Re: Is evolution accelerating?
- From: John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 18:06:08 GMT
dkomo wrote:
> r norman wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:57:28 -0700, dkomo <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Consider these evolutionary steps:
>>>
>>>1. From the formation of the earth to to the first multicelluar
>>>organisms took perhaps 4 billion years.
>>>
>>>2. From tiny organisms to the first mammals took 400 million years.
>>>
>>>3. From the first mammals to the first primitive monkeys took 150
>>>million years.
>>>
>>>4. From monkeys to hominid species such as chimpanzees took something
>>>like 30 million years.
>>>
>>>5. From hominids to walking erect took 16 million years.
>>>
>>>6. From walking erect to humans painting on cave walls took 4 million years.
>>>
>>>7. From cave paintings to the first permanent settlements took some
>>>10,000 years.
>>>
>>>8. From settlements to the invention of writing in Sumeria took about
>>>4,000 years.
>>>
>>>At this point biological evolution was surpassed by cultural evolution.
>>>Humans could now store, recall and widely share their thoughts and
>>>insights. And now it was:
>>>
>>>9. 4,000 years to the Roman Empire.
>>>
>>>10. 1,800 years to the Industrial Age.
>>>
>>>11. 169 years to the moon.
>>>
>>>12. 20 years to the Information Age where we now find ourselves.
>>>
>>>And
>>>
>>>13. ?????????
>>>
>>> --adapted from _Radical Evolution_, Joel Garreau, p. 58
>>>
>>>
>>>In exponential growth
>>>
>>> dN/dt = k * N
>>>
>>>where the change in a quantity N is proportional to the current value of
>>>N, and
>>>
>>> N = N0 * e^(kt)
>>>
>>>is the solution to this differential equation and is the equation of an
>>>exponential curve.
>>>
>>>If, roughly speaking, N represents the complexity of an organism, then
>>>do the above steps show evidence of an exponential growth curve for
>>>human evolution? And can evolution be considered "progressive" in this
>>>case?
>>>
>>
>>
>>You tacitly assume that each step is of equal "size" on some measure
>>of size or complexity or whatever. That is certainly quite false. It
>>is incredibly difficult to produce a eukarotic cell capable of
>>developing into a multicellular organism with well differentiated but
>>still well coordinated and integrated cell types. That is your first
>>step. Compared to that, from hominids to walking erect is a trivial
>>modification. Your perspective is so human-centered, not to mention
>>technologically centered that it strongly smacks of carefully
>>selecting (consciously or not) the points in the sequence in order to
>>make your point.
>
> The steps listed were in _Radical Evolution_, which is a book about The
> Curve (exponential technological growth) and GRIN technologies (genetic,
> robotic, information and nano processes), and speculations about what
> human beings may be evolving toward in the 21st century.
Then the criticism extends to the author, though some still attaches to
you for bringing it up.
> It took so long to produce the first cell from basic biochemicals
> because evolution was starting from a base of close to zero. Then the
> evolution to eukaryotes was slow because the complexity of the starting
> materials -- prokaryotes -- was low. This slow ramping up is
> characteristic of exponential growth curves.
But the curve is spurious. Most of it isn't even evolution, but
technological progress. And the parts that are evolution are cheating by
reducing the magnitude of change as they reduce the time span. Anything
can be exponential if you cheat.
>>If you declare that the first cell was at one end of a "complexity
>>spectrum" (however artificially constructed that may be) and humans
>>are at the other end, then it is quite true that evolution in that
>>case can be considered "progressive". And it was exactly that pattern
>>of thinking that lead to the progressive notion of evolution. Clearly
>>the purpose of evolution was to produce sentient humans. Not so
>>clearly, we are only a tiny part of the products of evolution,
>>although we have an impact on the biosphere greatly in excess of any
>>measure of our biological status.
>
> Human beings potentially have the ability to cause another great
> extinction in a mere few hundred years. This is unprecedented in the
> history of life. Previous great extinctions occurred over time spans of
> hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Even the dinosaurs didn't
> disappear overnight at the KT extinction.
Your source for this assertion? And the relevance of the whole mass
extinction thing to any point you might have?
> This is more evidence of the
> exponential growth of human evolution.
No it isn't, unless you mean technological progress, and that's
distorting the term "evolution" to the point where it really doesn't
mean much. Sticking biological and technological evolution together as
if they were the same thing is just not a useful way to think.
> This means we are not "only a
> tiny part of the products of evolution." Our biological status is
> large, not small. We can even completely destroy the biosphere through
> nuclear weapons.
So? You are measuring size by the ability to destroy? What rationale do
you have for that? We are one species out of all the millions of species
there are now, and the (possibly) billions that have been. Despite
Aristotle, Man is not the measure of all things; that's absurd and
pernicious egocentricity.
.
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