🚀 go-pugleaf

Jason Stokes <j.stokes@student.anu.edu.au> wrote:
>I simply said that at the *fundamental* level,
>biology is about competing replicators.  Likewise, at the *fundamental*
>level, societies are composed of individual people.

And all I'm saying is that neither of these statements have any more
content that the statement that "at the *fundamental* level, everything
is about atoms".

>: >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.)

>Group selection is bogus.  Groups do not replicate, so how can they be
>selected on?  Selection does not work on groups, it works on genes.

Groups *do* replicate -- species spawn new species, news demes are
created by expansion or fragmentation of old ones, etc.  For "groups",
the question is under what parameters (for migration rates between
populations and creation of new populations) this process is
significant.  Read Maynard Smith (an Ultra-Darwinian if ever there was
one) in (I think) _Evolution and the Theory of Games_ for a good
account of why it is not likely to be important *in ordinary
circumstances*.  (A somewhat different claim to "is bogus" and does not
exist.)

For species sorting see any of the papers by Eldredge and Vrba.

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

>I looked at this question some time ago.  I concluded that the word
>"reductionism" is largely completely meaningless, and likewise "holism". 

I agree that they are generally misused.

>I guess one example of "reductionism" is the behaviourist program to
>eliminate all ideas of the mind from psychology, but I would prefer to
>call it "mega-overambitious science."  

Like Dennett in _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_?  Obviously some forms
of reductionism are silly.  Reduction is a powerful tool, but not one
always an appropriate one.


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

>No, it is an abstract idea based on certain emergent properties that
>certain DNA sequences have.  
>You seem to have difficulty distinguishing
>between the abstract theoretical idea of a gene, and the particular
>physical components that make it up.  It's really very simple, it's the
>same as a piece of software on a disk is not "reducable" to differential
>patterns of iron oxide.  Likewise a gene is a piece of information that is
>not reducable to physics.  

So you don't like my parody? Now I tell you that societies
have "emergent properties" and are not reducible to individual biology.
And memes (since you like Dawkins) aren't reducible to individual
people anymore than a gene is reducible to a particular organism.
And you tell me I'm talking nonsense!  Can we have a little consistency 
(or some arguments with more substance)?

> Also likewise, an "individual" in my philosophy
>of society is not "reducable" to the particular atoms that make the
>pattern up.  Your argument of "reductionism-ad-absurdum" really is bogus.

Why?  If you can say of my reduction to physics "it's just not so,
emergent properties, blah, abstract theoretical  idea, blah", why
can't I do the same in response to your reduction to individuals?

>No, and I'm not really talking about DNA.  In evolutionary biology, DNA is
>not studied as a length of DNA, but as an abstract thing that "self"
>replicates (and has phenotypic expression).  Once more, this is idea that
>is independent of physics.

Sure, and in anthropology cultures are not studies as masses of
human emotions, but as abstract entities in their own right.  You stood
up to defend ecology and embryology above, but will you do the same
for for anthroplogy and history?

>: 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.
>
>Exactly, we are getting into the territory of *heirachical* reductionism. 
>You are making the charge that I am reducing the whole of society to
>individuals.  I am not.  What I am asking for is that the first building
>step is examining to what extent individual rights are important, for
>people to go against the pack.  

Rights are *normative* and have nothing to do with the epistemology of 
reduction.  They are the subject of ethics, not of science.

>At a higher level there are of course
>questions of how we manage competing ethnic groups, nation states,
>corporations etc, but in every one of those situations if we take a step
>back from all the grand concepts that operate in those realms (ideas like
>"sovereignity", "free markets", "ethnic identity" etc) and think once more
>that our fundamental goal is maximising individual ah.. "actualisation"
>than the picture can often become much clearer.

Again, you are confusing science with ethics.

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

>Well, my definition of a good, individualistic society is that individuals
>are allowed to dissent or defy the majority in important ways, such as
>freely expressing themselves.  In the words of Adlai Stevenson, "A free
>society is one where it is safe to be unpopular."  I feel if you deny that
>basic level of individualism, you are only one philosophical step away
>from "paternalistic" societies like Malaysia or Singapore.

No dissent at all here -- I may think your science is dubious, but your 
ethical principles seem very much like mine.

Danny.