Evolution (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 05:37 (5596 days ago) @ David Turell

One further discussion point is whether evolution is or is not purposeful (teleology).
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> > > So I am not sure that Gould has really clearly removed teleology from evolution.
> 
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_Walk_Hypothesis
> 
> I don't disagree with you, Matt. I looked at the Wiki graphs. My point is as preserved above. Doesn't random walk have a purposeful end point? Teleology? - Purposeful endpoint? Hate to sound postmodern, but that's entirely dependent upon what it is that you're graphing. Considering that stock market graphs also appear to be useful in describing some biological phenomenon, I would hesitate to say that there is any general purpose at all... - From what I know about the mathematics of economics, this is what I think Gould had in mind: - If you think about it organisms use energy as currency just as we use money. If there's any "purpose" to evolution it is definitely tied to chemical energy, and although economies do slowly diversify and build, they do not have an intrinsic purpose, only their own individual purposes that create an emergent phenomenon called the marketplace. (In biology its called the ecosystem, each biome a "stock exchange" as it were.) - I see in economics a human recreation of the entire system of evolution. Each individual person (in the stock market) and the companies (at large) are working to amass "the most." (energy) Individual units (people & companies) simply further their own ends. The same for creatures at large in their ecosystems. Historically, you are correct that there is a tendency for larger creatures, but our generation will be the last to see elephants, kodiaks, and polar bears in the wild. The coming climate change will cause a tremendous shift towards "noncomplexity" as it were. The coming shift will be the bulge of the mass extinction brought about by yours truly, and all my ancestors. We'll call it an "ecological downturn." - The downshifts in complexity happen when ecological balances are fundamentally changed. (shocks to the stock market) When there's a mass extinction, it's typically the largest that will go first, because they require the most energy to maintain. - If you look on the picture in THAT light you see a large MACRO shift in complexity (akin to an economic downturn), but as you see, no overall purpose. (At least, none that we can discern.) There is no purpose to the stock market, and to carry the analogy forward, none in evolution. This is as good as a recreation to what I think a "random walk" that Gould would be referencing. I have no clue how close I am to his argument...

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