[FRIAM] towards a description of a goal-function relation

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Jon, 

Your RE: line shows me that you understand precisely the nature of the
problem, and that you are addressing it head on.  I am truly grateful that .
However, for some reason, I have been feeling very muddle-brained all week
(since I failed the Trump Test), and so fear that I may not be able to meet
this post at the level it deserves.  I am hoping that Eric and others may be
able to fill in for me. Perhaps I may be able to pull myself together and
catch up over the weekend. 

At the risk of doing that thing that Glen says I do, let me pick out and
hammer on one point.  The function of a structure or behavior can NEVER be
the preservation of the species.  This is an example of the very principle
we are struggling with here.  To the extent that function is "that for which
nature selects", nature cannot select for the preservation of the species,
because, by the nature of species, the species is the repository of all the
effects of differential reproduction.  For selection to operate at the level
of the species, there would have to be one or more competing species, and
species, by and large, mostly, do not compete.  (That is why they are said
to occupy different "niches". ) They eat one another, but that is not
competition.  Even when they do compete, species do not have the coherence
and variety to serve as units of selection.  For these same reasons, group
selection of any kind is controversial in evolutionary thought, but most
everybody agrees that benefit to the species, as such, is not an
evolutionary cause.   What selection dictates, in the gull case, is not that
"gulls survive", but that egg shell removal has arisen because those gulls
that remove egg shells are prayed upon by foxes less than those that do not.
The survival of gulls is an "unintended consequence" of  selection upon
eggshell removal. 

Thanks for pitching in and helping with our understanding of the
goal/function relation.

Nick 


Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jo? Zingale
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2020 12:38 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] towards a description of a goal-function relation

another attempt to fix the broken threads...



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