| Thursday,
June 19, 2008 I slept until Noon, but I feel pretty good. If
it weren't so hot out I'd take a walk. When I woke up at 0800 I immediately
went back to bed, but I feel like working now. Cheer!
================
A chap who believes it great fun to point out that I am an idiot sends
(among other things) this:
We've already made new species
You write:
<< No one who ever lived on a farm ever thought
that evolution doesn't work, or that if directed by a farmer or animal
breeder it doesn't work better. We still don't have new species as a
result, although St, Bernard and Yorkie cross breeds are pretty rare...
>>
How about the dog itself? Or try maize. Both
prehistoric, yes, but there's plenty of archaeological and paleontological
evidence that we did it; and they are definitely new species.
To the best of my knowledge, dogs can interbreed with both wolves and
coyotes. We can of course quibble over the definition of species, but it's
pretty clear that natural selection refers to something other than selective
breeding. Dogs, according to the latest evidence I have seen, tamed
themselves; people allowed them to do it, and somewhere in the course of
human evolution the entity 'villages with dogs' gained some superiority over
the entity 'villages without dogs'. Human evolution seems to have proceeded by
groups more than individuals. Was this intelligent design or natural
selection?
One of my cocktail party theories -- that is, a theory I will vigorously
defend in a cocktail party but have not tried to write up for a serious
journal -- is that a long time ago humans made a pact with dogs. They
retain a sense of smell. We use that part of our brain to get smart. The
same forebrain areas seem to be used for both. Dogs stayed loyal to humans
and allowed us to become humans with smarts. Thus we owe them, big time.
A little like Robert Adams's pact between the Horse Clans and the big
prairie cats.
But are we modern humans a different species from those descended from
villages that didn't allow tame dogs amongst them? (Not sure we can find
any, of course; but then it's hard to find humans that didn't find villages
preferable to solitary life.) All this is worth discussion, I
suppose, but first we need some definition of "new species."
One of the arguments used by Darwinists is that there are species of
birds that differ in a spectrum. Any two birds close together on this
spectrum can interbreed, but those from the far ends cannot. How does
this fit into the notion of species? Wherever you divide this spectrum into
two species, there will be elements of each that can interbreed with the
other.
A major problem in trying to discuss these matters is political
correctness. A Cocker Spaniel and an Australian Shepherd are clearly
the same species. They can interbreed. (Clearly: about 50 years ago our
Cocker Spaniel gave birth to a litter that included a pit bull and an
Australian Shepherd. We kept the Aussie, and Rascal was a very interesting
dog.) Their temperaments are quite different. We call those breeds of dog.
We used to speak of the breeds of man, but that is now considered racist, as
it is politically incorrect to speak of races of dogs or cats. The notion
that people might have inbred temperamental differences isn't one that
science can investigate now.
Perhaps we are learning. One of the astonishing things about DNA is just
how much DNA we have in common with the chimpanzee, and how much both we and
the chimpanzee have with an ear of corn. Perhaps a proper analysis of gene
sequencing will get us past the whole tricky notion of Linnaean taxonomy,
which was useful in its day but now seems to get in the way as much as it
helps.
My point in my original statement was that we have not unambiguously
observed the creation of a new species, but we have certainly shown how that
might happen. It is also very clear that intelligent intervention -- on the
part of, say, a sheep herder -- will move us toward new species of sheep
faster than natural selection. It's fairly easy to observe evolution in
action over long periods of time -- or at least we think it is. But the
devil is in the details, and if we're not careful we resort to Just So
stories to explain that last little jump.
Note that I am hardly arguing for either natural selection or intelligent
design: we think we have seen both at work in historical times. I am arguing
for rational discussion.
====================
And we have mail here. I'll work on Chaos Manor Reviews later. I feel
pretty good, if a bit weak.
==============
The world is panicking over birthrates. Again.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/126855.html
Behold the marching morons...
Comment from another discussion group:
Other than combative dogpack territoriality
("We must have more babies and bombers to fight/ward of Them.") what is
thought to be the value of ever-increasing populations? More people buy
more things, which is good for business but not, as far as I can see,
for anything else. I think the US at a hundred million would be far more
pleasant than it is now. The question may be whether one thinks humanity
exists to serve the economy, or the reverse.
Another comment:
The official libertarian position is that
it does not matter who is having babies. Alas, First World nations have
that status because they have First World populations.
When I was in school the US population was 140 million as I
recall. I thought that a lot of people. In those days you could ride horses
in the Great Smokey Mountains, and hunt in Mississippi canebreaks, and--
but that was in another country and besides the wench is dead.
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