tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post1384024630376442751..comments2024-03-28T02:36:04.078-07:00Comments on Health Correlator: Great evolution thinkers you should know aboutNed Kockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-28885044218817511832012-12-20T06:22:06.521-08:002012-12-20T06:22:06.521-08:00Hi Ned. I saw the following and wondered if you mi...Hi Ned. I saw the following and wondered if you might like to see them. Perhaps you could comment in a future blog post.<br /><br />Jim<br /><br />http://www.cell.com/AJHG/retrieve/pii/S0002929712005381<br /><br />http://www.business-standard.com/generalnews/news/most-genetic-mutations-only-5000-to-10000-years-old/90880/Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07508219793080252869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-17173730300459943482011-12-20T06:24:41.131-08:002011-12-20T06:24:41.131-08:00It is impressive the amount of diets that it is av...It is impressive the amount of diets that it is available out side but it is good because one can work with you and other don'txl pharmacyhttp://www.xlpharmacy.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-54135348092674509952011-10-09T13:47:42.011-07:002011-10-09T13:47:42.011-07:00Beautiful clip gwarm, thanks.Beautiful clip gwarm, thanks.Ned Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-72278307044532854252011-10-09T13:29:48.037-07:002011-10-09T13:29:48.037-07:00Take a look at this Fibonacci sequence explained t...Take a look at this Fibonacci sequence explained through a beautiful video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA</a><br />'Applications include computer algorithms such as the Fibonacci search technique and the Fibonacci heap data structure, and graphs called Fibonacci cubes used for interconnecting parallel and distributed systems. They also appear in biological settings,[6] such as branching in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruit spouts of a pineapple,[7] the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone.[8]' <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number" rel="nofollow">wiki</a><br /><br />Saw this video <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/l618b/til_that_a_single_dose_of_hallucinogen_may_create/c2q2sda" rel="nofollow">linked here</a>gwarmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00059000185578090757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-46259387324160760432011-10-04T14:49:55.692-07:002011-10-04T14:49:55.692-07:00The Darwin-Wallace precedence thing has been throu...The Darwin-Wallace precedence thing has been through a lot of scrutiny. I agree 'publication' didn't mean much at the time. The big competition of the day wasn't over theory in any case, but rather species discovery and who got to bestow species names. Some of the species hunters were positively nutty on the issue of priority*. (There's a fun book called The Species Seekers on the topic.) <br /><br />*[Including the paleontologists; there were furious rivalries over fossil finds.]<br /> <br />There was a back-and-forth on the Darwin-Wallace issue in The Guardian a few years ago. This brief letter I think outlines the history fairly well, and also has links in the sidebars to other bits of the exchange<br /><br />http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/07/charles-darwin-evolution-alfred-wallace<br /><br />In any case, neither Darwin nor Wallace were attempting to discredit the other. Unlike, say, Leibniz and Newton, Darwin and Wallace weren't rivals, and both were careful to give credit to the other. <br /><br />Certainly Wallace never expressed any complaints about the fact they were presented as co-discoverers. <br /><br />In any case, as you mention, humans understood breeding and crossing already, and evolution was already a widespread idea. But it was a pretty flaky, fuzzy, semi-mystical idea until Wallace and Darwin.<br /><br />(Actually, Wallace, like Newton, had a mystical streak, too.)David Isaakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04928598446742324391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-26675762142907223972011-10-04T07:26:25.752-07:002011-10-04T07:26:25.752-07:00From a note at the end of the paper linked above:
...From a note at the end of the paper linked above:<br /><br />“This paper was written three years before Wallace sent that fateful communication (S43) to Darwin in which he proposed that selective forces acting on heritable variation was a sufficient explanation for evolutionary change. Reading the present paper in the year 2000 (and with the benefit of hindsight, of course) it is difficult to believe that Wallace had not worked it all out at least three years earlier than generally admitted.”Ned Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-79837422744095958542011-10-04T07:24:01.868-07:002011-10-04T07:24:01.868-07:00The first publication by Wallace related to evolut...The first publication by Wallace related to evolution was, I believe, titled “On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species”. It was first published in the “Annals and Magazine of Natural History”, in September 1855.<br /><br /> It is available from this link:<br /><br /> http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S020.htmNed Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-48876528039883203932011-10-04T07:10:46.641-07:002011-10-04T07:10:46.641-07:00The Wallace-Darwin episode is debatable, because w...The Wallace-Darwin episode is debatable, because what “publication” meant at the time was very different from what it means today.<br /><br />One thing is for sure though, animal breeders knew about the basic principles of evolution, well before the theory of evolution was formally proposed.<br /><br />This includes George Washington:<br /><br />http://bit.ly/qPGK6eNed Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-67058160663886069132011-10-04T07:10:08.809-07:002011-10-04T07:10:08.809-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ned Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-67377984189722342572011-10-03T15:12:37.135-07:002011-10-03T15:12:37.135-07:00Haldane was probably also the most colorful, and c...Haldane was probably also the most colorful, and certainly not one to resort to BS, in spite of his name ;-)Ned Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-29147912187142992702011-10-03T14:32:29.262-07:002011-10-03T14:32:29.262-07:00I'm not sure it's quite correct to to say ...I'm not sure it's quite correct to to say that Wallace had precedence over Darwin or that Darwin acknowledged it. Darwin had been working on the problem, and had written extensively about it (without publication) for two decades befoe he received Wallace's letter..and it was a letter, not a publication. So at the time they first made contact, both of them had been working on the idea and neither had published. Darwin always made sure that Wallace was given credit, but as far as I know he never claimed Wallace had precedence.<br /><br />My favorite of the bunch on your list is the iconic JBS Haldane. <br /><br />Haldane was once interviewed on the radio by a clergyman who asked what a lifetime of study of biology had taught Haldane about the nature of The Creator.<br /><br />Haldane replied, "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." <br /><br />(Coleoptera contains more species than any other order of insects, and a large fraction of all the known species of animate life forms.)David Isaakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04928598446742324391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-26482339880319595012011-10-03T09:29:05.504-07:002011-10-03T09:29:05.504-07:00Hi Ned,
I've put that book into my reading l...Hi Ned, <br /><br />I've put that book into my reading list, thank you. <br /><br />I don't really have much to add because I completely agree with everything you just said.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07297543534218162385noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-17949341441614741232011-10-03T07:37:51.808-07:002011-10-03T07:37:51.808-07:00Btw, propensity toward odd ideas in general is als...Btw, propensity toward odd ideas in general is also a theme among the great thinkers listed here. This could be seen as a “curse” of evolutionary thinking, but I think it is due to another problem. The problem could also be seen as a “curse”, associated with high levels of creative intelligence, and also with scoring very high in one of the big five personality traits – openness.<br /><br /> In short, great thinkers seem to be disproportionately more likely to suffer from mental disorders, which tend to distort their thinking. And this is in part due to evolution itself! I promise, one of my next posts will be about this, and it is related to the notion of costly traits evolved through sexual selection.<br /><br /> One of the most compelling and tragic examples of this “curse” is the case of George Price, perhaps the most creative of all the thinkers listed on this post. See this book:<br /><br /> http://amzn.to/oBvFiXNed Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-87350608844219167272011-10-03T07:35:52.262-07:002011-10-03T07:35:52.262-07:00Hi Mike. While I think these thinkers should be re...Hi Mike. While I think these thinkers should be recognized for their great ideas, we should always be careful about the “argumentum ad verecundiam”, better known as the “argument from authority” fallacy.<br /><br /> Many of these great thinkers had ideas outside their sphere of competence that were at best wrong and at worst repulsive. Still some of those ideas were supported based on the “argument from authority” fallacy. Eugenics, as you said, is a common theme in attempts by these evolutionary biologists to contribute to the area of public policy.<br /><br /> Darwin referred to hunter-gatherers generally as “savages”, and considered them to be inferior races in evolutionary terms. One of Fisher’s main motivations for doing evolutionary biology research was admittedly the “disappearance of the higher classes in Britain” (peerages, which he saw as superior). Hamilton reportedly promoted infanticide à la the Spartans … and the list goes on.Ned Kockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02755560885749335053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8859456735165996893.post-36862733277223430282011-10-03T04:52:57.053-07:002011-10-03T04:52:57.053-07:00No doubt all great thinkers in some regards. Way ...No doubt all great thinkers in some regards. Way too many of them were into eugenics. That's why you always have to pay attention to what a person is saying and not who. Nevertheless, these men all made some great contributions.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07297543534218162385noreply@blogger.com