Philosophy of Science
evolvingthoughts | March 14, 2009A while back I excerpted some Whewell on classification by types. Here is John Stuart Mill disagreeing with him, and, I think, starting off the modern literature on natural kinds.
Kinds are Classes between which there is an impassable barrier; and what we have to seek is, marks whereby we may determine on which side of the barrier an object takes its place. The characters which will best do this should be chosen: if they are also important in themselves, so much the better. When we have selected the characters, we parcel out the objects according to those characters, and not, I conceive,…
evolvingthoughts | March 11, 2009Taxonomy - the science of classifying organisms into putatively natural groups - is often treated as a kind of necessary bit of paperwork without much theoretical import by some biologists. Others think it is the single most important thing to do, usually justifying it in terms of conservation biology, but sometimes in terms of foundational knowledge. One thing that has become clear to me is exactly how foundational taxonomy is. Now, historian Polly Winsor has published a paper in the leading taxonomic journal, appropriately named Taxon, in which she argues, I believe correctly, that Darwin's…
sciencepunk | March 10, 2009
Some time back film-maker Alom Shaha asked me to contribute to a project he was working on entitled Why is Science Important?. I'm pleased to see that the finished film is now complete, featuring such luminaries as Adam-Hart Davis, Professor Robin Weiss, Prof. Marcus du Sautoy, A.C. Grayling and Susan Blackmore, and skipping from Antarctic survey to rocket lab to fusion reactor. You can watch the film in individual clips here, or as a single half-hour film here. You can also contribute your thoughts as to why science is important by leaving a message here.
evolvingthoughts | March 6, 2009There's been a highly publicised conference at the Vatican about evolution. There are good and sensible things being said there, and silly ones.
The good and sensible things are that nobody questions that evolution occurs, and it is asserted that faith and science cannot conflict (which means, therefore, that faith will have to adapt to science, since science changes only in response to the evidence).
The less sensible things are that evolution is not the cause of atheism, and that those, specifically mentioning Dawkins, who claim that it does are being "scientistic", that is, practising…
evolvingthoughts | March 4, 2009An interesting article is up at the New Atlantis by Ari Schulman, arguing that we will never be able to replicate the mind on a digital computer. Here I want briefly to argue there are other reasons for this.
Transhumanists are fond of claiming that one day we will be able to download a state vector description of our brain states onto a suitably fast and sophisticated computer, and thereafter run as an immortal being in software. I want to give two reasons why this will not happen, and neither of them rely on anything like the Chinese Room, which is just a bad argument in my opinion.
Reason…
evolvingthoughts | March 4, 2009Darwin's Dangerous Idea, according to Daniel Dennett in the book by that name, is natural selection. This is often referred to as "Darwin's theory". But Darwin did not always think evolutionary events or processes were due to natural selection.
First off, let's say this again: Darwin did not think that evolution was due to chance. His mechanism of evolution was not "random chance", as Behe and others have asserted. He believed that variation was not correlated with fitness, yes, and occurred in ways that are statistically distributed (a conception not available until Galton came up with the…
evolvingthoughts | March 1, 2009William Smellie wrote The Philosophy of Natural History in 1791, and it remained in print for over a century. It's a lovely and explicit expression of the Great Chain of Being view that all things grade insensibly from simple to perfect, and all classifications are arbitrary. This was effectively the last time in which someone could argue that from within natural history itself. I transcribe the whole chapter below the fold (it's a great way to engage the text in detail):
From Smellie, William. 1791. The philosophy of natural history. Philadelphia: Robert Campbell, pp463-469.
CHAPTER XXII.
Of…
evolvingthoughts | March 1, 2009Brian Leiter has asked who that was in the train of the New York Times declaring that it was Wittgenstein.So far, Russell is leading. Russell? My goodness, he was important but hardly the best - most read more than best, I suspect. Moore was better than Russell. As to the other leading contenders, both Quine and Rawls are good candidates, although they are recalled for rather different things. Rawls had perhaps more influence on public life than anyone, but Quine influenced generations of metaphysics and epistemology philosophers.
So in tandem, and in the comments, what was the best…
evolvingthoughts | February 26, 2009PD Magnus on the history of the philosophy of science in the last 50 years, in around 1400 words.
A short primer on the Greenhouse Effect
Mendeley, a bibliographic cloud project, has raised funding from Last.fm, Warner and Skype execs. Looks like next gen after Endnote...
evolvingthoughts | February 26, 2009Folks, I haven't forgotten you or the promised myth posts, but I've had to do some book stuff, along with Real Life stuff. So hang tight - I'm away this weekend (and - shock! - I'm not taking the laptop with me) but I promise something meaty on Sunday evening or so, OK?
In the meantime: some X-Phi links:
Philosophy: the new x-philes, and a new podcast too
Philosophy’s great experiment
Francis Galton and the History of X-Phi
X-Phi, by the way, has nothing to do with Mulder and Scully...
evolvingthoughts | February 25, 2009This is a kind of note to myself, an aide memoire to remind me of the fact that much of the modern narrative about classification in biology before Darwin is not correct. It's also interesting that Whewell defines systematics, but most interesting is the reinforcement of the prior note that Whewell did not support essentialism. Elsewhere, in the History, he famously said that species do not transmute because they have a real existence in nature - but in context he means that they are adapted, and if they varied would cease to be. Again, no mention of essentialism. Whewell is turning out to be…
scientificactivist | February 22, 2009Recently, I wrote about how raising the specter of "Darwinism" as a reason for people's lack of acceptance of evolution is totally irrelevant. But, Faith in Honest Doubt now has a much more entertaining (and quantitative) metaphorical smack down of the idea. Check it out.
evolvingthoughts | February 21, 2009A 6th grade maths and science teacher emailed me about whether theories could become laws. Below the fold is his request and my reply. The short answer is that when laws grow up, they become theories, not the other way around.
Cameron Peters wrote:
Dr. Wilkins,
I was hoping you might be able to provide some insight on a question that is circulating amongst the NSTA email list serve concerning laws and theories. Specifically, there is some disagreement ( I would say confusion) of the difference between the two and, in particular, why a theory cannot become a law. Also, the question has arisen…
evolvingthoughts | February 20, 2009This myth says a lot about the default views of western thinking, rather like the issue of teleology.
One of the constant and incessant complaints made against Darwin by theists in particular, is that he introduced chance and purposelessness into our worldview. I don't believe in such entities as worldviews, but leave that for now: did he introduce chance, and if so, does it imply a general lack of purpose in the world?
Here are some classic examples of that complaint. From Is Darwin Right? Or, The Origin of Man in 1877, William Denton wrote:
... it has been said that those who advocate…
evolvingthoughts | February 19, 2009This myth has more to do with what people thought their own views contrasted to, than anything Darwin said, but like all myths, there's a hint of truth underlying it.
The problem with this myth is the ambiguity of the term "gradual". It is a weasel word, which can mean one thing at one point and another when the first meaning has no purchase. This is referred to the fallacy of ambiguity in logic: when attacking terms in science, one must make sure the terms stay the same form beginning to end.
"Gradual" can mean one or more of the following things:
Steady: the rate of change is constant…
evolvingthoughts | February 17, 2009Once upon a time, I made mention, simply a mention, of a paper by one Matts Envall, which I said I would later comment on. I did so because a friend of mine, Malte Ebach, told me about him and the paper. I have yet to appropriately thank Malte. My gratitude involves a water balloon, I think.
This alone was the trigger for Envall to come along to my blog and start comment bombing. I have in my spam folder over 350 comments, most of which are cut and paste. Independently of his views, of which more anon, his behaviour - spamming, using fake email addresses and changing IP numbers to avoid bans…
evolvingthoughts | February 16, 2009Myth 3: Darwin was actually a Lamarckian
This one is subtle. It implies that Darwin, because he lacked a Mendelian account of heredity, was not actually a "true" (or Neo-)Darwinian. The error depends on the extent of what is named as a school of thought in science and why.
As far as I know, the term "Lamarckian" for those who think heredity is acquired during the parental generation and passed on to progeny, was coined by August Weismann, a pre-genetics developmental biologist with an interest in heredity. He contrasted this with his own view, that germ cells - the cells in which inheritance…
evolvingthoughts | February 12, 2009In the Descent of Man, Darwin cites a paper published about 5 years earlier by W. R. Greg, which argues that natural selection is not active among humans (or, as the convention had it then, "Man"). It is most interesting that he does, because Greg is the intellectual father of all those who think that civilisation, and in particular medicine and poverty relief, leads to a degradation of health and virtue. In short, Greg is the father of social "Darwinism". What is Darwin's response? First he spends a dozen or so pages showing that in fact civilised human beings are still subjected to (…
evolvingthoughts | February 11, 2009Oh, I forgot, due to the lack of internets at home, to link to my essay that I mentioned before:
Not Saint Darwin, in Resonance [PDF]
Consider this my "death of Darwin" piece.
evolvingthoughts | February 10, 2009We are going to hear a lot about Darwin this year, especially this month for his birthday (happy 200th, Chas. You don’t look a day over 150) and in November for the sesquicentenary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. And you will hear or read repetitions of a number of common myths about Darwin’s ideas and theories. I thought, being a fecal disturber, that I would try to clarify one of these below the fold, in celebration of his birthday. I'll do the others when I can. If you can think of any more, let me know.
Myth 1: Darwin did not believe in the reality of species
Myth 2:…