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Personification of evolution

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fast

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Why do so many people, especially the people learned in topics related to biology and related fields persist in explaining why adaptations occur as if nature had a conscious reason?
 
fast said:
Why do so many people, especially the people learned in topics related to biology and related fields persist in explaining why adaptations occur as if nature had a conscious reason?
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Because human brains evolved in an environment where ascribing agency was beneficial to survival.

We are all animists under the surface; because it is far more likely to be deadly to incorrectly assume that there is no conscious reason for an observed event, than it is to incorrectly ascribe conscious reason where none exists. One can train one's conscious mind to avoid this way of thinking to some extent, but one can never completely eliminate it.
 
I don't know whether they're still writing scientific reports that way, but I used to think it funny, the lengths they went to for objectivity, pretending nobody was there during the experiment. "Subject was placed in the closed room." "The following measurements were taken at 5 minute intervals." "Specimens 2, 5, 6 and 8 were observed to convulse up and die." Like that.
All to distance ourselves from the innate human tendency to reflect ourselves; to attribute reason and purpose like our own to every process. We're a story-telling species and it's easier for us to think and communicate in narrative than any other format.

Romantics put a motherly face on natural phenomena. Poets personify everything from rain to socks. Children's book authors give voices and vices to wild animals. Ancient peoples put their stories up in the sky and we still use their legendary names. It's hard to get away from.

Creationists take advantage of that tendency and wedge their God into every chink and cranny, so it's important to be as cold and objective as possible when discussing evolution with them. No, Nature wasn't aiming for Billy Graham when she designed crocodiles!
 
Another similar error I see all the time from people who should know better is the description of currently living species as 'primitive'; there was a recent posting on IFLS about Monotremes, which described them as 'primitive mammals that lay eggs'. This reinforces the common error of ranking today's species (usually by how closely they resemble humans), as if such a ranking were somehow important or legitimate - of course, all current species are exactly as successful as each other (so far), because continuing existence is the only valid criterion for success in evolutionary theory.

Nobody ever says 'T. Rex is more primitive than Amoebae', but given that Amoebae continue to thrive for more than sixty million years after the extinction of T. Rex, it is a much more reasonable claim than 'monotremes are more primitive than other mammals'.

If what they mean is the opposite of complex, then the word they are looking for is 'simple', rather than 'primitive'; however I am unsure that vivipary can reasonably be considered 'more complex' than egg laying.

If I was a monotreme or an amoeba, I would be up in arms* about this slander.




*or paws, or pseudopods
 
Petrel said:
I don't know whether they're still writing scientific reports that way, but I used to think it funny, the lengths they went to for objectivity, pretending nobody was there during the experiment. "Subject was placed in the closed room." "The following measurements were taken at 5 minute intervals." "Specimens 2, 5, 6 and 8 were observed to convulse up and die." Like that.
All to distance ourselves from the innate human tendency to reflect ourselves; to attribute reason and purpose like our own to every process. We're a story-telling species and it's easier for us to think and communicate in narrative than any other format.

Romantics put a motherly face on natural phenomena. Poets personify everything from rain to socks. Children's book authors give voices and vices to wild animals. Ancient peoples put their stories up in the sky and we still use their legendary names. It's hard to get away from.

Creationists take advantage of that tendency and wedge their God into every chink and cranny, so it's important to be as cold and objective as possible when discussing evolution with them. No, Nature wasn't aiming for Billy Graham when she designed crocodiles!
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I think this is an extension of what you're talking about.

I have been asked "Do you think everything happens for a reason?" and my first impulse is to answer "Yes". There is a prior cause for everything that happens and we can usually even observe what that is.

But I have to say "No" because I'm pretty sure a "Yes" would be taken for support for the idea that something is moulding the universe according to a master plan. It puts the kybosh on what could be some interesting conversations.
 
bilby said:
all current species are exactly as successful as each other (so far), because continuing existence is the only valid criterion for success in evolutionary theory.
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That's another thing that gets my eyebrows-a-raisin' when speaking of successful adaptation. It seems a bit disingenuous to speak of and regard a species proliferation as successful adaptation--with no conscious efforts or intention to do so--more like a lack of failure--sorta
 
The scientific theories that compriseevolution have no purpose.


There are people who have non religiousphilosophies that give the universe a purpose.
 
fast said:
bilby said:
all current species are exactly as successful as each other (so far), because continuing existence is the only valid criterion for success in evolutionary theory.
Click to expand...
That's another thing that gets my eyebrows-a-raisin' when speaking of successful adaptation. It seems a bit disingenuous to speak of and regard a species proliferation as successful adaptation--with no conscious efforts or intention to do so--more like a lack of failure--sorta
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Fair enough - given that most species go extinct after a few million years; and given that all species will be extinct at some point in the future. It is a "glass half full"/"glass half empty"/"glass not empty yet but I am really thirsty" kind of thing :)
 
fast said:
bilby said:
all current species are exactly as successful as each other (so far), because continuing existence is the only valid criterion for success in evolutionary theory.
Click to expand...
That's another thing that gets my eyebrows-a-raisin' when speaking of successful adaptation. It seems a bit disingenuous to speak of and regard a species proliferation as successful adaptation--with no conscious efforts or intention to do so--more like a lack of failure--sorta
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The limitations of language. It is difficult to speak without some form of metaphor.

A camera is said 'to see'. Does that raise your eyebrows?

In engineering we personify system in conversation. It is convent to do so and no one thinks machines are human....only an absurdly extreme literalist would have problems with that.

BTW, do you really mean physically raise your eyebrows, or are you just highlighting your feeling in a non literal manner?
 
spikepipsqueak said:
I have been asked "Do you think everything happens for a reason?" and my first impulse is to answer "Yes". There is a prior cause for everything that happens and we can usually even observe what that is.

But I have to say "No" because I'm pretty sure a "Yes" would be taken for support for the idea that something is moulding the universe according to a master plan. It puts the kybosh on what could be some interesting conversations.
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That's the problem of imprecise language (of which I think we're having a pandemic). Reason, cause and purpose are very different concepts, but they are used interchangeably - especially by the disingenuous who subtly change the meaning of the argument by the substitution of similar words.

Yes, every event is caused by preceding events - though we may not know what some of those events are.
Yes, everything that happens has a reason. Hard things go "thud"; wet things go "splat", elastic things go "twang", because of the constant laws of physics. Of course everything happens for a reason - or, more accurately, a set of reasons.
The word "reason" is also used for the method of thought we employ to understand how and why things happen. That doesn't give reasoning control of the events or the laws that govern processes. Reasoning does not cause or direct events; it merely reflects on them.
Yes, some things are done by reasoning entities for a purpose. Sometimes we can discern the purpose from the event, the actions which precipitated an event and the nature of the entity which caused it.
Mostly we can't even tell whether there could possibly be a purpose behind an event, let alone what or by whom it may have been conceived.

Define the words - the logic will follow.
 
Petrel said:
spikepipsqueak said:
I have been asked "Do you think everything happens for a reason?" and my first impulse is to answer "Yes". There is a prior cause for everything that happens and we can usually even observe what that is.

But I have to say "No" because I'm pretty sure a "Yes" would be taken for support for the idea that something is moulding the universe according to a master plan. It puts the kybosh on what could be some interesting conversations.
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That's the problem of imprecise language (of which I think we're having a pandemic). ...
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Sorry, is that 'we' as in 'the members of Talk Freethought', 'we' as in 'users of the Internet', or 'we' as in 'Humanity'?

;) :D
 
steve_bnk said:
BTW, do you really mean physically raise your eyebrows, or are you just highlighting your feeling in a non literal manner?
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haha, I knew I was being metaphorical when being metaphorical. It just doesn't appear sometimes that people realize they are being metaphorical when they are.
 
fast said:
steve_bnk said:
BTW, do you really mean physically raise your eyebrows, or are you just highlighting your feeling in a non literal manner?
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haha, I knew I was being metaphorical when being metaphorical. It just doesn't appear sometimes that people realize they are being metaphorical when they are.
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'Raising your eyebrows' is not metaphor. It is graphic imagery for emphasis.

In this case you 'fumbled the ball', the common football sports metaphor.

Debating you is like 'shooting fish in a barrel'....
 
This phenomina is an artifact of our language, which itslef is an artifact of our brains... which ascribe agency by reflex to everything it percieves. EVERYTHING is "on purpose", because if we didn't think that, and that shadow moving in the corner of your eye really was a tiger CAUSING the shadow, then you would be eaten.

So.. by instinctual default.. EVERYTHING was created, on purpose, for the specific task of killing you and your family.

And here we are...just a few millenia later still carrying that evolutionary baggage along with us through the modern eras... which most ironically is itslef affecting people's ability to even see this process as an unguided, natural process.
 
steve_bnk said:
fast said:
steve_bnk said:
BTW, do you really mean physically raise your eyebrows, or are you just highlighting your feeling in a non literal manner?
Click to expand...
haha, I knew I was being metaphorical when being metaphorical. It just doesn't appear sometimes that people realize they are being metaphorical when they are.
Click to expand...

'Raising your eyebrows' is not metaphor. It is graphic imagery for emphasis.

In this case you 'fumbled the ball', the common football sports metaphor.

Debating you is like 'shooting fish in a barrel'....
Click to expand...
Gee, it's just a discussion, not a debate. Easy tiger.
 
I think there is actually a bit of error in the word "adaptation" itself. I don't like to use it when talking about evolution, because it makes people think of an individual organism ADAPTING to its environment, as a person does when they get a new job in a different town or something. No actual adapting is taking place from the perspective of any living being, but at the level of the population, which is less intuitive for many people. Heck, when I was very young I used to think evolution was silly because of that very misconception; I would try to imagine a wolf swimming in the ocean for long enough that it lost most of its fur and paws became flippers. That's probably the caricature that some grownups have in their heads, unfortunately, when they hear "adaptation."
 
steve_bnk said:
fast said:
steve_bnk said:
BTW, do you really mean physically raise your eyebrows, or are you just highlighting your feeling in a non literal manner?
Click to expand...
haha, I knew I was being metaphorical when being metaphorical. It just doesn't appear sometimes that people realize they are being metaphorical when they are.
Click to expand...

'Raising your eyebrows' is not metaphor. It is graphic imagery for emphasis.

In this case you 'fumbled the ball', the common football sports metaphor.

Debating you is like 'shooting fish in a barrel'....
Click to expand...

and the leaky barrel you're in is going over Niagra Falls while you happily take pot shots at the fish around you.

You're fishbait on the rocks, sir. Just as you like it.

 
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