Re: No distinction between artificial and natural selection - John

On Apr 8, 10:00 pm, Cory Albrecht <coryalbre...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tim Tyler wrote, on 2008/04/08 05:30:
On Apr 7, 4:08 pm, r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ridley says just what I have said.  He does not deny that cultures
change with time.  He just says that such change is not part of
biological evolution.

Culture is not part of biology?!?  Where does it come from,
then?  The sun?  Rocks and minerals?  Culture is part of
biology in the same way that hair and fingernails are -
it is produced by it.

No, culture is not party of biology. If you're going to take the tack
that it is, or that architecture is part of biology (any of the other
suggestions you have made), then really you should be acknowledging that
all science is really just particle physics.

Human culture is not reducible to biology in the same way that
much of biology is reducible to chemistry, or that chemistry
is reducible to physics - there are simply too many chance
events involved in the case of human culture.

Nor am I arguing that architecture ought to be in the biology
textbooks.

Rather there ought to be discussion of the main mechanisms of
cultural change in the textbooks on evolution - since cultural
evolution is part of evolution too - in an absolutely literal and
non-analogical sense.

As far as the biology textbooks go, they ought to at least
acknowledge that mankind and his products are part of
biology.

Flicking through a biology textbook, I see there are huge
sections on humans and their impact already - which is good.

Similar sections are missing from the main textbooks on
evolution. Indeed, despite the work of many researchers,
the idea that humans are having an impact on evolution
itself has not yet sunk in in many quarters - perhaps
because Hull and the rest have been so busy trying
to shoehorn cultural evolution into the existing Darwinian
framework. But things are changing:

``The idea of a new kind of evolution of the human
species, driven by increasingly intimate and
internalised technology, is one whose time has come.
Every day, the idea seems that little bit less "out
there": it is increasingly familiar to the public,
better understood, more and more plausible, and it
merits examination from many viewpoints.''

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2008/01/few-teething-troubles-at-jet.html

On the other hand, I am surprised that your posts on this idea show an
apparent complete lack of understanding of the concept of splitting
things up into smaller groups and specializing on just one area.

I don't see that as a valid criticism. What I am discussing really
/ought/ to be in the evolution textbooks. It is not simply part of
some other topic.

What /might/ have happened is that the tendency to divide
knowledge up may have led to topics falling down the
cracks between disciplines - with neither side wanting to
pick them up.

However, in this case, the recent nature of the relevant
work can also be invoked. Only in the 1970s was the topic
seriously raised, and several major works lie between then
and now. It is hard to imagine a modern synthesis involving
cultural evolution much before Hull(1988).

The textbooks probably don't have the information mostly
because it hasn't trickled down to them yet.

....and it has been a bit of a revolution - and it is one which is
not yet complete. Maybe the authors are waiting for the dust
to settle.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@xxxxxxxxxxx Remove lock to
reply.

.

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