[K] Wikipedia suggests that the simplest way of understanding what makes a species is whether a group of organisms is capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring - will that do for you?
[Krimel] I would only add that a species is identified by a collection of traits. Traits are inherited. So a particular size and kind of beak is common among finches. [K] I suppose it is possible that a Great Dane could still manage to breed with a Chihuahua, but not without difficulty - haha! I daresay that dog breeders could deliberately create some breeds where it was no longer physically possible for them to breed. I realise that this would not really constitute a new species but my point is that if a divergence and difference like the Great Dane and Chihuahua can be artificially engineered by man in only a few thousand years then given a billion years natural selection can diverge a species into two. [Krimel] I think within 30 years we will be whipping Chihuadanes up from scratch. > [P] > Good answer. But, I still wonder why life is opposed to physical forces, as > Pirsig asks. His answer: DQ pulling/pushing towards betterness [K] I think that Darwin's 'natural selection' is more or less the same idea as Pirsig's 'dynamic quality', the phraseology being different only because they originate out of different scholarly disciplines. [Krimel] Actually I think Platt is right Pirsig sees DQ as a drive toward betterness. I think he really is at odds with evolutionary thinking on this point. The story of evolution is written in the genes of survivors. Like most history, it is written by the winners. Winners always provide a rosy version of the past they reflect. Rather than simply the nostalgic projections of optimists Pirsig sees this as some actualized future, drawing us hence. [K] I think evolution means not merely change but change for the better resulting in increased organisation. The question is, "Why?" [Krimel] This makes the term "better" dissolve into absolute ambiguity. The Sage of Ecclesiastes says, "It is 'better' to be a live dog than a dead lion." "Better" is always a relative term. Why ask, "why?"? When wielded by children, it simply breeds infinite regress. > [P] > Are not chance mutations fundamental to the creation of changes Darwinian > theory attempts to explain? That's what I meant by "creative role." [K] Yes, hazard is around every corner but the title of Darwin's famous book is 'On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection'. There are deep connections in the notions of chance as randomness, chance as opportunity, chance and choice, election and selection; it's damned bad luck to end up sitting on a hot stove but its our long history of natural selection that makes us get off there pdq and without a second thought. [Krimel] Here, I would point out that mutation played almost no role in Darwin's account of finches. He speculated that there were once no finches in the Galapagos. At some point a single species of finch arrived. They all had beaks of a particular type common of finches in their original home. As the population grew, there were be minor variations in the size shape of finch beaks. These will form a bell curve around the most common size and shape of beak. There will also be outliers, some larger and some smaller than average. The average size and shape shifts among the finches as they are distributed throughout the different environmental condition found in the Galapagos chain. He accounts for the differences in finch beaks as shifts in the average size and shape over long spans of time. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
