Richard Dawkins and Mary Midgley

Playboy

Just carrying on from the Philosophy of Science thread. I came across some very interesting criticisms of Richard Dawkins work "The Selfish Gene" by British Philosopher Mary Midgley. Im leaning towards Midgley's point of view even though Dawkins has said that she has misinterpreted him. I reread "The Selfish Gene" but I dont think she is misinterpreting him ... In fact I think its the other way around. What do ye guys think?

Articles:

Gene-juggling

Selfish Genes and Social Darwinism

How real are you?

Macmorris

Playboy wrote:

I came across some very interesting criticisms of Richard Dawkins work "The Selfish Gene" by British Philosopher Mary Midgley. Im leaning towards Midgley's point of view

What were the main points she made? I was too lazy to read through all of the three articles but from what I read of the first article I think she is misrepresenting, or at least overly complicating, the theory. I'm no expert on Dawkins' work but I find it hard to believe how anyone who understands the Selfish Gene theory could fail to see how reasonable it is.

She seems to be more concerned with the implications of the theory than with the theory itself. She has a problem with philosophical egoism and because the Selfish Gene theory lends support to egoism she wants to try to discredit it.

Midgley wrote:

His central point is that the emotional nature of man is exclusively self-interested, and he argues this by claiming that all emotional nature is so. Since the emotional nature of animals clearly is not exclusively self-interested, nor based on any long-term calculation at all, he resorts to arguing from speculations about the emotional nature of genes, which he treats as the source and archetype of all emotional nature.

Besides the fact that I don't think he has ever said that all human nature is self-interested, what she is saying is that Dawkins is wrong to go out of his way to try to find a rational explanation for altruistic behaviour that doesn't make sense (i.e. not based on self-interest) at the level of the individual. Because he has managed to come up with a plausible theory that does successfully explain why humans sometimes seem to behave in a way that doesn't benefit them personally, she has a problem with the fact that it seems to undermine some of the mystery and sublimity of human nature.

In the first article she tries to undermine the theory by trying to disprove Dawkins claim that all animal behaviour can be understood as a means of benefitting genes. I'm sure there are examples of altruistic behaviour that doesn't seem to fit the theory but the examples she gave don't really stand up. She gave an example of how chimps never seem to hold a grudge against other chimps who attack them. Although that type of behaviour does seem to contradict the tit-for-tat explanation for animal altruism, it doesn't rule out the possibility that current chimpanzee behaviour may have emerged as an adaption to living in social groups. Natural Selection didn't stop operating when primates started living in groups.

It's like the way up until a few decades ago women stayed in marriages with violent husbands. Because their survival depended on the protection of their husbands, they had no choice but to put up with the abuse. I think it's probably the same thing with chimps.

Midgley wrote:

He wants to relate the workings of natural selection in a simple and satisfying way to those of motivation by finding a single universal motive, and there is no such motive.

Of course there is a universal motive - the will to self-preservation.

She is right though about one thing though, the theory is simple and satisfying. Maybe she has a problem because it appears too simplistic and reductionist. Either that, or she has fallen for the moralistic fallacy. She thinks that because things like selfishness and egotism are morally wrong that that must mean that they are also scientifically wrong and because things like altruism are morally good that they must mean that they are scientifically true. I think Dawkins has countered that argument by cautioning people not to fall for the naturalistic fallacy, that just because something is natural doesn't mean it's good. And I don't think that the Selfish Gene theory does encourage people to be selfish. The central point of the book is that ultimately altruism pays more than selfishness.

davej

From my reading of it it seems that Dawkin's reply to her objections destroyed most of her article. The fact that she made it personal did not help her case. In her subsequent (timid) reply she was forced to use the old "it's all a language game" card.

Dawkin's primary field is biology and he is pretty good at sticking to it (unlike Midgely). When he does move into the realm of philosophy, it is heavily informed by his background.

Dawkins espouses the view that we live in the "Middle World", i.e. the world of trees and rocks and animals etc. This is a result of evolutionary processes, which have allowed us to survive and adapt to the environment we find ourselves in. It is no conicidence that "the environment we find ourselves in" happens to make intuitive sense to our understanding; our understanding is ultimately a product of evolution.

However when we are try to probe the world of electrons and photons, things seem inherently "queer" to us. Objects can be in superpositions, there is wave-particle duality and things become uncertain and probabalistic.

A similar point can be made about the "Big World" of galaxies and stars. We are using a tool which evolved to allow us to consider things like "how far away is that wooly mammoth?" Now we are attempting to use that same tool to ponder the vastness of the distances between one galaxy and another.

davej

DadaKopf

Of course there is a universal motive - the will to self-preservation.

Can't be said to be universal. Various species commit suicide.

I find it funny that people actually try to attempt to draw a dividing line between self-interest and altruism. I see them more as a continuum. They're deeply interrelated. If we were merely self-interested, we wouldn't recognise the other. Love and hate, man.

Neuro

DadaKopf wrote:

Can't be said to be universal. Various species commit suicide.

I find it funny that people actually try to attempt to draw a dividing line between self-interest and altruism. I see them more as a continuum. They're deeply interrelated. If we were merely self-interested, we wouldn't recognise the other. Love and hate, man.

The universal motive is self-interest. As for self-interest and altruism, they are one and the same. Upon closer examination all acts of so-called altruism are nothing more than enlightened self-interest, be it in the form of kin selection, reciprocal altruism (both direct and indirect).

As for the necessity of contrasts to appreciate Love etc., I always find those arguments to be quite lazy. They are little more than semantic games.

davej

As for the necessity of contrasts to appreciate Love etc., I always find those arguments to be quite lazy. They are little more than semantic games.

Your self interest argument is a little lazy too. If I were to ask you, "why do people blow themselves up?" you might well explain it by saying that "ultimately it is in their self interest to blow themselves up". This is no more insightful then saying "They blow themselves up because they do".

A much more interesting question would be "What is the process by which they arrived at the conclusion that it would be in their self-interest to perform this act?"

davej

DadaKopf

As for self-interest and altruism, they are one and the same.

Isn't that what I said?

The universal motive is self-interest.

Just because you repeat the point means it must be so? Hardly a convincing argument.

Let's look at economics, a rational-actor model. Based entirely on the understanding of human motivation as individual self-interest, all kinds of wrong inferences and predictions have been made. It assumes self-interest as the sole basis for making decisions (the 'common good' is served only by individuals acting in their sole interests), but when decisions are neither rational nor substantially self-interested, the models fall apart, as internally logal and coherent those theories may be. This is a vision of rationality as distinct from emotion (irrationality). While this is certainly a problem with the models (an ongoing struggle), it's also a problem with its axiomatic contention.

We need another model. Biology and chemistry offer us literal insights into the individual biological systems which enable us to make such decisions. But things get tricky when you try to extend that sphere of examination to our relation with systems external to the body - physical surroundings, other people, social structures. Evolutionary psychology is investigating these nature-nurture linkages (Google 'Cosmides and Tooby').

I'm certainly not talking about semantics, I'm talking about systems and meaning. I think, firstly, reducing human beings to pure rationality in the classical sense perpetuates a false understanding of rationality, as I said above. People make decisions by virtue of billions of processes occuring within the body, in direct relation with the outside world (the human brain doesn't actually make an inside/outside distinction). 'Rationality' is an autonomic bundle of processes and sensations - thought and emotion which culminate in further thought/sensation and/or (directed) action. The divisions between these are blurred on a physical level, as are inside/outside dichotomies. The divisions between these are human contrivances, developed for instrumental purposes.

I think accusing me of laziness is a lazy argument. It's perfectly possible to discuss things in existential, or phenomonelogical, or 'folk' psychological ways so long as we remain cognisant of our concrete existence and developments in the sciences. Dennett and others like the functionalists clearly allow for multiple discourses in discussing evolution, the mind etc. Dawkins himself thinks it's wonderful how we can wax lyrical about the world despite the fact that we're just a bundle of particles, really.

The indeterminate boundaries between the mind and the world, and (so-called) rationality and emotion imply a blurring of self-interest and altruism in the sense that people are neither exclusively self-interested nor altruistic and that the base material world is fairly indifferent to that anyway.

OK, that's just me thinking out aloud.

As for the necessity of contrasts to appreciate Love etc., I always find those arguments to be quite lazy. They are little more than semantic games.

Explain why you think you're lazy, unless you want me to think you're too lazy to explain. Actually what I'm thinking of is a philosophical and evidence-based breakdown of the self/other dichotomy as a cultural construct in order to find concrete linkages on a biological, thought/emotional level - to find systems that explain how we can relate to people by finding them in us and vice-versa.

DadaKopf

Of course there is a universal motive - the will to self-preservation.

Now that I think about it, you confused two things. You said there's a universal will to self-preservation, and I said it's not universal because animals take their own lives. Beyond the problem that we can't understand other minds, I certainly won't understand the reasoning of a forlorn whale, but I can imagine it beached itself to die.

So I'm not wrong on this point. But instead, you threw it wide open.

bus77

I've been following the Religion vs Science "debate". I could understand the propaganda from the religious side, head in the clouds, top down type of arguments. But I could'nt see where the out of proportion, allmost tribal militancy was coming from in response. I'd seen Dawkins quoted from time to time but assumed his book was just a futher explanation of scientific matters in responce to the religious.

I did'nt read much of Mary's arguments but I managed to track down a copy of Dawkins book which explains it all.

How exactly should I put this....

The brain itself is a cell. And just like dna it has memory. But is far more adaptive and changeable. The code it stores is our history, which are transmitted through storys and interaction. One amongst many in it's envoiroment. As such, when it gets/feels disconected from it's tribe/it's envoiroment/it's world. It sets out on an intence persuit of knowledge. It's primary concern is not necessarily a paticular theory or a paticular question. It's two primary desire's are knowledge of the cells it interacts with (people) and the knowledge of the envoiroment it lives in. I do believe however that it has a rudimentry knowledge of ''people/enviromental - politics" built in, which themselves have evolved over time.

And this is the thing. Cell politics is not the same as people politics. In order to draw a straight line you would need to show how the code we take in through life into our cell, is similar as the code in dna. Also how one of the mehanisims in dna formation, natural selection. Is the same or similar as our experiances in everyday life, through the family/tribe system.

ISAW

bus77 wrote:

I've been following the Religion vs Science "debate". I could understand the propaganda from the religious side, head in the clouds, top down type of arguments. But I could'nt see where the out of proportion, allmost tribal militancy was coming from in response. I'd seen Dawkins quoted from time to time but assumed his book was just a futher explanation of scientific matters in responce to the religious.

I did'nt read much of Mary's arguments but I managed to track down a copy of Dalkins book witch explains it all.

How exactly should I put this....

The brain itself is a cell. And just like dna it has memory. But is far more adaptive and changeable. The code it stores is our history, which are transmitted through storys and interaction.

You are making a type error here. Evolution in a biological sense is one thing. to extensd the meaning of the word into "social evolution" and to equate societies with organic life is what the meme theory tries to do.

As the song goes
One of these the things is not like the other, one of thiese things just doesnt beling.

One amongst many in it's envoiroment. As such, when it gets/feels disconected from it's tribe/it's envoiroment/it's world. It sets out on an intence persuit of knowledge. It's primary concern is not necessarily a paticular theory or a paticular question. It's two primary desire's are knowledge of the cells it interacts with (people) and the knowledge of the envoiroment it lives in. I do believe however that it has a rudimentry knowledge of ''people/enviromental - politics" built in, which themselves have evolved over time.

And in what way would yo umeasure this?

And this is the thing. Cell politics is not the same as people politics. In order to draw a straight line you would need to show how the code we take in through life into our cell, is similar as the code in dna. Also how one of the mehanisims in dna formation, natural selection. Is the same or similar as our experiances in everyday life, through the famaly/tribe system.

They just are not. to compare genetic evolution of a species and social evolution just isnt comparing like with like. to claim they have the same underlying theory is just not comparing the same type of entity. Thats what meme theiry tries to do.

bus77

ISAW wrote:

You are making a type error here. Evolution in a biological sense is one thing. to extensd the meaning of the word into "social evolution" and to equate societies with organic life is what the meme theory tries to do.

Yes I realise this. Dont get me wrong I'm not saying start at the bottom and work you way up as regards social/human matters.
I remember having a debate one time about the IRA. It's a long story but as the the debate contiued I realised I only had historical examples to bring forward. Nothing current. Then my 'opponent' informed me that I had a made a classic rationalization of polictical theory, using the past to explain the present.
If any sort of exploration is to made of such things, they should only be attemted from the top down. The present. Aka. Reverse enginering. Religion/State/Tribe, level. Never bottom up.

ISAW wrote:

And in what way would you measure this?

Measure what exactly?

davej

ISAW wrote:

One of these the things is not like the other, one of thiese things just doesnt beling.
........

Thats what meme theiry tries to do.

You seem to hit the "i" letter instead of the "o" letter on the keyboard a lot.

Anyway memetics is an interesting model from which to look at the world.

You are making a type error here. Evolution in a biological sense is one thing. to extensd the meaning of the word into "social evolution" and to equate societies with organic life is what the meme theory tries to do.

This isn''t exactly true. There is an analogy drawn between the gene and the meme, not between organic life and society writ large. The only thing that matters is that the meme (or "idea"/cultural unit) is replicated, just like in genetics. There are differences in the way replication works for a meme, compared with a gene. Memes can be replicated en masse to many people at once (eg. television), however they are more susceptible to error during replication than genes.

So, taking these differences into account it is obvious that an organic system and a social system will not look the same. Meme complexes that have lasted for hundreds of years in their enviroment (the human mind) have obviously evolved in such a way as to make them highly resistant to other threatening memes. They can be so powerful that they can drive individuals to sacrifice themselves in order that the meme survive. Hence my point earlier in the thread:

A much more interesting question would be "What is the process by which they arrived at the conclusion that it would be in their self-interest to perform this act?"

davej

Macmorris

Neuro wrote:

The universal motive is self-interest.

'Self-Interest' is a vague, subjective term. Genes and memes want to preserve and propagate themselves which is why I think the universal motive is self-preservation rather than self-interest.

DadaKopf wrote:

Can't be said to be universal. Various species commit suicide.

Did you mean entire species or just individual animals within a species? Because if it's the latter then there is a very simple explanation for why animals commit suicidal, self-sacrificing behaviour. An animal's actions are based on genetically determined instincts that may not always be in their host's own personal self-interest. The reason why some animals commit acts of suicidal self-sacrifice in defence of their relatives is because the result of that behaviour is that more copies of their genes will be preserved and propagated into future generations than would have been the case otherwise. Because the relatives and offspring will also share the gene for that self-sacrificing behaviour, it means that that gene will also survive in the gene-pool.

I'm not so sure about full species commiting suicide. Some species have problems adapting to environmental change and go extinct, but that can't really be called willful suicide. Panda Bears seem to have lost interest in reproducing but I think that's only the case with the ones who are in captivity.

DadaKopf wrote:

Based entirely on the understanding of human motivation as individual self-interest, all kinds of wrong inferences and predictions have been made.

That was the reason for the Selfish Gene theory in the first place. Human behaviour can't be adequately explained in terms of individual self-interest.

It assumes self-interest as the sole basis for making decisions (the 'common good' is served only by individuals acting in their sole interests), but when decisions are neither rational nor substantially self-interested, the models fall apart, as internally logal and coherent those theories may be.

We need another model.

Do you mean another model besides the Selfish-Gene theory? Accepting that the basic unit of natural selection is the gene and not the individual, do you believe that it is valid to predicate a selfish motive to genes and their psychological counterparts the memes? Isn't that what Mary Midgeley had a problem with or did I misunderstand her?

Beyond the problem that we can't understand other minds, I certainly won't understand the reasoning of a forlorn whale, but I can imagine it beached itself to die.

Animals don't reason, they act on instinct. The question is why did the gene for that self-destructive instinct survive in the gene-pool. As I've written above, self-sacrificing behaviour can result in more copies of the host's genes surviving into the future and so genes for courageous, suicidal behaviour will spread more rapidly through the gene-pool, regardless of the effect on the individual possessors of those genes.

Another reason is that some genes manage to survive because they only manifest themselves after the most fertile period of an animals life and so they won't have any effect on the animals reproductive ability. That's why we have genes for self-destructive things like aging.

It's a mistake to think that genes exist for the sake of their host. Genes exist for their own sake and as long as they can find a way of reproducing themselves, animals will behave in ways that don't always benefit them personally but instead act in the interests of their genes.

So I'm not wrong on this point. But instead, you threw it wide open.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what you're point is. Do you think Dawkins theory is valid or not?

bus77

davej wrote:

This isn't exactly true. There is an analogy drawn between the gene and the meme, not between organic life and society writ large.

No, he's right. You want to know where "memes" fit in, in biological life, and society, but not in essentially lifeless genetic code that works in a vastly differnt system?
Look at the human body. When a cell is doing it's task within the body and it encounters a problem/or a solution, it sends out chemicals or signals.... while still replicating physically. Aka. Communication with the other cells, not an attempt at replication.

davej wrote:

Meme complexes that have lasted for hundreds of years in their enviroment (the human mind) have obviously evolved in such a way as to make them highly resistant to other threatening memes.

This book my friend, is one big meme, for big memes, who dont realisise that we write memes for the other memes. What you are essentially wondering about is the formation of the mentally ill. Somtimes people can go a little too far with books and unification theorys. Personally, I'm still trying to work out if the Socinians were right. Now those fellas had a good grasp on people code.

ISAW

davej wrote:

Dawkins espouses the view that we live in the "Middle World", i.e. the world of trees and rocks and animals etc. This is a result of evolutionary processes, which have allowed us to survive and adapt to the environment we find ourselves in. It is no conicidence that "the environment we find ourselves in" happens to make intuitive sense to our understanding; our understanding is ultimately a product of evolution.

that is tantamount to a restatement of the anthropocentric/antropomorphic principle.

ah but in biology how does that explain evoultionary backwaters like rhesus babies and redundancies like the appendix?

However when we are try to probe the world of electrons and photons, things seem inherently "queer" to us. Objects can be in superpositions, there is wave-particle duality and things become uncertain and probabalistic.

A similar point can be made about the "Big World" of galaxies and stars. We are using a tool which evolved to allow us to consider things like "how far away is that wooly mammoth?" Now we are attempting to use that same tool to ponder the vastness of the distances between one galaxy and another.

Indeed but "the universe is the way it is because WE are here in it and not some lobster sentient in a different universe with different laws" does not gel with me. first we cant get to the lobster universe or show it exists so why invwent it? Second antrocentrism is borrowed from christian Theology which in itself is not sufficient scientific proof of how things are no more than geocentrism was. Certainly not enough to base a theory of social construction on. then again oine could argue that anything is sufficient to base a social science theory on but lets not have a go at the social scientists.
Last of all it is not necessary to be anthrocentic to be scientific. Here is an interesting take on it related to both the sub atomic and "big world" you refer to. With an Irish angle from a journal that I get:
Astronomy & Geophysics
Volume 43 Issue 4 Page 4.08 - August 2002
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1468-4004.2002.43408.x/html?cookieSet=1

Clearly, anthropomorphic units like "seconds" were not designed for cosmological problems. There are other humanly devised measures of time that might help alleviate the failure of our imaginations, but they would still fail to give a feeling that we had got the right superhuman perspective on cosmic time. Fortunately, there is a measure of time that is intrinsically defined by the forces of Nature that enables us to create a better perspective. In 1870 an Irish physicist, George Johnstone Stoney (also famous for both naming and predicting the value of the charge on an electron, see Barrow 1983, and Barrow and Tipler 1986 chapter 4), realized that three of the constants of Nature, e, G and c, could be combined to create units of mass, length and time that were independent of human standards. Thirty years later, Max Planck rediscovered this idea and created "natural units" using the constants of Nature: h, c and G (Barrow 2002). The resulting PlanckStoney units of length, Lpl, and time, Tpl, are the only quantities with units of length and time that can be made from these fundamental constants which govern quantum, relativistic and gravitational phenomena.

pH

Round 2

After Dawkin's recent Guardian Article she replies http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1563242,00.html

robindch

> After Dawkin's recent Guardian Article she replies
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/s...3242,00.html

hmm: Midgley's trotting out the hoary old "evolution is random" and evolution-is-a-'faith' chestnuts again, as she, and many other uninformed people have done, many times before.

Why is it that the biologically-untrained believe themselves adequately informed to comment, inaccurately, upon biological science? And why do most, if not all, confine themselves to biology? Why isn't there an equivalent to creationism in the field of Physics? Is it, as I suspect, that physics is simply too hard for most amateurs to pick up enough about, so that they can comment with the appearance, if not the actuality, of knowledge? Or is it that, on the recipient side, nobody cares about, or understands, its controversies sufficiently to get very excited?

Playboy

robindch wrote:

> After Dawkin's recent Guardian Article she replies
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/s...3242,00.html

hmm: Midgley's trotting out the hoary old "evolution is random" and evolution-is-a-'faith' chestnuts again, as she, and many other uninformed people have done, many times before.

Why is it that the biologically-untrained believe themselves adequately informed to comment, inaccurately, upon biological science? And why do most, if not all, confine themselves to biology? Why isn't there an equivalent to creationism in the field of Physics? Is it, as I suspect, that physics is simply too hard for most amateurs to pick up enough about, so that they can comment with the appearance, if not the actuality, of knowledge? Or is it that, on the recipient side, nobody cares about, or understands, its controversies sufficiently to get very excited?

Mary Midgley wrote:

Why do Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, in attacking the theory of intelligent design (ID), deal only with the arguments of traditional creationists

Mary Midgley wrote:

Their position is indeed confused but it surely needs to be addressed directly

You are completely misinterpreting her. That is not what she is saying at all.

bus77

pH wrote:

Round 2

After Dawkin's recent Guardian Article she replies http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1563242,00.html

Not much of a fight. Just a merry go round.

I'm personally not interested in the subject matter of this "Debate" Known as "Intelligent Design" and "Creationism". Because it's simply not a subject.

The Creationism thing from the religious side is just a repetition of same type of worldview that they have allways had. Keep the people as the centre of attention.

On the whole, It's a good philosophy to have, because, and someone wise told me this....

"The reason why humans have the longest learning period compared to other spicies is becuase we would be the most dangerous without it."

Although, I do ofcourse find the Dinosaur stuff disturbing.

I have no problem with rows or arguments. To me they make the world go round and the prize is 'usually' some sort of education for those involved.

This is not the case here unfortunatly.

With religion and science(seen as the makings of culture by the participants) your dealing with two differnt views on history, and progress for the next generation. For progress you need resources and if the resources are viewed to be under continual and immediate threat by 'selfish' forces.. well.. This puts us squarly in the realm of polictical ideology.

And just as in nature, the millitants make the most noise, self raise, and can cause the most trouble in persuit of their goals.

Now. I'm not sure where Dawkins: The Vaccinator, sits on the political fence. I don't really care. But I do reconise a dirty trick when I see one. "Religion is a meme! That has evolved Independantly to people! And wants, YOU!" I don't care if he throws in the word 'anology' somewhere at the start. His aim is clear. A pre-emtive metaphysical "flu-shot".

It's the same tactics used by political idealists.
He's very intelligent. But prepared to play dirty to make sure he gets his own way. Reminds me of what Marx did to Bakunin before dooming the country to socialism. Or what Hitler did to the Jews before rounding them up. Set about blackening his name in the former. Removing all privatly held arms for the later.

When Dawkins talks about reason, he's not talking about the way most of us would view it, a handy tool for working things out. He's talking about pre-emtive, pre-concieved reason. Reason as a weapon. He even admits it while discussing meme theory. The only time I've truly encounterd pre-emtive reason was on Stormfront. Did you every try and have a debate with a Stormfronter? Stormfronters only want to win, and consequently don't learn much from their encounters.

Now after saying all that. I am not saying Dawkins is Hitler or Marx. I am saying he is just as sure of himself as Hitler or Marx. Or Churchhill for that matter.

Agains'nt what? It does'nt take much brain power to work out the Christians pocket watch stuff is really just a sundial. It does'nt take much brain power to work out the 7 day creation is just an introduction.
But how is a person supposed to spot dodgy polemicist-politics hiding in good science?

Dawkins is at war. And he has a very specialisd internally built knoledge system to back himself up. When Mary makes dodgy arguments that don'nt really have the measure of him or his work. Dawkins just takes that as a sign she's an idiot.

He ascribes tribalism to the formation of the starting code ffs.(That's strangly enough, what pissess me off most).

What you would really need for Dawkins would be Churchill, or Moses or Claus von Stauffenberg, or better still, The Godfather to make him an offer he could'nt refuse. A horses head...

robindch

> You are completely misinterpreting her.
> That is not what she is saying at all.

I beg to differ -- to quote Midgley's words:

[...]natural selection is the sole and exclusive cause of evolution, making the world therefore, in some important sense, entirely random. This is itself a strange faith[...]

Evolution is not random and neither is it a belief system or "faith", as Dawkins and other biologists never seem to tire of pointing out to the religious.

Playboy

robindch wrote:

> You are completely misinterpreting her.
> That is not what she is saying at all.

I beg to differ -- to quote Midgley's words:

Evolution is not random and neither is it a belief system or "faith", as Dawkins and other biologists never seem to tire of pointing out to the religious.

Is it not random? Maybe evolution isnt random when you are working within a framework consisting of certain scientific laws and with the raw materials for life. But when you step outside of this framework and ask yourself why these laws exist and where did these raw materials come from (at whatever basic stage - they still had to come from somewhere) then natural selection doesnt offer any real answers. I think this is really Midgley's point when she speaks about random and I think it is a fair one. It's also a point Dawkins doesnt want to to tackle because it is the realm of the ID theorists. Its much easier to tackle the idiotic creationists and their 7 day bullsh** than address a difficult issue like this.

ISAW

robindch wrote:

Why is it that the biologically-untrained believe themselves adequately informed to comment, inaccurately, upon biological science? And why do most, if not all, confine themselves to biology? Why isn't there an equivalent to creationism in the field of Physics?

You have generalised from Midgley...
Your questions widen the debate into a sweeping generalisation.
so in reply:
The scientifically untrained may well be informed to comment though not necessarily knowledgable of the science involved. It is called ethics or maybe morality. Cf the Natural Law thread in the Irish Sceptics forum. Are you really claiming that men have no right to have an opinion on abortion because they will never experience one? Or that men and women should not have any weight to their opinion on abortion unless they are cell biologists or medical practitioners?
So on the one hand I am trying to point out the dangers of scientism. On the other do you really believe a scientocracy is the best form of government?
To be fair I havent read either side in the above references so I wont comment on the specific two people right now. But biology is a current field of controversy as far as I can see. Geologists got the treatment from religious fundamentalism only a century ago. Some still go on on that. Cosmology has always had it. But cytology and molecular biology a the current "hot" topic.
Biology is not alone there is also Information Technology and the problems related to identity and privacy in the information age. Mind you many of these arguemtns relate to genetics as well cf. the "meme" discussion above. Nuclear physics held the baton not long ago.
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Is it, as I suspect, that physics is simply too hard for most amateurs to pick up enough about, so that they can comment with the appearance, if not the actuality, of knowledge?

Hmmm. But one may not understand relativity but disagree with nuclear weapons, fast breather reeactors etc. The line is drawn on issues like mobile phone radiation being a threat.

Or is it that, on the recipient side, nobody cares about, or understands, its controversies sufficiently to get very excited?

Yeah like what about energy/global warming and a host of other environmental issues. Are people willfully ignorant?

ISAW

Playboy wrote:

Is it not random? Maybe evolution isnt random when you are working within a framework consisting of certain scientific laws and with the raw materials for life. But when you step outside of this framework and ask yourself why these laws exist and where did these raw materials come from (at whatever basic stage - they still had to come from somewhere) then natural selection doesnt offer any real answers. I think this is really Midgley's point when she speaks about random and I think it is a fair one. It's also a point Dawkins doesnt want to to tackle because it is the realm of the ID theorists. Its much easier to tackle the idiotic creationists and their 7 day bullsh** than address a difficult issue like this.

But it may well be that there are no "laws" to the universe. Also there is the argument that the beginning of the universe saw a distribution of Hydrogen and Helium which enabled these building blocks to develop the Universe we have. Yes it may be God decided on that. You might also decide to roll dice and if you get a seven you will invade Iraq. Now say you role a seven and invade. You can say god made that happen or you can say it was chance.

The point i am making is that some philosophies of science suggest that things happening by chance is just as good an explaination as God causing them.

Last of all if you consider a Christian God than it makes no sense that he wound up the clock and then walked off! He MUST interfere from time to time because he cares and not be a callous uncaring God.

Playboy

ISAW wrote:

The point i am making is that some philosophies of science suggest that things happening by chance is just as good an explaination as God causing them.

I agree, but isn't this what Midgley refers to when she talks about faith?

Midgely wrote:

natural selection is the sole and exclusive cause of evolution, making the world therefore, in some important sense, entirely random. This is itself a strange faith

ISAW wrote:

Last of all if you consider a Christian God than it makes no sense that he wound up the clock and then walked off! He MUST interfere from time to time because he cares and not be a callous uncaring God.

I thought the notion of free will would excuse him from interfering?

ISAW

Originally Posted by ISAW
The point i am making is that some philosophies of science suggest that things happening by chance is just as good an explaination as God causing them.

playboy wrote:

I agree, but isn't this what Midgley refers to when she talks about faith?

Where?

Originally Posted by Midgely
natural selection is the sole and exclusive cause of evolution, making the world therefore, in some important sense, entirely random. This is itself a strange faith

what came before the word "natural" in your quote and where did you get it?


Quote:
Originally Posted by ISAW
Last of all if you consider a Christian God than it makes no sense that he wound up the clock and then walked off! He MUST interfere from time to time because he cares and not be a callous uncaring God.

I thought the notion of free will would excuse him from interfering?

Well then I think you thought wrong! I mean the whole Judaeo/Christian thing is filled with God trying to put humanity on the right path.

Anyway what about Christ? Would you not think that the existance of a messiah (whether or not he be God) and prophets showed God "interfering" in his creation to some degree? By the way nor does it necessarily remove free will. One can also say it informs choice.

ISAW

ISAW wrote:

Originally Posted by ISAW
The point i am making is that some philosophies of science suggest that things happening by chance is just as good an explaination as God causing them.

I am a bit lost here since you suggest Midgley looks on science as fairh based which in my opinion in some ways it is. But I cant find her stating that.

On the other hand I find her criticising Intelligent Design. at least that seem to be what she is saying here [square brackets content added by me]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1563242,00.html
It [intelligent design] expresses a widespread discontent with the neo-Darwinist - or Dawkinsist - orthodoxy that claims something which Darwin himself denied, namely that natural selection is the sole and exclusive cause of evolution, making the world therefore, in some important sense, entirely random. This is itself a strange faith which ought not to be taken for granted as part of science.

Her main problem with Dawkins seems to be the social determinism angle. i.e. Jumping from "evolution" as a biological science with sound grounding in statistics genetics and paelentology into claiming this underpins social science meme theory and suchlike. It doesnt!

Playboy

ISAW wrote:

I am a bit lost here since you suggest Midgley looks on science as fairh based which in my opinion in some ways it is. But I cant find her stating that.

On the other hand I find her criticising Intelligent Design. at least that seem to be what she is saying here [square brackets content added by me

I think in this piece when she talks about faith she is talking about Dawkins faith in "that natural selection is the sole and exclusive cause of evolution, making the world therefore, in some important sense, entirely random".That was my reading of it anyway.

ISAW

Playboy wrote:

I think in this piece when she talks about faith she is talking about Dawkins faith in "that natural selection is the sole and exclusive cause of evolution, making the world therefore, in some important sense, entirely random".That was my reading of it anyway.

Yeah whwn she states:

This is itself a strange faith which ought not to be taken for granted as part of science.

Is the "this" Intelligent design? It seems you are right and I am wrong on this point. The "this" is the fundamental belief in darwinism himself didnt believe in.

But on the one hand we have argument from authority and on the other I am reminded of gallileos problem with Peripathetic i.e. Atistotlean philosophers and not with Aristotle himself. Indeed Aristotle shown the evidence might well say the Earth moved or went round the Sun.

Anyway she seems to be accusing Dawkins of fundamentalism in believing the basis of Darwanism and in extending that theory into social science and how society should be determined.