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The Biological Role of Aggression: Fitness Mutualisation

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John Edser

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May 18, 2003, 1:56:23 PM5/18/03

PR:-
I think this thread has missed a little detail. The primary reason for
aggression in animals pertains to physical needs. In man, aggression is
9 times out of tend a matter of defending one's EMOTIONAL TURF, i.e,
one's need to maintain a sense of self-worth, significance, esteem, etc.

JE:-
The trouble with most psychological explanations
is that they mostly require a biological grounding.
In the end, much of psychology becomes a subset of
biology, which of course means: evolutionary
theory.

One of the greatest contributions to the debate
on the biological functionality of aggression,
was V. C. Wynne-Edwards. His book: "Animal
Dispersion In Relation To Social Behaviour"
was first printed in 1962. He assumed group
selection as his main inductive premise,
which was a pity because it is just
logically, false. However, this does not
detract from the worth of the book. The
range of observations he assembles is
enormous. The pattern that emerges is
simple and straight forward. One sex,
mostly but not exclusively the male,
divides an area up into reproductive
territories. The other sex, mostly
the female, compete for the males
with the better territories, on which
to rear their young to adulthood.

Watson and Moss, who worked with Edwards at
the university of Edinburgh documented grouse
biology re: aggression and territory
formation. Male grouse aggression
levels were found to be linked to food quality
and abundance. Grouse eat heather tips
which vary considerably from year to year
in their nutrient content. The less nutrient
in the heather tips, the more aggressive the
male grouse become and the larger grouse
territories become. Increased aggression
levels could be experimentally elicited by
injections of male hormones. Some males
so treated, gained territories only because
of their aggression level increases.

Larger grouse territories are required
to feed a grouse family in a poor heather
year but smaller grouse territories are
required to feed the same family in
a good year. Thus it is commonsense that males
stake out larger territories in poor years
and smaller territories in good years.
Thus, the correct level of male aggression
is the key. If aggression is too high
then both the grouse and the heather suffer
an avoidable loss in fitness because grouse
breeding territories become too large
(the higher the male aggression levels are
the larger the territories become). Grouse
end up reproducing less adults than they
could have done. The heather ends up with
less fertilizer than it could have had.
If male grouse aggression levels decrease
too much, then territories become too small
to feed a grouse family so grouse fitness
may be reduced. Again, both the heather
and the grouse can lose out. Selection
is searching for the highest mutual fitness
that the environment can support. Here the
heather is preserved from over grazing
by, amazingly, "selfish grouse" producing
territories large enough to support a
maximal grouse family so the heather can
enjoy the maximal amount of fertiliser.

Grouse faecal waste from the grouse,
produce heather nutrients. Thus the
problem that nature is addressing was: how
do the grouse and the heather manipulate
each other such that each gets a maximum
of what it requires at minimal cost? The
best possible result is for both is
to maximally increase their respective
populations within environmental
limitations, so that both are assured of
a maximum availability of what they both
require at a minimum access, cost.

If the grouse eats just the right amount of
heather tips, then heather fitness will not
be reduced but will be increased. Allowing
more grouse to be raised to adulthood
allows more heather fertiliser and thus
more heather, i.e. its a win/win situation
only as long as Darwinian fitness remains
mutualised.

If the grouse over eat the heather, then
heather fitness can be lowered but the
fitness of the grouse in the following
season may also be lowered increasing
competition between grouse, further
decimating the heather. Since both
the heather and the grouse can live
to breed more than one season (note
that many grouse die over winter) then
Darwinian fitness: the total number
of adult (fertile) forms reproduced
per parent, is very sensitive to the
reproductive results of _more_ than
just one season.

If the number of grouse in the next
season are reduced, then heather
fertiliser also becomes reduced and
so may heather fitness. Thus, over
eating OR under eating heather
tips by the grouse should be selected
against because of selection acting
on both i.e. selective forces on
both the grouse and the heather will
attempt to mutualise their respective
fitnesses. This view contrasts with
Van Valen's popular, Red Queen view
(at Swift's Mad Hatter's Tea
Party, the Red Queen has to run hard
just to remain on the same spot).
Van Valen visualised a fitness war.

According to Van Valen's view, the more the grouse
exploit the heather, the more the heather must "fight
back", i.e. invest to protect the heather against
grouse exploitation, leading to a costly armaments
war between the grouse and the heather.
This fitness war can end up just reducing the
absolute fitness of both, i.e. reduce the total
number of fertile, organism reproductive totals
per parent, on a mutual basis. Relative fitness
(a comparison of absolute fitnesses) can
hide this cost, leading to the "winner"
actually _losing_ on an absolute fitness
basis, i.e. as one wins over the other,
both spiral downwards towards the extinction
of both. Such is the final cost of all wars...

Fitness mutualisation is more efficient than
fitness warfare. Watson and Moss did not
assume fitness mutualisation, they assumed
group selection. This moves the level of
selection from the Darwinian organism level
up to, the organism population level.
Thus grouse aggression was supposed by
Watson and Moss to be a group selected trait
which optimised grouse density in order to
preserve heather fitness for other grouse,
i.e. it assumes the assumption of organism
fitness altruism, a Darwinistic no, no.

Today, it's "selfish genes" that are
supposed to produce the same organism
"altruistic fitness" behaviour. Both are
logically incorrect inductions (false
general explanations of "why"). An
additive in fitness entity cannot be
selected as a single entity and all genes
are protected from independent selection
by the central dogma of biochemistry.

Fitness mutualisation has never been seriously
considered as a process within nature, yet
it remains the only possible logical induction
and the most efficient mechanism, available.

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

ed...@ozemail.com.au

Phil Roberts, Jr.

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May 19, 2003, 1:15:45 PM5/19/03

John Edser wrote:

> PR:-
> I think this thread has missed a little detail. The
> primary reason for aggression in animals pertains to
> physical needs. In man, aggression is 9 times out of
> tend a matter of defending one's EMOTIONAL TURF, i.e,
> one's need to maintain a sense of self-worth,
> significance, esteem, etc.
>
> JE:-
> The trouble with most psychological explanations
> is that they mostly require a biological grounding.
> In the end, much of psychology becomes a subset of
> biology, which of course means: evolutionary
> theory.
>

I couldn't agree more. :)

A Sketch of a Divergent Theory of Emotional Instability

Objective: To account for self-worth related emotion (i.e., needs for
love, acceptance, moral integrity, recognition, achievement,
purpose, meaning, etc.) and emotional disorder (e.g., depression,
suicide, etc.) within the context of an evolutionary scenario; i.e., to
synthesize natural science and the humanities; i.e., to answer the
question: 'Why is there a species of naturally selected organism
expending huge quantities of effort and energy on the survivalistically
bizarre non-physical objective of maximizing self-worth?'

Observation: The species in which rationality is most developed is
also the one in which individuals have the greatest difficulty in
maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth, often going to
extraordinary lengths in doing so (e.g., Evel Knievel, celibate monks,
self endangering Greenpeacers, etc.).

Hypothesis: Rationality is antagonistic to psycho centric stability (i.e.,
maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth).

Explanation #1: In much the manner reasoning allows for the subordination
of lower emotional concerns and values (pain, fear, anger, sex, etc.)
to more global concerns (concern for the self as a whole), so too,
these more global concerns and values can themselves become
reevaluated and subordinated to other more global, more objective
considerations. And if this is so, and assuming that emotional
disorder emanates from a deficiency in self-worth resulting from
precisely this sort of experientially based reevaluation, then it can
reasonably be construed as a natural malfunction resulting from
one's rational faculties functioning a tad too well.

Explanation #2: Being the blind arational process that she
is, mother nature instills in all her creatures a sense of their own
importance (or of the importance of their needs) that is rationally
inordinate. And, as a species reaches a certain stage in its rational/
cultural/memetic development, its members increasingly come to question
this inordinancy, and increasingly come to require reasons for
maintaining it (needs for love, acceptance, moral integrity, purpose,
meaning, status, wealth, etc.).

"Special concern for one's own future would be selected by
evolution: Animals without such concern would be more likely
to die before passing on their genes. Such concern would
remain, as a natural fact, even if we decided that it was not
justified. By thinking hard about the arguments, we might
be able briefly to stun this natural concern. But it would
soon revive... The fact that we have this attitude cannot
therefore be a reason for thinking it justified. Whether
it is justified [i.e. rational] is an open question, waiting
to be answered." (Derek Parfit)

Normalcy and Disorder: Assuming this is correct, then some
explanation for the relative "normalcy" of most individuals would
seem necessary. This is accomplished simply by postulating
different levels or degrees of consciousness. From this perspective,
emotional disorder would then be construed as a valuative affliction
resulting from an increase in semantic content in the engram indexed
by the linguistic expression, "I am insignificant", which all persons of
common sense "know" to be true, but which the "emotionally
disturbed" have come to "realize", through abstract thought,
devaluing experience, etc.

Implications: So-called "free will" and the incessant activity presumed
to emanate from it is simply the insatiable appetite we all have for
self-significating experience which, in turn, is simply nature's way of
attempting to counter the objectifying influences of our rational
faculties. This also implies that the engine in the first "free-thinking"
artifact is probably going to be a diesel (i.e., the cure produces
more of the disease).

"Another simile would be an atomic pile of less than critical size: an
injected idea is to correspond to a neutron entering the pile from
without. Each such neutron will cause a certain disturbance which
eventually dies away. If, however, the size of the pile is sufficiently
increased, the disturbance caused by such an incoming neutron will
very likely go on and on increasing until the whole pile is destroyed.
Is there a corresponding phenomenon for minds?" (A. M. Turing).

Additional Implications: Since the explanation I have proposed
amounts to the contention that the most rational species
(presumably) is beginning to exhibit signs of transcending the
formalism of nature's fixed objective (accomplished in man via
intentional self concern, i.e., the prudence program) it can reasonably
be construed as providing evidence and argumentation in support of
Lucas (1961) and Penrose (1989, 1994). Not only does this imply
that the aforementioned artifact probably won't be a computer,
but it would also explain why a question such as "Can Human
Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated?" (Cohen, 1981)
has led to controversy, in that it presupposes the possibility
of a discrete (formalizable) answer to a question which can only
be addressed in comparative (non-formalizable) terms (e.g. X is
more rational than Y, the norm, etc.). Along these same lines,
the theory can also be construed as an endorsement or
metajustification for comparative approaches in epistemology
(explanationism, plausiblism, etc.)

"So even if mathematicians are superb cognizers of mathematical
truth, and even if there is no algorithm, practical or otherwise,
for cognizing mathematical truth, it does not follow that the power
of mathematicians to cognize mathematical truth is not entirely
explicable in terms of their brain's executing an algorithm. Not
an algorithm for intuiting mathematical truth -- we can suppose that
Penrose [via Godel] has proved that there could be no such thing.
What would the algorithm be for, then? Most plausibly it would be an
algorithm -- one of very many -- for trying to stay alive ... " (D. C.
Dennett).

Oops! Sorry! Wrong again, old bean. [me again]

"My ruling passion is the love of literary fame" (David Hume).

"I have often felt as though I had inherited all the defiance and
all the passions with which our ancestors defended their Temple
and could gladly sacrifice my life for one great moment in
history" (Sigmund Freud).

"He, too [Ludwig Wittgenstein], suffered from depressions and for long
periods considered killing himself because he considered his life
worthless, but the stubbornness inherited from his father may have
helped him to survive" (Hans Sluga).

"The inquest [Alan Turing's] established that it was suicide. The
evidence was perfunctory, not for any irregular reason, but because
it was so transparently clear a case" (Andrew Hodges)

REFERENCES

1. Cohen, L. Jonathan, Can Human Irrationality be Experimentally
Demonstrated?, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1981, 4, 317-370.

2. Lucas, J. R., Minds, Machines and Godel, Philosophy, Vol XXXVI (1961).
Reprinted in Anderson's, Minds and Machines, and engagingly explored
in Hofstadter's Pulitzer prize winner, Godel, Escher, Bach: An
Eternal Golden Braid.

3. Penrose, Roger, The Emperor's New Mind, 1989; Shadows of the Mind,
1994.

TomHendricks474

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May 19, 2003, 1:15:44 PM5/19/03

<< JE:-
The trouble with most psychological explanations
is that they mostly require a biological grounding.
In the end, much of psychology becomes a subset of
biology, which of course means: evolutionary
theory.
>>

TH
I heartily agree with the above. I would also add that in my hypothesis any
social behavior is one of three basic behaviors (based on K. Horney's
groundbreaking work)
If there is any encounter between any two or more individuals, then one of the
3 will follow.
1. Some type of symbiotic relationship
2. some type of competitive relationship
3. one or both separate from any relationship with the other, and shift to
other resources, mates, territory, etc. etc.

Michael Ragland

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May 19, 2003, 8:12:24 PM5/19/03

The trouble with most psychological explanations is that they mostly
require a biological grounding. In the end, much of psychology becomes a
subset of biology, which of course means: evolutionary theory.

John Edsar

It's interesting to note that neither Tom Hendricks or Phil Roberts Jr.
responded to the main content of Edsar's post but instead focused on his
introductory comment, "The trouble with most psychological explanations

is that they mostly require a biological grounding. In the end, much of
psychology becomes a subset of biology, which of course means:

evolutionary theory." Their responses? They totally agree with Edsar and
then they proceed to briefly outline their theories which they
apparently think are an exception. There is a word for this and its
called "denial". Denial can be dangerous. Because if one has a grossly
incorrect view of aggression in the face of blinding evidence it can
lead to an improper general understanding of aggression and consequently
of oneself and it conceivably could make it more difficult to control
one's aggressive impulses. This is based on the premise if one does not
have a basic understanding of the cause of aggression then in some
circumstances it will be more difficult to control. They say knowledge
is power and by not acknowledging aggression is totally biological (IMO)
one has left themselves open to the increased possibility of
powerlessness to their aggressive instincts. This is not necessarily
inevitable but I do believe it contains the germ seed of it.

Denial in this context could be said a fear and unwillingness to
acknowledge the tremendously powerful biological aggressive urges we
possess. There is good reason to be afraid. When one looks at what man's
aggressive instincts are capable of doing it is enough to make a person
shudder in fright and horror. However, this is all the more important
reason to have a proper general understanding of the cause of
aggression.

For a long time Tom Hendricks has neatly dichotimized aggression into
so-called positive and negative and has attributed "negative" aggression
to environmental causes and has relied on Karen Horney's theories.
Recently Phil Roberts Jr. has come on the scene and has advanced his
theory aggression is primarily the cause of low self-esteem.

If these two men acknowledged aggression is biological and has an
evolutionary basis I could more sympathetically address their theories
(or those who they subscribe to) but when they apparently deny the
fundamental fact aggression is biological and has an evolutionary basis
it leads me to think they may not really be interested in the theories
they advance and are merely riding the skirts of these theories so they
can have an "argument" to deny the biological basis of aggression.

Recently, I asked Guy Hoelzer what he considered the evolutionary basis
of aggression. This was an opportunity because Mr. Hoelzer is a
biologist and it is not often a biologist posts to a thread on
aggression. At least that has been my observation. Mr. Hoelzer stated he
believed aggression probably arose very early in the evolution of life.

Michael Ragland

Stephen Hawking quotes from Larry King LIve Weekend December 25, 1999,
9:00 ET

"I think the biggest challenge we face is from our aggressive instincts.
In caveman -- or caveperson days, these gave definite survival
advantages and were imprinted in our genetic code by Darwinian natural
selection. But with nuclear weapons, they threaten our destruction. We
don't have time for Darwinian evolution to remove our aggression. We
will have to use genetic engineering."

"I think genetic engineering with humans is going to occur whether we
like it or not. It will change our standard of what is human but it will
be a gradual change because there's so much we don't know and because
humans take time to grow up. We won't change much in the next 100 years
but we might after that."

Phil Roberts, Jr.

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May 20, 2003, 11:45:29 AM5/20/03

Michael Ragland wrote:
> The trouble with most psychological explanations is that they mostly
> require a biological grounding. In the end, much of psychology becomes a
> subset of biology, which of course means: evolutionary theory.
>
> John Edsar
>
>
>
> It's interesting to note that neither Tom Hendricks or Phil Roberts Jr.
> responded to the main content of Edsar's post but instead focused on his
> introductory comment, "The trouble with most psychological explanations
> is that they mostly require a biological grounding. In the end, much of
> psychology becomes a subset of biology, which of course means:
> evolutionary theory." Their responses? They totally agree with Edsar and
> then they proceed to briefly outline their theories which they
> apparently think are an exception.

John's post is a an excellent explanation of the evolutionary origins
of aggression. Unfortunately, it can also be read as suggesting that
its "unscientific" to assume that aggression in man is in a category
all by itself.

> There is a word for this and its
> called "denial". Denial can be dangerous. Because if one has a grossly
> incorrect view of aggression in the face of blinding evidence it can
> lead to an improper general understanding of aggression and consequently
> of oneself and it conceivably could make it more difficult to control
> one's aggressive impulses.

The BBC just did a report on terrorism. This was a different one from
the television documentary on the roots of terrorism. Based on
interviews with the half a dozen or so Palestinian terrorists who
survived their suicide missions the motive was 'To avenge the
misery of humiliation', not to gain material advantages, or even
to gain favor in the hereafter, etc.

> This is based on the premise if one does not
> have a basic understanding of the cause of aggression then in some
> circumstances it will be more difficult to control. They say knowledge
> is power and by not acknowledging aggression is totally biological (IMO)
> one has left themselves open to the increased possibility of
> powerlessness to their aggressive instincts. This is not necessarily
> inevitable but I do believe it contains the germ seed of it.
>

I believe aggression is totally biological. Its just that, unlike
other species, it has been exapted to serve emotional ends rather
than physical ones. Failing to understand this can lead to all
sorts of miscalculations when it comes to human agression. As
you say, "Denial is dangerous".

> Denial in this context could be said a fear and unwillingness to
> acknowledge the tremendously powerful biological aggressive urges we
> possess. There is good reason to be afraid. When one looks at what man's
> aggressive instincts are capable of doing it is enough to make a person
> shudder in fright and horror. However, this is all the more important
> reason to have a proper general understanding of the cause of
> aggression.
>

Ahmen!

> For a long time Tom Hendricks has neatly dichotimized aggression into
> so-called positive and negative and has attributed "negative" aggression
> to environmental causes and has relied on Karen Horney's theories.
> Recently Phil Roberts Jr. has come on the scene and has advanced his
> theory aggression is primarily the cause of low self-esteem.
>

NO! NO! NO! Agression doesn't cause low self-esteem, silly. Low
self-esteem or THREATS to one's self-esteem are a common cause of
agression. That's a fairly important disctinction. Its also
only a generalization. In man, we have incredible amounts
if individualization. For example, when I felt like a
nobody in my teenage years I was more withdrawn than agressive.
However, my friend, Rich, could barely control his anger. He
eventually ended up robbing a bank.

The George character in Seinfeld is a more commonplace example.
I would say George's frequent outbursts and constant humiliations
would, in real life, suggest a person who was probably a
candidate for thoughts of suicide. Agreesion is often AN
IMPORTANT INDICATOR, NOT A CAUSE of low self-esteem.

> If these two men acknowledged aggression is biological and has an
> evolutionary basis I could more sympathetically address their theories
> (or those who they subscribe to)

I do acknowledge its biological. To suggest it serves a different
function in man than in other species is not to deny its biological
origins. Its just to acknowledge that when you introduce
rationality into the natural selection mix all sorts of strange
things begin to happen, such as the fact that you end up with a
species that is increasingly less concerned with staying alive
(e.g., 9/11 terrorists) and increasingly more concerned with
sustaining REASONS for staying alive (i.e., self-worth maximization
manifested in needs for love, attention, purpose, meaning, moral
integrity, religion, justice, autonomy, etc. etc. etc.).

> but when they apparently deny the
> fundamental fact aggression is biological and has an evolutionary basis
> it leads me to think they may not really be interested in the theories
> they advance and are merely riding the skirts of these theories so they
> can have an "argument" to deny the biological basis of aggression.
>

Not me. Its so I can advance my own theory and, hopefully, win enough
converts to help me convince myself that I'm a truly brilliant intellect
and deserving of almost a religious awe from my peers.
The pickings have been a little slim so far however. :)

> Recently, I asked Guy Hoelzer what he considered the evolutionary basis
> of aggression. This was an opportunity because Mr. Hoelzer is a
> biologist and it is not often a biologist posts to a thread on
> aggression. At least that has been my observation. Mr. Hoelzer stated he
> believed aggression probably arose very early in the evolution of life.
>

Absolutely. No argument. Its just that in nature's most rational species
it has been exapted to perform a new function for which it is poorly
suited. Why do you think this amounts to "denying the biological roots of
aggression"?

Michael Ragland

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May 21, 2003, 4:52:51 PM5/21/03

Just a slight correction. I think you mean "adapted" instead of
"exapted". I looked up "exapt" and the only references I found for it
stated it meant a subset of apartments or a computer system of sorts. I
think I understand your points. However, I would disagree with you we
are necessarily nature's most rational species. Your contention that
aggression in man has been adapted to perform a new function (maximizing
self-esteem?) for which it is poorly suited is interesting. Have you
considered the fact it is poorly suited as possible evidence it is not
adaptive for maximizing self-esteem? Or perhaps aggression is so
integral of our biological makeup that the very notion of self-esteem
can't be separated from it. If so, that suggests our ideas of what
self-esteem is may need to change.

Since you agree aggression is biological and has an evolutionary basis I
would hope you would see current human conflict over land and resources
is indicative of that and that it has nothing to do with adapting
aggression to maximize self esteem..and if it does in part then that is
just evidence our ideas of self-esteem need to be modified. Also, it is
obvious aggression is very much a part of altruism/kin selection and one
doesn't have to totally reconcile natural selection with kin selection
to see the validity of this.

Maybe you're not denying the biological roots of aggression but how our
geneticists/biologists to study the role of aggression in "maximizing
self esteem"? What would a scientist "think" if he saw a partitioned
cage of mice. On one side of the cage some of the mice are wearing
little suicide belts around their waists. All of a sudden one of these
mice races across to the other side where several other mice are
drinking latte and reading the Mouseulem
Post and "KABOOM" the terrorist mouser explodes his explosive belt?

John Edser

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May 21, 2003, 4:52:54 PM5/21/03

> JE:-

> The trouble with most psychological explanations is that they mostly
> require a biological grounding. In the end, much of psychology becomes a
> subset of biology, which of course means: evolutionary theory.

> MR:-

> It's interesting to note that neither Tom Hendricks or Phil Roberts Jr.
> responded to the main content of Edsar's post but instead focused on his
> introductory comment, "The trouble with most psychological explanations
> is that they mostly require a biological grounding. In the end, much of
> psychology becomes a subset of biology, which of course means:
> evolutionary theory." Their responses? They totally agree with Edsar and
> then they proceed to briefly outline their theories which they
> apparently think are an exception.

PR:-

JE:-
IF we are to be able to validly suggest psychological
causes as subsets of biology and thus evolutionary theory
(Dawkins memetic view is just a clumsy attempt to do so)
THEN we have to be able to link aggression to an absolute
and not to just a relative, fitness _increase_. Evolutionary
theory is nothing more than a testable view of absolute fitness.
Enjoying relative gains while suffering an absolute loss
is the very height of stupidity. Man can be so stupid, but
nature never can.

Today's Neo Darwinistic view of fitness being increased by
aggression is based on Van Valen's Red Queen theory,
which itself, is based on an over simplified model of
_relative_, Neo Darwinian additive fitness per genomic gene,
per fertile organism population (not per gene population where
gene populations exist _firstly_ within and only 2ndly between,
organisms). Here genes are seriously supposed to be able to
challenge organism (Darwinian) fitness and win. Denial
is always the same. Not a single Neo Darwinian will admit that
Darwinian fitness 1) exists 2) is heritable, so they have no
hope of correctly decomposing Darwinian fitness into Neo
Darwinian gene fitnesses. They blithely _assume_ that
an independent genomic gene fitness exists and then plough on
with all the mathematics that this allows, to such an extent
that Neo Darwinian collective memory does not even acknowledge
that naked genes do not run about the place contesting
each other as they delete all fitness epistasis in the
process (Neo Darwinian additive gene fitnesses are just
over simplified, valid, Darwinian fertile organism fitnesses)
making a mockery out of any _science_ of
biology.

The Neo Darwinian view excludes fitness mutualisation
at the Darwinian level of selection: the fertile organism level,
i.e. it is ALL based on Hamiltonian logic which can be shown to
be both mathematically (he deleted at least two constants)
and biologically (not a single additive fitness per genomic
gene per organism population has ever been documented within
nature), faulty. Of course, no Neo Darwinist here will admit to
this because of lose of face stress just produces, aggression.
You can demonstrate Hamilton's mathematical errors until
you are blue in the face. Not a single Neo Darwinist will
respond. You can ask: since all genes have to pass a
Darwinian level of selection, somewhere, where does
Hamilton's genes pass this level, and again, you just
get a zero response. The denial is almost absolute on these
basic, evolutionary theory FITNESS issues.

Human aggression is no more and no less different, as a
selectable trait, to aggression within any other territorial
animal. The big difference is we have turned on the
egression tap to the full, almost all of the time but
we don't realise we have done so. Other animal systems
have the tap correctly adjusted to their biological
environments in a mutualised fitness way like the Scottish
grouse. We, in our "wisdom" think like Van Valen: we are
only in a fitness war with each other when nothing could be
further from the truth. Our super tribes are 1000's% larger
than what we are adapted to, so that our aggression levels,
even turned up to the full, have no hope of adjusting
our densities on a mutualised fitness basis. Thus we
just end up decimating our environments. We rationalise
this in many stupid ways, e.g. argue that all of life
on earth, except ourselves has "no soul" and is
only put there for our use by a god who is (of course),
like us.

Like the grouse, our aggression levels must be linked
to certain environmental indicators, especially within
the food we eat. Today, that food, like our super tribal
size, is so divorced from our normal biological adaptation,
and the food so lacking in micro nutrients, we end up stepping
on our aggression accelerator because of poor nutrition and our
aggression brake because of the huge quantities we eat, at
the same time (!), experiencing massive mood swings
in the process.

We are not carnivores. Intestine
length, our need to ingest vitamin c and out dentition
rule this out, yet we continue to eat vast quantities of
meat because "we like it". We refine the sugar out of plants,
removing the roughage and thus flooding our bloodstreams
with it via unnatural fast release and not naturally slow
release, carbohydrates, to such an extent, we are producing
both hypo glycemia and diabetes, epidemics. We eat, like
most natural organisms do, to excess when we can, just
in case tomorrow we have too little, when that tomorrow
just never comes. In short we act like emotional 3 year
olds, shaking our collective heads in wonder at why we
are so aggressive and why we die of cancer and heart
disease. All these things are linked and avoidable.

> MR:-

PR:-

to gain favour in the hereafter, etc.

JE:-
Lose of face is a basic territorial no,no.
Males fight for a psychological (status) as well
as a physical territory. The larger the super
tribe the larger both have to be. A male
who loses face, loses male/male status and
thus access to females, mostly reducing fitness,
so he is programmed by stress to fight back.
Normally the level of fight back is carefully
adjusted to produce the best mutualised fitness
result, i.e. it is linked, like the grouse are
emotionally linked, to a mutualised fitness increases.
The problem is the natural indicators don't work
any more because of the way we have distorted
our biology via over refining food and over
extending our tribal size.

Amazingly enough, the system that allowed
all these biological adaptation distortions:
TRADE, is based on exactly the same logic as
natural fitness mutualisation. Mutualisation
is so efficient, it soon outstrips any other
association. Tragically, trade, a
unique human adaptation, is almost 100%
politicised. It is almost impossible to get
a rational, non emotional discussion of
it, anywhere, let alone within human
evolutionary theory. Today trade
is just ignored by dominant left wing
rationalists (Hamilton, Trivers, Dawkins
etc etc). Historically, our numbers
increased at an exponential rate as
trade provided exponential gains per
trading individual. Our competitive emotions
could not cope with sudden, vast, fitness
increases, so over the years we have had
to try to suppress them. This suppression
always fails and when it does, it produces
the equivalent of an emotional atomic
explosion: human warfare. Islamic males
are reeling from lose of face, stress.
This is causing them to maximise their
aggression levels. In nature such escalations
often end up in territorial males fighting to
the death. When the tribes confronting each
other are super tribes, then a human aggression
explosion, becomes imminent. Most Islamic countries
are not as free as most Christian countries so
gains to traders in Islamic countries are
less. As the gap widens between these cultures,
the males who are on the losing side suffer
lose of face and are forced to fight back,
even to the death, just like any other
cornered territorial animal is forced to
do.

Somehow, trade has to be extended within
Islamic countries. While half their
populations (the female half) are mostly
excluded from trading freely and thus
competing against the male half, then
they will never be able to compete against
freer countries. Thus Islamic male loss of
face will continue to increase and its aggression
will be directed at what it sees as their
competitors: the more "permissive" Christians.
Another major complication is that Islamic
culture is mostly polygamous and thus, male
macho dominant, while Christian society is
mostly monogamous and thus female dominant.
Super tribes seem to thrive more under female
reproductive dominance. Human rights and the
freedom to trade are basic, cognitive issues
that continue to do battle with our natural
but distorted emotions, for purely biological
reasons.

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 22, 2003, 11:55:26 AM5/22/03

John Edser wrote:
>
>
> PR:-
> John's post is a an excellent explanation of the evolutionary origins
> of aggression. Unfortunately, it can also be read as suggesting that
> its "unscientific" to assume that aggression in man is in a category
> all by itself.
>
> JE:-
> IF we are to be able to validly suggest psychological
> causes as subsets of biology and thus evolutionary theory
> (Dawkins memetic view is just a clumsy attempt to do so)

No. Dawkins memetic view was an open admission that you
simply can't get from natural selection to human nature
via any direct route, not even if you include Hamiltonian
notions. Dawkins notion of a meme was taken way beyond its
original intention by others, when in fact it was to serve
as nothing more than a placemarker for whatever theory might
show up in the future that might be able to account for the
explanatory gap. I don't believe you actually understand
Dawkins, John. Dawkins does NOT believe kin selection is
a cure all for all that ails natural selection. If
anything, our refinements in our formal models of natural
selection have only served to deepen the mystery of the
benevolent selfishness we find in ourselves, as opposed
to the "ruthless selfishness" found elsewhere in nature
and predicted by those formal models.

I am occasionally accused of having backtracked on memes; of
having lost heart, pulled in my horns; had second thoughts. The
truth is that my first thoughts were more modest than some
memeticists, including perhaps Dr. Blackmore. For me, the
original mission of the meme was negative...

The original didactic purpose of the meme was the negative one
of cutting the gene down to size. I became a little alarmed at
the number of my readers who took the meme more positively as
a theory of human culture in its own right -- either to criticise
it (unfairly given my original modest intention) or to carry it
far beyond the limits of what I then thought justified. This
was why I may have seemed to backtrack. (Dawkins, 1999).

> THEN we have to be able to link aggression to an absolute
> and not to just a relative, fitness _increase_.

Only if you assume that every feature we find in an organism
must necessarily be adaptive. But why assume that? I'm
sure you are aware that Gould and Lewontin consider this
the height of naivity, referring to it derrogatively as
"panadaptionism".

> Evolutionary
> theory is nothing more than a testable view of absolute fitness.

True. But it currently comes up short in the human nature
department. Generally, when we encounter a scientific
anomaly we are confronted with one of two options:

1. Our theory is wrong
2. We have a hidden assumption that is making our theory
APPEAR to be wrong.

I have opted for two, calling into question traditional
theory's of rationality in which genetic indeterminism
is manifested, not so much in the ability to change one's
mind about what to have for breakfast, as in the fact
that we appear to be increasingly less concerned with

staying alive (e.g., 9/11 terrorists) and increasingly
more concerned with sustaining REASONS for staying

alive.

> Enjoying relative gains while suffering an absolute loss
> is the very height of stupidity. Man can be so stupid, but
> nature never can.
>

Perhaps. But nature could certainly accept a trade off in
which an increase in cognitive objectivity (knowledge, understanding,
wisdom, etc.) produce sufficient benefits to more than make
up for a corresponding maladpative increase in valuative
objectivity (i.e., an increase in concern for non-related
others and an incrased volatility in self-concern, self-worth,
etc.), don't you agree. Certainly you don't believe the
behavior of the 9/11 terrorists was adaptive, do you?

>
> Like the grouse, our aggression levels must be linked
> to certain environmental indicators, especially within
> the food we eat. Today, that food, like our super tribal
> size, is so divorced from our normal biological adaptation,
> and the food so lacking in micro nutrients, we end up stepping
> on our aggression accelerator because of poor nutrition and our
> aggression brake because of the huge quantities we eat, at
> the same time (!), experiencing massive mood swings
> in the process.
>

Ah. So that's it. Its all becasue we are eating the wrong
food, not because we have become a little too objective for
our own good, eh? Better cut down on those twinkies, eh?
And, its a physical explanation so its much more "scientific",
no doubt. :)

>
> PR:-
> The BBC just did a report on terrorism. This was a different one from
> the television documentary on the roots of terrorism. Based on
> interviews with the half a dozen or so Palestinian terrorists who
> survived their suicide missions the motive was 'To avenge the
> misery of humiliation', not to gain material advantages, or even
> to gain favour in the hereafter, etc.
>
> JE:-
> Lose of face is a basic territorial no,no.

But its not what others think of us that is the real motive
behind what we do. Its WHAT WE THINK OF OURSELVES that
lies at the core of our mental health. Why do think you
and I are so obsessed with winning the day. Its because
we have ego needs that other species do not share. Take
away our need for self-esteem and you would end up like
other social species, like lions, who are able to just
sit around snapping at an occasional fly once they've
filled their bellies and screwed their mates. There are
motivational factors in man that go way beyond anything
that can be explained in terms of our normal notions of
adaptiveness.

> Males fight for a psychological (status) as well
> as a physical territory. The larger the super
> tribe the larger both have to be.

Its not what others think of us John, its what we think
of ourselves that lies at the core of our mental well
being. How else could we explain the innumerable
occasions where humans have been observe to sacrifice
their social status, their well-being, and at times
their very lives, simply to 'do the "right" thing'?

A male
> who loses face, loses male/male status and
> thus access to females, mostly reducing fitness,
> so he is programmed by stress to fight back.

The problem here that all this status business in nature
can be accomodated by simply employing animal appetites
countervalenced by fear. Why introduce an incapacititatin
sense of worthlessness, often one that becomes sufficiently
extreme to cost us our lives, let alone our reproductive
fitness (e.g., the guys who jumped out of windows when
the stockmarket crashed).

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 22, 2003, 11:55:27 AM5/22/03

Michael Ragland wrote:

PR wrote:
> Absolutely. No argument. Its just that in nature's most rational species
> it has been exapted to perform a new function for which it is poorly
> suited. Why do you think this amounts to "denying the biological roots
> of aggression"?
>
> PR
>
> Just a slight correction. I think you mean "adapted" instead of
> "exapted". I looked up "exapt" and the only references I found for it
> stated it meant a subset of apartments or a computer system of sorts. I
> think I understand your points.

I'm sorry. I should have explained. Exaptation is a term coined by
Gould and Lewontin in a now famous paper entitled 'The Spandrels of
St. Marco'. G + S's introduced the term 'panadaptionism' to refer
to the penchent most e theorists have to assume everything has to
be adaptive, a point on which Dawkins is also in total agreement
by the way:

As an enthusiastic Darwinian, I have been dissatisfied with
explanations which my fellow-enthusiasts have offered for human
behavior. They have tried to look for 'biological advantages' in
various attributes of human civilization....... The argument I shall
advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the
earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of
modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole
basis of our ideas on evolution. I am an enthusiastic Darwinian,
but I think Darwinism is too big a theory to be confined to the
narrow context of the gene....

As an example of maladaptiveness, they simply pointed to the manner in
which many organs are obviously jury rigged from organs that served
a totally different function, and as such resulting in designs that
are far from optimal. For example, there is a nerve in the giraffs
neck that goes from between its shoulder blades all the way up to
its neck and back down to a location only a half an inch away from
its origin. Anothe exmpla might be the five finger like bones in
a whales flipper. This bone structure is not presenet because it
represents and ideal, but simply because that what nature had to
work with. The bone structure in a whale's flipper has been
"exapted" from the bone structure employed in land mammals, but
is far from optimal.

> However, I would disagree with you we
> are necessarily nature's most rational species.

Yipes!! How do engage in dialogue with someone who thinks animals
are more rational than man. You don't.

Bye

Michael Ragland

unread,

May 22, 2003, 6:02:16 PM5/22/03

Yipes!! How do engage in dialogue with someone who thinks animals
are more rational than man. You don't.

Bye
PR

Humans are animals and in our behavior you see about as much
"rationality" as a chimpanzee. Just because we have developed science
and technology and use sophisticated weapons to murder each other
doesn't make the underlying behavior of us very different from
chimpanzees. Apparently, you think humans are more "rational" than other
animals and that is a very arrogant attitude. It remains to be seen
whether we will evolve into a rational species but there is no doubt we
currently aren't.

John Edser

unread,

May 23, 2003, 2:18:29 PM5/23/03

> PR:-
> John's post is a an excellent explanation of the evolutionary origins
> of aggression. Unfortunately, it can also be read as suggesting that
> its "unscientific" to assume that aggression in man is in a category
> all by itself.

> JE:-
> IF we are to be able to validly suggest psychological
> causes as subsets of biology and thus evolutionary theory
> (Dawkins memetic view is just a clumsy attempt to do so)

PR:-

No. Dawkins memetic view was an open admission that you
simply can't get from natural selection to human nature
via any direct route, not even if you include Hamiltonian
notions.

JE:-
Dawkins placed a useful, inheritable,
sub level (meme) between a complex phenotype
(aggression etc) and genes that may provide
heritability for it. What he failed to
understand was that, now memes must be selected
before genes can be, so fitness at the gene
level can only serve fitness at the meme level
of selection. Thus, selfish genes must serve
selfish memes, logically debunking
(Hamilton's) any selfish gene view. This logic
applies to all organism levels of selection
up to the fertile organism level. Why? Because
the fertile organism fitness level is the first
observable additive fitness interface within
nature. Genomic genes, memes and complex phenotypes
form just ONE _non_ additive, i.e. dependable
fitness association, so they are, without
exception, selected together as a single unit.

PR:-

Dawkins notion of a meme was taken way beyond its
original intention by others, when in fact it was to serve
as nothing more than a placemarker for whatever theory might
show up in the future that might be able to account for the
explanatory gap.

JE:-
The common misuse of the meme concept mirrors
the same logical error as independent gene misuse:
the assumption of an independent meme fitness.
Not a single, independent meme (or gene) fitness
has ever been observed within nature, yet,
they are both, just commonly assumed to exist!

PR:-

I don't believe you actually understand
Dawkins, John. Dawkins does NOT believe kin selection is
a cure all for all that ails natural selection. If
anything, our refinements in our formal models of natural
selection have only served to deepen the mystery of the
benevolent selfishness we find in ourselves, as opposed
to the "ruthless selfishness" found elsewhere in nature
and predicted by those formal models.

JE:-
IMHO fitness mutualisation can explain the

"benevolent selfishness we find in ourselves",

that was my point.

>snip<

JE:-

> THEN we have to be able to link aggression to an absolute
> and not to just a relative, fitness _increase_.

PR:-

JE:-
Gould and Lewontin's logic was faulty.
A random process is not a testable
causative supposition, i.e. given any
random pattern, nobody can ever test
if a random OR a non random process had
caused it. Thus, only non random processes
can validly be suggested to be causative
within the sciences. The only non random
process we have is Darwinian evolution.
Thus, we either advance testable hypothesis
of how Darwinism MAY have caused the
pattern we wish to explain OR we
propose another testable process to
explain it. What we must NOT do is propose
a non testable random process,like
genetic drift, had caused the observed
pattern.

Darwinians do NOT just "assume that every

feature we find in an organism

must necessarily be adaptive" they
simply advance, valid, testable hypothesis
of how Darwinism may have caused
them. This is how all the sciences
work! The amount of imaginative thinking,
testing and rethinking is just enormous.
Belittling all this valid hard work
and then, just end up substituting it with
a non testable assumption of a random
process as validly causative, is beneath contempt.
Darwinians insist, like all the sciences
insist, there must be a REASONABLE explanation.
Once we start dumping testable views
for a preferred belief, we dump science.

Fitness neutrality is a useful modelling assumption
simply because we can always measure a significant
deviation from it, that is all. Assuming that
1) it actually exists within nature 2) causes
evolution is simply, not rational.

> PR:-

> Evolutionary
> theory is nothing more than a testable view of absolute fitness.

PR:-

True. But it currently comes up short in the human nature
department.

JE:-
Please provide one specific example we
can base this discussion around.

>snip<

> JE:-

> Enjoying relative gains while suffering an absolute loss
> is the very height of stupidity. Man can be so stupid, but
> nature never can.

PR:-

JE:-
Can't you imagine a situation where an
adaptation just fails, or even produces
a massive loss in fitness? My argument
is that 9/11 is just such a case.

> JE:-

> Like the grouse, our aggression levels must be linked
> to certain environmental indicators, especially within
> the food we eat. Today, that food, like our super tribal
> size, is so divorced from our normal biological adaptation,
> and the food so lacking in micro nutrients, we end up stepping
> on our aggression accelerator because of poor nutrition and our
> aggression brake because of the huge quantities we eat, at
> the same time (!), experiencing massive mood swings
> in the process.

PR:-

Ah. So that's it. Its all becasue we are eating the wrong
food, not because we have become a little too objective for
our own good, eh?

JE:-
If we were "a little too objective for
our own good" then I would not have
to argue against everybody here,
that just making a relative benefit increase
at an absolute cost is NOT a benefit
to ANYBODY, even the "winner".

PR:-

Better cut down on those twinkies, eh?
And, its a physical explanation so its much more "scientific",
no doubt. :)

JE:-
If you had grasped the gravity of principle that
Watson & Moss demonstrated over 40 years ago: that
aggression levels finely tune fitness mutualisation,
then maybe you would not take the testable hypothesis
that something similar is happening within our
populations as just a joke..

> PR:-
> The BBC just did a report on terrorism. This was a different one from
> the television documentary on the roots of terrorism. Based on
> interviews with the half a dozen or so Palestinian terrorists who
> survived their suicide missions the motive was 'To avenge the
> misery of humiliation', not to gain material advantages, or even
> to gain favour in the hereafter, etc.

> JE:-
> Lose of face is a basic territorial no,no.

PR:-

But its not what others think of us that is the real motive
behind what we do. Its WHAT WE THINK OF OURSELVES that
lies at the core of our mental health.

JE:-
I formally put it to you that you
don't know which was causative. How
would you test your proposition,
above? You firstly have to separate out
the view that what we think of ourselves
is entirely dependent on how others
view us. We are a social species!

PR:-

Why do think you
and I are so obsessed with winning the day. Its because
we have ego needs that other species do not share.

JE:-
Science can employ the ego as a servant
for the truth, if and only if, contesting
views are testable. If you prove me wrong,
despite my ego hurting, I benefit because
I learn the truth. I make a relative loss
for an absolute gain; a real bargain.

PR:-

Take away our need for self-esteem and you would end up like
other social species, like lions, who are able to just
sit around snapping at an occasional fly once they've
filled their bellies and screwed their mates. There are
motivational factors in man that go way beyond anything
that can be explained in terms of our normal notions of
adaptiveness.

JE:-
I agree that we have many motivations that
we are free to create for ourselves; aggression
is NOT one of them!

> JE:-

> Males fight for a psychological (status) as well
> as a physical territory. The larger the super
> tribe the larger both have to be.

PR:-

JE:-
I suggest that such "sacrifices" are
just a mechanical result of an adaptation that
may no longer works, or they are the result of a
risk that is low, actually becoming a reality.

Males commonly RISK "their social status, their
well-being" for a future gain, that is what they are
adapted to do. Males have a higher absolute fitness
potential than most females but consequently,
they must accept more risk, particularly for
injury or even, death. These will be linked to
emotion. Thus males die in droves during a war
because their high levels of emotion blind
their minds to the risk. The fact that
religious stories help to rationalise this
emotional blinding, helps to serve natures
intentions.

> JE:-

> A male
> who loses face, loses male/male status and
> thus access to females, mostly reducing fitness,
> so he is programmed by stress to fight back.

PR:-

JE:-
Emotionally, we act like caged animals.
When cornered, animals often fight to the
death because they have nowhere to retreat,
to. Parrots may pull all their feathers
out and mice may eat their own young
when under intense stress. Normally, this
stress alters the density of animal populations
forcing them to spread out
producing a fitness mutualising effect on
the ecosystem. If they are caged, it
can't work so the stress just becomes
maladaptive.

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 24, 2003, 1:24:45 PM5/24/03

John Edser wrote:

>>JE:-
>>IF we are to be able to validly suggest psychological
>>causes as subsets of biology and thus evolutionary theory
>>(Dawkins memetic view is just a clumsy attempt to do so)
>
>
> PR:-
> No. Dawkins memetic view was an open admission that you
> simply can't get from natural selection to human nature
> via any direct route, not even if you include Hamiltonian
> notions.
>
> JE:-
> Dawkins placed a useful, inheritable,
> sub level (meme) between a complex phenotype
> (aggression etc) and genes that may provide
> heritability for it. What he failed to
> understand was that, now memes must be selected
> before genes can be, so fitness at the gene
> level can only serve fitness at the meme level
> of selection.

You are again assuming more than
Dawkins' original intent. He has done nothing more
than assume that you can't get from the theory of
natural selection as it is currently understood
to human nature by any known direct route, and
has done nothing more than offer a term to act
as a temporary placemarker for whatever its going
to take to fill the explanatory void. Dawkins
offers no details as to what such a theory might
look like.

My own theory simply accepts that there has been a
trade off, a benificial increase in cognitive objectivity
that more than compensates for a coresponding maladaptive
increase in valutive objectivity that follows along behind
it in the form of an increase in non-self-serving concern
for non-related others (e.g., a bird with a broken wing,
the whales, etc.) and an increased volatility in
self-concern (i.e., self-worth) underlying the emotion
of guilt, as just one of its many facets. Its in our
genes selfish interest to accept the bad along with the
good because the good outweighs the bad. This is also
a meme theory, if you think about it John, but one
divorced of the preconceptions of what it must look like
entertained by yourself and folks like Ms. Blackmore.

> Thus, selfish genes must serve
> selfish memes, logically debunking
> (Hamilton's) any selfish gene view.
> This logic
> applies to all organism levels of selection
> up to the fertile organism level. Why? Because
> the fertile organism fitness level is the first
> observable additive fitness interface within
> nature. Genomic genes, memes and complex phenotypes
> form just ONE _non_ additive, i.e. dependable
> fitness association, so they are, without
> exception, selected together as a single unit.
>

Genes that give rise to adaptations can not be eliminated
or preserved based on their effects on the organism as
whole?

>
> PR:-
> Dawkins notion of a meme was taken way beyond its
> original intention by others, when in fact it was to serve
> as nothing more than a placemarker for whatever theory might
> show up in the future that might be able to account for the
> explanatory gap.
>
> JE:-
> The common misuse of the meme concept mirrors
> the same logical error as independent gene misuse:
> the assumption of an independent meme fitness.
> Not a single, independent meme (or gene) fitness
> has ever been observed within nature, yet,
> they are both, just commonly assumed to exist!
>

No. But anomalies have been observed. And some folks postulate
ideas as to how one might go about addressing those anomalies.
I've offered one in which 'an increase in cognitive objectivity
"facilitates" an increase in valuative objectivity IRRESPECTIVE
OF ITS ADAPTIVENESS. This is similar to Kohlberg's hypothesis
of moral development being parasitie on cogntive development in
the individual, only applied to cultural evolution (a memetic
theory more in the spirit of Dawkins' original intent, IMHO).

'Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/Kirk.htm

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 25, 2003, 7:02:57 PM5/25/03

John Edser wrote:

>
> PR:-
> True. But it currently comes up short in the human nature
> department.
>
> JE:-
> Please provide one specific example we
> can base this discussion around.
>

1. Hillary's climbing of Mt. Everest.

"Its not about the mountain. Its about what the
mountain tells you about yourself" (Edmund Hillary)

2. Suicide being the second leading cause of death among
teenagers. Especially troubling since they have not
yet reached their reproductive prime.

3. The warm emotional response most of us have to the moral
maxim:

'Love your neighbor as you love yourself'.

> JE:-
> Can't you imagine a situation where an
> adaptation just fails, or even produces
> a massive loss in fitness? My argument
> is that 9/11 is just such a case.
>

Since most species have gone extinct I would think imagination
wouldn't be much necessary for this one.

>
> JE:-
> If we were "a little too objective for
> our own good" then I would not have
> to argue against everybody here,
> that just making a relative benefit increase
> at an absolute cost is NOT a benefit
> to ANYBODY, even the "winner".
>

You're confusing cognitive objectivity with valuative objectivity.
The former is likely to be adaptive, the latter, which forms
the basis for morality, is maladpative, at least to the extent
that our formal models of natural selection carry any wait
(e.g., Smith's notion of ESS).

>
> PR:-
> But its not what others think of us that is the real motive
> behind what we do. Its WHAT WE THINK OF OURSELVES that
> lies at the core of our mental health.
>
> JE:-
> I formally put it to you that you
> don't know which was causative. How
> would you test your proposition,
> above?

Its "the best explanation" for why humans have been observed
to sacrifice their social status simply to "do the right
thing" on numerous occasions (Michael Moor's little speel
at the academy awards).

Are you saying that you yourself would never
consider abandoning your public image to simply 'do the
right thing'? Is that why you question it in others?

> You firstly have to separate out
> the view that what we think of ourselves
> is entirely dependent on how others
> view us. We are a social species!
>

Which makes occasions of diliberate social suicide all
the more enigmatic, don't you agree?

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 25, 2003, 7:02:56 PM5/25/03

John Edser wrote:

>
> JE:-
> IMHO fitness mutualisation can explain the
> "benevolent selfishness we find in ourselves",
> that was my point.
>

How does fitness mutualisation differ from symbiosis?

>
> JE:-
> Gould and Lewontin's logic was faulty.
> A random process is not a testable
> causative supposition, i.e. given any
> random pattern, nobody can ever test
> if a random OR a non random process had
> caused it.

What does that have to do with their claim that theorists such as
yourself have difficulty imagining anything other than adpative
explanations to put forward for testing?

> Thus, we either advance testable hypothesis
> of how Darwinism MAY have caused the
> pattern we wish to explain OR we
> propose another testable process to
> explain it.

What "test" did Darwin himself propose when he published 'Origins'?

>
> Darwinians do NOT just "assume that every
> feature we find in an organism
> must necessarily be adaptive" they
> simply advance, valid, testable hypothesis
> of how Darwinism may have caused
> them.

That may well be, but the number of testable non-adaptionist
explanations seem pretty slim, so far. Its not a matter of
logic, but of observation on their behalf, one I totally
agree with.

I recently attended a conference in Montreal in which I was
the only guy in a roomful of some thirty profs who entertained
even the possibility that moraltiy might actually be maladatpive.
Talk about feeling lonely. Except for Matt Ridley, that is,
but only in a private talk with me after the meeting.

> This is how all the sciences
> work! The amount of imaginative thinking,
> testing and rethinking is just enormous.

Actually, its not. These older positivist notion have been
severely criticized by the likes of Bhaskar, Manicas and
Secord, Harre, Hansen, Brown, numerous others. What we
now understand about science that we didn't some fourty
years ago is that what science is mostly about is maximizing
explanatory coherence. Charles Sander's Pierce was the first
to put this forward in a cohenent thesis. But guys like
Toulmin and Kuhn have done much to increase its public
awareness.

Don't get me wrong. Testability is definitely a good thing.
Its just that its not a necessary thing, at least not initially.
What we are usually looking for is good cognitive fit, such as
Mr. Darwin's realization that "the best explanation" (Harman,
Lycan, Pierce, Thagard, etc.) for the diversity obseved in
isolated geographical regions (e.g., the Galapogos) was the
theory of natural selection rather than the creationist
account, in which such an observalbe feature would have to
be explained ad hod.

> Belittling all this valid hard work
> and then, just end up substituting it with
> a non testable assumption of a random
> process as validly causative, is beneath contempt.
> Darwinians insist, like all the sciences
> insist, there must be a REASONABLE explanation.
> Once we start dumping testable views
> for a preferred belief, we dump science.
>

But your notion of REASONABLE is coming from "an extrinsic philsophy
of science that is now some [fifty] years out of date" (Sigmund
Koch). Much of it was an offshoot of P. W. Bridgman's operationalism,
divised to assist IN PHYSICS. Bridgman himself was appauled at the
way folks glombed onto this notion applying it way beyond
its orignal intent, and spend the last two decades of his life
trying to undue the damage.

'The scientific method, to the extent there is any such thing,
is simply doing one's damnedest with one's mind, NO HOLDS
BARRED' (P. W. Bridgman).

>>JE:-

>>Evolutionary
>>theory is nothing more than a testable view of absolute fitness.
>

Its nice when you can devise one. But if a single idea can account
for myriads of unexplained details, you're just about the only guy
I know of who would consider it "unscientific" to assume it to be
a reasonable hypothesis. Certainty in science went out of fashion
with the demise of Newtonian mechanics. That and the demise of
foundationalism in epistemology, I suppose.

John Edser

unread,

May 25, 2003, 7:02:59 PM5/25/03

>snip<

PR:-

Genes that give rise to adaptations can not be eliminated
or preserved based on their effects on the organism as
whole?

JE:-
No, Genes that give rise to adaptations can only be eliminated
or preserved based on their effects on one organism as
whole, i.e. one genomic gene fitness, ANY genomic
gene fitness, exactly = one organism fitness because
genomic genes cannot be independently selected.
The idea that selfish genes can promote organism
fitness altruism is just a logical absurdity.

> PR:-
> Dawkins notion of a meme was taken way beyond its
> original intention by others, when in fact it was to serve
> as nothing more than a placemarker for whatever theory might
> show up in the future that might be able to account for the
> explanatory gap.

> JE:-
> The common misuse of the meme concept mirrors
> the same logical error as independent gene misuse:
> the assumption of an independent meme fitness.
> Not a single, independent meme (or gene) fitness
> has ever been observed within nature, yet,
> they are both, just commonly assumed to exist!
>

No. But anomalies have been observed.

JE:-
What anomalies?

>snip<

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105

ed...@ozemail.com.au

John Edser

unread,

May 26, 2003, 1:28:31 PM5/26/03

> JE:-
> IMHO fitness mutualisation can explain the
> "benevolent selfishness we find in ourselves",
> that was my point.

PR:-

How does fitness mutualisation differ from symbiosis?

JE:-
Symbiosis refers to a mutual but not necessarily
equal exchange of anything that helps to sustain
survival, e.g. energy, nutrients or shelter etc,
it does not refer to a mutual _fitness_ exchange.
While survival is important, all it can do
is limit reproductive rates. It is reproduction
that is maximised within Darwinian reasoning, NOT
survival.

Many polygenetic traits exist for basic survival
mechanisms. This means that the genes for these
systems are independent in how they part code for the
trait but are _not_ independent in _fitness_. This
point is constantly missed by gene centric Neo
Darwinists who try to lump in fitness as just any
other trait, assuming the fitness of such
genomic genes are also independent (form an additive
fitness association between itself and other genes
in the same genome) when it is nothing of the
kind!?!

> JE:-
> Gould and Lewontin's logic was faulty.
> A random process is not a testable
> causative supposition, i.e. given any
> random pattern, nobody can ever test
> if a random OR a non random process had
> caused it.

PR:-

What does that have to do with their claim that theorists such as

yourself have difficulty imagining anything other than adaptive

explanations to put forward for testing?

JE:-
The only other "theory" put forward to
produce evolution within nature, besides
Darwinian natural selection between fertile
organisms is genetic evolution by, "drift".
Since drift is just genetic random sampling
error it is not a valid theory of causation
for evolution, simply because it is _entirely_,
non testable and must always remain so.

One of the reasons that almost
all of the Neo Darwinists here reject
Popper's epistemology eventually, is because
they wish to allow a drift as a valid cause
to evolution within the science of
biology when such an event is, invalid.

Gould's pushing of drift as causative
to evolution in competition to selection
is just absurd. Drift can only be a
_hypothetical_ way that temporal variation
may be validly assumed to be produced.
Since variation, on its own, without
selection, cannot be shown to cause evolution
then the testability of evolution by natural
selection, while assuming just random variation,
has not changed the testability of Darwinian
causation.

Note that no testable theory of evolution
is valid if everything, including just
random changes constitutes valid "evolution",
for obvious reasons: such a view cannot
be refuted, ever! You may as well suppose
witchcraft causes evolution, or suppose
evolution is just a concept out of Star Treck,
like "warp drive" is...

> Thus, we either advance testable hypothesis
> of how Darwinism MAY have caused the
> pattern we wish to explain OR we
> propose another testable process to
> explain it.

PR:-

What "test" did Darwin himself propose when he published 'Origins'?

JE:-
Darwin proposed that species were not fixed
but one species could transmutate into another via
the non random process of natural selection.
This observation, if verified, refuted the accepted
proposition of the day, that species remain fixed.
Note that creationism is not refuted by Darwinian
evolution because it is absolutely, non testable.
No observation can validly verify or refute
creationism. Note also, the fixed and evolving
species were then and are today, the only two
TESTABLE ideas on the table so that observing the
transmutation of species was a _unique_ observation
for Darwinian evolution by natural selection.
If anybody has a better, testable idea, then
GREAT, lets hear it...

> JE:-

> Darwinians do NOT just "assume that every
> feature we find in an organism
> must necessarily be adaptive" they
> simply advance, valid, testable hypothesis
> of how Darwinism may have caused
> them.

PR:-

That may well be, but the number of testable non-adaptionist
explanations seem pretty slim, so far. Its not a matter of
logic, but of observation on their behalf, one I totally
agree with.

JE:-
Pretty slim? They are non existent!

Darwinian organism selection and genetic
drift are all we have. The latter is just
non testable and thus, not a valid _theory_
of evolution.

Just an observation without a logical,
rational and testable explanation
means nothing at all within the sciences,
i.e. it means no more than an observed
mole on the nose can validly mean that
a women is a witch.

PR:-

I recently attended a conference in Montreal in which I was
the only guy in a roomful of some thirty profs who entertained

even the possibility that morality might actually be maladaptive.

Talk about feeling lonely. Except for Matt Ridley, that is,
but only in a private talk with me after the meeting.

JE:-
The Neo Darwinian view of adaptation
is entirely different to the Darwinian
view because Neo Darwinism adaptation is based on
just an _assumed_ independent genomic gene fitness
allowing Hamiltonian logic. Not a single independent
genomic gene fitness has ever been observed
within nature! These guys are living
in a wonderland of their own making, while
at the same time, constantly denying that

Darwinian fitness 1) exists 2) is heritable,

within nature and have been getting away with
it for over 50 years (about the time I have
been epistemologically," out of date").

"Morality" can be regarded a Darwinian adaptation that
allowed a cognitive understanding of fitness mutualisation
between members of the same species. Mutualised gains
maximise absolute gains while minimising costs, for
all participants but not necessarily EQUALLY, that
is the rub! If this process was equal, selection
could not operate! The morality of equality, that
we were all taught, is absolutely wrong because it
can lead to the maximisation of just relative gains
while decreasing absolute gains, i.e. it is the height
of stupidity. Man does this all the time (look carefully
at common Neo Darwinian arguments re: fitness) but
nature is not so stupid.

> PR:-

> This is how all the sciences
> work! The amount of imaginative thinking,
> testing and rethinking is just enormous.

PR:-

JE:-
The above intellectual "achievements" were all
purchased with the destruction of testability, i.e.
all of the above are just post modern nonsense.
Anybody can say anything they like as long as
testability is thrown out!?! It could represent
that another Dark Age may be approaching.

PR:-

Don't get me wrong. Testability is definitely a good thing.
Its just that its not a necessary thing, at least not initially.

JE:-
It is the aim of all the sciences!

PR:-

What we are usually looking for is good cognitive fit, such as
Mr. Darwin's realization that "the best explanation" (Harman,
Lycan, Pierce, Thagard, etc.) for the diversity obseved in
isolated geographical regions (e.g., the Galapogos) was the
theory of natural selection rather than the creationist
account, in which such an observalbe feature would have to
be explained ad hod.

JE:-
Socratic thinking failed to include testability.
It is testability that would have saved him from
the Hemlock, saved witches from being burnt and
early democracy from the dictatorship of
the group (group selection).

Testability is the ONLY thing that separates
science from everything else. We can have
logical, well formed reasonable Socratic ideas
that are ust non testable, nonsense. Science
can deal with _some_ non testable views, if and
only if:

1) Discussion moves them towards testability
and not away from it.

2) Not a single non testable idea is allowed to
challenge a testable idea as causative, within
the sciences until it becomes, testable.

> JE:-

PR:_

But your notion of REASONABLE is coming from "an extrinsic philsophy
of science that is now some [fifty] years out of date" (Sigmund
Koch).

JE:-
All the best work within the biological sciences
has been produced by endless contesting between
testable hypothesis. Which bone may have evolved
into whatever from whatever, is the entire life of
scores of honest, hard working researchers, who
actually achieved something for the sciences.
Devaluing what they have achieved and how they
achieved it is just, despicable.

I am very happy to be "some [fifty] years out of
date" but I don't think Karl Popper was. Popper
was the only modern thinker to attempt to be
self consistent. All the others fall into Epimenides
paradox, eventually. I am happy to evolve the proposition
of what is and what is not testable, but junking it is
utter insanity.

PR:-

Much of it was an offshoot of P. W. Bridgman's operationalism,
divised to assist IN PHYSICS. Bridgman himself was appauled at the
way folks glombed onto this notion applying it way beyond
its orignal intent, and spend the last two decades of his life
trying to undue the damage.

'The scientific method, to the extent there is any such thing,
is simply doing one's damnedest with one's mind, NO HOLDS
BARRED' (P. W. Bridgman).

JE:-
The above is a joke compared to Popper's
epistemology. I can't imagine how anybody can
take Bridgman seriously.

>>JE:-
>>Evolutionary
>>theory is nothing more than a testable view of absolute fitness.

PR:-

Its nice when you can devise one.

JE:-
"Nice"? It is essential.

One exists. Because you may not be
able to identify it does not mean
that it doesn't, exist.

PR:-

But if a single idea can account
for myriads of unexplained details,
you're just about the only guy
I know of who would consider it
"unscientific" to assume it to be
a reasonable hypothesis.

JE:-
Good god man, any non testable
idea can "explain" EVERYTHING, that
is why they are so popular with
the mentally lazy and/or the inductive
deficient...

PR:-

Certainty in science went out of fashion
with the demise of Newtonian mechanics. That
and the demise of foundationalism in epistemology,
I suppose.

JE:-
The view above is just more post modern propaganda,
which I find nsulting. How can you even entertain
such a view within a science list like sbe?

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105

Australia

ed...@ozemail.com.au

John Edser

unread,

May 26, 2003, 1:28:32 PM5/26/03

> PR:-
> True. But it currently comes up short in the human nature
> department.

> JE:-
> Please provide one specific example we
> can base this discussion around.
>

1. Hillary's climbing of Mt. Everest.

"Its not about the mountain. Its about what the
mountain tells you about yourself" (Edmund Hillary)

2. Suicide being the second leading cause of death among
teenagers. Especially troubling since they have not
yet reached their reproductive prime.

3. The warm emotional response most of us have to the moral
maxim:

'Love your neighbor as you love yourself'.

JE:-
Climbing a mountain, like winning a horse
race, preselects valuable survival skills
that can be psychological and/or physical,
which also allows the winner status points.
This provides them with a greater access to
females if they are males. Within a trading
group, these skills become mutually beneficial
_because_ they are traded.

Suicide in teenagers is predicted if
they suffer excess stress. Being the lowest
in the male status orders, they suffer
the highest levels of distress. In nature
they would migrate or attempt to fight,
even to the death, high status males. If they cannot
do either, stress levels may become unbearable.
Mostly, drugs like alcohol are used to dampen
high stress levels.

Young males may take huge
risks in defending their tribe, in order
to climb the status ladder and relieve their
stress. Continuous stress can cause disease
and death. Most of the drunk derelicts are
males. It is males who suffer more when they
lose but can gain more, when they win. This
strategy is mutualised against females,
who have a very conservative fecundity rate.

Compared to females, males carry a fecundity
deficit which they must make up later in life.
This "catch up" mechanism requires polygamy.
Males just play a waiting game. For many
years they can remain in the reproductive wilderness.
As they move up the status and territory ladder,
they are given more constant access to a number of females
where they attempt to make up their fecundity deficit.

"Love your neighbour as you love yourself" is a sane
plea for mutual gains. It reduces fighting
and thus reduces costs to everybody. Winning but
paying an enormous premium to do so, such that
it pays an absolute fitness loss is avoided by
such a morality.

> JE:-
> Can't you imagine a situation where an
> adaptation just fails, or even produces
> a massive loss in fitness? My argument
> is that 9/11 is just such a case.

PR:-

Since most species have gone extinct I would think imagination
wouldn't be much necessary for this one.

JE:-
The male status and territory system
failed in this case, as it has done within
every war. The gains are simply, not worth
the costs. However this does not stop the
majority of people! When distress levels
are high enough males will do almost
anything to reduce them. The pity is
Moslems don't drink or play much sport, proven
ways to lower male distress. Freedom of trade,
drugs and sport are common ways used to
relieve male stress in mostly, a non
destructive way within oversized, human,
super tribes.

> JE:-
> If we were "a little too objective for
> our own good" then I would not have
> to argue against everybody here,
> that just making a relative benefit increase
> at an absolute cost is NOT a benefit
> to ANYBODY, even the "winner".

PR:-

You're confusing cognitive objectivity with valuative objectivity.

JE:-
Please explain the difference.

>snip<

>
> PR:-
> But its not what others think of us that is the real motive
> behind what we do. Its WHAT WE THINK OF OURSELVES that
> lies at the core of our mental health.

> JE:-
> I formally put it to you that you
> don't know which was causative. How
> would you test your proposition,
> above?

PR:-

Its "the best explanation" for why humans have been observed
to sacrifice their social status simply to "do the right
thing" on numerous occasions (Michael Moor's little speel
at the academy awards).

JE:-
I don't think it is "the best explanation"
simply because it has not been tested to
be so.

>snip<

> JE:-

> You firstly have to separate out
> the view that what we think of ourselves
> is entirely dependent on how others
> view us. We are a social species!

PR:-

Which makes occasions of diliberate social suicide all
the more enigmatic, don't you agree?

JE:-
Suicide is extremely rare as a % of the population.
All it shows to me is that we are trading in fitness
gains, mediated by what we can identify as "stress",
where spectacular fitness gains come at a real cost.
This cost may be an increased risk of injury or even,
death, as it is with most males when they are motivated
by stress increases. If we wish to avoid aggression we
must identify the systems that increase our stress
levels, as they were identified in the grouse
study.

The mutual gain here, is an UNEQUAL increase in absolute
fitness for the majority, i.e. not necessarily in
all cases. When the system fails it may provide
sudden, spectacular, decreases in fitness all
round, e.g. war.

Regards,

E Kurtz

unread,

May 26, 2003, 1:28:33 PM5/26/03

"Phil Roberts, Jr." <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote

>
> Observation: The species in which rationality is most developed is
> also the one in which individuals have the greatest difficulty in
> maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth, often going to
> extraordinary lengths in doing so (e.g., Evel Knievel, celibate monks,
> self endangering Greenpeacers, etc.).

But this begs the question - how do you know that this is the
motivation?

How many Evel Knievel's are there, or anyone close? If
self-endangering extroverts were common, his would not be a household
name.

The stated goal of the monastic life is development and
intensification of religious experience, which sex subverts, hence the
celibacy - how do you know that self-worth has anything to do with it?
On the contrary, within this sensibility, pride is a sin to be
mortified.

Greenpeace activists - whatever one thinks of them - give as their
fundamental motive a reverence for life; most of them are well
educated and could get all their esteem needs met through the ususal
proces of professional development - but they don't. Why? Could it be
that their stated motives are their actual motives?

One could just as easily argue that seeking the admiration of others
is our fundamental motive. Look, for example, at the amount of time
and effort expended by wealthy people to let the world *know* that
they are wealthy. Entire industries exist to assist them in this task.
Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely.

> Hypothesis: Rationality is antagonistic to psycho centric stability (i.e.,
> maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth).
>
> Explanation #1: In much the manner reasoning allows for the subordination
> of lower emotional concerns and values (pain, fear, anger, sex, etc.)
> to more global concerns (concern for the self as a whole), so too,
> these more global concerns and values can themselves become
> reevaluated and subordinated to other more global, more objective
> considerations. And if this is so, and assuming that emotional
> disorder emanates from a deficiency in self-worth resulting from
> precisely this sort of experientially based reevaluation, then it can
> reasonably be construed as a natural malfunction resulting from
> one's rational faculties functioning a tad too well.

Reasoning does not exist in a vacuum. You have to reason *from* one or
more premises to arrive at a conclusion.
The first type of subordination you describe is rational in the sense
that the "global concerns" addressed are no different from the
concerns for which the lower reactions (pain, fear, anger etc)
originally evolved. Its just that survival sometimes can be secured by
consciously ignoring the lower reactions, an option not open to more
primitive creatures. The basis of reasoning here is just survival, and
thus is unproblematic from the point of view of TOE.

But what is the basis of reasoning that makes survival problematic?
What are the "more global, more objective considerations". The
justification for personal survival can never be "objective" or
"experientially based". It is invariably a value judgement, or simply
a blind assertion. This is not to say that the question cannot be
asked, but why answer in the negative?

Michael Ragland

unread,

May 27, 2003, 1:43:27 PM5/27/03

I think you make valid points Kurtz.

Michael

Stephen Hawking quotes from Larry King LIve Weekend December 25, 1999,

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 27, 2003, 1:43:25 PM5/27/03

John Edser wrote:

>
> JE:-
> The view above is just more post modern propaganda,
> which I find nsulting. How can you even entertain
> such a view within a science list like sbe?
>

You've overwhelmed me with your unimpeachable arguments.

Uncle

galathaea

unread,

May 27, 2003, 1:43:26 PM5/27/03

"John Edser" <ed...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message news:<ba8hg7$4bj$1...@darwin.ediacara.org>...

> One of the greatest contributions to the debate
> on the biological functionality of aggression,
> was V. C. Wynne-Edwards. His book: "Animal
> Dispersion In Relation To Social Behaviour"
> was first printed in 1962. He assumed group
> selection as his main inductive premise,
> which was a pity because it is just
> logically, false.

How is the selective process on groups a logically false proposition.
There are known mechanisms of selection on individual cells, cellular
colonies, multicellular organisms, and superorganism, and it seems
scientifically feasible that a selection function can be attributed to
any collection, though obviously its strength is found in the
correlation of the selection criteria to properties found in the
collection (which is the basis for evolutionary studies of social
structures). Otherwise, how can one understand, for example, soldier
ants and their sterility?

I'm just pointing this out, because I think it might be a bit unfair
to dismiss Wynne-Edwards reasoning so quickly, even if you sympathize
with the conclusions.

John Edser

unread,

May 28, 2003, 11:49:39 AM5/28/03

galathaea wrote:-

> JE:-

G:-

any collection,..

JE:-
The principle of natural selection
is not the same as the Darwinian
theory of evolution that employs it.
The principle can suppose to naturally
select just about anything you wish
because it is not a testable
theory of nature, it is just one, possible,
logical component of such a theory.
Darwinism only assumes that the natural
selective principle is operating on
independent, fertile organism units
within populations of similar units.

Only Darwinian theory has been validly
confirmed within nature. Natural
selection operating on inanimate
objects have never been documented
within nature.

G:-
..though obviously its strength is found in the

correlation of the selection criteria to properties found in the
collection (which is the basis for evolutionary studies of social
structures).

JE:-
The 1st additive fitness level documented
within nature is at the fertile organism
level of selection. This means that everything
below that level is _dependently_ selected
at just this one, level. Only competing
fertile organisms are 1stly selected.
Populations or meta populations of fertile
organism units are only 2ndly selected. Thus
selection at the population level can only
go with, and not against, selection at the
1st additive fitness level. This simple
logical argument is the reason why classical
group selection, the type inductively
assumed by V. C. Wynne-Edwards always
fails.

G:-

Otherwise, how can one understand, for example, soldier
ants and their sterility?

JE:-
The simple answer is that ALL the genes
within a sterile eusocial are sub selected
within the fertile parents because the sterile
cast cannot pass on any genes. Hamiltonian
selection requires an independent genomic
gene fitness to exist within nature. No
such fitness has ever been documented.
Hamilton just deleted at least two critical
constants within his mathematics. When
they are included, Hamilton's rule
prohibits kin selection. I am happy
to review the mathematics that demonstrates
this is the case. Neo Darwinians have
been consistently inductively misusing
simplified models of Darwinism, for over 50 years
but entirely refuse to admit they have done so.

>snip<

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 28, 2003, 11:49:33 AM5/28/03

First, thanks for responding to my post. I get very
little opportunity to discuss this theory and am
tickled pink to talk to anyone in a public forum, even
someone such as yourself who might be a tad bit skeptical.

E Kurtz wrote:

> "Phil Roberts, Jr." <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote
>
>> Observation: The species in which rationality is most developed is
>> also the one in which individuals have the greatest difficulty in
>> maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth, often going to
>> extraordinary lengths in doing so (e.g., Evel Knievel, celibate monks,
>> self endangering Greenpeacers, etc.).
>
>
> But this begs the question - how do you know that this is the
> motivation?
>

Based on observations of my own mind, and the assumption that my own
mind is not atypical. Its similar to the manner in which a physical
scientist only reports on features of nature he views as inter-
subjectively reproducible.

There is no value-judgment more important to man -- no factor
more decisive in his psychological development and motivation --
than the estimate he passes on himself. This estimate is
ordinarily experienced by him, not in the form of a conscious,
verbalized judgment, but in the form of a feeling, a feeling
that can be hard to isolate and identify because he experiences
it constantly: it is part of every other feeling, it is involved
in his every emotional response. ... it is the single most
significant key to his behavior. (Nathaniel Branden).

Have I made a claim about the human mind that you feel does not
apply to yours? Can you think of
something you've said or done in the past year or so that didn't
have self-worth as a significant component in its motivational
hierarchy? How much actually thinking have done about this
particular matter?

> How many Evel Knievel's are there, or anyone close? If
> self-endangering extroverts were common, his would not be a household
> name.

Tons, I would say. I still remember
Sugar Ray Leonard coming out of retirement in spite of
millions in the bank and frequent problems with a detached
retina. Evel Knievel had actually made funeral arrangements,
and was 90% certain he wasn't going to survive, but had given
his word. If you consider such behavior as the tip of the
iceburg then you need a theory like mine. On the other hand,
if you believe these to be extremely rare flukes unworthy of
serious concern to an evolutionary theorists, then I don't
really know how to answer, other than that it is precisely
the hard exceptions that are supposed to drive a scientist
to the brink.

Of course, there is also the little
problem of the widely acknowledged and to many profoundly
disturbing schism between the natural sciences and the humanites.
Cosmides and Toolby, the bible according to evolutionary
psychology does not include a single mention of self-esteem,
self-worth, etc. Based on the mind I have immediate access
to, its difficult to imagine a more myopic approach to
understanding human nature:

From its earliest days of the experimental pioneers, man's
stipulation that psychology be adequate to science outweighed
his commitment that it be adequate to man" (Vol. p. 783).
And even more crucially, Koch went on to point out that
"(psychology) still bases its understanding of vital questions
of method on an extrinsic philosophy of science which (in some
areas) is [fouty] years or more out of date" (Koch, A Study of
a Science, vol 1, p. 788). ('A New Topology for Psychology',
Manicas and Secord)

One of the characteristics of the majority of modern psychological
theories, aside from the arbitrariness of so many of their claims,
is their frequently ponderous _irrelevance_. The cause, both of
the irrelevance and of the arbitrariness, is the evident belief of
their exponents that one can have a science of human nature while
consistently ignoring man's most significant and distinctive attributes.
(Nathaniel Branden).

>
> The stated goal of the monastic life is development and
> intensification of religious experience, which sex subverts, hence the
> celibacy - how do you know that self-worth has anything to do with it?

What would be the evolutionary explanation you would favor to
account for such behavior?

> On the contrary, within this sensibility, pride is a sin to be
> mortified.

You don't think that someone who has spent their entire life striving
to establish a close relationship with God almighty himself
might be in search of a bit of significance?

>
> Greenpeace activists - whatever one thinks of them - give as their
> fundamental motive a reverence for life; most of them are well
> educated and could get all their esteem needs met through the ususal
> proces of professional development - but they don't. Why? Could it be
> that their stated motives are their actual motives?
>

Perhaps. But it doesn't help us much in explaining why they are
doing these things from an evolutionary perspective, at least not
according to a few of the more prominent students of the subject
I'm familiar with.

Quotes:

The identification of individuals as the unit of
selection is a central theme in Darwin's thought.
This idea underliees his most radical claim: that
evolution is purposeless and without inherent
direction. ... Evolution does not recognize the 'good'
of the ecosystem' or even the 'good of the species.'
Any harmony or stability is only an indirect result of
individuals relentlessly pursuing their own self-interest
-- in modern parlance, getting more of their genes into
future generations by greater reproductive success.
Individuals are the unit of selection; the "struggle
for existence" is a matter among individuals (Stephen
Gould).

Clearly from a gene's point of view it is worthwhile
to deprive a large number of distant relatives in order
to extract a small reproductive advantage. (W. D. Hamilton)

Humans and baboons have evolved by natural selection. If you
look at the way natural selection works, it seems to follow
that anything that has evolved by natural selection should
be selfish. Therefore we must expect that when we go and
look at the behaviour of baboons, humans, and all other
living creatures, we shall find it to selfish. If we find
that our expectation is wrong, if we observe that human
behavior is truly altruistic, the we shall be faced with
something puzzling, SOMETHING THAT NEEDS EXPLAINING
[my caps] (Richard Dawkins).

Even with qualifications regarding the possibility
of group selection, the portrait of the biologically
based social personality that emerges is one of
predominantly self-serving opportunism _even_for_
_the_most_social_species_, for all species in which
there is genetic competition among the social co-
operators, that is, where all members have the chance
of parenthood (Donald Campbell).

It is ironic that Ashley Montagu should criticize Lorentz as
'a direct descendent of the "nature red in tooth and claw" thinkers
of the nineteenth century....' As I understand Lorentz' view of
evolution, he would be very much at one with Montagu in rejecting
the implications of Tennyson's phrase. Unlike both of them, I
think 'nature red in tooth and claw' sums up our modern understanding
of natural selection admirably. (Dawkins).

> One could just as easily argue that seeking the admiration of others
> is our fundamental motive. Look, for example, at the amount of time
> and effort expended by wealthy people to let the world *know* that
> they are wealthy. Entire industries exist to assist them in this task.
> Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely.
>

I think that what others think of us is a major source of what we
think of ourselves. But that is only reasonable in a "rational"
creature aware that others opinions are likely to be more objective
than one's own.

But in the end, I would still maintain that its what you think of
yourself that constitutes the bottom line where emotional health
is concerned:

If what you are saying is true, then how would you account for the
innumeralbe occasions in which folks have been observed to sacrifice
their social standing simply to 'do the "right" thing'? I know of
at least two occasions in my own life where I have done things that
seriously damaged the opinions of important others about me, but
that I felt compelled to do simply because I could not have lived
with myself if I had not. Are you saying that you yourself believe
you would be encapable of such a sacrifice?

'Its not about the mountain. Its about what the mountain tells
you about yourself.' (Edmund Hillary)

>
>>Hypothesis: Rationality is antagonistic to psycho centric stability (i.e.,
>> maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth).
>>
>>Explanation #1: In much the manner reasoning allows for the subordination
>> of lower emotional concerns and values (pain, fear, anger, sex, etc.)
>> to more global concerns (concern for the self as a whole), so too,
>> these more global concerns and values can themselves become
>> reevaluated and subordinated to other more global, more objective
>> considerations. And if this is so, and assuming that emotional
>> disorder emanates from a deficiency in self-worth resulting from
>> precisely this sort of experientially based reevaluation, then it can
>> reasonably be construed as a natural malfunction resulting from
>> one's rational faculties functioning a tad too well.
>
>
> Reasoning does not exist in a vacuum. You have to reason *from* one or
> more premises to arrive at a conclusion.
> The first type of subordination you describe is rational in the sense
> that the "global concerns" addressed are no different from the
> concerns for which the lower reactions (pain, fear, anger etc)
> originally evolved. Its just that survival sometimes can be secured by
> consciously ignoring the lower reactions, an option not open to more
> primitive creatures. The basis of reasoning here is just survival, and
> thus is unproblematic from the point of view of TOE.
>

Agreed. Indeed, its the very epitomy of practical rationality (the
rationality of action) referred to as prudence. Prudence has actually
been formalized by students of rationality in the quise of 'the
equal weight criterion:

All these theories [of rational self-interest] also claim that,
in deciding what would be best for someone, we should give equal
weight to all the parts of this person's future. Later events
may be less predictable; and a predictable event should count
for less if it is less likely to happen. But it should not
count for less merely because, if it happens, it will happen
later (Derek Parfit, 'Reasons and Persons').

> But what is the basis of reasoning that makes survival problematic?

In order to look out for your long range interests you need two
crucial factors:

1. An understanding of how short term gain will effect long
term pain

2. The WILL to override the immediate impluse associated with
immediate gain to 'do the "right" thing' in order to benefit
from the foregoing understanding.

I believe this second factor is totally dependent on your capacity to
sympathize with your future self, and 'conceive of it in a strong and
most lively manner' (Hume) sufficient to render this future predicament
more than a hypothetical but a reality. In terms presented in my sketch,
you would have REALIZE rather than merely know.

In addition, you would also have to be able to relativize the values of
the immediate self, reduce them, put them in perspective, or however you
want to talk about it. Again, in a word, you would have to be come more
valuatively objective with regard the interests of your immediate self
relative to your future self.

> What are the "more global, more objective considerations".

I'm assuming that in much the manner you have to relativize the
significance/value you attach to immediate interests in order to
achieve what would be in your long range best interest, we also
tend to empathize and exhibit increased concern for others, and
relativize concern for ourselves manifested in a volatility in
self-worth. I think they're cut from the same cloth, and that
nature simply can not fine tune this capacity to empathize with
one future self and relativize the significance of the immediate
self where its adaptive without also having a bit of leakage of
this process in the capacity to sympathize with others and
relativize ones' own value.

> The
> justification for personal survival can never be "objective" or
> "experientially based".

Actually, I believe that is EXACTLY what we are doing in our
insatiable appetite for self-significating experience. We are
engaged in a life long endeavor to find some sort of objective
vindication for the rationally inordinate sense of self-importance
nature would like us to maintain in order to assure our survival.

Special concern for one's own future would be selected by
evolution: Animals without such concern would be more likely
to die before passing on their genes. Such concern would
remain, as a natural fact, even if we decided that it was not
justified. By thinking hard about the arguments, we might
be able briefly to stun this natural concern. But it would
soon revive... The fact that we have this attitude cannot
therefore be a reason for thinking it justified. Whether
it is justified [i.e. rational] is an open question, waiting

to be answered (Derek Parfit, 'Reasons and Persons').

> It is invariably a value judgement, or simply
> a blind assertion.

I would say in animals it is an unquestioned value. In reasoning
creatures, we require EVIDENCE, although we are certainly heavily
biased in the direction of self-importance. But for many of us,
the bias is no longer strong enough and needs endless reinforcement.
In other words, the evidence of indeterminism many of us suspect
in nature's most rational species is not to be found in the capacity
to change one's mind about what to have for breakfast, in that
we are less and less concerned with staying alive (e.g., the 9/11
terrorists) and more and more concerned with sustaining REASONS
for staying alive.

> This is not to say that the question cannot be

> asked, but why answer in the negative?
>

To maximize explanatory coherence, e.g., the capacity to
explain why Sigmund Freud (quoted in the sketch) would
"gladly sacrifice [his] life for one brief moment of
greatness" or why Wittgenstein considerd killing himself
simply because he viewed his life as worthless. Why should
this amount to a hill of beans for a naturally selected organism
whose genetic blueprints have been endlessly honed to maximize
reproductive success. Aren't you at least a little bit
curious about such matters? What would an organism have
to do before it finally got around to getting your attention?
Or are you suggesting we should simply adopt evolutionary
theory as an irrefutable dogma?

Of course, the price for accepting my own particular
expalantion (i.e., we are becomming too rational for our
own good) is pretty high. You actually have to give up your belief
in life itself, perhaps the world's most extensive religion.
But the explanatory rewards are truly mind boggling. I've
mentioned some of them in my sketch, if you will recall, and
would welcome the opportunity to elaborate should you find the
matter of interest.

Think of it: zillions and zillions of organsims running
around under the hypnotic spell of a single truth, all
these truths identical, and all logically incompatible
with one another: 'My hereditary material is the most
important material on earth; its survival justifies
your frustration, pain, even death'. And you are one of
these organism, living your life in a the thrall of a
logical absurdity (Robert Wright).

William Morse

unread,

May 28, 2003, 11:49:34 AM5/28/03

"John Edser" <ed...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in news:bari33$5oe$1
@darwin.ediacara.org:

>
>>snip<

>
> PR:-
> Genes that give rise to adaptations can not be eliminated
> or preserved based on their effects on the organism as
> whole?
>
> JE:-
> No, Genes that give rise to adaptations can only be eliminated
> or preserved based on their effects on one organism as
> whole, i.e. one genomic gene fitness, ANY genomic
> gene fitness, exactly = one organism fitness because
> genomic genes cannot be independently selected.

I don't understand. Please give an example to illustrate your point.

Yours, Bill Morse

Anon.

unread,

May 28, 2003, 11:49:37 AM5/28/03

Ah, but the type of group selection Wynne-Edwards was advocating was a
"for the good of the species" type of group selection, and apparently
was the accepted view amongst zoologists at the time. He's perhaps
unfortunate in that it was about the time his book was published that
people started to rebel against the idea, and moved towards the more
modern approach you're advocating. Multi-level selection is now well
accepted, but it's a very different theory to what Wynne-Edwards was
advocating - we now separate out the units of selection from the units
of heredity.

Bob

--
Bob O'Hara

Rolf Nevanlinna Institute
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Telephone: +358-9-191 23743
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax: +358-9-191 22 779
WWW: http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/

John Edser

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May 28, 2003, 11:49:40 AM5/28/03

> JE:-
> The view above is just more post modern propaganda,
> which I find nsulting. How can you even entertain
> such a view within a science list like sbe?

PR:-

You've overwhelmed me with your unimpeachable arguments.

JE:-
Was that said tongue in cheek, or for real?

I am not here just to try to win arguments,
my intention is to attempt to defend the
integrity and the dignity of the sciences;
evolutionary theory, in particular.

I simply cannot understand how "academics"
allowed the decay of epistemology over the
last 50 years. Worse, I cannot fathom why
almost nobody here seems to care. Popper still
stands as THE shining light in a growing post
modern Darkness. Just look at the utter mess post
modern epistemology has made of evolutionary
theory....

TomHendricks474

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May 29, 2003, 12:50:17 PM5/29/03

<< There is no value-judgment more important to man -- no factor
more decisive in his psychological development and motivation --
than the estimate he passes on himself. This estimate is
ordinarily experienced by him, not in the form of a conscious,
verbalized judgment, but in the form of a feeling, a feeling
that can be hard to isolate and identify because he experiences
it constantly: it is part of every other feeling, it is involved
in his every emotional response. ... it is the single most
significant key to his behavior. (Nathaniel Branden).

TH
Well I don't think you can simplify like that. LIke a kid that keeps asking why
- you must go further. why is self esteem important. For whom? When?
Couldn't a lot of this be men (and some women) during peak mating periods of
their lives? I would think that young children before puberty, and senior
citizens have less self-esteem issues then those in the dating years. I'd like
to see studies one way or the other.
Sex and reproduction may be a big factor and in men we have to win females - so
that surely is part of it.
Let's have some studies that back up your points.
Psychology has the same science requirements as biology.
And it deserves the same hard scrutiny IMO

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 29, 2003, 12:50:17 PM5/29/03

John Edser wrote:
>
> PR:-
> You've overwhelmed me with your unimpeachable arguments.
>
>
> JE:-
> Was that said tongue in cheek, or for real?
>
> I am not here just to try to win arguments,
> my intention is to attempt to defend the
> integrity and the dignity of the sciences;
> evolutionary theory, in particular.
>
> I simply cannot understand how "academics"
> allowed the decay of epistemology over the
> last 50 years. Worse, I cannot fathom why
> almost nobody here seems to care. Popper still
> stands as THE shining light in a growing post
> modern Darkness. Just look at the utter mess post
> modern epistemology has made of evolutionary
> theory....
>

The folks I have cited (Bhaskar, Kuhn, Toulmin, Feyerabend, Manicas
and Secord, Harre, Brown, Hanson, Polanyi, etc., have absolutely
nothing to do with post modern reconstructivism, a decidedly
philosophical bent. The fact that the criterion of certainty
has been abandoned in favor of the more realistic criterion
of reasonableness has nothing in common with the thesis that
pretty much anything goes (post modernism, as I understand it).

They have arrived at their conclusions
from simply taking a much closer look at the way various scientists
actually came to their conclusions and discovered that it had little
if anything in common with the views of the positivists, which most take
to include Karl Popper. Few if any were concerned with testability,
which is more in the domain of technology. What test did Einstein
propose with the publidation of his 1905 paper (don't confuse with
Eddington's later experiment). According to his biography, relativity
was
an outgrowth of his disatisfaction with the assymetry in some of
James Clerk Maxiwell's equations (not the null results of Michelson/
Morely, as common thought). In other words, he was driven
by AESTHETIC concerns (explanatory elegance). When asked why Pauli's
model of DNA couldn't possibly be correct, Watson's remark was
"Because. It wasn't beautiful".

The difference between modern
views in philosopy of science and those of folks like Popper is
they actually went out and observed how science was being done.
In other words, they applied the techniques of empirical science
to the study of science itself, something you claim to favor.
The result was the falsification of falsificationism.

Again, don't confuse me as arguing that testability is of no value. Its
a HIGHLY VALUED epistemic tool, the gold standard, as a matter of fact.
Its just that its not the only one available, and rarely of concern when
first formulating hypothesese.

BTW, John. On what page of 'Origins' will I find Darwin's "test" proposed?
Are you sure he wasn't at least a bit concerned about the
impracticalities of a test that might take several hundred thousand
years to accomplish? I know he cited human animal breeding, but that
would be an observation rather than a test and, as such, of no value
to an erudite scientist such as yourself.

The real test of evolutionary theory is whether or not organisms behave
as if reproductive fitness were their primary concern. For some stragne
reason you can look at the 9/11 terrorists and convince yourself that
these guys look perfectly ok to you. Given this, I'm curious as to
just what an organism would have to do before it finally got around
to getting your attention, before it finally appeared to have failed
the "test" for what we should expect to find in a naturally selected
world?

John Edser

unread,

May 29, 2003, 12:50:21 PM5/29/03

E Kurtz wrotye:-

> PR:-

> Observation: The species in which rationality is most developed is
> also the one in which individuals have the greatest difficulty in
> maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth, often going to
> extraordinary lengths in doing so (e.g., Evel Knievel, celibate monks,
> self endangering Greenpeacers, etc.).

EK:-

But this begs the question - how do you know that this is the
motivation?

JE:-
Exactly.

EK:-

How many Evel Knievel's are there, or anyone close? If
self-endangering extroverts were common, his would not be a household
name.

JE:-
Of course.

EK:-

The stated goal of the monastic life is development and
intensification of religious experience, which sex subverts, hence the
celibacy - how do you know that self-worth has anything to do with it?

On the contrary, within this sensibility, pride is a sin to be
mortified.

Greenpeace activists - whatever one thinks of them - give as their

fundamental motive a reverence for life; most of them are well
educated and could get all their esteem needs met through the ususal
proces of professional development - but they don't. Why? Could it be
that their stated motives are their actual motives?

One could just as easily argue that seeking the admiration of others

is our fundamental motive. Look, for example, at the amount of time
and effort expended by wealthy people to let the world *know* that
they are wealthy. Entire industries exist to assist them in this task.
Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely.

JE:-
Indeed, yes.

A converse example comes to mind. An English
women who embraced Buddism, remained in a cave
as a solitary hermit, high up in the Himilayas,
for about 12 years. Of course she did not attempt
to hide this from the world. Eventually she become
famous because of it. Being a hermit can really pay,
but it is risky..

When she was interviewed by the Dali Lama she
lamented the status of nuns within her religion.
Women are regarded as "unclean" and like many
religions are banned from certain posts and
do not have equal rights. The Dali Lama
suggest these things take time and to "have
faith". The women criptyically pointed out
that he said this 15 years ago and no progress
had ben made! It appears you can't delete the
questioning, testing, ancient Greek from the
Buddest convert even after 12 years of
contemplating your navel ;-)

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

ed...@ozemail.com.au

> Hypothesis: Rationality is antagonistic to psycho centric stability (i.e.,

> maintaining an adequate sense of self-worth).
>
> Explanation #1: In much the manner reasoning allows for the subordination
> of lower emotional concerns and values (pain, fear, anger, sex, etc.)
> to more global concerns (concern for the self as a whole), so too,
> these more global concerns and values can themselves become
> reevaluated and subordinated to other more global, more objective
> considerations. And if this is so, and assuming that emotional
> disorder emanates from a deficiency in self-worth resulting from
> precisely this sort of experientially based reevaluation, then it can
> reasonably be construed as a natural malfunction resulting from
> one's rational faculties functioning a tad too well.

But what is the basis of reasoning that makes survival problematic?
What are the "more global, more objective considerations". The

justification for personal survival can never be "objective" or

"experientially based". It is invariably a value judgement, or simply
a blind assertion. This is not to say that the question cannot be

John Wilkins

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May 29, 2003, 9:03:56 PM5/29/03

In analytic philosophy this is most often associated with the so-called
Gettier counterexamples, where something that was justified (made
reasonably certain) true and believed was not knowledge. But the attack
on the idea that knowledge required certainty was best made by
Wittgenstein in _On Certainty_.

Postmodernism is a kind of "anything goes", but it is easy to overstate
this. Caricatures don't help. Some postmodern views have a fairly good
grounding in things like social and conceptual relativisms.

>
> They have arrived at their conclusions
> from simply taking a much closer look at the way various scientists
> actually came to their conclusions and discovered that it had little
> if anything in common with the views of the positivists, which most take
> to include Karl Popper. Few if any were concerned with testability,
> which is more in the domain of technology. What test did Einstein
> propose with the publidation of his 1905 paper (don't confuse with
> Eddington's later experiment). According to his biography, relativity
> was
> an outgrowth of his disatisfaction with the assymetry in some of
> James Clerk Maxiwell's equations (not the null results of Michelson/
> Morely, as common thought). In other words, he was driven
> by AESTHETIC concerns (explanatory elegance). When asked why Pauli's
> model of DNA couldn't possibly be correct, Watson's remark was
> "Because. It wasn't beautiful".

Popper was most certainly *not* a positivist, and few who know the
history of 20thC philosophy would take him to be one. His abandonment in
philosophy of science and epistemology comes from the recognition that
falsificationism, even when made sophisticated, simply fails to account
for much of epistemic dynamics.

But to leap from that to aesthetic claims for knowledge is to equally
misrepresent things. Elegance is a test based on parsimony, which is a
guiding principle in empirical science. If something is adequate to the
task and elegant, then it is to be preferred to something that is
elegant to the task and baroque. Elegance is not a test of ideas, but a
filter that enables scientists to narrow down the range of feasible
ideas, for logically speaking thereis no end to the number of feasible
ideas otherwise.

>
> The difference between modern
> views in philosopy of science and those of folks like Popper is
> they actually went out and observed how science was being done.
> In other words, they applied the techniques of empirical science
> to the study of science itself, something you claim to favor.
> The result was the falsification of falsificationism.
>

Sometimes. There is a classical example of siologists of knowledge going
into the field and ignoring the science in favour of the "power
relations" or "institutional structures and functions" etc. One such
happened where I work (before I got there); the scientists (rightly)
failed to understand why they even bothered and just didn't visit some
Papuan village instead.

> Again, don't confuse me as arguing that testability is of no value. Its
> a HIGHLY VALUED epistemic tool, the gold standard, as a matter of fact.
> Its just that its not the only one available, and rarely of concern when
> first formulating hypothesese.

Arguable. One thing that is uppermost in the minds of those I know is
whether or not they can adduce experimental evidence for a novel idea.
Typically, they devise an experiment. Many do not work out, and the
ideas are dropped, even when they put a lot of work into it.

>
> PR
>
> BTW, John. On what page of 'Origins' will I find Darwin's "test" proposed?
> Are you sure he wasn't at least a bit concerned about the
> impracticalities of a test that might take several hundred thousand
> years to accomplish? I know he cited human animal breeding, but that
> would be an observation rather than a test and, as such, of no value
> to an erudite scientist such as yourself.

Darwin's tests were manifold. Some of them involved finding adaptations
that served other species, or the lack of a feasible pathway for the
development of *any* organ or arrangement over evolutionary time. Since
on of the major explananda was the arrangement of groups within groups
in taxonomy (explained by common descent), the existence of cases that
did not meet this would be a test of the universality of common descent
(and with lateral transfer and studies on hybridisation, Darwin's thesis
*has* been substantially modified since).

>
> The real test of evolutionary theory is whether or not organisms behave
> as if reproductive fitness were their primary concern. For some stragne
> reason you can look at the 9/11 terrorists and convince yourself that
> these guys look perfectly ok to you. Given this, I'm curious as to
> just what an organism would have to do before it finally got around
> to getting your attention, before it finally appeared to have failed
> the "test" for what we should expect to find in a naturally selected
> world?

Reproductive fitness is not now and hasn't been since Wright began
publishing in the 1930s, the sole test of evolution. This is a classical
overselectionist mistake.
--
John Wilkins
"And this is a damnable doctrine" - Charles Darwin, Autobiography

galathaea

unread,

May 29, 2003, 9:03:55 PM5/29/03

"John Edser" <ed...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message news:<bb2lqj$2fh7$1...@darwin.ediacara.org>...

I think the distinction between Darwinian evolution and selection that
you are trying to make was lost in this last paragraph. Selection, I
agree, is not a testable theory; it is a definition of the persistence
and propagation of forms over information structures. It applies not
only to biological collections, but to the autocatalytic collections
found in the origin of life and even to the CNO cycles of
nucleogenesis found in stars. I also disagree with Darwinian theory
being validly confirmed (more on this below).

> G:-
> ..though obviously its strength is found in the
> correlation of the selection criteria to properties found in the
> collection (which is the basis for evolutionary studies of social
> structures).
>
> JE:-
> The 1st additive fitness level documented
> within nature is at the fertile organism
> level of selection. This means that everything
> below that level is _dependently_ selected
> at just this one, level. Only competing
> fertile organisms are 1stly selected.
> Populations or meta populations of fertile
> organism units are only 2ndly selected. Thus
> selection at the population level can only
> go with, and not against, selection at the
> 1st additive fitness level. This simple
> logical argument is the reason why classical
> group selection, the type inductively
> assumed by V. C. Wynne-Edwards always
> fails.

Well, I would state that the additive fitness level you suggest is at
the germ line (not the organism), but that might be just semantics (as
I understand your point). However, it is important to clarify here
that you are speaking of selection only of the phylogenies of
biological forms. For example, there are information structures that
evolve due to selection at different levels. For example, economies
evolve due to selection on economic factors which persist outside the
individual biologies that manifest them, and CNO cycles evolve in
concentration densities (and likely in dissipative physical forms as
well) due to selection functions that apply to them. However, I think
there are several places where a true Darwinian evoluion of biological
collections even fails (in the sense of the laws that Darwin himself
postulated). This lies in the growing evidence for adaptive mutations
to stimuli found in many organisms, both prokaryotes and eukaryotes
alike. Adaptive mutation (as opposed to the random mutation of
Darwin). The controversial 1984 experiments by Shapiro on E. Coli
(also performed by Cairns, et al. (1988)) or the 1992 experiments on
S. cerivisiae by Steele and Jinks-Robertson are good indications of
where adaptive mutation can explain phenomena not easily explainable
by random mutation. Even if random mutation explanations are able to
account for most observations, it is certainly not a scientifically
confirmed mechanism, and is open to research. It is even not evident
why one "should" assume random variation, since it is quite easy to
understand theoretically a variation in mutability of different loci
in the genome and, indeed, a variability in mutabile forms of a given
gene.

> G:-
> Otherwise, how can one understand, for example, soldier
> ants and their sterility?
>
> JE:-
> The simple answer is that ALL the genes
> within a sterile eusocial are sub selected
> within the fertile parents because the sterile
> cast cannot pass on any genes. Hamiltonian
> selection requires an independent genomic
> gene fitness to exist within nature. No
> such fitness has ever been documented.
> Hamilton just deleted at least two critical
> constants within his mathematics. When
> they are included, Hamilton's rule
> prohibits kin selection. I am happy
> to review the mathematics that demonstrates
> this is the case. Neo Darwinians have
> been consistently inductively misusing
> simplified models of Darwinism, for over 50 years
> but entirely refuse to admit they have done so.

I agree with the critique on the naive interpretations found in
Neo-Darwinism, but I disagree with the 1-2 separation of selection
functions. I think it is much more accurative to posit entire
hierarchies, with much greater relationships than additivity. In
fact, I think it is even reasonable to view additivity at the
germ-line level only as approximate, in light of reverse-transcriptase
induced variations across germ-lines (as found, for example, in
virus-cell relationships where virus reconstruction can slice genomes
in ways that further interractions violate additivity at the germ
level -- though of course rare). I also think, however, that
epigenetic variation in germ-line structure (for example, methylation
patterns) is also heritable and violates much of the Neo-Darwinian
association of heritable traits to the genome. In fact, selection on
the geometric structure of membrane proteins in the germ-line may have
influence on development in ways that apply to the topic of this
thread!

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

May 30, 2003, 2:06:48 PM5/30/03

John Wilkins wrote:
> Phil Roberts, Jr. <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
>>John Edser wrote:
>>
>>>PR:-

>>The folks I have cited (Bhaskar, Kuhn, Toulmin, Feyerabend, Manicas
>>and Secord, Harre, Brown, Hanson, Polanyi, etc., have absolutely
>>nothing to do with post modern reconstructivism, a decidedly
>>philosophical bent. The fact that the criterion of certainty
>>has been abandoned in favor of the more realistic criterion
>>of reasonableness has nothing in common with the thesis that
>>pretty much anything goes (post modernism, as I understand it).
>
>
> In analytic philosophy this is most often associated with the so-called
> Gettier counterexamples, where something that was justified (made
> reasonably certain) true and believed was not knowledge. But the attack
> on the idea that knowledge required certainty was best made by
> Wittgenstein in _On Certainty_.

The little brewhahhah over whether or not knowledge is "justified true
belief" (the tripartite criterion, or some such rot) has never played
much of a role in what philosophers of science have had to say about
the nature of science. Indeed, I would say its the sort of tempest
in a teapot that gives philosophy a bad name. The best author on
this matter for me has been A. R. White, and his almost unheard of
nifty little book, 'The Nature of Knowledge'. He debunks the notion
of justified true belief, and argues the issue of justification lies
within the domain of epistemics, not epistemology, a view that Alvin
Goldman has also come to embrace. For White, knowledge is simply
'right representation'.

Haven't read Witt's 'On Certainty', but I think its widely understood
that the real blow to certainty was the demise of Newtonain mechanics.
Science is rarely influenced by developments in philosophy, I am told.

In philosophy, I suspect Hansen's assault on "the myth of the given"
has probably have more impact on philsopher's of science, if we
are talking about philosophical influences.

>
> Postmodernism is a kind of "anything goes", but it is easy to overstate
> this. Caricatures don't help. Some postmodern views have a fairly good
> grounding in things like social and conceptual relativisms.
>

Yes. Much better. Its about relativism, and as such, the foregoing
of the notion of truth, etc. Everythings pretty much a matter of
opinion. Perhaps thats a little better way of saying it.

Rather than merely opinion, underlying most modern science is the
thesis of versimiltude, (e.g., Newton-Smith and others). Scientists
don't regard their work as merely opinion, but rather as
getting closer to the truth, but perhaps with the acceptance that
it is a goal that can never be entirely attained. Its scientific
realism devoid of certainty, I suppose.

>
> Popper was most certainly *not* a positivist, and few who know the
> history of 20thC philosophy would take him to be one. His abandonment in
> philosophy of science and epistemology comes from the recognition that
> falsificationism, even when made sophisticated, simply fails to account
> for much of epistemic dynamics.
>

Authors I have read see an affinity in the fact that falsificationism
was a critque and an attempt to repair verificationism, and cut
from the same cloth in sharing the view that their is a simple
algorithm for the doing of science. Its part and parcel of the
view that reasoning can be
reduced to logic, rules, procedures. But Ross Pero nailed it for
me with his 'There ya go. Now you've got it. Ya see. You're thinkin'
outside the box'.

> But to leap from that to aesthetic claims for knowledge is to equally
> misrepresent things. Elegance is a test based on parsimony, which is a
> guiding principle in empirical science.

It depends on the level of abstraction you are working at. That,
and other factors, such as the existence of competing hypothesese,
stiff resistance, etc.

The two examples I've cited were of two of the major discoveries of
our century, relativity and DNA. Both seemed to be heavily driven
by aesthetic considerations. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm not
making this stuff up:

Mike Douglas:

'But how did you know that Linus Pauling's model of DNA
couldn't possibly be correct with only a brief chance
to examine it?'

James Watson (with Crick's nodding approval in the background):

'Because. It wasn't beautiful.'

Einstein's explanation of what got him thinking about relativity
can be found in his book 'Ideas and Opinions'. As I mentioned,
it was to a large extent a result of his disatisfaction with
the assymetry in Maxwell's equations. That, and a number of
thought experiements that couldn't be actually conducted, not
even in principle. I do think a minor test was proposed in
the 1905 paper, but it never was of much interest to anyone.
Eddington's experiment was dreamed up by someone else, as I
recall.

> If something is adequate to the
> task and elegant, then it is to be preferred to something that is
> elegant to the task and baroque.

Yes. There are many considerations, and they occur in a dazzling
array of hierarchies and machinations. But that's more or less
my point. There is no simple royal road to science. This is
all part and parcel of the romantic notion that you can reduce
reasoning to logic. We have lots of reasons to believe this
just ain't going to happen, ranging from Godel's proof to all
sorts of paradoxes and contradictions starting to show up in
decision theory (e.g., Newcomb's Problem, prisoner's dillema,
etc.).

e.g., check out Coleman's little spiel:
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/blwww3/education/cooperation.htm

>
> Sometimes. There is a classical example of siologists of knowledge going
> into the field and ignoring the science in favour of the "power
> relations" or "institutional structures and functions" etc.

Prof. Kuhn, no doubt.

>
>>Again, don't confuse me as arguing that testability is of no value. Its
>>a HIGHLY VALUED epistemic tool, the gold standard, as a matter of fact.
>>Its just that its not the only one available, and rarely of concern when
>>first formulating hypothesese.
>
>
> Arguable. One thing that is uppermost in the minds of those I know is
> whether or not they can adduce experimental evidence for a novel idea.

Depends on the context, and the level of abstraction, would be my point.
And, as hard as it is to believe, beauty is often a hallmark of truth
to some of these folks. For example, subatomic physics is deeply
concerned with symmetry. If you find a particle of such and such,
you can pretty much bet the farm you are going to find a contrasting
counterpart somewhere in the mix.

> Typically, they devise an experiment. Many do not work out, and the
> ideas are dropped, even when they put a lot of work into it.
>

What experiment did Dalton propose when he postulated atomic theory
to account for the law of multiple proportions?

What "test" did Rutherford propose to confirm his hypothesis that
the alpha particle angles were caused by atomic nucleii?

>
>
> Darwin's tests were manifold.

On what page of 'Origin', or perhaps just the chapter, will I be able
to find Mr. Darwin proposing these tests?

> Some of them involved finding adaptations
> that served other species, or the lack of a feasible pathway for the
> development of *any* organ or arrangement over evolutionary time. Since
> on of the major explananda was the arrangement of groups within groups
> in taxonomy (explained by common descent), the existence of cases that
> did not meet this would be a test of the universality of common descent
> (and with lateral transfer and studies on hybridisation, Darwin's thesis
> *has* been substantially modified since).
>

Remember, we are not talking about subsequent "tests", but those proposed
by Darwin himself, given your and John's contention that one can not
possibly propose a theory without also proposing a means of testing it,
that such behavior would be "unscientific".

>
> Reproductive fitness is not now and hasn't been since Wright began
> publishing in the 1930s, the sole test of evolution. This is a classical
> overselectionist mistake.

I could use a bit of elaboration on this, old bean. :) Are we talking
Sewall Wright?

John Edser

unread,

May 30, 2003, 2:06:48 PM5/30/03

>>JE:-
>>One of the greatest contributions to the debate
>>on the biological functionality of aggression,
>>was V. C. Wynne-Edwards. His book: "Animal
>>Dispersion In Relation To Social Behaviour"
>>was first printed in 1962. He assumed group
>>selection as his main inductive premise,
>>which was a pity because it is just
>>logically, false.

> How is the selective process on groups a logically false proposition.
> There are known mechanisms of selection on individual cells, cellular
> colonies, multicellular organisms, and superorganism, and it seems
> scientifically feasible that a selection function can be attributed to

> any collection, though obviously its strength is found in the

> correlation of the selection criteria to properties found in the
> collection (which is the basis for evolutionary studies of social

> structures). Otherwise, how can one understand, for example, soldier
> ants and their sterility?

> I'm just pointing this out, because I think it might be a bit unfair
> to dismiss Wynne-Edwards reasoning so quickly, even if you sympathize
> with the conclusions.

BOH:-

Ah, but the type of group selection Wynne-Edwards was advocating was a
"for the good of the species" type of group selection, and apparently
was the accepted view amongst zoologists at the time.

JE:-
Wynne-Edwards was advocating that just an _additive_
in fitness population composite termed "one species"
could be selected as one whole, in such a way as to
oppose and win, against selection operating between
each Darwinian fertile organism unit within it, when
such an event is just a logical (and thus a mathematical)
impossibility, i.e. it was absurd. This is because
Independent selection caused by the simple
intersection of absolute fitness sets, always
happens at the fertile organism level, FIRSTLY.
What is selected firstly always dominates what
is selected 2ndly, for obvious logical reasons!
Thus, selection at any other additive composite
above this level can only go with, but not against,
selection at the 1st additive fitness set intersection.

If selection attempts goes against selection at the
first independent fitness level then the levels have
to slog it out. The 2ndary level does not have a hope
in hell. In such a useless, hypothetical war, both levels
sustain an absolute fitness loss compared to those
individuals who do not engage in such a futile contest.
Here, even the "victor" loses. The worst possible result
is extinction for all levels. However, long before
this is reached, group selection is normally,
vanquished. This is why classical group selection
_always_ fails to get its way over selection at the
Darwinian organism level. Nature sorted this out,
billions of years ago...

BOH:-

He's perhaps
unfortunate in that it was about the time his book was published that
people started to rebel against the idea, and moved towards the more
modern approach you're advocating. Multi-level selection is now well
accepted, but it's a very different theory to what Wynne-Edwards was
advocating - we now separate out the units of selection from the units
of heredity.

JE:-
Multi level selection is a post modern
"get out of jail free card", i.e. you
don't have to _think_ anymore, just plough
on with modelling inductions as long as
they appear to verify nature in just a
superficial way. Typical to all post
modern epistemology, refutation is
simply thrown out, allowing "anything
goes" as a valid inductive assumption.

1) Not a single multi level of selection
has ever been documented within nature,
i.e. they are all, without exception, just
oversimplified models of existing Darwinian
single level theory. Note that this discussion
group is called "evolutionary theory" and
not "evolutionary models" for a very
good epistemological reason: a model
is NOT a theory it is just a simplification
of a theory. A models only valid use is to
provide an easier deduction from the theory
in order to help test the theory (not the
model!?!). Assuming such a model can;-
a) replace the theory it was simplified
from b) contest and win against that theory,
is an just the penultimate absurdity.

2) The simple Darwinian single level of
selection theory, that Darwin employed,
is fully testable in the Popperian sense
and been demonstrated within nature for
over 150 years.

3) Modern models of fitness delete all
fitness epistasis. It is this _massive_
deletion that "pays for" the "modern
multi level theory". Note that these
"modern" models can alway evade refutation
by simply jumping between selected units.
If one level is refuted, no matter, just
jump to another and back again later
on, if you want. The childishness of such
a view is beyond belief.

4) Simultaneous, infinite multilevels levels
of selection have no more credibility than
witchcraft. Not only is such a view entirely
non testable, it can't even be moved closer to
testability, i.e. it is just another "iron man".

(Note: a straw man sets up a non
representative premise and then refutes
it. An iron man sets up a 100% non
testable premise and then boasts that it
is "true" because it "cannot" be refuted.
It is the oldest con trick in the book..)

Regards,

galathaea

unread,

May 31, 2003, 12:53:34 PM5/31/03

"John Edser" <ed...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message news:<bb86jo$1ejk$1...@darwin.ediacara.org>...

I think stating that it is a logic and mathematical impossibility is
not a reasonable position to take. There is nothing obvious about
selection at the germ line being the only valid possibility. You are
already looking at a large interacting collection. The chemical
constituents of a cell are selected first, not the entire organism or
even the germ line. Some proteins may get oxidized, for example, and
lose their functionality in the metabolism. However, these are not
often heritable effects. When a selection event occurs on heritable
information (such as a mutation of the genome, or indeed an epigenetic
heritable part of the metabolism, such as perhaps methylation
patterns), then it participates in the evolution of the germ
metabolism. It is precisely this need for effecting the heritable
information (in some semantics, referred to as the memory of the
information structure) that describes the additivity requirement on a
physical basis. Such heritable memories are not necessarily only
found in the genome of the germ line of an organism's lineage, though
the "invention" of a replication template like DNA (or perhaps even
RNA or PNA in early origins of life) gave a strongly consistent memory
which aided in stabilizing the evolution of the protometabolism. That
this stabilization was absolute across all collections of information
structures, though, is by no means a logical conclusion, and their is
certainly evidence which at least questions it.

> If selection attempts goes against selection at the
> first independent fitness level then the levels have
> to slog it out. The 2ndary level does not have a hope
> in hell. In such a useless, hypothetical war, both levels
> sustain an absolute fitness loss compared to those
> individuals who do not engage in such a futile contest.
> Here, even the "victor" loses. The worst possible result
> is extinction for all levels. However, long before
> this is reached, group selection is normally,
> vanquished. This is why classical group selection
> _always_ fails to get its way over selection at the
> Darwinian organism level. Nature sorted this out,
> billions of years ago...

The argument is not valid in this form. The germ line is certainly a
large collection of its own, and selection events occur on its
constituents. There is no way to deduce from first principles that
only one particular level of collection has "won", nor that the
competition of selection across a hierarchy of collections is
necessarily counterproductive to fitness at each of the levels.
Certainly coevolution of species occurs to define a niche (I am not
arguing here the nature of coevolution, which can certainly be shown
to be very often derivative of germ line evolution), so there is no
scientific reason why coevolution may not occur in subcollections of a
given genome. Certainly there is competition on fitness between
metabolic pathways as well, which definitely is not counterproductive
to the overall fitness. It is precisely that selection functions
remove those collections whose fitness is not survivable which gives
natural selection the explanatory power it possesses for such
competition between any collection, even collections that intersect or
have a containing relationship.

> BOH:-
> He's perhaps
> unfortunate in that it was about the time his book was published that
> people started to rebel against the idea, and moved towards the more
> modern approach you're advocating. Multi-level selection is now well
> accepted, but it's a very different theory to what Wynne-Edwards was
> advocating - we now separate out the units of selection from the units
> of heredity.
>
> JE:-
> Multi level selection is a post modern
> "get out of jail free card", i.e. you
> don't have to _think_ anymore, just plough
> on with modelling inductions as long as
> they appear to verify nature in just a
> superficial way. Typical to all post
> modern epistemology, refutation is
> simply thrown out, allowing "anything
> goes" as a valid inductive assumption.

All selection is a definition. Selection by itself is mere tautology,
whether on one level or at many. It is its imbedding in a theory of
form that gives it testable consequences. This is where many
creationists fail in their arguments, because they fail to see that
embedding. Darwin gave some theory of form himself (in the concept of
organismic traits and random mutation), as have Neo-Darwinists (in the
genome of the germ line as the unit of selection). But there are
plenty of other logically consistent theories of form which give rise
to measurable consequences for testing. Multi-level theories of form
go back long before post modernism.

> 1) Not a single multi level of selection
> has ever been documented within nature,
> i.e. they are all, without exception, just
> oversimplified models of existing Darwinian
> single level theory. Note that this discussion
> group is called "evolutionary theory" and
> not "evolutionary models" for a very
> good epistemological reason: a model
> is NOT a theory it is just a simplification
> of a theory. A models only valid use is to
> provide an easier deduction from the theory
> in order to help test the theory (not the
> model!?!). Assuming such a model can;-
> a) replace the theory it was simplified
> from b) contest and win against that theory,
> is an just the penultimate absurdity.

Selection of economic systems, selection of geologic forms, selection
in autocatalytic chemical system: all are applications of evolutionary
theory on different collections than the germ line of organisms.
Looking at evolutionary theory only at one level is certainly a
restriction of its usefulness, and there are no a priori arguments
against its use on biological systems of larger or smaller collections
than the germ line in a given theory of form. This is why they are
all testable theories (even Darwinism).

> 2) The simple Darwinian single level of
> selection theory, that Darwin employed,
> is fully testable in the Popperian sense
> and been demonstrated within nature for
> over 150 years.

There have numerous changes in the particulars of the theory of form
for which the selection theory have been applied to over that time
span, each constituting a new theory in the Popperian sense (since the
selection itself is just a definition).

> 3) Modern models of fitness delete all
> fitness epistasis. It is this _massive_
> deletion that "pays for" the "modern
> multi level theory". Note that these
> "modern" models can alway evade refutation
> by simply jumping between selected units.
> If one level is refuted, no matter, just
> jump to another and back again later
> on, if you want. The childishness of such
> a view is beyond belief.

This is exactly what occurs on the single level as well. However,
each theory in turn adds more to our knowledge as to what selection
functions applied to which forms hold important explanatory and
predictive power. To say that this is childish is to say that the
action of science is so.

> 4) Simultaneous, infinite multilevels levels
> of selection have no more credibility than
> witchcraft. Not only is such a view entirely
> non testable, it can't even be moved closer to
> testability, i.e. it is just another "iron man".
>
> (Note: a straw man sets up a non
> representative premise and then refutes
> it. An iron man sets up a 100% non
> testable premise and then boasts that it
> is "true" because it "cannot" be refuted.
> It is the oldest con trick in the book..)

As I've mentioned, all selection is untestable. It is the embedding
that is important. I myself would not argue for infinite levels,
since there is a certain discreteness which prohibits it in nature
(forms on collection levels of fundamental particles, atoms,
chemicals, chemical systems, biological systems, ecologies,
biospheres, and astonomical systems all seem valid scientifically, but
even though the number may be large, it seems certainly finite to me).

John Wilkins

unread,

May 31, 2003, 12:53:35 PM5/31/03

Don't know White - may look him up.

>
> Haven't read Witt's 'On Certainty', but I think its widely understood
> that the real blow to certainty was the demise of Newtonain mechanics.
> Science is rarely influenced by developments in philosophy, I am told.

Then you are told wrong. Locke, Hume, Mill, Whewell, and the positivists
including Mach, Pearson, and of course people like Russell and Popper
all had an impact on the ways science was done. Einstein in particular
was influenced strongly by various philosophers, at least in the way he
approached the topic. What caused the demise of certainty was - I
believe - Hume's arguments against pyrrhonian skepticism, well before
Newtonian mechanics hit the edge of uncertainty :-)

>
> In philosophy, I suspect Hansen's assault on "the myth of the given"
> has probably have more impact on philsopher's of science, if we
> are talking about philosophical influences.

The myth of the given was attacked by Wilfred Sellars. N. R. Hanson was
the "theory-dependence of observation", along with Popper shortly
afterwards.

>
> >
> > Postmodernism is a kind of "anything goes", but it is easy to overstate
> > this. Caricatures don't help. Some postmodern views have a fairly good
> > grounding in things like social and conceptual relativisms.
> >
>
> Yes. Much better. Its about relativism, and as such, the foregoing
> of the notion of truth, etc. Everythings pretty much a matter of
> opinion. Perhaps thats a little better way of saying it.
>
> Rather than merely opinion, underlying most modern science is the
> thesis of versimiltude, (e.g., Newton-Smith and others). Scientists
> don't regard their work as merely opinion, but rather as
> getting closer to the truth, but perhaps with the acceptance that
> it is a goal that can never be entirely attained. Its scientific
> realism devoid of certainty, I suppose.

As I recall it from my long-distant undergraduate days, verisimilitude
was Popper. But I am not entirely sure how it underlies science. So far
as I can tell, science proceeds identically if it adopts a realist or
anti-realist perspective (a la van Fraassen) although of course the
motivation for doing it is hard to find if one is a thoroughgoing
antirealist.

>
> >
> > Popper was most certainly *not* a positivist, and few who know the
> > history of 20thC philosophy would take him to be one. His abandonment in
> > philosophy of science and epistemology comes from the recognition that
> > falsificationism, even when made sophisticated, simply fails to account
> > for much of epistemic dynamics.
> >
>
> Authors I have read see an affinity in the fact that falsificationism
> was a critque and an attempt to repair verificationism, and cut
> from the same cloth in sharing the view that their is a simple
> algorithm for the doing of science. Its part and parcel of the
> view that reasoning can be
> reduced to logic, rules, procedures. But Ross Pero nailed it for
> me with his 'There ya go. Now you've got it. Ya see. You're thinkin'
> outside the box'.

Don't recall Perot from philosophy of science 101...

There is a deep undercutting of the positivist approach in Popper's
attack on verification. Not least is the fact that he fails to reject
metaphysics even as an element in science, which is what really
*defines* positivism. When he characterised Darwinism as a "metaphysical
research programme" in his _Unended quest_, that was not a claim it was
unscientific, for example. For a positivist it would have been, but for
him it was a guiding set of ideas for research. of course he was wrong
about that, but the point is that he did not behave like apositivist in
any way. He is a positivist the way atheists are Christians.

>
> > But to leap from that to aesthetic claims for knowledge is to equally
> > misrepresent things. Elegance is a test based on parsimony, which is a
> > guiding principle in empirical science.
>
> It depends on the level of abstraction you are working at. That,
> and other factors, such as the existence of competing hypothesese,
> stiff resistance, etc.
>
> The two examples I've cited were of two of the major discoveries of
> our century, relativity and DNA. Both seemed to be heavily driven
> by aesthetic considerations. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm not
> making this stuff up:
>
> Mike Douglas:
>
> 'But how did you know that Linus Pauling's model of DNA
> couldn't possibly be correct with only a brief chance
> to examine it?'
>
> James Watson (with Crick's nodding approval in the background):
>
> 'Because. It wasn't beautiful.'
>

I'm not denying that, but all the aesthetic considerations are not
ultimate justifications. They are derivative, heuristic rules of thumb.
If you have a clean and coherent theory to assess some hypothesis
against, then you can say something is elegant. But elegance is
insufficient to do more than guide you in your choices, and even then
may not be enough. Sometimes, ugly theories are the best.

>
> Einstein's explanation of what got him thinking about relativity
> can be found in his book 'Ideas and Opinions'. As I mentioned,
> it was to a large extent a result of his disatisfaction with
> the assymetry in Maxwell's equations. That, and a number of
> thought experiements that couldn't be actually conducted, not
> even in principle. I do think a minor test was proposed in
> the 1905 paper, but it never was of much interest to anyone.
> Eddington's experiment was dreamed up by someone else, as I
> recall.
>
> > If something is adequate to the
> > task and elegant, then it is to be preferred to something that is
> > elegant to the task and baroque.
>
> Yes. There are many considerations, and they occur in a dazzling
> array of hierarchies and machinations. But that's more or less
> my point. There is no simple royal road to science. This is
> all part and parcel of the romantic notion that you can reduce
> reasoning to logic. We have lots of reasons to believe this
> just ain't going to happen, ranging from Godel's proof to all
> sorts of paradoxes and contradictions starting to show up in
> decision theory (e.g., Newcomb's Problem, prisoner's dillema,
> etc.).

Can't dispute you on that. There is no Scientific Method. But there are
scientific methods, a whole family of them, and they resemble each other
like a family does. Some of them are even illegitimate...

>
> e.g., check out Coleman's little spiel:
> http://pages.britishlibrary.net/blwww3/education/cooperation.htm
>
> >
> > Sometimes. There is a classical example of siologists of knowledge going
> > into the field and ignoring the science in favour of the "power
> > relations" or "institutional structures and functions" etc.
>
> Prof. Kuhn, no doubt.

No. Kuhn was not that sociological. He always maintained that there was
a core of prgessive knowledge to science. This goes by the general label
of "sociology of knowledge", and names like Bloor and Irigay pop up.
It's not my field.

>
> >
> >>Again, don't confuse me as arguing that testability is of no value. Its
> >>a HIGHLY VALUED epistemic tool, the gold standard, as a matter of fact.
> >>Its just that its not the only one available, and rarely of concern when
> >>first formulating hypothesese.
> >
> >
> > Arguable. One thing that is uppermost in the minds of those I know is
> > whether or not they can adduce experimental evidence for a novel idea.
>
> Depends on the context, and the level of abstraction, would be my point.
> And, as hard as it is to believe, beauty is often a hallmark of truth
> to some of these folks. For example, subatomic physics is deeply
> concerned with symmetry. If you find a particle of such and such,
> you can pretty much bet the farm you are going to find a contrasting
> counterpart somewhere in the mix.

In this case it is theoretical biology through to medical research.

>
> > Typically, they devise an experiment. Many do not work out, and the
> > ideas are dropped, even when they put a lot of work into it.
> >
>
> What experiment did Dalton propose when he postulated atomic theory
> to account for the law of multiple proportions?
>
> What "test" did Rutherford propose to confirm his hypothesis that
> the alpha particle angles were caused by atomic nucleii?
>

What reason do we have for thinking that what people did before the
"technological revolution" of the post-War era is what scientists do
now? Anyway, it matters not what people themselves propose as a test -
it is what the discipline or speciality can be expected to propose.

> >
> >
> > Darwin's tests were manifold.
>
> On what page of 'Origin', or perhaps just the chapter, will I be able
> to find Mr. Darwin proposing these tests?
>
> > Some of them involved finding adaptations
> > that served other species, or the lack of a feasible pathway for the
> > development of *any* organ or arrangement over evolutionary time. Since
> > on of the major explananda was the arrangement of groups within groups
> > in taxonomy (explained by common descent), the existence of cases that
> > did not meet this would be a test of the universality of common descent
> > (and with lateral transfer and studies on hybridisation, Darwin's thesis
> > *has* been substantially modified since).

Go to a web version (the first and sixth edition are at the Darwin
online site) and search for "objections", "fatal to my theory" and so
forth. The discussion on the eye is a case in point, but also the
discussion on eusocial insects.

> >
>
> Remember, we are not talking about subsequent "tests", but those proposed
> by Darwin himself, given your and John's contention that one can not
> possibly propose a theory without also proposing a means of testing it,
> that such behavior would be "unscientific".

Sorry, I don't think I suggested that.

>
> >
> > Reproductive fitness is not now and hasn't been since Wright began
> > publishing in the 1930s, the sole test of evolution. This is a classical
> > overselectionist mistake.
>
> I could use a bit of elaboration on this, old bean. :) Are we talking
> Sewall Wright?
>

Yes, we are.

--
John Wilkins
B'dies, Brutius

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

Jun 1, 2003, 2:41:45 PM6/1/03

John Wilkins wrote:

>
>>Haven't read Witt's 'On Certainty', but I think its widely understood
>>that the real blow to certainty was the demise of Newtonain mechanics.
>>Science is rarely influenced by developments in philosophy, I am told.
>
>
> Then you are told wrong. Locke, Hume, Mill, Whewell, and the positivists
> including Mach, Pearson, and of course people like Russell and Popper
> all had an impact on the ways science was done. Einstein in particular
> was influenced strongly by various philosophers, at least in the way he
> approached the topic. What caused the demise of certainty was - I
> believe - Hume's arguments against pyrrhonian skepticism, well before
> Newtonian mechanics hit the edge of uncertainty :-)
>

Einstein's favorite was Spinoza, but I doubt it had much to do with his
science.

He credited Mach with an influence, but that was only in his parsimony
with regard to abandoning the notion of an aether and assumptions
about simultaneity. Remember, most of the
thinking that led to relativity was based on thought expiments that
can't be conducted, not even in principle. That's hardly Machian, at
least not according to anything I know about him. There's also
Einsteins denunciation of positivism, Russell's variety any way, in
what was supposed to be a tribute to Prof. Russel in which he referred
to it as "the opposite extreme to that earlier philosophizing in the
clouds". When called on the carpet on some of this, the dialogue
went something along the lines of:

Questioner: What is your opinion of/Machean approaches to science?
Einstein: I think its utter nonsense.
Questioner: But I thought you employed such notions in the development
of relativity.
Einstein: Yes, I know. But its nonsense all the same.

>>In philosophy, I suspect Hansen's assault on "the myth of the given"
>>has probably have more impact on philsopher's of science, if we
>>are talking about philosophical influences.
>
>
> The myth of the given was attacked by Wilfred Sellars. N. R. Hanson was
> the "theory-dependence of observation", along with Popper shortly
> afterwards.

Sorry. Hansen's the guy I had in mind. But not as an influence
on scientists themselves. I doubt that many of them actually
have a philosophy
of science, to be perfectly honest, other than what others will
let them get away with. Again, don't confuse this with
the methodology of those who work in technology, where
Humean constant conjunctions do indeed become a much
more prominent component (e.g., the behavior of O rings
below 32 degree F), and testing and retesting is pretty much
what its all about. But their objective is PREDICTION AND
CONTROL. This is not the aim of science. The aim of
science is UNDERSTANDING, and sometimes that requires tests
and sometimes it just requires a bit of common sense, the
ability to "see" (e.g., chemical beauty), as much as that
might make you uncomfortable.

>
> Don't recall Perot from philosophy of science 101...
>

My feeble attempt at humour. I meant Ross Perot. His little
remark about "thinking outside the box" sums up my own view
on the nature of reasoning admirably well, in that
its not a matter of following rules (e.g., logic, rules, principles,
methods, etc.), but a matter of COGNIZING them, and with it, the
OPTION of following the rule OR NOT when and if its deemed "rational".
This would be in line with Hume's contention that "all forms of reasoning
are nothing but comparing" and with it, the impliciation that reasoning
(ampliative inference) is actually ANAlogical in nature. This also
applies to the scientific method, which is not stagnant, but a constantly
evolving approach to maximizing "true" belief. Bridgman, the father of
operationalism who was appalled at the myuse of his technique by the
soft sciences and philosophers of science, sums it up nicely:

"The scientific method, to the extent there is any such thing,

is simply doing one's damnedest with one's mind, no holds
barred".

> There is a deep undercutting of the positivist approach in Popper's
> attack on verification. Not least is the fact that he fails to reject
> metaphysics even as an element in science, which is what really
> *defines* positivism. When he characterised Darwinism as a "metaphysical
> research programme" in his _Unended quest_, that was not a claim it was
> unscientific, for example. For a positivist it would have been, but for
> him it was a guiding set of ideas for research. of course he was wrong
> about that, but the point is that he did not behave like apositivist in
> any way. He is a positivist the way atheists are Christians.
>

Perhaps. But as I have said, several authors I have read haven seen
more similarity than difference. I'm certain it would not be an
opinion shared by Popper himself, though.

>>The two examples I've cited were of two of the major discoveries of
>>our century, relativity and DNA. Both seemed to be heavily driven
>>by aesthetic considerations. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm not
>>making this stuff up:
>>

> I'm not denying that, but all the aesthetic considerations are not
> ultimate justifications.

Nor are tests. Einstein scoffed at the notion that his theory might
be empirically falsified, with phrases along the lines, 'that would
be just too bad, because the theory is right'. As I say, there is
an endless array of considerations. Another way of saying this,
is that the scientific method is not something that is going to
show up on a computer any time soon. For example, how do you
test for the capacity to discern chemical beauty?(Watson's
remark).

Perhaps where we are disagreeing lies in the matter of the distinction
between the logic of discovery and the logic of convincing others.
But you are coming perilously close to arguing for an algorithmic
view of science that I and an awful lot of guys who have written
moutains of books on the matter find a tad bit naive.

> They are derivative, heuristic rules of thumb.
> If you have a clean and coherent theory to assess some hypothesis
> against, then you can say something is elegant. But elegance is
> insufficient to do more than guide you in your choices, and even then
> may not be enough. Sometimes, ugly theories are the best.
>

Agreed. There is no one single approach. And sometimes tests turn
out to give misleading indications, and parsimony is actually the
more reliable indicator. There is no algorithm for this stuff,
because human reasoning itself is nonalgorithmic.

>>
>>Yes. There are many considerations, and they occur in a dazzling
>>array of hierarchies and machinations.
>

> Can't dispute you on that. There is no Scientific Method. But there are
> scientific methods, a whole family of them, and they resemble each other
> like a family does. Some of them are even illegitimate...
>

Hey. I thought that was my side of the argument. :)

>
> No. Kuhn was not that sociological. He always maintained that there was
> a core of prgessive knowledge to science. This goes by the general label
> of "sociology of knowledge", and names like Bloor and Irigay pop up.
> It's not my field.
>

Got me on these guys. But Kuhn is often thought of as exploring the
sociology of science, as I'm sure you must be aware.
Toulmin too, come to think of it.

>>
>>What experiment did Dalton propose when he postulated atomic theory
>>to account for the law of multiple proportions?
>>
>>What "test" did Rutherford propose to confirm his hypothesis that
>>the alpha particle angles were caused by atomic nucleii?
>>
>
> What reason do we have for thinking that what people did before the
> "technological revolution" of the post-War era is what scientists do
> now? Anyway, it matters not what people themselves propose as a test -
> it is what the discipline or speciality can be expected to propose.
>

Eventually. But that was not John's argument. If John had his way
all science would come to a screeching halt, because scientists only
deal in certainty. Certainly, you can't be agreeing with this sort
of nonsense. Behaviorism was born out this crap, and in my opinion
is the main reason why psychology has remained a baskedt case. \

>>On what page of 'Origin', or perhaps just the chapter, will I be able
>>to find Mr. Darwin proposing these tests?

> Go to a web version (the first and sixth edition are at the Darwin
> online site) and search for "objections", "fatal to my theory" and so
> forth. The discussion on the eye is a case in point, but also the
> discussion on eusocial insects.
>

But these were not tests. We are all aware of the objections to Mr.
Darwin's theory. What we are talking about are conclusive tests
that must be proposed BEFORE A HYPOTHESIS CAN BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED.
I think you may have missed this little point, John.

>>Remember, we are not talking about subsequent "tests", but those proposed
>>by Darwin himself, given your and John's contention that one can not
>>possibly propose a theory without also proposing a means of testing it,
>>that such behavior would be "unscientific".
>
>
> Sorry, I don't think I suggested that.
>

That's what Edser and I were discussing. But your input has been of
great interest and of value, even if based on a slight misunderstanding
about the nature of the disagreement.

>>
>>I could use a bit of elaboration on this, old bean. :) Are we talking
>>Sewall Wright?
>>
>
> Yes, we are.
>

Call that an elaboration? Do you think Hamilton and Smith (ESS) are just
wasting our time by developing formal models of natural selection based
on the assumption that reproductive fitness is pretty much what its
all about? Are they being overly selectionist, in your opinion?

BTW, I have to be careful here, because I am very much opposed to the
view that everything we find in nature must necessarily be adaptive.
But that's a long way from supposing that the maximizing of reproductive
fitness is not what lies at the heart of the theory of natural selection,
as I read you as maintaining.

John Edser

unread,

Jun 2, 2003, 2:01:35 AM6/2/03

gala...@excite.com (galathaea) wrote:-

> >>JE:-
> >>One of the greatest contributions to the debate
> >>on the biological functionality of aggression,
> >>was V. C. Wynne-Edwards. His book: "Animal
> >>Dispersion In Relation To Social Behaviour"
> >>was first printed in 1962. He assumed group
> >>selection as his main inductive premise,
> >>which was a pity because it is just
> >>logically, false.

> > G:-

G:-

I think stating that it is a logic and mathematical impossibility is
not a reasonable position to take.

>big snip<

JE:-
Obviously, the logical truth of what
I suggested above was not at all obvious
to you. Please note ALL valid argument
is based on logic and reason. Scientific arguments
are contesting theories. Each of them must be
logical and reasonable but also, _testable_
against nature.

If you suggest that A can be both A and not
A as valid within the same logical chain of
reasoning, then the entire chain ceases at that
point. Allowing a contradiction disallows
everything after it, even if it appears to
correctly verify nature. It is possible to
right for the wrong reason and wrong for
the right reason. Only the latter is
valid science!

I formally put to you, and everybody else here,
that one additive in fitness association cannot
be group selected because natural selection must
logically happen FIRSTLY at the 1st additive in
fitness interface that always exists WITHIN it.
In nature, this is at the organism fitness level.
Selection at a higher additive fitness interface
(formally called group selection) cannot
contest and win against selection at the
FIRST additive fitness level that exists
within nature, for simple, logical, reasons.
Do you really wish me to expound on these
reasons?

Over 30 years of debate and observation have
confirmed this view. When you select "one"
additive in fitness population you equally
select each individual within it, that is
all.

Also, I put it formally to everybody here
that one multiplicative fitness association
is always selected as a single unit of
fitness, i.e. unlike one additive in fitness
association, no fitness level can exist
within such a multiplicative fitness,
complex.

Until a single additive in fitness
genomic gene fitness has been observed within
nature, then selection at the gene level is
just an unverified modelling hypothetical. Since
an additive fitness interface has been shown
to exist within nature, for over 150 years,
at the organism level of selection (specifically
at the fertile organism level) then selection
at this level is NOT just a hypothetical!
Selection at this level, which is entirely
refutable has been documented within nature
many times. I Find it utterly amazing that
almost nobody here, within a quality
evolutionary theory discussion group like
sbe will endorse such a basic observation,
and tenet, of evolutionary theory!

I refer you to the thread "Canalization!"
for the logical structure of these arguments.
You have to be able to understand the logical
difference between just intersecting and nested
sets of fitness. Additive fitness associations,
even as they contest each other within one
evolving population, can still form mutual
fitness benefit associations. This possibility
has never been properly identified by Neo Darwinians
who appear to only visualise an erroneous fitness
contest existing between the supposed gene level of
selection and the fully documented fertile
organism level, when no such contest can exist,
for simple logical reasons, i.e. it is just a
logical contradiction to suggest they can.

John Wilkins

unread,

Jun 2, 2003, 2:01:30 AM6/2/03

Phil Roberts, Jr. <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

Not knowing the context (is it in the Schilpp volume? I have it at home)
I would guess that Einstein is being gently ironic. Positivism (or which
Mach was a leading proponent) treated metaphysics as nonsense. Einstein
might be saying that Mach was being metaphysical here. He was known for
his sense of humor.

>
> >>In philosophy, I suspect Hansen's assault on "the myth of the given"
> >>has probably have more impact on philsopher's of science, if we
> >>are talking about philosophical influences.
> >
> >
> > The myth of the given was attacked by Wilfred Sellars. N. R. Hanson was
> > the "theory-dependence of observation", along with Popper shortly
> > afterwards.
>
> Sorry. Hansen's the guy I had in mind. But not as an influence
> on scientists themselves. I doubt that many of them actually
> have a philosophy
> of science, to be perfectly honest, other than what others will
> let them get away with. Again, don't confuse this with
> the methodology of those who work in technology, where
> Humean constant conjunctions do indeed become a much
> more prominent component (e.g., the behavior of O rings
> below 32 degree F), and testing and retesting is pretty much
> what its all about. But their objective is PREDICTION AND
> CONTROL. This is not the aim of science. The aim of
> science is UNDERSTANDING, and sometimes that requires tests
> and sometimes it just requires a bit of common sense, the
> ability to "see" (e.g., chemical beauty), as much as that
> might make you uncomfortable.

Perhaps. I agree that scientists are total pragmatists when it comes to
the use and abuse of philosophy. Nowhere more than with Popper, who has
been used to defend entirely opposed approaches (e.g., in systematics).
It is my observation that philosophy figures most where methodological
debates are being carried out (mayhaps for intradisciplinary political
reasons).

>
> >
> > Don't recall Perot from philosophy of science 101...
> >
>
> My feeble attempt at humour. I meant Ross Perot. His little

I got it. That was *my* feeble attempt at humour.

...

>
> > There is a deep undercutting of the positivist approach in Popper's
> > attack on verification. Not least is the fact that he fails to reject
> > metaphysics even as an element in science, which is what really
> > *defines* positivism. When he characterised Darwinism as a "metaphysical
> > research programme" in his _Unended quest_, that was not a claim it was
> > unscientific, for example. For a positivist it would have been, but for
> > him it was a guiding set of ideas for research. of course he was wrong
> > about that, but the point is that he did not behave like apositivist in
> > any way. He is a positivist the way atheists are Christians.
> >
>
> Perhaps. But as I have said, several authors I have read haven seen
> more similarity than difference. I'm certain it would not be an
> opinion shared by Popper himself, though.

It is going to depend on whether or not you take a cladistic or a
gradistic approach to classification of things (or, loosely, if you
think essence matters or history). Popper is a spawn of logical
positivism, but he is diametrically opposed to them. Of course, so are
the pragmatists like Quine, but Popper, at least, was one of them first.

However, I do not think it helps us understand the positivists
themselves if you try to give essentialist definitions - they do not
have an essence any more than most historical intellectual movements.

>
> >>The two examples I've cited were of two of the major discoveries of
> >>our century, relativity and DNA. Both seemed to be heavily driven
> >>by aesthetic considerations. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm not
> >>making this stuff up:
> >>
>
> >
> > I'm not denying that, but all the aesthetic considerations are not
> > ultimate justifications.
>
> Nor are tests. Einstein scoffed at the notion that his theory might
> be empirically falsified, with phrases along the lines, 'that would
> be just too bad, because the theory is right'. As I say, there is
> an endless array of considerations. Another way of saying this,
> is that the scientific method is not something that is going to
> show up on a computer any time soon. For example, how do you
> test for the capacity to discern chemical beauty?(Watson's
> remark).

By seeing how much of the "observations" of elegance actually pan out.
In short, is this guy's intuition such that he gets it right?

Humans have good pattern recognition systems; indeed, like many
vertebrates were are almost entirely comprised of them. It is not
surprising that an unreflective scientist might call something beautiful
if they find a good "signal" in something - beauty is really just a
strong pattern, in my view anyway. But all the declarations of beauty
and obviousness fail if the results are tested out to be wrong.

>
> Perhaps where we are disagreeing lies in the matter of the distinction
> between the logic of discovery and the logic of convincing others.
> But you are coming perilously close to arguing for an algorithmic
> view of science that I and an awful lot of guys who have written
> moutains of books on the matter find a tad bit naive.

No, I am not an algorithmist, except insofar as science has criteria for
success and anything that meets those criteria by any means is
propagated in publication, teaching and further research. And I don't
distinguish discovery from acceptance. Science is not modular.

>
> > They are derivative, heuristic rules of thumb.
> > If you have a clean and coherent theory to assess some hypothesis
> > against, then you can say something is elegant. But elegance is
> > insufficient to do more than guide you in your choices, and even then
> > may not be enough. Sometimes, ugly theories are the best.
> >
>
> Agreed. There is no one single approach. And sometimes tests turn
> out to give misleading indications, and parsimony is actually the
> more reliable indicator. There is no algorithm for this stuff,
> because human reasoning itself is nonalgorithmic.

Agreed.

>
> >>
> >>Yes. There are many considerations, and they occur in a dazzling
> >>array of hierarchies and machinations.
> >
> > Can't dispute you on that. There is no Scientific Method. But there are
> > scientific methods, a whole family of them, and they resemble each other
> > like a family does. Some of them are even illegitimate...
> >
>
> Hey. I thought that was my side of the argument. :)

Any reason I can't disagree with your interpretation of the history of
the philosophy of science and agree with you on this?

>
> >
> > No. Kuhn was not that sociological. He always maintained that there was
> > a core of prgessive knowledge to science. This goes by the general label
> > of "sociology of knowledge", and names like Bloor and Irigay pop up.
> > It's not my field.
> >
>
> Got me on these guys. But Kuhn is often thought of as exploring the
> sociology of science, as I'm sure you must be aware.
> Toulmin too, come to think of it.

You can't avoid it - it is part of philosophy of science from well
before Kuhn. My favourite philosopher of science is Hull, who does a
nice sociological piece on systematists.

>
> >>
> >>What experiment did Dalton propose when he postulated atomic theory
> >>to account for the law of multiple proportions?
> >>
> >>What "test" did Rutherford propose to confirm his hypothesis that
> >>the alpha particle angles were caused by atomic nucleii?
> >>
> >
> > What reason do we have for thinking that what people did before the
> > "technological revolution" of the post-War era is what scientists do
> > now? Anyway, it matters not what people themselves propose as a test -
> > it is what the discipline or speciality can be expected to propose.
> >
>
> Eventually. But that was not John's argument. If John had his way
> all science would come to a screeching halt, because scientists only
> deal in certainty. Certainly, you can't be agreeing with this sort
> of nonsense. Behaviorism was born out this crap, and in my opinion
> is the main reason why psychology has remained a baskedt case. \

OK, I disagree if that is indeed his view.

>
> >>On what page of 'Origin', or perhaps just the chapter, will I be able
> >>to find Mr. Darwin proposing these tests?
>
> >
> > Go to a web version (the first and sixth edition are at the Darwin
> > online site) and search for "objections", "fatal to my theory" and so
> > forth. The discussion on the eye is a case in point, but also the
> > discussion on eusocial insects.
> >
>
> But these were not tests. We are all aware of the objections to Mr.
> Darwin's theory. What we are talking about are conclusive tests
> that must be proposed BEFORE A HYPOTHESIS CAN BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED.
> I think you may have missed this little point, John.

I had. It is merely enough that the hypothesis falls into a mutually
agreed field where it *can* be tested, even if right now we do not know
what those tests might be. However, Darwin did propose things that were
"Difficulties on theory" and cases where if he was right there should be
no difficulties.

>
> >>Remember, we are not talking about subsequent "tests", but those proposed
> >>by Darwin himself, given your and John's contention that one can not
> >>possibly propose a theory without also proposing a means of testing it,
> >>that such behavior would be "unscientific".
> >
> >
> > Sorry, I don't think I suggested that.
> >
>
> That's what Edser and I were discussing. But your input has been of
> great interest and of value, even if based on a slight misunderstanding
> about the nature of the disagreement.

Ah. John Edser. Sorry, I thought you were debating with Harshman. I tend
to not look closely at ref lines.

>
> >>
> >>I could use a bit of elaboration on this, old bean. :) Are we talking
> >>Sewall Wright?
> >>
> >
> > Yes, we are.
> >
>
> Call that an elaboration? Do you think Hamilton and Smith (ESS) are just
> wasting our time by developing formal models of natural selection based
> on the assumption that reproductive fitness is pretty much what its
> all about? Are they being overly selectionist, in your opinion?
>
> BTW, I have to be careful here, because I am very much opposed to the
> view that everything we find in nature must necessarily be adaptive.
> But that's a long way from supposing that the maximizing of reproductive
> fitness is not what lies at the heart of the theory of natural selection,
> as I read you as maintaining.

No, I was maintaining that much *evolution* occurs irrespective of, or
neutrally to, reproductive fitness. In short I think there is plenty of
"slop" that demes can undergo without greatly affecting fitness. Fitness
only applies to selection-biased processes.

John Edser

unread,

Jun 2, 2003, 2:01:35 AM6/2/03

> > Popper was most certainly *not* a positivist, and few who know the
> > history of 20thC philosophy would take him to be one. His abandonment in
> > philosophy of science and epistemology comes from the recognition that
> > falsificationism, even when made sophisticated, simply fails to account
> > for much of epistemic dynamics.

JE:-
Falsification with zero verification, is just nonsense.
I would add that a unique verification is also
required to test a theory, i.e. each theory
on the table must have at least one verification
that is unique to each one of them.

>snip<

JE:-
Popper never identified that all
inductive assumptions were just guesses,
i.e. metaphysics exists within everything.
However, Popper did recognise that only
some inductions could be tested
to refutation via _any_ valid deductive
chain of logic that was possible from
them. These he identified as alone,
valid within the sciences. All such
chains must exclude others or incorporate
contradictions into the view. These anti
sense logical chains he termed valid
points of refutation for the view.

> > Reproductive fitness is not now and hasn't been since Wright began
> > publishing in the 1930s, the sole test of evolution. This is a classical
> > overselectionist mistake.

> I could use a bit of elaboration on this, old bean. :) Are we talking
> Sewall Wright?

JE:-
Reproductive fitness has been implicit
within Darwinism since its inception.
However, the unit of fitness has never been
properly identified. It is the fertile
organism, not just "the organism".
The gene is just a simplified modelling unit
that has been utterly and consistently
misused.

Re Wright: Sampling error is not a
testable theory of evolution.

John Wilkins

unread,

Jun 2, 2003, 1:10:42 PM6/2/03

John Wilkins <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote:

....
To follow up, now that I am in my library, Philipp G. Frank, in the
Schilpp _Library of Living Philosophers_ volume on Einstein, quote
Eisnstein as saying in 1916

"I can say with certainty that the study of Mach and Hume has been
directly and indirectly a great help in my work." and quotes further
comments in 1933 and 1944 (in the Schilpp volume on Russell). I can find
him discussing Kant, Hume, Mach and various other philosophers, but not
this exchange.

He speaks in his remarks (p673) of "the insinuation that a concept --
for example that of the real -- is something metaphysical (and therefore
to be rejected)." This is the classical positivist view. He goes on,
"... one needs this distinction [between sense-impressions and mere
ideas] in order to be able to overcome solipsism. Solution: we shall
make use of this distinction unconcerned with the reproach that, in
doing so, we are guilty of the metaphysical "original sin"."

John Edser

unread,

Jun 2, 2003, 1:10:43 PM6/2/03

> PR:-
> Genes that give rise to adaptations can not be eliminated
> or preserved based on their effects on the organism as
> whole?

> JE:-
> No, Genes that give rise to adaptations can only be eliminated
> or preserved based on their effects on one organism as
> whole, i.e. one genomic gene fitness, ANY genomic
> gene fitness, exactly = one organism fitness because
> genomic genes cannot be independently selected.

BM:-

I don't understand. Please give an example to illustrate your point.

JE:-
You cannot select an single genomic
gene without selecting an entire organism
that contains it. Models just equate
a single gene fitness with an organism
fitness as a super simplification.

Phil Roberts, Jr.

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Jun 2, 2003, 11:06:43 PM6/2/03

John Wilkins wrote:

Thanks John. I would suggest that perhaps his views altered during
his lifetime. But you say he was parroting this view as late as
33 and 44 which would quash that interpretation.

I'm not just away from my library, I'm locked out. Had a major
argument with my folks several years back and haven't been
back since. I'm fairly certain his disdain for Russell's
epistemology shows up in Ideas and Opinions. It was in what
was supposed to be a tribute to Russell.

I'm wondering if perhaps he was agreeing with the rejection of
metaphysics but disagreeing with the verificationist bullshit.
Perhaps that would explain this little discrepancy.

On your side of the argument, I also recall him uttering the
phrase:

"I want things as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler".

Back to evolutionary theory, what is your view of the behavior of
the 9/11 terrorists? A minor discrepancy, or a major headache for
evolutionary psychology?

John Wilkins

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Jun 3, 2003, 9:53:59 AM6/3/03

Phil Roberts, Jr. <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

...

> Back to evolutionary theory, what is your view of the behavior of
> the 9/11 terrorists? A minor discrepancy, or a major headache for
> evolutionary psychology?

The problem with evolutionary psychology arises, IMHO, when it leaves
the realm of cognitive and psychological biases, tendencies and
propensities, and tries to provide a simple, monistic account of a
complex event in a cultural context.

The behavior of fundamentalist terrorists falls under the class of
dominance hierarchy behaviors gone wrong, attempting to "protect" the
home territory at the service of an "alpha male" (in this case, Allah)
and his beta male lieutenants (the Imams and terrorist leaders). The
altruism extends to the service of "kin" (i.e., coreligionists, even
though they are not necessarily *genetic* kin), as we see in the trials
of the Bali bombers - who apologise and show remorse only for killing
Muslims accidentally (as Imam Samudra did recently).

To run with this explanation, we need not only the "sociobiological"
story, but also the "evolutionary psychology" story about adaptation to
troop-size populations in the EEA, and also the cultural evolution story
about how Islam has been developed and employed in the countries from
where these people come. Sometimes these explanatory levels directly
connect - you could argue that the almost medieval village-like culture
of parts of Iran and the Middle East contribute to the impression that
defense of religion is defense of kin, for example.

However, if you seek to explain why *those* individuals undertook such a
drastic course of action, then you need to add to the mix the
psychological propensities of the individuals. A lot of that I think is
hardwired, but like anything hardwired it has a distribution curve (on
risk-taking, radical versus conservative profiles, and so forth). The
curve is subject to evolutionary explanations, but why the individual is
thus and so is not (that is a developmental issue).

IMO. I'm trained as a philosopher, not a psychologist or biologist, so
take it for what it is worth.

William Morse

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Jun 4, 2003, 12:09:47 AM6/4/03

"John Edser" <ed...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in news:bbg0ej$nah$1
@darwin.ediacara.org:

>
>
>> PR:-
>> Genes that give rise to adaptations can not be eliminated
>> or preserved based on their effects on the organism as
>> whole?
>
>> JE:-
>> No, Genes that give rise to adaptations can only be eliminated
>> or preserved based on their effects on one organism as
>> whole, i.e. one genomic gene fitness, ANY genomic
>> gene fitness, exactly = one organism fitness because
>> genomic genes cannot be independently selected.
>
>
> BM:-
> I don't understand. Please give an example to illustrate your point.
>
> JE:-
> You cannot select an single genomic
> gene without selecting an entire organism
> that contains it. Models just equate
> a single gene fitness with an organism
> fitness as a super simplification.
>

I thought that was exactly what Phil Roberts was talking about -
selection operating at the level of the organism as a whole. And for
many cases I agree that the phenotype is the unit of selection. But if a
point mutation in a single gene results in a non-viable organism, that
mutation can be independently selected against, n'est pas?

Yours,

Bill Morse

William Morse

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Jun 4, 2003, 12:09:47 AM6/4/03

wil...@wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
news:bbi99n$1dtm$1...@darwin.ediacara.org:

> Phil Roberts, Jr. <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> ...
>> Back to evolutionary theory, what is your view of the behavior of
>> the 9/11 terrorists? A minor discrepancy, or a major headache for
>> evolutionary psychology?
>
> The problem with evolutionary psychology arises, IMHO, when it leaves
> the realm of cognitive and psychological biases, tendencies and
> propensities, and tries to provide a simple, monistic account of a
> complex event in a cultural context.

Well said - and most evolutionary psychologists would probably agree.
Actually, as pointed out by ??, being unpredictable on an individual
level is probably itself adaptive, since otherwise one could be too
easily manipulated. So expecting any psychologist to be able to
completely explain a particular individual's actions is not realistic.

> The behavior of fundamentalist terrorists falls under the class of
> dominance hierarchy behaviors gone wrong, attempting to "protect" the
> home territory at the service of an "alpha male" (in this case, Allah)
> and his beta male lieutenants (the Imams and terrorist leaders). The
> altruism extends to the service of "kin" (i.e., coreligionists, even
> though they are not necessarily *genetic* kin), as we see in the
> trials of the Bali bombers - who apologise and show remorse only for
> killing Muslims accidentally (as Imam Samudra did recently).

I'm not sure I agree that the behavior is "gone wrong". As pointed out
by Pinker (in How the Mind Works), the Doomsday Machine is a viable
strategy, and probably important in some aspects of human behavior. A
recent article (I think it was in Science) noted that most of the
suicidal terrorists are not poor and lower class but fairly well
educated and middle class. The key element is a feeling of humiliation
- what I think Phil would include under "self worth". Having humiliation
lead to suicidal rage could well be a Doomsday Machine response that is
adaptive in a cultural evolution context. One would not want to
completely humiliate an opponent if the result was a suicidal attack by
the opponent.

>
> To run with this explanation, we need not only the "sociobiological"
> story, but also the "evolutionary psychology" story about adaptation
> to troop-size populations in the EEA, and also the cultural evolution
> story about how Islam has been developed and employed in the countries
> from where these people come. Sometimes these explanatory levels
> directly connect - you could argue that the almost medieval
> village-like culture of parts of Iran and the Middle East contribute
> to the impression that defense of religion is defense of kin, for
> example.

I agree that the psychological motivations probably include some sense
of family defense.

Yours,

Bill Morse

Phil Roberts, Jr.

unread,

Jun 5, 2003, 9:48:15 AM6/5/03

William Morse wrote:
> wil...@wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
> news:bbi99n$1dtm$1...@darwin.ediacara.org:
>
>
>>Phil Roberts, Jr. <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>...
>>
>>>Back to evolutionary theory, what is your view of the behavior of
>>>the 9/11 terrorists? A minor discrepancy, or a major headache for
>>>evolutionary psychology?
>>
>>The problem with evolutionary psychology arises, IMHO, when it leaves
>>the realm of cognitive and psychological biases, tendencies and
>>propensities, and tries to provide a simple, monistic account of a
>>complex event in a cultural context.
>
>
> Well said - and most evolutionary psychologists would probably agree.
> Actually, as pointed out by ??, being unpredictable on an individual
> level is probably itself adaptive, since otherwise one could be too
> easily manipulated. So expecting any psychologist to be able to
> completely explain a particular individual's actions is not realistic.
>

My view is somewhat different from both of the above. I see man as
driven, not by the need to sustain physical needs, but mostly by the
need to sustain emotional needs, with the latter not easily translated
to anything that makes all that much sense from a physical need
point of view. These emotional needs are grotesquely underreported
and underacknowledged in the natural sciences simply because they
seem so out of place from the perspective of everything we have come
to understand about our naturally selected history, but lie at the core of
the humanities. And, in this respect, without actually trying to
be, I have long viewed the humanities as actually more scientific
than the sciences where the study of human nature is concerned. I
quess you might say that the problem with our scientific view of
man is that we are so focused on being scientific, that we are quite
prepared to force human nature into a mold that it really doesn't
fit. This has nothing whatsoever to do with a romantic sentimentality,
but with the simple realization that the dominant need in myself is
simply not physical, but my need to sustain my sense of self-worth,
hidden just below the surface in virtually everything I think and
do. And that until such time as evolutionary psychology begins to
put this feature of the mind right at the very center of its
perspective, its all going to remain a bit of a joke:

My own views in philosophy of science have perhaps been best mirrored in
a little paper that you really can't find anywhere except at my website.
It was presented at the 1981 meeting of the 'Society for Philosohpy
and Psychology' at the U. of Chicago. Here is how it begins:

Implications of the New Philosophy of Science

A Topology for Psychology

Peter T. Manicas, Queens College, CUNY
Paul F. Secord, University of Houston

Introduction

From early in this century to the present day, psychology has been
characterized by a number of polarities reflecting various conflicts and
tensions in the field. These may be variously described as experimental
versus clinical, biological reductionism versus humanism, basic research
versus applied, scientific versus professional, mentalism versus behaviorism.
By the late 1950's voices expressing deep dissatisfaction with the
discipline appeared. Most notable was the appearance at this time of the
monumental Psychology: A Study of a Science, edited by Sigmund Koch. In
that work, one eminent psychologist after another, after many years -- or
even a lifetime of research -- admitted to strong doubts about what had been
achieved, and some suggested that our most basic assumptions had to be
questioned.

Koch's diagnosis was incisive. He argued that psychology was unique
insofar as "its institutionalization preceded its content and its methods
preceded its problem's.... The 'scientism' that many see and decry in
recent psychology was thus with it from the start... From its earliest days

of the experimental pioneers, man's stipulation that psychology be adequate
to science outweighed his commitment that it be adequate to man" (Vol.
p. 783). And even more crucially, Koch went on to point out that
"(psychology) still bases its understanding of vital questions of method

on an extrinsic philosophy of science which (in some areas) is twenty years
or more out of date" (p. 788).

More recently, we find Koch in 1969, Taylor in 1973 and Toulmin in
1978 observing (here in Taylor's words) that "psychology is a vast and
ramified discipline" containing "many mansions," yet "intellectually divided
against itself" (Taylor, 1973). Moreover, the "busy research" of the past
dozen years or so has seen the fragmentation of psychology into "dozens of
highly specialized, and largely non-interacting subdisciplines" (Toulmin,
1978). Toulmin attributed this, rightly on our view, to the still dominating
neo-positivist theory of the behavioral sciences that succeeded the old
positivism of the 1930's and 1940's.

But if as these writers have argued, the root issue remains the very
conception of science, of its methods, tasks and limits, then the time may
be ripe for a resolution. In the decades since the publication of
Psychology: A Study of a Science, there has been, indeed,
a virtual Copernican Revolution in the philosophy of science, a radical change that
has profound implications for the human sciences. Moreover, currently with this
"revolution" there has been an extraordinary convergence on a new heuristic
for the human sciences. This heuristic, converging from a wide variety of
disparate quarters, from continental hermeneutics, post-Wittgensteinian
action-theory and philosophy of mind, phenomenology, structuralism and
neo-Marxism, is not merely consistent with the new philosophy of science, but
as we shall argue, it can be seen to be grounded in the same fundamental
insights (Bhaskar 1975, 1979a).

*********************************************************************

What does all this have to do with 9/11. From my perspective, the 9/11
terrorists do not make any sense from the perspective of the theory of
natural selection, and are providing us with evidence of indeterminism.
IOW, man is indeed the rational animal, as is evidenced by the fact that
he is increasingly less concerned with staying alive (e.g., self-
incinerating Buddhist monks, suicide second leading cause of death in
teenagers, etc.) and increasingly more concerned with sustaining REASONS
for staying alive (self-worth maximization manifested in needs for love,
attention, purpose, meaning, wealth, power, religion, dignity, autonomy
justice, etc. etc. etc.). He is beginning to question the most central
mandate of natural selection itself, and is offering irrefutable evidence
that we as a species are beginning to show signs of transcending our
genetic influences.

John Edser

unread,

Jun 5, 2003, 9:48:16 AM6/5/03

>> PR:-
>> Genes that give rise to adaptations can not be eliminated
>> or preserved based on their effects on the organism as
>> whole?
>
>> JE:-
>> No, Genes that give rise to adaptations can only be eliminated
>> or preserved based on their effects on one organism as
>> whole, i.e. one genomic gene fitness, ANY genomic
>> gene fitness, exactly = one organism fitness because
>> genomic genes cannot be independently selected.

> BM:-
> I don't understand. Please give an example to illustrate your point.

> JE:-
> You cannot select an single genomic
> gene without selecting an entire organism
> that contains it. Models just equate
> a single gene fitness with an organism
> fitness as a super simplification.

BM:-

I thought that was exactly what Phil Roberts was talking about -
selection operating at the level of the organism as a whole.

JE:-
No, the fertile organism as one whole.

BM:-

And for
many cases I agree that the phenotype is the unit of selection. But if a
point mutation in a single gene results in a non-viable organism, that
mutation can be independently selected against, n'est pas?

JE:-
Absolutely not. That gene's fitness
has simply been equated with one fertile
organism fitness as a _gross_ simplification.
The cost: all fitness epistasis, i.e.
everything that matters about the fitness
of that one gene!

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105

Australia.

ed...@ozemail.com.au

John Wilkins

unread,

Jun 5, 2003, 9:48:13 AM6/5/03

William Morse <wdm...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

> wil...@wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
> news:bbi99n$1dtm$1...@darwin.ediacara.org:
>
> > Phil Roberts, Jr. <phi...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> > ...
> >> Back to evolutionary theory, what is your view of the behavior of
> >> the 9/11 terrorists? A minor discrepancy, or a major headache for
> >> evolutionary psychology?
> >
> > The problem with evolutionary psychology arises, IMHO, when it leaves
> > the realm of cognitive and psychological biases, tendencies and
> > propensities, and tries to provide a simple, monistic account of a
> > complex event in a cultural context.
>
> Well said - and most evolutionary psychologists would probably agree.
> Actually, as pointed out by ??, being unpredictable on an individual
> level is probably itself adaptive, since otherwise one could be too
> easily manipulated. So expecting any psychologist to be able to
> completely explain a particular individual's actions is not realistic.

True, but we ought to note this is an argument for the maladaptiveness
of rigidly monotypic populations, rather than an argument against EP
explanations. *Any* evolutionary explanation is going to be stochastic
over populationsal distributions (that's how I understand it, anyway).

>
> > The behavior of fundamentalist terrorists falls under the class of
> > dominance hierarchy behaviors gone wrong, attempting to "protect" the
> > home territory at the service of an "alpha male" (in this case, Allah)
> > and his beta male lieutenants (the Imams and terrorist leaders). The
> > altruism extends to the service of "kin" (i.e., coreligionists, even
> > though they are not necessarily *genetic* kin), as we see in the
> > trials of the Bali bombers - who apologise and show remorse only for
> > killing Muslims accidentally (as Imam Samudra did recently).
>
> I'm not sure I agree that the behavior is "gone wrong". As pointed out
> by Pinker (in How the Mind Works), the Doomsday Machine is a viable
> strategy, and probably important in some aspects of human behavior. A
> recent article (I think it was in Science) noted that most of the
> suicidal terrorists are not poor and lower class but fairly well
> educated and middle class. The key element is a feeling of humiliation
> - what I think Phil would include under "self worth". Having humiliation
> lead to suicidal rage could well be a Doomsday Machine response that is
> adaptive in a cultural evolution context. One would not want to
> completely humiliate an opponent if the result was a suicidal attack by
> the opponent.

Do we really need an adaptive story here? It is a periphrasis to call it
a trait "gone wrong" - all that means is that while it is adaptive in
one context, it may not be adaptive now, qua *biological* trait. This is
because the adaptation occurred when the human population was small
enough for these traits to go to fixation across the entire species (so
far as I know - all humans are the same, within variational limits, in
this respect). So being adaptive in the environment of evolutionary
adaptation almost guarantees it will be maladaptive in novel and complex
environments like sedentary civilisation.

There may still *be* an adaptive story here - it is no doubt a
phenomenon with a *cultural* fitness, but this does not mean that we
should expect the biological trait to itself be an adaptation - the
conflation of the two levels of adaptation strike me as a longstanding
error in evolutionary thinking, going back to Darwin and Spencer.

>
>
> >
> > To run with this explanation, we need not only the "sociobiological"
> > story, but also the "evolutionary psychology" story about adaptation
> > to troop-size populations in the EEA, and also the cultural evolution
> > story about how Islam has been developed and employed in the countries
> > from where these people come. Sometimes these explanatory levels
> > directly connect - you could argue that the almost medieval
> > village-like culture of parts of Iran and the Middle East contribute
> > to the impression that defense of religion is defense of kin, for
> > example.
>
> I agree that the psychological motivations probably include some sense
> of family defense.
>

The main difference being that in the Pleistocene, family was one's
community, so a community defence mechanism *would* be adaptive in kin
selection terms. *Now*, though, community no longer represents real kin
(ceteris paribus), so the "defend community [in order to defend kin]"
strategy no longer works biologically.

The ceteris paribus comes from a doco I saw recently, in which it was
noted that the genetic populations that built the pyramids, as based on
PCR of the buried workers (each of whom was labelled as to original
poulation and region), has not significantly changed in over 5000 years.
It seems to me that genes are usually *less* mobile than languages,
religions and agricultural practices. Hence it may be that the "defend
community" trategem is often enough adaptive to keep other strategems
from taking over.

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