Quoted for Truth – Gregory Bateson

“In scientific explanation, there should be no use of mind or deity, and there should be no appeal to final causes. All causality should flow with the flow of time, with no effect of the future upon the present or the past. No deity, no teleology, and no mind should be postulated in the universe that was to be explained.” — Gregory Bateson

I only very slightly differ with the statement, but only slightly. I do believe that there is mind – those minds are ours. But they are fully biological minds, making choices, and those choices are made with the flow of time, presenting an illusion of teleology, an illusion of design and purpose in the world.

But really, life is creating its own purpose as it weaves its threads.

I really believe that the tapestry is always being woven, unless we’re all gone. As long as there is life, there is purpose, and therefore hope.

Deity should not be invoked in naturalistic explanation, for to believe that deity creates the world is to believe it to be a craftsman, vengeful, bumbling and making mistakes, and removing personal responsibility from us and the choices we make in this world. That’s no deity for me – I see deities as perfect, teachers and guides to be emulated in the physical world. Meditation and a direct experience with the ideal I believe is the only way to properly approach divinity… it is nothing for natural science.

Darwin was right

Sexual selection has been observed in yeast, the first time that Darwin’s sexual selection theory has been observed directly. I am quite shocked that this has not been picked up in the press. I would consider the observation of sexual choice at the lowest level of animals to be Nobel Prize material, as its vitally important to the self-organisation observed in biology.

Abstract:

The fundamental principle underlying sexual selection theory is that an allele conferring an advantage in the competition for mates will spread through a population. Remarkably, this has never been demonstrated empirically. We have developed an experimental system using yeast for testing genetic models of sexual selection. Yeast signal to potential partners by producing an attractive pheromone; stronger signallers are preferred as mates. We tested the effect of high and low levels of sexual selection on the evolution of a gene determining the strength of this signal. Under high sexual selection, an allele encoding a stronger signal was able to invade a population of weak signallers, and we observed a corresponding increase in the amount of pheromone produced. By contrast, the strong signalling allele failed to invade under low sexual selection. Our results demonstrate, for the first time, the spread of a sexually selected allele through a population, confirming the central assumption of sexual selection theory. Our yeast system is a powerful tool for investigating the genetics of sexual selection.

Links:

Reported first in World Science:

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/081013_selection

and the abstract leading to the PDF on the research done:

Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Arachne and Minerva

From Ovid’s Metamorphoses

A story against denying the awe of the complexity in the natural world, believing we can design it better than nature can. A vital warning against the central planner. Minerva knows better than we do, still.