Darwin-L Message Log 1: 201–240 — 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: 201-240 -- 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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:201>From brook@trillium.botany.utexas.edu  Fri Sep 24 09:07:34 1993

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 08:55:00 -0500
From: brook@trillium.botany.utexas.edu (Brook Milligan)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: generalizations in systematics

I would like to begin a new thread here with a couple of questions.
Perhaps those of you who are more historically or systematically
inclined than me can help out here.

Over the past year or two I have noticed a series of letters to the
editor in Nature justifying the pursuit of systematics and taxonomy as
being the basis for generalizations about biological history.  It
seems that the argument is that by studying the collections present in
museums and herbaria, by studying new collections, and by organizing
the results of these studies into a historical framework describing
which events took place in the past, that we will be able to make
generalizations about biology.

Two questions:  1) Does anyone have references to a more complete
development of this idea?  2) In this context, what exactly is meant
by "generalizations?"  That is, what form would such a generalization
take and how would it relate to generalizations in other branches of
science?

Brook G. Milligan      Internet:  brook@trillium.botany.utexas.edu
Department of Botany     UUCP: !uunet!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo!trillium!brook
University of Texas at Austin  Telephone:  (512) 471-3530
Austin, Texas  78713 U.S.A.  FAX:    (512) 471-3878

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<1:202>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Fri Sep 24 10:31:47 1993

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 11:33:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: September 24 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

SEPTEMBER 24 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1802: ETIENNE-JULES-ADOLPHE, DESMIER DE SAINT-SIMON, VICOMTE D'ARCHIAC,
geologist and paleontologist, born at Rheims, France.  Following a period
of military service he will become one of the foremost stratigraphers of
Europe, and will publish a major history of early nineteenth-century
geology (_Histoire des Progres de la Geologie de 1834 a 1845_, 1847-60).
At first critical of evolutionary ideas, d'Archiac will eventually come to
accept the theory of descent, recognizing that "The present state of the
earth is only the consequence of its past -- and that holds true for the
organic as well as the inorganic realm" (_Geologie et Paleontologie_,
1866).  While in the midst of a severe depression he will commit suicide
by throwing himself into the Seine on Christmas Eve, 1868.

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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:203>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Fri Sep 24 10:50:18 1993

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 08:33:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I agree with most of what Holsinger says about cultural transmission,
but I have reservations about the idea that there will be _some_
commonality among cultural and biological transmission processes.

To begin with, Darwin considered only biological transmission. The fact
that his hypothesized mechanism turned out to be wrong is irrelevant. All
the mechanisms he considered (including "Lamarckian" use-and-disuse, will,
etc) are biological mechanisms, not cultural ones. His theory required
that the resemblances between parents and progeny be *heritable* in a
biological sense of heritability.

Clearly, sometimes there are resemblances between cultural and biological
transmission. Sometimes these resemblances look "Darwinian"-- Donald
Campbell's phrase is "random variation and selective retention", and lots
of processes (biological and cultural) work like this. But that's a purely
formal resemblance. It's a good thing to recognize it; it's the
starting point for any number of interesting research projects; but it
doesn't explain anything at all. In order to have explanations, we *also*
need the mechanics-- i.e., the material and efficient causes. And we
see no slightest ghost of a resemblance between the material and efficient
causes of phenotypic characters (in the biologists' sense) on the one hand,
and the material and efficient causes of cultural or
organizational features (in the anthropologists'/sociologists' sense) on the
other hand.

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:204>From poneill@itsmail1.hamilton.edu  Fri Sep 24 12:57:03 1993

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 13:57:31 -0400
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: poneill@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Patricia O'Neill)
Subject: Re: TH & JS Huxley's Romanes lectures

>  TH & JS Lectures entitled EVOLUTION AND ETHICS

Dear Gabriel,
I do not have all of the information you want at my fingertips but the
Romanes lecture was sponsored by and named for George J. Romanes, who was
something of a go-between the religious and scientific positions of the
nineteenth century -- thus Huxley's lecture on "Evolution and Ethics" was
supposed to show that scientists weren't rank materialists. The lectures
are given at Oxford, I think, but I may be wrong about this. Anyway T.H.
Huxley's Autobiography has the background on his invitation to give the
first of these lectures. I would be curious myself to know who will give it
this year.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:205>From junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu  Fri Sep 24 13:07:41 1993

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 14:05:23 EDT
From: junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu (Peter D. Junger)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution

I think that it may confuse things to speak of cultural inheritance as
if the ancestors and the heirs that one is concerned with are biological
entities.

Thus when I look at the evolution of the forms of action at common law,
I can see that one form ("trover and conversion", for example) is
descended from another earlier form (which would be "trespass on the
case") and that the newer form has "inherited" many of the
characteristics of the older form (in the example, the form of trover
and conversion is identical to the form of trespass on the case; the
only difference being that the "description" of the case has become a
fixed formula in trover and conversion, while in trespass on the case
the pleader may still insert any novel allegations that won't fit into
one of the standard writs). For another example, I gather that computer
programmers using a language with "objects" like C++, actually use the
word "inheritance" to describe the relationship between two objects.
(And whatever those objects may be, they are not biological critters.)

It seems to me that the difficulty with discussions of cultural
inheritance lies in choosing the objects whose evolution is to be
studied.  If the right sort of cultural object is chosen, then there
may well be little problem in specifying the mechanics--the selective
processes--that drive the evolution of those objects.  Thus in the case
of the forms of actions, the selection is done primarily by plaintiffs'
lawyers picking a form of action that will come closest to accomplishing
what their clients want (but the selection will also be influenced by
the efforts of defendants' lawyers to find ways to nullify the
advantages of a particular writ) and by the judges of each of the three
different common law courts trying to come up with writs that will bring
business into their particular courts.  If on, the other hand, one tries
to trace the evolution of the concept of something like "contracts", one
is not likely to find any satisfactory mechanism.  (And that may be
because one cannot find any "population" that embodies "contracts" the
way that the population of "law suits"--or "legal actions"--embodies the
forms of action.)

This is very sketchy.  I have not really thought the matter through.
But I have the feeling that I am on the track of something.

Please tell me if I have gone astray.

Peter D. Junger

Case Western Reserve University Law School, Cleveland, OH
Internet:  JUNGER@SAMSARA.LAW.CWRU.Edu -- Bitnet:  JUNGER@CWRU

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<1:206>From HOLSINGE@UCONNVM.BITNET  Fri Sep 24 14:48:06 1993

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 15:41:03 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kent E. Holsinger" <HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Gerson asserts:

In order to have explanations we *also* need the mechanics -- i.e., the
material and efficient causes.

To assert that natural selection will change the characteristics of a
population, for example, we need to know only three things:
1) That there was variation for the characteristic at some time in the past.
2) That differences among individuals in that characteristic were responsible
 for differences in survival and reproduction.
3) That offspring tend to resemble their parents.
Given those three axioms, and *only* those three axioms, it follows that
characteristics that increase the probability of survival and reproduction
will spread through the population.  We don't need to know *why* offspring
resemble their parents, only *that* they do.

-- Kent

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Kent E. Holsinger    Internet: Holsinge@UConnVM.UConn.edu         |
|  Dept. of Ecology &     BITNET: Holsinge@UConnVM               |
|  Evolutionary Biology, U-43                                        |
|  University of Connecticut                                         |
|  Storrs, CT 06269-3043                                             |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:207>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Fri Sep 24 16:57:08 1993

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 14:36:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Holsinger's summary of Darwin's natural selection model describes an efficient
cause of evolution (differential reproductive success due to heritable
differences). It is, of course, not the only one operating in nature.
So I take it that we are in agreement-- in order to have adequate
explanations, we need to know efficient and/or material, as well as
formal and/or final causes.

As a matter of historical fact, by the way, there was very little acceptance
of Darwin's natural selection model until some understanding of
the material causes of heredity began to develop early in the 20th century.

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:208>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Sat Sep 25 15:16:13 1993

Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1993 16:18:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: September 25 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

SEPTEMBER 25 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1749: ABRAHAM GOTTLOB WERNER born at Wehrau, Upper Lusatia (now Osiecznica,
Poland).  Werner's father was inspector of the ironworks in Wehrau and
Lorenzdorf, and Abraham will develop an early interest in mineralogy.
Following study of law and the history of language at Leipzig, he will
become curator of the mineral collections and a teacher of mining at the
Bergakademie Freiberg, which, under his influence, will become one of the
most prominent schools of geology in Europe.  As one of the first
geologists to distinguish minerals from rocks and to use the sequence of
rocks to reconstruct the history of the earth, Werner will be remembered as
one of the founding figures of historical geology

1798: JEAN-BAPTISTE-ARMAND-LOUIS-LEONCE ELIE DE BEAUMONT born at Canon,
Calvados, France.  A mining engineer and geologist, he will publish in
1841, with Armand Dufrenoy, _Carte Geologique Generale de la France_,
the first detailed geologic map of France.

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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:209>From ARKEO4@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU  Sat Sep 25 21:00:20 1993

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 10:05:05 +0800 (SST)
From: ARKEO4@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU
Subject: Evolution Cultural Capacity
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

We have been seeing quite a bit on Cultural Evolution here, much of it
quite provocative and well-expressed.  But, I must admit, by and large,
the comments are the usual ones I encounter on this topic.  It seems that
one of the major concerns is whether any THING exists which can be said to
serve as the mode of inheritance and selection for culture.  For example:

From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1993 10:57:38 -0500
> To me, heritable implies genetic or some other biologically determined
> change. Culture is not heritable and the evolution of culture is not better
> than an analogy with organic evolution. What non-genetic systems do you
> have in mind?

I think it is pretty obvious that those of us working in this field take
culture = inheritance system as a given.  Defense of this assumption is not
really that difficult (visit your local anthropology department :{)  ), but
no defense can stand against a principled assumption that heredity *must*
equal genetics and therefore that non-genetic inheritance systems, BY
DEFNITION, cannot evolve.

Howevever, let me note that the evolution of the genetic CAPACITY for
culture provides us with an interesting starting point in understanding the
"naturalness" of the cultural inheritance system, especially for those with
genetic-reductionist tendencies.  One way to look at this is in terms of
what Boyd and Richerson call the "argument from natural origins."  My
version runs more or less along these lines:

Consider that the human *capacity* for culture is the result of GENETIC
evolution which resulted in the various morpological changes characteristic
of our line relevant to this capacity (the normal stuff about larger brain,
etc etc).  Put in rather simple terms, we are cultural *only* because our
genes permit it.  During the evolution of Homo, this genetic capacity for
culture, of course, arose by means of normal, genetic evolution.  The
obvious conclusion to be derived from this observation would be that the
*genetic* capacity for culture evolved because the genes permitting culture
induced fitness.

Consider now that culture is, in its manifestations (as opposed to the
capacity) PURELY PHENOTYPIC -- put in other words, the *specific*
behaviours induced and transmitted through a cultural system are not *in
and of themselves* genetically determined (the obvious example here is
language).  Hence, *any* genetic selection for the cultural capacity had to
the result of selection acting SOLELY upon the mainfestations of that
capacity -- the culturally transmitted behaviours themselves.

Now given the fact that the capacity for culture DID evolve (humans, after
all, are cultural), and given the fact that the establishment of the
cultural capacity required genetic change, and taking into account that it
was not the CAPACITY per se that was selected (recall, the capacity itself
does not exist as a focus for selection, only its manifestations in
specific phenotypic behaviours), we are led to to the following:

During the evolution of the genetic capacity for culture, (at least some)
NON-genetically determined behaviours were of capable of inducing
sufficiently high relative fitness to bring about a populational change in
the genetic makeup of Homo. "Culturing" hominids were more fit than those
whose behaviour was more strictly genetically determined. As a result of
the genetic selection which occured, the human capacity for culture was
established in our line.

Yet the capacity for culture merely means that certain kinds of behaviours
are determined by phenotype/phenotype transmission.  The *specific*
behaviours selected during the evolution of the genetic capacity for
culture were NOT (by definition) genetically *determined*.

But we must recognise that it must have been these very non-genetically
("culturally") determined behaviours which must have been increasing the
fitness of the individuals, else we could never have the evolution of the
genetic capacity to perform them.  The advantages for coding the
determination of certain kinds of behaviours in the phenotypic, cultural,
system were sufficiently great to "drive out" the earlier system which
presumably had a more direct ("hard-wired") genetic determination for
behaviour.

>From this logic we can be *certain* that CULTURALLY DETERMINED behaviours
must be subject to selection  -- else we would never have estabished the
GENETIC capacity for culture.  The genetic capacity could evolve only by
means of the selection of the phenotypic, non-genetic, *expressions* of
that capacity.

>From this, we can see that the selection of cultural behaviours was
sufficent to bring about what amounts to a revolution in the genetic system
of Homo -- culture replaced genes in the determination of much of the
specifics of behaviour.  Clearly, a lot of genetic fitness can arise from
genes "giving up" control over certain kinds of specific behaviours and
instead having genes (?"meta-genes?") which ALLOW the phenotypic system of
transmission.  It therfore seems pretty reasonable to presume that culture
as *expressed* in specific behaviours was sufficiently fit that it could
bring about this kind of genetic change (else we wouldn't observe
culture!).

Now to return to the question of "is culture an inheriance system on which
selection can act?"  It seems that selection of cultural behaviours MUST
have occurred in the past -- else we would not have a capacity for culture.
Yet AFTER the cultural capacity had been established WHY should we presume
that the selection would stop?  Certainly feed-back to the genetic system
need no longer be occurring, but so what?

If the selection of purely phenotypic variants (culture in its various
*manifestations*) was sufficently powerful to bring about the GENETIC
changes typical of modern Homo (the genetic *capacity* for culture), then
why should selection not apply to these same traits afterwards?  How in the
world would selection "know" that the cultural capacity had been
established, and why should selection of these phenotypic traits in their
various manifestations, and hence the potential for evolution, cease?

The obvious rejoinder would be that "without the genetic feedback there is
NO evolution."  While this would provide a neat, definitional solution to
the problem, it would miss the very point of what I am saying: In the case
of the evolution of the genetic cultural capacity, the genetic feedback was
merely a CONSEQUENCE of the differing fitness of KINDS of phenotypes (those
which were more or less "hard-wired" in the determination of behaviour).
GENES, per se, were NOT being selected, phenotypes were.  As a consquence
of the relative superiority of phenotypic coding, genetic evolution
occurred.  Those demes capable of phenotypic coding of behaviour and hence
of phenotypic evolutionary processes were more successful over time.

So, at least in a sense, the evolution of the genetic capacity for culture,
was also the evolution of culture as phenotypic inheritance system which
could be subject to selection, and hence which could evolve.  Had
*HEREDITABLE* differences in phenotypically and culturally based fitness
NOT correlated with the more "culturing" demes, then the selection of their
particular genetic system (the hereditablility of which is NOT under
question by even the most ardent doubters of culturally based heredity,
selection and evolution) would never have occurred!  We would not be
cultural animals.

Dave

-- PLEASE REPLY TO THE ADDRESS BELOW, NOT THE ONE GIVEN IN THE HEADER! --
*************************************************************************
*	 Dave Rindos				20 Herdsmans Parade	*
* 	 RINDOS@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU		Wembley  6014 	*
* 	 Ph:  +61 9 387 6281  (GMT+8)		Western Australia	*
* 	 FAX: +61 9 380 1051  (USEDT+12)	AUSTRALIA		*
*************************************************************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:210>From mperry@BIX.com  Sun Sep 26 10:20:29 1993

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 11:22:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: mperry@BIX.com
Subject: Re: Culture, evolution and Lama
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Ray:
Is it your belief that as culture becomes more complex that that
change you mention would become more complex as well?  It is interesting
that such evolutionary change could affect cultures in distinct and
complex methods if we accept that as cultures become complex evolutionary
changes upon them become complex.
Mike

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:211>From WHDAY@ac.dal.ca  Sun Sep 26 10:45:22 1993

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 12:48:55 -0300
From: "William H. E. Day" <WHDAY@ac.dal.ca>
Subject: Re: TH & JS Huxley's Romanes lectures
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Re: TH & JS Huxley's Romanes lectures

>From the second edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia:

"Romanes, George John, 1848-1894, English biologist, b. Kingston, Ont. As a
youth he went to England and there became a friend of Darwin. He lectured
(1886-90) at the Univ. of Edinburgh, was professor (1888-91) at the Royal
Institution, London, and in 1891 established at Oxford the annual Romanes
Lectures. He made important studies in animal psychology. ..."

--Bill.

  :------------------------ William H. E. Day -----------------------:
  : Box 17                       Telephone:  (902)649-2996           :
  : Port Maitland                      Fax:  (902)742-1295           :
  : NS  B0W 2V0, CANADA                      whday@ac.dal.ca         :
  :------------------------------------------------------------------:

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:212>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Sun Sep 26 11:28:43 1993

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 12:31:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: September 26 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

SEPTEMBER 26 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1687: During the Venetian seige of Athens a bomb falls on the Parthenon,
which is being used by the Turks for munitions storage.  The roof, parts
of the frieze, and many of the columns, which had lasted for more than two
thousand years, are destroyed.

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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:213>From SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU  Sun Sep 26 12:18:26 1993

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 13:22:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU
Subject: Re: Culture, evolution and Lama
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Hi Mike:  No is the answer to your question. My comment was meant only to
indicate that human beings are biological organisms period. Many of the
comments appeared to indicate otherwise. Like on the e-mail it is so easy
for one person to read something into a comment that was never intended.
  Ray, EKU

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:214>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Sun Sep 26 13:56:29 1993

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 11:42:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: generalizations in systematics
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

A few days ago, Brook Milligan asked (in speaking about generalizations
in biological history): "what exactly is meant
by 'generalizations?'  That is, what form would such a generalization
take and how would it relate to generalizations in other branches of
science?"

I think this is a very important question, for the historical sciences
(and the brnaches of natural history) don't generalize the same way
that the physical sciences do.

I'd like to propose a partial answer to Millgan's question. Natural
history disciplines categorize phenomena (e.g., the classification of
taxa in botany and zoology; the parts of the body in anatomy, regions
in geography, strata in historical geology, and so on). Generalizations
in this way of doing research are "rules" or "principles" which associate
parts of one classification with parts of another. For example, Cope's
rule (proposed by paleontologist E D Cope near the end of the 19th
century) says that taxa within an evolutionary lineage tend to grow
larger over geological time. This associates the morphological classifiction
with the stratigraphic one.

Darwin's hypothesis of genealogical relationships among species is the
outstanding example of a very high-lvel generalizaiton of this sort, since
it associates the morphological, taxonomic, embryological, stratgraphic,
and geographic classifications simultaneously.

Such generalizations can be used to make many kinds of predictions. For
example, if I say that my pet is (taxonomically) a Carnivore, then
a biologist can tell us a great deal about his respiratory, circulatory,
digestive, eliminatory, etc. systems.

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:215>From WILLS@macc.wisc.edu  Sun Sep 26 21:29:29 1993

Date: Sun, 26 Sep 93 21:31 CDT
From: Jeffrey Wills <WILLS@macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: DARWIN-L digest 23
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

Let me second Peter Junger's motion that we connect cultural evolution to
specific items or features or objects.
	For me the usefulness of the parallel with biological evolution
increases when there is a coded structure which we can parallel with genetic
material.  For example, in the history of a text through different manuscripts,
I would liken the sequence of characters to a genetic code, which undergoes
various mutations. In the case of manuscripts I would even venture to suggest
that each "generation" of the text is the result of "intercourse" between a
code of human language and the text (a sort of hybridization). I say this
because I am interested in finding a formalism for the multiple ancestry of a
given manuscript. To say, as we usually do, that 25 manuscripts all come from a
common ancestor omega may be true, but it does little to explain why/how there
are differences (mutations). In any case, it is clear that the generations of a
manuscript (a cultural object) are completely independent of human generations.
	Another example: in the case of language change, I think we need some
formalization of features or a way of expressing formally the system if we are
to take full advantage of the biological parallels ("metaphors?") in the
historical sciences. Language, of course, changes frequently within anyone's
lifetime--it is not genetic transmission which is needed as a precondition. In
fact the most intractable problem of language change (and perhaps all cultural
change) is that the changes are so frequent (faster than a fruitfly) and our
tracking of them is so infrequent and approximate that we lack the precision we
need.
	Jeffrey Wills, wills@macc.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:216>From HOLSINGE@UCONNVM.BITNET  Mon Sep 27 06:41:25 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 07:32:03 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kent E. Holsinger" <HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

True, natural selection is by no means the *only* cause of evolution.  My only
point is that we don't need to know *why* offspring resemble their parents in
order to make inferences about an evolutionary process, only *that* they do.

As an aside, it's not quite accurate to say, as Gerson does, that "there was
very little acceptance of Darwin's natural selection model until some
understanding of the material causes of heredity began to develop early in
the 20th century."  In fact, the immediate reaction of many biologists to the
rediscovery of Mendel's work was the complete rejection of any significant role
for natural selection.  DeVries' _Die Mutationstheorie_, for example, asserted
that species differences arose saltationally through mutations.  Bateson
followed much the same line.  In Britain, at least, there is a strong natural
history tradition that stretches back through Poulson and Bates that always
gave a prominent role to natural selection.

As Mayr has pointed out repeatedly, many of the evolutionists who were
convinced of the importance of natural selection in the 'teens and '20s did
not accept Mendelism as the explanation for the differences among individuals
that they saw.  Rensch, Mayr himself, and others took for granted some form
of blending inheritance and the inheritance of acquired traits (not unlike
Darwin minus pangenesis).  Still, they argued forcefully for the importance of
natural selection.  It wasn't until the 1930s that the fusion of Mendelian
genetics and natural selection, through population genetics, became widely
accepted as the best explanation for organismal adaptation.

Rediscovery of Mendel's work and analysis of the material basis of heredity
had little to do with the spreading acceptance of natural selection in the
early part of the century, in spite of the important role it now plays in our
evolutionary thinking.

-- Kent

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Kent E. Holsinger    Internet: Holsinge@UConnVM.UConn.edu |
|  Dept. of Ecology &     BITNET: Holsinge@UConnVM     |
|  Evolutionary Biology, U-43              |
|  University of Connecticut               |
|  Storrs, CT 06269-3043               |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:217>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Mon Sep 27 08:15:23 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 05:27:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I think the discussion between Holsinger and myself is wandering far
from the point. My original point was that parallels between biological
evolution and cultural evolution are very difficult to draw, because
the material and efficient causes of each are very different and not
comparable, no matter how similar the mathematical models describing
them become. By which I meant, for example, that changes in technology
are not sexually transmitted.

So yes, one can have a perfectly good FORMAL theory of biological evolution,
but that theory is of no value to understanding cultural change
precisely because it suggests nothing about how the change takes place.
One need only look at attempts to draw cultural analogies with the parts of the
biological evolution process to see how fruitless this can become--
endless  attempts to decide what is the "gene" and so on, when the
analogies are simply untenable.

What we need are viable theories of cultural and institutional change. Then,
if it turns out that there are neat analogies between those theories and
biological theories, that will be very interesting. But it serves no good
purpose to assume such analogies exist a priori, and then try to force
an interpretation of the institutional arrangements we see.

As to the history of evolutionary theory-- that's really another whole
discussion. I wasn't talking about the "rediscovery of Mendel". Mendel's
theory is a formal abstract theory of "factors" with no material
content. So is Fisher's, and so is Wright's. The pertinent discoveries
which put material content into those theories came from cytology. That
body of knowledge developed very rapidly after 1910, although
it got a big boost in 1902 - 1904, with the hypothesis
that the hereditary "factors" were located on the chromosomes.

The opposition of de Vriesian "mutationists" and "Mendelians" to
natural selection was based on their perception that hereditary changes
had to be large in effect. This point of view died out very rapidly
after 1910 (more rapidly in the US than in England) for many reasons.
Work in both cytology and population genetics gave results inconsistent
with that view, and the competing mendelian-chromosome model was extended
very effectively to explain new phenomena as well.

So we had scientists who accepted natural selection (e.g., D.S. Jordan
and Joseph Grinnell in this country), but who had no idea of what the
material causes of heredity might be. Nor did they care, because they were
concerned with speciation, adaptation, and geographical distribution.
There also were people concerned with the material causes of heredity
and development, who didn't see how natural selection could bring about
what they assumed to be necessary. But they didn't care about speciation
adaptation and distribution. Weismann was a rare exception here.

And finally, there were many scientists in the latter part of the 19th
century, before the "rediscovery of Mendel", who were concerned with
speciation, adaptation, and so on, and who did not accept Darwin's
natural selection model. Most paleontologists for example. Even those
who wanted to accept it (Romanes, for example) were forced to extend
or modify it, because the natural selection model, as formulated by
Darwin, doesn't explain origin of species. In order to make it explain
origin of species, some form of isolation between populations has to
be introduced. Romanes tried to do this with his concept of "physiological
selection", which we would call isolating mechanisms today.

So, to come back to the point finally: if you believe that we only need
to know *that* offspring resemble their parents, and that *how* (not "why")
they do so isn't important, then we had a complete model of evolution in
1904 with the publication of Grinnell's paper on the Chestnut-backed
Chickadee in _The Auk_.  But many biologists, especially those who saw an
ith heredity and development as well as

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:218>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Mon Sep 27 08:33:55 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 06:19:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

My apologies for the interrupted message-- I pressed the wrong button.

I was saying, that we had a good model of speciation based on Darwin's
theory in 1904, except that it made no reference to heredity. And *for
that reason* many biologists concerned with speciation were dissatisfied.
So the fact that a reconciliation between the two camps had to wait
upon the provision of material causes (in the form of adequate cytogenetics,
population genetics, knowledge of isolating mechanisms, etc) only supports
my point that models without material and efficient causes tend not to
be successful. Also, they're not very satisfying.

So, once again: it's not effective to draw analogies between biological
and cultural evolution, unless and until we can specify wherein they
are different in a material and efficient sense. This isn't a point about
the particulars of either biological evolution or the history of
evolutionary biology; it's a methodological point about drawing analogies.

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:219>From KIMLER@social.chass.ncsu.edu  Mon Sep 27 09:22:18 1993

From: <KIMLER@Social.chass.ncsu.edu>
To: DARWIN-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 10:29:23 EST5EDT
Subject: Re: TH & JS Huxley Romanes Lectures

The Princeton U. Press edition of THH's Romanes Lecture, edited by
James Paradis and George C. Williams (1989), includes the editors'
essays on the Victorian social context of the lecture.  Paradis
states that Romanes established the lecture series with a stipulation
that "the subjects of politics and religion should not be broached"
(p. 215), but then chose Gladstone and Huxley as his first two
lecturers, certainly aware of their ongoing debate over revealed
religion and science.
Hope this tidbit helps.
- William Kimler kimler@ncsu.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:220>From mayerg@cs.uwp.edu  Mon Sep 27 09:53:40 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 09:28:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: Gregory Mayer <mayerg@cs.uwp.edu>
Subject: Re: "Witness" and "testimony" in the historical sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

	Bob O'Hara has asked for information on the notion of objects as
"witnesses".  I have an example which is at least tangentially related:
the use of "witness trees".  The old Northwest Territories of the United
States were mapped and surveyed using the township and range system which
required a surveyed territory to be divided into a grid 1 mile on a side.
To mark the corners of these grids, surveyors recorded the name and
diameter of the tree nearest to the corner, along with its distance and
bearing from the corner.  Such trees were called "witness" or "bearing"
trees.  Their original usage was thus to serve as markers for the mapping
system.  These trees, or at least the records of them, along with other
notes made by the surveyors, were later used in historical reconstruction
of the vegetation at the time of European settlement.  The most ambitious
map I have seen that used the "witness tree" method of reconstruction is
"Original Vegetation Cover of Wisconsin" by Robert Finley, 1976, at a
scale of 1:500,000 published by the North Central Forest Experiment
Station, U.S.D.A., St. Paul, Minnesota.  Such maps are, of course, very
valuable for studying the history of post-settlement vegetation and land
use changes, as well as being an "endline" for studies of Quaternary
vegetation change based on paleontological and archaeological records.

Gregory C. Mayer
mayerg@cs.uwp.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:221>From rh@dsd.camb.inmet.com  Mon Sep 27 11:50:56 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 12:54:26 EDT
From: rh@dsd.camb.inmet.com (Rich Hilliard)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Language Change

Jeffery Wills writes:

> Another example: in the case of language change, I think we need some
> formalization of features or a way of expressing formally the system
> if we are to take full advantage of the biological parallels
> ("metaphors?") in the historical sciences. Language, of course,
> changes frequently within anyone's lifetime--it is not genetic
> transmission which is needed as a precondition. In fact the most
> intractable problem of language change (and perhaps all cultural
> change) is that the changes are so frequent (faster than a fruitfly)
> and our tracking of them is so infrequent and approximate that we lack
> the precision we need.

Work within generative grammar, just for example, focuses on
formalising a language's grammar in terms of linguistic
representations and rules acting on those representations in a fashion
that might offer a substrate for understanding language change
evolutionarily.

An interesting work in this regard is:

@Book{Lightfoot,
  author = "David Lightfoot",
  title = "How to set parameters: arguments from language change",
  publisher = "MIT Press",
  year = 1991,
  note = "P118 .L46 1991"

In particular, chapter [3?  -- sorry don't have the book around] is a
detailed study of the loss of a single grammatical construction,
object-verb order in English in contrast to its 'relatives' German,
Dutch, Scandinavian and ancestors.  Lightfoot uses Chomsky's
principles and parameters approach.
  VERY BRIEFLY: In this conception, human language is characterised in
terms of a system of grammatical principles and parameters.  The
principles are universal; languages' grammars vary in terms of their
particular 'settings' of parameters: whether pronouns may be null,
whether heads of phrases are phrase-inital or phrase-final, etc.
  One might argue that these parameters are the genetic material which
characterise a language and are susceptible to potential change
(mutation).  And, given the abstractness of the parameters, the change
of a single parameter value can have far-reaching effects on the
overall organisation of the language.
  Chomsky's most recent work -- so-called 'minimalism' -- is about the
relative effort/complexity of deriving linguistic representations.
One might speculate that such 'least-effort' considerations would have
a selective role to play in language evolution toward combinations of
parameter settings that allowed simpler derivations.  (Of course,
given the many imaginable dimensions of simplicity, grammars might be
in quite a lot of flux, never reaching a stable, simplest state.)

QUESTION for the historical linguists:
  I once read a paper by Robin Lakoff, "Another Look at Drift" which,
if I recall correctly [it was a LONG time ago], suggested that
language evolution, at least in the analytic/synthetic dimension was
cyclical, rather than linear or progressive.  What the status of ideas
like that?

 -- Rich Hilliard
  rh@dsd.camb.inmet.com

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:222>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Mon Sep 27 15:18:46 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 16:21:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: September 27 -- Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

SEPTEMBER 27 -- TODAY IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES

1715: THOMAS BURNET, author of _Telluris Theoria Sacra_ or _The Theory of
the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the Earth, and of All
the General Changes Which it Hath Already Undergone, or is to Undergo Till
the Consummation of All Things_, dies.  Burnet advocated in graceful prose
a cyclical theory of the universe, which he thought began in perfection and
had fallen, but which would be restored again at the end of all things.
"The Scheme of this World passeth away, saith an holy Author; the mode and
form, both of the Natural and Civil World, changeth continually more or
less, but most remarkably at certain Periods, when all Nature puts on
another face; as it will do at the Conflagration, and hath done already
from the time of the Deluge" (The Theory of the Earth, 2nd edition, 1691).

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.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:223>From delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu  Mon Sep 27 15:47:44 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 13:45:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott C DeLancey <delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu>
Subject: Re: Language Change
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

On Mon, 27 Sep 1993, Rich Hilliard wrote:

> QUESTION for the historical linguists:
> I once read a paper by Robin Lakoff, "Another Look at Drift" which,
> if I recall correctly [it was a LONG time ago], suggested that
> language evolution, at least in the analytic/synthetic dimension was
> cyclical, rather than linear or progressive.  What the status of ideas
> like that?

This is an old idea, and essentially true.  That is, language change
in general is clearly not unidirectional.  It is easy to find examples
of analytic languages developing more synthetic structures (which some
19th century linguists thought was the universal pattern of change),
and of languages with more synthetic patterns changing in the other
direction (which Otto Jespersen claimed was the universal tendency).
On the other hand, you won't necessarily find a neat cyclical pattern
in the history of any given language.

Scott DeLancey
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:224>From idavidso@metz.une.edu.au  Mon Sep 27 17:14:52 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 08:18:20 +0700
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: idavidso@metz.une.edu.au (Iain Davidson)
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution

The history stuff seems fine, but am I getting it wrong?  The fact that
there was significant development of theory of evolution before a complete
(?) understanding of the mechanisms of heredity suggests strongly that it
is very valuable to develop theory of cultural selection (I think Rindos is
basically right here)  even if we cannot yet specify precisely how the
inheritance of cultural phenomena works.  Once we have a convincing theory
of cultural selection then we can begin looking at how the mechanisms may
be working.  But an awful lot of people are not getting that close to it,
partly because they do not understand the importance of variation and
selection in cultural matters.

Iain Davidson
Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology
University of New England
Armidale NSW 2351
AUSTRALIA
Tel (067) 732 441
Fax  (International) +61 67 73 25 26
      (Domestic)   067 73 25 26

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:225>From ARKEO4@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU  Mon Sep 27 18:59:34 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 8:04:14 +0800 (SST)
From: ARKEO4@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

> Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993
> From: "Elihu M. Gerson"
>
> I was saying, that we had a good model of speciation based on Darwin's
> theory in 1904, except that it made no reference to heredity. And *for
> that reason* many biologists concerned with speciation were dissatisfied.
					  ~~~~~~~~~~~
Probably the BIGGEST problem cultural evolution has experienced has come
from losing sight of the simple fact that we are attempting to understand
the evolution of adapative variation WITHIN a species; we are NOT dealing
IN ANY SENSE with speciation (that good old "tree of life" stuff).  I think
that more nonsense in cultural evolutionary thought (sensu lato), as well
as the criticism therof, has arisen from this source than any other.

> So the fact that a reconciliation between the two camps had to wait
> upon the provision of material causes (in the form of adequate cytogenetics,
> population genetics, knowledge of isolating mechanisms, etc) only supports
> my point that models without material and efficient causes tend not to
> be successful. Also, they're not very satisfying.

Here, I am in fundamental agreement, but I think we should also recall that
transmission factors ARE being studied in great detail -- albeit in what
have traditionally been entirely seperate fields (e.g. psychology) in which
Darwnian thought has not been particularly important. On the other hand,
evolutionary thinking usually doesn't really have much effect on ANY
physiologist's or morphologist's day-to-day work.  Mayr's oft repeated
distinction between "functional/proximate" and "evolutionary/ultimate"
approaches to biology is quite relevant here.  The specific mode of coding
and transmission for cultural traits will no more "explain" cultural
evolution than hormones "explain" the existance of biological sexes.

> So, once again: it's not effective to draw analogies between biological
> and cultural evolution, unless and until we can specify wherein they
> are different in a material and efficient sense. This isn't a point about
> the particulars of either biological evolution or the history of
> evolutionary biology; it's a methodological point about drawing analogies.

Total and complete agreement here!  The important similarities between
cultural and genetic evolution lie in the HOMOLOGIES not the analogies.

Far too much of the literature on this subject (and I am quite as guilty as
the next!) has been devoted to spinning out analogies between genetic and
cultural systems for inheritance and evolution. While these analogic
similarities can be important as a hueritistic device, they often lead us
to a rather pointless search for units ("memes" and such like silliness)
which we don't even NEED to do our work.  Ditto on the search for some sort
of "physiology" or "recombination mechanism" or any of the other
genetic-based concepts, the material lack of which is then used to "prove"
the futility of cultural evolutionary theory.  We have inheritance. We have
variation.  And (sayeth me) we therefore have selection.  We have change
over time and space.  And (again, sayeth me) we therefore have evolution.
Now we just gotta put the lot together and make sense out of the DATA
already to hand.

It seems to me that cultural evolutionary theory will be successful to the
extent that it can EXPLAIN real, observable cultural phenomena.  It will
not be judged by the elegance or the "satisfaction" induced by its general
theory (whatever form such theory might eventually take).  Hence, the most
important task for the evolutionary anthroplogist is studying the data and
attempting to understand WHY we have the patterns we find in space and in
time.  Nothing too far-out in this, I assume :{)

Dave

-- PLEASE REPLY TO THE ADDRESS BELOW, NOT THE ONE GIVEN IN THE HEADER! --
*************************************************************************
*	 Dave Rindos				20 Herdsmans Parade	*
* 	 RINDOS@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU		Wembley  6014 	*
* 	 Ph:  +61 9 387 6281  (GMT+8)		Western Australia	*
* 	 FAX: +61 9 380 1051  (USEDT+12)	AUSTRALIA		*
*************************************************************************

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:226>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Mon Sep 27 21:35:23 1993

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 19:19:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

On Mon, 27 Sep 1993 17:30:18 -0500 Iain Davidson said:
>The history stuff seems fine, but am I getting it wrong?  The fact that
>there was significant development of theory of evolution before a complete
>(?) understanding of the mechanisms of heredity suggests strongly that it
>is very valuable to develop theory of cultural selection (I think Rindos is
>basically right here)  even if we cannot yet specify precisely how the
>inheritance of cultural phenomena works.  Once we have a convincing theory
>of cultural selection then we can begin looking at how the mechanisms may
>be working.  But an awful lot of people are nto getting that close to it,
>partly because they do not understand the importance of variation and
>selection in cultural matters.

But Darwin's theory did not appear full blown in an intellectual vaccum;
he was addressing a series of well-established and well-understood problems.
In particular: all biologists recognized homologies among similar kinds
of organism; they recognized that kinds of organisms fall into groups
defined by greater and lesser similarity; they recognized (or thought
they did) that there were similarities in developmental stage; they knew
that there were animals buried in the ground that no one had ever seen alive;
they knew that different regions of the world contained very different
organisms, but that the inhabitants of different places were, in some
sense, analogous.  Moreover, naturalists were typically very impressed by
the way in which organisms were adapted to the places and ways in which
they lived.

So Darwin's hypothesis of descent-with-modification, not to mention his natural
selection model, were aimed at specific problems in natural history. What
well defined problem is "cultural evolution" (with no defined variables)
supposed to explain? Are the changes in government which have taken place
in Eastern Europe in the last 5 years cultural evolution? In the last
200 years? In the last 2000 years? In the last 20,000? Or: when I was
a kid, baseball was more popular than football. Now, it's the other
way around. Is this cultural evolution?

In short, we have a non-theory which people want to use to explain an
unspecified phenomenon.  I think we should get a good description of
the phenomenon, and maybe some tentative explanations of it, and then
see whether or not there are homologies between the explanations of
biological evolution and the explanations of cultural change. And even,
possibly, between biological evolution and cultural change.

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:227>From PGRIFFITHS@gandalf.otago.ac.nz  Tue Sep 28 00:05:30 1993

To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: PGriffiths@gandalf.otago.ac.nz
Organization: University of Otago
Date: 28 Sep 1993 17:03:31GMT+1200
Subject: Cultural evolution and heritability

A DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS THEORY VIEW ON RECENT EXCHANGES.

According To DST (Oyama 1985, Grey 1992) species-typical characteristics are
to be explained as the result of the interaction of species-typical
developmental resources in a self-organising process.  The genes are just
another material resource that feeds into this process, they do not have a
priveleged 'informational' role.

In DST evolution is the differentiation of lineages of developmental systems
due to the incorporation of different developmental resources. Thus
evolution may occur because of changes in inherited 'environmental'
features. A good example is habitat imprinting, which can be the first step
in a speciation process.

A speech community, culture, etc are, if suitably broadly classified,
developmental resources for species-typical human development.  Just as
proper social interaction in certain critical periods is required for normal
sexuality and social skills in rehesus monkeys, so language is required for
normal human psychology.  A group of socially functional conspecifics is a
developmental resource for the monkeys, and a speech community is a
developmental resource for humans.  The same will be true of many other
aspects of human culture.  Culture is generated by previous generations and
provided for offspring in the same way as maternal cytoplasm, parental care
and so forth.

The developmental systems view emphasises the currently marginalised fact
that that humans have had a culture since before they were human. Culture
has a history of development and differentiation amongst lineages as old as
that of many other elements in the developmental system.  Many
species-typical features of human psychology may depend critically on stably
replicated features of human culture.  Many psychological features which are
specific to certain human cultures may nevertheless have evolutionary
explanations, since this variation may reflect differentiation amongst
lineages of developmental systems.  An obvious research programme within
developmental systems theory is an attempt to locate critical developmental
resources in human culture(s), and to study their influence on development,
and how they themselves are replicated.

Two objections are commonly urged to the idea that cultural evolution can be
accommodated in the same theoretical framework as the evolution of
traditional biological traits.  First, it is often remarked that culture
changes much more rapidly that any biological trait.  But how rapidly
something changes depends on how it is taxonomised.  The forms of
relationship between the sexes in European society has changed greatly in
the last thousand years, but it has remained fundamentally patriarchal.
Developmental systems theory suggests an attempt to locate the fundamental
developmental resources that account for the stability of this feature.
These will be classified in such a way as to allow them to be identified
across the whole range of such societies.

The second common objection to evolutionary approaches to culture is that
cultural traits are transmitted horizontally, rather than than vertically,
and that this gives cultural evolution a fundamentally different structure
from biological evolution, in which traits are transmitted vertically.  In
such a process, it is suggested, the idea of lineages as the fundamental
units of evolution is inappropriate.  One response to problems of this kind
would be to enlarge the size of the lineage groups studied so as to reduce
the incidence of such transmission between the units of study  .  But this
may not be necessary, as the traditional contrast between cultural and
biological is overdrawn on both sides.  On the biological side, plant
evolution and bacterial evolution involves a good deal of horizontal
transmission (via hybridisation and plasmid exchange).  This calls for some
revision of traditional methods in studying bacterial evolution, but not
enough to render them unrecognisable .  On the cultural side, it is
plausible that transmission is 'vertical' to a remarkable extent.  Languages
exchange items of vocabulary, but do not merge wholesale.  This form of
horizontal transmission is closely akin to plasmid exchange.  Some studies
have claimed a substantial parallelism between trees for language and trees
for human lineages (Cavalli-Sforza et al 1988, Penny et al 1993). Dr Johnson
spoke truer than he knew when he said that 'languages are the pedigrees of
nations'.

REFERENCES

R.D Gray, "Death of the Gene: Developmental Systems Strike Back," in P.E
Griffiths, ed, Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology (Kluwer:
Dordrecht, 1992): 165-209

S Oyama The Ontogeny of Information, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge,
1985)

L.L Cavalli-Sforza et al, "Reconstruction of Human Evolution: Bringing
Together Genetic, Archeological and Linguistic Data" , Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, LXXXV (1988): 6002-6.

D Penny, E.E. Watson, & M.A. Steel, "Trees from languages and genes are very
similar",  Systematic Biology, XLII (1993):  in press.

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:228>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Tue Sep 28 07:43:26 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 05:07:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Cultural evolution and heritability
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I'm very sympathetic to the developmental approach of Oyama and others,
but I still have the same problems and questions about cultural
evolution, which the developmental approach urged by
PGriffiths@gandalf.otago.ac.nz does not address. Referring to
whatever-they-are aspects of culture as "developmental resources"
doesn't tell us what they are, or they they are related, or how
they constrain one another.  And until we know something about that,
then we can't say much about how they function in socialization,
evolution of any kind, or any other process.

I also think it would be a good idea to keep in mind that there is
more to culture (or society, or institutions) than the socialization of
children.

Here's an example of what I mean. Americans and English both use
the same basic set of tools to eat with: knife, fork, spoon, etc. The
common historical root is obvious. Both groups hold the fork in one hand,
pinning food with it while they use the knife in the other hand to cut
the food. The English then raise the fork to their mouths. Americans,
by contrast, put down their knives and switch the fork from one hand
to the other before raising it to their mouths.

This is a clear cultural difference. Both ways clearly have a common
historical ancestor, and I suspect it wouldn't be all that difficult
to trace the connections in a fairly detailed way-- perhaps it's
already been done. Is this the sort of thing we're talking about when
we say "Cultural evolution?"

 I think of these ways-of-eating as institutions
or conventions, and I see them as the basic units we are concerned
with as social scientists. They are NOT formally analogous to genes,
individual organisms, or phenotypic characters, because they act
very differently in any plausible model of change/evolution one cares
to consider. They are useful as units because they can (conceptually)
be combined to form larger-scale groupings in many different ways. It is
these combinations, their changes and relationships, which social
science is concerned with.

Notice that, in this view of things, if a race of manufactured
sufficiently smart robots suddenly appeared, they could have a
society/culture too, even though they didn't have any biological
evolutionary history at all. Notice too, that individual
people qua individuals do not appear in this picture; i.e.,
social science does not deal with individual people and their properties.

Obviously, other social scientists will conceptualize the phenomenon
in very different ways, and these might not overlap with the one I
sketched above at all. So specifying what is the "culture" or
institutions or whatever that we're looking at is pretty important.

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:229>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU  Tue Sep 28 08:19:13 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 08:19:13 -0500
From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, RINDOS@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU
Subject: Re: Evolution Cultural Capacity

In message <930926100505.26602946@FENNEL.WT.UWA.EDU.AU>  writes:
> It seems that
> one of the major concerns is whether any THING exists which can be said to
> serve as the mode of inheritance and selection for culture.  For example:
>
> I think it is pretty obvious that those of us working in this field take
> culture = inheritance system as a given.  Defense of this assumption is not
> really that difficult (visit your local anthropology department :{)  ), but
> no defense can stand against a principled assumption that heredity *must*
> equal genetics and therefore that non-genetic inheritance systems, BY
> DEFNITION, cannot evolve.

The fact that the capacity for culture has a biological basis is beyond
dispute. One can no more challenge the compatibility of human biology with
culture than one can deny a biological basis of all behavior since the brain
itself is a biological fact. However, this level of generality is not useful.
What we really want to know is (1) What aspects of human behavior/cultural
capacity have been directly selected for? and (2) Are any culturally
differentiating behaviors are among these? That is, can any specific cultural
behaviors be said to be genetically heritable and subject to selection?

In spite of much discussion on the first question, we have only vague ideas
about biologically rooted universals of culture: The capacity for language and
language acquisition is among these. Other universals, such as a tendency for
familial groupings and kin-based cooperative behavior are probably also deeply
rooted, but predate human culture. Whatever behaviors do fit into this category
have provided the adaptive phenotype that led to the selection for cultural
capacity. If we really could answer my first question, all of the protracted
discussion of what culture is on the Anthro-l line would be unnecessary.

This leaves us without any good indication of a specific cultural behavior that
is both biologically based and the product of directional selection.

> So, at least in a sense, the evolution of the genetic capacity for culture,
> was also the evolution of culture as phenotypic inheritance system which
> could be subject to selection, and hence which could evolve.

Yes, but look at what you write: "culture as phenotypic inheritance system." It
is the system which is selected for and inherited, not the content.

I repeat my earlier argument that cultural content is not heritable (using a
biological or genetic definition of heritability) and therefore is not subject
to true natural selection. We can only use an analogy to natural selection to
describe cultural evolution.

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

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:230>From HOLSINGE@UCONNVM.BITNET  Tue Sep 28 10:24:35 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 10:48:01 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kent E. Holsinger" <HOLSINGE%UCONNVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

> In short, we have a non-theory which people want to use to explain an
> unspecified phenomenon.

Let's try to make this discussion a bit more concrete.  I'll propose an example
of a specific phenomenon, then we can argue about whether there is a theory of
cultural evolution available to explain it.  Then phenomenon is the family
resemblance among languages.

I know next to nothing about linguistics, but I take it as relatively
non-controversial that there is such a thing as the family of Indo-European
languages that includes such branches as Balto-Slavic (Baltic-Lithuania,
Latvian; Slavic-Sorbian, Serbo-Croatian, Ukranian, Russian, etc.), Germanic
(Icelandic, Faroese, English, German, etc.), Italic (Portugese, Spanish,
Catalan, French, etc.), and Indo-Iranian (Persian, Kurdish, Tajik, Urdu,
Hindi, etc.).

I suggest that knowing nothing more than that human beings tend to speak the
language of their parents and their community and that (until recently in the
historical past) human populations have been relatively immobile these family
resemblances are explicable are a result of descent with modification, just
as the family resemblances among groups of vertebrates.  To predict the
details of geographic distribution of these languages requires more knowledge
of the history of human movements, but we don't actually need to know *how*
human language ability is acquired, provided we know *that* human offspring
tend to speak the language of their parents.  Knowing how language ability
is acquired will yield additional insight into the mechanisms of language
change, but may shed little light on the pattern of linguistic relationships.

-- Kent

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Kent E. Holsinger    Internet: Holsinge@UConnVM.UConn.edu |
|  Dept. of Ecology &     BITNET: Holsinge@UConnVM     |
|  Evolutionary Biology, U-43              |
|  University of Connecticut               |
|  Storrs, CT 06269-3043               |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:231>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Tue Sep 28 11:58:45 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 09:52:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I think it's pretty well agreed that people tend to speak the language of
their parents and their communities (not necessarily the same thing of
course). And I'm willing to go along with the hypothesis of descent-
with-modification as an explanation for the resemblances among languages
and language families. But not natural selection.

Now what? There are some next questions, e.g.: (1) people pretty much tend
to speak the language of their conquerors too, or at least their
children do. Do we have a theory for this? (2) Sometimes one segment of a
society adopts someone else's language for many purposes. 19th century
Russia is an example, where French and German were used in court and
scientific community on a routine basis. Do we have a theory for this?

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:232>From rho@linda.CS.UNLV.EDU  Tue Sep 28 12:52:52 1993

To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 10:50:34 -0700
From: "Roy H. Ogawa" <rho@linda.CS.UNLV.EDU>

In message <01H3HBWQXJXY005U8X@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>you write:
 >I think it's pretty well agreed that people tend to speak the language of
 >their parents and their communities (not necessarily the same thing of
 >course). And I'm willing to go along with the hypothesis of descent-
 >with-modification as an explanation for the resemblances among languages
 >and language families. But not natural selection.

I agree that natural selection does not apply for whole languages.
But I think that natural selection occurs in the small within a language.
People may speak the language of their parents and communities but maybe
not (lots of argumentation on this) because of language genesis.
The area in which actual language genesis occurs seems to be with Pidgins
and Creoles.  Otherwise it is language change or new language acquisition.
It is pretty well understood how Pidgins are created and maintained.  But
the genesis of Creoles is not.  Maybe children invent them (Bickerton),
maybe adults invent them, maybe teenagers invent them and replace their
first languages (both their parents' first language and their parents'
pidgin).

 >Now what? There are some next questions, e.g.: (1) people pretty much tend
 >to speak the language of their conquerors too, or at least their
 >children do. Do we have a theory for this? (2) Sometimes one segment of a
 >society adopts someone else's language for many purposes. 19th century
 >Russia is an example, where French and German were used in court and
 >scientific community on a routine basis. Do we have a theory for this?

There is work in linguistics on these concepts under Language Contact
in the field of Sociolinguistics.  A book is by Thomason and Kauffman
whose title escapes me but it does have `Language Contact' in it.
It also discusses Pidgins and Creoles a bit and the History of English
from the Language Contact point of view.  A good book on Pidgins and
Creoles is a 2 volume set by Ian Holm with that as title.

Roy H. Ogawa
Computer Science
University of Nevada at Las Vegas
rho@unlv.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:233>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu  Tue Sep 28 14:19:53 1993

To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 15:23:29 -0400
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>

 Elihu Gerson agrees with the earlier poster (whose name I forgot
to make a note of -- sorry) that descent-with-modification is a
reasonable way to look at a language family's development.  So it
is; but note that it's not the way to look at *all* resemblances
among languages and language families -- there are other sources of
similarities, including structural principles common to all human
languages, easy-to-learn sounds and sound sequences, and other
typological factors that do not in themselves provide evidence
for descent with modification, i.e. for a historical relationship.

 And right, there is no obvious analogue in language history to
natural selection, though certainly developmental tendencies of
various degrees of specificity can be identified.

 Sometimes people adopt the language of their conquerors, and
sometimes not: it was the Norman French who shifted to English after
ca. 1200 A.D., not vice versa.  The social factors that determine
the outcome of language contact don't lend themselves to easy
prediction.  Still, there are ways of figuring out the histories
of languages in and out of contact situations -- of distinguishing
between inherited features and borrowed features.  So yes, there
are theories of genetic relationship (the biology-derived terminology
of historical linguistics dates to the 19th century) and also of
influence from other languages.

 It isn't true, by the way, that human populations tended to be
immobile until fairly recent times.  If there were such a tendency,
the Americas would still be unpopulated, and so would all those
islands in the Pacific, among other places.  And in places like
northern Asia, nomadic populations have been nomadic for a very
long time.  That's one reason all languages show the effects of
language contact. And that makes the assumption that genes
and language should match risky.  In fact, close inspection of
the trees published in Cavalli-Sforza's Nov. 1991 Scientific
American article (similar to, but I think not identical with, the
patterns reported in his & others' 1988 article referred to
in an earlier posting) shows that there is *no* good match at all
between his linguistic trees and his genetic trees.  One problem with
his linguistic trees is that some of their end nodes are not linguistic
groups in anyone's classificatory system ("European", "Sardinian",
"Indian").  But even if one takes the linguistic trees at face
value, they don't match the genetic trees.  Check it: you'll see
what I mean.  And even where there does seem to be a match in
Cavalli-Sforza's trees, notably in the Americas, at least some
other research has come up with conflicting results.  See
Callegari-Jacques et al., "Gm Haplotype Distribution in Amerindians:
Relationship with Geography and Language" (Am. J of Physical
Anthropology 90:427-444, 1993).  The last line of their abstract
reads, "The notion of a homogeneous Amerind genetic pool does not
conform with these and other results."

  Sally Thomason
  sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:234>From SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU  Tue Sep 28 14:23:55 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 15:27:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: SOSLEWIS@ACS.EKU.EDU
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

I am in agreement with Elihi M. Gerson up to a point. he says (1) people pretty
much tend to speak the language of their conquerors too, or at least their
children do. (...) Historically that may not be strictly  speaking true.
In the Andean area such as that around the community of Vicos they peones
spoke no Spanish. It was one of the triumphs of the Vicos project when these
people learned enough Spanish to communicate with officials without going
through the Mestizo group, which had exploited them for years through their
use of Spanish. See Jorge Isazza's Huasipungo for another account of this
type of thing. When the Greeks conquered Egypt, the man in the street did not
speak Greek but those in the court certainly did just as education Russians
used French and German and "cultured" Americans learned French even in the
backwaters of Kentucky, like Cassius Clay's daughters.
  Perhaps the only thing we could say about the inheritability of language is
that homo spaiens has the genetic potential for learning language when brain
size reaches cicra 75-cc. Perhaps some are looking for isomorphis models
between genes and cultural evolution and that may be difficult to prove.
  Ray, EKU

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:235>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU  Tue Sep 28 14:55:14 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 14:55:14 -0500
From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution

In message <24340.749244209@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>  writes:

> And right, there is no obvious analogue in language history to
> natural selection, though certainly developmental tendencies of
> various degrees of specificity can be identified.

And why doesn't natural selection apply to language evolution? Because there is
no correlation between a change in language and its tendency to be generally
adopted or lost. There is no directionality to the change.

A better analogy might be genetic drift in which random changes ("mutations")
might be equally randomly kept or lost and the robusticity of the language (or
inertia to change) correlates with population size. How well can genetic drift
model other non-genetic systems?

The tendency for horizontal transmission of words or more still makes language
very different from a genetic system. Likewise long-distance transmission
through print or other media adds a unique dimension to language, one that has
the effect of increasing its robusticity.

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

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:236>From sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu  Tue Sep 28 15:38:43 1993

To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 16:42:17 -0400
From: Sally Thomason <sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>

John Langdon says that "there is no directionality" to a linguistic
change -- "no correlation between a change in language and its
tendency to be generally adopted or lost".  I'm not entirely sure
what he has in mind, so if I guess wrong I hope he'll set me
straight.  There *is* directionality in linguistic change, especially
in sound change, which is regular and not generally subject to
speakers' whims.  Sound changes are irreversible.  If two sounds
merge completely, for instance, the merger can never be reversed.
And it is possible in many cases to say with confidence that X may
turn to Y, but not vice versa.  Language change is unpredictable,
but it isn't random: it happens as a result of pattern pressures
of various kinds (because certain kinds of things are harder to
learn and/or perceive than others), with or without influence from
a foreign language.

Overall, there is probably a better analogy between language change
and natural selection than between language change and genetic drift,
which (if what I've heard is right -- it's not my field) is supposed
to be truly random.  I know of no evidence that population size affects
the rate of linguistic change, except in relatively minor ways (e.g.
when a taboo system causes rapid vocabulary replacement).

But the analogy between the causes of linguistic
change and natural selection doesn't go all that far, in part because
the specific causes of linguistic change aren't all that well
understood (historical linguists don't claim to predict changes in a
strong sense; often even the most natural and common changes fail to
occur).  Of course, if Philip Kitcher is right (in his book Vaulting
Ambition), the number of really well-established demonstrations of
the operation of natural selection in specific cases isn't all that
large, either.  In any case, the methodologies of historical linguistics
and evolutionary biology show a lot of similarities -- more, I suspect,
than the methodologies of hist. ling. and other aspects of human
culture.

  Sally Thomason
  sally@pogo.isp.pitt.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:237>From LB@cup.portal.com  Tue Sep 28 15:50:24 1993

To: Darwin-L@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: LB@cup.portal.com
Subject: DARWIN CD-ROM
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 13:58:20 PDT

Hello to All Darwin Scholars!

	This conference has been pointed out to me recently by Stephan
Ozminski and Don Weinshank, two Darwin fans I would very much like to
meet some day.  About 2 years ago, with the help of Michael Ghiselin
of the California Academy of Sciences and many others, I produced a
CD-ROM about Charles Darwin and there has been some renewed interest
in this title over Internet...

 ... so please forgive what may appear as self-serving promotion of
our CD-ROM entitled "DARWIN", a multimedia CD-ROM for MACs and PCs.  I
am posting this message to better describe our title, and perhaps
correct some minor mis-representations about it.  Reproduced below is
our original product announcement.

            DARWIN
       Multimedia CD-ROM for MACs and PCs
        Created by Pete Goldie, Ph.D.

	Announcing DARWIN, the first electronic publication of the
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by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859;  Michael T.
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in addition to the first re-publication since the 1800's of the
original specimens collected by Darwin, the five volume set "Zoology
of the Voyage of the Beagle".  With contributions by distinguished
naturalists, librarians, and scholars from throughout the nation,
DARWIN brings together natural sound recordings, original maps from
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Features included on DARWIN:

* Charles Darwin's complete texts and original illustrations of:
			"The Voyage of the Beagle", final edition.
			"The Origin of Species", 6th and final edition.
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* Manuscript published by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in
1859, outlining the theory of evolution.
* "Triumph of the Darwinian Method", a guide to the study of Darwin,
by Michael T. Ghiselin
	(winner of the Pfizer Award of the History of Science Society).
* The Darwin Timeline, detailing the significant events in his life.
* A Darwin bibliography of over 1000 primary and secondary references.
* Original maps from the surveying voyages of the HMS Beagle and the
HMS Adventure.
* Over 650 color and black & white images.
* Natural sound recordings from the Cornell University Laboratory of
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* Illustrations of the original specimens from the "Zoology of the
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For more information or to place your order, write or call:

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	Not mentioned in this announcement is our plans to add to, and improve
this initial release with much more Darwin material.  As anyone who
studies Darwin appreciates, gathering together a comprehensive database on
Darwin is a Herculean task.  The above mentioned Ozminski and Weinshank
have risen to our request for more collaborators with their valuable
electronic sources, as have many others who have seen the CD-ROM.  Our
intention is to release a second edition disc within the 1994 year,
however, this will be a function of new material and production costs.  We
welcome everyone who has content worthy of this project.

	 It may not come as a surprise to this audience, but it has been next
to impossible to get the major CD-ROM distributors to carry this disc.
The main reason this product hasn't fit into their catalogues is (verbatim
quote follows)  "...its too educational...we sell edutainment CD-ROMs, not
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public decide what they want, not some computer purchasing agent...but I
digress...

	So for those curious about the DARWIN CD-ROM, here's how to get it, or
try you local university library (our largest market so far).  Please
forgive the interface for being ancient by computer standards.  Do not
hesitate to comment on it and suggest how to make it better.  Looking
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Best,

   Pete Goldie

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:238>From sketters@acpub.duke.edu  Tue Sep 28 15:51:46 1993

From: sketters@acpub.duke.edu (Scott Carson)
Subject: point mutations
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu (Darwin-L)
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 16:55:22 -0400 (EDT)

John Langdon's most recent post reminds me of a question
that has been nagging at me for some time, but it has little
to do with the current thread, and for that I apologize...

With respect to drift, I'm wondering whether anyone out
there is familiar enough with molecular biology to give
me some idea of how likely it is that quantum phenomena
could play a role in point mutations--i.e., can the low-
level interactions of subatomic particles contribute a
meaningful degree of randomness to drift of a sort that
is ontological and not merely statistical? Can we build
a case that evolution has a genuinely random component
that is not attributable to such statistical phenomena
as the propensity interpretation of adaptedness? What
is the secondary literature on this topic--on the quantum
stuff, not drift? Thanks in advance for any help.
-------------------------
Scott Carson
Deptartment of Philosophy
Duke University
201 West Duke Building
Durham, NC  27708
(919) 684-3838
sketters@acpub.duke.edu

_______________________________________________________________________________

<1:239>From LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU  Tue Sep 28 16:27:50 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1993 16:27:50 -0500
From: "JOHN LANGDON"  <LANGDON@GANDLF.UINDY.EDU>
To: Darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Heritability and cultural evolution

In message <24856.749248937@pogo.isp.pitt.edu>  writes:

> There *is* directionality in linguistic change, especially
> in sound change, which is regular and not generally subject to
> speakers' whims.  Sound changes are irreversible.  If two sounds
> merge completely, for instance, the merger can never be reversed.
> And it is possible in many cases to say with confidence that X may
> turn to Y, but not vice versa.  Language change is unpredictable,
> but it isn't random: it happens as a result of pattern pressures
> of various kinds (because certain kinds of things are harder to
> learn and/or perceive than others), with or without influence from
> a foreign language.

> I know of no evidence that population size affects
> the rate of linguistic change, except in relatively minor ways (e.g.
> when a taboo system causes rapid vocabulary replacement).

I'm just guessing about correlation with population size. By lack of
directionality, I mean there is no external influence determining which changes
will occur, and I doubt that there is any internal property of the language
which determines any but minor changes. (Correct me if I am wrong-- I am an
evolutionary anthropologist, not a linguist.) True natural selection is given
direction by an external influence-- the inclusive environment-- even if that
direction is not predictable.

Although genetic drift is random, it is constrained by at least two factors: it
has to work with genetic variation that is both possible and already present
and it operates only on those variations with little or no selective value
(adaptationally neutral). You seem to be saying that language has direction
because of similar constraints. To me that enhances the analogy with genetic
drift. The distinction between determination and constraint is important.

Otherwise I agree with you.

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

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<1:240>From GA3704@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU  Tue Sep 28 17:11:30 1993

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 93 17:07:39 CST
From: "Margaret E. Winters" <GA3704@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU>
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: drift

Rich Hilliard asks about the status of the notion of cyclical
change in historical linguistics.  It is an idea which is still
very much alive and addresses various kinds of language change -
synthetic (forms which contain several semantic units which may
not be dividable by dividing the parts of the physical word) vs.
analytic (forms can be taken apart) is only one of them.  Another
well studied cycle has to do with negation - the use of what
are called vivid language forms to reinforce negation (`at all'
`not a step'l...) which may in time become the negatives
themselves - French negative pas comes in fact from the word
`step' and at some point reinforced the negation of _ne_ which
comes directly from the Latin.  Now _ne_ is disappearing, at
least in casual speech, and _pas_ is the main negator.  A third
is pendular - languages tend to swing (over long periods of time)
from basic Object - Verb word order (like Japanese today) to
Verb - Object (like English) and back again.  I think bibliographies
are too long for the list, but I can send some references to
anyone who asks me personally.
Oh yes - one other point.  This is not linear, I agree, but I
am not sure these cyclical changes don't show as much (or as
little) progress as any other - as I and others have said
a couple of times already, progress in change is hard to
measure or even recognize.
          Margaret Winters
          <ga3704@siucvmb.siu.edu>
P.S.  I've just finished a paper on cyclical changes so you
all paid the price - a much longer answer than I would have
posted otherwise!

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Darwin-L Message Log 1: 201-240 -- September 1993         End