[lit-ideas] Re: Fodor on Pinker on evolutionary psychology &c.

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:09:45 +0000 (GMT)



From: Phil Enns phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx


>Robert Paul linked to a book review by Jerry Fodor:


http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n02/jerry-fodor/the-trouble-with-psychological-darwinism

Thank you for the link. A very interesting pushback against the reductionism of 
so much of sociobiology.>

This "pushback" has given rise to the counter-pushback:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Darwin_Got_Wrong

For example, among the negative opinions there canvassed:

"Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne describes this book as "a profoundly 
misguided critique of natural selection"[21] and "as biologically uninformed as 
it is strident.",[22] while
 
In a review in Science Douglas J. Futuyma concluded:
Because they are prominent in their own fields, some readers may suppose that 
they are authorities on evolution who have written a profound and important 
book. They aren't, and it isn't.[23]
Adam Rutherford, editor of Nature writing in The Guardian also reviewed it 
negatively.[24]"
 
There is likely much more to this than a simple pushing back against overly 
reductionist uses of Darwinism [or neo-Darwinism]. There is an underlying 
question of what kind of explanation 'Darwinism' is - what we might also 
describe as the question of its logical character, including the extent to 
which Darwinism is 'scientific' (or testable).
 
The pushing back against overly reductionist uses of Darwin is 
something Popper's writings have long endorsed btw. Indeed his 'emergentist' 
theory of there being irreducible Worlds 1,2&3 (and even of there being 
irreducible levels within those 'Worlds') takes anti-reductionism further 
than many. But this pushing back is, in Popper's case, not intended as a 
pushing back against Darwinism so much as against a misunderstanding of the 
logical character and empirical status of Darwinism as a form of explanation. 
On Popper's view, it is to misunderstand its logical character and 
empirical status to argue that Darwinism indicates the truth of some form of 
reductionism. 
 
As a thought on which to leave this for now: if we have a jelly that has come 
from a mould, we can explain the exact shape and size of the jelly by the 
'selection pressure' exerted on the liquid put into the mould. We might say, in 
explanatory terms, we can 'reduce' the shape and size of the jelly to the shape 
and size of the mould.
 
But 'natural selection' is not an explanation of the characteristics of 
organisms in quite this way - the 'moulding' effect of 'natural selection' over 
time is not akin to an imprint of positive characteristics (as per the shape 
and size of the jelly) but the elimination of negative [or maladapted] 
characteristics. This is a profoundly different kind explanation to a 
reductionist one - and this is even before we bring 'emergentist' arguments, or 
even the point that the motor of relative adaptability is the random mutation 
which itself is not explained in any 'moulded' sense.
 
Donal
Ldn

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