Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA02074 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 21 Nov 2001 03:44:06 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: "Philip A.E. Jonkers" <phae@uclink.berkeley.edu> Organization: UC Berkeley To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Taxonomy and speciation Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:43:26 -0800 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.2] References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D13B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D13B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Message-Id: <01112018432608.01049@storm.berkeley.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tuesday 20 November 2001 10:49 am, you wrote:
> Avoiding the biological issues here, perhaps I could briefly offer some
> comments coming broadly from a linguistic field (not mine but closer to
> what I do than the biology side of your argument).
>
> Your allusion to the term 'dog' reminds me of Wittgenstein's stuff, and
> subsequently about the kinds of concerns in semiotics about the non-fixed
> nature of meaning.
>
> Now it strikes me that the concept of species fits into the kind of
> distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic meaning. In other words,
> the concept of species is, in absolute terms, as you say in our heads in
> that syntagmatically- or over time- one species is always seguing into the
> next and the line is not necessarily clear (I saw a TV show last night
> about the recent finds of a bipedal hominid from 6 million years ago,
> putting human ancestry back much further than previously thought, for
> example [as an aside to the debate about selves and consciousness, I noted
> one of the experts on that programme actually said that bipedalism was
> arguably the most important differentiation from human ancestors and other
> primate ancestors- when you go back a long way, anyway]).
When humans freed two limbs by standing upwards a literally
a world of manipulative possibilities opened up. With an intrinsic and
unrivaled manual dexterity memetic evolution kicked off.
I don't think it's an understatement that that is like the invention of the
wheel in human evolution.
Semiotics, syntagmatic? I'm sorry I left my Webster's back in Holland
(it was too dorned heavy) and I can't find those words in Cambridge's. So
please enlighten me Vincent, what do you mean?
> On the other hand, paradigmatically- at any particular point in time, one
> can surely see the existence of species- a distinct group of organisms that
> share characteristics, both physiological and behavioural etc. etc.
>
> In other words perhaps what's reflected in the concept of species is our
> chronological bias to now- what's happening now, but in the sense of
> helping to classify things around us, the idea of species is useful?
>
> If this all sounds weird, or silly, please ignore, I'm writing after a long
> day's teaching- that hasn't finished yet as I'm teaching a evening degree
> class for the next couple of hours.
>
> Vincent
>
> > ----------
> > From: Philip A.E. Jonkers
> > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 1:06 am
> > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Subject: Taxonomy and speciation
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > Since we are so fond of biological evolution too, I thought it might be
> > worth-while to inform you on the next matter.
> > As I'm reading Darwin's Dangerous Idea, I've come with the following
> > interpretation on speciation, i.e. the birth of a new species. I sent
> > an email to Dennett himself in which I layed out my ideas. Here is the
> > part of that email that captures the essentials.
> >
> > Please read and see what you make of it, if you are interested I can
> > give you Dennett's reply too. But I don't want to bias you so I'll do
> > that after your responses.
> >
> > Philip.
> >
> > ....
> >
> > Before elaborating on speciation let's consider taxonomy in general
> > first. We humans have derived great practical use in attributing names to
> > whatever
> > phenomenon we have encountered over history. These name-tags function as
> > short-hand syntactic pointers to the semantics of the items they are
> > meant to signify. For example, when someone talks about a "dog" to me,
> > I automatically imagine a small carnivorous lively mammal making
> > excellent
> >
> > companions and warning systems by their serving nature and their
> > innately present high degree of vigilance, etc...
> > These tags, once accepted by the masses, facilitate rapid and easier
> > communication by making superfluous the use of elaborate and
> > time-consuming
> > descriptions. Small wonder we humans became quite adapt in universally
> > applying this necessary rather than merely convenient tool of labeling.
> >
> > This process of tagging we indiscriminately applied also to the living
> > nature. If we would be at ease with the faulty preconception
> > that, for religious reasons, species are to be considered being
> > immutable,
> >
> > no problems emerge: attributing fixed names to presumed fixed species
> > goes without problems. However, as Darwin competently made plausible in
> > his
> > `Origin' this is of course not how nature really works. Every living
> > being in
> > nature evolves, organisms incessantly change.
> > Thus our tradition of taxonomy, though being well-designed for labeling
> > fixed entities, falls somewhat short when trying to label dynamically
> > evolving entities. To put it boldly, species do not exist anywhere but
> > in our own heads. They actually are memes which were created through
> > our eagerness to conveniently label everything we encounter.
> > Speciation does not occur in nature in an intrinsic manner (that is,
> > independent of observers). Being no real part of nature it comes as no
> > surprise
> > that it is quite impossible to determine when exactly a case of
> > speciation
> >
> > occurred. We have decided to tag creatures with such and such names,
> > based on the historical and religious assumption that they were fixed.
> > When found that they were evolving instead we ran into trouble because
> > it is practically impossible to determinable when exactly a case of
> > speciation occurred. The notion of speciation as actually occurring in
> > nature
> > is a fallacious artifact due to a forced attempt to mend our view of
> > nature
> > by incorporating evolution-theory into the traditional worldview of
> > taxonomy that is based on the idea of fixed species. If the concept of
> > speciation is to bear any sense in the contemporary evolutionary
> > conception of nature it can do so only if it were to be used
> > with a very casual and loose definition.
> >
> > In short, I contend that speciation occurs nowhere in nature but in our
> > heads
> > and actually is an artifact of a somewhat misplaced application
> > of our deeply ingrained tradition of taxonomy to organize the presumed
> > non-evolving realm of organisms.
> >
> > Philip.
> >
> > ===============================================================
> > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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