ECOLOG-L hit its daily maximum for messages yesterday, in part
because of all the messages about the natural selection thread. The
messages below are 4 more on this thread that were not posted because
of the limit.
David Inouye
All:
I have responded in part to this contribution via that of Dr.
Capellini's response, so I won't repeat those remarks here despite
their relevance (to maximize brevity). However, this contribution is
largely dependent upon the other.
As I believe Dr. Capellini pointed out in her response to this
contribution (if I may place my own interpretation on her remarks; I
hope she will correct me as necessary):
Apart from "mutation" and other "spontaneous" changes in genetic
makeup, evolution can't DIRECTLY work at the behavioral level if
maladaptive individuals continue to survive and produce progeny that
do the same at the same level as adaptive ones. While adaptation
does function at the individual level, evolution takes place at a
[sub]population level. PERCEIVED behaviors (cooperation and
"competition") may be due to APPARENT extra-evolutionary factors such
as CULTURE (group behaviors) that may appear to be adaptive in the
short term, but which are maladaptive in the long term. So-called
"primitive" cultures, for example, may survive through competition
with other groups, but eventually "find" that their "success"
backfires in the yet longer term. It either is obvious or not, for
example, that the increasing competitiveness of a social
(cooperative) species is adaptive or maladaptive in the longest
term. Unless Homo sapiens is different from other species, its
apparent "success" at moving from cooperative behavior to competitive
behavior, even if confined to the consequences of continued
population increase, may decline or end in rough proportion to the
increase--when, for example, some "keystone" element of its
supporting ecosystem.
I propose this for further discussion in the hopes of further getting
at the principles underlying the observable (apparent and "actual")
phenomena and the critical analysis therefrom to conclusions that are
derived from consistency between them.
WT [EMAIL PROTECTED]
At 12:03 PM 2/14/2006, Warren W. Aney wrote:
>I may not be the person to raise this discussion to a more rigorous
>ecological level, but let me try:
>
>As I understand one view of natural selection, it is a process that favors
>those qualities that increase the likelihood of a particular set of genes
>being passed on to succeeding generations. So we have the obvious, e.g.,
>selecting for opposable thumbs and bigger brains led to selecting for
>learning the use of tools (and weapons) which improved that particular
>clan's survivability -- and the survival of its gene set. It also explains
>some altruistic behaviors -- taking care of elderly clan members may have
>cost a little in terms of resource allocation, but that may have been more
>than offset by their providing services beneficial to the clan's survival.
>Services such as infant care, child mentoring and the transfer of accrued
>skills, knowledge and wisdom.
>
>It also may have led to learning some other behaviors such as killing the
>males and enslaving the females of competing clans -- not very altruistic
>but certainly improving the survival of the victorious clan's gene set.
>
>So why do we now seem to be learning behaviors that would appear to work
>against the survival of the gene set of the "clan" we belong to? Behaviors
>such as being kind to strangers instead of killing the males and raping the
>females, sending aid to foreign countries instead of engaging in genocide,
>promoting birth control instead of large families, honoring monogamy and
>celibacy instead of promiscuity, protecting and conserving other species
>instead of eliminating them as competitors or threats, honoring humility
>instead of belligerence, honoring artists more than soldiers (okay, this may
>be a bad example since we expend much more of our resources on the military
>than we do on the arts).
>
>It appears, at least to this field ecologist, that we are practicing
>behaviors aimed at improving the survival of a whole host of competing and
>maybe even antagonistic gene sets. And most of us (but not all of us)
>believe that is exactly what we should be doing. Where and how is natural
>selection at work in all this?
>
>
>Warren Aney
>Senior Wildlife Ecologist
>Tigard, Oregon
>From a social science perspective and with regard to the hegemony
of the "competition in natural selection" meme, I've found the
following to be interesting, in the past.
Keller, Evelyn F. 1992. Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death: Essays
on Language, Gender and Science. New York, NY: Routledge.
Todes, Daniel P. 1989. Darwin without Malthus: The Struggle for
Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Margulis, Lynn. 1991. "Symbiogenesis and Symbionticism" in Symbiosis
as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation: Speciation and Morphogenesis.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Cheers,
-
Ashwani
Vasishth [EMAIL PROTECTED] (818) 677-6137
Department of Urban Studies and Planning, ST 206
California State University, Northridge
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~vasishth
Well, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is one version of natural
selection that pre-dates Darwin, so there is not necessarily an
imperative for humans having to decide which memes are beneficial to
the survival of a thought-stream and which not.
Again, as a social scientist trying to understand change processes
and choice making at multiple scales and levels of organization, I
found the following to be helpful in the past:
Gould, Stephen J. 1977. Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
It occurs to me that perhaps the ideas of "environment" and of
"natural," in the context of evolutionary processes working on human
society, need to be thought of functionally, rather than
conventionally. At the very least, the natural-artificial and
natural-human divisions we are so accustomed to making in everyday
thought may need to be displaced in some way.
Cheers,
-
Ashwani
Vasishth [EMAIL PROTECTED] (323) 462-2884
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~vasishth
>I don't know if too many people would have much trouble with the
sort of thing you describe. However, what I see as somewhat insidious
is the repackaging of the old discredited Wynne-Edwards arguments
with concepts of "memes", which I guess started with Dawkins'
Extended Phenotype to produce really wooly ideas about "cultural
evolution" whereby "memes" replace genes as the units of selection.
>
>This gets us into the notion that certain "good memes" are "right"
and should be promoted, and "bad memes" are "wrong" and should be
expunged. While one can take certain rhetorical high roads here, the
idea that someone is supposed to decide which ideas are "good" and
which are "bad" is rather chilling. While we have had eugenics
movements in the past, we have also had "applications" of the ideas
of "cultural evolution" in places like Cambodia and China, and quite
frankly, they don't look too appealing to me.
>
>There is, of course, no data to support the memes evolution idea,
and lots of data to support the idea of the evolution of human
behaviors by natural selection (of course you can't ever PROVE
anything). IMHO, the cultural evolution types use the same tactics as
creationists when they present their arguments. It is really odd for
me to see someone like Sober debunking creationist style arguments in
one part of a recent book on the philosophy of science, while using
the same sort of rhetoric creationists use to promote the idea of
cultural evolution in another part of the book.
>
>Rob Hamilton
>
>"So easy it seemed once found, which yet
>unfound most would have thought impossible"
>
>John Milton
>________________________________________
>
>Robert G. Hamilton
>Department of Biological Sciences
>Mississippi College
>P.O. Box 4045
>200 South Capitol Street
>Clinton, MS 39058
>Phone: (601) 925-3872
>FAX (601) 925-3978
>
>>>> Bill Silvert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2/14/2006 5:35 PM >>>
>I've seen lengthy arguments about group selection, most of which border on
>the religious. I really don't understand why it is such an outrageous idea.
>
>Consider chemical defenses which presumably evolve randomly and persist if
>they enhance fitness. If a chemical makes an organism smell bad, then it is
>clearly a case of individual selection. But suppose that the chemical is a
>poison so that the predators can eat the organisms, but then they die.
>Predators that like that kind of prey will be selected against, and although
>the toxic individuals get consumed, after a while the group's survival is
>enhanced. Is this so outlandish? There are after all lots of living
>organsims out there which are edible but toxic.
>
>Bill Silvert
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "isab972" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 8:49 PM
>Subject: Re: current natural selection pressures
>
>
>> Your reasoning on selection is almost correct but there is one important
> > flow: natural selection does not act on clans or groups but only on
>> individuals. Group selection indeed does not work in nature. In very few
>> cases, there might be traits selected under kin-selection, but very very
>> few.
Behaviors and all characteristics of organisms are what is left over
after natural selection. THINGS DO NOT EVOLVE BECAUSE THEY ARE
BETTER OR BEST, THEY EVOLVE BECAUSE THEY ARE WHAT IS LEFT OVER AFTER
THE BAD CHOICES HAVE SUCCUMBED.
For example, if we select for only the best students, nearly all
students will die and their will be little diversity in the
population. All students would have A's because we killed all the
people who didn't get the best grades.
If we select against only the worst performers, we kill all the F
students, there are still D, C, and B students left in the
population. Natural selection selects against unfavorable
characteristics leaving both characteristics that are favorable and
those that are neither favorable nor unfavorable.
Natural Selection selects agains unfavorable things, nothing survives
because it is the best competitor, but many die because they were the
least competitive.
Sexual Selection, on the other hand, selects for desired traits
through female/male choice of partner traits. This can lead to
runaway characteristics such as the antlers of Irish Elk, or other
bizarre sexual attractants.
Malcolm L. McCallum
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Texas A&M University Texarkana
2600 Robison Rd.
Texarkana, TX 75501
O: 1-903-233-3134
H: 1-903-791-3843
Homepage: https://www.eagle.tamut.edu/faculty/mmccallum/index.html
________________________________
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news on behalf of
Wayne Tyson
Sent: Tue 2/14/2006 6:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: EVOLUTION Behavior Re: current natural selection pressures
Isabella,
I don' wanna get into an egocentric pissin match here (and I have no
reason to think that you, personally, confuse ISSUES with personal
opinion--we're all just trying to be clear, eh?), but your reasonin'
is almost correct (well, it's correct, but limited), to wit: Don't
behaviours develop because they work? "Selfish" behaviors don't work
for organisms that lack the requisite characteristics (physical and
behavioral), eh? Genes may be "selfish," but organisms evolve
according to a continuing best-fit relationship between their genetic
composition/resilience and a complex, continuously changing, cycling,
even vibrating, if you will, CONTEXT, no? Drop a bit of saline
solution into one side of a petri dish with a planarian "worm" (or
other suitable organism) in its most favourable habitat conditions,
and it will respond with adaptive behaviour, right? (I could be
quite wrong about the particulars, as the last time I remember doing
this simple exercise was about 50 years ago, but am I more or less
right about the principles?)
All the clever joking, punning, and tongue-in-cheekin' aside, whilst
you are quite correct to emphasize that "there is an important
[flaw]" flowing through any logic that GENETIC natural selection acts
DIRECTLY on groups, but what about complex evolution of behaviors
within and between cultures?
At the level of intelligence, one way (the most fundamental?) of
separating the sheep from the goats is (back to the planarian) the
ability to choose the superior over the inferior, eh? Tigers, for
example, are solitary because they and their more or less immediate
evolutionary predecessors made "superior" choices given their
genetic/behavioural compliment and the dynamic context/environment;
the same kind of interactions produced social species like Homo sapiens, no?
I submit this, not to split hairs, but to explore crucial
distinctions (including, perhaps unfortunately, but necessarily,
semantic ones). I am not concerned about agreement with my
"opinion," but interested in a non-personal integrated approach to
intellectual enquiry. I am also under no illusion that this
contribution is in any way complete or comprehensive. In fact, I beg
your pardon that (apologies to J. Goethe) I didn't take the time to
write a shorter one. I hope others will fill in the blanks as
necessary and correct any discrepancies.
WT
At 12:49 PM 2/14/2006, isab972 wrote:
>Dear Warren,
>
>Your reasoning on selection is almost correct but there is one important
>flow: natural selection does not act on clans or groups but only on
>individuals. Group selection indeed does not work in nature. In very few
>cases, there might be traits selected under kin-selection, but very very
>few.
>
>You talked about helping the others and cooperative behaviours. Under the
>word "cooperation" there are many different behaviours and in many cases the
>individual advantage is what drives the evolution of "cooperative
>behaviours", not group selection. A simple example: you have an antipredator
>advantage in larger groups through dilution effect and improved detection of
>approaching predators. So, the costs of alerting the group about the
>presence of a nearby predator are small for the caller, the call helps the
>others to escape but the apparent cooperation is driven by selfish
>individual advantage.
>
>Isabella
>
>--
>Isabella Capellini, PhD
>Research Associate
>
>Evolutionary Anthropology Research Group
>Department of Anthropology
>Durham University
>43 Old Elvet
>DH1 3HN
>Durham (UK)
>
>phone: +44 (0)191 3346177
>fax: +44 (0)191 3346101
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Warren W. Aney
> > Sent: 14 February 2006 20:04
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: current natural selection pressures
> >
> > I may not be the person to raise this discussion to a more
> > rigorous ecological level, but let me try:
> >
> > As I understand one view of natural selection, it is a
> > process that favors those qualities that increase the
> > likelihood of a particular set of genes being passed on to
> > succeeding generations. So we have the obvious, e.g.,
> > selecting for opposable thumbs and bigger brains led to
> > selecting for learning the use of tools (and weapons) which
> > improved that particular clan's survivability -- and the
> > survival of its gene set. It also explains some altruistic
> > behaviors -- taking care of elderly clan members may have
> > cost a little in terms of resource allocation, but that may
> > have been more than offset by their providing services
> > beneficial to the clan's survival.
> > Services such as infant care, child mentoring and the
> > transfer of accrued skills, knowledge and wisdom.
> >
> > It also may have led to learning some other behaviors such as
> > killing the males and enslaving the females of competing
> > clans -- not very altruistic but certainly improving the
> > survival of the victorious clan's gene set.
> >
> > So why do we now seem to be learning behaviors that would
> > appear to work against the survival of the gene set of the
> > "clan" we belong to? Behaviors such as being kind to
> > strangers instead of killing the males and raping the
> > females, sending aid to foreign countries instead of engaging
> > in genocide, promoting birth control instead of large
> > families, honoring monogamy and celibacy instead of
> > promiscuity, protecting and conserving other species instead
> > of eliminating them as competitors or threats, honoring
> > humility instead of belligerence, honoring artists more than
> > soldiers (okay, this may be a bad example since we expend
> > much more of our resources on the military than we do on the arts).
> >
> > It appears, at least to this field ecologist, that we are
> > practicing behaviors aimed at improving the survival of a
> > whole host of competing and maybe even antagonistic gene
> > sets. And most of us (but not all of us) believe that is
> > exactly what we should be doing. Where and how is natural
> > selection at work in all this?
> >
> >
> > Warren Aney
> > Senior Wildlife Ecologist
> > Tigard, Oregon
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of isabella capellini
> > Sent: Tuesday, 14 February, 2006 08:36
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: current natural selection pressures
> >
> >
> > > > Perhaps human intelligence and humility will become
> > > > > a selective pressure.
> >
> > Really?? How? will more intelligent and humile people have
> > more offspring???
> > Isabella
> >
> >
> > Dr. Isabella Capellini, PhD
> > Research Associate
> >
> > Department of Anthropology
> > Durham University
> > 43 Old Elvet
> > Durham
> > DH1 3HN (UK)
> >
> > phone: +44 (0)191 3346177
> > fax: +44-(0)191-3346101
> > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > webpage: http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/
> >
