Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It is the new book by physiologist J. Scott Turner, author of The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself.
The book may make some “skeptics” uncomfortable, but maybe they should read it anyways.
From the book:
I have come to believe that there is something presently wrong with how we scientists think about life, its existence, its origins, and its evolution.
Without a coherent theory of life, whatever we think about life doesn’t hold water. This applies to the major contribution we claim that the modern science of life offers to the popular culture: Darwinism.
… there sits at the heart of modern Darwinism an unresolved tautology that undermines its validity.
… do we have a coherent theory of evolution? The firmly settled answer to this question is supposed to be “yes” …
I intend to argue in this book that the answer to my question might actually be “no.”
Darwinism is an idea of intoxicating beauty, and yet there has been for many years a muddle at the heart of it, at least in its modern form.
… what it cannot explain is coming into stark relief, making it impossible any longer to ignore the muddle.
The problem for modern Darwinism is, I argue, that we lack a coherent theory of the core Darwinian concept of adaptation.
This type of reasoning is known formally as a tautology…
For Darwinism to make sense (and I want deeply for it to make sense), the tautology somehow needs to be resolved.
… the obstacle to resolving the tautology is not that we know too little — far from it — but that we aren’t thinking properly about what we do know. In short, the obstacle is largely philosophical, and the stumbling block is the frank purposefulness that is inherent in the phenomenon of adaptation.
… the uncomfortable question is this: what if phenomena like intentionality, purpose, and design are not illusions, but are quite real — are in fact the central attributes of life? How can we have a coherent theory of life that tries to shunt these phenomena to the side? And if we don’t have a coherent theory of life, how can we have a coherent theory of evolution?
– Turner, J. Scott. Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It. HarperCollins. 2017.
Biology, we have a problem. He wants Darwinism to make sense, but the book just doesn’t start out well for the Darwin disciples. Maybe someone else here will actually read it and explain how misguided this poor author is. He’s a Christian. Maybe he’s just lying for Jesus.
Another nail in the coffin.
Yep, that really is it. He has confused adaptation as a process with adaptation as the result of a process. The word has at least two meanings. For example particular physical structures can be adaptations. Like camouflage. But the process by which camouflage comes to be can also be called adaptation, which is basically just another word for natural selection. So the word has several meanings.
Adaptation(1) (the process by which an increase in mean fitness of a population comes about) = natural selection.
Adaptation(2) (a particular phenotype, like camouflage or claws) = the response to natural selection.
So there’s no tautology, he just forgets to distinguish the several non-identical meanings of the word.
“What is adaptation? The product of natural selection!”
Such as camouflage, or claws, or white fur on polar bears. Yes.
“What is natural selection? The outcome of adaptation!”
No, the other way around, he got it right the first time when he wrote:
“Adaptations [particular phenotypes] are the products of natural selection, while adaptation [the increase in mean fitness for a population] is the response to natural selection.”
Yes. Makes sense.
Darwin disciples. Heh heh. Cliche machine on.
You know, that could well be it. Anyone who uses the term ‘Darwinism’, and is a Christian, is to be treated with some caution IMO. They mean something other than the views of Charles Darwin when they say it, as well as forgetting that the subject has moved on from the great man’s day. They generally mean ‘a/mat’, ‘materialism’, ‘atheism’, or some such.
Mung,
Unfortunately, I’m not, because that is exactly how it reads.
phoodoo,
It’s not a problem. It might be a problem if the only way to express evolution was a tautologous one. But it isn’t.
Who won the race? The fastest. Who was the fastest? The one that won the race. Since the first Olympics and before, the ‘tautology problem’ has failed to dent the world of sport.
You can get adaptation in a test tube. No need to talk of ‘agency’. Selection on RNA libraries produces a subset which is mutated and re-assayed. Repeat a few times. It leads (through an intentional process, sharp-eyed readers will no doubt note) to a substantial increase in ‘function’ compared to the original library. It’s cumulative selection. It’s adaptation to the conditions of the environment. The fitter survive. One does not find scientists in the foetal position, wailing ‘but … it’s tautologous! Which are the fitter molecules? These ones!’.
Neil:
Rumraket:
No, Neil’s statement is wrong for a very simple reason: “Adaptation” is never used as a verb in English.
In both of those cases “adaptation'” is being used as a noun.
I don’t think it does. Is my english failing me here or what?
An adaptation (like a claw, or an eye) is a thing and therefore a noun.
But adaptation can also be what species do, as in an action. The process that happens to populations of organisms over time. What are they doing? Adaptation! Hence a verb?
Rumraket,
Your English is fine, and you’re using the word “adaptation” correctly in that sentence. It’s just that it acts as a noun in both of those cases.
No, still a noun. As is the word “action” itself.
If “adaptation” were a verb, you’d be able to say things like “It adaptationed to its new environment.” And that is definitely not correct English. “Adapted” could be used there, because “adapt” is a verb. “Adaptation” isn’t. It’s always a noun.
Rumraket,
I think the verb would be ‘to adapt’. Adaptation – the process of adapting – is a ‘thing’. cf ‘hesitate’ and ‘hesitation’.
J. Scott Turner has noticed this thread. Amusingly, he writes:
Oh dear. Poor Mung.
Turner:
So Turner thinks Mung has accused him of lying for Jesus. Too funny.
Come on, up your game, people! Enough with the dreary.
Hello Mr. Turner!
Be sure to try the veal.
Allan:
Well, we have been talking about grammar, thanks to Neil’s mistake. Turner may have a point there.
keiths,
And tautology! Don’t forget the tautology!
And a cheapskate!
Poor Mung.
All we need now, to make this experience complete, is for Alan to show up, sanctimoniously quote Lizzie, and say, through tightly pursed lips:
I see what you both mean, I stand corrected.
For one thing, tautologies aren’t forms of reasoning and they can’t be resolved. Tautologies are statements, and statements aren’t usually treated as forms of reasoning. (Though it has been argued — most famously by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus — that all deductively valid arguments can be expressed as tautologous statements.)
For another, I think that if Turner had looked at canonical papers in evolutionary theory rather than elementary textbooks he would have realized that the so-called “tautology problem” can be easily avoided by defining adaptive traits in terms of their contribution to differential fecundity.
It’s too bad, because I liked Turner’s worries about the prevalence of mechanism. Even though there are problems about how to think about mechanism, I still think that the Cartesian dichotomy of mechanism and intellectualism has far too great a hold on our thinking.
KN,
I’m not seeing a problem for those of us who think that mechanism underlies the intellect.
Here you go, phoodoo:
A quick note.
It seems that Turner has his own blog: Purpose and desire. The blog is obviously oriented around the book, and probably intended for marketing purposes.
He has one post there, “Why I Don’t Think I’m a Darwinian Anymore” that is probably relevant. He does make it clear that he is still an evolutionist, even if no longer a Darwinist.
Neil Rickert,
From “Why I don’t think I’m a Darwinian any more”:
I wish someone would explain to me what that means.
Mung,
Thanks. I guess he really meant to claim that the reasoning is an example of the petitio principii fallacy. (So phoodoo’s speculation was correct.)
However, I think it could be responded that he purposely picked an example that had that defect. Others have been more careful about that, I believe.
To me as well. I think both keiths and phoodoo are right about that.
+1
Right. Thanks for that link.
Turner probably thinks it is brilliant. I’m not about to buy his book to find out why. Some of it seems obviously wrong — particularly the “defines new genes on the fly” part.
Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It
Does the book actually explain what makes something alive (I assume nonliving matter making alive) other than blaming Darwinism for not explaining it?
That appears to be what he is saying.
Just trying to prepare him for what he’d face if he actually came here to participate and people found out he was a Christian. 🙂
But if he happens to be reading, to set the record straight, I’m a Christian and I don’t think Turner is “Lying for Jesus.” That was a poke at some of the atheists here.
So dreary. Too much cough syrup.
What Turner probably missed in his short visit here is that people here will reject his book simply on the grounds of who recommended it. I’m actualy recommending a book by someone who would probably consider himself to be a Darwinist (of sorts) and people just aren’t interested. They have their heads stuck deeply into the sand.
This site isn’t supposed to be an echo chamber.
The “sequence code as participant rather than driver” resonates with the famous statement by Mary Jane West-Eberhard that “genes are probably more often followers than leaders in evolutionary change.”. She was pushing the idea that phenotypic plasticity often precedes genetic changes. The “striving in homeostasis” part he must have made up himself. I have no clue what he means by that.
Darwinians beware!
Could be catching. Best to just stay away from the book. Probably don’t want to even be reading this thread.
The fact that you recommended the book has nothing to do with why I have decided that I won’t buy it. Your post did get me to look at the Amazon listing. It is what I saw there that persuaded me that it would not be worth my time to read this book.
I think he’s riffing off Gould’s ‘genome as book-keeper’ criticism of Dawkins etc.
https://tinyurl.com/ydx6xcgx
Mung,
…amber … amber … amber!
It’s not at all about who recommended it. But I approach with caution anything that claims to tell one what ‘Darwinism’ fails to explain. The very usage of the word is a dead giveaway, and life is short.
Nonsense, what makes people reject it is that he fails to communicate what he is actually getting at. So far I have read all the posts on his site, and I still don’t understand.
He seems sympathetic to the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, and is borrowing some ideas from that (like the “genes as followers”), but apparantly he feels something is missing from it. I just can’t figure out what.
And has no one here read his other book?
Homeostasis. Agency. Those would be my guess.
Mung,
Of course. A distinctive feature of all the evolution defenders who come here and actually engage with the arguments is their profound aversion to anything that might challenge their viewpoint. That’s why you never see ’em. Never saw ’em at UD either.
Woodbine,
Perhaps the idea is older than West-Eberhards paper, but I am pretty sure he got it from the “extended synthesis”.
Agency could be, although he doesn’t specify that clearly. And how does homeostasis drive adaptation?
Apparently he can’t make a case, since the thread certainly doesn’t make his point at all. Then again, he probably read it about as well as he read Mung’s usual simplistic snark.
Yeah, I really feel the need to read a book by a guy who can’t even recognize support for his book. Only IDiots write of “Darwin disciples,” so apparently he can’t even pick up the trite jargon that his own side uses for virtue signaling. So far, the best one can say is that Turner’s a joke.
Glen Davidson
First off, no one said they reject his book because of who recommended it. Usual Mung misrepresentation.
Secondly, why are endorsements there at all? If IDiots are given names of such “stars” as Axe and Meyer in order to get them to b’uy, why shouldn’t those who understand how badly the two deal with data see it as a reason not to buy? Mung should be faulting Axe and Meyer for using their clout either way, if there’s something wrong with responding to their endorsements. But, predictably, he has no problem with people buying because of their endorsements while faulting–with misrepresentation–those who see it as a strike against buying the book.
Does Mung ever deal equitably with both sides? I’ve never seen it.
Glen Davidson
Just to add your usage is excellent, here! English has this advantage of dropping articles (the, a/an, this, that) in the abstract. You can talk about civilisation (no article) in general and talk about this civilisation, that civilisation, Roman civilisation in particular. Similarly, adaption is the process in general (change over time by niche/sexual/neutral selection) and refer to an adaptation, this adaptation in particular. As you have done. 🙂
Adaptations are the result of the process of becoming adapted.
I don’t park my priors. I admit it. Neither do you.
I don’t accuse you of lying. I accuse you of incest. You ought to learn from Turner that OPs are not just for the in-crowd.
The Skeptical Zone isn’t the place you want to be if you really want to discuss a book that in any way challenges Darwinism or modern evolutionary theory. That much I do know.
You’d think that “skeptical” meant afraid of being challenged.
Mung,
We’ve already rebutted Turner’s goofy tautology claim.
Is there another “challenge” from the book that you’d like us to respond to?