Re: Evolution, "adaptation", and what's currently adaptive

Len Piotrowski (lpiotrow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Wed, 4 Sep 1996 15:27:35 GMT

In article <50ieqh$n6l@news.sdd.hp.com> geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:

>[snip]

>|> I suppose you can believe it's possible that every human behavior arose
>|> through selection, but waiting a million or so years to derive it is
>|> excessive. The nature of ongoing human action belies such a functional
>|> fixation.

>Lenny, I'd like to hear your ideas on the subject. You keep complaining
>about over-reliance on functional adaptation, but what are you
>suggesting as an alternative?

Depends! Are you talking about "sugar craving" or "jealousy."

>This example should be crystal clear:

>|> In article <504muq$2pqm@argo.unm.edu> mycol1@unm.edu (Bryant) writes:

>|> >Eyes are adaptations because they have design features unlikely to have
>|> >accumulated by chance.

>|> And too, unlikely to have accumulated as a sequential series of functional
>|> adaptations with your final goal (to see) as the causal reason!

>Try to do a little research before you make such absolutist
>pronouncements; you're just flat-out wrong.

Your epistemology boggles the imagination!

>Throughout the biosphere
>there exists the complete gamut of light-sensing and imaging systems,

What makes this "gamut" complete, aside, I know, from the word of Firlmeister?

>which maps very well to the developmental evolutionary pathway.

Interesting mapping function here: where does this "evolutionary pathway"
exist?

> We have
>plants which orient their leaves to the sun,

... no eyes!

>plankton which can detect
>up and down from light and dark,

... no eyes!

>and large numbers of independantly
>evolved imaging systems ranging from mollusc crude

... no eyes!

> to mammalian
>sophistication.

... ah, eyed!

>Each incremental step of visual acuity provided
>adaptive benefits,

Oh, yes, eyes were the result of the "incremental steps" of plants, plankton,
"mollusc," and mammals, eh? Remarkable!

>which is why vision systems have continued to
>evolve.

? Vision systems continue to evolve *because* of the adaptive benefits that
vision accrues? How come a mollusc can't see then?

>You present "the goal" of being able to see in teleological terms,

... not I, the functional adaptationist does.

>which is erroneous of course,

Of course!

> but anyone who has thought about the
>process of evolution can see how natural selection has refined animal
>vision to produce successively more acute vision.

Except for those poor, crude plants, plankton, and "molluscs," [sigh]!

>The "causal reason"
>which drove the process was survival, of course, not the ability to
>see.

I survive, therefore I see, is that it?

>|> >[snip]

>You're amazing, lenny.

Nah!

>You don't believe that animal vision evolved
>because of the fitness benefits of being able to see, right?

Wrong!

>Too
>teleological, too adaptationist for your liking.

... too functionally fixated to be of explanatory usefulness, to be precise.

> Again I ask, because
>I'm curious about your agenda here,

I have no agenda here, Firl.

> if something as obviously
>functional as vision didn't evolve as an adaptation, where did it come
>from?

What it (eyeball) can be used for (to see) says nothing about where it came
from. Is this getting too taxing for you, Firl?

>I understand that you're very concerned about preserving a place for
>"meaning" in human activity; so tell us lenny, what does it mean to see
>something?

Depends!

>|> >The only alternative to random accumulation in evolution is selection.

>|> "Random accumulation" of what? This is getting more and more remarkable.

>Remarkable indeed. Does it boggle the mind, by any chance?

I wonder!

> Read a
>textbook on animal physiology, ethology, or evolutionary biology.

OKay.

>There
>have been some remarkable discoveries in the last couple of centuries.

I bet!

>Do you know how the elephant got his long trunk?

Really? Did he/she have a need to trunk?

>|> Just so ...

>Something like that.

That's for sure, that's for dang sure.

Cheers,

--Lenny__

"If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem."
- perlstyle