Robert Jameson
Registered Senior Member
God Gametes post 2.
Baseball:
In Life’s Grandeur Gould is careful not to describe life as progress:
“If we are but a tiny twig on the floridly arborescent bush of life, and if our twig branched off just a geological moment ago, then perhaps we are not a predictable result of an inherently progressive process (the vaunted trend to progress in life's history); perhaps we are, whatever our glories and accomplishments, a momentary cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted from seed and regrown under similar conditions.” 12
He is emphatic that life is ‘non-predictable’ and ‘non-directional’.13 He says that any perceived purpose in life is misplaced human arrogance and suggests we should climb down from our pedestal and recognise that our proper place is among the “motley series of disparate (life) forms” 14 such as bacterium, marine alga, jellyfish, trilobites and dung beetles.15
He uses a baseball analogy to support his argument that there is no overall trend towards greater complexity. What is perceived to be progress he claims is really an accidental twig that sprouts from the tree of life. He does not deny that there has been a measure of improvements in sporting accomplishments but notes that in the 1920s and 1930s it was common for the best hitters to have a batting average of 0.400 (a seasonal average of 4 safe hits in every 10 tries). He then points out that at the time of writing his book there had not been a 0.400 batting average in major league for 55 years.
In fairness it should be stressed that Gould does not interpret the disappearance of 0.400 as being no progress. It seems the point he wants to make is that the statistical mode of baseball players, as with life, has not changed. The mode for life is still single-cell bacteria pressing up against the left wall. Occasionally a species will throw to the right, or an exceptional hitter might again achieve a 0.400 seasonal average but the mode for life as a whole is immovable:
“The most complex creature may increase in elaboration through time, but this tiny right tail of the full house scarcely qualifies as an essential definition for life as a whole. We cannot confuse a dribble at one end with the richness of an entirety - much as we may cherish this end by virtue of our own peculiar residence.” 16
Gould cannot dismiss complexity by saying the mode has not moved. Whether you take the, “pattern of change for the full system of variation through time”,17 or an isolated case of living complexity, we still need to explain how this progress was achieved. The problem with life is not where the level of complexity lies within a statistical average, but how complexity exists.
Returning to his analogy though, we need to question the origin of baseball skills. Most regard it as an innate ability that some are born with but it is a long way to the right of the bacterial mode. Methods he uses for calculating whether these skills have improved or declined over the years do not address the central issue. If a level of developmental progress has been achieved that is not possible through random selection, a statistical analysis of mean, medium and mode will not serve any useful purpose.
Gould presents a lot of data on baseball and other sports,18 which argue that the mean average skill for any given sport tends to move to the right as the sport becomes more professional. This is not surprising. As more people play a given sport, are trained better, then techniques for playing and coaching are refined and overall standards improve. He also makes the point that really good players will still be better than average but the gap will not be as wide. And worst players will have to improve to make the team. The result is that both the right and left tails of the bell curve will shrink towards the mean as the overall standard of play improves. In baseball this has meant that the best hitters have not been able to exploit the occasional weak pitcher and sloppy fielding more common in the past. He then argues that this explains why a 0.400 seasonal batting average has disappeared.
The other argument made here is that once a certain level of improvement has been achieved, it tends to level off. He suggests there is a right wall of maximum possible achievement and his argument appears to be that once this right wall has been achieved, the right and left tails of a sport will shrink around a stable mean with no further progress possible. He makes the point that most people do not play baseball at this level and the skills for the bulk of the population have remained unchanged. From here he argues that we should conclude that the few elite baseball players who have reached the upper limit of what is possible, cannot improve the overall level of baseball skills for our species. This, Gould argues, is similar to life as a whole. By far, the majority of life on earth is single-cell bacteria whilst a small percentage of complex species that have an upper limit to what they can achieve, can never move the average level of complexity away from the left wall.
God Gametes has no problems with the way his sports data is presented or interpreted. In fact it is quite possible that the overall natural sporting ability of our species is declining. Gould might find it interesting to compare the baseball skills of Mexicans with players of European Ancestry.
Aboriginal Australians are under-represented in most trades and professions but significantly over-represented in Australian Football League (AFL is the Australian ‘national’ or ‘major league’ for football in most states). It is generally conceded that Aborigines have far better eyesight than Europeans. (No European can track animals as well as the best Aboriginal trackers.) They are quick and agile and it is generally conceded that they can judge the flight and bounce of an oval-shaped football better than Europeans. And it is thought they have most likely retained many of the skills necessary in hunting and gathering, lost by Westerners. This would suggest that the sporting mean will most likely move to the left as Aboriginal and other native ethnic groups become increasingly urbanized.
It is doubtful however that the peaking or decline in sporting ability is signalling the end to our species’ drive towards greater complexity. Gould seems to be suggesting that if there is an evolutionary trend towards greater sophistication of our species it will show up in improved sporting skills. But this is unlikely to be true and we should be focusing on growth in cranial capacity and increased intelligence. Our brain size has trebled in the last 3 million years and this is a huge increase in what is just a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Our species’ increased cranial capacity cannot be explained by the Darwinian survival of the fittest theory and is at odds with what can be achieved by any process of random selection.
Gould’s suggestion that the increase in sporting ability must eventually approach a right wall is true but an upper limit of possible physical achievement cannot predict a levelling off in human intelligence. If our species’ intelligence continues to increase, as it almost certainly will, this will disprove Gould’s arguments. His theory needs a right wall to cap growth in complexity yet it is likely that an ongoing increase in human intelligence will keep moving the mean further to the right.
Baseball:
In Life’s Grandeur Gould is careful not to describe life as progress:
“If we are but a tiny twig on the floridly arborescent bush of life, and if our twig branched off just a geological moment ago, then perhaps we are not a predictable result of an inherently progressive process (the vaunted trend to progress in life's history); perhaps we are, whatever our glories and accomplishments, a momentary cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted from seed and regrown under similar conditions.” 12
He is emphatic that life is ‘non-predictable’ and ‘non-directional’.13 He says that any perceived purpose in life is misplaced human arrogance and suggests we should climb down from our pedestal and recognise that our proper place is among the “motley series of disparate (life) forms” 14 such as bacterium, marine alga, jellyfish, trilobites and dung beetles.15
He uses a baseball analogy to support his argument that there is no overall trend towards greater complexity. What is perceived to be progress he claims is really an accidental twig that sprouts from the tree of life. He does not deny that there has been a measure of improvements in sporting accomplishments but notes that in the 1920s and 1930s it was common for the best hitters to have a batting average of 0.400 (a seasonal average of 4 safe hits in every 10 tries). He then points out that at the time of writing his book there had not been a 0.400 batting average in major league for 55 years.
In fairness it should be stressed that Gould does not interpret the disappearance of 0.400 as being no progress. It seems the point he wants to make is that the statistical mode of baseball players, as with life, has not changed. The mode for life is still single-cell bacteria pressing up against the left wall. Occasionally a species will throw to the right, or an exceptional hitter might again achieve a 0.400 seasonal average but the mode for life as a whole is immovable:
“The most complex creature may increase in elaboration through time, but this tiny right tail of the full house scarcely qualifies as an essential definition for life as a whole. We cannot confuse a dribble at one end with the richness of an entirety - much as we may cherish this end by virtue of our own peculiar residence.” 16
Gould cannot dismiss complexity by saying the mode has not moved. Whether you take the, “pattern of change for the full system of variation through time”,17 or an isolated case of living complexity, we still need to explain how this progress was achieved. The problem with life is not where the level of complexity lies within a statistical average, but how complexity exists.
Returning to his analogy though, we need to question the origin of baseball skills. Most regard it as an innate ability that some are born with but it is a long way to the right of the bacterial mode. Methods he uses for calculating whether these skills have improved or declined over the years do not address the central issue. If a level of developmental progress has been achieved that is not possible through random selection, a statistical analysis of mean, medium and mode will not serve any useful purpose.
Gould presents a lot of data on baseball and other sports,18 which argue that the mean average skill for any given sport tends to move to the right as the sport becomes more professional. This is not surprising. As more people play a given sport, are trained better, then techniques for playing and coaching are refined and overall standards improve. He also makes the point that really good players will still be better than average but the gap will not be as wide. And worst players will have to improve to make the team. The result is that both the right and left tails of the bell curve will shrink towards the mean as the overall standard of play improves. In baseball this has meant that the best hitters have not been able to exploit the occasional weak pitcher and sloppy fielding more common in the past. He then argues that this explains why a 0.400 seasonal batting average has disappeared.
The other argument made here is that once a certain level of improvement has been achieved, it tends to level off. He suggests there is a right wall of maximum possible achievement and his argument appears to be that once this right wall has been achieved, the right and left tails of a sport will shrink around a stable mean with no further progress possible. He makes the point that most people do not play baseball at this level and the skills for the bulk of the population have remained unchanged. From here he argues that we should conclude that the few elite baseball players who have reached the upper limit of what is possible, cannot improve the overall level of baseball skills for our species. This, Gould argues, is similar to life as a whole. By far, the majority of life on earth is single-cell bacteria whilst a small percentage of complex species that have an upper limit to what they can achieve, can never move the average level of complexity away from the left wall.
God Gametes has no problems with the way his sports data is presented or interpreted. In fact it is quite possible that the overall natural sporting ability of our species is declining. Gould might find it interesting to compare the baseball skills of Mexicans with players of European Ancestry.
Aboriginal Australians are under-represented in most trades and professions but significantly over-represented in Australian Football League (AFL is the Australian ‘national’ or ‘major league’ for football in most states). It is generally conceded that Aborigines have far better eyesight than Europeans. (No European can track animals as well as the best Aboriginal trackers.) They are quick and agile and it is generally conceded that they can judge the flight and bounce of an oval-shaped football better than Europeans. And it is thought they have most likely retained many of the skills necessary in hunting and gathering, lost by Westerners. This would suggest that the sporting mean will most likely move to the left as Aboriginal and other native ethnic groups become increasingly urbanized.
It is doubtful however that the peaking or decline in sporting ability is signalling the end to our species’ drive towards greater complexity. Gould seems to be suggesting that if there is an evolutionary trend towards greater sophistication of our species it will show up in improved sporting skills. But this is unlikely to be true and we should be focusing on growth in cranial capacity and increased intelligence. Our brain size has trebled in the last 3 million years and this is a huge increase in what is just a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Our species’ increased cranial capacity cannot be explained by the Darwinian survival of the fittest theory and is at odds with what can be achieved by any process of random selection.
Gould’s suggestion that the increase in sporting ability must eventually approach a right wall is true but an upper limit of possible physical achievement cannot predict a levelling off in human intelligence. If our species’ intelligence continues to increase, as it almost certainly will, this will disprove Gould’s arguments. His theory needs a right wall to cap growth in complexity yet it is likely that an ongoing increase in human intelligence will keep moving the mean further to the right.
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