Science as Socio-Political Absolutism
by JoyI put this under "Nature of Science" because there is no "Philosophy of Science" area. The philosophy of science - or confusion thereof, is my subject.
Having this past week once again read a book, The Chess Garden by Brooks Hansen, I am once again struck by the philosophical divide between "Empiricism" and "Rationalism." As this divide pertains to the current debates between the rationalism of Darwinism/neo-darwinism and the empiricism reflected in most versions of Intelligent Design.
A pretty good exposition on the dichotomy is offered in Rationalism vs. Empiricism from Stanford, though in this essay and in Wiki's separate offerings on both philosophies, there is an element missing from current descriptions that was present back when the two philsophical stances first vied for supremacy in the philosophy of science during the nineteenth century.
The issue of contention has to do with the subject of causation as it pertains to science in general and biology in particular, and how the philosophy of science is to view that subject when constructing theory and when deciding from among competing theories which best represents something more likely to be "true knowledge."
Both philosophies seek to identify the source of "true knowledge" as it is said to pertain to the a priori assumptions upon which theories about nature are erected. Empiricism holds that the a priori foundation arises from sense experience as the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge. Rationalism holds that "true knowledge" is an innate byproduct of human reason (thought process), and is described as "intuition" of truths about nature from which theories about nature can be deduced. Thus to the rationalist, no sensory experience is required to establish the a priori foundation upon which scientific theory can be considered "true." And it doesn't have to be demonstrable by evidence - it is to be assumed true and that's that.
Now, I am a little bit confused about why, of the two approaches to knowledge, rationalism won out over empiricism in support of the Darwinian theoretic for evolution of life. In fact, I haven't figured out why rationalism, in light of the rejection of Cartesian dualism by science in the modern world, still claims ANY legitimacy in the scientific or philosophy-of-science realms! It would appear that there is a fundamental contradiction at work between the philosophy and the actual practice of science these days. Or at least a disconnect between the philosophy and the actual knowledge/understanding of practitioners (and their enthusiastic fan clubs).
It is as if Darwin's defenders practice rationalism but believe it to be empiricism. Is science taught these days in such a confused manner to those who get past the dumbed-down RM-NS pablum of high school? I mean, there is either cause - and cause counts - or there is "intuition" and cause is immaterial to intuitive "true knowledge" that precludes cause a priori. "Random" is non-causal. It's the ID supporters who attempt to address cause while it's darwinists who refuse to acknowledge cause exists - or matters. Only the effect of deterministic natural law ('selection' to eliminate that which is less fit) counts.
One has to wonder how this sort of "intuitional" mind-worship can trump empiricism while at the same time reducing mind to nothing other than the physical processes of individual's brain cells. It would seem that philosophers of science have abandoned the field to the terminally confused, whose main weapon against challenge is reduced to insult, because there is no longer a distinction to be made between empiricism and rationalism.
Which in turn means science - at least, the kind of science humanity once hoped would help to explain who and what we are and how we got here - is nothing more than socio-politics. Having nothing in particular to do with either physical, sensory evidence or mind-born "intuition." Thus, in the end, having nothing at all to do with "true knowledge."
Or even with what is most reasonably "true," FAPP.
June 10th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
There are a number of confusions here.
To start, the battle between rationalism and empericism (in modern philosophy) in the 17th century, not the nineteenth. It is usually portrayed as a contrast between Britain, with the British Empericists (Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume) compared to the European Rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant). That contrast continued into the 19th century, with Hegelian rationalists dominating the continent, while empericists such as Whewell and Mill. For what it is worth, Darwin was very much an empericist. Einstein was an empericist when he discovered relativity, but became a rationalist when he reflected on how his discovered relativity.
This contrast continues today, with rationalists being much more common in physics than in any other scientific discipline, and virtually unknown in biology (though Stuart Kauffman and Brian Goodwin might be exceptions).
The general commitment of biologists to empericism carries into Darwinism. While it could be possible to be a rationalist Darwinist, I know of no significant examples. In general, Darwinists are empericists, and Darwinism is an emperical theory without doubt. This is shown by the continuing flood of emperical research supporting Darwinism every year. It is also shown by the reaction to genuine controversy within Darwinism. Faced with such controversy, Darwinists look to observation to resolve the issue. And example of the reaction to one controversy is outlined here:
http://www.talkreason.org/arti...
Finally, you are very confused about randomness and its relationship to Darwinism. I would say fatally confused, so confused that until you get this matter straight it is impossible for you to understand Darwinism, or properly critique it.
Random does not mean non-causal. When we roll a die, we are happy to say the number that turns up is random. We do not mean by that there were no causes of which number turned up. Patently there were, and we believe there were so long as we believe the die was not immune to the laws of physics. What we mean by saying the number was random is two things:
The detailed causes of the result of a die roll are too intricate to be calculable; and most importantly,
Whatever the detailed causes of a paticular number coming up, there is no correlation between the advantage of the roller and the frequency of the number coming up. Thus, for example, even if you will die if you do not roll a 6, and gain a million dollars if you do; a 6 will come up just one time in six on a six sided die.
When Darwinists say mutations are random, that is what they mean. The detailed causes of any particular mutation are too intricate to by calculable; and the frequency of any particular mutation is not correlated to the advantage of the organism or its descendants. That is, for point mutations, the probability of a particular loci mutating to a particular nucleotide is independant of the advantage (or disadvantage) of the resulting allele for the organism.
Further, and most importantly, Darwinists insist that while mutations are (or need only be) random; the results of selection are NOT RANDOM. They insist that the change in population frequency of particular alleles is highly correlated with the advantage or disadvantage conferred by those alleles. They insist that as population size increases, the correlation of the direction of change to advantage or disadvantage approaches 1. What is more, they have worked out a detailed mathematical theory of the relationships between advantage and changes in allele frequencies in populations; and have tested that theory in literally thousands of experiments, and hundreds of detailed, long term observations in the wild.
If you do not believe that Darwinists insist on this, may I suggest you read (or reread) Dawkins in "The Blind Watchmaker", or Monod in "Chance and Necessity". (It is important to note that the randomness Darwinians insist on is a statistical term, not a metaphysical term.)
If you do not think that random inputs can have statistically certain (ie, non-random) outputs, may I suggest you run Dawkins Weasel a few times. It has a near certain output of a particular sentence even though its inputs are entirely random as defined above.
This is a very simple lesson. It is essential for understanding Darwinism. If you do not understand it, you are like a sceptic who thinks they can understand Christianity without any knowledge of Christian beliefs about Jesus.
Comment by tom_kbel — June 10, 2005 @ 7:39 pm
June 10th, 2005 at 10:08 pm
I have not been much of a fan of the term "randomness" as a mechanism because it is so ambiguous. Most people hear non-intentional when they hear random. Let's say I accept as:
Tom wrote:
That does not address the issue of intelligent design. Randomness as Darwinians use it is a statistical term. It says nothing about individual events. I'm sure you would agree that it is an individual event that creates advantage. So how do Darwinians claim that an individual event is non-intentional? Do they have some scheme to determine that there is no intentionality within the events that generate a particular event that creates an advantage? Let's deal with that and please don't switch to some theological argument.
It seems to me that claiming an individual event is non-intentional must resort to some concept of non-intentional detection. Can you cite some criterion for that. If not then the analogy from human design should swing the day for intelligent design.
Comment by Steve Petermann — June 10, 2005 @ 10:08 pm
June 10th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
Thanks for the well thought-out reply, Tom. Needless to say, I do have some quibbles, and of course some clarifications. I mentioned that the question arose from a book specifically set in the nineteenth century, though I do know "Rationalism" was an eighteenth century movement. Reign of Terror and all that (which never appeared very rational to me, but then, neither do any of the wars, crusades, inquisitions and purges of wannabe power-mongers in any and all generations). This book highlighted the situation at the time when cells and microbes began to be observed and fit into biological/medical theory. Which I thought pertinent to current philosophical confusion, which I am certainly not alone in being confused about.
Perhaps because my background and much of my scientific training is in physics, I do have a certain appreciation for the "intuitive" underpinning. But only because I'm not a confirmed dualist or a confirmed monist. Yet I have seen ideas be intuited by more than one question-asker on this planet at the same time, the race for Nobels being a mere matter of who gets their name on the register first. You see that a lot in physics.
Of course, physics is an endeavor that tends to be "revolutionized" quite regularly, so physicists generally don't tend to consider the theory/idea of moment to be anything approaching absolute. It looks pretty suspicious when biologists pay more than by-God tithes to nineteenth century observations as if they do represent absolutes. Nothing in science is absolute - not even Darwin.
No, I'm not. I understand stochastic probabilities pretty well, thanks, as well as the quantum forces operative at the level of individual particles/wavefunctions that can cause substitutions. Better, I'd venture, than most biologists who are too lazy to even try to understand or accurately communicate such things. But evolution isn't really about "random" [as quantum-stochastic] accidents leading to single point mutations in coding regions of genes. There is a great deal more going on, and "everybody" knows it.
Accidents do happen. How often they happen to germline cells is debatable, and for sexually reproducing species, every extant female represents the entire donated complement of genes for the future at birth. Evolution of the biodiversity we observe cannot be reasonably ascribed to random accidents. At least, not in this day and age of evo-devo, histone coding, chromatin dynamics, epigenetics, expression profiles and patterning, etc. The contribution of "random" mutational events to evolution is highly debatable. Looks more like a significant contributor to extinction.
The simple fact remains that "random" is acausal - there is no possible FAPP method of extracting predictability from such non-predictable causation. All we ever see are strident assertions that selection sorts it all out AS IF the results were predictive. In hindsight, which isn't predictive at all - it's a "just-so" story. Darwin had an "intuition" about evolution, and it is asserted as empirical fact by those who think the whole world has forgotten the difference between "intuition" and "evidence." Philosophy - or just the philosophy of biological science - may have forgotten. The whole world obviously has not.
Thank you for the lesson. I do grok your reference to skeptics of Christianity, as they can be tedious as well. I tend to ignore them, since their minds are closed, and closed minds are a waste of time.
Comment by Joy — June 10, 2005 @ 10:25 pm
June 11th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
As far as I've been able to tell from the arguments of neo-darwinists, the "random" label is applied in two entirely different contexts for the purpose of rebutting skepticism of the "Random Mutation" half of the RM-NS paradigm. Steve Petermann wrote:
As Tom argued, "random" applies to stochastic events. These come about by a number of different mechanisms - quantum events on a sub-molecular level, copying "errors" during mitosis (or, for evolutionary purposes, meiosis), the activity of "jumping genes," the uptake and insertion of viral, microbial or ingested DNA, gene duplications, etc. - which manage to escape detection and correction by the redundant in-house mechanisms of repair and/or 'selection' (disposal). These events, and their failure to be corrected or 'selected-out' by the individual organism are completely unpredictable by definition.
Thus the "stochastic" definition of "random" is not a mechanism of evolution. It is merely a qualitative modifier used to maintain the brick wall around causation for genetic variation. This serves to exteriorize the operative mechanism so that the agent of design can be situated outside of life - evolution of form is thus imposed upon life from outside.
The other definition offered for "random" relates to the exteriorized agency of design - this is usually expressed as "random with regard to fitness." This definition does not address causation of genetic variation, but asserts that the genetic variation which does exist does not represent direct organismal response to the exterior conditions to which it must adapt or die-by-selection.
I have often wondered if the impetus to exteriorize evolution's primary mechanism so as to preclude consideration of the direct participation of organisms represents a sort of leftover 'hero-worship' of Darwin himself, an attempt to salvage his emphasis on natural selection after the evidence for particulate inheritance was "re-dicovered" and the means for investigating causation (of variation) became possible.
Almost as if the importance of the NS half of the equation - to scientists committed to philosophical materialism - had to be maintained at all costs against the possibility that something intrinsic and vital in life itself shapes the direction of evolution by means of its striving to adapt and survive.
Of course, one would have to then speculate as to why direct organismal participation in directing evolution might represent a serious challenge to the materialist philosophy. Other than the obvious considerations of socio-politics - the never-ending clash of metaphysical worldviews - I honestly can't think of a single reason why self-generated, non-random, adaptive mutations in organisms would be such a horror. Fought emotionally, tooth-and-nail, to this very day.
A non-random participation by organisms at a systematic and/or sub-cellular level to produce adaptive variants over time does not appear to suggest anything about the existence or non-existence of deities or immaterial "life forces." The sort of things materialism fears most. So I don't understand the emotional reactionism or the so-stridently maintained brick wall around cause. RM-NS gets challenged every day by incoming research - you can read it right at the top of papers and articles, usually by the words "challenge to Darwinian Orthodoxy." As science goes about its rightful business of following the evidence.
As it must if science is indeed empirical and not merely rational ["intuitive"]. It's difficult to pull off an 'intuitive' model within the bounds of materialist philosophy, given that a materialist reduction of all higher mind functions and processes asserts that there is nothing but neurons and they're pre-programmed. A materialist has no philosophical excuse to suspect that brains can ever intuit "true knowledge."
Science is a collective - and collectively financed - human endeavor to seek "true knowledge" of the world for practical purposes of control. For the power (and toys) that knowledge brings. It was not instituted to answer questions about deities or ultimate causes, as these will always reside in the realm of philosophy. At least, as empiricism would have it.
Rationalism, on the other hand, would assert that human minds can "intuit" answers to such questions, and materialism claims that it already has - there are no such things as deities, immaterial 'vital forces' or ultimate causes. Neo-darwinism goes even further to assert that for the raw materials of evolution (organismic variation), there isn't even a predictable proximate cause. It's just "random." Don't ask questions.
Comment by Joy — June 11, 2005 @ 12:13 pm
June 12th, 2005 at 12:14 am
Joy,
You might be interested in this minireview.
Comment by Guts — June 12, 2005 @ 12:14 am
June 12th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
Thank you for that interesting link, Guts! It provides a fair overview - as of year 2000 - of the identified mechanisms for nonrandom mutations.
A Biochemical Mechanism for Nonrandom Mutation and Evolution should probably be a staple in the source log for anyone supporting a teleological design perspective, to use against the hoards who inevitably show up to nay-say any suggestion that variation is not primarily or even predominantly random.
That said, Wright begins her 'minireview' of identified mechanisms with an assertion that serves both to poison the well against teleological deductions and to allow her work to escape the destructive attention of orthodoxy's protection racket. It's a shame that researchers feel the need to pay obeisance to the non-empirical a priori assumptions of "Darwinian Orthodoxy" in order to get past the teleology censors, but that's reality in the realm of a corrupted science. Clause #1 of sentence #1 of the 'Introduction' to Wright's overview states -
"As this minireview is concerned with the importance of the environment in directing evolution,"…
This is a lead-in for dismissing Lamarck and the Lamarckian views of both Darwin and Weismann in the matter of organismal variation. The paragraph ends with that tired quote from Dobzhansky, this time quote-mined by a darwinist -
""The most serious objection to the modern theory of evolution is that since mutations occur by `chance' and are undirected, it is difficult to see how mutation and selection can add up to the formation of such beautifully balanced organs as, for example, the human eye."
Once again we see the strong influence of orthodoxy's ideological absolutism played to the crowd via obligatory lip service - the insistence that the raw materials of evolution must be exteriorized away from the living organism and attributed exclusively to the environment in which life forms exist.
In the first sentences of the last paragraph of Wright's "Conclusions" we see more gratuitous obligatory lip service -
"The environment gave rise to life and continues to direct evolution. Environmental conditions are constantly controlling and fine-tuning the transcriptional machinery of the cell."
"Controlling?" What is actually described in the body is interactivity, not determinstic mechanism triggering programmed reaction. An empirical description would state that the organism - even a single cell organism - senses information from the environment which is processed (AS information) by the organism, and is then acted upon by the organism in a coordinated, teleological (to itself) manner. Such activity is a primary attribute of "life."
Again from Wright's Conclusions -
Feedback mechanisms represent the natural interactive link between an organism and its environment."
Yes, there are feedback mechanisms by which organisms interact with and respond to their environment by attempting to adapt to its demands. The neo-darwinian qualifier that labels organismal response to be "random" - in the quantum sense and/or in the "wrt fitness" environmental sense - is unreasonable and empirically unwarranted. And increasingly falsified, as this very paper (for all its darwinian lip-service) amply demonstrates. Why?
What legitimate tenet of science is served by the unnecessary, prejudicial qualification?
Comment by Joy — June 12, 2005 @ 7:12 pm