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. [...] 
> 
> TT:
> 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.

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.

> 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?

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

> 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.

"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.

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.

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.
-- 
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 |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/  tim{at}tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.
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