Modality-Independent Evolution

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Steve and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: X99Lynx at aol.com <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Date: Thursday, February 04, 1999 11:16 AM

>I wrote:

><<In between the old and new - there is much more that goes on in biology.
>A word, not being an entity or a species, does not have to go through natural
>selection to emerge differently.>>

>In a message dated 2/1/99 10:54:13 PM, DLW wrote:

><<I was not talking about words, I was talking about languages.>>

>Without trying to obstruct or snipe, the parallel is still tough to draw.
>Evolution's "method" is random change.  It would be equivalent to generating
>thousands of random languages that could not survive (that don't work to
>communicate) in order to get one that does.  It would be the equivalent of
>untold numbers of random versions of, say, German that were tried and dropped
>before getting a version that survived.  (And then immediately starting the
>process all over again.)

This is exactly what happens when a child begins to learn his language. Many
sounds are produced which native speakers do not recognize, and they are
corrected.

A child that cannot learn how to speak properly will be protected today but,
in ancient times, probably would not have survived to reproduce.

>That was my point with saying that culture and language are Lamarckian.
>There is intentionality that guides them.

Sorry, I disagree. There is simple accretion of changes but no overriding
intentionality.

>Intention guides change in a very different, much less explosive but much less
>wasteful way.  Language is aimed at an objective - communication.  Biological
>evolution however has no objective, does not care where its going, it just
>goes.

That may be true of the ultimate objective of evolution (although I differ
on this point), but at any given moment in time, the object of evolution is
to ensure reproduction and continuance of the organism.

>The piece in Scientific American I mentioned earlier is a good example of the
>difference.  The biochemists let natural selection loose in a test tube and it
>comes up with molecular combinations "that they could not have made
>themselves."  The process is very creative but very wasteful - all of the
>combinations but a very few are useless.

I think a very strong argument could be made for the uselessness of all
organisms.

[ moderator snip ]

Pat