Michael Ragland  wrote or quoted: 
Michael Ragland  wrote or quoted: 
Ernst Mayr at 93 - evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr talks about his
book, 'This Is Biology,' and his perspective in life - Interview Natural
History, ?May, 1997 ?by Natalie Angier 

Q: Do you think the proximate fields like molecular biology are in 
ascendance these days? You've quoted biochemist George Wald, who said,
"All biology is molecular. " 

MAYR: George Wald's claim was based on strict reductionism, and 
reductionism is dead. [...] 

Tim: 
From this quote, Ernst Mayr does not understand what reductionism is :-( 

MR: 
Why Tim. Certainly one of the greatest evolutionary biologists of the
20th century deserves an explanation:) even if he is dead. 

Tim:
The point is so obvious that it hardly merits explanation :-( 
Reductionism is not dead - in fact it is one of the main foundation
stones of the scientific method. 

MR:
Yes, I'm willing to acknowledge that. I think Mayr's point, however, was
not that reductionism is literally dead as one of the main foundation
stones of the scientific method but rather that in light of "emergence"
the idea of reductionism standing alone is dead. For example, I think
Mayr mentioned the example of hydrogen and oxygen and that by looking at
each of these properties alone it would have been impossible to know
together they form water.

Mayr: 
It's now so clear that every time you have a more complex system, new
qualities appear that you could not have predicted from the components.
That's the principle of emergence. 
Tim: 
It seems that Ernst Mayr doesn't understand what emergence is either :-( 

MR:
How so? 

Tim:
Since the term "emergence" does NOT refer to the impossibility of
prediciting the properties of composite systems from knowledge of their
component parts. 

MR:
I think you're smart enough to know that isn't the definition of
emergence. I looked at several websites and they all pretty much say
what this following one did, "The subject of this paper is the concept
of emergence - formulated as the idea that there are properties at a
certain level of organization which can not be predicted from the
properties found at lower levels." I think what you're trying to do is
define "emegence" in a reductionist paradigm of predicting the
properties of composite systems from knowledge of their component parts.
But that's not the definition of emergence but perhaps you hope that is
possible or the only way to explain emergence. This conflict between
reductionism and emergence shows no signs of going away soon. How can
properties at a higher level of organization be predicted from the
properties at the lower level of organization? What is the connection
between the two which will afford a more holistic account? At present,
theories or even some examples of self-organization don't adequately
bridge the account between the two. 


Q: Where do you think the human species is going? Do you believe we can 
continue to evolve in a genetic sense? 

MAYR: There's absolutely no chance of the human species evolving. First 
of all, we can never speciate. We cover every niche, every spot on the
earth, so there's no opportunity for isolation. Moreover, I do not feel
there's any natural selection in any positive sense going on right now.
Of course, there are those who have talked about eugenics, but we all
know that eugenics is impossible for many reasons. I can't see the
development of man into superman or anything like that. Theoretically we
could have cultural evolution and develop higher and better concepts.
But if you have no basis for a change in genes, then unfortunately you
can only develop through cultural evolution. 

Tim: 
Ernst Mayr doesn't have a clue about human evolution :-( 

MR: 
How so? I think Mayr was referring to Darwinian evolution. 

Tim:
"There's absolutely no chance of the human species evolving." 
The statement is idiotic. Does Mayr think all humans have equal numbers
of children? Has he forgotten about the existence of sexual selection?
What on earth is he thinking of? 
Why would any competent evolutionary biologist pander to the ridiculous
notion that human evolution has stopped? Such folk should be
*correcting* such misconceptions - not reinforcing them. 

MR:
Well I think Mayr's argument there was no basis for genetic change
because humans had filled every niche and there's no opportunity for
isolation and that no positive natural selection is occurring. In light
of this perhaps he thought differential reproductive success and sexual
selection were inconsequential for further evolution.

Tim:
As for speciation, it seems *highly* likely that strains of asexual
human clones will arise in the near future. These are likely to be
reproductively isolated from the rest of humanity - and ought to qualify
as new species for a while - at least according to the conventional
definition of species - which refers to an inter-breeding group. 

MR:
Asexual human cloning is still in its infancy and I don't see
necessarily they would be reproductively isolated from the rest of
humanity. Also, there is the great liklihood that at least for the
forseeable future governments will ban such asexual human cloning. 

Tim:
In the more distant future species boundaries will most likely dissolve
- and all species will be able to exchange genes. At that stage, a
failure to speciate will be practically universal - genes can and will
be transferred in about every direction you can imagine. 
A lack of speciation does NOT mean lack of evolution, though. 

MR:
Well we've done that with agriculture and to a limited extent with
animals but I don't forsee a gene swap orgy to the point where species
boundaries dissolve. My own view on future human speciation is that it
will occur as a result of genetic engineering and not through asexual
clones.




"It's uncertain whether intelligence has any long term survival value.
Bacteria do quite well without it."
 Stephen Hawking
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