From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Fri Nov 19 1999 - 14:33:41 MST
J.R.,
Very helpful reply:
Robert Owen wrote,
>I suspect I would very much like to comment on the developed thread, but
>first I ought to ask what it is about in the opinion of the various
>contributors.
"Hi Bob,
"As I see it, the thread moved from a discussion of the need for rigorous
science in the study of societal evolution to one of debate concerning the
role of ethics in human affairs....."
".....As for ethics, I think science _can_ clarify this miasma if researchers can
overcome the politically correct aversion to the study of biology as it relates
to human behavior and systems of belief."
Yes. I had this in mind when I sent a trial balloon META's way concerning
the work of the Santa Fe Institute in "Theoretical Biology" on Sun 14 Nov 99:
From: Robert Owen:
I thought I might provoke a little controversy by mentioning
the Field of "Theoretical Biology" and stimulate some painful
feelings only to be relieved by posting an opinion of Stuart
Kauffman who studies the origin of life and the origins of
molecular organization. Twenty-five years ago, he developed
the Kauffman models, which are random networks exhibiting
a kind of self-organization that he terms "order for free."
Kauffman is not easy. His models are rigorous, mathematical,
and, to many of his colleagues, somewhat difficult to accept.
A key to his worldview is the notion that convergent rather
than divergent flow plays the deciding role in the evolution of
life. With his colleague Christopher G. Langton, he believes
that the complex systems best able to adapt are those poised
on the border between chaos and disorder.
His most recent books are "At Home in the Universe: The Search
for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity", 1995, Oxford
University Press and "The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and
Selection in Evolution", l993, Oxford University Press.
So here is an exercise in "theoretical biology" from the Santa Fe
Institute by MacArthur fellow Kauffman:
"If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because
self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we
biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems
governed simultaneously by two sources of order, Yet who seeing
the snowflake, who seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in
water forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who
seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in swarms of
reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning order for free in
networks linking tens upon tens of thousands of variables, can fail
to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to attain a final
theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the
commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see
that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately,
we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after
all."
"At Home in the Universe", Oxford University Press, 1995, p 112.
I hope at least one or two readers are sufficiently outraged, or at
least exasperated, that they will post their devastating critique.
For example, do you detect an odor of "teleology"? Or do you
espy "The Anthropic Principle" sneaking through the back door?
Some kind of neo-Begsonian or Lamarckian decadence? Worse yet,
is this some weird kind of "closet creationism"?
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Received were some highly insightful replies -- some vaguely supportive
of Stuart's work. Then, after further reflection, I received this from
Athena:
"I reread the passage from Kauffman's book that Bob sent us, and found
some things to alarm me. For one, he employs the classic strategy of
conflating things that we know and don't know."
Well, say the issue is: can highly qualified biologists study the biological
determinants of anthropoid social behavior and on the of level conceptual
mentation in our species expand our understanding of the biogenetic roots
of our value- and belief-systems without the "conflation" to which Athena
refers? That is, without dragging-in the non-empirical disciplines of
"Comparative Cultural Anthropology", "Sociology", and purely theoretical
models derived from "Depth Psychology"and your infamous "Cultural Studies"?
My "rhetorical" position is one of abject skepticism, but I am ready to learn!
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
=======================
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