Why is evolution used as a synonym for progress? Does evolution make things "better"? Does evolution mean things going from simple to complex?
In science, no. But in popular culture, yes. Mostly because of this sort of image: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
evolution on a big scale does make some good choices in species selection, so obviously even in a large trial and error evolution has over life on Earth, it still finds routes which are superior and ultimately more complex and more adaptible.
nope. its not that simple. More evolved = higher probability of adaptability and higher probability of failure its like raising stakes of the game
Neanderthals have evolved quite far...yet here they are a dead line of evolution with their ginormous brain.
Ever see that invention called a thesaurus? http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/progress Or read your own posts? http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=2398881#post2398881
Both words have a range of meanings and these ranges overlap. The basic, original meaning of the verb "progress" is to move forward. It's hard to separate the concept of "forward" from the concept of a goal, since if you didn't have a reason for heading off in that direction, why didn't you turn and head off in some other direction, or simply stay where you were? To "evolve" is also to move toward a goal, although in this case the "motion" is not ds/dt, the definition of "speed" in a physics textbook, a change in distance over time. It's a different type of change over time. It has different specific meanings in different disciplines. In business it means a change in market strategy, manufacturing methods, choice of product, etc.; in linguistics it means a change in the phonetics, grammar, etc. of a language; in biology it means a change in the DNA of a gene pool that defines a species. In all of these examples the change results in "progress" toward a "goal." In business the goal is financial success, and it is chosen consciously by the business owners. In language the goal is improved ability to express the concepts that the community of speakers has to deal with, and it is chosen collectively and for the most part unconsciously by those speakers. In biology the goal is increased probability of survival of the species, but we're anthropomorphizing quite a bit in using the word "goal" since the change takes place at the molecular level. Perhaps to say the goal is just "success" would be more consistent with the scientific definition of life as "a local reversal of entropy," since if a species becomes extinct (without being replaced by its own descendant) it has lost the battle with entropy. The goal of life is to exist. Hmm. This is veering off too much into philosophy for my taste but I guess it's okay since this is not one of the hard science boards.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Anyway, to get back to the topic of the relationship between progressing and evolving, both are motion toward a goal. That depends on your perspective, but for the second or third time this month I am surprised that the biologist is asking this question and the software engineer is answering it. If we regard evolution as the macro-scale version, then I suppose it does. Life on earth has evolved (with the occasional setback) into an ever-larger array of species, which in aggregate, with their specialization, are better adapted to the nooks and crannies in the ecosystem than their predecessors. There is a much greater reversal of entropy on this planet than there was a few billion years ago when the only lifeforms, no matter how widespread, were relatively undifferentiated single cells, or maybe something more primitive than a cell. But if we look at evolution at the micro scale, then species die off because their mutation does not make them better suited to their environment. It's been noted that we software engineers can't do our jobs without the ability to see the world in more levels of decomposition than most other professions. (Compared to an average computer program, the average mathematical theory is practically flat.) So macro-micro, I can see it both ways. But I think it makes more sense to take the macro perspective so yes, in the opinion of Fraggle Rocker evolution has made life on earth better. The dictionary seems to think so, but it appears to be focusing solely on biological evolution, and it also seems to agree with me that the macro perspective is better. Evolution of a language does not invariably result in more complexity. I think Spanish is less complex than Latin. I'll let you judge Hindi (or your native language if it's Indic and not Dravidian) against Sanskrit. No. More evolved = more adapted. Evolution (at the macro level) is often catalyzed by a change in the environment, and the successor species is better adapted to the new environment. Polar bears are larger, have more fat and swim better than the grizzly bears they evolved from, so they are better adapted to the icy Arctic region created by the weather of the last hundred millennia. But they are no more adaptable than grizzly bears. If the reversal of that climate change happens at a much greater speed than the original change, they will become extinct except in captivity. As a professional writer I can assure you that a thesaurus is a tool of limited usefulness. It shotguns you with every word that might conceivably be interchangeable with, or superior to, your word in every conceivable usage. "Synonyms" are supposed to be two words with the same meaning, but in real human languages pairs of words with identical meanings are extremely rare for the obvious reason that they are unnecessary. When you're trying to write a sentence and the word you picked for a concept is close but not exactly right, the list in the thesaurus may, hopefully, contain one that is dead on or at least closer. If the word "progress" comes into your head but you realize that the process you're describing has no conscious driving force, you might prefer to replace it with "evolve." Biological evolution--macro scale--has indeed resulted in more complex lifeforms. But only because they are better adapted to survival in earth's biosphere. Evolution is a force for survival. If survival did not require complexity, it would not have evolved. * * * * NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR * * * This thread has almost reached the point where it would be a better fit in the Biology subforum. I'm not going to contact that moderator and suggest that he move it unless it loses all relevance to linguistics. However, be advised that I am not as tolerant as some of the other moderators. If Sam and Q use this board to start one of their trademark flame wars--and I see telltales of that already-- I will delete all of their posts for the next six months. Take it somewhere else. This is a place of scholarship, not a cat fighting arena.
But this goal is as directed as evolution. Then, linguistically speaking, is progress random chance? Is mutation a tool for progress? Is destruction a method of survival?
At this point, traditional linguists would throw their hands up in the air and say "We do not do philosophy". Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I hear a lot of arguments about evolution going from "simple" to "complex". These are, of course, interpretations of observed increasing parsimony in function and not always true [even extinction is a function of "evolution", which is really an artificial paradigm used to deconstruct biological molecular history in ways that fit patterns we are familiar with recognising]. And there is of course, always the hubris of being at the top of the pyramid.
There is the idea that it is possible to use language in a "neutral manner", so that words do not carry any connotations from the various contexts they may be used in (as noted, "evolution" can mean something else in biology than it does in economics or philosophy etc.). I think what actually underlies the question of this OP is whether words can indeed be used in such a neutral manner or not. Can we use (speak/write and hear/read and understand) words separately from all metaphysical considerations?
That's a premature conclusion since we know so little about the origin of life. As I said previously, "The goal of life is to exist" is a purely philosophical statement, not a scientific one. If we're treading into another realm like cosmology where physics, pure mathematics and philosophy converge, we're over our heads. And once again, you're restricting the discussion of the word "evolution" to its narrow meaning in biology. Since this is the Linguistics board and not the Biology board that's not appropriate. If you want to understand a word as completely as possible you have to examine all of its ways of being used, not just your own favorite or the one that generates the most controversy. Linguistically speaking, progress is forward motion. The engine that powers that motion is irrelevant to the meaning of the word. If you want to go into detail and examine the specialized meaning of "progress" in politics, industry, business, history, philosophy, biology and every other discipline, that's a subject for a thesis, not a discussion on the website for a community of wannabe scientists that only includes a scant handful of amateur linguists. Since the Industrial Revolution, "progress" as used by laymen applies primarily to politics and the economy, and technology, where they converge. As such progress is driven by the conscious or nearly-conscious goals of humans. To talk about "progress" in the context of a natural science would trigger scratching of the head for most of those laymen. You're anthropomorphizing. Does nature use tools? Destruction of what? Bear in mind that the quintessence of life is its local reversal of entropy by taking the organization from nearby matter, using it to increase its own organization, and leaving the organization of the source material so depleted that the net entropy of the entire system has increased, in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics. To say that life becomes more complex is equivalent to saying that it becomes more highly organized. Since that's what life does by definition, the logical response to that observation is, "duh." If we expand the definition of "evolution" from its narrow biological sense to something closer to its original meaning, then the transition from inorganic matter to organic matter was clearly an instance of evolution, and probably the most important one. If evolution (cosmic rather than purely biological) had not yielded that particular increase in complexity, that local reversal of entropy that yielded the very first biological systems, then the multibillion year process of purely biological evolution could not have happened. If you work harder at achieving a linguistic perspective and take the word "evolution" out of your biologist's portmanteau, you might get the answers to your questions more quickly. It does seem that looking at the concept of evolution from a broader perspective makes it very nearly equivalent to "a steady increase in complexity." We're (arguably) the only animals with language. I don't see anything wrong with assuming the power to define our own words. It's like anything else. We may not achieve that goal but a lot can be accomplished by simply trying to get closer to it. Metaphysical": highly abstract or subtle. Language is a system of abstractions. You can't separate it from metaphysics. That's what the people who run this website want: To make it more like it was ten years ago when I first joined. Moderators are now selected for their support of that goal and their ability to pursue it.
Evolution results in whatever works. This may or may not result in increased complexity. Sometimes it can result in decreased complexity.
It is very difficult for people to think about a mechanistically produced trend or direction of change toward a state and not mentally provide cause, goal, etc. To see mechanism and not provide, mentally, "means"; to see direction and not provide, mentally, "director"; to see inevitable and mechanistically produced consequence and not provide, mentally, "goal"; crucially derived explanatory advantage or improvement without providing, mentally, "purpose";and so forth; is difficult for us. What has been evolving for longer times tends to have progressed, and progressed by the agency of that evolution, toward a visibly different and visibly "improved" state. The identification of that evolution with that overwhelmingly correlated "improvement" is natural, difficult to avoid. Evolution does in fact produce increasing complexity, but it does so without having the increase as a goal. The "mechanism" producing the apparent trend is just that evolving beings or ecosystems or other evolving entities are very likely to have started from more likely, more easily, and more frequently or commonly produced by the past systems, states of being. And in that starting condition, many more unfilled states of increased complexity are available than decreased (that's what "simpler" means, for one thing). The simpler states also tend to have been filled - they are not as often available as a "direction". They are status quo. In those more rare cases in which the initial state (as we begin to pay attention) is very complex compared with its likely unfilled possible states, evolution routinely produces simplification - parasites, symbionts, the smallest entities in a taxonomic category, are sometimes simplified or degenerate or comparatively "degraded" versions of more complex beings. The same thinking habit of humans - and it is usually a very efficient and useful habit, getting to the point in a hurry, and not a defect or flaw - is visible in most fields of human thought. One simple example: the laws of optics are mostly based on that habit, and are in their simpler formulations therefore errors of conception. As QED explains to us, a beam of light incident on a reflective surface apparently does not reflect at an angle equal to its angle of incidence because it is caused to, in the normal sense, but because its other avenues of reflection invisibly cancel each other out. Apparently, as we have come to understand the situation, in some sense light reflects in all directions, all angles, and we just see the uncanceled one. It's something like a little, simple model of one aspect of an evolutionary trend. The difficulty of grasping that approach may explain the long development of physics necessary to produce the insight. And the habit is also visible in the analysis of the habit, the commentary above and here: it isn't that people are dumb about probability, entropy, null hypotheses, the inevitable effects of racheting and chance. It's that we are smart about cause and effect, perceiving the effects and agency of directed change that does have a director, divining motive. It is how we think fastest and most efficiently. So we rely on what we do best.in one sense, or do what we do, in another. And that biases our language.
