Another evolution question

[Paolo]

Latest post of the previous page:

This is interesting but seems too me it might be missing the original point, which I find even more interesting ---- if I have understood it:

1. Why is it (or so it seems) that only one of millions of species of animals has evolved (on this planet) to the human level of 'intelligence / self-awareness, scientific and technological accomplishment, social and cultural complexity' ----- or however you want to express it?

Because only one species is human. Intelligence is what we've specialised in - other animals specialise in other things, elephants are big, cheetahs are fast, hummingbirds are tiny. Lesser Liverflukes take over the brains of ants, termites build air conditioned structures and birds of paradise can mimic any sound they hear. Humans are very self involved, we look to ourselves as a frame of reference, so obviously we think intelligence is the top trump card. The main reason there aren't that many other intelligent animals around is simply that it doesn't confer a huge advantage in stable environments. Intelligence allows flexibility and enables greater adaptability, but under stable conditions specialists utilise niches more effectively. Humans happen to have been in the right place at the right time to really exploit the changing habitats associated with the glacial-interglacial cycles in this ice-house period of the Earth.

2. Could some (many) other species have evolved to a similar extent (maybe dolphins have in some respects but not in others) given a suitable range of conditions?

I assume you mean evolved intelligence to a similar extent - I would say that dolphins are considerably more derived than humans, given the huge suite of adaptations they have evolved for a marine existence, plus they are intelligent. The point is that intelligence is only useful where it is useful - again it's about your point of reference. Organisms have exactly the intelligence they need to survive; if they are able to survive and reproduce, what is the point of redundant intellect? Brains require a lot of resources to maintain and evolution will only keep brains big if they need to be big. It just so happens that humans are pretty pathetic in most other ways, so we rely on manual dexterity and a big brain to get around our physical limitations.

3. Did some 'start' to do so but failed to develop further?

There is no question of "failure" since intelligence is not a goal to be achieved, it is an emergent property of our evolutionary history. Nothing else has the same history (except our extinct relatives), so why would anything need the same intelligence? Some extinct lineages of hominid (Neanderthals for example) had bigger brains than modern humans, the chances are that they were more intelligent, yet they are extinct, not us. Why? Probably because big brains and an upright stance lead to breach-births (big head + narrow pelvis = problems) so their reproductive efficiency was lower than the Homo sapiens they were competing with.

4. If more than one started along this road would they have been rivals to such a degree that all but one (the fittest) was wiped out by the others (hence only one surviving ---- except maybe a handful such as Big Foot)?

Generalists compete, we probably happened to be the most prolific. Bigfoot my arse...

5. Did this in fact happen with some similar species like the Neanderthals or were they just a variant of us? Are we partly them?

See above. There have been mitochondrial DNA studies done on Neanderthal material that suggests that modern humans are sufficiently discrete to form a reproductively separate species to Neanderthals (approx 0.6% difference between the genomes which is greater divergence than what is seen within the whole human genome). There is a possibility that there was some exchange of genetic material that has subsequently been lost through genetic drift.

6. Is it likely that on the many (highly probable) inhabited planets evolution of the 'advanced' life has taken a (very) different form?

It's incredibly unlikely to be anything like we have on Earth now, even if the planet is almost identical. Luck has played a huge role in shaping life on our planet and it is incredibly unlikely that the circumstances would occur that would lead to life forms similar to those on this planet.

I have not come across much discussion of what has always seemed to me to be a fundamental question, if a god did not create us as something designed for the purpose why is there just us (or is there really just us?)

Chris

There is only "just us" if you ignore everything else and only view the world from an anthropogenic perspective. There have been a lot of different species of hominid, there are millions of other species that have incredible specialisations to their environment and way of life, it just so happens that we have specialised in a direction that isn't really open to many other organisms (much like we haven't adapted to be super fast, able to stay under water for hours or fly). Evolution tends to throw out some extreme oddities that fill niches - we just happen to be one of them. Of course unlike the others, our oddity is that we sit around contemplating our uniqueness and trying to assign a reason for it, even if there isn't one.

[Gottard]

It's incredibly unlikely to be anything like we have on Earth now, even if the planet is almost identical. Luck has played a huge role in shaping life on our planet and it is incredibly unlikely that the circumstances would occur that would lead to life forms similar to those on this planet.

I would not be so categorical Paolo!
Life in Earth was possible because several conditions presented themselves at the same time. The universe is crowded with planets at different degrees of cooling and, by that, with different Chemistry. Studies are being pursued by space/physicist engineers to define the pattern of behavior of those planets and, apparently, many respond to the same evolution of Earth.
Astronomers are attempting to accelerate (if/wherever possible: moon, mars) the making up of similar environment to our planet (even if confined to small areas). Certainly, gravity plays a great role in doing this and it is not easy (or we don't have the technology yet)to reach a planet with similar characteristics as Earth but life - or some form of life - may well exist outside our solar system.

[Paolo]

Don't get me wrong, I would be very surprised if there was not life on other planets, but the sheer stochasticism of the evolutionary process makes it highly unlikely that anything resembling the "higher" life on this planet would exist elsewhere. When you consider that the majority of living organisms on this planet are not visible to the naked eye and it is only one lineage (the tetrapods) that have evolved in such a way as to allow large size, locomotion, colonisation of land and development of a discrete and complex brain.

We tend to be very focussed on the animal kingdom, despite the fact that most life is bacterial, plant, fungi or one of the more poorly defined groups. There is a mind-numbingly vast range of possibilities for the form of life - it strikes me as a throwback to progressionist thinking to expect anything similar to animal life on other planets, much less life resembling vertebrates and even less likely, humans.

[clayto]

Paolo said "the sheer stochasticism of the evolutionary process" ----- stochasticism? My dictionary suggests 'random' and similar meanings. But evolution is not random is it? That is what Creationists claim Darwinism to be but they are mistaken. Is this another example of your tendency to reductionism I wonder?

Is it not the case that much modern science is pointing towards processes in the micro and macro universe(s) which lead to things like us, hence the Goldilocks Enigma ----- and the opportunity for Intelligent Design advocates to draw their 'god is the explanation' conclusions despite the fact that there are (a) a variety of other possibilities such as the Participatory Universe (b) major flaws in the Design explanation, especially the version of it most widely advocated (a Creator / Designer God who is all powerful and benign).

"Luck has played a huge role in shaping life on our planet and it is incredibly unlikely that the circumstances would occur that would lead to life forms similar to those on this planet." 'Luck' does not seem a very adequate word for what has happened and 'incredibly unlikely' seems to be going to far in ignoring (a) the possibility of a vast number of inhabited planets plus (b)the growing evidence that common processes are at work throughout the universe(s).

"Organisms have exactly the intelligence they need to survive; if they are able to survive and reproduce, what is the point of redundant intellect?" Intellect greater than that just required for survival may have a variety of 'points' ---- you seem to be saying 'what is the point' of music, art, philosophy, wonder. It might be possible to identify some 'survival' function for such things but (a) it often seems rather forced (b) it rarely appears to encompass the whole 'point' of much which so many humans (who are not reductionists) regard as the point.

"Of course unlike the others, our oddity is that we sit around contemplating our uniqueness and trying to assign a reason for it, even if there isn't one." Or trying to establish that there is a reason for it because that might have a lot to do with the point.

Chris

[Paolo]

Do you know how evolution works? Random mutations lead to variation, variation results in members of a population who are better adapted for survival, they reproduce and pass on their mutated genes which in turn are prone to further mutation. The mutations are random (mostly) and survival of individuals is not just down to being better adapted, it is also down to luck (like not being in the wrong place at the wrong time). Great swathes of higher taxonomic groups have been eradicated in mass extinctions (for example the Permian-Triassic extinction event wiped out 95% of species) - survivorship is frequently about luck, even if that luck is simply that the extinctions happen in a way that an organism can adapt to.

There is no determinism to evolution, it is a random walk. We can use alternative universe theories to explore concepts of morphospace, but these are conceptual. Evolution is not geared up to achieve goals, it can just seem that way to self-centered humans, because they are looking back through time with themselves as an endpoint. Rather like doing a maze puzzle from the goal back to the beginning, all the dead-ends and alternative routes are missed out.

Redundant intellect is intellect that achieves nothing to further the reproduction or survival of individuals of a species. Humans use culture, art, etc. as a way of increasing their likelihood of survival and reproduction - therefore I am not claiming that our intellect is redundant. Bears, dolphins, spiders, fish, trees, humans, etc. all have as much intelligence as they need. Intelligence is not a goal or a foregone conclusion for living organisms, far from it - most living things have no brain at all. I find it hugely entertaining and irritating in equal measure when people start reading some higher purpose into intelligence. I like to think that birds would consider flight to be a far more important and interesting thing to get excited about, after all, it has arisen multiple times in a variety of animal groups, and it tends to result in incredible diversity within those groups (the most commonly occurring and diverse animals are the beetles, the most species rich tetrapods are the birds and the second most common group of mammals are the bats). This suggests that flight is a far more useful and important adaptation than intellect, since there are only a handful of animals which have what we consider a high state of intelligence.

Bandy around terms like "reductionist" if you like, but there is no evidence that there is any purpose to our lives, apart from that which we choose for ourselves. To suggest otherwise strikes me as simply being naive or ill-informed.

[Emma Woolgatherer]

I would be very surprised if there was not life on other planets, but the sheer stochasticism of the evolutionary process makes it highly unlikely that anything resembling the "higher" life on this planet would exist elsewhere.

I'm inclined to agree with Paolo on this one, although, like Chris, I'm having trouble with the phrase "sheer stochasticism".

There is no determinism to evolution, it is a random walk.

I can grasp the idea that genetic drift is random, and also that those mutations caused by mistakes in copying DNA (as opposed to those caused by radiation, etc.) are random, and even that those copying mistakes themselves are spontaneous and undetermined (although I don't really understand the process, so I'm not entirely confident of that). But I'm struggling to understand what justification there might be for describing natural selection as random. It seems to me to be self-evidently not random. Which would mean that evolution is only partly random, and that to talk of "the sheer stochasticism of the evolutionary process" and "no determinism to evolution" is to exaggerate, at best. Or maybe it's worse than that. I'm not sure that I understand this, but it seems relevant:

Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From Multi-species Study
ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2007) — A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms ... These results demonstrate that, even where we might expect evolution to be random, it is not. [my bold]

Can you help me out here, Paolo?

Evolution is not geared up to achieve goals, it can just seem that way to self-centered humans, because they are looking back through time with themselves as an endpoint. Rather like doing a maze puzzle from the goal back to the beginning, all the dead-ends and alternative routes are missed out ... [T]here is no evidence that there is any purpose to our lives, apart from that which we choose for ourselves. To suggest otherwise strikes me as simply being naive or ill-informed.

I completely and utterly agree, and I'm so pleased to see you say this so unambiguously, Paolo, after our misunderstanding in that other thread ("We are just disposable transport vessels for our DNA"). But if I understood Chris properly, I don't think he was suggesting that there was a purpose, just that there was a cause. Which is rather different, isn't it?

Emma

[Paolo]

...I'm struggling to understand what justification there might be for describing natural selection as random. It seems to me to be self-evidently not random.

Right - fair comment, I acknowledge that selection itself is mostly non-random. The crux of this particular argument is whether you are looking at mico or macro evolutionary timescales.

Microevolution and macroevolutionary studies are carried out by very different sets of scientists. Macroevolution is the domain of the palaeontologist (like myself) who consider a variety of different types of animal with different generation rates over long periods of time, whilst microevolution studies tend to concentrate on single features of organisms with a short generation time (like the vulvas of nematodes). The two ways of looking at evolution are not incompatible, but there is little being done to unite the fields. This may not sound like much of a problem, but it tends to come back to the ages old debate about uniformitarianism and catastrophism. Microevolutionary studies can safely ignore catastrophic events in the geological past when discussing evolutionary processes, since they do not consider long enough timescales for them to be relevent, but when considering macroevolutionary trends there are events that cause periods of high extinction rate, which fundamentally alters the evolutionary trends that emerge prior to the event. As an example, think of the dinosaurs. They were a dominant niche-filler for 190 million years, they had survived two mass extinction events, that had wiped out swathes of life on Earth, but then one or two stochastic events occuring 65 million years ago finally did them in. Mammals are unlikely to have ever become as diverse or "dominant" as they now are without that/those stochastic events. This is why I consider there to be a large degree of of stochasticity involved in evolution, because the shorter scale trends are so strongly influenced by much longer term events and processes.

Which would mean that evolution is only partly random, and that to talk of "the sheer stochasticism of the evolutionary process" and "no determinism to evolution" is to exaggerate, at best. Or maybe it's worse than that. I'm not sure that I understand this, but it seems relevant:

Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From Multi-species Study
ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2007) — A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms ... These results demonstrate that, even where we might expect evolution to be random, it is not. [my bold]
Can you help me out here, Paolo?

Now we come to how determistic evolution is (I've already covered my thoughts with regard to the findings of the article above, when discussing the difference between micro and macroevolutionary studies). Random genetic variation provides the fuel for natural selection, and that variation is tiny compared to the ancestral genome, meaning that new forms are strongly influenced (or determined) by the ancestral form. Evolution does not spawn unique forms de novo as we all know. The "Qwerty" theory in evolution is well established (we stick with qwerty keyboards because we have them and are geared up to use them, even if they are no longer have the most efficient arrangement of keys - evolution does the same thing, if it 'ain't broke, don't fix it - even if it's not perfect). This concept allied with trends that emerge as a result of stability in selection pressure, will produce the impression of an evolutionary direction in undisturbed environments (as a macroevolutionary example there is a great sequence of foraminfera from a borehole off the coast of Brazil that show an uninterupted gradation between morphologies). However, it is erroneous to posit that evolution always works in a direction as a result of such examples, since in many other organisms and environments change is non-directional as a result of variations in selection pressure.

My over-arching concern is that when discussing determinism people get caught up with concepts of fate and predetermination, particularly with regard to human evolution. Many people simply can't grasp the fact that we do not have a higher purpose conferred as a birthright of being human. I suppose that elements of evolution can be considered as deterministic (future forms will always be strongly influenced by past forms), but since selection pressures can be overturned by stochastic events (which eventually will happen), it strikes me as being presumptious to extrapolate into the future or to different planets.

Talking about other planets, it might be useful to consider what we know about our planet and why life is the way it is. If an intelligent alien lifeform visited and thoroughly explored our planet at a random time in the Earth's existence there is a 99.96% chance that they would not encounter any life that we would currently consider "intelligent". In fact, there is a ~50% chance that the atmosphere would not contain any oxygen. So much evolution has been influence by tiny changes it can be hard to grasp. If the first cyanobacteria had missed out on the sequence of mutations required to photosynthesise to produce oxygen as a toxic waste product, then life on Earth would not be anything like it is today. There would probably still be a vast amount of life, but nothing like the life that there is now. The same can be said when we look at any extinction event, change in continent mass and connectivity, variation in ocean chemistry, impact by asteroid. We are here because our lineage has been lucky enough to survive until now, there is no reason beyond the simple fact that our ancestors didn't die before they gave birth.

In a similar vein, if an alien came to Earth now, they might be impressed by our architecture, technology and "Hello" magazine, but then they might consider it all to just be a frivolous waste of resources that is dooming our species (and countless others) to an untimely extinction. Still, life goes on - after all, we haven't polluted the world as thoroughly as those pesky cyanobacteria did 2.5 billion years ago, and that all worked out just fine anyway.

But if I understood Chris properly, I don't think he was suggesting that there was a purpose, just that there was a cause. Which is rather different, isn't it?

Well:

Of course unlike the others, our oddity is that we sit around contemplating our uniqueness and trying to assign a reason for it, even if there isn't one.

Or trying to establish that there is a reason for it because that might have a lot to do with the point

This suggested to me that Chris was proposing that there is a point to our uniqueness - perhaps I'm misreading it?

[clayto]

Again I find Paolo's thinking is so far apart from mine I hesitate to reply in any detail but I will tackle a few aspects. Emma has dealt with 'randomness and luck' and how such concepts can be misinterpreted / oversimplified. It is an important area for consideration if only because the Intelligent Design advocates use it in their rubbishing of Darwinism.

Some of Paolo's remarks remind me of the scientists in the recent play about Einstein and Eddington who might well have asked "Does Einstein understand how gravity works?"

"it can just seem that way to self-centered humans" ----- we have had this argument before ----- I suggest that all humans and all other animals are self-centered and subjective, the 'world' (including concepts concerning evolution) is what we perceive it to be, we at least modify it by our perception and may even create it in the act of perceiving it (for which Quantum Physics has been offering growing evidence in support of Idealism).

"I like to think that birds would consider flight to be a far more important and interesting thing to get excited about" (than intelligence). Well, perhaps they would if they had the intellect to consider such things but as far as as we know they do not. Intellect / intelligence enables us to 'get excited about' everything, our own capacities, imagined future (even meaning and purpose) and likewise those of other animals, to the extent for example that humans dreamed of emulating the birds and in their own way(s) succeeded ('Do they understand the nature of flight' some closed minded critics of early flight pioneers must have asked --- until the pioneers succeeded).

"Redundant intellect is intellect that achieves nothing to further the reproduction or survival of individuals of a species." You might think the term redundant appropriate if you thought that reproduction or survival is all that life is about. I do not use the term 'reductionist' as a pejorative word but as what seems to me the best description of Paolo' mind-set as illustrated in this quotation. I have a different mind-set, presumably a product of a different perception of the world, which is no surprise to me as a key feature of my mind-set is openness to the possibility that for each of us 'the world is at least partly created by our perception of it, yet is fundamentally different to what we think it to be'. A paradox, of course.

It is illuminating to read that Paolo does not think that intelligence / intellect is 'something to get excited about.' As I say, a very different mind-set.

Quoting me: "Or trying to establish that there is a reason for it because that might have a lot to do with the point".

"This suggested to me that Chris was proposing that there is a point to our uniqueness - perhaps I'm misreading it?" What it should suggest is that I propose we should consider the possibility that there might be a point to our uniqueness ----rather than have a closed mind, bolstered by dogmatic assertions that we know things we (probably) do not know.

Chris

[Paolo]

Again I find Paolo's thinking is so far apart from mine...

On this we agree. Chris seem to be fond of quantum physics, as I am fond of palaeontology. The trouble with quantum physics is that the conclusions drawn are fine when dealing with the world at a quantum level, but when it comes to its application in the world we actually inhabit - the world that can be adequately explained by Newtonian physics - I find quantum physics a bit of a wild goose. particularly when we bear in mind that it is a theoretical approach that is open to change. In 50 years (or whatever) when quantum physics has morphed into an approach that actually unifies Newtonian and quantum observations (ie. becomes relevant at a macroscopic level), I would be more happy about applying the concepts to the world we inhabit. I prefer looking at the observable facts represented in different, tangible organisms from different periods of time.

Emma has dealt with 'randomness and luck' and how such concepts can be misinterpreted / oversimplified. It is an important area for consideration if only because the Intelligent Design advocates use it in their rubbishing of Darwinism.

As with most ID arguments, their use of randomness and luck has a basis in truth, but is then twisted so it becomes nonsense. Evolution is a combination of random chance and selection. Since random chance features in the process there must be an element of stochasticity inherent in the system. A simple counter argument to the ID "the chance of X happening due to random processes is vanishingly small, therefore Goddidit" is the example of a coin tossing competition: the chances of winning a coin toss is always 1 in 2, yet it is possible to win a coin toss 83,666 times in a row - the chances of which are vanishingly small. All you need to do is make the whole human population take part (after all - there's no opting out in evolution). Everybody has one attempt per match, the winner moves to the next round, the loser is out of the contest. Eventually you are left with two people (both of whom have won 83,665 coin tosses in a row) and the winner reaches the 83,666 wins in a row. It is not due to skill, it is purely down to luck. As an aside, afterwards the winner will probably say that they always knew they would win and they might even go on to say that they were fated to do so. Of course, most people getting through the first few rounds would probably think much the same until they were knocked out of the contest.

Life is also a competition, but it is one which is ongoing and it is considerably more complicated since it works on lots of different levels simultaneously. On some levels ability is part of the contest, at other levels there is just luck, at yet other levels there is a combination of the two. I tend to think of life as being a bit like playing an unending game of tennis, chess, poker, blackjack and paintball (to name but a few) all at the same time. Losing any of the games has consequences, some of which will permanently put you out of the game, winning overall is simply not an option, since the game only ends when you die, but there are some victories that can be had - the most important in evolutionary terms being able to pass on your skills to another version of yourself, the most important in personal terms depends entirely on what you enjoy. At least everyone else - everything else - is playing the same game.

This suggested to me that Chris was proposing that there is a point to our uniqueness - perhaps I'm misreading it?

What it should suggest is that I propose we should consider the possibility that there might be a point to our uniqueness ----rather than have a closed mind, bolstered by dogmatic assertions that we know things we (probably) do not know.

All species are unique, they wouldn't be considered discrete species otherwise. Our uniqueness happens to involve a big brain, I am unimpressed by this fact since the world is full of other species with equally marvelous adaptations that make them unique. Don't get me wrong - I find all adaptations to be fascinating, big brains included, but I think that enough time has been spent contemplating the "point" of our uniqueness (by philosophers, religions, anthropologists, archaeologists, etc.) and I really find it nothing more than naval-gazing introspection. I am a pragmatic sort nowadays - ten years ago I would be in a similar mind to Chris, but now I feel like I've thought these things through to my satisfaction. Studying and working in the field of biology and palaeontology for 15 years has certainly been formative - I think about evolution for at least 8 hours a day and I still find myself being fascinated and astounded by new concepts and ideas in the field. However, I would not consider my opinion to be dogmatic, I just lack the time, space, ability and (frankly) patience to explain exactly why I think further consideration of the "point" of human uniqueness is a waste of time (although see above, see other posts). It's been done to death and it always ends up getting hijacked to fit some ulterior motive or other.

[Emma Woolgatherer]

... when considering macroevolutionary trends there are events that cause periods of high extinction rate, which fundamentally alters the evolutionary trends that emerge prior to the event. As an example, think of the dinosaurs … I consider there to be a large degree of of stochasticity involved in evolution, because the shorter scale trends are so strongly influenced by much longer term events and processes.

Yes, got it. And in the context of talking about the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, or an alternative evolutionary route to intelligent life, that level of stochasticisty (much prefer that to stochasticism, which somehow sounds religious) is highly relevant. OK. The smoke is lifting.

Now we come to how determistic evolution is ... My over-arching concern is that when discussing determinism people get caught up with concepts of fate and predetermination, particularly with regard to human evolution.

Hmmm. I can see that might be something to guard against, but I don't think it should be an overarching concern, especially in this particular forum. I certainly don’t understand determinism that way. For me, determinism is simply the idea that every event, including every human action, is caused by a chain of preceding events. That does not mean that every event was somehow predestined, or even predictable.

Many people simply can't grasp the fact that we do not have a higher purpose conferred as a birthright of being human. I suppose that elements of evolution can be considered as deterministic (future forms will always be strongly influenced by past forms), but since selection pressures can be overturned by stochastic events (which eventually will happen), it strikes me as being presumptious to extrapolate into the future or to different planets.

Yes, I understand your latter point, I think. But I am struggling with the deterministic/stochastic distinction. I know that one definition of random is "lacking causal relationships", but events that we commonly describe as random still have causes. A throw of a pair of dice or a toss of a coin may yield random results, but those results are still determined – by things like the initial position, and the direction and speed of the throw. Meteors hitting the earth may do so randomly, but those collisions are still caused by preceding events. What makes them random is that they're not (at least, not easily) predictable or controllable. What I don’t fully understand is whether the same might be said about things like errors in copying DNA. Can they not be said to have causes, to be determined by preceding events?

If an intelligent alien lifeform visited and thoroughly explored our planet at a random time in the Earth's existence there is a 99.96% chance that they would not encounter any life that we would currently consider "intelligent”…

I love this kind of thought experiment. Just thinking about the odds against my own birth, my own conception, my parents getting together ... I find it all oddly cheering. I do feel lucky to exist, both as an individual and as a member of the human species. I feel that we’re particularly lucky to have evolved in the way we have, with the intelligence to study things like palaeontology or quantum physics – or philosophy or anthropology or anything else. That doesn’t mean that I think we’re uniquely unique, or that our intelligence has a “point” in the sense of there being a pre-ordained purpose to it.

But, like Chris, I do think our intelligence is something to get excited about. And not just our intelligence, but also our creativity, our imagination, our capacity for love and compassion and hatred and belligerence and lots of other things. I’m interested in those other things in other animals, too, though not because I think they’re inherently more interesting or more marvellous than attributes that human beings don’t have, like unaided flight or echolocation. It's just what happens to light my fire.

I think that enough time has been spent contemplating the "point" of our uniqueness (by philosophers, religions, anthropologists, archaeologists, etc.) and I really find it nothing more than [navel]-gazing introspection … I think further consideration of the "point" of human uniqueness is a waste of time … It's been done to death and it always ends up getting hijacked to fit some ulterior motive or other.

I do have some sympathy with this position, if “point” means a preordained purpose, something mapped out in advance. I’m still not convinced that Chris is using the word in that way, though. If I were asked, “What’s the point of human existence?” and “What’s the point of our being so intelligent and creative and sociable and compassionate and quarrelsome and … whatever else we are?” I wouldn’t be able to say, to either question, “There’s no point at all. It’s all pointless.” Even though I know the human species has a finite future, that from a macroevolutionary perspective we're around just for the blink of an eye. For me, the point of our existence is not something we discover; it’s something we decide, individually and collectively. It doesn’t have to be about purpose; it can be about goals. And whatever we decide that our goals are – to improve the well-being of humanity, grow the global economy indefinitely, reduce the suffering of all sentient creatures, accumulate as much property or territory as possible, protect the planet, colonise other planets, acquire as much knowledge or wisdom as possible, propagate a particular religion or ideology throughout the globe – then the “point” of our intelligence, creativity, etc., becomes that those characteristics enable us to achieve our goals. So yes, there are always motives, both ulterior and overt. And some of them may be rather objectionable. But some might be quite … noble. And for me, that’s the point.

Emma

[clayto]

Paolo wrote "but now I feel like I've thought these things through to my satisfaction". Rather like so many convinced religionists then? Again Paolo show how his approach to thinking is fundamentally different to mine. I don't think I have ever made or am likely to make such a claim about the sort of things we debate here, despite the fact that I suspect I am quite a bit older and have been thinking, reading about and discussing such matters since my teens. There are some political / social issues I have fairly settled views on such as racism or the death penalty but then I have taught politics for a lifetime, yet even there I am open to the possibility of new challenging ideas.

I do wonder why, given that he seems so immersed in the (relatively) narrow confines of his scientific speciality why he spends so much time with us ----- not that I want to discourage him as I almost always welcome having my ideas questioned, not least from a well informed source. I just think it would be more effective if more open to thinking outside the 'biology box'.

Emma explains so well much of what I think, especially in her last paragraph, that I don't believe I can better it so I won't try!

Chris

[Jain]

I dont believe there is any 'point' to human existance apart from that to reproduce and pass on our genes, exactly the same reasons for any other living creature. However I believe the difference between us humans and all other animals is that we have somehow evolved a conscience. I think with us having a bigger more intelligent brain we not only pass on our genes but we are able to pass on more intelligent memes, we can teach our children how to live in a civilized society and we can be altruistic towards not only our family and those that benefit our lives but for people we have never even met before. We can sympathize with other people and even different species. To go back to the OP. I think I would answer the question to a 12 yr old by saying that for a species to develop into a 'thinking' species it would need to evolve a big brain.( I remember watching a documentary that we may have developed a bigger brain by finding out that we can cook our food, by cooking our food we used less energy eating and digesting food making our guts a lot smaller as cooked food takes less effort to digest but we can get more energy from our food by cooking it. As we had more energy this energy could be used for growing a larger brain. Please quote me if I am wrong!) When we have a bigger brain we can then start to pass on intelligent memes which in turn makes us as a species more intelligent.

[Alan C.]

I don't normally post in "Ethics and morality" (as an Atheist, I don't have any ) But I must say Jain, if you have managed to read through this whole thread, kudos to you
Good post as well, by the way.

[Paolo]

Paolo wrote "but now I feel like I've thought these things through to my satisfaction"... There are some political / social issues I have fairly settled views on such as racism or the death penalty but then I have taught politics for a lifetime, yet even there I am open to the possibility of new challenging ideas.

So you have thought these issues through to your satisfaction. If you hadn't you would not have settled on your views. I am not declining new ideas, but so far I haven't heard anything you have suggested that is new. As someone with an interest in society and politics you have an utterly different perspective to me. I find contemporary society and politics of limited interest - viewing it as the topmost veneer in the thick wedge that makes up the history of our species.

I do wonder why, given that he seems so immersed in the (relatively) narrow confines of his scientific speciality why he spends so much time with us ----- not that I want to discourage him as I almost always welcome having my ideas questioned, not least from a well informed source. I just think it would be more effective if more open to thinking outside the 'biology box'.

Interestingly, I consider the fine details of humanity a bit of a distraction. I am more interested in the common themes that crop up throughout human history and prehistory. Humans have not changed much as living organisms for a couple of hundred thousand years. Their societies have changed however. I think that understanding the fundamental aspects of humanity becomes easier when the trimmings are removed. Biology provides a novel approach to identifying just what does make us different, because it allows us to make comparisons with other organisms. I personally find this informative and fascinating. However, it seems that you are not particularly interested in using biology as a tool to look at humanity - you seem to view it as reductionist and thus you dismiss it. That is fair enough - clearly you don't want to think outside of the particular box you inhabit.

I do think, however, that keeping within the "biology box" is particularly relevant in this thread, considering it is called "Re: Another evolution question" and I would consider that evolution falls rather neatly into the "biology box".

Emma explains so well much of what I think, especially in her last paragraph, that I don't believe I can better it so I won't try!
Chris

I think that Emma's response was excellent (as was Jain's - welcome by the way). The last paragraph was the weakest part for me - not because I don't agree, I do, but because it once again misses the broader picture and brings the discussion back to the level of the individual. Yes - that is fine for us as individuals, but it does little to improve our understanding of the bigger picture and it has almost nothing to do with the evolution of human intelligence, which was the original focus of this thread.

[clayto]

Quote "So you have thought these issues through to your satisfaction. If you hadn't you would not have settled on your views." I said 'fairly' settled views; and I have not thought the issues through to 'my satisfaction' if by that is meant there is nothing more to say, that there is no possibility whatever of my changing my position. I think of everything in terms of possibilities and probabilities (to different degrees) not certainties. I think it probable (not certain) that certainty is the cause of a great deal of harm in a great many things, not least both in religion and science.

Quote: "I do think, however, that keeping within the "biology box" is particularly relevant in this thread, considering it is called "Re: Another evolution question" and I would consider that evolution falls rather neatly into the "biology box"." Note the "keeping within"!

Is evolution confined only to the "biology box"? Does it have no relevance to philosophy, religion, culture, ethics? Are these things to be explained away by biology? Some people think so and that is one form of reductionism which non-humanists level at us, rightly or wrongly.

The reductionism is not in the use of biology but in either an exclusive or at least an excessive reliance on it to understand what we are considering. I do not question the biology in these threads, I have no competence to do so. What I question is what might be called the philosophical and the phenomenological interpretations and conclusions drawn from the biology and the language used, which I feel may be unclear or inappropriate ---- and which I think in some cases plays into the hands of Intelligent Design Creationists and others who want to rubbish Humanism, giving them ammunition for claims that Humanists are dogmatically certain that we are just a fluke, here entirely by accident, just mere organisms existing only to survive and reproduce in order to pass on genes; whose intelligence, culture, science, beliefs, morality and so on are of little or no significance. Again, that is precisely what some people believe.

Wordsworth's birth and survival to adulthood, hence his poetry, may at one level be described as an accident, a fluke. He survived a good many years and passed on his genes to five children hence fulfilling his 'biological purpose'. I am not going to argue that writing his poetry fulfilled a greater purpose as I don't think any of this is quantifiable in that way. But I am going to argue that his poetry fulfilled another purpose, of some significance or worth which is not understood by considering it from inside the biological box.

Chris

[Paolo]

I said 'fairly' settled views; and I have not thought the issues through to 'my satisfaction' if by that is meant there is nothing more to say, that there is no possibility whatever of my changing my position. I think of everything in terms of possibilities and probabilities (to different degrees) not certainties. I think it probable (not certain) that certainty is the cause of a great deal of harm in a great many things, not least both in religion and science.

Why would anyone hold a view that they were not satisfied with? Satisfaction does not mean finalised, it merely means good enough. If one's view were not thought through to the point of satisfaction, why would one hold those views, since they would be (by definition) unsatisfactory. No-one mentioned certainty until you did. As far as I'm concerned I will change my opinion as soon as I see a convincing argument that accounts for observations more effectively than existing propositions.

Quote: "I do think, however, that keeping within the "biology box" is particularly relevant in this thread, considering it is called "Re: Another evolution question" and I would consider that evolution falls rather neatly into the "biology box"." Note the "keeping within"!

Note the inverted commas I added around "biology box".

Is evolution confined only to the "biology box"? Does it have no relevance to philosophy, religion, culture, ethics? Are these things to be explained away by biology? Some people think so and that is one form of reductionism which non-humanists level at us, rightly or wrongly.

Evolution has relevance to pretty much everything, which is why I consider it valid to apply evolutionary concepts to pretty much everything. The fact is that evolution as a theory has its basis in biology and when it is applied to other disciplines there can be quite breath-taking liberties taken with the theory (see social Darwinism as an extreme example).

The reductionism is not in the use of biology but in either an exclusive or at least an excessive reliance on it to understand what we are considering. I do not question the biology in these threads, I have no competence to do so. What I question is what might be called the philosophical and the phenomenological interpretations and conclusions drawn from the biology and the language used, which I feel may be unclear or inappropriate----

One can always ask for clarification. As to inappropriate, there are perhaps differences between terms used in different fields that lead to confusion and misinterpretation, but I expect that there also some differences in opinion that you disagree with, but one person's "inappropriate" is another's "perfectly reasonable" (I for one would consider the mention of Bigfoot inappropriate when discussing human evolution).

---- and which I think in some cases plays into the hands of Intelligent Design Creationists and others who want to rubbish Humanism, giving them ammunition for claims that Humanists are dogmatically certain that we are just a fluke, here entirely by accident, just mere organisms existing only to survive and reproduce in order to pass on genes; whose intelligence, culture, science, beliefs, morality and so on are of little or no significance. Again, that is precisely what some people believe.

Perhaps some people believe it because it could well be the truth. Perhaps they believe it because there is no evidence to support a theory that suggests that we are not "just a fluke, here entirely by accident, just mere organisms existing only to survive and reproduce in order to pass on genes".

Wordsworth's birth and survival to adulthood, hence his poetry, may at one level be described as an accident, a fluke. He survived a good many years and passed on his genes to five children hence fulfilling his 'biological purpose'. I am not going to argue that writing his poetry fulfilled a greater purpose as I don't think any of this is quantifiable in that way. But I am going to argue that his poetry fulfilled another purpose, of some significance or worth which is not understood by considering it from inside the biological box.
Chris

Just for a bit of perspective I'd like to point out that the vast majority of people in the world today have never heard of Wordsworth and they probably never will. Was his purpose (beyond his individual needs) intended to be limited to educated, middle-class Westerners? You may feel that the masses are missing out, but I would point out that there are millions of believers who simply can't understand why humanists reject the joy and comfort of belief in God - they think we're all missing out. But, they miss the point that wanting something to have significance is not the same thing as it actually having significance. Personal or even popular appreciation of something does not confer a wider value, it merely reflects the fact that some people appreciate it.

We come back down to the same difference in perspective that always comes up in our discussions/arguments. I consider Wordsworth and his poetry to be a tree, as is Leonardo Da Vinci, Hitler, Confucius, Robert Mugabe and any other person who has made a lasting impact on the world (for better or worse). Much as I find trees interesting in their own right I personally am far more interested in seeing the woods. You accuse me of thinking inside a box, but at least that box is intended to encompasses the whole planet and 4.6 billion years, rather than a random collection of "human achievements and abilities that I appreciate", which seems to be your frame of reference (if not, please let me know what your reference point actually is).

[clayto]

As I really cannot make much sense of this I will end my contributions here.

Chris

[Jain]

I do have some sympathy with this position, if “point” means a preordained purpose, something mapped out in advance. I’m still not convinced that Chris is using the word in that way, though. If I were asked, “What’s the point of human existence?” and “What’s the point of our being so intelligent and creative and sociable and compassionate and quarrelsome and … whatever else we are?” I wouldn’t be able to say, to either question, “There’s no point at all. It’s all pointless.” Even though I know the human species has a finite future, that from a macroevolutionary perspective we're around just for the blink of an eye. For me, the point of our existence is not something we discover; it’s something we decide, individually and collectively. It doesn’t have to be about purpose; it can be about goals. And whatever we decide that our goals are – to improve the well-being of humanity, grow the global economy indefinitely, reduce the suffering of all sentient creatures, accumulate as much property or territory as possible, protect the planet, colonise other planets, acquire as much knowledge or wisdom as possible, propagate a particular religion or ideology throughout the globe – then the “point” of our intelligence, creativity, etc., becomes that those characteristics enable us to achieve our goals. So yes, there are always motives, both ulterior and overt. And some of them may be rather objectionable. But some might be quite … noble. And for me, that’s the point.

clayto wrote:
Emma explains so well much of what I think, especially in her last paragraph, that I don't believe I can better it so I won't try!
Chris

I think that Emma's response was excellent (as was Jain's - welcome by the way). The last paragraph was the weakest part for me - not because I don't agree, I do, but because it once again misses the broader picture and brings the discussion back to the level of the individual. Yes - that is fine for us as individuals, but it does little to improve our understanding of the bigger picture and it has almost nothing to do with the evolution of human intelligence, which was the original focus of this thread.

I agree that Emma's response was good and I agree, but at a personal level not an evolutionary one. After reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, I came to conclusion that although we humans like to think we are alturistic and our evolved consciousness makes us care for others including animals, when it comes down to it we do it to benefit ourselves. We care for others because it could somehow help us, 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours', I dont believe the motives for our existance is to achieve our personal goals as emma said, in the grand scheme of things to reduce suffering of others wouldn't make sense to the evolution of oneself unless the ones sufferering directly have an effect on you. I think this is all to do with memes and memes evolve as do genes, we can control the evolution of memes, but not those of genes, at least we cant change the random mutation of Genes. As i said in my last post the genetic mutation that made us grow a bigger brain is what paved the way for us to be a 'thinking' species which in turn gave us the ability to pass on intelligent memes.

[Paolo]

I agree that Emma's response was good and I agree, but at a personal level not an evolutionary one. After reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, I came to conclusion that although we humans like to think we are alturistic and our evolved consciousness makes us care for others including animals, when it comes down to it we do it to benefit ourselves. We care for others because it could somehow help us, 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours', I dont believe the motives for our existance is to achieve our personal goals as emma said, in the grand scheme of things to reduce suffering of others wouldn't make sense to the evolution of oneself unless the ones sufferering directly have an effect on you.

I agree completely.

I think this is all to do with memes and memes evolve as do genes, we can control the evolution of memes, but not those of genes, at least we cant change the random mutation of Genes. As i said in my last post the genetic mutation that made us grow a bigger brain is what paved the way for us to be a 'thinking' species which in turn gave us the ability to pass on intelligent memes.

I broadly agree here too, although I am not convinced that the evolution of memes can be controlled as such - after all, they are subject to selection from too many different directions to maintain an imposed structure and they are also prone to "mutations" in the form of errors in transcription, replication and translation (a game of Chinese whispers demonstrates this - the outcome is influenced, but not controlled, by the propagator).

[Emma Woolgatherer]

After reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, I came to conclusion that although we humans like to think we are alturistic and our evolved consciousness makes us care for others including animals, when it comes down to it we do it to benefit ourselves. We care for others because it could somehow help us, 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' ...

Unlike Paolo, I completely disagree with this, and I find it slightly alarming that it is a conclusion you reached after reading The Selfish Gene. Dawkins has been at pains to point out that he is not suggesting that human behaviour is (always) motivated by selfishness. When he talks of a 'selfish gene' he is simply saying that the effects of genes can be described as if they are motivated by selfishness. At the level of the individual, we can have all sorts of motives, including altruistic ones.

I dont believe the motives for our existance is to achieve our personal goals as emma said ...

Well, that's not quite what I said, and it's certainly not what I meant. To be honest, I was simply trying to find some common ground between Paolo and Chris, and it seems I did that, but a fat lot of use it was!

in the grand scheme of things to reduce suffering of others wouldn't make sense to the evolution of oneself unless the ones sufferering directly have an effect on you.

I'm not sure what you mean here by "the evolution of oneself". And I am as nervous of your "grand scheme of things" as I am of Paolo's "broader picture". These ways of looking at things are interesting and useful and worth while, but they're not necessarily bigger and better. Yes, there are gene-centred explanations for altruistic behaviour, like inclusive fitness, and they are quite persuasive. But when used at the level of individual decision-making (as unfortunately they are), such explanations are irrelevant and, in my view, misleading. People do help others with whom they have no kinship. That may be a consequence of certain characteristics [---][/---] empathy, for example [---][/---] that evolved because they increased the chances of close kin surviving to reproduce, but once the characteristics evolved, they are not limited to use in those specific circumstances. If we are capable of compassion, we can, and do, apply it widely.

I think this is all to do with memes and memes evolve as do genes, we can control the evolution of memes, but not those of genes, at least we cant change the random mutation of Genes. As i said in my last post the genetic mutation that made us grow a bigger brain is what paved the way for us to be a 'thinking' species which in turn gave us the ability to pass on intelligent memes.

I find the idea of memes fascinating, but I am wary of talking about them as if they are established and provable entities. Memetics has been described as "pseudo-scientific dogma", and I don't know whether that's true or not. I'm not yet persuaded, though, that memes are truly analogous to genes. And even if they are, I certainly don't think that memes are intelligent, any more than I think genes are selfish.

Emma

[Paolo]

I personally have a problem with the concept of "pure" altruism at the individual level, since altruistic behaviour is self-rewarding in emotional terms, there is considerable scope for reciprocacy and it can improve social regard for the individual involved (social "brownie points" that can improve the social standing of the individual) - therefore it is not quite the selfless behaviour that is often seen as at odds with the "selfishness" expected from natural selection. I tend to think of it as a medium to long-term strategy. I think Emma makes a wonderful observation when she says:

People do help others with whom they have no kinship. That may be a consequence of certain characteristics — empathy, for example — that evolved because they increased the chances of close kin surviving to reproduce, but once the characteristics evolved, they are not limited to use in those specific circumstances. If we are capable of compassion, we can, and do, apply it widely.

I would suggest that this mechanism for extrafamilial altruism can be integrated into a "broader picture", helping to understand the possible route that has led to modern society.

...I am as nervous of your "grand scheme of things" as I am of Paolo's "broader picture". These ways of looking at things are interesting and useful and worth while, but they're not necessarily bigger and better.

Not better perhaps, but bigger surely? Different opinions can't really be broken down into which is better and which is worse, since they are opinions. I don't think that our views are actually at odds with each other particularly. Different ways of looking at things should not be automatically considered as at odds with one another. There may be difficulty in integrating the "broader picture" with the detail, but surely it is worth doing it, particularly if it means adapting the ideas from both perspectives to ensure they account for the majority of observations?

Yes, there are gene-centred explanations for altruistic behaviour, like inclusive fitness, and they are quite persuasive. But when used at the level of individual decision-making (as unfortunately they are), such explanations are irrelevant and, in my view, misleading.

So here we come to it - if you can say why you consider them irrelevant and misleading, we can try to adapt both of our perspectives to deal with the problems you identify. After all, the power of science and rationalism lies in flexibility and the ability to adapt to fit observations.