415 lines
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415 lines
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<title>Functions</title>
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#993366"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>F<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdkC33" align="right" width="55" height="34" border="0">unctions.</b></font></font>
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The recognition of supervenient properties is the most common way of
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describing the failure of reductionism,<sup> <a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="#sdendnote1sym"><sup>i</sup></a></sup>
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and functional properties are the example that has forced
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philosophers of science to recognize that some properties are
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supervenient. The main problem is that they may be realized by
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indefinitely many different and seemingly unconnected sets of
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physical traits, as illustrated by such artifacts as clocks. As we
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have noted, clocks may be realized by objects whose physical
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structures range from machines worn on the wrist to tree rings, sun
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dials, and the amount of radioactive decay. Artifact are a special
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case, which is one sense are not so problematic, because we know that
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they depend on the intentions of subjective beings. In another sense,
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they are more problematic, because it requires the reduction of
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intentions. However, functional properties also play an enormous role
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in biological, where they pose a similar problem. For example, hearts
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are mechanisms for circulating energy in multicellular organisms, but
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they cannot easily be picked out by their physical properties,
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because they vary from simple gastrovascular cavities to elaborate
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circulatory systems with arteries and veins involving one or more
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hearts of various kinds. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
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is no general agreement about the significance of the existence of
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supervenient properties. At one extreme, they are considered a way of
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defending physicalism against the claims that there are processes
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that cannot be explained in terms of the laws of physics. At the
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other extreme, they have attracted other philosophers of science
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toward emergentism, is the sense of the belief that there are laws in
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less general branches of science that cannot be reduced to physics. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Though
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supervenience theorists generally deny that upper level <i>laws
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</i>mentioning supervenient properties are irreducible, supervenient
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properties do entail a kind of law that is not reducible. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Supervenience
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theorists insist that the causal connections in which supervenient
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properties may be involved can always be explained by the physical
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causes that are responsible for the regularity in that case, though,
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of course, those physical causes vary with the kind of physical
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properties that realized the supervenient property in that case. They
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are right to deny that there is any need irreducible causal laws
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(that is, laws that can be used to explain events by efficient
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causes). No one believe that clocks or hearts require anything but
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physical laws for their operation. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Even so,
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however, the reduction of the less general regularity to the laws of
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physics is not complete, because the physical explanation of what
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happens in each instance of a supervenient property does not explain
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the indefinitely large variety of different sets of physical traits
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that may realize the super­venient property. In other words, the
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grouping of those cases in such a way that they all have the same
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supervenient property is itself a regularity that has not been
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explained. If supervenient properties are anything more than purely
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subjective projections onto the world, then the fact that such
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physically diverse objects can be grouped together in describing
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upper level regularities is something that needs to be explained in
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the end. That regularity may not be a law of nature in the sense of a
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law of nature that supports an efficient cause explanation (according
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to the deductive-nomological model). But it does imply the existence
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of an order of some kind about the world, and that order cannot be
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reduced to the laws of physics and conditions described in physical
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terms. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
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the case of functional properties, furthermore, the prime example of
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supervenient properties, there is even more reason to suspect that
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there are irreducible laws of nature, because functional properties
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are typically used to give functional explanations. It is not just
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that certain organs in multicellular bodies are all have the function
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of circulating energy to all parts of the body, but that the
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existence of such organs seems to be explained by that function. But
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if functions are causes that can explain the traits that have them,
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it involves causal connections like those in efficient causes. The
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function is a different event or condition from the trait it would
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explain, just as the efficient cause is different from its effect. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It is
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certainly not like the connection between an ontological cause and
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its effect. The function is not constituted by the trait described
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physically. If it were, there would be nothing supervenient about the
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functional property. Instead, traits are said to “realize” the
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function, because there are many different ways that functional
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properties can be realized. But that makes it even more mysterious
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how the function can be said to explain the trait, since the same
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function can be served by physically different traits. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Furthermore,
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since a functional explanation explains the trait by the function, it
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would not help to discover that the trait constitutes (or realizes)
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the function, because the function must be prior to the trait to
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“cause” it. And that would require explaining where the function
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comes from or how it could make material objects have the physical
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properties that would constitute them.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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prior issue is, therefore, whether functional explanations in biology
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are valid and, if so, how. Though most philosophers are inclined to
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believe that they are valid in some sense, there has been no
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generally accepted defense of their validity. The received view is
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that they are really just disguised historical explanations of a
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contingent process of selection, which do not justify prediction of
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the traits that will evolve.<sup><a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote2anc" href="#sdendnote2sym"><sup>ii</sup></a></sup>
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But if evolution is a global regularity in a world of matter and
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space in time, there is a sense in which they are valid explanations.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There is,
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of course, no question of functional explanations being valid, if
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that means that the function is a substance that acts on matter to
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give it the trait, that is, to give it the physical properties that
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enable it to serve the function. That is the kind of causal
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connection entailed by Aristotelian teleology, or what is called
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“final causation.” Aristotle believed that having an essential
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form would make natural change take place in the particular substance
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for the sake of an end, final cause, or telos, which is said to be
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good for substances of its natural kind. Naturalists have long since
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recognized that there are no essential forms in the natural world
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that work in the way Aristotle supposed. That is entailed by
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materialism about the natural world, which has prevailed since the
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beginning of modern science, and essential forms acting as final
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causes are not among the substances assumed by spatiomaterialism.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif">The
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validity of functional explanations.</font> The validity of
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functional explanations in biology is, however, entailed by
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ontological philosophy, and the way in which their validity is
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explained, confirms their validity in a far stronger sense than is
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currently recognized. Functions do cause the traits that serve them,
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and if evolution is due to reproductive causation, functions explain
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why organisms have the traits they do in a way that makes it
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possible, in principle, to predict that the traits will evolve. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">That
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is not to say that every physical property of the traits is
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predictable. The traits usually involve some physical properties that
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could be otherwise. But enough of the physical properties of the
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traits are determined by their functions that they can be recognized
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by their physical properties in the organisms. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Evolution
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is due to reproductive causation. That is, evolution is a global
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regularity that is explained ontologically as the kind of change that
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is constituted by reproductive cycles and the wholeness of space. The
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reproductive cycles are material structures of a certain kind using
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the available free energy to go through cycles in which they both
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reproduce and do non-reproductive work that controls conditions that
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affect their reproduction. The regularity about change in the region
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over time includes , as we have seen, both a gradual change during
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each stage in the direction of maximum holistic power for organisms
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of their kind (or their natural perfection) and a series of
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evolutionary stages in the direction of the natural perfection of
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life itself. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Since
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reproducing organisms impose natural selection on themselves (by the
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scarcity caused by generations of reproduction in space), what is
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regular about change in the region over time is that every possible
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increase in the power of the reproducing organisms is necessarily
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made actual as it becomes possible. Each random variation of their
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structures that is acquired because it controls some condition
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affecting its reproduction is a trait. Its function is to control the
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relevant condition. And since the conditions that it is possible for
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random variations on evolving organisms to control are “in the
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cards,” so to speak, they can, in principle, be used to predict the
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traits that will evolve. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Likewise,
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for the revolutionary episodes. The higher levels of part-whole
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complexity in the structures of the reproducing organisms that can be
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tried out at each stage of evolution depend on the natures of the
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reproducing organisms that already exist, because they must originate
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as a radical random variations on existing structures. And whether
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they can control some relevant condition that was previously out of
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reach depends on the nature of the region where conditions affect
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their reproduction. That is also “in the cards,” so to speak, and
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since both the possibility and the functionality can be known, the
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stages of evolution are, in principle, predicable. Thus, once again,
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even higher levels of structure in reproducing organisms can be
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explained by the function that it is possible for such structures to
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serve. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Actual
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predictions of the new traits that occur in gradual evolution by
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their possible functions would require the capacity to imagine every
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possible random variation and to see what condition those secondary
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effects would control, and that is usually not possible. Thus, it is
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only after the change has occurred that we are usually in a position
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to see which possible function was responsible for the trait's
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evolution. But in the case of revolutionary evolution, it is easier
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to see the possible functions of new kinds of primary structures, and
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that is the kind of functional explanation that was used to trace the
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course of evolution in the previous section.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
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ontological explanation of evolution as a global regularity entails,
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in other words, a necessity about the kind of change that takes place
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over time in the region of space. It is a kind of regularity that
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makes prediction possible, in principle. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
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is formally similar to the explanation of dispositions and ordinary
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causal connections between events described in the last chapter, for
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those regularities were also global regularities explained by matter
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and space as ontological causes. In dispositions, the event
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ordinarily called the “cause” is typically the way free energy is
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supplied, and the irreversible change that takes place is the effect.
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</font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
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this case, however, reproductive causation necessarily makes every
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possible increase in the power of primary structures actual, and
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given the meaning that "function" has ontologically, that
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means that it necessarily makes every functional trait that is
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possible actual. Possible functions are, therefore, the cause of the
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evolution of certain kinds of secondary effects in much the same
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sense that compressing and releasing an elastic object causes it to
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spring back or putting a sugar cube in water causes it to dissolve.
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The evolutionary changes that make it possible for the random
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variations on reproducing organisms being tried out to be functional
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in a new way are what causes that trait to evolve. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though
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functional explanation are valid, the functions are not essential
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forms with causal powers, as Aristotle assumed. In Aristotelian
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teleology, functions are assumed as a basic principle (if not
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substance) of the ontology, and thus, their causal powers are not
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explained, but merely assumed. But in evolution by reproductive
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causation, the ontological causes are the kinds of space and matter
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that exist in a world like ours, for they are the ultimate
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ontological causes of reproductive global regularities. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif">The
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ontological reducibility of functional properties.</font> The
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predictability of traits by their functions should remove any doubts
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about the reducibility of functions or functional properties to the
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ontology of naturalism. Doubts about their reducibility come from the
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understanding that contemporary Darwinists have of the causes of
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evolutionary change. They are, as pointed out in the explanation of
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reproductive global regularities, accidentalists. They think of
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natural selection as being imposed on living organisms from outside
|
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by unpredictable changes in their environment, and they worry about
|
|
the availability of random variations to meet the new conditions in
|
|
the best possible way. For them, in Kauffman's (1993) words,
|
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evolution merely "cobbles together jury-rigged contraptions.” </font></font></font>
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</p>
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|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
|
view of evolution is another example of the effect of overlooking the
|
|
wholeness of space as a cause of regularities about change over time,
|
|
for instead of seeing evolution as the way that reproductive cycles
|
|
add up in space over time, it sees evolution as driven by an
|
|
externally imposed natural selection. Thus, it seems to contemporary
|
|
Darwinists that different traits might have served the same
|
|
functions. Since that means that there is no necessary connection
|
|
between functions and the traits that serve them, functions are said
|
|
to be "super­venient properties" relative to the
|
|
physical nature of the traits that have them. </font></font></font>
|
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</p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">But
|
|
if there is a necessary connection between the functions and the
|
|
traits that serve them, as implied by their status as consequences of
|
|
spatiomaterialism, then functional properties are, in principle,
|
|
reducible to the ontology of naturalism. This is to reduce functional
|
|
properties to our ontology in much the same way that we reduced
|
|
dispositional properties, except that the relevant global regularity
|
|
depends on reproductive causation, rather than structural causation.</font></font></font></p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
|
is the progressiveness of evolutionary change that entails the
|
|
validity of functional explanations and the ontological reducibility
|
|
of functional properties. From the beginning, I have described
|
|
evolutionary change as change in the direction of natural perfection,
|
|
and I have distinguished various kinds of natural perfection: the
|
|
natural perfection of the organisms at each stage, the natural
|
|
perfection of their combination in the ecology, and the natural
|
|
perfection of life in the series of stages of evolution. Even
|
|
evolutionary change itself has a kind of natural perfection about it
|
|
because of the way that what happens at each moment contributes to
|
|
the progress. </font></font></font>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
|
direction of evolutionary change was called “natural perfection,”
|
|
because it always involves a maximum holistic power and that is the
|
|
kind of part-whole relation that is optimal in a spatiomaterial
|
|
world. It is “natural” perfection, because it is the kind of
|
|
perfection that is appropriate in a natural world. </font></font></font>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though it
|
|
depends on the thermodynamic flow of matter from forms of free energy
|
|
to energy bound as evenly distributed heat, nothing can structure
|
|
thermo­dynamic order except material structures, and reproductive
|
|
causation is making the most of structural causation by shaping
|
|
reproducing organisms to be as powerful as possible in using the
|
|
available free energy to control conditions in the world. To be sure,
|
|
until the evolution of reason, organisms acquire only those powers
|
|
that control conditions that affect their own reproduction. But that
|
|
is simply what is required for structural causes that are maximally
|
|
powerful to exist in a world of matter and space in time. No
|
|
structural causes, regardless how powerful, would last very long, if
|
|
they did not use their power to ensure their own existence. Organisms
|
|
do that in a way that makes them as powerful as possible, and
|
|
rational beings do that because it is good. </font></font>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
|
natural perfection produced by reproductive causation made it
|
|
possible to explain goodness as contributing to natural perfection.
|
|
Each part of such optimal part-whole relations makes a necessary
|
|
contribution to its maximum holistic power, and thus, each is good in
|
|
the sense of contributing to the natural perfection of the whole of
|
|
which it is part. And as we have seen, this explanation is a
|
|
definition of “good” that vindicates all our deepest and firmly
|
|
held convictions about what is good and bad (and about what is right
|
|
and wrong).</font></font></font></p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">By this
|
|
definition, <i>goodness </i>and <i>perfection </i>are related to one
|
|
another as the property of the <i>part</i> is to the property of the
|
|
<i>whole </i>in the products of reproductive causation. When the
|
|
whole is perfect, all the parts are as good as they can be, and when
|
|
all the parts are as good as they can be, the whole is perfect. </font></font>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Moreover,
|
|
it follow that the function that each non-reproductive structural
|
|
effect has is good <i>for the organism </i>of which it is part, that
|
|
each kind of organism is good <i>for the ecology </i>of which it is
|
|
part, and that each level of organization in the structures of
|
|
organisms that comes to exist with new stages of evolution are good
|
|
<i>for what exists in the whole region </i>in which evolutionary
|
|
change is happening. Ultimately, therefore, there is one whole on the
|
|
planet (or planetary system) to whose perfection all the good parts
|
|
make a necessary contribution. </font></font>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
|
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
|
|
be functional is, therefore, to be good. Since their functions
|
|
explain the traits that evolve, what explains the traits that
|
|
organisms have is their goodness. The goodness of the random
|
|
variations is what explains why they are naturally selected.
|
|
Likewise, since what explain each new stage of evolution is the
|
|
functionality of its higher level of part-whole complexity, what
|
|
explains each new stage of evolution is its goodness. The goodness of
|
|
the higher level of organization is what explains why it is naturally
|
|
selected. This connection to the nature of goodness is another way of
|
|
saying that evolution is progressive. </font></font></font>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<div id="sdendnote1">
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.25cm">
|
|
<a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="#sdendnote1anc">i</a>
|
|
John Post (1987) re-defines "physicalism" as a kind of
|
|
materialist ontology that rejects reductionism in favor of what are,
|
|
in effect, supervenient properties, and he goes so far as to take
|
|
that anti-reductionism as the main reason for accepting it.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div id="sdendnote2">
|
|
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.25cm">
|
|
<a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote2sym" href="#sdendnote2anc">ii</a>A
|
|
good statement of the etiological theory is given by Larry Wright
|
|
(1973, 1976), but see also Michael Ruse (1973). For a criticism of
|
|
the etiological theory and a defense of what they call the
|
|
"propensity theory", see Bigelow and Pargetter (1987).
|
|
Karen Neander (1991) defends the etiological theory against their
|
|
criticisms, but in a way that is not very convincing, at least, not
|
|
to me.
|
|
</p>
|
|
</div>
|
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</body>
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</html> |