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] --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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