🚀 go-pugleaf

I parodied:
>: In which case individuals are not fundamental either.  "Individuals
>: are made up cells.  You can have a cell without an individual (amoeba)
>: but you can't have an individual without cells."

>: It always amazes me how reductionist biologists (who want to reduce
>: all of ecology, embryology, and evolution to molecular genetics) get
>: really upset if you use exactly the same arguments they use to argue
>: for the reduction of *all* of biology to physics.  The same goes for
>: proponents of methodological individualism in the social sciences -- 
>: just watch them scream blue murder if you start reducing individuals!

Jason Stokes <j.stokes@student.anu.edu.au> wrote:
>By reductionist biologists I assume you mean the champions of the selfish
>gene theory like Dawkins?  In biology there are eminent reasons for the
>adoption of, as you put it, the reduction of all of "ecology, embryology
>and evolution to molecular genetics", 

Really?  How much evolutionary biology have you read other than Dawkins?
The huge majority of biologists who do functional biology, embryology,
and ecology are just wasting their time, are they?

>not the least of which is that it
>eliminates pernicious ideas like group selection 

Group selection is not "pernicious".  It is only pernicious when appealed
to inappropriately.  (Even people like Maynard Smith accept that within
a narrow range of parameters it can be significant.)  One could say
exactly the same about "gene selectionism" (though I would agree that that
is useful in a far wider range of circumstances).

>and allows for powerful
>theoretical constructs like the extended phenotype.  

Excuse me?  In what way do you need to abolish ecology in order to use
Dawkins' extended phenotype idea (which, again, is really powerful
*in some circumstances*).

>Faced with this, I
>don't understand your charge of "reductionism" and I'm not even sure the
>word "reductionism" is meaningful.

Does ANU teach philosophy of science?  Go grab a copy of the introductory 
textbook on the subject and have a read....

>I think you are committing the fallacy of composition.  In Dawkin's
>theory, the fundamental unit is not a length of DNA, but a *replicator*. 

Which is a particular DNA sequence, no?  What are you getting at.

>The *replicator* is the unit of selection, and it really is an irreducible
>theoretical construct - on earth replicators take the form of lengths of
>DNA, but in other situations it could be composed of clay, or silicon, or
>electronic bits.  It's unimportant what the replicator is composed of,
>indeed the concept of the replicator is independent of physics altogether.

In what sense is a sequence of DNA irreducible?  DNA sequences are
composed of atoms, completely subject to the laws of physics...  Or are
you some sort of vitalist, believing that non-physical forces are at
work?

>In the same way, I'm not referring to the individual as a collection of
>protein but as an *autonomous agent*.  As an autonomous agent, I think the
>individual can rightly be considered the fundamental unit of society. 

And cells are fundamental units in functional biology.  And demes,
villages, and continental plates are fundamental units in
(respectively) population genetics, human geography, and geology.

Humans are not even remotely close to being autonomous: we are
created by socialisation; we are dependent on the world for
physical and other forms of sustenance; we are connected to the 
rest of the universe by an immensely complicated causal web; etc.

>: States and communities, like them or not, are real entities -- just
>: like continental plates and oceanic trenches.

>I'm not denying that or the existence of group processes.  But bear in
>mind that they are built up from individuals interacting together.

And individuals are made up of cells working together.

>But what I'm asking for is serious consideration of what kinds of power
>institutions and communities wield over us *as individuals*.  I'm not just
>talking about government, I'm also talking about any institutionalised or
>normative power structure - the church, your employer, your school, the
>parent-teacher association, big business, your internet service provider -
>whatever!  I don't like censorship precisely because it tries to deny this
>individualism.

I don't think we have any major disagreements about censorship in
practice.  

I don't see that censorship denies invididualism, though -- you can
quite coherently believe that individuals are the only "real" entities
and continue censor them.  Thatcher didn't believe society existed at
all, but that didn't stop her government censoring people; in many
places dictators censor things for purely personal reasons.  I myself
believe that culture and society are "real", and that there *are* such
things as "social norms" and "cultural intentions" -- I just don't
believe that they should be allowed to constrain individual access to
information.

(Following Hume's is/ought distinction, my epistemological position is 
separable from my political one: there are connections, of course!)

Danny.