Do Heat Seeking Missiles Have Teleology?

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Take a look at the book I mentioned by Wagner. You can find its Table of Contents on Amazon. You think that book was written for the public? What % of the American people will easily understand even the vocabulary used in that Table of Contents, let alone the detailed discussion contained in the book? I submit that the book is intended to be read mainly by other scientists interested in evolutionary theory. Take a look also at the endorsements on the back – mostly by advanced students of evolution, not by the book review editor of the New York Times. And look at what Futuyma writes [emphasis added]:

“Wagner’s contributions to the conceptual growth of developmental evolutionary biology are unrivalled. Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation shows the sweep of his creative and rigorous thinking. This is one of the most exciting books in evolutionary biology I have read in a long time.” ―Douglas J. Futuyma, coeditor of The Princeton Guide to Evolution

Notice that Futuyma calls it “rigorous”. He also considers “creative” thinking to be a compliment, rather than a suggestion of undisciplined woolly-mindedness. And Futuyma implies that he regularly reads books (not just journal articles) on evolutionary biology. If reading scientific books is considered useful by one of the world’s leading evolutionary theorists, why isn’t it considered useful by some people here? Are they wiser than Futuyma, in not wasting their time reading books?

You can speak so confidently of “strong scientists” in general, even outside of your corner of science? I’m wondering where you get the data to sustain this statement.

I submit that you and some others here have too narrow a notion of “advancing the field.” If by advancing the field, you mean discovering particular new things about nature, e.g., what knocking out a gene from a fruit fly will do, then I agree that most of the “advances” are reported in journals rather than books. But broader discussions of where a field is going, whether its assumptions are sound, etc. are more likely to be discussed in a book, because such discussions require more time and more complex argument. And in my view, broad discussions can “advance the field” as much as individual technical studies.

No war is won without soldiers performing acts of courage and skill to take particular objectives from the enemy, but at the same time, no war is won without generals in the planning room thinking about the larger picture, what is happening in all the theaters of the war and how they are best to be coordinated. The “generalship” is as important as the “soldiering.” That is why Darwin wrote The Origin of Species – as an act of generalship (whereas, say, Thewissen’s articles on the development of whale fins from tetrapod feet are acts of soldiering), and that is why in many scientific fields, arguments for paradigm change and reorientation have often been found in books rather than articles. It takes a lot longer to explain to a soldier why the war in Europe is being conducted in the way it is, than it takes to explain to him where to aim the grenade to take out the nest of enemy machine-gunners; and it takes a lot longer to explain to a biologist whose approach to the subject is uncritically gene-focused why the nearly exclusive focus on genes needs to be supplemented by a more holistic account of organisms, than it does to teach him how to perform a knockout experiment to learn something about the color pattern on the wings of a moth. That’s why Turner is writing books on this subject, rather than just articles – though he has produced his share of articles as well. Biologists who are interested in broader methodological questions pertaining to evolutionary thought will probably find some points of interest in Turner’s book. Those who think that the current methods are perfectly fine and that no change in perspective is required to understand either life or evolution, will doubtless ignore it. But that, of course, is to be expected, precisely if there is any truth in Turner’s claim that biologists have developed tunnel vision regarding certain questions.

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I’m just explain a culture with which you are unfamiliar.

Maybe this book is among the exceptions of which I noted. That’s great.

I submit that you are overreacting and might enjoy this more if you relaxed.

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I agree; there is no reason to assume that Turner’s book is as important as those others. But decisions about importance are normally reached after one has read at least part of a work. One doesn’t have to read 300 pages of a book to find out whether the rest of it is worth reading. Sometimes 50 pages, or less, is enough to tell one whether or not to go on. My point was that the subject and argument ought to be intrinsically interesting to anyone whose major field of research is evolution. I was not demanding that anyone say that the book was good or that its arguments hold water. I was merely expressing surprise that no one seemed interested in a book whose relevance to evolution, and even to the themes of Peaceful Science (since a reformulation of the nature of life and of evolution along non-Darwinian lines might well remove many of the alleged conflicts between faith and science) seemed obvious.

That’s fine; so do I! But I would ask them not to look at reviews posted on ENV. I would ask them to look at reviews by other scientists. And I know that some people here have read reviews of Shapiro by other scientists; it is less clear to me that anyone here has read a review of any of Turner’s books by other scientists.

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From my point of view, it’s the science professionals here who are overreacting, to a mere suggestion, offered innocently and in good will, that a new book by a physiologist offering a qualified revival of some vitalist ideas might be useful to thinking about evolution. All I see here is the defensiveness of the professionals regarding the biological status quo, masked by an irrelevant diversion about whether books are as good as articles. But we are not going to agree on this subject, so I am going to drop it. Let’s move on to a new subject.

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How fascinating!!

It has often intrigued me how people get drawn in by contrarians and their reactions to any criticisms that people may have, be they real or imagined. There is often this knee-jerk reaction of how the contrarian is being persecuted, how the establishment is out to get them. There is also this continual accusation that those who don’t accept the findings of the contrarian are blind, unwilling to change, or afraid of what the contrarian is proposing. Strangely, the discussion rarely focuses on what the contrarian is actually arguing.

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It has never been my position that it is wrong for a conventional biologist to reject the conclusions of someone who questions the status quo. I think it is perfectly possible that Turner is wrong. My complaint is against those biologists, especially those biologists who profess great interest in, and competence in, evolutionary theory, who wouldn’t find the issues raised by Turner to be central to their academic interest in how evolution works, and who wouldn’t want to dip in and read, say 50 or 75 pages of his book, to get a sense of what he was arguing. For a trained biologist specializing in evolutionary thought, that would be a small investment of time, since much of the material would read fairly easily.

As I mentioned above, world-class evolutionary thinkers like Futuyma have indicated that they read synthetic works frequently, including those which advocate a new type of research program, and sometimes derive great benefit from them. If I were a professional evolutionary theorist, whose job it was to research and teach about evolution, there is no possibility that I would not acquire a copy of the book (borrowed from a library, if I were short on cash), and read at least some of it. I would want to be familiar, at least in outline, with the various perspectives on evolution out there, including those coming from physiologists, not just population geneticists and paleontologists. If my academic field were freshwater ecology, or the genetics of retinal cancer, or the metabolic rate of rodents, or something else, I might not feel such an intellectual obligation, but if it were evolutionary theory, I would. Let that be my last statement on the subject.

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Such biologists have read the entire book, and they don’t have kind things to say about it. You can find one review here.

Fixed link in edit.

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I tried your link in every possible way, and it keeps bringing me back to this same page of Peaceful Science, not to any external site.

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Very helpful review by Coyne. It seems to be what I suspected all along:

And that is what Turners book appears to be. Though I plan on inviting him to an office hours soon. That could be fun.

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It will only be fun if he’s not discredited before he arrives.

Beware of becoming like the Stoics and Epicureans of the Areopagus, who invited Paul, it would appear, mainly to show him the error of his ways.

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I’m sure others will agree with him. Maybe we do too. I certainly don’t agree with everything on Coynes review.

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So let’s look at Coyne’s review. First of all, he gives away the fact that he read the view with prior prejudice, an anti-Christian animus:

“Turner works at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, so he’s got biology cred. But he also admits he’s a Christian, the book’s production was funded by the Templeton Foundation, the book defends intelligent design pretty strongly at the end, and Purpose and Desire was endorsed on the Amazon page by Discovery Institute IDers Douglas Axe and Stephen Meyer.”

So he started out reading it with a chip on his shoulder – which is nothing new for Coyne or for biologists of his ilk. And the imputation of religious motives continues all through the review. C’mon, you scientists here: if Coyne has submitted this review not for his own private blog, but to a refereed scientific journal, do you think the editors would have let all the culture-war sneering about religion stay in there? Not a chance! So right away, this review falls below the academic dignity of a proper review of a scientific book.

I wonder what the Christian biologists here think of the propriety of Coyne’s remarks along this line. (Remember, Coyne is the guy who made a huge fuss about Collins’s appointment to the NIH, expressing the view that it was questionable that anyone who believed in the Resurrection could be a good representative of science.)

Coyne writes:

“Although he mentions the theory of evolution lots of times, what’s missing is any recognition that it was a genuine intellectual advance.”

False. As happens so often, Coyne and others manning the battlements to defend the status quo confuse “evolution” (meaning descent with modification) with “my particular theory of evolutionary mechanism”. Turner makes it clear that he is onside with evolution, and also that the history of evolutionary biology has shown marked advances throughout the past century, as our understanding of genetics, cell biology, etc. has increased by leaps and bound. His critique is of the blind spots of the traditional Darwinian account of evolution, not of evolutionary biology as such.

“Well, you can define “cognition” that way, just as I can define my aunt to be my uncle, but it doesn’t add any teleology, self-awareness or striving to evolution.”

This is a silly response. Turner’s definition of cognition is serviceable in the context provided, while saying that one’s aunt is one’s uncle is just plain wrong. Coyne, like so many atheist bloggers, is so eager to win the argument that he will throw out any half-baked rebuttal that flies into his head, without thinking it out.

“he says, for example, that “the gene is an agent of stasis, not of change, and this means the gene cannot be an agent of Darwinian evolution”, which is arrant nonsense”

The statement, while incorrect in its bare form, is merely a tentative resting point in Turner’s overall exposition, to be qualified later; it is issued in a context of a review of the history of evolutionary thought, and cannot be understood outside of it. Coyne is not reading Turner’s book as a book – with a sustained argument in which all the parts are necessary – but as a series of one-line propositions in isolation. This comes back to the earlier point about the value of books – they can bring together a whole bunch of complex considerations. Darwin wrote The Origin of Species as “one long argument”, and that is what Turner is trying to do in his book. Statements have to be read in the light of where the argument has been already and where it is heading, not in isolation. A book is not a compilation of factoids, to be reacted to one at a time.

“Of course, we’ll do that, he’ll say, because we’re sworn to dismiss any evidence of teleology.”

But of course, Coyne is sworn to that. He himself has related how, as a teen, lying on his parents’ rec room couch listening to some heavy rock music, he had the epiphany that God did not exist. He has never doubted the truth of that epiphany, since that moment, and his whole life as a scientist has been conducted under that working assumption. So right away, as a matter of existential commitment, Coyne has ruled out teleology of what Dembski might call the “external” kind – he would fight tooth and nail against any conclusion that God has imposed direction on nature or on evolution. He might be willing to accept teleology of some “internal” sort – which is actually all that Turner appears to argue for in the book – but even teleology of that sort has been frowned upon by biologists since “physics envy” (a motivation admitted by the great evolutionary theorist Mayr himself) took hold of them, and they decided that the only way to make biology as truly scientific as physics and chemistry was to renounce all but reductionist, mechanist, materialist explanations for life and its operations. The point of Turner’s book is that while mechanism and material explanations have a rightful and important place in biology, they have, as a matter of historical fact, tended to obscure the fundamental character of life, what makes life different from non-life, etc. And of course Turner is not the only biologist who has made this charge.

Coyne reads the book in the wrong spirit. Intelligent people don’t read a book expecting that they will agree with everything in it. Indeed, they might disagree with most of it, but still find one or two observations or arguments very helpful. I think Karl Marx is wrong far more often than he is right, but he does say some very intelligent things abotu capitalism that are worth bearing in mind. I think that Darwin is wrong on a number of things, but The Origin of Species is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read, and has many insights of continuing value. Even Ken Miller’s dreadful book Finding Darwin’s God makes a number of points that are intelligent and that I can agree with. Professors in Arts subjects read books in this spirit all the time. But for some reason, when the arena is the blogosphere, evolution-defending scientists can’t bring themselves to read books in this spirit. They have the habit of going for the throat, of denouncing everything in a book, rather than issuing a balanced judgment. Maybe 90% of Turner’s argument finally fails; but if he is even 10% right about blind spots held by many biologists and evolutionary theorists about the nature of life, his ideas could be taken up selectively to improve biological discourse. The all-or-nothing, black-and-white spirit in which writers like Coyne, Matzke, etc. respond to fresh ideas in biology is counter-productive. But that’s what the culture-war discourse is all about – about winning arguments, not about getting to the truth. And Coyne, along with Matzke, Shallit, P.Z. Myers, Dawkins, etc., are perfect exemplars of this culture-war mentality.

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But your point of view is not that of an impartial observer, and your recommendation is not coming from a neutral source. Had I read a recommendation of Turner’s book in a review in Science, say, I wouldn’t have hesitated to add it to my list of books to look at sometime; that’s how I ended up reading books like Life’s Ratchet, The Arrival of the Fittest, and Wagner’s book on evolutionary novelty. On the other hand, I’ve interacted enough with you over the years to know that your recommendations reflect your own biases (and your frequently adversarial stance toward scientists) more than they do any knowledge of what biologists are likely to find interesting or useful.

By all means, play the gadfly – it can be a useful role, and you certainly seem to enjoy it. But don’t try to simultaneously play the naif who just wandered in to make an innocent suggestion.

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Yes, I agree with that. However, I can read Coyne’s review and filter out his biases. I’m pretty sure that I did read it at around the time Turner’s book came out.

So we have Coyne’s review, which is biased against Turner’s ideas. And we have the ENV review which is biased toward Turner’s ideas. But, they both agree that this is a book directed toward the general public rather than to those engaged in biological research.

My own view of biology is possibly closer to that of Turner than to that of Coyne. But my decision still stands – I’m still doubting that it would be worth my time to read Turner’s book. Incidentally, I have not read any of Coyne’s books either.

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Jerry Coyne does use some strong rhetoric, so I don’t fully endorse his views on the book. However, if you filter out the rhetoric the problems with Turner’s book seem rather large.

We should be very careful of committing the Genetic fallacy, but I do think it is worth noting the financial backing of the book. It was funded by the Templeton Foundation, and it was published through HarerOne which is the publishing arm for religious books within the company. I am not saying that these facts disqualify Turner’s book, but it does shed some light on the intended audience for the book. I think it is fair to say that the demographic the book is written for is not professional biologists.

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I am still fascinated by how people are drawn in by contrarians and their reactions when others criticize the contrarian. I could have almost predicted your reaction to Coyne’s article.

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I have no objection to this. Nor do I object if you choose not to read Turner. I would object only if you refused to read Turner because you have decided that you want no truck or trade with any idea that smells of teleology or vitalism, and that it’s not worth even listening to proposals along that line.

I am also pleased to hear that you read not just articles but also books written by biologists, that you don’t treat Wagner’s book as unimportant, merely popular writing, etc.

You and others perceive it that way, I know. But in fact it is not scientists as such, or science as such, that I criticize. It is overclaims by certain scientists about what their science has proved or established, and metaphysical baggage than many of them bring to their discussion of origins issues.

It’s the same with the global warming issue, the issue which got me banned from BioLogos. Despite repeated clarifications on my part – that I did not deny that the earth had warmed, that I did not deny that human activity could have played some role in the warming, that I was not in principle opposed to policies encouraging the reduction of fossil-fuel burning – I was interpreted as “anti-climatology” and “anti-science”. My only claim was that the “consensus” on global warming was being mischaracterized (i.e., it was simply false to say that no competent climatologists questioned the mathematical modelling of some AGW proponents, and that all opposition to some of the conclusions of extreme AGW folks came exclusively from those in the pay of the oil companies). I pointed out, in vain, that Judith Curry, formerly a devout AGW defender and critics of the skeptics, had moved to a moderate position, and that she had 150+ published, peer-reviewed papers in the field, was a bona fide climate scientist, etc. I was simply shouted down. I was told that “science” had spoken, and that further debate, not even about global warming but even just about the rhetoric of the debate over global warming, was intolerable and indicated my lack of interest in the fate of the human race when all the polar icecaps melted.

Is it opposing “science” or “climatological expertise” to resist bullying? To insist on nothing more than that pro-AGW people withdraw their false charges that all opposition to the most extreme versions of AGW is driven by ulterior motives, that no scientist skeptical of some of the claims should even count as a climatologist?

It is not “science” as such that I rail against, but a certain tribal, professional defensiveness that has crept into science – especially areas of science that have caught the public eye, such as global warming and evolution – whereby scientists jump into popular debates, eager to man the battlements against perceived anti-science, when they should be responding to critics on scientific points rather than invoking alleged political motivations.

I was listening to a Nobel-Prize-winning physicist last night, talking on global warming, about which he is skeptical. Whether or not his particular arguments hold up is not my concern here, but he made a striking remark. The American Physical Society put out a statement on global warming which caused him to resign his membership in that society. The statement said that anthropogenic global warming was “incontrovertible”. He pointed out that within modern physics, the current figure for the mass of the proton is not considered “incontrovertible” – in principle, debate would be allowed in the American Physical Society about that. But AGW, according to the society, is “incontrovertible”? He says that this is treating a particular, temporary scientific inference as religious orthodoxy that may not be questioned, and that this has never been the way of physicists.

So why is an American physical society now saying that a particular claim in climatology is “incontrovertible”? Clearly it is politics, not detached physical investigation, that drives scientific societies to depart from their usual “in science, nothing is every established beyond doubt” position. It is this kind of ideologically-driven overclaim that I react against, even when it comes from scientists or bodies of scientists. I agree with the Nobel Prize winner: his colleagues were acting out of improper motivations in issuing that statement, and his own notion of science and scientific debate is actually my own!

Similarly, it didn’t matter how many times on BioLogos I said loudly that I was not against evolution, that I didn’t read Genesis literally, that I was not a creationist in the popular sense of that term; I was continually being accused of being a creationist, of being anti-evolution, of being anti-science. Somehow, opposing the majority scientific view, or even what pretended to be the majority view when it in fact it wasn’t, was interpreted as being “antagonistic to science and scientists” as such.

Truth be told, I think that many of my reactions are as much against the personal overconfidence of certain people who claim to represent the definitive declarations of “science” on any topic. If I saw a little more intellectual give and take from such people, I might be less inclined to be “adversarial”. But I get the very strong impression that when it comes to some subjects, like global warming and evolution, “dialogue” with critics is for the purpose of showing them where they are wrong or confused, rather than to learn anything from them. The idea is for the smart people to show the dumb people where they are wrong, or at least wrong-headed. So the creationists and ID people are dumb, and wrong, and people like Turner, Shapiro, etc. are maybe not so dumb, but still wrong-headed. That’s the very strong vibe that comes across cyberspace in all these debates. And that’s part of what generates “adversarial” comments, which are not against the spirit of science (which I consider to be one of the greatest human enterprises), but against the massive professional and personal pride of some of science’s advocates.

If you would like me and others to be less adversarial, may I offer you a suggestion? Nick Matzke wrote a review of Meyer’s second book, which he had out within 24 hours of the time the book went on sale on Amazon – not nearly enough time to reflect thoughtfully on the book, check out the hundreds of scholarly references, etc. He tore the book to shreds (having made up his mind before even reading the book that he was going to do so), and his judgment was not in any sense cool or balanced. Meyer was all wrong – not half-wrong, not three-quarters wrong, but all wrong; the book had no value whatsoever. Scientists like yourself, who are more moderate and emotionally calm, could advise people like Matzke that this is not the way to write a review of a book about evolution, that a critique is more likely to be taken seriously if it acknowledges good points as well as bad points, etc. But as far as I can see, the “moderate” scientists remain silent when hatchet-jobs like that are issued – and that gives the impression that such polemics are condoned, and maybe even secretly approved of. If the “moderate” evolutionary scientists would speak as firmly against the Matzkes and the P.Z. Myerses and the Dawkinses and the Provines as they speak against the Behes and the Turners and the Shapiros, that would go a long way toward reducing the “adversarial” atmosphere.

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Coyne is one of the most partisan people on the planet when it comes to the subject of evolution and religion, so it’s not surprising that you could predict my reaction. It’s almost an axiom that when Coyne writes something, it will be one-sided, extreme, biased, reflecting Coyne’s personal animus against religion and personal atheistic, materialistic, world view, plus his conventional notions of evolutionary mechanism.

I would be interested in any reviews of Turner’s book by people less partisan and ideologically committed than Coyne. If anyone knows of any, by all means point them out.

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Why would it matter if Coyne is an atheist? Are you saying that Turner’s book is religious in nature?

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Just a thought, can we please use the word anti-theistic when discussing atheists who hate religion, because in my experience (not that I have much, but still), most atheist that live in a real world are not hostile to religion.

Internet, on the other hand, is a home to fundamentalists of all ideologies.

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