What Darwin Got Wrong: Book Review (hardly)

There appears to be a gaping flaw in the most popular theory of evolution, modern evolutionary synthesis, and it's natural selection. This seems like a bold statement, and maybe it is, but there are a growing number of biologists that agree. At least, this is what Jerry Fodor and Massimo Plattelli-Palmarini found while putting together their new book What Darwin Got Wrong.

Unfortunately, whenever there is an attack, even a pure scientific attack, on anything involving evolution there is always a need to address the religious implications. The authors put this to rest at the introduction, assuring the readers that they are die hard atheists, allowing Richard Dawkins fans to read on for at least a few more pages without extreme bias. Then, the authors turn to an analogy comparing natural selection with Skinner's failed behaviorism. I didn't like or completely understand this comparison from the outset. Behaviorism is inputs and outputs that effect a single organism, and natural selection is long term adaptations that formulate new species. They spend around 50 pages on this comparison that was never quite clear to me.

Actually, most the book is full of technical jargon and seemingly illogical structure. I was very unimpressed with the writing ability of the authors. Most of the time the language was so technical that it was indecipherable. Maybe if I was an evolutionary biologist I could understand the ridiculous amount of terms that weren't defined in the book. Which brings me to my next problem; the book is full of undefined technical writing, while the title is an obvious marketing ploy geared toward laymen.

However, their main point appears valid, and natural selection has some possibly fatal flaws. For starters, it's a logical fallacy by definition. In the authors' words, they claim that natural selection is: "(1) the claim that evolution is a process in which creatures with adaptive traits are selected and (2) the claim that evolution is a process in which creatures are selected for their adaptive traits. We will argue that Darwinism is committed to inferring 2 from 1; that inference is invalid (in fact it's what philosophers call intensional fallacy.)" The authors didn't do a great job of explaining the flawed philosophy of natural selection further, again because of the language used, but that argument did get me thinking, and I think it does hold up, at least under circular reasoning. Darwin tried to explain evolution of species by saying that the fittest survive to pass on their genes. And what defines fit? The ability to survive. And how is survival proven? Existence. Survival = Fitness = Existence; Circular! So, natural selection is logically a flawed, or at least an incomplete argument.

But, we've seen it work, right? There are fossil records showing adaptations morphing creatures into different species. Well yes, and some species did in fact develop from natural selection, we have some pretty clear evidence for that, but there are plenty of species in which we have no reason to believe that natural selection had any part in. The book covered this, but again I couldn't make out their language. Actually, I think I'm done reviewing this book, I didn't really learn anything from it, although I think it said a lot, I just couldn't understand it. So, I'll just keep going on the issue.

Anyway, when Darwin developed his theory he knew nothing of genetics, and natural selection strictly spoke to the environment. Modern Darwinists just added genetics into his theory, and OK, that fits well at first glance. The problem is that modern genetics has also found that there is another major aspect to evolution, and that is random genetic drift. Random genetic drift happens completely within the species and doesn't depend on the environment. Random alleles in small populations get passed from generation to generation creating large changes, and eventually even new species. Again, this has nothing to do with fitness in an environment, and happens within organisms themselves. Since modern evolutionary synthesis claims that natural selection can account for all variations and all species, it must be false.

So, natural selection may be valid in that in some cases it has been shown to cause variation in species. Natural selection should certainly not be scrapped, but it really should be analyzed and reworded. It may still be salvaged to become a major part of the evolutionary process, but definitely not the be all end all of evolution. If science has told us anything, it's that a theory that starts out really simple (natural selection) usually ends up being very complicated. This was covered in the What Darwin Got Wrong, so there is my attempt to salvage my butchered review. Natural selection is entirely too simplistic and general to account for the evolution of life. How convenient is it that natural selection makes no predictions? Darwinists are free to explain away any problems that arise, after the fact. Maybe if modern biologists *cough* Richard Dawkins *cough* paid more attention to research in their fields, rather than launching an attack on religion using natural selection and evolution as their weapons, science would have a better understanding of evolution. My hat goes off to the scientists in quantum physics, because of the progress they've made since Newton. Biology, on the other hand, has been trying to preserve Darwinism when it should be trying to build on it.

Oneirology and Transcendence

The interest you have in dreams probably has an extremely strong correlation with how vividly you remember them. For me, I remember my dreams perhaps too vividly. Sometimes I honestly wake up thinking what happened really did just happen, and I slowly have to come to the realization that the recent "events" in what I thought was my life have just been erased. Usually, I'm very relieved, occasionally though it can be very sad, and it actually makes me depressed for a while. Now, this doesn't happen often by any means, it actually happens very rarely that dreams are this real to me, but when it does happen it's truly fascinating. For example, I remember a dream I used to have when I was about 10 years old when the doll Chucky would constantly try to steal my little brother. This wasn't a reoccurring dream in the sense that the it was the same dream over and over, but instead I would always pick up right where the last dream left off. This happened every night for about two months, and it was like living two different realities for a little while.


Biologically, there's no clear answer to the purpose of dreams. Rapid Eye Movement was a big discovery, but it doesn't really tell us much besides the apparent fact that we only dream for a couple of hours every night. As usual, there seems to be two extremes in an argument about dreams that both probably go a little too far about the entire thing. On one side you have people saying that dreams are basically rubbish, and can and will one day be controlled and explained scientifically. On the other side you have people who claim that our dreams prove that everything is based entirely on the perception of our senses, and nothing is actually real. Well, that sounds good when you're high I guess, but actually while we're awake, we're in a universe full of constants and guided by strict laws that can be tested over and over again. In each of our dreams though, we are guided by different laws. Some of us can fly, shape shift, time travel etc. However, our senses certainly do seem to defy us while we sleep. I can be in no real physical danger, but my senses trick me into thinking I'm getting attacked by a bear. While the world we live in may be real in the sense that it is there and constant, our dreams allow us to transcend this reality and every single one of the constants that we have come to know us unwavering fact, including time and matter. I'm sure you've all been asked or wondered, if given the choice would you dream through your life, or live in the world full of harsh realities and constants? You would think evolution would have weeded out sensations and thoughts like the ones in our dreams, as they are completely unnecessary and even distracting to our survival.

I could go on about this, but it's 1am. If you like this kind of stuff I recommend the movie Waking Life. What are your thoughts and what do you dream about, 4 people that read this?

The Blockbuster as Zombie Food

If you've seen the movie Land of the Dead you probably laughed at the parts where people could distract the zombies' hunger by shooting off fireworks. The zombies would stop and stare in awe at these explosions in the sky. Well, the movie industry is shooting fireworks at you, and I feel like I'm the only one laughing.

Basically, I have a huge problem with the movie industry lately. It is becoming increasingly bland and predictable. The worst part is that the more horrible, simple minded movies are becoming, the more money they make. Avatar is the culmination of this! People praising that movie are no better than the zombies who would stare at fireworks in the movie Land of the Dead. Meanwhile, one zombie saw how utterly stupid and pointless these fireworks were, and tried to convince the idiot zombies to stop staring. This is how I feel. I'm telling everyone "but this movie has a recycled plot, horrible acting, and some of the worst character development possible," but everyone just replies "but it looks so cool!"

OK, I'm used to this, what I'm not used to is that same movie that I speak against winning during movie award season. The Golden Globes are usually pretty good (certainly not great) with choosing decent movies, but this year was just awful. I mean Sandra Bullock, Monique, and Avatar? What the hell, were they bought out by MTV? I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with fact that they do TV and movie awards in the same ceremony. Television is the worst writing of any art form, of any genre. Newspaper ads have less predictable writing than television. As far as the Golden Globes go, movies are now being rewarded for the same reason TV is rewarded: short term popularity. Hardly any judgment based on actual aesthetic, artistic criticism was used this year, that's obvious. There is nothing of real artistic value in Avatar, outside of the visuals, so give it best special effects and let the zombies masturbate over it. The only intellectual point of the movie is the environmental aspect, which isn't presented to us in a subtle manner, but beaten into us with a metaphorical sledge hammer, leaving nothing for us to actually think about (nor is anything new to the issue ever offered).

Another fear that I have with these blockbusters is that they will be pretty much our only viewing options. If production company A has X amount of budget to distribute to movies and Avatar ( over 300 million dollars) uses 3/4 of X, then that leaves very little for other movies. Most likely another blockbuster will take the rest of the 1/4 leaving nothing for an up and coming director who needs 7 million dollars to make a movie that will (gasp) challenge us to think.

That being said, I still have a little faith in the Oscars, mainly because of their largely ignoring the hype around The Dark Knight last year. I am going to try to catch up on award movies for that, anyway.

Let the Poets Cry Themselves to Sleep

To say I've been in an emotional slump lately is the early understatement of the decade. I know that time will fix everything, but in the meantime this past couple of weeks has been far worse than I anticipated, for more reasons than I anticipated. This has forced me to pick up some new hobbies, since my old ones were doing nothing for me. Before all of this my two favorite things in the world were dreaming and reading novels. Well, dreaming is now a cruel joke, and reading has been a struggle (I've read about 30 pages in 2 weeks ).
In light of this struggle with novels I've switched to reading and writing poetry, because I thought it might be therapeutic in some way, and in a way I was right. There is something about getting your emotions down on paper in the efficient manner that only poetry allows that relieves some of those emotions, or at least makes them a little more understandable. In this way, poetry is a very personal form of literature. It typically comes from emotions that we don't quite understand, which often leads to varying interpretations.
In short, poetry can be beautiful and enlightening, but unfortunately I found that most of it kind of sucks. Of course this is my subjective opinion, but it seems to me that most problems in the poetry I've read comes from people who wrote or write poetry for the specific purpose of that poetry being published and read. I can not imagine a bunch of people reading my poetry! For me, poetry deals with subjects so personal that it is only meant for myself, or maybe one other person. When poetry is written for other people to understand it, it becomes too contrived and very inefficient because the subjects, emotions, and meanings tend to be spelled out far too often. Efficiency is important to me because connecting with a poem that you can interpret personally hits my heart faster, harder, and long lasting. Personal interpretation goes a long way to establish a real connection with poetry.
I'm not saying that poetry can't work for people for other reasons, because obviously it does, I'm only saying that it doesn't work that way for me. I do enjoy reading poetry from time to time, but I've found that writing it stirs a range of emotions that reading it rarely even touches. If someone ever were to write a poem specifically for me I imagine it could have a similar effect. In contrast, when poetry is written to be published it loses that personal and efficient touch, leaving a lot of empty words and empty meanings.
However, I did say most of it sucks, not all of it, and what doesn't suck is pretty amazing. Some poetry covers emotions that we go through so well that it can strike almost anyone that reads it. Also, some poetry conveys a message and image so beautiful that it becomes a testament of the human spirit. I want to leave you with one of those. This is a poem by W.B. Yeats that a friend of mine recently reminded me of (this friend is a pretty good poet himself). It's called "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven." Enjoy!



Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

The Evolution of God ( short book review and thoughts)

The following thought was inspired and shaped by a book a friend let me borrow (thanks Gabe) called The Evolution of God. In this book Robert Wright examines the development of morals in religion throughout history. His main focus is on the Abrahamic religions, although he quickly moves through early hunter gatherer societies and their religious evolution in the first few chapters of the book. Now, there are things in this book that will please everyone and piss everyone off at the same time, so basically it's a great book, but the main point he makes is that humans seem to be on this path of morality. When Wright speaks of God he speaks of the concept of God, never really stating whether or not he believes a God actually exists. Wright states that throughout our evolutionary history natural selection has guided people toward acceptance and moral direction, and this can be seen through the scripture of religion and the facts on the ground at the time these works were written. He backs his point up well with his theory of non-zero sum relationships, which is basically that as societies grow it benefits us to rely on each other, so we treat each other well. This gets reflected in religious scriptures. In Wright's words "As the scope of social organization grows , God tends to eventually catch up, drawing a larger expanse of humanity under his protection, or at least a larger expanse of humanity under his toleration."

Is there evidence in a deity in all of this? I would say yes, evidence but certainly not proof. The human race seems to be guided toward moral goodness. There is a solid sense of right and wrong, and due to nonzero sum relationships between the human race through cultural evolution the most beneficial choice is almost always a morally good choice. Unfortunately, of course, we haven't always made the right choices. Still, I think there is a purpose to our progress here, and I think we are on the right track toward moral truth. However, this "moral truth" is likely something we will never reach. The human brain did not evolve to detect and observe universal truths. In one of my favorite parts of the book Wright makes a good point about electrons. In class we all saw the pictures of electrons whirling around an atom, but the fact is we have no idea what an electron looks like because we've never actually observed one. Still, they almost certainly exist because they fit perfectly and necessarily into the make up of an atom. There are numerous things in physics that are not observable but we can see their effect on things that are observable. The moral progression of the human race suggests a driving purpose of some kind. This can be observed in a number of historical scriptures, including religious scriptures. In the Abrahamic faiths God has gone from choosing one society of people to offering the entire world salvation, for example. So, maybe we can't directly observe what is driving us toward this moral purpose but we can observe it's effects, and just maybe it's not unreasonable to call that God.

Other thoughts:

Don't go see Avatar if you care a lot about intellectual value in movies. Basically, the better these blockbuster movies do, the more money movie companies are going to throw at them, leaving less money for up and coming directors with a thoughtful movie. I'm sure that was a waste of two sentences though.

I don't advise watching the movie Little Children when you're already depressed.

Ben Bernanke is far from the person of the year. Time fucked that one up big time. The head of the most evil institution on the planet is our person of the year? Really?




The next blog should be a little more entertaining. Chris wants do drink and co-write one with me. Cheers!