Re: No distinction between artificial and natural selection - John

John Wilkins wrote:
Tim Tyler <seemysig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Wilkins wrote:
Tim Tyler <seemysig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

However, there are plenty of *other* things going on, the biggest one
being intelligently-directed mutations.
Ah, now that *is* a different thing, if true. But I rather doubt it's
true.
Right. But that leaves no clues about why you think that - and since I
can't be expected to address every possible misconception you might have
on the subject, it is not easy for me to do much to resolve our difference - except to advise you that your views on the issue
appear to be in error.

Well as it wasn't the topic under discussion, I wasn't expected to give
my reasons. But if you want them, here they are:

1. We haven't solved the protein folding problem, although we've made
strides. In order to know what the effect of a gene will be, we must be
able to predict the binding properties of the products of the gene.

2. There are an indefinite number of genes. We haven't explored the
properties of but a fraction of them, and even minor mutations appear to
have disparately large effects.

3. Genes are usually massively pleiotropic. This means that you only
know what they wil do if you know what all the other genes they interact
with will do.

4. Genes are massively contextual - a gene that does one thing in one
organism will do something different in another. Genes don't have
absolute functions. Hence we cannot universally predict what effect they
will have.

Ah. All very nucleic-acid centric. It is true that today, we
are largely ignorant of biology, and have a hard time guessing
what all the effects of some of the changes we make are. But
evolution has moved on from DNA - and there are plenty of
changes in other kinds of heritable information which we /do/
understand.

When I say "The evolutionary process has changed"
I am /mostly/ talking about technological and scientific development.
The extended genotype. Human culture. Lamarckian inheritance.
Intelligent design. Engineering. Not much to do with the
nucleic-acid-derived issues you raise. It is true that we
/are/ engineering biology, but that's a relatively minor
affair so far - the impacts of the new mechanisms of
evolutionary process have mostly been felt elsewhere
so far.

Our poor understanding of biology is likely a
temporary affair. The protein folding problem will
be cracked, by huge simulations, if not before.
Pleiotropy maps will be made - and so on.

5. We only know *anything* in virtue of past experience. Like it or not,
all knowledge is Humean (assumes constancy of effect into the future,
which may or may not apply).

Sure. I never intended to suggest otherwise.

I hold that it doesn't. We don't know the future any more than blind
variation and selective retention does ordinarily, and this is because
our cognition is a special instance of the BVSR process, just as genetic
evolution is.
This is like Cziko's nonsense :-(

[snip Hume]

No knowledge is knowledge of the future,
just knowledge of how things have worked out in the past together with
more or less warranted assumptions about how they will apply in the
future.

Of course, that's basic.

That problem of Hume's is solved only by something like a BVSR
methodology (which, by the way, is not Cziko's acronym, but Donald T.
Campbell, a much more sophisticated thinker than either Cziko or
Popper).

Hume's problem about the uniformity of nature seems like
almost pure philosophy to me. I don't think there's a
scientific explanation - which explains how philosophers
can continue to rattle on about it. Saying "evolution did
it" assumes the uniformity of nature, which is what Hume's
problem doubts, and so would not persuade an inductive
unbeliever.

Sure, we inductive believers can point out that those who don't accept the uniformity of nature
typically left no offspring - and that's why we
don't see them. Of course: evolution would have
no time for such philosophical nitwits! But
that explanation would cut no ice with the
rational doubters of the uniformity of nature.
They don't accept you can apply evolutionary
arguments in the first place - because they
depend on the uniformity of nature - and that's
the very thing they want a rational explanation
for.

IMO, Hume was right: there really is no way to
reach these guys - even though they are
card-carrying rationalists, who may be sincerely
asking for an explanation.

So, to retrack, I am /not/ doubting that
predictions of the future (and all human
knowledge) arise out of experiences in the
past.

Rather I am pointing at the B - and to some
extent the S in "Blind Variation and
Selective Retention" - and asking:

What justification is there for describing scientist's
choice of experimental design as "blind". Scientists
have eyes, don't they?

What does the progress of knowledge have to do with
*Selective* retention. Can't modern scientists
record practically everything, since storage is
so cheap? The scientific consensus is what
scientists say it is - not what totally falls
out of the historical recording apparatus,
and is not even "retained". Nor is scientific
truth certain. Modern scientists don't "select"
their favoured hypotheses and discard the rest - like
Popper imagined. Rather they assign probabilities
to them, Bayesian-style. Hypotheses have
associated confidences, they are not ever
fully confirmed or falsified.

Now, maybe I am expecting too much of this
acronym. Maybe "blind" has a specific technical
meaning in this context, which relates specifically
to "prior knowledge of the outcome". Maybe
"selective retention" doesn't mean what those
words literally mean either. But to me, this
means it is very misleading.

When people see "blind variaition" they are
bound to think: ah yes, like in biology,
where mutations are made without regard
for the effect on fitness.

They are *not* likely to think of the
directed mutations we see in engineering
design and computer programming - where
entire subroutines can be "macromutated"
into existence by an intelligent agent -
sometimes without any mistakes at all -
where people often have a /very/ good idea
about the likely effects of the "variations"
they are making.

So: "Blind Variation and Selective Retention"
seems - at best - *extremely* misleading to me.

Obviously I need to look further at the work
of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_T._Campbell

....to see if he presents a justification of
the term which I approve of.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@xxxxxxxxxxx Remove lock to reply.

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