A Revolution in Evolution Is Underway

Thomas More Lawcenter ^ | Tue, Jan 18, 2005

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the clarification!

Both of the posts cover considerably more ground than my contention about the "fallacy of quantizing the continuum" so I'll leave that to y'all to whittle away.

[Ichneumon]

My target for derision was not evolution but rather that “quantizing the continuum” had been raised as a “fallacy” (from the science side of the debate) to argue against abiogenesis. The point was that if it is a “fallacy” then it applies to evolution as well and would make both impossible.

Before I make my "full response", I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing, and I'm not sure we are.

Reviewing the discussion to date, I get the impression that we may be talking past each other, so let's make sure that we're both on the same page when it comes to what the erm "quantizing the continuum" actually *means*. We can discuss whether it's valid/invalid/fallacy/silly/bad-news-for-evolution/whatever after we agree on our definitions.

When Tortoise used the phrase "quantizing the continuum", I hope we already both understand what is meant by a continuum -- it is a function or entity which has values that vary smoothly from point to point. It's a "slope" of values, not a "stairstep".

"Quantizing", however, might be a source of misunderstanding. It is *not* another word for "quantifying". It is a verb form of "quantum". Think "quantum-ifying". A quantum in the general sense is a "package" of a fixed size, or which comes in discrete fixed sizes (like a product which comes only in standard 2-pound, 5-pound, or 20-pound bags). "Quantum physics" is named what it is because of how (at small scales) energy is found to be emitted only in "chunks" of specific sizes, and there are no "fractional-sized" energy emissions.

So when tortoise coined the phrase, "quantizing the continuum", he wasn't talking about "quantifying [measuring] the continuum", he was talking about "quantizing [quantum-ifying] the continuum" -- i.e. artificially breaking a continuum up into discrete "chunks", when the true nature of a continuum (by definition) is to be a *smooth* transition from one end to the other.

Again, the classic example (conceptually) is to take a smooth transition (i.e. "continuum") which goes from white through shades of gray into black, and to treat it as if the only significant portions (or the only portions to even *exist*) are the "black" part and the "white" part.

Here for example is a photo rendered with a continuum of black-to-white:

Here's the same photo rendered with the same continuum , *quantized* to "only-black-OR-white":

I think you'll agree that a lot of detail is lost in the translation...

So tortoise's term "quantizing the continuum" referred to cases where a continuum of something (consisting of many different gradations of a quality) was being shoe-horned into being treated (or being re-measured) as if it consisted of only a few "stairsteps" of fixed "buckets". And the worst sort of "shoehorning" is when a smooth gradation gets crammed into only two "black or white", or "all or nothing" catch-all categories.

Does this match your interpretation of his term "quantizing the continuum"? Or were you interpreting his term in some other way?

And again, I'm making no comment at this time about whether such a procedural "bucketizing" leads to a fallacy or not, I'm just making sure we're all on the same page when it comes to the term being discussed.

And in tortoise's specific example in that discussion, his point was that important conceptual "detail" may be lost if one attempts to sort all existing objects into only the two categories, 1. "Living" and 2. "Non-living", since this may cause one to overlook a sizeable "gray area" in between which consists of various kinds of "not fully alive but not fully non-living either". If, he says, the scale from "fully non-living" on one end and "fully alive" on the other end actually has a *scale* of "10% living", "67% living" and so on between them (for one example, things which reproduce themselves yet don't metabolize...), then looking to draw a "line" between "all alive" on the right and "all dead" on the left might be missing some key details about what we know as "life" and whether it could arise *gradually*, or had to come about *bang*.

In short: Is the "either alive or dead" paradigm missing the boat by breaking up the reality into too few too-broad categories?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply! I have to leave in a few moments, and thus will not be able to reply as exhaustively as I would like - but I do want to make a few points:

Yes, your understanding of "quantizing" and "continuum" is the same as mine.

The objection I raise is that "quantizing the continuum" is a property of the evidence and not a "fallacy". The fossil record is a quantization, so are b-Mesons, etc.

In short: Is the "either alive or dead" paradigm missing the boat by breaking up the reality into too few too-broad categories?

We were investigating abiogenesis! The grey-scaling would have been the domain of the investigation.

We had a solid, elegant mathematical definition of life v. non-life/death [Shannon]. The "fallacy" was raised as an objection to that definition.

In a darkness to light example, all the grey-scales in the world will not cancel the definition of "black" and "white". Further, the grey scales should not be an objection to investigating how a scene got from "black" to "white" when they are in fact, the whole point of such an investigation.

Sorry, but I've got to go now ... more later.

[PatrickHenry]

The objection I raise is that "quantizing the continuum" is a property of the evidence and not a "fallacy".

Quickie response: I think the fallacy is in the mis-perception of the evidence. That is, failing to deal with it as part of a continuum (in those cases where it is part of a continuum).

[StJacques]

". . . Do you not see the bias you have built into your interpretation? You aren't looking to see if the evidence matches evolution. You are looking to see what evolution did. . . ."

No; I have looked at the evidence you presented which now places the origins of vertebrate life just before the Cambrian Period and judged that it is consistent with evolutionary theory because that evidence is for a very simple vertebrate now identified in fossil remains that expands the time period within which diverse forms of vertebrate life developed, previously placed exclusively within the so-called "Cambrian Explosion," from 50 million to 80 million years. The longer time period thus established gives a greater window of opportunity for the development of more complex forms of vertebrate life and undermines the Intelligent Design argument that the Cambrian Explosion occurred in too short a time period to be considered believable.

". . . No matter how inconsistent the evidence is with evolution, you will never notice. Because you have already assumed evolution must account for any set of evidence. . . ."

The only thing that could make this new evidence inconsistent would be the discovery of an era [or "period" or "age"] of life on earth after the dating of this fossil in which no forms of vertebrate life were present. The subsequent period to the Vendian is the Cambrian, which is filled with evidence of vertebrate life. Where is the inconsistency you mention?

". . . Charnia might have given you 30 million more years according to the evol timeframe, but it does mess up the sequence. Unless of course you find more fossils in that timeframe, you now have vertebrates coming before a lot of other phyla. . . ."

I defy you to name one phyla placed within the taxonomy of vertebrate life that is only dated as existing after the development of higher-order members. You only have to name one. I know of none and thus there is no inconsistency. But I'll await your response.

". . . The oil scenario doesn't surprise me. That they find oil in similar situations doesn't mean that their interpretation of what they are looking at is correct. Only that there is a correlation between oil and whatever identifiers they've focused on. . . ."

The logical format of the argument you have just presented is that Petroleum Geologists succeed in finding oil in spite of their errors. Do you know what the "identifiers they've focused on" [your words] actually are? They include radiometric dating of rock core samples to place the age of rock formations within the Geologic Column, an examination of fossilized remains from that rock to correlate with other known samples taken from formations already identified as being created during specific time periods, an examination of reduced carbon graphite deposits within rock samples from various parts of the formation [top to bottom if possible] to establish the length of time and breadth of development of plant life in the particular geologic period at that location, and more. Are you seriously arguing that they are in error in any and all of these? Note: The steps I have just listed are mutually dependent upon each other, since they all use radiometric dating.

[PatrickHenry]

Consider this argument. Here's a jigsaw puzzle (the subject is not all that important):

The pieces, when put together, reveal a picture. In the context of evolution, if these pieces were fossils, the analogy of the way we fit the pieces together is the anatomical structures of the fossils and their ages. We end up with the well-known tree of life, showing common descent with variation.

Now it's possible that someone could come along and claim that this isn't the only possible picture we could make with those pieces, and that the picture we're showing is merely the result of imposing our prejudices on the pieces.

That might be true, but only if it were possible to arrange the pieces in some other way (for example, if the pieces were all the same shape, so that any number of mosaic designs could be produced). But that's not what we're working with. We might challenge our skeptic to try his hand at re-arranging the pieces, but no, he won't do that.

We could also point out that DNA evidence shows a close, pre-existing relationship of the pieces that we've fitted together, thus confirming the picture; and that re-arranging the pieces would be inconsistent with such evidence. But somehow, notwithstanding any other way to arrange the pieces, the skeptic will always insist that the picture is the result of prejudice.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply! Your answer is very much like Doctor Stochastic's at post 688 to which I fully agree:

It [quantization of a continuum] is a property of evidence. The fallacy is to apply it wrongly.

In the case at hand, abiogenesis - non-life to life, we quantized (defined using Shannon) the beginning and the end. Abiogenesis theory concerns the continuum, how it got from the one to the other (the grey scales in between). To say that it is a fallacy to quantize either end is to say there is no way to formulate such a theory much less investigate it.

IOW, this particular quantization of a continuum was not a fallacy but a requirement. Such quantizations are also necessary for evolution theory, high energy particle physics, etc. In other applications, financial modeling, artificial intelligence, etc. - such quantizations may skew the results. So the fallacy is not in quantizing but in applying it wrongfully.

[tortoise]

So when tortoise coined the phrase, "quantizing the continuum", he wasn't talking about "quantifying [measuring] the continuum", he was talking about "quantizing [quantum-ifying] the continuum" -- i.e. artificially breaking a continuum up into discrete "chunks", when the true nature of a continuum (by definition) is to be a *smooth* transition from one end to the other.

Aye, you got it.

The problem usually becomes apparent at the edges of the chunks. No matter where you split the continuum from white to black into "white" or "black", the colors on either side of the splitting line will look extremely similar to each other to the point of barely being distinguishable, and bear more resemblance to each other than to the color at the far end of their chunk that nominally defines them.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I think this fallacy runs deeper than so far discussed. I can build a discrete system with similar properties.

[PatrickHenry]

Layman's commentary here: Perhaps, in view of the ease with which one can slip into this fallacy (quantizing the continuum), a useful proceedure for analyzing any data would be to establish, early, whether what's being examined is a continuum (or perhaps a part thereof), or if it's actually discrete quanta. If that can't be determined right away, then that should be noted.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Sometimes, even the earlist work (Aristotle) or the best (Linnaeus) may not be good enough later. We have concepts such as species, genus, family, etc. but the boundaries between them may not be so clear as previously thought. Back in the 1950s, I remember people drawing up relationships based on genotypic similarity rather than phenotypic. All the biologist that I knew thought this was a better way to do things. They were looking for relationships between entities rather than just classifications.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Here's an example of the impossibility of drawing (some) sharp boundaries between sets. A plausible criterion may be impossible to meet.

Take a set of entities each of which has 3 properties from a set of 7 (like diatonic chords?). There are 35 possible entities.

abc abd abe abf abg acd ace acf acg ade adf adg aef aeg afg
bcd bce bcf bcg bde bdf bdg bef beg bfg
cde cdf cdg cef ceg cfg
def deg dfg
efg

Now for example, assume that having two properties in common allow the entities to interbreed. Thus (abc abd abe abf abg) can interbreed, but abc and ade cannot. This is an example of a complex ring species.

The concept "can interbreed with" (equilalent here to "has two properties in common") doesn't seem quite right for "species" in this case. Also "can't interbreed with" doesn't make a really good boundary either.

Likewise a successive of single property changing progressions (keeping the two property breeding capacity) can move an entity abc through abe abf abd abg acg adg aeg afg bfg cfg dfg to efg which is rather far away "genetically."

More properties lead to similar results but with more complicated possibilities. All this happens with discrete items.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the fascinating example!

Now for example, assume that having two properties in common allow the entities to interbreed. Thus (abc abd abe abf abg) can interbreed, but abc and ade cannot. This is an example of a complex ring species.

How would you go about constructing a tree of life if this set of entities constitutes a continuum over time?

[Doctor Stochastic]

This type of object could be synchronic, but it is not a tree strucure. A large number of these would make the idea of a "tree of life" invalid. The same think happens in the simpler "ring species" of plants which can occur around mountains. (I heard of these about 50 years ago.) The plants form a circle (a,b,c,d,e,f) where "f" and "a" are ajacent. Variety "a" can interbreed with "b" or f" but not with (c,d,e). Of course were "c" and "d" to die off, there would be two non-interbreeding groups.

[Alamo-Girl]

Very interesting! Thank you so much for the explanation!

[Ichneumon]

The objection I raise is that "quantizing the continuum" is a property of the evidence and not a "fallacy". The fossil record is a quantization, so are b-Mesons, etc.

Even when the "continuum" actually consists of a large number of small "steps", and is thus in reality "quantized" (as in the individual generations of a long evolutionary sequence), it's still a continuum in the long view.

Remember that there's an issue of scale here. What is "grainy" under a microscope may be extremely "smooth" when viewed as a whole.

Even my grayscale "continuum of gray" photo example actually used 256 discrete values of luminosity. But it still provides for "smooth" contours in the photo, and my points about it still stand.

So let's not get bogged down losing the forest for the trees (which is rather an apt metaphor here).

The point, in a nutshell, is that some processes, data, phenomena, etc. etc. manifest as "smooth" gradients on the "big picture" scale (whether or not they may be discrete under the "microscope" is beside the point), and to (mis)model them as just a few (or in the worst case, only two) discrete "states" which "jump" from one category to another is quite simply a fallacy in every sense of the word:

fal-la-cy (fal'uh see)  n. pl. <-cies>
                  1.  a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, 
                       belief, etc.; misconception.
                  2.  a misleading or unsound argument.
                  3.  deceptive, misleading, or false nature; 
                       erroneousness.
                  4.  any of various types of erroneous 
                       reasoning that render arguments 
                       logically unsound.

It's a mental trap to too coarsely conceptually quantize something which is in reality a smoother transition. I can't state it any more succinctly than that.

And your example of fossils being "quanta" of evolution is irrelevant to that. Yes, evolution is "quantized" into generations, and yes, life is "quantized" into individuals. There's no fallacy in that, nor does that contradict the fact that evolution proceeds by "smooth" transitions when viewed across hundreds of generations or more, and makes a continuum of living forms.

[In short: Is the "either alive or dead" paradigm missing the boat by breaking up the reality into too few too-broad categories?]

We were investigating abiogenesis!

Yes. Exactly.

The grey-scaling would have been the domain of the investigation.

If by that you mean that you were examining the nature of the transition between completely "nonliving" and "life as we know it today", *and* were aware that the transitions in between would likely be a "gray area" of things which were "not fully nonliving but not fully living as we now know it", then fine -- but is that actually the case? Because your next statement gives me cause for concern:

We had a solid, elegant mathematical definition of life v. non-life/death [Shannon]. The "fallacy" was raised as an objection to that definition.

And rightly so, if your "solid, elegant mathematical definition of life" gave a "binary" result -- i.e., "if it meets this definition it is 'living', if it doesn't then it is 'non-living'"... That would be quantizing the range of possibilities of "life" into living/nonliving, yes/no, black/white.

If you were trying to devise a "yes/no" test for "life", then you were indeed "quantizing" what may well be a "continuum", without first establishing that it *is* a binary condition (is/isn't) as opposed to a continuum ("degrees of life").

In a darkness to light example, all the grey-scales in the world will not cancel the definition of "black" and "white".

I never said that they would. The point, however, is that a "is this white or not" test would be grossly misleading, because a "no" result would imply "black" to the person applying the test, even though a "very almost white but just not *quite*" level of gray would also qualify as "not white" -- even though most people would consider it more "white" than "not-white".

In short, recognizing black and white should not become a mental trap against seeing the gray.

Further, the grey scales should not be an objection to investigating how a scene got from "black" to "white" when they are in fact, the whole point of such an investigation.

Correct, but that wasn't Tortoise's concern. He was concerned that a binary "living or not" test would be unable to distinguish the details of such a transition, and would instead engender a mindset (or worse, may be the result of a mindset) which doesn't recognize the gray parts.

I tend to agree -- even today, apart from abiogenesis, I think it's a big mistake to try to define "life" in a way that draws any kind of sharp line between "living" and "nonliving". I think the reality is more complex than that, there is no such clean dividing line.

You have proposed some "Shannon information" test, but I haven't seen the details (if you could point me to a post which lays it all out, I'd appreciate it). But that approach in general seems doomed to failure to me, since many things we definitely do not consider alive *also* exchange Shannon information (computers, simple natural objects such as crystals, etc.), plus many things we consider alive often exchange no Shannon information whatsoever for long periods of time (e.g. quiescent anthrax spores).

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

To answer your last question first because it requires no discussion, here are primary links where you can read up on information theory and molecular biology and Shannon's mathematical theory of communications:

Schneider: Molecular Machines

Adami: Information Theory and Molecular Biology

Shannon: Mathematical Theory of Communication

Schneider's work is ground breaking and the easiest to absorb. Adami is a "newcomer" evidently trying to apply algorithmic information theory to the field. tortoise was not impressed by Adami.

Returning to the "quantizing the continuum" discussion....

If by that you mean that you were examining the nature of the transition between completely "nonliving" and "life as we know it today", *and* were aware that the transitions in between would likely be a "gray area" of things which were "not fully nonliving but not fully living as we now know it", then fine -- but is that actually the case?

We were merely setting the boundaries so that we could discuss abiogenesis which is a theory of non-life to life.

In order to know we had a successful theory we needed a starting point and an ending point - what is non-life and what is life. The theory itself would address all the grey scales in between.

That is where the fallacy of quantizing the continuum killed the investigation - and, as far as I'm concerned, all such investigations. Thus I now consider all theories of abiogenesis trash - there can be no such theory if science refuses to accept a clear definition of life, non-life and death.

The corrolary is this: to whatever extent the correspondents apply the fallacy to abiogenesis, it must also be applied to all other theory including evolution. And as you know the entire theory of evolution is a construct of a continuum of life based on a quantization of another continuum, the geologic record.

It is a poison pill - not to Intelligent Design but to Evolution theory as well as abiogenesis, where it is most obvious.

[tortoise]

That is where the fallacy of quantizing the continuum killed the investigation - and, as far as I'm concerned, all such investigations. Thus I now consider all theories of abiogenesis trash - there can be no such theory if science refuses to accept a clear definition of life, non-life and death.

Works for me. I have no need for strict and unambiguous delineation of such things. Discarding them will make the discussion more rigorous and better grounded in physical reality.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply, tortoise!

Perhaps it will cause the discussion of abiogenesis to be more rigorous among those who wish to tackle a theory without boundaries, as you suggest. However, I predict more Heat than Light will be the result.

[betty boop]

Perhaps it will cause the discussion of abiogenesis to be more rigorous among those who wish to tackle a theory without boundaries....

Without boundaries, nothing is. Except relentlessly subjective opinion. So natch, you're gonna get a whole lot of "heat," and zilch "light." What tortoise proposes is a fool's game, not to put too fine a point on it. JMHO FWIW.