Evolutionary Science, not Darwinism

I agree.

Well, yes, but what the ID people mean is not that organisms have no direction, but that the mutations which make them evolve are supposed by modern evolutionary theorists to be undirected, in the sense that they occur without foresight of, or reference to, future evolutionary advantage or disadvantage. And natural selection is supposed to be undirected, in the sense that no one from on high is telling it what organisms are to live and what organisms are to die. It just kills off what it kills off, without any plan or purpose. It kills the unfit, not because it plans to, or wants to, or has any grand scheme for evolution, but because unfit organisms just don’t make it.

Yes, but here I didn’t mean “machine-like”. When evolutionary biologists speak of mechanisms of evolution (e.g., drift, lateral gene transfer, mutation, selection), their point is not to prove that organisms are like machines. Their point is that these are the factors, operations, processes, means, etc. by which the evolutionary process is driven. So change it to “unplanned operations” or “undirected factors” or the like.

Let’s distinguish between your position and that of “modern evolutionary theorists” (which is supposedly some body of scientists who have agreed on what causes evolution, though I’ve rarely seen this agreement manifest itself in the way they talk to and about each other). My point was that “modern evolutionary theorists” on the whole see no teleology, external or internal, governing the evolutionary process as a whole. They don’t think that organisms direct their own evolution (witness the hostility to Shapiro’s suggestion along that line, and witness Coyne’s mockery of Turner), and they don’t think God directs evolution, either.

Now to your position: I am not averse to the possibility that to some extent organisms can direct their own evolution. I regard the jury as out on that one. Nor are all ID proponents against the idea of internal teleology, though I agree that most of them lean to the external notion of teleology.

But if we set aside your views and mine, and look at the context of the discussion here, what do we see? People are complaining that ID is attacking a strawman, an outdated form of evolutionary theory. I concede that this might be true technically; modern evolutionary theory is no longer neo-Darwinian, but has a richer mix of causes. But it’s missing the forest for the trees. The point is that T. aquaticus, Larry Moran, Jerry Coyne, etc. no more think that evolution is teleological (directed to the accomplishment of a plan or intention) than did the neo-Darwinians such as Mayr, Dobzhansky and Gaylord Simpson. From that point of view, this indignant protest against the term “neo-Darwinism” is a tempest in a teapot. Both the old and the new evolutionary theorists are or would be against ID, and for exactly the same reasons; and Behe, Meyer, etc., object to most of “modern evolutionary theory” for the same reasons that they object to neo-Darwinism.

If anyone thinks that the ID people will be placated by the fact that evolution is now said to be driven by neutral mutations as well as good and bad ones, he is living in a dream world. From the ID point of view, neutral theory is just as non-teleological as neo-Darwinism was – and so is just about every other notion accepted by modern evolutionary theorists, excerpt possibly some of stuff proposed by some of the “structuralists” and by people like Shapiro and Turner, who leave a door open to teleology – but at least the latter two, we are told by the “experts” here, offer only junk science. So even if the ID people acceded to Joshua’s plea and never used the word “Darwinian” or “neo-Darwinian” again, ID would not be one millimeter closer to agreement with “modern evolutionary theory”. The issue here is not one of terminology, but of substance.

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5 posts were split to a new topic: God Necessary For Evolution?

3 posts were split to a new topic: The Culture Wars in Naming Things

You have that part backwards. Just sayin’.

Such as?

This much is true. Best to argue about that rather than argue by label. Do you agree with the ID folks? Why?

But you also wanted planning. And if there is no way to predict future changes to the environment, then the best “plan” would be to prepare for all possibilities. So that would be a “plan” make multiple changes in parallel in different possibilities for the next generation. And that’s just a way of describing mutations that are random with respect to fitness.

That’s why I don’t include “natural selection” in my thinking.

From the way that I look at it, natural selection is the problem – it tends to drive populations to extinction. And the clever use of mutations is part of the way that populations solve that problem. The populations “try” to make sure that they always have a sub-population which won’t be soon selected for extinction.

Yes, that’s about right. And I think it’s a mistake.

What they really object to, is the idea of external teleology – and I agree with that. If they had found a way to allow internal teleology, they might have had a better marketing scheme for their ideas.

They see that as externally imposed teleology. And the evidence from what we see in biology does not support that.

As an agnostic, it seems to me that if there is an omniscient god, that god could work internally, and not just externally. But most theists want to insist on an external teleology, and that’s a problem.

If you allowed that the “plan” was just to survive/thrive under all possible contingencies, they might be more willing to consider that kind of teleology.

We have a war of words between the theists and the biologists, and both groups react by taking positions more extreme than they need to take.

I agree with that. And you can put me in the “against ID” group on that. And I’m “against ID” because I don’t agree with what the “pro ID” people are claiming. If they could broaden that to allow the possibility that biological organisms and populations might already be intelligent and might themselves be engaged in “design” of their future, then I would have a different reaction.

Yes. And the substance is that the scientists want to describe the active inventive biosphere that they see, while the ID proponents want to see it all as a set of their god’s toys (artifacts). Yes, the contrast is stark.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: God Necessary For Evolution?

If I recall correctly, Darwin suggested that the lungs developed, or could have developed, from the swimming bladder. I think I’ve seen the suggestion elsewhere as well. So I wasn’t making the example up. However, I have no idea what the current thinking is on the evolution of lungs.

Yes. I am that guy. :slight_smile:

But to declare that Darwinism is dead and that neutral theory killed it and that this has been true since 1968 is a far bolder claim. Have I not presented sufficient evidence to make even you doubt it?

Then why not call it evolution?

There are a whole host of mechanisms that are a part of the theory of evolution. Why is this a problem? There are a whole host of mechanisms in standard geology like water erosion, ice cleaving, marine deposition, and so forth. Does that confuse you as well?

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Neil

Not wishing to land you in it here, but your position in this post sounds very close to Jim Shapiro, specifically in that

(a) he envisages many mutations as teleological in the sense of being broadly directed towards selectable outcomes, and
(b) Sharing the view of those like Eugene Koonin that NS is predominantly a purifying or even destructive “force” in the absence of such loading of the dice.

If, though, you’re suggesting an extreme scattergun approach - ie prepare for all eventualities by genuinely random mutations, then the scarcity of genuinely advantageous mutations, and the preponderance of truly disadvantageous ones, seems to make it less of a plan and more of a fluke.

If I remember my sixth form teleost zoology, lungfish were the ancestors of modern fish. At least, that was so in 1968!

Except that I don’t say that mutations are non-random. Shapiro seems to say that if they are intended, they are not random. But they could be intended to be random.

And then there’s the question of what we mean by “intention”. We surely do not mean conscious intention. So we can only be talking of ascribed intention. We really need a science or philosophy of when it is appropriate to ascribe intentions to parts of nature.

I tend to think of NS as a statistical effect, and not a cause. It can be part of an explanation, but we shouldn’t be talking of it as if it is a cause.

Maybe I did give that impression. But that’s not how I actually think of it.

I see a population as always attempting to expand its range. So some random mutations might help with that. And as long as it can expand its range enough to compensate for the shrinking of its range (due to environmental change), then it can persist.

Ah, but that was before neutral theory replaced neo-Darwinism. :smile:

That is what Turner is working toward.

Science won’t do it, since the methodology excludes teleology - and in any case, the nuances of “intention” belong in philosophy.

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Thank you for clarifying. I consider Darwinism to be broader than that. For example:

The implication here is that I have quote-mined some author or authors to some end which you are not quite clear on having to do with pan-adaptationism. I resent that implication and ask that you refrain from making such statements.

Who here is making such a claim? I have certainly not made such a claim and if you think I have then please consider it possible that you have misunderstood me. From the fact that Darwinism is by no means “dead” to the conclusion that therefore modern evolutionary science is Darwinism would be a non-sequitur.

I also pointed out in this thread that Stephen Meyer doesn’t make such a claim and in fact addresses other evolutionary mechanisms.

I don’t see anyone restricting evolutionary science to Darwinian mechanisms. This also seems to be a tacit admission that Darwinian mechanisms do exist and are part of modern evolutionary theory.

I don’t know what you think these pubmed searches do other than highlight the fact that Darwinism is accepted as settled science and no longer disputed. :wink:

Random mutation returns 11205 results. Positive Selection: 42263, Adaptation: 301867, Adaptive evolution: 17087. What can we conclude?

Common descent returns only 2779 results. Shall we conclude that we should no longer speak of common descent and that it is no longer thought to be true by evolutionary science?

Here is a far more interesting set of results (imo):

In closing, this article on Sandwalk (2012) is an interesting read, relevant and on point:

@Mung

You are playing word games. The industry has clearly drawn lines around certain terms to help differentiate progress within the field.

And you, not a participant in the field, insists that these distinctions arent real… simply because some people lack the discipline to use these terms consistently.

The question to ask is: what is the benefit to anyone to bury all distinctions under a single term?

Do you challenge the physicists when they say Newtonian Science has been superceded?

Do you challenge the field of Psychotherapy by insisting that they all still practice Freudian Psychology… even though hardly any Freudian therapists still practice?

A shame that my on-topic post documenting the use of the term “Neo-darwinian” in recent literature has been diverted to a thread of its own, losing the context it was answering.

Bottom line: a respected evolutionary biologist like Douglas Futuyma (and many others) still regards the Modern Synthesis, aka Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, as the core of modern evolutionary theory.

That, essentially, is his beef with the Third Way - they want an extended synthesis, probably under a new, non-Darwinian, banner, but he thinks the old one can extend quite nicely under its old labels.

Of course, it isn’t what it was in the 60s, but then neither is evolution what it was in 1859.

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Sorry. I didn’t want it to get buried. You had some good thoughts here.

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I don’t understand why this question is directed to me. It is people like Patrick and T_aquaticus who are seeking to “bury all distinctions under a single term” (evolution).

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