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Another historian criticises FAPP

Bob Richards is a leading intellectual historian of Darwinian ideas, and here he takes Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini to task for their misunderstanding of the way that the theories of evolution have developed. One point that he makes is that every “objection” FAPP have raised was an objection in the nineteenth century that has repeatedly been debated and dealt with. The other is novel: if FAPP argue, as they do, that natural selection “for” a trait is something that only intentional systems can achieve (hence it is not something unintentional Nature can), then exactly the same thing is true of their objection that there are “constraints on” selection, because it, too, is an intentional notion.

7 Comments

  1. J.J.E. J.J.E.

    Talk about being hoisted by one’s own petard! I think maybe F&P can retort by claiming that independent criticisms may indeed conflict. They need only provide one valid (and enduring) argument to succeed at tearing down an idea. All the wrong critiques in the world don’t invalidate the one good one.

    However, if F&P go that route, their books begins to look more like hurling crap at a wall until something sticks. And it seems as if their intentionality argument sticks, then their constraint argument doesn’t and vice versa.

  2. Jaime A. Headden Jaime A. Headden

    Unfortunately, the framing of the phrases when arguing about Natural Selection, including the phrase “natural selection,” implies through classic English that there is a selective agent with intent. If we ascribe this agent to nothing more than genes, sexual desires (which are obviously not inherent logical), or randomality, we cannot easily ascribe to it a “selective” property, and yet we continue to use such language. It fuels the naysayers who argue that the terminology is self-defeating when arguing against an “intelligent” selector. This has ended up stigmatizing the use of the term “selector” in some circles, while at the same time requiring such a prevalent usage of a term to be redefined from its original form for the sake of such idiocy. For example, the standard definition of “selection” has as its synonym “choice,” while the biological definition lacks this entirely. From dictionary.com:

    “1–. an act or instance of selecting or the state of being selected; choice.
    2–. a thing or a number of things selected.
    3–. an aggregate of things displayed for choice, purchase, use, etc.; a group from which a choice may be made.
    4–. Biology. any natural or artificial process that results in differential reproduction among the members of a population so that the inheritable traits of only certain individuals are passed on, or are passed on in greater proportion, to succeeding generations. Compare natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, artificial selection.”

  3. J.S. Laudly J.S. Laudly

    Hi, Jonathan Speke Laudly here,

    The notion of intention is, to me, an ambiguous one. If two oxygen atoms and a hydrogen atom meet will they not combine to form water? I could say that these atoms have a tendency, a desire, a want, a complusion to unite to form water. I could say they have the intention to do so.
    By contrast I could say that humans have a tendency to eat food and mate and other things–and that this is an outcome of natural law rather than intention on the individual’s part. Or if intention, an intention that is intention by natural law—–strictly arising from the nature of the
    beast.
    And further, I could say that ultimately it is the universe operating as a whole–with the same rules across the cosmos–
    (at least as far as physics can ascertain)
    that produces stars and humans and all.
    If there is intention it must be an outcome of the universal operations; in some sense it is the universe which intends.
    IN any case, one may argue that the universe has a nature and has no choice but to follow that nature—-if doing what comes anyway can be called intention–then the universe has intention to do what it has done, create humans, et al.
    Similarly, we may argue that humans have a nature and have no choice but to follow it—whatever humans do then is done from their nature—and is to happen anyway–so how is that intention?
    If human behaviors are the result of the ongoing operations of the universe–then
    even if we posit a human will–it can be no more than the will of the universe.
    Is to will the same as to intend?
    As you see, I have only questions concerning intention.
    A tendency to create humans at least in
    one spot in the universe—is clearly part of the universal operation—here we are.
    I don’t see the claim that it was the intention of the universe to do so–is any different from claiming that it was natural law that did it—and I don’t see how either expression matters for the notion of evolution. You could say that the universe willed that humans should show up via evolution. It seems not very relevant this talk about intention or no intention.
    How would you prove that the universe does or doesn’t have an intention? It does or doesn’t as per your definition of intention.
    Meanwhile, the notion of evolution is the
    best scientific relation between us and all the bones and artifacts that have been
    dug up.
    It is, of course, an assumption that analogous phenotypes –similar bones or genomes, signify that two creatures are related–relatives. This the basis of the notion of evolution. There is nothing necessary about this assumption–it seems to me.
    But science is rife with assumptions—how could one not have assumptions?
    So, I still think that evolution is the best
    scientific notion we have to describe oldest beginnings. If it can be questioned—and it can—those questionings will be rectified by subsequent scientific theory and not by theology or some such.
    Science goes with science–and that’s the way it should be.
    There are alternate–non-science– ways of seeing things which I think are perfectly valid. But I have gone on long enough.

    • John S. Wilkins John S. Wilkins

      Intentionality has a rather specific meaning in philosophy. It basically is the property of being “about” something. The question here is how a process of natural selection can be “about” the trait it is selecting for,

  4. bob koepp bob koepp

    John – Since FAPP argue that selection “for ” could be underwritten by proper biological laws (if there were any), I don’t think it’s quite accurate to say they argue that only intentional systems could select “for” traits.

    • John S. Wilkins John S. Wilkins

      From his LRB essay:

      The present worry is that the explication of natural selection by appeal to selective breeding is seriously misleading, and that it thoroughly misled Darwin. Because breeders have minds, there?s a fact of the matter about what traits they breed for; if you want to know, just ask them. Natural selection, by contrast, is mindless; it acts without malice aforethought. That strains the analogy between natural selection and breeding, perhaps to the breaking point. What, then, is the intended interpretation when one speaks of natural selection? The question is wide open as of this writing.

      The answers that have been suggested so far have not been convincing. In particular, though there is no end of it in popular accounts of adaptationism, it is a Very Bad Idea to try and save the bacon by indulging in metaphorical anthropomorphisms. It couldn?t, for example, be literally true that the traits selected for are the ones Mother Nature has in mind when she does the selecting; nor can it be literally true that they are the traits one?s selfish genes have in mind when they undertake to reproduce themselves. There is, after all, no Mother Nature, and genes don?t have, or lack, personality defects. Metaphors are fine things; science probably couldn?t be done without them. But they are supposed to be the sort of things that can, in a pinch, be cashed. Lacking a serious and literal construal of ?selection for?, adaptationism founders on this methodological truism.

      There are delicious ironies here. Getting minds in general, and God?s mind in particular, out of biological explanations is a main goal of the adaptationist programme. I am, myself, all in favour of that; since I?m pretty sure that neither exists, I see nothing much to choose between God and Mother Nature. Maybe one can, after all, make sense of mindless environmental variables selecting for phenotypic traits. That is, maybe one can get away with claiming that phenotypes are like arches in that both are designed objects. The crucial test is whether one?s pet theory can distinguish between selection for trait A and selection for trait B when A and B are coextensive: were polar bears selected for being white or for matching their environment? Search me; and search any kind of adaptationism I?ve heard of. Nor am I holding my breath till one comes along.

  5. bob koepp bob koepp

    John – What I see in the passage you quote from the LRB piece is a snarky argument to the effect that an analogy between artificial and natural selection breaks down at the crucial point where we want it to “go causal.” This is not the same as an argument to the effect that only intentional agents (as found in artificial seclection) can underwrite the intensionality of the ‘selection for’ locution. And they do also claim that if there were biological laws (which don’t involve intentionality) the trick could be managed.

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