Date: Wed, 08 May 1996 13:23:06 -0600
Subject:  TREE - reply to Terry's of 4-19, part 2


From:      Terrence  Mc Donough <TERRENCE.MCDONOUGH-AT-UCG.IE>
To:        Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers-AT-state.ut.us>
Date:      Friday, April 19, 1996 7:29 am
Subject:   Re: McDonough - Rogers on TREE

More reply from Lisa:

[snipped phil sci stuff]

TM:  My sole point is that if nothing is really falsifiable, argument
by  way of proposing and testing falsifiable propositions is nothing
more  than a rhetorical strategy and not evidence of adherence to a
scientific method superior to other methods.

Lisa: Are you impugning my "rhetorical strategy" ? #:)  I admit to a
scientistic tendency, perhaps, but I thought we were _both_ speaking
within a "science" paradigm.  Was I wrong?  Do you consider yourself
a "social scientist", so we're talking about different kinds or
methods of "science" ?

I said "assumptions are not falsifiable" with a particular meaning,
which I mentioned before.  Fundamental but previously supported
"assumptions" [such as taking evolutionary theory as a basis for
hypothesis formation], are not themselves being tested, or intended
to be "tested" during the test of a _specific hypothesis_.  That does
not invalidate this method of analysis of reality. 
_I_ do not claim or agree that hypothesis-falsification is a useless
method for actually figuring anything out and is solely a vehicle for
struggle for "scientific" power and influence within this society.  I
hope you don't either.  
I also don't claim that it is the only way to understand everything.
I think it is not needed to discuss "science studies" right now, at
least it won't help me to see the errors of my ways.  Of course I
think my "method" is "superior" [don't even non-scientists feel the
same way?] and I'm sure that looks bad and is irritating to some
people. 
But, my opinion is based on "making sense", being logically
compelling and consistent with evidence, connecting to other
theories/knowledge, etc.  So, this is the kind of stuff that I
understand and respond to.  Connected with this is the apparently
logical notion that some things _are_ falsifiable, i.e. able to be
ruled out by evidence.

>TM: Then the explanation of the behaviour is substantially rooted in
> the  behaviour of the conspecifics which is reciprocally rooted on
> the  behaviour of conspecifics etc.  One either has to come back to
> the individual reproductive fitness argument or admit cultural
> factors as  at least one independent determinant of behaviour.
>  > LR: [snip] So for me, > "behavior of conspecifics" is
practically an operational _definition_ > of culture.  These are not
separate at all. 

TM:  This is why it is difficult to arbitrate between the two
positions  using empirical evidence.  Everything turns on contrasting
interpretations.

Lisa: Of course.  So what do we do?  Maybe consider the
supportability and consistency of the general explanatory framework. 
And then we'll probably still disagree.  But I don't have to
perfectly correct or comprehensive, for me, all I have to do is be
convinced that it is reasonable to think that my approach yields some
kind of new knowlege, understanding, insight, usefulness, to think
that it is worthwhile.  In a mellow move, I can even say that it is
my preferred method of analysis, because it makes more sense to me.

Also, I take it that you are rejecting my attempt to deconstruct the
separation of "the two positions."  I think it's a bankrupt
dichotomy, useless.  As I recall, you attach political implications
to the distinction between "cultural behavior" and "biological
behavior", or culture vs. RS.  I want to change the world too, but a
non-supportable analysis is not likely to help.  I guess
we'll just have to disagree about the supportability, usefulness and
relevance of this dichotomy.  I think the two are inseparable.

The capacity for culture is genetic, a result of natural selection. 
The use of culture is also adaptive, as organisms evolved to invent/
adopt/ use things that serve their fitness, including cooperation and
niceness when it's advantageous.  

>  >LR:  Also, culture is not "independent".  Are you not a
materialist? [snip] Are you really satisfied with> "turtles all the
way down"?  Culture comes from culture and that's > the end of that?

TM:  I'm not really satisfied with turtles all the way down.  That
too was a rhetorical strategy.  I think institutions/culture are
constructed in a historical process which is driven by
the class struggle. [snip]  Marxism is material in the sense that 
class struggle is the driving force of history.  There are other
materialisms, but I think this is the Marxist one.

Lisa: I think Marx' materialism is a lot more than that.  I know mine
is.  Especially when I'm dealing with animal behavior, evolution and
foraging people, the specifics of _class_ struggle are hardly
relevant!  Similarly, if "history is the history of class struggle",
that simply requires that "history" begins with the existence of
classes.  Again, this is not helpful in addressing non-class
societies.  [Competition, on the other hand, is _not_ specific only
to class society.] So, what does marxian materialism have to say
about that?  I tend toward Marvin Harris' marxian materialist
anthropology on this point, that people make culture based on
ordinary, practical, "conditions, needs and activities", such as
obtaining food, friends, shelter and sex.  This sort of approach is
more broadly applicable than to class societies only.  [Altho I
disagree with Harris strongly in some specific ways.]


> TM:  Could one go further and say that behavioural and
morphological
> characteristics must only be consistent with continued reproductive
> success given various environmental constraints.  

Lisa: Nope, not me.  Well, the friendliest reading is that if enough
of the people have enough RS to prevent a population from shrinking,
then it will not go extinct.  Yes, there it is.  Perhaps this is how
you meant "must only"?  But that is hardly relevant to evolution by
natural selection.  There is nothing in evolution that "must only"
limit one to [or requires one to meet] population replacement rates
of RS.  Whatever the size of the group, those within it may have
unequal RS, and the future population will consist mostly of those
individuals with more RS than others.  Death of one's descendents is
rather unpredictable, so the more there are, the better the chance of
more of them making it.

TM:  Characteristics are consistent with  reproductive success rather
than 'the most RS'.  A perhaps banal  example, you have five fingers
on each hand because of structural  constraints imposed by the
anatomy of your evolutionary ancestry and  because this is consistent
with reproductive success.  There is no  reason to suspect that five
fingers is the most successful possible  configuration.

Lisa: This is a common but red herring / misunderstanding.  The view
of adaptation I espouse is hardly panglossian.  Of course each
lifeform is constrained by its inheritance in the short run, yet in
the long run everything is changeable.  Horses' ancestors had five
toes also, and ancestral sea creatures had none.  Ancient reptiles
had five, and that has been retained by some of their descendents,
and not others.  Carnivores, primates and modern lizards generally
have five.  I suggest that one more or one less would probably be at
least non-helpful _for their activities_.  At the same time,
the number of toes shrank for all hoofed mammals, suggesting that
their structure was selected for/by different activities.

I've observed cats and people to occasionally be born with 6, so over
evolutionary time there would be [has been] an opportunity for them
to prosper and multiply, if it actually helped them out.  That is
part of the "natural variation" that Nature "selects" from.  

So, there _is_ reason to think that 5 is the "best" for some animals
but not for others, and we were not all stuck with 5 toes forever no
matter what.  Yet _if_ suddenly 6 were better, most of us would be
stuck, in the short run, with only 5 because of our ancestry.  These
are both part of the reality of darwinian evolution, as I understand
it.

Regards, 
Lisa

[TREE4-19.b]




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