"Tim Tyler"  wrote in message 
news:cjtdbs$brd$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> 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.

Is he dead yet? I think your are mistaken Micheal.

>
> 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.

This is certainly true, reductionism is a viable scientific method. I think 
and hope that what Mayr meant was that we cannot understand nature and gain 
complete knowledge of its workings by just examinig it from the smallest 
level we can detect. In other words it is one-leveled exclusive 
epistemological reductionism that is dead (if such a caricature ever existed 
in the first place).

>
>> 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.

Another semantic problem, I think Mayr is a bigger evolutionary biologist 
than he will ever be philosopher of science.

>
>> 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?

Not so fast. That fact that not all people have equal numbers of children 
does not necessarily warrant evolution, especially not in any directional 
sense. Such a claim relies on the premise that on average there is some kind 
of correlation that connects the people having more children with a certain 
genetic makeup.

The same basically goes for sexual selection.

>
> 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.

what is your concept of 'near future'?

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

Best Regards,
Lennart Kiil
www.zensci.com
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