Difference between revisions of "Evolutionary Epistemology"
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| − | + | ==Definition== | |
Evolutionary Epistemology<ref>Gerard Radnitzky +2, ''Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge'' (1999-02-02) ISBN 978-0812690392</ref> approaches the growth of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, in terms of evolutionary mechanisms. In other words, just as biological organisms evolve, so do the natural sciences and their practice and knowledge. | Evolutionary Epistemology<ref>Gerard Radnitzky +2, ''Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge'' (1999-02-02) ISBN 978-0812690392</ref> approaches the growth of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, in terms of evolutionary mechanisms. In other words, just as biological organisms evolve, so do the natural sciences and their practice and knowledge. | ||
| − | What this means is that the foundation we have today is | + | What this means is that the foundation we have today is not complete, as it is the best that we know today, but our knowledge will continue to grow and the foundations from which we build, going forward, will continue to get better. |
==Information== | ==Information== | ||
| − | In 2003 the biologist Jack Szostak published a short article | + | In 2003 the biologist Jack Szostak published a short article in Nature proposing the concept of functional information. Szostak wanted to quantify the amount of information or complexity that biological molecules like proteins or DNA strands embody. Classical information theory, developed by the telecommunications researcher Claude Shannon in the 1940s and later elaborated by the Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov, offers one answer. Per Kolmogorov, the complexity of a string of symbols (such as binary 1s and 0s) depends on how concisely one can specify that sequence uniquely.<ref>Jack W. Szostak ''Functional information: Molecular messages'' https://www.nature.com/articles/423689a</ref> |
| − | In 2025 another principle was presented that entities are selected because they are richer in a kind of information that enables them to perform some kind of function. This controversial hypothesis from Robert Haze, Michael Wong and others, argue that the basic laws of physics are not “complete” in the sense of supplying all we need to comprehend natural phenomena; rather, evolution — biological or otherwise — introduces functions and novelties that could not even in principle be predicted from physics alone.<ref>Philip Ball, ''Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex'' Quanta 2025-04-02 https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-everything-in-the-universe-turns-more-complex-20250402/</ref> | + | In 2025 another principle was presented that entities are selected because they are richer in a kind of information that enables them to perform some kind of function. This controversial hypothesis from Robert Haze, Michael Wong and others, argue that the basic laws of physics are not “complete” in the sense of supplying all we need to comprehend natural phenomena; rather, evolution — biological or otherwise — introduces functions and novelties that could not even in principle be predicted from physics alone.<ref>Philip Ball, ''Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex'' Quanta 2025-04-02 https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-everything-in-the-universe-turns-more-complex-20250402/</ref> They suspected that functional information was the key to understanding how complex systems like living organisms arise through evolutionary processes happening over time. “We all assumed the second law of thermodynamics supplies the arrow of time,” Hazen said. “But it seems like there’s a much more idiosyncratic pathway that the universe takes. We think it’s because of selection for function — a very orderly process that leads to ordered states. That’s not part of the second law, although it’s not inconsistent with it either.” This might seem trivial, like saying that some objects exist while other ones don’t, even if they could in theory. But Hazen and Wong have shown(opens a new tab) that, even for minerals, functional information has increased over the course of Earth’s history. Minerals evolve toward greater complexity (though not in the Darwinian sense).<ref>Robert M Hazen & Michael L Wong, ''Open-ended versus bounded evolution: Mineral evolution as a case study'' https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/7/pgae248/7698354</ref> |
==References== | ==References== | ||
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Latest revision as of 09:42, 9 June 2025
Definition
Evolutionary Epistemology[1] approaches the growth of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, in terms of evolutionary mechanisms. In other words, just as biological organisms evolve, so do the natural sciences and their practice and knowledge.
What this means is that the foundation we have today is not complete, as it is the best that we know today, but our knowledge will continue to grow and the foundations from which we build, going forward, will continue to get better.
Information
In 2003 the biologist Jack Szostak published a short article in Nature proposing the concept of functional information. Szostak wanted to quantify the amount of information or complexity that biological molecules like proteins or DNA strands embody. Classical information theory, developed by the telecommunications researcher Claude Shannon in the 1940s and later elaborated by the Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov, offers one answer. Per Kolmogorov, the complexity of a string of symbols (such as binary 1s and 0s) depends on how concisely one can specify that sequence uniquely.[2]
In 2025 another principle was presented that entities are selected because they are richer in a kind of information that enables them to perform some kind of function. This controversial hypothesis from Robert Haze, Michael Wong and others, argue that the basic laws of physics are not “complete” in the sense of supplying all we need to comprehend natural phenomena; rather, evolution — biological or otherwise — introduces functions and novelties that could not even in principle be predicted from physics alone.[3] They suspected that functional information was the key to understanding how complex systems like living organisms arise through evolutionary processes happening over time. “We all assumed the second law of thermodynamics supplies the arrow of time,” Hazen said. “But it seems like there’s a much more idiosyncratic pathway that the universe takes. We think it’s because of selection for function — a very orderly process that leads to ordered states. That’s not part of the second law, although it’s not inconsistent with it either.” This might seem trivial, like saying that some objects exist while other ones don’t, even if they could in theory. But Hazen and Wong have shown(opens a new tab) that, even for minerals, functional information has increased over the course of Earth’s history. Minerals evolve toward greater complexity (though not in the Darwinian sense).[4]
References
- ↑ Gerard Radnitzky +2, Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (1999-02-02) ISBN 978-0812690392
- ↑ Jack W. Szostak Functional information: Molecular messages https://www.nature.com/articles/423689a
- ↑ Philip Ball, Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex Quanta 2025-04-02 https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-everything-in-the-universe-turns-more-complex-20250402/
- ↑ Robert M Hazen & Michael L Wong, Open-ended versus bounded evolution: Mineral evolution as a case study https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/7/pgae248/7698354
