What's most incredible about Darwin is how readable and essential (and fundamentally correct) his two major treatises, Origin and Descent, have remained.
It's like Newton not only discovering calculus but also inventing its modern syntax and writing the best textbook on the subject.
That comparison between the readability of Newton and Darwin has got me thinking on what changed between the 17th and 19th centuries to make that possible. Aside from the obvious differences between how Newton and Darwin communicated in writing (Latin vs English) I think it also might have to do with the rise of the novel, and how novels effectively created a "general interest reader." I suspect that Darwin and Huxley were intentionally writing for mass reading public, people who read Dickens and the Illustrated London News. These sorts of people wanted to learn new things about the world but wanted things to be readable and memorably expressed.
Newton was basically just trying to communicate with a handful of experts, many of whom didn't even speak English, so he just didn't see what he did as something that demanded a lot of attention paid to prose style. I actually find the writing style of some of Newton's contemporaries to be really beautiful and readable (Margaret Cavendish's Observations upon Experimental Philosophy is a surprisingly fun read). As is some of Descartes (like his Meditations). But those are definitely outliers.
In one of the recent books I read, I've heard that Newton didn't want his material accessible, as it would keep out the dilettantes. He wanted only a select few to understand a lot of what he wrote, which is part of the reason they're difficult.
(I think it was either Gleick's book on Information Theory, or the Drunkard's Walk, but it could have been any of the half dozen books I've been absorbed into lately)
Well, my information is a bit different. During his time, there were many amateur mathematicians around. And Newton had a long standing beef with Leibnitz (Who was the chair of the Royal Society at the time). Whenever Newton published any paper, these wayward mathematicians used to ridicule his ideas, which infuriated Newton. That's why he decided to write in such sophisticated and grandiloquent language, such that these dabblers won't understand what he has written, to teach them a lesson (Irony, ROFL!! :D)
Small corrections: while he did indeed have a rivalry with Leibnitz (over who invented Calculus), Leibnitz was German, and therefor not likely to be chair of the Royal Society. You are probably thinking of Hooke whom he also had a rivalry with.
Newton dabbled in alchemy and the occult. He was working at a time when the modern scientific mindset was still in beta. The idea of open publication seems self-evidently sensible today, but in the 17th century it was still waging a battle with obscurantism.
They're difficult because only a select few did understand what he was writing, and he had to hack and mangle his work into the form of the standard mathematics of his day.
Modern science and mathematics would be just as unapproachable if everything were required to be expressed in some standard-but-largely-inelegant framework in order to be taken seriously.
I wish I could find the source for this, but I remember reading that Gauss idolized Newton for his style. From what Gauss (and a tiny bit of Newton) I have read, it seems like he didn't like to provide any sorts of motivation or exposition. So, FWIW there's a second anecdote in support of this idea.
I find more probable that Latin was chosen as it was standardized and can be used to communicate internationally. Writing in his own dialect of English may have been less understandable even in England.
Or like Newton not only figuring out laws for mechanics and gravitation, but also the underlying mathematical theories which make formulating the laws possible in the first place. Newton's laws are still essential (and fundamentally correct) for modern physicists and engineers, although Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is a bit unreadable for most people these days, even when translated.
Yes, it is really readable. I've got an illustrated edition as a teenager, and it is still one of my cherished bookds. BTW, in "non math" knowledge areas it is impressive how readable are the seminal papers.
Math's Syntax and 'universal' language is a great barrier that unlocks the world's knowledge. Applied scientific fields take almost 10-20 years until they sieve/diffuse the knowledge, due to this barrier. (In my perception at least)
I wish math used a pythonesque and popular alternative language, so that very low- or high-level 'assumptions' weren't blocking a greater audience from participating in the field. Although I'm familiar with it, I find it sometimes a little too elitist, because almost every symbol requires an explanation, before it can be used. Javascript and Python have this great balance, I feel is urgently needed in Maths.
I dont get it. Are you saying new scientific fields take decades to become "known", and that this supposed delay is due to... notation? None of these theses make any sense to me.
Also, a notation that is suited to one field (programming), may not be necessarily best suited to another (mathematics). Personally I feel much the opposite of you: mathematical notation is often clean and expressive, while programming language and its string-of-chars constraint makes for much more difficult to understand notation.
>> mathematical notation is often clean and expressive, while programming language and its string-of-chars constraint makes for much more difficult to understand notation.
Yes, it's clean, if you know all symbols. But it's an unnatural mental burden. We think in patterns and structures. Our language should be similar, because what we express with language is unavoidably self-similar.
I'm gratefull for all the replies, as it seems to underline that this thought resonates strongly. Notation hinders understanding and the farther away symbols deviate from structures we use everyday, the stronger. Even though I personally prefer Unicode/Pictograms, it can't be that we have to reinvent Notation evertime that subsums recurring structures in programming, mathematics, physics, chemistry and every other conciously disconnet field in the same way. Because of universal properties I don't know about.
Yes, field specific notation has it's local and inherent beauty, but the price is too high! We can't fix education globally, at least not at this stage of our development. Thus we should drop efforts put into keeping Notations diconnect. It will widen the knowledge gap between the systemically uneducated majority stronger and stronger.
A solution? Biomimicry has always been our strongest weapon! I think nature is also far ahead in adopting a universal and often times visual language, we only acknowledge when we become isolated experts in a narrow sub-field, such that the language reveals itself.
It's acceptable to have rich symbols, if we can't get an universal notation based on a better generalizing (structural?) representation instead. I guess some of you may think about a more readable form of set-theory, others of geometric computing or mathematical manifold theory. Whatever it is that makes nature so efficient in reusing sub- and system-languages via controlling structures is what we should also define, understand, formalize and adopt throughout all fields via government backed efforts. I believe this is more important than I can currently imagine for our long-term future. An universal language, able to describe not only other languages, but also defining properties of complex systems, that's so alien it might work.
I think I've unknowingly stated a probably open mathematical problem. But can't put my finger on it. Can someone help?
PS: Sorry for coming late, deadlines coupled with a awfully slow laptop...
I am very sorry, I wish english was my mother language or I had better writing skills. But you can catch me up off HN, I'd be glad to talk and listen to a fellow mind :)
As the joke goes
Programmer : chooses her variables always different, with a name as explicit as possible
Mathematician : chooses her variables from a handful of greek letters
... from a handful of greek letters that usually already have agreed upon meaning or connotation within her subspecialty. So everyone reading it understands what is going on.
Unfortunately, it doesn't generalize across specialties.
By comparison, the programmer chooses names explicitly based her own understanding and modeling of the problem, which may confuse others.
both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.
> ... from a handful of greek letters that usually already have agreed upon meaning or connotation within her subspecialty
I think you mean sub-sub-sub-subspecialty. I don't often read mathematics papers but when I do, it's infuriating how people think that [squiggle] has a universally understood meaning when in actual fact there are only a handful of people in the world (most of whom probably work in the same building as the author) who use [squiggle] to mean that.
No, I mean sub-speciality. At least, my experience is nothing like you describe. For the most part, the people who are likely to attend each others conference talks agree on notation. They may, however, disagree with the people down the hall.
Bear in mind, though, the papers are written for that same group. For good or for ill.
Well I guess you could write sum() instead of Σ, and dot() instead of ·, but I’m not sure it would really help people understand it. Do people find Mathematica expressions easier to understand than traditionally formatted equations?
The reason I personally prefer sum() to Σ is I can google "what is a sum". If I Google "what is Σ" I get answers about the greek letter Sigma. If I Google "what is Σ math" it incorrectly says "Standard Deviation". Also if I don't know what Sigma is, it's very hard to ask someone else what the weird uppercase E means.
Putting in "what does the symbol sigma mean" into google (incognito mode) gives the google blurb of:
"In addition to being the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet, sigma also means 'sum' and 'deviation' in the mathematics world. Learn what each symbol looks like and how each formula works."
It first hit is titled,"Sigma Notation - Math is Fun", with the text 'Sigma Notation. Σ This symbol (called Sigma) means "sum up"'
I think learning the names of the Greek letters is not too high a bar to get started on learning physics and math. Fun too. You really need to know the names of things to start to understand them and ask people about them.
I think the reason people like compact formulas is that it is much easier to understand and check a formula if one can have the whole thing in eyes view.
That's part of my point though. You had to know Σ means sigma to search that in the first place. If you search "what does Σ mean" or "what does symbol Σ mean" you get answers for lowercase sigma saying standard deviation.
At the very least it means it takes 2 searches, one to find the name of a symbol, and a second to search using that, sometimes I can't do that if the notation is an image of TeX output. Then it becomes "what does box symbol with line through it mean" or something.
Thankfully StackExchange now renders math notation in a way that can be copy pasted, but still, here's an example I was reading recently that started as an ascii email chain and moved to stackexchange, I feel like it was more easily readable before.
It's still tough to Google that Π(u) is the same as the rect() function
> I think learning the names of the Greek letters is not too high a bar to get started on learning physics and math.
But the original point was that for someone who doesn't know math, writing it in a more english-like notation wouldn't be helpful. But because of search engines it is.
You do get different (and better) results if you search "What is Σ" rather than "why is Σ" or just "Σ". Like the other commenter said, it's better when you'd rather find a forum or SO post matching that title, rather than getting back Google's own answer.
I dont think you and the other response understand.
Google used to conduct a relatively straightforward string matching search. That means if you used words like "what" you could end up with unrelated matches, or lower quality matches, because they would match with the word "what".
Now, bear with me, these days google seems to use some kind if machine learning to suggest results to you based on what others have searched and chosen.
What does this mean, practically? At least two things:
1.Laymen have to think less critically, less technically when searching. Considering google is, for the average person, basically the window to knowledge, I think this is ultimately a disservice to society.
2. Search quality for technical information seems to be declining, now that laymen and non-laymen alike are searching using the same " extra" words and, I may just be projecting a poor understanding of neural nets here, but our technical results end up getting sort of clustered with everything else.
Am I the only one who has this problem with the decline of google search's technical relevance? Maybe I'm doing something wrong...I still think what google has done to make the internet more accessible may be a net harm to society.
Nah, I understand. I had to attend a 1 day class in my university on how to properly use Google and Google Scholar. I also miss some of those operators and tricks.
But nowadays, it's not as simple as just machine learning to understand your query, but the way the information is stored is less and less like a text storage. If I search for something involving "car' it's very likely I'm okay with results containing "sedan", "vehicle", or various brand/model names of cars. I'm also probably fine with "vehcile" or "vehiclle" or "carr" but not "cat". And Google is well aware of this and considers this when building their model.
Furthermore, the way you ask SHOULD change answers, especially because it attempts to automatically answer you at the top of the page. A search for Sigma and What generally means I want to know what it means, how to use it. But a search for "why" should bring up the historical reasoning Sigma was chosen over another letter, or another culture's alphabet entirely. That's too much information to fit into any result for simply "Sigma", and the query is too vague to help pare it down.
I do agree with you though that it is declining for technical information. But I think overall it has gotten much better at becoming a general "window to knowledge" and I think it's worth the tradeoffs.
But this is not common. If you don't know what uppercase sigma refers to, sum is a much better guess than standard deviation of multivatiate normal distribution.
In this case google is probably simply case insensitive.
not to mention that sum() or forall() might mean nothing to people who don't speak English, so for them those would just be another set of things to memorize anyway
> What's most incredible about Darwin is how readable and essential (and fundamentally correct) his two major treatises, Origin and Descent, have remained.
Fundamentally correct? Evolution is neither demonstrable nor falsifiable, so it's not scientific.
I think you are making evolution sound less scientific than it is.
One thing that is a certifiable fact is that species are not fixed. As shown by the fossil record, new species can show up and old species go extinct. And in a smaller time scale, the artificial selection that happens with domesticated plants and animals shows that there can be significant changes in species.
Once we realize that some sort of evolution must be happening the question becomes to explain what mechanism is behind it. One of the initial hypothesis was the Lamarckian theory that animals can pass on to their offspring traits that they acquired via their lifestyle. This was eventually proven false when we found no evidence that this is not how genetics actually works. Darwin's theory of natural selection is still with us because it withstood the test of time, not because it is unfalsifiable.
This is very clear if you read Darwin's books. He was aware that there are many
things that would contradict his theory if they were true and he spends lots of chapters refuting them.
A more modern source I like to point to is Talkorigin's list of 29 evidences for macroevolution. It covers many of the things known to Darwin and more recent developments such as genetics, molecular biology and new fossil finds. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
> Lamarckian theory that animals can pass on to their offspring traits that they acquired via their lifestyle. This was eventually proven false when we found no evidence that this is not how genetics actually works.
Lamarckian theory might not be _completely_ false. There is definitely epigenetic inheritance, in which traits (reflecting the state of a parent) can be passed on without being explicitly encoded by nucleic acid. Whether epigenetic inheritance is a stable-multi-generational way of transferring traits is a little up in the air. But I wonder if Lamarck will get a modicum of vindication from the biology textbooks in the long run.
That being said, epigenetic inheritance does not falsify evolution by mutation.
I tried to keep the comment short but yes, Lamarck does get too much off a bad rep nowadays. His theory wasn't on the mark but he played a big role in making evolution be an accepted theory in the first place.
Thank you. Obscure notation does not grant value to a concept. They are different achievements, one of precision and general findings about the inert material universe, the other an idea the describes the conflagration of life itself.
> Evolution is neither demonstrable nor falsifiable
Sure it is. It makes all kinds of testable predictions, which have been confirmed. One good example is the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which IIRC was predicted by (among others) Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin. If more people had listened to that prediction of evolutionary theory (which was obvious even when it was made and is even more obvious today, when we can sequence bacterial DNA and see it changing in response to selection pressures imposed by the use of different antibiotics), we would not have the major problem with resistant bacteria that we have today.
A theory is an educated guess, which does not make it "fundamentally right". For a theory to be scientific, it needs to be falsifiable. Is it and in what way?
Every aspect of the theory of evolution is falsifiable. To falsify "Non-avian dinosaurs perished at the end of the Mesozoic Era", you just have to find a dinosaur fossil from a later era.
Of course, even if we found a perfectly preserved fossil of a T-Rex from two million years ago, it likely won't falsify the whole theory of evolution, because there are simply too many evidences for that. It would be like saying "We found evidences that George Washington did not in fact die in 1799! The whole theory of the American Revolution is now in question, and the Aliens-did-it theory should be considered as good as the mainstream version!"
> Evolution is neither demonstrable nor falsifiable, so it's not scientific.
"Evolution occurs" is science - it is reproducible and falsifiable.
"We are the result of evolution and descended from single cell organisms" is not reproducible nor falsifiable. I would agree with your claim that this is not science.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far you haven't presented any.
"Macro-evolution" (to use your term) is the best most likely correct explanation for life according to the available evidence. Much like Newton and Einstein it is likely that any theory that "replaces" evolution will be a superset of Darwinian evolution rather than a replacement.
And for the record there are examples of evolution occurring at the macro scale right now in the form of ring species where neighboring pairs produce viable offspring but more distant species don't. eg: A -> B -> C -> D where A & B occasionally mate and produce offspring that results in gene mixing between the subgroups, but A & D cannot produce viable offspring. If B or C goes extinct this will trigger speciation by breaking the chain, permanently stopping the mixing of genes between the now separate chains. Look at the greenish warbler or euphorbia tithymaloides.
The Russian Domesticated Red Fox[1] is a great example of selective pressure at work and how it can produce dramatic changes in a species (though this is necessarily artificial in order to obtain results on human time scales).
You are correct in saying the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I was a great believer in the evolutionary model until I started reading in detail the experimental results of experiments performed by evolutionary biologists. Their conclusions about the results of their experiments supporting the evolutionary model was in conflict with their actual results.
You bring up ring "species" without defining what "species" means in this regard . I recently did a small survey trying to find out what the specific definition of "species" was. To my disappointment, I find that there is no specific definition within the literature that applies across the board. This particular word can mean anything from some sub-grouping that has distinct characteristics to another sub-grouping, in which members of both sub-groups are able to produce viable reproducing offspring that have merged characteristics, all the way up to having two groups that cannot produce any kind of offspring under any circumstances.
The literature is very adept at doing a lot of hand-waving about how the model works and what predictions are made.
Though the model may be the current generally accepted model, it does so on very weak foundations. People are allowed to question the veracity of the model and hold it to criticism without having to provide an alternative. It is allowable to question any model/theory in any way without the proponents getting on their high-horses and taking their marbles home. There are no silly questions.
But the way it is presented today, it can be and should be treated with scepticism as, in many ways, it is dogma not science.
There is much the evolutionary model doesn't answer and should be under continual experimental testing to test the veracity of any of its claims.
Having the existence of mutation and genetic variation (including antibiotic resistance or chemical resistance) does not in any way signify that the evolutionary model (Darwinian) is correct or even viable.
Going back to your ring species example, wolves, coyotes and domestic dogs were/are considered to separate species, yet we are no finding that all three are producing reproductively viable offspring. So, a valuable question to ask is "Are they the same species but different sub-groups or are they separate species that have undergone some biological change that now allows them to cross breed?" A second question to ask is "Is this an example of the existing evolutionary model (as per its predictive capabilities) or is this an example which will work against that model?"
Lastly, the term macro-evolution has a history going back to 1927, with its use falling in and out of favour with evolutionists and palaeontologists since then. Even within the evolutionary community, there is a wide distribution of opinions as to how different "species" arise and the relationships between them.
On the whole, the model fails to explain the wide variety of different organisms and their associated grouping and relationships. Unless many more experiments can be done showing the actual applicability of the model across a vast range of different organisms and it being able to predict expected change in groupings that can be tested, it will continue to remain a hand-waving model and nothing more.
Anyone can challenge the evolutionary model (or any other model/theory) without having to provide an alternative. If people cannot accept that, then they are in no position themselves to ever challenge any proposal put forward that they disagree with without first presenting a fully viable alternative. As they say, "ya canna ha ya cak en et it tu".
The one thing that I do find amusing is that theologically, the Darwinian evolutionary model fits in very well with Hindu theology. This was brought to my attention in reading various papers presented by Hindu theologians/guru's.
No, but when they talk about species, there is no definitive meaning used. As a result, the model doesn't give you any clue as to what the model is about.
> Evolution is neither demonstrable nor falsifiable, so it's not scientific.
I think you need to look into something known as a "fluctuation assay". Basically a microbiologist grows a batch of bacteria from a single cell, for some number of generations, then puts them on a petri dish under a low dosage of antibiotics, in order to kill those which have not evolved some immunity during previous generations.
The survival percentage has been shown to correlate with genetic mutation rate of the bacteria strain in question, which was tested by directly sequencing the genomes.
If they didn't correlate that would be a falsification of evolution.
There is no such thing as "micro" vs. "macro" evolution in evolutionary theory. There's just evolution. Species are not absolute boundaries; they are just convenient labels we use to group organisms for purposes of taxonomy.
Incorrect, the macro vs micro evolution concepts have been used by evolutionists since the late 1920's. Species is an ill defined concept and means different things in different contexts without the specific meaning used being defined.
I'll say it again. Ya canna ha ya cak en et it tu.
In addition, what testable predictions has evolutionary theory made about existing organisms on this planet? Not interested in any prediction about things long past as you can modify any theory in any field to match up to such findings. What can evolutionary theory predict today that we can test as an outcome by going out and finding those predictions in living organisms today? That should be an easy question to answer if there is any veracity in the evolutionary model/theory.
> what testable predictions has evolutionary theory made about existing organisms on this planet?
I mentioned antibiotic resistant bacteria elsewhere in this thread. You can find plenty of other examples if you look at the scientific literature in this field.
> Not interested in any prediction about things long past as you can modify any theory in any field to match up to such findings.
No, you can't. Evolution makes quite specific predictions about what we will not find in the fossil record--for example, J. B. S. Haldane's famous response when asked what could falsify evolution: "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian". Alternative theories for how the life we see on Earth today came to be make no such predictions--they could "explain" fossil rabbits in the Precambrian as well as anything else.
More generally, evolution predicts that we should find a "tree of life" like the one we find--where we can compare relationships between organisms that we derive using DNA, fossils, anatomy, and other evidence and find that, to within a good approximation, they all agree. Alternative theories for how the life we see on Earth today came to be make no such predictions--they offer no reason why all those different "trees of life" should be the same or even close to each other.
Antibiotic resistant bacteria is not a "prediction" of evolutionary theory/model that distinguishes it from any other model. Nor is this feature of the bacteria a definitive example of evolution as such.
So predicting that you won't find something in the fossil record is it, is it? These kinds of predictions are hollow in the extreme. If the evolutionary model/theory cannot make predictions about what should be seen today then it is of little worth, in the same way that the current crop of climate models cannot make predictions of any worth.
The "tree of life" that evolutionary theory "predicts" has so many problems that it also is not worth much, if anything. So, back to the question at large, what valid definitive predictions is the evolutionary model/theory making today that we can go test in the living organisms of today?
I will say it again, I was and had no problems with the evolutionary model/theory until I started seeing the major dissonance between the experimental results being obtained and the interpretations that the evolutionary biologists were making on those results.
Evolutionary theory and practice today has all the trappings of religious dogma and one becomes anathema to the community if one doesn't subscribe to it tenets. This is not science. It is much like how the Catholic Church operated during the Spanish Inquisition.
There are no silly questions. I have come across many who promote scepticism except in areas in which they are "true believers". Some of these areas include evolutionary theory, climate change, big bang, dark matter, dark energy, etc.
There is nothing wrong with not subscribing to specific points of view, if you find that those models/theories have problems. You are allowed to ask questions and even be sceptical.
In some ways the dissonance between macro (astrophysics) and micro (quantum mechanics) is another good example where being a sceptic and asking the question "What have they missed in the promoted theories/models?", is a good thing. It is like the battles that go on between string theorists and non-string theorists. There is so much emotional involvement when it's only about some possible theories that may have some possible applicability.
Science is not about "truth" and when it becomes about "truth" it has changed from science to religion/philosophy. The way many of the participants and proponents of various fields and associated theories/models act, they are making it a religious discussion about "truth".
Science is about discovering information about the physical world around us and developing applicable models/theories that we can dispense with if they prove inadequate. It is not about dogmatic adherence to specific theories/models.
I put evolutionary theory on the same par as intelligent design. Neither of these views are science, they are philosophical/religious in nature.
I believe in Jesus Christ as creator of the universe and all that exists. It behooves me to gain an understanding of that universe and how it runs. To understand the rules by which it works, to understand the processes that occur. This means creating models and theories on how it works and when more information to come to light, being able to dispense with flawed ideas and theories. Theories give insight so that we can gain a better understanding of how things work. For me that gives a greater appreciation of how great is my God.
Will I understand the universe in any great detail during my life here. No. But is sure is fun to gain what understanding I can. We know so little and yet we have a propensity towards being dogmatic about what we do know. This is strange attitude, considering that we are continually finding out things that challenge our existing theories and models all the time.
Let's be enthusiastic about learning more about the universe and less about being dogmatic in holding to the very flawed theories and models that are the current "flavour of the day."
The more dogmatic people are towards the "correctness" of their theories and models the longer it will take for advancement in our understanding to occur.
Just an example for you. There is a potential model (actually the merging of two models) that could merge the strong force, electromagnetic and gravity into a single consistent electromagnetic model. Whether or not it has any viability, I cannot at this time see. But it is does have potential. I am having to relearn a lot of the mathematics I did 40 years ago as well as learn how to use Maxima to test if there is any potential viability. For me this is fun and I am enjoying looking at this. It may lead nowhere. So be it. I am not going to get emotionally entwined with the idea. It is just an interesting potential.
> Antibiotic resistant bacteria is not a "prediction" of evolutionary theory/model that distinguishes it from any other model.
Really? What other models make this prediction?
> Nor is this feature of the bacteria a definitive example of evolution as such.
Why not? It's change in the genes of a population in response to selection pressure, that increases its fitness under that selection pressure.
> I was and had no problems with the evolutionary model/theory until I started seeing the major dissonance between the experimental results being obtained and the interpretations that the evolutionary biologists were making on those results.
Can you give some specific examples? From actual peer-reviewed literature, not pop science presentations? I agree that in their pop science books, articles, etc., evolutionists say all kinds of things that they would never get away with in an actual peer-reviewed paper (Dawkins is a particularly egregious offender in this regard). But pop science is not actual science, and you can't judge the actual science by its pop science presentations. The same thing happens in every field. I see pop science presentations of physics all the time, even by Nobel Prize winning physicists, that are full of misstatements and misrepresentations that would never pass in a peer-reviewed paper. But that doesn't make the physics itself wrong.
> There is a potential model (actually the merging of two models) that could merge the strong force, electromagnetic and gravity into a single consistent electromagnetic model.
The argument for micro/macro evolution is weak (what, exactly, is the line between micro and macro? why would one be different from the other? if a car can drive 10 miles and 100 miles, do you need a completely new theory to test if it can drive 1,000 miles?) and the distinction between laboratory observations and historical observations (fruit flies or bacteria in a lab versus fossil records) is not one that distinguishes science from not science, otherwise astronomy wouldn't be a science either, since you can't exactly put a star in a lab.
The distinction between micro and macro evolution is a typical strawman. Everything one can't deny anymore without looking incredible stupid is called "microevolution", the rest "macroevolution".
There are still many areas where we don't know the exact machanics, but evolution in itself is a fact.
It seems like Prum is taking many interpretational liberties and often engages in anthropomorphization.
"The other evolutionary answer is the aesthetic route — the resolution of differences between male and female needs and desires by behaviors and rituals that respect the other sex’s priorities and their decisions about how to pursue them."
The thing about beauty is that it is in the eye of the beholder. It is still subject to the fundamentals of natural selection. Those animals that have an eye for asthetic (phenotyipic) traits that signal something about the environmental and sexual fitness of their mate will have hearty offspring. For example it is possible that Bower birds who make the 'prettiest' nests are great scavengers in general, a trait that can also be used to collect food for their children.
Further, I doubt it has much to do with the male Bower "respecting the female's priorities and decisions about how to pursue them". The male that fails an attempt to court a potential mate is not thinking "well dang, if i dont respect her for not appriciating my nest. After all it was a half-ass attempt and dont i know it".
It is probably thinking at most, when she flys away - 'do not follow; waste of energy; reengage collecting red bobbles and find worm'
Lastly I think 'oddity' is being interpreted as 'beauty'; an animal might have something unique going on - maybe some allele that codes for a protein variant resulting in some funky red spots on its feathers; more importantly that same protein variant confers some pathogenic immunity. Now, a female bird that chooses this mate might also have a genetic predisposition that makes her more attracted to that red spotty hairdo. Two important things happen here. First these two will have offspring that probably will, if female, like those red spots, or if male, have those red spots (and the immunity); and secondly there is a phenotype - 'an odd visual asthetic' - that can be used to indicate what this birds genes are (specifically that it has this good immunity allele). Simply having the immunity allele would make it more fit, but the females would have no way of knowing. Having a phenotype that indicates something to the female will in my estimation likely increase the rate at which this allele proliferate since these beautiful red spots confer a nice environmental adaptation
Sure, that's exactly the 'hidden fitness argument' mentioned in the article, which the author is arguing is insufficient to explain observed behaviors.
A thought I had while reading the review: survival is the low bar on fitness. Once you've passed the bar and have ten males to choose from, some sort of differentiation can easily come into play, regardless of whether or makes much sense with regard to utility.
First, it is completely sufficient. How is it not? I think the author is taking an idea that is already embedded in evolutionary theory and presenting it as a novel idea that doesnt fall under the scope of 'survival of the fittest'
Anything that increases an organism's odds of passing on their genes compared to another conspecific can be considered 'fitness'. Survival is not taken to mean within a single generation, survival refers to the genes; attracting a sexual partner is a central component of being evolutionarily fit.
Lastly, even within a single generation, I'm not so sure you can claim survival is a low bar - when you are in the food chain.
a) Sure, fitness can take an expansive definition. The question is whether sexual selection is a separate force from natural selection. If so, fitness would break down into environmental fitness and reproductive fitness.
b) the height of the survival bar of quite variable. Suppose you've got a decent niche that holds steady for a few millennia. Or your an invasive species with no real competition but others of your kind. In either case there's plenty of space for variation to arise which won't depend on natural selection pressure.
I don't think his basis for rejecting that premise is fair.
That's like rejecting the premise that certain vegetables taste good to us because they are good for us! Our senses evolved to pick out things that are good for us.
But according to the article, Darwin himself said it "constituted an evolutionary mechanism separate, independent, and sometimes contrary to natural selection," not merely a signal for it.
I feel like that quote might be out of context. If not, well then Darwin is wrong. After reading this article more carefully, one thing I'm certain is that Richard Prum lacks a fundamental understanding of evolution and natural selection.
To me it seems clear that females' aesthetic preferences are subject to selection bias, no different than the male aesthetic, or any other physiological or behavioral quality that makes two conspecific animals slightly different.
Also did anyone else notice the reviewer seems like Prum's book is literally getting them off..
"Prum seeks to prevail less through brute force of attack than by making his case with clarity, grace and charm. His attention never strays far from nature, and his writing in these bird passages is minutely detailed, exquisitely observant, deeply informed, and often tenderly sensual. When describing, say, the “throbbing” display of the lavishly decorated argus bird, he delivers a feathery brush of the erotic."
It's all good until "my attempt is a half-ass attempt"
This requires self consciousness.
Lack of self consciousness (the same trait that prevents them from recognizing themselves in a mirror) logically makes it more of a "my nest is the best. It sure will do the trick" invariably.
Self conscious individual w/o much experience to learn from (i.e. not instinctual) will be at loss in the grand scheme of evolution of beauty and nest weaving.
I guess there's no particular reason a species has to optimize its fitness beyond a certain level. It just needs to find a niche and occupy it.
At that point, the mechanisms, cycles, and patterns of life for the species continue, but no longer need to select for improved fitness. So I guess it makes some sense that selection would then go down an arbitrary path, of a complexity commensurate with the life form.
Let's say humans (or our ancestors) achieved our base level of fitness (a stable and thriving species with a well-established niche) as social, tool-using primates. Our achievements of language, abstract thinking, civilization, culture, art, complex tools, religion, science, etc. might be the result of pursuing that arbitrary, aesthetic path. The species would have done just fine without any of that, but we did it all anyway.
Interesting. I don't know how much I buy it, but it is an interesting direction I haven't thought about before.
Evolution doesn't work on species level, but on individual level. There's still an in-species competition.
Probability of gene A to fixate is roughly equal to 2s, where s is increased relative fitness. (e.g. 10% for gene that gives 5% increase). Such genes will spread even if species as a whole has a niche to populate.
I would recommend reading [1] - a series of essays on evolution and math behind it.
That's not entirely true. Evolution acts at the level of populations as well as individuals. A trait that neutral or even slightly negative for the individual having it but highly positive for the population will tend to increase because the population as a whole will select for its continued existence, since populations having it will out-compete other populations without it.
I get that there's in-species competition, and that the successful competitors will come to dominate, perhaps completely.
But what I'm thinking is that when a species is established in a niche, the direction of that competition is arbitrary rather than being limited to competing for resources. Once the level of resources needed to procreate are generally available, the individuals can compete over anything at hand.
As you say, "fitness" is a key concept, but fitness for what? If you don't need more resources, then on what basis are you competing to be more fit?
If you happen to be a social tool using species, then it could be based on those things: more complex and subtle social structures (and the language to support that), more complex and subtle tool use (and the abstract thinking to support that).
What about group selection & kin selection? (Not sure if those are the correct terms) Isn't that a huge reason for the existence of pro-social behavior?
Evolution of Beauty was a great book, but it was a little depressing how the author had to face a ton of entrenched academic prejudice to get his theory out.
That aspect alone is more interesting than the actual book, which focuses on Darwin's The Descent of Man arguments that have been marginalized due to their implications rather than their accuracy. Lots of interesting bird trivia, too, if you're into that.
Eminence helped slow down science down enough to be digested throughout the community in the pre-internet era. Eminence was a proxy for a level-0 filter on good science.
As the world moves to become more connected than ever, eminence is too slow and inefficient. Hopefully we can come out of this with evidence as the new king and not some other proxy. We're gonna have to make some changes to get there. (Publication bias, replication prejudice, preregistration, better statistics, reporting accuracy...)
I really like your thinking and believe that there is an eminent truth behind it. Such that loose social connectedness naturally procreates the development of such proxies as a form of stabilization mechanism.
What I'd really like to understand and see visualized are the non-linear social dynamics presented in manifold theory.
I clicked on this expecting a review of Nancy Etcoff's _Survival of the Prettiest_ (2000), another work in this area.
The New York Times review of Etcoff's book is called "The Beautiful People" <http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/21/reviews/990321.21lehrm..., but the review is about _Survival of the Prettiest_. Lewis Carroll would be happy with this. I wasn't able to find an NYT review of the Marilyn Manson album.
What explains why the females like what they like? Perhaps I'm just lost, but could it be that natural selection explains sexual preferences, which has a subsequent impact on evolution?
> this “aesthetic” courtship, says Prum, creates an environment, temperaments and rituals — a sort of culture — that give the female sexual choice, autonomy and safety
Maybe natural selection at a species level (notice the word 'safety') selects for individual-level sexual preferences? If that is true, the theories aren't substitutes, but complements.
Without passing judgment on the book itself, which I have not read, I find key elements of the argument as presented in this review to be unconvincing.
> Consider, for instance, this handful of well-known distinguishing human traits: [...human mating behaviors...] none of these traits evolved in our fellow ape species. Prum argues that they evolved in humans because they help women evaluate men’s prosocial-pleasure potential.
Wait but, if they're so helpful, why didn't they evolve in our fellow ape species too? Our mating behaviors aren't any more evolved than apes, the apes of today have had exactly the same amount of time to evolve as we have. Shouldn't this case be made based on archeological species that we've since outcompeted?
An a separate note, this review makes it sound like no one else has done significant work on sexual selection. Isn't Fisherian runaway, for example, a well-known instance of sexual selection? And Ronald Fisher was a key figure in the modern synthesis.
> Wait but, if they're so helpful, why didn't they evolve in our fellow ape species too?
Apes have vastly different social structures than humans. Those structures do not encourage those traits. Apes have strict ranking and group around families.
In chimps, females emigrate after puberty and permanently relocate to other groups. Fertility is used as a passport to join a new group. Constant fertility would be disruptive.
Humans want to have sex constantly because it helps form large communities. The possibility of mating bonds together many nonfamily groups. Humans do better in large groups, so attractive features are selected for much more strongly. In ape groups it doesn't matter, because they simply accept or reject new apes based on the size of the group and availability of resources.
> Shouldn't this case be made based on archeological species that we've since outcompeted?
Wait a few decades and we'll be the only ape species left (not counting captive subjects).
Edit, since the above extrapolation isn't apparently convincing: all ape species are currently endangered. While they are not extinct yet, we have outcompeted them to the point where we have to take active measures for them not to become so.
Ultimately natural selection dominates, of course.
But sexual selection is a real evolutionary force and has the ability to either greatly increase the evolution rate (which is why gender evolved in the first place) or at times regress it.
I wonder how often sexual selection back-fires and why, but I imagine thats the exception not the rule.
You mean as a social construct? Because if you mean that in the biological sense, then sex has probably more to do with sharing beneficial mutations, and error correction against the bad ones:
That's the same thing as what I said. It augments the evolution rate. Gender allows us to evolve faster/better because it allows the brain/choice to influence evolution at a higher level.
Basketball is played 5 on 5. good teams are comprised of a balance of players. Even 1 on 1 an equally talented 6 foot 5 player could easily beat a 7 footer due to his superior speed and maneuverability.
Being good looking also helps coders, though to a lesser degree than Instagram models. Better looking job candidates tend to get hired more and get more promotions.
Personally, it doesn't amaze me at all how important good looks are for a model. I know I'd prefer to look at a lithe college coed bounce around in Ibiza rather than a frumpy mother of three work in a textile factory. It's programmed into my animal brain.
It helps to keep in mind that "influencers" are a product of a lot more than good genes. It takes a large investment into beauty products, hair stylists, clothes, camera equipment, travel, etc. These people are constructed using their fit bodies as a foundation to build upon. Taylor Swift is a product, not merely a person. Her development costs surely tally into the millions.
You could say the same thing for intelligence, which is arguably more valuable. Intelligence allows you to have a comfy 9-5 job and long-term stable career making 6 figures a year writing software and doing something you love.
Nobody chooses who to reproduce with for purely sexual reasons. We choose who to have kids with based on a very complicated array of factors like who the person is, what they do, how much they earn, is there good chemistry and of course also physical appearances.
Human evolution seems to no longer be driven by nature, but I don’t think it’s true to say selection is purely sexual in the modern world. The term “agency” from the article best describes it I think. In essence humans are now self-selecting the path of their evolution through conscious agency. Pretty trippy to think about actually
Even if the pregnancy was unplanned, the two people chose to have sex for a complex set of factors, only one of which was attractiveness or prettiness, which by itself is very subjective and relative.
If two people just got drunk and had sex, they would probably be more likely to pursue contraceptive options like Plan B and abortion than a couple that had consciously decided and planned to have a child. There are exceptions to everything but I maintain that for the most part in the modern world what has replaced "natural selection" is not "sexual selection" but a "conscious selection" that incorporates sexual desire as well as other factors.
Would be interesting to see that broken down by first vs. second or later. I imagine there are a lot of married couples with 1 or 2 kids that have an unplanned pregnancy, but that's not quite the same as a teenage couple.
Depends highly on socioeconomic factors I would think. I would expect much higher unplanned pregnancies in the lower income brackets than upper, because a consequence of being poor is a focus on immediate needs and little thought for the future.
But for sure it happens across the board and probably more than most people think.
> Nobody chooses who to reproduce with for purely sexual reasons.
People are most definitely making mate selections (at least on Tinder) on physical attractiveness, primarily. We won't even scratch the surface of the argument that prettier people have it easier in life for this thread's purposes.
"This study was conducted to quantify the Tinder socio-economic prospects for males based on the percentage of females that will “like” them. Female Tinder usage data was collected and statistically analyzed to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy. It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men. The Gini coefficient for the Tinder economy based on “like” percentages was calculated to be 0.58. This means that the Tinder economy has more inequality than 95.1% of all the world’s national economies. In addition, it was determined that a man of average attractiveness would be “liked” by approximately 0.87% (1 in 115) of women on Tinder."
EDIT: HN throttling kicked in, can't reply to replies to this:
My personal opinion (insert enormous disclaimer here) is that Tinder is providing the illusion of choice (hundreds, thousands of profiles you can swipe through in an hour) and higher "quality" (top percentiles of both sexes shown to everyone) that is not within the grasp of most users.
I don't want the Whole Foods/Amazon of dating apps, I want the Aldi: average looking people who are decent human beings who share an interest or two with me.
There's very little signal on Tinder apart from image, as I understand it (I've never used it). If all you have is one signal, it'll naturally acquire lots of importance. Similarly people who want more information will be less inclined to use the platform.
If all you have is one signal, it'll naturally acquire lots of importance
This is it. Tinder users only have two or three criteria: Photo, Location, Profession (PhoLoPro). One cannot blame women for choosing the financially stable and handsome men or blame men for going for the pretty and close women. This is all they can choose from. If you are going to play the Tinder game you have to abide by the rules; Men: Be handsome & seemingly stable and don't be not handsome and seemingly unstable. Women: Be attractive (whatever that means) and don
t be unattractive.
Not as much. Outside of Tinder men have a range of other attributes that can help them: personality, timing, etc... Looks matter a lot more on Tinder for men than in real life. Maybe the same is true for women, I haven't asked.
Thinking in terms of competitive advantage, there's premium, niche and lowest-cost provider.
The thing about niches, is that with enough of them, many people can be the number one choice for someone. These niches require richer data (as you say), but also richer awareness of what characteristics really would suit you.
Of course, this doesn't help if what someone really wants is whatever everyone else wants, or to beat them.
You hint at it, but a big question is how does the Tinder ecosystem/economy differ from the general population. Could it be that people on tinder make decisions on more superficial factors than people not on tinder? Does Tinder itself as an interface encourage those kind of selection factors?
Well they are a hot commodity too on dating apps. An average looking female for example is going to have almost as many messages/suitors on Tinder/Bumble/POF/etc and maybe more then the hot chick. Guys think hey i can't get Barbie, but I can and want an average looking chick. Well you got lots of competition for Sally Sue.
I agree and all dating apps(though Match.com isn't as superficial i've found) and life in general your going to have it a lot easier purely based on your looks. From dating being a feast for you where you sign onto an app for example and filter each day through dozens of suitors to people wanting to get to know you/give you things (better job, invest in your startup, etc) based on looks.
How many of the highest paid actors or actresses are deemed unattractive?
This is why plastic surgery is so big in Hollywood. It's literally a career investment.
In countries like South Korea plastic surgery is extremely routine, especially for girls - their parents will give them plastic surgery as a birthday gift. You can read that as shallowness in society, or simply a greater willingness to accept, pragmatically, that people in every society are shallow.
I know it's subjective, but lot of people look less attractive after getting plastic surgery. Maybe what I've seen are some of the tail end (e.g., not one procedure, but people getting literally dozens of procedures).
It's also confirmation bias. If you don't notice that they got a plastic surgery (because it looks good/natural), you won't include him/her in that category.
I've seen many Korean girls with eye/nose jobs and they look very attractive.
Plastic surgery also doesn't confer anything to one's offspring, other than by perhaps improving one's chances to get a better-looking mate (who might also be surgically altered, so maybe not).
Either way, people are just trying best their chances. Naturally or otherwise, they (we) know what is attractive, and some are more willing to go to extremes to get there and be more like what they want. https://www.britannica.com/science/positive-assortative-mati...
> I don’t think it’s true to say selection is purely sexual in the modern world
I admit I skimmed the OP, but I didn't see the writer (of either book or the review) actually arguing for that at all, just that it's a piece of the puzzle.
It's like Newton not only discovering calculus but also inventing its modern syntax and writing the best textbook on the subject.