Throughout the history of evolutionary biology, as well as many other sciences, there has been a conflict between two styles of thinking. One is conventionally called functionalism, although in evolutionary biology the term “adaptationism” is more frequently used today because a trait’s “functional fit for it’s office” is produced through adaptation by natural selection (i.e., function is explained by adaptation through natural selection). The functionalist stance is one that explains organismal traits through their functional and adaptive values.
The alternative style of thinking does not have a generic name in biology, although in other areas of study it is called “structuralist.”
Michael Denton in Evolution: Still A Theory In Crisis or Gunter P. Wagner in The Intellectual Challenge of Morphological Evolution: A Case for Variational Structuralism?
Taking homology seriously inevitably leads one to a mode of thinking that was out of favor during most of the twentieth century…typology naturally emerged from the facts of evolutionary developmental biology and it would be seriously problematic to try to avoid it.
– Gunter P. Wagner
Is structuralism even remotely reasonable?
Is Denton a quack not because of what he believes, but because of who published his latest book?
Is Wagner a creationist because he claims that typology naturally emerges from the facts of evolutionary biology when everyone knows typology comes straight from the Bible?
What do the “skeptics” say?
I suspect that the debate between functionalism and structuralism rests on the mistaken idea that either function explains form or form explains function. It would be closer to the truth to say that form and function are conceptually interdependent, and neither has explanatory priority over the other.
Structuralism looks pretty compelling unless you consider that structuralist generally only think about a tiny subset of living things, mostly vertebrate animals, and ignore 99.9 percent of living species.
Animals all share the same toolkit.
The architypical animal has two legs or hundreds, five fingers or three or one. Hair or scales or feathers. Bilateral symetry or radial symetry. Two lensed eyes or facited eyes.
Mung, perhaps you can explain this to me: What is structuralism?
Yes, with that “remotely” there.
The trouble with Denton’s view is that it is too extreme. Firstly, functionalism is not the same as pan-adaptationism. I don’t know of anyone who takes adaptation as the only important function.
Secondly, structure supports function so that structure and function are interrelated.
What are the other important functions?
I think Gould covers it in The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. I’ll try to post something later. (Wow, has it been 14 years already?)
When the ID community punts to Gould, you know a theory is in crisis.
I hope you won’t just cut and paste but tell me in your own words.
The word Structure is in the title. What more could you ask for?
Some kind of editorial control over the author and a book about half that length or less.
Read chapters 4, 5 and 10 of Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism_%28biology%29
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3151032
http://philpapers.org/browse/process-structuralism
Glad i didn’t waste my time typing anything up for you. I’ll thank petrushka for saving me that effort.
Seriously, Mung? You start a thread on structuralism but can’t (or are afraid to) describe it in your own words?
Mung,
The first abstract is entirely opaque to me. Could you explain it? The second abstract is a bit better, but it doesn’t seem to me to have that much to do with what Denton was saying. The Wikipedia article seems quite different and reduces structuralism merely to the idea of physical and evolutionary constraint, which almost nobody would argue with.
So, what do you think structuralism is, and what do you think Denton and/or Wagner mean by it? I note that your Denton quote tells us only what functionalism is and all it says about structuralism is that it’s something else.
Yes. I am absolutely terrified of saying anything in my own words, incapable even, as you well know. Your point, if you have one?
Your response was “Read a quarter of Gould’s 1342 page book.” (Those chapters total 345 pages.)
Care to summarize Gould’s thesis for us?
Sure. Darwinism is false. Gould might be a structuralist.
I probably misjudged John. I thought he seriously wanted to learn about structuralism.
You know, the good faith rule and all that penguinshit.
I can’t say I’m shocked though to find out I was wrong.
That’s about what I expected.
“Atlhough I feel that our best current formulation of evolutionary theory includes modes of reasoning and a set of mechanisms substantially at variance with strict Darwinian natural selection, the logical structure of the Darwinian foundation remains remarkably intact – a fascinating historical argument in itself, and a stunning tribute the the intellectual power of our profession’s founder. Thus, and not only to indulge my personal propensities for historical analysis, I believe that the best way to exemplify our modern understanding lies in an extensive analysis of Darwin’s basic logical commitments, the reasons for his choices, and the subsequent manner in which these aspects of “the structure of evolutionary theory” have established and motivated all our major debates and substantial changes since Darwin’s original publication of 1859.” (page 12)
Gould’s book is a thoroughgoing analysis and extension of Darwin’s early insights, and everything he does builds upon and extends Darwin – a theme apparent everywhere in the book, evident even in the cover art. He attributes to mutation and selection the ability to originate novel adaptations, while attributing to hierarchical selection, his major interest, larger historical trends observed across evolutionary time. He sweeps up both functional and structural viewpoints in his grand scheme.
Well gee. So I should have quoted Gould, like you did!
Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
🙂
You were not asked to quote anyone. You were asked to summarize your position, or summarize your understanding of structuralism.
Yep. I could as accurately summarize my introductory calculus book as “arithmetic is false.”
Quoteminer’s Bible, 1:1
He who quotes an enolutionary biologist in support of creationism or ID, or against Darwinism, is either ignorant or dishonest.
1:2 She, also.
Thank you. 🙂
I notice that IDitis is overwhelmingly a disease of men, a bit like color blindness.
Denyse might disagree.
For color blindness it’s 16:1.
Seems about right.
I continue to be amazed (and saddened too) about how hard it is to get Mung to say anything in a discussion he started himself. This is one dysfunctional blog.
Saying something specific about ID is the road to ruin.
True but irrelevant. I never claimed that I was asked to quote anyone.
This is False.
There you have it. No request to summarize my position. No request to summarize my understanding of structuralism.
Honesty. Integrity. Anarchy. Bullshit.
John didn’t ask anyone to say something specific about ID. He asked about structuralism.
But speaking of the road to ruin:
ouch
??? What do you THINK the request was, if not for you to present your position? I’m amazed that you can quote the request, in order to deny that the request was made! Or are you trying to argue that because the word “summary” was not used in a request for you to summarize, that it was NOT such a request?
Theology has always baffled me.
That’s just his normal style. Drop a big fat Creationist turd into the punchbowl then refuse to defend or even discuss the Creationist dreck he posts. He will go on for days about what a terrible censored place TSZ is for victims like him though.
It has nothing to do with theology and everything to do with Creationist lack of integrity.
Yup. There has been a small subset of posters here at TSZ who have been loudly proclaiming that this blog is dysfunctional. But no one believes them.
You asked: “What is Structuralism?” That’s awesome! Expressing ignorance is a great start. Unless you’re just feigning ignorance. Were you just feigning ignorance?
So?
That’s because they’re the usual batch of proven Creationist liars from UD who are constantly trying to “game the system” and control conversation on this board like they do there.
What is it about this conflict that supports Denton’s position?
Are you an ID supporter?
So, to be clear, you ascribed a position to someone that was false and when confronted with direct evidence that you were mistaken you complain instead about being corrected?
You are indeed a person of high honor.
Obviously you either haven’t read much of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, or didn’t understand it.
I expect structuralism to be as rich a source of insight as biosemiotics.
My own views can be summarised as follows: Copié-Collé Chapter 10, Forgotyer Valentine pp3-5, 801 et seq, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub pp 341-602.
petrushka,
That perception may be because arguing-on-the-internetitis is mostly a disease of men.
I actually find structuralism in biology a really intriguing view. I read Goodwin’s How the Leopard Changed Its Spots while an undergrad biology major and found it fascinating.
As I understand the debate between structuralist and functionalists, it turns on two different issues that need to be distinguished. One question is the explanatory priority of function vs. form. The other is about whether there are laws or law-like generalizations about self-organizing physical systems that constrain how genetic variation can produce novel phenotypes.
On the first question, it seems ill-posed to me. I don’t see how there could be explanatory priority of form over function or of function over form. I think function and form as conceptually interdependent and that separating them doesn’t make sense.
On the second question, I think that Goethe and D’Arcy Thompson were on the right track when they insisted on a holistic approach to the study of biological forms. Goodwin and others have continued that tradition, all to the good. In The Intuitive Way of Knowing, several theorists and philosophers — including Stuart Kaufman and Michael Ruse — discuss Goodwin’s accomplishments.
I think that philosophers and also biologists often get skittish for the wrong reasons whenever someone starts talking about “teleology,” “form,” “structure,” “purposes”, “goals”, etc. (Which is not to say that they don’t also get skittish for the right reasons, as when someone insists that their metaphysical or theological speculation is a serious rival to some scientific theory.)
While philosophy of science is not my field of expertise, I’ve read enough (also thought enough and argued with philosophers of science) to think the following: what is important for a scientific explanation is that a rigorously constructed model of some relatively stable dynamical process has survived iterated testing involving the determination of empirical magnitudes.
But — here’s the key — there’s nothing that conception of science — which I think is quite sufficient to explain why creationism and intelligent design are not scientific — which justifies any further claim as to why scientific explanations must be mechanistic, reductionist, physicalist, etc. It suffices to show why economics and sociology are genuine sciences on all fours with neuroscience, molecular biology, and quantum mechanics.
(I still don’t think that the humanities are sciences, though of course the humanities are crucially important for the cultivation of the intellectual and moral virtues that sustain democratic citizenship, etc.)
Are you saying that those chapters are not relevant? Or are you just whining that people ought not have to read to become informed.
The book is $60 on Amazon, so it would ba a kindness to summarize your point.
Mung: Are you saying that those chapters are not relevant? Or are you just whining that people ought not have to read to become informed.
Neither. I was asking you to summarize the chapters you cite.
You response indicates either that you haven’t read much of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, or didn’t understand it. Yet cite it anyway.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/02/natures_dis-con102568.html
Denton is showing signs of dementia.
I cited it as a source for where people could learn about structuralism. The book takes up that subject or it doesn’t. I cited specific chapters. The book takes up that subject in those chapters or it doesn’t.
If you have evidence that I have directed people to the wrong book or to the wrong chapters in that book, do say so.