Visualizzazione post con etichetta #bqo evoluzionismo cieco. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta #bqo evoluzionismo cieco. Mostra tutti i post

lunedì 8 maggio 2017

L'evoluzione non è cieca

Ci sono tanti modi di presentare la teoria evoluzionista rispettandone gli assunti cardine,  è quanto ci ricorda Kevin N. Laland nel saggio "Is There a Role for Intelligence in Evolution?".
L'ortodossia ci parla di un' evoluzione "cieca"...
... Evolution is portrayed in austere terms as a natural process that hews all the prodigious richness and complexity of life out of chance mutational events and the purposeless forces of nature....
Insomma: se siamo qui lo dobbiamo al caso. I biologi, in altri termini, sono scettici nella possibilità che esista una guida intelligente dell'evoluzione.
Ma perchè tanto scetticismo? Forse un ruolo lo ha giocato nella società contemporanea dell'Intelligent Design...
... the impulse to distance themselves from such accounts has led evolutionary biologists to accentuate the role of chance...
La guerra culturale che ha innescato l' ID e la voglia di smarcarsi da esso ha portato molti a prendere le distanze anche solo da certe espressioni.
Tuttavia, man mano che ci allontaniamo da quel momento storico l' intelligenza torna protagonista anche negli studi dell'evoluzione. Oggi la proposta alternativa all'evoluzionismo cieco alla Richard Dawkins suona all’incirca così…
... natural selection has given rise to savvy agents that behave in smart, flexible ways, deploying a bootstrapped intelligence that has fed back on and upgraded evolution itself... in a manner that allows species to co-direct their evolution...
Per toccare con mano la ragionevolezza dell'impianto generale, considerate solo questi due fatti 1) l'ambiente è decisivo nell'indirizzare l'evoluzione 2) oggi viviamo in un ambiente al 98% artificiale (ovvero creato da cultura e intelligenza umana). Se le cose stanno in questi termini, come potremmo noi negare un ruolo alla cultura e all'intelligenza dell'uomo? Ma in buona parte si può dire altrettanto per il passato.
Questa elementare considerazione ora è supportata da evidenze empiriche robuste...
... there is now evidence that our cultural activities have shaped the human genome...
Gli ultimi 50.000 anni sono stati passati al setaccio...
... the development of statistical methods for identifying genes that have been favored by natural selection over the past 50,000 years or less...
Molta evoluzione umana è recente e indirizzata dalla cultura...
... distinct regions in the human genome have been identified as subject to recent selection... many of these regions appear to have been favored by human cultural practices....
La dieta, un fattore culturale, è un centrale per rendere conto di certi esiti...
... Some compelling examples of how genes and culture have coevolved concern genetic responses to changes in human diet...
Prendiamo l'abilità a digerire l'amido...
... Consider, for instance, the evolution of the human ability to eat starchy foods. Agricultural societies typically consume far more starch in their diets than do hunter-gatherer societies... The enzyme responsible for breaking down starch is called amylase... their cultural activities and associated diets have generated selection for increased amylase....
Altro esempio: la capacità di digerire il lattosio...
... Another good example of gene– culture coevolution is the evolution of lactose tolerance in adult humans in response to dairy farming...For most humans, the ability to digest lactose disappears in childhood, but in some populations lactase activity, which is necessary for breaking down lactose, persists into adulthood. This adult lactose tolerance is frequent in northern Europeans and in pastoralist populations from Africa and the Middle East, but it is almost completely absent elsewhere. These differences relate to genetic variation near the lactase gene (LCT)... populations with a long history of consuming milk have high frequencies of tolerance...
Si tratta di importanti passi evolutivi indirizzati dalla cultura (agricola) dell'uomo e non certo dal caso.
Sorprende anche la rapidità con cui si siano realizzati...
... The signature of selection around the lactase gene is one of the strongest in the human genome, and the onset of the selection has been dated to 5,000– 10,000 years ago...
Persino la storia evolutiva degli animali domestici risente della cultura dell'uomo...
... Once again, this cultural practice has imposed selection on domesticated animals: milk-protein genes in European cattle breeds correlate to present-day patterns of lactose tolerance in human populations....
Altri esempi riguardano lo smalto dei denti, le papille degustative e alcuni processi digestivi...
... There is also emerging evidence of diet-related selection on the thickness of human teeth enamel, and on bitter-taste receptors on the tongue. It seems that a gene– culture coevolutionary process has shaped the biology of human digestion...
La cultura umana non sarà una libera scelta del singolo individuo ma di certo è molto distante dalla nozione di mera casualità...
... In these and other instances, it is not as if we humans have deliberately imposed selection on ourselves in a conscious effort to enhance our capabilities to metabolize or detoxify the foods we have chosen to consume. But we appear to have imposed a direction on our own evolution nonetheless...
I casi più eclatanti di evoluzione guidata sono quelli degli animali domestici. Pensiamo solo alla selezione canina...
... Thousands of years ago, humans kept wolves, choosing for company the less aggressive among them without recognizing that this selection, iterated over time, would favor profound changes in the wolf phenotype and lead to mild-mannered canine descendants... docility, tameness, reductions in tooth size and number, changes in head, face, and brain morphology, floppy ears...
Nel caso delle piante le cose non sono molto diverse...
... A second domestication syndrome has also been found in plants. Here characteristic features include a loss of head shattering— the process by which plants disperse their seeds upon ripening— and increases in seed size...
Insomma, nel grande gioco della natura l'uomo scava una sua nicchia e lì è in grado di indirizzare i processi evoluzionistici che lo riguardano, o che riguardano gli organismi a lui vicini, sottraendo il tutto al caso...
... Planting crops and tending animals are examples of human “niche construction”— the process by which organisms change their environment in a way that puts new evolutionary pressures on their species and others, triggering the evolution of new adaptive traits...
In molti casi possiamo quindi dire che l'evoluzione ha uno scopo. Un' espressione blasfema negli anno 90...
... Cultivating plants and domesticating animals are not random activities. They are purposeful, goal-directed practices... In the process, we have imposed a direction on some evolutionary episodes...
Sembra che l'evoluzione dettata dalla cultura abbia persino accelerato i processi evolutivi stessi...
... Our cultural activities may even affect evolutionary rates. For instance, according to one study, human genetic evolution has accelerated more than a hundredfold over the last 40,000 years...
La cosa migliore da fare consiste nel distinguere le competenze dai contenuti evolutivi: sui secondi la cultura umana pesa eccome...
... selection explains the capability but not the content of our behavioral practices... The fact that natural selection underlies our ability to learn, communicate, and engage in cultural practices does not tell us which populations will engage in agriculture, nor what form these practices will take in a particular population, nor what evolutionary episodes will ensue....
Quel che si può dire per l'uomo vale anche - in misura ridotta - per certi animali. Anch' essi hanno una loro nicchia e un' evoluzione in qualche modo ordinata...
... animals control certain aspects of their environment... Changes due to niche construction, as opposed to other natural processes, are recognizable because they are reliable, directional, and orderly,...
Con ciò l'uomo resta un caso speciale...
... Some, more traditionally minded, evolutionists typically treat humans as a special case, arguing that there are special properties pertaining to our species’ niche construction that stem from our unique capacity for culture. This allows them to defend the position that niche construction is not a general evolutionary process, but rather a trait peculiar to humans that has no significant impact on broader evolutionary forces.... Indeed, humans have been described as “the world’s greatest evolutionary force,”...
La conclusione è una bestemmia per il darwiniano duro e puro...
... Organisms can influence the trajectory of evolution through their active choices...
Una conclusione forse più offensiva di quella dell'ID, ma ben più fondata e riconosciuta dalla scienza ufficiale.

giovedì 29 dicembre 2016

Is There a Role for Intelligence in Evolution Kevin N. Laland

Notebook per
Is There a Role for Intelligence in Evolution
riccardo-mariani@libero.it
Citation (APA): riccardo-mariani@libero.it. (2016). Is There a Role for Intelligence in Evolution [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
Is There a Role for Intelligence in Evolution?
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
Kevin N. Laland
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 5
Evolution is portrayed in austere terms as a natural process that hews all the prodigious richness and complexity of life out of chance mutational events and the purposeless forces of nature.
Nota - Posizione 6
x ORTODOSSIA DELL EV CIECA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 7
biologists have been deeply skeptical of attempts to attribute any guiding role to intelligent agents.
Nota - Posizione 7
GUIDA INTELLIGENTE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 8
Intelligent Design,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 9
the impulse to distance themselves from such accounts has led evolutionary biologists to accentuate the role of chance
Nota - Posizione 10
x EFFETTI ESTRANEI ALLA RICERCA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 15
natural selection has given rise to savvy agents that behave in smart, flexible ways, deploying a bootstrapped intelligence that has fed back on and upgraded evolution itself.
Nota - Posizione 16
x L IDEA DEL MOMENTO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 16
in a manner that allows species to co-direct their evolution.
Nota - Posizione 16
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 17
How Culture Shaped the Human Genome
Nota - Posizione 17
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 18
there is now evidence that our cultural activities have shaped the human genome.
Nota - Posizione 18
TESI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 19
the development of statistical methods for identifying genes that have been favored by natural selection over the past 50,000 years or less.
Nota - Posizione 20
x ULTIMI 50000 ANNI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 20
distinct regions in the human genome have been identified as subject to recent selection.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 21
many of these regions appear to have been favored by human cultural practices.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 22
Some compelling examples of how genes and culture have coevolved concern genetic responses to changes in human diet.
Nota - Posizione 22
x DIETE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 23
Consider, for instance, the evolution of the human ability to eat starchy foods. Agricultural societies typically consume far more starch in their diets than do hunter-gatherer societies.
Nota - Posizione 24
c AMIDO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 26
The enzyme responsible for breaking down starch is called amylase.
Nota - Posizione 26
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 28
their cultural activities and associated diets have generated selection for increased amylase.
Nota - Posizione 28
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 30
Another good example of gene– culture coevolution is the evolution of lactose tolerance in adult humans in response to dairy farming.
Nota - Posizione 31
x LATTOSIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 31
For most humans, the ability to digest lactose disappears in childhood, but in some populations lactase activity, which is necessary for breaking down lactose, persists into adulthood. This adult lactose tolerance is frequent in northern Europeans and in pastoralist populations from Africa and the Middle East, but it is almost completely absent elsewhere. These differences relate to genetic variation near the lactase gene (LCT). There
Nota - Posizione 33
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 35
populations with a long history of consuming milk have high frequencies of tolerance.
Nota - Posizione 35
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 40
The signature of selection around the lactase gene is one of the strongest in the human genome, and the onset of the selection has been dated to 5,000– 10,000 years ago.
Nota - Posizione 41
x RAPIDITÀ 5000 10000
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 41
Once again, this cultural practice has imposed selection on domesticated animals: milk-protein genes in European cattle breeds correlate to present-day patterns of lactose tolerance in human populations.
Nota - Posizione 42
x CONTAGIO AGLI ANIMALI DOMESTICI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 45
There is also emerging evidence of diet-related selection on the thickness of human teeth enamel, and on bitter-taste receptors on the tongue. It seems that a gene– culture coevolutionary process has shaped the biology of human digestion.
Nota - Posizione 46
x SMALTO DENTI
Nota - Posizione 46
x RICETTORI DELLA LINGUA
Nota - Posizione 47
x DIGESTIONE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 47
In these and other instances, it is not as if we humans have deliberately imposed selection on ourselves in a conscious effort to enhance our capabilities to metabolize or detoxify the foods we have chosen to consume. But we appear to have imposed a direction on our own evolution nonetheless.
Nota - Posizione 49
x NON VOLONTARIO MA DIREZIONE IMPRESSA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 51
Thousands of years ago, humans kept wolves, choosing for company the less aggressive among them without recognizing that this selection, iterated over time, would favor profound changes in the wolf phenotype and lead to mild-mannered canine descendants.
Nota - Posizione 53
x LUPO E CANE. EVOLUZIONE GUIDATA ALTRE SPECIE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 54
docility, tameness, reductions in tooth size and number, changes in head, face, and brain morphology, floppy ears
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 56
A second domestication syndrome has also been found in plants. Here characteristic features include a loss of head shattering— the process by which plants disperse their seeds upon ripening— and increases in seed size.
Nota - Posizione 57
x PIANTE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 61
Planting crops and tending animals are examples of human “niche construction”— the process by which organisms change their environment in a way that puts new evolutionary pressures on their species and others, triggering the evolution of new adaptive traits.
Nota - Posizione 63
x NICCHIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 63
Cultivating plants and domesticating animals are not random activities. They are purposeful, goal-directed practices,
Nota - Posizione 63
x SCOPO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 66
In the process, we have imposed a direction on some evolutionary episodes
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 67
Our cultural activities may even affect evolutionary rates. For instance, according to one study, human genetic evolution has accelerated more than a hundredfold over the last 40,000 years.
Nota - Posizione 69
x VULTURA E VELOCITÀ EVOLUTIVA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 72
selection explains the capability but not the content of our behavioral practices
Nota - Posizione 73
x ACOMPETENZE E CONTENUTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 73
The fact that natural selection underlies our ability to learn, communicate, and engage in cultural practices does not tell us which populations will engage in agriculture, nor what form these practices will take in a particular population, nor what evolutionary episodes will ensue.
Nota - Posizione 75
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 77
why is niche construction not widely recognized as an evolutionary process?
Nota - Posizione 77
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 81
For example, in nineteenth-century England, gene variants responsible for dark coloration in the peppered moth population became more common than the gene variants for light coloration, in part because industrial pollution had blackened the surfaces on which the moths settled, leaving the darker moths less visible to predators. Eventually, partly as a result of this predation, natural selection eliminated the gene for light coloration, leaving only the dark colored moths in the population. This is a classic example of natural selection directly changing the prevalence of genes in a population over time.
Nota - Posizione 85
x CASO CLASSICO DI MUTAZIONE NEODARWINIANA ORTODOSSA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 93
Can the same argument be made for the niche construction of worms, birds, or spiders?
Nota - Posizione 94
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 100
animals control certain aspects of their environment,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 103
Changes due to niche construction, as opposed to other natural processes, are recognizable because they are reliable, directional, and orderly,
Nota - Posizione 104
ORDINER
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 108
Some, more traditionally minded, evolutionists typically treat humans as a special case, arguing that there are special properties pertaining to our species’ niche construction that stem from our unique capacity for culture. This allows them to defend the position that niche construction is not a general evolutionary process, but rather a trait peculiar to humans that has no significant impact on broader evolutionary forces.
Nota - Posizione 111
x L UOMO CASO SPECIALE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 114
Indeed, humans have been described as “the world’s greatest evolutionary force,”
Nota - Posizione 115
L BUOMO NLA PIÙCGRANDE FORZA EVO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 128
Choice and Intelligence
Nota - Posizione 128
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 128
Organisms can influence the trajectory of evolution through their active choices
Nota - Posizione 129
MODO X DIREZIONARWE L EVOLUZIONE