Niche Construction

[Roger Critchlow-2]

Locals may remember the Ulam Lectures given by Richard Lewontin last fall.

One of Lewontin's points was that adaptation to a fixed environment is a
gross oversimplification.  The fitness surface on which a species
evolves is actually deformed by the presence of the species itself, not
to mention all the other organisms who might be hanging around the
neighborhood.  And as a species evolves, so too does the deformation it
gives to its own fitness surface and the fitness surfaces of other
organisms in its environment.

Well, it turns out that Lewontin has been arguing this point with his
colleagues, or been being ignored by his colleagues on this subject, for
over 20 years.  A book, http://www.nicheconstruction.com, was published
last year which argues the same point but with additional empirical and
theoretical evidence.  A few weeks before Lewontin's Ulam lecture the
book was reviewed as "hyperbole" in Nature (425: 769), and a few weeks
later the book was reviewed as "a major breakthrough" in Science (303: 472).

The authors of Niche Construction have a short essay, Causing a
Commotion, in this weeks Nature (429: 609) noting the above (though not
the Ulam Lectures) and mentioning that Richard Dawkins is about to enter
the fray with an article which will warn of the "pernicious" reasoning
employed by niche construction arguments.

-- rec --

[Russell Standish]

I found it somewhat astounding these sorts of reactions to what is
pretty basic and obvious. Niches do not exist independently of the
species in an ecosystem. However, over the last 5 years or so, I have
increasingly butted up against these sorts of "crazy dogamatic ideas"
in science, perhaps because I didn't receive a classical education in
Biology (similarly Economics). (My education was in Maths and Physics instead!)

I have come to understand that Kuhnian revolutions in science are a
real feature of the scientific landscape, and the ridiculous paradigms
can persist for generations of scientists, in spite of being clearly
false. It makes it tough when you need to argue against a reigning
paradigm, but paradigms are still essential for scientific
theory. Occasionally, by dint of luck, one may be in a position of
overturning a paradigm, which must be a truly exciting event to live
through.

                                        Cheers




On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 09:16:57AM -0600, Roger E Critchlow Jr wrote:

> Locals may remember the Ulam Lectures given by Richard Lewontin last fall.
>
> One of Lewontin's points was that adaptation to a fixed environment is a
> gross oversimplification.  The fitness surface on which a species
> evolves is actually deformed by the presence of the species itself, not
> to mention all the other organisms who might be hanging around the
> neighborhood.  And as a species evolves, so too does the deformation it
> gives to its own fitness surface and the fitness surfaces of other
> organisms in its environment.
>
> Well, it turns out that Lewontin has been arguing this point with his
> colleagues, or been being ignored by his colleagues on this subject, for
> over 20 years.  A book, http://www.nicheconstruction.com, was published
> last year which argues the same point but with additional empirical and
> theoretical evidence.  A few weeks before Lewontin's Ulam lecture the
> book was reviewed as "hyperbole" in Nature (425: 769), and a few weeks
> later the book was reviewed as "a major breakthrough" in Science (303: 472).
>
> The authors of Niche Construction have a short essay, Causing a
> Commotion, in this weeks Nature (429: 609) noting the above (though not
> the Ulam Lectures) and mentioning that Richard Dawkins is about to enter
> the fray with an article which will warn of the "pernicious" reasoning
> employed by niche construction arguments.
>
> -- rec --
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org

--
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish             Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone [phone] (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                     Fax   [phone] (")
Australia             [hidden email]            
Room 2075, Red Centre                    http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
            International prefix  +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20040614/f91b5cef/attachment.bin