I was reading last week's New Scientist (I say last week, because by the time I make this post, the new issue would already have come out), when I came across an article where some scientists are suggesting that evolution has a direction. Their idea was to overcome certain "problems" of convergent evolution and even why certain things evolve, by suggesting that the natural laws make it inevitable.

The link to the article (if you can read it) can be found here.

However, it's probably best if I summarise.

A certain subset of scientists want to reinsert the idea of progress into evolution. Organisms progress up a ladder, not necessarily up the same ladder, but generally upwards. So where for example the wing has developed independently many times in nature, their hypothesis is to state that this convergent evolution is a natural result of natural laws and thus it is only natural for there to be a progression towards development of wings. This isn't necessarily new, but they're suggesting that the reverse isn't very likely to happen. They're trying to put a direction on evolution and not only that, they're are trying to suggest that because natural laws make convergent evolution likely, they are trying to suggest that if you rerun the tape of life, you will get the same or at least similar results every time.

It basically boils down to Intelligent Design without the Intelligent Designer. They're saying complex things have arisen, but that evolution is perfectly capable of creating them because natural laws not only allow these complex things to happen but insist that they they do happen.

Now the New Scientist article links to these two articles:

Chaisson, E. J. (2011), Energy rate density as a complexity metric and evolutionary driver. Complexity, 16: 27–40. doi: 10.1002/cplx.20323
Smart, John M. 2008-11. Evo Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture. In: Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context, Steven J. Dick, Mark L. Lupisella (eds.), Govt Printing Office, NASA SP-2009-4802, Wash., D.C., 2009, pp. 201-295

They're trying everything in the scientific book to ensure that things such as technology and intelligence and language are a natural by-product of natural laws. The first article suggests that not only society but everything in the universe works towards high energy rate density, suggesting the sun as being low energy density and organisms as high. The more complex, the higher the energy rate density, the better.

I haven't read them in full, but I would certainly like to hear your opinions on their attempts.

I particularly like how they're trying to steal the thunder away from Intelligent Design proponents by proposing natural laws to replace the "Intelligent Designer". Granted, there isn't really any need, as evolution works fine without a Natural Law replacement for an Intelligent designer, but it just amuses me that they've posited a non-theistic alternative to ID.

Or maybe I haven't quite grasped the implications of what they're actually saying.

Admittedly, I am also a bit wary about this idea. For one, it's not really that necessary. And two, the idea of progression might invoke the idea of superiority. As it is, there are those who insist on saying that evolution suggests that human beings are superior to other animals, even though evolution itself has no direction (or so the orthodox view goes). I can only imagine how bad it would be if the idea of progression in evolution is reintroduced. Would we end up going back into the Dark Era of Eugenics or would it give anti-Evolutionists cannon-fodder to use?

Either way, this is giving me a lot to think about.

My first take on what you have posted, and I will admit I have not read the articles you link to, is that when similar problems arise then convergent evolution is going to occur and the answers are going to be similar.

I think that the scientists you mention are reading to much into things. For instance "the wing", over a certain size when molecular effects can be ignored all natural aerofoils are going to be very similar because they have to use the same physics to work. An animal does not neccesarily need to develop a wing, this will only happen if the animal finds that it can exploit that niche in the ecosystem.

I read your post seeming to indicate that wings will develop because natural laws says they must develop. This I think is incorrect, surely something like a wing will only evolve if the animal finds a need (and that is anthropormorphic as well as indicating a concious decision).

Similar with "the eye" because the atmosphere is only transparent to certain EM frequencies then the results for a visual apparatus are going to be very similar. Whilst I have read various speculations (usually in SciFi) with creatures using radar frequencies when consideration is taken into of the size of receiving antenna inorder for a reasonable resolution the creature becomes quite large. There are also problems with the deletrious effect on organic molecules.

Tzelemel wrote:I was reading last week's New Scientist (I say last week, because by the time I make this post, the new issue would already have come out), when I came across an article where some scientists are suggesting that evolution has a direction. Their idea was to overcome certain "problems" of convergent evolution and even why certain things evolve, by suggesting that the natural laws make it inevitable.

The link to the article (if you can read it) can be found here.

However, it's probably best if I summarise.

A certain subset of scientists want to reinsert the idea of progress into evolution. Organisms progress up a ladder, not necessarily up the same ladder, but generally upwards. So where for example the wing has developed independently many times in nature, their hypothesis is to state that this convergent evolution is a natural result of natural laws and thus it is only natural for there to be a progression towards development of wings. This isn't necessarily new, but they're suggesting that the reverse isn't very likely to happen. They're trying to put a direction on evolution and not only that, they're are trying to suggest that because natural laws make convergent evolution likely, they are trying to suggest that if you rerun the tape of life, you will get the same or at least similar results every time.

It basically boils down to Intelligent Design without the Intelligent Designer. They're saying complex things have arisen, but that evolution is perfectly capable of creating them because natural laws not only allow these complex things to happen but insist that they they do happen.

Now the New Scientist article links to these two articles:

Chaisson, E. J. (2011), Energy rate density as a complexity metric and evolutionary driver. Complexity, 16: 27–40. doi: 10.1002/cplx.20323
Smart, John M. 2008-11. Evo Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture. In: Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context, Steven J. Dick, Mark L. Lupisella (eds.), Govt Printing Office, NASA SP-2009-4802, Wash., D.C., 2009, pp. 201-295

They're trying everything in the scientific book to ensure that things such as technology and intelligence and language are a natural by-product of natural laws. The first article suggests that not only society but everything in the universe works towards high energy rate density, suggesting the sun as being low energy density and organisms as high. The more complex, the higher the energy rate density, the better.

I haven't read them in full, but I would certainly like to hear your opinions on their attempts.

I particularly like how they're trying to steal the thunder away from Intelligent Design proponents by proposing natural laws to replace the "Intelligent Designer". Granted, there isn't really any need, as evolution works fine without a Natural Law replacement for an Intelligent designer, but it just amuses me that they've posited a non-theistic alternative to ID.

Or maybe I haven't quite grasped the implications of what they're actually saying.

Admittedly, I am also a bit wary about this idea. For one, it's not really that necessary. And two, the idea of progression might invoke the idea of superiority. As it is, there are those who insist on saying that evolution suggests that human beings are superior to other animals, even though evolution itself has no direction (or so the orthodox view goes). I can only imagine how bad it would be if the idea of progression in evolution is reintroduced. Would we end up going back into the Dark Era of Eugenics or would it give anti-Evolutionists cannon-fodder to use?

Either way, this is giving me a lot to think about.

Progress, direction, superiority, etc.
Yes. A lot to think about.
Interesting Op. & Thanks for the links.

Seems to me that Chaisson is riding something of a hobby horse here ... I now have FIVE papers from him in the collection dealing with the topic of energy rate density as a supposed complexity metric. What he hasn't proposed in any of those papers, though, is an actual mechanism coupling energy rate density to any rigorous measure of complexity. At the moment, he's simply alighted upon an interesting measurement that gives the appearance of being important, but as yet there's no deep research into mechanisms accompanying this.

I have just skimmed through the second of the two references supplied

Tzelemel wrote:
Smart, John M. 2008-11. Evo Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture. In: Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context, Steven J. Dick, Mark L. Lupisella (eds.), Govt Printing Office, NASA SP-2009-4802, Wash., D.C., 2009, pp. 201-295

Either way, this is giving me a lot to think about.

the first one is hidden behind a paywall. And again a quick reading seems to indicate that the authors are conflating too many ideas, their use of the word 'speculations' is very apt. I feel that the authors may have lighted on a idea and then tried to drag in as many historical references and prior speculations as possible, the quick skim I made gave me the impression of Vielikovsky (sp?) and Worlds in Collision

Convergent evolution is just due to the fact that some strategies carry more reproductive weight than others, period.

For instance, the eye. Among animals having vision over not having vision is HUGE and there are not that many ways to make a functioning eye so any improvements are going to follow that same line.

Wings, legs, herding, pack hunting. Not all strategies are novel.

Calilasseia wrote:Seems to me that Chaisson is riding something of a hobby horse here ... I now have FIVE papers from him in the collection dealing with the topic of energy rate density as a supposed complexity metric. What he hasn't proposed in any of those papers, though, is an actual mechanism coupling energy rate density to any rigorous measure of complexity. At the moment, he's simply alighted upon an interesting measurement that gives the appearance of being important, but as yet there's no deep research into mechanisms accompanying this.

Now that you mention it, he doesn't, does he?

Perhaps that's why I'm having such difficulties getting my head around it... because there isn't that much substance to grasp onto in the first place.

The more I tried to explain it, the more I found myself failing. At first, the article seemed interesting and I thought it was neat. However, the more I tried to create my original post, the more difficult it was for me to pin down the basics of what they were saying. Everytime I tried to write a sentence, I found myself thinking, "This isn't really a new idea at all. It's already covered by orthodox thinking."

Lion IRC wrote:
Progress, direction, superiority, etc.
Yes. A lot to think about.
Interesting Op. & Thanks for the links.

Lion is eating it up though apparently

oops double post

Evolution is constrained by physics. In other news, it's hot in the center of the sun.

Evolution does have an arrow, in one sense: it strives towards the local optima it can find, and the higher the local optimum it finds, the better for the organisms that happened on that evolutionary "trajectory". However, changes in circumstances may make that configuration less useful, and organisms may go extinct or need to readjust to different circumstances because their former optimum now is just ~average or worse - by survival of the fitness evolution slowly adjusts the population towards some local optimum again, or even many (ultimately leading to speciation).

Convergent evolution might very well be because some "local optima" have wide enough slopes towards them that evolution easily finds them, whereas other local optima that more seldom occur (say, uh, actual language skills) have so small slopes around them that evolution seldom "finds" them.

Rumraket wrote:Evolution is constrained by physics.

That does seem to be about the total implication here: flight, as an example, has evolved more than one because physics permits it. Light is ubiquitous on Earth aside from deep in the ground and deep below the ocean, detecting light is reasonably easy, improvements in detecting light pay off in survival terms. To me, it looks like the papers are alighting on a concept that is effectively mundane, banal even.

Spearthrower wrote:

Rumraket wrote:Evolution is constrained by physics.

That does seem to be about the total implication here: flight, as an example, has evolved more than one because physics permits it. Light is ubiquitous on Earth aside from deep in the ground and deep below the ocean, detecting light is reasonably easy, improvements in detecting light pay off in survival terms. To me, it looks like the papers are alighting on a concept that is effectively mundane, banal even.

I want to add that evolution is constrained by other mathsy things, probably things in game theory (e.g. there's a v. convincing game theoretical explanation as to why sexual reproduction is mainly two-gendered), complexity theory and optimization theory, etc.

Zwaarddijk wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Rumraket wrote:Evolution is constrained by physics.

That does seem to be about the total implication here: flight, as an example, has evolved more than one because physics permits it. Light is ubiquitous on Earth aside from deep in the ground and deep below the ocean, detecting light is reasonably easy, improvements in detecting light pay off in survival terms. To me, it looks like the papers are alighting on a concept that is effectively mundane, banal even.

I want to add that evolution is constrained by other mathsy things, probably things in game theory (e.g. there's a v. convincing game theoretical explanation as to why sexual reproduction is mainly two-gendered), complexity theory and optimization theory, etc.

Certainly, although they're equally natural laws. Another example might be regarding the number of offspring. From a superficial comprehension of evolution from the gene's perspective, it might seem that natural selection would reward those who simply have more offspring, but then those offspring need to survive to breeding age too, and there are constraints on resources: both the mother's ability to produce all those offspring, and the amount of nutrient resources available to the population.

It's not 'directional' that small creatures are more likely to produce more offspring, it's a matter of carrying capacity - there are simply more nutrients available in a given area for very small organisms than for very large ones.

Your point touches on something though that I've been enjoying reading about recently: the 'Evolutionary Scandal' - Bdelloid rotifers.

CdesignProponentsist wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:
Progress, direction, superiority, etc.
Yes. A lot to think about.
Interesting Op. & Thanks for the links.

Lion is eating it up though apparently

Am I missing something here?

Tzelemel wrote:

CdesignProponentsist wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:
Progress, direction, superiority, etc.
Yes. A lot to think about.
Interesting Op. & Thanks for the links.

Lion is eating it up though apparently

Am I missing something here?

Just pointing out that Lion is not phased by all the BS that you had sniffed out and is quite enjoying the cool-aid (flavored popcorn) in the article.

I was puzzled by the bit at the end about "replaying the tape". The article suggested that if the K-T extinction hadn't happened, the dinosaurs would still have been weakened by climate change 30 million years later, and that rapidly evolving tool-using mammals would have exterminated the survivors. It wan't explicitly stated, but the implication was that something like H. Sapiens was inevitable.

For some reason, the article did not consider the possibility that in those extra 30 million years, dinosaurs themselves might have evolved large tool-using brains, and hunted the mammals to exctinction.

It's no great threat to most of Art
To put the horse behind the cart -
But to get human from a fish
Takes frequent asymmetric wish.
Since entropy forever free
Does not provoke complexity,
Though often sense appears post hoc
You can't make soup before the stock.
And this is why you cannot plan
Without eggs breaking omelette an.

Nebogipfel wrote:I was puzzled by the bit at the end about "replaying the tape". The article suggested that if the K-T extinction hadn't happened, the dinosaurs would still have been weakened by climate change 30 million years later, and that rapidly evolving tool-using mammals would have exterminated the survivors. It wan't explicitly stated, but the implication was that something like H. Sapiens was inevitable.

For some reason, the article did not consider the possibility that in those extra 30 million years, dinosaurs themselves might have evolved large tool-using brains, and hunted the mammals to exctinction.

Or that a gradual change in climate could just as easily have provoked more diversification among dinosaurs.

There's a lot of sloppy thinking going on there.