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Philosophers Rip Darwin
Fodor, Nagel, and Plantinga don’t need to turn themselves into biochemists, but some awareness of the issues and advances would not be entirely misplaced.
By Michael Ruse, Chronicle Review, March 7, 2010
Last year was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The anniversary was marked by conferences the world over. I will not tell you how many I attended; ecologically sensitive readers of The Chronicle might start whining about carbon footprints and that sort of thing. Let me just say that I found myself going no fewer than three times through the Quad City International Airport, in Moline, Ill. Moline!
I mention this as background to the publication of a new book by Jerry A. Fodor, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona. The title of the book, What Darwin Got Wrong (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), tells you their opinion of the old English naturalist and of his theory of evolution through natural selection. If Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini were an isolated case, one could dismiss their book with a grimace (if you were a biologist), or welcome them with a cheer (if you were a creationist). But in the philosophical community, there is an increasingly vocal cadre of eminent philosophers harboring doubts about Darwin. To understand their critique, we must first put the clock back a year, to the beginning of the celebrations.
The anniversary conferences usually had a smattering of professional Darwin types like me—I am a historian and philosopher of science specializing in evolutionary theory—but the bulk of the presenters and attendees were evolutionary biologists. For two reasons, the atmosphere was universally positive. First, scientists deeply respect Darwin and his achievements. These people are evolutionists—they take the past seriously. Second, there was not a person at these conferences who was not excited about the science today. Evolutionary biology is on a roll, and that was a cause for celebration—and frenetic presentations that jammed in as much new science as possible. Moreover, to a person, the scientists saw that the first point led smoothly into the second. Everyone appreciates the tools of Darwinism, above all the mechanism of natural selection. But great science doesn’t stand still. It picks up and carries ideas and findings way beyond the wildest hopes of its founders. Evolutionary biology today is deeply Darwinian, but it has outpaced the Origin in ways that its author could never have imagined. To use a hackneyed phrase, Darwin gave biology a paradigm, and biologists have been expanding it ever since.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Opinion, Recent Posts, Science on March 8, 2010 - כ"ב אדר תש"ע at 3:15 pm
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Misunderstanding Darwin
Natural selection’s secular critics get it wrong
What Darwin Got Wrong
Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26 (cloth)
Ned Block and Philip Kitcher
Boston Review, March/April 2010
In On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, Charles Darwin made two remarkable scientific contributions. First, he presented an overwhelming case for the relatedness of all living things. Biological diversity, he argued, results from a process of “transmutation” of species—via “descent with modification.” Second, he recognized that the basic mechanism of such change is natural selection: a combination of variations in traits and a selective retention of the variations that contribute to reproductive success.
Descent with modification was accepted quickly. As early as 1872, Thomas Henry Huxley described Darwin as having achieved a revolution comparable to that brought about by Newton’s Principia. Natural selection, by contrast, remained controversial until the 1930s, when Darwin’s ideas were integrated with the genetics of Gregor Mendel and Thomas Hunt Morgan, creating the “Modern Synthesis.” More than 70 years later, thanks to a proliferation of evolutionary explanations and significant new theoretical contributions, the fundamentals of evolutionary biology are reasonably well settled.
To be sure, religiously inspired opposition to evolution persists. Although religious opponents seem to have accepted—at least officially—the relatedness of organisms, proponents of “intelligent design” continue to insist that natural selection is unable to explain some prominent instances of evolutionary change. Their skepticism is based on alleged examples of “irreducible complexity”—an intricate interdependence in the features of organisms that supposedly cannot be explained by Darwinian mechanisms of step-by-step improvement.
Other critics—more sophisticated and scientifically informed—wonder whether natural selection explains as much about evolution as biologists commonly assert. They urge, for example, that causes other than natural selection (such as genetic drift) are important in explaining evolution. Or they argue—overemphasizing something all evolutionary biologists agree with—that natural selection operates against a background of constraints, perhaps stemming from features of genomes. Darwin himself was aware of these complexities about the role of natural selection, and throughout the Origin laments his own ignorance about the extent of that role and what alternative causes of evolutionary change there are. His awareness of how much he did not know led him to cautious formulations: for example, he writes, “Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.”
As in other areas of science, then, lively debate continues, and an interest in deeper and more comprehensive understanding moves the field forward. But even as some scientists suggest that natural selection may be limited in ways Darwin could not envisage, they accept his basic insights and work to improve our biological understanding within the framework he set forth.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on March 3, 2010 - י"ז אדר תש"ע at 8:27 am
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“What Darwin Got Wrong”: Taking down the father of evolution
A new book dares to attack the theory of evolution by using — surprise! — science
By Thomas Rogers
Salon.com, Feb. 23, 2010 |
At this point, the idea of somebody publishing an attack on Charles Darwin isn’t exactly surprising. The 19th-century naturalist, and the man behind the theory of evolution, has never been a particularly popular figure among conservative Christians, and, these days, the anti-Darwin movement is a cottage industry. In the last year, which marked the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of “The Origin of the Species,” the man was even subjected to the peculiar indignity of an assault by former “Growing Pains” star Kirk Cameron.
But unlike most of these attacks, “What Darwin Got Wrong,” a new book by Jerry Fodor, a professor of philosophy and cognitive sciences at Rutgers University, and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona, comes not from the religious right, but from two atheist academics with — surprise — a nuanced argument about the shortcomings of Darwin’s theories. Their book details (in very technical language) how recent discoveries in genetics have thrown into question many of our perceived truths about natural selection, and why these have the potential to undermine much of what we know about evolution and biology.
Salon spoke to Fodor over the phone from his home, about the problems with Darwin’s ideas, bloggers’ “obscene” comments on his work, and why Darwinism might be as unreliable as creationism. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on February 24, 2010 - י' אדר תש"ע at 3:11 pm
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Scientists irate after top education official questions evolution
By Or Kashti and Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz Correspondent, February 21, 2010
The Education Ministry’s chief scientist sparked a furor among environmental activists and scholars Saturday with remarks questioning the reliability of evolution and global warming theory. The comments from Dr. Gavriel Avital, the latest in a series of written and oral statements casting doubts on the fundamental tenets of modern science, led several environmentalists to call for his dismissal.
“If textbooks state explicitly that human beings’ origins are to be found with monkeys, I would want students to pursue and grapple with other opinions. There are many people who don’t believe the evolutionary account is correct,” Avital said yesterday.
“There are those for whom evolution is a religion and are unwilling to hear about anything else. Part of my responsibility, in light of my position with the Education Ministry, is to examine textbooks and curricula,” he said. “If they keep writing in textbooks that the Earth is growing warmer because of carbon dioxide emissions, I’ll insist that isn’t the case.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Climate Change, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Middle East, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts on February 22, 2010 - ח' אדר תש"ע at 2:37 pm
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Evolution’s Bad Girl
Ardi shakes up the fossil record
Standing tallIn this artist’s illustration, Ardi stands amid Ardipithecus ramidus comrades in once-forested East Africa.Illustration: Jay Matternes © 2009
She’s the ultimate evolutionary party crasher. Dubbed Ardi, her partial skeleton was unearthed in Ethiopia near the scattered remains of at least 36 of her comrades. Physical anthropologists had known about the discovery of this long-gone gal for around 15 years, but few expected to see the 4.4-million-year-old hell-raiser that was unveiled in 11 scientific papers in October.
Like a biker chick strutting into a debutante ball, Ardi brazenly flaunts her nonconformity among more-demure members of the human evolutionary family, known as hominids. She boasts a weird pastiche of anatomical adornments, even without tattoos or nose studs. In her prime, she moved slowly, a cool customer whether upright or on all fours. Today, she’s the standard bearer for her ancient species, Ardipithecus ramidus. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on January 5, 2010 - י"ט טבת תש"ע at 11:42 am
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Good mutations: Stalking evolution through genetic mutation in plants
By Katherine Harmon, Scientific American, January 1, 2010
Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) has one of the smallest genomes in the plant kingdom and is a laboratory darling around the world owing to its relatively short code. First sequenced in 2000, the humble weed has only 120 million base pairs in its genome (humans, by contrast have about 2.9 billion), but it still packs plenty of genetic mystique.
A new study has uncovered the rate of the plant’s spontaneous mutations as they happen across generations—a finding that could help illuminate the evolutionary history of plants and selective breeding efforts in the future. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on January 3, 2010 - י"ז טבת תש"ע at 2:35 pm
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Secrets of the Brain: Researchers Decipher Parts of the Neuronal Code
ScienceDaily (Dec. 27, 2009) — The human brain works at a far higher level of complexity than previously thought. What has been given little attention up to now in the information processing of neuronal circuits has been the time factor. "Liquid computing" — a new theory about how these complex networks of nerve cells actually work from computer scientists at Graz University of Technology — has just passed its first test.
An interdisciplinary co-operation with neuroscientists from the Max-Planck Institute (MPI) for Brain Research in Frankfurt managed to show that early processing stages in the brain pool information over a longer period. For the evaluation of the experiments, the researchers also had to crack the neuronal code. The scientists published the new findings of their research work, which is funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF in Austria, in the current edition of PLoS Biology.
The idea that the brain processes information step by step appears out of date. "The human brain does not work on the principle of the assembly line. In processing information, it is possible that time is treated much more flexibly than previously thought," explained Wolfgang Maass, head of the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science at Graz University of Technology. Like waves on a pool
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on December 27, 2009 - י' טבת תש"ע at 10:00 pm
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Study heats up dinosaur metabolism debate
By: Ian Yu
Posted: 12/3/09, Johns Hopkins News Letter
Many of us can state, with certainty, that dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes were cold-blooded, or ectothermic, a fact that has been ingrained in our minds since we were children.
Scientific consensus, however, is not that certain, and has been shifting in the opposite direction towards the endothermic, or warm-blooded, hypothesis. Contributing to this debate is Herman Pontzer, a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis.
In an article recently published in PLoS ONE, Pontzer and his colleagues utilized two biomechanical methods to predict the metabolic demands of 14 different species of dinosaurs. These species were chosen based on the completeness of their fossil record, its accessibility and the species’ ability to represent the evolutionary lineage from dinosaurs to present-day birds.
In addition, these dinosaurs were also bipedal, walking on two legs instead of four, making it possible to base their energy demands off of those of modern-day bipedal animals. The researchers predicted the amount of energy that would be needed for different walking and running speeds for species of all sizes.
Their results strongly support the warm-blooded hypothesis, as even the least demanding of physical activities in the larger dinosaurs, such as a slow walk, demand much more energy than a cold-blooded physiology can provide.
Cold-blooded animals rely primarily on heat from the sun to control their body temperatures, and thus maintain a relatively low metabolic rate. On the other hand, warm-blooded organisms adjust their metabolism to warm themselves up or cool themselves down, similar to adjusting the thermostat when heating or cooling a room. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on December 6, 2009 - י"ט כסלו תש"ע at 8:09 am
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Discovery Institute, December 1, 2009
Need evidence for Darwinian evolution? Just make it up.
That’s the lesson of Donald Prothero’s book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero is a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles. On November 30, he teamed up with atheist Michael Shermer (founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine) to debate Stephen Meyer and Richard Sternberg of the Discovery Institute.
Shermer wrote the foreword to Prothero’s book, calling it “the best book ever written on the subject.” In fact, “Don’s visual presentation of the fossil and genetic evidence for evolution is so unmistakably powerful that I venture to say that no one could read this book and still deny the reality of evolution.”
Of course, “evolution” can mean many things, most of which nobody would deny even without Prothero’s book. For example, evolution can mean simply change over time, or minor changes in existing species (“microevolution”), neither of which any sane person doubts. Both Shermer and Prothero, however, make it clear that by “evolution” they mean Darwin’s theory that all living things are descended from a common ancestor, modified principally by natural selection acting on unguided variations (“macroevolution”).
The modern version of the theory asserts that new variations originate in genetic mutations. Some of the most dramatic mutations occur in “Hox genes,” which can determine which appendages develop in various parts of the body. On page 101 of his book, Prothero shows pictures of two Hox gene mutations: “antennapedia,” which causes a fruit fly to sprout legs instead of antennae from its head, and “ultrabithorax,” which causes a fruit fly to develop a second pair of wings from it midsection. But both of these are harmful: A fruit fly with legs sticking out of its head is at an obvious disadvantage, and a four-winged fruit fly has no flight muscles in its extra pair of wings, so it has trouble flying and mating. Both mutants can survive only in the laboratory; in the wild they would quickly be eliminated by natural selection.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on December 2, 2009 - ט"ו כסלו תש"ע at 4:24 pm
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Tiny insect brains can solve big problems
Some bugs can recognize human faces, count and categorize, studies say
By Emily Sohn, Discovery Channel, Nov. 16, 2009
Insects may have tiny brains, but they can perform some seriously impressive feats of mental gymnastics.
According to a growing number of studies, some insects can count, categorize objects, even recognize human faces — all with brains the size of pinheads.
Despite many attempts to link the volume of an animal’s brain with the depth of its intelligence, scientists now propose that it’s the complexity of connections between brain cells that matters most. Studying those connections — a more manageable task in a little brain than in a big one — could help researchers understand how bigger brains, including those of humans, work.
Figuring out how a relatively small number of cells work together to process complex concepts could also lead to “smarter” computers that do some of the same tasks.
“The question is: If these insects can do these things with such little brains, what does anything need a big brain for?” said Lars Chittka, who presented his arguments along with colleague Jeremy Niven in the journal Current Biology. “Bigger isn’t necessarily better, and in some cases it could be quite the opposite.”
Because we are intelligent animals with big brains, people have long assumed that big brains are smarter brains. Yet, scientists have found scant evidence to support that view, Chittka said. Studies that have made those connections are fraught with problems. “If you try many measurements,” he said, “Eventually you will find one that shows a correlation.”
There’s a lot of evidence, on the other hand, that overall size is irrelevant when it comes to brain power. Among humans, individuals with larger noggins don’t have higher IQs. Whales, with brains that weigh up to 20 pounds and have more than 200 billion neurons, are no smarter than people, with our measly 3-pound brains that have just 85 billion neurons.
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Posted by CNP Webmaster as Evolutionary Biology, Recent Posts, Science on November 17, 2009 - ל' חשון תש"ע at 4:12 pm
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