Dick Strawkins wrote:Steersman wrote:
The problem there, I think, is that, as Jacques Monod put it, “Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.â€
And, not to throw too many stones at Dr. Coyne and despite his book "Why Evolution is True", I would say he also falls into that group. Seems to me that there is a credible case to be made that self-organization also plays a very significant role in the process over and above that provided by random variation and selection.
How on earth does what you've just written constitute a 'credible case' for your wild claim that 'self-organization also plays a very significant role in the process over and above that provided by random variation and selection'?
cred•i•ble (krd-bl) adj.
1. Capable of being believed; plausible.
Considering that a rather broad range and large number of people seem to think the concept is plausible not to mention being buttressed by actual physical realizations of Kauffman’s “autocatalytic setsâ€, as indicated in the links I provided, I would say that that constitutes or at least suggests “a credible caseâ€. Jury’s still out of course, but as a scientist I would think you would recognize it as at least a plausible hypothesis.
Dick Strawkins wrote:You are claiming that variation and selection are less important in evolution than some kind of self-organizational process.
Seems you may have gone off the rails over the phrase “over and above†which means:
over and above
in addition to a particular amount or thing: Pensioners will receive an increase of £5 per week over and above inflation. The average family pays 40% of their income in taxes, and that's over and above their mortgage, bills, and food.
I certainly wasn’t saying that “self-organization is
more important than selectionâ€, nor was Kauffman:
Kauffman wrote:The emergent order seen in genomic networks foretells a conceptual struggle, perhaps even a conceptual revolution, in evolutionary theory. …. If this idea is true [that, for example, “the homeostatic stability of cells†is “part of the order for free afforded by self-organization in genomic regulatory networksâ€], then we must rethink evolutionary theory, for the sources of order in the biosphere will now include both selection and self-organization. [pg 25]
But we have only begun to tell the story of emergent order. For spontaneous order, I hope to show you, has been as potent as natural selection in the creation of the living world. We are the children of twin sources of order, not a singular source. …. [pg 71]
Doesn’t look to me like any claim on his part that self-organization is more important than selection – a point he emphasizes any number of times throughout the book. This
paper suggests, and develops in some detail, the somewhat poetic “self organization proposes, but natural selection disposes†analogous to the proverb “man proposes, God disposesâ€.
Dick Strawkins wrote:If you can produce a credible case then I have no doubt a Nobel prize awaits you because it would turn the entire field of biology on it's head.
Considering the rather large number of people who have published peer-review papers on the topic of
self-organization, I would say any claims I might make would have to take a back seat – and the one at the very back of a very long bus.
Dick Strawkins wrote:What you've done, however, is not so much present a case that self organization is more important in evolution ...
As indicated, no one – that I know of in any case – is saying that it is more important, only that it plays a central role – along with selection.
Dick Strawkins wrote:But even that is more of a hypothesis than a proven fact and even IF proven that RNA self organized into replicating polymers that only gives us one point in the evolutionary tree.
Apart from the apparent fact – as indicated in the quotes I provided earlier – that “reproducing peptide, DNA, and RNA collectively autocatalytic sets have now been made experimentallyâ€, one might argue that that isn’t, if true, just “one point on the evolutionary treeâ€, but the root if not the seeds and principle of the entire edifice. “As the twig is bent so is the tree inclined.â€
Dick Strawkins wrote:Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that a credible case can be made that self organizing systems are involved in the biochemistry of life - but these are minor aspects of evolution compared to proven factors such as genetic drift, variation and natural selection?
Maybe. But what evidence do you have that those are only “
minor aspects� Considering the very significant amount of physics that more or less proves the pervasiveness and importance of emergence and self-organization in various physical systems, including biological ones, I would say “minor†is rather an untenable position to be taking.
And, as a rather simple case in point, you might want to check out the operation of even simple
Boolean networks, and that Mathematica demonstration of them, which clearly show that homeostatic behaviour tends naturally to fall out of the application of very simple rules – almost, one might suggest, as if systems were finely tuned to exhibit such behaviours.