I think shows lewontin's limitations.
>> Rashevsky pretty much was a pioneer in what is now called
>> complexity theory, and even cultural evolutionary theory, systems
>> biology and evolutionary game theory. He has math models in the
>> 50's which use an older notation but conceptually are similar to
>> what is state of the art (including I gather ones done by authors
>> who are mentioned in Kenneally's book). Lewontin is a molecular
>> biologist essentially and isn't really into the big picture, and
>> even stifles it a bit (as was done by Cjhomsky for language
>> evolution). (While he doesn't acknowledge rashevsky---who was
>> pretty out there at times---i did see lewontin a few years ago and
>> he seemed to have relaxed a bit, saying actually biology, and
>> science, is what biologists and scientists do, so today
>> that might incklude rashevsky).
>
> That point concerning Lewontin has been made by various
> writers and critics of him including E.O. Wilson. They point
> out that for Lewontin an evolutionary theory isn't much
> good unless it can explain things in terms of actual DNA
> sequences and such. Since evolutionary psychology,
> for instance, doesn't even pretend to be able to
> explain things at that level, Lewontin is seen as
> being dismissive of, in part, because it does not
> conform to his notions of what a good scientific
> theory should look like.
>
>>
>> I think it can also be pointed out that while Mismeasure of man by
>> gould and lewontin is a classic, it hasn't made much of a dent in
>> behavior genetics research, and is in need of updating if that is
>> possible. (The factor analyses discussion i think is a classic, even
>> if it might need updating.) They emphasized gene-environment
>> interactions, but the math involved in that, and experimental
>> designs to test for it, is very difficult (if even possible) and so
>> is its infancy. They really didn't develop their critique into a
>> powerful form. Lewontin's Not in Our Genes had one equation
>> basically saying you have 3 terms (genes, environment, and
>> interaction) and left it at that; just saying this refutes all
>> behavior genetic studies. It doesn't cut it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos