Biological Evolution (part 5 of ?)

Response to 2bsirius: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rsi9elkBj5U

Aristotle's four causes: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau

Which is worse, Intelligent Design or reducing culture to genetic selection?

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• evolution
• darwin
• altenberg
• 16
• inmendham

[GodMechanism]

Natural selection & Complexity theory, are not consistent with Physics, since both would have to be reducible to law of electromagnetism + Gravity, in order to not violate it.

That is, They each have to violate the Law of electromagnetism, in order have and effect on the world.

Physics must reduce everything to itself, including wholes,such as Atoms,Molecules, genes,Cells,& Planets, into elementary particles, in order for Physics to remain true;and the Scientific Worldview to remain consistent

[0ThouArtThat0]

You are right that for materialism to remain consistent, physics must be able to account for everything else that happens in reality, including chemistry, biology, psychology, and spirituality. But does it? Is there really a "law" of electromagnetism and gravity, or is it a process of unfoldment developing through time? We already know the laws of the cosmos change as spacetime expands... what makes us think we have total knowledge (or could) of some transcendental physical law?

[b991228]

IIf morphological and behavioral phenotypes within a population are caused by the interaction of genes, along with environmental conditions why can’t we say that society is the cause and the result of the combined behavior of a population with their environment? Could we consider society as a type of niche construction that can profoundly affect the fitness of each individual in the population? Does this mean that we must we adapt to our niche construction or parish? Help me with this!

[heavenundertheearth]

Thanks for the responses.  I'll stay tuned in.

[GodMechanism]

I was in not disagreeing with anything that you said in the video; I was attempting to pin point which Physical Law needs to give a little for any other type of explanation, including natural selection,or a theory of forms, to even fit into the world, since the rigidity of 'electromagnetism', heavilly restricts any other form of explanation of events in the cell and the brain, since these events are already electromagnetically dominated; and so 'EM' also neccessarilly explains away morality

[0ThouArtThat0]

Yes, thanks for that Popper quote, Karen. I think what I said in this video may be somewhat misleading, because certainly within the adaptationist paradigm (sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, etc), "as if" teleological explanations (final causes) are sought for the traits of humans and other animals. I think the real lack of investigation into the causal features of evolution has been in regard to formal causes (whole-part/laws of form and development, etc). This is changing, as you know.

[OrderofthePelican]

read about the baldwin effect and genetic accommodation, especially "developmental plasticity and Evolution" by Mary Jane West-Eberhardt, and for cultural evolution (which I study in animals) dont miss books by Eva Jablonka (Animal Traditons, Evolution in four Dimensions) and Richardson and Boyd. These might also change some of your views on cultural evolution. Also dont listen to inmendham he obviously has not kept up with the peer reviewed literature in the last year....or ever.

[plenipotentiarius]

Yes perhaps, the two other causes were assigned to mind or the subject (ie, telos & formal) and thus excluded from nature.

We are going to confusion here if we use "causal" in the modern sense to talk of aetia (cause) in Aristotle's much broader sense. aetia is more like "reason for." Latin causa also lost something in its translation from Greek aetia. You can still find other 'causes' in English, eg, support a cause.

[plenipotentiarius]

Maybe a little hasty saying that formal cause is out of the picture, that is after all the theory part, and science would be nothing without theory, laws, hypothesis.

As to telos, I think telos is now attributed to technology, ok not science, but close, better equipment for farming more food, massive forces unleashed for exploiting nature for oil/copper etc.

[jogayot]

computing even... answer 42... there is infinite combination of equaations that fit it... wait... computing... wait... computing... wait.

[2bsirius]

Adaptation can, and verifiably does, take place without speciation, as does nonadaptive evolution. (Pigliucci & Gibson "Systems Biology: The Origins of Stability Science", p. 237.

[jogayot]

yes... most probably. i mentioned it more in the contex of inmendham and his argument that we understand everything very well "thank you" about evolution when evolution might give irrefutable answer to the stubborn persistence of religious stupidity he "despises"... hates on.