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Author
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Topic: Genetic Determinism and the Evolution of Humanness
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warren_bergerson
Member
Member # 262
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posted 30. May 2002 07:16
In my opinion, the evolution of ‘humanness’ is probably the single most ‘scientifically interesting’ known example of intelligent design. Parochialism aside, the evolution of humanness represents a major change, a ‘different’ type of change, a recent change and a change on which we have vast volumes of information.
In attempting to analyze this fascinating subject, almost the first item encountered is the genetic determinism ASSUMPTION. In order to analyze humanness, the scientific community appears to insist, we MUST first ASSUME that humanness is the result of and is determined by genetic changes. In order to analyze humanness we must, common wisdom suggests, first accept that humanness is the result of the 2% genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees. I am introducing this thread to discuss if this supposedly mandatory genetic determinism assumption is 1)necessary, 2)useful, and/or 3)consistent with the data? My personal opinion is that the answer is ‘no’ to all three points.
It is a well known ‘fact’ of human problem solving, that if a problem can not be solved from one approach, perspective or set of assumptions, it is often useful to address the problem with a new approach, a new perspective, and a new set of assumptions. It is an equally well known fact of human problem solving that people are at times very reluctant to consider new approaches, new perspectives, and new assumptions. My claim here is that genetic determinism is a ‘very bad’ assumption that makes it impossible to understand humanness. Analysis of humanness, to date, has been forcing and distorting the data to fit this genetic determinism assumption. If, I will claim, you actually look at the data, you will find that while genetics may define the container in which humanness resides, humanness is a phenomena which continues to change and evolve even as the container remains unchanged. [I am talking about scientifically observable, measurable human behavior, not about the soul.]
To begin the discussion, lets consider the following question:
1. WHAT IS THE GENETIC DETERMINISM ASSUMPTION?- Genetic determinism is a simplifying assumption used in analyzing long term ‘evolutionary’ changes. The assumption suggests that an organism, or the state of an organism is defined or measured by its genetic code. This ‘state’ only changes once per generation when there are changes occur in the genetic code. The assumption is, it will be recognized, a very crude approximation to actual changes in state associated with life forms. The assumption ignores all ‘within life time’ change processes. The basic questions to be addressed are a) Does this very crude approximation of change provides a useful model for analyzing the evolution of humanness? and b)Are there more realistic and more useful alternatives?
2. DOES GENETIC DETERMINISM FIT THE ‘EVOLUTION OF HUMANNESS’ DATA?- Genetic determinism would suggest that humanness either emerged gradually as the result of a series of mutations, or suddenly as the result of some key mutation. A reasonable argument can be made that the physical differences between man and chimps fit the gradual ‘series of mutation’ model. This also appears to be true for increase in brain size.
But humanness is clearly something very different from brain size. Humanness is probably best defined in terms of creative intelligence or ‘the ability to generate novel and creative solutions to problems’. There are all sorts of reasonable, verifiable methods of measuring this capability in humans and in other animals. The results of such studies are clearly not consistent with either the gradual or the discontinuous genetic determinism models. The most dramatic increases in human creative intelligence have all occurred after homo sapiens evolved as a species. There is no evidence that these increases in measurable creative intelligence correspond to any genetic change.
3. ARE THERE LOGICAL, RATIONAL ALTERNATIVES TO THE GENETIC DETERMINISM ASSUMPTION- The alternative assumption offered here is that ‘humanness involves the evolution of a new evolutionary process which is largely independent of genetic changes’. This suggests that biological systems evolve or change, and part of this change involves changes in the processes producing change. Included in such process changes are the development of new sets of processes which are capable of changing and evolving independent of the underlying evolutionary processes. The evolution of humanness represents such an occurrence.
If we change our terminology a bit, it will be recognized that this concept of evolutionary change process within evolutionary change processes is not really new. The concepts of ‘human cultural adaptation’, ‘animal adaptive learning’ and ‘biological adaptation’ can (easily I think) be viewed as processes within processes.
As stated at the beginning, IMO, the evolution of humanness is scientifically interesting example of intelligent design in nature. The major roadblock, again IMO, to understanding this evolution is the genetic determinism assumption. This assumption, and the suggested alternative, would seem a useful subject for discussion.
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Jesse
Member
Member # 112
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posted 30. May 2002 16:52
quote:
1. WHAT IS THE GENETIC DETERMINISM ASSUMPTION?- Genetic determinism is a simplifying assumption used in analyzing long term ‘evolutionary’ changes. The assumption suggests that an organism, or the state of an organism is defined or measured by its genetic code. This ‘state’ only changes once per generation when there are changes occur in the genetic code.
warren, I doubt you could find a single scientist who would endorse such a view. Just to name one example, no neuroscientist would suggest that the layout of synapses in the brain is determined in every detail by the genes--the brain obviously is capable of quite a lot of learning and adaptation within an organism's lifeforms, more so as you look at animals with progressively more complex brains. Likewise, the immune system adapts to invaders without any changes in the organisms' genome. Even our ability to tan in the sun contradicts the strawman notion of "genetic determinism" which you are putting forth. Phenotypic plasticity (the ability of organisms to alter their phenotypes without changes in their genotype) is widely accepted and in many cases the mechanisms by which it occurs are fairly well-understood.
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