And so do I, but what we have in Thomas’s quote above is a criteria and a claim, and a reference to evolution which is possibly Darwinian, but remains unbound.

That doesn’t explain why you suddenly claimed I was handwaving, especially after I noted that I was going to try to define evolution vs Darwinian evolution more clearly, and did so. Twice.

Recall that my first post in this blog entry was correcting a criteria Thomas mentioned.

And I was pointing to biology sources which showed why your correction, while better, wasn’t precisely what scientists would describe it as. For the profit of yourself, and of course also Thomas.

I gather you didn’t read them, as you thought I was supporting Thomas.

I’m confusing this because you responded to me at all.

Easy solution; I will stop.

First off, there is a distinction between the ideas of religions evolving vs the experience of religion evolving. One is talking about how the ideas changed over time and space through different social and population groups, the other is how the capacity originally developed and became widespread in the species. Phil’s post and the quoted study supposedly address the latter, not the former.

If you do wish to see how ideas can evolve from precursor (ancestor) ideas without destroying the precursors, just look at bacteria. We agree that evolutionarily, multicelled organisms arose from single-celled ones, but that doesn’t mean all the single-celled organisms are gone. Bacteria still rule the world.

In fact, there is a school of thought that does postulate just such a sequence of religious development – animism to polytheism to monotheism.

KC said:
> If the capacity for religion is evolved, then it must confer a survival advantage.

Irishman said:
>No evolutionist disagrees with that comment.

Blake Stacey said:
>No. The mere presence of a trait in a population does not mean that aforesaid trait is adaptive. Neutral traits can spread via genetic drift, and phenomena which look at first glance to be adaptations can in fact be spandrels, byproducts of features which were once adaptive in other environments.

Oops. I stand corrected. My thoughts along that line were more of the nature that even if it were a spandrel, what was the adaptive feature that left religion as a byproduct. And I’m hard pressed to consider religion “neutral”.

Kaleberg, interesting example to demonstrate that the experience can be real even if the events of the experience are fantasy.

And so do I, but what we have in Thomas’s quote above is a criteria and a claim, and a reference to evolution which is possibly Darwinian, but remains unbound. I repeated the quote in my last post.

“We are not communicating.”

I agree. I read your prior post as defending Thomas, while adding heredity, which was what my entire response was based on.

“You are confusing mentioning mechanisms with specifying criteria.”

I’m confusing this because you responded to me at all. Recall that my first post in this blog entry was correcting a criteria Thomas mentioned. And, yes, what Thomas mentioned was a criteria (what else do you call a short list with a necessary implication?)

Under this context, in your first response addressing me, when you said:
“That is very specifically Darwinian evolution, named after the mechanisms Darwin suggested (variation and selection).”
…then I read this as a claim that Thomas’s criteria (and his was a criteria, since he’s reaching a necessary conclusion about any system having those traits) establishes Darwinian evolution. This simply has my interpretation of the antecedent of the word “That” in your quote as being Thomas’s criteria (and again, it is a criteria).

The alternate interpretation that I saw, which I considered but didn’t think was likely, was that you were claiming that although Thomas was wrong about his criteria, he was talking specifically about Darwinian evolution because he used those terms. I didn’t think this was likely because it doesn’t follow (and furthermore, I don’t see why this is something I specifically would need to be “informed” of).

I don’t know what these “et cetera” that you refer to are though, because you didn’t mention them. I believe you’re simply hand waving–more on that later.

Are you serious? I just meant there is a lot of them.

If you are interested you can check up on any article on evolution. Here is Wikipedia’s list: adaptation, genetic drift, gene flow/migration, mutation, natural selection, speciation (several mechanisms; allopatry, peripatry, parapatry, sympatry), bottlenecks (several mechanisms; population loss, decreased migration, habitat expansion, population subdivision), horizontal gene transfer, sex/genetic recombination, hybridization.

You like to claim handwaving, I see. Those aren’t criteria, those are mechanisms as I explicitly mentioned. As in, what makes the process tick. Several mechanisms contribute to variation. The link I gave you lists mutation and recombination explicitly under the heading “Variation”. Variation is a comprehensive term for the observed phenomena, and you need at least one specific mechanism to produce it.

Really, I think you should read up on some evolution 101 before pontificating on others. If you can’t see the difference between mechanisms and criteria I believe you are philosophizing without considering the science. Ironically, that could be labeled “handwaving”.

The reason this is important gets back to the original purpose–we’re looking at a completely alien system now, and we see it has variation, and we need to know if it is really going to act like we expect biological systems to act.

Which is exactly how I used it, in the comprehensive way, which should be clear from a little reading. You are confusing mentioning mechanisms with specifying criteria.

To sum up: evolution has a theory, and it is relatively easy to test by such specific predictions as phylogeny or its rigorous math parts if another system than a biological is described by it. Genetic algorithms could be an example.

But for other systems we may find that other theories applies, that nevertheless would fit under the inclusive definition. Memetics could be an example. I’ll leave that for biologists to worry about.

I don’t know what these “et cetera” that you refer to are though, because you didn’t mention them. I believe you’re simply hand waving–more on that later.

The raison d’être of the matter at hand is to apply these sufficient criteria to alien systems, not biological ones, and to conclude based on the presence of some minimal list of fundamental traits that something interesting which we are calling “evolution” is going on.

The reason I’m focusing on Darwinian evolution is to give some sort of possible coherency to the issue at hand.

We’re talking about this specific claim:

“Any system that manifests three traits: variation, reproduction and selection, will also manifest evolution.”

…and as I pointed out before, this is already tautologically true in some sense (the word evolution in itself simply means change), so it’s really strange to even appeal to “reproduction” and “selection”. It’s as if you said: “Any system where you have reproduction, selection, and change, will be a changing system.” And I find it impossible to believe that this was what was being claimed.

On the other hand, by evolution, we could be meaning something more specific. But what then is being claimed? If it’s not bound at all, you have a problem of the claim lacking a meaning. Any system that manifests reproduction, selection, and change will, well, change in some sort of particular way. But if I don’t know exactly what sort of particular way you’re claiming it would change, then this is no help. It doesn’t describe anything about the behavior of the system beyond what I started with (that it had those criteria) and what I would have to find out anyway, the hard way, by carrying out the implications of those traits. It’s a useless claim if evolution can mean anything.

The reason then that I’m focusing on Darwinian evolution is that it’s at least something that will make the claim non-trivial; it adds the teeth of meaning to the claim. That’s not to say Thomas didn’t have in mind some other specific type of evolution, but my gut feeling (and only current reasonable interpretation) was that Thomas was trying to claim that memetics will naturally provide the type of richness you will find in biological systems due specifically to the fact that it has these traits. If I’m correct, then this only logically follows if it’s true that such systems are Darwinian. If he had something else specific in mind, he (or someone) should clarify it; otherwise we’ll never know (or I wouldn’t).

Now, here is why I think you’re handwaving. You’re trying to pretend that certain unmentioned criteria (mutation and recombination namely) are already included in variation. That’s not only cheating, it’s false! Your inclusion of recombination betrays you. After all, Darwinian evolution occurs in asexually reproducing species which don’t exhibit much recombination, and applies perfectly well to such species (I do recognize that recombination actually occurs in some asexually reproducing populations, by the way). And yet, even in such systems, we have variation.

Since variation does not require recombination, which you listed, it follows that it does not include it. Therefore, it’s cheating to claim you’ve already specified it. The reason this is important gets back to the original purpose–we’re looking at a completely alien system now, and we see it has variation, and we need to know if it is really going to act like we expect biological systems to act.

I stand by my counterexample of my box-of-crayons being slowly mixed. It has variation, it has reproduction, and it has selection, and it will not behave like you expect biological systems to. The moral–if you want me to expect the same things you expect, you need to tell me both what it is you’re expecting, and why you’re expecting it.

A religious experience is like music. Most people, not me, but most people, “get” music. It offers them something that others get from cathedrals, crystals, incense and mantras. I will admit that religion has a very bad moral record. Unlike music, which is generally regarded as an entertainment, religion has been used to justify evil upon evil. As an anti-moral force, it is exemplary.

It is easy to dismiss religion as not being real, or as simply a form of evil. This is only partly true. Religion is based on stories, and stories have their own truth. Was Darth Vader Luke Skywalker’s father? Of course not, neither person existed. Still, Star Wars fans, and even those who loathed the stories, have to admit that there is some truth to that statement, if only in the context of the original story line.

Religion is like masturbating. One seeks sexual arousal, generally by imagining one or more sexually desirable parties doing sexually pleasurable things. Do any of these entities exist? Perhaps some of them are based on real people. Are they actually doing those things? Of course not. If they were, you wouldn’t be masturbating, you’d be having sex. Is your arousal real? Is your orgasm, if you have one, real? Absolutely. If you are male, the sperm in your ejaculate are perfectly capable of conception if introduced to a fertile egg. As with masturbation and orgasm, we don’t need gods to have a religious experience, we just have to imagine them.

Religion is not just about spreading false stories. Religion and politics have long been intertwined. Those false stories are spread for a variety of reasons, just as many real stories are. Is there a genetic component? There may be. Until very recently, human societies have been organized genetically. Kings were chosen as offspring or relatives of previous kings. Noble families were well aware of their bloodlines. Could our society be better organized? Definitely. We haven’t been having very good luck with our current George II.

Of course, I’ll stick with the theory that the same skills that have led to so many of our species successes are the same skills that bring us the curse of religion.

But Thomas’s claim was both on the surface and in spirit a claim of sufficiency. This leads me to ask if those conditions are really sufficient to produce whatever he is calling evolution.

Let me see if I can clear up any remaining confusion, or if I will contribute. [Disclaimer: I'm not a biologist.] As we can (and should!) define biological evolution without specifying each and every mechanism, we can look at sufficient mechanisms.

The hereditary mechanism can be taken as given above the darwinian threshold.

Okay, now add variation. (From mechanisms such as mutation, recombination, et cetera, et cetera.) This is sufficient, as we can observe what is called near neutral drift when selection acts weakly, or genetic bottlenecks when populations momentarily becomes small.

Both of which will likely eventually fix a specific allele (gene variation), find a balance against other alleles. (Often by excluding them.) Fixation is more or less necessary to observe changes in a whole population. But it is also the end state of the mechanism action on that particular allele.

In the same manner you can add other mechanisms and test for sufficiency. For example selection can quickly result in fixation, but needs the previous mentioned variation to act on. There are quite a few evolutionary mechanisms observed.

I can certainly imagine systems that have those three traits that do not in any way mirror Darwinian systems (more specifically, do not have the key characteristics to allow for artificially introduced environmental pressures to shape adaptability to those pressures, coming from the perspective that Darwinian evolution, at its core, is an analogy (natural selection) to artificial selection).

I’m not sure why you restrict to Darwinian evolution (variation and selection), since the key factor if it is a evolving system according to the definition is the hereditary mechanism as I mentioned earlier. Here I think you made a fair assessment before of the problem with memes as analogues to genes.

Btw, one could also say that artificial selection is a subset of natural selection, as treated by the theory. Darwin was inspired by the former, but wanted to emphasize the difference when naming the later. Today I don’t think that exclusive distinction is necessary.

“That is very specifically Darwinian evolution, named after the mechanisms Darwin suggested (variation and selection).”

But Thomas’s claim was both on the surface and in spirit a claim of sufficiency. This leads me to ask if those conditions are really sufficient to produce whatever he is calling evolution. I can certainly imagine systems that have those three traits that do not in any way mirror Darwinian systems (more specifically, do not have the key characteristics to allow for artificially introduced environmental pressures to shape adaptability to those pressures, coming from the perspective that Darwinian evolution, at its core, is an analogy (natural selection) to artificial selection).

“Any system that manifests three traits: variation, reproduction and selection, will also manifest evolution.”

I’m not sure what you mean by evolution here, but I’m pretty certain you’re either underspecifying or overspecifying. Technically, all you need for evolution is variation, since the word “evolution” simply means change. But in case you’re referring to something like Darwinian evolution,

That is very specifically Darwinian evolution, named after the mechanisms Darwin suggested (variation and selection). But more generally one can understand from this or the article’s context that what is meant is (biological) evolution. This is an observable process, so it is (of course) amenable for a definition.

A minimal definition of evolution is:

Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.

Or, roughly, “common descent”.

This is the same type of definition as is used when defining other natural processes, for example gravitation

Gravitation is a process that results in acceleration in a mass.

This will leave it up to a theory to specify exactly which mechanisms are responsible (a force between masses in Newtonian gravitation or space curvature from masses in general relativity), and how to quantitatively test it. Modern evolution theory have identified more mechanisms than the original darwinian mechanisms.

One of the biggest issues with memetics is what exactly the analogy to the gene is.

Exactly right, as I understand it, and another problem with some of these ideas. The type of hereditary process affects evolutionary characteristics.

For example, quasispecies useful in HIV research, where the populations genome resides in an appreciable and fast evolving volume in genomic space, doesn’t describe a well defined and stable species.

Likewise, if replication becomes less faithful the species or quasispecies will drop under the darwinian threshold, and ordinary evolution theory will not describe what happens.

@ Blake Stacey:

spandrels, byproducts of features which were once adaptive in other environments.

Hmm. I thought spandrels were coincidental byproducts of traits, as the navel is often mentioned; it looks like a trait, but it is the umbilical cord that performs the function that is under evolution.

I’m not sure why spandrels would be coupled to vestigial traits specifically?

Um.. about that study… http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/05/making-rudyard-kipling-proud.html

While I agree with Phil that this was more of a proof of principle model work, and I agree with you that it overstated its claims, I will point out that “just so stories” can never the less be true and can be tested so. This is even more likely when they aren’t in fact completely ad hoc, but can be connected with a theory such as evolution.

The problem is to draw out an independent prediction and test it.

I think the “evolutionary psychologists” and “evolutionary human behaviourists” are really wrong.

I find this very likely, as I don’t see that they have been able to do the necessary testing.