Myth of evolution and new drug discovery

[itinerant1]

OK, well you should remind me what the point is, so I don’t miss it yet again? I’d hate waste my second chance, thanks!

-TS

The issue pertains to an explanation of the nature of the human mind (intellect and will) and what its relation is to the body (brain, nervous tissue, etc.).

 

[itinerant1]

I’m not following. Are you saying “dark implications” are false implications? Or perhaps “dark implications” just mean the implications can’t be known or understood?

If there are dark implications to discover, does that make them “non-discoverable”, by virtue of being dark?

-TS

%$^&#@#$

The implications of Darwinian theory, carried to its logical conclusion, in relation to the human mind are that we cannot know reality as it is. However, science only works because we can in fact acquire knowledge about the external world. This is where Darwin’s theory does not jive with common sense and human experience. Darwin sensed the contradiction but was not adept at abstract and philosophical thinking, as he often admitted, to face the logical problems inherent in his theory.

 

[itinerant1]

So, then, knowledge is unqualified, in your view?

-TS

I’m not sure what you mean by “unqualified”.

The starting point is never critical judgment. That approach has always ended in skepticism and even solipsism. Examples of this utterly wrong approach are found in the epistemological failures of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant and the various reactions to all of this seen in logical positivism, scientism, and so on.

The starting point must always be the knowledge that we do attain, followed by reflection and epistemological analysis. Not the other way around.

 

[itinerant1]

I must check out for the evening. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Peace

 

[grannymh]

%$^&#@#$

The implications of Darwinian theory, carried to its logical conclusion, in relation to the human mind are that we cannot know reality as it is. However, science only works because we can in fact acquire knowledge about the external world. This is where Darwin’s theory does not jive with common sense and human experience. Darwin sensed the contradiction but was not adept at abstract and philosophical thinking, as he often admitted, to face the logical problems inherent in his theory.

As I recall, about a mile of posts back, there was reluctance about assuming the material nature of the brute animals. Apparently, when the rubber hits the road, humans don’t want to give up their unique abilities regarding their intellectual powers to acquire new knowledge about the external world. No one really wants to trade places with their cousin chilly chimp. Sounds like it is pick and choose regarding implications of Darwinian theory.

 

[reggieM]

Regarding abiogenesis, it seems that the earth’s environment is presently very “life friendly” so to speak.

Going back to this topic on the origin of life …

The claim is that life evolved from simpler to more complex forms. This report published yesterday in *New Scientist *confirms that at the base of the (postulated) tree of life is an extremely complex life form, much like a modern cell.

“There is no doubt that the progenitor of all life on Earth, the common ancestor, possessed DNA, RNA and proteins, a universal genetic code, ribosomes (the protein-building factories), ATP and a proton-powered enzyme for making ATP. The detailed mechanisms for reading off DNA and converting genes into proteins were also in place. In short, then, the last common ancestor of all life looks pretty much like a modern cell.”

Thus, the earliest known ancestor possesses the immensely sophisticated features found in modern cells (”protein building factories” as the article calls them) and DNA replication.

The article sites another item from biologist Eugene V. Koonin which claims that DNA replication "the bacterial replication machinery " evolved twice, independently. The classic rejoinder to anyone who raises eyebrows at such a claim is – Why not? True enough. Presently, it is unknown how the first DNA replication supposedly evolved, and now it is proposed that it evolved separatetly two times (once for bacteria and once for the archaea).

Even more baffling, says Martin, neither the cell membranes nor the cell walls have any details in common. “At face value, the defining boundaries of cells evolved independently in bacteria and archaea,” he says…
The picture painted by Russell and Martin is striking indeed. The last common ancestor of all life was not a free-living cell at all, but a porous rock riddled with bubbly iron-sulphur membranes that catalysed primordial biochemical reactions. Powered by hydrogen and proton gradients, this natural flow reactor filled up with organic chemicals, giving rise to proto-life that eventually broke out as the first living cells - not once but twice, giving rise to the bacteria and the archaea.

That the complexity of the modern cell is found present in the earliest forms is remarkable enough. The fact that this complex functionality is attributed to a chance assembly is even moreso. Many others (like myself) will see this as evidence that there must have been an organizing, coordinating, designing and creating intelligent power at work in the origin of the first cellular life – and through the creation of all all life.

 

[reggieM]

As I recall, about a mile of posts back, there was reluctance about assuming the material nature of the brute animals. Apparently, when the rubber hits the road, humans don’t want to give up their unique abilities regarding their intellectual powers to acquire new knowledge about the external world. No one really wants to trade places with their cousin chilly chimp. Sounds like it is pick and choose regarding implications of Darwinian theory.

Very good point. A phrase I saw somewhere that describes this attitude is “hyper-selective skepticism”. Actually, that is used for the unreasonable demand for evidence in some matters versus others – but it fits in this case also.

Does chilly chimp have a musical act? I should get to know my family lineage much better.

 

[Touchstone]

The issue pertains to an explanation of the nature of the human mind (intellect and will) and what its relation is to the body (brain, nervous tissue, etc.).

Well, I thought you were saying “we are nothing but our genes”. Reading back, that’s how it went. To which I responded that our evolution affords us faculties of the mind that make subjects far afield from the biological imperatives of reproduction possible, practical, even ones that subvert that innate drive. Some individuals purposefully avoid having kids, for example.

Now, the point is philosophy of mind, from that? Well, that’s a complex enough issue to burden a dozen threads on its own, but here, I will say that the mind is a description of the activity of the brain, in the same sense ‘walking’ is an activity of the legs and arms. Neither are existential realities distinct from the body, but are conceptualizations of its configuration and behavior. “Monism”, in the vocabulary of philosophy of mind.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

As I recall, about a mile of posts back, there was reluctance about assuming the material nature of the brute animals. Apparently, when the rubber hits the road, humans don’t want to give up their unique abilities regarding their intellectual powers to acquire new knowledge about the external world. No one really wants to trade places with their cousin chilly chimp. Sounds like it is pick and choose regarding implications of Darwinian theory.

Trading with a chimp, as nice as that my be in some respects (can’t think of what), is a big downgrade in terms of brain power. Something like losing three quarters of your brain!

That seems to quite adequately explain any reluctance to trade, no?

And who was it you thought was uncomfortable with the idea of a shared nature with the other animals? I agree that many people are loathe to lower themselves to being, as the dismissive phrase goes “a monkey’s cousin”. But as the continuing theme here goes – that reluctance doesn’t change the underlying reality. It’s a conceit, I think, and admittedly, one people cling to, tightly. Many just would rather it were not so.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

%$^&#@#$

The implications of Darwinian theory, carried to its logical conclusion, in relation to the human mind are that we cannot know reality as it is.

Not. Doesn’t follow at all. If you think you’re not confused here, maybe you can lay out the syllogism or the logic path (maybe something like Plantinga’s EAAN – go ahead, try that one!).

However, science only works because we can in fact acquire knowledge about the external world. This is where Darwin’s theory does not jive with common sense and human experience.

Science doesn’t accept “common sense” as a governor of its epistemology. In fact, science is a tool that judges our common sense – sometimes it validates it, and strongly, and sometimes, it overturns it completely. A science prof I had in school introduced science as the “systematic overturning of common sense knowledge and intuition”. You are welcome to put common sense at the top of the epsitemic food chain, as it were, but in so doing, you will have closed off huge departments of natural knowledge to yourself.

Darwin sensed the contradiction but was not adept at abstract and philosophical thinking, as he often admitted, to face the logical problems inherent in his theory.

The problems weren’t logical ones, but philosophical and moral ones. Origins and Descent both bring this out clearly. It’s because of the logic Darwin was applying that these problems arose. What shall do if we are to discover there is no creator? Definitely a major league tough question. But this is where the evidence lead Darwin, where the logic pointed.

I’m not sure what you mean by “unqualified”.

The starting point is never critical judgment. That approach has always ended in skepticism and even solipsism.

Well, ending in skepticism is a good thing, and precisely that which qualifies knowledge, doubt being the foundation of all knowledge, and knowledge being that which withstands reasoning doubt. Skepticism is not the dismissal of knowledge, but the acceptance of it on reasoning grounds, so as to best separate knowledge from pretense to knowledge.

Examples of this utterly wrong approach are found in the epistemological failures of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant and the various reactions to all of this seen in logical positivism, scientism, and so on.

Well, philosophy in the abstract, like theology, has a very poor track record in producing real knowledge, but scientific epistemology (many scientists were/are logical positivists, I understand) has produced a wealth of knowledge, a knowledge base that just embarrasses, say, theology, by comparison.

Which begs the question – what makes an epistemology “utterly wrong”, in your view. It can’t be the production of qualified knowledge – so what is the “wrongness” you are identifying here? That it’s not theologically friendly to your religious beliefs?

The starting point must always be the knowledge that we do attain, followed by reflection and epistemological analysis. Not the other way around.

Well, if the “epistemological analysis” allows that we accept knowledge without qualifying it first, it’s literally self-defeating as a process. If we accept proposition X upfront as knowledge without critical judgment being applied, that can and will corrupt the knowledge base, because any kind of mistaken of foolish idea can be admitted that way as knowledge.

Humans come into the world with instinct which serves as a necessary, unavoidable and crucially useful “bootstrapping proxy for knowledge”. A newborn infant knows innately to suck when held to breast feed. She has critical judgment – which is not knowledge itself – to apply in the form of sensory and internal feedback; a nourishing meal reinforces the utlility and value of the “suck” reflex, and evidence mounts that the crying reflex when something is wrong or distressing tends to bring aid and attention from others, often aimed at relieving the problem!

This is bootstrapping empricism at work, catalyzed by the instincts an infant begins with, the inherited “knowledge” distilled in her brain and body by millions of years of evolution. As her mind develops, she begins to think critically in abstract terms, building on the empirical model of reality that has emerged from her experience – the stove is hot, don’t touch because it hurts, etc.

It’s only by applying critical judgment that she can separate reliable knowledge from fantasy and error, as she grows and begins to think in terms of abstract concepts. “Santa is real”, a proposition she accepted in her pre-school credulity, fails the test of critical judgment, and is disbelieved – far more likely that Mom and Dad are the ones really leaving the presents under the tree with the tags that say “Love, Santa”. This critical judgment helps separate supportable propositions – knowledge as justified true belief – from unsupportable propositions, beliefs that get either rejected outright, or accepted uncritical or for non-rational reasons.

-TS

 

[itinerant1]

Well, I thought you were saying “we are nothing but our genes”. Reading back, that’s how it went. To which I responded that our evolution affords us faculties of the mind that make subjects far afield from the biological imperatives of reproduction possible, practical, even ones that subvert that innate drive. Some individuals purposefully avoid having kids, for example.

Now, the point is philosophy of mind, from that? Well, that’s a complex enough issue to burden a dozen threads on its own, but here, I will say that the mind is a description of the activity of the brain, in the same sense ‘walking’ is an activity of the legs and arms. Neither are existential realities distinct from the body, but are conceptualizations of its configuration and behavior. “Monism”, in the vocabulary of philosophy of mind.

-TS

If mind is strictly an activity of brain, in a monistic sense, then you are your genes, since genetics accounts for brain. In what way do you not think your position is not logically contradictory and hence an impossibility?

 

[itinerant1]

Science doesn’t accept “common sense” as a governor of its epistemology. In fact, science is a tool that judges our common sense – sometimes it validates it, and strongly, and sometimes, it overturns it completely. A science prof I had in school introduced science as the “systematic overturning of common sense knowledge and intuition”. You are welcome to put common sense at the top of the epsitemic food chain, as it were, but in so doing, you will have closed off huge departments of natural knowledge to yourself.

-TS

You have conveniently omitted the fact that I said “common sense and human experience.” I originally added “human experience” because whenever people of your narrow mindset see the phrase “common sense” they interpret it in a likewise narrow way and contrast it with “scientific knowledge”. Common sense in philosophy often refers to knowledge common to the physical senses of all people. All knowledge begins with sense experience. There is no knowledge that is innate. Common sense in philosophy also refers to a perceptual cognitive power, the sensus communis.

 

[Touchstone]

If mind is strictly an activity of brain, in a monistic sense, then you are your genes, since genetics accounts for brain. In what way do you not think your position is not logically contradictory and hence an impossibility?

Well, I have twin sons, just about 3 years old now. They are monozygotic twins – genetic clones. And yet, they have distinctly different brains. Our brains are not simply products of our genes – that doesn’t even rise to simplistic thinking. Their brains are conditioned and affected just as yours and mine our by their experiences, their environement, the culture and community they are brought up in. They begin with a core set of instincts and impulses, rudimentary moral and language grammars included, for example, but the way their minds develop is highly dependent on what happens to them and around them, and this provides abundant evidence in these little guys that the brain-as-naught-but-genes is simplistic unto foolishness.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

You have conveniently omitted the fact that I said “common sense and human experience.” I originally added “human experience” because whenever people of your narrow mindset see the phrase “common sense” they interpret it in a likewise narrow way and contrast it with “scientific knowledge”. Common sense in philosophy often refers to knowledge common to the physical senses of all people. All knowledge begins with sense experience. There is no knowledge that is innate. Common sense in philosophy also refers to a perceptual cognitive power, the sensus communis.

I’ve been asking, repeatedly now, how we would validate that idea, how we would determine if it was just so much hand-waving, if indeed it was?

Or is this one of those things you “just know”, and that’s that? I’m a fan of common sense, but I don’t think it’s holy, or unassailable, ipso facto knowledge. What is an example you have in mind for “knowledge common to the physical senses of all people”?

Also, If I understand you, here, you are now holding to a tabula rasa model for human cognition? Humans as “blank slates”? How does an infant, just born a moment ago, know to suck when put to mom’s breast, so that it may be fed? That seems a very strong evidence for innate knowledge to me. It doesn’t to you?

-TS

 

[itinerant1]

The problems weren’t logical ones, but philosophical and moral ones. Origins and Descent both bring this out clearly. It’s because of the logic Darwin was applying that these problems arose. What shall do if we are to discover there is no creator? Definitely a major league tough question. But this is where the evidence lead Darwin, where the logic pointed.

The problems are both logical and philosophical. The logical problems stem from the pre-investigative assumptions that determined how and what questions were asked, and those same assumptions likewise determined post-investigative conclusions. It was no wonder Darwin came up with so many different definitions of “species”. But that is a long discussion in itself.

Well, ending in skepticism is a good thing, and precisely that which qualifies knowledge, doubt being the foundation of all knowledge, and knowledge being that which withstands reasoning doubt. Skepticism is not the dismissal of knowledge, but the acceptance of it on reasoning grounds, so as to best separate knowledge from pretense to knowledge.

I clearly was not using the term “skepticism” in the sense that you are using it. Hence, your response fails to address the issue. There is a healthy skepticism, indeed. There is also a philosophical skepticism that doubts the existence of any truth or genuine knowledge of the world. I was clearly using it in this sense. And to be sure, I associated it with the term solipsism. A good scientist pays attention to details and facts in nature and in text.

Well, philosophy in the abstract, like theology, has a very poor track record in producing real knowledge, but scientific epistemology (many scientists were/are logical positivists, I understand) has produced a wealth of knowledge, a knowledge base that just embarrasses, say, theology, by comparison.

You don’t seem to know enough about philosophy or theology to render a competent judgement in that matter. I don’t think any scientist worthy of his profession would pontificate on that in which he has no expertise. Unfortunately, they do all the time, which is one of the reason why Einstein said the man of science makes a poor philosopher. Einstein saw you coming, dude.

Which begs the question – what makes an epistemology “utterly wrong”, in your view. It can’t be the production of qualified knowledge – so what is the “wrongness” you are identifying here? That it’s not theologically friendly to your religious beliefs?
Well, if the “epistemological analysis” allows that we accept knowledge without qualifying it first, it’s literally self-defeating as a process. If we accept proposition X upfront as knowledge without critical judgment being applied, that can and will corrupt the knowledge base, because any kind of mistaken of foolish idea can be admitted that way as knowledge.

Tell me what the difference is between the two, and, what implications for knowledge does each one have?

1. Ideas are that which we know.
2. Ideas are that by which we know.

 

[itinerant1]

Well, I have twin sons, just about 3 years old now. They are monozygotic twins – genetic clones. And yet, they have distinctly different brains. Our brains are not simply products of our genes – that doesn’t even rise to simplistic thinking. Their brains are conditioned and affected just as yours and mine our by their experiences, their environement, the culture and community they are brought up in. They begin with a core set of instincts and impulses, rudimentary moral and language grammars included, for example, but the way their minds develop is highly dependent on what happens to them and around them, and this provides abundant evidence in these little guys that the brain-as-naught-but-genes is simplistic unto foolishness.

-TS

All you are saying is that it is a matter of how genetics interacts with the environment. The old its not just nature or environment but how the two interact. I was hoping you could think a little deeper and realize this level of analysis, when applied to mind, still posits a dependence of everything about the mind on antecedent events, and hence is ultimately reducible to genetics, genetics understood of course in how it gets expressed, which varies with each individual.That’s elementary, Watson.

How about employing some of that “rational analysis” you were singing about earlier. Or, wuz dey jes sum big n’ fancy werds?

 

[itinerant1]

I’ve been asking, repeatedly now, how we would validate that idea, how we would determine if it was just so much hand-waving, if indeed it was?

Or is this one of those things you “just know”, and that’s that? I’m a fan of common sense, but I don’t think it’s holy, or unassailable, ipso facto knowledge. What is an example you have in mind for “knowledge common to the physical senses of all people”?

Also, If I understand you, here, you are now holding to a tabula rasa model for human cognition? Humans as “blank slates”? How does an infant, just born a moment ago, know to suck when put to mom’s breast, so that it may be fed? That seems a very strong evidence for innate knowledge to me. It doesn’t to you?

-TS

Regarding an infant, you need to distinguish instinctive behavior and learned behavior. Is a behavior learned or instinctive? (Human don’t have many truly instinctive behaviors.) As far as learning is concerned, it begins in utero. A good, recent text on pre-natal child development can help.

Common sense experience can refer first to the knowledge we acquire through sense experience. In realization of the distinction of primary and secondary qualities of sense experience, I am just speaking simply of the knowledge proper to each of the five senses in human nature, a common experience. The eye is for sight. It sees colors, movement, shapes, and on. Of course the data is only the basis for human knowledge. As Locke says, “Percepts without concepts are blind”

 

[itinerant1]

Well, I have twin sons, just about 3 years old now. They are monozygotic twins – genetic clones.

-TS

Twin sons! Congratulations. You do realize twins may mean double the trouble when they reach their teen years. Not necessarily, though.

 

[grannymh]

Trading with a chimp, as nice as that my be in some respects (can’t think of what), is a big downgrade in terms of brain power. Something like losing three quarters of your brain!
That seems to quite adequately explain any reluctance to trade, no?

As you say, losing three quarters of one’s brain would make anyone reluctant to trade with my cousin chilly chimp. However, trading wasn’t the issue. As I recall, it was the issue of whether or not there was a spiritual component intimately united with the corporal body to make one human being. The exercise was to find out how it would feel if humans had only the evolution of their material body just like the brute animals.

And who was it you thought was uncomfortable with the idea of a shared nature with the other animals?

Neither you nor I. I would say that we are both comfortable with the idea of sharing the material component of our nature with other animals. I believe in the unity of creation. Besides what would we eat if we weren’t compatible with animals and plants?

I agree that many people are loathe to lower themselves to being, as the dismissive phrase goes “a monkey’s cousin”. But as the continuing theme here goes – that reluctance doesn’t change the underlying reality. It’s a conceit, I think, and admittedly, one people cling to, tightly. Many just would rather it were not so.

-TS

You do have me on the conceit issue. I do think that I am one up over the animal kingdom. Yet, I don’t look down on animals. They are really important in our lives. It’s viva la difference – you know what I mean.

 

[itinerant1]

You do have me on the conceit issue. I do think that I am one up over the animal kingdom. Yet, I don’t look down on animals. They are really important in our lives. It’s viva la difference – you know what I mean.

I love animals, too. But I am still speciest. Speciesism, now there is a dumb as a rock idea. It’s the product of dysfunctional cultural evolution.