Re: Knit picking Erwin's evolution theoretical parlance

From: Erwin Moller (since_humans_read_this_I_am_spammed_too_much_at_spamyourself.com)
Date: 10/27/04 

Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:25:45 +0000 (UTC)

Peter F wrote:

Hi Peter,

Firstly: I NEVER mind 'knit picking'.
It helps avoid misunderstanding caused by the different interpretations
people give to a word.
So, go on! No hard feelings at all. :-)
(I am not native english speaking, so it helps me extra if somebody starts
to disect sentences.)

>
>> I think you (we) have to take a step back and just state:
>> --> Life evolved to best fit its environment <--
>
>
> The words "to best" bugs me. "To" does because it too much carries a
> meaning of purpose; "best" does because it compells the question:"than
> what".
>
> IMO, it is better to as far as possible throw such bioevolutionary ballast
> over board.
>
> Would not "a necessary requirement of individual examples of living forms
> to evolve is that they it fits (as in is capable of reproductively
> regenerate)" a purer and more precise description?

Yes it is, but it takes so long to say/write that every time.
I thought in the context of my discussion with Tom, the use of the word
'best' was clear enough.

>
>>
>> ('Best fit' in the sense of 'making-the-most-copies')
>
> Again, the word "best" rears its ugly head.
> It does in the (for a unifying understanding unhealthy, as I see it) sense
> that it tends to restricts the lingual-associative Train of thought. It
> does by making an (Evolution Pondering) "Train" more likely (at least my
> own "actention modular" model of it gets biased, by "best") to track
> towards, and to get stuck at, the 'inter-and-intra-species-competition
> station'.

Hmm, if that is the case you give a whole other meaning to that word (best)
than I do.

>
> Lastly, a comment about the "'making-the-most-copies'" sense of "best
> fit", that you suggest.
>
> The words, "the-most", hamstrings it, as I see it.
>
> But perhaps you only had in mind the certainly very important
> 'competition-dimension' in biological evolution.(?)

Yes, the context I was discussing with Tom concerned very early 'life', if
the word 'life' is appropriate.
We were discussing the possible situations for the first replicators to come
up.

Tom was insisting on stability of molecules, where I was trying to point out
that 100% stability is something impossible, and after some time all
molecules will be destroyed.
So my point was only to point out that if those early replicators make more
copies of themselfs than are destroyed, they 'survive'.

We were NOT talking about modern situations.

So to answer your question: We were NOT discussing competitionlike
situations you find later on.
We were only discussing the very beginning.

Of course one could state that there could be competition too, but it was a
lot different from what we will see later on.

>
> But even if you did, this "dimension" seems to me to be more significant,
> and a more instructive an image, in/of the phylogeny of fauna than in/of
> our evolution's DNA-forming phase.
>
> "Making *enough* copies", would be a to me far more agreeable alternative.
>
> That is, eith "enough" used in the sense of: enough for divergent (and
> mainly sexually convergent, until definitely split by speciation) lineages
> of living forms to keep sprouting.

Sex?
Nonono, in the time Tom and I discussed sex wasn't invented yet!

>
> P

Regards,
Erwin Moller

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