Darwin-L Message Log 5: 141–185 — January 1994

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

Darwin-L was an international discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences, active from 1993–1997. Darwin-L was established to promote the reintegration of a range of fields all of which are concerned with reconstructing the past from evidence in the present, and to encourage communication among scholars, scientists, and researchers in these fields. The group had more than 600 members from 35 countries, and produced a consistently high level of discussion over its several years of operation. Darwin-L was not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles Darwin, but instead addressed the entire range of historical sciences from an explicitly comparative perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology, systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical geography, historical anthropology, and related “palaetiological” fields.

This log contains public messages posted to the Darwin-L discussion group during January 1994. It has been lightly edited for format: message numbers have been added for ease of reference, message headers have been trimmed, some irregular lines have been reformatted, and error messages and personal messages accidentally posted to the group as a whole have been deleted. No genuine editorial changes have been made to the content of any of the posts. This log is provided for personal reference and research purposes only, and none of the material contained herein should be published or quoted without the permission of the original poster.

The master copy of this log is maintained in the Darwin-L Archives (rjohara.net/darwin) by Dr. Robert J. O’Hara. The Darwin-L Archives also contain additional information about the Darwin-L discussion group, the complete Today in the Historical Sciences calendar for every month of the year, a collection of recommended readings on the historical sciences, and an account of William Whewell’s concept of “palaetiology.”

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DARWIN-L MESSAGE LOG 5: 141-185 -- JANUARY 1994
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DARWIN-L
A Network Discussion Group on the
History and Theory of the Historical Sciences
_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:141>From ALVARD@DICKINSON.EDU  Tue Jan 25 19:43:11 1994

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 94 20:51:12 est
From: Michael Alvard <ALVARD@dickinson.edu>
To: DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: tools

Asia said:

If you notice the different birth rate in the technologically developped West
and the less developped third world, you'll see that there's a problem with
the assumption that "the basic mechanisms of evolution still work", since it
seems to be the case that successfully adapting to technological change
_lowers_ a society's procreative capacities. This is probably a similar problem
to the one noted by turn of the century Social Darwinists - those whom we
concider successfull in society [or those nations whom we concider
"successfull" on the global scale] are not those who procreate most.

I don't see a problem at all.  It could simply mean that from an evolutionary
point of view indivduals in the technologically developed world who reproduce
less than folks in the less developed nations are less fit, and are being
selected against by natural selection.  Evolution will occur assuming there
exists a genetic component involved in the advent of technology, which surely
there is.  Perhaps there is a limit to the biological 'usefullness" of
culture and related technology.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:142>From arkeo4@uniwa.uwa.edu.au  Tue Jan 25 20:53:59 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 11:00:07 +0800 (WST)
From: Dave Rindos <arkeo4@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: tools, "fitness" and culture
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

All of this discussion of alleged fitness differences based upon tool
use, "developed" vs. "non-developed" countries, and the like seems to me
(to put it gently) to be entirely specious.

1) "Selection" (in the terms which *seem* to be being used here) does NOT
in any sense necessitate evolution.  Quite to the contrary, under
conditions where a population is stable, and where births exceed deaths
there is a lot of "selection" going on, but this does NOT mean that ANY
evolution need be occurring.  People should go back and think about the
implications of Hardy-Weinburg.  Expanding populations in which genotypes
are randomized sub-sets from the larger pool in relation to the trait
under consideration also bring with them no evolutionary change in
relationship to that trait.  Expanding populations in which the genotypes
are FIXED (as would seem to be the case here) also can yield no
evolutionary change.  Furthermore, MOST species are SELECTED in terms that
maintain stability in specific traits (put in other terms, most selection
is stabilising NOT directional and only direction selection produces the
kind of change that is called evolution).  Given this, no fitness
differentials exist (and hence fitness is not even DEFINED!) under
conditions in which no change occurs in gene frequencies RELEVANT TO THE
TRAIT UNDER DISCUSSION.

2) Evolutionary change at the GENETIC level *requires* heredibility of
genes which are correlated with / causal to the trait of concern.  Am I to
believe (as some posters would seem to be saying -- I hope my reading
skills have somehow suddenly gone to hell) that the reason WHY certain
countries are "undeveloped" is to be explained by the GENES of the people
living in those countries?!?!  Hence, the presently larger number of
individuals born and surviving in these countries is somehow "evolving" a
"less-technologically capable" Homo?  What sort of evidence could be used
to support such an outrageous statement?  (Tell me I misread something,
PLEASE!).

Dave,
shaking his head in astonishment . . .

--
	Dave Rindos		  arkeo4@uniwa.uwa.edu.au
	Australian Foundation for Archaeological Sciences
    20 Herdsmans Parade    Wembley   WA    6014    AUSTRALIA
    Ph:+61 9 387 6281 (GMT+8)  FAX:+61 9 380 1051 (USEST+13)

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:143>From ALVARD@DICKINSON.EDU  Tue Jan 25 21:47:52 1994

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 94 22:53:47 est
From: Michael Alvard <ALVARD@dickinson.edu>
To: DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: 'fitness'

I suppose Dave Rindos' posting was in reference to mine.  Yes, I understand
for selection to work and evolution to take place there must be genetic
variability. I was *not* implying that underdeveloped countries are
underdeveloped because of the genes of the people living there.  I was trying
to make the point that technology, development and 'progress' does not
necessarily imply some biological superiority.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:144>From hantuo@utu.fi  Tue Jan 25 23:40:15 1994

To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: hantuo@utu.fi (Hanna Tuomisto)
Subject: The memetic and the mimetic
Date: 	Wed, 26 Jan 1994 07:47:34 +0200

Gerard Donnelly Smith wrote:

>The essential difference between the memetic and the mimetic:
>memetic theory suggests that cultural traits can be inherited,
>whereas mimetic theory argues that they can not be inherited, but
>must be learned.

>Note another reference to "meme" as inheritable social unit.  Would
>some one please explain why this Memetic theory proposed by Dawkins
>works better than Mimetic theory which the Humanities have
>been using to discuss cultural transmission in literature, mass media
>and religion for 2500?

I am not familiar with the possible controversies between the Mimetic and
Memetic theories outside this list, but I am familiar with the writings of
Dawkins. And the way he proposed the memetic model to work would place his
theory under the definition of Mimetic as outlined above.

Dawkins explicitly denied any inheritance of particular cultural traits. He
argued that only the capacity for culture is inherited, not the culture
itself, which must be learned. The idea was that once the genes have
produced brains that are physically complex enough to enable extensive
learning, behavior will take forms that were never programmed in the
genetic code. Memes, as defined by Dawkins, are bits of culture that can
reproduce in the minds of people. The 'reproduction' of a meme is getting
learned by a new person and thus occupying a space in that person's mind.
There is no genetic connection evoked here; Dawkins only offered this as an
analogous model for how genes reproduce and occupy a space in a genome. As
examples of memes, Dawkins mentioned things like tunes, poems, and
religious doctrines. A successful meme is one that is learned and
remembered by many people; an unsuccessful meme is rapidly forgotten.
Examples of successful memes would include the famous tunes of Beethoven's
Fifth, and the song 'Happy birthday to you'.

Hanna Tuomisto
hantuo@utu.fi

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:145>From azlerner@midway.uchicago.edu  Wed Jan 26 00:04:07 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 00:12:18 CST
From: "asia z lerner" <azlerner@midway.uchicago.edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re:  tools

[birth rate and technological development at odds]

	I don't see a problem at all.  It could simply mean that from an
	evolutionary point of view indivduals in the technologically developed
	world who reproduce less than folks in the less developed nations are
	less fit, and are being selected against by natural selection.

Well, if you are prepared to admit that, than no problem. People usually
feel this to be kinda funny.

	Evolution will occur assuming there exists a genetic component involved
	in the advent of technology, which surely there is.

Hmmm. I am not sure that you actually want to suppose a genetic component
to one's ability to learn the use of technology. I don't think such views
are terribly well supported empirically, either.

Btw - a belated introduction: Grad student in History of Science in the
University of Chicago. Areas of interest to be determined, but the upcomming
MA test is on Sociobiology and Human Nature, Historiography of History of
Science and the Question of identity in NT and NT studies, of all things.

Hello/Goodby,  Asia

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<5:146>From hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk  Wed Jan 26 05:38:39 1994

Subject: intro
To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 12:52:53 +0100

I am a new member of the Darwin list. Although being a professor at the
Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen, my present
research interests concern theoretical biology, theory of science and
history of biology. I am particularly engaged in developing the new field
of biosemiotics, i.e. the study of entities and processes of life from a
semiotic or sign-theoretic point of view.
----------------------
Jesper Hoffmeyer
professor
University of Copenhagen
Institute of Molecular Biology
The Biosemiotics Group
83, Solvgade
DK - 1307 Copenhagen K
Tel. 3532 2032, Fax. 3532 2040
E-mail: hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:147>From mcnsr24@cc.csic.es  Wed Jan 26 08:11:41 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 15:13:26 UTC+0100
From: Santiago Reig <mcnsr24@cc.csic.es>
Subject: Self introduction
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

!Hola!

   I'm a very satisfied subscriber of this list, obeying the
edict of our brilliant list owner for self-introduction. I'm a
zoologist interested in evolutionary biology. The group of creatures I
work with are mammals, mainly carnivores and rodents (i.e. martens,
weasels, gophers). The biological problems that I like to investigate are
related to the study of morphological variability and its consequences.
Description of variation, asking why and trying to predict biological
patterns. In particular, the study of geographic variation within
species. This is a very amazing problem in species that have large
ranges of distribution through different habitats, climates, etc.
Somehow is like having a semi-experimental approach to biological
problems that can't be manipulated: instead of putting a species into
two different habitats and see how that affects their morphology, we
can study the morphology of populations living under different
environments. Besides geographic factors, you can also study other
aspects that can produce variation, like sex or age. You can do also
comparative analysis of these factors of variation among closely related
taxa and see the importance of these patterns in evolution, the cross-
interaction of all these factors of variation ...

     The tool I use are calipers --now digitizing devices-- to take
measurements in the skull and other bones of the skeleton of large
series of museum specimens. Then I use statistics to try to find patterns
of variation.

Congratulations to the list owner for nursing the group. It's really
exciting to watch live discussion of "big guys" that find a minute --I
know they only need that to write something good!!-- to add their two
cents.

Thank you!

Santiago Reig
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC
Jose Gutierrez Abascal 2
28006 MADRID, Spain

Voice: 1- 411 1328 ext. 1129
FAX: 1- 564 5078      "MCNSR24@CC.CSIC.ES"

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:148>From SMITGM@hawkins.clark.edu  Wed Jan 26 10:39:20 1994

To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: "Gerard Donnelly Smith"  <SMITGM@hawkins.clark.edu>
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
Date: 26 Jan 94 08:43:06 PST8PDT
Subject: memetic clarification

Thanks you Hana Toumisto for the clarification of Dawkin's original
analogy.  When some use "meme" to indicate an "inherited" social
unit, they damage the usefulness of the original similarities that
Dawkin's proposed.

"If a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again.  I
would know that a fool follows it, for a knave gives it."

Dr. Gerard Donnelly-Smith            e-mail: smitgm@hawkins.clark.edu
English Department, Clark College

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:149>From carey@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu  Wed Jan 26 11:19:52 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 12:26:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Arlen Carey <carey@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu>
Subject: understanding evolution
To: list darwin-l <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>

I was among those who pointed out that biological evolution continues
so long as there is differential survival and reproduction.  The list
owner and another participant kindly noted that I perhaps had missed
the point of the original posting that requested a source of the notion
that the advent of cultural evolution marked the end of organic evolution.
I sent personal responses to both the list owner and the original poster
informing them that my post was not meant to be an accusation of
an error by the poster.  Rather it was intended to be a clarification
for the diverse group of list participants.  As a humble sociologist,
I am only too aware of a widespread misunderstanding of evol-
ution on the part of many social science colleagues.  E.g., the error of
asserting the end of human biological evolution is not at all
apparent to too many of these scholars.

I would have been content to let it go at that, but then comes a
rebutting(?) comment from the orignal poster that typifies the
misunderstanding.  To paraphrase, she suggests that findings of higher
fertility in the poorer countries of today's world than in its wealthier
ones may indicate that evolution has indeed been stopped.  Her point may
well be evidence against social darwinism but it is somewhat irrelevent
with regard to darwinian evolution (no, they are not one and the same).
Darwinian evolution as I understand it pertains to differential survival
and reproduction and not necessarily differential economic prosperity
(although as Betzig has noted, reproductive success and economic success
have been positively correlated throughout much of our past).

My aim here has been to clarify--not to flame.  It seems to me that
a discussion of the history of ideas can hardly ignore the issue of
validity.

***************************************************************************
*             Arlen D. Carey           *                                  *
* Department of Sociology/Anthropology * e-mail: carey@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu *
*      University of Central Florida   * voice: (407) 823-2240            *
*           Orlando, FL  32816         * fax: (407) 823-5156              *
***************************************************************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:150>From SMITGM@hawkins.clark.edu  Wed Jan 26 11:30:25 1994

To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: "Gerard Donnelly Smith"  <SMITGM@hawkins.clark.edu>
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver WA, USA
Date: 26 Jan 94 09:33:36 PST8PDT
Subject: Re: tools

Have tools caused any noticable evolutionary change?  Or what changes
might we expect because of technology?  I recall a sci-fi hypothesis
that someday we'll be nothing more than brains in little scooters,
because technology will make our limbs unnecessary.  Hyperbole, at
best.  Obviously any change in the species will be in detail,
rather than in substance.   Have our eyes gotten weaker or stronger
because of "print" technology?  Have we become less dexterous because
we no longer need to hunt to survive?  Can weakened immune systems be
linked to central-air?  How does medical technology figure into this
hypothesis?  Can immune system evolution be damaged by medical
intervention?  Has this happened, or is this happening now?

We know that the bubonic plauge caused drastic changes in behavior.
People began to live more cleanly.  Didn't the phrase "cleanliness is
next to Godliness" originate in the 13th century?  Would we have
eventually adapted biological defenses to the bacteria, if we had not
used our intelligence to affect social/cultural behavior?  A more
pardoxical question: has medical technology suspended or dampened
adaptation?  Will we develop immunity to AIDS through science or
through evolution?

"If a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again.  I
would know that a fool follows it, for a knave gives it."

Dr. Gerard Donnelly-Smith            e-mail: smitgm@hawkins.clark.edu
English Department, Clark College

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:151>From phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu  Wed Jan 26 12:08:31 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 13:08:09 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kelly C. Smith" <phlkcs@gsusgi2.gsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Introductions are welcome
To: DARWIN@steffi.uncg.edu

  As per the recent prod that those of us who follow the goings-on on
DARWIN-L silently should step forward into the light:
  My name is Kelly C. Smith and I teach in the Philosophy department at
Georgia State University,
though I am currently searching for a tenure-track job.  I am just
finishing my Ph.D. at Duke University which discusses in detail the
failings of what I call "gene-centric biology".  By gene-centric biology
I have in mind on the one hand the sort of genic selectionism championed
by Richard Dawkins and on the other the sorts of "genetic program"
metaphors in developmental biology which are coming to dominate the field
(in funding, if not in ideas).   I did an M.S. in Zoology at Duke as
well, working on seasonal polyphenisms in Buckeye butterflies.
  I am always happy to mail out reprints of my work (and even copies of
the Big Book Report), discuss these and related ideas, argue with those
who stubbornly refuse to follow the path of Biological righteousness, etc.
If anyone I have not already contacted in interested in such things,
please drop me a line...
Th-th-that's all folks
Kelly

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:152>From GRB%NCCIBM1.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU  Wed Jan 26 13:29:26 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 11:44 -0500 (EST)
From: George Buckner <GRB%NCCIBM1.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Intro
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Hi folks:

My name is George Buckner, and I work as a database designer in
network management for Martin Marietta. My degree is in cultural
anthropology (UNC-Greensboro, 1980). Though this degree turned out
to be largely irrelevant to my career field, I highly value the
perspective it has given me. I would be interested in corresponding
with other cultural anthropologists regarding the "interesting times"
we find ourselves living in.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% George Buckner                                                    %
% GRB@NCCIBM1.BITNET                                                %
% 72510.2216@COMPUSERVE.COM                                         %
% LEEWARD@AOL.COM                                                   %
% "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders    %
%  what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of."            %
%                                       -They Might Be Giants       %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:153>From GRB%NCCIBM1.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU  Wed Jan 26 14:14:35 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 11:47 -0500 (EST)
From: George Buckner <GRB%NCCIBM1.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Announcement
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

ANNOUNCEMENT: Associate Editors needed for electronic journal PSYCHE

PSYCHE (ISSN: 1039-723X) is a refereed electronic journal dedicated to
supporting the interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of
consciousness and its relation to the brain. PSYCHE publishes material
relevant to that exploration from the perspectives afforded by the
disciplines of cognitive science, philosophy, psychology,
neuroscience, artificial intelligence and anthropology.
Interdisciplinary discussions are particularly encouraged.

PSYCHE is managed by a committee made up of an Executive Editor and a
number of supporting Associate Editors.  The Associate Editors offer
practical support in a number of ways to the development of the
magazine, among the most significant being the management of the
peer review of articles in their own field of speciality.

Currently there are openings for two Associate Editors whose fields of
speciality are in either *anthropology* or *neuroscience*. Applicants are
expected to be actively engaged in research in their areas of
speciality and to have earned a doctorate or have the equivalent
academic background.

Applications will be accepted through Feburary, 1994.

Applicants should send their resume to:

Patrick Wilken
Executive Editor
PSYCHE: an interdisciplinary journal of research on consciousness
E-mail: x91007@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au

Subscriptions to the electronic version of PSYCHE may be initiated by
sending the one line command - SUBSCRIBE PSYCHE-L FirstName LastName -
in the body of an electronic mail message to LISTSERV@NKI.BITNET or
LISTSERV%NKI.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu. In addition there is a discussion
list, PSYCHE-D, devoted to topics related to those of the journal. To
subscribe send mail to the address above with the one line message:
SUBSCRIBE PSYCHE-D Your Name.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:154>From sturkel@cosy.nyit.edu  Wed Jan 26 15:18:18 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 16:25:53 -0500
From: sturkel@cosy.nyit.edu
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: understanding evolution

There are also forms of evolution that do not require increased
or differential fitness, if we are using the term evolution
to mean a statistically significant change in allele frequencies
over time.  Therefore, it is not necessary to confuse the increase
in so-called 3rd world populations numbers with increased fitness.

Hardy and Weinberg's theorem allows for a number of ways to change
frequencies, since they posit a number of fixed variables in order
to keep frequencies constant.

On the other hand, the largest population may be the same as the
population which invented paper and gunpowder.

spencer turkel
dept. life science
New York Institute of Technology
Old Westbury NY

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:155>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Wed Jan 26 16:19:08 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 17:29:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

A few days ago when we were teasing out some of the differing assumptions
that the historical linguists and the systematists among us have toward our
respective disciplines -- assumptions about monogenesis vs. polygenesis of
our objects of study and about the extent of reticulation, for example --
it became clear that the systematists worry a good deal about adaptive
convergence leading them astray, whereas the linguists are more worried about
borrowing (horizontal transmission), but not usually adaptive convergence.
They tend to assume, in other words, that similarities among languages that
are not inherited (either directly or via borrowing) must be the result of
chance convergence.  It was suggested that there might be some phonological
mechanisms that could produce convergence by some means other than chance, but
that these were probably not of major significance in the history of language.

Let me ask this historical question of the linguists: Were there any
historical linguists in the early days of the subject (William Jones, Parsons,
etc.) who did in fact claim that particular languages were actually "adapted"
to the regions they were spoken in?  In other words: it is best that people in
France speak French, because the French language is particularly well fitted
to the French climate; similarly, the Scandinavian languages are best suited
to people who live in cold northern regions, etc.  There are examples in the
natural theology literature of the 18th and 19th centuries where not only are
organisms said to be adapted to the environment but also the environment is
said to be adapted to the organisms through divine design.  Was there any
tradition of "linguistic theology" perhaps corresponding to natural theology
that made arguments like this with respect to languages?  If so, what led to
the rejection of the idea that particular languages were adapted to their
speakers and their speakers's homelands?

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:156>From LSebastian@casmail.calacademy.org  Wed Jan 26 17:28:37 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 15:32:46 PST
From: LSebastian@casmail.calacademy.org (Sebastian, Lisa)
To: DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: INTRODUCTIONS

      Allow us to introduce ourselves:

      I am Lisa Sebastian, and I am currently a curatorial assistant
      in the Entomology department at the California Academy of
      Sciences in San Francisco.  I received my bachelor's degree from
      Occidental College, where I studied biology and geology.

      I am Aysha Prather.  Lisa and i share an office, which is why we
      decided to share our introduction.  My B.A. is from UC
      Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology (which means
      whatever you want it to).  I also receive my paycheck for my
      curatorial assistance to the Cal Academy, while i wait to hear
      if any of the programs to which i have applied wants me as a
      graduate student in aquatic ecology and systematics.

      That's all we really wanted to say.  We were perfectly content
      to lurk silently, but since you did ask so nicely...

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:157>From CRAVENS@macc.wisc.edu  Wed Jan 26 17:30:24 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 17:38 CDT
From: Tom Cravens <CRAVENS@macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Someone else can answer the question more informatively (sorry!) than I can,
but I have a faint memory of having run across a form of the climate-
determines-language view in the voracious reading period of my graduate
student days. The idea was vaguely that a warm climate would make for
indolence, thus "soft" sounds, e.g. weakening of consonants and the like,
whereas a cold climate would make for vigorous consonantism. I think
someone had even put forth the idea that people wouldn't want to keep
their mouths open for long in a frigid climate, thus vowels would be minimal
in number and short in duration (or was it that vowels would be minimal and
short in a hot, dry climate, since you'd evaporate with your mouth open
too long? -- the argument could be turned either way). In any case, to my
knowledge, none of this was taken very seriously at the time (19th C),
and linguists rarely mention it today. It's still around in the popular
lore, though. Not long ago a Brazilian professor of literature reported to
a friend of mine that Portuguese is "slurred" because it has always been
spoken in benign climates, and that Brazilian is more slurred than
Continental Portuguese since Brazil is hotter. This is all nonsense (scads
of counter-examples, if nothing else), but it appears to be very
appealing (and linguists seem to be unwilling or unable to get through
to the general public).

Tom Cravens
cravens@macc.wisc.edu
cravens@wiscmacc.bitnet

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:158>From SPAMER@say.acnatsci.org  Wed Jan 26 18:05:16 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 19:16:14 -0500 (EST)
From: Earle Spamer <SPAMER@say.acnatsci.org>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: RE: INTRODUCTIONS

I too may as well come out of the closet, having been satisfied to just
read the mail.  The recent forays into linguistics, evolution, and other
neat stuff have been out of my element, but a free, fun education.  I
subscribed to darwin-l because it seems likely to go any which direction.

My paycheck is for being the collection manager for the diatom herbarium
in the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.  I studied geology in
school, but also have worked in paleontology, malacology, and other
collections of Recent invertebrates -- the paleo component has been with
inverts, verts, and plants alike.  General geology collections, too.

I follow the history of scientific collections as best I can.  What
maintains the head of steam, though, is the Grand Canyon.  Anything and
everything about it--geology, biology, archaeology, later human history,
politics, books, you name it.  I like to blend lots of subjects in my
work, thus darwin-l looks rather attractive.  It's good to know there are
others out there willing to write and read most anything.

====Earle Spamer
    Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
    spamer@say.acnatsci.org

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:159>From azlerner@midway.uchicago.edu  Wed Jan 26 18:08:14 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 18:16:25 CST
From: "asia z lerner" <azlerner@midway.uchicago.edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re:  understanding evolution

	I would have been content to let it go at that, but then comes a
	rebutting(?) comment from the orignal poster that typifies the
	misunderstanding.  To paraphrase, she suggests that findings of higher
	fertility in the poorer countries of today's world than in its wealthier
	ones may indicate that evolution has indeed been stopped.

No, I did not suggest that. I was replying to _your_ suggestion that humans
evolve to be more compatible with modern technology. I was trying to point out
that if you take this to be the case, you have a problem with the traditional
notion of evolutionary fitnes - procreative success. You would eveolve to be
less fit, in this case.

Asia

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:160>From peter@usenix.org  Wed Jan 26 18:09:25 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 16:17:27 PST
From: peter@usenix.org (Peter H. Salus)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re:  History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics

This is really an interesting question.  I can't recall
any place where Jones implies that climate or geophysics
have anything to do with language.  However, I seem to
recall something of that sort in Leibniz' _Collectanea
Etymologica_ (1717).  The problem here, though, is that
(a) the work is posthumous and (b) so much of it isn't by
Leibniz.

Peter
________________________________________________________________

Peter H. Salus	#3303	4 Longfellow Place	Boston, MA 02114
	+1 617 723-3092
-----------------------
I am an academic dropout with a Ph.D. in lingistics (1963)
currently writing fulltime.  My _A Quarter Century of UNIX_
(Addison-Wesley) will be out in a few months.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:161>From ronald@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu  Wed Jan 26 19:40:23 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 15:47:02 HST
From: Ron Amundson <ronald@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics

> There are examples in the
> natural theology literature of the 18th and 19th centuries where not only are
> organisms said to be adapted to the environment but also the environment is
> said to be adapted to the organisms through divine design.  Was there any
> tradition of "linguistic theology" perhaps corresponding to natural theology
> that made arguments like this with respect to languages?

<deletions>

> Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

I've been asked to write a paper involving the history of the concept
of _adaptation_, and this sort of historical material would be very
interesting to me as well.  Any pre-1800 citations of the word
'adaptation' and/or the concept would be greatly appreciated.  One of
the points I'd planned to make is that Darwin gave the first
principled argument by which the direction of adaptation (i.e. in an
environment/organism adaptive fit, what was adapted to what?) could be
finally determined.  Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise claimed that
if you denied that plants' seasons were (divinedly) adapted to the
climate, then you had to affirm that the climate was adapted to the
plants' seasons.  Most of my examples of this (except for a bit of
Boyle and Ray) is post 1800.  Other citations would be welcome.

Ron Amundson
ronald@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
ronald@uhunix.bitnet

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:162>From J_LIMBER@UNHH.UNH.EDU  Wed Jan 26 21:38:03 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 22:44:59 -0500 (EST)
From: J_LIMBER@UNHH.UNH.EDU (JOHN LIMBER)
Subject: RE: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Regarding influences of climate and environment generally on the
differentiation of languages, its my impression that various 16th & 17th
century writers speculated on virtually everything that might conceivably
influence languages and national character, etc..  See, for example, the
references in Chambers (1946) Language and nationality in German Pre-Romantic
and Romantic thought. MOdern Language Review, XLI.

Brown (1967) reports "Despite the suggestive remarks of writers such as
Gottsched, Wincklmann, and Michaelis, however, the first full statement of the
relationship between environment..and language is found in the writings of
Herder..."concerning Diligence in Several Learned Tongues..in which he traced
the differing qualities of languages to both climate and the customs of
nations who spoke them...

The idea that language is a living entity--prevalent at this time--lends itself
directly to theories of environmental influences and "evolutionary" processes
shaping specific languages from the original Babel.

"Thus transformed itself this plant--human speech--according to the soil that
nourished it and the celestial air tht drenched it became a Proteus among the
nations." [Herder (1755) in Brown, p.74]

Brown (1967) W.v.Humboldt's conception of linguistic relativity. Mouton's Janua
Linguarm series minor.

Condillac, too, responding to Locke, talks about the "genius of languages"--as
if this is a common topic.  For example he says, after giving some example "not
in the least doubt but I shall be contradicted..I have frequently met with
persons who look upon all languages as equally ADAPTED for all kinds of
writing..

etc.

John Limber, Psychology, University of New Hampshire

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:163>From bjoseph@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu  Wed Jan 26 21:59:18 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 23:07:22 EST
From: Brian D Joseph <bjoseph@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Posting re language adaptation

Just to throw in my two-cents on the question posed by the list
owner, let me raise the question of what it would mean for a
language to be adapted to the regions they were spoken in?

I know that the claim has been made in the past, as Tom Cravens
has already pointed out, that climate might have an effect on the
way speakers might articulate the sounds of their language and thus
lead to change in pronunciation.  One such claim that I remember
hearing, though I cannot recall the source, is that the nasalized
vowels of French are the result of the damp climate in France, but it
is hard to take that seriously, given the number of languages with
nasalized vowels that are or were spoken in different climates (e.g.
Portuguese, Old Church Slavonic, Sanskrit, among many others)
and the natural (i.e. physiologically-based) source of vowel
nasalization in French (and most languages with nasal vowels) as
spreading of nasality of a nasal consonant onto an adjacent vowel
(French nasalized vowels in general, for instance, derive from
sequences of vowel plus [n] or [m] in Latin).

Still, even if (counterfactually) the French nasalized vowels were
the result of the climate in which the language was spoken, I submit
that this is not quite the same as saying that the language, as if it
were some sort of organism, adapted to the regions it was spoken
in. Wouldn't such a view require there to be something beneficial
*to the language*, as opposed to the speakers, in the putative
adaptive change?  It is hard for me to see what value for the
language as a system, for example, there would be in such a
change.

This "organism" view of language is easy to take, and linguists
tend to talk, perhaps metaphorically, as if language were an
organism, but I feel it is important to realize that in a certain sense,
a language exists through its speakers, and doesn't have an
existence completely separate from its speakers/users (exception
must be made, of course, for so-called "dead" languages, and for
the fact that a certain degree of abstraction is necessary in
conceiving of language as a system, hence my qualification, "in a
certain sense", above).

I realize that Bob O'Hara was not necessarily advocating such a
view, and don't mean to seem as if I am taking him to task for that.
His question just provided me with an opportunity to interject this
note.

For the record, and by way of introduction, I am a professor of
linguistics at The Ohio State University, and am a practicing
historical linguist (specializing in Greek (especially Medieval and
Modern Greek), Latin, Sanskrit, and Indo-European in general); I
joined the list a few weeks ago and have been interested in the
discussions I have followed silently so far.  (Forgive me if this is longer
than the average posting; it is my first, after all.)

Brian D. Joseph
Dept. of Linguistics
222 Oxley Hall
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH  43210-1298

bjoseph@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:164>From CRAVENS@macc.wisc.edu  Wed Jan 26 22:41:29 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 94 22:49 CDT
From: Tom Cravens <CRAVENS@macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: Posting re language adaptation
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I've just realized that I've never introduced myself, even though I
joined Darwin-L a couple of months ago. I'm an historical linguist with
specialization in Romance, primarily Italian (very much including dialects)
and secondarily in Spanish, with interest focused most tightly on theory of
sound change, and thus--relevant to the List lately--on both divergence and
convergence. I'm an associate professor in the Dept of French and Italian,
University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I thank Bob O'Hara immensely for starting this List, which is the most
stimulating I've seen.

Tom Cravens
cravens@macc.wisc.edu
cravens@wiscmacc.bitnet

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:165>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Thu Jan 27 00:05:32 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 01:16:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: January 27 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

JANUARY 27 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1873: ADAM SEDGWICK dies at Cambridge, England.  A mathematics graduate of
Trinity College, Cambridge, Sedgwick became a fellow of Trinity in 1810 and
Woodwardian Professor of Geology in 1818.  Enormously influential on an entire
generation of British geologists through his field work and his teaching,
Sedgwick counted among his students the young Charles Darwin who accompanied
him on a geological expedition to north Wales in 1831.  Interested especially
in the oldest fossiliferous strata, Sedgwick devoted much of his energy to the
elucidation of the rock system he named "Cambrian", summarizing his views in
_A Synopsis of the Classification of the British Palaeozoic Rocks With a
Systematic Description of the British Palaeozoic Fossils in the Geological
Museum of the University of Cambridge_ (1851-1855).  He eventually became
engaged in a fierce dispute with Roderick Murchison who was investigating the
slightly younger rocks of the Silurian system.  An ordained Anglican minister
of liberal inclination, Sedgwick opposed Darwin's evolutionary views when they
were published in 1859 just as vigorously as he had opposed the views of the
naive scriptural geologists of the 1820s and 1830s.  After his death the
geological museum at Cambridge will be named the Sedgwick Museum in his honor.

Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L, an international
network discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.
For more information about Darwin-L send the two-word message INFO DARWIN-L to
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, or gopher to rjohara.uncg.edu (152.13.44.19).

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:166>From lgorbet@triton.unm.edu  Thu Jan 27 00:29:28 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 23:37:31 -0700
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: lgorbet@triton.unm.edu
Subject: Re: Posting re language adaptation

Brian Joseph wonders:

>Still, even if (counterfactually) the French nasalized vowels were
>the result of the climate in which the language was spoken, I submit
>that this is not quite the same as saying that the language, as if it
>were some sort of organism, adapted to the regions it was spoken
>in. Wouldn't such a view require there to be something beneficial
>*to the language*, as opposed to the speakers, in the putative
>adaptive change?  It is hard for me to see what value for the
>language as a system, for example, there would be in such a
>change.

No...not *beneficial*, just making it more likely to be passed on.  This
metaphor, it seems to me, is kinda like flowers (=languages) developing
features that insects or other animals which help pollinate them
(=speakers) "like".  It doesn't benefit the flowers *except in that they
are more likely to have offspring*.  A feature of a variety of a language
that makes it more easily learnable or whatever encourages its learning,
sociolinguistic spread perhaps, or in some other way may enhance the
likelihood that it persists to another generation.  Think of languages as
kinda parasites....

*  *  *
Larry Gorbet
University of New Mexico     lgorbet@triton.unm.edu
Anthropology Department      (505) 277-4524  OFFICE
Albuquerque, NM 87131-1086   (505) 883-7378  HOME

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:167>From azlerner@midway.uchicago.edu  Thu Jan 27 02:31:13 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 02:39:23 CST
From: "asia z lerner" <azlerner@midway.uchicago.edu>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: tools

	Have tools caused any noticable evolutionary change?  Or what changes
	might we expect because of technology?  I recall a sci-fi hypothesis
	that someday we'll be nothing more than brains in little scooters,
	because technology will make our limbs unnecessary.

:))

Isn't it rather obvious that we are physically inferior to apes, that we
can't run as fast, jump as high, have less stamina, etc... It does not
seem too unreasonable to assume that toolmaking had a "hand" in this, by
making purely physical attributes less critical to survival.

Asia

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:168>From bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu  Thu Jan 27 03:35:34 1994

From: bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Bayla Singer)
Subject: Re: tools
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 4:43:43 EST

I cannot agree with asia lerner that we are physically inferior to apes!
We most certainly can run as fast, and jump as high, as, say, gorillas &
chimps... physically fit humans are pretty awesome in their capabilities.
Just because so many of us academics aren't among the phsycially fit, is
no reason to generalize to the species :-)

Brachiating, now, -that- might be a contest the apes would win.

Which brings one to a second point: fitness is relative to the lifestyle
of the species in question.  We're not as hairy as our ancestral forms,
either: does that make us less fit?  Have we really lost survival and/or
reproductive fitness because of our nakedness?

--bayla singer   bsinger@eniac.seas.upenn.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:169>From margaret@ling.edinburgh.ac.uk  Thu Jan 27 05:19:05 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 10:58:59 GMT
From: Margaret Winters <margaret@ling.edinburgh.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

H. Pedersen's _Linguistic Science in the 19th Century_ (around
1945?) has a good account of theories of language development
linked to climate, etc.  Germanic languages, for example, have
Grimm's law (fairly radical changes in the consonant system
from Proto-Indo-European) because the languages were spoken
by energetic people having to do with a harsh climate and many
mountains.  Now that I am living in Edinburgh (Germanic and
Celtic), I can almost believe it!  Pedersen is a good source,
seriously.

                             From a new address for six months,
                                    Margaret Winters

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:170>From peter@usenix.org  Thu Jan 27 07:14:03 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 05:21:48 PST
From: peter@usenix.org (Peter H. Salus)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: RE: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics

In a negative sense, Condillac (Essai sur l'Origine des Conoissances
Humaines... [Amsterdam 1746], p. 201; chap. xv) specifically
states that the climate isn't the basis of language.  In the
article on Onomatopoeia in the Encyclopedie, de Brosses
attributes the oldest divergences among languages to the
difference in climate.  This may be the first instance.

Peter

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:171>From mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca  Thu Jan 27 07:20:40 1994

From: mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca (Mary P Winsor)
Subject: human fitness
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 08:28:34 -0500 (EST)

As to how effective people are, in the animal department, J.J.
Rousseau in his 1755 essay on the origin of human inequality
(civilization is the villain, he says, primitive humans being equal,
if brutal) argues with anecdotal examples that a fit man can outdo,
indeed terrify, animals which city folk think of as ferocious.
Polly Winsor  mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:172>From @SIVM.SI.EDU:IRMSS668@SIVM.SI.EDU  Thu Jan 27 07:30:26 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 08:37:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Felley <IRMSS668%SIVM.BITNET@KU9000.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: tools
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Comments on the action of selection in human populations have
incorporated the concept of "fitness" (as in -- my paraphrase--
"3rd-world populations are more fit than populations in developed
countries, because they have more children").  Fitness is a
measure of an individual allele's reproductive success in a particular
environment, relative to other versions (alleles) of that gene.
Note that an allele may endow its carrier with the ability to produce
lots of offspring (some of which may carry that allele), but the
survival of those offspring will be determined by the environment in
which they live.  Fitness is thus the lonely link between population
genetics and ecology.  So, proceeding from this, two points:
(1) Fitness as a (relative) measure applied to genomes or individuals is
strictly an average based on the alleles constituting that genome or
individual.  Fitness cannot be compared between organisms that cannot
share genes, so it is never valid to state that "one species is more
fit than another."
(2) Fitness (at whichever level of organization you wish to speak)
cannot be validly compared in two populations that face different
environments.  An allele that confers a reproductive advantage in
the 3rd-world environment might confer a disadvantage in a developed-
world environment.  Remember, "fitness" is a _population_ genetic
character.

Brief intro:
   My background is in fish biology, including fish genetics,
morphology and ecology.  Currently, I with the computer office at
the Smithsonian Institution, where I do statistical consulting,
multimedia development, computer mapping, and am currently involved
with implementing aspects of the SI online library catalog.
   Also, I have actually met and had lunch with the great Bob O'Hara,
the originator of this discussion list, a discussion list fast
becoming my favorite!
                                      Jim

      #%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#
      %                                                           %
      #     James D. Felley, Computer Specialist                  #
      %     Room 2310, A∧I Building, Smithsonian Institution      %
      #     900 Jefferson Drive, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20560     #
      %     Phone (202)-357-4229   FAX (202)-786-2687             %
      #                    EMAIL:  IRMSS668@SIVM.BITNET           #
      %                            IRMSS668@SIVM.SI.EDU           %
      #%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#%#

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:173>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU  Thu Jan 27 07:33:20 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 07:33:20 -0600
From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: tools

In message <9401270839.AA09186@midway.uchicago.edu>  writes:

> Isn't it rather obvious that we are physically inferior to apes, that we
> can't run as fast, jump as high, have less stamina, etc... It does not
> seem too unreasonable to assume that toolmaking had a "hand" in this, by
> making purely physical attributes less critical to survival.

I find this an interesting statement, but one that I do not find so obvious.
Are we slower, etc. than the apes? Granted, it is not fair to compare Olympic
athletes to run-of-the-mill apes, nor should we consider only American couch
potatoes. The athletes are self-selected to be atypical of our species. The
couch potatoes are reflective of an undemanding lifestyle made possible by
culture but not a genetic adaptation to culture. Anthropological has been
explicit in arguing that humans have _more_ stamina than other mammals. We may
not be as fast as a gazelle, but I don't have the impression that we lag much
behind apes. Does anyone have any hard data on this?

JOHN H. LANGDON                email   LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY          FAX  (317) 788-3569
UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS     PHONE (317) 788-3447
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46227

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:174>From ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu  Thu Jan 27 09:17:26 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 10:27:38 -0500
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu (Jeremy Creighton Ahouse)
Subject: re language adaptation

>I know that the claim has been made in the past, as Tom Cravens
>has already pointed out, that climate might have an effect on the
>way speakers might articulate the sounds of their language and thus
>lead to change in pronunciation.

        Just to muddy the waters a bit.  There is interesting evidence that
birdsong can be correlated with the structure of the acoustic environment.
The songs chosen tend to carry well in the local environment (chirps in a
thicket and screeches in open areas (e.g. crows)).  This work was done in
part by playing white noise through an environment and seeing what was
getting through and noticing that this correlated with the spectrum of the
songs being sung there.  (There must also be constraints in sound
production, and reception that effect this transaction.)

        - Jeremy

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:175>From mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca  Thu Jan 27 09:34:15 1994

From: mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca (Mary P Winsor)
Subject: RE: human fitness
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu (bulletin board)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 10:42:08 -0500 (EST)

I apologize for this morning's poorly-phrased message
about Rousseau.  What I meant to offer, in reply to the
discussion about whether humans are "fitter" (!!) - tougher
faster, can win in hand-to-hand combat with, another ape
[we all know that is not what either Darwin or modern biologists
mean by "fitter"]  - was this historical footnote: Rousseau
was of course familiar with this very old notion.
 Surely every culture has a myth about the maker of people
saying, "your eyes are less sharp than the eagle's, you are
less fleet than the deer, but I give you such cleverness that
you are king of them all."
 Rousseau objected that the weak-animal thesis may be true of
civilized humans, it ain't true of ones who live closer to nature.

That's an historical footnote.  How clever of Bob O'Hara to lump
together evolutionary biologists, geologists, linguists...as users
of historical method.  And to spice it all up, he includes history,
that is, the historical development of these fields.  That introduces
still another dimension altogether.
 That dimension I make use of myself when I teach Darwinism: I
tell the true story of how Darwin on the Beagle was impressed
by Lyell's geological method, and beautifully practiced it
to explain the formation of coral reefs.  That was the equivalent
of his doctoral dissertation, and that training in method was what
he then applied in his search for a cause or organic change.  So I
use a true story to explain what Darwin's method was.

But every historical story doesn't have such a clear pedagogic
use or moral.  I forwarded the purely historical query, "who
introduced the idea that tools put a stop to human biological
development?" without meaning to raise the quite separate
issue, "how did the invention of tools affect human evolution?"
I took it for granted that the idea of tools stopping evolution
is outmoded, that is, they might affect the direction of evolution
- which characters are selected for - but the only way to stop
evolution is either to eliminate all variation or open the floodgate
of unlimited population growth, so nobody fails to reproduce.

Polly Winsor (=Mary P. Winsor) Univ. of Toronto
mwinsor@epas.utoronto.ca

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:176>From JMARKS@YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU  Thu Jan 27 09:44:59 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 10:40:46 EST
From: Jon Marks <JMARKS@YaleVM.CIS.Yale.edu>
Organization: Yale University
Subject: Re: tools
To: Multiple recipients of list <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>

Basically, I think the situation is: if the Bills or the Cowboys were playing
the Chimps, you'd want to have your money on the Chimps.  They're stronger and
faster.  However, since they use their forelimbs in locomotion, they'd
probably fumble a lot.  And since their brains are small, you could probably
confuse them with zone coverage, and trick them into jumping offsides.
    Just my facetious way of saying humans are very variable, and in the ways
in which we have diverged from the apes we have gotten "better" in some
variables and "worse" in others.  It all sums to zero, doesn't it?  If it
didn't, we'd have orthogenesis.
         --Jon Marks

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:177>From erast@iozb.tartu.ee  Thu Jan 27 10:08:36 1994

To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: Erast Parmasto <erast@iozb.tartu.ee>
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 03:50:32 +0200 (EET)
Subject: Introduction

I am an old member of the DARWIN-L group (since Sept, 1993) but
have not yet introduced myself. - I am a mycologist (possibly
the only one in this list?), an old hand at systematics of a
big group of wood-rotting fungi (Hymenomycetes, esp. Corticiaceae)
who began as a typical representative of half-intuitive 'evolution-
ary taxonomy' in sixties and is up to his ears in cladistics now.
There are more than 1,300 species in this group, and this good number
rises a lot of method(olog)ical problems. Prevailing 'system' of
this group is alphabetical ordering nowadays.
   I have been a research associate since 1955 but am also a
1/4-time professor at Tartu University, and have enjoyed the privilege
to read courses on what I am fond of but not obliged to read.
Among these there is a course I have read some five years to under-
graduate students in biology under different headings: 'Foundations
of Scientific way of Thinking', 'Introduction to Science(s)',
'Methodology of Science(s)', 'What is Science?'.
   There is shortage in literature on this subject in Estonian
libraries (we have shortage of anything, however; Estonia has been
included to the list of _developing_ countries), and no ONE good book
for them. So I teach them to read articles (in Estonian) scattered in
several journals - including some on semiotics, general system theory,
logics, cybernetics, ethics, theology, ∧c. For myself, the best book
I appreciate is A.F. Chalmers' "What is this thing called Science"
(2nd Ed., reprinted 1992; Open University Press); hopefully a translation
of it will be published in Estonian this year.
   Now there is a question for anybody. I have seen an ad:
   "Science as a Way of Knowing. The Foundations of Modern Biology" had
to be published by the Harvard UP in 1993. I tried to see it using
interlibrary loan system but was told recently that there is no copy
of it in all Scandinavian libraries.
   - Has anybody seen it; WHAT a book it is?
   I'm sorry my English is not very good; anyway, this text has been
checked by GRAMMATIC IV Vers. 2.0; consequently, all orthographic, stylistic
and grammatical mistakes are not mine but its (his?) fault.

Erast Parmasto, Prof., D.Sc.             Phone: +372 3477175
Institute of Zoology & Botany,           Fax:   +372 3433472
   Estonian Academy of Sciences          Internet: erast@iozb.tartu.ee
21 Vanemuise St.
EE 2400 Tartu
Estonia

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<5:178>From boisei@liverpool.ac.uk  Thu Jan 27 10:21:23 1994

From: "Dr. C.G. Wood" <boisei@liverpool.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: tools
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 15:55:43 +0000 (GMT)

Tool use may be a 'bonus' that us lot developed following the acquisition
of bipedalism (but don't quote me on this - tools and walking are
palaeoanthropology's equivalent of "the chicken and the egg"). I just thought
I'd mention that, if the discussion turns to the relative energetic merits
of quadrupedalism and bipedalism, that I could supply a list of recent papers
references by a chap called Peter Wheeler which deals extensively with this
subject and gives strong evidence from aspects of thermoregulation etc.

Chris

--

    |==================================================|
    |                                                  |
    |   Chris Wood                                     |
    |   Hominid Palaeontology Research Group           |
    |   Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology   |
    |   University of Liverpool                        |
    |   P.O. Box 147                      ||           |
    |   Liverpool L69 3BX                /  \          |
    |   United Kingdom                /--\__/--\       |
    |                                <  0 /\ 0  >      |
    |   Tel: +51 794 5516              \  []  /        |
    |   Fax: +51 794 5517               [____]         |
    |                                   BOISEI         |
    |                                                  |
    |==================================================|

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<5:179>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu  Thu Jan 27 10:58:42 1994

To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 12:05:53 -0500
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>

   I didn't read email yesterday, so I'm sure I won't be the first
linguist to have the pleasure of responding to Bob O'Hara's question
about whether linguists ever made claims about particular languages
being adapted to their speakers and/or homelands, but I can't
resist commenting: the answer is emphatically yes, and the literature
on the subject is great fun to read.  A good source to start with
is Otto Jespersen's book LANGUAGE (1921, if I recall the date
correctly): Jespersen doesn't believe any of the wild old theories,
but he's close enough to them chronologically that he takes them
seriously enough to answer them.  When I have time (which I
usually don't, unfortunately), I go over some of his examples and
counterexamples in
my introductory historical linguistics class, in the section on
causation of sound change: The Germanic consonant shift (which
featured, among other changes, stops becoming fricatives --
p t k > f th x) happened because the Germanic peoples got weak
and soft and couldn't pronounce the harsh stops any more; the
High German Consonant Shift (which happened later, starting in
the south of German-speaking territory, where the mountains
are, and which featured partly similar changes) happened because
people got so out of breath running up mountains that they
couldn't get the complete stops right, and could only gasp out
fricatives; harsh climates breed harsh consonant systems (like
the Caucasus, with all those wild consonants) -- Jespersen
responds that Eskimo territory is pretty harsh in the climate,
but Eskimo has only quite gentle sounds; etc., etc.

   Then there was the very strong 19th-century view that a
really good language, like Latin or Greek or (especially, maybe)
Sanksrit, was a language with lots of inflectional endings;
the modern European languages, with their decayed inflectional
systems (compared, of course to highly inflected ancestors),
showed moral as well as linguistic decay.

   Those are probably the most famous sorts of claims.  The
reason there are more theories about causes of sound change
probably has to do with the fact that historical linguists
have always known a lot more about sound change than about
any other kind of linguistic change -- that's the area where
most of the data and most of the theory is.  (Of course there
is even more information, in a way, about lexical change, but
not a lot of theories.)  Another big category of speculation
doesn't pertain to linguists' speculation, but to laymen's:
the theories about what the world's oldest language is.  There
you get popular prejudices of various kinds about language --
e.g. Andreas Kemke's theory that, in the Garden of Eden, God
spoke Swedish (Kemke was a Swede), Adam spoke Danish, and the
serpent spoke French.

   Sally Thomason
   sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:180>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu  Thu Jan 27 11:25:50 1994

To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Posting re language adaptation
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 94 12:33:25 -0500
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>

   Brian Joseph asks what it would mean for a language to be adapted
to a particular climate.  I don't have a real example of that,
but I do know of one serious paper that suggests that the
idea of language being influenced by geography is not necessarily
entirely silly: Ian Catford, in the 1974 Chicago Linguistic Society
volume, has an article about the possibility that voicing of
consonants might be disfavored in languages whose speakers live
high up in high mountains (such as the Caucasus); his argument
has to do with the greater difficulty of achieving the right
subglottal pressure -- I may have this garbled, I haven't reread
the article for some time -- to get phonetic voice, i.e. vibration
of the vocal cords.  Catford didn't claim that the effects of
altitude would dictate lack of voiced consonants, but rather that
there might be a tendency to devoice originally voiced consonants
in a language whose speakers moved high up into the mountains.

    Sally Thomason
    sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:181>From canary@cs.uwp.edu  Thu Jan 27 13:23:53 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 13:27:12 -0600 (CST)
From: Bob Canary <canary@cs.uwp.edu>
Subject: intro
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I've been reading this list for a month or so.  I used to co-edit a little
journal called CLIO, and my co-editor and I also edited a book for the
UWis press on THE WRITING OF HISTORY.  I haven't actively worked on these
issues for a while, but I spent my sabbatical last semester partly in
taking up an old project on the poetics (Aristotelian) of history as a
genre of writing.  In any case, I've enjoyed the discussions on this list,
which seem to be conducted on a more rational basis than many Internet
groups I've sampled.

Bob Canary, UW-Parkside, canary@cs.uwp.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:182>From Robert.Richardson@UC.Edu  Thu Jan 27 13:27:09 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 14:33:16 -0500 (EST)
From: "Bob Richardson, University of Cincinnati" <Robert.Richardson@UC.Edu>
Subject: Aristotle on Cyclic History
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Bob O'Hara asks about a passage from Toulmin and Goodfield concerning Aristotle
on cyclical time.  The passage is this one:

  Even the rise and fall of civilizations might perhaps conform to the
  same overall rhythm.  In this connection, both Aristotle and Plato toyed
  with an attractive and sweeping hypothesis.  Once every few thousand
  years, the Sun, Moon and planets returned to the same relative positions,
  and began to follow out again the same sequence of configurations; so
  perhaps the rhythm of political fortunes also had its own definite period,
  keeping the recurring cycles of social change in step with the motion of
  the Heavens. If that were so (Aristotle remarked) then he himself was
  living _before_ the Fall of Troy quite as much as _after_ it; since, when
  the wheel of fortune had turned through another cycle, the Trojan War
  would be re-enacted and Troy would fall again.  (_The Discovery of Time_,
  pp. 45-46)

Toulmin and Goodfield evidently have this passage in mind from the *Problems*:

	"As those who lived in the time of Troy are prior to us, so are those
who lived before them prior to them and so on ad infinitum?  Or since there is
a beginning and a middle and an end of the universe, and when a man, as he
becomes old, reaches the limit and turns again towards the beginning, that
which is nearer to the beginning is earlier, what prevents our being nearer to
the beginning than to the end, in which case we should be prior?  Just as the
course of the firmament and of each of the stars is a circle, why should not
also the coming into being and the decay of perishable things be of such a kind
that these things again come into being and decay?  This agrees with the saying
that 'human life is a circle'.  To demand that those who are coming into being
should always be numerically identical is foolish, but one would more readily
accept that they were identical in kind.  And so we should ourselves be prior,
and one might suppose the arrangement of the series to be such that it returns
back in a circle to the point from which it began and thus secures continuity
and identity of composition.  For Alcmaeon declares that men perish because
they cannot link together the beginning to the end--a clever saying, if one
supposes that he uses it metaphorically and the literal meaning is not insisted
upon.  If then human life is a circle, and a circle has neither beginning nor
end, we should not be prior to those who lived in the time of Troy nor they
prior to us by being nearer to the beginning" (Book XVII, chapter 2).

There are several problems with the attribution.  First, the work
is not Aristotle, though it was once attributed to him.  Second, it does not
seem to be true that even this says what Toulmin and Goodfield say of it.  It
seems, instead that what is contemplated is that something the same in kind
could come into being more than once.  It's a long way to cyclical views of
time, or cyclical views of history, from that.

Aristotle does occasionally discuss the fact that we measure time by cyclical
motion, though that is again hardly a commitment to cyclical views of time.  He
also discusses Troy in several other places, including the Physics 222a25 and
222b 13.  None of these have anything that is plausibly read as dealing with a
cyclical view of time as I read them.  In fact, Aristotle's own view seems
pretty clearly linear as in this passage again from the Physics:

"Just as motion is a perpetual succession, so is time" (219b10).

There is nonetheless a clear discussion of time as cyclical and as created in
Plato's Timaeus in some passages which look to me to be inspired by Pythagoras
and Parmenides around 34-38.  These also carry a unique discussion of time as
created with motion.

Bob Richardson & Larry Jost
Richards@UCBEH.San.UC.edu and Richards@UCBEH.Bitnet

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:183>From ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu  Thu Jan 27 15:32:48 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 16:42:53 -0500
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu (Jeremy Creighton Ahouse)
Subject: what evolution is...

        In reading a recent post to the sci.bio.evolution newsgroup I came
across an introductory essay by Chris Colby (colby@bio.bu.edu).  It
included the following:

>WHAT IS EVOLUTION?
>
>Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A
>gene is a hereditary unit that can be passed on unaltered for numerous
>generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or
>population. The English moth, _Biston__betularia_, is a frequently
>cited example of observed evolution. In this moth there are two color
>morphs, light and dark. Black moths, which initially were rare,
>increased in frequency as a result of their habitat becoming darkened by
>soot from factories. Birds could see the lighter colored moths more
>readily and ate more of them. The moth population changed from
>mostly light colored moths to mostly dark colored moths. Since their
>color was primarily determined by a single gene, the change in
>frequency of dark colored moths represented a change in the gene pool.
>This change was, by definition, evolution.

..

>WHAT ISN'T EVOLUTION?
>
>For many, evolution is equated with morphological change, i.e.
>organisms changing shape or size over time. An example would be a
>dinosaur species evolving into a species of bird. It is important to note
>that evolution is often accompanied by morphological change, but this
>need not be the case. Evolution can occur without morphological
>change; and morphological change can occur without evolution. For
>instance, humans are larger now than in the recent past, but this is not
>an evolutionary change. Better diet and medicine brought about this
>change, so it is not an example of evolution. The gene pool did not
>change -- only its manifestation did.

        My question to the good members of the Darwin list is; when did
this identification of evolution with changes in gene frequencies become
entrenched/started/is it changing?

        My sense in reading of Darwin and other 19th century writers is
that evolution is precisely concerned with changing morphology and the
notion of a "tree of life."

        I am not as happy about the triumphant move that makes evolution
coextensive with gene frequency changes as the current story seems to be.
I wonder if this is another move in the hegemonic accretion of terms by
molecular biology/genetics or if this idea has a different historical
origination.

        Was the identification of evolution with gene frequencies the key
insight (or trade) that made the new synthesis possible and the one that
left the developmental view out (Ron Amundson?).

        Thanks,
                Jeremy

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:184>From 00HFSTAHLKE@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu  Thu Jan 27 15:59:24 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 16:55:25 -0500 (EST)
From: 00hfstahlke@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu
Subject: Re: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

There was wide-spread opinion in African comparative linguistics,
lasting well into the mid-20th century, that a sizable group of
languages had the properties they had because of the nature of their
speakers.  This opinion was held largely by adherents to the Hamitic
and Nilo-Hamitic hypotheses, hypotheses that fell, interestingly, as a
result of Greenberg's highly successful work on the classification of
African languages.  Greenberg argued that the term Hamitic, as
used in Hamito-Semitic or Semito-Hamitic, suggested that the
non-Semitic languages of what he calls Afro-Asiatic are a genetic
linguistic grouping collateral to Semitic.  There is no evidence to
support such a genetic grouping within Afro-Asiatic.  The Nilo-Hamitic
languages turned out to be largely Nilotic and shared no significant
cognates with Hamitic.

An article appeared in the Journal of African History in the early
1970's, I believe--I don't have the reference handy--that traced the
theological and historical roots of the term Hamitic and its
linguistic and anthropological use to the so-called "curse of Ham" in
the Hebrew flood story.

Herb Stahlke

============================================================================
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D., Associate Director   (317) 285-1843
Consulting and Planning Services                   (317) 285-1797 (fax)
University Computing Services                      00hfstahlke@bsuvc.bsu.edu
Ball State University, Muncie, IN  47306           hstahlke@bsu.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<5:185>From 00HFSTAHLKE@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu  Thu Jan 27 16:14:13 1994

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 17:10:35 -0500 (EST)
From: 00hfstahlke@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu
Subject: Re: History of "adaptation" in historical linguistics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

On the term Hamitic, no less a comparativist that Carl Meinhof, whose
comparative Bantu work was a model of the application of
Neo-Grammarian methods to non-Indo-European langauges, advocated a
version of the Hamitic hypothesis.  There has been a suggestion that
he was doing this under National Socialist influence, but I don't know
how much substance there is to that claim.  It is possible that he
adopted the hypothesis because nothing else seemed to work at the
time.

By way of introduction, I'm an Africanist specialized in West African
Niger-Congo languages.  I do some comparative work and also some
phonology, but these days I do mostly academic computing
administration.

Herb Stahlke

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Darwin-L Message Log 5: 141-185 -- January 1994                             End