Darwin-L Message Log 1: 41–80 — September 1993

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 September 1993. 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 1: 41-80 -- SEPTEMBER 1993
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DARWIN-L
A Network Discussion Group on the
History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu is an international network discussion group on
the history and theory of the historical sciences.  Darwin-L was established
in September 1993 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 academic professionals in these fields.
Darwin-L is not restricted to evolutionary biology nor to the work of Charles
Darwin but instead addresses the entire range of historical sciences from an
interdisciplinary perspective, including evolutionary biology, historical
linguistics, textual transmission and stemmatics, historical geology,
systematics and phylogeny, archeology, paleontology, cosmology, historical
anthropology, historical geography, and related "palaetiological" fields.

This log contains public messages posted to Darwin-L during September 1993.
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 archives of Darwin-L by
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.  For instructions on how to retrieve copies of
this and other log files, and for additional information about Darwin-L, send
the e-mail message INFO DARWIN-L to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.

Darwin-L is administered by Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu), Center for
Critical Inquiry in the Liberal Arts and Department of Biology, University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A., and it
is supported by the Center for Critical Inquiry, University of North Carolina
at Greensboro, and the Department of History and the Academic Computing Center,
University of Kansas.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:41>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Mon Sep  6 21:11:09 1993

Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1993 22:17:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Greetings from the sponsor
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Greetings again to all the subscribers to Darwin-L.  We have been open for
only three days now, and are about to pass the 200 subscriber mark.  Like any
rapidly growing creature we will suffer an occasional growing pain over the
next few days.  With so many new people coming on board so fast a degree of
confusion is inevitable.  I ask your indulgence and patience as we welcome
the new members and become accustomed to one another.  Tomorrow should be a
busy day for new subscriptions as it is the first working day in the United
States since the list opened (today is "Labor Day", a national holiday), and
many people will be seeing the announcements of Darwin-L for the first time.
Our members thus far come from over twenty countries.  As I mentioned
earlier, I will send out another general welcome in a day or two in a effort
to set a general tone for the group.  My hope is that we will be able to have
many thoughtful and well-focussed discussions here on a great variety of
issues in the historical sciences, and that we will discover many common
interests and problems that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

A special feature of Darwin-L, "Today in the Historical Sciences", will debut
tomorrow.  This will consist of a series of occasional notices of important
anniversaries relating to our many fields, birthdays of noteworthy historical
scientists, and so on.  I hope you will enjoy it.

A number of people have sent personal introductions of a paragraph or two to
the list, and the diversity of our group is wonderful: geologists, linguists,
anthropologists, archeologists, classisicts, historians and philosophers of
science, evolutionary biologists, and many others. I invite those of you who
have not yet introduced yourselves to do so if you wish; silent lurkers are
welcome to remain silent as well.

Anyone who has just signed on and would like to see the many introductions
that have already been posted may request a copy of the Darwin-L log file
which contains all messages sent to Darwin-L thus far.  This file is
maintained automatically by the listserv software; it is simple ASCII, and
also includes a fair amount of junk like all the message headers and several
test messages as well.  I hope in the future to clean these files up for
better reading, but they are available now as they are.  To get the log file
send a one-line e-mail message to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu that reads:

   GET DARWIN-L 9309

The general syntax of the command is:

   GET <listname> <filename>

DO NOT send this message to Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, but rather to
listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, the address of the listserv program.

If you would like to see the list of current subscribers you can also send a
one-line message to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, this time reading:

   REVIEW DARWIN-L

I am taking note of some of the problems people have been having, and of the
undocumented options that are available, and will try to work them into a
revised welcome message at some point in the future.

Many thanks to all of you for your interest in Darwin-L.

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.

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<1:42>From rom@anbg.gov.au  Mon Sep  6 22:17:35 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 13:19:27 EST
From: rom@anbg.gov.au (Bob Makinson)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: intro from Australia (phylogenetic botany)

Keywords:  botany, phylogenetics, Proteaceae, Grevillea, geology,
biogeography.

Greetings all on Darwin-L.  My name is Bob Makinson.  I am the
Curator of the Herbarium at the Australian National Botanic Gardens,
in Canberra.

My research interests relate to plant evolution and phylogeny,
particularly in the Proteaceae (a major Gondwanan family).  Having
recently completed co-authorship of an alpha-taxonomic revision of
the genus Grevillea (the third largest plant genus in Australia), I
am now engaged in a follow-up study of the subgeneric phylogeny
(using cladistic methods) and biogeography of that genus.

I have amateur interests also in geology and in human cultural and
political history and prehistory.

An appreciation of change and stasis over evolutionary time is fairly
essential in the context of the Australian flora, given that the
continent has been substantially biologically isolated for most of
the last 60-80 million years.  The basic lack of orogenic activity in
that time has resulted in relatively few depositional environments
(implying firstly a rather sparse fossil record, and secondly a very
slow rate of formation of new soils and soil surfaces).  Much of the
sclerophyll vegetation of Australia has evolved in low-nutrient
situations on very old leached soil horizons, and these edaphic
conditions, together with past ebbs and flows of aridity, have
apparently governed patterns of speciation and distribution over very
long periods, providing a temporal mosaic of static and dynamic
domains with (presumably) corresponding selection pressures.

The possibilities for conceptual reconstruction of past edaphic and
vegetational regimes, from the fragmentary evidence provided across
an eroding continental surface, is fascinating me more and more, and
I will have to be careful not to lose focus on the central
phylogenetic point of the project.  Plus I have only a fairly basic
degree of geological literacy.

I am particularly interested in hearing from geologists and
biogeographers with insights into such patterns in Australia and the
Australasian region.

If I can assist with contacts etc in Australian botany or related
fields I will be pleased to help.

Bob Makinson
7 Sept 1993

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<1:43>From @VM1.NoDak.EDU:PX53@SDSUMUS.SDSTATE.EDU  Mon Sep  6 22:32:06 1993

Date: Mon, 06 Sep 93 22:36:03 CDT
From: PAUL J JOHNSON <PX53@SDSUMUS.SDSTATE.EDU>
To: <darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu>
Subject: intro

I don't have much to say at this time - I've got 3 classes this
semester!  So, I'll just read for awhile, at least until someone
says something really on a limb.

My name is Paul J. Johnson, and I'm a new ass. prof. at South Dakota
State University.  Since academic auto-grooming seems to be part of
the initiation rites, I should note that I have a B.S. from Oregon
State Univ., a M.S. from the Univ. of Idaho, and a PhD from the Univ.
of Wisconsin-Madison <there, I feel better!>.

My research specialty is insect systematics and museum curation & mgt.
I work primarily with beetles, especially the larvae of click beetles`
and pill beetles.  I also get deep in paleoentomology and biogeography,
and am currently working a phylogenetic/biogeographic problem involving
genus-level endemics found on the old Greater Fiji platform; presently
including Fiji, Tonga, and Vanuatu.  I also am big into faunal studies,
even though they are passe by the younger crowd.

My only meager input at this time is to comment on a couple of remarks
concerning "cladistics."  It seems evident that at least some persons
have the mistaken impression that cladistics approaches a philosophy in
its own right.  Yes, cladistics is an invaluable tool for elucidating
relationships of taxa, yet it remains merely a methodology, a tool.
Thus, its use in deriving relationships between organic taxa or language
groups is equally valuable.  Only the misuse and misinterpretation of
procedures and assumptions can be questioned.  If one must subscribe to
some level of philosophy with regard to cladistic methodology, then you
should go back to Hennigian phylogenetics, the birthright of cladistics.
Or, better yet, go on back through the entire historical development of
Willi's ideas, which were not novel, only clearly congealed.

With that, I ask only that subscribers be careful of jargon from their
own specialties and interests; after all, communication is the name of
the game.

And, for those beginning the debate on social evolution, how about that
of biologists.

  "We sat on a crate of oranges and thought what good men most
biologists are, the tenors of the scientific world - temperamental,
moody, lecherous, loud-laughing, and healthy.  Once in a while one comes
on the other kind - what used in the university to be called a `dry-ball
'- but such men are not really biologists.  They are the embalmers of
the field, the picklers who see only the preserved form of life without
any of its principle.  Out of their own crusted minds they create a
world wrinkled with formaldehyde.  The true biologist deals with life,
with teeming boisterous life, and learns something from it, learns that
the first rule of life is living.  The dry-balls cannot possibly learn
a thing every starfish knows in the core of his soul and in the vesicles
between his rays.  He must, so know the starfish and the student
biologist who sits at the feet of living things, proliferate in all
directions.  Having certain tendencies, he must move along their lines
to the limit of their potentialities.  And we have known biologists who
did proliferate in all directions: one or two have had a little trouble
about it.  Your true biologist will sing you a song as loud and off-key
as will a blacksmith, for he knows that morals are too often diagnostic
of prostatitis and stomach ulcers.  Sometimes he may proliferate a littl
e too much in all directions, but he is as easy to kill as any other
organism, and meanwhile he is very good company, and at least he does
not confuse a low hormone productivity with moral ethics.

      -- J. Steinbeck & E.F. Ricketts,
       Sea of Cortez. . .

Cheers

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:44>From jacobsk@ERE.UMontreal.CA  Mon Sep  6 22:35:06 1993

From: jacobsk@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Jacobs Kenneth)
Subject: Re: Evolution and Change, Take II
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 23:33:42 -0400 (EDT)

Robert Guralnick  on Mon, 6 Sep 1993 17:49:35 -0500, writes:

>...Is evolution somehow different from change over time?  Are
>these terms synonymous?  ...  Here is my own take on the matter.
>Evolution implies more than change over time; it implies some kind
>of ordering of change.  In weaker moments, I consider evolution a
>necessary outgrowth of information systems.  Does evolution imply
>direction?  For example, we have no notion, even in Biology, where it
>has been studied best, of devolution, while change in time implies that
>we could go back to primitive states.

1-  If evolution = ordering of change, would there then be *no*
"evolution" in a biological system upon which there were no selective
pressures, but in which mutations continued apace?  It seems to me that
such a restriction on the use of the term would fly in the face of one of the
more commonly understood connotations of the term.  That evolution
should/must produce "order from chaos" seems a holdover from the way
in which the term was first used in embryology, to describe the "unfolding"
of the pre-ordained organism (these etymological roots of "evolution" are
clearer in most non-English languages; Peter Bowler has some good stuff
on this).  More 19th century roots are showing too in the commonplace
that directionality is part of evolution,"Progress" and all that being so
important in the Victorian world view.

2-  I wonder about your notion that change in time implies the
ability to return to primitive states.  Are you suggesting that evolution,
in contrast, does not imply this?  It seems to me that it might almost be
the reverse.  Historical change is change in time, yet because historical
events are complex sets of huge quantities of unique factors (personalities,
environments, etc etc), "reversing time" so as to revert to a prior moment
in history---a previous [hence, more primitive] state---seems highly im-
probable if not impossible.  Yet reverting to a previous genotype occurs all
the time with back mutations, while only technological hassles for the most
part [at least in principle, and ignoring lost DNA information] impede back
breeding to species such as the East-European steppe horse or the aurochs.

In any case, just some thoughts too late at night to keep the discussion
going.

Cheers,
	Ken Jacobs
jacobsk@ere.umontreal.ca

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:45>From BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU  Mon Sep  6 22:48:58 1993

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 23:50:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Evolution and Change

Robert Guralnick's suggestion that evolution means ordered change, or
at least that was part of his suggestion, leaves me a little unhappy.
As I age, I see an ordered pattern of change, but I think of it more
as degeneration than evolution.  A homeostatic process is ordered, but
not evolutionary, if by evolution we wish to imply some kind of cumula-
tive pattern.  I get the feeling that "evolution" has a teleological
(no longer a bad word in systems theory) or progressive implication,
and we are caught with a word that may or may not fit real processes.

This is why I try my best to avoid the term, prefering "emergent process,"
which arguably can be related to decreasing entropy, the movement from
a more to a less probable state.  I contrast this with "dissipation,"
which I use to refer to a process of increasing entropy.  So a constrained
dissipation offers a thermodynamic engine of the emergence of improbable
structures, which in turn constrain dissipation.  The unity and interde-
pendence of two opposite processes, which I like to call a "contradiction."

Haines Brown (brownh@ccsua.ctstateu.edu)

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:46>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Mon Sep  6 23:11:54 1993

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 00:18:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: September 7 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

SEPTEMBER 7 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1707: GEORGES-LOUIS LECLERC, later COMTE DE BUFFON, is born at Montbard,
France.  He will become one of the most important scientific figures of
18th century France, doing work in optics, chemistry, mathematics, botany,
and geology, and publishing the encyclopedic _Histoire Naturelle_ in 36
volumes beginning in 1749.  Convinced that the earth began in a molten
state, Buffon will conduct experiments on the cooling of spheres of various
sizes in an attempt to estimate its age.  In _Epoques de la Nature_ (1779)
he will propose 75,000 years as the age of the earth, but in his private
manuscripts he will revise this to a more daring 3,000,000 years.

Today in the Historical Sciences is a feature of Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.
ukans.edu, a network discussion group on the history and theory of the
historical sciences.  E-mail darwin@iris.uncg.edu for more information.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:47>From tclarke@uoguelph.ca  Mon Sep  6 23:50:40 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 00:30:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Clarke <tclarke@uoguelph.ca>
Subject: A reply to ordered changes
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

   I'm not sure where the concept that evolution means ordered change
 came from in this list, but I don't think that I can agree with this
 new definition.  Evolution, in a biological sense, is simply a change
 in allele frequencies through time.  In a non-biological sense it can
 be taken as simply change through time.  No order is implied, or even
 necessary.  As Jacob Kenneth stated, ordered change presupposes that
 there is a predestined end result, and that the organism or system is
 simply progressing upon a well defined pathway to reach this end result.

  Evolution is rarely as neat and clean as some would have it - selection
 preassure can produce a 'desired' outcome, but it can also produce a lot
 of unthought of outcomes that still satisfy the main requirement of
 selection - survival.  Look at the selection preassure on parasitic
 wasps to find hosts - as well as the most obvious result, that of
 increased host-detection systems and modified ovipositors to reach
 host insects and lay eggs within them, there are the novel approaches
 taken by such families as the Perilampidae, which utilize active first
 instar larva that seek out their host, and the Trigonalidae which lay
 large numbers of eggs on the leaves of plants in hopes that they will
 be eaten by a parasitised caterpillar.  From a single selection preassure,
 the need for host insects, the parasitic wasps have produced a great
 diversity of reproductive strategies.  Nothing particularily ordered
 about it.

   As well, even without selection preassure there can be change
 through random loss of alleles that would fix new traits within a
 population.  In this especially there is no sign of order - what
 traits emerge through genetic drift are entirely up to random chance.
 (I'm not sure how this would apply to non-organic systems).

  Anyway, its past midnight over here, so I'll stop writing...

 ...it will be interesting to see where this discussion heads.

   -Anax-

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:48>From mperry@BIX.com  Tue Sep  7 00:24:35 1993

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 01:14:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: mperry@BIX.com
Subject: Re: Evolution and Change, Take II
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I have read the comments of the group with interest and enthusiasm regarding
change en evolution.  As a prehistoric archaeologist I am quite interested
in culture change amongst semi-arid and arid hunters and gatherers and
the effect widespread climatic change and animal extinctions had on change
from both a physical and ideological perspective.  It is known that the
locations of both archaeological and ethno-historic sites changed markedly
after a more marked evolutionary shift.  My interest is in whether this
widespread evolutionary shift caused patterns of change amongst small,
nomadic groups in the desert west.  The introduction of species such as
the horse often has dramatic cultural ramifications for groups such as
the Plains hunters.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:49>From CRAYJOHN@CC.UTAH.EDU  Tue Sep  7 01:16:03 1993

Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1993 10:19 MST
From: CRAYJOHN@CC.UTAH.EDU
Subject: Re: An Introduction
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

My name is Katharine Coles (Kate).  I am a poet and fiction writer
with a Ph.D. in English literature and creative writing.  However,
I also have a deep and abiding interest in the sciences, particularly
the relationship between science and culture/the humanities.  Much of
my creative work, especially in poetry, examines issues arising from
these relationships.

I teach creative writing and English literature at Westminster College
in Salt Lake City.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:50>From acvascon@ibase.br  Tue Sep  7 05:28:08 1993

From: acvascon@ibase.br
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 07:28:39 BRA
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Pattern without Process

   Is it possible to produce a natural classification without any knowledge
about the process of evolution of a group?

   Some "noise" arises when one says that a cladogram is not a phylogenetic
tree. It is quite simple to put apart the ancestrality of a group, but doing
so we are not making our analysis to be so closed in spirit and cold???

   Can we access the pattern of evolution without the process?????

  **********************************
  Alberto Correa de Vasconcellos
  R. Pereira da Silva, 140/301
  Laranjeiras   Rio de Janeiro
  22221-140  Rio de Janeiro  Brasil
  E-mail: acvascon@ax.ibase.br
  **********************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:51>From basil@ovisun.ovi.ac.za  Tue Sep  7 05:51:07 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 12:52 EET
From: basil@ovisun.ovi.ac.za (Basil Allsopp)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Order and evolution

To consider evolution as ordered change surely implies that the observer
decides what constitutes order?  Think about all those flightless birds which
evolved on isolated islands.  From the point of view of saving energy when
flight was "unecessary", given the absence of predators, it was an ordered
change.  Enter men/rats/snakes and the point of view alters drastically.

---
Basil Allsopp                       |  E-mail basil@ovisun.ovi.ac.za
Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute  |
Private Bag X5                      |  Phone  +27 12 5299385
Onderstepoort 0110                  |
South Africa                        |  Fax  +27 12 5299431

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:52>From ramsden@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca  Tue Sep  7 06:51:38 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 07:50:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Ramsden <ramsden@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>
Subject: Re: Ray on Taxonomy
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

RE: Tom Clarke's message about taxonomy, 2 points:

1.  Congrats, Tom: the list is barely 48 hours old, and you have
introduced the first jarring note: The list has been 'taken over' ???!!!

2.  It may well be that natural taxonomies or phylogenies exist,
independently of human perception, but as a scientist, how would you test it?

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:53>From SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU  Tue Sep  7 08:16:38 1993

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 09:18:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU
Subject: Re: A reply to ordered changes
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

  And in addition to the idea of orderly change is the assumption of
progress (however that may be defined), but what about the possibility of
random chance in evolution?
Ray, eku
soslewis.acs.eku.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:54>From barryr@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU  Tue Sep  7 10:00:28 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 08:03:15 PDT
From: barryr@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU (Barry Roth)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: intros

Modesty may compel Bob O'Hara, but I am under no such constraint.  I have found
two of his publications (1988, Homage to Clio, or, toward an historical philo-
sophy for evolutionary biology.  Systematic Biology 37:142-145; 1992, Telling
the tree: narrative representation and the study of evolutionary history.
Biology & Philosophy 7:135-160.) _exceedingly_ helpful in my studies of the
systematics and evolution of land snails.  They have helped me form a critical
perspective on much of what is circulating today under the label "evolutionary
biology."  Thanks, Bob!

 Barry Roth
 Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley
 barryr@ucmp1.berkeley.edu    Phone: (415) 387-8538

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:55>From BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU  Tue Sep  7 10:56:43 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 11:57:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: RE: A reply to ordered changes

Anax,

I agree fully with each of our points, although I was too tired and it
was too late for me to make them so clearly.  I regret your not having
sent your message to the list, for it makes what I think are fundamental
points.

What I was trying to add is that there is an apparent conflict between
the meaning of evolution in the standard theory of evolutionary biology,
to which you refer, and the connotations we give the word in casual con-
versation.  Recognizing that the term has valuable use in the biological
context, I did not want to confuse the inplications it aquires there with
our notion of historical change in other fields.  That's why I prefer the
term "emergent process," which has specific overtones foreign to the
standard model of biological evolution.

Having made my point, though, I must confess to a foggy area about which
I am ignorant because I have had too little time to study it, even as a
raw amateur.  This foggy area can be articulated in thermodynamic terms,
harmlessly, I hope.  To be specific, environmental dissipation are the
engine of speciation, let's say.  That is, in time we see new species
arising.  Each species is a specific form and therefore relatively im-
probable, and thus each species represents a decrease in entropy.  But
our concern in evolution is not the emergence of one species, I suppose,
as the emergence of many species.  Now if, over a certain period of time,
new species emerged at the same rate as old species died out, then the
entropy of that process would be constant (if biomass increases, of
course, then entropy for the total biomass would go down).  Now, during
the whole span of life on earth, there has been an aggregate speciation
and increase in biomass, and so entropy has gone down.  In that sense,
then, evolution does imply a decrease of entropy.  To put it very simply
and crudely, there was originally no life and now there is a lot of it,
and so between then and now, there has been a pattern of change.

Not being a biologist, I don't know, but I imagine that it would be
hazardous to assume that there is a linear progression in the number
of species on earth.  I suspect the problem with my reasoning above is
not that it is untrue, but that it is too crude, too broad and general,
virtually tautological, to have any use or significance.  So let me
suggest another point: even if we DID find some pattern of change (and
some biologists think they may have found one or two), it does not
necessarily follow that that pattern is particularly useful in biolo-
gical science or informative.

I see things as an historian.  It occurs to us today that world history
seems to be an emergent process (comes up with novelties and its fu-
ture course is unpredictable).  This could be said of standard biological
evolution as well, and in that sense world history simply manifests
changes, not regular change.  But there is more to human capacities to
do work have increased at an accelerating pace, which in other terms
means a capacity to determine our own destiny, what de Chardin called
the noosphere, I think.  The task of the historian, then, or at least
the macro historian, is to explain this.  What is the engine of history;
in what sense is historic consciousness the cornerstone of human liberty;
etc.  That is, the historian brings to an evolutionary process a set of
questions or assumptions that may be alien to biology, with some mis-
understanding between disciplines.  This is the point I tried to make.

Not being a biologist, I have greater latitude in bending biological
terms, I suppose.  In history, for example, we speak of "revolutions,"
for example, which traditionally are seen as critical junctures or
phase shifts in a progressive process (there has been some skepticism
about this in Western circles as the twentieth century has proceeded).
But in origin, the word revolution was not progressive at all, referring
simply to  the turning of the wheel of fortune, returning one to one's
point of origine despite any efforts to achieve process.  Despite the
literal meaning of the word "revolution,", then, historians happily
ignore it to give it quite different implications.  I'm willing to be
liberal about "evolution," too, as long as everyone knows exactly what
they mean by it.

Haines Brown (brownh@ccsua.ctstateu.edu)

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:56>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Tue Sep  7 11:14:17 1993

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 12:20:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Greetings and a plea from the sponsor
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Greetings to the new Darwin-L subscribers.  This group is only four days old,
and we have grown _much_ faster than I expected, both in subscribers and in
mail volume.  Already we have nearly 250 members.  I will be sending a more
thorough general welcome to everyone in a day or two.  At the moment I would
just like to issue a plea to everone to be patient while we endure some
growing pains, and to exercise a degree of restraint in the use of the
"reply" button.  I am hoping that this group will become a center for
serious, informed academic discussion of issues in the historical sciences.
My worst nightmare is that it might turn into another talk.origins; I will
not allow that to happen, and will pull the plug before it does.
(talk.origins is a usenet discussion group on evolution. The level of
discourse there is very low, and if you have never read it you should
consider yourself blest.)  (Incidentally, if anyone here does read
talk.origins, I do _not_ want Darwin-L to be announced there.)

As the mail volume on Darwin-L already appears to be fairly high, subscribers
may wish to know that they can receive their mail in "digest" form: the
listserv program will collect together all the mail sent to the group each
day and forward it to you as a single long message.  That way when you check
your mailbox each day you will have only one message from Darwin-L instead of
several. If you are having trouble handling the volume of mail this might be
a useful approach to take.  To receive your mail in digest form send the
following one-line message to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu:

   SET DARWIN-L MAIL DIGEST

As usual, DO NOT send this message to Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, but
rather to the listserv program, listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

The list is currently set up so that the "reply" function on most mail
systems replies to the group as a whole rather than to the original sender of
the message.  I am considering changing this so that replies are
automatically sent to the original sender rather than to the whole group.
Most list owners find that this enhances the level of the discussion, and
cuts down on the number of "spur-of-the-moment" replies.  Anyone with strong
feelings one way or the other about this is invited to mail me privately
(darwin@iris.uncg.edu).

I thank you all for your interest in the group.

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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:57>From davidp@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU  Tue Sep  7 11:46:56 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 09:49:43 PDT
From: davidp@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU (David Polly)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: re: Tom Clark's statement on ordered change

Why does ordered change imply some predestined end?
David Polly
davidp@ucmp1.berkeley.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:58>From msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu  Tue Sep  7 13:22:41 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 13:26:56 -0600 (CDT)
From: Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Subject: re: Tom Clark's statement on ordered change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

On Tue, 7 Sep 1993, David Polly wrote:

> Why does ordered change imply some predestined end?

An excellent, pointed question. The 'order' imposed upon most evolutionary
processes is millions of years out of context, based upon scant, perhaps
even rudimentary contextual evidence. Implications of predestinations,
'ends' or 'purposes' are culture-bound products of that imposition of
order. Orthogenetic proposals almost always involve predestined ends, and
have little utility in establishing contextual explanations of selective
processes.

Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Stillman College

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:59>From GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU  Tue Sep  7 15:41:32 1993

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 15:43:06 -0500 (CDT)
From: GGALE@VAX1.UMKC.EDU
Subject: Re: Evolution and Change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

An extremely useful account of change vs. evolution vs. progress, and
all the other synonyms, is to be found in "The Concept of Biological
Progress", by Francisco Ayala, in _Studies in the Philosophy of Biology_,
Ayala and Dobzhansky, U.C. press.

An even more general discussion, perhaps more useful because of it, is
William Dray, _Philosophy of History_, Prentice-Hall, Ch. 5.

Most philosophers agree that "progress" or its cognates requires as
necessary conditions  change + direction + positive evaluation of the
direction.

It's a reaaaallll hard case to make out, as I'm sure most of you already
know.

Oh--intro: I teach philosophy of biology, but do research in history of
cosmology.

Regards to all!
George
ggale@vax1.umkc.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:60>From tclarke@uoguelph.ca  Tue Sep  7 16:08:42 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 16:57:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Clarke <tclarke@uoguelph.ca>
Subject: A reply to Ramsden
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

On Tue, 7 Sep 1993, Peter Ramsden wrote:

> RE: Tom Clarke's message about taxonomy, 2 points:
>
> 1.  Congrats, Tom: the list is barely 48 hours old, and you have
> introduced the first jarring note: The list has been 'taken over' ???!!!

 - merely an observation on the high level of historians, archeologists
 etc. that cared to introduce themselves on the system.  For a while, the
 discussion on evolution seemed to be veering away from evolution in a
 natural history sense.

> 2.  It may well be that natural taxonomies or phylogenies exist,
> independently of human perception, but as a scientist, how would you test it?

 Cladistical methods and a lot of research into morphology and behavior...
 As I stated, the interrelationships between groups of organisms exist
 independant of humanity - The overwhelming majority of them predate
 the first sentient ape.  When we try to figure out these relationships
 mistakes can occur - it is at this stage that human perception comes
 into play.

 To infer that a phylogeny requires human perception to exist is to
 infer that humanity has willed into being 4.5 billion years of earth history
 just to satisfy the need for an explanation of the origin of present day
 life.  (or to keep taxonomists employed).  I would argue that that
 concept falls out of the range of science, and more into the field of
 theology.

  -Anax-

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:61>From BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU  Tue Sep  7 18:24:21 1993

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 19:25:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: re: Tom Clark's statement on ordered change

That directed or teleological processes imply a subjective criterion
of measurement is a point make eloquently a long time ago by Gaylord
Simpson.  But I don't know if it is true.  I believe that systems theory
some time ago managed to show that self-steering systems behave as if
directed, but this does not imply a metaphysical Telos outside the pro-
cess itself.  The climate, for example, is a self-steering homeostatic
process that does not imply a Telos.

My second post is that cosmic increase in entropy means that directed
change is inherent in all things.  A century ago we had vitalistic
theories that deservedly received subsequent criticism.  But when we
define things in a way that places them in a causal relation with
their environment, then we are defining them as processes.  No vitalism
as all.  And since the universal process is increasing entropy, we have
a universal measure of direction, just as we do of time, which is either
increasing or decreasing entropy.  No subjective judgement here in the
sense above.

My third point is that an important school of scientific philosophy
urges that we start with the world of experience and devise terms that
enable us to understand that world, rather than start with metaphysical
categories and then struggle to reconcile the world with those categor-
ies.

Haines Brown (brownh@ccsua.ctstateu.edu)

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:62>From DEWAR%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Tue Sep  7 21:46:13 1993

Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1993 22:32:02 -0500 (EST)
From: DEWAR%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU
Subject: Re: A reply to Ramsden
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

This follows Tom Clarke's response to Peter Ramsden on one point:"natural phylo
genies or taxonomies". First, taxonomies by definition are classifications and
therefore human and not natural products.  In other words, mother nature is pr
obably not to blame for the number of genera in the class Aves. Second, if phyl
ogenies are to be understood as natural, then a first step is to discover the n
atural ordering of its units.  While we all agree (I think) that the most basic
unit is the species, why can't we agree on what a species is?  Is it defined by
 the "biological species concept", the "recognition concept", or the "phylogene
tic species concept"?  If the choice of method of recognizing a species is conv
enience for a particular method of analyzing phylogeny, does it correspond cert
ainly to a "natural" choice?

 Robert E. Dewar Dept. of Anthropology
       University of Connecticut

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:63>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Tue Sep  7 23:06:19 1993

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1993 00:12:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Basic phylogenetics bibliography
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Am glad to see the discussion of phylogeny and classification here, as that
is a special interest of mine, and something I've done quite a bit of work
on.  I will give an extended reply shortly (have to prepare for tomorrow's
classes at the moment), but in the mean time I will post for everyone's
perusal a short bibliography on contemporary phylogenetics (the reconstruc-
tion of evolutionary trees).  This is one of several such bibliographies I
plan to put up on ukanaix for everyone to retrieve, though at the moment I am
powerless to do that myself and have to depend upon the Kansas computer
folks to help me.  The topics of phylogeny and classification have been
treated very extensively in the systematics literature in recent years, and I
hope I will be able to provide some insight on current views in the field.
(Or at least on my views.)  :-)

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
darwin@iris.uncg.edu

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

WORKING BIBLIOGRAPHY: PRINCIPLES OF CONTEMPORARY SYSTEMATICS.  Version of
January 1993.  Compiled by Robert J. O'Hara (rjohara@iris.uncg.edu), Center
for Critical Inquiry in the Liberal Arts and Department of Biology,
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina 27412,
U.S.A.  This is not an exhaustive bibliography, but rather a short list of
recent works that can introduce students to some of the central ideas of
contemporary systematics.  This bibliography may be freely distributed in
print or electronically as long as the references and this header remain
intact.


INTRODUCTORY WORKS ON PHYLOGENY RECONSTRUCTION AND CONTEMPORARY SYSTEMATICS

de Queiroz, K.  1988.  Systematics and the Darwinian revolution.
Philosophy of Science, 55:238-259.

Felsenstein, J.  1988.  Phylogenies from molecular sequences: inference and
reliability.  Annual Review of Genetics, 22:521-565.

Maddison, D. R.  1991.  Chapter 11 in: Mayr, E., and P. D. Ashlock.  1991.
Principles of Systematic Zoology (second edition).  New York: McGraw-Hill.

Maddison, W. P., and D. R. Maddison.  1989.  Interactive analysis of
phylogeny and character evolution using the computer program MacClade.
Folia Primatologica, 53:190-202.

Maddison, W. P., and D. R. Maddison.  1992.  MacClade (version 3).
Sunderland: Sinauer Associates.

O'Hara, R. J.  1988.  Homage to Clio, or toward an historical philosophy
for evolutionary biology.  Systematic Zoology, 37:142-155.

Sober, E.  1988.  Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and
Inference.  Cambridge: MIT Press.

Swofford, D. L., and J. Olsen.  1990.  Phylogenetic reconstruction.  Pp.
411-501 in: Molecular Systematics (D. M. Hillis and C. Moritz, eds.).
Sunderland: Sinauer Associates.

Wiley, E. O., D. Siegel-Causey, D. R. Brooks, and V. A. Funk.  1991.  The
compleat cladist: a primer of phylogenetic procedures.  University of
Kansas Museum of Natural History, Special Publication 19.


WORKS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PHYLOGENETIC (HISTORICAL) KNOWLEDGE TO BIOLOGY

Baum, D. A., and A. Larson.  1991.  Adaptation reviewed: a phylogenetic
methodology for studying character macroevolution.  Systematic Zoology,
40:1-18.

Brooks, D. R., and D. A. McLennan.  1991.  Phylogeny, Ecology, and
Behavior: A Research Program in Comparative Biology.  Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.

Burghardt, G. M., and J. L. Gittleman.  1990.  Comparative behavior and
phylogenetic analysis.  In: Interpretation and Explanation in the Study of
Behavior: Comparative Perspectives M. Bekoff and D. Jamieson, eds.).
Boulder: Westview Press.

Coddington, J. A.  1988.  Cladistic tests of adaptational hypotheses.
Cladistics, 4:3-22.

Felsenstein, J.  1985.  Phylogenies and the comparative method.  American
Naturalist, 125:1-15.

Fink, W. L.  1982.  The conceptual relationship between ontogeny and
phylogeny.  Paleobiology, 8:254-264.

Harvey, P. H., and M. D. Pagel.  1991.  The Comparative Method in
Evolutionary Biology.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Huey, R. B.  1987.  Phylogeny, history, and the comparative method.  Pp.
76-98 in: New Directions in Ecological Physiology (M. E. Feder, A. F.
Bennett, W. Burggren and R. B. Huey, eds.).  Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Lang, M.  1990.  Cladistics as a tool for morphologists.  Netherlands
Journal of Zoology, 40:386-402.

Lauder, G. V.  1982.  Historical biology and the problem of design.
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 97:57-67.

McLennan, D. A.  1991.  Integrating phylogeny and experimental ethology:
from pattern to process.  Evolution, 45:1773-1789.

Ronquist, F., and S. Nylin.  1990.  Process and pattern in the evolution of
species associations.  Systematic Zoology, 39:323-344.

Stiassny, M. L. J.  1992.  Phylogenetic analysis and the role of
systematics in the biodiversity crisis.  Pp. 109-120 in: Systematics,
Ecology, and the Biodiversity Crisis (N. Eldredge, ed.).  New York:
Columbia University Press.

Vane-Wright, R. I., C. J. Humphries, and P. H. Williams.  1991.  What to
protect?  Systematics and the agony of choice.  Biological Conservation,
55:235-254.

Wanntorp, H.-E., D. R. Brooks, T. Nilsson, S. Nylin, F. Ronquist, S. C.
Stearns, and N. Wedell.  1990.  Phylogenetic approaches in ecology.  Oikos,
57:119-132.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:64>From minaka@ss.niaes.affrc.go.jp  Wed Sep  8 00:34:30 1993

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 14:28:25 +0900
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: minaka@ss.niaes.affrc.go.jp
Subject: Intro from Japan

Greetings from Japan!

My name is Nobuhiro Minaka. I am a senior researcher of the National
Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences (Laboratory of Statistics),
Tsukuba. I am interested in mathematical problems in systematic biology,
especially in phylogenetics and morphometrics. My doctoral dissertation
(University of Tokyo, 1985) is an order-theoretical formalization of
cladistic theory.

My main interest is algebraic properties of the _MPR-space_ (the set of
Most Parsimonious Reconstructions) estimated on a given cladogram.
Reconstructing hypothetical character states is an important problem in
phylogenetic analysis and in character analysis. Enumerating all MPRs
(including ACCTRAN and DELTRAN) does not lead automatically to a
satisfactory description of those MPRs. I am now writing papers on MPR and
MPR-space.

I am also working on the Japanese translation of Dr Elliott Sober's
_Reconstructing the Past_ (MIT Pr., 1988).

Nobuhiro Minaka
Sept 8, 1993
******************** Nobuhiro Minaka *********************
* Laboratory of Statistics,                              *
* Division of Information Analysis,                      *
* National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences.     *
* ------------------------------------------------------ *
* ADDRESS: Kannon-dai 3-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki305, Japan. *
* PHONE: 0298-38-8222;   FAX: 0298-38-8199               *
* E-mail:  minaka@niaes.affrc.go.jp [Internet]           *
**********************************************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:65>From msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu  Wed Sep  8 06:50:31 1993

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 06:53:13 -0600 (CDT)
From: Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Subject: re: Tom Clark's statement on ordered change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

On Tue, 7 Sep 1993, BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU wrote:
....... <omitted material>
>
> My second post is that cosmic increase in entropy means that directed
> change is inherent in all things.  A century ago we had vitalistic
> theories that deservedly received subsequent criticism.  But when we
> define things in a way that places them in a causal relation with
> their environment, then we are defining them as processes.  No vitalism
> as all.  And since the universal process is increasing entropy, we have
> a universal measure of direction, just as we do of time, which is either
> increasing or decreasing entropy.  No subjective judgement here in the
> sense above.
>
> My third point is that an important school of scientific philosophy
> urges that we start with the world of experience and devise terms that
> enable us to understand that world, rather than start with metaphysical
> categories and then struggle to reconcile the world with those categor-
> ies.

The borrowing of entropy theory from thermodynamics and its application
to organic sciences is not a new idea - Freud and other behavioral scientists
often resorted to entropy as a 'direction' when they needed to inject some
focussed order into their theories. Freud's 'death wish' grew from his
importation of entropy from the physical sciences.

My concern here is that the implied use of entropy at a "cosmic" level to
supply evolutionary "direction" can amount (for some theoreticians) to a new
form of orthogenetic "grand scale" interpretations of much more mundane
events. Natural selection occurs within very limited ecological niches, and
it seems to me that entropy theory only clouds a much more straightforward
relationship between organisms and their environment.

As for the process of categorization itself, empiricism is a relatively new
but _sine qua non_ epistemological basis for all western sciences. In
fact, empiricism defines western science to such an extent that all
classifications tend to be either empirical or "unscientific." The trend in
evolutionary sciences has been to inject systematic processes into the
skeletal models provided by Linneaus and others at the dawn of empirical
classification. While the early systematists may have been biassed toward
the grand Scala Naturae of churchmen, the increasing systematization of
the original "Chain of Being" has hopefully eliminated the implicit
"progressiveness" of that model. "Systematics" is a much better term than
"classification" since it implies an empirical concern with how things
work rather than merely what they look like.

Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Stillman College

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:66>From abrown@independent.co.uk  Wed Sep  8 07:10:04 1993

From: Andrew Brown <abrown@independent.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 12:11:36 BST
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: hello

I am the religious affairs correspondent of the Independent newspaper
in London, England. I also edit its computer page. None the less, it is
a professional operation: a broadsheet competing with the Times and the
Guardian.

I'm interested in practically everything.
Andrew Brown

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:67>From ramsden@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca  Wed Sep  8 07:19:10 1993

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 08:14:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Ramsden <ramsden@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>
Subject: Re: A reply to Ramsden
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I guess you missed the point.  I didn't want to know how you test a
taxonomy - I want to know how test your proposition that some taxonomy is
independent of human perception.  You may also want to be a bit more
careful about confusing the concept of perception with the concept of
will.  Just because I create a perception of something doesn't mean that I
"will into existence" the phenomenon I'm perceiving, does it?  A bit more
care in throwing around labels like 'science' and 'theology' wouldn't be
out of place either

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:68>From REMANN@Augustana.edu  Wed Sep  8 07:21:18 1993

From: "GARY MANN" <REMANN@Augustana.edu>
Organization:  Augustana College - Rock Island IL
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 07:26:13 GMT-500
Subject: introduction

I have been following the introductions and am quite impressed with
the diversity of folks sharing their ideas on this list.  Perhaps I
am the first theologian among you all.  I am presently an Assistant
Professor of Theology at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL.  One
of my personal and professional passions is to be found in the
attempts to integrate theology and science, particularly in terms of
shared "models".  I am presently doing work in the area of
implications for theological systems and models of evolutionary
theory (biological, cosmological, and "mind").  I am a member of the
Chicago Center for Religion and Science.  I might not have a lot to
offer at first as I tend to take some time to get a feel of the list-
mates before I enter into the discussion.

gary mann
remann@augustana.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:69>From @VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU:RMBURIAN@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU  Wed Sep  8 08:11:05 1993

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 93 08:51:34 EDT
From: "Richard M. Burian" <RMBURIAN@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: Introduction (Richard Burian)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

 I've enjoyed observing the diversity of interests of the growing
membership of this list.  I am a philosopher and historian of biology,
with strong interests in three areas of biology -- development, evolu-
tion, and heredity (genetics) -- and their interactions.  I have done
some work on the analysis of the concepts employed in evolutionary
biology and genetics, the institutional and experimental factors invol-
ved in the transition from Mendelian to molecular genetics, the history
of Darwinism, and the treatment of theories and phenomena of heredity
among French biologists.  Partly because of a heavy workload (I direct
Virginia Tech's Center for the Study of Science in Society), I'm likely
to be more of an observer than a contributor to this list.  But I want
to join the chorus of thanks to Bob O'Hara for getting it going.  Thanks
Bob!              Dick Burian
                rmburian@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:70>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Wed Sep  8 13:36:56 1993

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1993 14:41:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Historical sciences bibliography
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Greetings again to all the new subscribers.  Here is another small selective
bibliography on the sciences of historical reconstruction.  It is not meant
to be exhaustive, but rather introductory.  The works cited below address the
range of scholarly topics that I hope we will be able to discuss on Darwin-L
as our group develops.  One of our members has requested brief annotations to
accompany the references.  This is a very good idea, and I will try to put
some in on the next revision.

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner
darwin@iris.uncg.edu

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A SAMPLE OF REFERENCES ON THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES, March 1993.

Compiled by Robert J. O'Hara, Center for Critical Inquiry in the Liberal
Arts, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina
27412-5001, U.S.A.  (Email: RJOHARA@UNCG.bitnet or RJOHARA@iris.uncg.edu.)
This list of references is in no sense complete, and it has not been compiled
with any special rationale in mind.  It is simply a listing of a few works
that can serve as introductions to the special character of the historical
sciences of evolution, geology, and philology.  It may be freely distributed
in print or electronically as long as the references and this header remain
intact.


Aarsleff, Hans.  1967.  The Study of Language in England, 1780-1860.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Albury, William R., & David R. Oldroyd.  1977.  From Renaissance mineral
studies to historical geology, in the light of Michel Foucault's The Order of
Things.  British Journal for the History of Science, 10:187-215.

Browne, Janet.  1983.  The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of
Biogeography.  New Haven: Yale University Press.

Brush, Stephen G.  1987.  The nebular hypothesis and the evolutionary world
view.  History of Science, 25:245-278.

Burrow, J.  1967.  The uses of philology in Victorian England.  Pp. 180-204
in: Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain (R. Robson, ed.).  London.

Christy, Craig.  1983.  Uniformitarianism in Linguistics.  Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.  (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic
Science.  Series III, Studies in the History of Linguistics, vol. 31.)

Ghiselin, Michael T.  1969.  The Triumph of the Darwinian Method.
Berkeley: University of California Press.  [Reprinted 1984, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.]

Gould, Stephen J.  1987.  Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle.  Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.

Gould, Stephen J.  1989.  Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of
History.  New York: Norton.

Greene, John C.  1959.  The Death of Adam: Evolution and its Impact on
Western Thought.  Ames: University of Iowa Press.

Haber, Frances C.  1959.  The Age of the World: Moses to Darwin.  Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hodge, Michael J. S.  1991.  The history of the earth, life, and man: Whewell
and palaetiological science.  Pp. 255-288 in: William Whewell: A Composite
Portrait (Menachem Fisch & Simon Schaffer, eds.).  Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hoenigswald, Henry M., & Linda F. Wiener, eds.  1987.  Biological Metaphor
and Cladistic Classification: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lyell, Charles.  1830-1833.  Principles of Geology.  London: John Murray.
[Facsimile reprint edited by Martin Rudwick, University of Chicago Press,
1990.]

Lyon, John, & Phillip R. Sloan, eds.  1981.  From Natural History to the
History of Nature: Readings from Buffon and His Critics.  Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press.

Miller, Hugh.  1939.  History and Science.  Berkeley: University of
California Press.

Nitecki, Matthew H., & Doris V. Nitecki, eds.  1992.  History and Evolution.
Albany: State University of New York Press.

O'Hara, Robert J.  1988.  Homage to Clio, or toward an historical philosophy
for evolutionary biology.  Systematic Zoology, 37:142-155.

O'Hara, Robert J.  1992.  Telling the tree: narrative representation and the
study of evolutionary history.  Biology and Philosophy, 6:255-274.

Oldroyd, David R.  1979.  Historicism and the rise of historical geology.
History of Science, 17:191-213, 227-257.

Rossi, Paolo.  1984.  The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth and
the History of Nations from Hooke to Vico.  Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.

Rudwick, Martin J. S.  1977.  Historical analogies in the geological work of
Charles Lyell.  Janus, 64:89-107.

Rudwick, Martin J. S.  1992.  Scenes from Deep Time: Early Pictorial
Representations of the Prehistoric World.  Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Shapiro, Barbara.  1979.  History and natural history in sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century England: an essay on the relationship between humanism
and science.  Pp. 1-55 in: English Scientific Virtuosi in the 16th and 17th
Centuries.  Papers read at a Clark Library Seminar, 5 February 1977 by
Barbara Shapiro and Robert G. Frank, Jr.  Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library, University of California.

Sloan, Phillip R.  1985.  From logical universals to historical individuals:
Buffon's idea of biological species.  Pp. 101-140 in: Histoire du Concept
d'Espece dans les Sciences de la Vie.  Paris: Fondation Singer-Polignac.

Sloan, Phillip R.  1990.  Natural history, 1670-1802.  Pp. 295-313 in:
Companion to the History of Modern Science (R. C. Olby et al., eds.).
London: Routledge.

Sober, Elliott.  1988.  Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and
Inference.  Cambridge: MIT Press.

Toulmin, Stephen E., & June Goodfield.  1965.  The Discovery of Time.  New
York: Harper & Row.  [Reprinted by University of Chicago Press.]

Trigger, Bruce G.  1989.  A History of Archaeological Thought.  Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:71>From DCHARLES@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU  Wed Sep  8 17:59:14 1993

Date: 7-SEP-1993 22:04:14.65
From: DCHARLES@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU
Subject: Ordered Change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

May I rephrase David Polly's question?  Why do the people that have commented
on ordered change tend to assume the pattern must arise in some future
predestination rather than via the constraints of structure and history?

Doug Charles
Dept. of Anthropology
Wesleyan University
dcharles@eagle.wesleyan.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:72>From acvascon@ibase.br  Wed Sep  8 18:36:11 1993

From: acvascon@ibase.br
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 20:36:36 BRA
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re:basic phylogenetics bib

  I`d like to add some references to Bob O`Hara`s list. The first two papers
should be of great value to those people whom are not much familiar with
the European view concerning cladistics methodology. They cannot be absent
from your own collection.

  Schmidt-Kittler, N. & Willmann, R. 1989. Phylogeny and the classification
   of fossil and recent organisms. Proceedings of a Symposium held at Mainz
   University in march 1988. Hamburg, Verlag Paul Parey, 300 p.

  Ax, Peter. 1987. The Phylogenetic System _  The systematization of organisms
   on the basis of their phylogenesis. J. Wiley, 340 p.

  The next reference is addressed to people intersted to have a bettter
understanding concerning the war "Cladism X Gradism". Take a look at the
"hot" climate during the meeting at Lawrence in 1977.

  Cracraft, J. & Eldrege, N. 1979. Phylogenetic analysis and paleontology.
   New York, Columbia University Press, 233 p.

  Proceedings of a Symposium entitled "Phylogenetic Models" convened at
the North American Paleontological Convention II, Lawrence, Kansas,
August 8, 1977.


  Cladistics: Is it Really different from Classical Taxonomy?

  p.200

 "The cladists seem, unfortunately, to have swallowed a rhymic
  dictionary rich in classic roots of all sorts, the resulting deposit
  has now fertilized a plague of toadstools, sprouting on our beautiful
  taxonomic lawn".

  p.201

 "As far as I can see, the only notable difference between the cladist and
  the ordinary taxonomist going about his or her business with those
  drawers of specimens is that the cladist makes a fuss about the cerebral
  process involved, presents a graphical taxonomic outline-a cladogram-
  and insists on interjecting references to Western philosophers of all
  stripes. (thank God they have not yet discovered the Eastern philosophers..."

  p.201

 "...cladistics is anything but that poor old, grubby Cinderella, taxonomy,
 dressed up in a snappy new outfit and ridind in a cladogram drawn by I am
 not sure what type of organism."

              Arthur J. Boucot


   Phylogenetic Analysis, Evolutionary models, and Paleontology

  p. 20

 "A detailed analysis of Simpson`s efforts is not necessary here. It will
  suffice to say that attempted to synthesize viewpoints that often had
  premises fundamentally opposed to one another. Not unexpectedly, Simpson`s
  main allegiances fell on the side of paleontological tradition, and he
  remained essentially a Darwinian gradualist. Simpson`s analyses are
  extremely complex, and my desire is not to reduce them to a few summary
  statments if that means a misrepresentation of his position".

               Joel Cracraft


    An Introduction to the Logic of Phylogeny Reconstruction

 p. 79

 "A student being introduced to systematic zoology finds that there are a few
  standard textbooks by widely esteemed individuals (e.g. Simpson and Mayr),
  and these are immediately read with great enthusiasm. They seem to explain
  what one sees systematics doing and claim to derive their success from the
  synthetic theory of evolution. However, sooner or later, depending on the
  vitality of the academic environment, the student realizes that a growing
  proportion of practicing animal systematists do not regard many of the ideas
  propounded by those authors very highly. Instead he or she is told to
  recant Simpson and Mayr and count himself with Sokal and Sneath or to
  recant Simpson and Mayr and split himself off as a disciple of Henning.
  Generally speaking, most students, may weigh each argument objectively but,
  in the end, seem to adopt the methodology of the people surrouding them".

               Eugene S. Gaffney

 *********************************
 Alberto Correa de Vasconcellos
 R. Pereira da Silva, 140/301
 Laranjeiras Rio de Janeiro
 22221-140  Rio de Janeiro Brasil
 E-mail: acvascon@ax.ibase.br
 *********************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:73>From SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU  Wed Sep  8 21:56:16 1993

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1993 22:58:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU
Subject: Re: Ordered Change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

  In response to David Polly's question one could also wonder why change
has to be orderly much less predestined. That is too much like classical
evolutionary theory.
  Ray, EKU

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:74>From rowilli@eis.calstate.edu  Wed Sep  8 22:07:56 1993

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 19:45:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Robert E. Williams Jr." <rowilli@eis.calstate.edu>
Subject: Re: A reply to Ramsden
To: Peter Ramsden <ramsden@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>

On Wed, 8 Sep 1993, Peter Ramsden wrote:

> >  Cladistical methods and a lot of research into morphology and behavior...
> >  As I stated, the interrelationships between groups of organisms exist
> >  independant of humanity - The overwhelming majority of them predate
> >  the first sentient ape.  When we try to figure out these relationships
> >  mistakes can occur - it is at this stage that human perception comes
> >  into play.

The suggestion that humanity has not played a part in selecting out and/or
influencing the interrelationships of organisms - especially if you refer
to "groups" of organisms - is questionable.  Many of the studied
interrelationships of organisms in the Central American rainforest
currently suggest active human selectivity of all present species.  The
duration of this activity is somewhat short compared to the 3 million
years humans have been interacting with and selecting out their needs from
the organic storehouse.

> >  To infer that a phylogeny requires human perception to exist is to infer
> >  that humanity has willed into being 4.5 billion years of earth history
> >  just to satisfy the need for an explanation of the origin of present day
> >  life.  (or to keep taxonomists employed).  I would argue that that
> >  concept falls out of the range of science, and more into the field of
> >  theology.

I'm a historical geographer that is interested in the study of human
influences on the biota. The discussions on this list so far are moving in
the direction I had hoped for when I signed on.

Robert Williams
rowilli@eis.calstate.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:75>From robg@fossil.Berkeley.EDU  Wed Sep  8 22:17:22 1993

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 20:18:10 PDT
From: robg@fossil.Berkeley.EDU (Robert Guralnick)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Ordered Change

	Does change need to be historically contingent?  If it does,
then are we not suggesting order?

Rob

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:76>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Thu Sep  9 00:28:55 1993

Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1993 01:35:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Welcome to all from the sponsor
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Greetings to all the members of Darwin-L.  This group was first announced
last Friday, and I have been overwhelmed by the response.  We now have over
340 subscribers from more than 20 countries.  I thank you all for your
interest, and for your patience during this period of intial growth when a
degree of confusion is inevitable.

My intention in establishing this group is to provide a forum for scholarly,
interdisciplinary exchange among practicioners, theorists, and historians of
all the historical sciences.  These fields -- historical geology,
evolutionary biology, archeology, historical linguistics, and cosmology,
among others -- are scattered today across a variety of departments at most
universities, but they all share the common goal of reconstructing the past
from evidence in the present.  My hope is that we will be able to have many
thoughtful and well-focussed discussions here on a great variety of issues in
the historical sciences, and that we will discover many common interests and
problems that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries.  Darwin-L is
not intended to be a forum for any particular specialized discipline,
although at times discussion will undoubtedly focus on certain areas more
than others.  Our aim is rather to identify the similarities and differences
_among_ historical disciplines; Darwin himself, for example, compared the
evolution of biological species to the evolution of languages, and Charles
Lyell introduced his _Principles of Geology_ by explicitly comparing
geological history with civil history; the early English naturalist and
antiquarian John Ray not only cataloged the fauna and flora of southern
England, but also the dialect variations of that region as well.  Some of the
best examples of this comprehensive view of the historical sciences are found
in the writings of the philosopher William Whewell, and I have appended two
quotations from him below.  Talking across disciplinary boundaries can
sometimes be difficult (Star Trek fans will understand if I say "Darmok and
Jelad at Tenagra"), but difficult things can be beautiful, and as long as we
maintain a considerate professional attitude toward one another I have no
doubt that we will succeed.

My own perspective on the historical sciences comes from my professional
background in evolutionary biology, and in particular in systematics, the
study of evolutionary trees.  My research has concerned the history and
theory of evolutionary trees as representational devices, and the nature of
historical explanation and inference in evolutionary biology.  I am also
collaborating with a manuscript scholar applying some of the techniques now
used in systematics for the reconstruction of evolutionary trees to the
reconstruction of the copying history of Medieval manuscripts.  Like
biological species, ancient and medieval manuscripts are commonly related to
one another through "descent with modification", and the computer software
developed for analyzing evolutionary trees turns out to work quite well for
the analysis of manuscript trees ("stemmata") also.

Because Darwin-L has grown so large the group has the potential to generate a
considerable volume of mail.  This makes it particularly important for people
to compose reasoned and well-focussed messages that will help to keep the
"signal-to-noise" ratio on the list as high as possible.  My worst nightmare
is that Darwin-L might turn into another talk.origins; I will not allow that
to happen, and will pull the plug before it does.  (talk.origins is a usenet
discussion group on evolution.  The level of discourse there is very low, and
if you have never read it you should consider yourself fortunate.  If anyone
here does read talk.origins, please do _not_ post an announcement of Darwin-L
there.)  Remember that many of the people here may already subscribe to
several other mailing lists in addition to Darwin-L, and may already have 20,
30, or more messages in their mailboxes each morning as it is.  I have
requested that the default reply-function for the list be changed so that
when you type "reply" after reading a message the reply will be sent to the
original sender rather than the list itself.  This should be taken care of
shortly.

I encourage new members to introduce themselves and say something of their
interests if they wish; many people have done this already, and we do indeed
have a remarkable group of professionals here: archeologists, geologists,
anthropologists, paleontologists, historians and philosophers of science,
systematists, linguists, classicists, and many others.  This is just what I
was hoping for.  Those who prefer to "lurk", as we say on the network, rather
than identify themselves, are of course welcome to do that as well.  I hope
to put a few lists of references on the historical sciences up on the ukanaix
computer shortly, and will let you all know when they become available.

One semi-regular feature we will have on Darwin-L is "Today in the Historical
Sciences".  This will consist of a series of occasional notices of important
anniversaries relating to our many fields, birthdays of noteworthy historical
scientists, and so on.  I hope you will enjoy it.

A note on the geography of Darwin-L itself is perhaps in order: I am a
postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and
the computer that runs Darwin-L is located at the University of Kansas in
Lawrence.  Prof. Lynn Nelson of the Kansas History Department has been kind
enough to serve as our network host, as Darwin-L fits in with a range of
history computing initiatives he is sponsoring.

To set our general theme I will offer here the two quotations mentioned above
from the 19th-Century English polymath William Whewell, one of the first
people who described and characterized all the historical sciences as a
group.  I had originally intended to name this group WHEWELL-L, but was
requested for computational reasons to come up with a name of fewer than
eight characters, hence DARWIN-L.  (Ah, the little things that alter the
course of history.) Whewell coined the unpronounceable term "palaetiological"
for our fields: the sciences of historical causation.  1994 will be the 200th
anniversary of Whewell's birth, and I think it's time to revive his
perspective on the historical sciences, though probably not his term for
them!  Here is Whewell:

"As we may look back towards the first condition of our planet, we may in
like manner turn our thoughts towards the first condition of the solar
system, and try whether we can discern any traces of an order of things
antecedent to that which is now established; and if we find, as some great
mathematicians have conceived, indications of an earlier state in which the
planets were not yet gathered into their present forms, we have, in pursuit
of this train of research, a palaetiological portion of Astronomy.  Again, as
we may inquire how languages, and how man, have been diffused over the
earth's surface from place to place, we may make the like inquiry with regard
to the races of plants and animals, founding our inferences upon the existing
geographical distribution of animal and vegetable kingdoms: and this the
Geography of Plants and of Animals also becomes a portion of Palaetiology.
Again, as we can in some measure trace the progress of Arts from nation to
nation and from age to age, we can also pursue a similar investigation with
respect to the progress of Mythology, of Poetry, of Government, of Law....It
is not an arbitrary and useless proceeding to construct such a Class of
sciences.  For wide and various as their subjects are, it will be found that
they have all certain principles, maxims, and rules of procedure in common;
and thus may reflect light upon each other by being treated together."
(William Whewell, _The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, second edition,
London: John W. Parker, 1847.  Volume 1, pp. 639-640.)

"I have ventured to give reasons why the chemical sciences (chemistry,
mineralogy, electrochemistry) are not at the present time in a condition
which makes them important general elements of a liberal education.  But
there is another class of sciences, the palaetiological sciences, which from
the largeness of their views and the exactness of the best portions of their
reasonings are well fitted to form part of that philosophical discipline
which a liberal education ought to include.  Of these sciences, I have upon
the sciences which deal with the material world.  These two sciences,
ethnography, or comparative philology, and geology, are among those
progressive sciences which may be most properly taken into a liberal
education as instructive instances of the wide and rich field of facts and
reasonings with which modern science deals, still retaining, in many of its
steps, great rigour of proof; and as an animating display also of the large
and grand vistas of time, succession, and causation, which are open to the
speculative powers of man." (William Whewell on liberal education, quoted in
_Great Ideas Today_, 1991:388-389.)

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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:77>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Thu Sep  9 00:31:38 1993

Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1993 01:38:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Summary of useful listserv commands
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

The following are the most commonly used listserv commands that Darwin-L
members may wish to know.  I will work all this information into a revised
welcome message for new subscribers sometime soon.

NOTE: ALL these commands must be sent to the listserv address, NOT to Darwin-L
itself; that is, they should all be sent to listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, NOT
to Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu.

To subscribe:

   SUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L <your name>

   For example: SUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L JOHN SMITH

To cancel your subscription:

   UNSUBSCRIBE DARWIN-L

To see the list of current subscribers:

   REVIEW DARWIN-L

To hide your name so that it doesn't appear when others REVIEW the list:

   SET DARWIN-L CONCEAL YES

To reverse the previous command:

   SET DARWIN-L CONCEAL NO

(CONCEAL NO is the default for all subscribers when they first join; unless you
explicitly conceal your name the REVIEW command will show it.)

To receive mail from the list in digest form (one message per day, consisting
of all the day's posts strung together one after another):

   SET DARWIN-L MAIL DIGEST

To receive mail from the list as soon as it is posted, individually, one
message at a time (this is the default setting all subscribers have when they
join; the only reason you would have to issue this command is if you have
_already_ set your mail to "digest", and now wish to change it back to
one-at-a-time):

   SET DARWIN-L MAIL ACK

If you wish to see even a few other technical commands that most users don't
need, you can get a complete command list by sending the message:

   HELP


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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:78>From msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu  Thu Sep  9 06:10:22 1993

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1993 06:13:06 -0600 (CDT)
From: Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Subject: Re: Welcome to all from the sponsor
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

As requested, an introduction:

I am a cultural anthropologist with a strong background in paleoanthropology.
My interests in evolutionary sciences stem first from studies of primate
evolution and secondly from research in comparative epistemology. I enjoy
tracing the development of classificatory schema as cultural systems of
knowledge. The history of evolutionary taxonomies and modern systematics
is as interesting to me as their applications to human phylogeny.

Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Stillman College

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:79>From msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu  Thu Sep  9 06:41:52 1993

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1993 06:44:31 -0600 (CDT)
From: Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Subject: Re: Ordered Change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

On Wed, 8 Sep 1993, DCHARLES@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU wrote:

> May I rephrase David Polly's question?  Why do the people that have commented
> on ordered change tend to assume the pattern must arise in some future
> predestination rather than via the constraints of structure and history?

The "constraints of structure and history" are not co-terminous. Structure
is imposed upon classificatory systems from a variety of sources,
including culture-bound notions of ultimate causes and predesinations.
Implications of "progress" in evolutionary studies are notoriously biassed
toward Western philosophical and religious mindsets. The history of
taxonomy is a subject in itself and must include these culture-bound
models of "progressive change" as examples more of epistemological shifts
than enhancements in evolutionary sciences.

Morris Simon <msimon7@ua1ix.ua.edu>
Stillman College

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:80>From DCHARLES@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU  Thu Sep  9 08:04:24 1993

Date: 9-SEP-1993 08:44:06.85
From: DCHARLES@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU
Subject: Re: Ordered Change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

To clarify:  I was referring to the structure and history of the system,
gene pool, whatever.  A population exists at one level as a collection of
operational organisms, each with a more or less coordinated pattern of
functional interrelationship of body parts, processes, etc.; ontogenetic
pathways; and genetic correlations--the structure.  These patterns have been
built up through contingent evolutionary processes (and thus often jury-rigged,
e.g., mammalian eggs leaping across the peritoneal cavity to be caught by the
fimbria of the ovarian tube)--the history.  Evolution defined as a change in
gene frequency is inadequate to address these aspects of the process, which I
am not sure what to call if the term evolution has been co-opted.  Selection
provides a direction of change over the short term, but the question is whether
the response of the population is actually in that direction.

Doug Charles
Wesleyan U.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Darwin-L Message Log 1: 41-80 -- September 1993           End