[lit-ideas] Re: Darwiniana
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:34:31 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
>While for Dummett it was 'truth' that was an enigma, it was falsehood that
proved more enigmatic for Popper.
For Popper the falsify/verify distinction pertains to the logical
character: falsification can be rendered absolute. And in this respect, Popper
is
right about a kernel of Darwiniana being beyond total falsification (by its
proponents). >
The claim "falsification can be rendered absolute" is doubtful. If by
'absolute' we mean "conclusive", then falsification can never be rendered
conclusive in a logical sense (though it may be as conclusive as practically
we could ever expect). For a logically conclusive 'falsification' would depend
on a logical proof [or complete verification] of the counterexample. But in
denying any kind of verification [whether complete or partial], Popper is
denying there is ever such a thing as a logically conclusive falsification. In
this sense, every empirical statement is "beyond total falsification".
What is 'absolute' (or conclusive) in a falsification is the logical deduction
involved in saying that a counter-example [An 'A,non-B'] falsifies "All As are
Bs". This deduction is as conclusive as any deduction: so that if we have an
'A, non-B' then it simply must be false that "All As are Bs". But the
acceptance of 'A, non-B' as true requires a decision that is never based on a
logical demonstration or logically conclusive proof that 'A, non-B' [where 'A,
non-B' is synthetic] but involves an unavoidable element of guesswork or risk.
And so every acceptance of a 'falsification' is fallible, because the
acceptance of any falsifying counter-example is fallible, even if it is as
critically well-tested before being accepted as we could ever expect.
The assymetry between falsification and verification is therefore not that one
is logically conclusive and one is not, but that falsification depends only a
logic that is deductive and valid, while 'verification' depends on positing a
so-called 'inductive logic' that does not bear critical examination (and which
does not exist in a valid form).
Some other points by way of amplification of some of the points posted
yesterday:
1) “But D as an explanatory framework (to be contrasted with, say, a
Creationist or Lamarckist framework) remains (almost) as 'metaphysical' as its
rivals: for what observation could ever falsify it?” Examples were given to
show “that any pattern in evolution - including even the failure of life to
evolve - could be explained within a D-type framework.”
This conclusion might be better qualified to “almost any pattern”. For imagine
we put two rabbits in a pen and one later gave birth to a giraffe (and, in
other cases, birth was given to lions or penguins)? Or imagine a new species
simply popped up out of nowhere (with no evolutionary antecedents)? In this
last case we might say what we are then dealing with is not some “pattern of
evolution” but simply a creationist miracle: this would perhaps falsify D as a
universal framework (since it is not a framework that permits creationist
miracles) but would not falsify it as a framework that fits the general
“pattern of evolution”. The first case could be taken as another kind of
miracle, and therefore as another counter-example to D as a universal
framework. But we might also try to explain it within a D framework:- as a
freak example of a “hopeful monster” mutation – in other words we might regard
it not as a counter-example to D but as an
example that constitutes ‘a-problem-to-be-explained’ within a D framework.
Nevertheless, it is telling that the kinds of ‘observable counter-example’ we
might conceive as falsifying D as a framework are examples of a sort of
inexplicably miraculous event. And we can turn this round: it would seem that
even if there is a ‘Creationist’ force [e.g. God] at the back of evolution,
that force has not expressed itself in miraculous, occasional haphazardry but
in a patterned, gradualist D-type way. Go figure.
2) It was central to the post “that treating D as analytic or tautologous
must be a mistake if we think D is at the same time some kind of explanation of
how things are in the world.”
This may be true and may be, as suggested, because “analytic truths or
tautologies in this sense have no explanatory content as to how the world is,
and this is because they have no synthetic content”.
This is the key point, but one point made along the way might be amended:
for to say analytic truths or tautologies “explain only how words are being
used” is only true if using words is taken to cover a generality that includes
logical relationships. For to say “A table is a table’, or “All tables are
tables”, is to say something true not merely because of the meaning of ‘table’
but because (and irrespective of what ‘table’ means) ‘If p then p’ is a valid
logical deduction: and so analytic truths and tautologies may depend on rules
of logic and not merely semantics. And that may mean they are not “simply
conventions that are being stipulated”, since the validity of the logic
involved may not be just a matter of stipulated conventions.
However, this does not affect the important point that insofar as they lack
synthetic content, such analytic truths and tautologies do not tell us anything
about the world as it is. And so, if Darwinism tells us something about the
world as it is, Darwinism cannot be an analytic truth or mere tautology.
Donal
London
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