This is an hourlong podcast interview with Phil Ferguson, which I did yesterday (on top of my two-hour yakfest on the Milt Rosenberg show). It deals with both WEIT and FvF, and matters evolutionary.
As always, I can’t bear to listen to it, but you can–by clicking on the screenshot below. It starts at 18:40, and goes to about 51:00. I’ve determined where the end is, but, as usual, I can’t bear to listen to it.
Jerry Coyne’s a cool dude.
No, Jerry Alan Coyne is a cool cat.
Jerry Coyne, on the other hand may or may not be a cool cat – it depends on the weather in New Zealand.
Any recent photos from Jerry’s antipodean staff?
What are you doing?
Tryin’ to make me out a mug or sumtin?
New Zealand is a desolate shithole, God bless him (which Jerry doesn’t believe in) if he’s managed to make a tour over there!
(Jerry the furry one, not the one who pulls the noses of theists.)
Jerry the mouse then.
I’d quite forgotten about that one. I actually can’t remember when I last saw a Tom ‘n’ Jerry – probably the effect of the appearence of “kids channels”.
It’s good comedy, my man! Slapstick is funny whether anyone wants to accept it or not!
Oh yeah, I’ve no problem with slapstick. Finding the stuff in the 57 channels of nothing-on is more of a challenge.
I listened to the whole Milt show and thought Jerry was in rare form. An extraordinary example of staying cool, calm, and collected, especially during the knuckleheaded questions from people that didn’t bother to listen.
I’m sure they did listen. They didn’t pay the blindest bit of attention to what was being said, because that might have conflicted with the things they wanted to say.
You thought the rules of civil discourse would apply in a phone in?
A good interview and Jerry was able to cover several of the main points of the book. I think, on the whole that the interview on Monday was a little better with possibly more depth in some areas. The interviewer on Monday stayed very much in the background as only a good one can do and let the guest really take off.
I’m sure that if I was interviewing Jerry Coyne on this book or his last I would only need to ask one question and then shut up and that would be – Tell us about your book?
Jerry need have no qualms about hearing the interview; he, in my opinion was excellent. Something came up that piqued my interest. Jerry mentioned a chapter that deals with the Gouldian question of what would be if the tape of evolution were rewound. I don’t have the book and cannot fit it into my present situation. As I understand it, Gould thinks that there would be no repeat of the actual story because of the contingent nature of natural events, whereas Conway Morris and Ken Miller (Brown U.) think quite otherwise. I would enjoy hearing Jerry’s take (even though it might cause the loss of a sale). If Jerry did not mention the Gould thing, the joke’s on me.
I did, but my response is long and complicated. (Buy the book!) In short, it’s that we can’t at all be sure that some form of humanlike intelligence would evolve were the Universe to begin again. That’s because even though determinism is pervasive, there are quantum effects that could affect the evolution of humans: most importantly, mutation–the fuel of evolution. If mutations are fundamentally indeterminate, then so is the course of evolution.
One might say that if the multiverse theory is true, and there are a gazillion universes, then we could assume that humanlike creatures would evolve somewhere. But we don’t know whether multiverse theory is true.
When I originally read Gould’s expression of the rewound tape, he made no reference, best I recall, to quantum effects. I was completely chagrined by the idea because I couldn’t figure out how the variability would be introduced. So, I went along and guessed that Gould had a very common sense view of this, much as if you tumble a rock down a slope and then throw another. The results would be different bounces. The tape was a metaphor for some crude jump back in time that was not at all precisely deterministic. Not a great metaphor for a deterministic world.
Later when I became aware of quantum effects, it provided the missing ingredient so I felt more comfortable with his just so story.
There’s enough contingency in the system that you don’t need to go down to the lower limit of “quantum” (Deepakitty’s ears prick up) to get enough significant variations on a “replay”. Even in the implausible case that a “second” Earth formed, one of the biggest events in the Earth’s history was the Moon-forming “Giant Impact” – and that was highly, highly contingent. That there probably would have been a giant impact seems reasonable (4 out of 9 planets have probably had one), but only 2 of those 4 have resulted in a giant moon forming from the debris.
While I’m not a great fan of the “The Moon was ESSENTIAL for the formation and evolution of life on Earth” school of thought, I do cede that it has had a lot of effect on the history of the Earth’s climate and orbital mechanics.
“Quantum uncertainty” is probably sufficient in itself to ensure that no “re-run of the tape” truly re-runs, but I don’t think that end-stop would be needed because there are enough other, larger scale indeterminicies which would break the re-run long before needing to get to the point of relying on “quantum.”
“there are enough other, larger scale indeterminicies which would break the re-run”
Like what for example? For a strong deterministic interpretation, every atom would follow the exact same path in a re-run, would it not? Only quantum indeterminacy would upset the apple cart.
For a “strong deterministic” re-run, yes, you’d need to go “quantum” to break the re-run. If you believe that a “strong deterministic” universe is the case, then … well that one doesn’t float my boat.
TBH, unless I’ve misunderstood modern cosmology really badly, the quantum indeterminicity in the inflation stage of the re-run (if there is an inflation stage – by no means established) then the universe would be different. Significantly different. No Great Wall, or two Axes of Evil … that sort of difference. all smaller scales would be unrecognisable.
Very likely yes. The indeterminacy generated a messy distribution of matter shown in the WMAP and Planck images. Did it affect other aspects of the universe, like the laws of physics at a larger scale? I don’t know. Some other Earths might provide a medium for the growth of intelligent life, but no Great Wall surely.
I just listened to the Milt Rosenberg interview. Excellent interviewer and excellent answers. Now on to the Ferguson.
I enjoyed the interview, first just because I don’t recall ever hearing Jerry Coyne’s voice before. As someone who came from a liberal arts background that included only modest study of philosophy and religion, and didn’t really delve into the sciences until later life (and only as a layperson), I was struck by the fact that over several hundred years, every time science advances, religion retreats. And when religion retreats, it generates new interpretations of doctrine, or finds some way to rationalize how the doctrine can still jibe with new discoveries in science.
At some point, I realized that supernatural phenomenon or entities are either immune to objective confirmation in any reliable, repeatable way, or they simply don’t exist. The book recounts several examples of science pushing back against the ‘truth claims’ of religion, and religion is left the weaker for it every time.
This isn’t a quibble, but recall when many people (pro and con) were arguing about ID Creationism at ARN (a DI affiliated forum site) several years ago, a frequent topic was whether man (or some species with human-like intelligence) was evolutionarily inevitable. The ID claim was yes… there is some force (the designer) guiding the process, and teleology throughout evolutionary history has scientific merit. Yet no hard evidence was ever offered for this, any more than evidence was offered to unambiguously establish that traces of the designer’s hand exist.
“Yet no hard evidence was ever offered for this,”
Yes, that’s the key observation. To minimize effort in chatting with these folks, the only response needed is: “Evidence?”
Sorry, I thought I was making a regular post, and didn’t intend to make it a reply to rickflick.
That’s OK.
PCC:
You may be reluctant to hear your own voice; many people feel that way. So the Audible.com version of FvF has a not-you narrator, and he’s a good choice.
I hear a lot of audio books, and a healthy mix of those are science-y. I’m also picky about pronunciation, so readers who say zoo-ology as if it had three o’s lose points. I was gratified that he said zo-ology and zo-ologist, and was about to give him top marks when, alas, he mispronounced a pet peeve, diphtheria. Soooooo close.
I liked the interview, but I also learned about Planned Parenthood. Maybe I have forgotten, but at first it sounded like a religious (catholic) organization of baby production. How the world has changed, what we can take for granted!
The equivalent here in Sweden is RFSU, Riksförbundet För Sexuell Upplysning. Roughly ‘The National Organization for Sexual Enlightenment’, with the basis in ‘being, choosing and enjoying’. [ https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksf%C3%B6rbundet_f%C3%B6r_sexuell_upplysning ]