Stuart Kauffman essay in New Scientist

[LARA]

Here's a long and somewhat bothersome quote from Stuart Kauffman's essay in New Scientist

"The second transition in our view of science is based on Darwinian pre-adaptations. Were we to ask Darwin what the function of the heart is, he would say, to pump blood; but the heart also makes heart sounds and these are not the function of the heart, which was selected, and hence exists, because pumping blood was of selective value. Darwin's idea of a pre-adaptation refers to a property of an organism - heart sounds, say - that is of no selective value in the present environment, but might become of selective value in some different environment and therefore be selected. An example is human middle-ear bones, which are derived from three adjacent jawbones of an early fish. Did a new function come to exist in the biosphere as part of human hearing? Yes. Did that development have consequences for the evolution of the biosphere? Yes.

Now comes the big question. Could you enumerate ahead of time all possible Darwinian pre-adaptations for all organisms alive now, or even just for humans? We all seem to think the answer is no. Among the problems is the question of how we would list all possible selective environments? How would we pre-specify features of organisms that might go on to become pre-adaptations? There seems no way to do so. We do not seem to be able to pre-specify all of what I will call the "adjacent possible" of the biosphere.

If this is correct, the consequences seem profound. They break the spell cast by Galileo, that everything in the universe is describable by a natural law. If a natural law is a compact description of the regularities of a process, there seems to be no natural law sufficient to describe Darwinian pre-adaptations.

Here we cannot do what Newton taught us to do: state the variables, the laws linking the variables, and the initial and boundary conditions, and from these compute the forward trajectory of the biosphere. We do not know the relevant variables - the middle-ear bones, lungs or livers - before they arise. We cannot even make probability statements about such pre-adaptations because, statistically speaking, we do not know the "sample space" of possibilities.

So the unfolding of the universe - biotic, and perhaps abiotic too - appears to be partially beyond natural law. In its place is a ceaseless creativity, with no supernatural creator."

I'm not sure if I understand this section.  It was interesting to read the comments after the essay, many tried to peg him into a hole, creationist, atheist, I.D. etc.  I'm not sure what to think.  I do know he's a complexity theorist, an area that I'm very much fascinated by.   Kind of curious what you guy's take on this section might be.  This part of the essay is problematic to me, the rest actually strikes a chord with me in some ways,  but I'm not sure why we need to call the universe God.  Why not just call it the universe?

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opi ... tive%20God

[SteveS]

There's something about this that bugs me too, Lara.  Just because something is complex doesn't mean that its not based on simplicity.  I mean, we understand what happens in a fusion reaction within a star, but how can we model and predict the motion of every single atom within the Sun?  Does this mean the Sun doesn't obey natural law?  Or, another example, we understand what makes crystals form, but how can I predict within a given storm what exact shape an individual snowflake will acquire?  Does this mean snowstorms are not natural?

Using his definition: "a natural law is a compact description of the regularities of a process", it seems like he's misapplying it.  The pre-adaptations have nothing to do with the simple description of evolutionary theory.  The description of the process is simple, but the application is complex.  Just like the rules of chess are simple, but games become complex.  It seems like he's mixing up the descriptions and the outcome.  What causes descent with modification is compact enough, as is the idea of natural selection, but the varieties that it can produce is immense.  This hardly means that it is "unnatural", or not following simple laws.

At least that is how it seems to me.

Besides, I think quantum mechanics destroyed a lot of the Galilean and Newtonian ideas of simple predictability and determinism a long time ago....

[Will]

Were we to ask Darwin what the function of the heart is, he would say, to pump blood; but the heart also makes heart sounds and these are not the function of the heart, which was selected, and hence exists, because pumping blood was of selective value.

Some people should hire editors to prevent sentences like this. Even though it's grammatically correct, it's basically a run-on. Maybe this is what's bothering people? Reading on...

Darwin's idea of a pre-adaptation refers to a property of an organism - heart sounds, say - that is of no selective value in the present environment, but might become of selective value in some different environment and therefore be selected. An example is human middle-ear bones, which are derived from three adjacent jawbones of an early fish. Did a new function come to exist in the biosphere as part of human hearing? Yes. Did that development have consequences for the evolution of the biosphere? Yes.

Now comes the big question. Could you enumerate ahead of time all possible Darwinian pre-adaptations for all organisms alive now, or even just for humans? We all seem to think the answer is no. Among the problems is the question of how we would list all possible selective environments? How would we pre-specify features of organisms that might go on to become pre-adaptations? There seems no way to do so. We do not seem to be able to pre-specify all of what I will call the "adjacent possible" of the biosphere.

This is all true.

If this is correct, the consequences seem profound. They break the spell cast by Galileo, that everything in the universe is describable by a natural law. If a natural law is a compact description of the regularities of a process, there seems to be no natural law sufficient to describe Darwinian pre-adaptations.

Mutation is random; it's one of the cornerstone facts of Darwinian evolution. While the selection process has systems and is organized, the introduction of new traits is not, therefore the pre-adaptations should be categorized with the other adaptations: they are random. I'm not sure why it would rock anyone's world that we can't foresee all mutations, especially those that are going to be beneficial and become a survival trait.

Here we cannot do what Newton taught us to do: state the variables, the laws linking the variables, and the initial and boundary conditions, and from these compute the forward trajectory of the biosphere. We do not know the relevant variables - the middle-ear bones, lungs or livers - before they arise. We cannot even make probability statements about such pre-adaptations because, statistically speaking, we do not know the "sample space" of possibilities.

Newton was a physicist. He dealt in mathematical certainties. That's not really the case with biology, because  the 4 in 4+4 = 8 never mutates into a 5.

So the unfolding of the universe - biotic, and perhaps abiotic too - appears to be partially beyond natural law. In its place is a ceaseless creativity, with no supernatural creator.

It's simply a matter of not having all the variables. But here's the awesome thing: as we learn more and more about of adaptation, we can develop systemsâ€"equations evenâ€"that can help to draw out possible evolutionary steps for species based on theoretical mutations. I'll give you an example:
What if Antarctic penguins developed the ability to see UV light? It's been well documented that there is a decent sized hole in the OZone layer above Antarctica, which increases an animal's chances of cancer. Could these penguins take shelter during particularly high UV days, thus decreasing the probability of getting cancer, thus passing along the gene? Fascinating stuff.

[LARA]

Good points, Steve, that's kind of the whole crux of complexity theory, that simple goes towards complex until a new pattern emerges out of the whole mess.  It's almost like this essay is mired in an in-between stage, trying to place a pattern onto the universe that might not really fit it.

Interesting thought on the penguins, Willravel.  They'd not only have to be able to see it, but know to get out of the way.  That might be too much to ask a penguin, since things that don't cause an immediate painful reaction or death aren't likely to have immediate effects on the behavior or genetics of the population. In fact the damn things might just think it's prettier there and stand around thinking "Dude, the colors!"  or the equivalent in the inner language of penguin speak.  

By the way, I think most diurnal bird species are actually capable of seeing UV already.  I've read articles about it possibly being handy for predators like hawks, since many urine trails show up in UV.

Here's a cool link I found on bird vision.

http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/vision/4d.htm

[jcm]

http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/vision/4d.htm

"Bird colours are not simply refinements of the hues that humans, or bees, see, these are hues unknown to any trichromat."

Don't post this kind of stuff anymore LARA, it makes my brain hurt! A new hue?!?!? What does that even mean???

Good luck crayola company! My favorite color is microwave.

[LARA]

Good luck crayola company! My favorite color is microwave.

Now that is funny.   :crazy:

[jcm]

Hey, at least I didn't throw out a link on the visual systems of mantis shrimp. The damn things apparently have eight receptors as compared to our human three (what is that termed?  octochromatic vsion?) and can not only detect circular polarized light but whether it's left-handed or right-handed.  

[jrosebud]

Hey, at least I didn't throw out a link on the visual systems of mantis shrimp. The damn things apparently have eight receptors as compared to our human three (what is that termed?  octochromatic vision?) and can not only detect circular polarized light but whether it's left-handed or right-handed.  

Wow!  Can you imagine?

[jcm]

I liked this video so much I had to share:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... joAw&hl=en