File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-04-19.143, message 87


Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 23:19:38 -0500
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: More on Modernism, Reason and Myth


>Rahul is right that as evidence for some empirical claim, analogies have
>little scientific value. ALthough he retreats a little, correctly, from
>his hard-line position, by noting that scientists will in fact accept
>analogical arguments as evidential considerations, and as a matter of fact
>in a close case a good analogy might be decisive in theory choice. But
>there is a deeper point that Hesse insists on. This goes beyong the
>context-of discovery/cvontext of justification distinction (much
>attacked), which says that it doesn't matter by what wacky means
>scientists come up with their ideas as long as they're properly conformed
>according to accepted rational canons. Hesse points out that analogies are
>at the heart of many scientific theories, even in the excat sciences. It
>might not be overstating the point to say that the analogies are in some
>cases partly constitutive of the theories. To take one example that Lisa
>will like: consider thea pplication of "rational choice theory" to
>evolutionary biology, treating organisms (even plants) as if they were
>economically rational agents.
>
>--Justin

This is just wrong, Justin. The proper interpretation of your evolutionary
example is rather that the structure of the theory allows one to treat
organisms as rational actors in a limited way. This analogy means nothing
except to provide a form of words -- biologists can use teleological
language as long as they're careful about it. The actual analysis of any
specific example draws nothing from the analogy -- you simply look at what
will affect the preservation (and sometimes the rate) of various mutations.
This is a typical example of the confusion that arises when a layman tries
to analyze science based on its popularization in the colloquial
vernacular. So far from being "constitutive" of the theory, the analogy in
this case is not even analytically useful, merely linguistically useful.
Until philosophers of science start understanding science, they will have
nothing worthwhile to say about it. Evolution in this regard is even a much
smaller quagmire than quantum mechanics, which has been misunderstood by
all the important 20th-century philosophers (at least that I know of). J.S.
Bell's little work on epistemology is worth far more than all the prolixity
of Popper, Kuhn, and the rest of the gang.

Rahul




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