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Carey: It [natural selection] can only select from what is available, yes….
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Good Carey, then it seems we now agree on two things: That selection can only select from what is already available; and that what is available, the so-called mutations, aren’t necessarily intrinsically “random,†but rather, currently anyway, just seem to be unpredictable, at least by us humans based on our current knowledge.
Speaking of selection from only what’s available, I’m reminded of one of my old 4/2002 posts regarding what LeDoux had to say concerning selection vs. instruction as it relates to human “learningâ€:
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Selection vs. Instruction — LeDoux (in his Synaptic Self, 2002, pg. 72-79) writes that, “Pretty much everyone agrees that that the transition from uncommitted, immature initial connections of the young brain to the mature and very specific connectivity that characterizes that of the adult requires neural activity, that is, transmission across synapses…. [The issue is whether] activity initiated by environmental stimulation helps create [instruction] the mature connections or just selects [selection] from the initial set of intrinsically established connections those that will be retained… Is the [synaptic] self sculpted from a preexisting set of synaptic choices, or does experience instruct and add to the synaptic basis of the self as we go through early life?â€
LeDoux also writes, as Niels Jern has pointed out, “the history of biology is filled with instances of instructional ideas giving way to selectionist ones… [For example, in the field of immunology] it was once thought that the foreign antigens enter cells and instruct them to make antibody molecules…[but now research has shown that] foreign antigens select precursor molecules from a preexisting pool that can be assembled into a large variety of antibodies… Jerne later applied his antibody logic to the topic of learning… [and] suggested that the idea of learning from experience (instruction) be replaced with the concept that experience just selects from preexisting latent knowledge. Paraphrasing Socrates, Jern noted that ‘learning consists of being reminded of what is already in the brain.’â€
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And so I suppose that’s kind of how I see Darwinian “natural selection†as it relates to biological evolution—Darwinian natural selection in biological evolution is nothing more than a selection, a selection imposed by environmental factors and various (known and unknown) blind natural forces, of the evolution/diversity/ change/mutation that has already taken place. And from that we conclude that whatever traits are selected must be the fittest, b/c otherwise they’d not have been selected . . . I have to admit that the circularity is rather compelling, and I can see why you and others are such strong believers in such a circular notion.