Notes on novelty 1: Introduction 14 Dec 201115 Jan 2012 Notes on Novelty series: 1. Introduction 2. Historical considerations – before and after evolution 3: The meaning of evolutionary novelty 4: Examples – the beetle’s horns and the turtle’s shell 5: Evolutionary radiations and individuation 6: Levels of description 7: Surprise! 8: Conclusion – Post evo-devo I like to take the most extreme view I can think of and defend it while others get cross. Usually, this is a view that I think can be defended, but it surprises me how often I come away thinking that there are no good reasons on offer for not adopting the extreme view. Recently I made a comment over dinner at a workshop to Maureen O’Malley (Sydney) and Brett Calcott (ANU) that I failed to see why some people had trouble with the question of novelty in evolution. I thought, said I, that Darwin offered the solution: all novelty is just modification of prior structures; nothing metaphysical to see here, folks, move along. The vehemence of their reply (friendly vehemence – philosophers can disagree and still share alcohol) surprised me somewhat. However, I already knew that this was an issue. David Hull once remarked to me that novelty was an unsolved problem, and thinkers as prestigious as John Maynard Smith and Gregory Chaitin have also thought this. In this series, I aim to set up the problem as clearly as I can, and make an argument that novelty is solved, in a philosophical sense, even if we still have to investigate the details in cases. In this respect it is like the Standard Model of physics: we have a general approach, but we still need to figure out a lot of details like the Higgs and Dark Matter and Dark Energy; despite this modern physics is way better than the old vortices model of the Cartesians, for example. Our general ontology has changed for the better, even if our knowledge is incomplete. So that nobody is unclear about what I am arguing for, here is a summary of the argument itself. 1. Novelty is specified at some level of description based on there being a nonhomologous structure or function 2. There is always some level of description at which there is a homology for the underlying developmental or hereditary mechanisms that develop the novel trait 3. Novelty is therefore a function of the level or scale of description 4. What makes it novel is therefore our lack of knowledge of the right scale or level of description of traits; when we learn the right level (say, protein or cytological), the novelty seems less novel or not novel at all. 5. Novelty is therefore a matter of the surprisal value of the trait relative to homologies at that scale I will need to discuss explanatory targets and projects, incomplete information (say, in paleontology), and reductionist bugbears. I will try to argue that the novelty qua novelty is a subjective or at best discipline-relative property, and not a property of the world (on its own). Moreover I shall discuss the “major transitions” literature as being partly based upon this human-relative or anthropomorphic subjectivity. Comments welcome as we proceed, but I have it pretty well mapped out in my head. Next: The scala nature and anthropomorphism. Then “major transitions” and evolutionary radiations. Evolution Metaphysics Philosophy Science
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I find that when I take such a tack and argue for or against a thing that I would otherwise profess not to hold true, in the sense that I do not believe it, I am ignored. There seems to be a sense that you should be either blatantly obvious you “don’t mean it” when making such an argument, that the value you place on the discuss is low, or that it is meant “for the sake of example.” If so, I am not taken seriously if I intend to discuss the philosophy of bias in the sciences, or how to reduce said bias by arguing deliberately for or against a position I do not hold true. How often does this come up for you?
Everything you said makes sense to me. Are you going to describe the views of the other side for the benefit of us non-philosophers?
John said, I thought, said I, that Darwin offered the solution: all novelty is just modification of prior structures; nothing metaphysical to see here, folks, move along. I also would love to see your summary of the opposition to this, so I could join you in refuting it. 🙂
Of possible help to the discussion?: a clarifying paper at philpapers: Massimo Pigliucci (2008). What, If Anything, is an Evolutionary Novelty? Philosophy of Science 75 (5):887-898. “The idea of phenotypic novelty appears throughout the evolutionary literature. Novelties have been defined so broadly as to make the term meaningless and so narrowly as to apply only to a limited number of spectacular structures. Here I examine some of the available definitions of phenotypic novelty and argue that the modern synthesis is ill equipped at explaining novelties. I then discuss three frameworks that may help biologists get a better insight of how novelties arise during evolution but warn that these frameworks should be considered in addition to, and not as potential substitutes of, the modern synthesis.”
Massimo’s summary is most helpful and I have been discussing this topic with him – in fact the summary of the argument is taken from an email I sent to him.
Naturally, I assumed that you were well familiar with this work. I thought it could be relevant background material for some readers as they follow your upcoming formalization. It helped me.
In spite of your elegant description, I am still unsure what a novelty is. Can you give some examples from which we can make inductive leaps? Is an external tail on a modern day human an novelty? Is a red flower on a plant with otherwise white flowers a novelty?
Patience! I am going to attend to all this in subsequent posts. This is due to be a paper, so it will take me time. This is just the introduction (see? It’s right up there in the Subject) to the series.