Statement on Current Evolutionary Theory: Comments?

And you can determine that without even reading the article! Amazing! You must be almost as brilliant as you keep saying you are.

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As I made clear above, I had read the Abstract, which gives a clear indication of the subject of the article, and therefore a clear indication of its general relevance to the bigger questions in evolutionary theory. I don’t need to read the article itself to see that, any more than you would need to read an article in, say behavioural (I add the “u” in your honor, er, honour) psychology to tell (from the abstract) what questions it dealt with and whether they were important questions for that field.

Remember, Mercer’s question to me was not: “Do you think this article is any good?” To answer that, I would have to read the article. His question was: Do you think it’s the sort of thing that biologists should read? To answer that, all I needed was a look at the Abstract. And note that I didn’t say that that specific article was something all evolutionary theorists should read; I said only that articles on that sort of topic are the sort of thing that evolutionary theorists should read. Answering Mercer’s question in the affirmative is logically compatible with thinking that that particular article is not a very good one.

In any case, since I posted the link to the Abstract, I’ve read a fair chunk of the article itself now, and I would maintain the same view: that the article is the sort of thing that evolutionary theorists should read. It provides some useful “big picture” thinking to counteract the tendency of a good number of people who talk about evolution to miss the forest for the trees.

Anyhow, if you can get your mind off the question of how much I had read when I quoted my statement, and just focus on the statement: Do you think it is a correct statement? Incorrect? A bit of both? It was that sort of discussion I was trying to stimulate, and which the first two answers began to discuss, before the “let’s try to scuttle any discussion begun by Eddie” crowd began its exhibition of its usual knee-jerk (should it be called “Pavlovian”?) behavio(u)r.

No, Eddie, it’s about citing a paper you didn’t even bother to read, not the speed with which we can find the paper.

How can you say that with any authority or integrity, given that you didn’t bother to read it?

Or even many who specialize in evolutionary theory or evolutionary biology or neither might not find it relevant because it’s just not good; one hint would be the abysmal impact factor of the journal in which it was published. Even among evolution journals, it’s definitely not an important one:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&vq=bio_evolutionarybiology

Why are you spending more time arguing and making excuses instead of reading and discussing the paper you chose? It’d be fun!

Wouldn’t that include you?

“This type” being articles published in lower-tier journals?

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OK. I hacked my way in by doing a google search and clicking on a bunch of links which promptly returned the full text. I gave the paper a once over, which given my lay level understanding of evolutionary theory was probably all that would profit me anyways, but here are some thoughts.

This is very much a philosophy of science paper, and I do not mean that as a slur. A philosophical approach can and should have heuristic value, and interacting with these can bring about looking at actual data with fresh insight. Philosophy of science is also good for exact definitions and culling sloppy language, and for establishing epistemology and limitations. But personally, I hold with Steven Weinberg that philosophy of science is of little value for actually advancing scientific understanding. To me, this survey paper discusses some very interesting and worthwhile questions, but is too far removed from field and bench to be considered essential. The abstract continues with the paper’s mission:

In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (with its proposal of an extended ontology of evolutionary processes) , in an attempt to map some epistemic bridges (e.g. compatible views of causation; niche construction) and some conceptual rifts (e.g. extra-genetic inheritance; different perspectives on macroevolution; contrasting standpoints held in the “externalism–internalism” debate) that exist between them. This paper seeks to encourage theoretical, philosophical and historiographical discussions about pluralism or the possible unification of contemporary evolutionary biology.

Well, here we are discussing it, so one objective met, although myself at the lowest caste of biological insight was not likely the target. HTE and EES get their own acronyms, and I stand more to learn than to comment. “Niche construction” popped out to me as something interesting I should become informed about.

As a layperson, I must to some degree trust expertise because I do not have the technical wherewithal to get into the weeds, and that means having confidence in scientists who build models based on loftier frameworks. But I am not completely lost at sea, and there are two guidance’s within my grasp. One, like the aerodynamic proof that bumblebees cannot fly (apocryphal I believe), a paper can be written with rigorous logic and unassailable math, and if the conclusion is that bumblebees cannot fly, I am certain the argument is in error. The empirical breadth of evidence for the general outline of evolution is to me so well established that if a paper presents some demonstration incompatible with this, it is a matter of time and the error will be made apparent. Two, all models are simplifications, and small misalignments become more exaggerated the harder the model is pushed. Nature seems to enjoy mocking our definitions, which in biology seem to all have exceptions. I do not believe a framework synthesis will be neat and wrapped with a bowtie, although the data should progressively converge to some sort of coherent picture. Unlike a theory of everything, I doubt you would ever be able to write all of evolution, or even just whale evolution, on a T shirt.

By way of contrast, I recently caught up to a fascinating paper charting the rise of antifreeze function from noncoding DNA, in polar fish. This is a wedge mutation, setting the course for a whole host of other adaptations and ecology impacts. From this study, I feel I gained much more insight into the actual working of evolution than from the theory paper. Again, frameworks are worthy objectives, but the tail must not wag the dog. The mechanisms and theory of evolution ultimately is in the hands of practitioners such as geneticists, paleontologists, and biologists, whose intuitions guided from hands on study may be a more sure compass than philosophical coaching from afar.

Lastly, Hunter’s usage of the quote under discussion, in his paper Evolution as a Theological Research Program, is dismally typical of this sort of presentation. The not so subtle subtext runs along the lines of “ see, evolutionary camp A thinks B is wrong, and B thinks A is wrong. Perhaps they are both only right about the other being wrong. Aha, maybe there is no agreed on theory of evolution because none of it is true. ” This is subliminal rhetoric, because in the paper referenced the differences between HTE and EES have nothing to do with the fundamental validity of evolution and is largely a discussion about proportionality. And Hunter’s contention that “It is more accurate to view evolution as a theological research program” is just silly. There may be theological implications, but it is ridiculous to suggest that theology has primacy over the findings of evolutionary science.

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That quote from the article abstract is enough to spark a long, heated, but cordial discussion on “divisive” issues in contemporary evolutionary biology without reading the full paper or even the entire abstract. As soon as I read the quote alone, squabbles on issues like the extended evolutionary synthesis, selectionism vs neutralism, evolutionary psychology etcetera came to mind and I expected some of these things to be discussed in the comments, instead most of the commenters descended on Eddie like a swarm of bees. Sure some of these topics have been discussed here already, but it wouldn’t kill anyone to do that again if they were willing.

True, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make meaningful discussions on the topics it discussed.

It wouldn’t matter if that article was published in Nature or some other top journal. What matters is that it raised issues that are still being discussed today among evolutionary biologists and we could have talked about that without mentioning Eddie at all afterwards.

@Eddie, you don’t get off the hook too. You should have posted the full abstract, then bolded or italicized the part you wanted the discussion to center on. You should have also provided a link to the paper, paywalled or not.

That said, this thread should be closed since its not yielding any worthwhile discussion.

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Scientists often disagree with each other on particular issues.

Evolutionary biologists are no exception.

This is trivially true. I don’t need to read an article to understand this.

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This ignores the tendency of another number of people who make erroneous claims about forest because they fail to understand the trees.

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EES, ugh. That about covers my thoughts.

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There’s an old saying “You can’t judge a book by its cover”. That pretty much applies to abstracts, too.

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Argument from authority, or from association; both invalid forms of argument. The value of the article can only be assessed based on the article itself, not where it was published. In any case, I offered no evaluation of the thesis of the article; I said only that it was the sort of article that anyone whose specialty was evolutionary theory should be reading. That is, an article which deals with big-picture questions in evolutionary theory. See my answer to Faizal Ali, which more than adequately answers your original question.

Your attempt to divert the discussion from the topic on the table is to no avail. The topic at hand is the statement quoted at the top of this page. Is it true, false, or a bit of both? If you really knew what was going on in the field of evolutionary theory, you would not need to read the article from which the quotation came in order to comment on its truth-value. You would, from your own knowledge of the field, proceed to show what was true and what was false in the statement. A professional evolutionary theorist – a Futuyma, a Wagner, a Jablonka – could do this without ever reading a line of the article. From your declining to do this, I will draw the most reasonable inference.

So why not answer @stlyankeefan’s questions?

Michael, @stlyankeefan did ask Eddie questions. He did not reply, so that’s strong empirical evidence that Eddie’s quote-mining was not done with the intent to stimulate discussions.

Now, @RonSewell has weighed in. Do you think that @Eddie will engage in cordial, substantive discussions with either of them?

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Well looks like you’ve done that now, then. And presumably that sort of article are among the ones specialists in the fundamentals of evolutionary theory are reading.

That’s up to him.

Whatever his intentions were, the fact remains that the issues raised in the paper were good stimulants for discussion. I could have posted that quote (although I would have given a bit more context) or anyone else and asked that we discuss it.

However, it’s still odd that Eddie just posted that snippet on quarrels within the evolutionary biology community even though quarreling about ideas is common to all scientific and nonscientific niches. You may be right about Eddie’s intentions, but I would have preferred the issues mentioned in the article were discussed.

Thanks, Ron, for commenting on the issues of substance.

Regarding Hunter’s own paper: it requires a separate discussion. His thesis about the theological basis of evolutionary thinking is one he has been publishing on for years, and the arguments are often subtle and require detailed treatment. In any case, the statement I quoted was offered by two evolutionary theorists who, as far as I know, have never heard of Hunter and were offering their own independent characterization of current evolutionary theorizing. So it has to be assessed on its accuracy as a report on the state of theorizing in the field, not on whether or not Hunter misuses it for his own ends.

I would not say that there is much that is “philosophical” (as a philosopher would use that term) in the article by the two evolutionary theorists, but I suspect you are using the term “philosophical” more loosely than I would use it. I suppose it is “philosophical” insofar as it discusses large methodological questions which inevitably touch on scientific epistemology, but its discussion is couched in terms of the language actually used by evolutionary theorists and found in their books and articles. I don’t see it as any more “philosophical” than, say, Gould’s Structure of Evolutionary Theory. The authors, too, are practicing evolutionary theorists, not primarily philosophers of science, though they may have some knowledge of philosophy of science as well.

In any case, however we characterize the article in which the statement is found, the statement itself pretends to be an accurate report on the current state of evolutionary theorizing with respect to certain key questions. As such, it is either an accurate or inaccurate report of what is being said in the field, and someone well-versed in evolutionary theory should be able to comment on where it is accurate and where inaccurate.

There is a tendency among certain people, here and elsewhere, whose knowledge of and interest in evolution is almost exclusively on the side of genetics, to treat current evolutionary theory as a seamless whole in which there are no serious disputes but only minor technical disagreements over fine points. The claim made in the quoted statement denies this, and affirms a plurality of interpretations of evolutionary mechanism. It does not deny the reality of evolution and it makes no argument for some alternative to evolution. But it does insist that evolutionary theory today is (much more so than, say, electromagnetic theory today) a field in which there are competing theoretical perspectives which have yet to be coherently synthesized. That is either a correct or incorrect account of the field, and it should be discussable regardless of whatever use Hunter or anyone else makes of it.

His questions concerned what the authors meant by some of the language in their statement. Since a direct link to the article has how been provided – a link which I did not have at first – he can now read the article and thus avoid relying on my filtering of its meaning.

In the end, either people here are interested in discussing whether or not the statement is an accurate description of currently evolutionary theorizing, or they are not interested in such a discussion. If no one is interested in the discussion of the quoted statement, then we might as well close this down.

I thank Michael Okoko for focusing on the statement, Ron Sewell for his attempt to engage the bigger issues, and Joshua and stlyankeefan for initially trying to address the statement, before others jumped in to attempt to derail discussion of the statement itself and turn the discussion into yet another clash of internet personalities revolving around who had read what when, who has more skills in finding scientific articles, and my alleged motivations. Again I repeat my question to our psychiatric expert, whether the term “Pavlovian” would properly apply to the knee-jerk desire of some people here to oppose anything I write, apparently just because it is I who have written it – even when the only thing I write is a statement written by someone else, a statement which I explicitly said I neither affirmed nor defended, but only offered for comment. So far, the majority of people who have responded have not addressed the quoted statement at all, but have focused on me and my alleged bad motivations. But what else is new, around here?

His? Where did that come from?

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  1. He is a she. Don’t make assumptions.
  2. I don’t want to read the paper. I have a stack of papers waiting to be read already. If you convince me that the paper is worth my time, I’ll add it to the pile. That’s why I asked instead of reading it myself.
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You can be sure, Michael, that if this were, say, a site focused on cosmology rather than on evolutionary biology, and frequent assertions were made on the site to the effect that there are no real substantive disagreements over the history of the universe, dark matter, dark energy, etc., but only relatively small disagreements of detail and emphasis, that I would point out any article written by specialists in the field of cosmology that claimed there were major unresolved differences among cosmological theorists. False portrayals of near-monolithic agreement serve no honest intellectual interest.

Of course, differences, even major differences, regarding how evolution occurs do not imply that evolutionary theory should be abandoned and that something else, e.g., creationism, should replace it. I have not said or implied any such thing. Nor did the authors whom I quoted. I know nothing about their personal religious beliefs, but if they are typical of evolutionary biologists, the authors would be atheists or agnostics, and it’s most unlikely that their motivation for pointing out the larger disagreements within the field are religious. They seem to believe they are accurately describing differences within the field.

I posted the quotation so that people here could discuss – if they wished to – whether or not the summary statement of the authors, regarding the field of evolutionary theory, was accurate. Those here who are very conversant with the debates within evolutionary theory should have no problem offering an opinion, even without reading the article the quotation is from, and those who are not as conversant can, if they choose, read the entire article, to get some background before commenting on the quotation. I have no problem with either approach. What is a waste of time, however, is focusing on my alleged motives, on my alleged incompetence in finding sources, on the fact that this quotation is used by Hunter for his own purposes, etc. The interesting discussion is not about me or my motives or Hunter, but about whether the statement is accurate or inaccurate as a representation of the field of evolutionary theory.

I didn’t ask you or anyone to read any paper. I provided a statement from a paper, a summary statement about the state of current evolutionary theory. I was aiming the statement at anyone here who believes that he or she knows a great deal about current evolutionary theory. Either you know a great deal about the current discussions among professional evolutionary theorists, or you don’t. If you know a great deal about the field, you should be able to comment on the statement without reading the paper. If you don’t know a great deal about it, you may have to read the paper, to get some orientation to the debates the paper is discussing, before you can offer an opinion regarding the statement.

I’ll give you analogy from a field I know more intimately. Suppose a biologist here quoted a statement from a paper in Biblical studies, something like: “Modern Biblical studies has no consistent or coherent set of methods or principles, but instead involves a grab-bag of methods, principles, and theoretical perspectives, not all of which seem completely compatible in their assumptions.” Suppose the biologist asked me to comment on whether or not that was a fair characterization of Biblical studies. I could discuss that statement, intelligently, because I know what goes on in modern Biblical studies. I would not need to read the article from which the statement came.

Similarly, anyone who is conversant with the discussions among the leading evolutionary theorists should be able to assess the statement I quoted, even without reading the article in which the statement is found. For example, Douglas Futuyma could comment intelligently on the accuracy of that statement without having to read the article from which it came, because he sits right at the heart of modern theoretical discussion of evolution. He would immediately know what the statement was talking about, and could proceed to agree or disagree with it, as he saw fit. Since a number of people here have claimed or implied great expertise in evolutionary theory, they should be able to do the same.

If no one is interested in commenting on the statement, that is fine. I threw it out there, and if it falls flat with a thud, then that’s the end of it.

So you didn’t “ask” anyone to read the paper, but.you feel no responsibility to provide any meaning or context for it either. As others have.already posted, that’s not how good online discussion works.

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