What Is Knowledge?

John Wilkins said something in the comments on his blog [On the need for grownups [Thoughts from Kansas]] that I'd like to discuss.

I do not think, contrary to some, that science exhausts the realm of knowledge, largely because I have a fairly broad and fallibilistic notion of what it is to know something – you can know that it is wrong to eat fish on a Friday, for example, or that one must not abuse children, neither of which are scientific questions. So I have no truck for those who merely assert that knowledge is all and only scientific – you have to argue for it.

I'm one of those naive scientists who don't understand philosophy so forgive me if I make some silly errors in logic.¹

First, John, I wish you'd stop making false claims about those people you disagree with. I don't know anyone who simply ASSERTS that science is the only way of knowing. On the other hand, I do know people (I am one) who adopt it as a working hypothesis.

I'm looking for evidence of other ways of knowing that might provide valid knowledge. So far I haven't found any so my hypothesis hasn't been falsified.

Now, the problem here falls into the realm of epistemology—defined as "the study of knowledge and justified belief" (Epistemology). As with most philosophical issues, the discussions in that field are far too obtuse for most people to follow. Just look at the article I linked to. I imagine that 99% of people who follow that link will not read past the first section on "What Is Knowledge?"

Here's how I think of "knowledge" in the context of this debate. Knowledge, in my mind, is a form of justified belief that can be affirmed as true by all people. In other words, "knowledge" in this sense is something that applies universally and not just to particular individuals. Your definition of "knowledge" is much broader and that means we are talking past each other. I'm surprised you didn't recognize this.

Here are some examples. I think we should "know" that the Earth revolves around the sun, we should "know" that life evolved from a common ancestor, we should "know" that our species was not almost wiped out by a giant flood in 2500 BCE, we should "know" that some humans believe things that aren't true, and we should "know" that humans have a finite life span. These are all examples of the kind of knowledge that I'm referring to.

Note that there's an immediate problem here since clearly not everyone agrees with my statements of knowledge. In other words, they are not really universally accepted. Does that disqualify them from being examples of true knowledge? Perhaps, but I think we can at least agree that they are good candidates for the kind of knowledge I'm talking about. (We can't realistically demand "universal" acceptance since there will always be some kooks who disagree with even the most obvious examples of knowledge.)

Another potential candidate is, "God exists." The tough part is trying to decide which of these potential candidates for knowledge are true and which ones aren't. The ones we reject don't count as knowledge. I claim that the scientific way of knowing is a tried and true approach to arriving at knowledge of this sort, i.e. things that we can universally agree on. I don't see any other ways of knowing that have achieved the objective.

What about statement such as, "I know that it's wrong to eat fish on Friday" or "It's wrong to abuse children"? I don't think either of those qualify as "knowledge" in the sense that I'm concerned with. You may believe that it's wrong to eat fish on Friday and that belief may be justified by your desire to remain a respected member of your Roman Catholic church, but it hardly qualifies as the kind of knowledge that might be universally accepted as true.

The rule that you shouldn't abuse children isn't "knowledge" at all, in my opinion. It's a rule that our society accepts in order to promote peace and harmony and conform to our concepts of rights and respect for fellow humans.

That rule may be informed by evidence and rationality or it may derive from what your pastor tells you about God's perceived will. But no matter how you come to accept these rules of society they don't count as potential examples of universal knowledge. At best, the rule is secondarily derived from such potential universal knowledge that remains to be proven (Universal Moral Laws).

I'm not sure if this makes sense.

One more thing, when John says, "neither of which are scientific questions" it reveals a different version of science than the one I propose. I'm trying to make the case for science as a way of knowing and, if John accepts my definition, then every question about knowledge is potentially a scientific question. One can't just arbitrarily dismiss something as not being a scientific question without explaining why you can't get an answer by applying rationality, evidence, and skepticism. When John dismisses questions arbitrarily it's called "begging the question."

His logic goes like this:
1: Science can address all questions about knowledge.
2: Some questions are not scientific.
3: Therefore, science can't address all questions.

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1. John Wilkins says, "First of all I have little confidence that scientists and other science-based critics of the philosophical arguments have a good grasp of what those arguments are."

Who's the Grownup in the Science vs Religion Debate?

Joshua Rosenau has fired another shot in the accommodationist war. As usual, he focuses more on rhetoric and mudslinging than on the logical arguments that are presented by both sides. In this case, he demeans all those who disagree with him in On the need for grownups [Updated]. Apparently, there are very few honest people on my side of the argument.

I'm not going to reply to Josh. He's gone beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned and no amount of rational argument is going to convince him that science and religion may not be compatible. His mind is firmly made up and now he's just making sure that his side gives out as many insults—perceived or real—as it receives.

John Wilkins is another matter. He has posted a defense of Josh [On the need for grownups [Thoughts from Kansas]]. I think it might be worthwhile to address his arguments in an attempt to shed some light on the problem and avoid the worst of the name-calling.

So, here goes ....

Josh Rosenau has a sermon on the perils of attacking those who think science and religion can coexist at On the need for grownups [at Thoughts from Kansas]. It’s a pretty damned good sermon. He points out that the claim that science and religion are incompatible is itself an untested, and hence unscientific claim. It’s a point I would like to discuss a bit.

Good, let's discuss. We begin by defining terms. I claim that science is a way of knowing based on rational thought, skepticism, and evidence. I claim that when that way of knowing is applied to religious claims, those claims can be shown to be false or, at the very least, unsupported. Thus, if you are committed to science as a valid way of knowing, it follows that, when you stick to that commitment, the vast majority of religious beliefs are not compatible with science.

Do you have to make the assumption that the scientific way of knowing is a valid way of knowing? No, you don't. If you want to believe in other ways of knowing, such as faith, revelation, and just-so stories, then you are perfectly free to do so. In that case, science is probably not compatible with your worldview and you can believe in the tooth fairy, deny climate change, and refuse to vaccinate your children. No problem. No conflict.

However, if you do adopt the axiom that science is a valid way of knowing then I think most of those beliefs (and more) are not compatible with your choice. John is about to show us why that's bad philosophy.

Back when a philosophy known now as logical positivism was fashionable, the claim was made that whatever was not scientifically verifiable was metaphysical rubbish. This was known as the Verification Principle. Karl Popper, among others, noted that the Verification Principle was not scientifically verifiable and was therefore, on its own account, metaphysical rubbish. That put an end to that version of logical positivism (although no philosophical position ever really dies). It was self-defeating.

So far, so good. I'm not a fan of Karl Popper. (However, I note that John is vastly over-simplifying the views of Popper and conveniently ignoring the reasons why the Verification Principle might be valid.)

What Jerry Coyne and the anti-accommodationists are doing, as Josh points out, is a version of logical positivism (Josh does not use that example – that’s me). They are saying that those who attempt to argue that religion and science are compatible or might coexist are being unscientific, are themselves being unscientific. In fact, the data is that science and religion coexist nearly all the time – most of those who support scientific views are religious. This is because most of everyone is religious, of course, but the fact remains: if one approaches this as a scientific matter, science and religion just are coexistent, that’s the fact of the matter.

Let's dissect this paragraph. First, my anti-accomodationist argument is that once you accept that science is a valid way of knowing, then it follows that most religious claims are not compatible with that approach to knowledge. I have yet to see a valid accommodationist argument that addresses this important point. True, Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway-Morris have made the attempt but in the end their arguments boil down to a rejection of science as the only way of obtaining valid knowledge. In other words, they limit science to just those areas where it can't conflict with religion and then lay claim to other ways of knowing that rule in the religion magisterium. Presumably, John thinks that is a scientific way of reasoning.

Second, John repeats to tired old argument that just because there are people who claim to be good scientists AND are religious, then it follows logically that science and religion are compatible. (Actually, he says that they "coexist," but I assume he means compatible.) This is a very silly argument and I don't understand why John persists in using it. If it were true, then science has to be compatible with every single belief that's ever been held by anyone who claims to be a scientist. In other words, science is compatible with Young Earth Creationism since we know for a fact that there are many scientists who are Young Earth Creationists.

Please, John, for the sake of all of us, drop this argument. It's not going to convince any of us accommodationists and it makes your side look ridiculous since it puts you in the position of defending Young Earth Creationism and other kooky ideas that must be compatible with science if your argument is valid. You know darn well that there are many people who hold on to contradictory ideas. The fact that those people exist is NOT evidence that the ideas are compatible. (There's probably a name for that kind of flawed reasoning.)

What Coyne and others seem to want to argue is that religion and science should not be coherently expressed by a single person. That is a philosophical position one might argue for, philosophically. It is not a fact of science, though, nor, it seems, a fact of logic. So argue for it. Others, as is the way of debates, will argue the contrary, or some other view. As an accommodationist, I think that whether or not science and religion should be treated as compatible, in fact they are, or as compatible as any potentially competing set of beliefs may be, such as the belief that science is the only way to gain justifiable beliefs, which is not, itself, scientifically justifiable.

John, you tacitly admit that science and religion are a "potentially competing set of beliefs." That's the point, isn't it? I argue that if you adopt science as a valid way of gathering knowledge then most everything about religion fails the tests of science. Those who claim to be scientists and still believe that there's a God who answers prayers are expressing two contradictory positions. You can't claim to be thinking like a scientist while holding on to beliefs that have been refuted by science. I claim that almost all claims of religion fall into the set of things that are incompatible with the scientific approach to knowledge (deism is a debateble exception).

I don't understand your position. Perhaps it hinges on the idea that accepting science as a way of knowing is supposed to be a "fact" of science. I have never made that claim and, as far as I know, neither have any other prominent defenders of the incompatiblity of science and religion.

I do assume that science is the only valid way of acquiring knowledge but that's a testable assumption—at least in theory. All one has to do to refute that argument is demonstrate the existence of valid forms of knowledge that cannot possibly be derived from the scientific approach AND ARE COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENCE AS A WAY OF KNOWING. The last part is important. Acquiring knowledge by revelation is another way of knowing and if all of that knowledge was perfectly compatible with science then science and religion would be compatible. If the knowledge acquired by listening to imaginary voices in your head conflicts with the scientific approach then religion and science are not compatible.

You don't have to accept my assumption that science is a valid way of knowing. That's not the point. I agree that that the assumption cannot be justified as "scientific" since that's a circular argument much like to one you used to dismiss Popper. The point is that once you make that assumption and become a scientist, you can't just arbitrarily pick and choose how you are going to apply that way of knowing. You can't say that your scientific approach will help you understand whether the climate is changing but when it comes to deciding whether it's better to pray for your sick child or take her to the hospital then you'll rely on some other way of knowing. You can't be consistent if you say that science helps you understand evolution but you need to shift to another way of knowing when trying to decide whether you have a soul that lives on after you die.

Lot's of people may do that, but they aren't being logical or consistent. They may say they are being logical and consistent (e.g. Ken Miller, Francis Collins) but surely, as a philosopher, you recognize that what people say isn't always the truth.

By the way, feel free to offer up examples of knowledge gained by religion that are fully compatible with the scientific approach but couldn't have been derived from that approach alone. Those would be positive examples in favor of your position on compatibility. It would be a refreshing change to hear an atheist (agnostic) compatibilist give us a few examples instead of just ranting against our position.

This is why I made my snide cheap shot about the split in Dawkins’ website. Dawkins, Coyne, and many others (but not all those who happen to agree with them substantially, I hasten to add) are in the business of building an exclusionary group. Ken Miller and Francis Collins believe in religion? Exclude them from science, and damn them to the outer hell of irrationality. The irony that this is itself an irrational behaviour (or, better understood, is an act of strategic rationality rather than conceptual, to keep allies close and enemies away) escapes them, as our own sins always do.

John, it doesn't help your cause to write things like that. For years people have been claiming that science and religion are perfectly compatible. As you know, it's the official position of the National Center for Science Education. Scientific groups such as the National Academies and AAAS also promote this belief. It's only in the past decade that people like me have been pointing out the flaws in those positions and advocating a reexamination of that widespread assumption.

For decades we've been demonstrating that Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design Creationism conflict with science. They are not compatible with science. For decades we've been biting our tongue when softer versions of creationism are touted as "scientific," religious, alternatives to the extreme versions of creationism. The idea being promoted was that there's some arbitrary line separating some religious beliefs from others. If you stay on one side of that line you are scientific but if you step over the line you are not. People like Ken Miller made this argument: he says that he can be a Roman Catholic and all of his Roman Catholic beliefs are perfectly compatible with being a scientist. Michael Behe, on the other hand, is a Roman Catholic whose beliefs are not compatible with science, according to Ken Miller.

Now, along comes a group of people who are fed up with having to bite their tongue in the face of such obvious irrationality. We present counter-arguments to the claim of compatibility. We suggest that the difference between Ken Miller and Michael Behe is quantitative, not qualitative. We suggest that that imaginary line between scientific theists and non-scientific theists is just that: it's imaginary.

Yes, it's true that this argument labels Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway-Morris (among others) as irrational thinkers. It's true that we state quite categorically that they can't claim to be thinking like scientists while, at the same time, falling down before frozen waterfalls as though they were a sign from a supernatural being. Is this "exclusionary"? Well, I suppose it is but it's no more exclusionary that the group you support. You're not trying to include me in your group of accommodationists (or agnostics) are you?

My point is that your argument is illogical and irrelevant. All points of view are exclusionary to some extent. The people who agree with you are included and the people who disagree with you are not. You are being exclusionary. Does that have anything at all to do with whether your argument is valid or not? (Hint: no, it doesn't.) I thought philosophers were supposed to be good at logic and good at understanding false and irrelevant arguments.

You say, "The irony that this is itself an irrational behaviour ..." Why am I being irrational when I argue that religion isn't compatible with a scientific approach to knowledge? And why is it ironic? As far as I'm concerned, the ironic part is that for many decades we bought into the belief that some religious views were incompatible with science but other, equally bizarre, beliefs are perfectly compatible with science. Do you believe that God created the universe 10,000 years ago?—that's not scientific. Do you believe that God performs miracles just about every day?—that's compatible with science. Do you believe that God killed almost everyone on Earth in a giant flood?—that's not scientific. Do you believe that God sent his son to visit Earth then raised him back up into heaven?—that's perfectly compatible with science. Is this an example of rational thinking?

You also claim it's irrational to argue for the incompatibility of science and religion because it is bad politics ("to keep allies close and enemies away) escapes them, as our own sins always do"). Please, drop this argument. You've been following this debate for long enough to know better. In case, you've forgotten the issue, let me state the relevant points one more time.

• This is a discussion about the meaning of science and religion and whether they are compatible. My "allies" in that discussion are those who agree that science and religion are in conflict. My "enemies" are those, like you, who disagree. Please don't continue to made false assumptions about who my allies should be.
• From a political perspective, we argue that major organizations like NCSE should adopt a neutral position on the issue of compatibility. That's not what they have been doing. By allying with, and agreeing with, accommodationists they are excluding potential allies like me. I do not advocate that they officially adopt my position. I argue that they stop excluding me from the conversation by siding 100% with my "enemies." Got it? It's not rocket science. Try and keep up. The people who are being politically unwise are groups like NCSE who insist on adopting a controversial position that brings them into conflict with a great many scientists. We advocate neutrality. Why is that more irrational than taking a position that excludes people like me? Why are we labeled as the ones who are rejecting allies in the fight against creationism? You're not making sense here.
• When it comes to the bigger picture, I'm participating in a debate about rationality and superstition. The evolution/creation debate is a subset of that much larger debate. My allies in that large debate are fellow atheists and skeptics and we are fighting against superstitious beliefs of all kinds. My allies are people like Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Jerry Coyne (among others). Many of the superstitious beliefs are religious. My enemies in that debate are all those people who promote superstition and irrational (IMHO) worldviews. Those "enemies" include Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway Morris as well as Michael Behe, Bill Demski, and Paul Nelson. Please don't try to tell me that Ken Miller should be my ally.¹ He's not on my side in the debate that matters. I'm the one who will decide who are my allies and who are my enemies. It's illogical for you to arbitrarily try and make that decision for me. This has been explained to you many times. Do you not listen or do you have cogent arguments about why my choice of allies is incorrect? (If you have cogent arguments, then why not make them instead of the strawman arguments you obviously prefer?)

For example, Coyne’s term “faithiest” is a term of opprobrium and abuse, just as Josh points out, other racial or sexual epithets are. While one may not identify the exclusion of non-”Caucasians” or LGBT’s in American society with that of accommodationists (or, for that matter of atheists in theist America), they are of the same kind if nowhere near the same degree. Dawkins’ claim that accommodationists “like the idea that someone has faith” or that we “have faith in faith” is a similar act of abuse. But they are rational, of course. No self-defeating behaviour for them, no sir.

If this is the main point you want to make then you could have done it much better—and much less hypocritically—by leaving out everything else. Make up your mind. Are you criticizing the position I take or are you just complaining about the rhetoric that's being used on both sides of the debate?

Anyone reading your posting would conclude that you are belittling the argument that science and religion are in conflict. Then to top it off you complain that in addition to being "unscientific," "irrational," and "exclusionary," your "enemies" are also being mean because they call you names. Don't you see any irony in that?

Look, I don’t care if atheists are aggressive or not. Certainly being excluded themselves, they have the right to be loud and proud. I think they should speak out at every turn. But does that require that they must denigrate and belittle those who don’t entirely agree with them? Must they turn into what they themselves despise? It seems, sadly, this is the human condition. But don’t pretend to be the vanguard of rationality when you are just as irrational and tribal as everyone else. The term for that is not “rational”, but “hypocritical”.

Pot, kettle black.

Anytime you'd like to continue this debate without calling me names, I'm happy to oblige. I'll try and refrain as well, although it does take some of the fun out of the discussion.

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1. I can ally with Ken Miller in the fight against extreme forms of creationism and I'm happy to do so. That doesn't mean I have to agree with him on everything else. He's a grownup—as am I—and he can handle people who disagree with him on some issues but agree with him on others.

Scientists reveal driving force behind evolution

 
According to a press release from the University of Liverpool (UK), their scientists have revealed the driving force behind evolution. It's not just adaptation that drives evolution but a special form of adaptation ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment.

The "breakthrough" has been recently published in Nature (Paterson et al., 2010). Here's the abstract.

The Red Queen hypothesis proposes that coevolution of interacting species (such as hosts and parasites) should drive molecular evolution through continual natural selection for adaptation and counter-adaptation. Although the divergence observed at some host-resistance and parasite-infectivity genes is consistent with this, the long time periods typically required to study coevolution have so far prevented any direct empirical test. Here we show, using experimental populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 and its viral parasite, phage Φ2, that the rate of molecular evolution in the phage was far higher when both bacterium and phage coevolved with each other than when phage evolved against a constant host genotype. Coevolution also resulted in far greater genetic divergence between replicate populations, which was correlated with the range of hosts that coevolved phage were able to infect. Consistent with this, the most rapidly evolving phage genes under coevolution were those involved in host infection. These results demonstrate, at both the genomic and phenotypic level, that antagonistic coevolution is a cause of rapid and divergent evolution, and is likely to be a major driver of evolutionary change within species.

Imagine that—phages evolve to infect bacteria and bacteria evolve to resist infection. Is that the sort of "breakthrough" that merits publication in Nature and spectacular headlines about new driving forces in evolution?

Steve Paterson seems to think so, according to the press release.

Dr Steve Paterson, from the University's School of Biosciences, explains: "Historically, it was assumed that most evolution was driven by a need to adapt to the environment or habitat. The Red Queen Hypothesis challenged this by pointing out that actually most natural selection will arise from co-evolutionary interactions with other species, not from interactions with the environment.

"This suggested that evolutionary change was created by 'tit-for-tat' adaptations by species in constant combat. This theory is widely accepted in the science community, but this is the first time we have been able to show evidence of it in an experiment with living things."

The Red Queen Hypothesis has been around for a long time and it's a perfectly reasonable explanation for arms races. I find it difficult to believe that this paper is the first demonstration of this phenomenon. I find it even more difficult to believe that "most" adaptations are the product of "co-evolutionary interactions with other species."

I have a proposal for regulating university press releases. I think every one of them should be accompanied by a short statement such as the following: The authors of this paper have been consulted and they affirm that this press release is an accurate summary of the work that has been published. They are all prepared to stand behind the statements in this press release.

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[HatTip: RichardDawkins.net]

Paterson, S., Vogwill, T., Buckling, A., Benmayor, R., Spiers, A.J., Thomson, N.R., Quail, M., Smith, F., Walker, D., Libberton, B., Fenton, A., Hall, N., Brockhurst, M.A. (2010) Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution. Nature. 2010 Feb 24. [Epub ahead of print] [doi:10.1038/nature08798]

"Highly Evolved" and Favorite Kingdom

 
You can kill two birds with one stone by visiting Byte Size Biology and reading the posting on Highly Evolved. Hopefully you'll never use the term "highly evolved" once you understand that it reveals something about your understanding of evolution. That "something" is not complimentary.

While there, respond to the poll on your favorite kingdom of life. The results so far are very strange, I would have expected bacteria to be in the lead since bacteria are so much more diverse and interesting that the other choices.

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Fingers and Toes

 
Thanks to Ryan Gregory for alerting me to the latest issue of Carnival of Evolution [Carnival of Evolution #21: The Superstar Edition].

One of the articles that caught my attention was on the evolution of human fingers [The toe bone’s connected… errr… related to the finger bone]. It's a report on the work of Campbell Rolian on the evolution of human fingers and hands. His result suggest that bipedalism led to selection for long big toes and short little toes because this was better for running and walking. As a consequence of this selection for toes, the digits of the hand also changed since, from a developmental perspective, fingers and toes are related. Thus, early humans developed hands with larger thumbs and shorter fingers. This byproduct of selection for toes gave rise to hands that were better for tool-making and foraging.

I don't know if this is how hands and feet actually evolved but I really like the thought process. It shows that Campbell Rolian is thinking like a pluralist by not treating everything as a direct consequence of natural selection. The blogger, Peter McDougall, interviews Campbell Rolian and this is what he says ...

There’s a tendency, especially among anthropologists, to diagnose everything as an adaptation. You come up with a ‘Just So’ story that describes why a trait exists. Problem is, there’s really no basis for the story and it risks turning the trait into something that it’s not. There have to be some aspects of our development that are merely artifacts—byproducts of the evolution of other traits, or things that just came about by chance in the process of building other parts of our body. For example, there’s nothing adaptive about having white bones. Our bones are white because the calcium phosphate compound that is the main ingredient of our bones happens to reflect all wavelengths of light not because having white bones gives us a particular advantage. So I’m excited that what we’ve found offers an example of a non-adaptive trait. The initial changes in human hands that led to our improved tool use were really just a result of changes to our feet. It was a byproduct of bipedalism. Our study provides a warning out there to human anthropologists to think of alternative hypotheses to some of the ‘Just So’ stories they come up with.

Nice to see there are some smart anthropologists who understand evolution.

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Rolian, C., Lieberman, D.E., Hallgrímsson, B. (2010) THE CO-EVOLUTION OF HUMAN HANDS AND FEET. Evolution. 2009 Dec 31. [Epub ahead of print] [PubMed] [DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00944.x]

Canada 26 : Australia 3

 
Canada won 26 medals at the 2010 Olympics while Australia won only 3 (and one of those was won by a Canadian!). Eat your heart out John Wilkins.¹

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1. When you combine the two rounds of olympic competition (summer and winter) Australia still comes out ahead in terms of total medals. If you count gold medals, the score is Canada 17 : Australia 16. It would be interesting if John could re-calculate his table of medals per population now that the complete results are in. Australia still does better than Canada but many of the values in the table will change significantly.

Canada 3 : USA 2

 
GOLD!!!

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Fine Tuning and Design

 
There's been an upsurge in talk about the fine tuning argument for the existence of God. This is a favorite of theists since they claim that it is scientific evidence of God.

There's also been some discussion about design in nature. We're familiar with the old theistic claims that design proves God but many biologists also claim that nature looks designed—only they think that natural selection accounts for the appearance of design.

Here's Neil deGrasse Tyson poking fun at both claims and making Richard Dawkins look decidedly uncomfortable. As he says, life doesn't look terribly designed once you start paying attention.

Please, let's stop saying that life has the appearance of design. You can say that there are some features of organisms that are adaptations and these features have the appearance of design but it's silly to say that all life looks designed.

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[Hat Tip: Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant]

Zoë's First Olympics

 
My granddaughter is cheering for Canada.

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Michael Ruse Defends Adaptationism

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini have just published a book called What Darwin Got Wrong. I haven't read the book but from the reviews I've seen, it's not something that I'm looking forward to. However, their main thesis is that natural selection has been oversold as an explanation for evolution and I have a great deal of sympathy for that point of view. Furthermore, I think that adaptationism—the assumption that adaption is the default explanation for everything that evolves—is a scientifically bankrupt position. I'm a pluralist.

Michale Ruse has reviewed the book for boston.com and I'd like to analyze his review in order to reveal where he goes wrong.

Origin of the specious
This new critique intends to rebut Darwin’s ideas but seems largely to misunderstand evolutionary theory.

“What Darwin Got Wrong’’ is an intensely irritating book. Jerry Fodor, a well-known philosopher, with coauthor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a cognitive scientist, has written a whole book trashing Darwinian evolutionary theory - the theory that makes natural selection the main force of change in organisms through the ages.

Like I said, I haven't read the book so I can't really comment on the specifics. But I can comment on what Micahel Ruse says about the book.

He begins by claiming that the authors misunderstand evolutionary theory. That may be true but it will become painfully obvious that Michael Ruse is not enough of an authority to make such a claim.

Let's begin by seeing how Ruse describes evolution. He says that "Darwinian evolutionary theory" is the theory proposing that natural selection is the main force of evolution. Strictly speaking, that's correct. What we're interested in debating is whether "Darwinian evolutionary theory" is correct as defined.

The answer is clearly "no." Random genetic drift is the most common mechanism of evolution as long as you define evolution properly. Thus, as a explanation of evolution, Darwinism is not as good as a pluralistic evolutionary theory. Although Ruse isn't clear on this, it's well known from his previous writings that he thinks of Darwinism as the preferred explanation of evolution and not just of adaptation. In fact, he rarely distinguishes between the two.

I conclude, right from the beginning of the review, that Michael Ruse has a poor understanding of evolutionary theory.

You would think that somewhere in the pages there would be one - just one - discussion of the work that evolutionists are doing today to give a sense of how the field itself has evolved. Peter and Rosemary Grant on Darwin’s finches for example; Edward O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler on ant social structures perhaps; David Reznick on Trinidadian guppies perchance? But no such luck. A whole book putting in the boot and absolutely no serious understanding of where the boot is aimed.

Aren't those interesting examples? Just what you'd expect from a myopic adaptationist. What about studies of molecular evolution which are almost entirely based on neutral changes and random genetic drift. You'd think that someone who claims to be on top of modern evolutionary theory would recognize the growing evidence of non-adaptive change, wouldn't you?

Why write such a book? The authors would respond in two ways. First, in a section that would be better described as “What Darwin Didn’t Know,” rather than “What Darwin Got Wrong,” they tell us that today’s cutting-edge biology has all sorts of explanations of organic origins that make Darwinism otiose. We learn that life is constrained by the laws of physics and chemistry, and that something like natural selection, which supposedly molds organic life into sophisticated bundles of adaptations, simply cannot get off the ground. To the contrary, evolution is all a matter of molecular development, guided by the self-organizing laws of the physical sciences.

To which Darwinians can only respond, wearily again, that they have known about constraints since “The Origin of Species.’’ Because body weight cubes as length increases, you cannot build a cat the size of an elephant. The elegant feline legs needed for jumping must be replaced by tree trunks able to carry many pounds. And examples of plausible self organization have been fitted into the Darwinian picture for many years. A favorite example is the way that many flowers and fruits (like pine cones) exhibit patterns following the Fibonacci series, made famous by “The Da Vinci Code.’’ Chauncey Wright, a 19th century pragmatist, discussed these patterns in detail, showing how formal rules of mathematics can nevertheless yield organisms that are highly adapted and that natural selection is the vital causal element. The rules give the skeleton, and then selection fills in the details. The order of a plant’s leaves may be fixed, but how those leaves stand up or lie down is selection-driven all of the way.

In their various published articles Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini have over-emphasized "constraints" and they come off sounding like some new-agers who have just discovered molecular biology.

But the fundamental point about constraints is interesting and it's true that adaptationists have been forced to recognize it every since Gould and Lewontin published the Spandrels paper back in 1977. Most adaptationist still don't get it and Ruse is no exception, although in this case he probably gets it better than Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini. Ruse admits that there are certain physical constraints on the way plant leaves evolve, for example, but he then goes on to say that everything else is an adaptation. How does he know this? How does he know for sure that the differences in the leaves of red maples, silver maples, and sugar maples are all due to natural selection?

The second half of the book is a frontal attack on natural selection itself. The main argument is very odd. It is allowed that there is differential reproduction. Some organisms have many offspring, and some have just a few. It is even allowed that the reason why some succeed and others don’t might have to do with the superior features possessed by the winners and not the losers. At which point you might think: Darwinism wins, because what else is there to natural selection?

Not so fast, however. Our authors take as gospel the argument of the late Stephen Jay Gould and the geneticist Richard Lewontin that although some features may be adaptive others may not. This argument is then used to say that if an organism succeeds in life’s struggles, you can never conclude that a particular feature was essential for this success, because there may be other features linked to it. Perhaps it was the latter features that were essential. Natural selection fails therefore as a mechanism of change.

I take it as "gospel" that random genetic drift is an important mechanism of evolutionary change. Why do I get the impression that Michael Ruse has doubts about this? Why does he use the word "gospel" to refer to the ideas of Gould and Lewontin but not Dawkins and E.O. Wilson? Isn't that strange?

Hundreds of evolutionary biologists have written about random genetic drift and other possible mechanisms of evolution (e.g., molecular drive, species sorting). They do not claim, as Ruse implies, that non-adaptive traits become fixed because they are "linked" to adaptive ones. Is this how Ruse dismisses random genetic drift—by treating it as a by-product of natural selection?

In fairness, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini do go on about linkage in their published articles so Ruse is right to mock those silly claims. However, I wish he didn't make things worse by implying that hitchhiking is the explanation for drift.

The existence of random genetic drift does not mean that natural selection "fails. " It just means that natural selection by itself is not a sufficient explanation for evolutionary change. Perhaps Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini are confused about this—other reviews suggest that this is the case—but Michael Ruse seems to be trashing the very idea that something other than natural selection could be at play.

I read all of this stuff a couple of times. I am just not used to people giving the opposition everything for which they have asked and then plowing on regardless. But, even if you ignore the apparently shared belief that selection is at work - we may not know which features were crucial, but that hardly stops us saying that there was selection at work - the other points hardly crush the Darwinian. It has long been known that features get linked. And in any case, we can ferret out which features are most useful and which are just along for the ride. Suppose eyes, which are surely necessary, are linked to tufts of hair, which may not be. Well, experiment and see how the organisms get along without eyes and then without hair.

Non-adaptive features can arise even if they are completely unlinked to adaptive feature. Ruse doesn't seem to understand this basic concept of population genetics. And Ruse needs to take his own advice. Rather that just assume that a feature is an adaptation, you need to do the experiments. This applies to the leaves on a tree and the beaks of the finch.

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini will not allow this, because apparently we are now ascribing conscious intentionality to the nonconscious world. We are saying the eyes were designed for seeing in a way that the tufts were not. And they stress that the whole point of a naturalistic explanation, to which the Darwinian is supposedly committed, is that the world was not designed.

In response, one can only say that this is a misunderstanding of the nature of science. The Darwinian does not want to say that the world is designed. That is what the Intelligent Design crew argues. The Darwinian is using a metaphor to understand the material nonthinking world. We treat that world as if it were an object of design, because doing so is tremendously valuable heuristically. And the use of metaphor is a commonplace in science.

Darwinist are always saying that the world has the appearance of design. Of course it's a metaphor but it's a metaphor based on the idea that natural selection, and not God, is the designer.

Ruse and his fellow adaptationists treat the world as if it were an object of design because they are psychologically committed to the idea that natural selection is responsible for almost everything. They cannot adjust to the fact that much of what we see in living things could be due to accident, or even the fixation of deleterious mutations. That's one of the reasons they have so much trouble with junk DNA and it's why they can't account for so much diversity in populations.

Here's a clue. Life doesn't actually look terribly designed. Get over it. Abandon the metaphor—it just feeds into a false notion of evolution and, incidentally, lends support to the IDiots.

Why then do we have these arguments? The clue is given at the end, when the authors start to quote - as examples of dreadful Darwinism - claims that human nature might have been fashioned by natural selection. At the beginning of their book, they proudly claim to be atheists. Perhaps so. But my suspicion is that, like those scorned Christians, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini just cannot stomach the idea that humans might just be organisms, no better than the rest of the living world. We have to be special, superior to other denizens of Planet Earth. Christians are open in their beliefs that humans are special and explaining them lies beyond the scope of science. I just wish that our authors were a little more open that this is their view too.

This is despicable. Evolutionary psychology is a broken discipline. And it's not because there is no genetic components to behavior—of course there is. It's because the field is dominated by adaptationist explanations and crazy "just-so" stories that would make Rudyard Kipling proud.

If you accept, as I do, that humans do all kinds of silly things just because of their culture and superstitions, and not necessarily because they are adaptive, then that makes us more like the other animals and not more special. If you accept that we are products of evolution by accident and not "design" (metaphorically) then that makes us farther removed from a potential designer and not closer to God as Ruse would have you believe.

Ruse and the adaptationists are the ones who skate close to the edge when it comes to supporting Christian concepts of life. They do this by conceding that we look designed when that's simply not the full story.

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[Image Credit: The photo is from Paul Nelson on the Intelligent Design website. It refers to Ruse's idea that evolution is a form of religion. There's something to be said for this idea, especially when it's applied to confirmed Darwinists.]

The "Ayes" Have It—Science and Religion Are Compatible

 
Shocking news from England. The General Synod of the Church of England considered the question of science and religion. By an overwhelming vote (241 -2) they concluded that science and religion are perfectly compatible [General Synod says religion and science not mutually exclusive].NCSE and major scientific organizations will be grateful for this show of support.

Launching the debate, a computer scientist, Dr Peter Capon of Manchester diocese, said: "We wish to refute the perception that you have to choose between science and faith … the crude caricature of faith as being blind and irrational. We reject the 'scientism' that claims that, in principle, science can resolve all questions capable of being answered.

"Most scientists accept that philosophy, theology and the humanities are alive and well and give insights and understanding that complement but are not replaced by scientific understanding."

Science is a way of knowing characterized by the use of evidence and rational thought. Modern disciplines like philosophy and the humanities use this approach to gathering knowledge—indeed, philosophy invented it. Thus, neither philosophy or the humanities provide insights and understanding that's outside of the scientific approach to knowledge. They are part of it, as long as they are done properly.

Theology, on the other hand, is definitely not scientific in its approach to knowledge. We'd all like to know the examples that Dr. Capon is referring to. What, exactly, are the examples of insight and understanding (i.e., true knowledge) that theology has given us? Perhaps Dr. Capon and his supporters could give us a short list of these examples, choosing one or two from each of the major religions.

Several theologies promote the existence of multiple gods. Is that insightful? What about reincarnation—is that an example of insight and understanding from theology? It's difficult to claim that theology offers real insight and understanding unless you're prepared to embrace the idea that only your religion is true. This is exactly what the General Synod is doing. They condemn the "insight and understanding" of theologies based on a literal interpretation of the Bible but claim that the Church of England has it right.

That's not rational. It's much more probable that all theologies are wrong because they rely on faith and not evidence. Like it or not, faith is blind and irrational. And that makes it incompatible with science.

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Photo Credit: The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Rowan Williams) with a friend.

The Flu Vaccine and Dystonia

 
This story has been posted on a number of blogs (Skepchick, ERV, Pharyngula) but it deserves even wider coverage.¹

Do you remember the woman who claims to have been given dystonia by the flu shot? She had these strange symptoms of uncontrolled movement that were only relieved when she ran or walked backwards. At the time this was advertised as one of the important reasons to be "skeptical" of vaccinations (using the word "skeptical" as a synonym for "gullible"). Some of the students in my class last Fall were impressed enough to quote this case as evidence that there's something wrong with vaccines.

Well, it turns out that TV crews have been secretly taping Desiree Jennings and discovered that she now walks normally and even drives a car! Isn't that amazing! She was cured by some quack who injected her with vitamins and put her in a pressure chamber.

Unfortunately there were some side effects. She now speaks with a strange accent that sounds vaguely Australian—but only if you're not from Australia. This woman needs to see a psychiatrist.

The first video is the report from last October and the second is the recent expose.

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1. Orac [Desiree Jennings & Dr. Buttar on Inside Edition] and Steve Novella [Well That Didn’t Take Long – Another Dystonia Case Follow Up] say thorough the scam from the very beginning.

Methodological Naturalism

Here's the abstract from a talk given by Maarten Boudry at the Darwin Conference in Toronto last November (see Good News from Gent).

Maarten Boudry, Ghent University
Methodological Naturalism as an Intrinsic Property of Science: A Grist to the Mill of Intelligent Design Theory

In recent rounds of debate between evolutionists and supporters of Intelligent Design, the principle of methodological naturalism (MN) has been an important battleground. Creationists and intelligent design proponents have previously claimed that the commitment of evolutionists to naturalism and materialism constitutes a philosophical prejudice on their side, because it rules out any kind of supernatural causes by fiat. In response to these charges, some philosophers and scientists have argued that science is only committed to something they call methodological naturalism: Science does not deal with supernatural causes and explanations, but that does not mean that the latter do not exist. However, there has been some philosophical discussion about the correct understanding of MN. The principle of MN is often conceived of as an intrinsic and self-imposed limitation of science, as something that is part and parcel of the scientific enterprise by definition. According to this view (Intrinsic MN or IMN) - which is defended by people like Eugenie Scott, Michael Ruse and Robert Pennock and has been adopted in the ruling of Judge John E. Jones III in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case - science is simply not equipped to deal with the supernatural and therefore has no authority on the issue. It is clear that this depiction of science and MN offers some perspectives for reconciling science and religion. Not surprisingly, IMN is often embraced by those sympathetic to religion, or by those who wish to alleviate the sometimes heated opposition between the two.

However, we will argue that this view of MN does not offer a sound rationale for the rejection of supernatural explanations. Alternatively, we will defend MN as a provisory and empirically grounded commitment of scientists to naturalistic causes and explanations, which is in principle revocable by future scientific findings (Qualified MN or QMN). In this view, MN is justified as a methodological guideline by virtue of the dividends of naturalistic explanation and the consistent failure of supernatural explanations in the history of science.

We will discuss and reject four arguments in favour of IMN: the argument from the definition of science, the argument from lawful regularity, the science stopper argument, and the argument from procedural necessity. Moreover, we will argue that defining the supernatural out of science is a counterproductive strategy against ID creationism, and, for that matter, against any theory involving supernatural explanations. More specifically, IMN has been eagerly exploited by proponents of ID to bolster their false claims about the philosophical and metaphysical prejudices of evolutionists. As ID proponent Philip Johnson rhetorically noted, if science is about following the evidence wherever it leads, why should scientists exclude a priori the possibility of discovering evidence for the supernatural? Therefore, IMN is actually grist to the ID mill.
We conclude that IMN is philosophically artificial and that its attempt to reconcile science and religion is ill-conceived. QMN, alas, does not provide any such ready reconciliation either, but it does offer a sound rationale for the rejection of supernatural designers in modern science.

Here's the problem. You can't just arbitrarily restrict science to methodological naturalism. That's like ruling out supernatural explanations by fiat and not by logic. If God exists, then there's no reason why supernatural explanations can't be a legitimate part of science. This is one of the arguments made by Philip Johnson and it hasn't been adequately addressed by most philosophers.

But there's another problem with using methodological naturalism as a defense of accommodationism. How do draw the line between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism? Obviously, there's no difference for an atheist; in fact, the distinction seems rather silly. If supernatural explanations are never found to be necessary in explaining the natural world then doesn't it make sense to conclude that fairies and Santa Claus don't exist?

But for theists it's important to make a distinction so that they can adhere to methodological naturalism as scientists without having to abandon their belief in supernatural beings outside of the laboratory.

Where is the boundary and how do you tell when the line has been crossed? Accommodationists are absolutely convinced that they can tell the difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism but they are never very clear about explaining this difference to others.

Here's your chance. Let's see if anyone can come up with a good way of telling when the practice of methodological naturalism becomes philosophical naturalism.

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Good News from Gent

While in Gent I got a chance to meet up with some members of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Gent. Jan Verbeeren (right) is a regular reader of Sandwalk. Stefaan Blanke (below left) and Maarten Boudry (below right) are graduate students who I met at the Darwin conference in Toronto in November.

It was easy to convince Maarten to join Jan and I for a beer because Jan was buying. Unfortunately, Stefaan couldn't make it so I'll have to go back for another visit.

There are at least 500 different beers made in Belgium—or so I'm told [Belgium beers]. I doubt that I'll be able to sample all of them before I leave. The ones I had in Gent were "Delirium Tremens" and "Tripel Karmeliet." They were excellent.


We talked about adaptationism vs. pluralism. It seems to be a difficult controversy to grasp if you haven't been trained as a scientist. I think the problem is that the concept of random genetic drift as a mechanism of evolution is not widely accepted among philosophers.

We also spent an hour or so talking about methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. This was the subject of Maarten's talk in Toronto last November and I think he's on to something (with Stefaan). I'll write a separate post on this topic.

The title of this post is from How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix by Robert Browning.

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I gallop’d, Dirck gallop’d, we gallop’d all three;
“Good speed !” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we gallop’d abreast.

...

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Gravensteen

 
Gravensteen is one of the castles of the Count of Flanders. It's located in the middle of Gent (Ghent in English) and it's an excellent example of an early medieval castle (extensively restored).

Anyone descended from William the conqueror is also a descendant of the early counts of Flanders (Baldwin IV, V, VI, Arnulf II)¹ since William married Matilda of Flanders, the daughter of Baldwin VI (1030 - 1070). These early counts built a wooden fort on the site of the present castle. The present stone structure dates from about 1180 [Gravensteen].

I especially liked the back of the castle where the kitchen was located because it hasn't been completely restored and you get an idea of what Gravensteen must have looked like for most of the last five hundred years.


Even though it was a cloudy day, the view from the ramparts was spectacular. Gent is a beautiful city.



We spent a great deal of time in the torture chamber and Ms. Sandwalk took lots of pictures of the various instruments used to "persuade" the prisoners. She also got pictures of the guillotine that was used in the late 1700's and early 1800's.

Here's one of the more pleasant images.

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[Photo Credits: top [Wikipedia], all others are by Ms. Sandwalk.

1. Assuming, that is, that you are a descendant of one of his legitimate children.