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Notes
We need to be careful here: structural and functional differences matter concerning sight across mammals, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates like octopus (McConwell 2019).
Losos’s frustration I think is aptly expressed in his 2018 Darwin lecture, especially during the question period when despite his call to stop making lists of evolutionary convergences and evolutionary one-offs during the lecture, the question period is consumed with proposed cases of convergence.
Losos rightly notes that one of Gould’s heroes in Wonderful Life was indeed Conway Morris, who showed the Burgess Shale fauna to be populated by unique life forms, however, Conway Morris “came to see the world in a different light. Rather than dwelling on the evolutionary uniqueness” he published Crucible Creation (1998) with discussion of both the importance and ubiquity of evolutionary convergence (39). While it’s well-known that Conway Morris changed his mind, exactly why that change occurred is unclear. Losos mentions that perhaps Conway Morris was primed by Gould broadcasting his mistakes or how after reading Gould’s Bully for Brontosaurus (1991) Conway Morris noted how much Gould overlooked convergences. However, in Richard Fortey’s (1998) review of Conway Morris’s work (entitled “Shock Lobsters), he comments on the change after WL’s publication in 1989 concerning how “Conway Morris now treats Gould with contempt, even loathing” (1998, p. 2). This is contrasted against how Conway Morris was portrayed by Gould in WL, however. It looks as though Conway Morris commented rather favourably and in a helpful manner on relevant sections of WL just prior to its publication before writing his scathing review that kicked off the popular controversy (Box 174 Folder 7).
George McGhee (2011, Chapter 8) discusses how Kauffman’s work fits into the debate over repeatability.
Because Conway Morris emphasizes a level of physio-chemical determinism as constraining evolution, there’s also a live question of reductionism concerning biology.
In fairness, Conway Morris does note the “grievously poor” ways of doing theology, such as the intelligent design hypothesis and irreducible complexity (2008, p. 206). He proposes a new way forward leaving that history behind.
I’m unconvinced that lacking directionality in evolution implies it’s meaningless: I can often wander aimlessly, stumbled upon a new place of value like a secluded beach and find meaning as it relates to myself without any theistic overtones. Let’s bring back some existentialism: exploring meaning in life does not belong to only theistic agendas.
See Levy and Curry’s (2018) for a critical discussion concerning the role of experiments in confirming theoretical hypotheses.
The plausibility of gaining information about evolution from experiment field work and controlled experiments in natural and artificial settings is backed by his analysis in chapter 4 about the not-so-glacial pace of evolutionary change. He shows how, contrary to what Darwin thought, evolution can indeed be fast enough to facilitate a sort of testability in these natural-type experiments and field work (118).
I recommend that Chapter 3 be read in conjunction with viewing Losos’s 2018 Darwin Lecture online. In the book, Losos discusses why convergences can fail; he takes an approach to what might be different kinds of convergences perhaps. That particular discussion takes a more central role in the Darwin Lecture even though he applies that conceptual work in later chapters.
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McConwell, A.K. Walking the Line: A Tempered View of Contingency and Convergence in Life’s History. Acta Biotheor 67, 253–264 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-019-09347-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-019-09347-x