Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw From: throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) Newsgroups: net.bio,net.origins,net.philosophy Subject: Re: the Goal of evolution Message-ID: <318@dg_rtp.UUCP> Date: Fri, 25-Apr-86 16:13:35 EDT Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.318 Posted: Fri Apr 25 16:13:35 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 28-Apr-86 04:45:10 EDT References: <487@bcsaic.UUCP> <1002@cybvax0.UUCP> <32@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <204@spar.UUCP> <311@dg_rtp.UUCP> <211@spar.UUCP> Lines: 130 Xref: watmath net.bio:410 net.origins:3042 net.philosophy:5153 >>>>>Evolution is undirected: ie. it has no long-term goals. >>> Survival? Existence? >>[...] An entity >>must have understanding to have goals. Evolution has no understanding, >>and hence is a goal-less process. >> >>(Naturally, this is not to say that evolutionists have no >> understanding or goals...) > > I guess I shouldn't be surprised that so many are quick to assert that > Aristotle's `telos' (roughly `purpose, goal, or aim') has no place in > scientific explanation. After all, physics and chemistry flourished only > after purging all but efficient causes, yes? Goodness gracious, am *I* supposed to be an example of someone who asserts that goals have no place in scientific explanation? You get this from the fact that I assert evolution to be goal-less? Quite an extrapolation... "There exists a case where WT asserts goal-less-ness, therefore WT asserts goals have no place in scientific explanation." Gosh, what would Aristotle say to this sylogism? To say that an anylysis of purpose and goal is inappropriate in science is silly, and I never said it. > Viewed game-theoretically, the evolutionary payoff matrix has two > results -- extinction or survival. I fail to see how to prevent > evolution from becoming tautological unless it is seen as the rationale > behind the first scientifically sanctified `goal'; appropriately, this > goal is existence. Nonsense. To be viewed "game-theoretically", species playing the evolution game must make a "play" and receive a "payoff". You have defined no such plays made by species, and a large part of the idea behind Darwinian evolution is to show how evolutionary change could occur in the absence of such "plays" that species could "make", since there seem, in fact, to be no such plays. The point is that far from requiring a goal to escape tautologicality, evolutionary theory was developed *specifically* to *avoid* goal-ism while still explaining speciation, since goal-based explanations require an ordering and directing mechanism, and such a mechanism was not found. Again, Darwinian evolution was invented precisely because goal-oriented explanations *failed* to explain evolution, because no effective mechanism for the goal-tropic agent was found. > Sure -- we usually view biological teleology behavioristically -- one > does not have to attribute conscious goals to genes, organs, species, or > whatever, to speak of the `purpose' of that which is under analysis. > The purpose of my heart is, after all, to pump blood, is it not? To you, yes. To a cannibal, the purpose of your heart might be to provide courage. To a surgeon, the purpose of your heart might be to display aquired skill. To an internist, the purpose of your heart might be to get a publication of some sort. My point is not to bombard you with disquieting images of unusual purposes for your internal organs. The point is that "purpose" implies some entity with goals. Different entities can see different purposes in the same thing. Objects per se have no purpose. Purpose is attributed to objects by agents which use them. Thus, speaking of the "purpose of evolution" is like speaking of the "purpose of the atlantic ocean". You can justify saying that the purpose of the atlantic ocean is to allow delivery by supertanker of oil to the United States, but that says more about the economy of the US than it does about the AO itself. Similarly, saying that the purpose of evolution is survival says much more about the aspirations of certain members of the human species than it does about the process of evolution. > Why are so many species of female dominated social insects haplodiploid? > Because females of such species shared more genetically with their > sisters than their brothers or even their own offspring. But that's NOT > a cause-and-effect explanation. In fact, it is amazingly close to saying > why such insects `ought to have' such a `goal', conscious or otherwise. > In fact, it IS a teleological explanation. It is *not* teleological. In fact, it is the *opposite* of a teleological argument. Certain insects are not haplodiploid because they are female dominated, they are female-dominated because they are haplodiploid. Or, a clearer case, tigers don't have claws because they hunt, they hunt because they have claws. Now, I will grant that it is easy to confuse evolutionary arguments with similar teleological arguments. But this doesn't make Darwinian evolution teleological, and never has. > [...omitted causation diagrams...] > There is no way to embed anything like feedback loops or evolution > within such interactions as the above. Feedback loops require that a > later event, such as a next-generation copy of (genetic) information, > be identified with an earlier `instantiation' so that we `imagine' that > the cause effects itself. Uh.... what does this have to do with evolution? Natural selection doesn't involve contra-temporal feedback. > As far as I can tell, evolution is the implicit rationale whereby > teleological arguments (`the purpose of my heart is to > pump blood') are supposedly reduced to `proper scientific causal' > explanations (`hearts gradually evolved because pumping blood > led to species more fit to survive'). And what do you want me to conclude? The fact that you apparently can't tell the difference between these two arguments means evolution is teleological? > What's so awful about `purpose', anyway? Goals imply that `information' > exists which can refer to and cause potential future real world states > of existence. Every text I have encountered on modern biological > methodolology and epistemology embraces teleology in some form. > (Re: Mayr's "Growth of Biological Thought" or Rosenberg's "The > Structure of Biological Science"). There seems to be a metaphysical > rebellion among biologists these days. > > I think it is clear that the natural teleology intrinsic in evolution > explains WHY consciousness is intentional and goal-directed (rather > than strictly rational) in the first place. Sigh. There isn't anything awful about purpose. It merely isn't present in Darwinian evolutionary theory. Your assertions about the teleological nature of evolution don't make it so. I haven't read the books you mention, but the ones I have read do *not* use teleological explanations, any more than the insect example you used was teleological. And evolution cannot explain why consciouisness is intentional by virtue of evolution's intrinsic teleology, since teleology is not intrinsic in Darwinian evolution and never was. > -michael -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw