What is the "engine" of evolution?

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

SOURCE: Original essay

COMMENTARY: That's up to you...

Ever since Darwin, the primary "engine" of evolution has been considered to be natural selection. However, if one takes a closer look at this, it is clear that natural selection is not an "engine," it is an outcome. If evolution is defined as change in the characteristics of the members of a population over time and natural selection is defined as unequal non-random survival and reproduction (or, more parsimoniously, differential reproductive success), then the underlying cause of the changes that are differentially preserved over time is the real "engine" of evolution by natural selection.

And what might this "engine" of change be? Exactly what Darwin said it was in the Origin of Species: the "laws of variation" of which naturalists of his time were almost "completely ignorant." That is, given that some variations are heritable and that they can be passed from parents to offspring in the process of reproduction, then it is the processes that cause such variations that are the real "engine(s)" of evolution, including evolution by natural selection.

Darwin was on the right track when later on he sought out the specifics of the "engines of variation" in Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, published in 1868. Darwin suggested that the rate of variation changed over time, in response to specific changes in the environment. For example, he pointed out that the variation between domesticated animals and plants was considerably greater than that found in the wild. This suggested to him that something about domestication – increased food, improved nutrition, lack of predators, etc. – caused an increase in the production of variations that were then exploited by animal and plant breeders.

However, it is now generally accepted that the only real difference between domesticated and wild animals and plants, in terms of variation, is that the conditions of domestication allow more variants to survive and reproduce, rather than causing more of them to be produced in the first place. I do not know enough genetics to say whether or not this is the case, but it seems to me at least that Darwin's idea is worth empirical investigation. Here are the relevant questions (which may or may not already have answers):

• Is the rate of generation of genetic and phenotypic variation a constant?

If the answer to this question is "yes," then all we need to investigate is the actual genetic and developmental mechanisms by which such variations are generated. However, if the answer is "no," then the rate of generation of genetic and phenotypic variations is variable, which immediately suggests more questions:

• Is the increased rate of generation of variations correlated with any identifiable factor in either the genetics/development or the environment of organisms in which such variable rates of variation are observed?

If the answer to this question is "no," then we may safely assume that the underlying "engine(s)" of variation is/are entirely random, insofar as we can observe it changing randomly over time. However, if the answer is "yes," then there are more questions:

• Via what mechanism(s) is the increased rate of variation generated, and are the "triggers" for such increased variation endogenous, exogenous, or some combination of the two?

Clearly, the "engine(s)" of variation are prodigious, as it/they have been able over time to modify something as simple as a mycoplasm into an oak tree or a blue whale. Some supporters of "intelligent design" (ID) would dispute this statement, of course, claiming (without any empirical evidence) that "you can't get here from there." However, we clearly have gotten here from there; the real question is "how?" There are logically at least two possibilities:

• The process(es) by which the "engine(s) of variation" have produced the necessary variation have operated endogenously by means of a prodigious (and undirected) "random variation generator," the products of which have been sorted over time by natural selection (i.e. the Darwinian hypothesis), or

• The process(es) by which the "engine(s) of variation" have produced the necessary variation have operated endogenously by means of a less prodigious "non-random variation generator," the products of which have been sorted over time by natural selection (i.e. the ID hypothesis).

Noticing that the only difference between these two possibilities is the amount of variation and its source immediately suggests a way of testing the two hypotheses: do the currently identified mechanisms of genetic and phenotypic variation produce enough variation to get from there to here, or not? If the answer is "yes," then the ID hypothesis is unnecessary, and therefore irrelevent to science.

So, the next obvious question is, what are the currently identified mechanisms of genetic and phenotypic variation, and do they provide enough variation to get here from there? The answer to this question will be posted soon -watch this space.

And as always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Evolution and Religion: Is Religion Adaptive?

ANNOUNCEMENT: Seminar in History of Biology

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill

First the announcement, followed by a brief commentary:

I am very excited to announce the following course, to be offered this summer in the six-week summer session at Cornell University:

COURSE LISTING: BioEE 467/B&Soc 447/Hist 415/S&TS 447 Seminar in History of Biology

SEMESTER: Cornell Six-Week Summer Session, 06/26/07 to 08/02/07

COURSE TITLE: Evolution and Religion: Is Religion Adaptive?

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: Allen MacNeill, Senior Lecturer in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This seminar addresses, in historical perspective, controversies about the cultural, philosophical, and scientific implications of evolutionary biology. Discussions focus upon questions about gods, free will, foundations for ethics, meaning in life, and life after death. Readings range from Charles Darwin to the present (see reading list, below).

In 1871, Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man that “…a belief in all-pervading spiritual entities seems to be universal.” A century later, Donald Brown, in his encyclopedic analysis of human universals, noted the same thing: that the capacity for religion is a universal trait, found in all human cultures. However, there is considerable individual variation in this capacity, ranging from people whose entire lives revolve around their religious beliefs to those who entirely lack them.

To an evolutionary biologist, such pan-specificity combined with continuous variation strongly suggests that one is dealing with an evolutionary adaptation. And indeed, in the past few years the publication of hypotheses for the evolution of the capacity for religion has become an explosive growth industry and a hot topic of debate. In this seminar course, we will take up this debate by considering three alternative hypotheses: that the capacity for religion is (1) an evolutionary adaptation, (2) a side-effect of an evolutionary adaptation, or (3) a “mind virus” with no direct evolutionary implications. We will read from some of the leading authors on the subject, including Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Andrew Newberg, and David Sloan Wilson. Our intent will be to sort out the various issues at play, and to come to clarity on how those issues can be integrated into the perspective of the natural sciences as a whole.

In addition to in-class discussions, course participants will have the opportunity to participate in online debates and discussions via the instructor's weblog. Students registered for the course will also have an opportunity to present their original research paper(s) to the class and to the general public via publication on the course weblog and via THE EVOLUTION LIST.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: This course is intended primarily for students in biology, history, philosophy, and science & technology studies. The approach will be interdisciplinary, and the format will consist of in-depth readings across the disciplines and discussion of the issues raised by such readings.

PREREQUISITES: None, although a knowledge of comparative anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and general evolutionary theory would be helpful.

DAYS, TIMES, & PLACES: The course will meet on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 9:00 PM in Mudd Hall, Room 409 (The Whittaker Seminar Room), beginning on Tuesday 26 June 2007 and ending on Thursday 2 August 2007. We will also have an end-of-course picnic at a location TBA.

CREDIT & GRADES: The course will be offered for 4 hours of credit, regardless of which course listing students choose to register for. Unless otherwise noted, course credit in BioEE 467/B&Soc 447 can be used to fulfill biology/science distribution requirements and Hist 415/S&TS 447 can be used to fulfill humanities distribution requirements (check with your college registrar's office for more information). Letter grades for this course will be based on the quality of written work on original research papers written by students, plus participation in class discussion.

COURSE ENROLLMENT & REGISTRATION: All participants must be registered in the Cornell Six-Week Summer Session to attend class meetings and receive credit for the course (click here for for more information and to enroll for this course). Registration will be limited to the first 18 students who enroll for credit.

REQUIRED TEXTS (all texts will be available at The Cornell Store):

Atran, Scott (2004) In Gods we trust: The evolutionary landscape of religion. Oxford University Press, paperback, 388 pages, ISBN #0195178033

Boyer, Pascal (2002) Religion explained: The evolutionary origins of religion. Vintage Books, paperback, 448 pages, ISBN #0099282763

Dawkins, Richard (2006) The God delusion. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 416 pages, ISBN #0618680004.

Dennett, Daniel (2007) Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. Penguin Books, paperback, 464 pages, ISBN #0143038338

Newberg, Andrew & D'Aquili, Eugene (2001) Why god won't go away: Brain science and the biology of belief. Ballantine Books, paperback, 240 pages, ISBN #034544034X

Wilson, David Sloan (2003) Darwin's cathedral: Evolution, religion, and the nature of society. University of Chicago Press, paperback, 268 pages, ISBN #0226901351

OPTIONAL TEXTS (all texts will be available at The Cornell Store):

Darwin, Charles (E. O. Wilson, ed.) (2006) From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books. W. W. Norton, hardcover, 1,706 pages, ISBN #0393061345

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenaus & Salter, Frank (1998) Indoctrinability, ideology, and warfare: Evolutionary perspectives. Berghahn Books, hardcover, 490 pages, ISBN #1571819231

Fitzduff, Marie & Stout, Chris (2006) The psychology of resolving global conflicts: From war to peace: Volume 1: Nature vs nurture. Praeger Security International, hardcover, 354 pages, ISBN #0275982084

Guthrie, Stewart (1995) Faces in the clouds: A new theory of religion. Oxford University Press, paperback, 336 pages, ISBN #0195098919

Hamer, Dean (2005) The God gene: How faith is hardwired into our genes. Anchor, 256 pages, ISBN #0385720319

Newberg, A. & Waldman, M. (2006) Why we believe what we believe: Uncovering our biological need for meaning, spirituality, and truth. Free Press, hardcover, 336 pages, ISBN # 0743274970

Persinger, Michael (1987) Neuropsychological bases of god beliefs. Praeger Publishers, 175 pages, ISBN #0275926486

Wolpert, Lewis (2006) Six impossible things before breakfast: The evolutionary origins of belief. W. W. Norton, 243 pages, ISBN #0393064492

COMMENTARY:

I realize that putting myself in between such formidable opponents is perhaps asking for trouble...but I couldn't possibly get into any more trouble than I did last summer, could I? Once again, we shall rush in where angels fear to tread, and consider a very topical topic. As was the case last year, I invite anyone with an interest in the question posed as the title of this blog to consider taking this course, or at least sitting in on our discussion online. We will have an online course blog, where any and all comments, criticisms, suggestions, and other trivia will be roasted and toasted...so long as they are civil. As for accusations that I'm biased, let me say upfront that I (like almost everyone else) have an opinion on the question: I believe (based on my research into this question) that the answer is "Yes" and that the specific context within which the capacity for religious experience has evolved is warfare...but we'll talk all about that this summer.

We may also talk about whether or not God (or gods, or whatever) exist, but that will not be the primary focus of the course, nor will I allow it to become the primary focus of our discussions. This course isn't about the existence or non-existence of God (or Darwin or me). It's about whether or not the ability to believe in things like God (or gods, or whatever) has adaptive consequences. It's a fascinating topic and I hope that enough people will sign up for the course with opposing viewpoints on this subject to make for as interesting a summer seminar as last year's was.

So, watch this space; when the course blog goes up, I will announce it here and provide links to all and sundry. And remember:

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." – Voltaire

--Allen

Scientists Say Darwin's 'Tree of Life' Not The Theory Of Everything

ARTICLE: physorg.com

AUTHOR: Lisa Zyga

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill

First the news item, followed by some commentary:

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

There is only one figure in On the Origin of Species, and that is a tree diagram. As Darwin’s model for the theory of evolution, he used the Tree of Life (TOL) to clearly and visually explain the interrelatedness of all living things, implying that from one common ancestor (the root) sprung branches, which produced smaller offshoots as genetic progeny, etc.

In this model, similarities between species reveal a common ancestor, and differences result from (and explain) Darwin’s main catalysts: competition and natural selection, which generate improvement in future generations. As a simile, the TOL served a vital purpose for introducing the theory of evolution to the community in an understandable way. Although there is no external evidence to support the idea that evolution is inclusively hierarchical, many evolutionists believe the TOL provides an accurate general representation of the history of life, which could potentially be completely reconstructed by knowing the relevant data.

In recent times, however, a minority of biologists and evolutionists have questioned the accuracy of the TOL hypothesis, including W. Ford Doolittle and Eric Bapteste. In a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Pattern Pluralism and the Tree of Life Hypothesis,” the scientists investigate the shortcomings of the TOL, as well as propose alternative models that would better explain how to classify the history of evolving life forms.

Much of the initial concern over TOL was provoked by biologists studying the complex relationships among prokaryotes, the most primitive life forms that include bacteria and archaea. Prokaryotes have a much simpler DNA structure than eukaryotes (all other life forms). Because of this, prokaryotes often transfer their DNA via processes such as lateral gene transfer as opposed to vertical gene transfer (direct transmission form parent to progeny) which is the basis for the “phylogenetic” (evolutionary relatedness) TOL scheme.

“Surely a tree is the right model for most multi-cellular animals and plants,” Doolittle explained to PhysOrg.com. “Thus the TOL is great for fossils and museums and dinosaurs and most of visible life, over the last billion years. But unicellular eukaryotes and prokaryotes represent the bulk of the biomass and diversity of life on earth, as well as the first two-thirds of its history.”

In their paper, Doolittle and Bapteste highlight research that shows other causes of genetic modification, suggesting that evolutionary history is more complex than described by the TOL. For example, recombination, gene loss, duplication, and gene creation are a few of the processes whereby genes can be transferred within and between species, causing variation that’s not due to vertical transfer. These transfer methods give results that don’t fit on the TOL, including species that cannot be traced to a common ancestor.

While such diverse methods might appear to obviously point to a more complex nonhierarchical evolutionary scheme, Doolittle and Bapteste explain that the TOL thinking persists due to confusion between the roles of “process” and “pattern.” The above methods are processes and are widely accepted by modern evolutionists, whereas the TOL is a pattern that, as Doolittle and Bapteste explain, has been ingrained in biologists’ minds from early education as a single, unifying model. As the researchers explain of the current biology scene, “We may be process pluralists, but we remain pattern monists.”

If this combination of thinking seems to clash, Doolittle and Bapteste suggest that the Western philosophical tradition of thinking in universal patterns has caused biologists to cling to classification without realizing it. The authors point out that many algorithms used to study evolutionary hierarchies impose or extract the TOL structure due to their intrinsic design. TOL is a paradigm that has stuck. But Doolittle sees ways to alter this mentality.

“Sure we can [re-train Western thinking]. That's what ‘postmodernism’ is about,” he said. “I would agree that the need to classify might be built in, but the coupling of this practice to a specific theory about what classifications are ‘natural’ is surely not.

As an alternative to the TOL, the scientists suggest that relationships among life forms may be represented by whatever model fits for a certain purpose, a certain taxonomic group, or a certain scale. In contrast to pattern monism, they call this belief “pattern pluralism.” While parts of evolution certainly are tree-like, other parts may be nets or webs or other complex models. Most importantly, however, there seems to be no “theory of everything” in evolution, no metanarrative to unify all life forms.

“In 2006, our understanding of evolution at the molecular, population genetic, and ecological levels is rich and pluralistic in character,” the scientists conclude, “and does not require (or justify) a monistic view of the phylogenetic pattern.”

As for any blow to Darwin’s ego, the scientists point out that he never wrote about reconstructing the tree in an attempt to relate every living thing, but rather used the model as a general guide.

“I'd like to think he would adjust,” Doolittle said about Darwin. “After all, his theory was developed before there was any understanding of genetics and when bacteria were still believed to be spontaneously generated.”

REFERENCES CITED:
Doolittle, W. Ford, and Bapteste, Eric. “Pattern pluralism and the Tree of Life hypothesis.” PNAS, February 13, 2007, vol. 104, no. 7, 2043-2049.

****************************************************
COMMENTARY:

Ford Doolittle has been saying this for many years, and has been joined by Lynn Margulis, who has argued that the concept of "species" does not apply to prokaryotes.

But, that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is how "intelligent design theorists" quote-mine and otherwise distort reality to the point of outright lying. Why do I say this? Because former lawyer and professional propagandist, Casey Luskin, has a postat Evolution News, propaganda outlet for the Discovery Institute in which he says

"By invoking insufficient data, horizontal gene swapping, rapid evolution, and other ad hoc explanations, Darwinists reveal that neo-Darwinism is trying explaining away the data; it is not explaining the data. Perhaps the inability to construct robust phylogenetic trees using molecular data stems from the fact that common descent is simply wrong."

And the alternative? Why, magic of course. All of the living forms on Earth today were created, all at once, on Tuesday 25 October 4004 BC at 9 AM...or some other time in the past, exact date unspecified. Because, of course, that is the only alternative to common descent. Either you and your siblings are the offspring of your parents (i.e. common descent) or you aren't, and if the latter is true, then you must all have been created separately, not by your parents, but rather by God...excuse me, the Grand Omnipotent Designer. And with your memories of your childhood already inserted into your minds, so that the jarring discontinuity of your separate creations would not disturb you too much...would lead you, in fact, into the damning conclusion that you were, in fact, the offspring of your parents, and thus consign yourself to everlasting torment in the lake of fire.

Or not. You see, this is what the kind of egregious propagandizing of the folks of the Disco Institute leads to. Not discussion of the science of biology on its merits, on the basis of reason and evidence, but pure assertions without any alternatives at all (not that they want you to read in public, anyway).

I'm tired (our new baby is keeping Leah and me awake at night), and so I'll sign off now. But damn, people like Luskin just make me want to scream sometimes...

"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
- Friedrisch Schiller

--Allen

For First Time, Chimps Seen Making Weapons for Hunting

SOURCE: The Washington Post

AUTHOR: Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill

Friday, February 23, 2007: Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the tools to hunt small mammals — the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans. The multistep spearmaking practice, documented by researchers in Senegal who spent years gaining the chimpanzees' trust, adds credence to the idea that human forebears fashioned similar tools millions of years ago. The landmark observation also supports the long-debated proposition that females — the main makers and users of spears among the Senegalese chimps — tend to be the innovators and creative problem solvers in primate culture.

Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long, straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end. Then, grasping the weapons in a "power grip," they jabbed them into tree-branch hollows where bushbabies — small, monkeylike mammals — sleep during the day. In one case, after repeated stabs, a chimpanzee removed the injured or dead animal and ate it, the researchers reported in yesterday's online issue of the journal Current Biology.

"It was really alarming how forceful it was," said lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University, adding that it reminded her of the murderous shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho." "It was kind of scary."

The new observations are "stunning," said Craig Stanford, a primatologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California. "Really fashioning a weapon to get food — I'd say that's a first for any nonhuman animal."

Scientists have documented tool use among chimpanzees for decades, but the tools have been simple and used to extract food rather than to kill it. Some chimpanzees slide thin sticks or leaf blades into termite mounds, for example, to fish for the crawling morsels. Others crumple leaves and use them as sponges to sop drinking water from tree hollows.

But while a few chimpanzees have been observed throwing rocks — perhaps with the goal of knocking prey unconscious, but perhaps simply as an expression of excitement — and a few others have been known to swing simple clubs, only people have been known to craft tools expressly to hunt prey.

Pruetz and Paco Bertolani of the University of Cambridge made the observations near Kedougou in southeastern Senegal. Unlike other chimpanzee sites currently under study, which are forested, this site is mostly open savannah. That environment is very much like the one in which early humans evolved and is different enough from other sites to expect differences in chimpanzee behaviors.

Pruetz recalled the first time she saw a member of the 35-member troop trimming leaves and side branches off a branch it had broken off a tree.

"I just knew right away that she was making a tool," Pruetz said, adding that she suspected — with some horror — what it was for. But in that instance she was unable to follow the chimpanzee to see what she did with it. Eventually the researchers documented 22 instances of spearmaking and use, two-thirds of them involving females.

In a typical sequence, the animal first discovered a deep tree hollow suitable for bush babies, which are nocturnal and weigh about half a pound. Then the chimp would break off a branch — on average about two feet long, but up to twice that length — trim it, sharpen it with its teeth, and poke it repeatedly into the hollow at a rate of about one or two jabs per second. After every few jabs, the chimpanzee would sniff or lick the branch's tip, as though testing to see if it had caught anything.

In only one of the 22 observations did a chimp get a bush baby. But that is reasonably efficient, Pruetz said, compared with standard chimpanzee hunting, which involves chasing a monkey or other prey, grabbing it by the tail and slamming its head against the ground.

In the successful bush-baby case, the chimpanzee, after using its sharpened stick, jumped on the hollow branch in the tree until it broke, exposing the limp bush baby, which the chimp then extracted. Whether the animal was dead or alive at that point was unclear, but it did not move or make any sound.

Chimpanzees are believed to offer a window on early human behavior, and many researchers have hoped that the animals — humans' closest genetic cousins — might reveal something about the earliest use of wooden tools. Many suspect that the use of wooden tools far predates the use of stone tools — remnants of which have been found dating from 2.5 million years ago. But because wood does not preserve well, the most ancient wooden spears ever found are only about 400,000 years old, leaving open the question of when such tools first came into use. The discovery that some chimps today make wooden weapons supports the idea that early humans did too — perhaps as much as 5 million years ago — Stanford said.

Adrienne Zihlman, an anthropologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, said the work supports other evidence that female chimps are more likely than males to use tools, are more proficient at it and are crucial to passing that cultural knowledge to others.

"Females are the teachers," Zihlman said, noting that juvenile chimps in Senegal were repeatedly seen watching their mothers make and hunt with spears.

Females "are efficient and innovative, they are problem solvers, they are curious," Zihlman said. And that makes sense, she added.

"They are pregnant or lactating or carrying a kid for most of their life," she said. "And they're supposed to be running around in the trees chasing prey?"

Frans B.M. de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University, said aggressive tool use is only the latest "uniquely human" behavior to be found to be less than unique.

"Such claims are getting old," he said. "With the present pace of discovery, they last a few decades at most."

COMMENTARY:

Yet another supposedly significant difference between humans and non-human animals falls by the wayside. It would be really interesting to know when this behavior first began, and where (and by whom). Based on what we already know about chimp learning behavior, it is very likely that a young female first tried this technique, possibly modeling it on the already well-developed technique of using a twig stripped of its branches to "fish" for termites in termite mounds. Also, it is likely that the technique has spread via imitation, rather than by directed learning. Chimps (like many other primates) are very good at imitative learning, but apparently do not actually "teach" each other how to do things...but maybe this will also be observed at some point in the future.

Furthermore, it is clear that the female chimps fashioning these spears are doing so intentionally: they perform a specific, learned behavior with the intent to use it to extract food (i.e. bushbabies) from locations that would otherwise be inaccessible. A clear case of "design" in a non-human animal, and clearly learned/based on experience (i.e. not innate/hard-wired). Anyone who argues that "design" or "intentionality" does not exist in nature is either deliberately self-deceived or stupid.

Does this mean that "design" is an intrinsic property of nature, however? Not at all; rather, it shows that "design" (i.e. intentional behavior) can be an emergent property of a particular class of natural entities. We know that we are capable of intentional behavior, and now we have solid evidence that chimps are as well. However, none of this is evidence for the kind of "intrinsic design" that "intelligent design theorists" propose as an explanation for the origin of complex adaptations. Rather, it is evidence for the kind of "emergent design" that Ernst Mayr explained as fully compatible with evolutionary theory more than thirty years ago.

--Allen

More on Steve Fuller and "Social Epistemology"

SOURCE: Cornell IDEA Club

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

The debate begun in my previous post continues...

A poster to the Cornell IDEA Club listserve wrote:

"Fuller '... deserves to have his ideas discussed instead of lambasted.'"

Okay, here's something to discuss (a direct quote from Fuller):

"In this respect, 'our' side pulled its punches in the Science Wars when it refused to come out and say that the scientific establishment may not be the final word on what science is, let alone what it ought to be." [emphasis mine]

In that one sentence alone is encapsulated nearly everything that most practicing scientists find so deeply objectionable about Steve Fuller and his ilk. Let's take it apart:

"'our' side"

What precisely does Fuller mean by this? "Our side" in what way? "Our side" in the evolution/ID debate? The natural science/social science debate? The science/sociology debate? The "culture wars" that Phillip Johnson says ID is part of? What does it mean to say you're on a "side"?

When I debate with other scientists about scientific subjects, those debates can be pretty heated, but generally we're all on the same "side": the "side" of empirical verification/falsification of explanations of natural phenomena. In other words, we're all on the "science side," the side that does what it does based on the premise that such explanations should be grounded in observation of nature and the investigation of natural causes for natural phenomena.

I don't think that's what Fuller means by "our side." Sociologists in general, and "social epistemologists" in particular have as a basic starting assumption that all explanations of all phenomena (natural or otherwise) are ultimately socially constructed.

Now, I have no problem with that idea per se, as I believe as well that such explanations are indeed socially constructed. What I and other scientists have a problem with is the seemingly inevitable logical extension of that idea which most sociologists (and I would put Fuller in this camp) seem prone to: that nature itself is therefore "socially constructed." That's what "social epistemology" means, isn't it? That what we know about reality (i.e. epistemology) is socially constructed, and that therefore we can't actually know anything about nature at all outside of our social construction of it.

But this is precisely what science was and is supposed to be about: the discovery and understanding of what nature is, independent of our opinions and "social constructions." That's why statistical analysis was developed, to remove as much as possible our subjective/socially constrained interpretation of what our observations mean vis-a-vis our explanations about how nature works. That's why we have "double-blind" experimental protocols, and why we argue so vehemently over the validity of data and what it means for theories: because, in the end, all scientists agree that this is the best we can do at understanding how nature works.

But Fuller and his cohorts do not agree; they think that real scientific objectivity (and hence the entire scientific enterprise) is impossible, and that since all scientific explanations are "socially constructed," it all comes down to "sides" and "debates" and, most of all, WINNING. It call comes down to politics, in other words.

"Science Wars"

Here it is in a nutshell. Wars between whom, precisely? Between scientists, who believe that they really are able to say something about the nature of nature, and non-scientists, who believe that it's all really about political power and "hegemony" and "patriarchy" and winning. What happens when you fight a "war", including a "culture war"? Somebody WINS.

"the scientific establishment"

More tired 1970s radical political rhetoric, all dressed up in "scienciness" (like "truthiness" only more "scientific") to impress the gullible and gratify the "politically correct". Yes, I'd be the first to admit that there are "science establishments" - I live and work in one of them. But that's not what Fuller is talking about here. He's talking about the capital E Establishment: the "bad guys" on the other "side", the scientists who believe that they are describing physical reality, when what they are really doing is "oppressing" the poor and downtrodden of the world, the victims of "patriarchy" and "political hegemony" and their advocates, the "social epistemologists", who tell them that there is no objective reality outside of social discourse, and debates are all about WINNING and not about refining our understanding about how nature works.

His mention of the Sokal affair is also telling in this respect. The Sokal affair decisively exposed the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of sociology and "social epistemology" - the belief that everything is socially constructed. Not just our understanding of reality, but reality itself.

"the final word on what science is"

Hmm, well, what does this tell us about Fuller et al? Who should have the "final word" about anything? The people doing it, or the people criticizing it? Who is the real subject - the monster or the critics (as Tolkein so eloquently put it)? True, scientists sometimes don't completely understand why they do things the way they do (i.e. some of them follow instructions, like an apprentice emulates a master), but this does not mean that scientists don't really understand why we do what we do and need somebody like Fuller to tell us.

Why not? Because social "scientists" like Fuller (and like ID "theorists") don't do natural science. They "interpret" or "criticize" or "analyze" what natural scientists do, but they don't do what natural scientists do. If they did, Alan Sokal's trick would not have worked, but instead it sucked them all in, so deep that some of them still don't realize how completely their intellectual bankruptcy was exposed by the "Sokal affair."

"let alone what it ought to be"

And there it is, right there in plain English. The people who DO science are probably the last people who should have anything to say about how science ought to be practised, right? Because, of course, we're all "blinded by science" and don't understand that it isn't about objective analysis of nature, it's about "social construction of reality" which ultimately is about politics (from the Greek polis, for "people"), which is about WINNING.

So, yes, I find it fascinating that ID advocates, the vast majority of whom are deeply committed Christians, can find common cause with Fuller and other "social epistemologists." Christian belief, as I understand it, is ultimately based on unshakable faith in the truth of the Word: the logos of the gospel of John. But, to somebody like Fuller, the Word is just another form of "social discourse", just part of a political struggle of which the ultimate point is WINNING. Why does Phillip Johnson call what he's doing part of a "culture war?" Why does William Dembski and Robert Crowther and Stephen Meyer and Jonathan Witt and Benjamin Wiker (but, significantly, not Michael Behe nor Gullielmo Gonzales, both natural scientists) agree with Johnson? Because that's what they're doing, they're fighting a war, and as I said in my last post, wars aren't about truth, they're about WINNING. Truth be damned, so long as your side WINS. "Lying for Jesus" is justified, and no amount of distortion of experimental results or character assassination or egregiously twisted and vicious propaganda is too much, so long as your side WINS.

Isn't the quotation from Fuller that stands at the top of this post an indication that he sees what he and other "social epistemologists" do is ultimately all about winning? Seems like it to me...

--Allen

On the "Darwin Fetish" and Other Political Oxymorons

SOURCE: Cornell IDEA Club

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

The IDEA Club at Cornell has recently been discussing the following quote by Steve Fuller, a sociologist and one of the "experts" who testified in support of "intelligent design" at the Dover trial in Pennsylvania last year:

"If you want to stop use of the word 'Darwinist' to capture modern evolutionary theory, then you should encourage people like Dawkins, Jones, Wilson, Watson, Ridley and (were he alive) Gould to stop talking about 'Origin of Species' etc. as if they were books of some secular Bible. This kind of thing doesn't happen in physics. The world-view implications of physics can be discussed, while giving due respect to Newton, Einstein, etc., without trying to find bits of their texts that anticipate or legitimise what the author wants to say today . From a sociological standpoint, the Darwin fetish is very weird, and doesn't seem to be related to any claims that creationists or ID people are making. Marx and Freud are the only figures who have been treated this way in recent memory – and you've seen what's happened to them…"

Here's my take on all of this:

It sounds to me like Fuller is objecting to the idea that biologists, especially evolutionary biologists, cite Darwin as a published authority when writing (and talking and teaching) about their own work. However, this is exactly what you're supposed to do in science: back up your assertions with citations whenever your assertions are not completely original. Fuller, who is not a natural scientist but rather a sociologist, doesn't seem to understand this basic fact. Indeed, he seems to think that citation is somehow illegitimate in science, even that it may indicate some kind of slavish adherence to dogma, rather than simply an attempt to ground one's own work in previous work on the same subject.

If I were to cite W. D. Hamilton on the subject of kin selection, for example, does that mean that I have some kind of "Hamilton fetish?" What if everyone who works on kin selection does the same thing; does this mean that we're "deifying Hamilton?" No, the whole idea is absurd; citation is both an accepted and indeed required part of standard science writing, teaching, and speaking.

It goes deeper than this, of course. The reason that Fuller was chosen as one of the "experts" in defense of "intelligent design" at the trial in Dover, PA was because Fuller (like many sociologists today) is a "post-modernist." This means that, like post-modernism's founders such as Foucault and Derrida, Fuller believes and promotes the idea that "all knowledge is reducible to 'discourse'" in which politics is the ultimate force, and political victory over one's intellectual opponents is the ultimate goal. Fuller and others like him argue that there is no such thing as "objective knowledge" at all, only competing ideologies. According to this view, science is just another way for the "dominant white patriarchal class to extend its hegemony" by forcing others to believe in its politically motivated view of reality, and that all intellectual debates are really just part of the ongoing class struggle for political power.

It surprises me, therefore, that "intelligent design" supporters would cite Fuller and promote his ideas, which are of course ultimately based on Marxist (and therefore atheist) theories. Politics indeed makes for strange bedfellows, and to see Christian supporters of ID cite Fuller and others like him as authorities and supporters of their world view strikes me as laughable and ultimately self-defeating.

Yet at the same time, it doesn't surprise me, because that's what "intelligent design theory" started out as and has remained: not science, not the legitimate search for knowledge derived from empirical analysis of nature, but rather politics, pure and simple. This is why IDers don't publish in scientific journals, but rather push their agenda in the media, the courts, and in elections. ID isn't science, it's politics, conducted by press release and lawsuit, and its goal isn't the expansion of knowledge or understanding, it's winning by whatever means possible: distortion, misrepresentation, mischaracterization, even character assassination and outright lying are sanctioned, so long as they promote the ultimate goal: the victory of ID (and therefore the forces of "good," i.e. Christianity) over evolution (and therefore the forces of "evil," i.e. evangelical atheism).

How else to explain such masterpieces of political propaganda as Phillip Johnson's The Wedge of Truth or Benjamin Wiker's Moral Darwinism? The former was written by the acknowledged founder of "intelligent design theory," and the latter was published with a foreword by William Dembski in which he lavishly praises Wiker for getting down to the real issues in the evolution/intelligent design debate. IOW, it's not about knowledge, it's all about winning folks, and cultural warfare (Johnson's term) is just politics by other means. And in cultural warfare as in war in general, the first casualty is the truth...

--Allen

Kansas: Anti-Evolution Guidelines Repealed

ARTICLE: Kansas: Anti-Evolution Guidelines Repealed

SOURCE: Associated Press

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill

First, the news item, followed by a few brief comments:

ASSOCIATED PRESS (Published: February 14, 2007): The State Board of Education repealed science guidelines questioning evolution, putting into effect new ones that reflect mainstream scientific views. The move was a political defeat for advocates of “intelligent design” who had helped write the standards being repealed. The intelligent design concept holds that life is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power. The board removed language suggesting that basic evolutionary concepts were controversial and being challenged by new research. It also approved a new definition of science, limiting it to the search for natural explanations of what is observed in the universe. The state has had five sets of science standards in eight years, each affected by the seesawing fortunes of socially conservative Republicans and a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans.

COMMENTARY:
This was inevitable, given the outcome of last year's state board of education elections, but it's still nice to know that the newly elected board of education candidates followed through on their campaign promises. An interesting sidelight to this story comes from an email I received late last week. The email came from Rob Crowther of the Discovery Institute, home church of the "intelligent design movement" (yes, I'm on their mailing list; it's always good to know what the other side is doing). In the email, Crowther railed against the new Kansas science standards, but the interesting thing is that he railed specifically against the removal of an item about the abuse of science (the rise and fall of eugenics in the 20th century and the Tuskegee syphilis study were the main examples). The email encouraged me to send an email to the board of education protesting the new standards because they included this change. Interestingly, there was no mention at all in the email of the fact that almost all of the proposed changes are to the parts of the old standards dealing with evolution and "intelligent design." Hmm...it appears that deliberate prevarication is part and parcel of the Discovery Institute's modus operandi. Crowther is a master propagandist, and his work in this case would have made Goebbels proud...

--Allen