I think the idea that evolution has a purpose and a direction is more than common enough that when someone says something like that things that evolve never lack a purpose, they've gone wrong in their understanding of evolution, even if only in subtle ways they may not be aware of themselves.
Anyways, I think the juxtaposition is funny no matter how seriously they meant it. We all want to believe that consciousness is something that can be easily defined and yet our use of aspects of it is extremely fuzzy.
Exactly.
>"Myth number three: Evolution couldn’t have a purpose, because it doesn’t have a direction."
"
>"on balance evolution tends to create beings of greater and greater complexity"
Just because something has a direction doesn't mean it has a purpose. A warm body cools, that is a direction, but there isn't an invisible man in the sky causing that, it is simply a law of thermodynamics.
> At the base of it, evo-psych rests on the premise that for a behavior to persist, it must have a purpose. Asking what that purpose is, without ascribing a value judgement, seems like a reasonable avenue of inquiry.
This conflicts with the broader understanding of evolution in general, which treats "selection" (changes that have a purpose) and "genetic drift" (changes that have no purpose) separately.
> it's perfectly acceptable language to say that a cause is the "reason" for an effect, even if it's not possible to assign intent
Sure, but that's not the case here. While existing traits are selected for based on fitness (which has absolutely no meaning outside of environment, another rant), new traits (whether wrinkly fingers in one leap or in several small ones) are evolved by chance.
Evolution has no intent, no direction. Each individual trait has no reason other than, "Hey, I'll try this out!"
In a society where a good chunk doesn't even believe evolution is an accurate model, I think it's helpful to be precise with the language to minimize misunderstanding which further inhibits the idea's acceptance.
This comment is quickly going the way of "correlation doesn't equal causation" style of karma-whoring. It's so overused, and more often than not misplaced, that it's a net negative to the discussion.
Yes, evolution doesn't have intentions or goals, but scientists, actual zoologists and evolutionary biologists, speak of "intentions", "goals", etc when speaking of evolutionary processes (just open a Dawkins book). Anthropomorphizing a natural process is a short-hand that allows one to communicate ideas more effectively and more naturally. Everyone knows that there isn't an actual Gaia-like being pulling the strings of nature. Pointing this out is just noise in an otherwise productive conversation.
This seems like an over-application of the (valid) claim that evolution doesn’t have any specific objective. The sentence you quote doesn’t describe an objective. It only describes a necessity.
See, I've always seen the statement that evolution is intentionless to be a bit arrogant. Consciousness, as we are just starting to learn, is a property of emergent networks. Further, we are just starting to discover that phenotypical expression is so much more complex than 1/2mom + 1/2dad = baby. Evolution is calculating something, even if it's inscrutable to us.
Evolution doesn't have a goal or purpose, and it just doesn't make sense to say that 'Humans evolved to...' for anything. You could on the other hand say something like 'human story telling is a consequence of evolution' (though I don't agree).
Evolution has no desire to make sense, it's a blind natural process with no intent or point of view. From a human point of view, what he said makes perfect sense.
The main stumbling block of evolutionary psychiatry (psychology?) is that one is always in danger of coming up with ever more clever just-so stories that can never be proven or rejected by experiment but rely on who has the most compelling argument.
The author also makes a grave but subtle misstep when he says “the eye evolved to see” - the eye most decidedly DID NOT evolve to see. The eye evolved and does see but importantly evolution has no intent, it has no goal and it has no purpose. I might sound pedantic but there is an important distinction between “the eye sees” and “the eye was meant to see”.
Evolutionary biologists are perfectly comfortable with the idea that focusing light is the purpose of a lens, and cutting meat is the purpose of sharp teeth, and structural support is the purpose of a skeletal system, etc. etc. etc. It's not fallacious in any sense. What they rant against is the idea that items with a purpose must have been ordained by a supernatural force.
Don't get me wrong, the notion of evolution makes sense; small changes leading to bigger changes long-term. but just because the logic makes sense doesn't mean that is what happened.
Anyways, I think the juxtaposition is funny no matter how seriously they meant it. We all want to believe that consciousness is something that can be easily defined and yet our use of aspects of it is extremely fuzzy.
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