进化论能进化到数学吗?

 

点击上方蓝字“XXX”关注我们进化论能进化到数学吗?那天看到王老师为ProvingDar...




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那天看到王老师为Proving Darwin:Making Biology Mathematical (by Gregory Chaitin)中译本写的序言(http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=41757&do=blog&id=863034),说用数学证明进化论,很感兴趣。以前见过诸如《生物数学》《地质数学》《生态数学》之类的书,几乎就是简单的高等数学或统计学课本加几道应用题,大大地令我伤心了。而这一本书似乎要把生物学数学化,风味就不同了。

Gregory写此书是为了回应David Berlinski,是自己探求补救的一个尝试(it is my attempt to find a remedy)。David在The Devil’s Delusion:Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (Basic Books, 2009)一书里对达尔文主义“大不敬”,说进化论对科学的贡献(如果有的话)主要是意识形态的(it has much to offer their ideology)——这当然该遭严厉打击,我们的大学要坚决抵制西方意识形态的进化论的渗透。David还说它“犹如当代的创世神话,把原来赋予上帝的本领赋予了自然”(It serves as the creation myth of our time, assigning properties to nature previously assigned to God.)。生物哲学家Daniel Dennett(与Dawkins等并称为“新无神论四骑士”)说,现代生物学无可辩驳地(beyond all reasonable doubt)证明了自然选择具有创造惊人的新设计的力量(the power to generate breathtakingly ingenious designs)。在David看来,这些言论代表了典型的“自我陶醉的自信”(self-enchanted self-confidence),而物理学从来没有什么beyond all reasonable doubt的东西。

Gregory在“生物学、信息和复杂性沉思”(“Speculations on Biology, Information and Complexity”)一文中说(也就是王老师序言的最后一段里引用的话):

In my opinion, if Darwin’s theory is as simple, fundamental and basic as its adherents believe, then there ought to be an equally fundamental mathematical theory about this, that expresses these ideas with the generality, precision and degree of abstractness that we are accustomed to demand in pure mathematics.(EATCS Bulletin, February 2007)

我很欣赏这种浪漫主义的生物学——如果达尔文的理论不能像纯数学那样普适、精密和抽象,那它就不是我们想象的那么简单、基本和基础。老G借用了“元生物学”(metabiology)的概念来说他的数学生物学。他的思想渊源是Von Neumann的“DNA = 软件”。(DNA is presumably a universal programming language, one that is sufficiently powerful to express any algorithm. Brenner credits von Neumann with the idea that DNA contains the software for building (and running) the organism, an idea that is now commonplace due to evo-devo, evolutionary developmental biology, which studies how the formation of embryos evolves.)David挖苦进化论只有意识形态式的证明,老G却相信已经有数学证明了。

老G在Santa Fe研究所的演讲A Mathematical Theory of Evolution and Biological Creativity,概括了他的“元生物学”,原来就是将计算机的“人工数字软件”的程序语言与“自然数字软件”的DNA类比,将自然的随机演化与软件空间的随机游走(random wal k in software space)类比,让DNA代表普适的程序语言,那么数学的创造性也就等于生物学的创造性……看到这儿,感觉味儿不对。不看了。



来源/林楠

编辑/余晓光


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