[lit-ideas] Re: Do the fittest survive? Not necessarily
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:05:11 EDT
Donal McEvoy writes:
"What may be relatively unfit may, contingent on the selection pressures it
encounters, survive and reproduce where what may be relatively fitter may
be eliminated. This last possibility can be denied by saying that, ipso
facto, what survives and reproduces is 'fitter' than what is not - but this
turns "survival of the fittest" into a tautlogy since there is no independent
criterion of fitness other than survival."
--- which is Grice's, mine, and Julie Krueger's point. Obviously NOT
McCreery's. Else why title the thread with such a patent CONTRADICTION?
"But a tautology or a circular explanation is not an empirical or
falsifiable explanation: so if Darwinism is reduced to such a tautology or
circularity it loses its scientific explanatory character."
It never had it. I am an Anglican (cfr. Wilberforce).
"Clearly a tautology like "All tables are tables", or a circular
explanation for a sea-storm such as "Poseidon is angry" (when the only evidence
he
is angry is the sea-storm), are not testable scientific explanations - and
there is something amiss in suggesting the theory of 'natural selection' is
simply akin to these."
I hope you don't believe we descend from apes?
"Popper's answer is set out in a paper on the status of Darwinism where he
"recants" the view that Darwinism is almost tautological [that Darwinism is
a kind of tautolgy is stated, for example, by Dawkins in "The Selfish
Gene"]. The recantation is slighter than it might sound - P distinguishes
Darwinism _qua_ metaphysical research programme, which sets a framework for
the
kinds of explanation we should seek to account for evolution, from
Darwinism _qua_ specific testable explanations put forward within that
framework.
The success of such testable explanations are successes of the research
programme but this does not mean the framework is itself testable or
falsifiable. For P, aside from these successes, the framework is to be
accepted
largely on logical grounds. The Darwinian framework is purely eliminationist
and
non-inductive in that, as opposed to Lamarckism, an organism is not
instructed to evolve by its environment but evolves through blind-mutation
that
is subject to 'negative feedback' from selection pressures operating in its
ecological niche. From a logical POV there is a key parallel between
Darwinism/Lamarckism in the field of natural evolution and
conjecture&refutation/inductivism in the field of the evolution of knowledge.
In each case the
former position is preferable."
I think both were wrong. I mean, they were contradictorily wrong. Lamarck
is possible less fit.
---
The fact that he wrote in French did not help.
---
Speranza -- Bordighera.
Lamarck's writings are available in facsimile and in word format (fr) at
_www.lamarck.cnrs.fr_ (http://www.lamarck.cnrs.fr) . Search engine allows ful
l text search.
1809. Philosophie zoologique, ou Exposition des considérations relatives à
l’histoire naturelle des animaux..., Paris.
On invertebrate classification:
1801. Système des animaux sans vertèbres, ou tableau général des classes,
des ordres et des genres de ces animaux; présentant leurs caractères
essentiels et leur distribution, d'après la considération de leurs..., Paris,
Detreville, VIII : 1-432.
1815-1822. Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres, présentant les
caractères généraux et particuliers de ces animaux..., Tome 1 (1815): 1-462;
Tome 2 (1816): 1-568; Tome 3 (1816): 1-586; Tome 4 (1817): 1-603; Tome 5
(1818): 1-612; Tome 6, Pt.1 (1819): 1-343; Tome 6, Pt.2 (1822): 1-252; Tome
7 (1822): 1-711.
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