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spandrels and over-engineering

If SJ Gould's thesis (uh, I think he and another guy first proposed it) of spandrels is a valid scientific claim, then it can be tested. The alternate hypothesis, I propose, is over-engineering (that is, in spite of my thumbing my nose at ID, today, Saturday, Oct. 16, 2010, I am taking it seriously).

Why are the humans who belong to tribes that only count up to 4 able to math as well as others (when given an education)? Why is there a Mozart, Einstein? They have cognitive abilities that are over and above what would be needed to survive and thrive in an imagined prehistoric scenario, so why is that so? Sexual selection? Were brainy guys babe-magnets compared to the jocks way back when?

Gould's answer is that these amazing abilities are the result of the convergence of two different survival-relevant characteristics. They are like the spandrels in buildings. Not structurally relevant, but very ornate. But, as I pointed out waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, when I first started this blog, these purported spandrels go to the heart of who we are.

But that's a point I already made. My point here is that we would do better to call these examples of over engineering. That is, they seem to give evidence of being designed for more than immediate survival--that "more" being the fulfillment proper to a discursive, rational animal. And as examples of overengineering they are highly, highly improbable in a a thoroughly natural selection understanding of evolution. As possible examples of over-engineering, they offer some support for ID (yikes!). The way to argue AGAINST this thesis is to point out analogs in non-humans. There should be spandrels that are not survival relevant yet in some broad sense elegant, being functional in a kind of post-hoc manner.

It may well be that there are such analogs (I suspect that there are) in subhuman animals. But in such a case, my original thesis -- that the characteristics in humans (the little bit of Mozart and Einstein in each one of us) are better described as examples of over engineering rather than as spandrels -- is at least falsifiable rather than "operationally vacuous." In such a case, this failed ID thesis would at least be genuinely scientific, albeit not good science.

Then again maybe this hypothesis looks plausible once we look at the data: maybe this stool has more than a couple of legs to stand on...Maybe I would do well to avoid comparing my meanderings to stools....
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