RoR: Forum

Rebirth of Reason

Forum : Article Discussions : Ayn Rand and Evolution

Saturday
July 10, 2004

Ayn Rand and Evolution by Neil Parille

Ayn Rand discusses evolution a few times, but never mentioned Charles Darwin. Two major summaries of Rand’s thought, The Ayn Rand Lexicon and Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, are silent. This essay will review some of Rand’s references to evolution and suggest reasons for Rand’s apparent hesitancy. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (159 messages)

Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 10:20am

Claude, in post 29 you write:

She may also have figured (correctly) that a theory trying to explain the high degree of integration and order amongst living organisms by reference to a silly dance called The Stochastic Shuffle, has got to be nonsense especially when no observations, in the laboratory or in the field, confirm it.

Rand always stressed observation in science. Since neither she nor anyone else has ever actually observed any species evolving and since the fossil record shows mainly stasis, punctuated by the rapid appearance of new species with no ancestors she rightly stood her ground regarding the entire theory by claiming that she had no opinion about it.

Here is this reasoning, distilled to its essentials ...

(1) All theories are nonsense until and unless confirmed by direct evidence in a lab or a field.
(2) Darwinism isn't confirmed by direct evidence in a lab or a field.
===================
Therefore, Darwinism is nonsense.

Claude, do you agree that this is, essentially, what you are saying?

Also, please realize that the "fossil-gaps" argument is inherently faulty.

There are gaps in the fossil record, sure. But imagine what it would take for there to be NO GAPS! What we'd have -- if there were no fossil gaps in the last few billion years of evolution -- is thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of individual, fossilized species uncovered by archeologists who only have 168 hours in a week to work on uncovering them. [!]

And that's absurd. Wouldn't you agree??

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/03, 10:22am)

Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 11:25am

But a difference in degree, if extended far enough, can become a difference in kind.

Depends on how you look at it. Any difference in degree, no matter how small, can be viewed as if it were a difference in kind (for the sake of methodological convenience). Any difference in degree, no matter how large, can still be viewed as simply what you just claimed it was: a very large difference in degree.

The trick is to go the other way. Not every difference in kind can be assumed to be a difference in degree unless you prove the existence of the transitional steps. Darwinism claims that species are ultimately not differences in kind, but can all be seen as differences in degree...all related to some putative common ancestor. They claim the dynamic mechanism of such change is random mutation in the germ cells of the organism (if it were merely the somatic cells, the individual creature might become a mutant, but its children would not inherit the change). Then they claim that each new mutation is selected by circumstances (which they reify into an actual force called “Natural Selection”). They have to prove the existence of the transitional steps to prove their claim. The millions of gradually branching variants leading from one species to the next ought to be there because it’s assumed by the theory at the outset. The fossil record doesn’t show that. To say that the fossil record is “incomplete” is to beg the question in favor of the Darwinist model. The fossil record is not so much incomplete as it simply does not show what Darwinism claims it ought to show. Darwinism is incomplete, not the fossil record. Many apparent fossil “series” have turned out, on closer study, not to be closely related at all, but rather independently existing species. Additionally, many species have no fossil precursors at all. They simply appear in the fossil record.

Needless to say, to claim that if the fossil record actually showed all the transitional forms that Darwinism predicts it wouldn’t be a good thing, because it would keep the paleontologists and systemicists too busy, is silly. They would love it if all those transitions turned up – more employment opportunities for college grads. Unfortunately, they’re just not there. The fossil record really is more or less complete. When the fossil record and molecular data disagree, scientists now stick by the fossil record. It is the molecular data that is wrong.

Take a human egg. It's a gamete, but it is also an individual cell (a cell with 23 single chromosomes, instead of 23 pairs). It's still a cell when it becomes a zygote (when conjoined with a spermatozoon) -- the same cell; but with twice the DNA. It's divisible now -- and that's a difference in kind.

The cell went from being one thing (a gamete) with one set of abilities, to another thing (a zygote) with another set of abilities. There were no “transition states” and no slow, gradualist process, Darwinian or otherwise. New genetic information (via spermatoza) was added from outside the cell. A zygote is different in kind, not degree, from a gamete.

Or, if you are not yet persuaded, think of a zygote. It's a single cell. A cell which divides to become an embryo, a bunch of daughter cells held together -- a clump of cells with no nervous system whatsoever. The cells in the embryo keep dividing until a fetus is formed -- a fetus with a brain stem. This brain stem can afford a new functionality (sensory power) that was previously impossible -- it is a difference in degree that extended far enough to give rise to a difference in kind.

Unless you’re positing something-from-nothing, the information to create brain stems and fetuses is already there, in latent form, in the undivided zygote (nutrients, of course, enter from outside). No new information is brought in from the outside, so it must all be in there already in an unexpressed form. Since the information is already there, the difference between zygote and fetus is one of degree, not kind.

As a slight digression, I will say that the relation between zygote and daughter cells is a true case of “common descent” and “descent with modification.” But the process the zygote/embryo/fetus undergoes is completely non-Darwinian: there is no randomness; things develop or “unfold” in a very methodical, “planned” sort of way. There is also no selection for “adaptive traits.” They unfold toward a pre-specified goal (i.e., a specific organism ready to be born). Aristotle’s notion of “entelechy” fits perfectly.

Regarding science, there has to be observation somewhere along the way. Physics, astrophysics, etc. heavily rely on inference with very little direct observation because much of their data lie beyond the power of the human senses to observe directly. Not so with biology. A new species of man, ape, horse, or fish, is something that can be observed directly. If we don't observe it, it's not the fault of our senses or the fault of the data. It's the fault of our theory.

Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 2:57pm

Claude,

===========
I said:
But a difference in degree, if extended far enough, can become a difference in kind.

You said:
Depends on how you look at it. Any difference in degree, no matter how small, can be viewed as if it were a difference in kind (for the sake of methodological convenience). Any difference in degree, no matter how large, can still be viewed as simply what you just claimed it was: a very large difference in degree.

The trick is to go the other way. Not every difference in kind can be assumed to be a difference in degree unless you prove the existence of the transitional steps.
===========

But you miss my main point (about degrees "turning into" differences in kind):

Once a difference in kind is reached, there's no return (without a loss of something). There's no return to an egg from a zygote. There's no return from a fetus to an embryo. Not without the loss of something there that wasn't before. Take the 3 forms of water -- all H2O. When there's a difference in degree from 1 degree C to -1 degree C -- liquid becomes solid (a difference in degree that "turned into" a difference in kind). Now, you can take the ice and do things -- but not the things that you do with liquid water (or water vapor).

In order to use the H2O as a liquid or a vapor, you change the kind of a thing that you're dealing with by increasing the temperature in degrees -- which removes the lattice-like bonds that had formed in order to "make" ice. Boiling is simply another way to change -- by degrees at first, but eventually in kind -- the kind of thing with which you are dealing.

But it's always H2O, you say -- just like human genomes are always persons! The potential for change was there. The potential for change was there! You didn't add anything beside things that we are supposed to discount. You didn't add anything substantive! For you, ice isn't a different kind of a thing than water is.

I'd like to see you stick by that statement after you got knocked-out by getting hit in the head with a big chunk of falling ice, though.

Ed

Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 3:02pm

We already discussed gaps in the fossil record here:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/NewsDiscussions/1646.shtml#7
and in there I cited academic journals.

The crux of darwinism is "the origin of species."
But what is a species?

Different "species" of bears mingle freely with viable offspring.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursid_hybrid

When yaks are bred with cows, the females are fertile, but the males are not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovid_hybrid

But there is still controversy. Scientists such as Morris Goodman of Wayne State University in Detroit argue that the Bonobo and Common Chimpanzee are so closely related to humans, their genus name should also be classified with the Human genus Homo: Homo paniscus, Homo sylvestris, or Homo arboreus. An alternative philosophy suggests that the term Homo sapiens is actually the misnomer, and that humanity should be reclassified as Pan sapiens. In either case, a name change of the genus is problematic because it complicates the taxonomy of other species closely related to humans, including Australopithecus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo

Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 3:18pm

Claude,

No new information is brought in from the outside, so it must all be in there already in an unexpressed form. Since the information is already there, the difference between zygote and fetus is one of degree, not kind.

As a slight digression, I will say that the relation between zygote and daughter cells is a true case of “common descent” and “descent with modification.” But the process the zygote/embryo/fetus undergoes is completely non-Darwinian: there is no randomness; things develop or “unfold” in a very methodical, “planned” sort of way. There is also no selection for “adaptive traits.” They unfold toward a pre-specified goal (i.e., a specific organism ready to be born). Aristotle’s notion of “entelechy” fits perfectly.

You talk like you are unaware of the research that indicates that most (more than 50% of all) zygotes fail and that most (more than 50% of all) maternal twins have discordant finger-prints.

For you it seems, processes which don't work out like you say they do (at least most of the time) -- are still processes that work out like you say they do. Unless, that is, in light of contrary evidence, you reconsider your position. [?]

Ed

Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 5:07pm

Once a difference in kind is reached, there's no return (without a loss of something).

But also without gain of something else, especially given your own example re water.

There's no return to an egg from a zygote.

True.

There's no return from a fetus to an embryo.

Also true. All of this proves that physical processes, whether of degrees or of kinds, are usually irreversible without a new physical input. It does nothing to address the logical or philosophical issue involved that I assumed was at issue here. Once water has changed to ice, it will remain ice until there's a new physical input: a change in temperature. We may yet discover the magic input that will reverse a zygote back into separate egg and sperm. That wouldn't change the argument that zygote and gamete are things different in kind, and that there are no transitional states between the first and the second.

The issue of "transition states" (or lack thereof), and the issue of "reversibility", are completely separate. One has nothing to do with the other.

Take the 3 forms of water -- all H2O. When there's a difference in degree from 1 degree C to -1 degree C -- liquid becomes solid (a difference in degree that "turned into" a difference in kind). Now, you can take the ice and do things -- but not the things that you do with liquid water (or water vapor).

And vice versa. Not sure what your point is.

In order to use the H2O as a liquid or a vapor, you change the kind of a thing that you're dealing with by increasing the temperature in degrees -- which removes the lattice-like bonds that had formed in order to "make" ice. Boiling is simply another way to change -- by degrees at first, but eventually in kind -- the kind of thing with which you are dealing.

(i) Something new has been added to the water from the outside: either molecules moving very fast (heat), or molecules moving very slowly (cold). In the case of boiling, atmosphere pressure is an important input, too. Water doesn't spontaneously develop into ice or steam without those inputs from outside of itself. It's completely different from "entelechy" or the unfolding that we observe in an embryo as it becomes a fetus. (ii) Once those inputs are there, future behavior of the ice or the steam is completely deducible from the physical nature of H2O in a completely deterministic way. There's no way to deduce the development of a fetus by inspecting a zygote. Similarly, in the field of protein synthesis, there's no way to deduce the way a protein will fold into its typical 3D configuration just based on the amino acid sequence (despite the fact that we know that the latter is the major determinant of the former).

But it's always H2O, you say -- just like human genomes are always persons!

I never wrote that "human genomes are always persons." I wrote that the zygote has all the information in it already, without outside inputs, to become a human being. The gamete does not. The relation between gamete:zygote is not the same as zygote:fetus.

If you're looking for transitional states of consciousness, you're better off comparing the state we know as "wakeful self-consciousness" to a state like "dreaming", which is also a state of consciousness -- a state very similar in many respects to wakefulness except that it lacks the faculty of "will."

No problem with the notion that different degrees along a continuum have different qualitative aspects. Nevertheless, it was reached via incremental steps. Color is a continuum; yet yellow, orange, red, magenta, etc., are all very different qualitatively. Still, they are reached by incremental changes in frequency (or wavelength). The issue for consciousness -- and things like the fossil record -- as far as Darwinism is concerned, is whether or not you actually have evidence of those minute transitions that the theory predicts.

You talk like you are unaware of the research that indicates that most (more than 50% of all) zygotes fail and that most (more than 50% of all) maternal twins have discordant finger-prints.

Charmed. All right, "in 100% of the 50% of the zygotes that do NOT fail, no new information entered the zygote from outside the zygote to create a fetus. It was all there to begin with when sperm met egg." I, of course, did not say, nor did I imply, that 100% of zygotes will succeed.

For you it seems, processes which don't work out like you say they do (at least most of the time) -- are still processes that work out like you say they do.

Haven't the foggiest idea where you got that notion from. I neither said it nor implied it.

Unless, that is, in light of contrary evidence, you reconsider your position. [?]

And how is the issue of discordant finger prints amongst maternal twins relevant to the issue of whether or not the zygote and fetus are different in degree or in kind? And how does that count as "contrary evidence"? It is, in fact, perfectly consistent with it.

Friday, January 4, 2008 - 9:53am

Claude,

The reason discordant fingerprints matter is because you were presuming genetic information to be complete -- but maternal twins have the same DNA (same genotype) and are, most of the time, different (different phenotype). That's incompleteness.

Here is a snipped quote of yours to show that you were saying that genetic information is complete (as if a zygote was some kind of an "unborn baby" or something) ...

No new information is brought in from the outside, ...

... there is no randomness; things develop or “unfold” in a very methodical, “planned” sort of way. There is also no selection for “adaptive traits.” They unfold toward a pre-specified goal (i.e., a specific organism ready to be born). Aristotle’s notion of “entelechy” fits perfectly.

Friday, January 4, 2008 - 9:29pm

The reason discordant fingerprints matter is because you were presuming genetic information to be complete -- but maternal twins have the same DNA (same genotype) and are, most of the time, different (different phenotype). That's incompleteness.

Identical twins are from the same zygote and have identical genotypes. The reason identical twins differ in phenotype is for the same reason that two identical ball bearings differ somewhat in outward appearance: physical environment. Nevertheless, "environmental influence" is not the same as "information input." The environment did not input information into the zygote anymore than it input information into the two ball bearings.

Depending on phenotypic plasticity, there may be many things in an organism's phenotype that are not determined by genotype. That doesn't change anything I posted earlier. No information was added from outside.

"Influence" is not the same as "information."

Here is a snipped quote of yours to show that you were saying that genetic information is complete (as if a zygote was some kind of an "unborn baby" or something) ...

No new information is brought in from the outside, ...

So far, so good. Physical forces surrounding the fetus don't add information to development. As far as information is concerned, the fetus is self-contained.

... there is no randomness;

In the Darwinian sense, that's true. There are no random mutations waiting to be selected, or dying off if they are not selected.

things develop or “unfold” in a very methodical, “planned” sort of way.

True. Given the genotype, you can predict the sort of phenotype the organism will have, even if not down to the last detail. Development is completely non-Darwinian.

There is also no selection for “adaptive traits.”

Correct.

They unfold toward a pre-specified goal (i.e., a specific organism ready to be born). Aristotle’s notion of “entelechy” fits perfectly.

Correct. That's the reason that horses give birth to horses, and flies give birth to flies. The outcome was "pre-specified" and no environmental influence -- change of diet, for example -- will alter a developing fly to become a horse, or a developing horse to become a fly.

The difference between a zygote and an unborn baby is one of degree, not kind. Given the genotype of the zygote -- its informational content -- you can predict almost everything about the unborn baby's phenotype (with the exception of some details, like finger prints).

Don't see how this changes anything I've posted.

Friday, January 4, 2008 - 10:17pm

Claude, here's my main problem with what you are saying ...

They unfold toward a pre-specified goal (i.e., a specific organism ready to be born).
But that's mostly untrue. Leaving aside the fact that most (genome-containing) zygotes don't unfold toward their "pre-specified goal" of an organism ready to be born; let's focus on the minority of them that do unfold to a viable organism -- and check for the specifics that you guarantee will be there (except for things, like fingerprints, which you ask us to ignore).

You say (maternal) nutrition doesn't matter genetically -- but it does. An example is folic acid, which methylates DNA strands, for one thing. If a pregnant woman doesn't get adequate folic acid, then her offspring wouldn't get adequate neuronal development -- instead, they'd have neural tube defects (because the function of their DNA gets screwed up).

In sum then, the term "information" is not some floating abstraction that you can throw around in order to try and make a point. The information contained in DNA is in a constant interaction/interplay with it's environment (e.g., folic acid example). It cannot be relied on in the manner that you rely on it when you attempt to make your point.

And your example of horses vs. flies is really a straw-man that's easily knocked-down; but it doesn't invalidate the point that I've just proved -- i.e., that totally specified genomes don't lead to totally pre-specified organisms (or "pre-specified goals" -- as you claimed true).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/04, 10:22pm)

Saturday, January 5, 2008 - 9:45pm

But that's mostly untrue. Leaving aside the fact that most (genome-containing) zygotes don't unfold toward their "pre-specified goal" of an organism ready to be born; let's focus on the minority of them that do unfold to a viable organism -- and check for the specifics that you guarantee will be there (except for things, like fingerprints, which you ask us to ignore).

You say (maternal) nutrition doesn't matter genetically -- but it does. An example is folic acid, which methylates DNA strands, for one thing. If a pregnant woman doesn't get adequate folic acid, then her offspring wouldn't get adequate neuronal development -- instead, they'd have neural tube defects (because the function of their DNA gets screwed up).

Proper nutrition helps to ensure that the genetic information will work correctly. It adds no new information.

In sum then, the term "information" is not some floating abstraction that you can throw around in order to try and make a point.

No it isn't a "floating abstraction"; you just don't understand how the term "information" is used here.

Information is a message that is segregated, linear, and digital. Errors in the message are overcome through various kinds of redundancy in the code used to represent the message. Information is measurable: in binary digits (bits) and groups of binary digits (bytes). Watson and Crick discovered that there is a genetic message, recorded in the digital sequence of nucleotides in DNA, which controls the formation of protein and all biological processes. The message in the genetic information system is segregated, linear, and digital, and can be measured in bits and bytes. There is, in fact, complete isomorphism between computer programs and the genetic message recorded in DNA. The genetic information system is essentially a digital data recording and processing system.

Good nutrition supports that information processing system in the embryo in the same sort of way as a mildly cool room temperature supports a computer. However, while an extremely hot room would affect the computer's performance negatively, it changes nothing in its programming. It doesn't "rewrite" anything, though it can damage the information. To rewrite the program, you need a programmer. No amount of "interaction" between a computer and its environment will rewrite PERL into C++. No amount will rewrite COBOL into FORTRAN. No amount of interactivity between DNA and its environment will rewrite the genetic program of a human embryo so that a horse develops instead of a human. When horse sperm meets horse egg, the genetic program pre-species "baby horse". If you interfere with that, you might kill the horse, but you haven't SPECIFIED any other other organism to be born.

Extreme temperatures prevent computers from working properly; poor nutrition prevents genetic programs from working properly. In neither case did the problem have to do with information.

The information contained in DNA is in a constant interaction/interplay with it's environment (e.g., folic acid example). It cannot be relied on in the manner that you rely on it when you attempt to make your point.

Makes no difference to the point at issue. The sequence of bases that determines the amino acids and thus all biological processes is set at the zygote stage. No amount of folic acid, or "ingredient X"; no amount interaction with the physical environment changes that information.

And your example of horses vs. flies is really a straw-man that's easily knocked-down

Then you should have done so, instead of merely claiming that it could be done. Flies are born from flies because fly genetics pre-specify that this shall be so. Same for all other organisms.

Over 70 years of irradiating fruit flies proves this. Irrespective of mutations to the flies' genomes, nothing but fruit flies has ever resulted.

The only thing that can change genomic information is informational changes within the genome itself. The changes can be (i) the rearrangement of information already there; (ii) the activation/inactivation of information that is already there; (iii) a random error in the replication of base sequences ("point mutation"). The last error is truly random since it is an error in the proofreading mechanism that ensures correct replication. It is therefore the only truly Darwinian process of genetic change, because Darwinism insists on randomness as the cause of variation. Something that is merely mysterious or not understood, such as genetic recombination, translation, etc., is non-Darwinian: it's a highly regulated process; point mutations are not.

; but it doesn't invalidate the point that I've just proved -- i.e., that totally specified genomes don't lead to totally pre-specified organisms (or "pre-specified goals" -- as you claimed true).

You might as well say that totally specified computer programs don't lead to totally pre-specified output (i.e., the programmers' goal in writing the program to begin with) because the computer must also be plugged in and the power must be on. All true. All irrelevant as far as information is concerned. Power adds no information to the program, which was self-contained to begin with. Nutrition adds no information to the genome, which is also self-contained (as far as information is concerned).

Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 7:55am

A few comments in relation with evolution:

The example that the conditions inherent to an atom of hydrogen allows it to become part of a star (besides multifarious other physical and chemical possibilities and combinations) suffices to confirm that the evolution towards the capacity to think is an automatic development of living matter, just as life itself is an automatic condition of matter itself, given the right conditions for the process, i.,e. the adequate biosphere made up by the existence of water, as well as approximately correct temperatures, climate and atmosphere, all of these sufficiently resilient to changes imposed by living matter to accommodate these pre-conditions to life's requirements themselves, etc. No "intelligent design" at all is required for it. Nature, i.e. existing existence, suffices. Hence, the condition to think is inherent in living matter just as becoming part of a sun is inherent to the possibilities of every hydrogen atom.

Once life, as one of the possibilities available to inert matter and given the approximately right conditions, has started, i.e. evolved from inert matter, evolution of life itself takes its course. Thus, a certain genetical combination produces Mendel's peas, another certain genetical combination produces, in due course, fruit flies, a further genetical combination later on makes a tiger and, still much later, a given genetical combination forms a human being. It's an ascending ladder from rudimentary to increasing complexity.

All these genetical combinations (these are just different levels of the diverse living materials existing on this planet and, hopefully, also elsewhere in the universe) include, in accordance with the complexity level reached by each combination, certain additional characteristics which are intrinsic (or lacking) to the simplicity or complexity of the given genetical combination. The possibilities lacking or existing due to the rudimentariness or complexity are many and varied and, thus, an apple cannot develop a brain, a fruit fly has a small sensory spot that is the very, very, very undeveloped beginning of a brain (though we may even be reluctant to call it that), and a tiger's genetical combination (genetic code) makes up all that is part of a tiger, including a larger brain. It all relates to atoms making up molecules that combine to form more and more multifarious strings of DNA. The DNA itself is made up of four very simple molecules, termed A, T, C and G, with an additional one, U - a variant of T, used as a messenger. Details of this can be read in every book on genetics or, else, the marvellous universal encyclopedia called Wikipedia.

Now when we come to speak of the capacity to think we must specifically take into account a factor that becomes only noticeable by the time larger brains evolved during the course of evolution, remembering that size as such in itself is not sufficient to access the capacity of thinking. Here again, however all that's necessary is what is inherent in living matter. Again, no "intelligent design" is required. The "design" itself is an automatic result of the conditions inherent in the atoms making up the molecules involved. This first amazed the scientists who discovered it, who didn't expect things to be that simple, but that's how life works.

While at the level of an apple only material mass comes into account, at the level of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), the "brain spot" only allows an instinctive behavior of the mass making up the body of the little flyer, in a way closely resembling an amoeba's instinctive response in relation with light, food, poison, etc. By the time we reach the level of the tiger the brain-mass has grown to a considerable proportion in relation with the mass of the rest of the tiger's body. This brain-mass size allows the additional factor, mentioned before, to make itself noticeable by exerting its influence on the body of the tiger. In a way it's like sufficient atoms of hydrogen having accumulated on a given spot to reach the first level of what will trigger the beginning of a sun as soon as more atoms of hydrogen join the crowd. The additional factor does not exist at the level of an apple, is totally unnoticeable at the amoeba or the fruit fly level, but shows its effect on the tiger, where we call it consciousness, i.e. the knowing recognition of the environment, though it is still subject to the instinct, an automatic reply to rules that nature establishes automatically through the workings of the laws of physics and chemistry at the lower levels of life, life itself being, as mentioned earlier and just so as to remember it, one of the possibilities that matter can adopt under certain environmental conditions.

Now while behaviorism and its "newer" expression, neuroscience, explains unripely the operations of instinct, they fail miserably when they want to extend their considerations to the thinking level of a human brain, for to do so they have to leave unconsidered the factor I've mentioned a few paragraphs earlier, a factor that becomes preponderant by the time the brain-mass has reached a certain level in relation with the body-mass of the living being itself. I explained this factor-relation in my book "Ayn Rand, I and the Universe", which appeared on the pages of "Rebirth of Reason".

The factor mentioned involves the relation of the absolute and the relative weight of the brain in connection with the body where it is located. There is a point in the course of evolution where a certain absolute brain weight, specifically related to the human being (approx. 1.5 kilos) controls a certain proportion of bodily mass (the relative weight factor, with 1 gram of brain "controlling" approx. 50 grams of body weight). While the absolute side of this proportion can be much larger than the one here mentioned (elephants have brains weighing some 6 Kilos), the relative side of the proportion can also be much better than the one mentioned (birds, for example, can provide a much better relative relation). It is, however, not the separate parts of the relation that "do the trick" but only the mixed combination of both factors that allow the appearance of a very particular faculty - the faculty of reason, i.e. the capacity to organize the material provided by the senses. Suddenly the sun ignites, so to speak.

It is this relation that automatically brings up the capacity to think (which does not necessarily connect to "intelligence", as mankind's many foibles prove), as long as there is no physical or some internal impairment - such as madness, etc. - involved. Here, again, no "designer" (whether "intelligent" or of any other kind) is required.

Human beings evolved from Dryophitecus, a tree inhabiting creature that lived some 10 million years ago, which stands at the origin of separate branches, as Darwin correctly deduced, of apes and, separately, the human species. Hence, man did not evolve from the apes but apes and human beings had, long, long time ago, a mutual origin situated at the basis of the two separate branches. Through evolution, the human species developed the particular faculty called reason, which is a direct outcome of the absolute-relative relation of brain-mass to body-mass.

Now reason involves a multifarious activity (see, for example, Ayn Rand's or my above mentioned writings) which, due to its overawing complexity, incorporates the capacity of decision taking that includes the particular power of negation, the capacity to say "No". This is, in itself, the direct operating tool and symbol of free will (the capacity "to think of not to think", as Rand herself so correctly stated and her insistence of the importance of the negation). This "to think or not to think" is the direct denial to behaviorism or "modern" neuroscience, thus the direct negation of determinism when it comes to human beings that exert the faculty of reason, a faculty that is volitional, and the basis that lies behind Rand's "missing link" when it comes to categorize those who didn't reach the level of reason or, having reached it, took either the decision to make no use of it or where obliged to use it only sparingly due to authoritarian imposition (religions and further dictatorships). I went deeply into this in my above mentioned writing (specifically in the prologue and the sub-chapter "Murderers are not Humans").

In relation to evolution itself and though it has not ceased to act (see http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695235096,00.html) evolution has passed on its main purpose to us human beings.

Rand herself, being THE philosopher - i.e. the scientist at the basis of all scientists - didn't need to enter the area of evolution, a task that specifically corresponds to evolutionary scientists, as she correctly stated.

(Corrected as per Ed Thompson's request - Post 112 of "Free Will and Volition" forum).

(Edited by Manfred F. Schieder on 1/06, 4:03pm)

Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 12:32pm

Claude Shanon writes:

Over 70 years of irradiating fruit flies proves this. Irrespective of mutations to the flies' genomes, nothing but fruit flies has ever resulted.

I respond:

No selection was made to produce anything but fruitflies. If a set a variants were selected out and the others culled and this process were repeated for sufficient number of generations a critter that could not interbreed with a standard fruit fly would have been created.

Dog breeders have created mutts that cannot interbreed. For example a Taco Belle dog and a Great Dane. This was done by lo-tech means utilizing natural variation, but selection produced the different breeds.

Bob Kolker

Sunday, January 6, 2008 - 8:19pm

Over 70 years of irradiating fruit flies proves this. Irrespective of mutations to the flies' genomes, nothing but fruit flies has ever resulted.

I respond:

No selection was made to produce anything but fruitflies.

Made by whom? By "natural selection"? Natural selection operates as much in the laboratory as it does in the wild. You can't see it, taste it, touch it, or hear it. You can't measure it, except indirectly: the so-called SV or selection value, which is the fraction of the mutant population that survives over the non-mutant population. You can't create a "natural-selection-free zone", except by doing the selecting yourself. Therein lies the rub, to wit:

If a set a variants were selected out and the others culled and this process were repeated for sufficient number of generations a critter that could not interbreed with a standard fruit fly would have been created.

Dog breeders have created mutts that cannot interbreed. For example a Taco Belle dog and a Great Dane. This was done by lo-tech means utilizing natural variation, but selection produced the different breeds.

Indeed, and that's an example often used to illustrate the logical difficulties in defining "species" as an "interbreeding population." Dogs and wolves are usually considered to be separate species, yet they can mate and produce offspring. However, a Great Dane and a Taco Bell can be interbred artificially. Their problems are really, ah, "mechanical" rather than genetic incongruence. They are not so much two different species as two different varieties of the same species.

But your point -- I suspect an unwitting one -- is well taken: as long as there is a purposive agent around to do the selecting -- to look at the mutation in the organism and say "I like THAT. I'm going to conserve it because I have an end result in mind" -- then you can create varieties or "subspecies". There's no evidence, however, that even with a purposive agent stage-managing everything, that one can get a genuinely new species. What inevitably happens is that at some point, the organism reverts back to the original stock, or the organism is born sterile.

Darwin's big error was his big unwarranted assumption that nature -- as distinct from purposive intelligent agents such as breeders -- can weed out "desirable" traits from "undesirable" traits, given enough time. I've already posted on this: (i) there is not enough time; sorry, but 12 billion years is only 10^17 seconds, and that's not enough time to conduct a blind search through probability spaces that are on the order of 10^2,000 (depending on what it is we're looking at and trying to calculate. See earlier posts in the thread); (ii) "natural selection", as some sort of ratchet mechanism that selects "desirable" traits and thus pushes the organism up an "adapative slope" until it reaches an "adaptive peak", waiting for the next mutation and next selection, is an empty tautology unless you have some other criterion or criteria of "desirable" (or "fit", as it's usually called). If you just leave it as "Natural selection selected trait X because it was fit; trait X is fit because it was selected by natural selection" then it's empty and circular. A purposive agent such as a breeder can break that vicious logical circle. He says "Trait X is defined by me as 'desirable' because I have an end view or goal in mind (i.e., an organism with this or that trait); therefore, I choose to select it and conserve it." But Darwinism disallows pointing toward any goal on the part of natural selection, so it simply tries to forget about the tautology at the root of its theory.

As for the previous post by Schieder, it strikes me as an unsavory stew of dialectical materialism with a dash of panpsychicism and epiphenomenalism. The way atoms behave in stars is completely deducible from their behavior outside of stars. Thoroughly deterministic. Nothing about mind is deducible from the properties of matter. Consciousness is not "inherent" in the properties of matter. If it were so, then (a) matter would ultimately determine the behavior of mind (just as the properties of matter ultimately determine the behavior of stars), making "mind" a mere end-result or epiphenomenon of matter (something Rand would object to); (b) it would expunge the notion of free will (since matter ultimately can be described and its behavior both predicted and retrodicted by thermodynamics); and (c) experiments would be able to uncover some of this "inherent" ability of matter -- even in a single atom -- if, in fact, it's an actual property of atoms. Do we see evidence of this? No.

I'm afraid there's very little choice here but to accept dualism: there's consciousness on one side, and there's material nature on the other side. The latter did not "come first" or create the former. "Existence exists" is not a clarion call for "let's all be materialists."

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 9:07am

Claude, our issues aren't joined.

My point is that differences in degree can become differences in kind in a given context.

Your point is that things have contained-information -- and if you don't add or subtract information; then you don't get a change in kind.

A quick example of the truth of my point (even when contrasted against your own) would be of a traveler stranded on a small, floating iceberg. As the iceberg floats south, it melts and the traveler drowns. His life or death had hinged on the form (kind) of H2O that the iceberg took. You say that no new information was added to the iceberg as it melted -- so that we can think of that melted iceberg as being different only in degree from the frozen one which had been supporting his life.

But tell that to the dead man.

Would you say that his death is only a death in degree -- or is it a difference in kind for him?

The moral of the story is that -- when the context involves life -- differences in degree can become differences in kind (and people are either "living-proof" or "dying-proof" of that maxim; as my example demonstrates).

And the 2nd moral of this story would be as follows ...
If your life hinges on a proper identification of the different kinds of things in the world, then you had better acknowledge them. If your iceberg is going down, then don't expect to be saved by a floating abstraction. [!]

;-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/07, 9:10am)

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 9:32am

Manfred,

While I learned a good deal from your post 70, I failed to glean a relevant philosophical argument -- i.e., one regarding evolution's truth-value -- from it.

With your example of the hydrogen atom and star-formation, you show that the nature of all action stems from the nature of the entities acting. Then you show that intelligent design isn't required for that. But then you jump from this universal "law of identity applied to actions" to the human capacity to think, and you just say that thinking's included in man's identity.

And, while I agree with the truth of that, in the context of the argument of evolution, it's considered -- philosophically -- only trivially true. In other words, the fact that man's nature includes thought, doesn't bear positively or negatively on whether or not evolution ought to be accepted as true.

Also, your theory on relative brain-to-body size seems a little premature at this point, because -- if I'm not mistaken -- there are (bottle-nose?) dolphins which have at least as large of a brain-to-body ratio as human beings do.

However, I like how you explained that volition is essentially the power of negation (to say "No" or to NOT think about something which had become present to the mind). I think that that's a wise way to view it. Unlike humans, animals don't seem to have this mental capacity to "just say no" to things perceived.

Ed

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 9:47am

Claude,

By what method do you propose that species change over time, or that new species appear?

Do you have any answer whatsoever, or is it simply "blank out" time?

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 10:10am

My point is that differences in degree can become differences in kind in a given context.

I addressed that already. It's a trivial point because any difference in degree, regardless of how small, can always be be thought of as a difference in kind if only for the sake of methodological convenience. No matter how small an increment you make on a color wheel, e.g., you can look at the two colors as merely being differences in degree of wavelength or different perceptible hues. If the former, it's a difference in degree; if the latter, it's a difference in kind. All true, all granted, all trivial. Has nothing to do with gamete-zygote problem.

Your point is that things have contained-information -- and if you don't add or subtract information; then you don't get a change in kind.

Some things contain information. Our discussion, I thought, was constrained to the example of a zygote. I will add this: "information" is a fundamental dimension, just like distance, time, and angle. You can't create information from non-information through incremental steps.

A quick example of the truth of my point (even when contrasted against your own) would be of a traveler stranded on a small, floating iceberg. As the iceberg floats south, it melts and the traveler drowns. His life or death had hinged on the form (kind) of H2O that the iceberg took. You say that no new information was added to the iceberg as it melted -- so that we can think of that melted iceberg as being different only in degree from the frozen one which had been supporting his life.

But tell that to the dead man.

Would you say that his death is only a death in degree -- or is it a difference in kind for him?

Your tag question at the end is a non-sequitor. You've merely given an example of a difference in degree that makes a qualitative difference in a situation. No one denies this. No one denies that differences in degree can have consequences. This in no way proves that a difference in degree has turned into a difference in kind. As a matter of fact, the man's doom could be predicted from the physical properties of H2O, both in its liquid state and in its solid state. Both differences in degree and differences in kind can lead to serious consequences; perhaps, sometimes, the same consequences. Two different routes to the same goal. Nothing in logic forbids this. There has been no difference in kind in your example. Merely changes in degree leading to harmful consequences.

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 10:21am

Claude,

By what method do you propose that species change over time, or that new species appear?

Do you have any answer whatsoever, or is it simply "blank out" time?

Not sure what you mean by "blank out" time. It's not the business of a student of nature (not to mention professional scientists) to make arbitrary assumptions about a problem just to fulfill someone's equally arbitrary demand for "some sort of explanation -- anything!" Rand used the phrase "blank out" to mean "evasion"; it has nothing to do with an honest admission of "Socratic Ignorance". The fact is, no one has a clue how life originated or how it speciated.

A defense lawyer is not required to prove who actually committed the crime. All he has to do is prove that there are logical flaws in the prosecution's argument serious enough to warrant doubt in the minds of the jurors.

At this point, it's more important to wean people off the facile explanations proffered by Darwinism for just about everything: life, species, society, language, war, peace, art, etc.

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 11:05am

Claude,

Both differences in degree and differences in kind can lead to serious consequences; perhaps, sometimes, the same consequences. Two different routes to the same goal. Nothing in logic forbids this. There has been no difference in kind in your example. Merely changes in degree leading to harmful consequences.

There seems to be equivocation here regarding what a "kind" is (kinds of things vs. Natural Kinds). It may be that the both of us are guilty, I don't know -- but it's definitely time to define 2 terms ...

a Natural Kind:
Something with a naturally-unique capacity for change; e.g., H2O (everywhere and all the time)

a kind:
Something being one way (rather than another); e.g., H2O as ice (solid), rather than as water (liquid)

Now the "kind" of H2O a man floats on is imperative; and that kind can change (as it did in my example of the floating iceberg). However, with life and over several generations, there is a way to get a different "capacity for change" out of something (effectively "making" a different "Natural Kind").

In fact, animal breeders are successful having have done exactly that.

Ed

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 1:37pm

So you have absolutely NO idea with all we know in science, as to what Possibly could be the methodology? NONE whatsoever? If you had some alternative explanation or hypothesis I would like to hear it. This is inquiry and not a court room, so yes - do you have a better idea? Did they pop out of thin air? Was it magic? Spontaneous generation? God?