[lit-ideas] Re: Darwiniana
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 18:50:09 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 2/25/2012 1:10:22 P.M. UTC-02, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
" the claim that
-- our notion of causal connection is entirely a product of repeated
conjunctions of events [a la Hume]
may [insofar as it is not falsifiable by observation] be a somewhat
sophisticated or highly developed _metaphysical_ [my emphasis. Speranza] claim.
But equally, insofar as they are not falsifiable by observation, claims
such that
'Irish people are luckier than most other nationalities',
'Human thought and behaviour is entirely predetermined',
'Our overall degree of happiness is not something we can do anything to
alter',
'Londoners are more materialistic and selfish than people in other parts of
England' are
_metaphysical_ [my emphasis. Speranza] claims - ones that may greatly
influence our thought and behaviour [assuming, perhaps, the predeterminists are
wrong]."
Thanks for the clarification.
I'm not sure I want to buy that observation by Popper that makes one type
of "ordinary language" commentary as 'metaphysical' (versus 'scientific'),
but I get his point. I should reconsider.
Grice and others (R. B. Jones, etc.) have been concerned with more
'technical' uses of 'metaphysical', and it would be good to review Grice's
'metaphysical' programme, on the whole, as it were, as we may even want to call
it.
Interesting point about Lakatos's use of the expression, 'research
programme'.
For the record, some notes from an online essay, that may shed light on
what Popper saw, at first sight, as it were, as 'metaphysical' about
Darwinism.
It seems that, at first Popper was concerned that some claims, e.g.
The fittest survives.
would be _analytic_, rather than 'metaphysical'.
(Only later, when he granted scientific status to Darwinism, did he clarify
that he was against some _metaphysical_ ideas about evolution he would
find in Whitehead, or Bergson).
So it would be good to compare how Popper (who, like Grice/Strawson 'In
defense of a dogma', accepts the analytic-synthetic distinction) relates the
"analytic" (Popper's 'almost tautological', as per the quotes below) with
the metaphysical.
And so on.
Interestingly, in an early essay, repr. in WoW (Harvard 1989, p. 163),
Grice (who wrote "Metaphysics" in the early 1957 book by Pears (ed), The nature
of metaphysics) will be concerned, in later years, with 'metaphysic'
having become, as he puts it, 'a term of abuse'. He rather would regard the
breed of 'metaphysicians' very highly indeed, in his genitorial programme,
for example.
But in this early paper, Grice is considering some claims in ordinary
language that may come out as 'self-contradictory' (analytically false) rather
than 'almost tautological'. (And it is quite a task to see how these can be
identified with the 'verifiable' group that McEvoy is considering above).
Grice's sentences are four:
1. "He is a lucky person" (seeing that McEvoy was mentioning the luck of
the Irish).
2. "Departed spirits walk along this road on their way to Paraidse"
3. "I wish that I had been Napoleon."
4. "As far as I know, there are infinitely many stars."
The essay in WoW is an early piece and concerned with Malcolm's and G. E.
Moore's ideas about the sacrosanctity of ordinary language.
Grice wants to expand on the implicatures of those statements and focus on
how 'self-contradictory' (metaphysically absurd?) they can get, while
still used:
"He is a lucky person," with "lucky", Grice writes, "being understood as
dispositional".
In Grice's gloss, (1) "might on occasion turn out to be a way of saying,
'He is a person to whom what is unlikely to happen is likely to happen.'" --
"p & -p".
Analytically false, or self-contradictory
For (2) "Departed spirits walk along this road on their way to Paradise"
the "p & -p" implicature comes out with, in Grice's gloss, "it being
understood that dpearted spirits are supposed to be bodiless and
imperceptible". A
category mistake here, i.e. the stuff of eschatology, qua theory of
category barriers. But what about analogies and metaphors in science? -- For
Grice, metaphors, like "You're the cream in my coffee" are the contradictions
of truisms, "you are not the cream in my coffee" and understood as "you are
LIKE the cream in my coffee". Grice sees analogy and metaphor as
eschatological, metaphysical, tropes.
(3) "I wish that I had been Napoleon" does not mean the same as "I wish I
were like Napoleon". "I wish I had lived not in the XXth century, but in the
XVIIIth century.")
(4) "As far as I know, there are infinitely many stars" Grice does not
expand.
One possibility would be to see if "Darwiniana", i.e. 'the fittest survive"
or analogues, occur in ordinary language, or not. And if they do, to
consider what 'metaphysical presuppositions' (a term by Collingwood that Grice
refers to in his early "Nature of Metaphysics" essay) they relate to. And so
on.
Cheers,
Speranza
--
ps. A running commentary from
_http://ncse.com/cej/6/2/what-did-karl-popper-really-say-evolution_
(http://ncse.com/cej/6/2/what-did-karl-popper-really-say-evolution)
Frank J. Sonleitner, F. J. What did Karl Popper really say about
evolution? Creation Evolution Journal, 6.
Sonleiter starts by quoting from Gish:
"As ... Popper has stated, evolution is not a testable scientific theory
but a metaphysical research program." For Sonleitner, "it completely
distorts what Popper calls the logic of scientific discovery." Sonleiter
quotes
from Popper, 1957:106:
"I see in MODERN Darwinism the most successful explanation of the relevant
facts."
"The Mendelian underpinning of modern Darwinism has been well tested and
so has the theory of evolution which says that all terrestrial life has
evolved from a few primitive unicellular organisms, possibly even from one
single organism." [Popper, 1978, p. 344]
"Furthermore, in ... "Objective Knowledge", where he uses the Darwinian
paradigm as a basis for his own theory of knowledge, Popper not only
discusses Darwinism at length as a scientific explanation but offers as an
additional component a scientific hypothesis of his own—genetic dualism—which
is
intended to strengthen the orthodox neo-Darwinian framework (Popper, 1972, p.
242 ff)."
"Popper's genetic dualism is similar to the ideas of Wilson and Stebbins
(Stebbins, 1977, p. 125) and Mayr (1963, p. 604 ff.; 1970, p. 363 ff.)
concerning the role of behavior in evolution."
"But he did make one mistake—for which we should forgive him; some
well-known biologists (who should know better) have made the same mistake."
"Popper takes
"survival of the fittest"
as the definition of natural selection (Popper, 1972, p. 241)." "This
catchy phrase was an invention of Herbert Spencer, which Darwin, in a rare
example of bad judgment, interpolated into later editions of On the Origin of
Species: "This preservation of favorable individual differences and
variations and the destruction of those which are injurious I have called
Natural
Selection or the Survival of the Fittest" (p. 64). Clearly it is an
alternate name (and not a very apt one) for the process in question but not a
definition."
"The argument regarding "survival of the fittest" is that the only way one
can usually tell who the fittest are is to see who survives."
"But then survival of the fittest becomes
"almost a tautology"
['analytic' in Grice's and Strawson's parlance, "In defense of a dogma"]
and hence untestable." (Popper, 1972, p. 69; 1963a, p. 964).
Popper: "I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable
scientific theory, but
a metaphysical research programme
— a possible framework for testable scientific theories." [Popper, 1976,
p. 168]
DARWINISM = the theory of natural selection:
"the theory of natural selection is not a testable scientific theory, but
a metaphysical research programme; . . . [Popper, 1976, p. 151]."
Popper: "The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to
test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to
claim that it is
a tautology. . . .
I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced
by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as
---- "almost tautological," -----
and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be
untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My
solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful
metaphysical
research
programme. . . . [Popper, 1978, p. 344]
"I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the
theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a
recantation." . . . [p. 345]
Popper: "The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is
FAR FROM tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns
out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with
so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the
variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions
is not surprising." [p. 346]
Popper: "[W]hen I was younger, I used to say very contemptuous things
about evolutionary philosophies. When twenty-two years ago Canon Charles E.
Raven, in his Science, Religion, and the Future, described the Darwinian
controversy as "a storm in a Victorian teacup," I agreed, but criticized him
for
paying too much attention "to the vapors still emerging from the cup," by
which I meant the hot air of the evolutionary philosophies (especially
those which told us that there were inexorable laws of evolution). But now I
have to confess that this cup of tea has become, after all, my cup of tea;
and with it I have to eat humble pie." [Popper, 1972, p. 241]
"But in an earlier work, he explicitly identified these "vapors" as "the
Great Systems of Evolutionist philosophy, produced by Bergson, Whitehead,
Smuts and others" (Popper, 1957, p. 106). He was not speaking, then, of the
scientific theory of evolution but of various METAPHYSICAL theories. He made
a clear distinction between the two."
"What Darwin showed us was that the mechanism of natural selection can, in
principle, simulate the actions of the Creator and His purpose and design,
and that it can also simulate rational human action directed towards a
purpose or aim." [Popper, 1972, p. 267; see also Popper, 1978, pp. 342-343]
As for the notion of "design" as a useful hypothesis: "[Darwin's] theory
of adaptation was the first nontheistic one that was convincing; and theism
was worse than an open admission of failure, for it created the impression
that an ultimate explanation had been reached." [Popper 1976, p. 172]
"It does appear that some people think that I denied scientific character
to the historical sciences, such as palaeontology, or the history of the
evolution of life on Earth. This is a mistake, and I here wish to affirm that
these and other historical sciences have in my opinion scientific
character; their hypotheses can in many cases be tested."[Popper, 1981, p. 611]
The author writes:
'[W]e may conclude (as Popper did) that evolutionary theories or
historical hypotheses about origins are no different than other scientific
theories
as far as their logical features are concerned and are just as falsifiable
as hypotheses in the form of general laws and theories."
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