Social Science and (vs?) Natural Science

Here is an interesting article regarding the relationship between natural science and social science, specific to  public policy.

I recently had an exchange with a sociology major who insistent upon the relevance of Marxist theory in social science (I should be clear though; the immediate intent of this post is not a discussion of Marxist theory, though of course, that discussion can emerge). I was willing to admit that the social scientist can tease around ideas and theories that those in the natural sciences would probably never take too seriously (e.g., I can’t for the life of me think of a single chemist, physicist, or biologist who would use a theory of exploitation within their respectable disciplines). However, I insisted that social scientists ought to be continuous with the natural sciences, specifically biology. I mentioned, for example, that emergent complexity has far more explanatory power than Marxism. Thus, social scientists ought to embrace this theory rather than Marxism, especially since Marxism isn’t even a viable scientific theory. Of course, like many social scientists, he was unwilling for this move and was inclined to think of social science as su generis.

These sorts of debates are popular because of the constant creeping in of radical relativism, interpretative  theories, and worst of all, Post-Modernism. This is unfortunate, as the origins of disciplines, such as Anthropology, emerged as explicitly scientific (e.g,, Darwin, Neurath, Tyler, Saussure, and many more). Consequently, we often see departments that have a traditional scientific social scientist alongside a supposed psychoanalytic theorist; we see a social scientist who is skilled in data management, statistical testing, etc. alongside individuals who see science as filtered through a western white male psyche.

To conclude, the philosopher constantly complains of having to explain exactly what it is they do because of peoples’ lack of understanding. Likewise, the dedicated “scientific” social scientist is left with a similar burden.

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Paul Griffiths on How Evolution Tracks Truth

The recent philosophy club discussion dwelled some time on how evolution by natural selection might track truth. Paul Griffiths makes the case that evolution has manipulated cognitive processes  in such a way that they tend to track truth and also responds to Plantinga’s EAAN (which I have not found persuasive, though I am inclined to think that one can have warranted religious beliefs even with an evolutionary explanation for those cognitive processes influencing them).

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In Memoriam: Michael Dummett (1925 – 2011)

Michael Dummett, perhaps one of the most influential Anglo-American philosophers of the last half of the 20th century, died on December 27th, 2011. I would have posted earlier had I been aware, but Dummett’s death only recently caught my attention. Personally, Dummett’s work on intuitionistic logic and verificationism have greatly influenced my own thoughts on logic and epistemology and, ironically, despite his verificationism, Dummett was also a practicing Roman Catholic.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Dummett’s work, here is an informative discussion given by Graham Priest, who last year permitted the FSPB to interview him, and Alan Saunders, the host of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s programme The Philosopher’s Zone.

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A Question for Verificationists

Let’s call verificationism the thesis that the meaning of any sentence expressing a synthetic proposition is just its method of empirical verification. It follows that a statement is meaningless if it has no method of empirical verification, and if neither it nor its negation is an analytic truth. (Obviously, this characterization of verificationism could be fleshed out, and most if not all verificationists would refine it in some way.) Empirical verifiability (or falsifiability – I’ll henceforth refer to the former term for ease of explication) is a matter of a proposition’s having some sort of probabilistic or deductive relationship with observable states of affairs. For example, a statement regarding the existence or behavior of an unobservable entity can still be empirically verifiable if it entails or has some sort of probabilistic relationship with observable states of the world (see, for example, Ayer 1952: 13, 38; Carnap 1936: 425-427). Thus, a statement about, say, an atom, can be empirically verifiable if it is evidentially related to observation sentences – things like “under such-and-such conditions the cloud chamber will look like this,” or “under such-and-such conditions the screen connected to a scanning tunneling microscope will look like this.” Alright, here’s my question: what does the verificationist mean by “observable” and “unobservable”? Or, more specifically, because these are the terms the verificationist is more likely to use, what does the verificationist mean by “possibly observable” and “possibly unobservable”?

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Plantinga, Naturalism, and Epistemic Iteration

In ‘Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism,’ Alvin Plantinga argues that naturalism excludes the means to validating our cognitive faculties. In a nutshell, Plantinga argues that if the reliability of our cognitive faculties is under question, one cannot answer the question whether they are reliable by pointing out that these faculties themselves deliver the belief that they are reliable; one needs more, one needs good, independent reason to believe our cognitive faculties are reliable. Crudely, Plantinga criticisizes empiricists / naturalists for failing to provide a logically satisfactory argument for asserting that our cognitive faculties are reliable.

Plantinga’s argument, though, does not immediately commend itself to acceptance: Essentially, the empiricist / naturalist must provide an argument for the foundational reliability of our cognitive faculties only if she first accepts a foundationalist epistemology. However, empiricists / naturalists need not accept a foundationalist epistemology. Indeed, the empiricist / naturalist should instead reject the premise that knowledge requires an Archimedean foundation. (I guess Plantinga could assert that the empiricist / naturalist is somehow committed to a foundationalist epistemology, but I would like to see the argument for that. In any case, I have little confidence the argument would work.)

Rather, pace Hasok Chang (epistemic iteration), C.S. Peirce (pragmatism) or W.V.O. Quine (coherentism), the empiricist / naturalist can take other routes. Though I have significant misgivings about coherentism, it remains a viable option. However, a more promising route, I believe, would be Chang’s idea of epistemic iteration, which is a thoroughly proper empiricist epistemology (situated within a largely Peircean pragmatist framework). To see this, let us look at Chang’s analysis of the historical problem of the reliability of thermometry in early and mid 19^th science. Though crude and without the requisite scholarly detail, the synopsis should suffice to give the rough view.

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A Natural History of Rape Revisited

Tim Dacey

In a recent class discussion a debate brewed over the topic of Randy Thornhill’s and Craig Palmer’s A Natural History of Rape. The arguments proposed in their book have been widely criticized and rejected by much of the scientific and philosophical community (for good and bad reasons). What follows is some general thoughts; perhaps though, a formal paper will emerge for this topic if a good discussion results.  It seems there are some important flaws that can be revealed in the assumptions Thornhill and Palmer use to make their argument.  I am inclined to use an example from the history of evolutionary biology, namely, Stephen Jay Gould’s criticism of the assumptions underlying the adaptation of antlers in “Irish Elk.” Similar to Gould,  I will reveal a similar ‘bad’ assumption that Thornhill and Palmer use and then present an alternative argument that may prove more convincing.

 

Recall that the assumptions the adaptationist program was using to explain the immense antlers (and bodies) of the Megloceros, or “Irish Elk,” focused on combating predation where antlers served as weapons. However, the largest predator that this creature would ever face in the late Irish Pleistocene was a wolf pack. In fact, these massive antlers could be harmful to the survival of the Elk. That the antlers were often detrimental to the survival of the Elk seemed to present and anomaly for Darwin’s theory of natural selection, as a trait was being selected for that was harmful to the individual. It was Gould who pointed to the faulty assumption that antlers were weapons combating predators and that this was the only way large antlers would emerge. Gould challenged this assumption and insisted that competition for females may have led to large bodies. That is, Elk with larger body size would tend to triumph over those males who were smaller ultimately leading them to pass their genes on to offspring. A consequence of this, of course, are larger antlers; this follows a principle of allometry.

 

Likewise, it is my contention that Thornhill and Palmer use a faulty evolutionary assumption, that rape is intended for procreation. There are at least two general categories that we can place rape in: (1) genetically predisposed (I am not suggesting a ‘rape gene’, rather just that there could exist genes that when malfunctioning or ‘overly present’ may create an anxious and violent drive for sex leading to something such as rape) and (2) conditionally predisposed (e.g., watching violent pornography may construct an anxious and violent cognitive drive for sex). (1) is where Thornhill and Palmer would need to focus there argument, as individuals regarding (2) could not pass their traits on to their offspring, or at least not genetically. Further, the argument that Thornhill and Palmer would need to insist upon would be similar to Gould’s—that rape isn’t being selected for per se. Rather, genes correlated with behaviors of dominance (perhaps testosterone genes) are selected for via sexual selection. Suppose that in early hominins males with higher levels of testosterone are selected for because they can dominant their opponents for mates (not a surprising behavior among apes). These individuals will pass their genes on to their offspring who in turn compete for mates and pass their genes on. What tends to emerge are males with aggressive behavior causing genes. Since these genes will also correlate with sex drives, then a by-product—an unfortunate one in this case—emerges where individuals with increased aggressive and sexual drives may ‘rape’ other members in the population. That “rape is selectively advantageous for procreation” can be rejected in the same fashion that the original argument used in Megaloceros’ antlers was rejected.

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Theistic Explanatory Models Are Not Explanatory

Too many people take the so-called theory of intelligent design seriously, which is unfortunate since nobody who takes a scientific view of the world should, and everyone ought to take a scientific view of the world. As many have argued, ID theory is not, properly, a theistic explanatory model. However, I am not convinced that this is the case, and for two primary reasons. (Though, I find that insofar as ID theories are not theistic models, they actually suffer from more problems, so they really ought to welcome theistic interpretations. But this we may skip for now.) First, the correlation between theism and ID theory is too great for it to be an accident of honest inquiry. The overwhelming majority of ID theory proponents are theists, and theistic conceptions of god are, not surprisingly, suitable candidates for the intelligent designer. Second, the Discovery Institute, the main intellectual impetus behind ID theory in the English speaking world, published The Wedge, wherein they explicitly advocate for a theistic interpretation of ID theory. (FYI: One may read the document here: The Wedge.)

In any case, what is to follow is a rough and ready argument against theistic explanatory models.

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Neil Tennant on the Dover Creationism… I mean… Intelligent Design Trial

The logician and philosopher of science Neil Tennant’s piece entitled ‘What might logic and methodology have offered the Dover School Board, had they been willing to listen?’ Read it here in the articles section.

P.S. Tennant (appropriately) takes Larry Laudan to task for the latter’s position on the scientific nature of creationism, which he (Laudan) expressed in a 1982 paper highlighted recently in a post on the blog. 

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Laudan on the Arkansas Creationism Trial

Here Read it.

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Meta-Philosophy, Act III: The Role of Science

Hello Fellow Student Philosophers!

(Note: After a multitude of delays with other posts, I finally have come back to this. Hopefully, such delays won’t be as frequent in the future.)

One of the things that I loved about Thomas Reid, a philosopher from the Modern Period, was the so-called “skeptic’s toolkit” that he essentially criticized, all in an attempt to find a way to discredit some, if not all, of Hume’s findings. If you think about it, it is really easy to play the skeptic’s card and downplay everything someone says as either being circular, contradictory, or unjustified (by means of having no real facts).

Now whether or not Reid succeeded with his philosophy isn’t what I want to focus on. Rather, this is something that I’m reminded of when I think about another phenomena that seems to be occurring in Philosophy these days. As such, I’m dedicating this post to my thoughts on this phenomena in its relationship to what I call “Meta-Philosophy.” Given that I’ve already posted Acts I and II already, what will follow will be Act III in this special series of posts on this topic.

One word of warning, though: if you find Science to be the absolute B&B of life, with everything having to conform to it to the “T,” then you might not like what I’m about to say. Physicalists will probably loathe what I will mention also, so if you’re in that camp you might want to steer clear, too. Otherwise, feel free to continue reading on my thoughts on the role of science in Philosophy!

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Logical Positivism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Before continuing, I should offer the following caveat. What is to follow is a very rough draft of a paper I threw together. The paper was inspired by another I authored on a similar theme for a PoS class. The following neglects many details and instead provides for a rough outline of a larger, much closer analyzed and ambitious paper I suspect I will write in the near future. So, this post is but an approximation of what is to come. Nevertheless, if the post engenders discussion on any topics pertaining to quantum mechanics, scientific methodology, philosophy of science, verificationism, logical positivism, whatever, and attracts critical first assessments, then it will have served its purpose.

Logical Positivism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

“The rise of quantum theory in the years 1900 to 1927 is surely one of the major advances in the history of science- perhaps even one of the greatest intellectual advances ever made by mankind” (Hund 1974, p. 5). The mathematical formulation of modern quantum mechanics consists of a complete and logically consistent framework of mathematical deductions (see, for instance, von Neumann 1955). However, an ordered series of mathematical deductions, no matter how complete or logically consistent, is not a physical theory. In order to obtain the status of a physical theory, the mathematical formalism or, more precisely, the mathematical representations, must be assigned certain, specifiable experimental conditions so as to allow for the determination of measurement procedures which may aid in the confirmation and disconfirmation of hypotheses and in the identification of new and fruitful avenues of investigation. Of course, the experimental data produced by the measurement procedures necessitate interpretation, and that interpretation will run up through the mathematical structure resulting in our view of the theory and its overall implications for our system of the world.

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Anti-Evolution

Recently, I had a conversation with a person who held skeptical views of evolution. In fact, the reason I am posting this is not just because of her skepticism (I have become quite accustomed to hearing peoples’ skepticism of evolution) but because she proclaimed that a man at her church gave a sermon disproving evolution! Usually, I would respond with a subtle grin and go about my business. This time, though, I intended to press her on this issue. After only a few minutes, it became clear that she had no basic understanding of evolutionary theory at all.

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Evolution & Math in Schools, Logic Is Culturally Determined, and the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy

Should students have to learn mathematics in school? A parody of the answers various Miss USA contestants gave to the question: Should students have to learn evolution in school? I agree with many of the Miss USA contestants. We should teach students both sides of the homeopathy and chemistry debate, too. I mean, like, students should have the opportunity and stuff to decide for themselves if homeopathy is true for them. I mean, like, isn’t logic culturally determined anyways and stuff?

From the blog Logic and Rational Interaction: The new Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy has initiated an iTunes channel with videocasts of lectures presented at the Center. Here is the description of the Munich Center from the iTunes channel:

Mathematical Philosophy – the application of logical and mathematical methods in philosophy – is about to experience a tremendous boom in various areas of philosophy. At the new Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, which is funded mostly by the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, philosophical research will be carried out mathematically, that is, by means of methods that are very close to those used by the scientists. The purpose of doing philosophy in this way is not to reduce philosophy to mathematics or to natural science in any sense; rather mathematics is applied in order to derive philosophical conclusions from philosophical assumptions, just as in physics mathematical methods are used to derive physical predictions from physical laws. Nor is the idea of mathematical philosophy to dismiss any of the ancient questions of philosophy as irrelevant or senseless: although modern mathematical philosophy owes a lot to the heritage of the Vienna and Berlin Circles of Logical Empiricism, unlike the Logical Empiricists most mathematical philosophers today are driven by the same traditional questions about truth, knowledge, rationality, the nature of objects, morality, and the like, which were driving the classical philosophers, and no area of traditional philosophy is taken to be intrinsically misguided or confused anymore. It is just that some of the traditional questions of philosophy can be made much clearer and much more precise in logical-mathematical terms, for some of these questions answers can be given by means of mathematical proofs or models, and on this basis new and more concrete philosophical questions emerge. This may then lead to philosophical progress, and ultimately that is the goal of the Center.

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Swinburne’s The Existence of God

… a summary.

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Eliminative Materialism, Bayesian Probability, Beliefs Gone Wild, and LSE Choice Group

Patricia Churchland discusses eliminative materialism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzT0jHJdq7Q

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The Selfish Gene: 35 Years Later

If an award were to be given to the most influential evolutionary scientist since Darwin, the award would most certainly go to Richard Dawkins (I am strictly talking about Dawkins as the evolutionary scientist or perhaps the philosopher of biology). Potential objections may argue that John Maynard Smith, WD Hamilton, Stephen Jay Gould, and highly qualified others should receive it. However, it was with the publication of The Selfish Gene that certifies Dawkins’ merit of this hypothetical award. Why? Dawkins utilized a bit of creativity in science (personifying genes), inspired by Jacque Monad and concentrating on the central unit of selection; the gene, which was inspired by WD Hamilton. In this view, Dawkins elaborately explains the role of the gene in evolution. It is as he states, “Darwin’s Theory.”

Like Darwin, Dawkins was meant with an incredible amount of hostility not only from the expected fundamentalist religious community, but also from the scientific community as well. Many contend that Dawkins is being ‘reductionistic’ or too much of a ‘genetic determinist’. Those critics, it seems, assert a term without taking into account what they actually mean. Further, some reviewers have read the title without conceptualizing what Dawkins’ meant by the term ‘selfish gene’. In fact, Dawkins’ notes (in the video) that he talks more about altruism than selfishness and also states (in the 30^th anniversary addition) that he should have titled the book, The Cooperative Gene. In light of the 35th year since the publication of The Selfish Gene, Dawkins’ first book is still controversial for what I believe are misunderstandings of his book. The following is a short video, which entertains Dawkins’ point of the book.

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God, Evolutionary Biology, and Miracles

From Bellingham Lectures in Philosophy of Religion:

This year, our distinguished guest lecturer is Alvin Plantinga, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Plantinga has chosen two themes for his lectures:

May 10th: “God and Evolution: Where the Conflict Really Lies”
May 12th: “Does Science Show That Miracles Can’t Happen”

The lectures are available via livestream. Check the event’s website for details. (HT: Neal Tognazzini)

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Provosts, Black Swans, . . . . . and Induction???

Hello to All!

Ahhh . . . . . the freedom of graduation! It feels really exhilarating. At the commencement ceremony last Friday, I couldn’t help but feel so excited for moving another step forward in my life. Three years of hard work and philosophical endeavors have led up to this moment.

[And I definitely have something to show for it: this blog (and my diploma, of course). Even though I'm only "green as grass" here, I still feel honored to be a part of the contributions and discussions that occur, both currently and in the future (as a law school student).]

One thing I wasn’t expecting, however, was that my final “lecture” as a UNF student would be so close to “home,” if you will. The school’s Provost took the opportunity at the ceremony to talk about Black Swan, a book he was reading (not to confuse it with a movie of the same name). While most of the details about the book are not important, there was one thing that caught my ear.

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Did Darwin do for Biology what Newton did for Physics?

A very interesting paper by Peter Godfrey-Smith argues yes…

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~pgs/PGS_WhatDarwinismExplains_09E.pdf

Here is a selection from the article for those who may not want to read its entirety.

I will give a very simple example (similar to one found in Dawkin’s The Blind Watchmaker). Suppose we are explaining the evolution of the human eye. Building the genetic basis of the human eye involved bringing together many genes. Consider a collection of genetic material, Y, that has everything needed, as far as genes go, to make a human eye, except for one final mutation. So this background Y is such that if new mutation M arises against Y, it will finalize the evolution of the human eye. Initially, Y was rare in the population — it was the product of a single mutational event that produced Y from yet another precursor, X. Selection can make the appearance of the eye more likely by making Y more common. This increases the number of independent “slots” in which a single key mutational event will give us the eye. If the intermediate Y remains rare in the population, then additional mutations are much less likely to produce the human eye, because the right mutation has to occur in exactly the right place – in an lineage where Y is present.

I hope a discussion on the nature of evolution is pursued following this post.

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Knowledge, Natural Kind?

Hilary Kornblith pushes for the view that knowledge ought to be viewed as a natural kind. Briefly stated, this means that knowledge is out there in the world merely waiting to be discovered and categorized by science. Its a neat move that I initially found interesting, if not quite a significant departure from traditional epistemology. I’d like to share a selection of a draft that I had offering some potential objections to viewing knowledge as a natural kind.

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Libet Revisited: Reduction and Prediction in Neuroscience

In “Agent Causation” Timothy O’Connor makes a passing assertion that there are many unresolved questions for materialist agency as he posits it, and that many of these questions are empirical in nature and can only be resolved with “extensive advancements within neurobiological science.” [1] Two particularly salient questions are (1) “Precisely to what extent is an ordinary human’s behavior directly regulated by the agent himself, and to what extent is it controlled by microdeterministic processes?”[2] And (2) whether microdeterministic processes can be predicted or not. While O’Connor may believe that advances in neuroscience will reinforce rather than call into question his theory, this is not the case. Stretching from the 1980s to a recent study in 2008, neuroscience has demonstrated that predictive brain activity can be seen to occur prior to a test subject’s consciousness of making a decision. From Libet to present, these studies provide damaging replies to the questions which O’Connor’s theory leaves unanswered.

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“Pardon, Your Dualism is Showing”: Philosophy’s Dirty Word?

In another post, Paul pointed out an alleged bias on UNFSPB toward physicalism and against (presumably) dualism or other presuppositional positions here. This  struck me as particularly relevant given my current research into Libet for an essay I am writing when I ran across a reference to a journal article by C.C. Wood entitled, “Pardon, your dualism is showing.” Not coincidentally, in an unrelated portion of the article that cited Wood, the author was condemning Libet for attempting to find elbow room within his study in which Free Will might reside, and perhaps implicitly affirming a dualist position. And just the other day I had a vigorous discussion with a Presuppositional Apologetic  on charges similar to Paul’s, viz. that I unfairly presumed a physicalist world view that negated God in its very structure.

All of these elements lead me to wonder if dualism has become a dirty word among philosophers, theologians, or the educated in general. I am inclined to say it has, though I am interested to see whether (1) others believe this to be the case, and (2) if so, is this due to a progressive and positive development toward the elimination of antiquated worldviews, or is it merely a dogmatic assertion of a currently prevailing paradigm that unfairly presupposes its own truth?

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Experimental Philosophy of Free Will: Bootcamp and Workshop

Yale will be hosting a bootcamp and workshop on Experimental Philosophy of Free Will for graduate students and faculty:

The Experimental Philosophy of Free Will Workshop and Boot Camp is an opportunity for philosophers to gain the skills they need to conduct cutting-edge research in the experimental philosophy of free will.

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Different Definitions Of Proof

A discussion of “the difficulty of using cutting-edge science in the courtroom” … here.

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On A Weak Principle of Sufficient Reason

The title of this post is misleading. The principle I’ll talk about here isn’t really a principle of “sufficient” reason, but I can’t think of a better name for it. I’m not really sure what to make of all this.

Consider the following proposition:

(P) – For every contingent state of affairs, there is another state of affairs that partly explains why that contingent state of affairs obtains rather than any possible alternatives

Consider a possible world w in which P is true, and the conjunction of all contingent propositions in w (the BCCF). In w there is some state of affairs (A) that partially explains the BCCF. This state of affairs cannot be contingent, or it would be part of the BCCF and provide a partial explanation of its own obtaining, which I take to be impossible. So A obtains necessarily. But if A is necessary, then A obtains in the actual world. Thus, from the supposition that P is true in some possible world, we can derive the conclusions that there is a necessary state of affairs that in some possible world(s) partially or wholly explains the whole of contingent reality. It is compatible with this conclusions that A does not explain the obtaining of contingent states of affairs in the actual world.

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