>Perhaps he deals with it elsewhere in the book, but the lack of cumulative
>selection in the above example is preciesly what makes the example
>irrelevant. Either Milton doesn't understand cumulative selection, or he
>is trying to mislead his readers.
>
>Again: _this_ _example_, taken by itself, without the book, demonstrates
>that he either does not understand cumulative selection, or that he is
>deliberately misleading his readers. Perhaps reading the book would help
>establish which of these is the case, but it would not do anything about
>the misleading thrust of this example.
>
First, I agree that to leave out cumulative selection is either deceptive
or sadly mis-informed. At the same time I must also say that Dawkins
use of teleological selection as an illustration of natural selection
is also deceptive. Consider his typing monkey program. The number of
"generations" required to type "methinks it is like a weasel" is
tremendous if there is no selection. It drops by many orders of
magnitude when you run his nifty little program. But the program
represents the best-case scenario (teleogical selection) which in
no way resembles the actual process of blind watchmaker selection.
So, what is established are really the upper and lower bounds on
the problem with natural selection falling somewhere in between.
Since there are literally orders of magnitude between the upper
an lower bounds, pointing to either one and saying "golly gee,
would you look at that" is meaningless.
Since we're on the subject of Dawkins ...
I have often thought that it would be tremendous for leading
scientists to call to account (publicly) atheists (or humanists
or whoever) who manipulate science to promote their world-view.
If they did this with the same vigour with which Creationists are
attacked, so much the better.
I was surprised to find this type of public rebuke in Brian Goodwins
book on complexity:
Dawkin's description of the Darwinian principles of evolution
can be summarized as follows:
1. Organisms are constructed by groups of genes whose goal is
to leave more copies of themselves. The hereditary material
is "selfish".
2. The inherently selfish qualities of the hereditary material are
reflected in the competitive interactions between organisms
that result in survival of fitter variants, generally by the
more successful genes.
3. Organisms are constantly trying to get better (fitter). In a
mathematical/geometrical metaphor, they are always trying to
climb up local peaks in a fitness landscape to do better than
their competitors. However, this landscape keeps changing as
evolution proceeds, so the struggle is endless.
4. Paradoxically, humans can develop altruistic qualities that
contradict their inherently selfish nature by means of educational
and other cultural efforts.
Does this look familiar? Here is a very similar list of principles
from another domain:
1. Humanity is born in sin; we have a base inheritance.
2. Humanity is therefore condemned to a life of conflict and
3. Perpetual toil.
4. By faith and moral effort humanity can be saved from its
fallen, selfish state.
So we see that the Darwinism described by Dawkins, whose exposition
has been very widely (but by no means universally) acclaimed by
biologists, has its metaphorical roots in one of our deepest cultural
myths, the story of the fall and redemption of humanity. Dawkins did
not invent this evolutionary story; he just tells it with great care
and inspiration, in terms that clarify the underlying ideas of Darwinism.
And what we see so clearly is a myth with which we are all utterly
familiar. [...]
-- Brian Goodwin, _How the Leopard Changed its Spots_, Charles
Scribners, 1994.
I'll close with a quote for the philosophers in the crowd:
Philosophy is like a mother who gave birth to and endowed all the
other sciences. Therefore, one should not scorn her in her nakedness
and poverty, but should hope, rather, that part of her Don Quixote
ideal will live on in her children so that they do not sink into
philistinism.
-- Albert Einstein as quoted in _Einstein, a Portrait_,
Pomegranate Artbooks, 1984.
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Brian Harper | "Do not conclude from your apprenticeship |
| that you have nothing left to learn" -- Pascal |
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