Posted on 07/05/2003 4:20:08 PM PDT by betty boop
Not by the people who are also trying to escape First Reality....
In contrast to this dominant reductionist view of molecular biology, there continued to be a minority of more skeptical and holistically minded thinkers who believed that physical laws are incomplete or inapplicable in their present form (e.g., Wigner, 1961; Burgers, 1965; Elsasser, 1975; Rosen, 1991)3. There have also continued to be many speculations about whether life can be adequately explained by classical models without incorporating quantum dynamics.
In the last decade there has arisen in addition to these opposing schools of physical reductionists and physical skeptics, a third school that models life and evolution disregarding elementary physical laws altogether. Some well-known examples are Langton's (1989) replicating cellular automata, Ray's (1992) Tierra program, Holland's (1995) Echo model using genetic algorithms, random Boolean nets of Kauffman (1993), Fontana's (1992) algorithmic chemistry, and many artificial life computer simulations. Von Neumann (1966) is often cited as the founder of artificial life studies because of his logical theory of self-replication, but it is important to emphasize that he did not believe that such physics-free models would answer, "the most intriguing, exciting, and important question of why the molecules . . . are the sort of things they are4.
Many other abstract descriptions of life now fall under the title of complexity theory. This field is dominated by mathematical approaches, nonlinear dynamics, ergodic theory, random manifolds, self-organized criticality, and information and game theory (e.g., Cowan, Pines, and Meltzer, 1994). Complexity theorists are looking for universal principles of complex systems that apply at all levels, from spin glasses and sandpiles to cells and societies. The relation of these models to biology, and even to physics, is often a controversial issue. The power of computers to simulate models of self-replication, development, evolution, and ecology have resulted in many interesting behaviors. Computation also allows the study of nonlinear dynamics that generate endless formal complexity. However, because of the high degree of abstraction, these simulations are often difficult to interpret, and their applicability to biology is uncertain. Direct empirical justification is hard to find for such abstract models. In any case, since these models do not directly involve any microscopic physical laws and apply to both living and lifeless systems they do not address Pearson's question. If asked Pearson's question, the physics-free modeler would answer that the essential properties of life are distinguished by abstract relations that do not depend on any particular physical realization….
Many biologists consider physical laws, artificial life, robotics, and even theoretical biology as largely irrelevant for their research. In the 1970s, a prominent molecular geneticist asked me, "Why do we need theory when we have all the facts?" At the time I dismissed the question as silly, as most physicists would. However, it is not as silly as the converse question, Why do we need facts when we have all the theories? These are actually interesting philosophical questions that show why trying to relate biology to physics is seldom of interest to biologists, even though it is of great interest to physicists. Questioning the importance of theory sounds eccentric to physicists for whom general theories is what physics is all about...
There are fundamental reasons why physics and biology require different levels of models, the most obvious one is that physical theory is described by rate-dependent dynamical laws that have no memory, while evolution depends, at least to some degree, on control of dynamics by rate-independent memory structures. A less obvious reason is that Pearson's "corpuscles" are now described by quantum theory while biological subjects require classical description in so far as they function as observers. This fact remains a fundamental problem for interpreting quantum measurement, and as I mention below, this may still turn out to be essential in distinguishing real life from macroscopic classical simulacra…
There has been a strong tendency for biology to look away from the question of what is the difference between life and non-life. This will not stand in the face of mathematics, physics and information theory.
Sooner or later, I'll post some of this Sheldrake info.
The body of data for 'macroevolution', as you call it, is such that only those blinded by dogma could fail to recognize it.
Hank, you assert. Please demonstrate.
Alternatively, perhaps only someone blinded by dogma could accept it.
I know you are, but what am I.
I trust you know that data doesn't get you theory. That misses critical steps in the SM. Yes there are mounds of data that people can use to support one hypothesis or another that attempts to describe macroevolution. Also, the work of ancient astronauts, the intervention of the Hindu pantheon, the frame by frame reconstruction of the entire Universe by "the Q," etc.
One has to have a thoroughgoing set of tests being done, to have a scientific theory on such a grand scale as this. If you want to call macroevolution a philosophic theory set, that's being much more honest.
Remember, this isn't about fossils in rocks; its's about a biological process of the self-development across species of increasing complexity. Test away, but let's not confuse primary observations with test data.
I also don't see how you could put Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, Hubert P. Yockey or Stephen Wolfram in a bucket of dogma.
You siad: Hank, you assert. Please demonstrate.
I did in the post you are responding to:
If there were no existence, there would be nothing (no one) to be conscious, and nothing to be conscious of.
It is axiomatic, that is, an assertion discovered to be true, which cannot be denied without leading to a contradiction.
Consciousness requires two things: 1. someone to be conscious, and 2. something to be conscious of. If there is someone who is conscious they exist, if they are conscious they are conscious of something and that exists. If nothing exists, there is no consciousness. Existence is primary, logically, metaphysically, ontologically, and conceptually.
The denial of this simple truth has produced untold harm in all of philosophy and most other intellectual pursuits based on such philosophies.
(Someone once argue with me, asking, "couldn't a being just be conscious of themselves?" Of course you know the answer is, not if they do not exist? First they must exist, then they can be conscious.
Ayn Rand argued that a contentless consciousness is a contradiction in terms, which is true. It is also true that a conscious non-existent is a contradiction in terms.)
Hank
It now seems unlikely that extraterrestrial living organisms could have reached the earth either as spores driven by the radiation pressure from another star or as living organisms imbedded in a meteorite. As an alternative to these nineteenth-century mechanisms, Directed Panspermia, the theory that organisms were deliberately transmitted to the earth by intelligent beings on another planet, is considered. It is concluded that it is possible that life reached the earth in this way, but that the scientific evidence is inadequate at the present time to say anything about the probability. Attention is drawn to the kinds of evidence that might throw additional light on the topic
Not exactly a strong endorsement.
As for the others, Wolfram is a crank egomaniac (a brilliant one, but still a crank), Schuetzenberger appears to be drunk on his own words, a classic French vice, and Yockey is most definitely a religious zealot.
Panspermia completely sidesteps the question of the origin of life.
Sure. And don't forget last Thursdayism. Noen of these qualify as naturalistic theories.
The evidence for macroevolution is of course not just fossil evidence, substantial though that body of evidence is. It also includes genetic evidence which grows weekly.
One has to have a thoroughgoing set of tests being done, to have a scientific theory on such a grand scale as this
I'm afraid trying to impose a set of rules on science from the outside has never worked.
If you want to call macroevolution a philosophic theory set, that's being much more honest.
Evoution is a scientific theory; it has really nothing to do with philosophy. The philosophy of science has had essentaialy zero impact on science, and at its best is simply a description of scientific practice.
Agreed. However, the point I was making was that contary to AG's implication, Crick did not propose a panspermic theory as an alternative to macroevolution.
How about 400 words max. what do you say?
Samuel Johnson said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," which is only partly true. Sometimes we write for our own enjoyment.
I would not enjoy writing what you have proposed, and I am certain you would not be willing to pay my going price, so it looks like the project will not get off the ground.
That way, it would save much air time and thread space.
For whom? You talk like an environmentalist. Everything should be done to conserve, they never say conserve for what or for whom.
Also, how many screen names do you use?
I use only one. My wife uses one, my father uses one, .... On one or two occasions, when my wife was logged on FR (a rare occurrence) I made one or two comments to some thread or another she showed me, but mostly those comments were hers.
My wife is a reader. She works full-time but manages to read at least three books a week, usually more. But then, we do not watch TV, and spend our evenings together, usually listening to opera, or other classical music while we read, talk, or write.
By the way, I showed my wife your latest post. She said, i i i i. You should be honored, it's usually only three is, meaning, insipid, innocuous, and inane. In you honor she added impertinent.
Hank
Panspermia is a form of the Intelligent Design argument, from their website:
The case for Cosmic Ancestry is not yet proven, of course. At this point the best reason to notice it is that sustained evolutionary progress and the origin of life on Earth are not satisfactorily accounted for by neo-Darwinism...
You have a prejudice against Wolfram, Yockey and Schützenberger - much like some on the other side of the debate have a prejudice against Darwin, Sagan, Gould.
Personally, I dismiss all such prejudices as irrelevant and look instead to the merits of the arguments.
My nomination for understatement of the week.
If your definiton of panspermia is 'Cosmic Ancestry is a new theory of evolution and the origin of life on Earth. It holds that life on Earth was seeded from space, and that life's evolution to higher forms depends on genetic programs that come from space. ', then you are doing Francis Crick a disservice by associating him with it. Crick, like anyone else with a smattering of biological knowledge, would call a gene a program only in a very restricted sense. The idea that a primitive organism could direct its own further evolution is at best unproven and at worst completely unrealistic. It was, however, a fine Star Trek episode.
You have a prejudice against Wolfram, Yockey and Schützenberger - much like some on the other side of the debate have a prejudice against Darwin, Sagan, Gould.
I've been familiar with Wolfram's work for 10 years; I've used his scientific software for 15. I have an opinion on Wolfram, not a prejudice.
I've read a couple of articles you've posted that were either written by Schützenberger or wrew interviews with him. My opinion was formed from those articles. It is therefore also not a prejudice.
I did a web search on Yockey. I found various links associating him with a journal called Truth
The objectives of the journal Truth, An International, Inter-disciplinary Journal of Christian Thought, have been well described in the Foreword and the Preface. The journal will focus, writes Dr. Bright, "on the positive task of presenting classical Christian theism and "baptizing" all that is best in modern thought while remaining loyal to the definitive divine self-revelation in Jesus Christ."
and Information Theorist Hubert Yockey notes that many scientists are really talking religion and many theologians are talking science.
I made a judgement based on those web pages.
Personally, I dismiss all such prejudices as irrelevant and look instead to the merits of the arguments.
No doubt you believe you do. However, I don't consider the 'guilt by asociation' stunt you pulled re Darwinism and Marxism to be an argument based on the merits.
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