Explaining Scientific Concepts from the Perspective of other Disciplines

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So, it's been said that if you can't explain something to a layman, you don't actually understand it. This is obviously true, but sometimes this must be done through example or analogy. Since I'm now starting on my way to science, and I'm actually getting it, I will attempt to write essays about some of the topics from other perspectives in order to explain them.

The first one I will do (which will follow in the next post) is explaining evolution through the lens of music. It's restating an idea in another specialty, but it's a language I'm familiar with (and I will try and put the musical perspective in layman's terms, or define in layman's terms for clarity), and therefore a step towards putting it into plain music.

I think this an important exercise because I've always believed in evolution, but evolution isn't an article of belief. Science deals with evidence, not faith. I no longer believe in evolution, I accept it as an accurate explanation of the diversity and unity of life, based on well attested evidence.

If considered sufficiently sound, I'll post these elsewhere.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Modern Western music can essentially be traced back to African American spirituals and European American music fusing together. In the late 19th century you had the beginnings of the Blues and Gospel music, with the former being analogous to the secular version of the later (hence selling your soul to be a Bluesman). From there, you get offshoots. Country Blues, Mississippi Delta Blues, Chicago Blues, Jazz.  Then you get Rhythm and Blues, Country Music, Rock and Roll, and early Heavy Metal, while Blues, Jazz and Gospel continue to exist and go off onto other tangents. Then you get Motown, Pop, Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Disco, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, and Punk. Then there's Hip Hop, Techno, Darkwave, Goth, Death Metal, etc.

Well, at this point, things are looking pretty different from each other in less than a century, considering that they all have a common root. What happened?

All of these completely different genres had to compete for audience, and a good portion of that audience was looking for novelty. Kids don't want to listen to the same music as their parents, and not all children have the same tastes. Music, of course, in order to progress into something new, must build on the old. But each musical group will take a different direction. Some directions aren't terribly appealing, and very few people listen to them. Others have very broad appeal and many listen to them. Others find some sort of middle ground where they develop a moderate but dedicated fan base. Either way, those fan bases will produce future musicians who will be inspired by their influences and put their own stamp on it, and thrive or fail depending on how appealing their own music is. If they fail to get fans, they will fail to inspire the next generation of musicians. If they thrive, they will inspire many musicians who themselves will attempt to take off in different directions.

This is exactly how biological evolution occurs. Some species (bands) will succeed in competing for resources (audience) which will increase their chances of successfully reproducing (inspiring future musicians) who will then go off and attempt to reproduce (inspire on their own). Those successive generations of musicians won't sound exactly like the previous ones. After a while, they will sound completely different from each other, just as Carcass doesn't sound at all like Britney Spears (they're completely different animals at that point). But they can trace their initial roots back to a point of common ancestry. Indeed, both DNA and Western music have something in common- a code of bases. With DNA, it's base 4. With Western music, it's base 12 (4 nucleotides, 12 notes in the chromatic scale- A, A sharp/B flat, B, C, C sharp/D flat etc). DNA can be considered a very long 4 chord song, all with a common root genre. Carcass and Britney Spears, while wildly different, have a common and universal genetic code (the Western chromatic scale).

But let us consider that modern popular music in all of its forms is a specific Kingdom. You can take it back even further, through Renaissance music, which produced both what we would now consider the folk varieties that contributed to the Blues, and its other offshoot, Classical music, which went off into Baroque, etc. Even further back to Gregorian chant, which still exists, but is the earliest written basis for that chromatic code (it existed even in ancient times but the medieval Catholic church was the first to give the basis for modern musical notation). So, Catholic monks chanting in Latin is a clear, but distant, root for Hip Hop, Punk Rock, Trance, even Satanic Black Metal. They're way different, in much the same way that E. coli or H. Pylori is different from a dog, but they all come from the same place, and all because of competition for audience creating selective pressures (Natural Selection).

Consider that, the next time you listen to Johnny Cash, or Lady Gaga.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thoughts?

Dead on? Rewrite?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Thoughts?

Dead on? Rewrite?

Big hole in your analogy.  Dick Clark didn't come along and guide evolution by only allowing certain organisms to be seen or heard, based on whether or not they adhered to an artificial formula.  People don't choose music based on their likes and dislikes, they choose what they are TOLD to choose.

So music would be a better analogy for intelligent design.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thoughts?

Dead on? Rewrite?

Big hole in your analogy.  Dick Clark didn't come along and guide evolution by only allowing certain organisms to be seen or heard, based on whether or not they adhered to an artificial formula.  People don't choose music based on their likes and dislikes, they choose what they are TOLD to choose.

So music would be a better analogy for intelligent design.

Fair point, but would not Dick Clark himself be a selective pressure? One that other genres managed to survive?

Actually that, creates a funny image of a God trying to guide evolution, and new organisms that didn't adhere to his design popping up regardless.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I don't doubt the hole you point out, but, wasn't Dick Clark the one who couldn't wrap his head around "Moosh Pits"?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I don't doubt the hole you point out, but, wasn't Dick Clark the one who couldn't wrap his head around "Moosh Pits"?

Well, yes, but that was when he was like 300 years old.  In his day, he OWNED THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

Thoughts?

Dead on? Rewrite?

Big hole in your analogy.  Dick Clark didn't come along and guide evolution by only allowing certain organisms to be seen or heard, based on whether or not they adhered to an artificial formula.  People don't choose music based on their likes and dislikes, they choose what they are TOLD to choose.

So music would be a better analogy for intelligent design.

Actually, i think a man choosing to guide and control the development of music over time would be a closer fit to selective breeding. Someone sees something that can be of benefit to him, controls which traits are allowed to perpetuate, and he winds up with something far tamer and easier to domesticate than the original animal.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thoughts?

Dead on? Rewrite?

Big hole in your analogy.  Dick Clark didn't come along and guide evolution by only allowing certain organisms to be seen or heard, based on whether or not they adhered to an artificial formula.  People don't choose music based on their likes and dislikes, they choose what they are TOLD to choose.

So music would be a better analogy for intelligent design.

Actually, i think a man choosing to guide and control the development of music over time would be a closer fit to selective breeding. Someone sees something that can be of benefit to him, controls which traits are allowed to perpetuate, and he winds up with something far tamer and easier to domesticate than the original animal.

Oooh.

Wolves to dogs.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I don't doubt the hole you point out, but, wasn't Dick Clark the one who couldn't wrap his head around "Moosh Pits"?

Well, yes, but that was when he was like 300 years old.  In his day, he OWNED THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY.

This is absolutely true.

[Kai]

Modern Western music can essentially be traced back to African American spirituals and European American music fusing together. In the late 19th century you had the beginnings of the Blues and Gospel music, with the former being analogous to the secular version of the later (hence selling your soul to be a Bluesman). From there, you get offshoots. Country Blues, Mississippi Delta Blues, Chicago Blues, Jazz.  Then you get Rhythm and Blues, Country Music, Rock and Roll, and early Heavy Metal, while Blues, Jazz and Gospel continue to exist and go off onto other tangents. Then you get Motown, Pop, Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Disco, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, and Punk. Then there's Hip Hop, Techno, Darkwave, Goth, Death Metal, etc.

Well, at this point, things are looking pretty different from each other in less than a century, considering that they all have a common root. What happened?

All of these completely different genres had to compete for audience, and a good portion of that audience was looking for novelty. Kids don't want to listen to the same music as their parents, and not all children have the same tastes. Music, of course, in order to progress into something new, must build on the old. But each musical group will take a different direction. Some directions aren't terribly appealing, and very few people listen to them. Others have very broad appeal and many listen to them. Others find some sort of middle ground where they develop a moderate but dedicated fan base. Either way, those fan bases will produce future musicians who will be inspired by their influences and put their own stamp on it, and thrive or fail depending on how appealing their own music is. If they fail to get fans, they will fail to inspire the next generation of musicians. If they thrive, they will inspire many musicians who themselves will attempt to take off in different directions.

This is exactly how biological evolution occurs. Some species (bands) will succeed in competing for resources (audience) which will increase their chances of successfully reproducing (inspiring future musicians) who will then go off and attempt to reproduce (inspire on their own). Those successive generations of musicians won't sound exactly like the previous ones. After a while, they will sound completely different from each other, just as Carcass doesn't sound at all like Britney Spears (they're completely different animals at that point). But they can trace their initial roots back to a point of common ancestry. Indeed, both DNA and Western music have something in common- a code of bases. With DNA, it's base 4. With Western music, it's base 12 (4 nucleotides, 12 notes in the chromatic scale- A, A sharp/B flat, B, C, C sharp/D flat etc). DNA can be considered a very long 4 chord song, all with a common root genre. Carcass and Britney Spears, while wildly different, have a common and universal genetic code (the Western chromatic scale).

But let us consider that modern popular music in all of its forms is a specific Kingdom. You can take it back even further, through Renaissance music, which produced both what we would now consider the folk varieties that contributed to the Blues, and its other offshoot, Classical music, which went off into Baroque, etc. Even further back to Gregorian chant, which still exists, but is the earliest written basis for that chromatic code (it existed even in ancient times but the medieval Catholic church was the first to give the basis for modern musical notation). So, Catholic monks chanting in Latin is a clear, but distant, root for Hip Hop, Punk Rock, Trance, even Satanic Black Metal. They're way different, in much the same way that E. coli or H. Pylori is different from a dog, but they all come from the same place, and all because of competition for audience creating selective pressures (Natural Selection).

Consider that, the next time you listen to Johnny Cash, or Lady Gaga.

Really, any phenomenon with variation upon which differential selection is applied will change over time. But I think using metaphors to understand evolution is a bad idea, because so many of these metaphors are progressive or guided. Biological evolution is not progressive, there is no end state that Nature is seeking. The motto is "whatever works". The other problem that I see with your explanation is that selection occurs at the individual level, not on this nebulous thing we call species. And it's a negative, not positive, action. Selection is elimination. It's taken for granted that variation exists and that individuals will reproduce. And finally, there is a great deal of Lamarck style change in music by individuals, something that in nature is rare (see Epigenetics).

[Kai]

The concept for this thread reminds me of Yudkowsky essay: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ic/the_virtue_of_narrowness/

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Thanks Kai, I'll chew on that for a bit.

[Pergamos]

Thoughts?

Dead on? Rewrite?

The metaphor is a bit flawed because the chromatic Western scale is not analogous to DNA, there's Eastern music as well, which uses a different system, but is still certainly music.  As different, perhaps, as a fungus is from an animal, but music all the same.

[LMNO]

All metaphors are flawed.  That's the nature of metaphor.

The trick is to find a metaphor that leads a person to a deeper truth about the object.