Blog 20141008
Bill shows a bit of “yesbutitis” as he resists new
words that do not fit his world view.
I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose
comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The
Scientific Worldview" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".
The Biological Microcosm
BW: The
chapter is a muddle of jargon, with no point except that some processes are
analogous to others. That there are equilibrium conditions for both chemicals
and species in an environment is a mundane observation.
TSW: "... the motion called life has changed
little since biopoesis."
BW: The
change from plant to animal was huge. The change from instinct to sentience,
and then to sapience, were enormous modifications to the characteristics of
animal life. Are humans just pond scum?
[GB: One can think of all changes as either significant
or insignificant. That judgment is purely subjective. It all depends on your
emphasis and the story you are trying to tell. After all, according to the Ninth Assumption of Science,
relativism,
all things have characteristics that make them similar to all other
things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things.
As I was careful to point out in discussing that assumption, one can reason
either by analogy or by disparity. In this case, you have chosen disparity,
presumably just to pose a disagreement—the sort of “yesbutitis” that afflicts most
folks, particularly academics. In the quoted discussion, I was emphasizing
similarities, which is what we do when we say “all motions are similar.”]
TSW: "All dissimilarities are relative dissimilarities
and all similarities are relative similarities."
BW: I don't
understand the point. Similarity is a comparison of two things. Of course it's
relative. However, that doesn't in any way mitigate the value of identifying or
forming distinct identities for things with similar characteristics, on the basis of those comparisons.
[GB: Sorry, but there are no identities. Those only
exist in the mind of the idealist. Reread my section on classification.]
TSW: "The imagined absolute disconnection
between the physicochemical and biological models is widely and uncritically
accepted today."
BW: What
"absolute disconnection"? Have you ever heard of something called a
pharmaceutical company? I've never heard of any biologist that didn't depend
heavily on chemical processes to study and characterize biological processes. I
don't see any disconnection whatever.
[GB: This goes back to our discussion of
neo-Darwinism, the mechanism of evolution that requires genes for its
operation. At the time, you thought that univironmental determinism was
redundant and unnecessary even though abiogenesis or “biogenesis” (the
transformation of inorganic chemicals into living organisms) cannot possibly be
explained by neo-Darwinism because there are no genes involved during the early
stages.]
TSW: "... that organisms, like all other
microcosms, respond equally to what is inside them and to what is outside
them."
BW: An
artificial construct. If you define boundary conditions, the internal and
external influences are never equal.
[GB: False. Remember that a cause can involve an
absence just as much as a presence. Newton’s object does not travel in a
straight line unless there is “nothing” or at least very little in the way to
stop it.]
TSW: "All microcosms have a univironmental
boundary, the place where the macrocosm exerts its influence ..."
BW: This is
like saying "distinct parts of a distinct thing influence other distinct
parts of a distinct thing". It's just a bunch of words strung together
that contain no information beyond "things interact."
[GB: You missed the point. The “other distinct parts”
are not parts of “a distinct thing.” They are parts of the macrocosm, otherwise
known as the environment.]
TSW: "Biological and chemical 'refugia' have
many important dissimilarities."
BW: The ONLY
similarity is analogical: chemicals change configurations when exposed to other
chemicals and species change in response to changing environments. The analogy
of one to the other doesn't provide us with any new information or better
knowledge of either one.
[GB: This was simply contextual. Both types of refugia
have many similar properties as well as many properties that are dissimilar.
Reread the discussion.]
TSW: "The universe consists of two parts:
microcosm and macrocosm ...
BW: The
universe is ALL things. Nature doesn't divide them into two parts, ever.
Conceptualization requires that we identify the natural boundaries of distinct
things, based on their characteristics. That's the only way that we acquire
knowledge of how nature produces those things and how those things interact
with other things. There is no "dialectic" in nature. Artificial
"divisions" into two parts teaches us nothing about how nature works.
[GB: False. Nature may be “all things,” but it also has
an infinity of divisions. One can always take any one of those xyz portions of
the universe and observe its interactions with the rest of the universe. Your
last four sentences contradict each other: “identify boundaries of distinct
things” and “artificial ‘divisions’ into two parts teaches us nothing.” Which
is it?
Next: The Human Microcosm
cotsw 045
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