Punctuated equilibrium

[NewLeft]

What do you think of punctuated equilibrium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium) being used to explain our present situation? Long periods of relative stability followed by a short burst of radical change, then a return to stability..

[Ocean Seal]

Its a pretty reasonable explanation and I remember a couple of years ago it was being discussed as a superior theory to constant evolution, but IIRC constant evolution made some gains in the past few years. I'm not sure why because punctuated equilibrium seems to make more sense.

Edit: Dawkins supported gradualism this was the gain that I remember

http://www.revleft.com/vb/punctuated-equilibrium-phyletic-t152628/index.html

[MarxSchmarx]

The problem with punctuated equilibrium,in biology,was well articulated in an article by B. Charlesworth, M. Slatkin, R. Lande, Evolution 36, 474 (1982).

They pointed out, quite correctly, that at best punctuated equilibrium adding nothing new of substance to results already well established in classical evolutionary theory, and at best was based on some paleontological confirmations of that theory. Moreover, the advocates of "punctuated equilibria", particularly Gould and Eldridge, had so often changed the definition of what precisely they mean by it (by 1982!) that it becomes quite difficult to understand what phenomenon they are talking about.

As to its applicability to social questions - I must admit I doubt it it has any real utility. For starters, the "long periods of stagnation" are frankly quite superficial - for example the middle ages were rife with class struggle and feudalism was in fact rare for much of what we consider "medieval Europe". Liberal democracies are incredibly short lived so far, and social systems can last for long periods even under unsustainable material foundations - witness radical Islam in our own day, not to mention the last 250 years.

So I think the idea of punctuated equilibrium was a failure in biology, and to the extent that it has been attempted to be grafted onto the social sciences, at best the same flaws have carried over and at worst it has been exposed for the dubious assertion that it was in its original context.

[ckaihatsu]

As to its applicability to social questions - I must admit I doubt it it has any real utility.




So I think the idea of punctuated equilibrium was a failure in biology, and to the extent that it has been attempted to be grafted onto the social sciences, at best the same flaws have carried over and at worst it has been exposed for the dubious assertion that it was in its original context.


We shouldn't have overextended, unrealistic expectations of the *explanatory power* of the applicability of certain *dynamics* -- like 'punctuated equilibrium' or 'emergence' -- when we apply them. Note that there is more than one approach to scientific endeavors, and that they tend "downward" towards describing constituent components and their systems (reductionism), or "upward" towards discovering how known elements and phenomena may fit into the larger picture (macroscopic).

The funny thing about the latter is that the dynamics *among* agents -- regardless of domain -- are fundamentally consistent and non-novel -- in looking at things macroscopically we're limited to the vocabulary of 'cooperation', 'competition' -- (interactions), 'discrete', 'continuous' -- (patterns), 'punctuated equilibrium', 'emergence' -- (time), and the like. (In other words these terms all describe *parallelistic* relationships *among* components in motion.)

If a scientific-minded individual doesn't feel satisfied at the explanation that new species "just emerge" over evolutionary time, and they want to pursue the nitty-gritty nuts-and-bolts of *how* one generation gives rise to the next, then the field of genetics (reductionistic science) is where they'll wind up at. But both explanations, macroscopic *and* reductionistic are both valid -- just at different scales of scope.








Much of the Western / bourgeois approach to science is *reductionistic*, meaning that smaller and smaller scales of research are sought out, in directions of exploring downward and inward. By itself there's nothing *inherently* wrong with this, especially since so much at the smallest of scales has been heretofore unexplored and unknown, and many benefits have been realized from this particular approach to scientific research.

This approach is *problematic*, though, when used inappropriately, as in contexts that are *social* -- macroscopic -- in nature. Marxists posit that individual identity is *socially* constructed, so it follows that a reductionistic approach is going to be necessarily flawed -- usually manifesting as some kind of idealism / dualism wherein a "core essence" of a person's identity (or 'human nature') is sought after, as through the ideology of biological determinism that you described.

Internalizing an inaccurate representation or approach to the question of 'self' or 'social humanity' is not good for anyone since it is the equivalent of using faulty tools.

[Mr. Natural]

Punctuated equilibrium is a scientific reality that the new sciences of organizational relations I constantly but unsuccessfully promote easily demonstrate. There is the Cambrian explosion and the several extinction events that drastically affected life on Earth.

These were natural "revolutions." Other ways in which life goes to revolution all the time are emergences, phase transitions, and bifurcation points.

So my answer to the OP is that punctuated equilibrium is but another of the many phenomena that show the unity of the organization of non-human and human life. As Marx and Engels understood, we are natural beings living unnaturally, and communism honors human nature and Mother Nature.

My constant theme is that life has an organization that we must emulate if we are to continue, and that capitalism is a cancer of all forms of life.