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No, I think this is wrong. Behaviours that groups exhibit will definitely be passed on from individual to individual and definitely have an effect on the abili

No, I think this is wrong. Behaviours that groups exhibit will definitely be passed on from individual to individual and definitely have an effect on the ability of the group to survive. And - whether something is passed on socially or through genes, it doesn't matter. 'Evolution' is not just a function of genes, obviously. Your list of 'behaviours' is easy to describe, and I'll do it in context of your 'a' and 'b' positions. From 'b' - "we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us" - obviously. But who cares? The species that takes up the best behaviours for it's environment will persist beyond those that do not. From 'a' - Whether altruistic behavior is good/desirable or not has nothing to do with its contribution to evolutionary fitness. Yes it does. Run a little evolutionary simulation a a computer program. Create little 'bits' that evolve over time, and interact with one another - you'll see the bugs with the best social behaviours win - the others dissapear. - " spending your life in almost solitary confinement to solve some math problem" First off - this did not happen until way, way into human social development. Once we have complex social functions, it makes evolutionary sense to allocate some members of society towards 'very long term' thinking. 'The guy in the cave' is the same thing as a PhD today: someone who'd dedicated their life to something probably trivial or irrelevant, but which may have huge impact, possibly in the future. - 'war' - war is perfectly understandable as selfish behaviour in the short run: a social group can 'get ahead' quickly by taking stuff of others. - 'not passing on stuff to kids'. From a social perspective, it doesn't matter that much if the money goes to one's kids, or the neighbors kids. Both will contribute to group survival. "I've often seen real evolution being deliberately mixed up with ideas about the spreading on information contained in books, web pages, speech, etc. but I fail to see how the spreading of this information could be even remotely related to the way genes spread" It's very simple: an organism that learns how to read and write, and to pass down it's knowledge from generation to generation will 'out survive' ones that don't - and their genes are much more likely to be passed on.

JohnStrange 10y ago
And - whether something is passed on socially or through genes, it doesn't matter. 'Evolution' is not just a function of genes, obviously. That's not obvious at all and it matters a lot. The idea that there is e.g. an 'evolution of ideas' is ill-conceived and misleading for many reasons. The same can be said about similar ideas like 'evolution of social systems', 'evolution of memes', etc. In order to show that there is an evolutionary process that goes beyond of what is transmitted by genes you first have to show empirically that the respective information is transmitted non-genetically, then find a good model of how exactly it is transmitted and to which individuals and groups it is transmitted, and then develop and show that a concept of fitness applies to the process that is sufficiently similar to biological fitness to even be able to talk about evolution in a meaningful, non-contrived way. Then you can attempt to build an evolutionary model, and then you'd need to evaluate that model by looking at predictions. Unless the information is spread exactly like genes are spread, that model will look very different from biological evolution and each and every aspect of the model needs to be justified, in the same vein as you have to justify any analytical model. I don't claim to be an expert in this field but have to reiterate that from what I've inferred from many talks and conversations with colleagues who work in such areas (like EGT, social dynamics, etc.), that there is no widespread consensus on such a justification. Most models of non-genetic, nonbiological 'evolution' seem to be fairly ad hoc. They just stipulate certain information transmission mechanisms and come up with fitness criteria as it suits them, without much of an empirical basis. It's Lamarck's giraffes in fine modern mathematical clothing. From 'b' - "we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us" - obviously. But who cares? The species that takes up the best behaviors for it's environment will persist beyond those that do not. In my experience, everybody cares about what's good and what's bad, even those who think they don't. Not caring about it and placing evolution higher in your value system is a bit like saying "Hey, let's blow up the earth, that's more consistent with the laws of thermodynamics anyway." Run a little evolutionary simulation a a computer program. With arbitrary parameters, fitness function, and information transmission mechanism, I can certainly write seemingly convincing little computer programs to show of any behavior whatsoever that it is evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. That's because if I can choose all parameters and the transmission mechanism as I like, I simply redefine what 'evolution' means each time, disregarding how biological evolution works. But just because you make a dynamic model with some sort of fitness function, many individuals, and some starting state doesn't mean you model evolution. It's very simple: an organism that learns how to read and write, and to pass down it's knowledge from generation to generation will 'out survive' ones that don't - and their genes are much more likely to be passed on. I'd like to see evidence for that. But in any case that would only explain how reading and writing evolves, not any evolution about what's written - which is what I was criticizing. The written information is not transmitted by genes, hence not subject to biological evolution. If the written information is somehow subject to some evolutionary selection process, then you may try to find an analytical model for that. I'm not saying that all of these models are wrong for some principle reason, just that many of them are fishy, based on sometimes flawed analogy to biological evolution, and in need of more foundational justification. I also kind of disagree with many aspects of your 'easy' explanations and would like to see some evidence for them, but let's leave it at that.
- edblarney 10y ago
  "In order to show that there is an evolutionary process that goes beyond of what is transmitted by genes you first have to show empirically that the respective information is transmitted non-genetically, " Where did you learn to speak English? Where did you learn to read and write? Where did you learn Math? Where did you learn how to eat, run, catch a ball? You learned those things from your social environment - those are bit of knowledge that are handed down from generation to generation and 100% affect your ability to survive and thrive in your environment. You're a living example of how 'information is passed non-genetically' - there's no need to do an experiment to show how that is done, it'd be like doing an experiment to see if the sun rises tommorow. Social information is absolutely passed down from generation to generation, and this affects how species adapt to their environment and thus which genes are passed. This is obvious, there's no way to contend that, really.

JohnStrange 10y ago

And - whether something is passed on socially or through genes, it doesn't matter. 'Evolution' is not just a function of genes, obviously. That's not obvious at all and it matters a lot. The idea that there is e.g. an 'evolution of ideas' is ill-conceived and misleading for many reasons. The same can be said about similar ideas like 'evolution of social systems', 'evolution of memes', etc. In order to show that there is an evolutionary process that goes beyond of what is transmitted by genes you first have to show empirically that the respective information is transmitted non-genetically, then find a good model of how exactly it is transmitted and to which individuals and groups it is transmitted, and then develop and show that a concept of fitness applies to the process that is sufficiently similar to biological fitness to even be able to talk about evolution in a meaningful, non-contrived way. Then you can attempt to build an evolutionary model, and then you'd need to evaluate that model by looking at predictions. Unless the information is spread exactly like genes are spread, that model will look very different from biological evolution and each and every aspect of the model needs to be justified, in the same vein as you have to justify any analytical model. I don't claim to be an expert in this field but have to reiterate that from what I've inferred from many talks and conversations with colleagues who work in such areas (like EGT, social dynamics, etc.), that there is no widespread consensus on such a justification. Most models of non-genetic, nonbiological 'evolution' seem to be fairly ad hoc. They just stipulate certain information transmission mechanisms and come up with fitness criteria as it suits them, without much of an empirical basis. It's Lamarck's giraffes in fine modern mathematical clothing. From 'b' - "we are perfectly capable of behaving in ways that are not evolutionary advantageous to us" - obviously. But who cares? The species that takes up the best behaviors for it's environment will persist beyond those that do not. In my experience, everybody cares about what's good and what's bad, even those who think they don't. Not caring about it and placing evolution higher in your value system is a bit like saying "Hey, let's blow up the earth, that's more consistent with the laws of thermodynamics anyway." Run a little evolutionary simulation a a computer program. With arbitrary parameters, fitness function, and information transmission mechanism, I can certainly write seemingly convincing little computer programs to show of any behavior whatsoever that it is evolutionary advantageous or disadvantageous. That's because if I can choose all parameters and the transmission mechanism as I like, I simply redefine what 'evolution' means each time, disregarding how biological evolution works. But just because you make a dynamic model with some sort of fitness function, many individuals, and some starting state doesn't mean you model evolution. It's very simple: an organism that learns how to read and write, and to pass down it's knowledge from generation to generation will 'out survive' ones that don't - and their genes are much more likely to be passed on. I'd like to see evidence for that. But in any case that would only explain how reading and writing evolves, not any evolution about what's written - which is what I was criticizing. The written information is not transmitted by genes, hence not subject to biological evolution. If the written information is somehow subject to some evolutionary selection process, then you may try to find an analytical model for that. I'm not saying that all of these models are wrong for some principle reason, just that many of them are fishy, based on sometimes flawed analogy to biological evolution, and in need of more foundational justification. I also kind of disagree with many aspects of your 'easy' explanations and would like to see some evidence for them, but let's leave it at that.

edblarney 10y ago
"In order to show that there is an evolutionary process that goes beyond of what is transmitted by genes you first have to show empirically that the respective information is transmitted non-genetically, " Where did you learn to speak English? Where did you learn to read and write? Where did you learn Math? Where did you learn how to eat, run, catch a ball? You learned those things from your social environment - those are bit of knowledge that are handed down from generation to generation and 100% affect your ability to survive and thrive in your environment. You're a living example of how 'information is passed non-genetically' - there's no need to do an experiment to show how that is done, it'd be like doing an experiment to see if the sun rises tommorow. Social information is absolutely passed down from generation to generation, and this affects how species adapt to their environment and thus which genes are passed. This is obvious, there's no way to contend that, really.