From Greg Williams (930126)
Gary, I'm continuing to keep my margins under control, even though
Rick obviously cannot. Different reference levels for different
folks....
Neat recent paper for PCT-cum-evolution freaks: George C. Williams,
"GAIA, Nature Worship and Biocentric Fallacies," QUARTERLY REVIEW OF
BIOLOGY 67, December '92, 479-486. Some quotes follow.
484 - "No matter how many general benefits may arise from the
activities of organisms, they can never provide a valid parallel
between the collective effects and an organism's homeostatic controls.
The analogy confuses mass-action equilibria or input-output balances
with homeostasis. Homeostasis requires a feedback loop from a sensor
of the controlled variable to the machinery by which the control is
achieved.... Homeostasis should be recognized only if special sensory
and control machinery can be shown. Stability of some condition, even
if the condition is rapidly restored after disturbance, should not be
critically attributed to homeostatic machinery.... Old Faithful is not
an organism because it is not homeostatic. I would say the same about
Gaia for the same reason.... Adaptation is always asymmetrical;
organisms adapt to their environments, never vice versa. If the
environments at the surface of the Earth seem well suited to living
organisms, it is simply because those are the environments to which
organisms have adapted."
A few years back, Bill Powers corresponded with Gaia's Lovelock,
making similar points as Williams does. (Basically, that the
reference levels for Gaian regulation are IN EACH OF THE ORGANISMS,
not in the environment or (as Lovelock seemed to suggest) nowhere at
all.) Perhaps mainstream evolutionists (and Williams is about as
mainstream as you can get!) wouldn't consider (some) PCT ideas to be
as "revolutionary" as some PCTers think. Maybe ALL of biology won't
need to be redone, come the overthrow!
As ever,
Greg