Below is an image of the developmental path from human conception to adult in comparison with evolutionary path from prokaryote to human.
Unlike Haeckel’s biogenetic law with its focus on physical forms, the comparison above also concerns activity, lifestyle and behaviour. Comparative stages may be vastly different in detail, but the similarity of general lifestyles and consecutive stages are there to be observed.
Human life begins in an aquatic environment. Toddlers gradually learn to walk upright from a previous state of crawling and moving around on all fours. The brains of children develop through daily interactions and experiences. This brain development accompanies the child’s increasing ability to achieve complex manipulation skills using hands that have been released from the task of providing support and locomotion, and also the practice of producing sounds using the various muscles of the mouth. Well developed brains allow for rational thinking and the creative use of language.
Human minds have brought about technological advances which have allowed human activities to engulf the planet. Signs of intelligent human activity are evident a good distance beyond the earth spreading ever further out into space.
The various forms of extant animals and all other life forms have evolved as an integral component of the living earth and the whole forms a dynamic system.
The various animal forms should be studied in the context of the complete system in both time and space. Conditions would have been very different prior to the terrestrial colonization of earthly life In all probability none of the present aquatic animals would bear any resemblance to the aquatic ancestors of humans and other higher vertebrates save that at some stage they all require an aquatic environment for their continued existence.
From a point of view which regards physical organisms as the individual expressions of overarching general forms, the evolution of cetaceans need not have involved moving to the land only to return to the water at a later time. They may have reached the mammalian stage of evolution but in a way that was suitable for an aquatic lifestyle. They adopted the archetypal mammalian form in a way that suited an animal living in an aquatic environment and there would be no need to posit a terrestrial stage in their evolution.
It’s my belief that higher consciousness is ever present. Evolution is the process whereby higher forms of consciousness descend from the group level to the individual level. The most fully developed individual consciousness which I am aware of on earth can be found in humans but it is still rudimentary compared to the higher level group consciousness.
Plasticity is a fundamental feature of living systems at all levels from human brain development to the radiation of multicellular life. Paths are formed by branching out and becoming fixed along certain lines. It would be impossible to forecast specific paths but, nonetheless, there is a general overall direction.
Now that biological life has reached the stage where social organisms have become individually creative and rational, the all encompassing Word is reflected in single beings. This could not have come about without preparation and the evolution of earthly life is the evidence of this preparation. We, as individuals, are only able to use language and engage in rational thinking because our individual development has prepared us to do so. Likewise humanity could not arrive at the present state of culture without the evolutionary preparation in its entirety.
Focussing in at the lower level gives a picture of ruthless competition, of nature “red in tooth and claw”. But from a higher vantage point life benefits from this apparent brutality. For instance if a sparrowhawk makes regular hunting visits to a suitable habitat in your neighbourhood it signifies that this environment supports a healthy songbird population. In the case of the continued evolution of physical forms, survival of the breeding population is more important than any individual’s survival. In the evolution of consciousness the individual is the important unit.
I think it is a mistake to see biological evolution as a blind random groping towards an unknown and unknowable future.
Tell us about one of them for a change!
Well, I certainly agree that many games have been played with words in discussions between those whose worldviews favour science or religion. Design, anyone?
PS let’s take design, purpose and function. Consider some object, system or process.
One can be genuinely curious and ask questions like what does it do, how did it get here, who or what made it? A triangular flake of hard rock that has sharp edges where chips have been removed, for example. One can hypothesize, on learning the flake was found in sediments of an age and location consistent with ancient human occupation, that the flake was made (designed, created, manufactured, worked, knapped) by someone (a human, a man, a woman, a team, a slave, a respected artisan, a craftsman) to be used (to tip an arrow, to barter) the purpose of the maker being to support himself and family (kill game, kill enemies).
Or we can just ask “was it designed?”
Larry Moran accuses Noble and Shapiro of making anti-evolutionary arguments. Why would he say that when he knows they are both prominent in the website thethirdwayofevolution.com?
Surely the title is a giveaway that they are not anti-evolution. Anyone who is opposed to evolution would not profess to follow a way of evolution. I think what he means is that they disagree with much of his gene-centred view of evolution.
He has a problem with the way they relegate DNA to a less controlling position within a more inclusive understanding of evolution. He sees them as the enemy because of their more physiological approach to the understanding of life and evolution. The genes are in control and he cannot contemplate how it could be otherwise.
He sees evolution as working in a particular way and so it stands to reason that anyone who doesn’t see things his way must be wrong.
Machines begin as master plans in some mind or minds.
Anyone who understands creative minds has no problem with extremely complex physical objects being assembled from materials gathered from diverse locations. We expect jumbo jets to be extremely complex objects. We understand the mental processes that would be needed to bring the operational machine from mental concepts to operational reality. Living systems are vastly more complex than human inventions and so for anyone who believes in the primacy of minds, the physical appearance of extreme complexity is expected.
The phrase would not be “more complex than thought”, it would be, “more complex as expected”. Only those who see life as springing accidentally from simple beginnings have a problem in explaining complexity and are surprised when they come across it.
Purposeful as in goal orientated.
Brownian motion is stochastic. On the other hand the movement of molecules such as kinesin and dynein along microtubules are purposeful. Functional cells use both purposeful and stochastic types of motion.
To say that it’s all chemistry tells us nothing.
Here, in this video Noble explains how the stochasticity of gene expression levels in a population of clonal cells is used . And he goes on to explain how natural selection within the cell population ensures that the relevant gene expression level is suitably maintained as required by the organism.
This is an example of the importance of variability in processes arising from sequentially identical genomes.
I’m pleased that there is a hint of agreement between us. 🙂
Is the word “stochastic”, misleading? How would you describe something that is goal directed? Are your contributions here purely chemistry and nothing else? If you believe that humans can act purposefully and that we are the products of evolution, when in your opinion did purposeful behaviour first make its evolutionary appearance?
Charlie, the question I asked was whether variations in genomes are disproportionately favorable.
Somatic processes, even ones at the molecular level, are purposeful in the sense that they maintain the organism. But the word purpose is a metaphor. It is not valid to reason backward from metaphor to the object itself. That’s a map/territory fallacy.
Now if you could show that a somatic process produces changes in the genome that become fixed in the population, that would be interesting.
It would appear that the Shapiro argument is a variation on the Behe flagellum argument.
[All] machines are designed.
The flagellum is a machine.
Therefore, the flagellum is designed.
[All] things that have a purpose are designed.
Molecular process X has a purpose.
Therefore, X is designed.
That seem to be lurking in your discussion.
Otherwise, there would be nothing particularly revolutionary in Shapiro’s work. One can make interesting and useful discoveries without overturning everything.
Alan Fox,
I will make fun of one of (his?) ideas.
That you can’t infer design by analysis or recognition of design, unless you feel you can.
What a fucking silly idea. He must be such a moron.
I don’t see Shapiro as anti-evolution. But I do see him as pushing some dubious ideas about evolution.
Neil Rickert,
Alan is going to ask you to say what ideas are dubious and why.
The difference is not actually at all clear.
A roulette wheel is stochastic. Yet some people go to Vegas to purposely play roulette.
I consider his “natural engineering” ideas to be dubious.
Neil Rickert,
Did you understand why I said why?
I consider the concept of evolution to be dubious.
phoodoo,
There’s a discussion elsewhere that gives clues about when the “Intelligent Design” disclaimer appeared on that website and why.
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-third-way-is-still-at-it/13604/7?u=alanfox
That’s a bit overdramatic, I think. DNA stores information. The cell relies on that information to function. A cell without DNA won’t work. DNA without a cell (or at least cellular machinery) won’t work.
May not be correct but the search for chemical processes and how they add up to a cell working is not yet exhausted. There’s no reason yet to claim that a cell is not all chemistry.
You are perfectly entitled to that view. What you should not expect is for others to set much weight by your personal view, unsupported as it is by any argument or alternative.
That would be astonishing!
My apologies, I tend not to dwell deeply on your comments and misread it (you didn’t make it clear you were paraphrasing Moran) and I thought you were saying your (phoodoo’s) ideas would be made fun of. I was surprised enough to comment. Mea culpa! 😉
And I consider the concept of phoodoo to be dubious.
So what’s all the third way stuff about?
I don’t see any content.
Flagellum redux.
Put another way:
If there is no somatic process making changes to the genome that become fixed in populations, there is no genetic engineering going on.
If changes do not become fixed in the population, there is no genetic change.
I’m sure that at least some ancestral frogs went through metamorphosis from tadpoles. What about further back before any animals possessed lungs? do you think that the ancestors of amphibians retained gills into their adult form at that time? Or do you think that lung have been around for as long as, or longer than, gills?
It may be a fact that no ancestor of amphibians will physically resemble a modern tadpole, but these two creatures will no doubt share particular behavioural traits, such as breathing through gills and swimming around under water.
Do you think that individual self-consciousness has always existed? If consciousness has been evolving up until now, barring worldwide catastrophe, why would it suddenly cease? I cannot be certain but I’d like to think I can predict the seasons for some time into the future. I can make a reasonable guess as to the future by observing how past processes have unfolded up to the present.
The “zygote” is just a word we use to describe the initial cell. Once it begins dividing what differences are there between it and the subsequent daughter cells? They are clones.
I think that scientific consensus has a lot do do with the prevailing prejudices especially when it concerns evolution.
I didn’t read your answer? The way I participate here, I don’t always read the posts that come after the one I am replying to until after I have posted my reply.
Good for you 🙂 And if you see self-consciousness slowly developing in the early stages of a baby’s life, would you consider it a pretty good prediction that if that baby continued to develop normally its self-consciousness would continue to develop further?
I have no idea. It appears that there are as many ways as there are third way-ers
Everything is relative. Matter is far from passive. All matter has inner activity
There is a difference between “most probably” and “certainly”.
Nature abhors the vacuous.
Seriously, it’s meaning free shit like this that makes this discussion boring.
One could ask, what difference would it make whether a Charlie statement is true or false. The short answer is, none at all.
The amusing thing is, for me, it is almost tautologically true that matter can be conscious. I am made of matter, and I am conscious.
I guess my follow up question is, so what?
For a statement to have meaning in science, it needs a bit more bite.
Epimutations? Are they a thing?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-case-for-inheritance-of-epigenetic-changes-in-chromosomes/
Michael Skinner has made a career out of investigating inherited damage from toxic chemicals in the environment.
The anuran tadpole stage, like the adult stage, has become adapted to its environment. Tadpoles of frogs and toads acquired many morphological, physical and behavioural novelties not found in their ancestors. Development is itself subject to evolutionary change, not a parallel of it.
Can we agree that your “reasonable guess” is a form of speculation?
Humans are just collections of the zygote’s daughter cells? That’s marvelous! I propose you become president of our Reductionist Club.
Some silly people maintain that you have only reproduced once you get children.
Yes, I can certainly spot some prejudices, especially when it concerns evolution.
Don’t you think it is striking how your arguments resonate: “Have we completely resolved this and that issue?” Do you know why creationists like to say that?
I have seen many babies, but only one human lineage so far.
When? Can you name some?
Asking if variations in genomes favour problem solving functions and asking whether variations in genomes are disproportionately favourable are very vague questions.
Living systems at the levels of the cell, the organism and the biome are kept in balance by maintaining the optimum level of variation. Eliminating all variation would lead to life stagnating, allowing too much variation would lead to instability and loss of viability.
Variation can be favourable or detrimental or both at once depending on what is benefitting or being disadvantaged. The death of cells may favour the organism and the death of organisms may favour the biome.
Perhaps you are a closet follower of Goethe 🙂
What point is there in asking what is the purpose of the pentadactyl limb? It can be utilised for multiple purposes depending on context. For swimming, for flying for walking, for running, for hopping, for swinging from branches, for fighting, for defence, for embracing, for masturbating, for throwing, for scratching, for sculpting, for signalling, for handling food, for climbing, for digging, for building, for breaking apart. I’m sure I’ve made my point.
This is how the various creatures fashion diversity out of a primal unity. This is not an ancient historic unity such as Owen’s archetype. It is an ever present unity unaffected by time.
I’ll leave that to the experts to deal with.
I’ll just say that nothing is permanently fixed, everything is in a constant state of becoming. Neither are the bodies we inherit fixed. They develop according to inner laws in combination with environmental influences and what we, ourselves make of them.
The flagellum is not a machine.
A stone can be used for the purpose of breaking open nutshells. It was not designed for that or any other purpose.
Whose discussion? Not mine, surely!
I haven’t read “Evolution: A View from the 21st Century”, have you?
Something that I do agree with him on is that living cells manipulate their genomes.
Thanks, I’ll take a look.
Mature red blood cells work without DNA. But I get your point and basically I agree with it.
It is the cell as a whole that is the functioning agent.
What about you, your decision making, your creative output,; is this all chemistry? Just molecules doing what they do?!
If we are just a bunch of cells doing chemistry, in other words somatic processes, then the scientists who manipulate germ cells are doing just that, changing genomes. Genetic engineered organisms have been fixed by somatic processes.
That’s amazing and astonishing. 🙂
Still, chemistry does what it does, eh! 🙂
Today, an amusingly boring discussion, tomorrow who knows? “Mighty oaks – from little acorns grow”. 🙂
I was away for six months and nothing of importance was said by you or by any critic of evolution. To the extent you are not wrong, you are vacuous.
There has not been anything new or important in your corner since Paley. The only idea you have is retrospective astonishment.
Now, all you have to do to disprove my claim is to cite an example of natural genetic engineering that modifies the germ line, so that the engineered change becomes fixed in the population.
I have the “View” book and have read it. There’s nothing in it that requires changing one’s view of evolution.
And not a single new fact or argument since that justifies the hoopla.
I’ve watched this debate since about 1956, when Life Magazine came out with a series (made into books) on human evolution.
Opponents of evolution have made no progress in that time.
Or indeed, since Paley.
Screenshot:
When one says, “alter one’s own heredity,” there is an implication that one’s heredity will be passed on to future generations. That is the usual understanding.
So where is it established that this happens?
I would have hoped it was obvious that tadpoles have strongly adapted to their habitat of shallow waters. To point out some specifics: Tadpoles have unique modifications of their mouth parts and a long gastrointestinal tract to support their grazing / suspension feeding life style. Note that adult frogs and toads, like most adult amphibians, are carnivores. Most probably that is the ancestral state.
I do not know precisely when those adaptations evolved. Somewere after amphibians branched off from other tetrapods obviously.
Oh, it only happens in God’s most favored children. I’ll let Charlie explain.
Isn’t this the crux? The place where Lamarkianism fails?
If organisms can modify the expression of genes to adapt to environmental variation, it isn’t evolution. It isn’t modifying the population. The changes, even if they involve the individual’s genome, are not passed on and become fixed in the population. Evolution is the fixation of alleles.
I’d appreciate someone correcting me, if necessary, but this is my understanding of Moran’s argument:
If Shapiro is saying the engineered changes are passed on and become fixed in the population, he’s simply wrong. Doesn’t happen.
If this isn’t what he’s saying, then he isn’t talking about evolution, and he is wrong to invoke that word.
CharlieM,
I’m seeing similar complaints from supporters of various Covid-related fringe notions. What they (and you) seem to be complaining about is that people supporting the consensus have the wrong prejudices.