Dan
Thanks, Dan. I guess we didn't need you. He has someone wispering in his ear.
Posted on 06/02/2003 1:46:54 PM PDT by Heartlander
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Blinded by Science |
| Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, & What Makes Us Human, by Matt Ridley HarperCollins, 336 pp., $25.95) This is a very strange book, and I am not quite sure what the author is attempting to achieve. At the very least it appears that he wants to shore up genetic determinism as the key factor in understanding human nature and individual behavior. Genetic determinism is rational materialism's substitute for the religious notion of predestination; taking the place of God as puppet master are the genes, whose actions and interactions control who we are, what we think, and how we act. This reductionist view received a body blow recently when the mappers of the human genome found that we have only about 30,000 genes. Because of their understanding of human complexity, the scientists were expecting at least 100,000 -- and that means there are probably too few genes for strict genetic determinism to be true. Ridley, a science writer and former U.S. editor of The Economist, tries to ride to the rescue. In doing so, he adds a twist that he hopes will overcome our apparent genetic paucity: Yes, he says, our genes decide who we are, what we do and think, and even with whom we fall in love. But, he posits, our molecular masters are not rigidly preset when we are born. Rather, they change continually in reaction to our biological and emotional experiences. Hence, 30,000 are more than enough for a soft genetic determinism to be true -- which means that the battle between those who believe we are the product of our biology (nature) versus those who believe we are the result of our environment (nurture) can now end in a truce in which both sides win. We are indeed controlled by our genes, but they in turn are influenced by our experiences. Ridley says that the mapping of the genome "has indeed changed everything, not by closing the argument or winning the [nature versus nurture] battle for one side or the other, but by enriching it from both ends till they meet in the middle." To Ridley, the core of our true selves isn't soul, mind, or even body in the macro sense; we are, in essence, merely the expression of our genes at any given moment. If this is true, then my perception of Nature via Nurture as so much nonsense was the only reaction I could have had, given my original genetic programming, as later modified by my every experience and emotion from my conception, through the womb, childhood, high school, college, practicing law, the death of my father, indeed up to and including the reading of this book. If that is so – if I was forced by my gene expression of the moment to perceive this book as I have -- what have we really learned that can be of any benefit to humankind? We are all slaves to chemistry and there is no escape. Even aside from such broader issues, Ridley does not make a persuasive case. Maybe it is my legal training, but I found his evidence very thin. He doesn't present proofs so much as resort to wild leaps of logic predicated on questionably relevant social science and facile analogies based on a few animal studies. These are simply not strong enough to be the sturdy weight-supporting pillars that his thesis requires to be credible. Let's look at just one example. He cites studies of monogamous prairie voles to suggest that humans only think they fall in love, when, in reality, what we call love is merely the expression of genes resulting in the release of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin. Claiming that he is not going to "start extrapolating anthropomorphically from pair-bonding in voles to love in people," he proceeds to do just that. Citing the vole studies and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- in which a love potion makes Titania fall in love with a man with a donkey's head – Ridley writes: Who would now wager against me that I could not do something like this to a modern Titania? Admittedly, a drop on the eyelids would not suffice. I would have to give her a general anesthetic while I cannulated her medial amygdala and injected oxytocin into it. I doubt even then that I could make her love a donkey. But I might stand a fair chance of making her feel attracted to the first man she sees upon waking. Would you bet against me? But shouldn't it take far more than measuring the physical effects of oxytocin on prairie voles to prove that something as complex, maddening, unpredictable, and wonderfully and uniquely human as romantic love can, in reality, be reduced to the mere expression of genes leading to chemical secretions? Not, apparently, to Ridley. "Blindly, automatically, and untaught, we bond with whoever is standing nearest when oxytocin receptors in the medial amygdala get tingled." Gee, if he'd known that, Bill Clinton could have purchased fewer copies of Leaves of Grass. The most fascinating thing about this book is that Ridley inadvertently makes a splendid argument for intelligent design. At this point, I am sure Ridley's "I am utterly appalled" genes are expressing wildly. He is, after all, a scientific materialist in good standing. Yet, throughout the book, in order to make his arguments understandable, he resorts explicitly to the imagery of the guiding hand. He even gives it a name: the "Genome Organizing Device," or "G.O.D." Ridley claims that the G.O.D is "a skillful chef, whose job is to build a souffle," consisting of the various parts of us and all other life on the planet. Note the language of intentionality in his description of the evolution of the human brain: To build a brain with instinctive abilities, the Genome Organizing Device lays down separate circuits with suitable internal patterns that allow them to carry out suitable computations, then links them with appropriate inputs from the senses. . . . In the case of the human mind, almost all such instinctive modules are designed to be modified by experience. Some adapt continuously throughout life, some change rapidly with experience then set like cement. A few just develop to their own timetable. But according to my lay understanding, this violates the theory and philosophy of evolution. The hypothesis of natural selection holds that species origination and change are promoted by genetic mutations. Those mutations that change the organism to make it more likely than its unchanged peers to survive long enough to reproduce are likely to be passed down the generations. Eventually, these genetic alterations spread among the entire species and become universal within its genome. It is through this dynamic evolutionary process of modification, the theory holds, that life fills all available niches in nature. It is also the process, although the details are not known, by which the primates now known as homo sapiens became conscious. The philosophy of Darwinism posits that this evolutionary process is aimless, unintentional, purposeless, and without rhyme or reason. This means it has no biological goal: It just is. Hence, G.O.D. would not want to "build a brain," develop nature via nurture in species, or do any other thing. Yet, throughout the book, Ridley seems able only to describe what he thinks is going on using the language of intention. Could this be because Ridley's theories would require interactions that are so complex and unlikely that they would seem laughable if described as having come together haphazardly, by mere chance? So what are we to learn from his insights? In terms of how we live our lives, not much beyond what common sense already tells us: Parents matter and should engage with their children; human teenagers enjoy doing what they are good at, and dislike doing what they are bad at; and so on. That much is harmless; but Ridley's deeper point is subversive of human freedom and individual accountability. He denies the existence of free will: Our actions are not causes but effects, "prespecified by, and run by, genes." Indeed, he claims unequivocally, "There is no 'me' inside my brain, there is only an ever-changing set of brain states, a distillation of history, emotion, instinct, experience, and the influence of other people -- not to mention chance." Ridley asserts this as if it would be a good thing to learn that the complexity and richness of human experience could accurately be reduced to merely the acts of so many slaves obeying the lash of chemical overseers acting under the direction of our experience-influenced gene owners. "Nature versus nurture is dead," Ridley concludes triumphantly. "Long live nature via nurture." Sorry. Maybe it's my genes, but I just don't buy it. |
You say so.
"Genesis "void" being a vacuum, you didn't cite an authority. Therefore I suspect you make yourself the authority.
What I said, I said and there was no definition there. Since I gave you my authority and you dismissed what I told you, you must be an authority yourself.
To con the mark into believing that because a chance is random, he has a chance of taking home more than he spends. Now, of course, even if we pretended that the spins of the wheels can be perfectly random, the house simply adjusts the payouts so that at the end of the day more coins were fed into the machine than came out of it. And it's all perfectly legit, which is why only stupid peole like Bill Bennett play slot machines.
Thank you, that is what the vacuum looks like to a physicist, but the physicist can do nothing with them.
Who loves ya, baby?
So, where did God come from, anyway? Fairly silly of you to introduce "First Causes", considering your religion sidesteps the issue completely.
Nope. Science doesn't spend a lot of time pondering questions with no answer. Religion spends a lot of time inventing answers that don't exist.
Yes. If Darwinism is not religion, or is not at least a shot at Christianity, what's the point? The Darwin symbol, mocking Christianity, that we see on the back of autos speaks volumes as to what the Evolutionists are really all about.
I'll agree with you there. People supportive of the rational side of the Evolution/Creationist debate should not engage in the mindless irrational bumper sticker wars, since it lowers the rational side to the same level as the children who think God is best served by recruting from the ranks of those swayed by bumper stickers.
An more basic level, of course, the only reason people decorate their vehicles with bumper stickers and dead fish is to proclaim their membership in a particular tribe, an aspect of human nature that evolved out of an aspect of our territorial instinct. Waving flags, dressing for success, nose piercing, having ashes smeared on your forehead on a Wednesday, sticking a dead fish on a car, and sticking an anti-dead fish are all markers of tribalism.
It also connotes vanity, one of the seven deadly sins.
I have a license plate on my car. That's it.
Only in the last 15,000 years or so has Man's ability to manipulat his environment significantly altered his chances of survival from the preceding millenia. What happened? The rise of agriculture, which effectively eliminated the risk in food gathering (as compared to wandering around looking for things, Man started planning productively - "using" time to His advantage.)
There was still the climate to contend with, and disease, and other things, but food became more reliable than it had been.
Today? Selection and evolution still occur. Who gets the girl? The geek or the class clown? Neither. The jock, still. Just like in the cave man days.
Not only that, they have no ability to give the Putative Creator a reason for Her Urge.
On the other hand, those who believe in the alternative beginning of the universe have the impossible task of trying to show how all that we now know about that universe, and ourselves, came into being through a chain of accidental events. That is, how does purpose spring forth from purposelessness?
You're assuming that purpose has "sprung forth". Identify this "purpose". If you cannot do so, your argument is fatally flawed.
Those of us that contend the Universe is Causeless don't make the mistake of then claiming it has Purpose. Purpose can only be the result of deliberate Cause, and hence anyone assuming a Purpose while postulating the absence of Cause is confused.
Dan
Thanks, Dan. I guess we didn't need you. He has someone wispering in his ear.
They're good reads, if you can accept that from one who still disagrees with his premises. Anyway, they won't tax the ability of anyone with a major in literature.
I'll be short here. In each cm3 of vacuum there is more energy than there is in all the universe. When folks were developing equations in the late '20s that took into account the wave nature of matter, negative energy solutions came out as answers. They were particles of negative energy, the same charge, moving backwards in time. Most rejected them as sports. Dirac was the first to point out that these would be noticed as positive energy particles, of opposite charge, moving forward in time. These particles are called antiparticles. Dirac envisioned the vacuum as a sea of these, "holes", filled with regular particles. His first calculations were with electrons and positrons, later it would be shown that hadrons and leptons exist as pairs. When they are paired, there is nothing observable, except the properties of the vacuum.
The early considerations were with single particles. Later fields were quantized, to look at systems of particles. The particles arrise out of the fields, in this case the electromagnetic field. Feynman did(1949) that and calculated the the fine structure of spectrum of the hydrogen atom exactly, by including terms, called the self energy, that included the electrons interaction with the vacuum. That's what confirmed the correctness of QED, quantum electrodynamics.
That interaction occurs, because the vacuum is not silent. According to the law of conservation of energy, energy can neither be created, or destroyed. The uncertainty principle says that the energy of a particle can only be known to a certain precision. That's expressed as hbar ~ E*t, where t is the time of the observation. If the time is short enough and your looking at the vacuum, (actually it's a particle looking at the vacuum) particles of E ~ hbar/t will be seen. Yukawa explain the weak force in this way back in ~1930. His particle was a pi meson. It is echanged between protons and neutrons, that convert back and forth between each other according to which one holds the meson. There's a probability one of them will drop the ball, a neutron will decay and the nucleus decays. Outside the nucleus the neutron only has a 1/2 life of ~12secs.
There's an experiment that was done around ~1950, but I can't remember the guys name. To metal plates are positioned very close to each other. Since all those particles are popping in and out of the vacuum and observer should be able to measure a force. They do, it's called the (?C... effect, sorry CRS). The force and energy are useless though to do work in this universe.
THe interaction with the vacuum is also what gives black holes their black body radiation. That's radiation that emits from anything with a temperature. There's still not a net gain in E from the vacuum though, because when this happens the antiparticles are decreasing the black holes size. It is essentially boiling off. I'll be gone for some time, maybe someone else could add.
I believe in reading all sides and being well studied...how can you "debate" issues intelligently if you are not informed of where the opponents views come from?
Hmmmm... tpaine, the idea of dysfunction implies some sort of original purpose, does it not? It's a notion for which evolution can give no adequate accounting. If evolution is purportedly responsible for everything that is, what basis is there for condemnation or criticism of the neural activity of Dataman's brain (or anything else for that matter)?
Cordially,
Nah. I was just echoing your excellent little paragraph as a placemarker. Such points need to be made strongly and often.
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