Corning, 2013: "Evolution 'on purpose': how beha v iour has shaped the evolutionary process"

[From Bruce Abbott (2014.01.15.1040 EST)]

Great find, Matti; thanks for posting that!

Bruce

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU] On Behalf Of Matti Kolu
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2014 10:02 AM
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU
Subject: Corning, 2013: "Evolution �on purpose�: how beha viour has shaped
the evolutionary process"

[From Matti Kolu (2014.01.15.1600 CET)]

Have you all seen this? Powers and Cziko are referenced.

PETER A. CORNING. Evolution �on purpose�: how behaviour has shaped the
evolutionary process. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, 1�19.

UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bij.12061
DO - 10.1111/bij.12061

Abstract: "The idea that behaviour has played an important role in evolution
has had its ups and downs over the past two centuries. Now it appears to be
up once again. Lamarck can claim priority for this insight, along with
Darwin�s more guarded view. However, there followed a long �dark-age�, which
began with Weismann�s mutation theory and spanned the gene-centred era that
followed during most of the 20th Century, although it was punctuated by
various contrarians, from Baldwin�s �Organic Selection theory� to Simpson�s
�Baldwin effect�, Mayr�s �Pacemaker� model, and Waddington�s �genetic
assimilation�, amongst others. Nowadays, even as we are reading genomes and
using this information to illuminate biological causation and decipher
evolutionary patterns, behavioural processes are more fully appreciated,
with �multilevel selection theory� providing a more ecumenical, multicausal
model of evolutionary change. This has been accompanied by a flood of
research on how behavioural influences contribute to the ongoing
evolutionary process, from research on phenotypic plasticity to niche
construction theory and gene�culture co-evolution theory. However, the
theoretical implications of this paradigm shift still have not been fully
integrated into our current thinking about evolution. Behaviour has a
purpose (teleonomy); it is ends-directed. Living organisms are not passive
objects of �chance and necessity� (as Jacques Monod put it). Nor is the
currently popular concept of phenotypic plasticity sufficient. Organisms are
active participants in the evolutionary process (cybernetic
systems) and have played a major causal role in determining its direction.
It could be called �constrained purposiveness�, and one of the important
themes in evolution, culminating in humankind, has been the �progres- sive�
evolution of self-determination (intelligence) and its ever-expanding
potency. I call this agency �Teleonomic Selection�. In a very real sense,
our species invented itself. For better and worse, the course of evolution
is increasingly being shaped by the �Sorcerer�s Apprentice�. Monod�s mantra
needs to be updated. Evolution is a process that combines �chance,
necessity, teleonomy and selection�."

Extract from pg 9:

"The systems theorist William T. Powers (1973), in an important book and
also in a paper published in Science the same year, showed that the
behaviour of a cybernetic control system can be described mathematically in
terms of its tendency to oppose an environmental disturbance of an
internally controlled quantity. That is to say, the system will operate in
such a way that some function of its output quantities will be almost equal
and opposite to some function of a disturbance in some or all of those
environmental variables that affect the controlled quantity, with the result
that the controlled quantity will remain almost at its zero point. A
familiar example is a household thermostat. It operates to maintain a
pre-set temperature.

Needless to say, the basic thermostat model portrays only the most
rudimentary example: a homeostatic system. More complex cybernetic control
systems are obviously not limited to maintaining any sort of simple and
eternally fixed steady state. In a complex system, overarching goals may be
main- tained (or attained) by means of an array of hierarchically organized
sub-goals that may be pursued contemporaneously, cyclically, or seriatim.
Further- more, homeostasis shares the cybernetic stage with �homeorhesis�
(i.e. developmental control processes) and even �teleogenesis� (i.e.
goal-creating processes).

It is also important to note that cybernetic control processes are not
limited only to one level of biological organization. Over the past two
decades, we have come to appreciate the fact that they exist at many levels
in living systems. They can be observed in, amongst other things,
morphogenesis (Shapiro, 1991, 1992, 2012; Thaler, 1994), cellular activity
(Hess & Mikhailov, 1994; Shapiro, 2012), and neuronal network operation
(Crick, 1994), as well as in the orchestration of animal behaviour. Indeed,
the cybernetic model also encompasses processes that conform to the paradigm
of �distributed control� or �horizontal control�. Some examples include
bacterial colonies (Shapiro, 1988), Cnidaria (Mackie, 1990; Packard, 2006),
honeybees (Seeley, 1989, 1995), army ants (Franks, 1989; H�lldobler &
Wilson, 1990), slime moulds (Bonner, 1959), and, of course, humans.
Indeed, Powers and various colleagues have devoted many years to developing
what he calls �Perceptual Control Theory�, which melds cybernetics and human
psychology. Another way to put it is that many levels of goal-oriented
feedback processes exist in nature, and complex organisms such as mammals
(especially socially-organized species such as humankind) are distinctive in
their reliance on more inclusive, emergent, �higher-level� controls."

Matti

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[From Ted Cloak (2014.01.15.1030 MST)]

[From Matti Kolu (2014.01.15.1600 CET)]

Have you all seen this? Powers and Cziko are referenced.

PETER A. CORNING. Evolution �on purpose�: how behaviour has shaped the
evolutionary process. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, 1�19.

UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bij.12061
DO - 10.1111/bij.12061

Abstract: "The idea that behaviour has played an important role in evolution
has had its ups and downs over the past two centuries. Now it appears to be
up once again. Lamarck can claim priority for this insight, along with
Darwin�s more guarded view. However, there followed a long �dark-age�, which
began with Weismann�s mutation theory and spanned the gene-centred era that
followed during most of the 20th Century, although it was punctuated by
various contrarians, from Baldwin�s �Organic Selection theory� to Simpson�s
�Baldwin effect�, Mayr�s �Pacemaker� model, and Waddington�s �genetic
assimilation�, amongst others. Nowadays, even as we are reading genomes and
using this information to illuminate biological causation and decipher
evolutionary patterns, behavioural processes are more fully appreciated,
with �multilevel selection theory� providing a more ecumenical, multicausal
model of evolutionary change. This has been accompanied by a flood of
research on how behavioural influences contribute to the ongoing
evolutionary process, from research on phenotypic plasticity to niche
construction theory and gene�culture co-evolution theory. However, the
theoretical implications of this paradigm shift still have not been fully
integrated into our current thinking about evolution. Behaviour has a
purpose (teleonomy); it is ends-directed. Living organisms are not passive
objects of �chance and necessity� (as Jacques Monod put it). Nor is the
currently popular concept of phenotypic plasticity sufficient. Organisms are
active participants in the evolutionary process (cybernetic
systems) and have played a major causal role in determining its direction.
It could be called �constrained purposiveness�, and one of the important
themes in evolution, culminating in humankind, has been the �progres- sive�
evolution of self-determination (intelligence) and its ever-expanding
potency. I call this agency �Teleonomic Selection�. In a very real sense,
our species invented itself. For better and worse, the course of evolution
is increasingly being shaped by the �Sorcerer�s Apprentice�. Monod�s mantra
needs to be updated. Evolution is a process that combines �chance,
necessity, teleonomy and selection�."

Extract from pg 9:

"The systems theorist William T. Powers (1973), in an important book and
also in a paper published in Science the same year, showed that the
behaviour of a cybernetic control system can be described mathematically in
terms of its tendency to oppose an environmental disturbance of an
internally controlled quantity. That is to say, the system will operate in
such a way that some function of its output quantities will be almost equal
and opposite to some function of a disturbance in some or all of those
environmental variables that affect the controlled quantity, with the result
that the controlled quantity will remain almost at its zero point. A
familiar example is a household thermostat. It operates to maintain a
pre-set temperature.

Needless to say, the basic thermostat model portrays only the most
rudimentary example: a homeostatic system. More complex cybernetic control
systems are obviously not limited to maintaining any sort of simple and
eternally fixed steady state. In a complex system, overarching goals may be
main- tained (or attained) by means of an array of hierarchically organized
sub-goals that may be pursued contemporaneously, cyclically, or seriatim.
Further- more, homeostasis shares the cybernetic stage with �homeorhesis�
(i.e. developmental control processes) and even �teleogenesis� (i.e.
goal-creating processes).

It is also important to note that cybernetic control processes are not
limited only to one level of biological organization. Over the past two
decades, we have come to appreciate the fact that they exist at many levels
in living systems. They can be observed in, amongst other things,
morphogenesis (Shapiro, 1991, 1992, 2012; Thaler, 1994), cellular activity
(Hess & Mikhailov, 1994; Shapiro, 2012), and neuronal network operation
(Crick, 1994), as well as in the orchestration of animal behaviour. Indeed,
the cybernetic model also encompasses processes that conform to the paradigm
of �distributed control� or �horizontal control�. Some examples include
bacterial colonies (Shapiro, 1988), Cnidaria (Mackie, 1990; Packard, 2006),
honeybees (Seeley, 1989, 1995), army ants (Franks, 1989; H�lldobler &
Wilson, 1990), slime moulds (Bonner, 1959), and, of course, humans.
Indeed, Powers and various colleagues have devoted many years to developing
what he calls �Perceptual Control Theory�, which melds cybernetics and human
psychology. Another way to put it is that many levels of goal-oriented
feedback processes exist in nature, and complex organisms such as mammals
(especially socially-organized species such as humankind) are distinctive in
their reliance on more inclusive, emergent, �higher-level� controls."

Matti

···

-----------------------------------------
[Ted Cloak (2014.01.15.1030 MST)]:

After a great deal of interpretive history of evolutionary biology, Corning
winds up pretty much where I do:

'Selection, or �artificial� selection: A selector entity chooses, according
to criteria (reference standards), among two or more entities, causing
differential survival (or reproduction) among them.

'�Natural Selection�: A phenomenon unfortunately so called by its
discoverer, Charles Darwin. The.Best.Idea.Ever: An entity acts and, as a
result, there are more of such entities in space and/or time (Cloak 1986).
No selector entity is required. Given the right initial environment, such as
that in places on or near the surface of our Earth, and given deep enough
time, repeated events of Natural Selection have resulted in "endless forms
most beautiful" (Darwin 1859).

'Universal Selection or Universal Darwinism: Any occurrence of
counter-entropic design is a result of natural or artificial selection
(Cziko 1995).'

--from www.tedcloak.com, Intro and Background. More in the article itself.

I think the teaser title of his article is very unfortunate. How many
readers are going to go away, early, with the idea that Corning claims that
there is "purpose in evolution"?

Oh, yeah. I'm very glad he cites Bill and Gary, even though he gets PCT
backwards.

Best,
Ted