Non-teleology
by MikeGeneOver the summer, I noted the following:
There is something else subtle about this article that is of interest: Koonin seems very familiar with the writings of Dennett, Gould, Dawkins, etc. I think it's about time to more fully explore the implications of such "popular science."
Many people think of popular science books as little more than some scientist's attempt to explain science to the general public. But I think such books are more influential than this. I think the primary readers of popular science books are scientists themselves.
Does anyone really believe that most physicists, chemists, and even biologists follow the primary evolution literature closely? On the contrary, I bet that most scientists derive their understanding of evolution from such "popular science" authors as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. Yet what might this mean?
During the summer, I also noted something else: "Evidence for evolution is not evidence for non-teleology." I further noted that this non-teleological perspective may be guiding how we interpret nature with our science. Yet what is non-teleology? Is it simply a lack of teleology? I don't think so. In fact, I think some of the major themes of both Dawkins and Gould can help us better visualize the non-teleological perceptual streams that shape science (how scientists think).
From Dawkins, we get two streams. The first is Reductionism (symbolically enshrined as selfish genes). The second is the Blind Watchmaker (no comment needed).
From Gould we get two other streams. The first is Contingency (rewinding and replaying that Tape of Life). The second is something I will call Evolutionary Relativism. I may need to better explain this stream, but essentially we are treated to the Big Bush, where any one twig is no more special or interesting than the next. You can get a feel for these two perceptual streams from this essay by Gould.
While scientists may argue over where the emphasis should be laid, I think these four streams represent the foundations of the non-teleological perspective. What's more, non-teleologists tend to be quite confident in the strength of their perspective. But might it be possible that this confidence is purchased by carefully setting up these four streams against rather, shall we say, carefully chosen expressions of teleology? Reductionism is played against vitalism. The Blind Watchmaker is played against Creationism. Contingency is played against determinism. And Evolutionary Relativism is played against the old Evolutionary Ladder, with humans sitting at the apex.
In other words, from where I sit, it looks like the non-teleologists have been playing off straw men for decades. And I think this needs to be changed.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Mike, thanks for the thoughts — I'll have to contemplate these a bit. This is very helpful in distilling the myriad arguments and examples down to a few core principles.
Comment by Eric Anderson — October 11, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Scientists tend to read the primary literature only in their own or closely related fields, while reasonably deferring to peers in other fields. A good science writer makes clear what is strongly supported within a field, and that which is hypothetical or speculative.
Reductionism is played against holism, the idea that the sum is greater than its parts, and that emergent phenomena may not be explainable without new concepts. Vitalism posits forces distinct from physicochemical.
The Blind Watchmaker was devised in direct response to Paley's watch argument. Paley's argument was based on a belief that all possible sources of complexity were known, but that was not an accurate assumption.
Contingency is played against inevitability. Contingency can be deterministic, even if unpredictable.
Special or interesting, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. We might think that surviving and fecund branches are more interesting, and that branches that lead to humans are more special. But not everyone thinks that way. Gould thought the dead-ends were very interesting and special, and scientifically important.
Frankly, I'm not even sure why you consider them strawmen. They're not strawmen if the claims are subject to scientific verification, that is, if they lead to specific and distinguishing empirical predictions.
Comment by Zachriel — October 11, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Mike is correct. Dawkins was taking aim at creationists; the fact that he might lump IDists in with them nothwthstanding. He is concerned with what he perceives to be an existing challenge not a historic book which only partially identifies ideas and arguments used by contemporary IDists.
Comment by Bradford — October 11, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Incidentally Mike, this is a good blog entry. It is, to borrow a phrase, thought provoking.
Comment by Bradford — October 11, 2007 @ 4:23 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Paley was a creationist. Paley's argument remains faulty as it relied on human ignorance of other possible mechanisms. Nor does the claim lead to a valid scientific hypothesis.
Comment by Zachriel — October 11, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Mike wrote:
Actually Paley's argument was never refuted. What you could do, if you wish to focus on the watch, is discuss how they have evolved over centuries and make a case by analogy. The analogy that fails is the one that pretends that Darwin explained how natural forces created the first cell or watch if we keep with the analogy.
Comment by Bradford — October 11, 2007 @ 4:40 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I have never seen a good refutation of even Paley's argument. For all their evasions, the fact is that in physical reality, there are only two observed sources of CSI/IC: preexisting CSI/IC and intelligence. All the organisms that we have ever observed created are descended from very similar organisms. The ultimate origin of their order is in the past and thus unobservable. Similar (though far inferior!) order arising today has always been the product of intelligence. I am just rehashing old arguments, really, but this is only because I've yet to see them truly answered. Darwinists have hypothesized about other sources of such order, but have never demonstrated that their mechanisms actually do what they say.
Comment by Charles Foljambe — October 11, 2007 @ 4:47 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Mike:
You might be right. But many scientists don't care too much about developments outside their own field (or have the time to care). The ones that do can learn a lot from the News & Views-like sections of journals such as Nature and Science (and maybe PNAS). That's how I keep up with major developments in physics, chemistry and molecular biology. I'm guessing that's how quite a few scientists keep track (a bit) of evolutionary biology.
A ridiculous suggestion that smacks of conspiracy theory.
Comment by Raevmo — October 11, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
What it smacks of is an unspoken understanding that teleology is not something inferred by anyone other than religious fundamentalists. Unspoken understandings are the most powerful kinds.
Comment by Bradford — October 11, 2007 @ 5:10 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
You must be kidding. Of course it was. Paley's argument relies on the lack of other plausible mechanisms to explain the structure in question whether of an organism or a solar system.
Everything is in the past except the moment. However, the past leaves clues. Science provides an important method of investigating that past.
Comment by Zachriel — October 11, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Bradford: Actually Paley's argument was never refuted.
Paley's argument cites properties of an object that can be inductively utilized to infer design for non-watch objects. Since Darwin it has been erroneously believed that the natural selection concept antiquated Paley's approach. What natural selection argued for was modification of an existing entity. It did not explain origin.
Comment by Bradford — October 11, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Another blow to Expertese! All you really need to know, once you have a Dr. or a Prof. to put in front of your name, is a little more than other people, along with some jargon, and you can seem like you know vastly more. You can degrade, and condescend, and people will be afraid to contradict you, even when you speak utter nonsense, because of your adept use of Expertese. ID has the upper hand in this conflict, long term, because they can use Expertese, but unlike Darwinism, they are not dependent on it. ID is common-sensical. It appeals to people because it reflects natural assumptions. Paley's argument is a simple and compelling one because of this very thing. It makes sense, without the need for obscure, often misrepresented data and excuses.
Comment by Charles Foljambe — October 11, 2007 @ 5:53 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Nor has the Theory of Evolution ever claimed to explain the origin of life, only its subsequent diversity. Yet, you would have us believe that generations of biologists overlooked Paley's analogy.
You overstated your case concerning our ability to understand the past. By basing your argument on that misleading claim, it leaves any further conclusion unsupported.
Comment by Zachriel — October 11, 2007 @ 6:08 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I do not believe most biologists spend much time pondering Paley's watch argument. That seems to be more a preoccupation of Dawkins and others who are intensely anti-creationist and anti-IDist.
Comment by Bradford — October 11, 2007 @ 6:21 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Charles:
Whenever an argument is forwarded, those who agree with the position from which the argument is made proclaim victory and jaunt on off to the Pub for a pint or two. If counter-arguments arise, they wave their hands and insist it's all a done deal. SOP.
Raevmo:
Where's the conspiracy? If the 'Uber-Theoretic' (NDS) is formulated in such a way as to specifically exclude all suggestions or evidence of teleology, then of course arguments that appeal to teleology are ruled out of bounds on principle. They're automatically unacceptable because teleology isn't allowed by the theory.
If that's a "conspiracy theory," the conspiracy *IS* the theory.
Comment by Joy — October 11, 2007 @ 6:23 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
How did I overstate my case? How is Darwinian macroevolution shown to be a plausible explanation? As ever-greater levels of complexity in life are discovered, the explanation loses plausibility, rather than gaining it. Darwinism started as Lamarkian Evolution, except it only counted if the feature was there from birth. Darwin never saw the emergence of a novel feature, any macroevolution (given the length of time required, he could hardly be expected to, but the fact remains), nor have we since. The few, sparse, and arguable transitional forms we find in the fossil record tell us absolutely nothing about how those changes occurred. There is, so far as I can tell, no evidence that Darwinian evolution occurred on the macro scale. There is no evidence that it has or can produce truly novel, beneficial features. All it has is wishful thinking.
Comment by Charles Foljambe — October 11, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Joy:
I'm afraid I need clarification on who is who in your story, as well as the meaning of SOP.
Comment by Charles Foljambe — October 11, 2007 @ 6:31 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Joy:
You obviously know very little of modern evolutionary theory, yet you keep calling it NDS, which dates to the thirties of the last century. But even the NDS doesn't specifically exclude teleology. It's a mathematical theory that models how gene frequencies and phenotypes change as a result of selection, drift and mutation. Please give the references to papers that specifically exclude teleology.
Comment by Raevmo — October 11, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Charles:
You got it, that's the idea behind the titles. One toils to produce new knowledge for many years with little financial compensation, but then one gets the title and can feel superior to those that haven't got it. Welcome to academia!
Comment by Raevmo — October 11, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Charles:
I was echoing your defense of Paley. The Pub drinkers are the DDs [DarwinDefenders] who for some unexplainable reason believe his arguments have been soundly addressed and falsified. SOP is the acronym for "Standard Operating Procedure."
Comment by Joy — October 11, 2007 @ 8:58 pm
October 11th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Raevmo:
What's to know? Natural selection acting upon randomly generated variation in populations. Evolution. My beef is with the "random" qualifier, which of course doesn't need to be there - it's an ideological insertion.
Of course the whole idea has become much less Neodarwinian since the recent discoveries of stress-related adaptive mutation, evolutionary control genes, creative expression suiting, epigenetic inheritance, histone coding, etc., etc., etc. Things on the origins end don't look so random anymore, and clinging to population statistics to justify unpredictability doesn't explain a darned thing about what happens in any individual organism.
We all know selection happens. We know that if you don't reproduce (or your children don't reproduce) you don't get to play the evolution game. Life doesn't count in evolution (it's a separate phenomenon, in which evolution occurs), only reproductive 'fitness' (luck of the selective draw) counts. I've never figured out why y'all can't just put your beloved 'random' qualifier there instead of upon originating developments.
Ah, the predicted diversionary tactic to pop-gen. It still doesn't explain origins, Raevmo. Much as you'd like it to.
Comment by Joy — October 11, 2007 @ 8:59 pm
October 13th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Hi Raevmo,
Yep.
It's a question and there is nothing ridiculous about it. It is a question based on experience arguing with hundreds of ID critics (a huge portion from within the scientific community) since the year 2000. It did not occur to me that anyone would misperceive this thought provoking question as a conspiracy theory, thus is I think that speaks more to your perceptions and expectations. I'm wondering instead if the thinking of many has been significantly influenced by extremely popular authors, such as Dawkins and Gould. It would seem quite reasonable to suppose that it has. And when it comes to these authors, what makes them different is simply their different expressions of the non-teleological streams mentioned above. In essence, they are preaching non-teleology.
Comment by MikeGene — October 13, 2007 @ 9:26 am
October 13th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Hi Zachriel,
You forget that I have something you don't "“ massive experience arguing against non-teleologists.
In abstract world of logic, perhaps this is the way it should be. But in the real world, reductionism is played against vitalism. Non-teleologists believe that if something is explained by physicochemical processes, non-teleology has been supported. This is because they think teleology is supposed to come with forces distinct from physicochemical.
Yet the non-teleologists make no distinction between Paley and Creationism. In fact, we have all seen how incredibly common it is for the non-teleologists to perceive something like ID as a version of Creationism. In fact, they demand others make the equation. Clearly, the non-teleologists play the Blind Watchmaker against Creationism. This is because they think teleology is supposed to come with a demonstration that evolution is impossible.
This sounds like a nitpick. What matters is that non-teleologists think contingency itself is evidence in support of non-teleology. This is because they think teleology is supposed to be devoid of any significant contingency.
You clearly agree on this one, as you expand on a expression of evolutionary relativism.
These are strawmen because teleology does not mandate forces distinct from physicochemical, a rejection of evolution, a rejection of contingency, and embracing a Ladder of Evolution, with humans at the top. As for scientific verification, it does not impress me to falsify strawmen. In fact, that is often why strawmen are appealing to some.
Comment by MikeGene — October 13, 2007 @ 9:30 am
October 14th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Much of the Intelligent Design Community makes these claim. (I would be happy to provide as many cites as you would like.) I suppose it all depends on whether you are discussing the scientific community or the lay community. Most of the scientific community gives short shrift to Intelligent Design. Vitalism was largely discarded generations ago, paving the way for great advances in science.
Again, it depends on the audience. There is no significant Intelligent Design Science, but a somewhat significant albeit waning Intelligent Design Movement. What "teleology is supposed to be" in science is a valid theory that leads to testable hypotheses.
The Intelligent Design Movement is ate up by these strawmen. You can't blame people for trying to respond to them. That you might have a different point of view, and sometimes get lumped in with them is unfortunate, but understandable. But the fact is that these fallacies are originating from within the Intelligent Design Community. And keep in mind, that these discussions are almost completely irrelevant within the actual context of science until such a time that someone actually proposes a valid theory.
Comment by Zachriel — October 14, 2007 @ 9:19 am
October 14th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Hi Zachriel,
Yes, I have long understood that a certain level of intellectual laziness exists among many of the critics. You are obliquely acknowledging my point in that most critics do not think about these questions independently, but merely REACT to claims that originate from other tribes. This is because most critics are part of a tribe that is indebted to a form of non-teleological metaphysics or game rules.
And this shapes the perception of the non-teleologists. For example, this explains why so many non-teleologists are conditioned to hear "God" when "ID" is spoken (they have even sought out and propagated anecdotes that function as confirmation bias). People see what they expect to see. Any case for "ID" will thus be viewed as a political ploy and this has obvious implications for "peer review."
There is no use complaining about any of this. It simply helps to open our eyes to the social reality that is around us.
Comment by MikeGene — October 14, 2007 @ 10:31 am
October 14th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
"What "teleology is supposed to be" in science is a valid theory that leads to testable hypotheses."
Done! Its called Control Theory.
There are college level textbooks on control theory and its applications freely available on the Web.
Mathematical control theory is the area of application-oriented mathematics
that deals with the basic principles underlying the analysis and design of control
systems. To control an object means to influence its behavior so as to achieve a
desired goal.
Eduardo D. Sontag, Mathematical Control Theory: Deterministic Finite Dimensional Systems.
Second Edition, Springer, New York, 1998.
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~s...
I don't know if anyone was actually looking for a theory. Unlike "Intelligent Design Theory," which is never there when you look, teleology is grounded in formal theory and successful applications (experiemtnal results), and is indeed one the greatest achievements of scientists–that apparently no one has ever heard of! LOL
Nothing "spooky" about it!
Comment by Rock — October 14, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
October 15th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Sure, and birds build nests for the purpose of rearing their young.
Comment by Zachriel — October 15, 2007 @ 8:27 am
October 15th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
"But might it be possible that this confidence is purchased by carefully setting up these four streams against rather, shall we say, carefully chosen expressions of teleology?"
Possible.
But it seems to me that critics are filling the gaps in their knowledge with strawmen, because a crucial aspect of this dialectic is that the IDers have not already filled that gap, e.g., in this case, by a "carefully chosen expression of teleology." So its not merely the "intellectual laziness" of critics at work here. The proponents (specifically IDers) have been a bit slack too.
As an unapologetic teleologist the most obvious anti-teleological statement Gould made was an argument from contingency or from "evolutionary relativism" (whatever that is), but "Natural selection is therefore a principle of local adaptation, not of general advance or progress."
Much of his argument, seems to me, follows from this premise. Gould fails to appreciate that local optimization (adaptation) processes can and do lead to "general advance" and "progress." If they don't than evolutionary theory (Gould's version) has no explanation for the phenomenon.
(In case you didn't notice, Gould first recognizes the problem, "I do not deny…" and then eventually denies. LOL)
Gould's belabored (labored) "argument from contingency" wasn't really much of an argument at all, at least for me, as I found it difficult to imagine anything that isn't contingent upon something.
Teleology is a theory about causation, and since, obviously, an effect is contingent upon a cause, causal theories are typically formulated in terms of contingencies (as "if-then" statements, e.g.).
And I wouldn't dignify Gould's silly ad homs (all that distorted desires and parochial biases BS) with a cool-sounding term like "evolutionary relativism."
"For reasons related to the chemistry of life's origin and the physics of self- organization" Gould requests that I grant him some "minimal complexity" (the "simplest conceivable"), i.e., that the existence of life is contingent upon some minimal level of complexity"”And right into Dembski's trap!
I prefer the basic HOT-design model (Which, btw, requires no hypothetically necessary "minimal complexity" and explicitly rejects Gould's "chemistry" and "physics"–quite emphatically and in no uncertain terms.): Increasing levels of complexity are explicable in old-fashioned evolutionary-theoretic terms. Increasing complexity is the result of a nearly-continuous process of adaptive refinement of existing solutions (and innovation) to highly contingent (uncertain) conditions; literally subsuming previously unknown factors effecting adaptation (evolution) under direct or indirect control"”of the life form.
Comment by Rock — October 15, 2007 @ 6:15 pm
October 15th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Sorry, "As an unapologetic teleologist the most obvious anti-teleological statement Gould made was [not] an argument from contingency…"
Comment by Rock — October 15, 2007 @ 6:19 pm