Evolutionary methods

[John Grehan]

Yesteray several poeple requested me to illustrate what I was after
in terms of evolutionary method. I was unable to respond as I had
exceeded my daily quota of postings allowed by Taxacom. I had intended
to drop the matter as I felt the issue was too difficult to work out in
this medium. I have been interested to read the various comments
that have been generated. I was particularly interested in the reference
to bird "milk" in repsonse to a previous posting. I think that illustrates
the problematic nature of attempting to provide demarkation criteria
for the acceptance or rejection of a theory. Relativity was falsified soon
after it was published. Newton's theory of gravitation was falsified by
astonomical observations. The theories were kept because they were
considered to be so good anyway, and so protective hypotheses were
generated which themselves led to new discoveries about the empirical
world.

I have no set view one what really qualifies as evolutionary
method other than my personal view for my own subject area, and that is
a minority perspective and in order not to have the subject diverted by
presenting a perspective that most would oppose, I did not describe it.

However, perhaps to provide sufficient clarification I will mention my
view, but I am not interested in defending it as such. I present it only to
see if parallels might be offered from other disciplines working with an
evolutionary framework. I do not claim that the methodological criteria
I chose are necessarily better than any other, they just happen to represent
my preference.

The evolutionary method I use involves a biogeographic method
where distributions are mapped as line graphs. These graphs can be
spatially correlated with earth-process features such as transform
faults, spreading ridges etc. These correlations have led in the past to
predictions about geological structures unknown to geologists at the time.
These predictions were later corroborated empirically by the geologist.
An example is the tectonic structure of the Americas were western rocks are
not homologous with those to the east. This was predicted on the basis of
distribution patterns in the 1950's and early 1960's and was totally
unknown to geologists at the time.

So here we havea case of an evolutionary methodology (mapping line graphs
and spatialcorrelation with earth history features) predicting facts about
the world that
are empirically testable. Further, these facts were novel - they were
unknown at the time of prediction, and were not implicit in the original
methodology. So an evolutionary method in biogeography has been able to
tell us something
about the empirical world we did not already know. The theory advanced our
epirical knowledge so it constituted  both theoretically and empirically
progressive research.

In this case evolutionary theory worked, it produced new emprical results.
Since
history is not part of the creation method (if there is one) such
predictions would not have
been possible (I would assert), and even if it were argued otherwise,
they failed to make such predictions anyway. I would argue that
creationism, whether
viewed as a science or not, it not progressive, and therefore just not
very interesting. It is static in its reiteration of a set position so
represents a degenerating research program (as defined by the theory of
scientific research programs of Imre Lakatos).

To me if one were to teach school kids evolution it would be better to
present methodologies like this to show how evolutionary frameworks
lead to methods that increase our knolwledge by predicting novel facts
about the empirical world. Then the issue will become less about
competing theories for the ultimate reality and more about what works
effectively to increase knowledge.

I will be interested to see if such criteria are applicable to evolutionary
studies
for biology. Perhaps one example would be the theory of cells being composite
organisms through the incorporation of mitochondria etc. If this theory led
to the prediction about some unknown (and until then upredicted) fact
concerning
those organelles, and these predictions were later corroborated, this would show
the evolutionary theory to be very powerful in adding to empirical knowledge.
Whether or not one might believe in the theory itself, the theory could be
recognized
as consitutuing a progressive research program.

I don't intend to introduce philosophy here as an arbiter of scientific method
or theory. Its just a pespective, and if most don't like it, that's ok, but
as far
as I can see the traditional teaching of evolution is inadequate and more of the
same is not going to help.

John Grehan