Why is the left hostile towards Richard Dawkins? [Archive]

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th April 2010, 20:18

Because:

1) His 'theory' is demonstrably false when it is applied to human beings. Here is an article from a few years back, written by an atheist (so he is no friend of the creationists), on this:

So You Think You Are a Darwinian?

By David Stove

Most educated people nowadays, I believe, think of themselves as Darwinians. If they do, however, it can only be from ignorance: from not knowing enough about what Darwinism says. For Darwinism says many things, especially about our species, which are too obviously false to be believed by any educated person; or at least by an educated person who retains any capacity at all for critical thought on the subject of Darwinism.

Of course most educated people now are Darwinians, in the sense that they believe our species to have originated, not in a creative act of the Divine Will, but by evolution from other animals. But believing that proposition is not enough to make someone a Darwinian. It had been believed, as may be learnt from any history of biology, by very many people long before Darwinism, or Darwin, was born.

What is needed to make someone an adherent of a certain school of thought is belief in all or most of the propositions which are peculiar to that school, and are believed either by all of its adherents, or at least by the more thoroughgoing ones. In any large school of thought, there is always a minority who adhere more exclusively than most to the characteristic beliefs of the school: they are the ‘purists’ or ‘ultras’ of that school. What is needed and sufficient, then, to make a person a Darwinian, is belief in all or most of the propositions which are peculiar to Darwinians, and believed either by all of them, or at least by ultra-Darwinians.

I give below ten propositions which are all Darwinian beliefs in the sense just specified. Each of them is obviously false: either a direct falsity about our species or, where the proposition is a general one, obviously false in the case of our species, at least. Some of the ten propositions are quotations; all the others are paraphrases. The quotations are all from authors who are so well-known, at least in Darwinian circles, as spokesmen for Darwinism or ultra-Darwinism, that their names alone will be sufficient evidence that the proposition is a Darwinian one. Where the proposition is a paraphrase, I give quotations or other information which will, I think, suffice to establish its Darwinian credentials.

My ten propositions are nearly in reverse historical order. Thus, I start from the present day, and from the inferno-scene - like something by Hieronymus Bosch - which the 'selfish gene’ theory makes of all life. Then I go back a bit to some of the falsities which, beginning in the 1960s, were contributed to Darwinism by the theory of ‘inclusive fitness’. And finally I get back to some of the falsities, more pedestrian though no less obvious, of the Darwinism of the 19th or early-20th century.

1. The truth is, ‘the total prostitution of all animal life, including Man and all his airs and graces, to the blind purposiveness of these minute virus-like substances’, genes.

This is a thumbnail-sketch, and an accurate one, of the contents of The Selfish Gene (1976) by Richard Dawkins. It was not written by Dawkins, but he quoted it with manifest enthusiasm in a defence of The Selfish Gene which he wrote in this journal in 1981. Dawkins’ status, as a widely admired spokesman for ultra-Darwinism, is too well-known to need evidence of it adduced here. His admirers even include some philosophers who have carried their airs and graces to the length of writing good books on such rarefied subjects as universals, or induction, or the mind. Dawkins can scarcely have gratified these admirers by telling them that, even when engaged in writing those books, they were ‘totally prostituted to the blind purposiveness of their genes Still, you ‘have to hand it’ to genes which can write, even if only through their slaves, a good book on subjects like universals or induction. Those genes must have brains all right, as well as purposes. At least, they must, if genes can have brains and purposes. But in fact, of course, DNA molecules no more have such things than H20 molecules do.

2 '…it is, after all, to [a mother’s] advantage that her child should be adopted’ by another woman.

This quotation is from Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, p. 110.

Obviously false though this proposition is, from the point of view of Darwinism it is well-founded, for the reason which Dawkins gives on the same page: that another woman’s adopting her baby ‘releases a rival female from the burden of child-rearing, and frees her to have another child more quickly.’ This, you will say, is a grotesque way of looking at human life; and so, of course, it is. But it is impossible to deny that it is the Darwinian way.

3. All communication is ‘manipulation of signal-receiver by signal-sender.’

This profound communication, though it might easily have come from any used-car salesman reflecting on life, was actually sent by Dawkins, (in The Extended Phenotype, (1982), p. 57), to the readers whom he was at that point engaged in manipulating. Much as the devil, in many medieval plays, advises the audience not to take his advice.

4. Homosexuality in social animals is a form of sibling-altruism: that is, your homosexuality is a way of helping your brothers and sisters to raise more children.

This very-believable proposition is maintained by Robert Trivers in his book Social Evolution, (1985), pp. 198-9. Professor Trivers is a leading light among ultra-Darwinians, (who are nowadays usually called ‘sociobiologists’). Whether he also believes that suicide, for example, and self-castration, are forms of sibling-altruism, I do not know; but I do not see what there is to stop him. What is there to stop anyone believing such propositions? Only common sense: a thing entirely out of the question among sociobiologists.

5. In all social mammals, the altruism (or apparent altruism) of siblings towards one another is about as strong and common as the altruism (or apparent altruism) of parents towards their offspring.

This proposition is an immediate consequence, and an admitted one, of the theory of inclusive fitness, which says that the degree of altruism depends on the proportion of genes shared. This theory was first put forward by W. D. Hamilton in The Journal of Theoretical Biology in 1964. Since then it has been accepted by Darwinians almost as one man and has revolutionized evolutionary theory. This acceptance has made Professor Hamilton the most influential Darwinian author of the last thirty years.

6. '…no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers [or offspring], or four half-brothers, or eight first-cousins.'

This is a quotation from the epoch-making article by Professor Hamilton to which I referred a moment ago. The italics are not in the text. Nor are the two words which I have put in square brackets; but their insertion is certainly authorized by the theory of inclusive fitness.

7. Every organism has as many descendants as it can.

Compare Darwin, in The Origin of Species, p. 66: ‘every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers’; and again, pp. 78-9, ‘each organic being is striving to increase at a geometrical ratio’. These page references are to the first edition of the Origin, (1859), but both of the passages just quoted are repeated in all of the five later editions of the book which were published in Darwin’s lifetime. He also says the same thing in other places.

But it would not have mattered if he had not happened to say in print such things as I have just quoted. For it was always obvious, to everyone who understood his theory, that a universal striving-to-the-utmost-to-increase is an essential part of that theory: in fact it is the very ‘motor’ of evolution, according to the theory. It is the thing which, by creating pressure of population on the supply of food, is supposed to bring about the struggle for life among con-specifics, hence natural selection, and hence evolution. As is well known, and as Darwin himself stated, he had got the idea of population permanently pressing on food, because of the constant tendency to increase, from T. R. Malthus’s Essay on Population (1798).

Still, that every organism has as many descendants as it can, while it is or may be true of most species of organisms, is obviously not true of ours. Do you know of even one human being who ever had as many descendants as he or she could have had? And yet Darwinism says that every single one of us does. For there can clearly be no question of Darwinism making an exception of man, without openly contradicting itself. ‘Every single organic being’, or ‘each organic being’: this means you.

8. In every species, child-mortality - that is, the proportion of live births which die before reproductive age - is extremely high.

Compare Darwin in the Origin, p. 61: ‘of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive’; or p. 5, ‘many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive’. Again, these passages, from the first edition, are both repeated unchanged in all the later editions of the Origin.

Proposition 8 is not a peripheral or negotiable part of Darwinism. On the contrary it is, like proposition 7, a central part, and one which Darwinians are logically locked-into. For in order to explain evolution, Darwin had adopted (as I have said) Malthus’s principle of population: that population always presses on the supply of food, and tends to increase beyond it. And this principle does require child-mortality to be extremely high in all species.

Because of the strength and universality of the sexual impulse, animals in general have an exuberant tendency to increase in numbers. This much is obvious, but what Malthus’s principle says is something far more definite. It says that the tendency to increase is so strong that every population, of any species, is at all times already as large as its food-supply permits, or else is rapidly approaching that impassable limit. Which means of course that, (as Malthus once put it), the young are always born into ‘a world already possessed’. In any average year, (assuming that the food-supply does not increase), there is simply not enough food to support any greater number of the newborn than is needed to replace the adults which die. But such is the strength of the tendency to increase that, in any average year, the number of births will greatly exceed the number of adult deaths. Which is to say, the great majority of those born must soon die.

Consider a schematic example. Suppose there is a population, with a constant food-supply, of 1000 human beings. Suppose - a very realistic supposition, in fact a conservative one - that 700 of them are of reproductive age. Suppose that this population is already ‘at equilibrium’, (as Darwinians say): that is, is already as large as its food can support. According to Malthus’s principle, people (or flies or fish or whatever) will reproduce if they can. So, since there are 350 females of reproductive age, there will be 350 births this year. But there is no food to support more of these than are needed to replace the adults who die this year; while the highest adult death-rate which we can suppose with any approximation to realism is about 10%. So 100 adults will die this year, but to fill their places, there are 350 applicants. That is, there will this year be a child-mortality of 250 out of 350, or more than 70%.

It was undoubtedly reasoning of this kind from Malthus’s principle which led Darwin to believe that in every species ‘but a small number’ of those born can survive, or that ‘many more’ are born than can survive. What did Darwin mean by these phrases, in percentage, or at least minimum-percentage, terms? Well, we have just seen that Malthus’s principle, in a typical case, delivers a child-mortality of at least 70%. And no one, either in 1859 or now, would dream of calling 30 or more, surviving out of 100, 'but a small number’ surviving. It would be already stretching language violently, to call even 23 (say), surviving out of 100, ‘but a small number’ surviving. To use this phrase of 30-or-more surviving, would be absolutely out of the question. So Darwin must have meant, by the statements I quoted above, that child-mortality in all species is more than 70%.

Which is obviously false in the case of our species. No doubt human child-mortality has often enough been as high as 70%, and often enough higher still. But I do not think that, at any rate within historical times, this can ever have been usual. For under a child-mortality of 70%, a woman would have to give birth 10 times, on the average, to get 3 of her children to puberty, and 30 times to get 9 of them there. Yet a woman’s getting 9 of her children to puberty has never at any time been anything to write home about; whereas a woman who gives birth 30 times has always been a demographic prodigy. The absolute record is about 32 births. (I neglect multiple births, which make up only 1% of all births.) As for the last 100 years, in any advanced country, to suppose child-mortality 70% or anywhere near it, would be nothing but an outlandish joke.

It is important to remember that no one - not even Darwinians - knows anything at all about human demography, except what has been learnt in the last 350 years, principally concerning certain European countries or their colonies. A Darwinian may be tempted, indeed is sure to be tempted, to set all of this knowledge aside, as being of no ‘biological’ validity, because it concerns only an ‘exceptional’ time and place. But if we agreed to set all this knowledge aside, the only result would be that no one knew anything whatever about human demography. And Darwinians would then be no more entitled than anyone else to tell us what the ‘real’, or the ‘natural’, rate of human child-mortality is.

In any case, as I said earlier, Darwinians cannot without contradicting themselves make an exception of man, or of any particular part of human history. Their theory, like Malthus’s principle, is one which generalizes about all species, and all places and times, indifferently; while man is a species, the last 350 years are times, and European countries are places. And Darwin’s assertion, that child-mortality is extremely high, is quite explicitly universal. For he said (as we saw) that ‘of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive’, and that ‘many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive’. Again, this means us.

9. The more privileged people are the more prolific: if one class in a society is less exposed than another to the misery due to food-shortage, disease, and war, then the members of the more fortunate class will have (on the average) more children than the members of the other class.

That this proposition is false, or rather, is the exact reverse of the truth, is not just obvious. It is notorious, and even proverbial. Everyone knows that, as a popular song of the I 930s had it,

The rich get rich, and
The poor get children.

Not that the song is exactly right, because privilege does not quite always require superior wealth, and superior wealth does not quite always confer privilege. The rule should be stated, not in terms of wealth, but in terms of privilege, thus: that the more privileged class is the less prolific. To this rule, as far as I know, there is not a single exception.

And yet the exact inverse of it, proposition 9, is an inevitable consequence of Darwinism all right. Malthus had said that the main ‘checks’ to human population are misery - principally due to ‘famine, war, and pestilence’ - and vice: by which he meant contraception, foeticide, homosexuality, etc. But he also said that famine - that is, deficiency of food - usually outweighs all the other checks put together, and that population-size depends, near enough, only on the supply of food. Darwin agreed. He wrote (in The Descent of Man, second edition, 1874), that ‘the primary or fundamental check to the continued increase of man is the difficulty of gaining subsistence’, and that if food were doubled in Britain, for example, population would quickly be doubled. But now, a more-privileged class always suffers less from deficiency of food than a less-privileged class does. Therefore, if food-supply is indeed the fundamental determinant of population-size, a more-privileged class would always be a more prolific one; just as proposition 9 says.

William Godwin, as early as 1820, pointed out that Malthus had managed to get the relationship between privilege and fertility exactly upside-down. In the 1860s and ‘70s W. R. Greg, Alfred Russel Wallace, and others, pointed out that Darwin, by depending on Malthus for his explanation of evolution, had saddled himself with Malthus’s mistake about population and privilege. It is perfectly obvious that all these critics were right. But Darwin never took any notice of the criticism. Well, trying to get Darwin to respond to criticism was always exactly like punching a feather-mattress: ‘suddenly absolutely nothing happened’.

The eugenics movement, which was founded a little later by Darwin’s disciple and cousin Francis Galton, was an indirect admission that those critics were right. For what galvanized the eugenists into action was, of course, their realisation that the middle and upper classes in Britain were being out-reproduced by the lowest classes. Such a thing simply could not happen, obviously, if Darwin and Malthus, and proposition 9, had been right. But the eugenists never drew the obvious conclusion, that Darwin and Malthus were wrong, and consequently they never turned their indirect criticism into a direct one. Well, they were fervent Darwinians to the last man and woman, and could not bring themselves to say, or even think, that Darwinism is false.

A later Darwinian and eugenist, R. A. Fisher, discussed the relation between privilege and fertility at length, in his important book, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, (1930). But he can hardly be said to have made the falsity of proposition 9 any less of an embarrassment for Darwinism. Fisher acknowledges the fact that there has always been, in all civilized countries an inversion (as he calls it) of fertility-rates: that is, that the more privileged have always and everywhere been the less fertile. His explanation of this fact is that civilized countries have always practised what he calls ‘the social promotion of infertility’. That is, people are enabled to succeed better in civilized life, the fewer children they have.

But this is evidently just a re-phrasing of the problem, rather than a solution of it. The question, for a Darwinian such as Fisher, is how there can be, consistently with Darwinism, such a thing as the social promotion of infertility? In every other species of organisms, after all, comparative infertility is a sure sign, or even the very criterion, of comparative failure. So how can there be if Darwinism is true, a species of organisms in which comparative infertility is a regular and nearly-necessary aid to success?

Fisher’s constant description of the fertility-rates in civilized countries as ‘inverted’, deserves a word to itself. It is a perfect example of an amazingly-arrogant habit of Darwinians, (of which I have collected many examples in my forthcoming book Darwinian Fairytales). This is the habit, when some biological fact inconsistent with Darwinism comes to light, of blaming the fact, instead of blaming their theory. Any such fact Darwinians call a ‘biological error' an ‘error of heredity’, a ‘misfire’, or some thing of that kind: as though the organism in question had gone wrong, when all that has actually happened, of course, is that Darwinism has gone wrong. When Fisher called the birth-rates in civilized countries ‘inverted’, all he meant was that, exactly contrary to Darwinian theory, the more privileged people are the less fertile. From this fact, of course, the only rational conclusion to be drawn is, that Darwinism has got things upside-down. But instead of that Fisher, with typical Darwinian effrontery, concludes that civilised people have got things upside-down!

Fisher, who died in 1962, is nowadays the idol of ultra-Darwinians, and he deserves to be so: he was in fact a sociobiologist ‘born out of due time’. And the old problem for Darwinism, to which he had at least given some publicity, even if he did nothing to solve it, remains to this day the central problem for sociobiologists. The problem (to put it vulgarly) of why ‘the rich and famous’ are such pitiful reproducers as they are.

Of course this ‘problem’ is no problem at all, for anyone except ultra-Darwinians. It is an entirely self-inflicted injury, and as such deserves no sympathy. Who, except an ultra-Darwinian, would expect the highly-privileged to be great breeders? No one; just as no one but an ultra-Darwinian would expect women to adopt-out their babies with maximum expedition. For ultra-Darwinians, on the other hand, the infertility of the privileged is a good deal more than a problem. It is a refutation.

But they react to it in accordance with a well-tried rule of present-day scientific research. The rule is: ‘When your theory meets with a refutation, call it instead "a problem", and demand additional money in order to enable you to solve it.’ Experience has shown that this rule is just the thing for keeping a ‘research program’ afloat, even if it leaks like a sieve. Indeed, the more of these challenging ‘problems’ you can mention, the more money you are plainly entitled to demand.

10. If variations which are useful to their possessors in the struggle for life ‘do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive), that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed.’

This is from The Origin of Species, pp. 80-81. Exactly the same words occur in all the editions.

Since this passage expresses the essential idea of natural selection, no further evidence is needed to show that proposition 10 is a Darwinian one. But is it true? In particular, may we really feel sure that every attribute in the least degree injurious to its possessors would be rigidly destroyed by natural selection?

On the contrary, the proposition is (saving Darwin’s reverence) ridiculous. Any educated person can easily think of a hundred characteristics, commonly occurring in our species, which are not only ‘in the least degree’ injurious to their possessors, but seriously or even extremely injurious to them, which have not been ‘rigidly destroyed’, and concerning which there is not the smallest evidence that they are in the process of being destroyed. Here are ten such characteristics, without even going past the first letter of the alphabet. Abortion; adoption; fondness for alcohol; altruism; anal intercourse; respect for ancestors; susceptibility to aneurism; the love of animals; the importance attached to art; asceticism, whether sexual, dietary, or whatever.

Each of these characteristics tends, more or less strongly, to shorten our lives, or to lessen the number of children we have, or both. All of them are of extreme antiquity. Some of them are probably older than our species itself. Adoption, for example is practised by some species of chimpanzees: another adult female taking over the care of a baby whose mother has died. Why has not this ancient and gross ‘biological error’ been rigidly destroyed?

‘There has not been enough time’, replies the Darwinian. Well, that could be so: perhaps there has not been enough time. And then again, perhaps there has been enough time: perhaps even twenty times over. How long does it take for natural selection to destroy an injurious attribute, such as adoption or fondness for alcohol? I have not the faintest idea, of course. I therefore have no positive ground whatever for believing either that there has been enough time for adoption to be destroyed, or that there has not. But then, on this matter, everyone else is in the same state of total ignorance as I am. So how come the Darwinian is so confident that there has not been enough time? What evidence can he point to, for thinking that there has not? Why, nothing but this, that adoption has not been destroyed, despite its being an injurious attribute! But this is palpably arguing in a circle, and taking for granted the very point which is in dispute. The Darwinian has no positive evidence whatever, that there has not been enough time.

Mercifully, Darwinians nowadays are much more reluctant than they formerly were, to rely heavily on the ‘not-enough-time’ defence of their theory against critics. They have benefited from the strictures of philosophers, who have pointed out that it is not good scientific method, to defend Darwinism by a tactic which would always be equally available whatever the state of the evidence, and which will still be equally available to Darwinians a million years hence, if adoption (for example) is still practised then.

The cream of the jest, concerning proposition 10, is that Darwinians themselves do not really believe it. Ask a Darwinian whether he actually believes that the fondness for alcoholic drinks is being destroyed now, or that abortion is, or adoption - and watch his face. Well, of course he does not believe it! Why would he? There is not a particle of evidence in its favour, and there is a great mountain of evidence against it. Absolutely the only thing it has in its favour is that Darwinism says it must be so. But (as Descartes said in another connection) ‘this reasoning cannot be presented to infidels, who might consider that it proceeded in a circle’.

What becomes, then, of the terrifying giant named Natural Selection, which can never sleep, can never fail to detect an attribute which is, even in the least degree, injurious to its possessors in the struggle for life, and can never fail to punish such an attribute with rigid destruction? Why, just that, like so much else in Darwinism, it is an obvious fairytale, at least as far as our species is concerned.

It would not be difficult to compile another list of ten obvious Darwinian falsities; or another one after that, either. But on that scale, the thing would be tiresome both to read and to write. Anyway it ought not to be necessary: ten obvious Darwinian falsities should be enough to make the point. The point, namely, that if most educated people now think they are Darwinians, it is only because they have no idea of the multiplied absurdities which belief in Darwinism requires.

http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/ar...ticle.php?id=26 (http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/articles/article.php?id=26)

2) His ideas have clear right wing implications.

punisa

4th April 2010, 20:55

If a religious person reads a book of Dawkins will never be convinced to change idea. he is too sectarian.

This I agree. I simply don't believe he has any "conversion" rate among religious people.
If we put it in raw terms and say that Dawkins seeks to expand the population of athists, I think he is doing great among agnostics and "couch" believers.
He does in fact have a couple of arguments that will surely result in making these groups take that extra mile and turn themselves into "full blown atheists".

This is rather similar with politics.
We know there are many democrats and social democrats that we can easily "make" communists. As if these people were indeed revolutionary, but simply never knew about alternatives (Marxism, socialism etc).
Same with religion, some people would really prefer not believe in gods, but never stumbled upon something tangible and argumentable for atheism.
This is were I've noticed Dawkins shines the most.

punisa

4th April 2010, 21:40

Because:

1) His 'theory' is demonstrably false when it is applied to human beings. Here is an article from a few years back, written by an atheist (so he is no friend of the creationists), on this:

David Stove?
The David Stove? A guy who dismissed leftist politics as a whole and turned to conservatism?
I'm sure that if you wanted to debunk Dawkins, you could've at least find some more trustworthy critic.
David Stove :D

Author of some great "progressive" books such as: "The Intellectual Capacity of Women" and "Racial and Other Antagonisms".

David Stove: ("Why You Should Be a Conservative")
"You introduce contraception to control population, and find that you have dismantled a whole culture. At home you legislate to relieve the distress of unmarried mothers, and find you have given a cash incentive to the production of illegitimate children. You guarantee a minimum wage, and find that you have extinguished, not only specific industries, but industry itself as a personal trait. You enable everyone to travel, and one result is, that there is nowhere left worth traveling to. And so on.

This is the oldest and the best argument for conservatism"

2) His ideas have clear right wing implications.

And my father is stronger then your father... could you at least *try* to argument your claims?
So far we have only figured that David Stove has clear right wing implications, can we now get back to Richard Dawkins?

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 03:54

Punisa:

David Stove?
The David Stove? A guy who dismissed leftist politics as a whole and turned to conservatism?

He used to be a Marxist (a communist, in fact) but flipped and became a right-wing git.

But that no more discredits his criticism of Darwin and Dawkins than it does Hegel's work.

And my father is stronger then your father...

What has this got to do with what I said?

could you at least *try* to argument your claims

In what way?

So far we have only figured that David Stove has clear right wing implications, can we now get back to Richard Dawkins?

Indeed, and a plague on both their houses. But, the bottom line is that Stove has exposed key weaknesses in Darwin and Dawkins' theory.

28350

5th April 2010, 04:08

I think I would agree more with Chris Knight on the subject:

RSB: You say that Richard Dawkins has got it right with his selfish gene theory, but wrong with his views on religion - the exact opposite of the view generally held on the left! Why?
CK: Well, the fact is simply that genes are complex molecules that use the bodies they inhabit to replicate themselves. A gene that replicated the competition at its own expense would not be a gene. Even if the anomaly existed for some reason in one generation, in the next it would not be a gene but an ex-gene. Dawkins used the term 'selfish' to get this vital point across: genes must replicate themselves. That is the fundamental law. But the whole point of sociobiological theory was and remains to explain social behaviour, including especially co-operative behaviour. In a sense, then, 'selfish gene' theory is the science of unselfishness, the science of human and animal solidarity. Modern Darwinism has proved enormously productive because it is materialist and genuinely scientific. Today, there is scarcely one qualified fieldworker studying apes, termites, dolphins or any other species in the wild who is not benefitting from and contributing to this body of theory. Trying to find an exception would be like trying to find a physicist who rejected the laws of gravity.
Among other things, the theory explains conflict: conflict between the sexes, between parents and offspring and so on. It shows how conflicting strategies arise, and how conflicting interests drive evolutionary change. For Marxists, these should be familiar themes. Most of the middle class 'left' refused to read further than the title of Dawkins' book. Failing to grasp the author's entire point, they imagined him to be justifying capitalism, racism and so forth. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was precisely selfish gene theory which exploded the earlier idea that natural selection pitted 'race' against 'race'. The left's response to this scientific revolution was embarrassingly ignorant and self-destructive. In fact, it was a disgrace. Imagine what Marx and Engels would have thought!

Source: htt p://ww w.readysteadybook .com/ Article.aspx?page=chrisknight
(Sorry for the inconvenience, I had to split up the URL because my post count is less than 25)

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 04:17

Incidentally, you can read Stepen Jay Gould's exposure of the right wing implications of Dawkins' theory, here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1151

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/Gould.html

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 04:21

And here are some of the right-wing implications of his theory:

Among other things, the theory explains conflict: conflict between the sexes, between parents and offspring and so on. It shows how conflicting strategies arise, and how conflicting interests drive evolutionary change. For Marxists, these should be familiar themes. Most of the middle class 'left' refused to read further than the title of Dawkins' book. Failing to grasp the author's entire point, they imagined him to be justifying capitalism, racism and so forth. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was precisely selfish gene theory which exploded the earlier idea that natural selection pitted 'race' against 'race'. The left's response to this scientific revolution was embarrassingly ignorant and self-destructive. In fact, it was a disgrace. Imagine what Marx and Engels would have thought!

In fact, Engels's criticism of this way of looking at human beings over 100 years ago is still apposite:

"1) Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin's method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact. Until Darwin's time the very people who now see everywhere only struggle for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, etc.) emphasized precisely cooperation in organic nature, the fact that the vegetable kingdom supplies oxygen and nutriment to the animal kingdom and conversely the animal kingdom supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, which was particularly stressed by Liebig. Both conceptions are justified within certain limits, but the one is as one-sided and narrow-minded as the other. The interaction of bodies in nature -- inanimate as well as animate -- includes both harmony and collision, struggle and cooperation. When therefore a self-styled natural scientist takes the liberty of reducing the whole of historical development with all its wealth and variety to the one-sided and meagre phrase 'struggle for existence,' a phrase which even in the sphere of nature can be accepted only cum grano salis [with a grain of salt -- RL], such a procedure really contains its own condemnation.

"...I should therefore attack -- and perhaps will when the time comes -- these bourgeois Darwinists in about the following manner:

"The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes [from Hobbes's De Cive and Leviathan, chapter 13-14] and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus's theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed (and I questioned its absolute permissibility, as I have indicated in point 1, particularly as far as the Malthusian theory is concerned), the same theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved. The puerility of this procedure is so obvious that not a word need be said about it. But if I wanted to go into the matter more thoroughly I should do so by depicting them in the first place as bad economists and only in the second place as bad naturalists and philosophers.

"4) The essential difference between human and animal society consists in the fact that animals at most collect while men produce. This sole but cardinal difference alone makes it impossible simply to transfer laws of animal societies to human societies....

"At a certain stage the production of man attains such a high-level that not only necessaries but also luxuries, at first, true enough, only for a minority, are produced. The struggle for existence -- if we permit this category for the moment to be valid -- is thus transformed into a struggle for pleasures, no longer for mere means of subsistence but for means of development, socially produced means of development, and to this stage the categories derived from the animal kingdom are no longer applicable. But if, as has now happened, production in its capitalist form produces a far greater quantity of means of subsistence and development than capitalist society can consume because it keeps the great mass of real producers artificially away from these means of subsistence and development; if this society is forced by its own law of life constantly to increase this output which is already too big for it and therefore periodically, every 10 years, reaches the point where it destroys not only a mass of products but even productive forces -- what sense is their left in all this talk of 'struggle for existence'? The struggle for existence can then consist only in this: that the producing class takes over the management of production and distribution from the class that was hitherto entrusted with it but has now become incompetent to handle it, and there you have the socialist revolution.

"...Even the mere contemplation of previous history as a series of class struggles suffices to make clear the utter shallowness of the conception of this history as a feeble variety of the 'struggle for existence.' I would therefore never do this favour to these false naturalists....

"6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the 'bellum omnium contra omnes' was the first phase of human development. In my opinion, the social instinct was one of the most essential levers of the evolution of man from the ape. The first man must have lived in bands and as far as we can peer into the past we find that this was the case...." [Engels to Lavrov, 17/11/1875. Spelling altered to conform to UK English.]

Devrim

5th April 2010, 06:50

Most of the middle class 'left' refused to read further than the title of Dawkins' book. Failing to grasp the author's entire point, they imagined him to be justifying capitalism, racism and so forth. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I think that this is basically it.

Because:

1) His 'theory' is demonstrably false when it is applied to human beings. Here is an article from a few years back, written by an atheist (so he is no friend of the creationists), on this:

I personally don't think that it is, but he does, and if you had actually read the Selfish Gene, you would know that he says it doesn't apply to humans.

Because:

2) His ideas have clear right wing implications.

I don't think that they do have right-wing implications either. Others might. The point here is that the approach is a complete rejection of the scientific method. The ideas that Dawkins, what is known as the Neo-Darwinist synthesis is pretty much the mainstream scientific consensus today. If there is to be a challenge to it, it must be based on scientific premises, not the fact that a few leftists don't like the implications of his ideas.

To draw a rather crude analogy, if one were to make an argument against the Theory of Gravity, it would have to be done by proving that objects don't fall to Earth rather than the fact that you don't like that they do.

Devrim

MarxSchmarx

5th April 2010, 07:02

In addition to Stove's indictment produced at length, even on a fundamental scientific level Dawkins's theories are seriously mistaken.

Interestingly, Dawkins focuses not so much on "genes" as he does on alleles. The fundamental problem with his analysis is that it prima facie fails to account for things like mutations and canalization that account for the influence of alleles. Dawkins would be tempted to assume that these are just alleles and this is all an issue of "allelic complexes", but at that level he is already invoking a higher level of selection and his theory is internally inconsistent, as in "The Selfish Gene" Dawkins strongly rejects the individual (in essence, a gene complex) as the unit of selection.

I don't think that they do have right-wing implications either. Others might. The point here is that the approach is a complete rejection of the scientific method. The ideas that Dawkins, what is known as the Neo-Darwinist synthesis is pretty much the mainstream scientific consensus today. If there is to be a challenge to it, it must be based on scientific premises, not the fact that a few leftists don't like the implications of his ideas.

True, outside of evolutionary biology Neo-Darwinism is dominant, but within fields like ethology and genetics, even ideas which Dawkins supposedly burried like group selection are now seen as incontrovertible, if rare, processes. His strong selectionism as accounting for the bulk of heritable biological variation moreover is now discredited with the pre-eminence of Kimura's neutral theory. Worse, Dawkins rejected any selection above th elevel of the gene on a matter of principle, and when taken in conjunction, the evidence accumulated in the last quarter century against this essentially metaphysical claim is daunting. Although the essence of neo-Darwinism remains scientifically sound, Dawkins extremism is no longer seriously entertained by serious students of evolution.

As I mentioned elsewhere on this forum, Dawkins is a fine ethologist but almost all of his writings are popularizations. His scientific credentials, in terms of peer-reviewed articles and empirically validated or mathematically constructed original theories, is surprisingly limited.He is very articulate and has focused his efforts on exposition and sociopolitical problems. All that is fine, but he is ultimately a journalist or at best a political commentator, and he uses the prestige of the natural sciences and misrepresents his somewhat limited authority in biology to advance his reactionary political agenda, as has been indicated in previous posts. Dawkins uses his rhetorical skills to advance the essentially liberal/social democratic consensus of scientists which uses supposedly scientific arguments to reject and supposedly discredit serious leftist social science.

Calmwinds

5th April 2010, 09:16

El Salvador

5th April 2010, 09:47

I have some reasons why I don't agree with Dawkins (and maybe some other people also):

- He is a orthodox-Darwinist. I am not a Darwinist at all (I describe myself as an evolutionist, but not an darwinist).
Darwinists as Dawkins reduce everyhing of the organism to the genes and the molecules. Everything is just an accident.
This is a link to an interview with the biologist Brian Goodwin. I like his look to the nature and the evolution very much, and he has some good criticism of Darwinism (sorry can't post the link because I'm new on the forum. You can just google on "Brian Goodwin darwinism").

- Dawkins philosophical view is hard scientism (or: reductionistic materialism). I think that position is a real fallacy. It's a delusion.
He thinks everything can be explained (even god in a part) by science.
Het says in an interview: "‘... the deep and universal questions of existence and the meaning of life (including ‘Who Am I?’ and ‘What am I for?’) are scientific matters which should properly be dealt with in science classes.' "
He puts in the first chapter of "The God Delusion" Einstein in the camp of the atheïsts. But he can't do that, just because Einstein recognized that the deep and universal questions of existence and meaning' can't be resolved by, for example, the relativity theory.

- Dawkins says that all religions are bad. But thats bullshit. It is not because the pope is bad, or the crusades were bad, that religion is immediately bad.
Every fool can do bad things every time in the name of every religion.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 10:01

Devrim:

I personally don't think that it is, but he does, and if you had actually read the Selfish Gene, you would know that he says it doesn't apply to humans.

I'd like to see the evidence for this.

Devrim

5th April 2010, 10:18

I'd like to see the evidence for this.

I'd advise you to read the book then. You never know it might surprise you.

Devrim

vyborg

5th April 2010, 10:52

I don't really take Gould as an honest scientist, he seems far too motivated to not offend anyone and hurt anyone's feelings, people pleasing to him takes priority before the truth. Although, I feel I have committed violence on him by imposing on him this view, but he roughly seems to be focused far too much on ethics.

Well towards the last years SJ turned that way...From being a radical and proud Marxist he became obsessed not to offend anyone. Anyway he was a great scientist.

vyborg

5th April 2010, 10:54

This I agree. I simply don't believe he has any "conversion" rate among religious people.
If we put it in raw terms and say that Dawkins seeks to expand the population of athists, I think he is doing great among agnostics and "couch" believers.
He does in fact have a couple of arguments that will surely result in making these groups take that extra mile and turn themselves into "full blown atheists".

This is rather similar with politics.
We know there are many democrats and social democrats that we can easily "make" communists. As if these people were indeed revolutionary, but simply never knew about alternatives (Marxism, socialism etc).
Same with religion, some people would really prefer not believe in gods, but never stumbled upon something tangible and argumentable for atheism.
This is were I've noticed Dawkins shines the most.

If you want to convince religious workers to become communist you must start putting aside religion completely...you will start with practical things and convincing him communism is a practical alternative.

At the end you will be able to say: look mate you believe in god I dont, you see, this makes no practical difference...from here you can go on discussing about more theoretical topics

punisa

5th April 2010, 11:26

And here are some of the right-wing implications of his theory

Now that's better:)
What I was saying earlier is that you labeled Dawkins with right-wing implications, but haven't provided any evidence to show it except that his view on Darwinism was false at some keypoints. Being scientifically false does not mean you're a right winger.

But I see you provided more details, thanks for that. This is exactly what I was looking for. Merely because I keep seeing short "he a right wing'a" comments all over youtube and such, but rarely someone backs it up.
I'll check the stuff you posted and come back to it soon.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 11:28

Devrim:

I'd advise you to read the book then. You never know it might surprise you.

Unfortunately, I have, and as far as I can recall, Dawkins was also talking about human beings.

If you know different, please be specitfic.

I'll try to find some quotations that support my estimation. You do the same.

But, Selfish Gene wasn't his only book. In other publiciations, he certainly does extend this to human beings.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 11:31

Punisa:

What I was saying earlier is that you labeled Dawkins with right-wing implications, but haven't provided any evidence to show it except that his view on Darwinism was false at some keypoints. Being scientifically false does not mean you're a right winger.

Where did I say Dawkins was a 'right winger'? In fact, if anything he is a soft-lefist. But his ideas have clrear right wing implications.

But I see you provided more details, thanks for that. This is exactly what I was looking for. Merely because I keep seeing short "he a right wing'a" comments all over youtube and such, but rarely someone backs it up.
I'll check the stuff you posted and come back to it soon.

Well, I have been reading this stuff since the mid 1970s, and it has been well established on the left (including the revolutionary left) since then that this approach to biology plays into the hands of the right.

punisa

5th April 2010, 11:47

Devrim:
I'd like to see the evidence for this.

Dawkins spoke on numerous occasions that humans have developed up to the point where they will not be governed by cruel forces of natural selection.
I know he mentioned this statement on at least 10 video interviews, I'll have to rewind a little bit and go look for it, when I find it I'll post back asap.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 13:01

Punisa:

Dawkins spoke on numerous occasions that humans have developed up to the point where they will not be governed by cruel forces of natural selection.
I know he mentioned this statement on at least 10 video interviews, I'll have to rewind a little bit and go look for it, when I find it I'll post back asap.

He certainly said this, and many times, as have others. But there is no mechanism in evolutionary theory (as he sees it) that allows human beings to transcend the factors Dawkins imagines are at work in all organisms, including us.

punisa

5th April 2010, 15:12

Well, I have been reading this stuff since the mid 1970s, and it has been well established on the left (including the revolutionary left) since then that this approach to biology plays into the hands of the right.

Well, it is a well established fact that many elements of science can easily play into the hands of politics, be it left or right.
It solely depands on which group will exploit which research, personally I see this as a silly attempt to enforce one ideology upon the masses.
Since science and scientists are percieved as factual, they serve as a great leverage IF they allow it.

A scientists may come up with a controversial theory, right wing ideologies built up upon it - this is a point where that particular scientist may:
A) remain quiet on the issue and silently endorse the group which exploits his ideas.
B) stand up and support the notorious group stating that they are the ones who recognized his ideas and thus deserve support.
C) debunk this claims as false.

Richard Dawkins is clearly in the C category.
He says on many occasions that he is interested only in facts and scientific truth.
And I personally applaude him for this, since this is the way I percieve science as well.
Using proven facts in political means is not a way to go.

Of course, being a leftist - I would simply love to hear Dawkins (or any other scientist) say that evolution is process that has communism as a final goal.
That would be great, but if the facts prove that it is not the case - well, tough luck - still, I won't change my ideals because of that.

Sure, Dawkins pushes Darwinism as a debunkable truth. It's understood, considering him devoting his life to it. But for us, as well as the masses, we'll need a bit more evidence to take something as an absolute truth.

Still - if, let's say in 10 years from now, the idea that we came to be solely on the premise of the survival of the fittest is fully evident - I'll accept it as it is.
Why turn our heads away if something is proven as a fact?

At this point I'm speaking completely hypothetical, but let's see some made up examples.
Say a fool-proof study concludes that women are less smart then men (or vice versa), can you still cling on to the old paradigm and denounce the truth?

Left (and right) have a tendency to turn their heads away from everything they don't percieve compatibile with their ideologies.
This I think is not a favourable future society I'd like to see.

And thus we came down to the point where I agree with Dawkins the most.
I too share a vision of a society that is free from mental oppression.
Children especially should be left alone to develop their own viewpoints regarding certain aspects of our lives.

Society today pushes too much of backwards belif system upon their young.
Religion, which is the main point of Dawkins, is just one example.
This mental slavery can easily be expanded to many other elements:
- to bow down to forces of the free market
- to believe only man and woman are a healthy foundation of a family union
- and the worst one of all: if you try really hard you can achieve anything

Naturally, people like Dawkins focused on religion as a point of debunking, which is in some way understandable - since religion has no evidence to justify/prove itself.

We on the other hand have a rather more difficult task, we have to debunk capitalism which is in fact a real tangible system which in many cases provide what it states: food, shelter and other eseential means of survival. Even some luxories to the priviliged upper class.

Still we know that capitalism claims fake promises to the masses and will never provide everyone with even basic means of survival. Thus we work on every front to bring the bad news to the masses, while also describing a system that could actually bring prosperity to everyone.
In that case, we can say that we too are fighting for truth and freedom from the oppresion.

punisa

5th April 2010, 15:30

He certainly said this, and many times, as have others. But there is no mechanism in evolutionary theory (as he sees it) that allows human beings to transcend the factors Dawkins imagines are at work in all organisms, including us.

Sure there is. The mechanism that allows ourselves to transcend evolutionary urges is our reason. Something that animals do not posses.

Creationists usually use the cruel evolutionary instincts to justify "purpose" of religion - giving people the moral code which will keep them at bay from becoming wild greedy lustful animals.

This is ofcourse false - since we can today measure the amount of crime commited by atheists and see that abandoning god and its moral codex doesn't make you "evil".

Understanding our urges and facing them as they are is probabbly the best way to transcend them.

I'll provide a rather lame argument, so please do laugh at me :lol:
I have a girlfriend for whom I care about.
When I'm in a direct situation being alone with another female who is willing to have sex with me, my (evolutionary) instinct will tell me to do it imediately.
Now the reason mechanism kicks in - probabbly automatically calculating "cost and benefits".
If the result says: "nobody will ever find out about, go and do it".

I'd still probabbly not do it.
Why?
10 commandmants? I doubt it.
Selfish imagination as to how I would feel if I was chated? I doubt it.

So why not then? Simply because I would not kill, rape or rob someone in the street if I was 100% sure I would never get caught.
I believe our reason is the powerful mechanism that can in many cases avoid being victims of our own process from which we came to be.

I haven't exactly heard Dawkins say this, but I believe we can steer evolution to our own will.
For example, technology could very soon allow us to seriously change the course of evolution.

There was indeed a similar idea Dawkins mentioned in one interview.
I think someone asked as to why evolution began in the first place?
A far fetched idea might be that it is the planetary defense mechanism in which we serve as its protectors.
How? Well, let's say that in 50 years a commet is treathening to destroy Earth, by that time we would very likely posses the means and knowledge on how to avoid that doom day scenario. Destroying or changing the course of the approching commet.

As I said, it's far fetched, but cute :p

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 15:35

I'll reply to you shortly; in the mentime, you might like to read an ealrier post of mine:

Comrades might be interested in this, which was post at the Kasama discussion board recently:

Science 6 November 2009:
Vol. 326. no. 5954, pp. 800 - 801
DOI: 10.1126/science.1179955

BOOKS - EVOLUTION:

Darwin Is Dead—Long Live Evolution

Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution by David F. Prindle.
Prometheus, Amherst, NY, 2009. 249 pp. $26.98, £22.50. ISBN 9781591027188.

[reviewed by] Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis

The reviewer is at at the Department of Biology and the Department of History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.

Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution arrives just in time. Just when it looked like the "ultra-Darwinists" were winning the "year of Darwin" with their interminable love-fests, triumphalist narratives, and self-serving revisionist histories; when we were starting to think that Darwin was the only evolutionist to have lived in the past 150 years; and when we might conclude that nearly the entire evolutionary community had drunk the Kool-Aid of antiquarian Darwinism, David Prindle's book appears to give us pause. It reminds us of the late paleontologist, the heady days of late 20th-century evolutionary science, and all the political underpinnings of evolutionary biology that Gould was so fond of revealing. No fan of simplistic, reductionistic, ahistorical, or apolitical views of scientific knowledge, Gould offered a distinctly self-critical view of science, one that would likely challenge much of the ultra-orthodoxy passing as reflective history and science written expressly for the year of Darwin.

Gould viewed science from the perspective of a practitioner, while using critical methods from history, philosophy, and social theory to expose the complex scaffolding that had given rise to it. His work frequently revealed the biases and prejudices that were concealed by the kind of historical rewriting that eliminated precisely those very human frailties as well as the sociopolitical forces that often overrode even the most rational of methods. At heart, Gould understood that science was itself a political process—not just in the superficial sense of the "politics of science" (where the politics gets in the way of science) but more that there always is a "knowledge-power" relation. For Gould, history, philosophy, social, and political theories were not just linked with science but were in fact constitutive of science. Such a view did not always sit comfortably with his colleagues (and even Gould himself bore some notable contradictory elements in his simultaneous embrace of science and ideology). That is one reason he drew the ire of so many of his contemporaries who viewed him as inappropriately political for a scientist. This was ironic, indeed, because many of his opponents themselves had equally strong political views (usually in the opposite direction), although those were usually masked by what appeared to be an objective, apolitical view of science (sociobiology, anyone?)

The book begins to explore some of these themes in the works of Gould. The author, a professor of government at the University of Texas, argues that Gould's mind worked simultaneously in two "parallel tracks," one scientific, the other political. Interpreting these in terms of a "consistent whole," Prindle presents his analysis as a history of ideas. He organizes the book thematically around Gould's writing style, his philosophy of science, his use of historical inquiry, and his views on the nature-nurture controversy and on science and religion. Prindle concludes with an assessment of Gould's original contributions to modern evolutionary theory.

Not much in Prindle's treatment is surprising. The author characterizes Gould as a leftist but refutes the mythology that he was a Marxist. Prindle tells us that Gould developed a "charming style" of writing, which made him both an effective popularizer and a skilled rhetorician, and that he was likely the most "enthusiastic creator of metaphors in the history of science." Prindle's analysis does, however, miss the tragedy of Gould's magnum opus, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (1), a vainglorious attempt to synthesize all of his thoughts on the subject that ended up as a nearly unreadable 1433-page behemoth. Prindle describes Gould's use of contingency in evolution and history, how it played out in the fossil record in instances like the celebrated Burgess Shale, and how it could also introduce chance and avoid determinism in evolutionary processes. The author discusses Gould and his "ideological consociate" Richard C. Lewontin's celebrated critique of the adaptationist program in their "Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm" paper (2) and the critical responses it provoked. There is much on Gould's critique of intelligence testing and on his battles with bugaboos like Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, and their notorious book The Bell Curve (3), in which they argued that social and economic differences between blacks and whites in the United States were not due to racial discrimination but to differences in intelligence between the two groups. There is also, of course, much on Richard Dawkins, along with discussions of their fundamental differences over selectionism, reductionism, determinism, and what have you. As Prindle correctly explains, Gould's self-critical perspective on evolution provided fodder for creationists and lacked the consistency of Dawkins's atheistic position. Gould's more nuanced, irenic views, however, avoided what he saw as "the polemics of ill-conceived battle between science and religion."

Prindle is at his best in the chapter "The contours of history." Here, the author addresses Gould's deep understanding of the philosophy of history and considers its influence on both his historical writing and his evolutionary science. Prindle's discussion of what he terms Gould's "historical empathy" is stunningly insightful, although I wish more had been done with Gould's historicism. Gould was a radical historicist and sensitive to a number of movements in the humanities that stressed the view that science is a historically rooted and culturally embedded practice. I also appreciated the chapter on human nature, in which Prindle brings to bear his understanding of political theory. One's politics do, after all, hinge on the fundamental question of human nature. As expected, Prindle discusses Gould and Niles Eldredge's celebrated critique or amendment—depending on one's point of view—known as punctuated equilibrium. But, sadly, there is next to nothing on Gould's insights into development or what is really his finest historical work, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (4). Those topics would have been especially timely in the current excitement over the synthesis between evolution and development.

The book suffers from several shortcomings. To begin with, Prindle's account is too brief for a complex figure like Gould. There is also a lack of depth in terms of the technical explication of the science. The style of the writing is overly casual. And Prindle's account demonstrates his unfamiliarity with the history of science. He seems unaware of the vast literature that has explored not only politics and science but also the interplay of science, worldview, and ideology [for example, (5, 6)]—exactly the kind of intellectual history Prindle attempts. His account could have been greatly strengthened had he drawn on such work. It is also weakened by Prindle having largely restricted himself to a selection of Gould's published works (no archives), not all of which he systematically examines.

I am not convinced of Prindle's conclusion that future historians will see Gould's legacy only in terms of the spandrel and the related concept of exaptation—elements of his criticisms of the adaptationist program. Those seem to be only some of his scientific contributions. Also, as a historian of science, I don't share Prindle's problem with the incomplete nature of Gould's evolutionary (or political) theory. Who in the history of science (or politics) has left behind a fully formed theory? Not Darwin: It took a small army of workers, including geneticists and mathematicians, simply to get to the synthetic theory of evolution. And that was before 1953, when the structure of DNA was determined. Science, like politics, is rarely about completion.

Whatever its drawbacks, Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution is a welcome addition to our understanding of late 20th-century evolutionary science, of which we know too little, and a provocative introduction to a major figure. The book is especially well-timed to challenge the many ultra-orthodox, ultra-Darwinists who seem to have taken center stage for 2009. It reminds us that evolution is represented by a plurality of voices. The book's final chapter does much to honor the lively spirit of Gould's special blending of politics and science. The opening section of the chapter rolls together 19th-century Darwinism, conservative politics, and references to the egregious misuse of history by the likes of filmmaker Ben Stein (Expelled), conservative pundit Ann Coulter, and others who link Darwin to Hitler. Here, Prindle finally gets into the nitty-gritty unpleasantness of the politics of evolution as manifested in some current populist anti-evolutionist movements. Reading this section reminded me that were Gould still alive (he would have been only 68 this year), he would likely be leading a chorus of people in the fight against the rising tide of such populist critics. Historicizing Darwin and Darwinism, making them truly things of the past, and decoupling Darwinism from modern evolution, he would be helping us move forward into 21st-century evolutionary science. As we enter the home stretch of 2009, let us remember Gould and honor his legacy with the following thought: Darwin is dead. Long live evolution.

References

1. S. J. Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002); reviewed in (7).
2. S. J. Gould, R. C. Lewontin, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B 205, 581 (1979).[Abstract/Free Full Text]
3. R. Herrnstein, C. Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (Free Press, New York, 1994).
4. S. J. Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA, 1977).
5. J. C. Greene, Science, Ideology, and World View: Essays in the History of Ideas (Univ. California Press, Berkeley, 1981).
6. V. B. Smocovitis, Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 1996.
7. D. J. Futuyma, Science 296, 661 (2002).[Abstract/Free Full Text]

http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showtopic=972

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 15:55

Punisa:

Well, it is a well established fact that many elements of science can easily play into the hands of politics, be it left or right.
It solely depends on which group will exploit which research, personally I see this as a silly attempt to enforce one ideology upon the masses.
Since science and scientists are perceived as factual, they serve as a great leverage IF they allow it.

In fact, science is run by human beings, and this is just as true of them as it is of anyone else:

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch....'" [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, pp.64-65.]

Richard Dawkins is clearly in the C category.
He says on many occasions that he is interested only in facts and scientific truth.
And I personally applaud him for this, since this is the way I perceive science as well.
Using proven facts in political means is not a way to go

And yet, if you have a look at the quotations in that long post I posted above, and the many more on Stove's book, you will see he says some pretty ideologically-compromised things.

But, even if this were not so, his theory has clear right-wing implications, and all the denials in the world by him cannot alter that. Once more, there is no physical mechanism in his theory for human beings to transcend their genes.

He says on many occasions that he is interested only in facts and scientific truth.
And I personally applaud him for this, since this is the way I perceive science as well.
Using proven facts in political means is not a way to go.

But are they facts? This is highly questionable. In my view they are ideological constructs passed off as facts.

That would be great, but if the facts prove that it is not the case - well, tough luck - still, I won't change my ideals because of that.

You seem to think there are 'facts' out there that scientists just discover. But, what passes for a scientific fact (particularly in certain areas of biology) is often ideology in disguise. Look at the IQ controversy. Look at eugenics. And this is no less so here, as MarxSchmarx points out, above.

Still - if, let's say in 10 years from now, the idea that we came to be solely on the premise of the survival of the fittest is fully evident - I'll accept it as it is.
Why turn our heads away if something is proven as a fact?

In fact, science is moving the other way. Check this out:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951968,00.html

http://www.pitt.edu/~jhs/publications.html

Say a fool-proof study concludes that women are less smart then men (or vice versa), can you still cling on to the old paradigm and denounce the truth?

If we can evaluate science in this way, why can't I argue: Let's say that on day, we discover a whole new phylum that evolve in a Lamarckian manner? In such a free-for-all, there are no guiding principles, and we easily lose our way

And even such a study as you mention would have to take in cultural factors to account for the differences, if there are any, vitiating your point. You see you are looking at human beings with biology in mind all the time. This is a right wing perspective. We are social animals, and this decides our (changing) nature, not biology.

Society today pushes too much of backwards belief system upon their young.
Religion, which is the main point of Dawkins, is just one example.
This mental slavery can easily be expanded to many other elements:
- to bow down to forces of the free market
- to believe only man and woman are a healthy foundation of a family union
- and the worst one of all: if you try really hard you can achieve anything

This is an idealist, not a Marxist account of religion.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 16:12

Punisa:

Sure there is. The mechanism that allows ourselves to transcend evolutionary urges is our reason. Something that animals do not posses.

Ok, so what is Dawkins's mechanism for transcending our genes?

It's no good saying we are different from the animals; on Dawkins's account, there is no difference -- or, at least, there is nothing in his theory that can account for it.

Understanding our urges and facing them as they are is probably the best way to transcend them.

I agree, partly, but then Dawkins cannot account for this.

I have a girlfriend for whom I care about.
When I'm in a direct situation being alone with another female who is willing to have sex with me, my (evolutionary) instinct will tell me to do it immediately.
Now the reason mechanism kicks in - probably automatically calculating "cost and benefits".
If the result says: "nobody will ever find out about, go and do it".

And how do you know it's your 'evolutionary instinct'?

So why not then? Simply because I would not kill, rape or rob someone in the street if I was 100% sure I would never get caught.
I believe our reason is the powerful mechanism that can in many cases avoid being victims of our own process from which we came to be.

Maybe so, but this is something Dawkins cannot account for. If our bodies are just the husks that our genes occupy (Dawkins's words, paraphrased), then they control us, not the other way round. And, it's no use appealing to 'reason' as if it were capable of transcending the physical universe, and our genes. If they control us, then they control our reason too. If not, natural selection will ruthlessly eradicate any gene that does not try to maximise its surviving copies.

I haven't exactly heard Dawkins say this, but I believe we can steer evolution to our own will.
For example, technology could very soon allow us to seriously change the course of evolution.

Well, yes he does say stuff like this. You can find the details in Stove's book.

[If you want, I can post a pdf copy of it on-line for you to read for yourself. In the last forty years, I haven't read anything quite as powerful as this against Neo-Darwinism.]

There was indeed a similar idea Dawkins mentioned in one interview.
I think someone asked as to why evolution began in the first place?
A far fetched idea might be that it is the planetary defense mechanism in which we serve as its protectors.
How? Well, let's say that in 50 years a comet is threatening to destroy Earth, by that time we would very likely posses the means and knowledge on how to avoid that doom day scenario. Destroying or changing the course of the approaching comet.

Well, this is exactly what is wrong with this theory. Just like Freud's theory, it allows anyone to conjure 'science' out of thin air. Stephen Gould called these 'Just-so stories':

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_functionalshift.html

Paul Cockshott

5th April 2010, 16:16

Because:

1) His 'theory' is demonstrably false when it is applied to human beings. Here is an article from a few years back, written by an atheist (so he is no friend of the creationists), on this:

http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/ar...ticle.php?id=26 (http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/articles/article.php?id=26)

2) His ideas have clear right wing implications.
The quote you provided is generally hostile to Darwinism rather than specifically hostile to Dawkins. The article cited goes so far as to attack the whole idea of evolution by natural selection by attacking the idea that injurious mutations tend to be eliminated:

10. If variations which are useful to their possessors in the struggle for life ‘do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive), that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed.’

This is from The Origin of Species, pp. 80-81. Exactly the same words occur in all the editions.

Since this passage expresses the essential idea of natural selection, no further evidence is needed to show that proposition 10 is a Darwinian one. But is it true? In particular, may we really feel sure that every attribute in the least degree injurious to its possessors would be rigidly destroyed by natural selection?

On the contrary, the proposition is (saving Darwin’s reverence) ridiculous. Any educated person can easily think of a hundred characteristics, commonly occurring in our species, which are not only ‘in the least degree’ injurious to their possessors, but seriously or even extremely injurious to them, which have not been ‘rigidly destroyed’, and concerning which there is not the smallest evidence that they are in the process of being destroyed. Here are ten such characteristics, without even going past the first letter of the alphabet. Abortion; adoption; fondness for alcohol; altruism; anal intercourse; respect for ancestors; susceptibility to aneurism; the love of animals; the importance attached to art; asceticism, whether sexual, dietary, or whatever.

Each of these characteristics tends, more or less strongly, to shorten our lives, or to lessen the number of children we have, or both. All of them are of extreme antiquity. Some of them are probably older than our species itself. Adoption, for example is practised by some species of chimpanzees: another adult female taking over the care of a baby whose mother has died. Why has not this ancient and gross ‘biological error’ been rigidly destroyed?

The objections raised here are ones which most evolutionary biologists would have little difficulty in dealing with. The author would have to show that

the traits he cites are actually counter reproductive,
that they are not part of some other trait that was on balance beneficial
that sufficient time had elapsed for selective pressures to have had a chance to eliminate the trait ( hardly likely with alcohol for example).

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 16:34

PaulC:

The quote you provided is generally hostile to Darwinism rather than specifically hostile to Dawkins. The article cited goes so far as to attack the whole idea of evolution by natural selection by attacking the idea that injurious mutations tend to be eliminated:

Indeed, Stove is hostile to Darwinism. However, he thinks it's the best theory we have, even though it's a rather poor theory -- especially when applied to human beings.

The objections raised here are ones which most evolutionary biologists would have little difficulty in dealing with. The author would have to show that

the traits he cites are actually counter reproductive,
that they are not part of some other trait that was on balance beneficial
that sufficient time had elapsed for selective pressures to have had a chance to eliminate the trait ( hardly likely with alcohol for example).

Well, you have to recall that this article was a flyer advertising his book, where he goes into such things in much more detail.

And, he wrote it nearly 20 years ago (he died in the mid 1990s). Had he lived, he would no doubt have updated it.

punisa

5th April 2010, 18:29

In fact, science is run by human beings, and this is just as true of them as it is of anyone else:

Can't really argue against that quote from Marx and Enegels.
It is true that the rulling class possess the power to control, even knowledge and the *truth* itself.

The fact that science is indeed run by humans exposes it many flaws.
For once, every new dissovery - no matter the amount of evidence - will always have a backlash from the older members.

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but Thomas Samuel Khun wrote a very good book describing exactly this: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).
I suggest it to everyone, it really shows how weak science can indeed be, despite presenting itself as very factual.

My question would be this - considering we do live in the era were science is still closely attached to the rulling class - what sources to trust?
If one acknowledges not to be a scientist, does this mean one should be a skeptic about everything official science publishes?
Is Earth flat? Is Moon really a sattelitte?

We are talking about Dawkins - he enforces the crude theory of natural selection and states all our emotions, actions etc are created for a certain survival reason.
Dawkins is such a scinetist that will go so far as to relate everything to his thoery.
I bet if you ask him:
"where does love come from?"
"where does empathy come from?"
"where does guilt come from?"

He would not hesitate to describe virtually entire spectre of our emotions as some sort of evolutionary purpose.

Mind you, I would never go so far as to claim I'm his devoted follower, I just think that he does a good job in laying down reasons as to why it is a waste of time beliving in god(s).

Out of curiosity and my acknowledged lack of more info, I'd like to ask a side question.
If we say that Darwin's theory has its flaws, what alternative (believable) theories are out there? If we all agree that creationist theory is not the one to follow.

So far in this, if I may say, pretty interesting discussion - I have learned that left in general agrees that evolution is the way humans came about to be. But certain additional elements exist in order to transcend raw-human-almost-an-animal into a more social being, correct?

How does it all boil down? Where (and which) leftists propose this social factor emerged? Is it hardcoded in us, or is the society what makes it?
May I just add that these are my genuine questions, not some sort of debate elements :)

And yet, if you have a look at the quotations in that long post I posted above, and the many more on Stove's book, you will see he says some pretty ideologically-compromised things.

But, even if this were not so, his theory has clear right-wing implications, and all the denials in the world by him cannot alter that. Once more, there is no physical mechanism in his theory for human beings to transcend their genes.

I don't deny that there are right-wing implications in his theory, I'm just curious to see which ones are they?
And btw, when you say "right-wing implications" - do you mean that his theory goes hand-in-hand with right wing ideology or that he purposelly endorses this view because he fancies the right wing, politically speaking?
I think there might be a difference in contex here.

You seem to think there are 'facts' out there that scientists just discover. But, what passes for a scientific fact (particularly in certain areas of biology) is often ideology in disguise. Look at the IQ controversy. Look at eugenics. And this is no less so here, as MarxSchmarx points out, above.

Well, I don't consider myself a blind follower and surely I like to see every aspect before deciding perhaps for myself if I can or cannot hold something true.
Religion for once I can not hold true, simply because the lack of any particular evidence.

Science on the other hand has produced many facts that can not be denied, but these are usually things you could easily test out in your own room. Mainly physics, chemistry etc.
Biology on the other hand has too vast area to "conquer" to be a hardcore fact and I see your point, it is very difficult to close the topic on certain aspect, simply because it is to hard to prove it completely.
Certanity gets even more shaky when we start to discuss philosophy, here assumptions are much more common then facts.

In fact, science is moving the other way. Check this out:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951968,00.html

http://www.pitt.edu/~jhs/publications.html (http://www.pitt.edu/%7Ejhs/publications.html)

Thanks for these, I'll be sure to check them all out and comment back.
Now I gotta go for a beer with a friend :)

Glenn Beck

5th April 2010, 19:23

I actually like Dawkins, I don't find him at-all odious like I do other popular "ultra-Darwinist" authors like Steven Pinker and Jared Diamond who are not only worse scientists but have a far more pronounced socio-political agenda. I don't really have a strong opinion on what the mechanisms of natural selection are and don't see anything inherently objectionable in his gene-centered model of evolution or even his theories of memetics which, while placing him very much out of his depth at least provide a novel way of applying Darwinism to social phenomena (if that's your thing) without having to take shelter under the umbrella of strong adaptationism and sociobiology.

But I think it's pretty much incontrovertible that Dawkins' views towards society and even in some cases scientific debate are rather profoundly ideological, in much the way Rosa describes.

Nothing illustrates this more than his "scathing" review of the book Not in Our Genes where he slanders and clearly misunderstands the authors' thesis that scientists are never free from systemic bias rooted in their social position as "conspiracy theory". This common and droll critique is not only unbelievably ignorant and thus depressing from a man of Dawkins' stature but also ironically a clumsy hatchet job and an act of epistemological primitivism comparable to the imbecilic creationist "critiques" of evolutionism that Dawkins so despises. It's almost as if Dawkins has never picked up a 20th century work on the philosophy or sociology of science in his life.

But given the ideological rifts in the academic world, which have their roots in precisely the phenomenon that Rosa's Marx & Engels quote points to, it isn't at all surprising that this would be the case! Central theories and methodologies within the social sciences have a way of being hijacked out of their context and being fundamentally distorted and misapplied by both would-be advocates and above all ideologically driven critics who feel threatened by a novel scientific view of human "nature" and society in much the same way that Christians were scandalized by the early (and contemporary) Darwinians. That, due to the precise manner in which science has been politicized in the latter half of the 20th century many of the people who were at the vanguard of previous struggles against conservative social biases are now the rearguard against newer challenges to the dominant ideology is another one of life's depressing ironies.

Glenn Beck

5th April 2010, 19:35

Maybe so, but this is something Dawkins cannot account for. If our bodies are just the husks that our genes occupy (Dawkins's words, paraphrased), then they control us, not the other way round. And, it's no use appealing to 'reason' as if it were capable of transcending the physical universe, and our genes. If they control us, then they control our reason too. If not, natural selection will ruthlessly eradicate any gene that does not try to maximise its surviving copies.

Though I of course can't speak to what Dawkins actually believes, and I imagine that your account of what he does believe is quite accurate, the belief that genes are the sole mechanism of natural selection does not logically necessitate all of the other views in this paragraph. One can believe in gene-centered evolution without believing in genetic determinism or even in the heritability of behavioral traits. There is nothing in this proposed mechanism of natural selection that requires us to believe that phenotype is entirely or even primarily determined by genotype. It is only an explanation of how the genotype may have gotten to be what it is.

Where I think your critique is very strong is precisely in revealing these ideological accretions piggybacking on what should be a rather narrow hypothesis for what they are: unjustified and extraneous assumptions from the cultural and political environment contaminating the thesis. And I think it's pretty clear that Dawkins' views do contain plenty of these accretions.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 19:54

Punisa:

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but Thomas Samuel Kuhn wrote a very good book describing exactly this: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).
I suggest it to everyone, it really shows how weak science can indeed be, despite presenting itself as very factual.

Indeed, I do; I first read it over 30 years ago, and have studied it continuously ever since.

My question would be this - considering we do live in the era were science is still closely attached to the ruling class - what sources to trust?
If one acknowledges not to be a scientist, does this mean one should be a skeptic about everything official science publishes?
Is Earth flat? Is Moon really a satellite?

Well, I do not think there can be a general answer to this question this side of the revolution.

The moral is not to be dogmatic when it comes to science. As you know from Kuhn, when 'normal science' is in the ascendancy, dogmatic supporters of it refuse to consider any alternatives, and the same happens when the new paradigms take over 40 or 50 years later. They just do not learn from their own history. As this philosopher of science noted:

"...[I]n the historical progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary mechanical theories, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory was accepted offered equally strong support to each of the (then-unimagined) later alternatives. The same pattern would seem to obtain in the historical progression from elemental to early corpuscularian chemistry to Stahl's phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry to Daltonian atomic and contemporary physical chemistry; from various versions of preformationism to epigenetic theories of embryology; from the caloric theory of heat to later and ultimately contemporary thermodynamic theories; from effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism to theories of the electromagnetic ether and contemporary electromagnetism; from humoral imbalance to miasmatic to contagion and ultimately germ theories of disease; from 18th Century corpuscular theories of light to 19th Century wave theories to contemporary quantum mechanical conception; from Hippocrates's pangenesis to Darwin's blending theory of inheritance (and his own 'gemmule' version of pangenesis) to Wiesmann's germ-plasm theory and Mendelian and contemporary molecular genetics; from Cuvier's theory of functionally integrated and necessarily static biological species or Lamarck's autogenesis to Darwinian evolutionary theory; and so on in a seemingly endless array of theories, the evidence for which ultimately turned out to support one or more unimagined competitors just as well. Thus, the history of scientific enquiry offers a straightforward inductive rationale for thinking that there are alternatives to our best theories equally well-confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time." [Stanford (2001), p.9.]

You can find the reference, and more details, at my site, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%20010_01.htm

If we say that Darwin's theory has its flaws, what alternative (believable) theories are out there? If we all agree that creationist theory is not the one to follow.

There are several; you can find them mentioned/outlined in the links I posted.

How does it all boil down? Where (and which) leftists propose this social factor emerged? Is it hardcoded in us, or is the society what makes it?
May I just add that these are my genuine questions, not some sort of debate elements

If you have a look at the long Engels quote I posted above, you'll see he begins to tackle this question.

As far as I'm aware not many have developed this side of Marxist theory. However, a good, but flawed account can be found here:

http://www.marxists.de/science/harmeng/

I have criticised it here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm

I don't deny that there are right-wing implications in his theory, I'm just curious to see which ones are they?
And btw, when you say "right-wing implications" - do you mean that his theory goes hand-in-hand with right wing ideology or that he purposively endorses this view because he fancies the right wing, politically speaking?
I think there might be a difference in context here.

Well, he is a genetic determinist, which he denies, but his theory implies it. That is a classic right-wing idea. Based on that, you have all manner of reactionary ideas, including the sexist idea that women are biologically destined to be the way they are (subservient to men; baby machines, etc.), the idea that IQ is inherited, that certain races are intellectually inferior, and so on. Dawkins is a firm opponent of these implications, but they nevertheless follow from his theory.

In addition, Darwinism itself, when applied to human beings, in so far as it prioritises competition, ideologically undermines the co-operative aspect of human life, and thus the possibility of socialism.

You'll see Engels making this point above, too.

Science on the other hand has produced many facts that can not be denied, but these are usually things you could easily test out in your own room. Mainly physics, chemistry etc.
Biology on the other hand has too vast area to "conquer" to be a hardcore fact and I see your point, it is very difficult to close the topic on certain aspect, simply because it is to hard to prove it completely.
Certainty gets even more shaky when we start to discuss philosophy, here assumptions are much more common then facts.

Well, you will no doubt recall that one of Kuhn's main aims was to emphasise the 'theory-laden' nature of scientific facts, and, apart from trivial examples, that there are no pure-and-simple, bald facts in science. All depend on some theory or other.

Now I gotta go for a beer with a friend

Have a nice one...

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th April 2010, 20:02

Glenn:

One can believe in gene-centered evolution without believing in genetic determinism or even in the heritability of behavioral traits. There is nothing in this proposed mechanism of natural selection that requires us to believe that phenotype is entirely or even primarily determined by genotype. It is only an explanation of how the genotype may have gotten to be what it is.

Well, one can believe in gene-centered evolution and reject genetic determinism in the same way one can believe in Marxism, but reject opposition to US imperialism (as the 'decent left' has done since the 'war on terror' began); that is if you do not think things through.

I just cannot see how one can be the former while not the latter. What other factors are there that can save the theory from collapsing into genetic determinism? I can't see any.

Maybe you can?

Glenn Beck

5th April 2010, 21:47

Glenn:

Well, one can believe in gene-centered evolution and reject genetic determinism in the same way one can believe in Marxism, but reject opposition to US imperialism (as the 'decent left' has done since the 'war on terror' began); that is if you do not think things through.

I just cannot see how one can be the former while not the latter. What other factors are there that can save the theory from collapsing into genetic determinism? I can't see any.

Maybe you can?

Simply that evolution and heredity are not the only factors that shape expressed biological and behavioral traits and believing that natural selection works at the level of genes and determines all heritable traits does not require one to believe that all traits are heritable and thus genetic.

The way I see it, there are three separate assumptions at work:
1. Natural selection is the process by which genes which create conditions most favorable to their proliferation will come to dominate (gene-centered view of evolution).
2. Phenotypic traits, including behavioral ones, are primarily shaped by genetic factors (genetic determinism)
3. All heritable traits are present because they increase reproductive fitness (adaptationism)

So the result we get is: "All phenotypic traits, including behavioral ones, are present because they increase the reproductive fitness of the genes that cause them."

But you can remove any particular one of these assumptions and still get a more or less reasonable hypothesis:

Remove assumption 2 but keep 1 and 3 and you get: "All genes are present because they have created circumstances favorable to their proliferation". This hypothesis would certainly imply that genes shape phenotype including behavior (which I doubt anyone would dispute anyway), but is agnostic as to what extent this may be the case and thus does not necessitate the belief that particular individual traits are genetic, despite being a both gene-centered and adaptationist theory. I would characterize Dawkins' argument in The Selfish Gene as vacillating between this ambiguous but not necessarily problematic position and the prior more strongly determinist one. This is a weakness that allows him and others to make strong claims and then retreat behind the uncertainty about heritability when confronted, but it doesn't invalidate this approach per se.

By contrast, remove assumption 1 but keep 2 and 3 and you get what is in essence the same sociobiological bullshit: "All or most phenotypic traits are heritable and thus adaptations that increase reproductive fitness." Sociobiology works just as well if you make the individual or even the species the level at which natural selection operates rather than the gene. In fact most sociobiological arguments I've heard are formulated in this way: i.e. "male promiscuity is a heritable adaptation that increases the reproductive fitness of the individual male by allowing him to pass his genes onto more offspring". Sociobiology doesn't really need selection to operate on any particular level of heritability to "work", all it needs is for behavioral traits to be heritable and subject to natural selection.

Now separating assumption 1 from assumption 3 would be more difficult without changing the theory in important ways, but to my eyes the really problematic assumption is assumption #2: assuming that phenotypic traits including behavioral ones are necessarily strongly heritable. The other assumptions are problematic only in the presence of assumption #2: it isn't at all unwarranted to assume that certain behaviors, like the tendency of infants to cry when uncomfortable, are heritable traits and also adaptations. Where we start to run into rather suspect (and empirically unwarranted) implications is when we start assuming that tendencies to murder or rape are heritable traits and adaptations. That is where people start to draw ought from is (also of course, prematurely assuming what "is" without sufficient evidence) and naturalize social ills as inevitable consequences of our human "nature".

Lumpen Bourgeois

5th April 2010, 21:55

We are social animals, and this decides our (changing) nature, not biology.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that since we are social animals, biology accounts for nothing in the domain of human behavior. It seems more likely that human behavior is influenced by an intricate interplay of socio-cultural, economic, and biological factors. Genetic or biological determinism is nonsense, but so is cultural or economic determinism. Human behavior is much too complex to comport with any over-simplified deterministic framework.

Furthermore, I don’t think including biological factors in an explanatory model of human behavior is necessarily reactionary either, as you've implied. Have you heard of the left-wing economist Robert Frank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Frank)? He argues that income inequality is harmful, but comes to such a conclusion by drawing on evolutionary psychology (or sociobiology). His reasoning may be erroneous in your opinion, but I think most leftists would agree, more or less, with many of his conclusions.

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th April 2010, 00:30

Glenn:

Simply that evolution and heredity are not the only factors that shape expressed biological and behavioral traits and believing that natural selection works at the level of genes and determines all heritable traits does not require one to believe that all traits are heritable and thus genetic.

I agree, but there is no way that Dawkins can legitimately derive this from his theory.

But thanks for your other comments.

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th April 2010, 00:33

LB:

It doesn’t necessarily follow that since we are social animals, biology accounts for nothing in the domain of human behavior. It seems more likely that human behavior is influenced by an intricate interplay of socio-cultural, economic, and biological factors. Genetic or biological determinism is nonsense, but so is cultural or economic determinism. Human behavior is much too complex to comport with any over-simplified deterministic framework.

Well, I nowhere said that biology has nothing to do with what we are. And I am no determinist, of any sort.

Furthermore, I don’t think including biological factors in an explanatory model of human behavior is necessarily reactionary either, as you've implied. Have you heard of the left-wing economist Robert Frank? He argues that income inequality is harmful, but comes to such a conclusion by drawing on evolutionary psychology (or sociobiology). His reasoning may be erroneous in your opinion, but I think most leftists would agree, more or less, with many of his conclusions.

Well I totally reject evolutionary psychology, but we can go into that in another thread.

ZombieGrits

6th April 2010, 00:42

My answer is very simple: Dawkins practices atheism like a religion. And thus, I oppose his dickishness :D

punisa

6th April 2010, 10:04

My answer is very simple: Dawkins practices atheism like a religion. And thus, I oppose his dickishness :D

May I intrigue you for a moment? This sounds actually interesting, as I've heard similar claims at least 10 times before.

And it would be interesting to intertwine religion into the discussion, since religion and Darwinism are probabbly the fields where Dawkins is mentioned the most nowadays.

How do you actually start practising atheism to a degree that it resembles religion?
A person I talked to the other day had similar stance as you do. She said that some people *use* atheism and its strongest advocators (Dawkins and the rest of the godles bunch) as some sort of "contra-force" against their own religiosity.
I think her point was that if there were not such hardline atheists on the scene today, many of these "new atheists" would never be atheists in the first place.
But eventually they substituted atheism for their previous faith.

What do you think about this ZombieGrits? Something that you would agree perhaps?

I can't say that I share these viewpoints, for me atheism (or non religiosity for that matter) is just a dead end street where I need not to worry about it too much.
Since there is no evidence for divine, I have no choice but to remain an atheist for the time being. Never felt the *need* to enforce this belif, since I never felt that its is a belif in the first place - more of a logical conclusion.
Mind you, if Zeus or any other divine god takes time to reveal to all of us tonight - publicly, I'll be happy to say atheism was a dellusion :)

Anyway, what I wanted to ask - could such a hard line stance against religion (Dawkins) eventually create atheists that were never ment to be atheists in the first place?
He speaks of a great feeling of "liberation" in realizing one's mortal earthly life.
I must say, the idea that we have been "dead" for millenias and by sheer luck came to be sounds pretty good to me, although this is more poetical "feeling", not real science.

But does everyone feel that way? I can imagine that there are indeed a lot of people out there who are deeply shocked when they figure out that they have no basis for their religion and simply have to abandon it due to lack of evidence - let's say that this is a group that highly values logic, but at the same time hates the idea that there is no divine, afterlife etc.

I have a hunch that this the group that usually takes an aggressive stance towards Dawkins and similar people.

How beneficiary is "preaching" that god is a dillusion?
Not just from classic Darwinist prespective, but as a larger idea? Marx included.

I have an interesting "case study" myself.
I know this girl who has never been indoctrinated by religion in her youth, in fact you could say that she comes from a rather progressive family.
At one point, when she was about 22, she tried to commit suicide.
Since then she has become a devoted christian and has been ever since.
Contrary to what Dawkins would say, I believe it would not be moral that I sit her down and say: "look, there is no evidence for the God you believe in, so just stop it".
Agree/disagree?

Leonid Brozhnev

6th April 2010, 11:52

I don't mind Dawkins, I don't think he wants to form some kind of atheistic religion out of neo-darwinism but he did express some dismay at the introvertedness of many athiests, he wants to band athiests together so they have a stronger voice, i'm sure he mentioned something like this in the God Delusion, I don't have the book at hand so I can't be 100% sure.

I have an interesting "case study" myself.
I know this girl who has never been indoctrinated by religion in her youth, in fact you could say that she comes from a rather progressive family.
At one point, when she was about 22, she tried to commit suicide.
Since then she has become a devoted christian and has been ever since.
Contrary to what Dawkins would say, I believe it would not be moral that I sit her down and say: "look, there is no evidence for the God you believe in, so just stop it".
Agree/disagree?

I personally don't want to convert people, I wouldn't want people to try and convert me from atheist to theist so I personally have no intention on trying to covert theists into atheists. My mother is Catholic, she fractured her spine in a bike accident in the early 80s and is dangerously close to living the rest of her life in a wheelchair, she takes solace in her beliefs and I would never dream of sitting down with her and saying 'Look, there is no god, I know it seems horrible to think you'll never see your loved ones again but you really stop caring once you're dead'...

punisa

6th April 2010, 12:59

I don't mind Dawkins, I don't think he wants to form some kind of atheistic religion out of neo-darwinism but he did express some dismay at the introvertedness of many athiests, he wants to band athiests together so they have a stronger voice, i'm sure he mentioned something like this in the God Delusion, I don't have the book at hand so I can't be 100% sure.

Indeed, religious people will have to face this and learn to tolerate atheism as a valid option.
Someone compared this to homosexuality, although the issue is quite different. But "coming out of the closet" phenomena is similar.
All in all, as society gets more liberated it will get more diversified - which I hold to be good.

I personally don't want to convert people, I wouldn't want people to try and convert me from atheist to theist so I personally have no intention on trying to covert theists into atheists. My mother is Catholic, she fractured her spine in a bike accident in the early 80s and is dangerously close to living the rest of her life in a wheelchair, she takes solace in her beliefs and I would never dream of sitting down with her and saying 'Look, there is no god, I know it seems horrible to think you'll never see your loved ones again but you really stop caring once you're dead'...

Exactly the point, I agree with you 100% here.
If a person wants to discuss theism and atheism, good - let's do it.
Otherwise, I'm not here to force anyone into anything.

I believe the only good rational thing we indeed can do is try and raise our kids in a way where they will not be indoctrinated with certain religion from young age.
This again can be tricky, especially if you happen to live in a small rural community.
I was raised by progressive proletariat parents, but in a small community.
Chatolich church and everything that goes with it was a huge part of my childhood, simply because the community had zero tolerance towards atheism of any sort.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

6th April 2010, 14:11

To me it seems to stem from the essential fallacy that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish people. That's the first stumbling block to understanding. My individual cells reproduce by mitosis. Does that mean I as a person have to split in half to have any progeny? Don't be daft.

Then there's the genetic determinacy angle, which Dawkins has not pushed hard, if he has pushed it at all; certainly I've never read a statement by him (as opposed to paraphrasing by his critics) endorsing such a thesis, and furthermore I doubt he actually holds it since it is manifestly untrue; there is an undeniable environmental component to the formation of human beings, all the way up and down the scale from individuals to civilisations.

Both sides of the political spectrum need their bugbears, it seems; for the Right, it's crypto-socialists; for the Left, it's crypto-fascists. I suspect that such sound and fury has more to do with keeping the faith and ensuring that one's fellows do not stray from the party line, on both sides. Frankly I'm fucking sick of it. Right-wingers may be dumb enough to think there are Reds under the bed, but surely the Left should rise above such gormless paranoia?

Sinred

6th April 2010, 14:21

Before anyone judge Dawkins for his selfish gene theory, take a look on his three-part documentary "The Genius of Darwin", specifically the second part where he practically pulverize socialdarwinism, racism and eugenetics. It puts it very well in a political view for what to think of him.

Personally: i think the guys a freakin genius.

Dean

6th April 2010, 15:09

This I agree. I simply don't believe he has any "conversion" rate among religious people.
If we put it in raw terms and say that Dawkins seeks to expand the population of athists, I think he is doing great among agnostics and "couch" believers.
He does in fact have a couple of arguments that will surely result in making these groups take that extra mile and turn themselves into "full blown atheists".

This is rather similar with politics.
We know there are many democrats and social democrats that we can easily "make" communists. As if these people were indeed revolutionary, but simply never knew about alternatives (Marxism, socialism etc).
Same with religion, some people would really prefer not believe in gods, but never stumbled upon something tangible and argumentable for atheism.
This is were I've noticed Dawkins shines the most.

Well, this is exactly the criticism I have of him. He is an athiest, and that is it. He doesn't believe in any serious change vis a vis human society, but is rather - and quite mystically I might add - obsessed with religion and blames religion for certain issues in the world quite erroneously.

It's not really very meaningful to go on a crusade to teach people about basic scientific issues. What we should be concerned with is the analysis of economics on earth.

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th April 2010, 16:39

Noxion:

To me it seems to stem from the essential fallacy that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish people. That's the first stumbling block to understanding. My individual cells reproduce by mitosis. Does that mean I as a person have to split in half to have any progeny? Don't be daft.

Except 'sefish genes' make one do selfish things, or they will be selected out.

Even allegedly altruistic behaviour is reduced by Dawkins, and the Inclusive Fitness cabal, to disguised selfish behaviour.

From that follows Neo-liberalism, Reaganism, Ayn Randism and Thatcherism.

Then there's the genetic determinacy angle, which Dawkins has not pushed hard, if he has pushed it at all; certainly I've never read a statement by him (as opposed to paraphrasing by his critics) endorsing such a thesis, and furthermore I doubt he actually holds it since it is manifestly untrue; there is an undeniable environmental component to the formation of human beings, all the way up and down the scale from individuals to civilisations.

That's because he hasn't thought his theory through to its logical conclusion.

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th April 2010, 16:41

SinRed:

pulverize socialdarwinism, racism and eugenetics. It puts it very well in a political view for what to think of him.

Maybe so, but they follow from his theory.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

6th April 2010, 19:23

Rosa, surely Darwinists like Dawkins could just claim that we developed "reason" as a method for overcoming any genetic determinacy because it was better than any alternative "Model" for survival and replication for our genes?

So, not sure if this makes a lot of sense, but that our genes have "determined" that we aren't just husks for our genes, but have reason and other faculties because thats a better way of ensuring we replicate?

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th April 2010, 20:38

Gangsterio:

Rosa, surely Darwinists like Dawkins could just claim that we developed "reason" as a method for overcoming any genetic determinacy because it was better than any alternative "Model" for survival and replication for our genes?

But, unless 'reason' is a free-floating or disembodied factor, independent of genetic influence, then his theory will imply that it is controlled by our genes, and thus is impelled to be 'selfish'.

And if it is free-floating, it will differ from the Cartesian 'soul' in name only.

So, not sure if this makes a lot of sense, but that our genes have "determined" that we aren't just husks for our genes, but have reason and other faculties because thats a better way of ensuring we replicate?

In that case, 'reason' will be selfish.

Vanguard1917

6th April 2010, 21:24

punisa

6th April 2010, 22:12

The man that ridicules the devout as 'stupid' and yet endorses in the God Delusion the far more idiotic and anti-humanist ideas of the 'animal liberationist' writer Peter Singer...

Agreed, Singer is a very creepy guy in my oppinion.
Yes, he claims that stuff is pulled out of context, but his ideas are serious right wing and almost nutty.
Among other things he stated that some babies could be killed if discovered seriously handycap and that not all sexual activities with animals is wrong.

I think Dawkins has some wierd selection of friends, but still.. I won't go so far as to relate his ideas to the Singer's.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

7th April 2010, 12:17

Except 'sefish genes' make one do selfish things, or they will be selected out.

Only if selfishness (on the level of individual organisms) is universally an adaptive trait, which I submit is simply not the case. Otherwise, social animals would not exist at all.

Even allegedly altruistic behaviour is reduced by Dawkins, and the Inclusive Fitness cabal, to disguised selfish behaviour.

You seem to forget that "selfish" and "altruistic" are human value judgements. Nature doesn't give a stuff about motivations. And to be honest, who cares? Good behaviour is good in of itself, regardless of the motivation.

From that follows Neo-liberalism, Reaganism, Ayn Randism and Thatcherism.

You're committing exactly the same fallacy as the proponents of those ideologies who misuse Darwinism to support their case, except inverted.

That's because he hasn't thought his theory through to its logical conclusion.

It's only a "logical conclusion" if one is searching for justification in nature for one's ideology (a fallacy), or if one thinks we are complete slaves to our genetic imperative - which is clearly nonsense, as Dawkins himself has pointed out.

Rosa Lichtenstein

7th April 2010, 17:41

Noxion:

Only if selfishness (on the level of individual organisms) is universally an adaptive trait, which I submit is simply not the case. Otherwise, social animals would not exist at all.

As Stove, and others (including Gould) have argued, this just means that Dawkins's theory of 'selfish genes' is false, since it implies that selfishness at the phenotypic level is adaptive. But, as you point out, and I agree, it isn't.

You seem to forget that "selfish" and "altruistic" are human value judgements. Nature doesn't give a stuff about motivations. And to be honest, who cares? Good behaviour is good in of itself, regardless of the motivation.

They are not value judgements. If an organism sacrifices itself for another, that is a fact. If an organism sacrifices another organism for itself, that is a fact too.

What inclusive fitness theory tries to tell us is that the former is just a complex form of the latter.

You're committing exactly the same fallacy as the proponents of those ideologies who misuse Darwinism to support their case, except inverted.

No, I'm reporting what these ideologues infer ('justified' by and/or disguised these days as, Evolutionary Psychology), not making that inference myself.

It's only a "logical conclusion" if one is searching for justification in nature for one's ideology (a fallacy), or if one thinks we are complete slaves to our genetic imperative - which is clearly nonsense, as Dawkins himself has pointed out.

But in Dawkins's case, the ideology has already been built into the theory; in these 'selfish genes'.

In that case, it's no surprise to see reactionary ideology follow from it.

Lynx

7th April 2010, 20:38

Here we go. Revolutionary left forum featuring plentiful discussion of apologists for the status quo, and relatively little discussion of workable alternatives to it. I suspect this is the way the ruling class prefers it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

7th April 2010, 21:25

Lynx:

Here we go. Revolutionary left forum featuring plentiful discussion of apologists for the status quo, and relatively little discussion of workable alternatives to it. I suspect this is the way the ruling class prefers it.

But, I posted links to several alternatives.

Anyway, this is a thread about Dawkins. Discussion of alternatives would be off-topic.

Lynx

8th April 2010, 06:36

I'm referring to the socioeconomic status quo. Alternative evolutionary theories are not required.

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th April 2010, 12:03

Lynx:

I'm referring to the socioeconomic status quo.

I'm sorry, but what has that got to do with this thread?

punisa

8th April 2010, 12:56

Rosa, I finally got around to reading all the sources you posted earlier (page 2) regarding certain discrepancies about Darwin's theory of evolution.
Not claiming to be an expert on the subject - what I gathered is that the original idea has since been expanded to include new theories and evidences.

Regarding: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html

horizontal gene transfer (HGT) makes much sense.
Naturally this is something that Darwin originally could not have been able to figure out without modern technology.

But let's say that life as we know it originated in a rather more complex environment then the original "tree of life" suggests.
Even if we manage to cocnclude that tree is in fact a web which was made by various hybrid breeding where microbs carried out an importnat role - in what way would this theory be more in favour to the left then right?
I hope you see my point, I'm curious about this one.

Getting back to Dawkins - I can't say I ever heard him mention the newly found theories suchs as HGT, but maybe I should re-read his latest works.
I do know that he points to the much spoken "tree" when describing evolution.
But considering that Dawkins is more interested in bringing "evolution to the masses", I think tree like formation does a good job in explaining corellation between us and our ancesters.

Then again, we know that Dawkins formed his strong views back in the 80's when new discoveries we mentioned were not yet discovered.
And seeing the way his voice shakes when he starts talking about first edition of the "On the Origin of Species" makes him look rather silly :laugh:

But I'd still not call him ultra-darwinist.
As a matter of fact, one of those articles you posted mentioned exactly what an ultra darwinist today really is - a scientists struggling like crazy to keep the theory of "tree of life" alive and valid.
I smell a pardigm shift myself.

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th April 2010, 13:22

Punisa:

But let's say that life as we know it originated in a rather more complex environment then the original "tree of life" suggests.
Even if we manage to cocnclude that tree is in fact a web which was made by various hybrid breeding where microbs carried out an importnat role - in what way would this theory be more in favour to the left then right?
I hope you see my point, I'm curious about this one.

Depends on how much emphasis is placed on co-operation. On that see this book:

Ryan, F. (2002), Darwin's Blind Spot. Evolution Beyond Natural Selection (Houghton Mifflin).

Even Darwin warned us not to regard evolution as governed by only one mechanism.

Lynx

9th April 2010, 04:54

I'm sorry, but what has that got to do with this thread?
1. What does the socioeconomic status quo have to do with evolutionary theory? Nothing
2. Why is the left hostile to Richard Dawkins? Not because of 1.

Rosa Lichtenstein

9th April 2010, 10:20

Lynx:

1. What does the socioeconomic status quo have to do with evolutionary theory? Nothing
2. Why is the left hostile to Richard Dawkins? Not because of 1.

Except, Neo-Darwinism is used to justify the status quo, the subordination of women and inequality.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

9th April 2010, 17:32

I'm referring to the socioeconomic status quo. Alternative evolutionary theories are not required.

Well, we have plenty of forums discussing that. Why not go there instead of disrupting other topics?

As Stove, and others (including Gould) have argued, this just means that Dawkins's theory of 'selfish genes' is false, since it implies that selfishness at the phenotypic level is adaptive.

It does no such thing. One (very successful) strategy for maximising gene propagation includes having lots of brothers and sisters. Eusocial animals such as ants and termites are the epitome of this strategy, and are far from the only example.

But, as you point out, and I agree, it isn't.

But that does not mean that selfishness at the genotypic level isn't a viable strategy, since an individual organism is easily killed, but whole families, tribes and societies are progressively more "durable"

They are not value judgements. If an organism sacrifices itself for another, that is a fact. If an organism sacrifices another organism for itself, that is a fact too.

What inclusive fitness theory tries to tell us is that the former is just a complex form of the latter.

And? That just means that organisms don't give their lives for no evolutionary reason at all. Why else would altruism exist?

No, I'm reporting what these ideologues infer ('justified' by and/or disguised these days as, Evolutionary Psychology), not making that inference myself.

You're accepting the evolutionary psychologist fallacy that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms.

But in Dawkins's case, the ideology has already been built into the theory; in these 'selfish genes'.

Bollocks. You're confusing description ("this is how things happen") with prescription ("this is how things should happen"). In no way is Dawkins suggesting that we should model ourselves on our selfish genes.

In that case, it's no surprise to see reactionary ideology follow from it.

Except, Neo-Darwinism is used to justify the status quo, the subordination of women and inequality.

You're confusing Neo-Darwinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Darwinism) with Social Darwinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism) - they're not the same thing, and you're smart enough to know that, which suggests you're being dishonest.

Rosa Lichtenstein

9th April 2010, 17:54

Noxion:

It does no such thing. One (very successful) strategy for maximising gene propagation includes having lots of brothers and sisters. Eusocial animals such as ants and termites are the epitome of this strategy, and are far from the only example.

This is where the theory of 'inclusive fitness' comes in, but (1) that theory is defective and (2) it does what I suggest anyway: it seeks to derive phenotypic traits, allegedly altruistic ones, which in the end turn out to be selfish -- in that they maximise the copies of a certain gene in the next generation.

We can discuss the defects of inclusive fitness in another thread perhaps.

But that does not mean that selfishness at the genotypic level isn't a viable strategy, since an individual organism is easily killed, but whole families, tribes and societies are progressively more "durable"

Maybe so, maybe not, but even you have admitted here that selfish genes have macro effects on the phenotype, and thus in kin/tribal groups. So, I was right; you are deriving social effects from supposed genetic traits -- genetic determinism.

And?

Well, you were wrong, that what's "and".

That just means that organisms don't give their lives for no evolutionary reason at all. Why else would altruism exist?

Well, we can't explain it genetically, that's for sure.

You're accepting the evolutionary psychologist fallacy that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms.

Once more, I'm not accepting this conclusion, merely pointing out that Dawkins's theory implies this. And even you have admitted as much, above.

Bollocks.

Yes, abuse is a great argument, especially coming from a mod.

You're confusing description ("this is how things happen") with prescription ("this is how things should happen"). In no way is Dawkins suggesting that we should model ourselves on our selfish genes.

Not at all. Dawkins built this 'selfishness' into his theory of gene transmission. All I have done is point out that he (and you) should feign no surprise when selfishness emerges at a higher level.

You're confusing Neo-Darwinism with Social Darwinism - they're not the same thing, and you're smart enough to know that, which suggests you're being dishonest.

No, I just refuse to accept the rhetoric that apologists like you come up with to sell us the idea that there is much of a difference between them.

Now, we have seen you get all emotional in the past when a pet theory of your is criticised (a bit like the way that dialecticians get all emotional when their 'theory is attacked). [I]Do you think you can keep calm this time?

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

9th April 2010, 18:23

This is where the theory of 'inclusive fitness' comes in, but (1) that theory is defective

Why, because you say so?

and (2) it does what I suggest anyway: it seeks to derive phenotypic traits, allegedly altruistic ones, which in the end turn out to be selfish -- in that they maximise the copies of a certain gene in the next generation.

Yes, selfish on the level of genes, but not on the level of organisms. That's why it's called the selfish gene.

We can discuss the defects of inclusive fitness in another thread perhaps.

I don't think you have a case.

Maybe so, maybe not, but even you have admitted here that selfish genes have macro effects on the phenotype, and thus in kin/tribal groups. So, I was right; you are deriving social effects from supposed genetic traits -- genetic determinism.

The idea of the selfish gene does not obviate non-genetic effects, so you are offering a false dilemma of genetic determinism or no. It's more true to say that genes do have social effects, but those effects are more broader than social darwinist fallacies than "men are dominant and that's how it should be" rather instead, the selfish gene says "there are evolutionary reasons why humans are altruistic". It makes no judgement on whether we should be altruistic or not. That's not the job of scientists; that's the task of society as a whole; Dawkins knows that, you and I know that.

Well, we can't explain it genetically, that's for sure.

Altruism does have an adaptive effect, so why can't it be selected for?

Once more, I'm not accepting this conclusion, merely pointing out that Dawkins's theory implies this. And even you have admitted as much, above.

Don't lie; I admitted that genes can have an effect on human society; I did not admit that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms, and I specifically inveighed against deriving "ought" from "is" like the social darwinists (as opposed to Neo-Darwinists) do.

Yes, abuse is a great argument, especially coming from a mod.

I'm abusing your argument because it's rubbish, not abusing you.

Not at all. Dawkins built this 'selfishness' into his theory of gene transmission. All I have done is point out that he (and you) should feign no surprise when selfishness emerges at a higher level.

But it doesn't. Another thing you seem to be forgetting is that "selfishness" for a gene is different than "selfishness" for an organism. You're committing a fallacy of composition as well as equivocating.

No, I just refuse to accept the rhetoric that apologists like you come up with to sell us the idea that there is much of a difference between them.

One is a theory of evolution, the other is a theory of how society should be run. Had you read the links I provided, you would have come to realise that.

Now, we have seen you get all emotional in the past when a pet theory of your is criticised (a bit like the way that dialecticians get all emotional when their 'theory is attacked). [I]Do you think you can keep calm this time?

The issue of whether I remain calm or not is irrelevant to your dishonesties and distortions and the validity of either of our arguments.

ZeroNowhere

9th April 2010, 18:47

It's more true to say that genes do have social effects, but those effects are more broader than social darwinist fallacies than "men are dominant and that's how it should be" rather instead, the selfish gene says "there are evolutionary reasons why humans are altruistic".To be honest, that sounds more like a conclusion that would have to be reached through a look at natural history, I'm not sure that the selfish gene theory necessitates any position on the matter.

Lynx

10th April 2010, 03:37

Lynx:
Except, Neo-Darwinism is used to justify the status quo, the subordination of women and inequality.
Engaging in a bit of rhetoric to 'support' their worldview is to be expected. It is also worthless. Has there ever been an ideology, a state of affairs, that wasn't justified or rationalized?
The Nazis used evolution in support of their ideology. Socialists could do the same, by selecting those parts most compatible with our vision of society. I don't believe we should engage in such games.

'Darwinism' does not invalidate what socialists are advocating.
What am I missing?

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th April 2010, 05:38

Noxion:

Why, because you say so?

Not at all; I did say we could discuss this in another thread.

I don't think you have a case.

And you can conclude that before you have heard it? That's very scientific, isn't it?

Yes, selfish on the level of genes, but not on the level of organisms. That's why it's called the selfish gene.

And yet, at the phenotypic level, this is also selfish, since it is aimed at increasing certain genes in the gene pool at the expense of others.

The idea of the selfish gene does not obviate non-genetic effects, so you are offering a false dilemma of genetic determinism or no.

But what other forces/factors are there that this view of evolution can appeal to? None at all.

It's more true to say that genes do have social effects, but those effects are more broader than social darwinist fallacies than "men are dominant and that's how it should be" rather instead, the selfish gene says "there are evolutionary reasons why humans are altruistic". It makes no judgement on whether we should be altruistic or not. That's not the job of scientists; that's the task of society as a whole; Dawkins knows that, you and I know that

And yet, by inserting an ideological word into genetics, Dawkins has done precisely this.

Altruism does have an adaptive effect, so why can't it be selected for?

But, according to this theory, there is no such thing as altruism; what is selected for are these 'selfish genes'.

Don't lie; I admitted that genes can have an effect on human society; I did not admit that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms, and I specifically inveighed against deriving "ought" from "is" like the social darwinists (as opposed to Neo-Darwinists) do.

Similarly, do not accuse me of lying when I'm not.

I did not admit that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms,

But, as I pointed out, your version of Dawkins's theory implies precisely this.

and I specifically inveighed against deriving "ought" from "is"

Alas for you, it's very easy to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.

I'm abusing your argument because it's rubbish, not abusing you.

It's abusive language, no matter how you try to spin it.

But it doesn't. Another thing you seem to be forgetting is that "selfishness" for a gene is different than "selfishness" for an organism. You're committing a fallacy of composition as well as equivocating.

Then why did he choose this word?

But, as things turn out, and as I have argued, his use of this word implies that all organisms are selfish -- they all promote the survival of their genomes, not those of another unrelated genome.

You're committing a fallacy of composition as well as equivocating

How do you work that out?

One is a theory of evolution, the other is a theory of how society should be run. Had you read the links I provided, you would have come to realise that.

Indeed, and these ideologues derive the latter from the former.

And thanks for the links, but I have been studying evolutionary theory probably for longer than you have been alive.

The issue of whether I remain calm or not is irrelevant to your dishonesties and distortions and the validity of either of our arguments.

Well, we already know that it does not take much to send you off the deep end when your ideas are challenged -- indeed, you seem to think that "dishonesty" and "distortion" are synonymous with "Whatever I, Noxion, disagree with".

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th April 2010, 05:43

Lynx:

Engaging in a bit of rhetoric to 'support' their worldview is to be expected. It is also worthless. Has there ever been an ideology, a state of affairs, that wasn't justified or rationalized?

The Nazis used evolution in support of their ideology. Socialists could do the same, by selecting those parts most compatible with our vision of society. I don't believe we should engage in such games.

'Darwinism' does not invalidate what socialists are advocating.
What am I missing?

Perhaps that the ideology of the right is aimed at maintaining class power, while ours is aimed at ending it.

You need to make your mind up.

Bilan

10th April 2010, 06:09

Rosa, much of what you are saying against Dawkins idea of "the Selfish Gene" is addressed in later editions of the book. In a word, you're simply mistaken, and have misunderstood what he is saying.
NoXion is spot on, and it is reflected in (I think) the 3rd edition of the Selfish Gene in Dawkins own words.

As for the original thing, I like Dawkins. I find his work interesting. I don't see any particular social implication because of it except that religion is detrimental to society; it is reactionary and distorts our ability to understand our own existence, the world around us, and so on and that it should be recognised as such.
There is no "survival of the fittest" amongst human beings ideas within his work, and he is certainly no social-darwinist.

His book The Greatest Show on Earth is also fantastic.

Bilan

10th April 2010, 06:46

Also, as for the study of genes, The Selfish Gene is my science tutor (at unis) first recommendation, and he says the exact same thing NoXion has been saying.

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th April 2010, 09:24

Bilan:

Rosa, much of what you are saying against Dawkins idea of "the Selfish Gene" is addressed in later editions of the book. In a word, you're simply mistaken, and have misunderstood what he is saying.

He certainly ties to neutralise the implications of the early edition, but I claim he fails to do so, and I have seen nothing here to suggest he succeeded.

There is no "survival of the fittest" amongst human beings ideas within his work, and he is certainly no social-darwinist.

I agree, but there is nothing in Dawkins's theory that explains why.

Bilan

10th April 2010, 09:50

Bilan:

He certainly ties to neutralise the implications of the early edition, but I claim he fails to do so, and I have seen nothing here to suggest he succeeded.

I agree, but there is nothing in Dawkins's theory that explains why.

I'm sorry, I don't have the edition with me. I lent it to my Grandfather (He's also a big fan).
I'll try and search it up for you.

As for "survival of the fittest", well, the explanation would be largely linked (I presume) to the brain. I'm sure I can rustle up some stuff from my course on it.

Though I should point out that still very little is known about the brain and behaviour in humans...

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th April 2010, 10:00

Bilan:

As for "survival of the fittest", well, the explanation would be largely linked (I presume) to the brain. I'm sure I can rustle up some stuff from my course on it

But how is the brain able to rise above the constraints that natural selection puts upon it, according to these ultra-Darwinians?

Lack of knowledge has nothing to do with this. If the brain is a physical organ, it can't introduce new factors of its own, given this theory.

Bilan

10th April 2010, 10:07

Bilan:

Lack of knowledge has nothing to do with this. If the brain is a physical organ, it can't introduce new factors of its own, given this theory.

Where is that outlined in Dawkins work? And can you elaborate on exactly what that is supposed to mean, and how it relates to an "ultra-darwinistic" theory like Dawkins'?

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th April 2010, 10:13

Bilan:

Where is that outlined in Dawkins work?

Where is what outlined?

And can you elaborate on exactly what that is supposed to mean, and how it relates to an "ultra-darwinistic" theory like Dawkins'?

It's supposed to mean that the factors driving evolution in ultra-Darwinism leave no room for the brain to take up an independent role. It can't rise above the physical constraints imposed upon it -- unless you introduce a 'soul' of some sort.

Bilan

10th April 2010, 11:43

Where is what outlined?

In the quote I was responding to. Where does Dawkins imply that?
Where does Dawkins suggest that " If the brain is a physical organ, it can't introduce new factors of its own,"?

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

10th April 2010, 15:30

Not at all; I did say we could discuss this in another thread.

Why not here?

And you can conclude that before you have heard it? That's very scientific, isn't it?

That was an opinion, not a conclusion.

And yet, at the phenotypic level, this is also selfish, since it is aimed at increasing certain genes in the gene pool at the expense of others.

It does not mean that it is selfish at the phenotypic level, because selfish organisms don't do as well as altruistic ones; an altruistic organism is more likely to have brothers and sisters who are alive and well and go on to reproduce, which from the "point of view" of a selfish gene is brilliant because that means there are more copies of it around. Why do you find this simple concept so hard to grasp?

But what other forces/factors are there that this view of evolution can appeal to? None at all.

Developmental and external environmental factors, to name just two. You should know this.

And yet, by inserting an ideological word into genetics, Dawkins has done precisely this.

A selfish gene is not the same thing as a gene that has the effect of making the phenotype selfish; in fact, as I pointed out above, genes with selfish effects are less likely to be successful because they put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. A selfish individual may do well as an individual (but this is far from guaranteed), but will do terribly as part of an in-group, which many organisms are.

But, according to this theory, there is no such thing as altruism; what is selected for are these 'selfish genes'.

Bollocks; there is such a thing as altruism; only that the reason it exists is explained.

Similarly, do not accuse me of lying when I'm not.

You did lie, and you're now lying about lying previously. I said:

You're accepting the evolutionary psychologist fallacy that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms.

To which you replied:

Once more, I'm not accepting this conclusion, merely pointing out that Dawkins's theory implies this. And even you have admitted as much, above.

But it implies no such thing, as I have pointed out. So, stop fucking lying.

But, as I pointed out, your version of Dawkins's theory implies precisely this.

It does no such thing. You are making a spurious connection between the "selfishness" of the gene and the selfishness of the organism.

Alas for you, it's very easy to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.

More lies from the stubborn asshole that refuse to admit it when they've been caught in a lie. I challenge you to quote me where I said that one should derive an "ought" from an "is"

It's abusive language, no matter how you try to spin it.

So fucking what? If someone is making a shit argument and being dishonest about defending it, I have no qualms about calling them out on it.

Then why did he choose this word?

Because it's a metaphor. You seriously don't think that Dawkins is arguing that genes are selfish in the same way that people can be selfish, do you? If you are, then maybe you're not as smart as you obviously think you are.

But, as things turn out, and as I have argued, his use of this word implies that all organisms are selfish -- they all promote the survival of their genomes, not those of another unrelated genome.

Whereas if you actually read the book instead of just the title, you will find that's not what he means.

How do you work that out?

Equivocation because you are treating the word "selfish" as applied to genes in this case in the same way one would apply the word to a person. The fallacy of composition comes from your idea that because one component of an organism is "selfish" it must therefore mean that the organism as a whole is selfish.

Indeed, and these ideologues derive the latter from the former.

Abuses of a scientific theory for political ends do not invalidate said theory. Nuclear physics is not incorrect because Hiroshima was nuked.

And thanks for the links, but I have been studying evolutionary theory probably for longer than you have been alive.

It's been a case of in one ear and out the other it seems; you can't appeal to authority you don't have.

Well, we already know that it does not take much to send you off the deep end when your ideas are challenged -- indeed, you seem to think that "dishonesty" and "distortion" are synonymous with "Whatever I, Noxion, disagree with".

Unlike you, I'm open about my interests, rather than hiding behind a pseudo-intellectual facade of passive-aggressive posturing.

Coggeh

10th April 2010, 19:07

As for the original thing, I like Dawkins. I find his work interesting. I don't see any particular social implication because of it except that religion is detrimental to society; it is reactionary and distorts our ability to understand our own existence, the world around us, and so on and that it should be recognised as such.
There is no "survival of the fittest" amongst human beings ideas within his work, and he is certainly no social-darwinist.

His book The Greatest Show on Earth is also fantastic.
While i do respect Dawkins as a brilliant writer etc I'm not an anti-theist and his views that religion are the cause of wars etc is nonsensical his views also on the left layed out in some documentaries and views are quite reactionary. He also keeps repeating the same nonsense that far leftists don't like darwinism or the theory of evolution because we think it means social-darwinism when clearly we do not.

Anyway, about his book the selfish gene, I haven't read it but i saw the documentary to it and I found very little disagreement could be down to my lack of understanding but when he talks about altruism and selfishness he puts them in the context of ration self interest to show it his example about the football match where 2 teams battling in relegation could stay up if they drew and the 3 team playing elsewhere lost. The 2 teams found out the other team were losing and basically stop playing football and kept passing it around the defence playing for the draw while the other team just sat back. Now this was both selfish and altruistic but thats the not point it was in the teams self interest to do this.

Another example would be overpayed union leaders, its not in their interest to represent their members or fight for workers rights so they don't. IS it selfish ? of course in one way but as marxists we understand that this isn't down to bad people but the position of peoples surroundings that it doesn't serve them to be nice so they won't simple as. As far as I could tell Dawkins was getting as this and i completely agree. If i misunderstood Dawkins far enough but I don't think i did.

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th April 2010, 21:12

Bilan:

In the quote I was responding to. Where does Dawkins imply that?
Where does Dawkins suggest that " If the brain is a physical organ, it can't introduce new factors of its own,"?

He doesn't; that was my allegation. His theory can't account for a brain that is not completely constrained by natual selection.

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th April 2010, 21:13

Noxion: I'll reply to you later this week.

Bilan

11th April 2010, 00:17

While i do respect Dawkins as a brilliant writer etc I'm not an anti-theist and his views that religion are the cause of wars etc is nonsensical his views also on the left layed out in some documentaries and views are quite reactionary. He also keeps repeating the same nonsense that far leftists don't like darwinism or the theory of evolution because we think it means social-darwinism when clearly we do not.

Where did he say that? That is the first I've heard of it.

Besides, presuming that is true, the fact that he makes an incorrect assumption about a political group doesn't undermine his scientific contribution (and especially, his books which help for people to understand things like evolution).

Bilan

11th April 2010, 00:19

Bilan:

He doesn't; that was my allegation. His theory can't account for a brain that is not completely constrained by natual selection.

Okay. Well then, elaborate on how his contributions to evolution (or rather, popularising evolution) have led to that? What about his ideas leads you to make such an allegation?

Sir Comradical

11th April 2010, 01:04

Because he contradicts himself. In one video he'll argue that religion is the cause of all wars and then in another video he'll talk about how religious identity politics are a prominent aspect of many supposedly religious conflicts.

Bilan

11th April 2010, 01:40

Sir Comradical

11th April 2010, 01:47

What?

He cites Northern Ireland and basically argues that the Catholics and Protestants don't hate each other because they disagree on religious points, religion in this case is really just a political identity. So isn't it fair to say that most supposedly religion-based wars are really about property and empire? No because Dawkins will then contradict himself by making outrageous claims about religion being the cause of so many wars.

Lynx

11th April 2010, 05:04

Perhaps that the ideology of the right is aimed at maintaining class power, while ours is aimed at ending it.

You need to make your mind up.
We need an alternative to their working economic model. Ideology won't cut it.

punisa

11th April 2010, 09:19

Regarding the idea that Richard Dawkins fails to explain how humans can use rational reason in order to create a better society - I think this is a great example described in a way everyone can understand it.

He argues that it is exactly our reason, common sense and mutual consensus which is so important in creating a society in which we can enjoy living.
Here he is debunking the bible as the moral code of conduct, but easily it could be said about theory that genes somehow "rule" over us.
This is a great emphasis on freedom and no matter how many times I read that his theories have right wing implications, it simply always sounds/feel strongly left.

Here is the video example, the part I mention starts at 25:20, so you can rewind there if you don't wanna watch the whole show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Kp_JCEsto

Bilan

11th April 2010, 10:51

He cites Northern Ireland and basically argues that the Catholics and Protestants don't hate each other because they disagree on religious points, religion in this case is really just a political identity. So isn't it fair to say that most supposedly religion-based wars are really about property and empire? No because Dawkins will then contradict himself by making outrageous claims about religion being the cause of so many wars.

I'm not really sure a/ what relevance this has b/ how accurate that claim is.

Even if religion is veiling a political identity, it doesn't shed the responsibility that religion bears in these conflicts. Religion is part of it, but it's not the sole cause of it; it veils the reality of the conflict, but it doesn't mean it isn't part of it at all.

Sir Comradical

11th April 2010, 13:24

HEAD ICE

15th April 2010, 02:30

Sir Comradical

15th April 2010, 13:55

Coggeh

15th April 2010, 14:43

Only if selfishness (on the level of individual organisms) is universally an adaptive trait, which I submit is simply not the case. Otherwise, social animals would not exist at all.

Social animals are selfish the same as non-social ones are. Its simply rational for humans to be cooperative in nature as it serves individual and collective self interest. Social animals being cooperative does not mean their not selfish

Coggeh

15th April 2010, 14:48

Where did he say that? That is the first I've heard of it.

Besides, presuming that is true, the fact that he makes an incorrect assumption about a political group doesn't undermine his scientific contribution (and especially, his books which help for people to understand things like evolution).
One of his Documentaries at the very start, if I'm not mistaken it was probably the selfish gene . Of course I respect Dawkins more so than most leftists read many of his books and think he is brilliant at conveying the message of evolution and helping understand it. His politics however; I don't agree with.

Coggeh

15th April 2010, 14:51

I'm not really sure a/ what relevance this has b/ how accurate that claim is.

Even if religion is veiling a political identity, it doesn't shed the responsibility that religion bears in these conflicts. Religion is part of it, but it's not the sole cause of it; it veils the reality of the conflict, but it doesn't mean it isn't part of it at all.
Well religion may be pointed to a part of conflicts but only so much as things like colour could be placed as a part of conflicts. Their was no division between prodestants and catholics in Ireland before the divide and rule tactics of the British Bourgeoisie and their would have been little division between workers of different colour if not for the same tactics by the bourgeois of many countries.

I don't think religion can be mistaken for a cause or even a real part of the cause of any wars.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

15th April 2010, 14:57

In the preface of his book The God Delusion he says that if there was no religion there would be no "Israeli/Palestinian wars" or "Troubles." That was enough for me.

Those conflicts ultimately have their roots in religion, even though its poisonous effects have since then seeped into other areas.

His arguments against religion have been put forth much better by different people (like J.L. Mackie). He along with the internet atheist cult he has spawned seem to take much more energy in combating religion than class society.

Cult? As a member of the Richard Dawkins website, I take offence to that description. It's simply not true. If you want to see cult-like behaviour, go to Rapture Ready (http://www.rr-bb.com/) for a real example. You'll find there none of the acrimonious debates that happen at richarddawkins.net, where perhaps the only thing that most of us agree on is that God does not exist. For the same reason, the focus is on religion, not on class society. If you think that focus is incorrect, fine, but you do your case no good with baseless accusations of cultism.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

15th April 2010, 14:59

Well religion may be pointed to a part of conflicts but only so much as things like colour could be placed as a part of conflicts. Their was no division between prodestants and catholics in Ireland before the divide and rule tactics of the British Bourgeoisie and their would have been little division between workers of different colour if not for the same tactics by the bourgeois of many countries.

If religion and colour did not exist, then it would not be possible for the ruling class to use them in such a divisive fashion.

ZeroNowhere

15th April 2010, 15:19

Social animals are selfish the same as non-social ones are. Its simply rational for humans to be cooperative in nature as it serves individual and collective self interest. Social animals being cooperative does not mean their not selfish
Selfishness is a personality trait, it does not simply mean 'doing what is in your best interest'. For an example I use with 'ethical egoists', a person can act in their own rational self-interest, but nonetheless feel good when they help others, and guilty when they don't, to the extent where this would make it in their rational self-interest to help others. Calling them selfish is not using the word as it generally is. Now, if they could hardly sympathize with others and only felt joy at their own gain, perhaps a bit jealous at that of others, then they may be selfish.

Even then, it's not like most humans co-operate because they think about it and see it as in their rational self-interest. If they are, in fact, co-operative by nature, then it would be rather bizarre to call them selfish. One could hardly be selfish in choosing traits when you did not choose them. All that that would mean is perhaps that co-operation is a beneficial trait that was passed on due to aiding survival, there is nothing personal enough there to justify the tag 'selfish' except with a fair few qualifications (which Dawkins gives, to be fair).

Yazman

16th April 2010, 06:27

SInce when was the left hostile to Richard Dawkins?

From memory, I've never actually met a leftist IRL who didn't like Richard Dawkins and I don't recall knowing too many online either.

Even then, the few people I know hostile to Dawkins (online) that are also leftists are just misguided fools who look at the title of "The Selfish Gene" and think it somehow refers to a "gene that makes people selfish and justifies capitalism", even though the book doesn't say anything remotely close to that and furthermore Dawkins has been arguing AGAINST that mentality for a very, very long time. The people who think that, though, tend to just be people who've never actually READ the book.

Rosa Lichtenstein

19th April 2010, 16:37

Apologies for my delay in replying; I've been away for a while. I'll respond later this week.

Rosa Lichtenstein

23rd April 2010, 11:02

Again, apologies for my delay in replying. My spare time has been in rather short supply this week, and what little of it that has been available I have devoted to swatting the dialectical mystics.

Anyway, I will have my response to Noxion, and now Yazman, ready by the end of the weekend.

Hiero

23rd April 2010, 11:20

Those conflicts ultimately have their roots in religion, even though its poisonous effects have since then seeped into other areas.

The roots are land and economy. If they "ultimately" have their roots in religion then the atheist and Christians would not see logic in fighting for either side. International politics can not be reduced to the realm of ideas.

In regards to Dawkins, I am an atheist so I don't see the sense of reading athiest manifestos, I can't be even more convinced that god does not exist or can I become more of an athiest. Secondly, I am a Marxist, and the Marxist analysis of base and structure is a perfect materialist analysis of why ideaologies like religion exists. I just don't see the point.

Does Dawkins and his kind make any link between ideas and politics/economy?

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th April 2010, 05:39

Ok, here's my long-delayed reply to Noxion:

Noxion:

Why not here?

Well, if you are the mod, and you do not mind going off-topic, here goes. This is how Wikipedia summarises Inclusive Fitness (henceforth IF):

In evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, inclusive fitness refers to an organism's classical fitness (how many of its own offspring it produces and supports) plus the number of equivalents of its own offspring it can add to the population by supporting others....

Hamilton's equation describes mathematically whether or not a gene for altruistic behaviour will spread in a population:

rb > c

where

c is the reproductive cost to the altruist,

b is the reproductive benefit to the recipient of the altruistic behavior, and

r is the probability, above the population average, of the individuals sharing an altruistic gene -- commonly viewed as "degree of relatedness".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness

So, this is a causal theory that seeks to explain 'altruistic' behaviour, which is proportional to genetic relatedness. As Hamilton also said:

"...we expect to find that no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers, or four half-brothers, or eight first-cousins."

And as Dawkins concurs:

"It is easy to show that close relatives -- kin -- have a greater than average chance of sharing genes. It has long been clear that this must be why altruism by parents towards their young is so common. what R. A. Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane and especially W. D. Hamilton realised, was that the same applies to other close relations -- brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, close cousins." Selfish Gene, pp.89-90.

There are several problems with this theory (this is a very brief summary of parts Chapter Eight of David Stove's book):

1) If the above were true, we should expect to find altruism at its maximum among organisms that share all their genes in common. Hence, bacteria and every organism that propagates asexually should be prefect altruists. Is it really the case that, say, the Anthrax Bacillus is more altruistic than human beings? Is it really true that Tulips propagated from bulbs are more altruistic than we are? And what about animals that propagate parthenogenetically? They share all their genes. Are water fleas, therefore, prominent and leading altruists?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexual_reproduction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis

2) The sperm of any individual share all their genes with one another and half with the organism that produced them. Same with eggs. Are eggs and sperm perfect altruists toward one another? Are they as altruistic toward the organism that produced them as offspring are toward their parents? Are adult organisms altruistic and protective toward their eggs and sperm? In the latter case, this does not sound like any teenage boy I've ever heard of.

3) In higher organisms, we should expect sibling altruism to be as strong and as common as parental altruism toward their offspring. And we should expect offspring to be as altruistic toward their parents as the latter are to their offspring. We all know that this is not generally to case, nor nearly generally the case.

4) Moreover, we should expect parental altruism to be equally strong across any species and all species that share half their genes with their offspring. This is not even true of human beings, where altruism and care vary as widely as anything could. Indeed, are lizards, for example, as altruistic/protective toward their offspring as, say, cats or bears?

5) This theory does not even work among the hymenoptera, where it is supposed to be the most explanatory. Here sister eusocial insects share three-quarters of their genes, but they promote the reproduction of, and defend to the death if necessary the queen with whom they share only half.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality

In fact, if IF-theory were true, we'd be swimming in altruism, and there'd be a 'problem of selfishness', and where to find any.

It does not mean that it is selfish at the phenotypic level, because selfish organisms don't do as well as altruistic ones; an altruistic organism is more likely to have brothers and sisters who are alive and well and go on to reproduce, which from the "point of view" of a selfish gene is brilliant because that means there are more copies of it around. Why do you find this simple concept so hard to grasp?

But, as we have seen, what appears to be 'altruistic' is in fact just an expression of these selfish genes.

And what exactly is this supposed to mean:

which from the "point of view" of a selfish gene is brilliant because that means there are more copies of it around.

How is this "brilliant" from the 'selfish gene's' "point of view"? Not only has this gene no "point of view", how does it benefit from copies made of itself? Having copies made of something does not benefit it at all. If you make extra copies of NaCl, is that molecule 'benefited'?

Indeed, as Stove argues:

My identical twin, or a laboratory made replica of myself, (as I pointed out earlier), is not a possible object of my selfishness, in the ordinary psychological sense of 'selfishness'. But suppose that I am myself a Super-scientist, and that I manufacture my own replica or twin. Have I then done something selfish, even in the behavioural sense of 'selfish'? Have I improved my own chances of survival at the expense of the chances of others?

It is perfectly obvious that I have not. The coming into existence of a perfect copy of myself might, just conceivably, tickle my vanity. But it would not remove one year or one second from my age, or lighten, by however little, the burden of my present or future illnesses or other afflictions. My age, health, wealth and prospects, would be just what they were before I conjured up my replica. Any rational insurance company, and any rational person, would tell you the same thing. And since I have not increased my own chances of survival, I have certainly not done so at the expense of anyone else's chances.

Equally plainly, the same is true of genes. By making a copy of itself, a gene certainly does not gratify its selfishness in the ordinary sense of that word, since (as I said earlier), genes cannot be selfish in that sense. But neither does it do anything selfish in the behavioural sense. Self-replication would even seem, (to a layman such as myself), rather to worsen a gene's chances of survival, since it must use up a sizable part of its limited energy store.

But even if that is merely a layman’s misunderstanding, it seems obvious enough that a gene, by self-replicating, does not improve its own chances of survival. (Its replica is not going to look after the parent gene in its old age, for example.) which is to say, that the self-replication of a gene is not selfish, even in the sense in which Dawkins says he is using that word.

At this point, however, Dawkins would remind me that 'the selfish gene ... is not just one physical bit of DNA ... it is all the replicas of a particular bit of DNA, distributed throughout the world'.9 What a gene does by self-replicating, he says, is to benefit 'itself in the form of copies of itself'.10 'The gene is a long-lived replicator, existing in the form of many duplicate copies' of itself.12

There: you have just witnessed how Dawkins made out the case on which his whole book depends. How he managed, that is, to represent the self-replication of genes as being selfish in the behavioural sense. Well, there is nothing to it, really, once you have seen how the thing is worked. All you need to do is, to talk about things which exist in the form of other things, and more specifically, about things which exist in the form of copies of themselves; and the job is done.

Talking like this may seem at first sight to be only an innocent departure, indeed only a trivial departure, from ordinary ways of speaking and thinking. But a little further reflection will soon correct that initial impression. The truth is that Dawkins has here done much more than sum up recent progress in evolutionary biology. In fact he has opened up unlimited vistas of future intellectual and even economic progress, in very many fields.

For example, Dr Dawkins should certainly say to his identical twin, (if he has one): 'In your own interests you ought to give me all your money, because by doing so you would benefit yourself in the form of a copy of yourself'. His brother will selfishly embrace this novel way of enriching himself, if the biology of the Selfish Gene is true; while at the same time the advantage which will accrue to Richard Dawkins is also clear. As a solution to a problem which must often arise between identical twins this must be admitted to be as ingenious as it is equitable." (pp.179-81)

In fact, Dawkins wants to have his cake and eat it (the quotations below are from the second edition of the Selfish Gene, SG, the first edition of The Extended Phenotype, EP, and the first edition of The Blind Watchmaker, BW):

"The gene is the basic unit of selfishness."(SG, p.36)

"Pure, disinterested altruism -- something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed in the whole history of the world." (SG, pp.200-01)

As I noted, on this theory, there is and can be no such thing as altruism. And we already know that IF-theory can't explain altruism.

More to follow...

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th April 2010, 05:40

And in the same sentence he talks about human and gene selfishness, making no distinction between them:

"The argument of this book is that we and all other animals are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived.... This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour." (SG, p.2)

Sure, Dawkins then goes on the qualify this in the way you do, but it is important to note here that he explains gene 'selfishness' by appealing to human selfishness (in Chicago gangsters), and he derives what we might normally expect in an individual from these genes: we should expect human beings to be just as selfish as these genes are (which he then tries to mitigate in the way you do).

This shows that Dawkins wants to have his cake and eat it: to claim that genes are not selfish as we are, but then inadvertently admitting that they are.

Developmental and external environmental factors, to name just two. You should know this.

I do know this, but Dawkins can't appeal to these to introduce new factors. He says the following, for example:

"The technical word 'phenotype' is used for the bodily manifestation of a gene..." (SG, p.235)

"We are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)

"The body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)

"The organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)

"...[L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)

If we are robots, under the control of these 'ruthless' gangster genes, then this can't be true:

"We have the power to defy the selfish genes of out birth...." (SG, p.200)

As David Stove argues:

I do not believe that humans are the helpless puppets of their genes, and cannot even take that proposition seriously. Why? Because I have heard far too many stories like that one before, and because it is obvious what is wrong with all of them.

'Our stars rule us,' says the astrologer. 'Man is what re eats,' said Feuerbach. 'We are what our infantile sexual experiences made us,' says the Freudian. 'The individual counts for nothing, his class situation for everything,' says the Marxist. 'We are what our socioeconomic circumstances make us,' says the social worker. 'We are what Almighty God created us,' says the Christian theologian. There is simply no end of this kind of stuff.

What is wrong with all such theories is this: that they deny, at least by implication, that human intentions, decisions, and efforts are among the causal agencies which are at work in the world.

This denial is so obviously false that no rational person, who paused to consider it coolly and in itself, would ever entertain it for one minute. No one ever doubts, at least while he has or remembers having a big fish on his line, that the intentions and efforts of even a fish can make a difference to the outcome of a situation; especially if the fish gets away after all. And if even fish efforts sometimes have causal efficacy, then human efforts can hardly be altogether without it.

The falsity of all these theories of human helplessness is so very obvious, in fact, that the puppetry theorists themselves cannot help admitting it, and thus are never able to adhere consistently to their puppetry theories. Feuerbach, though he said that man is what he eats, was also obliged to admit that meals do not eat meals. The Calvinistic theologian, after saying that the omnipotent creator is everything and his creatures nothing, will often then go on to reproach himself and other creatures with disobeying this creator. The Freudian therapist believes in the overpowering influence of infantile sexual experiences, but he makes an excellent living by encouraging his patients to believe that, with his help, this overpowering influence can be itself overpowered. And so on.

In this inevitable and tiresomely familiar way, Dawkins contradicts hi puppetry theory. Thus, for example, writing in the full flood of conviction of human helplessness, he say that 'we are ... robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes', 13 etc., etc. But at the same time, of course, he knows as well as the rest of us do, that there are often other causes at work, in us or around us, which are perfectly capable of counteracting genetic influences. In fact he sometimes says so himself, and he even says that ‘we have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth'.14 As you see, he is just like those writers of serial stories in boys' magazines, who used to say, in order to extricate their hero from some impossible situation, 'with one bound, Jack was free!' Well, it just goes to show that even the most rigid theologian of the Calvinist-Augustinian school has got to have a Pelagian blow-out occasionally, and deviate towards common sense for a while.

Here is another specimen of Dawkins contradicting his own theory. He says, “let us try to teach generosity and altruism', 15, but also says that “altruism something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world'. 16 Well, I wonder where we are, if not ‘in nature'?

And (as Midgley pertinently asked), who are Dawkins' 'us': the ones that are to leach altruism? Principally parents, no doubt. Well, parents are not, what Dawkins implies they are, just some shoddy temporary dwellings rigged up by genes. But neither are they creatures from beyond, 'sidereal messengers', or sons and daughters of 'God sent down on a mission of redemption and reformation'. Parents are just some more people, and hence, if you believe Dawkins, are selfish, where are they, on his theory, to get any of the altruism which he wants them to impart to their children? And as for altruism having 'never existed before': one longs to learn, before when? Before [I]homo sapiens? Before the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Before the British Labour Government of 1945? Dawkins should not have omitted to tell us at least the approximate date of an event so interesting, and (apparently) so recent, as the nativity of altruism. (pp.183-84)

You:

A selfish gene is not the same thing as a gene that has the effect of making the phenotype selfish; in fact, as I pointed out above, genes with selfish effects are less likely to be successful because they put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. A selfish individual may do well as an individual (but this is far from guaranteed), but will do terribly as part of an in-group, which many organisms are.

Maybe so, but neither Dawkins nor IF-theory can explain this.

Bollocks; there is such a thing as altruism; only that the reason it exists is explained.

Well, and once more, as we have seen, neither Dawkins nor IF-theory can explain this.

You did lie, and you're now lying about lying previously.

No, I did not.

But you quote an earlier comment of yours:

You're accepting the evolutionary psychologist fallacy that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms.

Then you quote me:

Once more, I'm not accepting this conclusion, merely pointing out that Dawkins's theory implies this. And even you have admitted as much, above.

Then you argue:

But it implies no such thing, as I have pointed out. So, stop fucking lying.

See, you do get emotional, very quickly. Must be your genes...:rolleyes:

[And yet, as a mod, if Dawkins is right, you should, have the power to overcome your abusive language genes. But can you? As we have repeatedly seen, it seems you can't. On the other hand, this seems to mean that Dawkins' get-out does not apply to you -- alone of all organisms? Are you a freak of evolution? A sport of nature. A new species?]

However, back in the real world, as we can now see, Dawkins's theory does imply this, as I alleged.

But, do I accuse you of f*cking lying"? No, I obviously do not share your emotional genes.

It does no such thing. You are making a spurious connection between the "selfishness" of the gene and the selfishness of the organism.

A 'spurious connection' that Dawkins himself makes, as we have seen.

Is this an example of verbal abuse (you as a mod should know -- unless your genes make you blind to the abuse you dole out):

More lies from the stubborn asshole that refuse to admit it when they've been caught in a lie. I challenge you to quote me where I said that one should derive an "ought" from an "is".

Is the above an example of you attacking my argument and not me personally, as you alleged in an earlier reply? Or will that question itself just elicit yet more colourful language from your personal abuse genes?

Anyway, where did I say you did? All I said was that it was easy to derive the one from the other.

However, you did say this:

Don't lie; I admitted that genes can have an effect on human society; I did not admit that selfish genes necessarily mean selfish organisms, and I specifically inveighed against deriving "ought" from "is" like the social darwinists (as opposed to Neo-Darwinists) do.

Whether you "inveighed" against it or not, it's still easy to derive an "ought" from an "is, so all your "inveighing" is to no avail.

Perhaps you have an "inveighing" gene, too?

So fucking what? If someone is making a shit argument and being dishonest about defending it, I have no qualms about calling them out on it.

So what this: you are a mod.

When I use abusive language, I get an infraction/warning.

Perhaps you have an 'infraction-free' gene?

Because it's a metaphor. You seriously don't think that Dawkins is arguing that genes are selfish in the same way that people can be selfish, do you? If you are, then maybe you're not as smart as you obviously think you are.

1) What is this metaphor's cash value (to use William James's happy phrase)? For example, if I say a man is a pig, the cash value of this metaphor is that I'm alluding perhaps to his sloppy manner of eating, messy appearance, filthy habits, etc. So, what is the cash value of this metaphor?

2) Why choose it anyway if it does not mean the same as the ordinary use of this word?

3) As we have seen above, he runs the two meanings together anyway.

Whereas if you actually read the book instead of just the title, you will find that's not what he means.

Seems it's you who needs to re-read his book?

Unless, of course, you have a "Noxion is right because he says so' gene.

Equivocation because you are treating the word "selfish" as applied to genes in this case in the same way one would apply the word to a person. The fallacy of composition comes from your idea that because one component of an organism is "selfish" it must therefore mean that the organism as a whole is selfish.

Alas your 'I cannot read too well' gene means I have to point out to you again that this is not my inference, but the implication of what Dawkins himself says.

Abuses of a scientific theory for political ends do not invalidate said theory. Nuclear physics is not incorrect because Hiroshima was nuked.

Sure, but if right-wing ideology has been read into a theory from the beginning (as here), it does.

It's been a case of in one ear and out the other it seems; you can't appeal to authority you don't have.

I made no appeal to 'authority', my response was in reply to your suggestion I haven't studied this theory much. It now turns out, as we have seen above, that you seem to have an 'egg-on-the-face' gene, which prompts you to humiliate yourself every time you try to take me on. What can I tell you now that you have been laid out on the canvass by little old me so many times but "Stay down!"?

Alas, I have no doubt you'll be leading with your chin many more times.

Unlike you, I'm open about my interests, rather than hiding behind a pseudo-intellectual facade of passive-aggressive posturing.

Indeed, you prefer abuse, emotive language and self-inflicted humiliation.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th April 2010, 05:59

Yaz:

Even then, the few people I know hostile to Dawkins (online) that are also leftists are just misguided fools who look at the title of "The Selfish Gene" and think it somehow refers to a "gene that makes people selfish and justifies capitalism", even though the book doesn't say anything remotely close to that and furthermore Dawkins has been arguing AGAINST that mentality for a very, very long time. The people who think that, though, tend to just be people who've never actually READ the book.

As you can see from my reply to Noxion above, Dawkins's book does indeed imply this.

Sure, he tries to mitigate the implcations of his reactionary book, since he tells us he is a soft-lefty (my words, not his), but there is nothing in his theory that allows him to do this.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th April 2010, 06:03

Devrim:

I'd advise you to read the book then. You never know it might surprise you.

As you can see from my reply to Noxion, Dawkins is indeed talking about human beings.

In fact, his first chapter is entitled : "Why are people?"

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

26th April 2010, 10:52

1) If the above were true, we should expect to find altruism at its maximum among organisms that share all their genes in common.

Only if you naively ignore all other factors; There's no adaptive advantage to being altruistic when the organism in question is the dominant one on the planet (bacteria), and multicellular organisms that reproduce asexually tend not to be social.

2) The sperm of any individual share all their genes with one another and half with the organism that produced them. Same with eggs. Are eggs and sperm perfect altruists toward one another? Are they as altruistic toward the organism that produced them as offspring are toward their parents? Are adult organisms altruistic and protective toward their eggs and sperm? In the latter case, this does not sound like any teenage boy I've ever heard of.

Really? That's an argument? IF is a theory about organisms, not their reproductive cells.

3) In higher organisms, we should expect sibling altruism to be as strong and as common as parental altruism toward their offspring. And we should expect offspring to be as altruistic toward their parents as the latter are to their offspring. We all know that this is not generally to case, nor nearly generally the case.

4) Moreover, we should expect parental altruism to be equally strong across any species and all species that share half their genes with their offspring. This is not even true of human beings, where altruism and care vary as widely as anything could. Indeed, are lizards, for example, as altruistic/protective toward their offspring as, say, cats or bears?

Altruism varies with reproductive strategy, who knew?

5) This theory does not even work among the hymenoptera, where it is supposed to be the most explanatory. Here sister eusocial insects share three-quarters of their genes, but they promote the reproduction of, and defend to the death if necessary the queen with whom they share only half.

So? They still share genes.

In fact, if IF-theory were true, we'd be swimming in altruism, and there'd be a 'problem of selfishness', and where to find any.

Somehow I think you're misinterpreting IF; if the problems with it were so basic as you claim, no evolutionary biologist worth their salt would hold to it.

How is this "brilliant" from the 'selfish gene's' "point of view"? Not only has this gene no "point of view", how does it benefit from copies made of itself? Having copies made of something does not benefit it at all. If you make extra copies of NaCl, is that molecule 'benefited'?

When I said "point of view" I was being metaphorical, hence the quotes. Genes that are not good at making copies of themselves are swamped by those are good at making copies of themselves, that is the "benefit".

Indeed, as Stove argues:

He's missing the point. Genes that do not copy themselves, or are bad at doing so, will cease to exist, whatever the costs of self-replication. But genes that can self-replicate without incurring excessive penalties on future replication prospects will come to dominate.

As I noted, on this theory, there is and can be no such thing as altruism. And we already know that IF-theory can't explain altruism.

The question arises then, does it not? Does "Pure, disinterested altruism" (as opposed to altruism as what we call the manifestation of selfish genes at work) actually exist? Dawkins claims that it doesn't; you appear to disagree.

If "pure altruism" does exist, whence does it come?

And in the same sentence he talks about human and gene selfishness, making no distinction between them:

Sure, Dawkins then goes on the qualify this in the way you do, but it is important to note here that he explains gene 'selfishness' by appealing to human selfishness (in Chicago gangsters), and he derives what we might normally expect in an individual from these genes: we should expect human beings to be just as selfish as these genes are (which he then tries to mitigate in the way you do).

This shows that Dawkins wants to have his cake and eat it: to claim that genes are not selfish as we are, but then inadvertently admitting that they are.

He also says that human beings are not necessarily slaves to their genes:

As a corollary to these remarks about teaching, it is a fallacy - incidentally a very common one - to suppose that genetically inherited traits are by definition fixed and unmodifiable. Our genes may instruct us to be selfish, but we are not necessarily compelled to obey them all our lives. It may just be more difficult to learn altruism than it would be if we were genetically programmed to be altruistic. Among animals, man is uniquely dominated by culture, by influences learned and handed down. Some would say that culture is so important that genes, whether selfish or not, are virtually irrelevant to the understanding of human nature. Others would disagree. It all depends where you stand in the debate over 'nature versus nurture' as determinants of human attributes ... If genes really turn out to be totally irrelevant to the determination of modern human behavior, if we really are unique among animals in this respect, it is, at the very least, still interesting to inquire about the rule to which we have so recently become the exception. And if our species is not so exceptional as we might like to think, it is even more important that we should study the rule.

I don't think it's a case of him wanting to have his cake and eat it; by all means I think his views are more nuanced than you make them out to be.

I do know this, but Dawkins can't appeal to these to introduce new factors. He says the following, for example:

None of which completely rule out the factors I mentioned, unless you again take a fallacious black/white view of the matter. Biology is a messy subject, unlike physics or mathematics which deal with ideal cases. Exceptions abound, borders are fuzzy, and intricate complexity can give rise to unforeseen consequences.

If we are robots, under the control of these 'ruthless' gangster genes, then this can't be true:

But we're not, or at least Dawkins admits the possibility that we are not.

As David Stove argues:

I wonder why you insist on quoting such an odious character?

Maybe so, but neither Dawkins nor IF-theory can explain this.

Well, and once more, as we have seen, neither Dawkins nor IF-theory can explain this.

So you like to claim. But your claims are based on a naive understanding of the selfish gene and most likely IF as well.

See, you do get emotional, very quickly. Must be your genes...:rolleyes:

[And yet, as a mod, if Dawkins is right, you should, have the power to overcome your abusive language genes. But can you? As we have repeatedly seen, it seems you can't. On the other hand, this seems to mean that Dawkins' get-out does not apply to you -- alone of all organisms? Are you a freak of evolution? A sport of nature. A new species?]

"Abusive language genes"? You do spout some laughable rubbish at times.

However, back in the real world, as we can now see, Dawkins's theory does imply this, as I alleged.

It may imply that (thanks for the quote), but that does not mean we are slaves to our genes whatever Dawkins says.

But, do I accuse you of f*cking lying"? No, I obviously do not share your emotional genes.

It's spelled "FUCK" you crazy old coot.

A 'spurious connection' that Dawkins himself makes, as we have seen.

Is this an example of verbal abuse (you as a mod should know -- unless your genes make you blind to the abuse you dole out):

Is the above an example of you attacking my argument and not me personally, as you alleged in an earlier reply? Or will that question itself just elicit yet more colourful language from your personal abuse genes?

Anyway, where did I say you did? All I said was that it was easy to derive the one from the other.

Just because it's easy for idiots to draw normative conclusions from nature doesn't mean we should, nor does it change the facts - there may be "the law of the jungle", but we don't live in the jungle.

However, you did say this:

Whether you "inveighed" against it or not, it's still easy to derive an "ought" from an "is, so all your "inveighing" is to no avail.

Really? So the fact that some men beat their wives means it's OK for them to do so, especially when they had a hard day at work or they've drunk too much?

So what this: you are a mod.

When I use abusive language, I get an infraction/warning.

Perhaps you have an 'infraction-free' gene?

How about you wag your finger at someone who gives a shit?

1) What is this metaphor's cash value (to use William James's happy phrase)? For example, if I say a man is a pig, the cash value of this metaphor is that I'm alluding perhaps to his sloppy manner of eating, messy appearance, filthy habits, etc. So, what is the cash value of this metaphor?

2) Why choose it anyway if it does not mean the same as the ordinary use of this word?

3) As we have seen above, he runs the two meanings together anyway.

1) I'm sure Dawkins explains that in his book.

2) Ever heard of a metaphor, or an analogy?

3) Sloppy language on the part of Dawkins, I suspect. I can't help that.

Seems it's you who needs to re-read his book?

Unless, of course, you have a "Noxion is right because he says so' gene.

Alas your 'I cannot read too well' gene means I have to point out to you again that this is not my inference, but the implication of what Dawkins himself says.

Fine. I think Dawkins made a mistake, either in his language as I alluded to above or by actually linking selfishness in genes to selfishness in organisms; I don't think that's necessary for the selfish gene to work.

Sure, but if right-wing ideology has been read into a theory from the beginning (as here), it does.

Don't be silly, Dawkins is being descriptive, not prescriptive, as he himself says:

This brings me to the first point I want to make about what this book is not. I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave. I stress this, because I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case. My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene's law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live.

I made no appeal to 'authority', my response was in reply to your suggestion I haven't studied this theory much. It now turns out, as we have seen above, that you seem to have an 'egg-on-the-face' gene, which prompts you to humiliate yourself every time you try to take me on. What can I tell you now that you have been laid out on the canvass by little old me so many times but "Stay down!"?

Alas, I have no doubt you'll be leading with your chin many more times.

Indeed, you prefer abuse, emotive language and self-inflicted humiliation.

I'll let everyone else be the judge of that, and leave you to your gloating cackle.

Coggeh

26th April 2010, 13:22

If religion and colour did not exist, then it would not be possible for the ruling class to use them in such a divisive fashion.
I don't see what point your making here? can you elaborate?

Rosa Lichtenstein

27th April 2010, 00:16

Noxion:

Only if you naively ignore all other factors; There's no adaptive advantage to being altruistic when the organism in question is the dominant one on the planet (bacteria), and multicellular organisms that reproduce asexually tend not to be social.

1) Why would they not have 'survival value' in such organisms?

2) Inclusive fitness does not just apply to social organisms. In fact, I challenge you to find a single quotation from Dawkins, or another fan of this theory, that says it is.

Really? That's an argument? IF is a theory about organisms, not their reproductive cells.

It is, as I noted, a causal theory. Hence it must apply to any living thing that shares its genes with another. So, sperm should be altruistic toward one another. Are they? Maybe yours are, but then we already know you are unique in so many endearing respects, don't we?:rolleyes:

Altruism varies with reproductive strategy, who knew?

But in human beings (where these strategies are stable across the species), altruism is not symmetrical between parents and their children, as this theory predicts it should be. And it varies from family to family, which is also the opposite of what this theory predicts.

So? They still share genes.

But, ants, for example should prefer to protect one another in preference to the Queen (with whom they share less genes), if this theory were true. But they don't. And they should promote each other's reproduction, not the Queen's.

Somehow I think you're misinterpreting IF; if the problems with it were so basic as you claim, no evolutionary biologist worth their salt would hold to it.

Not so. The history of science, as you should know, it is littered with examples of odd ideas held for rather poor reasons. Consider, for instance, Galileo's classic dissection of Aristotelian and Ptolemaic Physics in his Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences and his Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems. There he was able to show, with simple arguments like mine, how the prevailing scientific theories, held by very intelligent scientists, were radically flawed. The same happened even more recently when geologists switched over to accepting Wegner's Continental Drift theory, which had been rejected by practically every geologist on the planet for fifty years, even though it made eminent good sense. There are countless other examples.

And those who held onto the old theories defended them just as emotively as you defend IF-theory. New theories in science tend to be adopted when the older generation who hold onto the old theories die out, defending their obsolete ideas to the grave (and often with no little abuse dolled out to those who challenge orthodoxy -- oh, dear, also like you!). There are few disciplines as conservative as science, and this we know from the historical record.

I've quoted this before, but it's worth repeating:

"...[I]n the historical progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary mechanical theories, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory was accepted offered equally strong support to each of the (then-unimagined) later alternatives. The same pattern would seem to obtain in the historical progression from elemental to early corpuscularian chemistry to Stahl's phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry to Daltonian atomic and contemporary physical chemistry; from various versions of preformationism to epigenetic theories of embryology; from the caloric theory of heat to later and ultimately contemporary thermodynamic theories; from effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism to theories of the electromagnetic ether and contemporary electromagnetism; from humoral imbalance to miasmatic to contagion and ultimately germ theories of disease; from 18th Century corpuscular theories of light to 19th Century wave theories to contemporary quantum mechanical conception; from Hippocrates's pangenesis to Darwin's blending theory of inheritance (and his own 'gemmule' version of pangenesis) to Wiesmann's germ-plasm theory and Mendelian and contemporary molecular genetics; from Cuvier's theory of functionally integrated and necessarily static biological species or Lamarck's autogenesis to Darwinian evolutionary theory; and so on in a seemingly endless array of theories, the evidence for which ultimately turned out to support one or more unimagined competitors just as well. Thus, the history of scientific enquiry offers a straightforward inductive rationale for thinking that there are alternatives to our best theories equally well-confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time." [Stanford (2001), p.9.]

Stanford, P, (2001), 'Refusing The Devil's Bargain: What Kind Of Underdetermination Should We Take Seriously?', in Barrett and Alexander (2001), pp.1-12.

Barrett, J., and Alexander, J. (2001), (eds.), [i]PSA 2000, Part 1, Supplement to Philosophy of Science 68, 3 (University of Chicago Press).

[PSA = Philosophy of Science Association; the PSA volumes comprise papers submitted to its biennial meeting.]

So, if it teaches us anything, the history of science tells us that the majority, if not all, scientific theories have been false, many wildly so. This means that there is a very high probability that IF theory is false, too -- even before my criticisms of it were aired. Of course, you can ignore this, but then that will just make you a dogmatist, not a scientist.

When I said "point of view" I was being metaphorical, hence the quotes. Genes that are not good at making copies of themselves are swamped by those are good at making copies of themselves, that is the "benefit".

But, even from 'their point of view' there is no 'benefit' in there being copies of a gene, not even metaphorically. So, they can't even be 'selfish' even metaphorically!

He's missing the point. Genes that do not copy themselves, or are bad at doing so, will cease to exist, whatever the costs of self-replication. But genes that can self-replicate without incurring excessive penalties on future replication prospects will come to dominate.

Maybe so, but in what way can they be said to be 'selfish', when it is not even metaphorically true that a gene 'benefits' if it leaves copies if itself.

That was his point.

Indeed, you would not even describe yourself as metaphorically benefiting a NaCl molecule if you made copies of it. So, how can a molecule even metaphorically 'benefit' itself?

The question arises then, does it not? Does "Pure, disinterested altruism" (as opposed to altruism as what we call the manifestation of selfish genes at work) actually exist? Dawkins claims that it doesn't; you appear to disagree.

And the theory cannot account for it, so it's not just me disagreeing.

If "pure altruism" does exist, whence does it come?

Not from genes, wherever else it comes from.

In human beings, it comes from communal living, from our socialisation, from personal courage and self-respect, among many other things.

He also says that human beings are not necessarily slaves to their genes:

And yet, both of these cannot be the case: that (1) we are robots controlled by our genes and (2) we are able to resist them. As I said, he wants to have his cake and eat it.

I don't think it's a case of him wanting to have his cake and eat it; by all means I think his views are more nuanced than you make them out to be.

And yet he is totally incapable of saying how we are able to resist our genes. Sure, he asserts this is so, but apart from waving a few vague phrases about, he fails to say how this can be so, given his wider theory. Indeed, to paraphrase Stove: "With one bound, Dawkins was free!"

None of which completely rule out the factors I mentioned, unless you again take a fallacious black/white view of the matter. Biology is a messy subject, unlike physics or mathematics which deal with ideal cases. Exceptions abound, borders are fuzzy, and intricate complexity can give rise to unforeseen consequences.

I agree, but then Dawkins says one thing, and the spends the rest of his book telling us how what he alleged earlier cannot actually be the case -- that despite the fact that he tells us we are robots controlled by our genes, in fact we aren't. This totally undermines his theory of selfish genes, and their control over us. On the other hand, if we want to adhere to his core theory, then we must reject his mealy-mouthed attempt to back-track from the unacceptable consequences of his core theory: that we are selfish because our genes are.

But we're not, or at least Dawkins admits the possibility that we are not.

I agree with you that we aren't, but Dawkins tells us that this is the main message of his book:

"We are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)

"The body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)

"The organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)

"...[L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)

"The argument of this book is that we and all other animals are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived.... This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour." (SG, p.2)

Bold added.

I do not know how one can assert the above, and then try to maintain its opposite later, and expect to be taken seriously.

I wonder why you insist on quoting such an odious character?

Because, on this issue, he is correct. Or do you subscribe to the view that one should only accept the arguments of those we like?

But your claims are based on a naive understanding of the selfish gene and most likely IF as well.

And yet, as we have seen, you have failed to show that I have a 'naive understanding' of IF theory, etc.

Indeed, as we will see below, it turns out that it is you who has not read Dawkins's book with due care.

"Abusive language genes"? You do spout some laughable rubbish at times.

In that case, if it's not your genes, then it is you who is responsible for the abusive language you throw in my direction.

One would expect a mod to apologise and withdraw such language. Perhaps you have an 'ignore the consequences of my abusive genes, gene'?

It may imply that (thanks for the quote), but that does not mean we are slaves to our genes whatever Dawkins says.

But to what can you or Dawkins appeal that will allow us to rebel against our genes?

And worse, won't this 'rebellion' reduce our fitness?

It's spelled "F*CK" you crazy old coot.

Ah, your 'abuse gene' kicks in again. Odd how it only seems to do so when you lose an argument...

Just because it's easy for idiots to draw normative conclusions from nature doesn't mean we should, nor does it change the facts - there may be "the law of the jungle", but we don't live in the jungle.

Which idiots are you referring to? Or is it sufficient for someone to disagree with you for them to be an 'idiot'?

However, logic rises above such alleged idiocy, and even above your semi-divine status, wherein anyone who disagrees with Your Highness is automatically branded an 'idiot', for it is still easy to derive and 'ought' from an 'is', or a fact from a 'value'. Logicians have known this for over fifty years.

So the fact that some men beat their wives means it's OK for them to do so, especially when they had a hard day at work or they've drunk too much?

In your own endearing and amateur way, you are confusing a proof with a valid argument, and both with an invalid argument.

But, where did I try to derive this:

the fact that some men beat their wives means it's OK for them to do so,

This is not a counter-example to what I alleged since its not a valid argument. Perhaps you need a crash course in very basic logic...?

If you ask really nicely, I might condescend to relieve you of your self-inflicted ignorance, and give you a few examples of valid arguments where and 'ought' follows from an 'is'.

How about you wag your finger at someone who gives a shit?

Thanks for sharing, but we already knew you had very low self-esteem -- after all, it's why you regularly throw such non-scientific tantrums, isn't it?

1) I'm sure Dawkins explains that in his book.

Well, if we could trust you to get Dawkins right (and we have seen you struggle even here; see below) then we'd be happy to take your word. Alas we don't and thus we can't. So, my point stands until you can tell us what the cash value of this metaphor is, or direct us to where Dawkins tells us.

2) Ever heard of a metaphor, or an analogy?

Is you short-term memory on the blink? You have just read what I had to say about metaphor!

Moreover, analogies only work if we understand both halves of it. But what is the cash value of the 'selfish' gene' metaphor/analogy? As we have seen above, there is no way that genes can even be metaphorically 'selfish'.

3) Sloppy language on the part of Dawkins, I suspect. I can't help that.

But, that language shows he runs ordinary selfishness together with this yet-to-be-explained metaphorical use of that word -- which is what I alleged in an earlier post of mine.

But you rashly denied this (and used abusive language as part of this denial, accusing me of lying) before you were confronted with this 'sloppy' language to that effect, and which denial prompted you into asserting that I hadn't read his book. It now looks like it's you who hasn't read his book -- or, at least, not with due care -- as this admission of yours now concedes:

Fine. I think Dawkins made a mistake, either in his language as I alluded to above or by actually linking selfishness in genes to selfishness in organisms; I don't think that's necessary for the selfish gene to work.

But, that 'mistake' is more than that; it reveals the right-wing ideology Dawkins allowed to creep/inserted into his theory, as I alleged in an earlier post.

Don't be silly, Dawkins is being descriptive, not prescriptive, as he himself says:

Where did I say he was being 'prescriptive'?

Anyway, his description is ideological. [What you call a 'mistake'.]

I'll let everyone else be the judge of that, and leave you to your gloating cackle.

Fine by me; they'll then be able to see a cornered mod reduced to throwing abuse at someone who has the temerity not to treat science as a set of dogmas.

Lynx

27th April 2010, 10:09

This brings me to the first point I want to make about what this book is not. I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave. I stress this, because I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case. My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene's law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live.
Obviously some comrades are unable (or unwilling) to accept this disclaimer.
The OP asks why the left is hostile to Dawkins. An academic debate of the merits of Darwinism (or Dawkinism, if you prefer) will not answer this question.

Perhaps the left is incapable of moving beyond its own ideology and rhetoric.

But what is the cash value of the 'selfish' gene' metaphor/analogy?
His total book sales?

I suspect the cash value to right-wing apologists is less than the cash value of self-proclaimed socialist regimes and their economic performance, real or maligned, over the past 50 years. Seriously, in the grander historical scheme of things, Richard Dawkins is a drop in the bucket. The left is carrying too many monkeys on its back to have room for yet another academic turned novelist.

Genes are altruistic. Humans are altruistic beings. Socialism is the natural order of things. Communism represents the highest expression of all human endeavor.
There. Now the left can have its own cake and eat it. Just as silly as the right-wing version.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th April 2010, 01:09

Lynx:

Obviously some comrades are unable (or unwilling) to accept this disclaimer.
The OP asks why the left is hostile to Dawkins. An academic debate of the merits of Darwinism (or Dawkinism, if you prefer) will not answer this question.

But, as I have shown, Dawkins wants to have his cake and eat it. His core theory is at odds with such disclaimers; there is nothing in his system that allows him to free himself from the manipulative influence of his genes. So, this is his genes speaking here, and, because his theory is flawed, we have every reason to ignore his attempt to back-track from the consequences of his core theory.

His total book sales?

I suspect the cash value to right-wing apologists is less than the cash value of self-proclaimed socialist regimes and their economic performance, real or maligned, over the past 50 years. Seriously, in the grander historical scheme of things, Richard Dawkins is a drop in the bucket. The left is carrying too many monkeys on its back to have room for yet another academic turned novelist.

You misunderstand William James's metaphor: 'cash value' refers to any explanation you might give as to what a metaphor means.

So, if I describe a man/woman as a tiger, I am perhaps referring to his/her fierceness, tenacity and ruthlessness.

But what does Dawkins's metaphor mean? It can't be that DNA, or our genes, are really selfish (even though, as I have shown, he seems to argue this way at times), nor that copies of genes/DNA 'benefit' themselves. A copy of a molecule in no way 'benefits' that molecule.

So, his metaphor has no 'cash value'; it is not possible to explain its meaning -- other than from the fact that he wants (illegitimately) to read into genes human selfishness, and then miraculously derive our selfishness (re-configured as altruistic 'inclusive fitness') from this insertion. In other words, it's a thinly disguised piece of right-wing ideology imposed on evolution, as Engels noted over 100 years ago:

"1) Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin's method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact. Until Darwin's time the very people who now see everywhere only struggle for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, etc.) emphasized precisely cooperation in organic nature, the fact that the vegetable kingdom supplies oxygen and nutriment to the animal kingdom and conversely the animal kingdom supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, which was particularly stressed by Liebig. Both conceptions are justified within certain limits, but the one is as one-sided and narrow-minded as the other. The interaction of bodies in nature -- inanimate as well as animate -- includes both harmony and collision, struggle and cooperation. When therefore a self-styled natural scientist takes the liberty of reducing the whole of historical development with all its wealth and variety to the one-sided and meagre phrase 'struggle for existence,' a phrase which even in the sphere of nature can be accepted only cum grano salis [with a grain of salt -- RL], such a procedure really contains its own condemnation.

"...I should therefore attack -- and perhaps will when the time comes -- these bourgeois Darwinists in about the following manner:

"The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes [from Hobbes's De Cive and Leviathan, chapter 13-14] and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus's theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed (and I questioned its absolute permissibility, as I have indicated in point 1, particularly as far as the Malthusian theory is concerned), the same theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved. The puerility of this procedure is so obvious that not a word need be said about it. But if I wanted to go into the matter more thoroughly I should do so by depicting them in the first place as bad economists and only in the second place as bad naturalists and philosophers.

"4) The essential difference between human and animal society consists in the fact that animals at most collect while men produce. This sole but cardinal difference alone makes it impossible simply to transfer laws of animal societies to human societies....

"At a certain stage the production of man attains such a high-level that not only necessaries but also luxuries, at first, true enough, only for a minority, are produced. The struggle for existence -- if we permit this category for the moment to be valid -- is thus transformed into a struggle for pleasures, no longer for mere means of subsistence but for means of development, socially produced means of development, and to this stage the categories derived from the animal kingdom are no longer applicable. But if, as has now happened, production in its capitalist form produces a far greater quantity of means of subsistence and development than capitalist society can consume because it keeps the great mass of real producers artificially away from these means of subsistence and development; if this society is forced by its own law of life constantly to increase this output which is already too big for it and therefore periodically, every 10 years, reaches the point where it destroys not only a mass of products but even productive forces -- what sense is their left in all this talk of 'struggle for existence'? The struggle for existence can then consist only in this: that the producing class takes over the management of production and distribution from the class that was hitherto entrusted with it but has now become incompetent to handle it, and there you have the socialist revolution.

"...Even the mere contemplation of previous history as a series of class struggles suffices to make clear the utter shallowness of the conception of this history as a feeble variety of the 'struggle for existence.' I would therefore never do this favour to these false naturalists....

"6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the 'bellum omnium contra omnes' was the first phase of human development. In my opinion, the social instinct was one of the most essential levers of the evolution of man from the ape. The first man must have lived in bands and as far as we can peer into the past we find that this was the case...." [Engels to Lavrov, 17/11/1875. Spelling altered to conform to UK English.]

The fact that this reactionary view of (human) evolution is now the dominant view should have raised alarm bells for those here who claim to be on the left, as Marx noted:

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.'" [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, pp.64-65, quoted from here.]

It's no surprise, therefore, to see that, since the right-wing reaction of the early 1970s, this reactionary view of humanity now dominates biology and psychology. Nor is it a surprise to see it dominates too the thoughts of erstwhile leftists here.

But what of this:

Richard Dawkins is a drop in the bucket. The left is carrying too many monkeys on its back to have room for yet another academic turned novelist.

More like the tip of an iceberg.

Genes are altruistic. Humans are altruistic beings. Socialism is the natural order of things. Communism represents the highest expression of all human endeavor.

There. Now the left can have its own cake and eat it. Just as silly as the right-wing version

That's your argument, it's not mine, nor is it one that the left should endorse, since it's just as ridiculous to say that genes are 'altruistic' as it is to say they a 'selfish'.

Lynx

28th April 2010, 06:43

But, as I have shown, Dawkins wants to have his cake and eat it. His core theory is at odds with such disclaimers; there is nothing in his system that allows him to free himself from the manipulative influence of his genes. So, this is his genes speaking here, and, because his theory is flawed, we have every reason to ignore his attempt to back-track from the consequences of his core theory.
From the quotes you have posted in this thread, Dawkins begins his book(s) with a series of outrageous claims. If he were to assert these as being literal, he would be dismissed as a lunatic. So he has no choice but to backtrack on his opening salvo.
I choose to believe Dawkins is not a lunatic, therefore he isn't arguing that genes are literally calculating and selfish. So I won't hold him to that standard. I also assume that reading the rest of his book(s) will reveal what he is really trying to convey.
Is his core theory 'gene centered evolution' ?

You misunderstand William James's metaphor: 'cash value' refers to any explanation you might give as to what a metaphor means.

So, if I describe a man/woman as a tiger, I am perhaps referring to his/her fierceness, tenacity and ruthlessness.

But what does Dawkins's metaphor mean? It can't be that DNA, or our genes, are really selfish (even though, as I have shown, he seems to argue this way at times), nor that copies of genes/DNA 'benefit' themselves. A copy of a molecule in no way 'benefits' that molecule.

So, his metaphor has no 'cash value'; it is not possible to explain its meaning -- other than from the fact that he wants (illegitimately) to read into genes human selfishness, and then miraculously derive our selfishness (re-configured as altruistic 'inclusive fitness') from this insertion. In other words, it's a thinly disguised piece of right-wing ideology imposed on evolution, as Engels noted over 100 years ago:
The term 'selfish gene' is probably a misnomer. Either Dawkins started it or it was already being used by colleagues. As suggested earlier, it could have been a way to attract attention to his book and his ideas.

In any case, evolution is governed by physical laws. It has no agenda of its own. Hence there is no struggle, or selfishness, (or whatever adjective of your choice) inherent in any outcome derived from an initial set of conditions, through a series of events, to present day conditions. Such affectations can be discarded.
Saying that certain genes are 'successful' may sound reasonable, but only if you choose to measure 'success' as certain genes being more numerous than others. This is unnecessary.

The fact that this reactionary view of (human) evolution is now the dominant view should have raised alarm bells for those here who claim to be on the left, as Marx noted:
Their rhetoric is certainly dominant, even if the science supposedly backing it up is inconsistent. But who pays attention to scientific details?

It's no surprise, therefore, to see that, since the right-wing reaction of the early 1970s, this reactionary view of humanity now dominates biology and psychology. Nor is it a surprise to see it dominates too the thoughts of erstwhile leftists here.
Are you referring to the promotion of popular science, or of actual research within those fields? Simplistic explanations of complex theories are as much a problem as orthodoxy amongst scientists.
Dawkins ideas are more muddled than right-wingers would have us believe. Their selective quoting would not include the disclaimers, caveats and backtracking that have been revealed here.

But what of this:

More like the tip of an iceberg.
An iceberg comprised of economists. The tip of the iceberg isn't what sank the Titanic.

That's your argument, it's not mine, nor is it one that the left should endorse, since it's just as ridiculous to say that genes are 'altruistic' as it is to say they a 'selfish'.
It is ridiculous, and easy to dismiss. Except, apparently, when right-wingers are endorsing it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th April 2010, 10:14

Lynx:

From the quotes you have posted in this thread, Dawkins begins his book(s) with a series of outrageous claims. If he were to assert these as being literal, he would be dismissed as a lunatic. So he has no choice but to backtrack on his opening salvo.
I choose to believe Dawkins is not a lunatic, therefore he isn't arguing that genes are literally calculating and selfish. So I won't hold him to that standard. I also assume that reading the rest of his book(s) will reveal what he is really trying to convey.
Is his core theory 'gene centered evolution' ?

And yet he tells us this is the main message of his book, which is entitled, after all, The Selfish Gene -- not, please note, the Slightly Selfish Gene.

And I fail to see why you think that if we take what he says literally, he must be a lunatic.

[You sound like those theologians who, in their attempt to defend the book of Genesis in the face of modern science, tell us it's all figurative. In fact, this is how the dialectical mystics here respond when they are confronted with the ridiculous things Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Trotsky have to say.]

Moreover, Dawkins says the same in what he tells us is his most important work, the one he says is proudest of: The Extended Phenotype, which is an academic book, not a popularisation. He repeats this in the Blind Watchmaker, too.

For example:

"The organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)

"...[L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)

This merely underlines what he said in The Selfish Gene:

"The body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)

"We are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)

"The argument of this book is that we and all other animals are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived.... This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour." (SG, p.2)

Bold added.

So, your attempt to 'defend' Dawkins by rejecting what he regards as his core idea is not only unconvincing, it is more disrespectful of Dawkins than anything I have accused him of.

The term 'selfish gene' is probably a misnomer. Either Dawkins started it or it was already being used by colleagues. As suggested earlier, it could have been a way to attract attention to his book and his ideas.

But he has stuck to this idea for over thirty years. What right have you to take this line? Indeed, what quotation from his work can you appeal to that supports your disrespectful interpretation of his work?

In any case, evolution is governed by physical laws. It has no agenda of its own. Hence there is no struggle, or selfishness, (or whatever adjective of your choice) inherent in any outcome derived from an initial set of conditions, through a series of events, to present day conditions. Such affectations can be discarded.
Saying that certain genes are 'successful' may sound reasonable, but only if you choose to measure 'success' as certain genes being more numerous than others. This is unnecessary.

Well, we have already discussed the word 'law' (in an earlier thread) and came to the conclusion that this is either an anthropomorphic term, or it's just a shorthand for a regular series of natural events.

And, I agree with you about 'selfishness' -- but alas as for this thread, Dawkins disagrees with you, and that is why the left is so hard on him.

You really are going to have to do better if you want to endear Dawkins to the left. Persuading us he did not mean to tell us that genes were selfish, when the term is almost synonymous with him, stands about as much a chance of success as if you were to try to tell us that the US did not really mean to accuse the Iraqis of possessing WMD when they decided to invade their country.

Their rhetoric is certainly dominant, even if the science supposedly backing it up is inconsistent. But who pays attention to scientific details?

I'm sorry to have to tell you that this is the dominant paradigm in the biological sciences. It's not just rhetoric.

Are you referring to the promotion of popular science, or of actual research within those fields? Simplistic explanations of complex theories are as much a problem as orthodoxy amongst scientists.

Well, if you ask the biologists here (for example MarxSchmarx) I think you will find that this is the dominant paradigm in research, too. If you read any left-wing books on this (for example the work of Steven Rose), you will see this is not just my impression, either.

Dawkins ideas are more muddled than right-wingers would have us believe. Their selective quoting would not include the disclaimers, caveats and backtracking that have been revealed here

I'm not too sure what you are saying here. Can you word this more clearly, please?

An iceberg comprised of economists. The tip of the iceberg isn't what sank the Titanic.

Eh?:confused:

It is ridiculous, and easy to dismiss. Except, apparently, when right-wingers are endorsing it.

But, my point was directed against your reference to 'altruistic' genes. Are you now suggesting that right-wingers also refer to these?

May I suggest you read through your posts more carefully, since some of the things you say seem to undermine other things you have posted?

soyonstout

28th April 2010, 16:57

If you want to convince religious workers to become communist you must start putting aside religion completely...you will start with practical things and convincing him communism is a practical alternative.

At the end you will be able to say: look mate you believe in god I dont, you see, this makes no practical difference...from here you can go on discussing about more theoretical topics

Well, this is exactly the criticism I have of him. He is an athiest, and that is it. He doesn't believe in any serious change vis a vis human society, but is rather - and quite mystically I might add - obsessed with religion and blames religion for certain issues in the world quite erroneously.

It's not really very meaningful to go on a crusade to teach people about basic scientific issues. What we should be concerned with is the analysis of economics on earth.

Here we go. Revolutionary left forum featuring plentiful discussion of apologists for the status quo, and relatively little discussion of workable alternatives to it. I suspect this is the way the ruling class prefers it.

Firstly, I've only skimmed this thead, but I think that Lynx's concerns have been addressed in the first quote I mentioned. As a former Christian, I really liked the take on religion in this article: (en.internationalism.org/ir/110_religion.html)

Which quotes Lenin at length about the counter-productivity of attempts to convert believers to atheism. In two works, (Socialism and Religion, and The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion) Lenin stressed the need to unite workers on the basis of their economic class interests, rather than dividing them as religious/non-religious. Stressing the basic Marxist principle that religion doesn't exist because people are dumb, confused, ignorant, uneducated, etc., but because people are made to feel powerless. Religion will not disappear until people cease to be powerless and have control over their lives and their society.

No amount of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven”

Against bourgeois idealists who said that the reason people were religious was because they were just ignorant, Lenin said:

“The marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois uplifters. It does not explain the roots of religion profoundly enough; it explains them, not in a materialist but in an idealist way. In modern capitalist countries these roots are mainly social. The deepest root of religion today is the socially downtrodden condition of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blind forces of capitalism, which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events, such as wars, earthquakes, etc.
“'Fear made the gods'. Fear of the blind force of capital - blind because it cannot be foreseen by the masses of the people - a force which at every step in the life of the proletarian and small proprietor threatens to inflict, and does inflict 'sudden', 'unexpected', 'accidental' ruin, destruction, pauperism, prostitution, death from starvation - such is the root of modern religion which the materialist must bear in mind first and foremost, if he does not want to remain an infant-school materialist. No educational book can eradicate religion from the minds of masses who are crushed by capitalist hard labour, and who are at the mercy of the blind destructive forces of capitalism, until those masses themselves learn to fight this root of religion, fight the rule of capital in all its forms, in a united, organised, planned and conscious way.
“Does this mean that educational books against religion are harmful or unnecessary? No, nothing of the kind. It means that Social Democracy's atheist propaganda must be subordinated to its basic task - the development of the class struggle of the exploited masses against the exploiters”

I once read (and I don't remember where), that religion cannot be forcibly suppressed; it must be positively superceded. And this is I think what bothers me (and perhaps many interested in Marxism) about what seems to be Dawkins' approach at least on the question of religion.

I have not read Dawkins so perhaps I shouldn't speak at all, but I don't think he has a way to materially combat religious obscurantism and so choses an idealist method of combat to try to convince people not to be religious anymore in the hopes that once this is done we can then work out a society free from war, etc.--much like Feuerbach, actually. Doing this only leads people to cling more tightly to religion as they feel it is under attack. Certainly communists should not hide their atheism, but in terms of the class struggle it's really secondary. The more the working class can unite under its own struggles on its own terms, and see the power that it has in the real world, the more religion diminishes in importance--this process is concluded when the workers are actually running the world, preventing the economic anarchy and the blind rule of capital that makes people feel so powerless, and actually empowering themselves to determine the course of society and their own lives individually. At that point religion loses its raison d'etre and will have less and less pull on people so that the next generations will eventually discard it.

By splitting people (and especially workers) into these categories that supposedly each want to destroy the others' way of life and freedoms, I think Dawkins has a negative affect on the class struggle--perhaps I'm erring too much on the side of economism, but that's generally what I think about the publicity around him and kind of his whole media campaign.

I can't speak to the validity or non-validity of his biological ideas or method.

Lynx

28th April 2010, 18:30

And yet he tells us this is the main message of his book, which is entitled, after all, The Selfish Gene -- not, please note, the Slightly Selfish Gene.

And I fail to see why you think that if we take what he says literally, he must be a lunatic.
Well, let's see...

"The organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)
"...[L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)
"The body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)
"We are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)
If taken literally, this means that genes possess an agenda and that living organisms or phenotypes exist to serve that agenda. This is absurd.

Do mechanical devices exist to serve the purposes of the nuts & bolts that comprise them? Is obsolete machinery evidence of nuts & bolts selfishness?

Genes are more 'persistent' than genotypes. That is all. It is a natural consequence of the building blocks of life being shared amongst all living things.

"The argument of this book is that we and all other animals are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived.... This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour." (SG, p.2)
Same as above. Attributing the supposed traits of genes onto behavior is what? Reverse Lamarckism??

So, your attempt to 'defend' Dawkins by rejecting what he regards as his core idea is not only unconvincing, it is more disrespectful of Dawkins than anything I have accused him of.
I don't believe defending him from being viewed as a nutter is disrespectful. If he believes what he says literally, then I won't defend him, at least not on those points.

But he has stuck to this idea for over thirty years. What right have you to take this line? Indeed, what quotation from his work can you appeal to that supports your disrespectful interpretation of his work?
It seems to have been the proponents of 'gene centered evolution' who came up with this misnomer for lack of a better word. Many years later we all have to live with it thanks to popular usage.

Well, we have already discussed the word 'law' (in an earlier thread) and came to the conclusion that this is either an anthropomorphic term, or it's just a shorthand for a regular series of natural events.
Yes.

And, I agree with you about 'selfishness' -- but alas as for this thread, Dawkins disagrees with you, and that is why the left is so hard on him.
Why be hard on him? Disprove his theories, then dismiss them.

You really are going to have to do better if you want to endear Dawkins to the left. Persuading us he did not mean to tell us that genes were selfish, when the term is almost synonymous with him, stands about as much a chance of success as if you were to try to tell us that the US did not really mean to accuse the Iraqis of possessing WMD when they decided to invade their country.
Well, he either means it literally, or doesn't, or waffles between the two. Which is it and when is it? Our interpretation of his work will stem from that. As for myself, I haven't read his books. When examining selected quotes, one has to be careful not to accept them at face value. Those doing the selecting may have ulterior motives.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that this is the dominant paradigm in the biological sciences. It's not just rhetoric.
Obviously, since rhetoric does not amount to science. Where is the science? Behind closed doors? Tucked away in lengthy, dry, technical journals few people read?

Well, if you ask the biologists here (for example MarxSchmarx) I think you will find that this is the dominant paradigm in research, too. If you read any left-wing books on this (for example the work of Steven Rose), you will see this is not just my impression, either.
I would assume that researchers are working on a much broader field of inquiry. It would be incredibly wasteful to focus on only those things that are familiar to the casual reader.

I'm not too sure what you are saying here. Can you word this more clearly, please?
It means that apologists for the status quo will only quote those parts of Dawkins work that fit with the message they wish to convey. They will present a clear and consistent message, and hope the reader will accept it at face value. In a word, propaganda. I would not hold Dawkins responsible for this.

Eh?:confused:
It was economists who sank socialism, along with heterodox economic models. "Socialism doesn't work" is the work of these underwater devils.

But, my point was directed against your reference to 'altruistic' genes. Are you now suggesting that right-wingers also refer to these?
Sorry, they endorse their version of it.
If saying that genes are altruistic or selfish is ridiculous then why is the right-wing position taken seriously? If it is ridiculous then it can be dismissed.

Lynx

28th April 2010, 18:41

I strongly agree with Lenin on the approach to be taken with regard to religion.

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th April 2010, 05:57

Lynx:

If taken literally, this means that genes possess an agenda and that living organisms or phenotypes exist to serve that agenda. This is absurd.

I agree, but if you are trying to rescue Dawkins from his own foolishness (and sloppy thought) in this way, it won't wash, and for the reasons I have already set out:

And yet he tells us this is the main message of his book, which is entitled, after all, The Selfish Gene -- not, please note, the Slightly Selfish Gene.

Moreover, Dawkins says the same in what he tells us is his most important work, the one he says is proudest of: The Extended Phenotype, which is an academic book, not a popularisation. He repeats this in the Blind Watchmaker, too.

If you make what he says figurative, you eviscerate his book, and make much of what he says ridiculous.

After all, why tell us we can 'rebel against our selfish genes' if the latter term is merely figurative? If it is figurative, we have nothing to rebel against!

Moreover, if his ideas about selfish genes are figurative, why try and explain altruism as just the effect of our selfish genes working through inclusive fitness? In this case, altruism will be what it seems to be --, i.e., genuine -- since figuratively selfish genes cannot have a causal influence on the inclusive fitness of a gene pool.

I don't believe defending him from being viewed as a nutter is disrespectful. If he believes what he says literally, then I won't defend him, at least not on those point

Well, can you point to anything he has said that shows he thought he was speaking figuratively when he said things like this (many times over)

"The organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)

"...[L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)

"The body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)

"We are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)

"The argument of this book is that we and all other animals are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived.... This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour." (SG, p.2)

You:

Why be hard on him? Disprove his theories, then dismiss them.

Check out the title of this thread, and you'll see why I am being so hard on him.

And, it's not a matter of 'disproving' this theory here, since I'm not a biologist; all I am doing is exposing the bourgeois ideology his work contains.

Well, he either means it literally, or doesn't, or waffles between the two. Which is it and when is it? Our interpretation of his work will stem from that. As for myself, I haven't read his books. When examining selected quotes, one has to be careful not to accept them at face value. Those doing the selecting may have ulterior motives.

Well, I prefer to believe Marx when he said that the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class, and in bourgeois society one of these ruling ideas is that we are all selfish. Another is, as Engels points out, that ruthless competition drives human evolution. Dawkins, like Darwin and many others before him have simply looked at bourgeois society, and reflected it in his/their theory -- as he admits:

"The argument of this book is that we and all other animals are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived.... This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour." (SG, p.2)

You:

Obviously, since rhetoric does not amount to science. Where is the science? Behind closed doors? Tucked away in lengthy, dry, technical journals few people read?

But this ideology directs research and how it is interpreted (and what can be published).

It means that apologists for the status quo will only quote those parts of Dawkins work that fit with the message they wish to convey. They will present a clear and consistent message, and hope the reader will accept it at face value. In a word, propaganda. I would not hold Dawkins responsible for this.

In that case, one would have expected him to have removed the 'offending' passages in later editions, but he didn't. In fact, he re-iterated them in his subsequent work. So, he might not be responsible for what others make of his books, but he is responsible for the reactionary ideas they contain, and that is all I need for the purposes of this thread -- which is 'Why is the left hostile to RD?' not "Why is the left hostile to Dawkins's interpreters?'

If saying that genes are altruistic or selfish is ridiculous then why is the right-wing position taken seriously? If it is ridiculous then it can be dismissed.

I agree with you, but when have right-wingers ever listened to us?

Lynx

30th April 2010, 13:01

I agree, but if you are trying to rescue Dawkins from his own foolishness (and sloppy thought) in this way, it won't wash, and for the reasons I have already set out:

If you make what he says figurative, you eviscerate his book, and make much of what he says ridiculous.
I don't believe dismissing these quotes (or the title) makes everything he says in his books figurative, or ridiculous. I have no doubt that the hundreds of other pages are intended to explain what he "really means".

After all, why tell us we can 'rebel against our selfish genes' if the latter term is merely figurative? If it is figurative, we have nothing to rebel against!
It's been suggested that the term 'selfish gene' is a misnomer.

From the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene) on The Selfish Gene:

In describing genes as being "selfish", the author does not intend (as he states unequivocally in the work) to imply that they are driven by any motives or will—merely that their effects can be accurately described as if they were. The contention is that the genes that get passed on are the ones whose consequences serve their own implicit interests (to continue being replicated), not necessarily those of the organism, much less any larger level.

This view explains altruism at the individual level in nature, especially in kin relationships: when an individual sacrifices its own life to protect the lives of kin, it is acting in the interest of its own genes. Some people find this metaphor entirely clear, while others find it confusing, misleading or simply redundant to ascribe mental attributes to something that is mindless. For example, Andrew Brown has written:

"Selfish", when applied to genes, doesn't mean "selfish" at all. It means, instead, an extremely important quality for which there is no good word in the English language: "the quality of being copied by a Darwinian selection process." This is a complicated mouthful. There ought to be a better, shorter word—but "selfish" isn't it.[1]
Whereas the term 'selfish gene' is a misnomer and the expanded version is figurative. Which brings us to...

Moreover, if his ideas about selfish genes are figurative, why try and explain altruism as just the effect of our selfish genes working through inclusive fitness? In this case, altruism will be what it seems to be --, i.e., genuine -- since figuratively selfish genes cannot have a causal influence on the inclusive fitness of a gene pool.
Because he believes that the gene is the principle unit of selection in evolution? Here are two quotes that are decidedly non-figurative:

In his scientific works, Dawkins is best known for his popularization of the gene-centered view of evolution. This view is most clearly set out in his books The Selfish Gene (1976), where he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities", and The Extended Phenotype (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other".
^emphasis in bold added

Well, can you point to anything he has said that shows he thought he was speaking figuratively when he said things like this (many times over)
No, I would have to read his books in order to do that. Nevertheless, other readers have been able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

From the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-centered_view_of_evolution) on the Gene-centered view of evolution:

Writing in the New York Review of Books, Stephen Jay Gould has characterized the gene-centered perspective as confusing book-keeping with causality. Gould views selection as working on many levels, and has called attention to a hierarchical perspective of selection. Gould also called the claims on Selfish Gene "strict adaptationism", "ultra-Darwinism", and "Darwinian fundamentalism", describing them as excessively "reductionist". He saw the theory as leading to a simplistic "algorithmic" theory of evolution, or even to the re-introduction of a teleological principle.

Gould also addressed the issue of selfish genes in his essay 'Caring groups and selfish genes'. Gould acknowledged that Dawkins was not imputing conscious action to genes, but simply using shorthand metaphor commonly found in evolutionary writings. To Gould, the fatal flaw was that "no matter how much power Dawkins wishes to assign to genes, there is one thing that he cannot give them - direct visibility to natural selection" (Gould, 1990. p. 76). Rather, the unit of selection is the phenotype, not the genotype, because it is phenotypes which interact with the environment at the natural selection interface. So, in Kim Sterelny's (2007, p. 83) summation of Gould's view: "gene differences do not cause evolutionary changes in populations, they register those changes". The problem, however, with this criticism is that if it is a good argument against the gene-centered view of evolution, it is a good argument against the whole of Mendelian genetics. Genes do "blend", as far as their effects on developing phenotypes are concerned. But, they do not blend as they replicate and recombine down the generations. Richard Dawkins explained in a later book, The Extended Phenotype, that Gould confused particulate genetics with particulate embryology.

Since Gould's death in 2002, Niles Eldredge (2004) has continued with counter-arguments to gene-centered natural selection. Eldredge notes that in Dawkins' book A Devil's Chaplain, which was published just before Eldredge's book, "Richard Dawkins comments on what he sees as the main difference between his position and that of the late Stephen Jay Gould. He concludes that it is his own vision that genes play a causal role in evolution", while Gould (and Eldredge) "sees genes as passive recorders of what worked better than what" (p. 233).
^ bold emphasis added

Well, I prefer to believe Marx when he said that the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class, and in bourgeois society one of these ruling ideas is that we are all selfish. Another is, as Engels points out, that ruthless competition drives human evolution. Dawkins, like Darwin and many others before him have simply looked at bourgeois society, and reflected it in his/their theory -- as he admits:
Only the first sentence is debatable - the rest of the quote (Dawkins) is a load of tosh. The only ideas of the ruling class I'm concerned with are those that have merit or are applicable to socialism, as in, whether socialism can work. If there are aspects of human behavior that are compatible or incompatible with socialism we should learn about them.

But this ideology directs research and how it is interpreted (and what can be published).
I doubt that biologists are studying competition and ignoring other forms of biological interaction. I doubt they believe genes are selfish or that all people are walking-talking selfish gene machines.
I do not doubt they are starved for funds and forced to play politics with 'colleagues' and those who hold the purse strings.

In that case, one would have expected him to have removed the 'offending' passages in later editions, but he didn't. In fact, he re-iterated them in his subsequent work. So, he might not be responsible for what others make of his books, but he is responsible for the reactionary ideas they contain, and that is all I need for the purposes of this thread -- which is 'Why is the left hostile to RD?' not "Why is the left hostile to Dawkins's interpreters?'
His reactionary ideas - the claims most often quoted in this thread - cannot be taken literally. As James might say: they have no cash value. The real argument seems to be whether the gene is the principal unit of selection, and how evolution can be explained from a gene-centered perspective. These are more mundane topics, it seems to me, and lesser quoted.

I agree with you, but when have right-wingers ever listened to us?
I expect right-wingers to defend and promote their worldview.
I expect the undecided and the open-minded to listen.

Lynx

30th April 2010, 13:44

In describing genes as being "selfish", the author does not intend (as he states unequivocally in the work) to imply that they are driven by any motives or will—merely that their effects can be accurately described as if they were.
Dawkins forgot to add "it's as if":

"It's as if the organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)
"...it's as if [L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)
"It's as if the body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)
"It's as if we are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th April 2010, 22:57

Lynx:

I don't believe dismissing these quotes (or the title) makes everything he says in his books figurative, or ridiculous. I have no doubt that the hundreds of other pages are intended to explain what he "really means".

But until you find such passages this is an empty hope on your part; worse, until you do, my point still stands.

It's been suggested that the term 'selfish gene' is a misnomer.

I agree with you, but alas for you Dawkins does not.

And thanks for the Wikipedia quote, but I dealt with this type of response in my reply to Noxion.

^emphasis in bold added

Thanks, but I fail to see how this deals with the points I made in my replies to Noxion, or to you.

And thanks for the other quotations, too, but I fail to see their relevance to anything i have said (even the highlighted sections).

Only the first sentence is debatable - the rest of the quote (Dawkins) is a load of tosh. The only ideas of the ruling class I'm concerned with are those that have merit or are applicable to socialism, as in, whether socialism can work. If there are aspects of human behavior that are compatible or incompatible with socialism we should learn about them.

Fine, but that just tells me that Marx (and I) have wider interests than you.

I doubt that biologists are studying competition and ignoring other forms of biological interaction. I doubt they believe genes are selfish or that all people are walking-talking selfish gene machines.

I do not doubt they are starved for funds and forced to play politics with 'colleagues' and those who hold the purse strings.

My impression is the opposite of this; you can ask MarxSchmarx, or any other biologist who posts here, if my impression is wide of the mark. In fact, if you read lefty books on this (by Steven Rose, for example), you will soon see that impression is quite accurate.

His reactionary ideas - the claims most often quoted in this thread - cannot be taken literally. As James might say: they have no cash value. The real argument seems to be whether the gene is the principal unit of selection, and how evolution can be explained from a gene-centered perspective. These are more mundane topics, it seems to me, and lesser quoted

Well, you (and others) keep saying this, but you have yet to tell us what the 'figurative meaning' of this alleged metaphor is, or how a figurative account can cope with points I made earlier (in addition to those I made against Noxion):

I agree, but if you are trying to rescue Dawkins from his own foolishness (and sloppy thought) in this way, it won't wash, and for the reasons I have already set out:

And yet he tells us this is the main message of his book, which is entitled, after all, The Selfish Gene -- not, please note, the Slightly Selfish Gene.

Moreover, Dawkins says the same in what he tells us is his most important work, the one he says is proudest of: The Extended Phenotype, which is an academic book, not a popularisation. He repeats this in the Blind Watchmaker, too.

If you make what he says figurative, you eviscerate his book, and make much of what he says ridiculous.

After all, why tell us we can 'rebel against our selfish genes' if the latter term is merely figurative? If it is figurative, we have nothing to rebel against!

Moreover, if his ideas about selfish genes are figurative, why try and explain altruism as just the effect of our selfish genes working through inclusive fitness? In this case, altruism will be what it seems to be --, i.e., genuine -- since figuratively selfish genes cannot have a causal influence on the inclusive fitness of a gene pool.

You:

I expect right-wingers to defend and promote their worldview.
I expect the undecided and the open-minded to listen.

I have to say, I never reckoned you were naive....:(

Lynx

1st May 2010, 14:06

But until you find such passages this is an empty hope on your part; worse, until you do, my point still stands.
It's what I won't find that is important - sufficient evidence for those outrageous quotes to be taken literally.

And thanks for the Wikipedia quote, but I dealt with this type of response in my reply to Noxion.

Thanks, but I fail to see how this deals with the points I made in my replies to Noxion, or to you.

And thanks for the other quotations, too, but I fail to see their relevance to anything i have said (even the highlighted sections).
They show that Gould 'acknowledged' that Dawkins was speaking metaphorically (as is common amongst biologists, apparently) and that his real argument was centered on the gene being the unit of natural selection. And then you have Dawkins describing the difference between his view and that of Gould's.

Considerably less sensational, wouldn't you say?

Fine, but that just tells me that Marx (and I) have wider interests than you.
If socialism cannot be made to work it is of no use. What wider interests do you have?

My impression is the opposite of this; you can ask MarxSchmarx, or any other biologist who posts here, if my impression is wide of the mark. In fact, if you read lefty books on this (by Steven Rose, for example), you will soon see that impression is quite accurate.
What is your impression? That the biological sciences are stagnating and/or it is dominated by status quo ideology?

Well, you (and others) keep saying this, but you have yet to tell us what the 'figurative meaning' of this alleged metaphor is, or how a figurative account can cope with points I made earlier (in addition to those I made against Noxion):
I don't believe they have any meaning beyond helping him sell more books. I cannot help it if Gould et al. never take him to task for including those statements. They are put aside.
As for the title, it is a misnomer and you have to refer to the expanded version of the term, as quoted earlier, if you wish to know what it's supposed to mean.

I have to say, I never reckoned you were naive....:(
Why? The undecided and open-minded are not extinct.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

6th May 2010, 17:02

I've decided Rosa is right actually, we're all just not grasping what she's trying to say.

Alaric

13th May 2010, 09:08

Because:

1) His 'theory' is demonstrably false when it is applied to human beings. Here is an article from a few years back, written by an atheist (so he is no friend of the creationists), on this:

http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/ar...ticle.php?id=26 (http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/articles/article.php?id=26)

2) His ideas have clear right wing implications.

The scientific objections of this man seem in some particulars absurd and downright goofy. Dawkins might be wrong about some specifics of evolution's mechanics, but that doesn't suggest anything about politics at all in any sense.

The world of animals is a world of competing genes, however the mechanism works. The human world is one of competing social systems vis-à-vis states and political ideas, evolving via popular selection and the synthesis of new ideas. Even our friend Communism has evolved, with newer, better strains popping up in Latin America and Nepal. But unlike biological evolution, this form can, someday, end in a state of near-ideal equilibrium.

Hopefully if the gene-centered evolutionary theory is wrong it will be disproven.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th May 2010, 13:49

Alaric:

The scientific objections of this man seem in some particulars absurd and downright goofy. Dawkins might be wrong about some specifics of evolution's mechanics, but that doesn't suggest anything about politics at all in any sense.

1) You need to recall that he was merely summarising only a part of his book.

2) This article was published in a philosophical not a scientific journal; he was raising philosophical objections to Darwinism applied to human beings.

3) You need to read my posts above to see why I think Dawkins had (perhaps inadvertently) introduced right-wing ideology into his theory.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th May 2010, 14:28

Lynx:

It's what I won't find that is important - sufficient evidence for those outrageous quotes to be taken literally.

And yet you have totally failed to tell us what the alleged non-literal meaning of his theory is (in the face of Dawkin's very clear and oft-repeated claims that imply he was being quite literal in what he said).

Compare this with what he says in his latest book (taking to task a bishop, who had been rather cavalier in what he said about science, religion and creationism):

"If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely 'symbolic' meaning.... They will add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally.

"Shouldn't you take greater care, when speaking in public, to let your yea be yea and your nay be nay?" [Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth (2009), p.8. Bold added.]

It seems to me that you are doing the first of the above, while Dawkins himself is guilty of not taking his own advice (in the second paragraph).

They show that Gould 'acknowledged' that Dawkins was speaking metaphorically (as is common amongst biologists, apparently) and that his real argument was centered on the gene being the unit of natural selection. And then you have Dawkins describing the difference between his view and that of Gould's.

But, the metaphor ('selfish gene') is inapt, as I have shown.

You have to ask youself why he chose this inapt metaphor. Now, you are probably too young to recall the ideological battles that were raging in the 1970s (particularly in the UK), but I'm not. After a period of the ascendancy of left-wing and Marxist ideas (say, mid-1950s-early 1970s), and after ten years of significant trade union militancy (in the UK, Europe, the USA, Japan, etc.), the right mounted a concerted counter-attack -- politically, as part of Thatcherism in the UK, then Reaganism in the US.

There was also a counter-attack in science (you can read up on this if you research left-wing books on science published in the 1970s and early 1980s; you can find most of this material referenced in Barker's book; see below) that aimed at showing human beings were 1) Naturally selfish, 2) Naturally sexist, or, at the extreme end, 3) Naturally racist (or that certain races had 'lower IQs').

[Some of the background to this can be found in Martin Barker's book The New Racism (Junction Books, 1981), particularly chapter 5, 'Biology and the New Racism', chapter 6, 'Is sociobiology so special?', and chapter 7 'Why sociobiology becomes ideology', which covers Dawkins (among others) and the aforementioned 'counter-attack'. I highly recommend this book.]

It was in this climate that Dawkins published 'The Selfish Gene'. Now he was being either extremely naive or suicidally stupid to publish such a book at that time and yet (later) claim he wasn't part of this 'New Racism'.

So, you have to look at this book in that wider context.

That the biological sciences are stagnating and/or it is dominated by status quo ideology?

If Marx was right, they can't escape it (this side of a revolution).

Tribune

17th May 2010, 14:43

In the preface of his book The God Delusion he says that if there was no religion there would be no "Israeli/Palestinian wars" or "Troubles." That was enough for me. His arguments against religion have been put forth much better by different people (like J.L. Mackie). He along with the internet atheist cult he has spawned seem to take much more energy in combating religion than class society. I haven't read his scientific work though so I can't comment on that.

If Dawkins really wrote that, he's more of an ass than I thought.

Israel state oppression and expropriation of Palestinian land and labor depends upon Israeli need for water, cheap labor, foreign enemies and colonial expansion.

[Hell, Michael Klare has already demonstrated (Resource Wars) the water war underpinning Israeli expansion into the near West Bank, since the Palestinians sit atop the only reliable aquifer in the region.]

Not upon the topically religious justifications used to explain policies after the fact, or to justify them to inordinately religious loyalists.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

18th May 2010, 18:07

If Dawkins really wrote that, he's more of an ass than I thought.

Israel state oppression and expropriation of Palestinian land and labor depends upon Israeli need for water, cheap labor, foreign enemies and colonial expansion.

[Hell, Michael Klare has already demonstrated (Resource Wars) the water war underpinning Israeli expansion into the near West Bank, since the Palestinians sit atop the only reliable aquifer in the region.]

Not upon the topically religious justifications used to explain policies after the fact, or to justify them to inordinately religious loyalists.

That may be the the reason for Israel's ongoing existence, but that doesn't explain why it's there in the first place. If it's water you want, there are many places better than Palestine to settle.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th May 2010, 22:14

Comrades might be interested in this review by Richard Lewontin of Jerry Fodor's recent book attacking Darwinism:

Not So Natural Selection

by Richard C. Lewontin
(New York Review of Books
MAY 27, 2010)

What Darwin Got Wrong
by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 264 pp., $26.00

Nothing creates more misunderstanding of the results of scientific research than scientists' use of metaphors. It is not only the general public that they confuse, but their own understanding of nature that is led astray. The most famous and influential example is Darwin's invention of the term "natural selection," which, he wrote in On the Origin of Species,

is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good...

Darwin, quite explicitly, derived this understanding of the motivating force underlying evolution from the actions of plant and animal breeders who consciously choose variant individuals with desirable properties to breed for future generations. "Natural" selection is human selection writ large. But of course, whatever "nature" may be, it is not a sentient creature with a will, and any attempt to understand the actual operation of evolutionary processes must be freed of its metaphorical baggage. Unfortunately, even modern evolutionary biologists, as well as theorists of human social and psychological phenomena who have used organic evolution as a model for general theories of their own subjects, are not always conscious of the dangers of the metaphor. Alfred Russel Wallace, the coinventor of our understanding of evolution, wrote to Darwin in July 1866 warning him that even "intelligent persons" were taking the metaphor literally.

The modern skeletal formulation of evolution by natural selection consists of three principles that provide a purely mechanical basis for evolutionary change, stripped of its metaphorical elements:

(1) The principle of variation: among individuals in a population there is variation in form, physiology, and behavior.

(2) The principle of heredity: offspring resemble their parents more than they resemble unrelated individuals.

(3) The principle of differential reproduction: in a given environment, some forms are more likely to survive and produce more offspring than other forms.

Evolutionary change is then the mechanical consequence of variation in heritable differences between individuals whenever those differences are accompanied by differences in survival and reproduction. The evolution that can occur is limited by the available genetic variation, so in order to explain long-term continued evolution of quite new forms we must also add a fourth principle:

(4) The principle of mutation: new heritable variation is constantly occurring.

The trouble with this outline is that it does not explain the actual forms of life that have evolved. There is an immense amount of biology that is missing. It says nothing about why organisms with the evolved characteristic were more likely to survive or reproduce than those with the original one. Why, when vertebrates evolved wings, did they have to give up their front legs to do it? After all, insects can have two pairs of wings and six legs, so there cannot be any deep general biological constraint on development. Why don't birds that live in trees make a living by eating the leaves as countless forms of insects do instead of spending so much of their energy looking for seeds or worms? Perhaps possessing characteristic A rather than B was just a secondary consequence of a different developmental or biochemical property that was variable and heritable. Or perhaps characteristic A was the only available variation that differentiated the selected from the unselected organisms. It is these considerations that lie at the heart of Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's discussion of What Darwin Got Wrong.1

Evolutionary biologists are of two sorts. A minority really do not care why one inherited characteristic confers a reproductive advantage to its possessors. They are content to show that such an advantage exists for a particular inherited difference, thus exemplifying natural selection. The dominant figure in experimental and observational evolutionary genetics in the middle of the last century, Theodosius Dobzhansky, spent most of his life showing convincingly from observations of both natural and experimental laboratory populations that natural selection was the cause of both the year-to-year stability and the repeatable seasonal changes in the proportions of certain variants in the chromosomes in natural populations of fruitflies.

Despite spending time every year on horseback, visiting localities in the Great Basin and California where he trapped fruitflies, Dobzhansky never, in fact, saw a fruitfly in its native condition. He collected living flies by putting out rotting banana traps, so the flies came to him, but from where he never knew. When flies were brought back to the laboratory and bred in large populations in which the proportions of the chromosome types were initially very different from the ones found in nature, those proportions changed in repeatable ways in a few generations. It was sufficient for him to be able to demonstrate that natural selection really worked.

In contrast, most evolutionary biologists work on natural populations of plants or animals that they have chosen because they believe they can tell a natural historical story of how selection actually operates in a particular case. The most famous example is the increase in the black form of the wings in the peppered moth that has occurred in England since the mid-nineteenth century. The explanation offered and repeatedly appearing in textbooks (although since called into question because of faulty methodology) was that the moths rested on tree trunks where they were at risk of being eaten by birds. Before the spread of heavy industry the tree trunks were covered with lichens whose speckled appearance was matched closely by the "peppered" appearance of the moth's wings, so the camouflaged moths were only occasionally attacked. With the air pollution caused by heavy industry, the lichens were killed, so the moths were easily visible on the naked dark bark and were heavily preyed upon. A mutation to black wings appeared and was strongly favored by natural selection since the black-winged forms were now once again camouflaged.

There is little doubt that this example, widely taught in lectures and textbooks, had a powerful influence in convincing evolutionary biologists who came into the field from their prior interest in natural history that one could tell the causal story of natural selection. One unfortunate feature of this case is that the caterpillars of the dark-winged forms also have a slightly higher survival rate than those of the speckled-wing form, even though they are not black, so something more is going on, but this fact is not part of the curriculum.

The interest of modern evolutionary biologists in natural historical stories is partly a reflection of the origin of the science in the genteel nineteenth-century fascination with nature that characterized men of Darwin's social circumstances. The country curate who is an amateur collector of butterflies is a cliche of Victorian life. The success of evolutionary biology as an explanatory scheme for its proper subject matter has led, in more recent times, to an attempt to transfer that scheme to a variety of other intellectual fields that cry out for systematic explanatory structure. As Hegel lamented in The Philosophy of History, "Instead of writing history, we are always beating our brains to discover how history ought to be written."

One answer has been to transfer the formal elements of variation and natural selection to other aspects of human activity. It is by no means an anomaly that one of the authors of What Darwin Got Wrong comes to the subject from cognitive studies and linguistics. We have evolutionary schemes for history, psychology, culture, economics, political structures, and languages. The result has been that the telling of a plausible evolutionary story without any possibility of critical and empirical verification has become an accepted mode of intellectual work even in natural science.

The central claim of What Darwin Got Wrong is that "Darwin's theory of selection is empty" (their italics). That is, to say that some trait was the object of natural selection and was established by the force of selection for that trait is to say nothing. If this seems a perverse claim, an example is helpful. There is a species of wild mouse that lives on both dark and light backgrounds. In the populations on light backgrounds the mice have what we think of as a "normal" mousy light brown color. The populations on dark backgrounds, however, are much darker colored. An evolutionary adaptationist argument that has been offered is that a mutation to a dark coat was favored by natural selection when it occurred in the population living on the dark surface because predators could not see the dark mice as well and so these mice survived better and eventually the gene for dark coats took over the population.

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini would argue that one cannot simply isolate coat color as the object of natural selection. They discuss the large body of evidence in many organisms of a number of complexities at the molecular, cellular, developmental, and physiological level that need to be taken into account as well.

First, the proteins that result from the processing of genetic information may enter into multiple metabolic and developmental pathways. From the earliest days of experimental genetics it was known that mutations that had been detected from a change in some obvious feature of an organism also affected other outcomes of the organism's development and metabolism. For example, it is almost always the case that a mutation in fruitflies affecting any morphological character also reduces the rate of survival of the larvae, i.e., the worm-like early stages of development. So, any mutations that alter the normal dark red eye color of adult flies, making it bright red or orange or colorless, will also result in lower survival rates of larvae, even though they have no eyes.

The causes of a reduction in survival in larvae that results from mutations with obvious visible effects in adults must be as varied as the morphological character in question, and it would require a detailed examination of the process of fruitfly development to elucidate. It is precisely this phenomenon that compromises the elegant natural historical story about the industrial dark color of the peppered moth or the story about predation in the dark-colored mice. Is it the dark coat and not some other metabolic product that is changed in dark-coated mice and that is responsible for their greater success in reproduction? Perhaps the mice with dark coats are also more fertile or better able to digest their food.

It is, of course, not true that every process in a living organism interacts strongly with every other process. If interaction were both universal and effective, the organism would be so inflexible as to make life impossible and no evolutionary change could ever occur. The intensity of interaction between parts is also strongly dependent on the circumstances of life. Were I to lose the little finger of my left hand it would have little effect on my life, but if I were a cellist it would be a catastrophe. Thus it matters to the result of natural selection which of the possible multiple pathways of protein metabolism and interaction exist in each kind of organism.

Second, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini point out that there are molecular interdependencies that arise from the fact that genes are organized onto long thread-like chromosomes. The translation of a gene that is the first step in the process of producing a protein is sensitive to changes in DNA that is nearby on the chromosome strand, so that several genes of quite different specificity can be affected by the same change in the chromosome.

Third, the organization of genes onto the chromosomes in the cell means that when an offspring has inherited a particular form of one gene from a parent, it will also, with high probability, inherit the forms of a number of other genes that lie nearby on the same chromosome strand in that parent. It takes many generations for such historical linkages between genes on the same chromosome to be dissolved. Therefore selection on one function may result in inherited changes in other functions.

While Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini put considerable weight on these actual functional interactions in organisms, the main issue for them has to do with how we describe the actual objects of selection. If we are to describe what is going on in nature as "natural selection," then we must remember that it is not traits that are selected but organisms; the traits they possess as properties will determine what their contribution will be to the next generation. This is not an idle distinction because organisms will be "selected" as a consequence of their total biology. In our example we say that dark-colored mice are selected over light-colored mice. But not all dark-colored mice are candidates for natural selection because some of them might be sterile, or have a poor sense of smell, or any other of a vast list of properties that organisms may possess, and those properties may work against the survival of their offspring and thus their natural selection.

Moreover, an alternative way that selection might have acted is by selecting mice that were active only after dark when the predators could not see them, in which case color would be irrelevant. The fact that no such mice happened to exist at the time certainly does not rule out that they might have come into existence. Thus, to give a correct description of the objects of selection we would have to say that what was selected were mice that were dark-colored and not nocturnal. But suppose the mice could make a loud screaming noise that would frighten away predators. Then too, their color would be irrelevant so the correct statement is that what was selected were mice that were dark-colored and not nocturnal and made squeaky noises. We cannot stop there. According to Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini our specification of what kind of mice were selected properly includes an infinite number of descriptors that take into account all the actual properties of our selected mice. This logic would then include that the mice are smaller than Manhattan.2

The authors are driven to this by a logical necessity because we must, in fact, implicitly take into consideration why it was mice of a certain coat color and not, say, of a particular diurnal activity that were selected. If we are to understand the actual path of evolutionary change, the lack of variation in certain traits is of as much importance as the presence of variation in others. In fact, it often happens that artificial selection in the laboratory for a particular trait when replicated in different genetic strains results, in addition to the trait being directly selected, in different changes in other characteristics in the different lines. This is because in different strains genetic variation for different hitchhiking traits is present on the same chromosome as the genes influencing the directly selected trait.

One way to escape from the logical necessity of an impossibly complete specification of the actual living objects that are selected is to stop talking about "selection for" certain kinds of organisms and refer only to "selection of" the trait or traits that actually change as a result of the process of differential reproduction.3 It is certainly true in artificial selection experiments that you don't always get what you asked for and there is no reason why the differential reproductive success in nature of different types that we call "natural selection" should not produce the same result. This alternative, however, will make most evolutionary biologists very uncomfortable, because they want to provide narratives of what is really happening to the different sorts of creatures in nature.

A major issue to which Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini give insufficient attention is the concept of "adaptation." They point out, correctly, that every living creature must be in some sort of adaptive correspondence to its conditions of life or else it would be dead, so the fact of apparent adaptation of living organisms to the world they inhabit is hardly a surprise. But the "adaptation of organisms to their environment" is a characterization of the relation between organism and environment that misses half the story. It is based on the metaphor of the "ecological niche," a preexistent way of making a living into which organisms must fit or die. But there is an infinity of ways that organisms might make a living, an infinity of ways of putting together the bits and pieces of the external world. Which of these is an "ecological niche"? The only way to tell is if some organism makes a living in that way. Just as there is no organism without a niche, there is no niche without an organism. A famous example of how niches are defined by the organisms that inhabit them comes from the attempt to find life on Mars. How does one detect life on Mars? One suggestion was to send up a sort of microscope, collect some dust from the Martian surface, and see if anything wiggled. If it wiggles it is alive. This seemed too unsophisticated for the space scientists.

Instead they sent up a sort of vacuum cleaner filled with a nutrient solution containing a radioactively labeled simple sugar. If the dust sucked up from the surface contained living cells, they would start to grow and divide, metabolize the sugar, and release radioactive carbon dioxide, which would be detected by a counter. The Mars lander never detected any life activity although it was determined to be in perfect working order. But that does not mean that there is no life on Mars. It means that there is no life in Martian dust that grows on the sort of sugar provided. This device certainly would not have detected a science-fiction Martian. What the space scientists had done was to provide an ecological niche for a specific kind of life that they knew from earth, a niche that does not match a vast variety of earthly organisms. If you do not specify the kind of organism you are looking for you cannot specify its ecological niche. Perhaps the space program should look again for wiggly things.

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini do not discuss the fact that every kind of organism, as a consequence of its life activities, reforms the world around itself and creates its own "ecological niche" that is in constant flux as the organism behaves and metabolizes. Organisms do not "fit into" niches, they construct them, and biologists' realization of this fact has led to the creation of theories of "niche construction."4 It is not simply that birds and ants build nests or humans build houses. The metaphor of "construction" covers a number of activities of metabolizing creatures that create the world around themselves. Plants, putting down roots, change the physical structure of the soil in which they are growing and they extrude into the soil chemicals that encourage the growth of certain fungi. These molds, far from "infecting" the plants, form intimate connections with the roots that are a pathway for substances that promote plant growth.

In a great variety of organisms the chance of survival and the growth rate of individuals are not the highest at the lowest population density, but at intermediate numbers. Fruitflies, in their immature worm stage, for example, are farmers. They eat yeast that grows on the surface of the decaying fruit on which they live. The worms burrow into the fruit and the yeast grows on the linings of these tunnels. So, up to a point, the more worms, the more tunnels; and the more tunnels, the more food. Animals and plants create storehouses of energy on which they call in nonproductive times. Bees store honey and squirrels store acorns. Humans store grain and, in modern times, have a commodity futures market, so that affordable bread is available in the winter.

The most remarkable feature of terrestrial organisms is that each one of them manufactures the immediate atmosphere in which it lives. By use of a special kind of optical arrangement (Schlieren optics) on a motion picture camera it is possible to see that individual organisms are surrounded by a moving layer of warm moist air. Even trees are surrounded by such a layer. It is produced by the metabolism of the individual tree, creating heat and water, and this production is a feature of all living creatures. In humans the layer is constantly moving upward over the body and off the top of the head. Thus, organisms do not live directly in the general atmosphere but in a shell produced by their own life activity. It is, for example, the explanation of wind-chill factor. The wind is not colder than the still air, but it blows away the metabolically produced layer around our bodies, exposing us to the real world out there.

The appearance of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini's book at this time and the rhetoric and structure of its argument are guaranteed to provoke as strong a negative reaction in the community of evolutionary biologists as they have among philosophers of biology. To a degree never before experienced by the current generation of students of evolution, evolutionary theory is under attack by powerful forces of religious fundamentalism using the ambiguity of the word "theory" to suggest that evolution as a natural process is "only a theory." While What Darwin Got Wrong may have been designed pour epater les bourgeois and to forcibly get the attention of evolutionists, when two accomplished intellectuals make the statement "Darwin's theory of selection is empty," they generate an anger that makes it almost impossible for biologists to give serious consideration to their argument.

Conscious that Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini may have overdone it, they have circulated an essay that assures evolutionary biologists that they are not challenging the basic mechanism of evolution as a natural process described by the four principles of variation, heredity, differential reproduction, and mutation. In particular, they reject any notion that natural selection is some sort of "force" with laws like gravitation. For them, natural selection is simply a name for the differential reproduction of different kinds in a population. Not to be misunderstood, perhaps biologists should stop referring to "natural selection," and instead talk about differential rates of survival and reproduction.

The other source of anxiety and anger is that the argument made by Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini strikes at the way in which evolutionary biologists provide adaptive natural historical explanations for a vast array of phenomena, as well as the use by a wider scholarly community of the metaphor of natural selection to provide theories of history, social structure, human psychological phenomena, and culture. If you make a living by inventing scenarios of how natural selection produced, say, xenophobia and racism or the love of music, you will not take kindly to the book.

Even biologists who have made fundamental contributions to our understanding of what the actual genetic changes are in the evolution of species cannot resist the temptation to defend evolution against its know-nothing enemies by appealing to the fact that biologists are always able to provide plausible scenarios for evolution by natural selection. But plausibility is not science. True and sufficient explanations of particular examples of evolution are extremely hard to arrive at because we do not have world enough and time. The cytogeneticist Jakov Krivshenko used to dismiss merely plausible explanations, in a strong Russian accent that lent it greater derisive force, as "idel specoolations."

Even at the expense of having to say "I don't know how it evolved" most of the time, biologists should not engage in idle speculations.

Notes:

1. The circulation of the proof copy of What Darwin Got Wrong, the product of a noted philosopher and a prominent student of linguistics and cognitive science, has resulted in a volume of critical comment from biologists and philosophers that has not been seen since 1859. No week has passed that a manuscript expressing bewilderment or outrage from a biologist or philosopher of science has not arrived on my desk or desktop. I have tried but not succeeded entirely in avoiding reading these before making a first draft of this review.

2. This logical result is pointed out by the philosophers Ned Block and Philip Kitcher in "Misunderstanding Darwin," their review of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini's book, Boston Review, March/April 2010.

3. This suggestion was made by the philosopher of biology Elliott Sober, in response to an earlier version of Fodor's argument. The general tone of argument among philosophers can be judged by the title of Sober's paper in Mind and Language, Vol. 23, No. 1 (February 2008): "Fodor's Bubbe Meise Against Darwinism."

4. A recent book on the subject is Niche Construction by John Odling-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman (Princeton University Press, 2003).

Tribune

25th May 2010, 17:12

That may be the the reason for Israel's ongoing existence, but that doesn't explain why it's there in the first place. If it's water you want, there are many places better than Palestine to settle.

I didn't offer a theory for the origins of Zionism, or Israel. I alluded to a reason for the specific continued occupation of the West Bank, which sits above the only aquifer in the region.

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th September 2010, 20:59

Anyone who still thinks we have anything useful to learn about evolution from Dawkins should perhaps read this article by Hilary and Steven Rose from the May/June 2010 issue of New Left Review:

http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2844

And then watch these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xM_CSHrRI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkOJDHOXME4&feature=related

The rest can be found at You Tube.

mikelepore

24th September 2010, 23:30

In the preface of his book The God Delusion he says that if there was no religion there would be no "Israeli/Palestinian wars" or "Troubles."

What he wrote exactly was this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

page 1

In January 2006 I presented a two-part television documentary on
British television (Channel Four) called Root of All Evil? From
the start, I didn't like the title. Religion is not the root of
all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything. But I was
delighted with the advertisement that Channel Four put in the
national newspapers. It was a picture of the Manhattan skyline
with the caption 'Imagine a world without religion.' What was the
connection? The twin towers of the World Trade Center were
conspicuously present.

Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no
suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no
Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars,
no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as
'Christ-killers', no Northern Ireland 'troubles', no 'honour
killings', no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing
gullible people of their money ('God wants you to give till it
hurts'). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public

page 2

beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the
crime of showing an inch of it. Incidentally, my colleague Desmond
Morris informs me that John Lennon's magnificent song is sometimes
performed in America with the phrase 'and no religion too'
expurgated.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th September 2010, 06:18

^^^He forgot to mention that there would be no science (and thus no Dawkins to moan about this) without religion either.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

25th September 2010, 13:27

^^^He forgot to mention that there would be no science (and thus no Dawkins to moan about this) without religion either.

That's ridiculous. Even in the absence of religion there would still be a need to collect, collate and synthesise data from a variety of sources in the material world, and disciplined ways of explaining and interlinking all that data.

The argument that science somehow "needs" religion is not only utterly without foundation, but is also a favourite tactic of many stripes of religionist, from the Bible-thumping creationist to the woolly-minded, cognitive dissonance-avoiding liberal types.

Kiev Communard

25th September 2010, 15:07

That's ridiculous. Even in the absence of religion there would still be a need to collect, collate and synthesise data from a variety of sources in the material world, and disciplined ways of explaining and interlinking all that data.

The argument that science somehow "needs" religion is not only utterly without foundation, but is also a favourite tactic of many stripes of religionist, from the Bible-thumping creationist to the woolly-minded, cognitive dissonance-avoiding liberal types.

Yes, and in addition most of the first scientists (Ancient Greek ones) mostly ignored religious or mythological issues.

L.A.P.

25th September 2010, 16:57

I think the left ***** too much that if a scientific theory doesn't appeal to their view then they don't like it. The fact is I really like Richard Dawkins as a scientist and as a speaker for atheism. I could really care less about whether he is right-wing or left-wing the fact is that his arguments against religion are some of the best arguments I've read and that's what we should take him for. Also, don't worry about his political views he may not be a revolutionary radical leftist but he is at least at the center-left.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th September 2010, 17:11

Noxion:

Even in the absence of religion there would still be a need to collect, collate and synthesise data from a variety of sources in the material world, and disciplined ways of explaining and interlinking all that data.

1. The facts of history suggest this is wishful thinking on your part.

2. You, like many others, confuse science with naive inductivism.

http://www.herinst.org/envcrisis/science/method/problems.html

http://www.phys.port.ac.uk/what/lecture2.htm

The argument that science somehow "needs" religion is not only utterly without foundation, but is also a favourite tactic of many stripes of religionist, from the Bible-thumping creationist to the woolly-minded, cognitive dissonance-avoiding liberal types.

Where have I argued that science "needs" religion?

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th September 2010, 17:25

xx1994xx:

I think the left ***** too much that if a scientific theory doesn't appeal to their view then they don't like it. The fact is I really like Richard Dawkins as a scientist and as a speaker for atheism. I could really care less about whether he is right-wing or left-wing the fact is that his arguments against religion are some of the best arguments I've read and that's what we should take him for. Also, don't worry about his political views he may not be a revolutionary radical leftist but he is at least at the center-left.

And yet if you read this thread, you will see there is nothing to recommend his ideas. Moreover, since they have openly right-wing implications, there is much that does the opposite.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th September 2010, 17:25

Kiev Communard:

Yes, and in addition most of the first scientists (Ancient Greek ones) mostly ignored religious or mythological issues.

Like who?

Orange Juche

25th September 2010, 19:14

He's so pissed off. It is counter-productive. If you're an atheist, take the Neil Degrasse-Tyson route, not the Richard "I think you're stupid if you disagree" Dawkins route.

RadioRaheem84

25th September 2010, 19:30

I could really care less about whether he is right-wing or left-wing the fact is that his arguments against religion are some of the best arguments I've read and that's what we should take him for. Also, don't worry about his political views he may not be a revolutionary radical leftist but he is at least at the center-left. What king of argument is this?

Do people not look at presuppositions anymore?

This isn't a Golden Rule thing where as leftist we can just align with anyone advocating "leftist" ideals and platitudes. What Dawkins means by democracy and what not would probably not square with my definition.

I certainly care if one is left or right wing when dealing with any issue. Being a scientist doesn't make one right on issue in politics or philosophy, in fact I think a lot of scientists are horrible philosophers. Dawkins has nothing really all that useful to say politically or socially that benefit us.

Even though I dislike Dennett's attitude toward believers too, I think he is a better debater on issues of religion.

RadioRaheem84

25th September 2010, 19:43

Michael Parenti has a great book on Religion.

John Bellamy Foster wrote a book not too long ago that really dives into the Creationist vs Evolution debate and provides some great arguments.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/books/critiqueofintelligentdesign.php

There are leftists that attack religion from a materialist perspective but for some reason many leftists in here are ga-ga over elitist pricks in the liberal camp who use it as a battering ram to break the working class of superstition without addressing the conditions that foster such beliefs. It's ridiculous!

Seriously, the love for Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins has to come from their bravado toward people of faith. That is the only thing I can think of because their arguments are weak and provide nothing of substance for leftists. One advocates for imperialism, the other is on the fence while eating his cake too and the last is anti-war but all three take a rather slight clash of civilizations mantra that is overly annoying and express their love for the grandeur of Western Civ.

So what is so appealing about a guy like Dawkins to a leftist when J. Bellamy Foster offers a better critique along with Michael Parenti. There you have the facts and the social critique. What more do you want?

cska

25th September 2010, 23:12

He's so pissed off. It is counter-productive. If you're an atheist, take the Neil Degrasse-Tyson route, not the Richard "I think you're stupid if you disagree" Dawkins route.

I don't need a Christian telling me what kind of atheism to practice thank you. ;)

ChrisK

25th September 2010, 23:49

1. He seems to apply evolution to humans in the same way that it is applied to other species. This is an idea that has been criticized by both Kropotkin and Engels. I would like to see more modern critiques of the idea. Futher, as I recall, Darwin himself didn't apply evolution to humans in the same way as other species.

2. He is an obnoxiously overbearing atheist. As atheist as I am, I see no reason to alienate religious socialists such as buddhist socialists and liberation theologists.

JacobVardy

27th September 2010, 11:52

I just happened to watch this a few days after reading this thread. From 48'55" Dawkins refutes a lot of the criticisms that have been made of him here. He denies gross genetic determinism and emphasises human adaptability and the success of mutual aid as a tactic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT4EWCRfdUg&feature=grec_index

Dimentio

27th September 2010, 15:16

This particular issue has been on my mind lately.
I really enjoyed Richard Dawkins' books as well as his lenghty lectures/documentaries etc.

For me, Darwinism has always had a "revolutionary" conotations attached it.
Well, for once - it is revolutionary, as in paradigm shift.

Now for Dawkins - what is the cause of criticism from the left? What arguments does the left have against his work?
So far I've figured that many leftists oppose his idea that natural selection prefers the strongest individuals. Well, from the evolutionary point of view - isn't this claim also a fact?

Dawkins himself mentioned this criticism on numerous occasions. He stands by the argument that evolution favours the strongest or the smartest, whatever the case may be.
But he also adds that we - human - have reached a state where we can "outgrow" the law of evolution itself. That we are now able to create a better world of our own, where we take care for those who need us, put efforts in raising our children and helping each other out.

As far as I know, he never made statements that would suggest any selective breeding in order to create a "stronger" human or any of that extreme right wing nutty ideas.

He puts enormeous efforts to bring about the idea of free unconstrained thinking.
If one would be allowed to think for himself, without being indoctrinated since childhood - things like religion (especially organized religion) would soon dimnish and fade away.

Isn't this the exact stuff that we are saying about the working class? If only we could make them think beyond their rulers and masters - they would be conscious about their class and bring about the revolution which would liberate them from slavery.

When you embrace rational thinking - you start to figure things out.
For one, you stop believing in a bearded man in the clouds.
And second - you start to search for a system that will not oppres you, eventually figuring out that communism is the only way out.

Personally, I believe atheism and communism are intertwinedideas.

Anyway, I've seen some people (even here) describe R.Dawkins as a right wing lunatic / capitalist's inside science man and so on.
If anyone can shed some light as to why is that, please do.

Some leftists are afraid of the very idea of natural selection, since they erronously believe that it would destroy the basis of their own ideology. That is especially true within academic circles. If you in a social science course are putting forth any darwinism, you will be toast.

Rosa Lichtenstein

29th September 2010, 18:18

JacobVardy:

I just happened to watch this a few days after reading this thread. From 48'55" Dawkins refutes a lot of the criticisms that have been made of him here. He denies gross genetic determinism and emphasises human adaptability and the success of mutual aid as a tactic.

Except he has failed to respond to the sorts of criticisms I have advanced in this thread.

LuÃs Henrique

29th September 2010, 22:51

1. I have read The Selfish Gene. It does apply evolution to human beings in ways that would not be supported by Darwin, ways that have clear right-wing implications. Indeed, he takes a step further in social-darwinism: as of before, social-darwinists would try to use biologist arguments to support market economy; Dawkins goes far beyond that in terms of naturalising The Market: he consistently uses market economy arguments to support his biological views. See his explanations of the mating systems of monogamic birds and poligynic mammals, for instance.

2. I doubt his credentials as an evolutionist. True, my (lack of) knowledge of biology makes me unable to aptly criticise his points in his field of expertise; but his ridiculous theory of "memetics" whispers to me that he doesn't understand evolution: a theory of "evolutionary memetics" would have to be a Lamarckian theory, but he doesn't seem to stumble upon this obvious notion.

3. I am an atheist, and I have no sympathy for agnosticism, much less for deism or theism. This guy often makes me ashamed of being an atheist, though; his arguments are either flawed or unconvincing - or, most of the time, both. He seems to be trying to found a religion based on atheism, which is a repulsive path of action in my opinion.

Luís Henrique

Os Cangaceiros

29th September 2010, 23:41

He wrote a decent piece of popular science called River Out Of Eden (about evolution) that I read once. He can be a good writer when it comes to biology.

I haven't read any of his anti-religion polemics, and I doubt I ever will.

LuÃs Henrique

29th September 2010, 23:57

If you in a social science course are putting forth any darwinism, you will be toast.

And rightly so. The validity of Darwinism is limited to the field of biology.

Luís Henrique

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th September 2010, 03:10

LH:

1. I have read The Selfish Gene. It does apply evolution to human beings in ways that would not be supported by Darwin, ways that have clear right-wing implications. Indeed, he takes a step further in social-darwinism: as of before, social-darwinists would try to use biologist arguments to support market economy; Dawkins goes far beyond that in terms of naturalising The Market: he consistently uses market economy arguments to support his biological views. See his explanations of the mating systems of monogamic birds and poligynic mammals, for instance.

In fact, I established this in an earlier post of mine -- for example here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1730554&postcount=103

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

30th September 2010, 09:28

When Dawkins uses market analogies, he is being descriptive, not prescriptive. That's a mistake that hypersensitive left-wing fundies always make, in some cases I suspect on purpose because surely they cannot possibly be that blind and/or stupid?

Let us not forget that markets arise naturally in conditions of scarcity; and since humans are not special creations, it would be completely unsurprising to find market-like systems in other animals.

Of course, what needs to be stressed is that just because something arises naturally, does not make it optimal or justified. This is a subtle but very important difference that Dawkins himself has made.

It's utterly fucking bizarre how some leftists attempt to divorce humans from the very process that shaped them. Yes, individual humans are shaped by culture to a large degree, but completely? Also, culture itself had to come from somewhere. This means that evolution played a role beyond simply generating our gross physical form.

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th September 2010, 10:23

Noxion (a Dawkins 'fundi'):

Of course, what needs to be stressed is that just because something arises naturally, does not make it optimal or justified. This is a subtle but very important difference that Dawkins himself has made.

As you have had pointed out to you before, Dawkins has no way of rescuing 'free will' from the clutches of these all powerful genes:

"The technical word 'phenotype' is used for the bodily manifestation of a gene..." (SG, p.235)

"We are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)

"The body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)

"The organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)

"...[L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)

If we are robots, under the control of these 'ruthless' gangster genes, then this can't be true:

"We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth...." (SG, p.200)

As David Stove argues:

I do not believe that humans are the helpless puppets of their genes, and cannot even take that proposition seriously. Why? Because I have heard far too many stories like that one before, and because it is obvious what is wrong with all of them.

'Our stars rule us,' says the astrologer. 'Man is what re eats,' said Feuerbach. 'We are what our infantile sexual experiences made us,' says the Freudian. 'The individual counts for nothing, his class situation for everything,' says the Marxist. 'We are what our socioeconomic circumstances make us,' says the social worker. 'We are what Almighty God created us,' says the Christian theologian. There is simply no end of this kind of stuff.

What is wrong with all such theories is this: that they deny, at least by implication, that human intentions, decisions, and efforts are among the causal agencies which are at work in the world.

This denial is so obviously false that no rational person, who paused to consider it coolly and in itself, would ever entertain it for one minute. No one ever doubts, at least while he has or remembers having a big fish on his line, that the intentions and efforts of even a fish can make a difference to the outcome of a situation; especially if the fish gets away after all. And if even fish efforts sometimes have causal efficacy, then human efforts can hardly be altogether without it.

The falsity of all these theories of human helplessness is so very obvious, in fact, that the puppetry theorists themselves cannot help admitting it, and thus are never able to adhere consistently to their puppetry theories. Feuerbach, though he said that man is what he eats, was also obliged to admit that meals do not eat meals. The Calvinistic theologian, after saying that the omnipotent creator is everything and his creatures nothing, will often then go on to reproach himself and other creatures with disobeying this creator. The Freudian therapist believes in the overpowering influence of infantile sexual experiences, but he makes an excellent living by encouraging his patients to believe that, with his help, this overpowering influence can be itself overpowered. And so on.

In this inevitable and tiresomely familiar way, Dawkins contradicts hi puppetry theory. Thus, for example, writing in the full flood of conviction of human helplessness, he say that 'we are ... robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes', 13 etc., etc. But at the same time, of course, he knows as well as the rest of us do, that there are often other causes at work, in us or around us, which are perfectly capable of counteracting genetic influences. In fact he sometimes says so himself, and he even says that ‘we have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth'.14 As you see, he is just like those writers of serial stories in boys' magazines, who used to say, in order to extricate their hero from some impossible situation, 'with one bound, Jack was free!' Well, it just goes to show that even the most rigid theologian of the Calvinist-Augustinian school has got to have a Pelagian blow-out occasionally, and deviate towards common sense for a while.

Here is another specimen of Dawkins contradicting his own theory. He says, “let us try to teach generosity and altruism', 15, but also says that “altruism something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world'. 16 Well, I wonder where we are, if not ‘in nature'?

And (as Midgley pertinently asked), who are Dawkins' 'us': the ones that are to leach altruism? Principally parents, no doubt. Well, parents are not, what Dawkins implies they are, just some shoddy temporary dwellings rigged up by genes. But neither are they creatures from beyond, 'sidereal messengers', or sons and daughters of 'God sent down on a mission of redemption and reformation'. Parents are just some more people, and hence, if you believe Dawkins, are selfish, where are they, on his theory, to get any of the altruism which he wants them to impart to their children? And as for altruism having 'never existed before': one longs to learn, before when? Before [I]homo sapiens? Before the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Before the British Labour Government of 1945? Dawkins should not have omitted to tell us at least the approximate date of an event so interesting, and (apparently) so recent, as the nativity of altruism. (pp.183-84)

You:

It's utterly fucking bizarre how some leftists attempt to divorce humans from the very process that shaped them. Yes, individual humans are shaped by culture to a large degree, but completely? Also, culture itself had to come from somewhere. This means that evolution played a role beyond simply generating our gross physical form.

But you have yet to show that Darwinian evolution (of the sort that Dawkins is trying to peddle) actually 'shaped' us. There are other versions of Darwin's theory that do not depend on such right-wing assumptions.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

30th September 2010, 11:24

As you have had pointed out to you before, Dawkins has no way of rescuing 'free will' from the clutches of these all powerful genes:

Why should he? Free will is bunk anyway.

If we are robots, under the control of these 'ruthless' gangster genes, then this can't be true:

Or our "programming" as human beings can come from multiple sources, not just our genes.

As David Stove argues:

Stove's argument, like yours, is based on a strawman constructed of quotes cherry-picked to favour the original thesis.

Yawn!

But you have yet to show that Darwinian evolution (of the sort that Dawkins is trying to peddle) actually 'shaped' us. There are other versions of Darwin's theory that do not depend on such right-wing assumptions.

The neo-Darwinian synthesis is widely accepted by evolutionary scientists. It is based on previous work and evidence, not "right-wing assumptions".

DWI

30th September 2010, 13:24

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th September 2010, 13:46

Noxion:

Why should he? Free will is bunk anyway.

1) Dawkins does not seem to think so -- see the videos I posted.

2) Even if you are right, then that means he believes we can't escape our genes, as he elsewhere says can.

Or our "programming" as human beings can come from multiple sources, not just our genes.

Maybe so, but it's not what Dawkins says in these quotations:

"The technical word 'phenotype' is used for the bodily manifestation of a gene..." (SG, p.235)

"We are survival machines -- robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (SG, p.v)

"The body of a normal animal is manipulated to ensure the survival of its genes...." (SG, p.172)

"The organism is a tool of DNA, rather than the other way round..." (EP, p.158)

"...[L]iving organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way round." (BW, p.126)

Bold added.

Stove's argument, like yours, is based on a strawman constructed of quotes cherry-picked to favour the original thesis.

Alas for you, what I have alleged is based on what Dawkins says. You just want to ignore comments he has published that fail to fit your sad attempt to defend him.

Yawn!

Now, if you had used that argument from day one, I'd have been totally silenced. How unwise of you not to have done so....

The neo-Darwinian synthesis is widely accepted by evolutionary scientists. It is based on previous work and evidence, not "right-wing assumptions".

And the 'majority' scientists used to believe one or more of the following now-defunct theories:

"...[I]n the historical progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary mechanical theories, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory was accepted offered equally strong support to each of the (then-unimagined) later alternatives. The same pattern would seem to obtain in the historical progression from elemental to early corpuscularian chemistry to Stahl's phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry to Daltonian atomic and contemporary physical chemistry; from various versions of preformationism to epigenetic theories of embryology; from the caloric theory of heat to later and ultimately contemporary thermodynamic theories; from effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism to theories of the electromagnetic ether and contemporary electromagnetism; from humoral imbalance to miasmatic to contagion and ultimately germ theories of disease; from 18th Century corpuscular theories of light to 19th Century wave theories to contemporary quantum mechanical conception; from Hippocrates's pangenesis to Darwin's blending theory of inheritance (and his own 'gemmule' version of pangenesis) to Wiesmann's germ-plasm theory and Mendelian and contemporary molecular genetics; from Cuvier's theory of functionally integrated and necessarily static biological species or Lamarck's autogenesis to Darwinian evolutionary theory; and so on in a seemingly endless array of theories, the evidence for which ultimately turned out to support one or more unimagined competitors just as well. Thus, the history of scientific enquiry offers a straightforward inductive rationale for thinking that there are alternatives to our best theories equally well-confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time." [Stanford (2001), p.9.]

P. Stanford, (2001), 'Refusing The Devil's Bargain: What Kind Of Underdetermination Should We Take Seriously?', in Barrett and Alexander (2001), pp.1-12.

Barrett, J., and Alexander, J. (2001), (eds.), PSA 2000, Part 1, Supplement to Philosophy of Science 68, 3 (University of Chicago Press).

[PSA = Philosophy of Science Association; the PSA volumes comprise papers submitted to its biennial meeting.]

If the history of science proves anything, it's that dogmatists like you end up with red faces as today's 'rock solid' theories are ditched for better ones further down the line.

Oh, and that scientific truth is not established by a show of hands...

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th September 2010, 13:54

DWI:

What (empirical, not ideological) reason is there not to apply evolution to human beings? I realise that accepting the logical implications of the theory are uncomfortable to many on the left, but closing one's eyes to the reality is always harmful.

Plenty. You can find some of it in David Stove's book, and in the work of others referenced above.

[I]Some of it is summarised on the first few pages of this thread.

Independently of this, you appear to believe that the interpretation of evidence relating to human evolution itself is not already ideologically coloured.

Here, for example, is Engels's take on this:

"1) Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin's method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact. Until Darwin's time the very people who now see everywhere only struggle for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, etc.) emphasized precisely cooperation in organic nature, the fact that the vegetable kingdom supplies oxygen and nutriment to the animal kingdom and conversely the animal kingdom supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, which was particularly stressed by Liebig. Both conceptions are justified within certain limits, but the one is as one-sided and narrow-minded as the other. The interaction of bodies in nature -- inanimate as well as animate -- includes both harmony and collision, struggle and cooperation. When therefore a self-styled natural scientist takes the liberty of reducing the whole of historical development with all its wealth and variety to the one-sided and meagre phrase 'struggle for existence,' a phrase which even in the sphere of nature can be accepted only cum grano salis [with a grain of salt -- RL], such a procedure really contains its own condemnation.

"...I should therefore attack -- and perhaps will when the time comes -- these bourgeois Darwinists in about the following manner:

"The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes [from Hobbes's De Cive and Leviathan, chapter 13-14] and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus's theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed (and I questioned its absolute permissibility, as I have indicated in point 1, particularly as far as the Malthusian theory is concerned), the same theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved. The puerility of this procedure is so obvious that not a word need be said about it. But if I wanted to go into the matter more thoroughly I should do so by depicting them in the first place as bad economists and only in the second place as bad naturalists and philosophers.

"4) The essential difference between human and animal society consists in the fact that animals at most collect while men produce. This sole but cardinal difference alone makes it impossible simply to transfer laws of animal societies to human societies....

"At a certain stage the production of man attains such a high-level that not only necessaries but also luxuries, at first, true enough, only for a minority, are produced. The struggle for existence -- if we permit this category for the moment to be valid -- is thus transformed into a struggle for pleasures, no longer for mere means of subsistence but for means of development, socially produced means of development, and to this stage the categories derived from the animal kingdom are no longer applicable. But if, as has now happened, production in its capitalist form produces a far greater quantity of means of subsistence and development than capitalist society can consume because it keeps the great mass of real producers artificially away from these means of subsistence and development; if this society is forced by its own law of life constantly to increase this output which is already too big for it and therefore periodically, every 10 years, reaches the point where it destroys not only a mass of products but even productive forces -- what sense is their left in all this talk of 'struggle for existence'? The struggle for existence can then consist only in this: that the producing class takes over the management of production and distribution from the class that was hitherto entrusted with it but has now become incompetent to handle it, and there you have the socialist revolution.

"...Even the mere contemplation of previous history as a series of class struggles suffices to make clear the utter shallowness of the conception of this history as a feeble variety of the 'struggle for existence.' I would therefore never do this favour to these false naturalists....

"6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the 'bellum omnium contra omnes' was the first phase of human development. In my opinion, the social instinct was one of the most essential levers of the evolution of man from the ape. The first man must have lived in bands and as far as we can peer into the past we find that this was the case...." [Engels to Lavrov, 17/11/1875. Spelling altered to conform to UK English.]

DWI

30th September 2010, 13:58

DWI:

Plenty. You can find some of it in David Stove's book. [I can post a copy of it on line, if you are interested.]
Could be interesting, thanks.

Independently of this, you appear to believe that the interpretation of evidence relating to human evolution itself is not already ideologically coloured.
Provided you're referring to the science, and not what may be later done with it, it's not. Unlike the social sciences, the natural sciences are largely still free of ideological pollution of all varieties.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

30th September 2010, 14:13

1) Dawkins does not seem to think so -- see the videos I posted.

2) Even if you are right, then that means he believes we can't escape our genes, as he elsewhere says can.

So he contradicts himself. I say split the difference and go with what the evidence says, which states that environmental and (for humans) cultural factors also play a part in human behaviour.

Maybe so, but it's not what Dawkins says in these quotations:

None of those quotes imply that genes are the sole determinants of human activity.

Alas for you, what I have alleged is based on what Dawkins says. You just want to ignore comments he has published that fail to fit your sad attempt to defend him.

Or maybe I recognise that shameless ideologues will go to extraordinary lengths to demonise their perceived enemies and paint their arguments in the worst possible light.

And the 'majority' scientists used to believe one or more of the following now-defunct theories:

The fact that scientists used to believe in all sorts of things is not on it's own a good enough argument against the neo-Darwinian synthesis.

If the history of science proves anything, it's that dogmatists like you end up with red faces as today's 'rock solid' theories are ditched for better ones further down the line.

History is also littered with the corpses of crackpots who claimed their pet theory was the next scientific revolution.

Of course the neo-Darwinian synthesis will be replaced with something better - but that will not necessarily make it "wrong" either.

Newtonian descriptions of gravity are just as valid as relativistic descriptions, at low speeds relative to light and at low masses. But despite this incompleteness, Newton's equations are still used every day - they are "true" to all practical purposes.

Oh, and that scientific truth is not established by a show of hands...

Nope, it's decided by the evidence, which is what scientists generally go with.

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th September 2010, 14:20

DWI, I wish I could agree with you, but the evidence from the history of science suggests otherwise.

For example, Kepler put the Sun at the centre of his system because of the Hermetic and ideological belief that the Sun was a physical embodiment of 'god'. Newton invented the force of gravity to provide 'god' with a physical force to control the heavens. Both ideas have now been abandoned as a result of Einstein's theories -- there is no force o gravity and the there is no unique centre of the universe. There are plenty of other examples from the physical sciences that show that ideology has influenced the formation of scientific theory in general.

You can find an incisive Marxist analysis of this in the work of Christopher Caudwell:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Caudwell

Some of which can be found here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/index.htm

I'll upload Stove's book in the next few days and post the link here.

DWI

30th September 2010, 14:32

DWI, I wish I could agree with you, but the evidence from the history of science suggests otherwise.

For example, Kepler put the Sun at the centre of his system because of the Hermetic and ideological belief that the Sun was a physical embodiment of 'god'. Newton invented the force of gravity to provide 'god' with a physical force to control the heavens. Both ideas have now been abandoned as a result of Einstein's theories -- there is no force o gravity and the there is no unique centre of the universe. There are plenty of other examples from the physical sciences that show that ideology has influenced the formation of scientific theory in general.
I have to take issue with your whole approach here. Science isn't just anything that is said by scientists, but what can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of others. Its great power is its ability to disregard what is wrong or irrelevant and over time to focus ever more closely on what is true. Hence today the Newtonian mechanics is still used in almost all applications in preference to the "more correct", but much more cumbersome relativistic theories, while hardly anyone remembers Newton's theology, or for the most part even Kepler's name.

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th September 2010, 14:34

Noxion:

So he contradicts himself. I say split the difference and go with what the evidence says, which states that environmental and (for humans) cultural factors also play a part in human behaviour.

And yet, Dawkins' comments undermine this belief of yours.

None of those quotes imply that genes are the sole determinants of human activity.

I'd like to see you give the details of any other mechanism that can countermand, or modify, their action. Dawkins just gestures at this, and it seems you do too.

Or maybe I recognise that shameless ideologues will go to extraordinary lengths to demonise their perceived enemies and paint their arguments in the worst possible light.

Based on little or no evidence and a threadbare argument.

The fact that scientists used to believe in all sorts of things is not on it's own a good enough argument against the neo-Darwinian synthesis.

It's not intended to; it was aimed at showing that dogmatists like you are invariably wrong.

History is also littered with the corpses of crackpots who claimed their pet theory was the next scientific revolution.

And that the vast majority of scientists have also been wrong.

Of course the neo-Darwinian synthesis will be replaced with something better - but that will not necessarily make it "wrong" either.

But, you can't know this in advance. Except, dogmatists like you do assume you know this.

Newtonian descriptions of gravity are just as valid as relativistic descriptions, at low speeds relative to light and at low masses. But despite this incompleteness, Newton's equations are still used every day - they are "true" to all practical purposes.

Until someone comes along to show otherwise, as invariably happens in science.

The Ptolemaic system, for example, was highly accurate, and grew more accurate with time, lasting far longer than Newton's system. But it is completely wrong.

Nope, it's decided by the evidence, which is what scientists generally go with.

Except, the evidence from the history of science suggests this is not so. Scientists often ignore evidence that fails to fit their theories, they often cheat and lie, publish fraudulent data, change their minds every fifty years or so, protect their corner of the market, form cliques and protect one another, put career above truth, promote ideology as evidence...

So, and rather fittingly, your rosy theory of science is not itself based on the facts.:lol:

I suspect that is because, like many scientists, you are largely ignorant of the history of science.

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th September 2010, 14:35

DWI:

I have to take issue with your whole approach here. Science isn't just anything that is said by scientists, but what can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of others. Its great power is its ability to disregard what is wrong or irrelevant and over time to focus ever more closely on what is true. Hence today the Newtonian mechanics is still used in almost all applications in preference to the "more correct", but much more cumbersome relativistic theories, while hardly anyone remembers Newton's theology, or for the most part even Kepler's name.

See my last two replies to Noxion.

LuÃs Henrique

1st October 2010, 00:44

What (empirical, not ideological) reason is there not to apply evolution to human beings? I realise that accepting the logical implications of the theory are uncomfortable to many on the left, but closing one's eyes to the reality is always harmful.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Of course humans have evolved, this is completely beyond any doubt; and such evolution was certainly Darwinian.

What I mean is the absurd extension of pseudo-Darwinian concepts to social characteristics, or, worse, to human history. That Dawkins does, and is completely bogus. It leads to reactionary, a-historic statements like, for instance:

Let us not forget that markets arise naturally in conditions of scarcity; and since humans are not special creations, it would be completely unsurprising to find market-like systems in other animals.

Where we see a historic development (markets) attributed to a-historical creatures (animals), with great confusion of concepts (the gaming rituals among animals, that involve no commodities, equated with markets, that are environments for the exchange of commodities), and ignorance of the fact that markets are ten millenia old, while mankind has existed for a few hundreds thousands of years.

It also leads to the systematic oscilations in Dawkins works, in which he is so often saying that he did not intend to say what he clearly said. What happens is that Dawkins "theories" lead to right-wing conclusions that he is not at all prepared to support, so he is always contradicting himself.

Everybody here knows that "The Selfish Gene" is not intended to mean "The Gene of Selfishness", but this is not what I criticise in Dawkins. To put it simply, he ignores the boundaries between biology and social science, which leads to confusion and sloppy uses of language, and then complains that he is misunderstood.

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

But even concerning his book's title, his post-fact disclaimers become tiresome; it is like someone writes a book titled "The Superior Race" and then finds it odd that people dismiss the thing without reading. The title of a book is part of it; an evolutionary biologist shouldn't ignore the ideological uses of misphrasings in his field. What, Dawkins never heard of "social Darwinism"? How naïve of him. And more a reason he should avoid inventing theories in the fields of social science...

Luís Henrique

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

1st October 2010, 02:16

here we see a historic development (markets) attributed to a-historical creatures (animals), with great confusion of concepts (the gaming rituals among animals, that involve no commodities, equated with markets, that are environments for the exchange of commodities), and ignorance of the fact that markets are ten millenia old, while mankind has existed for a few hundreds thousands of years.

Human creations have often been approximated in nature (with the wheel being a notable exception for good physiological reasons) long before we effectively stole the idea - if evolution can fashion eyes that operate on the same optical principles that artificial cameras do, why should systems of exchange such as markets be exempt?

It also leads to the systematic oscilations in Dawkins works, in which he is so often saying that he did not intend to say what he clearly said. What happens is that Dawkins "theories" lead to right-wing conclusions that he is not at all prepared to support, so he is always contradicting himself.

No, I don't agree that Dawkins' conclusions are right-wing. He is attempting to describe the way things are in a state of nature, not the way things should be in a civilised society. That kind of fallacy is nearly as old as Darwinism itself, and has been committed by both its supporters and its detractors.

Everybody here knows that "The Selfish Gene" is not intended to mean "The Gene of Selfishness", but this is not what I criticise in Dawkins. To put it simply, he ignores the boundaries between biology and social science, which leads to confusion and sloppy uses of language, and then complains that he is misunderstood.

The "boundary" between the two has nothing to do with scientific reality and everything to do with convention - humans are biological beings, and human society arises out of the interactions between said beings. Where exactly do you draw the line in the sand? New discoveries will keep erasing it like an incoming tide.

But even concerning his book's title, his post-fact disclaimers become tiresome; it is like someone writes a book titled "The Superior Race" and then finds it odd that people dismiss the thing without reading. The title of a book is part of it; an evolutionary biologist shouldn't ignore the ideological uses of misphrasings in his field. What, Dawkins never heard of "social Darwinism"? How naïve of him. And more a reason he should avoid inventing theories in the fields of social science...

And maybe Darwin shouldn't have used the word "descent" since evolution has no direction and species cannot be said to be "descending" to anywhere from anywhere. But if scientists were to spend all their time making sure whatever they wrote wasn't abused by those with a political agenda, they'd have no time to do actual science, since it is so easy to commit the naturalistic fallacy.

And yet, Dawkins' comments undermine this belief of yours.

The idea of the selfish gene is robust enough to survive refinement.

I'd like to see you give the details of any other mechanism that can countermand, or modify, their action. Dawkins just gestures at this, and it seems you do too.

The selfish genes are thwarted every time somebody uses contraception.

Based on little or no evidence and a threadbare argument.

Exactly, you've got it!

It's not intended to; it was aimed at showing that dogmatists like you are invariably wrong.

And that the vast majority of scientists have also been wrong.

That is inevitable. But what is not inevitable is what exactly we get wrong. Could I borrow your crystal ball? My one's murky.

But, you can't know this in advance. Except, dogmatists like you do assume you know this.

Neither can you. We are at an impasse on this - what will resolve the matter is further data.

Until someone comes along to show otherwise, as invariably happens in science.

The Ptolemaic system, for example, was highly accurate, and grew more accurate with time, lasting far longer than Newton's system. But it is completely wrong.

Thankfully for the Ptolemaic system, it was around when the accumulation of scientific knowledge occurred at a relative snail's pace, and we lacked a firm grounding for most if not all of our theories.

But within the last couple of centuries, the pace of information accrual has accelerated rapidly, and we have a solid foundation for the broadest areas of science as a result.

For someone who bangs on about the history of science, you are very willing to ignore the context of previous scientific theories in order to make a-historical comparisons across relatively vast stretches of time. Expecting the present-day scientific community to act like Greek natural philosophers is the height of absurdity.

Except, the evidence from the history of science suggests this is not so. Scientists often ignore evidence that fails to fit their theories, they often cheat and lie, publish fraudulent data, change their minds every fifty years or so, protect their corner of the market, form cliques and protect one another, put career above truth, promote ideology as evidence...

It is true that individual scientists are human like the rest of us and are therefore vulnerable to the same failings. But since science relies on empirical action to do its work, the very fact that we are communicating in this manner is proof positive that the evidence-based approach works. If the scientific community did the things you described as a whole, then we would all still be in the sticks, kicking shit for a hobby.

Rosa Lichtenstein

1st October 2010, 19:37

Noxion:

Human creations have often been approximated in nature (with the wheel being a notable exception for good physiological reasons) long before we effectively stole the idea - if evolution can fashion eyes that operate on the same optical principles that artificial cameras do, why should systems of exchange such as markets be exempt?

An approximation only makes sense if we know with what it is an approximation, and to know that we'd have to have a final science of nature. Since we do not have such a final science, you can't know these are approximations.

The idea of the selfish gene is robust enough to survive refinement

Scientists used to think that of the idea that the earth was stationary (and of the many other defunct ideas I listed earlier).

Exactly, you've got it!

I'm glad we agree that the theory you attempted to defend is indeed based on little or no evidence and a threadbare argument.:)

That is inevitable. But what is not inevitable is what exactly we get wrong. Could I borrow your crystal ball? My one's murky.

Don't use one, but I'm disappointed to see you do!:(

Neither can you. We are at an impasse on this - what will resolve the matter is further data.

In fact, since practically every scientific theory over the last 2000+ years has turned out to be false, there is a high probability that current theory will go the same way. What can you point to that supports the opposite view?

Thankfully for the Ptolemaic system, it was around when the accumulation of scientific knowledge occurred at a relative snail's pace, and we lacked a firm grounding for most if not all of our theories.

But within the last couple of centuries, the pace of information accrual has accelerated rapidly, and we have a solid foundation for the broadest areas of science as a result.

This rosy view is refuted by the most recent theory that bit the dust, the idea that the continents are immobile (replaced by continental drift and plate tectonics only 40 or so years ago). And may I remind you that Wegener, the guy who invented this new theory, was regarded as a 'crackpot' by dogmatists like you well into the 1960s.

But, even if you are right, the evidence from the past indicates that as the pace of research speeds up, theories will go into decline even faster. For example, the Standard Model in Quantum Mechanics is looking pretty shaky right now, despite its mathematical sophistication, extensive experimental support and its practical applications.

For someone who bangs on about the history of science, you are very willing to ignore the context of previous scientific theories in order to make a-historical comparisons across relatively vast stretches of time. Expecting the present-day scientific community to act like Greek natural philosophers is the height of absurdity.

But this process, whereby dogmatists refuse to accept the possibility that the latest theories could be in error, is still going on. Your good self being Exhibit A for the prosecution.:)

It is true that individual scientists are human like the rest of us and are therefore vulnerable to the same failings. But since science relies on empirical action to do its work, the very fact that we are communicating in this manner is proof positive that the evidence-based approach works. If the scientific community did the things you described as a whole, then we would all still be in the sticks, kicking shit for a hobby.

Indeed, and science progresses when dogmatism goes out of the window.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

1st October 2010, 21:48

An approximation only makes sense if we know with what it is an approximation, and to know that we'd have to have a final science of nature. Since we do not have such a final science, you can't know these are approximations.

We don't need a "final science of nature" to recognise similarities between human technology and naturally evolved organs. Both natural eyes and cameras gather visual information using well-understood optical principles.

Scientists used to think that of the idea that the earth was stationary (and of the many other defunct ideas I listed earlier).

So what? Like I said and which you did not contest, we cannot predict ahead of time what we've got right and what we've got wrong until the data comes in.

I'm glad we agree that the theory you attempted to defend is indeed based on little or no evidence and a threadbare argument.:)

I was actually referring to your argument, but concession accepted anyway.

Don't use one, but I'm disappointed to see you do!:(

Well, clearly you must be some kind of seer, since you know what's going to junked before the data has even come in.

In fact, since practically every scientific theory over the last 2000+ years has turned out to be false, there is a high probability that current theory will go the same way. What can you point to that supports the opposite view?

Modern scientists have a vast wealth of technological and methodological resources that the ancient Ptolemy could not have imagined in his wildest dreams. This, combined with the data thus accrued, means that we have a much closer approximation of the truth than some bearded sage who had never even heard of a microscope.

This rosy view is refuted by the most recent theory that bit the dust, the idea that the continents are immobile (replaced by continental drift and plate tectonics only 40 or so years ago). And may I remind you that Wegener, the guy who invented this new theory, was regarded as a 'crackpot' by dogmatists like you well into the 1960s.

The immobility of the continents was the null hypothesis; Wegener presented little evidence for his idea - it was all circumstantial, and while he speculated about the mechanism he did not pursue the evidence for it.

It's perfectly reasonable to reject hypotheses on the basis of insufficient evidence, and the scientific community fell in line pretty damn quickly when direct evidence for continental movement was found in the 1960s under the sea in form of seafloor spreading, palaeomagnetism, and subduction. This, in combination with a plausible mechanism for mantle convection, provided by Felix Andries Vening Meinesz in 1948, hammered the final nail in the coffin of the fixed continent theory.

Thus we can see that in science it is evidence that settles the debate, not screeching accusations of dogmatism or swivel-eyed allusions to political bogeymen. That kind of approach to science is what gives us such disasters as Lysenkoism.

But, even if you are right, the evidence from the past indicates that as the pace of research speeds up, theories will go into decline even faster. For example, the Standard Model in Quantum Mechanics is looking pretty shaky right now, despite its mathematical sophistication, extensive experimental support and its practical applications.

Then how the fuck can it reasonably be described as "shaky"? You mention that the Standard Model has practical applications, well, any space program based on the Ptolemaic model would go hideously wrong, yet the Large Hadron Collider, the operation of which is underpinned by the Standard Model, is currently humming merrily along, gathering data as it goes.

If the Higgs Boson is a no-show despite the predictions of the Standard Model, that would be an interesting result, and the further investigations and experiments into why that is would be similarly fascinating.

I actually get the impression that the Standard Model is not particularly liked by most physicists - I've actually heard it described as "ugly".

But this process, whereby dogmatists refuse to accept the possibility that the latest theories could be in error, is still going on. Your good self being Exhibit A for the prosecution.:)

There's always the possibility that I may be wrong, but that tells me absolutely nothing about what my opinions should actually be. A good argument backed up with evidence, on the other hand, provides a solid basis for informed opinion.

Indeed, and science progresses when dogmatism goes out of the window.

Unfortunately there there is still anti-Darwinist dogmatism from both religious creationists and certain secular humanities types whose political sensibilties are offended by the idea that nature might not be the whole-earth co-operative hugfest they think it is.

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th October 2010, 09:51

Noxion:

We don't need a "final science of nature" to recognise similarities between human technology and naturally evolved organs. Both natural eyes and cameras gather visual information using well-understood optical principles.

Yes, I think I misunderstood your original point.

So what? Like I said and which you did not contest, we cannot predict ahead of time what we've got right and what we've got wrong until the data comes in.

Except, you argue as current scientific theory is incontestable.

I was actually referring to your argument, but concession accepted anyway.

In which case, you will need to show where my argument goes wrong (as opposed to merely rejecting it), and what superior evidence you have that scientific theory has not continually been abandoned as false over the 2000+ years.

Modern scientists have a vast wealth of technological and methodological resources that the ancient Ptolemy could not have imagined in his wildest dreams. This, combined with the data thus accrued, means that we have a much closer approximation of the truth than some bearded sage who had never even heard of a microscope.

As I pointed our, this will just increase the rate at which older theories are abandoned.

The immobility of the continents was the null hypothesis; Wegener presented little evidence for his idea - it was all circumstantial, and while he speculated about the mechanism he did not pursue the evidence for it.

It was the dominant paradigm. And later recruits to the new theory certainly did offer evidence.

On that; see this detailed study:

Glen, W. (1982), The Road To Jaramillo. Critical Years Of The Revolution In Earth Science (Stanford University Press).

It's perfectly reasonable to reject hypotheses on the basis of insufficient evidence, and the scientific community fell in line pretty damn quickly when direct evidence for continental movement was found in the 1960s under the sea in form of seafloor spreading, palaeomagnetism, and subduction. This, in combination with a plausible mechanism for mantle convection, provided by Felix Andries Vening Meinesz in 1948, hammered the final nail in the coffin of the fixed continent theory.

Except, he was regarded as a quack.

Thus we can see that in science it is evidence that settles the debate, not screeching accusations of dogmatism or swivel-eyed allusions to political bogeymen.

And that is just the sort of language we have come to except from dogmatists like you.

That kind of approach to science is what gives us such disasters as Lysenkoism.

And here are (some of) the results of the sort of scientific dogmatism that you most ably represent:

Albert Einstein once said: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe." Never a truer word was said.

The revelation that scientists have been erroneously using cow, not sheep, brains in a government-funded BSE research project is just the latest in a long tradition of blunders that have existed since scientific investigation began.

As any researcher will tell you, science progresses through trial and error, and mainly error. "One step forward, two steps back" might be the researcher's motto. They are, after all, much more human than we ever give them credit for.

Here we list the 10 biggest cock-ups of all time. It is a highly subjective hall of shame. But it covers the full range of academic disciplines - showing that all academics are capable of making big mistakes. Sometimes they are unintentional, sometimes not.

The famous biologist, Stephen Jay Gould, has argued that scientists can delude themselves - so keen are they to uncover a new discovery. Sometimes blunders can be highly fortuitous - showed most dramatically by the discovery of penicillin from an exposed petri dish.

But they all show that even our brightest brains - even Einstein - can get it horribly wrong. "There is not the slightest indication that energy will ever be obtainable from the atom," the great scientist said just before the atomic age was born.

· Brain power: Scientists at the Institute for Animal Health in Edinburgh secured a £200,000 government grant to find out whether BSE has jumped the "species barrier" from cows into sheep. An inquiry is now under way after it was found that scientists had been mistakenly testing cattle brains instead of sheep brains for five years.

· Scientific Watergate: The US National Institutes of Health investigatory panel found the immunologist Thereza Imanishi-Kari had fabricated data in a 1986 research paper authored with the Nobel prize winner David Baltimore. The findings claimed in the paper promised a breakthrough for genetic modification of the immune system.

· Mein bumph: Oxbridge historian Hugh Trevor-Roper authenticated the Hitler Diaries, unveiled as an exclusive by the German-based Stern magazine. The diaries were later exposed as a hoax.

· Cold Fusion: In 1989 chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman, of the University of Utah, claimed to have solved the world's energy problems by discovering cold fusion. However, no-one has since been able to replicate their findings of nuclear fusion in heavy water.

· Hubble Space Telescope: Nasa scientists launched the Hubble telescope to create a lens 10 to 20 times more powerful than those based on earth. A gross design error in the main mirror was discovered immediately after launch in April 1990. Hundreds of millions of pounds were needed for the astronaut repair of the mirror.

· N-rays: A French physicist, René Blondlot, claimed to have discovered a new type of radiation, shortly after Roentgen had discovered X-rays. American physicist Robert Wood, however, revealed that N-rays were little more than a delusion. Wood removed the prism from the N-ray detection device, without which the machine couldn't work. Yet, Blondlot's assistant still claimed he found N-rays.

· Academic standards: Cyril Burt, the 1960s guru of British psychology, produced research into the intelligence of identical twins which, among other findings, led to the assertions that academic standards were falling. Years later the statistics were found to be "too perfect" and it was discovered the twins - and even the researcher alleged to have carried out the work - never existed.

· Piltdown man: In 1913 an ape's jaw with a canine tooth worn down like a human's was uncovered at a site near Piltdown. British paleoanthropologists came to accept the idea that the fossil remains belonged to a single creature who had a human cranium and an ape's jaw - offering the missing link between apes and humans in the evolutionary chain. In 1953, Piltdown 'man' was exposed as a forgery. The skull was modern and the teeth on the ape's jaw had been filed down.

· Alchemy: - Sir Isaac Newton - the scientist who single-handedly created the foundations of modern day physics had a little known obsession with alchemy, and was convinced for much of his life that he would be able to change base metals into gold. Such a discovery would have helped with his later job as master of the mint, but never materialised.

· Flat Earth: - even though Christopher Columbus gave flat earth theorists a reason to think twice, there are still flat earth societies where people propose (and prove) elaborate explanations for why the world actually is shaped like a pancake.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/oct/23/research.highereducation

And here are some more (from the last 20 years):

In the last two decades, glorious scientific and technical achievements have altered our lives forever. Try, for example, to imagine the world without the existence of those two little words personal and computer. But there have also been— how can this be put delicately?— blunders. Some were errors in concept: Bad science chasing a bad idea. Some were errors in execution: This would have worked so well if only it hadn't blown up. Others were cases of deliberate fraud, out-and-out hoaxes, or just dopey moments that made us laugh. Perhaps Albert Einstein said it best: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe."

Challenger

Surreal in its beauty, a plume of white smoke ushered in the end of America's romance with space travel after the shuttle Challenger blew up 73 seconds into its scheduled six-day flight on January 28, 1986, at 11:39:13 a.m. The rocket was travelling at Mach 1.92 at an altitude of 46,000 feet as it incinerated all seven astronauts aboard. According to the presidential commission that investigated the accident, the explosion was caused by the failure of an O-ring seal in the joint between the two lower segments of the right-hand solid-rocket booster. This failure permitted a jet of white-hot gases to ignite the liquid fuel of the external tank. The O-ring was known to fail in cold temperatures, but the launch had been delayed five times.

Darsee and Slutsky and Fraud, Oh My!

Following the "greed is good" mantra of the 1980s, some scientists could not resist shortcuts. "The psychological profile of these people is interesting," says Mario Biagioli, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University. "You usually get B-plus, A-minus scientists who get into hyperproduction mode." Take, for example, former Harvard researcher John Darsee. In 1981 he was found to be faking data in a heart study. Eventually investigators at the National Institutes of Health discovered that data for most of his 100 published studies had been fabricated. Or take the case of cardiac-radiology specialist Robert Slutsky, who in 1985 resigned from the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine after colleagues began to wonder how he turned out a new research article every 10 days. University investigators concluded he had altered data and lied about the methods he used. To establish verisimilitude, Slutsky often persuaded scientists more prominent than he to put their names on his articles.

The Debendox Debacle

William McBride, an Australian obstetrician, was hailed as a whistle-blowing visionary in 1961 when he sounded a warning about the dangers of thalidomide, a sedative prescribed for anxiety and morning sickness. In a letter to the journal The Lancet, McBride suggested that the drug was causing infants to be born with severe limb deformities. Although McBride's hypothesis was based on limited anecdotal observations, subsequent studies proved him right. Thalidomide was removed from the market, and the drug became almost synonymous with pharmaceutical malfeasance. Two decades later, in 1982, McBride published a report about a morning-sickness drug called Debendox that, he claimed, clearly caused birth defects in rabbits. Merrell Dow took the drug off the market amid an avalanche of lawsuits. But there was a problem. McBride had altered data in research carried out by assistants. The results showed Debendox had no ill effects. After years of investigation, McBride was found guilty of scientific fraud in 1993 by a medical tribunal.

Nuclear Winter of Our Discontent

In 1983, astronomer Carl Sagan coauthored an article in Science that shook the world: "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions" warned that nuclear war could send a giant cloud of dust into the atmosphere that would cover the globe, blocking sunlight and invoking a climatic change similar to that which might have ended the existence of dinosaurs. Skeptical atmospheric scientists argued that Sagan's model ignored a variety of factors, including the fact that the dust would have to reach the highest levels of the atmosphere not to be dissipated by rainfall. In a 1990 article in Science, Sagan and his original coauthors admitted that their initial temperature estimates were wrong. They concluded that an all-out nuclear war could reduce average temperatures at most by 36 degrees Fahrenheit in northern climes. The chilling effect, in other words, would be more of a nuclear autumn.

Piltdown Chicken

The finding was initially trumpeted as the missing link that proved birds evolved from dinosaurs. In 1999 a fossil smuggled out of China allegedly showing a dinosaur with birdlike plumage was displayed triumphantly at the National Geographic Society and written up in the society's November magazine. Paleontologists were abuzz. Unfortunately, like the hominid skull with an ape jaw discovered in the Piltdown quarries of England in 1912, the whole thing turned out to be a hoax. The fossil apparently was the flight of fancy of a Chinese farmer who had rigged together bird bits and a meat-eater's tail.

Statistics for Dummies

Shocking factoids based on half-baked interpretations of scientific data have been foisted on the public at an alarming rate during the past 20 years. Take the "spinsters beware" theme that gained currency in 1986. Summarizing a study on women and marriage by two Yale sociologists and a Harvard economist, several news agencies reported that single women at 35 had only a 5 percent chance of ever marrying, and unmarried women at 40 were "more likely to be killed by a terrorist." Never mind the fact that in analyzing data from the 70,000 households the authors of the original study had not looked into what percentage of the over-30 women had made a conscious choice to put off marriage. Indeed, U.S. Census Bureau statistician Jeanne Moorman's follow-up projections indicate that of unmarried women ages 30 to 34, 54 percent will marry; of those ages 35 to 39, 37 percent will marry; and of those ages 40 to 44, 24 percent will marry.

Very Cold Fusion

At the University of Utah in 1989, chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced that the world's energy problems had been solved. They claimed to have created nuclear fusion on a tabletop by electrolyzing deuterium oxide— heavy water— using electrodes made of palladium and platinum. Deuterium is a naturally occurring stable isotope of hydrogen; its nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the single proton found in the nucleus of ordinary hydrogen. According to the chemists, the deuterium nuclei were squeezed so closely together in the palladium cathode that they fused, releasing energy. As Robert Park, professor of physics at the University of Maryland and author of Voodoo Science puts it, "Basically if what Fleischmann and Pons said was true, they had duplicated the source of the sun's energy in a test tube." The problem is, no other scientists have been able to reproduce their results— and not for lack of trying. "There's always some guy willing to say, 'OK, we found something that works, but it only works once in a while,' or 'We're not going to show it to you, because we're worried you'll steal our patent rights,'" says Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals of Improbable Research.

Chernobyl

April 26, 1986, was the day Soviet nuclear experts learned the true meaning of the word oops. During a test of one of Chernobyl's four reactors, they turned off the backup cooling system and used only eight boron-carbide rods to control the rate of fission instead of the 15 rods required as standard operating procedure. A runaway chain reaction blew the steel and concrete lid off the reactor and created a fireball, releasing 100 times more radiation than did the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Some 4,300 people eventually died as a result, and more than 70,000 were permanently disabled.

Currents That Don't Kill

The Clinton administration estimates that American taxpayers have paid $25 billion to determine that power lines don't do anything more deadly than deliver power. In 1989, Paul Brodeur published a series of articles in The New Yorker raising the possibility of a link between electromagnetic fields and cancer. Eight years later, after several enormous epidemiological studies in Canada, Britain, and the United States, the danger was completely discounted. "All known cancer-inducing agents act by breaking chemical bonds in DNA," says Robert Park. "The amount of photon energy it takes is an ultraviolet wavelength. So any wavelength that is longer cannot break chemical bonds. Visible light does not cause cancer. Infrared light is still longer, radio waves longer still. Power-line fields are preposterous. The wavelength is in miles."

Mars Meltdowns

The "better, faster, cheaper" mantra adopted by NASA in 1992 might be reinterpreted today as "you get what you pay for." In September 1999, the $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter plunged to oblivion near Mars. NASA officials were using the metric newton to guide the spacecraft. That was unfortunate, because Lockheed-Martin engineered the Orbiter to be guided in the English units of poundals. In December, the $185-million Mars Polar Lander went AWOL, and repeated efforts to contact it by space radio antennas failed. Officials now speculate that a signaling problem in the landing legs— caused by one line of missing computer code— doomed the Lander.

Rock of Life

In 1996, scientists at NASA declared that a 6.3-ounce rock, broken off from a Mars meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1984, contained flecks of chemical compounds— polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, magnetite, and iron sulfide— that suggested the existence of bacteria on the Red Planet 3.6 billion years ago. "August 7, 1996, could go down as one of the most important dates in human history," intoned one newspaper report. But within two years the theory began to crack. Traces of amino acids found in the rock, crucial to life, were also found in the surrounding Antarctic ice. More damning, other non-Martian rocks— rocks from the moon, where it is clear life does not exist— showed the same "evidence" of life. By November 1998 an article in Science declared "most researchers agree that the case for life on Mars is shakier than ever."

All Abuzz

Sometimes mistakes that were made decades ago take a while to make the force of their foolishness felt. Consider the case of killer bees. In the 1950s, Brazilian geneticists crossbred mild-mannered European honeybees with their more aggressive, territorial cousins from Africa, reasoning that the Africanized bees would be better suited than their European counterparts to warmer South American climes. They were too right. Before the aggression could be bred out of the resulting cross, the buggers got away, and some immediately headed north. In 1990 the first Africanized honeybees were discovered in Texas. Since that time they've gradually spread to New Mexico, Arizona, California, and in 1999, to Nevada.

Here They Come to Save the Day

Indeed, antibiotics have been the Mighty Mouse of medicine. Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, it seemed there were few bacteria that antibiotics couldn't destroy handily. At the turn of the last century, the average life expectancy was 47. Thanks partly to a decline in bacterial diseases like tuberculosis, dysentery, and gonorrhea, life expectancy in the United States has risen to 76 today. Unfortunately, doctors did not take seriously the consequences of promiscuous antibiotic use. Physicians have long been generous in prescribing antibiotics for minor ailments, even for viral infections like the common cold. Moreover, even when antibiotics were warranted, patients were not sufficiently warned about the dangers of not taking the drugs for the full course of treatment. When the symptoms of their infection abated, patients often threw away their pills, allowing the bacteria that had not been killed off to mutate. Now there are whole categories of antibiotics that no longer work. And there are some potentially deadly bacterial diseases, including tuberculosis, that can only be beaten by one or two of the strongest, most expensive antibiotics.

The Sky Is Falling Again

Um, never mind. On March 12, 1998, on the front page of The New York Times, a headline read: "Asteroid Is Expected to Make a Pass Close to Earth in 2028." Brian G. Marsden, director of the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, predicted that on October 26, 2028, an asteroid about a mile in diameter would come within 30,000 miles of Earth. That's within spitting distance, spacewise, which evoked comparisons to the asteroid that crashed on the Yucatàn peninsula 65 million years ago, allegedly wiping out all the dinosaurs. "When you first discover a comet, or any kind of body, you start measuring its position," notes Robert Park. "From that you extract its trajectory. The more measurements you make, the more accurate your trajectory gets." Marsden issued his warnings based on very early trajectory measurements. Now he anticipates the asteroid will pass Earth at a safe distance of 600,000 miles.

Evolution? What's That?

In 1995, it became official: Colorado students would not be tested on evolution, Charles Darwin's theory that, through an endless series of genetic mutations, we all developed from single-celled organisms. "I believe in divine creation," said Clair Orr, Colorado's chairman of the state's board of education. Colorado is not alone. Kansas removed evolutionary theory from its tests in 1999. Mississippi and Tennessee do not teach the subject at all, and curricula in Florida and South Carolina touch on it only lightly. Given the trend of treating all theories of how we got here as equal, Marc Abrahams, of Annals of Improbable Research, has a suggestion: Why not teach the theory of Chonosuke Okamura, a Japanese paleontologist who became convinced that patterns of water seepage in rocks were "mini-fossils" and that life was descended from mini-horses, mini-cows, and mini-dragons. "It's kind of like forming an evolutionary theory out of cloud formations," says Abrahams.

Fen-phen Fiasco

In the early 1990s Michael Weintraub, a researcher at the University of Rochester, concluded that a combination of two nonaddictive drugs that had been around for years— phentermine, a stimulant, and fenfluramine, an appetite suppressant— could be used for the long-term control of obesity. The fen-phen diet craze was born. Physicians began giving the drug combination off-label to patients who wanted to lose as little as 10 to 15 pounds. In the meantime, an August 1996 report in The New England Journal of Medicine linked the use of fen-phen for more than three months to a 23-fold increased risk of developing primary pulmonary hypertension, a fatal lung disorder. Subsequent studies revealed that prolonged use of fenfluramine could cause heart-valve defects. By September 1997, the Food and Drug Administration signaled the demise of fen-phen by ordering that fenfluramine be taken off the market. It is estimated that between 1.2 million and 4.7 million Americans were exposed to the drug combination.

To Be or Not to Be, Thanks to MTBE

It was intended to solve a pollution problem. Instead, it may be the cause of one of the most serious pollution problems of our time. MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is a gasoline additive that came into use in the late 1970s during the phaseout of alkyl lead additives. It helps gasoline burn more efficiently and cuts down on air pollutants. It also happens to be highly water-soluble and has a nasty tendency to leak from underground storage tanks at gas stations. In California, MTBE contamination has forced water suppliers to shut down wells in many counties. A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey found MTBE in 14 percent of all urban drinking water wells it sampled. In March 1999, the Clinton administration announced a ban on the additive. Meanwhile, there appears to be no cost-effective way to remove it from drinking water.

Earth to Iridium

The award for "Most Expensive Piece of Immediately Obsolete Technology" goes to Iridium, a communications company that 10 years ago promised crystal-clear cellular phone service anywhere on the planet. Sixty-six satellites were launched at a cost of $5 billion. "The phones were bulky. They cost $3,000. A call cost several dollars per minute, and the system didn't work indoors," says Richard Kadrey, a founder of Dead Media Project, a Web-site collection of failed media and technology. "Most people simply don't need to call Dakar at a moment's notice. In fact, the number of people who do is so small that it is probably dwarfed by the number of people who really need to talk to aliens." In 1999, Iridium took its place among the 20 largest bankruptcies in history.

Chest Say No to Silicone Implants

Pamela Anderson had them taken out. So did Jenny Jones. They needn't have bothered, according to an independent panel of medical experts. Never mind that lawsuits over the implants bankrupted Dow Corning, a multibillion-dollar company. The medical panel reported in 1998 that there is no greater incidence of immune-system abnormalities among women with breast implants than there is in the general population. In the end the science didn't fail us; the lawyers did.

Y2K

It all got fixed before it could happen, but at a cost of $100 billion. Thanks to purposeful programming, computers were likely to read the year code "00" as 1900 instead of 2000. So we were treated to an entire year of talking heads ranting on about doomsday scenarios, including a world where airplanes would drop out of the sky and banks would register your portfolio value as zero. And some people don't have to buy canned goods for at least a year. All we can say is: Thank you, Bill Gates.

http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featblunders

And here's a whole bookful:

http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Blunders-History-Scientists-Sometimes/dp/0786705949

Then how the fuck can it reasonably be described as "shaky"? You mention that the Standard Model has practical applications, well, any space program based on the Ptolemaic model would go hideously wrong, yet the Large Hadron Collider, the operation of which is underpinned by the Standard Model, is currently humming merrily along, gathering data as it goes.

If the Higgs Boson is a no-show despite the predictions of the Standard Model, that would be an interesting result, and the further investigations and experiments into why that is would be similarly fascinating.

I actually get the impression that the Standard Model is not particularly liked by most physicists - I've actually heard it described as "ugly".

That's not my description, but one I have borrowed from scientists.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100613212708.htm

http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/157-news2010/1836-doubts-on-the-dark-side

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model#Challenges_to_the_standard_model

http://www.physicsideas.com/StandardModel.pdf

Some of whom go even further:

"In your article on the search for the Higgs particle, it is implicitly assumed that the Higgs exists (24 July, p 8). This hope is shared by many physicists, and it was one of the main motivations for building the Large Hadron Collider. However, a small group of physicists, myself included, is challenging this view. Some have even gone so far as to bet thousands of dollars that it doesn't exist (though Stephen Hawking has bet only $100).

"It is important to remember that the Higgs mechanism was invented in 1964 as a 'fix' to give mass to the particles called vector bosons, just as dark matter was suggested as a fix to explain the velocities at which galaxies orbit each other in clusters. Neither of these entities has been found." [R van Nieuwenhove, New Scientist 207, 2773, 14/08/10, p.30.]

Looks like not all scientists are dogmatists.

So, there's still some hope...:)

There's always the possibility that I may be wrong, but that tells me absolutely nothing about what my opinions should actually be. A good argument backed up with evidence, on the other hand, provides a solid basis for informed opinion.

Except you tend to come across as the exact opposite of this.:(

Unfortunately there is still anti-Darwinist dogmatism from both religious creationists and certain secular humanities types whose political sensibilities are offended by the idea that nature might not be the whole-earth co-operative hugfest they think it is.

In that case, check this out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11063939

And this book:

Ryan, F. (2002), Darwin's Blind Spot. Evolution Beyond Natural Selection (Houghton Mifflin).

NecroCommie

4th October 2010, 13:51

- He is a orthodox-Darwinist. I am not a Darwinist at all (I describe myself as an evolutionist, but not an darwinist).
Darwinists as Dawkins reduce everyhing of the organism to the genes and the molecules. Everything is just an accident.
This is a link to an interview with the biologist Brian Goodwin. I like his look to the nature and the evolution very much, and he has some good criticism of Darwinism (sorry can't post the link because I'm new on the forum. You can just google on "Brian Goodwin darwinism").
Everything is not an accident, and Dawkins has dedicated entire lectures refuting this claim. Evolution is a natural law, not an accident.

- Dawkins philosophical view is hard scientism (or: reductionistic materialism). I think that position is a real fallacy. It's a delusion.
He thinks everything can be explained (even god in a part) by science.
Het says in an interview: "‘... the deep and universal questions of existence and the meaning of life (including ‘Who Am I?’ and ‘What am I for?’) are scientific matters which should properly be dealt with in science classes.' "
He puts in the first chapter of "The God Delusion" Einstein in the camp of the atheïsts. But he can't do that, just because Einstein recognized that the deep and universal questions of existence and meaning' can't be resolved by, for example, the relativity theory.

Do you have anything to defend your claim that everything cannot be explained through science? Sure, the scientific answer might not go hand in hand with delusionary pipe dreams, but they are still very coherent answers. And Einstein WAS an atheist. He was very articulate about why he was not a theist and is therefore, by definition, an atheist.

- Dawkins says that all religions are bad. But thats bullshit.
How come? All religion is reactionary by definition.

Every fool can do bad things every time in the name of every religion.
But only because of religion do most of us accept these horrors. That's the entire point. There is no reason for us to take religion as an excuse for anything.

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th October 2010, 14:42

Necro:

How come? All religion is reactionary by definition.

What about Thomas Muenzer? Read the Peasant War in Germany (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/peasant-war-germany/) by Engels.

And without religion, there'd be no science for you to lionise.

Dawkins's arguments against religion are a joke, and I can say that as a militant atheist.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

4th October 2010, 16:21

Except, you argue as current scientific theory is incontestable.

Bollocks. I argue that it's the best we have at the moment, which is not the same thing.

In which case, you will need to show where my argument goes wrong (as opposed to merely rejecting it), and what superior evidence you have that scientific theory has not continually been abandoned as false over the 2000+ years.

I don't have to, because your argument contains the implicit assumption that science as both a body of knowledge and as a process has remained unchanged over two millennia, which is clearly absurd.

As I pointed our, this will just increase the rate at which older theories are abandoned.

Not necessarily. Science is like solving a puzzle with a possibly infinite number of pieces - we may have to rotate some of the pieces in order to get them to fit properly, but fit they do.

It was the dominant paradigm. And later recruits to the new theory certainly did offer evidence.

On that; see this detailed study:

Glen, W. (1982), The Road To Jaramillo. Critical Years Of The Revolution In Earth Science (Stanford University Press).

Talking of "revolutions" with regards to modern science is overblown rhetoric. Learning that the continents are on the move is hardly the world-shattering revelation that the conclusive debunking of the geocentric model was.

Except, he was regarded as a quack.

That's because the evidence hadn't come in yet. Good grief.

And that is just the sort of language we have come to except from dogmatists like you.

And you use the same arguments that crackpots use to support their "theories". Maybe the Earth really is hollow. Maybe we really were visited by ancient astronauts. After all scientists have been wrong before, right?

And here are (some of) the results of the sort of scientific dogmatism that you most ably represent:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/oct/23/research.highereducation

And here are some more (from the last 20 years):

http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featblunders

And here's a whole bookful:

http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Blunders-History-Scientists-Sometimes/dp/0786705949

Those examples aren't even relevant; the HST problem and the Challenger disaster were failures of engineering, not science. Alchemy isn't a science so that doesn't count either. The rest of them were exposed by the very scientists you decry as a bunch of dogmatic fraudsters.

That's not my description, but one I have borrowed from scientists.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100613212708.htm

http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/157-news2010/1836-doubts-on-the-dark-side

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model#Challenges_to_the_standard_model

http://www.physicsideas.com/StandardModel.pdf

Some of whom go even further:

Looks like not all scientists are dogmatists.

So, there's still some hope...:)

It's perfectly valid to have some reservations, but it's seriously jumping the gun to decry the neo-Darwinian synthesis or the Standard Model or whatever as empty dogmatism before the evidence comes in, which is what I have been saying all along.

Except you tend to come across as the exact opposite of this.:(

Well perhaps I'm not as great a communicator as I think. Nevertheless, I try.

In that case, check this out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11063939

And this book:

Ryan, F. (2002), Darwin's Blind Spot. Evolution Beyond Natural Selection (Houghton Mifflin).

Availability of environments is a form of natural selection. If there's a new opening it will be exploited by those most suited to do so.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th October 2010, 22:36

OK, DWI, you can access a PDF of this book on this page:

http://www.4shared.com/document/y0IjUX2v/Darwinian_Fairytales_complete.html

Click on the 'Download Now' button on the left.

-------------------------

Noxion, I'll reply to you later this week.

Myrdal

10th October 2010, 21:06

Dawkins is fantastic and many of the characteristics ascribed to him are simply not true. He's extremely polite and all of his arguments are meticulous and clear.
He go's a great deal in to explaining and providing evidence for evolution in the latest book "The greatest show on Earth".
And Dawkins is a right winger in the same sense Orwell was, and his books supports it in the same sense that animal farm supports it.
Which is to say not at all.

LuÃs Henrique

10th October 2010, 22:57

I rarely agreed with this poster, but I think here he hits the nail:

In my opinion, it's "junk science"...an intellectual fad rather than an accurate description of reality.

Dawkins is one of the most recent developers of a concept that goes back to the days of Darwin himself: the reason that anything exists is because it is more "fit" in evolutionary terms than any conceivable alternative.

In other words, capitalist ideology is "superior" (from the evolutionary standpoint) to communist ideology and that's "why" it won out in the USSR, China, etc.

This kind of word-play is completely divorced from material reality; it treats ideas as "independent entities" that struggle among themselves for evolutionary "victory".

It's total crapola.

The Darwinian paradigm is about biology period. It is not relevant to other matters.

:redstar2000:

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th October 2010, 23:35

Noxion, apologies for not replying, but all my available time of late has been taken up trying to slap some materialist sense into the Dialectical Mystics over in Philosophy.

Some hope...

Sosa

13th November 2010, 14:00

Just to reply to some posters in the first page: Dawkins is actually one of the reasons I became an atheist. I use to be a fundamentalist christian until his book "The God Delusion" started tearing up my beliefs. Of course there were other books by other people as well but his was the first one I picked up.

MellowViper

27th November 2010, 11:29

For one, Dawkins is open to the idea of Eugenics, and the left has been traditionally opposed to it. That could be a possibility. I don't really know.

The God Delusion did make me a staunch materialist atheist for a while, until I started reading Terrence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake. I don't really believe in a God in the sense of an anthropomorphic deity in the sky, but I think there are fundamentals of consciousness that are present in all matter and all energy in the universe. I don't think that consciousness is just a phenomenon that spontaneously arises when enough physical processes happen at one time. I really enjoyed The Ancestor's Tale too.

Ã‘Ã³ẊÃ®Ã¶ŉ

27th November 2010, 20:45

For one, Dawkins is open to the idea of Eugenics, and the left has been traditionally opposed to it. That could be a possibility. I don't really know.

Eugenics doesn't have to mean the sterilisation of mentally ill and disabled people - embryo selection achieves pretty much the same effect without gelding anyone.

Black Sheep

28th November 2010, 14:20

For one, Dawkins is open to the idea of Eugenics, and the left has been traditionally opposed to it. That could be a possibility. I don't really know.

Aaaaand, source?

NGNM85

30th November 2010, 07:21

For one, Dawkins is open to the idea of Eugenics, and the left has been traditionally opposed to it. That could be a possibility. I don't really know.

This is misleading. His comments have been stretched badly out of context. He probably should have phrased his statement differently, but there's nothing wrong with what he said.

The God Delusion did make me a staunch materialist atheist for a while, until I started reading Terrence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake. I don't really believe in a God in the sense of an anthropomorphic deity in the sky, but I think there are fundamentals of consciousness that are present in all matter and all energy in the universe. I don't think that consciousness is just a phenomenon that spontaneously arises when enough physical processes happen at one time. I really enjoyed The Ancestor's Tale too.

Is there any physical evidence that consciousness exists, or originates, outside of the brain?

NGNM85

30th November 2010, 07:25

Aaaaand, source?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/from-the-afterword-1.836155

The whole controversy essentially boils down to his choice of the word 'breed.'

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th March 2011, 11:58

Following on from my earlier objections to Inclusive Fitness, check out this article from the latest New Scientist:

The mathematics of being nice

16 March 2011 by Michael Marshall
Magazine issue 2804.

Using mathematics to tackle some of biology's biggest questions, Martin Nowak has concluded that an ability to cooperate is the secret of humanity's success. He talks to Michael Marshall about drawing fire from Richard Dawkins, the perils of punishment, and devising the mathematical equivalent of the rules of religion

Why are you so fascinated by our ability to help each other out?

Cooperation is interesting because it essentially means that you help someone else, someone who is a potential competitor. You reduce your own success in order to increase the success of somebody else. Why should you do that? Why should natural selection favour such behaviour? To answer these questions I use evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary game theory and experimental tests of human behaviour.

You say there are five different ways in which we cooperate that give us an edge, in terms of natural selection. Tell me about them.

The first one is called direct reciprocity. This is when individuals have repeated interactions, so if I help you now, you may help me later. There is also indirect reciprocity, which takes place in groups. If I help you, somebody else might see our interaction and conclude that I'm a helpful person, and help me later. That's a reciprocal process relying on reputation.

The third mechanism is when neighbours help each other - cooperators survive in clusters. This is called spatial selection, and it plays an important role, not only for people but for bacteria, animals and plants. Then there is group selection: it may be that our group of cooperators is better off than another group of defectors: here selection acts on two levels, because in our group there is more cooperation.

Group selection has had a tricky reputation, and has been attacked by evolutionary biologists. Do you think it has now been rehabilitated?

The introduction of the concept of group selection, some 40 years ago, was imprecise. But recent mathematical models explain very clearly when group selection can promote the evolution of cooperation. There must be competition between groups and migration rates should be low.

Unless I've lost count, there should be one mechanism left.

The last one is kin selection, which can occur when you help a close relative.

You published a paper on kin selection last year that caused a bit of controversy.

I have no problem with kin selection when it is properly formulated. My criticism is directed against the current use of inclusive fitness theory, which is the dominant mathematical approach used to study aspects of kin selection.

Can you explain?

Inclusive fitness theory assumes that the personal fitness of an individual can be partitioned into components caused by individual actions. This restrictive assumption implies that inclusive fitness theory is a limited approach that cannot be used to describe typical situations that arise in social evolution. The standard theory of natural selection does not make such a limiting assumption. In that recent paper we showed that inclusive fitness theory is a subset of the standard theory.

Inclusive fitness is a key concept of evolutionary biology. No wonder that many biologists, including Richard Dawkins, reacted negatively when you attacked it (New Scientist, 2 October 2010, p 8). Do you think people are now coming around to it?

I feel that it is beginning to be appreciated. I would say the negative response rests on a misinterpretation of the paper. People think that we are saying relatedness is unimportant, but this is not at all what we said.

People who are open-minded are beginning to realise that the results of our paper are beautiful: simple mathematical models based on standard natural selection are sufficient to explain the evolution of eusociality or other phenomena in social evolution. The strange mathematical contortions of inclusive fitness theory are unnecessary. In other words if you are interested in a mathematical description of evolution, a situation can never arise in which you would need an inclusive fitness approach.

You have also been involved in some other big debates. Can you tell me about your work on punishment?

Many people feel that punishment is a good thing, that it leads to human cooperation. So their idea is that unless you cooperate with me, I punish you. It might even cost me something to punish you, but I do it because I want to teach you a lesson. One cannot deny that punishment is an important component of human behaviour, but I am sceptical about the idea that it's a positive component.

I have analysed the role of punishment using mathematics and experiments. I think that most uses of punishment are very much for selfish interests, such as defending your position in the group. Punishment leads to retaliation and vendettas. It's very rare that punishment is used nobly.

Over the years you've applied mathematics to a lot of different areas of biology. Is it your aim to put the whole field on a mathematical footing?

Yes. It has happened in many disciplines of science. It's a kind of maturation process. Without a mathematical description, we can get a rough handle on a phenomenon but we can't fully understand it. In physics, that's completely clear. You don't just talk about gravity, you quantify your description of it. The beautiful thing about mathematics is that it can decide an argument. Some things are fiercely debated for years, but with mathematics the issues become clear.

Unlike most evolutionary biologists, you are religious. Do you think it is a problem for the public perception of evolution that it is seen as supporting atheism?

In my opinion, a purely scientific interpretation of evolution does not generate an argument in favour of atheism. Science does not disprove God or replace religion. Evolution is not an argument against God, any more than gravity is. Evolution explains the unfolding of life on Earth. The God of Christianity is "that without which there would be no evolution at all".

So how do you see religion?

I see the teachings of world religions as an analysis of human life and an attempt to help. They intend to promote unselfish behaviour, love and forgiveness. When you look at mathematical models for the evolution of cooperation you also find that winning strategies must be generous, hopeful and forgiving. In a sense, the world's religions hit on these ideas first, thousands of years ago.

Now, for the first time, we can see these ideas in terms of mathematics. Who would have thought that you could prove mathematically that, in a world where everybody is out for himself, the winning strategy is to be forgiving, and that those who cannot forgive can never win?

Do you feel isolated from other evolutionary biologists because of your religious beliefs?

No, I don't think it's an issue. I once had a great discussion with another biologist about science and religion. He was deeply religious. Two weeks later I read that he had been made head of the US National Institutes of Health. He is Francis Collins.

Profile

Martin Nowak is professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University. He has a PhD from the University of Vienna, Austria, became professor of theoretical biology at the University of Oxford aged 32, then moved to Princeton University and later to Harvard. His book SuperCooperators: Altruism, evolution, and why we need each other to succeed, co-authored with Roger Highfield, New Scientist's editor, is out this month

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928045.200-the-mathematics-of-being-nice.html?full=true

This does not imply that I agree with any or all of the above; I have posted it merely to show that genuine science suffers if we become dogmatic, and that there are always alternative theories.

I'll reply to Noxion later this week.

I have posted that earlier NS article on this, below.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th March 2011, 12:19

Here's that earlier article, mentioned above:

Sparks fly over origin of altruism

29 September 2010 by Michael Marshall, Amsterdam
Magazine issue 2780.

AN EXPECTANT silence has descended on the small room in the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. Alan Grafen, a theoretical biologist from the University of Oxford, is taking his time to set up his presentation. When he's ready, he denounces three of his colleagues as "unscholarly" and "transparently wrong", and wonders what could have led such "talented, honest biologists" to be so "misguided".

It's day one of a meeting on the evolution of conflict and cooperation, and exchanges are fierce. At stake is one of the pillars of modern evolutionary biology: the theory of inclusive fitness, which explains how altruistic behaviour can spread through a population. Altruism, in this context, refers to any behaviour which helps the chances of survival of others at the expense of the altruistic individual. Honeybees, which sting intruders to protect their hive and sign their own death warrant in the process, are a classic example.

The conference is the latest stage of a controversy that has been raging over the work of three Harvard University scientists: mathematical biologists Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita, and social insect guru and father of sociobiology Edward O. Wilson. Last month, they published a paper in Nature attacking inclusive fitness (vol 466, p 1057).

The details of their attack are technical and mathematical, but the consequences could be far-reaching. They say inclusive fitness is irrelevant to the real world and want to replace it with a series of equations that could describe the evolution of cooperation in far more detail than ever before.

Their statements have infuriated many of their colleagues, including Grafen, who say their approach has just as many problems as inclusive fitness.

The story dates back to 1955, when British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane was asked if he would risk his life to save another. He supposedly replied that he would only do so to save at least two brothers or eight cousins, reasoning that this would preserve enough copies of his genes to justify his own death. This idea - that animals are more likely to show altruistic behaviour towards individuals they are related to - is called kin selection.

Haldane's colleague William Hamilton later drafted a mathematical description of the phenomenon, known as inclusive fitness, which assigns numerical values to the costs and benefits of an animal's actions. In theory, inclusive fitness makes it possible to calculate the extent of the spread of a given altruistic behaviour - such as staying with your parents to raise your siblings - through a population. Hamilton's maths has been used for decades by biologists studying cooperation in animals and was a major inspiration for Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene.

The problem, say Nowak and Tarnita, is that the calculations just don't work in the real world because they rely on a limiting set of conditions that nature does not stick to. For example, they are only valid for interactions between pairs of animals, which is fine for solitary species whose individuals rarely meet, but no use in studying thousands of ants sharing a colony. What's more, they do not work for populations that are under strong pressure to evolve.

These and other limitations, Tarnita says, mean that the maths of inclusive fitness is not relevant to the real world. Instead, she says biologists should use the models of population genetics, which focus on interactions between different gene variants. These models avoid the messiness of predicting the consequences of behaviour and don't require any dubious assumptions.

Tarnita has shown that by using standard population genetics equations, it is possible to produce an all-encompassing model. In Amsterdam, she excitedly explained that when she plugged Hamilton's conditions into her model, its equations simplified to those of inclusive fitness. Hamilton's maths, she concludes, describes a special case of a broader model of how all behaviours evolve: it is not wrong, but limited.

Nowak points out that, in thousands of insect species, daughters leave the nest despite being as closely related to each other as the workers in an ant colony. This suggests there is some factor other than kin selection keeping workers in the nest and driving altruistic behaviour.

Some biologists have embraced the new ideas: Michael Doebeli of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada calls them "a great step in the right direction". But according to Grafen and many others, they are nothing new. They say theoretical biologists have always known that inclusive fitness was an approximation, though this seems not to have filtered through to experimental biologists, who have tended to take it as gospel.

What's more, in order to use Nowak and Tarnita's model to study the evolution of a behaviour, you would need to know an enormous amount about the genes involved - their identity, location and interactions.

"Lunacy!" cries Grafen. Even if you knew all of this, he says, it would only illuminate the process for one species. So it would be better to stick with inclusive fitness, rough and ready though it is, because it will enable biologists to make predictions about how various species should behave - and indeed already has. Many of his peers agree, arguing that inclusive fitness should still be used as a "rule of thumb".

The argument seems set to run and run. As New Scientist went to press, more than 140 leading biologists, including several who were present in Amsterdam, had signed a letter to Nature criticising Nowak's paper - though the journal would "neither confirm nor deny" that it had received the letter. Nowak seems to have been taken aback by the fuss, saying: "I didn't expect our work to be so controversial."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827804.100-sparks-fly-over-origin-of-altruism.html?full=true