Explaining function isn’t easy. I put a dollar in a vending machine. The vending machine translates or transforms that buck into a candy bar. The vending machine is the function. That’s a common analogy, but other explanations of function are more difficult to envision. Take genes, for example. They “serve a function,” don’t they? All right, regardless of whether or not you can picture a “gene” at this moment, consider the origin of a gene. From what does it originate? From something that serves as a function? That is, given the source of a gene, what is exchanged? Not a buck for candy, but rather, something that had no function becomes the source of a gene that “serves a function” or “has a function” or even “is a function.”
That’s the problem identified in the process of de novo gene emergence as identified by Diane Marie Keeling et al. in an eLife paper entitled “Philosophy of Biology: The meanings of ‘function’ in biology and the problematic case of de novo gene emergence.” * Can’t see the relevance of this to your life? Bear with me.
Here’s the problem. In genomic studies, is a function defined as “why an entity does what it does” or as “what an entity does”? Some say one; others, the other. In the matter of de novo gene origination, consider what the authors write:
"The meanings of function are at the heart of what constitutes a de novo gene birth... For a genomic sequence to be labelled as a gene, it must by definition have a function; it must express a product that participates in cellular processes and affects phenotypes in a way that is being maintained by selection. If such a gene has evolved de novo, the locus it came from by definition was not a gene, thus did not have a function, or at least not a function of the same nature as the one the new gene has. The molecular objects of study are thus transitioning between a state without a function and a state with a function."
Now forget biology and think political science and the current state of the state. Is there any parallel between what Keeling and company write concerning current arguments about gene emergence and the emergence of that peculiar body politic we could call the American genome? If the government actually has a function, from whence did that function arise? Most of us would say The Constitution. That answer is, of course, correct, but from whence The Constitution?
So, let’s take a quick detour to the Constitution. Remember the beginning words?
"We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic.], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
That, in short, is the function of the United States government. Now, about that beginning…
If it was an emergence de novo in the eighteenth century, was there something in the political arena of past governments from which the new American government arose? Was there a function that “expressed the product” of American government? I suppose, using the analogy of the vending machine, the Founding Fathers put something into the Constitution, and the Constitution transformed their ideas and spit out the product, so to speak. The question of the government’s emergence makes us ask whether it arose from a function of a preceding government or from something that didn’t have a function. That is, what was the “locus” of the new American political genome’s emergence?
Of course, one could argue a host of contributing “molecules,” such as the philosophy of Locke and the displeasure with monarchy going back to the Magna Carta. But did those sources have functions? One could also argue that there is no tie, no parallelism, between de novo emergence of genes and a similar emergence of a body politic because the consciousness involved in the latter is not present in the formation of the former. The de novo rise of a gene appears to come from molecules that serve no function. They don’t produce genes the way a vending machine produces a candy bar; otherwise, that’s what those seemingly purposeless molecules would always do. In contrast, governments usually form from the collaboration of a group of conscious individuals determined to produce a political system that “functions” differently from or better than the manner in which the previous government “functioned.”
So, now it appears to me, that Americans are on the threshold of emergence of a “new gene” in the body politic, the rise of those who believe in socialism and communism as viable governmental functions. From whence does this thinking arise? Certainly, it has its roots in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. But as the molecules of socialism and communism worked their way through the twentieth century, they proved themselves to be genes of economic distress and pathological murderers. If the principles of Natural Selection applied, such systems should have been weeded out of the human condition. As R. J. Rummel, whom I have quoted elsewhere, points out in Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900, ** some 169,198,000 people died in the “democides” by socialist/communist/fascist governments. But unlike the unexplained random synthesis of genes from a locus without a function, the emergence of the genes of socialism and communism appear to have been consciously selected and artificially maintained—at the great cost of human suffering. That is, what in Nature would be eliminated because it was harmful to the organism or the species has been artificially generated in the body politic and then maintained under “conscious selection.”
What was the ultimate function of the political gene that such selection produced? Service to the State.
A rational person might argue that 170 million deaths in government-sponsored democides should convince anyone that socialist and communist political genes are inimical to economy and health, particularly to the economy and health of individuals. But then, there are seemingly rational people arguing for socialism and communism, in particular, many millennials according to polls. Now being young is a problem we all face or faced. Certainly, we can’t have lived what others lived one, two, or fifty generations earlier. But we can read, and we can research. And those who come from an older generation can teach what happened in the twentieth century to 170 million people.
Can’t happen again? I would like to think so, but then I saw a video recently in which a supporter of one of the presidential candidates who labels himself a “democratic socialist” praising Stalin’s gulags and calling for “reeducation” of those who disagree with the “cause.” Granted, the supporter was a “low level” field worker for the campaign, but one would think his comments were not made in a vacuum. In addition, the worker said that if his candidate doesn’t get the party’s nomination, then Milwaukee would burn. So, where are we today not long after those 170 million deaths by government? Where will we be if we allow the socialism gene to persist in our political DNA? Remember the function of people under socialism and communism: Service to the State.
Will we be the function or the product, the input, the device, or the output? Think of the promises made: Freedom from student loans, freedom from health care costs, and freedom to cross borders without legal application. Are those the coins put into the vending machine? And is a lifetime of servitude to the state the candy bar?
*Keeling, Diane Marie, et al. 1 Nov 2019. eLife2019;8:e47014 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.47014
https://elifesciences.org/articles/47014 Accessed January 25, 2020.
**Rummel, R. J., 1994. Death by Government. New York. Routledge. p. 1. You can read some excerpts at https://www.amazon.com/Death-Government-Genocide-Murder-Since/dp/1560009276/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=death+by+government&qid=1580070452&sr=8-1
That’s the problem identified in the process of de novo gene emergence as identified by Diane Marie Keeling et al. in an eLife paper entitled “Philosophy of Biology: The meanings of ‘function’ in biology and the problematic case of de novo gene emergence.” * Can’t see the relevance of this to your life? Bear with me.
Here’s the problem. In genomic studies, is a function defined as “why an entity does what it does” or as “what an entity does”? Some say one; others, the other. In the matter of de novo gene origination, consider what the authors write:
"The meanings of function are at the heart of what constitutes a de novo gene birth... For a genomic sequence to be labelled as a gene, it must by definition have a function; it must express a product that participates in cellular processes and affects phenotypes in a way that is being maintained by selection. If such a gene has evolved de novo, the locus it came from by definition was not a gene, thus did not have a function, or at least not a function of the same nature as the one the new gene has. The molecular objects of study are thus transitioning between a state without a function and a state with a function."
Now forget biology and think political science and the current state of the state. Is there any parallel between what Keeling and company write concerning current arguments about gene emergence and the emergence of that peculiar body politic we could call the American genome? If the government actually has a function, from whence did that function arise? Most of us would say The Constitution. That answer is, of course, correct, but from whence The Constitution?
So, let’s take a quick detour to the Constitution. Remember the beginning words?
"We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic.], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
That, in short, is the function of the United States government. Now, about that beginning…
If it was an emergence de novo in the eighteenth century, was there something in the political arena of past governments from which the new American government arose? Was there a function that “expressed the product” of American government? I suppose, using the analogy of the vending machine, the Founding Fathers put something into the Constitution, and the Constitution transformed their ideas and spit out the product, so to speak. The question of the government’s emergence makes us ask whether it arose from a function of a preceding government or from something that didn’t have a function. That is, what was the “locus” of the new American political genome’s emergence?
Of course, one could argue a host of contributing “molecules,” such as the philosophy of Locke and the displeasure with monarchy going back to the Magna Carta. But did those sources have functions? One could also argue that there is no tie, no parallelism, between de novo emergence of genes and a similar emergence of a body politic because the consciousness involved in the latter is not present in the formation of the former. The de novo rise of a gene appears to come from molecules that serve no function. They don’t produce genes the way a vending machine produces a candy bar; otherwise, that’s what those seemingly purposeless molecules would always do. In contrast, governments usually form from the collaboration of a group of conscious individuals determined to produce a political system that “functions” differently from or better than the manner in which the previous government “functioned.”
So, now it appears to me, that Americans are on the threshold of emergence of a “new gene” in the body politic, the rise of those who believe in socialism and communism as viable governmental functions. From whence does this thinking arise? Certainly, it has its roots in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. But as the molecules of socialism and communism worked their way through the twentieth century, they proved themselves to be genes of economic distress and pathological murderers. If the principles of Natural Selection applied, such systems should have been weeded out of the human condition. As R. J. Rummel, whom I have quoted elsewhere, points out in Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900, ** some 169,198,000 people died in the “democides” by socialist/communist/fascist governments. But unlike the unexplained random synthesis of genes from a locus without a function, the emergence of the genes of socialism and communism appear to have been consciously selected and artificially maintained—at the great cost of human suffering. That is, what in Nature would be eliminated because it was harmful to the organism or the species has been artificially generated in the body politic and then maintained under “conscious selection.”
What was the ultimate function of the political gene that such selection produced? Service to the State.
A rational person might argue that 170 million deaths in government-sponsored democides should convince anyone that socialist and communist political genes are inimical to economy and health, particularly to the economy and health of individuals. But then, there are seemingly rational people arguing for socialism and communism, in particular, many millennials according to polls. Now being young is a problem we all face or faced. Certainly, we can’t have lived what others lived one, two, or fifty generations earlier. But we can read, and we can research. And those who come from an older generation can teach what happened in the twentieth century to 170 million people.
Can’t happen again? I would like to think so, but then I saw a video recently in which a supporter of one of the presidential candidates who labels himself a “democratic socialist” praising Stalin’s gulags and calling for “reeducation” of those who disagree with the “cause.” Granted, the supporter was a “low level” field worker for the campaign, but one would think his comments were not made in a vacuum. In addition, the worker said that if his candidate doesn’t get the party’s nomination, then Milwaukee would burn. So, where are we today not long after those 170 million deaths by government? Where will we be if we allow the socialism gene to persist in our political DNA? Remember the function of people under socialism and communism: Service to the State.
Will we be the function or the product, the input, the device, or the output? Think of the promises made: Freedom from student loans, freedom from health care costs, and freedom to cross borders without legal application. Are those the coins put into the vending machine? And is a lifetime of servitude to the state the candy bar?
*Keeling, Diane Marie, et al. 1 Nov 2019. eLife2019;8:e47014 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.47014
https://elifesciences.org/articles/47014 Accessed January 25, 2020.
**Rummel, R. J., 1994. Death by Government. New York. Routledge. p. 1. You can read some excerpts at https://www.amazon.com/Death-Government-Genocide-Murder-Since/dp/1560009276/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=death+by+government&qid=1580070452&sr=8-1
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