Re: specialization momentum
- From: "g" <gillawton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:44:11 -0400 (EDT)
> If you wish, you may email me the Word document. But, if it
> uses macros, I am not going to open it.
>
Okay, I'll copy and past as direct content. I hope the word wrap
will not be horrendous. Here goes:
The Concept of Momentum of Specialization
By Gil Lawton
June 25, 2005
(This is a tentative conceptual effort to arrive at some terminology whereby
evolutionary biology can be discussed by author with others, and whereby
others might translate what they mean on the subject into words author is
sure have mutually understood meanings with regard to discussion of
evolutionary biology. This is a formidable challenge. Renowned authors have
done this, but others have muddied the water behind them to the point I need
new terms for them. Nothing taken away from better authors, and renowned
scholars.)
Nothing is more exhilarating for a concept surfer than catching a conceptual
tall wave -- a synthesis of disparate facts and relationships and
subordinable smaller concepts -- and riding on that big wave for a while.
Such a concept is what might be termed "specialization momentum." The term
momentum in this context is analogous to the same name term as applied in
classical physics but, rather than expressing an interplay of variables of
speed and distance, its actors involved in evolutionary biology are: time
and specialization (including the medical biological term "differentiation."
No one who looks for and discerns patterns in all things he observes and
thinks about can fail to appreciate that there seems to be an abundance of
evidence of vertical linearity of specialization in plants and animals, over
time. And I do not mean this as for organisms alone, but for specialized
organs which develop in vertical parallel (in a sense, symbiotically) as a
part of the organism in its entirety.
Let me emphasize that this linearity is not only specie consistent but,
also, organ consistent and homeostaticaly consistent. Let me take pains to
explain, although some readers will already have the concept by this point.
(It is not a coincidence that the word specie and the word special are
similar, because they derive from a common concept.)
For a specific example, let the specie be modern h. sapiens, and the organ
the eye. Linearity of evolution of the whole organism is one element.
Linearity of evolution of the eye is another. The situational milieu
changes, though one and the same for the whole organism, and for the
differentiating organ, thus viewed, are different effective evolutionary
filters, as one set impacts the one and not the other, in contemporaneous,
yet separate selectivities.
Q -- How can a single milieu have different impacts on different
evolutionary units?
A -- Each, as it develops in respect to what it is stimulated by, and
responds to, in accordance with what it does best, is impacted
constructively or destructively by the elements in the milieu that it is
filtered by.
As situational filters change in a milieu in some ways and remain somewhat
consistent over long periods for others, the overall body of successive
progeny are impacted by different filters than the single organ, eye, are
impacted by. To put this another way, observation informs us that a
primordial eye does not -- by virtue of being exposed to the exact same
externality (milieu) in which the body lives -- become more body-like; nor
does the body -- by virtue of being amidst the very same milieu -- become
more eye-like. Each of these, then, is a different actor. And each has what
is tantamount to its own direction (linearity), its own rate of mutation and
"yes and no" (that is, favorable and unfavorable) filters of the one progeny
with the one mutation, and the other with another. Where as random chance
may determine each (organism and sensory detection, interpretation and
response triggers), ONCE THE DIRECTION HAS BEEN SET AS TO WHAT STIMULUS
TYPE IT WILL SERVE, it seems reasonable to me is probably, the eye would
"differentiate" in response toward profiting from mutations filtered in
relation to that kind of stimulus (light, light intensity, color, near
acuity, distance acuity... etc.). The overall organism, meanwhile would
respond in some ways overall, it would seem, (filtered by advantages versus
disadvantages of size, say), while the linearity of evolution of the other
organs (totally retroactively opportunistic in the case of favored
mutations) would have their mutations variously selected for in relation to
their independent specialties (or differentationally selective rewards and
punishments, as it were).
Thus is exemplified what might be called "specialization momentum." And a
possible "law" might be ventured as being valid, which might say: The more
a function differentiates into an organism or organ, the more specialized it
becomes in being filtered by factors impacting its special usefulness and
non-usefulness in its role play.
Obviously, I am not a fan of the expression "survival of the fittest" nor
the term "altruistic gene," although I respect those who are able to make
sense of these conceptional views. As best I can conceive of it, what is a
"yes" filter in one scenario is a "no" filter in another. Anything starting
in the direction of being in the direction of adding weight to a T. Rex
might be advantageous, but to a bird it would be disadvantageous. And a
common ancestor of both, if it were to have existed, would have split into
two groups, we might well imagine, one for which the gene is productive and
the other for which it is counter-productive, and therefore the question of
whether that gene is a good one, or an altruistic one, is as much subject to
the particular momentum (direction and rate of change within it) of the one,
as quite different from the other.
Indeed, to say that an entire organism is specialized, most certainly is not
a totally useless conceptualization, either. After all, the whole of each
successive progeny organism had to succeed or fail to live and reproduce as
an entirety that was, is, in a very real sense, greater than the sum of its
disparate parts. So the organism had to, has to, succeed BOTH as an
entirety, AND as a conglomeration of separately evolving parts, none of
which could survive in solo, and none of which could succeed in absence of
homeostatic cooperation, at every moment, with its cousin organs.
Specialization momentum, thus, was/is at once both holistic and
individualistic. And societal, political, economic, physical, psychological
parallels can be imagined, where a system evolves both systemically and as a
group of
individuals being filtered in their morphology, behavior, and/or other
characteristics simultaneously together and in parallel.
Laboratory experiments with gene manipulations in certain fast-reproducing
species, such as certain fruit flies, has shown relationships between, say,
a gene that will give rise to a pair of antennae normally, but if slightly
altered will give rise to a pair of leg-like appendages. My interpretation
of this is that antennae and legs may have split their functionalities more
recently, evolutionarily, than did, say, ear and a heart (absurd, but
exemplifying how remote some specializations can be from others).
As we know from one of Newton's laws, an object tends to maintain a constant
direction and velocity unless acted upon by an outside force. We know that
no object in the universe exists in isolation from a multitude of masses and
energy influences external to itself, and tends to seek, with the entirety,
equilibrium. Ultimate homogeneous universal randomization of all mass and
energy) is cited by some theorists as being the inevitable downstream
tendency called "entropy."
(My own intuition tells me that is not the ultimate fate of all matter and
energy, and that it is the energy in the universe, also called "change" that
sustains the existence of mass; and change is self-propagating. But that
goes outside the pale of sbe.)
The mention of physics was only to demonstrate the analogy between the
linearity involved in velocity as interaction between mass, time and
direction, from the viewpoint of classical physics, and specialization
momentum from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology.
There have been those who offer that there is some divine intervention
involved in the fact that science has not created a new specie. If so, that
is an element in physical momentum, as well. But science deals with things
observable (even if indirectly possible) measurable (even if only indirectly
and statistically) and testable (even if only the impact of a thing or a
phenomenon we cannot see upon some other thing we can see being affected by
it).
Q -- Why spend this many words drawing a concept?
A -- Once the concept is drawn and understood, it can be referred to in a
sentence by two words: specialization momentum. And that sentence would
contain other terms which can be given meaning only as the tip of a pyramid
can be given its place -- only after a base has been established, and a
hierarchy of concepts build layer by layer.
What I wish I could share that sentence here, and have it understood; but
were I to write it here, it would not be understood (without the full
construction of what must be laid down previously, to qualify intended
meanings of terms.) --end--
g
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: specialization momentum
- From: Perplexed in Peoria
- Re: specialization momentum
- References:
- Re: specialization momentum
- From: Perplexed in Peoria
- Re: specialization momentum
- Prev by Date: Re: The Anti Science Art Of Evasion
- Next by Date: Re: What is Life?
- Previous by thread: Re: specialization momentum
- Next by thread: Re: specialization momentum
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
