From: L-Soft list server at St. John's University (1.8c) To: Ian Pitchford Subject: File: "SCI-CULT LOG9801" Date: Wednesday, August 12, 1998 11:31 PM ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 12:40:58 -0500 Reply-To: wderzko@pathcom.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Walter Derzko, Director Idea Lab" Subject: Opportuni-Tease #1 - Thought Switches X-To: List CYBERMIND MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Opportuni-Tease #1 - Thought Switches Don Bell today writes in Cybermind Digest ( Jan 1) about a "thought switch". I thought I'd use his provocation to lauch a weekly posting - Opportuni-Tease to stimulate your thinking. I have a long list of recent breakthrough technologies, science concepts and research that is still in the pilot or lab stages. They have been selected because they have the potential to "shock" your life, career, job or business. I think it would be useful to explore the potential social impact before these breakthroughs actually hit the market. It would provide the opportunity to mitigate/redesign any potential negative social impacts and enhance the positive ones Please help me in this exploration by addressing the four questions below: ( often asked by Marshal McLuhan-from McLuhan's Tetrad model): This week's Opportuni-Tease: Week #1-The Thought Switches (see backgrounder below) 1) What does the "thought switch" enhance? promote? reply- 2) What does the "thought switch" make obsolete? leave behind ? reply- 3) What does the "thought switch" retrieve? bring back? (Something that was lost/abandoned in some old previously obsolesced artifact) reply- 4) Taken to the extreme, what does the "thought switch" flip into? or reverse into? What if everyone is using it? reply- Your name- Your email- Replying from List- -cut- Please reply using the above headings only. Do not change the Subject line when repying. Please reply to the list and share your ideas about impacts, but copy me at: wderzko@pathcom.com if you want your ideas to be credited with anticipating the impact(s) and to be archived in my new web page (under construction) Walter Derzko Director Idea Lab wderzko@pathcom.com ========================================================================= (next week- Opportuni-Tease #2-Geneotyped Food - The Death of Recommended Daily Food Guides?) ========================================================================= Backgrounder on Thought Switch Following up on basic research work done in British Columbia at Simon Fraser Univ in the 1980' and early 90's we now get the first commercial versions of a Thought Switch "Scientist Uses His Brain to Turn On TV" Los Angeles Times (12/28/97) P. A13; Harlow, Jarrod Hidenori Onishi, a research scientist at Technos Japan, jointly developed a device with the help of the Himeji Institute of Technology that senses beta-wave brain patterns and converts them into signals used to operate electrical appliances such as televisions, lights, and doorbells. Inventors of the "remote-control" device, called the Mind Control Tool Operating System (MCTOS), say the technology could dramatically change how bedridden, handicapped, or paralyzed people live. Onishi said MCTOS will target consumer markets, and cost about $4,800. He believes his brain wave device will be successful in broader markets because it requires no training. Onishi's lab version of MCTOS looks like a pair of goggles connected to a laptop computer. An Associated Press reporter tested MCTOS and mastered the system quite easily. "The system requires no training by the user, because the brain waves the machine responds to are emitted simply by exercising the will," Onishi explained. Don Bell from Cybermind digest (Jan 1st) writes: The NTT InterCommunications Center (ICC) at the Tokyo Opera City Center in Shinjuku, Tokyo, (http://www.ntticc.or.jp I think) has an exhibit where museum guests can influence the movements of robotic insects via brain waves... A visitor puts on headgear which detects beta waves and uses the signal to control overhead spot lighting intensity. The lights are directed at solar panels on the backs of the insect-like robots... (I realized that this would be a far more practical and efficient way to direct the activities of my personal robot insect assistants back home in the USA, rather than the cumbersome dataglove and voice commands I have to use today... They only seem to pay attention when I yell at them ;-) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 01:07:13 +0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mohinish Shukla Subject: Re: Opportuni-Tease #1 - Thought Switches X-cc: "Walter Derzko, Director Idea Lab" In-Reply-To: <199801011852.AAA12276@iisc.ernet.in> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > 1) What does the "thought switch" enhance? promote? > reply- ease of communicationg with mechanical stuff/ machines; promotes, prob'ly, faster response times > > 2) What does the "thought switch" make obsolete? leave behind ? > reply- hand-operated switches, lots of 'em, no more messy panels and panels of buttons on the VCR/Computer, just thought-control 'trodes > > 3) What does the "thought switch" retrieve? bring back? > (Something that was lost/abandoned in some old previously obsolesced > artifact) > reply- memories of telekinesis!! > > 4) Taken to the extreme, what does the "thought switch" flip into? or > reverse into? > What if everyone is using it? > reply- I for one would love to give up all touch operated stuff ... > > Your name- Mohinish Shukla > Your email-moss@biochem.iisc.ernet.in > Replying from List- > > -cut- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 19:31:19 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Walter Derzko Subject: Reminder- One Day Knowledge Management Workshop-Jan 20th-Toronto MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit TITLE : HOW TO IMPLEMENT A KNOWLEDGE INNOVATION STRATEGY CO-SPONSORED BY :- THE KAIETEUR INSTITUTE FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT THE CREATIVITY CONSORTIUM EXCALIBUR TECHNOLOGIES - http://www.excalib.com ENTOVATION INTERNATIONAL - http://www.entovation.com THE CENTRE FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE - http://www.smartskills.com DIGITAL/ALTAVISTA - http://www.digital.altavista.com ENDORSED BY :- BOOKS FOR BUSINESS DATE : Tuesday,January 20, 1998 Marriott Eaton Centre 525 Bay Street, Toronto. SEMINAR SCHEDULE Breakfast & Registration 8:00 a.m.-8:30 p.m Practicum 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Knowledge Enabling Software & Innovation Audits 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. Cocktails & Networking Reception 5:00 - 7:00 p.m For Further Information, please Fax (416)651-2108 or send an E-Mail to kikm@sprynet.com Or Tel : (416) 651-1837. To the Attention Of Bryan Elliot Davis. AUDIENCE : Senior Executives who are engaged in, or are seriously interested in improving the management of knowledge,intellectual capital, and intangible assets, within their organizations. KEYNOTE FACULTY : DEBRA AMIDON, OTHER SPEAKERS: WALTER DERZKO and BRIAN DAVIS DEBRA AMIDON, is the Founder and Chief Strategist for ENTOVATION INTERNATIONAL,( Wilmington, Massachusetts). http://www.entovation.com A global innovation research and consulting network, linking 45 countries throughout the world. Her own specialties include : knowledge management, learning networks,customer innovations, and enterprise transformation. During the past year alone her presentations have been heard in the United States, Canada, France, England, The Netherlands, Sweden, Mexico,and Chile. She has been an advisor to such organizations as The National Research Council, The Agility Forum, The European Knowledge Union, The BBC, Steelcase, and most recently – The World Bank. Prior to forming her own company, she held various management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation , was Assistant Secretary For Education For The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts,Founding Executive Director of The Northeast Consortium Of Colleges & Universities in Massachusetts, and the first female Dean Of Babson College. She holds degrees from Boston University, Columbia University, and The Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, where she was an Alfred Sloan Fellow. She is author of numerous articles and publications in the Knowledge Management field, including : Innovation Strategy For The Knowledge Economy : The Ken Awakening. 1997. Butterworth Heinemann. Creating The Knowledge-Based Business, An In-Depth Research Report authored with David Skyrme for Business Intelligence (UK). Collaborative Innovation & The Knowledge Economy, an Issues Paper for The Society Of Management Accountants Of Canada, due for release in January 1998. (Note: the CMA is considering our request for the possible availability of this Paper for non-CMA members). CURRICULUM : This course is based on an in depth Report authored by Debra Amidon & David Skyrme, and published by Business Intelligence Co,UK. The Report is usually available for a cost of $ 1,000 US. (Registrants in the seminar will be eligible to purchase the Report for a 25% discount. Contact us if you wish to order.) The PRACTICUM Will cover :- 1. The Momentum Of Knowledge Management Drivers behind the knowledge management movement 2. The Business Intelligence Survey 3. Knowledge Leadership Case Studies: Dow Chemical & Glaxo Welcome 4. The Measurement Gap - Case Study : Skandia 5. Value Adding Processes Leveraging your knowledge potential Case Studies: DTI & Price Waterhouse 6. Creating A Collaborative Culture Case Studies: Monsanto & Steelcase 7. Roles & Skills For The Knowledge Age - Case Study : Anglian Water 8. The Technology Infrastructure Case Studies: Thomas Miller & Buckman Labs 9. An Agenda For Action Opportunities & Challenges; State Of Theory Vs State Of Practice; Lessons From The Leaders; KM Assessment; Levers Of Value & Change; Critical Success Factors; Forecasting The Future. There will also be leading edge research shared, on doing Innovation Audits by Walter Derzko and also on the new Knowledge Enabling Software Tools that are fast becoming available ( by Brian Davis). REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND : 1. Growing Importance Of The Subject The knowledge-based economy is developing quickly. The nature of organizations, the nature of work, is becoming ever more knowledge intensive and brain based. The OECD says the knowledge based sector of the developed economies is the fastest growing sector. Knowledge Management is emerging as a new discipline targeted to bring explicit strategies, tools and techniques to managing intellectual capital and intangible assets. 2. If Knowledge is Power, then knowledge about managing knowledge is extremely powerful.Gaining additional knowledge about the trends, the strategies, the tools, the techniques, will provide you with a competitive edge. 3. Learn From & Leverage The Success Of Others By reviewing real world cases of companies who have achieved successful results implementing knowledge management, you will be inspired and encouraged in your initiatives. You will better understand what practical steps to take. 4. Improve Innovation Cycle Time and Quality Understanding the knowledge innovation concept, will enable you to focus your company's knowledge resources. More effective collaborative improvisation and creativity, lower cost, harnessing customer knowledge, and faster time to market are vital competencies for every business today. 5. Knowledge is an antidote to failure In 1997, there were some spectacular business failures. A common theme was - who knew what was going on ? ( Barings, Asia, Ontario Hydro, Sumitomo, Bre-X) Managing knowledge more effectively is increasingly, an important business imperative. Tom Peters says, it's close to Job # 1 for Corporations today. 6. Ideas are the new currency What's a good new idea worth ? A mentored discussion away from the office about new approaches to sharing, exchanging, and harnessing good ideas is bound to be of immense value. 7. The Value proposition Debra Amidon's knowledge about this subject is currently detailed in a Report prepared for Business Intelligence, UK. Inc. It has a current retail value of $ 1,000 US. In this seminar you are receiving a Personal Report with not the explicit knowledge bound in hard copy, but the complete picture of the state of the art in knowledge management today, including tacit insights. Plus you will receive a free copy of her new Book - Innovation Strategy For the Knowledge Economy - The Ken Awakening, and you will learn amazing new facts about knowledge enabling software that's becoming available. We are organizing to have for you copies of Knowledge Inc, Fast Company, and KM World , publications you may be unaware of. 8. Effective Knowledge Transfer This seminar is an excellent way to have rapidly transferred to you, the insights and deep understanding of the knowledge management field achieved by our lead presenter. 9. Network Access The companies sponsoring this event, including Entovation International intersect valuable communities of interest and practice that can become accessible to your organization. Knowing about the nodes in this wide area network can be of tremendous value. REGISTRATION FEE $ 350. Per Person, plus 7 % GST. = $ 374.50 Your Fee includes full seminar tuition, materials, an autobiographed copy of Debra Amidon's Debra Amidon's Book The Ken Awakening, Continental Breakfast, Lunch, and Networking Reception. You also receive a free copy of Fast Company, Knowledge Inc., KM World. Any company registering more than three people will be entitled to a fourth registration free of charge. Please make Cheques Payable to The Kaieteur Institute For Knowledge Management. Contact us to obtain a Registration Form. You may also pay by credit card or we can invoice you. For Further Information, please Fax (416)651-2108 or send an E-Mail to kikm@sprynet.com Or Tel : (416) 651-1837. To the Attention Of Bryan Elliot Davis. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 09:02:18 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Rooney,John Peter" JOHN PETER ROONEY ASQ CERTIFIED RELIABILITY ENGINEER #2425 E-Mail: jprooney@foxboro.com >---------- >From: Sergio Santos[SMTP:sergios@NEOSIS.PT] >Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 1997 9:12AM >To: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU > >------ =_NextPart_000_01BD152C.F6FF1B20 >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >Unsubscribe >------ =_NextPart_000_01BD152C.F6FF1B20 >Content-Type: application/ms-tnef >Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 > >eJ8+Ih4OAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAEIgAcAGAAAAElQTS5NaWNy >b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQ2ABAACAAAAAgACAAEEkAYAbAEAAAEAAAAMAAAAAwAAMAIAAAAL >AA8OAAAAAAIB/w8BAAAAYwAAAAAAAACBKx+kvqMQGZ1uAN0BD1QCAAAAAFNjaS1DdWx0ICBTY2ll >bmNlLWFzLUN1bHR1cmUAU01UUABTQ0lFTkNFLUFTLUNVTFRVUkVATUFFTFNUUk9NLlNUSk9ITlMu >RURVAAAeAAIwAQAAAAUAAABTTVRQAAAAAB4AAzABAAAAKQAAAFNDSUVOQ0UtQVMtQ1VMVFVSRUBN >QUVMU1RST00uU1RKT0hOUy5FRFUAAAAAAwAVDAEAAAADAP4PBgAAAB4AATABAAAAHwAAACdTY2kt >Q3VsdCAgU2NpZW5jZS1hcy1DdWx0dXJlJwAAAgELMAEAAAAuAAAAU01UUDpTQ0lFTkNFLUFTLUNV >TFRVUkVATUFFTFNUUk9NLlNUSk9ITlMuRURVAAAAAwAAOQAAAAALAEA6AQAAAAIB9g8BAAAABAAA >AAAAAAI8RgEEgAEAAQAAAAAAAAEFgAMADgAAAM0HDAAeAA4ADAAdAAIANwEBIIADAA4AAADNBwwA >HgAOAAwACQACACMBAQmAAQAhAAAAMkJDRjUwMjQxRjgxRDExMUE1ODIwMDAwQjQzQUE2MDIA4gYB >A5AGAJQBAAAUAAAACwAjAAAAAAADACYAAAAAAAsAKQAAAAAAAwAuAAAAAAADADYAAAAAAEAAOQAA >yVj2LBW9AR4AcAABAAAAAQAAAAAAAAACAXEAAQAAABYAAAABvRUs9lgkUM8sgR8R0aWCAAC0OqYC >AAAeAB4MAQAAAAUAAABTTVRQAAAAAB4AHwwBAAAAEgAAAHNlcmdpb3NAbmVvc2lzLnB0AAAAAwAG >EAoT6EMDAAcQCwAAAB4ACBABAAAADAAAAFVOU1VCU0NSSUJFAAIBCRABAAAAfwAAAHsAAADzAAAA >TFpGdROpt3P/AAoBDwIVAqQD5AXrAoMAUBMDVAIAY2gKwHNldO4yBgAGwwKDMgPGBxMCg/ozEw19 >CoAIzwnZAoAKgdMNsQtgbmcB0DcN8AsKkxQiAdAgVQCAdWIE8lxiZQtGEvIMAXADYHQvBZAFQAqF >FSEAHCAAAwAQEAAAAAADABEQAAAAAEAABzDgZWXqLBW9AUAACDDgZWXqLBW9AR4APQABAAAAAQAA >AAAAAAADAA00/TcAAB9L > >------ =_NextPart_000_01BD152C.F6FF1B20-- > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 20:20:28 -0800 Reply-To: Joachim.Schummer@geist-soz.uni-karlsruhe.de Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Joachim Schummer Organization: Institute of Philosophy, University of Karlsruhe Subject: JOURNALS CONTENT SERVICE "Science Studies" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I like to announce a new electronic service, which is, as far as I know, a desideratum for many of us with badly equipped libraries. I have prepared a JOURNALS CONTENT SERVICE "Science Studies" of some 70 journals on Science Studies in a broader sense (philosophy, history and sociology of science, technology and medicine). Table of content data are automatically provided by a database of our University Library and are updated every week. Access is free for everybody via http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/~philosophie/hyle.html Suggestions to include further journals of the area are greatly appreciated and will be considered, if data are available either in our database or on the WWW. Please forward this announcement to everybody who might find this service useful. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Joachim Schummer Institute of Philosophy, University of Karlsruhe D-76128 Karlsruhe, GERMANY Joachim.Schummer@geist-soz.uni-karlsruhe.de HYLE An International Journal for the Philosophy of Chemistry http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/~philosophie/hyle.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 10:59:02 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: essays on Marxism and science and other writings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have placed at my web site three articles which may be of interst to members of this forum: 'Marxism and the History of Science' http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/pap104.html 'Science, Alienation and Oppression" http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/pap103.html 'The Mind-Body Problem' http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/pap102.html The web site of my writings now contains six books and over a hundred other writings of various kinds in history, philosophy and social studies of science, psychoanalysis and various aspects of the study of nature, human nature and society, with particular emphasis on values and ideology. http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/index.html Comments very welcome Best, Bob Young __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 10:15:19 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: _Science as Culture_ no. 29 has appeared; Barbara Heyl classic article at web site Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" _Science as Culture_ No. 29 (Vol. 6 Part 4) has now appeared in the US and will soon do so elsewhere. The editors hope that members of this forum will subscribe to the journal, which has a unique point of view in a world where most commentators on science, technology, medicine and other forms of expertise suffer from a remarkable timidity. They also invite submissions on any aspect of the culturalo dimensions of science and history and philosophy of science and other forms of expertise. CONTENTS Guest Editorial: 'Between Life And Death' Ann Rudinow Saetnan 'Calvinism And Chromosomes: Religion, The Geographical Imaginary and Medical Genetics in The Netherlands' Karen-Sue Taussig 'Pioneering Procreation: Israel's First Test-Tube Baby' Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli 'Healthy Families, Healthy Citizens: The Politics of Speech and Knowledge in the California Anti-Secondhand Smoke Media Campaign' Roddey Reid 'Disciplined by The Future: The Promising Bodies of Cryonics Richard Doyle _Science as Culture_ is published quarterly for Process Press Ltd. by Carfax Publications Ltd. For information about subscriptions and a list of back issues, go to: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html#science A web site associated with the journal and forum holds articles from back issues of the journal, as well as other materials which forum members may wish to discuss: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/rmy/sac.html The web site now includes Barbara Heyl's classic article, 'The Harvard "Pareto Circle"', which discusses the ideological origins of the concepts of social system and social equilibrium, involving the influence of L. J. Henderson on the social science writings of Talcott Parsons, Charles Homans and Crane Brinton, in which Henderson drew on the ultra-conservative theories of Vilfedo Pareto to combat radical and Marxist ideas in American social science. This essay is of considerable interest for the understandng of systems thinking in the human sciences and in the functionalist tradition. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 17:38:22 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Carol Shergold Subject: Re: On-line Classics in the History of Psychology In-Reply-To: from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Dec 28, 97 10:32:18 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > It is my pleasure to announce the opening of a new web site that I think > may be of interest to you: Classics in the History of Psychology. This > site currently contains the complete texts of 19 works of major historical > importance, as well as seven introductions to, and commentaries on, those > documents. > I would very much like to recieve your comments on, and suggestions about, > the site. Please forward them directly to me. My comment is that your site is excellent, and provides exactly the sort of information I always assumed the web would be full of, in those naive days before I actually started trying to use it! Thanks! Carol Shergold Doctoral student School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex UK ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 19:40:29 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: JOURNALS CONTENT SERVICE "Science Studies": list of journals included Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable What an excellent site and service. Congratulations. Bob Young Here is a list of the current contents: HYLE - Journals Content Service Science Studies 1994-97 Selected Journals from the Philosophy, History, and Sociology of Science, Technology, and Medicine Data are automatically provided with support of the Universit=E4tsbibliothek Karlsruhe and weekly updated 1.Acta Biotheoretica: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 2.Ambix: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 3.Analysis: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 4.Annals of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 5.Antilia - Spanish Journal of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology (E-Journal) 6.Arabic Sciences and Philosophy: 1997 | 96 7.Archive for History of Exact Sciences: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 8.Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 9= 4 9.Biology and Philosophy: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 10.British Journal for the History of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 11.British Journal for the Philosophy of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 12.Bulletin for the History of Chemistry: 13.Bulletin of the History of Medicine: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 14.Centaurus: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 15.Clio Medica: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 16.Configurations: 17.Dialectica: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 18.EASST Review (The European Association for the Study of Science and Technology) (E-Journal) 19.Epistemologia: 1997 | 96 20.Explorations in Knowledge: 21.Foundations of Physics: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 22.Foundations of Science: 23.Gesnerus: 1997 | 96 | 95 24.Historia Mathematica: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 25.Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 26.History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences: 1997 | 96 27.History and Philosophy of Logic: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 28.History and Technology: 1997 | 96 | 95 29.History of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 30.History of Technology: 1997 | 96 | 95 31.HYLE (E-Journal) 32.International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | = 94 33.ISIS: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 34.Journal for General Philosophy of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 35.Journal of the History of Biology: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 36.Journal of the History of Ideas: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 37.Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 38.Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 39.Journal of Technology Studies (E-Journal) 40.Kennis en Methode: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 41.Mathesis universalis (E-Journal) 42.Medical History: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 43.Metaphysical Review: Essays on the Foundation of Physics (E-Journal) 44.Metascience: 45.Minerva: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 46.Osiris: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 47.Perspectives on Science: 1997 48.Philosophia Naturalis: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 49.Philosophy of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 50.Physis: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 51.Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 52.Research Policy: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 53.Revue d'Histoire des Sciences: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 54.Science and Public Policy: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 55.Science as Culture: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 56.Science in Context: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 57.Science, Technology, and Human Values: 58.Scientometrics: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 59.Social Epistemology: 60.Social History of Medicine: 1997 | 96 | 95 61.Social Studies of Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 62.Society for Philosophy & Technology (E-Journal) 63.Studies in History and Philosophy of Science - Part A: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 64.Studies in History and Philosophy of Science - Part B: 1997 | 96 | 95 65.Sudhoffs Archiv - Zeitschrift f=FCr Wissenschaftsgeschichte: 1997 | 9= 6 | 95 | 94 66.Synthese: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 67.Technikgeschichte: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 68.Technology and Culture: 69.Technoscience - Newsletter of the Society for Social Studies of Science (E-Journal) 70.Tekhnema - Journal of Philosophy and Technology (E-Journal) 71.Teorie Vedy: 72.Theoria: 73.Zygon - Journal of Religion and Science: 1997 | 96 | 95 | 94 I like to announce a new electronic service, which is, as far as I know, a desideratum for many of us with badly equipped libraries. I have prepared a JOURNALS CONTENT SERVICE "Science Studies" of some 70 journals on Science Studies in a broader sense (philosophy, history and sociology of science, technology and medicine). Table of content data are automatically provided by a database of our University Library and are updated every week. Access is free for everybody via http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/~philosophie/hyle.html Suggestions to include further journals of the area are greatly appreciated and will be considered, if data are available either in our database or on the WWW. Please forward this announcement to everybody who might find this service useful. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Joachim Schummer Institute of Philosophy, University of Karlsruhe D-76128 Karlsruhe, GERMANY Joachim.Schummer@geist-soz.uni-karlsruhe.de HYLE An International Journal for the Philosophy of Chemistry http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/~philosophie/hyle.html __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Youn= g Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 03:55:20 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: ARCHIVE1 Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: factor 2000 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Helo,Doing 2.part of"vicabulary of graffiti-research"and trying to understand what initiated(also)cave-art I found following matters and it all started with the ICE-AGE REVOLUTION: 1.climatic changes(oscillation,interglacials)especially latest 100 000 years 2.inviting adaption of man 3.cooking(fire)now being used/invented/found 4.better nutrinional use of available food)first surplus) 5.softer food(for the toothless age)first"cultural act"=care for them 6.their survival making more handing down of informations possible(2.surplus) 7.this inviting beginnings of"culture" 8.surpluss accumulating 9.life in caves(fire,security,warmth)making matters somewhat relaxed 10.security aspect(planning)inviting imagination,new experiences 11.fire also helping preserve food(smoking,drying etc.) 12.next surplus(food storage)=more securities 13.mothers also having more babies(survival)see nos.1-12 14.better tools etc.(more"culture) 15.better(secured,relaxed)child-mother interaction(love,language etc.) 16.DIRECT handing down of informations(life-experience)from gandparents to children(this being the root of"trinity"grand,-parents,children.....)=more surplus=culture 17.second cultural level reached(summation)overall security 18.effects bringing more optimatisations(speeding up) 19.social security now inviting more expertiments(cook was first"scientist"and"kitchen"=laboratory where sbstances became changed....) 20.differentiations of handcrafts 21.during that time-span doubling of brain size(also due to nos.1-20....) 22.cave-art,decoration(surplus effects)beginning(charcoal)ca. 80 000 years back 23."freedom"(leisure)inviting maes,plays etc. 24.more security(=culture) 25.acceleration due to better nutrition(=meat=protein) 26.trading and travelling starting(=more informations) 27.cultural intensified processes(better tools etc. and so on and on--- If we copare the time span then adn there with(in between INDUSTRIOAL REVOLUTIO,19.centuiry)with 50 years following 1945 ATOMIC-ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION and make some equation: 100 000:50(years)= 2000 we have the"factor 2000"telling us some about accelerative impact of the changes we have to cope with now. Now we,egain,ere being faced by environmental problems(economy=ecology)and it remains to be see how me will make it..... Axel Thiel int.work-group on graffiti-research http://users.aol.com/archive1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 09:18:29 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: FYI: HSTM-Hotline - WWW site notification service Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tim Sherratt writes: Dear All, Thanks for your comments on the renovated WWW Virtual Library for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. I have created an additional service for those of you who like to keep track of the new sites added to the database. It's called HSTM-Hotline and is an automated email distribution list. Every Sunday, HSTM-Hotline will send subscribers a list of sites added to the WWWVL-HSTM in the past week. It's NOT a discussion list, so any replies or postings will bounce. Here's an example of the format: ----------------------------------------- Added on 3 January 1998: ARCHIVES FOR FAMILY PRACTICE (399) American Academy of Family Physicians Direct URL: http://www.aafp.org/family/aafpf/archives.html BAKKEN LIBRARY AND MUSEUM (400) Direct URL: http://www.bakkenmuseum.org/ ETH LIBRARY: HISTORY OF SCIENCE COLLECTIONS (403) Archives of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Direct URL: http://www.ethbib.ethz.ch/whs/wisshis.html ----------------------------------------- >From time to time I may also post other information concerning changes to the WWWVL-HSTM. News of major updates, changes, or new facilities will be posted to existing discussion lists as at present. As well as keeping you up to date, HSTM-Hotline will provide me with an additional motivational tool. Just imagine the embarrassment if I fail to reach my self-imposed target of 20 sites per week!! ;-) TO SUBSCRIBE to HSTM-Hotline, just send the message "subscribe HSTM-Hotline" to majordomo@asap.unimelb.edu.au Of course, there is also a list of all sites added recently to the WWWVL-HSTM at: http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/hstm/hstm_added.htm As with most things relating to the WWWVL-HSTM, this part of an ongoing experiment to see what works and is useful for the HSTM community. If nobody subscribes then I will have strong evidence that it was a dumb idea to begin with... Cheers, Tim Tim Sherratt (Tim.Sherratt@asap.unimelb.edu.au) disCONTENTS - Purveyors of fine ideas PO Box 140, Queanbeyan NSW 2620 Ph: +61 (0)6 2991043 __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 11:00:16 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Antonio Rossin Subject: Only a few questions (from a new subs) X-To: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE List Owner and Inhabitants, The reason for myself having subscribed here are the questions below. Possibly, please, answer me, thanks. 1 -- What do you think it is better: a) either saying "falseness" aimed at increasing independent and critical thinking in the target, or b) saying the truth thus likely leading the target to increase more and more its confidence and gregarious thinking to the speaker authority as in itself? 2 -- What is your usual speaking style, re to the above choice? 3 -- Did you already acknowledge this problem, before? Affirmatively, let me know the how and where. 4 -- Do you think this problem to be relevant for Education, especially in first family dialogues aiming at increasing Critical Thinking, autonomousness and self-consciousness in children? 5 -- How do you would suggest educators especially parents to solve this problem if relevant, consistently? 6 -- Finally, if any statement (like the above ;)) can be misunderstood (mis-taken), which is the best way to anticipate the need for clarification or resolution? Really, in my small way, I already searched for some answers to the above questions, which I think to be basically relevant for whatever issue of communication, i.e., Culture. My results are at: I would be pleased to compare my answers with yours, if any. If none, I would like to discuss mine with you. With my best regards, antonio ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 12:43:03 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <199709151827.OAA25607@u3.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group (New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and nasty. I suppose that this list reaches people who will want to defend the pedagogical practices that this problem and this book exemplifies, and I invite their comments: Norman Levitt Dept. of Math, Rutgers U. Problem: In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into slavery. The square of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th that number. What was that number? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 14:03:33 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Norman Levitt wrote: > > I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It > seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom > to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too > highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group > (New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and > nasty. > > I suppose that this list reaches people who will want to defend the > pedagogical practices that this problem and this book exemplifies, and I > invite their comments: > > Problem: > In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on > the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into > slavery. The square of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th > that number. What was that number? My first respponse to this is that it involves a meaningless abstraction, and thus contributes to the students seeing the world in an "autistic" ("meaning blind", to borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations). More meaningful questions, depending on the desired level of mathematical sophistication, might range from: "In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into slavery. If half of all persons suffering banishment or enslavement die within a year of suffering that misfortune, and 500 Pequots were alive a year after the slaughter, how many Pequots were there before the slaughter? to: "In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into slavery. If there were 5000 Pequots before the slaughter, and 20% of the survivors were banished and the rest enslaved, and if the mortality rate for slaves is 2% per day and the mortality rate for banished persons is 1.5% per day, how many Pequots remained alive after one week? one month? one year? Of course, a more politically relevant (albeit incorrect) question might be something like: If there are 1000 persons alive today who have legally been adjudicated to be at least 1/16 Pequot blood, and each such person is entitled to an equal proportion of the profits of the Pequot Casino, how much unearned income does each Pequot receive each year if the casino makes $10,000,000 annual profit? \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 14:46:35 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Thomas G. Karnofsky" Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Could you provide a reference for this problem? What book? There are also a few problems with the formulation of your question. What do you mean by the ethnic group label New Englander? How does the question slander them when it doesn't even mention them? It may be innappropriate, but why do you pick out this example? Why do you consider this political, as opposed to examples that perpetrate a benign view of the invasion of the Americas, which you would presumably consider objective and apolitical? At 12:43 PM 1/10/98 -0500, you wrote: >I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It >seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom >to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too >highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group >(New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and >nasty. > >I suppose that this list reaches people who will want to defend the >pedagogical practices that this problem and this book exemplifies, and I >invite their comments: > >Norman Levitt >Dept. of Math, Rutgers U. > >Problem: >In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on >the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into >slavery. The square of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th >that number. What was that number? > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 06:31:40 +0000 Reply-To: Gregory Murrie Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gregory Murrie Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <9801101748.AA02276@a1.sas.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Norman Levitt wrote: > I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It > seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom > to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too > highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group > (New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and > nasty. To me, rather than "slandering" New Englanders, it seems to do perhaps the diametrically opposite, trivialising the issue of the slaughter of Indians by reducing it to a mathematical problem. I think that taking the issue out of an arena where the political implications of the history can be discussed, no matter what they prove to be, is the problem here, Greg Murrie s_murrie@eduserv.its.unimelb.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 12:24:16 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Asia Lerner Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please supply bibliographical references that will allow me (and others on this list) to verify the existance of such a book. Are you quite sure this is not a Sokal-style made up example? In addition, since the number of the slaughtered people seems to be a modest 1/40, this should be considered, if anything, quite flattering to New Englanders, except that I am not quite sure how you slaughter 1/40 of a human being. Best regards, Asia Lerner At 12:43 PM 1/10/98 -0500, you wrote: >I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It >seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom >to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too >highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group >(New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and >nasty. > >I suppose that this list reaches people who will want to defend the >pedagogical practices that this problem and this book exemplifies, and I >invite their comments: > >Norman Levitt >Dept. of Math, Rutgers U. > >Problem: >In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on >the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into >slavery. The square of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th >that number. What was that number? > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:13:43 -0500 Reply-To: Norman Levitt Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <199801111035.FAA07627@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The messages from Asia Lerner and Thomas G. Karnovsky request a specific reference for the math problem referring to the Pequod genocide. The book is: "The Elements of Algebra" by D. Harvey Hill (J.B. Lippincott, pub.) I find that Hill is also listed as author of: "A Consideration of the Sermon on the Mount" and "The Crucifixion of Christ" which suggests a religious, as well as political motivation. N. Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 17:46:41 -0500 Reply-To: Norman Levitt Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems (correctrion) In-Reply-To: <199801111035.FAA07627@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My apologies, again, to Mr. Lerner; I dropped a crucial word from the statgement of the problem: It should read "The square ROOT of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th that number." On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, Asia Lerner wrote: > Please supply bibliographical references that will allow me (and others on > this list) to verify the existance of such a book. Are you quite sure this > is not a Sokal-style made up example? > > In addition, since the number of the slaughtered people seems to be a > modest 1/40, this should be considered, if anything, quite flattering to > New Englanders, except that I am not quite sure how you slaughter 1/40 of a > human being. > > Best regards, Asia Lerner > > > At 12:43 PM 1/10/98 -0500, you wrote: > >I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It > >seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom > >to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too > >highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group > >(New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and > >nasty. > > > >I suppose that this list reaches people who will want to defend the > >pedagogical practices that this problem and this book exemplifies, and I > >invite their comments: > > > >Norman Levitt > >Dept. of Math, Rutgers U. > > > >Problem: > >In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on > >the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into > >slavery. The square of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th > >that number. What was that number? > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 16:14:07 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <199801101743.RAA00709@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Norman Levitt wrote: > I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It > seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom > to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too > highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group > (New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and > nasty. > > I suppose that this list reaches people who will want to defend the > pedagogical practices that this problem and this book exemplifies, and I > invite their comments: > > Norman Levitt > Dept. of Math, Rutgers U. > > Problem: > In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on > the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into > slavery. The square of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th > that number. What was that number? > =========================================================== Yes, I grew up in the Plymouth, Mass. area, and I must agree with you. I firmly believe that facts should be eliiminated, or at least avoided. I'm well aware that the Yankee is stigma has been grossly exagerated. Thank you, Pat O'Brien ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 19:35:09 -0800 Reply-To: wderzko@pathcom.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Walter Derzko Subject: Opportuni-Tease #2 - Genotyped Food (3) X-To: List Brkthr-L X-cc: List Innovation Mgmt Network , List bpr-l , List BUZAN , List Cybermind , List CPSI-L MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Opportuni-Tease #2 - Genotyped Food Opportuni-Tease is a new weekly posting to stimulate your opportunity thinking. I have a list of recent breakthrough technologies, science concepts and research that is still in the pilot or lab stages. They have been selected because they have the potential to "shock" your life, career, job or business. I think it would be useful to explore the potential social impact before these breakthroughs actually hit the market. It would provide the opportunity to mitigate/redesign any potential negative social impacts and enhance the positive ones Please help me in this exploration by addressing the four questions below: ( often asked by Marshal McLuhan-from McLuhan's Tetrad model): This week's Opportuni-Tease: Week #2-Genotyped Food (see backgrounder below) 1) What does "genotyped food" enhance? promote? reply- 2) What does "genotyped food" make obsolete? leave behind ? reply- 3) What does "genotyped food" retrieve? bring back? (Something that was lost/abandoned in some old previously obsolesced artifact) reply- 4) Taken to the extreme, what does genotyped food" flip into? or reverse into? What if everyone is using it? reply- Your name- Your email- Replying from List/Group- -cut------------------cut-------------------cut--------------------cut------ Please reply using the above headings only. Do not change the Subject line when repying. Please reply to the news group or list and share your ideas about impacts, but copy me at: wderzko@pathcom.com if you want to be credited with anticipating the impact(s) and to be archived in my new web page (under construction) Walter Derzko Director Idea Lab wderzko@pathcom.com ========================================================================= (next week- Opportuni-Tease #3-Cell Surface Engineering ========================================================================= Backgrounder on Genotyped Food A controversial medical theory claims that our bodies are genetically suited to certain foods and medications. Other food groups are rejected-the body considers them foreign.The theory is based on the existance of different surface cell proteins (lectins) in our blood serum, lungs and stomach which depends on our heritage and Blood groups, A,B, AB or O. If we knew what food to eat based on our blood group, what might some of the affects be? It's not " you are what you eat" any more but the reverse: You eat what you are. According to the theory, proposed by Peter D'Adamo, http://www.dadamo.com/ O Blood types have a greater tolerance to meat proteins , while "A" should avoid red meats and stick to vegetarian diets and some dairy. There certainly is a well-established association between particular blood types and an increased risk of certain diseases, such as ulcers. This theory, which is not yet accepted by mainstream medicine, is intriging and does make inherent sense. If further medical research does validate a direct link between blood groups, diet and disease, it would have a whole set of interesting consequences. We are not asking if you agree or disagree with the theory -only if this were true-what would the effects in society be? For see recent media reports: http://www.dadamo.com/recentgr.htm and Dr Peter D'Adamo's web page at: http://www.dadamo.com/ A medline search of papers on blood groups and diet and disease in medical journals can be reviewed at http://www.dadamo.com/medline.htm For a map on how blood groups spread throughout the world see http://www.dadamo.com/maps.htm Walter Derzko Director Idea Lab Toronto, Ontario Canada wderzko@pathcom.com (416) 588-1122 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 14:54:47 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Asia Lerner Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems (correctrion) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thank you for the explanation. I see that I misunderstood your question as well, mistaking "number of survivors" for the number of the killed. In the restated scenario, the number of survivors is either 20 or 0. Whatever we choose, it's a problem to decide whether the other side was bloodthirsty or clement, since we do not know how many Indians were there initially. As for your general point, (whether this is appropriate), I personnaly agree that it's a trivialization of history. It's hard to believe that American Indians would actually want a tragical experience to be used in math primers. But on the other hand I do not think this case exemplifies either the methods of the goals of Sociology of Science writ large. Best Regards, Ms. Asia Lerner At 05:46 PM 1/11/98 -0500, you wrote: >My apologies, again, to Mr. Lerner; I dropped a crucial word from the >statgement of the problem: > >It should read > >"The square ROOT of twice the number of survivors is equal to >1/10-th that number." > > >On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, Asia Lerner wrote: > >> Please supply bibliographical references that will allow me (and others on >> this list) to verify the existance of such a book. Are you quite sure this >> is not a Sokal-style made up example? >> >> In addition, since the number of the slaughtered people seems to be a >> modest 1/40, this should be considered, if anything, quite flattering to >> New Englanders, except that I am not quite sure how you slaughter 1/40 of a >> human being. >> >> Best regards, Asia Lerner >> >> >> At 12:43 PM 1/10/98 -0500, you wrote: >> >I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It >> >seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom >> >to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too >> >highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group >> >(New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and >> >nasty. >> > >> >I suppose that this list reaches people who will want to defend the >> >pedagogical practices that this problem and this book exemplifies, and I >> >invite their comments: >> > >> >Norman Levitt >> >Dept. of Math, Rutgers U. >> > >> >Problem: >> >In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on >> >the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into >> >slavery. The square of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th >> >that number. What was that number? >> > >> > >> > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 14:55:59 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Asia Lerner Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:13 PM 1/11/98 -0500, you wrote: >The book is: > >"The Elements of Algebra" by D. Harvey Hill (J.B. Lippincott, pub.) > >I find that Hill is also listed as author of: > >"A Consideration of the Sermon on the Mount" >and >"The Crucifixion of Christ" > >which suggests a religious, as well as political motivation. Actually, I can't imagine why somebody who sounds like a Christian Fundamentalist would be interested in slandering New Englanders. It would be interesting to know when this curious volume was published. I could not find it in the Library of Congress catalog. There are various entries under "Elements of Algebra", non by D. Harvey Hill, and there is a Daniel Harvey Hill who fought under general Lee, and does not sound like the type to write math primers in his spare time. Best regards, Asia Lerner >N. Levitt > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:24:59 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Asia Lerner wrote: > Actually, I can't imagine why somebody who sounds like a Christian > Fundamentalist would be interested in slandering New Englanders. > > It would be interesting to know when this curious volume was published. I > could not find it in the Library of Congress catalog. There are various > entries under "Elements of Algebra", non by D. Harvey Hill, and there is a > Daniel Harvey Hill who fought under general Lee, and does not sound like > the type to write math primers in his spare time. > > Best regards, Asia Lerner > > >N. Levitt I congratulate Mr. Lerner on his dilligence. The book is cataloged in Harvard's Widener Library, which appears to have 3 copies. I personally have been trying to obtain a copy from rare book dealers, but no one I've contacted seems to be able to dig one up. Let me recapitulate contributions to date: ---------------------------- From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." My first respponse to this is that it involves a meaningless abstraction, and thus contributes to the students seeing the world in an "autistic" ("meaning blind", to borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations). More meaningful questions, depending on the desired level of mathematical sophistication, might range from: ......... Dr. McCormick seems to think that the problem is rather awkward, but the idea of using problems recounting this kind of sanguinary incident is sound. --------------------------------- From: "Thomas G. Karnofsky" Could you provide a reference for this problem? What book? There are also a few problems with the formulation of your question. What do you mean by the ethnic group label New Englander? How does the question slander them when it doesn't even mention them? It may be innappropriate, but why do you pick out this example? Why do you consider this political, as opposed to examples that perpetrate a benign view of the invasion of the Americas, which you would presumably consider objective and apolitical? ........ Mr. Karnfsky thinks the target of the indignation is unclear, and that I, personally, would prefer problems that glorify the American past, in particular, the hegemonic version of the American past. --------------------------------------- From: Gregory Murrie To me, rather than "slandering" New Englanders, it seems to do perhaps the diametrically opposite, trivialising the issue of the slaughter of Indians by reducing it to a mathematical problem. I think that taking the issue out of an arena where the political implications of the history can be discussed, no matter what they prove to be, is the problem here, ......... Mr. Murrie contends that putting such material in the context of math exercises trivializes the moral and political point. ---------------------- From: Patrick OBrien Yes, I grew up in the Plymouth, Mass. area, and I must agree with you. I firmly believe that facts should be eliiminated, or at least avoided. I'm well aware that the Yankee is stigma has been grossly exagerated. .......... Mr. O'Brien, deftly sarcastic, seems to think that I (or someone) advocates suppressing disagreeable (to the dominant faction) historical facts. ------------------------------- (to be continued) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:25:42 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 2) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Let me first note that Asia Lerner almost (but not quite) put 2 and 2 together. The author of "The Elements of Algebra," from which the problem is taken, is the same D. Harvey Hill who served as a high-ranking general in the Confederate forces, both under R.E. Lee (who couldn't stand his sarcastic tongue, and got rid of him) and Braxton Bragg (whom Hill unsuccessfully tried to get rid of, thus effectively terminating his combat career). Hill, a deeply religious man, was also a mean-minded, cantankerous sonovabitch, though whether he was as despicable as his brother-in-law, Stonewall Jackson, is a matter of some debate. The book in question precedes the war, and was published in 1857 when Hill, a West Point graduate who taught mathematics at a number of colleges, was head of the N. Carolina Military Institute. It is, indeed, intended as a slander against Yankees, whom Hill considered to be the scum of the earth, apparently. It is one of a number of "word problems" from his algebra book that depict Yankees--even his fellow Pesbyterians!!--as greedy, rapacious, violent, cruel, hypocritical, and disloyal. By contrast, one is to understand that the gentile classes of the white South represent the flower of chivalry and humanitarianism. Hill was, in short, one of the "Fire-eaters" who demanded either Southern dominance of the national political system, or secession of the slave states. For those who are mildly interested, I append a rather-too-flattering biographical sketch of Hill, which includes a reference to the book (which, by the way, is well known to Civil War buffs), and actually quotes the Pequod problem and a couple of others. My own point, however, is that "political correctness" in math classes has an ancient lineage, one which ought to make educational theorists leery of using a math class as a soapbox on behalf of political convictions, even passionately held ones. As the Hill example shows (and his pollitical convictions were as passionate as anyone's) any number of people can play this game, and once the math classroom is declared a hunting ground for political converts, there's no guarantee that the virtuous--meaning, of course, all the respondents to this thread--will be running the show. The more extended point is that even morally unexceptionable (as I view things) parables--there's little doubt that Hill was genuinely appalled by the bloodthirstyness of the 17th cent. settlers in this instance--can be used to advance rather questionable causes. Pace Messrs. Karanoksky and O'Brien, I don't take issue with the contention that the Pequods--and millions of other indiginous people--suffered horribly at the hands of European interlopers. (Of course, you all recognize that Melville made ironic use of this fact by naming Ahab'd doomed whaling ship the "Pequod".) What is less clear to me is that anyone who insists on recalling these horrors is, ipso facto, himself virtuous and politically wise. Any number of nationalist or ethnic chauvinist groups, whom one wouldn't trust with even a tiny fragment of political power, can point accurately to the horrors historically suffered by their particular group. One does well to keep in mind Gibbon's dictum that history is little but the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind, and the group which was the martyr in one century might well be the butcher in another. This, by the way, includes many Native American groups, who were just as murderous as the Europeans, if somewhat less well-provided in weapons and tactics. And if you've a mind for historical trivia, please note that the last Confederate general to give up the fight was Stand Waitie, a full-blood Cherokee. End of sermon. A eulogy for Harvey Hill follows: ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:28:32 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part3) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII _________________________________________________________________ Daniel Harvey Hill: The Formative Years. By: Dr. Dan L. Morrill, Professor of History University of North Carolina at Charlotte On September 25, 1889, a passenger train pulled slowly out of Charlotte, North Carolina at approximately 7:30 a.m. and began hissing and screeching its way toward the small college town of Davidson about 20 miles to the north. It was to be a somber journey. Daniel Harvey Hill, called "Harvey" by his friends, who according to historian Shelby Foote had seen "about as much combat as any general on either side" in the Civil War, had died the previous afternoon of stomach cancer, and his corpse was being transported to its final resting place.[1] The train gathered speed. It passed the Ada Cotton Mill at the edge of town and started chugging down the track that led into the open countryside. Black smoke must have billowed out of the engine's stack and swirled into the autumn sky. Tenant farmers probably labored in the cotton fields along the route. The rhythmic clattering of the wheels might have prompted some of the travelers to recall Civil War battlefields like Big Bethel, Malvern Hill, Sharpsburg and Chickamauga, where D. H. Hill had dispatched young Southerners by the thousands into deadly clashes with the Yankees. Like many officers who led troops into battle during the Civil War, D. H. Hill is best remembered for his military exploits, Indeed, Hal Bridges, who has written the most substantial study of Hill's life, explains that his book "is not a biography but a study, with some biographical background, of Daniel Harvey Hill's Civil War career."[2] But Hill's formative years occurred before 1861 and were occupied largely with education. It was in the 1840's and 1850's that the character and personality of D. H. Hill took their final form. To focus mainly upon Hill's military career, however dramatic his actions on the battlefield might have been, is to overlook the fundamental forces that shaped him. Similar to his famous brother-in-law, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, Hill was a deeply religious man, almost morosely so. "During the Civil War No other general -- not even Stonewall Jackson -- went into battle with a firmer faith in God," says Hal Bridges in Lee's Maverick General.[3] Douglas Southall Freeman writes in Lee's Lieutenants that Hill "observed the Sabbath as diligently as did his brother-in-law . . ., and he always gave God the credit for victory."[4] "He was as earnest in his Puritan beliefs as was Stonewall Jackson," stated John Cheves Haskell, who served under D. H. Hill in eastern North Carolina in 1863.[5] In the opinion of J. W. Ratchford, his Confederate adjutant general or chief of staff, Hill had a "steady unswerving faith, . . . such as took God at his word and believed he was perfect in all his attributes."[6] In 1858, just three years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Hill proclaimed that Christianity alone "produces love, peace, joy."[7] Strange words coming from the mouth of a man who would soon become engulfed in four years of ghastly violence. Like many Presbyterians, Hill was a fatalist. In April, 1862, while serving under Joseph E. Johnston in the trenches outside Richmond, Va., he wrote in a letter to his wife that "all our affairs are in the hands of God."[8] "What was long admired in Gen. D. H. Hill was his devotion to revealed truth, his discipleship as a member of the Church militant and invisible," proclaimed the Wilmington Messenger on September 27, 1889.[9] His Christian beliefs, profoundly felt, had sustained Daniel Harvey Hill until the very end. The old Civil War hero experienced an excruciatingly painful death. Imagine what it was like to suffer the agony of stomach cancer in 1889. "He knew that his days were numbered," stated a Charlotte newspaper on the day following Hill's death, "and towards the last his prayers of family worship gave evidence of very close communion with His Heavenly Father."[10] D. H. Hill, Jr., a professor at the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, now North Carolina State University in Raleigh, and Nancy or Nannie Hill, his sister, both of whom had been at their father's bedside when he had expired, were on the train that late September morning. No doubt they too were comforted by knowing that their father had possessed an abiding religious faith.[11] It was 9:20 a.m. when the locomotive finally pulled up to the Davidson Depot. A large crowd waited on the platform. Classes at the college, where Hill had taught mathematics from 1854 to 1859, were canceled to allow the students and faculty to attend the solemn ceremonies that would transpire that day. The body was taken to the Presbyterian church, a Gothic Rival style brick edifice on the northeast corner of Concord Road and Main Street, where the funeral began at 11 o'clock.[12] Dr. John Bunyan Shearer, the president of Davidson College, took his text from 2nd Samuel, 3:38. Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel.[13] Shearer eulogized Hill. He praised the former general as a "fearless patriot" and a "military hero."[14] "The Gallant Confederate General Gone To His Rest," declared the headline in the Charlotte Chronicle.[15] The serenity of the funeral service must have struck some members of the audience as artificial and somewhat out of place. Daniel Harvey Hill, his religious proclivities notwithstanding, had been anything but serene, tranquil and soft spoken during his 68 years. Even C. D. Fishburne, an admiring colleague of his at Davidson College in the 1850's, admitted that Hill's "manner was direct."[16] "He was what he seemed. There was no hypocrisy or guile or sham about him," said the Wilmington Messenger.[17] There was a grim side to Hill"s directness, however. According to Ratchford, General Hill "could see and appreciate good or bad in those he came in contact with."[18] The truth was that D. H. Hill could be cantankerous, quarrelsome, and highly judgmental, especially toward his superiors. Pity the person who pricked his ire or stood in his way. "He was a bitter, sarcastic critic of the frailties of humans," says Jeffrey D. Wert in his biography of Hill's close associate in combat and fellow classmate at West Point, James Longstreet of Georgia.[19] According to John Haskell, D. H. Hill was "eccentric on the verge of wrongheadedness."[20] Many students remembered Daniel Harvey Hill with great affection both at Washington College, now Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., where he taught from 1849 until 1854, and at Davidson. D. H. Hill was a superb instructor. "He had the happy faculty," said J. W. Ratchford, "of imparting information, and what I appreciated most as a student was his ability to draw out what a boy knew."[21] "As a teacher I have never seen his superior," Fishburne exclaimed. "He had the rare capacity of interesting his pupils and of compelling them to use their faculties, often it seems unconsciously, in a manner that surprised themselves."[22] "In clearness of interpretation, in relevant and apposite illustration, he has never been excelled," proclaimed Henry E. Shepherd, a student of Hill's at the North Carolina Military Institute, a private military school that opened in Charlotte on October 1, 1859 with D. H. Hill as Superintendent.[23] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:31:09 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 4) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Daniel Harvey Hill was a complex, highly intelligent human being who exhibited an astounding array of attributes and characteristics. Called "irascible" by one scholar, he nonetheless had a tender and deeply sentimental side.[24] Ratchford noted that Hill "was as helpless in the affections of his wife and children as other mortals."[25] C. D. Fishburne described the impact that the death of Hill's eldest son, Robert Hall Morrison Hill, on April 5, 1857 had upon his father.[26] "I have never witnessed more intense anguish than his death caused to his father," Fishburne declared. "For a time I feared that the Major's mind could become seriously affected. All the fountains of tenderness and grief overflowed."[27] Hill's letters during the Civil War to his wife, Isabella, are replete with examples of familial affection, compassion and concern. On May 10, 1862, the dutiful husband and father gave explicit instructions to Isabella. Train our children to love God. Our gloomy Presbyterian ideas encourage fear of God, not love for him. Let our children be taught love love love. God be with you my child & the dear ones.[28] One month later he wrote: It is of infinite importance that you should be calm & have strong faith. Don't let little matters fret you. Make home attractive to the children. Those who have happy homes seldom turn out badly.[29] J. W. Ratchford, the former student and fellow South Carolinian who had served under Daniel Harvey Hill throughout the Civil War, from Big Bethel to Bentonville and all places in between, and who therefore probably knew "Harvey" Hill better than anyone outside Hill's immediately family, was fervent in praising his former commanding officer in a letter he wrote to D. H. Hill, Jr., most likely in 1890.. "No more able and gallant soldier or christian (sic.) gentleman and scholar sheathed his sword and submitted to the decrees of providence," Ratchford declared.[30] To understand the opinions and attitudes, especially the intense sectional pride, that characterized D. H. Hill's thinking one must begin by appreciating the circumstances of Hill's childhood. His years spent in Virginia and North Carolina notwithstanding, Daniel Harvey Hill was at the core of his being a South Carolinian. "He was intensely southern in his sympathies, filled with all the traditions of South Carolina, his native state," said C. D. Fishburne.[31] In a speech before the Davidson College Board of Trustees on February 28, 1855, Hill proclaimed: And what shall I say of the noble state in in which I was born? I have loved her with a love stronger than that of a woman. Yea, that love has only been strengthened by the abuse she has received from abolitionists, fools and false-hearted southrons. I pride myself upon nothing so much as having never permitted to pass, unrebuked, a slighting remark upon the glorious State that gave me being.[32] D. H. Hill did not like Yankees. His fierce disdain for folks from the North and particularly from New England, where abolitionists abounded, even found its way into the pages of an Algebra textbook he produced in 1857. Indeed, some of the problems he devised were almost humorous in terms of how they castigated the people of the North. A Yankee mixes a certain number of wooden nutmegs, which cost him 1/4 cent apiece, with a quantity of real nutmegs, worth 4 cents apiece, and sells the whole assortment for $44; and gains $3.75 by the fraud. How many wooden nutmegs were there?[33] In the year 1692, the people of Massachusetts executed, imprisoned, or privately persecuted 469 persons, of both sexes, and all ages, for alleged crime of witchcraft. Of these, twice as many were privately persecuted as were imprisoned, and 7 17/19 times as many more were imprisoned than were executed. Required the number of sufferers of each kind?[34] In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut, or sold into slavery. The square root of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10 that number. What was the number?[35] C. D. Fishburne was asked by Hill to read the manuscript before it was published. He was shocked by its contents. He expected it to deal with algebra, not politics. Fishburne told Hill that he "protested against his bringing into a book . . . allusions and references which smacked of sectional politics." Fishburne insisted that colleges and universities outside the South would not adopt the work because it contained superfluous material that was "offensive to those who lived in that happy region which lay north of Mason & Dixon's line." D. H. Hill, Fishburne reported, received these objections "very pleasantly but suggested that he did not care whether his book was received favorably by the Northern people or not."[36] Daniel Harvey Hill was an ardent admirer of John C. Calhoun, the legendary South Carolinian who had advanced the proposition that each individual State retained the power to nullify any Federal law it deemed to be unconstitutional. Although he died in 1850, John C. Calhoun was in a very real sense the "father of secession." " . . . how can I revere thee enough, birth-place (sic.) of the pure, spotless, incorruptible Calhoun," Hill exclaimed in his address in 1855 to the Davidson College Board of Trustees.[37] A cadet at the North Carolina Military Institute, obviously inspired by Hill, said the following about Calhoun in a letter that appeared in a Charlotte newspaper on March 13, 1860. . . . and last of all and greatest, Calhoun -- the logical, senatorial Calhoun, who loved his country, yet preferred to sacrifice his country rather than submit to oppression, or an invasion of Southern rights.[38] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:33:35 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 5) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII C. D. Fishburne, who had been Hill's student at Washington College and who resided in Hill's home after being recruited by Hill to join the Davidson College faculty in January, 1855, came to understand just how profoundly his mentor felt about South Carolina and about its famous native son, John C. Calhoun. One evening he casually mentioned in Hill's presence that he had little regard for Calhoun and his political ideas. The tension was immediate. Hill was furious. These remarks, Fishburne wrote, "were received by him silently and the conversation was broken off." Fishburne was devastated when Hill shunned him for several days. Finally, he went to Hill and apologized. "I assured him that I meant nothing offensive to him and . . . that my fealty to party was nothing compared with my attachments to friends."[39] Daniel Harvey Hill was born in the York District of South Carolina on July 12, 1821.[40] The youngest of eleven children, he was reared by his mother, Nancy Hill, because his father, Solomon, died when Daniel or "Harvey" was only four years old, leaving the family deeply in debt. It was on a small farm in this hilly region of upper South Carolina, just below the North Carolina line, that the future Confederate officer imbibed from his mother the unquestioning Calvinistic faith that molded his character and guided his actions throughout life. "I had always a strong perception of right and wrong," Hill remembered.[41] Images of a young boy laboring under a blistering, relentless South Carolina sun come readily to mind. He routinely joined his mother and his brothers and sisters to read Bible verses aloud before going into the fields to plow the thin topsoil of the Piedmont. On Sundays he traveled with his family to Bethel Presbyterian Church, where Nancy Hill, a stern but compassionate disciplinarian, made certain that all her children sat quietly in straight-backed pews while the preacher held sway. Adding drama to the scene were black slaves, compelled by their owners to attend the white man's church, peering down from the balcony. Hill "accepted the institution of Negro slavery" as part of Southern civilization, states Hal Bridges.[42] Outside in the Bethel Church Cemetery was the grave of D. H. Hill's paternal grandfather, William Hill, who had attained local fame because of his exploits as a resolute patriot and ironmaster during the American Revolutionary War. Nancy Hill's father, Thomas Cabeen, a scout for Thomas Sumter, the "Fighting Gamecock," had also earned a reputation for extraordinary bravery during the War for American Independence. This family tradition of resisting "tyranny" would play no small part in shaping D. H. Hill's political attitudes towards the North when sectional antagonisms intensified in the years preceding the Civil War. Like so many supporters of the Confederacy, Daniel Harvey Hill believed that America's second effort in nation building, in 1861, was just as legitimate as its first effort, in 1776. "As a boy in South Carolina he had listened to endless stories of how Grandfather Hill and other Southerners had won the Revolutionary War," writes Hal Bridges.[43] In his provocative study of the political culture of the ante-bellum South, Masters and Statesmen. The Political Culture of American Slavery, Kenneth S. Greenberg asserts that "Southern anxieties about England, inherited from the republican ideology of the revolutionary period and reinforced by later events, underwent a slow transformation into a fear of New England and the North."[44] D. H. Hill was certain that his opposition to the Yankees was equivalent to his grandfathers' exploits against the British. "Northerners just seemed to copy everything that England had done -- encourage slave revolts, fail to return fugitive slaves, prevent the extension of slavery, develop an abolitionist movement, exploit labor, and threaten liberty with power," Greenberg maintains.[45] Nancy Hill did not have enough money to send her youngest child to college. Consequently, she was gratified when "Harvey" was recommended for appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1838. Admitted as a cadet on June 1st, D. H. Hill went on to graduate Number 28 in a class of 56 in 1842. Interestingly, he received some of his lowest marks in mathematics, the academic discipline he would later teach at Washington College and Davidson College. Despite his more or less average performance as a cadet, the young South Carolinian did acquire at West Point a lasting respect for the advantages and benefits of military education. "It is . . . impossible to over estimate the influence of military schools upon the welfare of society," Hill proclaimed in 1860. "Were it possible to train all our young men in them, lawlessness would be absolutely unknown and unheard of in the next generation."[46] Daniel Harvey Hill distinguished himself as a soldier in the Mexican War. Invariably a rapacious fighter, he helped Zachary Taylor capture Monterrey and fought under Winfield Scott at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo, and led storming parties at Padierna and Chapultepec, for which he was singled out for special praise. "He was one of the six officers in the whole force employed in Mexico who were twice breveted for meritorious service upon the field," says one of Hill's biographers.[47] "He believed that war meant to kill, and that the speediest way to whip your enemy was to hurt him," commented a newspaper editor many years later.[48] When the South Carolina Legislature decided to award swords to the three bravest of its soldiers in the Mexican War, Hill was selected as one of the recipients. On November 2, 1848, Hill married Isabella Morrison, daughter of Robert Hall Morrison, the first president of Davidson College, and granddaughter of General Joseph Graham, who had seen extensive service in the Revolutionary War, including the Battle of Charlotte, and the Battle of Cowan's Ford on the Catawba River. An intelligent woman with requisite Presbyterian piety, Isabella had met "Harvey" while he was visiting one of his married sisters, who lived near Cottage Home, the residence of the Morrisons in Lincoln County, North Carolina. In February, 1849, D. H. Hill resigned from the army and traveled with his young bride to Lexington, Va., where he accepted a position as a Professor of Mathematics at Washington College. "I have never regretted leaving the service," he wrote some years later.[49] It was in Lexington, Va. that he renewed his acquaintance with Thomas J. Jackson, later "Stonewall" Jackson, whom he had met during the Mexican War. Hill played no small part in Jackson's obtaining a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute, also in Lexington, in 1851. Indeed, he recommended Jackson for the job. In a letter he wrote to D. H. Hill, Jr. on February 8, 1890, C. D. Fishburne gave a poignant description of his early encounters with his mathematics instructor at Washington College. "He was then comparatively a young man, wore full whiskers but no mustache, was slightly built, of serious aspect, to us youngsters at least."[50] Fishburne went on to explain that the students were surprised by Hill's generally disheveled appearance. Unlike the other West Point graduates who taught at Washington College, he was "careless in his dress," Fishburne declared, "a fact that impressed us the more because we knew him as having been an officer of the U.S. Army."[51] His students at Washington College, as mentioned earlier, held Daniel Harvey Hill in highest esteem as a teacher. "He was regarded as strictly impartial and very generous in recognizing and encouraging any originality and unusual ability among his pupils," said Fishburne.[52] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:37:55 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 6) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On August 10, 1853, the Board of Trustees of Davidson College voted to invite Daniel Harvey Hill to become a Professor of Mathematics at their fledgling institution of higher education.[53] D. H. Hill was thoroughly familiar with Davidson, because his father-in-law, Robert Hall Morrison, had been the college's first president. Even though he was quite content to remain in Lexington, Va., where he had "received not a single mark of discourtesy, or disrespect," Hill accepted the position at Davidson, largely because of his "desire to labor in a College, founded in the prayers, and by the liberality of Presbyterians."[54] Also, the Board of Trustees had agreed to support his "views . . . in regard to the standard of education, and system of government of the College."[55] C. D. Fishburne explained that Hill "entered on his duties with the assurance that he would be heartily sustained by a large majority of the Trustees in every effort he might make to completely change the College, in the standards of scholarship and behavior."[56] What happened over the next five years at Davidson College illustrates just how tenacious and persistent "Harvey" Hill could be. Nothing could seemingly dissuade this man from trying to attain an objective once he had decided to pursue it. Nothing. To put matters bluntly, the Board of Trustees wanted Hill to take charge and subdue the violence that was threatening to destroy the college. "Major Hill was . . . induced to accept the place by the urgent request of prominent friends of the College who were dissatisfied with its condition," said Fishburne.[57] The 33-year-old South Carolinian was eager to meet the challenge. The behavior of the students, like that on many other college campuses in the South, was raucous and unsettling. Many of the approximately 90 students were virtually out of control.[58] Riots were common. Drinking and carousing were widespread. If suspended, troublemakers would not go home, largely because they did not have enough money to pay their way. Waiting to be readmitted, they would walk around campus or sleep all day in the town's boarding houses. Even worse, at night, under the cover of darkness, they would entertain themselves by making mischief, much of it mean spirited. On Thursday, December 22, 1853, for example, students attacked the houses of two professors with rocks and eggs and set off several bombs on the campus, "the report being heard some four or five miles around the College."[59] On Friday, April 21, 1854, a "wooden building was demolished" during a campus riot.[60] One student even put gunpowder into a candle snuffer, which exploded when it was used. The unsuspecting owner suffered serious damage to one eye.[61] After fulfilling his obligations at Washington College, Hill arrived in Davidson on May 28, 1854, and almost immediately began implementing major changes in the academic program. Uppermost on his agenda was the installation of the same military grading system of merits and demerits used at many colleges during the 1850's, including Washington College and West Point. Not a few students, Hill insisted, had been "allowed to trample upon all laws, human and divine." These surly youngsters had an "undisciplined mind, an uncultivated heart, yet with exalted ideas of personal dignity, and a scowling contempt for lawful authority, and wholesome restraint," he lamented.[62] Hill insisted the he knew how to end such fractious behavior. Never one to mince words, especially when he believed that somebody in authority was incompetent, Hill lashed out at Samuel Williamson, the College's president. "The character of a College depends mainly upon the character of its President," Hill told the Board of Trustees several months later.[63] In August, 1854, Williamson resigned when it became clear that the combative new mathematics professor was going to prevail. Hill also offered to quit, but the Board of Trustees insisted that he stay. As promised, the Board of Trustees approved Hill's new grading system of merits and demerits, on August 8, 1854. The most severe punishment was bestowed upon those students guilty of "profanity, fighting, disorderly conduct in recitation rooms, in Chapel, or on the Campus." There were also severe penalties for students "being improperly dressed in Chapel, in recitation rooms, or on Campus."[64] Clearly, a restrictive new regime was taking control at Davidson College, and Daniel Harvey Hill was its indomitable leader. The days of lax discipline were over. The minutes of the Davidson College Faculty are replete with examples of professors, especially D. H. Hill, subjecting students to exacting regulations. These included unannounced inspections of dormitory rooms to make sure that students were studying, informing parents when their children were "too frequently absent from College duties," and reading each Monday in Chapel a "list of the delinquencies and offenses" that had occurred the pervious week.[65] ". . . on account of noise on the campus, Profs. Hill and Fishburn (sic.) inspected the College Buildings and found that Messrs. Bailey, and R. B. Caldwell were absent from their rooms," the Faculty minutes declared on one occasion.[66] D. H. Hill was particularly concerned about students drinking whiskey. The minutes of one meeting stated: Faculty met, and after the usual business, some conversation was had about certain students being addicted to drinking, and it was reported that a citizen of the village had informed a mem- ber of the Faculty that there was a good deal of drinking this term among the students. Where- upon, it was agreed, on motion of Major Hill, that the Faculty visit the students' rooms one night of this week.[67] There was also anxiety about the presence of firearms on campus. The Faculty stipulated that "no student be allowed to use fire-arms (sic.), except on Saturday, and at no time on the College premises."[68] The new instruments of control even extended to visitors to the campus. In May, 1855, the Faculty hired policemen and directed them "to disperse negroes who may collect about the College on Sundays."[69] It was against the background of these developments that a large number of students rioted with particular ferocity on the night of December 21, 1854. No doubt harboring deep resentments over the enforcement of Hill's restrictive measures, the participants in this uprising expressed their anger by lighting fires and throwing rocks and eggs at two professors' houses, including the home of J. R. Gilland, the president of the Faculty. Rocks flew through the air. One struck Hill in the forehead. Undismayed, blood dripping down his face, the feisty mathematics professor pressed the attack, just as he had done in the Mexican War and as he would do later in battle after battle with the Yankees during the Civil War. Gradually the students retreated and began to slip away into the darkness. Hill ordered the Faculty -- there were only four members -- to enter the dormitories to make sure which students had stayed in their rooms. All the students were either at their desks studying or asleep in their beds when the faculty entered. One room was locked. Hill smashed in the door with an ax, rushed in and found D. Newton, a known mischief-maker, feigning sleep but still wearing his boots. The repercussions of this student uprising were dramatic and profound, at least for Davidson College. An inquisition of sorts occurred the next day, when the entire student body was ordered to appear before the Faculty and explain their whereabouts the night before. Not surprisingly, everybody insisted that they had not taken part in the recent disturbance. On December 26th, the Faculty suspended D. Newton for three months for "his inattention to his studies, . . . his having used in a written essay disrespectful language to a Professor, and from the strong circumstantial evidence to convict him of participating in a riot on the night of the 21st."[70] Forty-two students, more than 50 percent of those attending Davidson College, signed a petition requesting that Newton be allowed to remain. The document contended that convicting Newton on mere circumstantial evidence was "inconsistent with the principles of justice, and contrary to the dictates of reason."[71] When D. H. Hill and his colleagues refused to adhere to the their wishes, the protesting students left school, many never to return. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:31:08 -0500 Reply-To: Hank Bromley Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Hank Bromley Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Asia Lerner wrote: > Actually, I can't imagine why somebody who sounds like a Christian > Fundamentalist would be interested in slandering New Englanders. > > It would be interesting to know when this curious volume was published. I > could not find it in the Library of Congress catalog. There are various > entries under "Elements of Algebra", non by D. Harvey Hill, and there is a > Daniel Harvey Hill who fought under general Lee, and does not sound like > the type to write math primers in his spare time. In fact, I believe that's our man. The OCLC catalog does list the book, with a publication date in the 1850's, along with various works on the Confederacy, and the previously mentioned theological writings, by the same author. Given the context, Norman Levitt's original contention that the problem was intended to portray New Englanders in a poor light gains plausibility. I could certainly believe the author wished to make Northern criticism of slavery appear hypocritical against the background of their own genocidal treatment of the indigenous inhabitants (although I don't see how it's "slanderous," assuming the author's account of this particular episode is accurate). In any case, I agree with those who have said the example makes poor use of the information about the slaughter, and is not pedagogically sound. -- Hank Bromley ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:42:16 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 7) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Daniel Harvey Hill did not seek to be popular. In his opinion, neither should colleges. Too many colleges and universities, he insisted, had become little more than "polishing and varnishing" institutions, because they did everything necessary to maintain their enrollment, including sacrificing academic standards.[72] And what kind of graduates did such places produce? "An occasional scholar is sent out from their walls, whilst thousands of conceited ignoramuses are spawned forth with not enough Algebra to equate their minds with zero," Hill proclaimed in his official inaugural address to the Board of Trustees on February 28, 1855. [73] " . . . ninnies take degrees," the acerbic major continued, "and blockheads bear away the title of Bachelor of Arts; though the only art they acquired in College was the art of yelling, ringing of bells, and blowing horns in nocturnal rows."[74] D. H. Hill believed that human beings were by nature wretched and sinful creatures. "Self-abasement and self-abhorrence must lie at the very foundation of the Christian character," Hill wrote in 1858.[75] Regardless of its origins, this predilection to emphasize the negative aspects of human deportment brought a certain harshness to Hill's rhetoric. Indeed, his inaugural address at Davidson was full of vituperative language. Without rewards for good behavior, the majority of students would "speedily acquire idle habits, and learn to drone away their time between lounging, cards, cigars, and whiskey punch," Hill maintained.[76] And as for those miscreants who had no desire to improve their behavior, they would "congregate together around their filthy whiskey bottle, like ill-omened vultures around a rotten carcass." It was this tendency toward invective and pointing out the faults in others that caused many people to dislike Daniel Harvey Hill. But Hal Bridges, his biographer, reminds us that Hill was a man of many facets. "At every stage of his career, the attractive qualities . . . were liberally intermingled with his prickly traits of character," says Bridges.[77] Davidson College derived enormous benefits from having "Harvey" Hill on its faculty. In addition to leading the effort to restore discipline, he labored tirelessly to strengthen the academic program. He persuaded the Board of Trustees to purchase new equipment for the Mathematics Department. He brought C. D. Fishburne to Davidson and agreed to pay Fishburne's salary for two years if the money could not be raised to meet this obligation -- no small commitment when his own annual salary was just $1705. It was during Hill's tenure at Davidson that Salisbury, North Carolina merchant Maxwell Chambers bequeathed $300,000 to the college. Ratchford insisted that this gift was a direct result of the improvements that Hill had championed. "This I presume is the largest Legacy ever left to one College in the Southern States," said Robert Hall Morrison, D. H. Hill's father-in-law.[78] Anyone doubting the importance of his contributions to the overall improvement of Davidson College need only read what the Board of Trustees said about D. H. Hill when he resigned from the faculty on July 11, 1859. That whilst we, as a Board of Trustees, accede to the wishes of Major D. H. Hill, we accept his resignation with very great reluctance, much regretting to lose from our Institution such a pure and high minded Christian gentleman, diligent and untiring student; thorough and ripe scholar, and able faithful, and successful Instructor -- especially in his Department -- as Major Hill as ever proved himself to be since he came amongst us.[79] In 1859, no doubt at D. H. Hill's urging, the General Assembly of North Carolina enacted legislation which assured that his impact upon campus life at Davidson College would endure. The law stipulated that no person could "erect, keep, maintain or have at Davidson College, or within three miles thereof, any tippling house, establishment or place for the sale of wines, cordials, spirituous or malt liquors."[80] It prohibited "any billiard table, or other public table of any kind, at which games of chance or skill (by whatever name called) may be played."[81] The punishments for violating these prohibitions were severe, especially for slaves. They were "to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or her bare back."[82] The departure of Daniel Harvey Hill from Davidson College came as no surprise. It was widely known that he was about to become the Superintendent of the North Carolina Military Institute in Charlotte. As early as June 29, 1858, the Western Democrat, a Charlotte newspaper, had announced that the "services of a distinguished gentleman, a graduate of West Point," had been secured for the position.[83] On September 28, 1858, the newspaper reported that Daniel Harvey Hill would indeed be the Superintendent. "The mere mention of this fact we think will insure confidence in the success of the undertaking," the Western Democrat proclaimed.[84] The impetus for establishing the North Carolina Military Institute was provided by a group of Charlotte businessmen and professionals headed by Dr. Charles J. Fox.[85] "Those gentlemen who originated and pushed forward the scheme are entitled to much credit for energy and zeal," said the Western Democrat.[86] They raised $15,000 by selling stock to individuals and received $10,000 from the City of Charlotte, also to purchase stock. The voters had approved this financial outlay in a special referendum held on March 27, 1858.[87] Dr. Fox and his associates bought a tract of land about one-half mile south of Charlotte beside the tracks of the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad and hired Sydney Reading, a contractor, to oversee the construction of Steward's Hall, a massive, castle-like, three and four-story brick edifice designed to look like the buildings at West Point.[88] A festive ceremony was held on the grounds on Saturday, July 31, 1858, when the cornerstone was laid. William A. Graham, the Governor of North Carolina, spoke to a "large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen."[89] Classes began at the North Carolina Military Institute on October 1, 1859.[90] The institute had two departments. A Primary Department for boys from 12 to 15 and a Scientific Department for young men from 15 to 21. Chartered by the North Carolina Legislature to award degrees, the Scientific Department, which had 60 cadets enrolled during the first year, patterned its curriculum after the courses taught at West Point, which meant that it emphasized such technical and scientific skills as engineering, surveying, mathematics and chemistry, plus the art of warfare. The influence of D. H. Hill over the educational philosophy of the North Carolina Military Institute was paramount. In keeping with his gloomy appraisal of human nature, Hill insisted that discipline must be rigorously enforced. Just as at Davidson College, he held firmly to the belief that young men, unless closely supervised, would inevitably go astray. "The great sin of the age," he told the Education Committee of the North Carolina Legislature in January, 1861, "is resistance to established authority."[91] The Superintendent wrote a lengthy description of the school's mission shortly before the institute opened in 1859. The organization of this Institution and the principles upon which it is based entitle it to the patronage of the State. The instruc- tion imparted is peculiarly suited to our Southern agricultural population; the dis- cipline is of the kind most popular with Southern youth; the prohibition of pocket- money and the dressing of all alike in one common uniform prevent extravagance and the indulgence in crime, and cut off the pride and ostentation engendered by fine clothes; the exercise required in drilling, parading and in guard duty, preserves the health, and occupies that time which might otherwise be spent in vice.[92] As expected, Christianity, although non-sectarian, occupied a central place in the instructional program of the North Carolina Military Institute. "Will not Christians, especially, furnish the youthful cadets with that sound, healthful and pure literature which the young so much need?", Hill asked.[93] Cadets had to attend chapel twice daily -- in the morning to listen to a sermon and in the afternoon to hear Biblical instruction -- as well as go to church on Sunday. Henry E. Shepherd, a cadet at the Institute, remembered Superintendent Hill's lectures in the chapel with fondness. "I listened eagerly to the comments of the 'Major' as he read the Scriptures in chapel and at times revealed their infinite stylistic power," he wrote many years later.[94] J. W. Ratchford, who had left Davidson College and had followed D. H. Hill to the North Carolina Military Institute, also remembered attending chapel and listening to his mentor speak. Hill spoke about politics too. When word arrived that South Carolina had seceded on December 20, 1860, many of the cadets from South Carolina, including Ratchford, considered withdrawing from school and going home to support their native state. "Gen. Hill made us a talk . . . one morning, telling us that if we did have a war he expected to go, and advised us to stay at school until it was certain," Ratchford reported.[95] One comes away from examining those fateful weeks in the first half of 1861 with the distinct feeling that Hill, in keeping with his long-held convictions, was willing to fight to protect the Southern way of life but that he sincerely hoped that war would not occur. D. H. Hill had no illusions about the horrible realities of military combat. "Recruiting sergeants, with their drums and fifes, try to allure by 'the pride, pomp, and circumstance of war;' they never allude to the hot, weary marches, the dreary night-watches, the mangled limbs, and crushed carcasses of the battle-field (sic.)," he proclaimed.[96] Hill was proud of the South's military tradition. "The armies of the Revolution were commanded by Washington, a Southern General," he told an audience in Wilmington, N.C.[] But he knew that a struggle with the North would be long and arduous. After Confederate troops opened fire on the Federal garrison at Fort Sumter in the harbor at Charleston, S. C. on April 12, 1861, Hill summoned the young cadets to the chapel in Steward's Hall on the outskirts of Charlotte and told them what to expect in the weeks, months and years ahead. His words were tragically prophetic. Ratchford recalled what the Superintendent said: He warned us that it would be no child's play, and the chances were that it would last as long as the Revolutionary war, and we would all get enough of it. He mentioned the contrast between the resources of the North and the South, both in men and means. . . .[98] The second half of April, 1861, witnessed a flurry of activity at the North Carolina Military Institute. A particularly dramatic scene occurred when the cadets raised a secession flag, made by the ladies of Charlotte, over Steward's Hall so the passengers on the trains moving north out of South Carolina could see it. James H. Lane, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and a member of Hill's faculty, described what happened when the next locomotive passed by the campus. ". . . the artillery thundered its greetings to South Carolina as the train passed slowly by: the male passengers yelled themselves hoarse; the ladies waved their handkerchiefs and threw kisses to these brave boys."[99] North Carolina Governor John W. Ellis summoned D. H. Hill to Raleigh to organize the State's first military instruction camp. The cadets followed soon thereafter. They marched as a body into Charlotte and boarded trains headed for the State capital on April 26th. Crowds lined the platform as the locomotive pulled away from the station. It was Friday night. Steward Hall was turned over to the State as a place for volunteers to rendezvous. The halls were silent. The classrooms were empty. The chapel was still. The Old South was entering its death agony. Two members of the faculty of the North Carolina Military Institute would perish in the Peninsula Campaign, and James H. Lane would be wounded twice. D. H. Hill would bring to the Civil War those same attributes which had served him so well during the 1840's and 1850's. Persistence. Integrity. Bravery. But he would also display the irascible side of his makeup. [references omitted] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:26:41 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gideon Lichfield Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Without reading the biog of Daniel Harvey Hill (apologies if it contained material of relevance), a response to Norm Levitt's lessons from the maths example: >My own point, however, is that "political correctness" in math classes >has an ancient lineage, one which ought to make educational >theorists leery of using a math class as a soapbox on behalf of >political convictions, even passionately held ones. As the Hill >example shows (and his pollitical convictions were as passionate as >anyone's) any number of people can play this game, .......< But, equally, doesn't this invite us not to worry? It suggests that the present unease, and occasional public brouhaha, about "politically correct" mathematical problems is unfounded, given that social issues have permeated the teaching of mathematics for so long without apparent ill effect. Unless, that is, someone has evidence of such an ill-effect. (NB this is separate from the worry that the standards of mathematics or science teaching are declining as a result of postmodern or politically correct beliefs about how to educate.) >The more extended point is that even morally unexceptionable (as I >view things) parables... ... can be used to advance rather >questionable causes. >What is less clear to me is that anyone who insists on >recalling these horrors is, ipso facto, himself virtuous and politically >wise. In the case of modern-day politically correct maths, what are the causes being advanced, who is advancing them, and how effective is the advancement? Social issues of all kinds can and do permeate teaching in every subject, and in maths and science surely less than in others such as languages ("Translate into Spanish, 'The Pequod brave was brutally slaughtered by the technologically-advantaged white infantryman' "), history, economics and so on. The social issues reflect the preoccupations of the day; they are introduced mostly by teachers; and it was ever thus. If the worry is that children pick up political or cultural bias, the amount they get from their science classes is surely tiny compared with the bombardment of ideas and attitudes they receive in other areas -- both in school and outside it. If the worry is that it makes science teaching worse, what is the evidence? Gideon Lichfield science/tech correspondent --------------------- The Economist --------------------- 25 St. James's Street, London SW1A 1HG tel: +44 171 830 7066 fax: +44 171 839 2968 gideonlichfield@economist.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 14:31:47 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Ingleby classic article on reification at psa-public-sphere/free assns. web site Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I have added the following article to those archived at the psa-public-sphere/Free Associations web site http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/rmy/fa.html David Ingleby 'Ideology and the Human Sciences: Some Comments on the Role of Reification in Psychology and Psychiatry' 98K This is a classic article, written by a psychologist trained in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Cambridge, who took up a critical stance and became a leading figure in the movement to humanize psychology and psychiatry. It is a fine example of an academic using all his academic training to think critically about the assumptions of his own discipline. It first appeared in _The Human Context_ and was reprinted in a collection which was very influential in the student movement, Trevor Pateman, ed., _Counter Course: An Handbook for Course Criticism_, Penguin Education, 1972, pp. 51-81 The following writings are also at the web site (with summaries): Ros Minsky, 'Fragrant Theory: The Sweet Scent of Signifiers' Laurence J. Gould, Ph.D., 'Correspondence Between Bion's Basic Assumption Theory and Klein's Developmental Positions: an Outline' W. Gordon Lawrence, 'The Presence of Totalitarian States of Mind in Institutions' Kenneth Eisold, 'Psychoanalysis Today: Implications for Organizational Applications' Review by Paul Hoggett of Anton Obholzer & Vega Zagier Roberts, eds., _The Unconscious at Work: Individual and Organisational Stress in the Human Services_, London: Routledge, 1994. Pp. xx+224. =A314.99 Review by Jo Nash of Rozsika Parker, _Torn in Two: The Experience of Materna= l Ambivalence_. London: Virago, 1995. Pp. 299. Review by Deborah Marks of Lennard J. Davis, _Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body_ London: Verso, 1995. Michael Rustin and Andrew Cooper, 'Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere: The Project in Changing Times' Norman Holland, 'Internet Regression' Robert M. Young, 'Psychoanalysis and/of the Internet' Robert M. Young, 'Disappointment, Stoicism and the Future of Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere' __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Youn= g Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 20:48:15 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: John Falkenberg Subject: sign off Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 15:04:41 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Rooney,John Peter" Subject: Re: sign off JOHN PETER ROONEY ASQ CERTIFIED RELIABILITY ENGINEER #2425 E-Mail: jprooney@foxboro.com >---------- >From: John Falkenberg[SMTP:john.falkenberg@SWIPNET.SE] >Sent: Monday, January 12, 1998 2:48PM >To: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU >Subject: sign off > >> >> > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 18:44:50 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 2) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gideon Lichfield wrote: [snip] > In the case of modern-day politically correct maths, what are the causes > being advanced, who is advancing them, and how effective is the > advancement? Shouldn't this be a key question to be asked about *everything*? There is no such thing as a value neutral entity in the human world, and "value neutrality" is itself always *one* form of value agenda ("the end of ideology" was synonymous with the vision of a universal triumph of liberal and relatively humane capitalism, e.g.). > Social issues of all kinds can and do permeate > teaching in every subject, and in maths and science surely less than in > others such as languages ("Translate into Spanish, 'The Pequod brave > was brutally slaughtered by the technologically-advantaged white > infantryman' "), history, economics and so on. The very fact that one is teaching math and/or science is itself a big value stance, as the biblical fundamentalists rightly argue. > The social issues reflect > the preoccupations of the day; they are introduced mostly by teachers; > and it was ever thus. If the worry is that children pick up political or > cultural bias, the amount they get from their science classes is surely > tiny compared with the bombardment of ideas and attitudes they > receive in other areas -- both in school and outside it. If the worry is that it > makes science teaching worse, what is the evidence? [snip] The ideology of scientific praxis is a serious issue, and perhaps students should learn something about, e.g., the plight of Galileo, who was silenced by intimidation from The Roman Catholic Church (as Jacob Bronowski put it: The Church knew that all that was needed was to *show* Galileo the instruments of torture, and his imagination would do the rest). What might the modern world be like had Galileo called the Church's bluff? (Bertold Brecht's play _Galileo_ offers one fine (from *my perspective* commentary on this affair)....) Would modern science be more socially self-accountable and self-aware, rather than most scientific and technically trained people seeing themselves only as doing "value neutral" activity? Would Rabelais and Erasmus be the models of "modernity" instead of Descartes (Stephen Toulmin's book _Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity_ is IMO a seminal text here). Would hermeneutics rather than brain physics be hegemonous in the self-understanding (or lack thereof...) of educated persons? \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 18:33:52 -0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Evitts Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Finally, a series of posts on a mailing list that make lurking worthwhile. Good old Daniel Harvey Hill has managed to illuminate facets of 'humanity' as a human characteristic that many of the theoretical, impersonal, 'constructed' perspectives never come close to - or have as a subtext only. Cheers to Norman Levitt for being a sneaky son-of-a-bitch of the best sort. Daniel Harvey Hill would have loved it, I'm sure. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 19:26:36 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <199801121525.PAA02958@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Mr. Levitt Thank you. I have not only enjoyed the humorous bantering (it is humorous, isn't it?) that has come from your statement, but I have also stopped believing that I should always be understood, or to naively think that I could understood all that is said--not that you were fooled by my Bostonian facetiousness. It seems as though each of us respondents were unclear as to your intent. AS for myself, I wonder if my biases are a bigger influence to my concept of reality than my ignorance. If I seem nihilistic, forgive me, for that is not my motivation. However, I'm still not very clear as to what my motivation may be. Oh and thanks for the compliment. I always wanted to be deft at something. Pat O'Brien On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Norman Levitt wrote: > On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Asia Lerner wrote: > > > Actually, I can't imagine why somebody who sounds like a Christian > > Fundamentalist would be interested in slandering New Englanders. > > > > It would be interesting to know when this curious volume was published. I > > could not find it in the Library of Congress catalog. There are various > > entries under "Elements of Algebra", non by D. Harvey Hill, and there is a > > Daniel Harvey Hill who fought under general Lee, and does not sound like > > the type to write math primers in his spare time. > > > > Best regards, Asia Lerner > > > > >N. Levitt > > I congratulate Mr. Lerner on his dilligence. The book is cataloged in > Harvard's Widener Library, which appears to have 3 copies. I personally > have been trying to obtain a copy from rare book dealers, but no one I've > contacted seems to be able to dig one up. > > Let me recapitulate contributions to date: > ---------------------------- > From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." > > My first respponse to this is that it involves a meaningless > abstraction, > and thus contributes to the students seeing the world in an "autistic" > ("meaning blind", to borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein's Philosophical > Investigations). More meaningful questions, depending on the desired > level of mathematical sophistication, might range from: > ......... > Dr. McCormick seems to think that the problem is rather awkward, but the > idea of using problems recounting this kind of sanguinary incident is > sound. > > --------------------------------- > > From: "Thomas G. Karnofsky" > > Could you provide a reference for this problem? What book? There are also a > few problems with the formulation of your question. What do you mean by the > ethnic group label New Englander? How does the question slander them when it > doesn't even mention them? > > It may be innappropriate, but why do you pick out this example? Why do you > consider this political, as opposed to examples that perpetrate a benign > view of the invasion of the Americas, which you would presumably consider > objective and apolitical? > ........ > > Mr. Karnfsky thinks the target of the indignation is unclear, and that > I, personally, would prefer problems that glorify the American past, in > particular, the hegemonic version of the American past. > > --------------------------------------- > > From: Gregory Murrie > > To me, rather than "slandering" New Englanders, it seems to do perhaps the > diametrically opposite, trivialising the issue of the slaughter of Indians > by reducing it to a mathematical problem. I think that taking the issue > out of an arena where the political implications of the history can be > discussed, no matter what they prove to be, is the problem here, > ......... > > Mr. Murrie contends that putting such material in the context of math > exercises trivializes the moral and political point. > ---------------------- > > From: Patrick OBrien > > Yes, I grew up in the Plymouth, Mass. area, and I must agree with you. > I firmly believe that facts should be eliiminated, or at least avoided. > I'm well aware that the Yankee is stigma has been grossly exagerated. > .......... > > Mr. O'Brien, deftly sarcastic, seems to think that I (or someone) > advocates suppressing disagreeable (to the dominant faction) historical > facts. > > ------------------------------- > (to be continued) > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 19:34:04 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 2) In-Reply-To: <199801121527.PAA02986@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Mr. Levitt Thanks for the lecture. I have been guilty of using teaching experinces as a forum for my everchanging philosophies. Pat O'Brien ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:03:13 -0400 Reply-To: Jiri Wackermann Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jiri Wackermann Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-cc: Ivan Jirka MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit First of all: Best New Year wishes to everybody on the list! On Sat, 10 Jan 1998 12:43:03 -0500, Norman Levitt wrote: >I found the following problem in an American elementary algebra book. It >seems to me an egregious example of the misuse of a mathematics classroom >to preach political lessons. Not only is the subject matter too >highly-charged emotionally, but it slanders one particular ethnic group >(New Englanders, in this case) as being particularly bloodthirsty and >nasty. [snip] >Problem: >In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on >the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut or sold into >slavery. The square [root] of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10-th >that number. What was that number? Hmmm, there's a fuss around the exercise...why? Of course it's a weird idea to demonstrate a solution of a quadratic equation on a number of survivors from genocide. I would agree to Brad{1}, to some extent, in that this is an exercise in an "autistic" approach to the world. No pejorative undertone; science is done that way, like seeing a cat falling from a top of skyscraper as an example of an instance of a mass body under free fall conditions{2}. The extreme curiosity of an experimenter may seem to involve a pretty deal of "autism", at least in eyes of a layman{3} observer. But this is a math book, and schemes derived from physical (sensual world related) sciences not always fit well to mathematicians. I suspect there's a concealed intention to coin a notion of multiplicity of plausible solutions to the students' mind. The equation has two roots, N1 = 200, and N2 = 0 {4}; so I assume the author's idea was that the zero solution---which a careless student may have overlooked when dividing both sides of equation by N---will become much more impressive when it implies a highly emotional message, "nobody survived". A student facing a cruel reality of the exercise will less probably miss unexpected or unpleasant but logical consequences of a problem solution. Well, it's just my assumption. (Math folks are considered to be weirdos by people from the street, aren't they?) But, then, on Sun, 11 Jan 1998 06:31:40 +0000, Gregory Murrie wrote: >To me, rather than "slandering" New Englanders, it seems to do perhaps the >diametrically opposite, trivialising the issue of the slaughter of Indians >by reducing it to a mathematical problem. There's really a problem; one can't be harmlessly "autistic" unless being suspect of anti-human cynism. I'm not sure here; it's part of U.S. history, isn't it? I don't see any trivialisation in the exercise; and it never came to my mind "New Englanders [...] being particularly bloodthirsty and nasty". It's just a matter of taste, I think{5}. I'm afraid I can see a tendency in the discussion to pursue the author of this strange math example and to identiify him in his political / religious inclinations: >"The Elements of Algebra" by D. Harvey Hill (J.B. Lippincott, pub.) >I find that Hill is also listed as author of: >"A Consideration of the Sermon on the Mount" >and >"The Crucifixion of Christ" >which suggests a religious, as well as political motivation. >N. Levitt I only hope this will not result in another booklet, "The Crucifixion of D. H. Hill" :-) Regards, Jiri -------------------------- {1} On Sat, 10 Jan 1998 14:03:33 -0500, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: >My first respponse to this is that it involves a meaningless abstraction, >and thus contributes to the students seeing the world in an "autistic" >("meaning blind", to borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein's Philosophical >Investigations). [...] {2} There's more to that: what's the difference to a stone falling from top of Pisa Tower? Here we need not only a correction to air friction, like with the stone; the cat will try various parachute tricks, so the corrections would be more complicated than for a non-living thing falling freely down; so we could infere the thing shows much more complicated behavior; an "autistic" (read: cold-headed, calculating ultra-rational, no empathy) investigator could derive from these deviations that the object is a bit different from stones and dead cats; thus approaching an operational definition of a living cat. Is _this_ a weird example? Well, it is; and it's how the science proceeds. {3} I mean, not involved in the experiment/study/problem. No offense, again. {4} After correction, the word "root" was missing from the original posting. (On Sun, 11 Jan 1998 17:46:41 -0500, Norman Levitt wrote: My apologies [...] I dropped a crucial word ...). Interestingly enough, I did _not_ notice that at the first glance; I solved the equation _as if_ there were "square root" printed correctly. Then I realized that I was, strictly speaking, wrong. In my opinion, effects like that deserve perhaps more attention than matters of "political correctness". Why is that one adjusts unconsciously the wording of the problem to get a solution that does make sense? {5} We in Central Europe are probably not so enlightened in re political correctness or appropriateness. On the other hand, a math textbook containing an exercise as to estimate number of Jews surviving holocaust (or number of survivors in Dresden after Allies Air Force bombing, to be correctly impartial) is _really_ something impossible! -------------------------- Jiri Wackermann Neuroscience Technology Research, Prague, Czech Republic ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:16:58 -0400 Reply-To: Jiri Wackermann Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jiri Wackermann Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? (part 7) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Norman, shortly after posting my reply, I looked at the downloaded stuff and enjoyed your serial article on Hill. Thanks a lot. It was a terribly funny start into 1998 discussions; and a piece of moral to all flaming discussants, I think. Thanks again Jiri ----------------------------------------- Jiri Wackermann Neuroscience Technology Research, Prague, Czech Republic ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 16:44:48 -0800 Reply-To: wderzko@pathcom.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Walter Derzko Subject: Opportuniti-Tease Week #3 -Immortal Human Cells X-To: List de Bono X-cc: Willliam Sheridan , Venkat Ramani B , Roger Schiphorst <100651.2315@compuserve.com>, Peter Freedman , Peter D'Adamo <103741.465@compuserve.com>, Mary Ann Maruska , Mark Runco , Kris Buttermore , Diana C Horan , Tom Przybylski , This Morning , Sunday Morning Live , Pamela Wallin Live , Metro Morning , Futureworld , CBC TV Venture , As it Happens , Ideas , List McLuhan , List Cybermind , List CPSI-L MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Opportuni-Tease #3 - Immortal Human Cells (scientists today announced that they have discovered the control mechanism for cell aging.It involves the telomerase enzyme-This may be one of the top scientific discoveries of 1998 -see press release at the bottom of this post) ================================================= Opportuni-Tease is a new weekly posting to stimulate your creative & opportunity thinking. I have a list of recent breakthrough technologies, science concepts and research that is still in the research, pilot or lab stages. Discoveries have been selected because they have the potential to "shock" and radically alert your life, career, job or business. I think it would be useful to explore the potential social impacst before these breakthroughs actually hit the market. It would provide the opportunity to mitigate/redesign any potential negative social impacts and enhance the positive ones One way to explore these impacts is to ask yourself the four questions below: ( often asked by Marshal McLuhan-from McLuhan's Tetrad model): This week's Opportuni-Tease: Week #3-Immortal cell lines (see press release and backgrounder below) 1) What does the ability to have "imortal cell lines" enhance? promote? reply- 2) What does having "immortal cell lines" make obsolete? leave behind ? reply- 3) What does having "immortal cell lines" retrieve? bring back? (Something that was lost/abandoned in some old previously obsolesced discovery/artifact) reply- 4) Taken to the extreme, what does "immortal cell lines" flip into? or reverse into? What if everyone is asking for it/using it? reply- Your name- Your email- Replying from List/Group- -cut------------------cut-------------------cut--------------------cut------ Please reply using the above headings only. Do not change the Subject line when repying. Please reply to the news group or list and share your ideas about impacts, but copy me at: wderzko@pathcom.com if you want to be credited with anticipating the impact(s) and to be archived in my new web page (under construction) Walter Derzko Director Idea Lab wderzko@pathcom.com ========================================================================= (next week- Opportuni-Tease #4-Cell Surface Engineering ========================================================================= Backgrounder on the Fountain of Youth-Immortal cell lines For Immediate Release: 13 January 1998 Embargo Lifted at 13:15:00 ET US Contact: Heather Stieglitz hstieg@mednet.swmed.edu (214) 648-3404 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Scientists Extend The Life Span Of Human Cells DALLAS -- Jan. 13, 1998 -- Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and their colleagues at Geron Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., say they have figured out how to overcome the mechanisms that control cellular aging and extend the life span of human cells. In the Jan. 16 issue of Science, Drs. Woodring Wright and Jerry Shay, UT Southwestern professors of cell biology and neuroscience, and their collaborators report finding that the enzyme telomerase -- which UT Southwestern scientists call a "cellular fountain of youth" -- causes human cells grown in the laboratory to retain their "youth" and continue to divide long past the time when they normally stop dividing. Normal human cells have a limited capacity to proliferate. After a certain finite number of cell divisions, time on the biological clock runs out; the cells "age" and stop dividing. Time remaining in a cell's life correlates with the length of the telomeres -- repeated sequences of DNA on the ends of chromosomes that protect the tips from degradation. In normal cells, telomeres shorten with each cell division. Although some have thought that this telomere shortening might be the biological clock¢s control mechanism, the hypothesis was controversial. The research now proves that human cells grow older each time they divide because their telomeres shorten. Specialized reproductive cells and most cancer cells appear to divide indefinitely. They contain the enzyme telomerase, which adds back telomeric DNA to the ends of chromosomes. Most normal cells do not have this enzyme. "We have found that cellular aging can be bypassed by the introduction of the catalytic component of the immortalizing enzyme telomerase," Shay said. "The expression of telomerase LIFE SPAN -- 2in normal human cells should extend their lifespan indefinitely. From a basic research point of view, we could begin to replace the abnormal tumor-cell lines now being used to study biochemical and physiological aspects of growth and differentiation with normal, yet immortal cell lines." The scientists introduced telomerase into normal human cells to see if the cells' life spans could be prolonged. The cells with telomerase extended the length of their telomeres, divided for 20 additional generations past the time they normally would stop dividing and are continuing to divide. The cells also grew and divided in a normal manner, giving rise to normal cells with the normal number of chromosomes. By all accounts these cells had found their fountain of youth. "The extension of normal cell lifespan in a youthful state by telomerase is a dramatic confirmation of the telomere hypothesis and one that presents numerous opportunities for biotechnology and medicine," said Dr. Calvin Harley, Geron vice president and chief scientific officer. One immediate use of finding that telomere shortening controls cellular aging may be in the area of producing engineered products in human cells. Instead of using uncharacterized primary human-cell cultures to produce vaccines or other biological products, one should now be able to produce products in a re-engineered normal human cell-type that does not change, Wright said. "This research raises the possibility that we could take a patient's own cells, rejuvenate them, then modify the cells as needed and give them back to the patient to treat a variety of genetic and other diseases, " Wright said. "The potential long-term applications are simply staggering." The investigators' website can be found at: http:// www.swmed.edu/home_pages/cellbio/shay/ This news release is available on our World Wide Web home page at http://www.swmed.edu/home_pages/news/ ### ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 05:08:43 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gregory Murrie Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: Jiri Wackermann In-Reply-To: <9801131422.AA07733@a1.sas.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Jiri Wackermann wrote: > But, then, on Sun, 11 Jan 1998 06:31:40 +0000, Gregory Murrie wrote: > >To me, rather than "slandering" New Englanders, it seems to do perhaps the > >diametrically opposite, trivialising the issue of the slaughter of Indians > >by reducing it to a mathematical problem. There's really a problem; one can't be harmlessly "autistic" unless being suspect of anti-human cynism. I'm not sure here; it's part of U.S. history, isn't it? I don't see any trivialisation in the exercise; and it never came to my mind "New Englanders [...] being particularly bloodthirsty and nasty". It's just a matter of taste, I think{5}. > {5} We in Central Europe are probably not so enlightened in re political > correctness or appropriateness. On the other hand, a math textbook containing > an exercise as to estimate number of Jews surviving holocaust (or number of > survivors in Dresden after Allies Air Force bombing, to be correctly impartial) > is _really_ something impossible! Jiri, I'm not sure why mathematical exercises calculating Jews surviving the Holocaust or survivors after Dresden fall into a different category from the Indian example. Surely they are part of "Jewish history" or "German history" as much as this is a part of "U.S. history," so what's the difference? I'm not sure that the autism to which you refer ever is harmless, and even if it is I count it as dangerous "harmlessness". I prefer the term emotional impotence. The example, when first posted, immediately reminded me of a seminar I attended a few years ago by a German philosopher (name escapes me) whose entire paper was a linguistic analysis of the first paragraph of an essay by Douglas Crimp on AIDS activism and the problematics of gay identity circulating around the issue of AIDS. His point was to deconstruct Crimp's attempt to construct a gay identity around AIDS activism, but the problem was that neither AIDS nor gayness nor anything else were dealt with in any of their social or historical manifestations, but merely as linguistic signs awaiting deconstruction. Now this could be interpreted as a harmless logical exercise, but when this exercise takes place around an issue where hundreds of thousands of deaths are involved, I begin to suspect a political motivation. The same exercise of deconstruction could have occurred with a thousand random sentences picked from an equally random thousand books on a thousand different subjects. And yet the speaker refused to consider the political or social implications of his reasoning, and claimed bringing the political and social into discussion (including counter-examples of other AIDS activists who argued oppositely to Crimp, who for the speaker stood as the sole representative of AIDS activism, was an irrelevance). I think any such argument therefore needs to take place at least partly overtly on political grounds and not covertly through "disinterested" pure logical reasoning, mathematical exercises, or the like. And surely this is part of the point of the mathematical exercise discussed: to introduce politics into a mathematics exercise but to do so in a context in which the historical implications of the content of the problem are difficult to counter or challenge? Greg Murrie gmurrie@sas.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 12:06:35 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Adam Nieman Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? The recent correspondence reminds me of a cartoon I saw in Punch or the New Yorker in the 70s. A meek middle aged school teacher is standing in front of a black-board. He tells the class, "Some of you have asked me to teach you that bourgeois society is corrupt so here goes, bourgeois society is corrupt. Returning now to the problem of congruent triangles... " Adam Nieman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 08:33:31 -0500 Reply-To: Norman Levitt Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <199801140605.BAA06541@u1.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Gregory Murrie wrote: > I think any such argument therefore needs to take place at least partly > overtly on political grounds and not covertly through "disinterested" pure > logical reasoning, mathematical exercises, or the like. I quite agree; politics should be discussed in a context where everyone knows and expects politics to be on the agenda and where they're not being whipsawed by the lecturer's nominal authority in some other area, nor being obliged attend for some extraneous reason--like fulfulling an undergrad math requirement. > And surely this > is part of the point of the mathematical exercise discussed: to introduce > politics into a mathematics exercise but to do so in a context in which > the historical implications of the content of the problem are difficult to > counter or challenge? Strictly speaking, the point of the exercise being discussed was to make students in a southern military academy hate Yankess more than they already did. In this, it probably succeeded. > > Greg Murrie > gmurrie@sas.ac.uk > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 08:36:20 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <199801141323.IAA08660@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hear, hear!! Norm Levitt On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Adam Nieman wrote: > The recent correspondence reminds me of a cartoon I saw in Punch or the > New Yorker in the 70s. A meek middle aged school teacher is standing in front > of a black-board. He tells the class, "Some of you have asked me to teach you > that bourgeois society is corrupt so here goes, bourgeois society is corrupt. > Returning now to the problem of congruent triangles... " > > Adam Nieman > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 11:46:12 -0400 Reply-To: Jiri Wackermann Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jiri Wackermann Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Wed, 14 Jan 1998 05:08:43 +0000, Gregory Murrie wrote: >Jiri, >I'm not sure why mathematical exercises calculating Jews surviving the >Holocaust or survivors after Dresden fall into a different category from >the Indian example. Surely they are part of "Jewish history" or "German >history" as much as this is a part of "U.S. history," so what's the >difference? I'm not sure that the autism to which you refer ever is >harmless, and even if it is I count it as dangerous "harmlessness". I >prefer the term emotional impotence. > >The example, when first posted, >immediately reminded me of a seminar I attended a few years ago by a >German philosopher (name escapes me) whose entire paper was a linguistic >analysis of the first paragraph of an essay by Douglas Crimp on AIDS >activism [snip] >the problem was that neither AIDS nor >gayness nor anything else were dealt with in any of their social or >historical manifestations, but merely as linguistic signs awaiting >deconstruction. > >Now this could be interpreted as a harmless logical exercise, but when >this exercise takes place around an issue where hundreds of thousands of >deaths are involved, I begin to suspect a political motivation. [snip] >I think any such argument therefore needs to take place at least partly >overtly on political grounds and not covertly through "disinterested" pure >logical reasoning, mathematical exercises, or the like. And surely this >is part of the point of the mathematical exercise discussed: to introduce >politics into a mathematics exercise but to do so in a context in which >the historical implications of the content of the problem are difficult to >counter or challenge? > >Greg Murrie >gmurrie@sas.ac.uk Dear Greg, I'm sorry if my comment was perceived as offensive by anyone. The simple truth is that I have no expressed opinion about how many deaths are enough to give to a political dimension to a joke, a mathematical exercise, or a newspaper story. (According to your posting, "hundreds of thousands" are well above the critical mass.) All I wanted to say telling it's being a matter of taste was that there is, in my opinion, no well-defined, generally accepted and `politically correct' criterion. Death is never trivial, even a death of a single one person. From a different perspective, death is so trivial! it's ubiquitous phenomenon; we all know we are mortal, and some of us can live with the awarness of that trivial fact due to developing a somewhat desinterested attitude. There's no sign of a lack of human feelings or "emotional impotence", as you nicely said, in the very fact of accepting some given facts without _unnecessary_ emotions. Take, for instance, the Pequods genocide: this is how the U.S. people got their land, isn't it? By the way, we all are living in lands which had to be conquered in some more or less distant by our predecessors, and this process involved a lot of killed men and women and, in some horrible cases, children. The history is so trivial. (Don't blame me for emotional impotence, please.) You can't trivialise death any more. So my point was---perhaps misunderstood---to eliminate the first shock from getting recalled this relatively recent event from historical memory. Then I developed a hypothesis why a math teacher{1} could construct an exercise like that, remember? It was, well, in a certain extent an apology of an `autistic', let's better say `detached' approach to the world; this was how science was done and that, again, was what shaped the way we see the world and this is what we want discuss in this community. I didn't write anything about the difference between the Pequod survivors count exercise and its (hypothetical) counterpart based on counts of killed Jews or Germans. Of course, I wanted to extrapolate the example ad absurdum and, at the same time, to show that there's a clear limit to bad humour even in absentia of criteria of ``politically correct'' way of speaking and writing. The reason why I am so suspicious whenever an issue of so-called ``political correctness'' (PC) arises is that I think this is a _real_ harm to society. I admit that some objectives of the movement are right; that's the worst case, then, since the movement is ``partially correct''. But on a larger scale, the consequences are horrible: one should be permanently aware of political context of anything one says or does, right? You wrote, "when this [harmless logical] exercise takes place around an issue where hundreds of thousands of deaths are involved, I begin to suspect a political motivation." Which one? Tell me. This reminds me of a story told by a friend of mine; he attended a conference in Germany, then he was in a group of academically educated people, cheating about this and that, then he made a (harmless, I'd say--jw) note: "There's too much people on the Earth." This was a positive statement of a matter of fact, no more, no less; the world is crowded, and the globalized world is overcrowded. Now, he was violently attacked by a young lady, an activist of a I-don't-know-which movement; she told him he "would like to kill people", among other things, and she compared him to Adolf Hitler. He returned back to his home (Switzerland), really terrified. He's a German, an older man, he was living in his youth in Germany, of course, and his family had no good relationships to the Nazi regime. And now he was accused to be a crypto-Nazi! By a lady who, apparently, incorporated all these superior commands of PCs. It would be good if we could minimize the pain and harm we do to others by our actions, words, decisions. I don't know whether it is possible and whether there's a way; but I'm sure the right way is not to regulate what we can speak about and how. This is why I like, from time to time, funny stories like that of weird math lessons; and why I like to construct provocative thought experiments, using taboo'd "methods and material", so to speak. I believe it's much more sound than to construct an atmosphere of correctly sterile word flow in hope it wouldn't hurt anyone. Now, as the identity of mysterious Harvey Hill has been revealed, we can consider the story of the harmless math exercise a sort of projective test; it made all us to express our convictions, opinions, prejudices and fears better than any `serious' discussion topics could do {3}. Jiri PS: I propose to stop this particular branch of our discussion in public forum; too annoying for the others, I think. If there's anything more to be said, let's continue in a bi-lateral fashion. ------------------ {1} At that time I had no idea about the identity of Mr. Hill; only later I read the last postings by Mr. Levitt. {2} I'd agree that it would be rather a clinical symptom of severe psychological disturbance to print an example like that (counting survivors of holocaust) to school textbooks. A question: would this statement still be true if the results of the World War II were different? and we had their New Order in Europe? You may call me a bloody conventionalist... (Anyway, don't confuse thought experiments with political attitudes, _please_.) {3} I'm afraid it was the intention of the originator of the discussion. ------------------ Dr. Jiri Wackermann Neuroscience Technology Research s.r.o. 26 Zitna Street, Prague 2, CZ-120 00 (Czech Republic) phone/fax: (+420 2) 24915461 [NEW] e-mail: jwntr@terminal.cz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 20:55:16 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Adam Nieman wrote: > > The recent correspondence reminds me of a cartoon I saw in Punch or the > New Yorker in the 70s. A meek middle aged school teacher is standing in front > of a black-board. He tells the class, "Some of you have asked me to teach you > that bourgeois society is corrupt so here goes, bourgeois society is corrupt. > Returning now to the problem of congruent triangles... " IMO this cartoon captures something of the ambiguity of values-and-science. Surely a lot of "culture studies" and other post-modern "stuff" is rediculous, as were Nazi and Stalinist (e.g.) demands for Aryan and Marxist-Leninist science, etc. On the other hand, naive empiricist realism is also wrong (and wrong-headed). Husserl was a mathematician, and Godel studied his works, e.g. _The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology_ remains, IMO, a text which our society has yet to absorb, or, a fortiori "advance beyond" (a pox on the ilk of self-styled "philosophers" like Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett...).... It is *possible*, but highly unlikely that Euclidean geometry, as a formal symbol transformation space, is in any simplistic way "culture specific". *On the other hand*, the *teaching of Euclidean geometry, in any particular here-and-now educational setting *is* political (just like the teaching of postmodernism, Marxism, or anything -- or having young people work instead of study, etc.). What are the power relations between professor and student? What are the rewards and punishments which accrue to a student, i.e., what are the efects on his or her prospects in life, of passing / failing / etc. the course? Why is Euclidean geometry being taught instead of, e.g., industrial sociology (there is not time to teach all things to all persons, so teaching them one thing means not teaching them lots of other things)? Does the professor recognize the socioeconomic structure of his situation? Does the teacher grade students to see who can "make it" and who can't (i.e., act as God), or does the professor concern him or heself only with maximizing each student's learning (act as "midwife" and servant of knowledge)? The medium is the message. If grades are important then geometry is unimportant; if geometry is important then grading should not get in the way of learning. Etc. Note that I am not claiming Euclidean geometry ought not to be taught. I am urging that persons, whatever they are doing, reflect on it, become mutually self-accountable for it, and learn how to make our shared world more humane as *an* aspect of whatever it is they are doing (Are you listening, Bill Gates? Louis Gerstner?).... \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 05:31:16 +0000 Reply-To: Gregory Murrie Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Gregory Murrie Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: Jiri Wackermann In-Reply-To: <9801141707.AA31591@a1.sas.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII I'd like this brief? right of reply in the public forum: On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Jiri Wackermann wrote: > I'm sorry if my comment was perceived as offensive by anyone. Certainly not by me. I was merely wondering why you made the distinction between American history on the one hand, and the Holocaust and Dresden on the other. > The simple truth is that I have no expressed opinion about how many deaths > are enough to give to a political dimension to a joke, a mathematical exercise, > or a newspaper story. (According to your posting, "hundreds of thousands" > are well above the critical mass.) All I wanted to say telling it's being a matter > of taste was that there is, in my opinion, no well-defined, generally accepted > and `politically correct' criterion. I agree, but a lot is to do with having certain sensitivities in certain contexts, and that was my major point, that the mathematics problem was taken out of a context where political and moral issues could easily be discussed. > Death is never trivial, even a death of a single one person. From a > different perspective, death is so trivial! it's ubiquitous phenomenon; we all > know we are mortal, and some of us can live with the awarness of that trivial > fact due to developing a somewhat desinterested attitude. There's no sign of > a lack of human feelings or "emotional impotence", as you nicely said, in the > very fact of accepting some given facts without _unnecessary_ emotions. Yes, I agree, but once again I think it comes down to context. > Take, for instance, the Pequods genocide: this is how the U.S. people > got their land, isn't it? By the way, we all are living in lands which had to be > conquered in some more or less distant by our predecessors, and this process > involved a lot of killed men and women and, in some horrible cases, children. > The history is so trivial. (Don't blame me for emotional impotence, please.) > You can't trivialise death any more. I'm not blaming you for emotional impotence :-) but I'm wondering why the very commonness of this history renders it trivial, particularly when it's still such a live issue in every country where imperialism/invasion has taken place in the past few hundred years, or even further back than that. > So my point was---perhaps misunderstood---to eliminate the first > shock from getting recalled this relatively recent event from historical memory. > Then I developed a hypothesis why a math teacher{1} could construct an > exercise like that, remember? It was, well, in a certain extent an apology of > an `autistic', let's better say `detached' approach to the world; this was how > science was done and that, again, was what shaped the way we see the > world and this is what we want discuss in this community. Yes, and perhaps develop alternative methodologies of science, politics and, dare I say it, emotion. > The reason why I am so suspicious whenever an issue of so-called > ``political correctness'' (PC) arises is that I think this is a _real_ harm to society. > I admit that some objectives of the movement are right; that's the worst case, > then, since the movement is ``partially correct''. But on a larger scale, the > consequences are horrible: one should be permanently aware of political context > of anything one says or does, right? You wrote, "when this [harmless logical] > exercise takes place around an issue where hundreds of thousands of deaths > are involved, I begin to suspect a political motivation." Which one? Tell me. Not so much an overt political motivation I suppose, but in the example I cited I think it extremely dangerous in the context of the brouhaha in America over AIDS funding and who should get it and whether other diseases are more "worthy" (the writer analyzed was in the American context) to dispassionately pick to pieces an AIDS activist's prose on purely linguistic grounds, wihout an exploration of his politics and the contexts in which they were grounded. I think "political correctness" is largely an invention of the Right, created to attack a whole range of progressive politics that irritate the Right, though I agree if "PC" closes down dialogue it's a problem. However I think most of the politics grouped under the rubric of PC have opened up dialogue rather than closed it, and I think the PC debate has itself done this also, though whether each side listens to the other is another question. > This reminds me of a story told by a friend of mine; he attended a conference > in Germany, then he was in a group of academically educated people, cheating > about this and that, then he made a (harmless, I'd say--jw) note: "There's too much > people on the Earth." This was a positive statement of a matter of fact, no more, > no less; the world is crowded, and the globalized world is overcrowded. Now, > he was violently attacked by a young lady, an activist of a I-don't-know-which > movement; she told him he "would like to kill people", among other things, and > she compared him to Adolf Hitler. He returned back to his home (Switzerland), > really terrified. He's a German, an older man, he was living in his youth in Germany, > of course, and his family had no good relationships to the Nazi regime. And now > he was accused to be a crypto-Nazi! By a lady who, apparently, incorporated all > these superior commands of PCs. This is an extreme example easy to sympathize with (the German man, that is), but a lot of much more moderate progressive social policy, anything that happens to offend the powers-that-be in fact, unfortunately can now be lumped under that all-embracing catchphrase "PC". > It would be good if we could minimize the pain and harm we do to others > by our actions, words, decisions. I don't know whether it is possible and whether > there's a way; but I'm sure the right way is not to regulate what we can speak > about and how. This is why I like, from time to time, funny stories like that of weird > math lessons; and why I like to construct provocative thought experiments, using > taboo'd "methods and material", so to speak. I believe it's much more sound than > to construct an atmosphere of correctly sterile word flow in hope it wouldn't hurt > anyone. I agree with this. But to clarify, I wasn't offended either by Hill's example or the posting of it to the list; I just think it very problematic, as said before, to put these sorts of issues in a context (mathematics problem) where their historical and social import can't be adequately discussed. > Now, as the identity of mysterious Harvey Hill has been revealed, we can > consider the story of the harmless math exercise a sort of projective test; it made all > us to express our convictions, opinions, prejudices and fears better than any `serious' > discussion topics could do {3}. But surely herein lies its "seriousness"? > (Anyway, don't confuse thought experiments with political attitudes, _please_.) Wouldn't dream of it :-) Greg Murrie gmurrie@sas.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 23:27:43 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems/discussions X-To: Jiri Wackermann In-Reply-To: <199801141646.QAA24956@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dr. Wackermann I have absolutly enjoyed ALL of the discussions on this politically incorrect math problem. I have not just learned a little about history or ethics, but I have had the rare oppurtunity to witness the progress of intilectual argument. I am not a proffessor. I am a junior in college. I had been previously taught that intimidation was the best tool for winning an argument. But what I have witnessed over the last few days has transcended my old belief system. Facts and terms; then a reinterpretation, maybe a little logical analisys, more facts, and so on all contribute to this process. A process that you all may take for granted. I do not, in fact I feel as though that this board is just as much apart of my education as attending lectures. What I wanted to say is that please do not privatize any of these discussions on my behalf. Thank You, Pat O'Brien ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 21:01:26 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Debates about biologism Part II X-cc: Ian.Pitchford@mcmail.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" _The Nation_ (cont'd) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 21:01:03 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Debates about biologism Part I X-cc: Ian.Pitchford@mcmail.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" _The Nation_ June 9, 1997 The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack By Barbara Ehrenreich and Janet McIntosh When social psychologist Phoebe Ellsworth took the podium at a recent interdisciplinary seminar on emotions, she was already feeling rattled. Colleagues who'd presented earlier had warned her that the crowd was tough and had little patience for the reduction of human experience to numbers or bold generalizations about emotions across cultures. Ellsworth had a plan: She would pre-empt criticism by playing the critic, offering a social history of psychological approaches to the topic. But no sooner had the word "experiment" passed her lips than the hands shot up. Audience members pointed out that the experimental method is the brainchild of white Victorian males. Ellsworth agreed that white Victorian males had done their share of damage in the world but noted that, nonetheless, their efforts had led to the discovery of DNA. This short-lived dialogue between paradigms ground to a halt with the retort: "You believe in DNA?" More grist for the academic right? No doubt, but this exchange reflects a tension in academia that goes far deeper than spats over "political correctness." Ellsworth's experience illustrates the trend -- in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and other departments across the nation -- to dismiss the possibility that there are any biologically based commonalities that cut across cultural differences. This aversion to biological or, as they are often branded, "reductionist" explanations commonly operates as an informal ethos limiting what can be said in seminars, asked at lectures or incorporated into social theory. Extreme anti-innatism has had formal institutional consequences as well: At some universities, like the University of California, Berkeley, the biological subdivision of the anthropology department has been relocated to another building -- a spatial metaphor for an epistemological gap. Although some of the strongest rejections of the biological have come from scholars with a left or feminist perspective, antipathy toward innatist theories does not always score neatly along political lines. Consider a recent review essay by centrist sociologist Alan Wolfe in The New Republic. Wolfe makes quick work of Frank Sulloway's dodgy Darwinist claims (in Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives) about the influence of birth order on personality, but can't resist going on to impugn the motives of anyone who would apply biology to the human condition: In general, he asserts, "the biologizing of human beings is not only bad humanism, but also bad science." For many social theorists, innate biology can be let in only as a constraint -- "a set of natural limits on human functioning," as anthropologist Marshall Sahlins has written. It has, from this point of view, no positive insights to offer into how humans think, act or arrange their cultures. For others, the study of innate human properties is not merely uninteresting but deeply misguided. Stanford philosopher of science John Dupr=E9, for example, argues that it is "essentialist" even to think that we are a biological species in the usual sense -- that is, a group possessing any common tendencies or "universal properties" that might shed some light on our behavior. As feminist theorist Judith Butler puts it, "The very category of the universal has begun to be exposed for its own highly ethnocentric biases." But the notion that humans have no shared, biologically based "nature" constitutes a theory of human nature itself. No one, after all, is challenging the idea that chimpanzees have a chimpanzee nature -- that is, a set of genetically scripted tendencies and potential responses that evolved along with the physical characteristics we recognize as chimpanzee-like. To set humans apart from even our closest animal relatives as the one species that is exempt from the influences of biology is to suggest that we do indeed possess a defining "essence," and that it is defined by our unique and miraculous freedom from biology. The result is an ideological outlook eerily similar to that of religious creationism. Like their fundamentalist Christian counterparts, the most extreme antibiologists suggest that humans occupy a status utterly different from and clearly "above" that of all other living beings. And, like the religious fundamentalists, the new academic creationists defend their stance as if all of human dignity -- and all hope for the future -- were at stake. The new secular creationism emerged as an understandable reaction to excess. Since the nineteenth century, conservatives have routinely deployed supposed biological differences as immutable barriers to the achievement of a more egalitarian social order. Darwinism was quickly appropriated as social Darwinism -- a handy defense of economic inequality and colonialism. In the twentieth century, from the early eugenicists to The Bell Curve, pseudo-biology has served the cause of white supremacy. Most recently, evolutionary psychology has become, in some hands, a font of patriarchal social prescriptions. Alas, in the past few years such simplistic biological reductionism has tapped a media nerve, with the result that, among many Americans, schlock genetics has become the default explanation for every aspect of human behavior from homosexuality to male promiscuity, from depression to "criminality." Clearly science needs close and ongoing scrutiny, and in the past decade or two there has been a healthy boom in science studies and criticism. Scholars such as Evelyn Fox Keller, Sandra Harding, Emily Martin and Donna Haraway have offered useful critiques of the biases and ethnocentric metaphors that can skew everything from hypothesis formation to data collection techniques. Feminists (one of the authors included) have deconstructed medicine and psychology for patriarchal biases; left-leaning biologists such as Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin and Ruth Hubbard have exposed misapplications of biology to questions of social policy. However, contemporary antibiologists decry a vast range of academic pursuits coming from very different theoretical corners -- from hypotheses about the effects of genes and hormones, to arguments about innate cognitive modules and grammar, to explorations of universal ritual form and patterns of linguistic interaction. All these can be branded as "essentialist," hence wrongheaded and politically mischievous. Paradoxically, assertions about universal human traits and tendencies are usually targeted just as vehemently as assertions about differences: There are no differences between groups, seems to be the message, but there is no sameness among them either. Within anthropology, the social science traditionally friendliest to biology and now the one most bitterly divided over it, nineteenth-century claims about universal human nature were supplanted in the early twentieth century by Franz Boas and colleagues, who conducted detailed studies of particular cultures. By the mid-1960s, any role for biological commonalities in cultural anthropology was effectively foreclosed when Clifford Geertz remarked that "our ideas, our values, our acts, even our emotions are, like our nervous system itself, cultural products." As neo-Marxist and behaviorist theories of the tabula rasa human gained ground over the next decade, other disciplines followed anthropology's lead. So completely was sociology purged of biology that when Nicholas Petryszak analyzed twenty-four introductory sociology textbooks in 1979, he found that all assumed that "any consideration of biological factors believed to be innate to the human species is completely irrelevant in understanding the nature of human behavior and society." In general, by the seventies, antibiologism had become the rallying cry of academic liberals and feminists -- and the apparent defense of human freedom against the iron chains of nature. It was only with the arrival of the intellectual movements lumped under the term "postmodernism" that academic antibiologism began to sound perilously like religious creationism. Postmodernist perspectives go beyond a critique of the misuses of biology to offer a critique of biology itself, extending to all of science and often to the very notion of rational thought. In the simplified form it often takes in casual academic talk, postmodernism can be summed up as a series of tenets that include a wariness of meta-narratives (meaning grand explanatory theories), a horror of essentialism (extending to the idea of any innate human traits) and a fixation on "power" as the only force limiting human freedom -- which at maximum strength precludes claims about any universal human traits while casting doubt on the use of science to study our species or anything at all. Glibly applied, postmodernism portrays evolutionary theory as nothing more than a sexist and racist storyline created by Western white men. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:06:52 +0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mohinish Shukla Subject: Re: Debates about biologism Part I In-Reply-To: <199801152317.EAA05595@iisc.ernet.in> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII the article has it's points. however, i would like to quote a recent experience. my uncle, a biologist at my college, published an article in a vernacular magazine about sexual aggression ; primarily drawing from a book entitled "human sexual aggression", by the New York Academy of Sciences. The article was on the biology of sexual aggression as seen from apes. The thing is that upon reading the article, many people felt that the aim of the author was to condone human sexual aggression, saying that it's instinctive (and so, in some way, out of our control). Like another uncle of mine(a paediatrician) said, anything that is shown to be "instinctive", somehow is already condoned in our minds. True, there has been "misapplication" of science, as in eugenics etc., but what is to be said of this? It was a perfectly honest article; and a perfectly understandable conclusion. Prob'ly, certain scientific facts need'nt be told to the public, unless they can understand their context. Otherwise, like many people do, in some cases it may be truly better to regard humans as *distinct* from even our closest biological species. After all, even if there has been demonstrated instinctive sexual aggression in apes, such an understanding still does'nt compensate all the trauma of a rape victim; and certainly shouldnt be used as an argument to condone the act. I certainly dont go so far as to deny DNA or culture I "know" that biology, evolution and natural selection have had the greatest bearing on human social evolution;but i certainly would be more cautious of extending biological knowledge from other species to humans. I believe that through quantitative, understandable, small changes; humans have somehow crossed a threshold to a qualitatively different kind of "species". Mohinish ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:07:43 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Debates about biologism Part II (with text!) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" _The Nation_, June 9, 1997 'The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack' By Barbara Ehrenreich and Janet McIntosh Part II The deepest motives behind this new secular version of creationism are understandable. We are different from other animals. Language makes us more plastic and semiotically sophisticated, and renders us deeply susceptible to meanings and ideas. As for power, Foucault was right: It's everywhere, and it shapes our preferences and categories of thought, as well as our life chances. Many dimensions of human life that feel utterly "natural" are in fact locally constructed, a hard-earned lesson too easy to forget and too important not to publicize. The problem is that the combined vigor of antibiologism and simplified postmodernism has tended to obliterate the possibility that human beings have anything in common, and to silence efforts to explore this domain. Hence we have gone, in the space of a decade or two, from what began as a healthy skepticism about the misuses of biology to a new form of dogma. As a biologically oriented researcher who has made controversial innatist claims, Rutgers social theorist Robin Fox notes with irony that secular creationist academics seem to have replaced the church as the leading opponents of Darwinism: "It's like they're responding to heresy." Stephen Jay Gould, who has devoted much of his career to critiquing misuses of biology, also detects parallels between religious and academic creationist zeal. While holding that many aspects of human life are local and contingent, he adds, "Some facts and theories are truly universal (and true) -- and no variety of cultural traditions can change that...we can't let a supposedly friendly left-wing source be exempt from criticism from anti-intellectual positions." The new creationism is not simply a case of well-intended politics gone awry; it represents a grave misunderstanding of biology and science generally. Ironically, the creationists invest the natural sciences with a determinative potency no thoughtful scientist would want to claim. Biology is rhetorically yoked to "determinism," a concept that threatens to clip our wings and lay waste to our utopian visions, while culture is viewed as a domain where power relations with other humans are the only obstacle to freedom. But these stereotypes of biological determinism and cultural malleability don't hold up under scrutiny. For one thing, biology is not a dictatorship -- genes work probabilistically, and their expression depends on interaction with their environment. As even Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and a veritable Antichrist to contemporary creationists of both the secular and Christian varieties, makes clear: "It is perfectly possible to hold that genes exert a statistical influence on human behaviour while at the same time believing that this influence can be modified, overridden or reversed by other influences." And if biology is not a dictatorship, neither is culture a realm of perfect plasticity. The accumulated lessons of ethnography -- and, paradoxically, postmodern theories of power themselves -- suggest that even in the absence of biological constraints, it is not easy to remold human cultures to suit our utopian visions. In fact, in the extreme constructivist scenario borrowed by secular creationists, it's hard to imagine who would have the will or the ability to orchestrate real change: the people in power, who have no motivation to alter the status quo, or the oppressed, whose choices, preferences and sentiments have been so thoroughly shaped by the cultural hegemony of the elite? Judged solely as a political stance, secular creationism is no less pessimistic than the biologism it seeks to uproot. Milder versions of the "nature/nurture" debate begat a synthesis: "There is no biology that is not culturally mediated." But giving biology its due while taking cultural mediation into account requires inclusive and complex thinking -- as Phoebe Ellsworth puts it: "You need a high tolerance of ambiguity to believe both that culture shapes things and that we have a lot in common." Despite the ham-fisted efforts of early sociobiologists, many (probably most) biologically based human universals are not obvious to the naked eye or accessible to common sense. Finally, many secular creationists are a few decades out of date on the kind of "human nature" that evolutionary biology threatens to impose on us. Feminists and liberal academics were perhaps understandably alarmed by the aggressive "man the hunter" image that prevailed in the sixties and seventies; and a major reason for denying the relevance of evolution was a horror of the nasty, brutish cavemen we had supposedly evolved from. But today, evolutionary theory has moved to a more modest assessment of the economic contribution of big-game hunting (as opposed to gathering and scavenging) and a new emphasis on the cooperative -- even altruistic -- traits that underlie human sociality and intelligence. We don't have to like what biology has to tell us about our ancestors, but the fact is that they have become a lot more likable than they used to be. In portraying human beings as pure products of cultural context, the secular creationist standpoint not only commits biological errors but defies common sense. In the exaggerated postmodernist perspective appropriated by secular creationists, no real understanding or communication is possible between cultures. Since the meaning of any human practice is inextricable from its locally spun semiotic web, to pluck a phenomenon such as "ritual" or "fear" out of its cultural context is, in effect, to destroy it. Certainly such categories have different properties from place to place, and careful contextualization is necessary to grasp their local implications. But as Ellsworth asks: "At the level of detail of 'sameness' that postmodernists are demanding, what makes them think that two people in the same culture will understand each other?" The ultimate postmodern retort would be, of course, that we do not, but this nihilism does not stand up to either common sense or deeper scrutiny. We manage to grasp things about each other -- emotions, motives, nuanced (if imperfect) linguistic meanings -- that couldn't survive communicative transmission if we didn't have some basic emotional and cognitive tendencies in common. The creationist rejection of innate human universals threatens not only an intellectual dead end but a practical one. In writing off any biologically based human commonality, secular creationists undermine the very bedrock of the politics they claim to uphold. As Barbara Epstein of the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, remarks: "If there is no human nature outside social construction, no needs or capacities other than those constructed by a particular discourse, then there is no basis for social criticism and no reason for protest or rebellion." In fact, tacit assumptions of human similarity are embedded in the theories of even such ostensible social constructionists as Marx, whose theory of alienation assumes (in some interpretations, anyway) that there are authentic human needs that capitalism fails to meet. Would it really be so destructive to our self-esteem as a species to acknowledge that we, like our primate relatives, are possessed of an inherited repertory of potential responses and mental structures? Would we forfeit all sense of agency and revolutionary possibility if we admitted that we, like our primate relatives, are subject to the rules of DNA replication (not to mention the law of gravity)? In their horror of "determinism," academic creationists seem to forget postmodernism's finest insight: that, whatever else we may be, we are indeed creatures of symbol and "text." We may be, in many ways, constrained by our DNA, but we are also the discoverers of DNA -- and, beyond that, the only living creature capable of representing its biological legacy in such brilliant and vastly condensed symbols as "DNA." The good news is that a break may be coming. In spite of the nose-thumbing inspired by the Alan Sokal/Social Text hoax, constructive debates and conversations between scientists and social theorists have been initiated in newsletters, journals and conferences across the country. A few anthropology departments, including those at Northwestern, Penn State and Emory, are encouraging communication between their cultural and biological subfields. And although interactionist work has not had adequate space to flourish, achievements so far suggest that regardless of creationist disclaimers, biological and cognitive universals may be acutely relevant to social theory. Ann Stoler, an anthropologist, historian and scholar of Foucault at the University of Michigan, agrees. By failing to take our innate cognitive tendencies seriously, she writes, social constructionists may be dodging the "uncomfortable question" as to whether oppressive ideologies like racism and sexism "acquire the weight...they do...because of the ways in which they feed off and build upon [universal] categories of the mind." As Ellsworth says, the meeting of human universals and culture is "where the interesting questions begin." But for the time being it takes more than a nuanced mind to deal with the interface of culture and biology. It takes courage. This climate of intolerance, often imposed by scholars associated with the left, ill suits an academic tradition rhetorically committed to human freedom. What's worse, it provides intellectual backup for a political outlook that sees no real basis for common ground among humans of different sexes, races and cultures. Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (Metropolitan). Janet McIntosh is a graduate student in ethnology at the University of Michigan. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:44:08 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Steindor J. Erlingsson" Subject: Re: Debates about biologism Part II Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello I wonder why the message "Debates about biologism Part II" was empty, for I would really like to see the second part of this interesting article Steindor ----------------------------------- Steindór J. Erlingsson Science Institute University of Iceland Dunhagi 3 IS-101 Reykjavik Iceland steindor@rhi.hi.is V: +354-525-4765 H: +354-5876-3754 ----------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:28:14 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: Debates about biologism Part II In-Reply-To: <199801161044.FAA19767@mail2.panix.com> from "Steindor J. Erlingsson" at Jan 16, 98 10:44:08 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think the article is misguided. As far as I know, the "anti-biologists" don't deny that humans are biological beings; they clearly are. What they object to is genetic determinism: the idea that genes "cause" differences in behavior or are causes of human social structures, and that these behaviors or structures should be studied as if they are adaptations, usually the result of biological competition and dominance hierarchies. This isn't meant to separate man from other animals (although there are differences), since genetic determinism is invalid for other organisms. It is conceptually confused: what does it mean for a gene to cause a trait? For example, Dawkins once said that if we found inheritance of dyslexia, we would then have found a gene for reading - he makes a fundamental error, since something that contributes to functioning is not the same as the cause of a function. Also, animal behavior is often far more flexible and farther from optimality than the determinist/adaptationist model will allow. Here's a brief passage I wrote on sci.bio.evolution recently about an essay in Evolutionary Processes and Metaphors, edited by Mae-wan Ho and Sidney Fox. I'm hardly ready to state a position on all this, but I suspect that lots of extra dimensions could be added elaborating the properties of the selection target, corresponding to development, physiology, behavior, life-history, ecology, and biogeography, etc. These parameters interact and change within the organism's lifetime, some of them subject to the organism's control: an adaptive trampoline, to use Lewontin's phrase, rather than an adaptive landscape. Enough to expect the failure of functionalist explanations of animal behavior, not just of human behavior and culture. There are many interesting essays. One I especially like is Russell Gray's essay, "Metaphors and methods," which provides an useful critique of Optimal Foraging Theory and its (apparent) failures. He also provides some interesting stories of "cultural" change in animals, that is, evolution of of populations without initial genetic modification. For example, a dietary shift among Japanese macaques toward digging for peanuts on the beach led to a cascade of new behaviors and ecological opportunities, including bathing, swimming, and diving for seaweed, as well as the potential of migration, since one individual swam to a nearby island. Similarly, a large increase in the rat population in Malaysia due to human activity led to cascading effects in barn owls. They changed from being generalist feeders that hunt over open areas to perch and wait predators. They now lay more eggs, have two or three instead of one clutch per year, defend less rigid territories, and form roosts of up to 40 owls. Here animal behavior shows a plasticity that undercuts not only genetic determinism, but also evolutionary determinism, since one might argue that even though the phenotype is not rigidly determined by the genotype, the existence of heritable differences in behavior would still lead toward the evolution of optimal behavior in the population, as phenodeviants are selected against. But these examples seem to show a much more dynamic, interactive system. ---- Paul ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:39:55 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: Debates about biologism Part II In-Reply-To: <199801161538.PAA15626@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Paul I've lived in the Rocky Maountain area since 1973. When I first came out here the large blackbirds (crows?) were hunters, but these days they just seem to wait around for roadkill. Pat O'Brien ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 09:54:16 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val dusek Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ehrenreich and McIntosh's defense of biologism (perhaps nostalgically returning to Ehrenreich's Rockefeller Institute biochemist roots) use glib and slippery prose to gloss over a number of issues. They start with what they admit is the sort dubious of "political correctness" anecdote the right loves, about someone who says "Do you believe in DNA?" But if one changed the apparently silly question "Do you believe in DNA?" to "Do you believe that DNA is the 'program,' the 'essence of life,' the 'master molecule,' or even 'a self- reproducing molecule'?" biologically knowledgeable thinkers such as Richard Lewontin and and Ruth Hubbard would answer "No" with good reason. Indeed most molecular biologists, when pressed, deny that they believe the simplistic program or "essence" view of DNA, though oddly many leaders such as Watson and Gilbert and Baltimore propagate it in public statements. Yet is is precisely that view of DNA that dominates popular discussion of heredity. Ehrenreich and McIntosh ridicule the humanists for taking Richard Dawkins as their "devil." But what do they think of Dawkins' selfish genes and the theory behind them? They never say. Do they believe that genes are like Chicago gangsters? Do they accept the view that we are lumbering robots, duped by our DNA? However, they do quote favorably another sociobiologist, Robin Fox, who is almost as bad. With his sidekick Lionel Tiger he uses dubious reasoning to claim that since Kibbutz peers who are raised together don't marry each other, innate incest prohibition mechanisms are at work (neglecting other social factors). (Tiger has also argued in The Wall Street Journal, that because race is not biologically real, affirmative action should be abolished. This neglects that bias, even if based on something biologically insignificant, or on misconceptions of biology, can be socially very real.) The very title and subtitle of the article uses the old trick of sociobiologists in identifying humanist critics of biologism with creationists. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 19:18:40 +0000 Reply-To: Ian.Pitchford@Scientist.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism In-Reply-To: <199801171451.JAA04211@betty.globecomm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Val Dusek writes: Do they [Ehrenreich and McIntosh] believe that genes are like Chicago gangsters? Do they accept the view that we are lumbering robots, duped by our DNA? However, they do quote favorably another sociobiologist, Robin Fox, who is almost as bad. ===================== REPLY: I think this guilt-by-choice-of-inappropriate-analogy or guilt-by-association approach to Ehrenreich and McIntosh's article is unhelpful. I can't find anything in the text that is remotely contentious. All that authors such as Gould, Pinker and Dawkins claim is that the degree to which human nature is influenced by social or biological (including genetic) factors is an empirical matter. None of them are advocates of genetic determinism. For example, in _The Selfish Gene_ Dawkins writes: "Critics have occasionally misunderstood The Selfish Gene to be advocating selfishness as a principle by which we should live! Others, perhaps because they read the book by title only or never or never made it past the first two pages, have thought that I was saying that, whether we like it or not, selfishness and other nasty ways are an inescapable part of our nature. This error is easy to fall into if you think, as many people unaccountably seem to, that genetic 'determination' is for keeps - absolute and irreversible. In fact genes 'determine' behaviour only in a statistical sense. A good analogy is the widely conceded generalization that 'A red sky at night is the shepherd's delight'. It may be a statistical fact that a good red sunset portends a fine day on the morrow, but we would not bet a large sum on it. We know perfectly well that the weather is influenced in very complex ways by many factors. Any weather forecast is subject to error. It is a statistical forecast only. We don't see read sunsets as irrevocably determining fine weather the next day, and no more should we think ofgenes as irrevocably determining anything. There is no reason why the influence of genes cannot easily be reversed by other influences." (pp. 267-8) Part of the above is actually quoted in the article. Also, as Ehrenreich and McIntosh point out, those who claim that human nature is everywhere socially constructed are in fact arguing for the universality of human plasticity - an implicitly nomothetic biological explanation presumably requiring elucidation in evolutionary terms. This is probably one factor influencing those of a Foucauldian, postmodern, post-structuralist, and social constuctionist persuasion to jump off the deep end and claim that everything is "particular and peculiar to our culture and our time" (Parker et al, 1995: 1). Another factor seems to be the desire to establish the hegemony of the ignorant. One good example of this is the recently published _Science_ by Steve Fuller. It's an exemplar of the self-serving obfuscation that passes for scholarship in this field. Apparently social constructionists need not even study science in order to determine its lack of validity: "..I believe that most of what non-scientists need to know in order to make informed public judgements about science fall under the rubric of history, philosophy, and sociology of science." (p.10) Chapter 4 _Science as Superstition: A lost Martian Chronicle_ in which Fuller attempts a study of science from the viewpoint of a Martian anthropologist is particularly hilarious, having sections on 'mystery', 'soteriology', 'saintliness', 'magic causation' and 'theodicy'. Thankfully, recent works by anthropologists Dan Sperber, Donald Brown, John Tooby, and psychologists Leda Cosmides, Simon Baron-Cohen, Steven Pinker and by archaeologist Steven Mithen does suggest, as Ehrenreich and McIntosh say, that 'a break may be coming' . Perhaps now all of those interested in human nature can consider evolutionary and other biological arguments without recourse to deconstruction, analysis of metaphor, the resolution of binary opposition or a study of supposed knowledge-constitutive interests, ideas which, for all for all their self-procalimed reflexivity and social awareness, social constructionists never seem capable of applying to themselves. Regards Ian References Barkow, J. H., Cosimides, L., & Tooby, J. (Eds.). (1992). The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Brown, D. E. (1991). Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill. Dawkins, R. (1989). The Selfish Gene. (New ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Ehrenreich, B., & McIntosh, J. (1997). The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack. The Nation (June 9). Gross, P. R., & Levitt, N. (1998). Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mithen, S. (1996). The Prehistory of the Mind. London: Thames and Hudson. Parker, I., McLoughlin, T., Harper, D., Smith, M. S., & Georgaca, E. (1995). Deconstructing Psychopathology. London: Sage. Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1992). Natural Language and Natural Selection. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosimides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (pp. 451-493). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Pinker, S. (1997). How the Mind Works. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Sperber, D. (1994). The modularity of thought and the epidemiology of representations. In L. A. Hirschfield & S. A. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sperber, D. (1996). Explaining Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. ******************************************************************************** Ian Pitchford - Email Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Ph.D. Student in Theoretical Psychopathology Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies University of Sheffield, 16 Claremont Crescent SHEFFIELD, S10 2TA, United Kingdom. Tel: 0114 222 2961 Fax: 0114 270 0619 ******************************************************************************** Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Online Dictionary of Mental Health http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/index.html Mental Health Metasearch http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/metasearch.html InterPsych: Mental Health Debate on the Internet http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/InterPsych/inter.html ******************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 09:20:00 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val dusek Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE Digest - 16 Jan 1998 to 17 Jan 1998 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-01-18 00:30:33 EST, Ian Pitchford writes: > REPLY: I think this guilt-by-choice-of-inappropriate-analogy or > guilt-by-association approach to Ehrenreich and McIntosh's article > is unhelpful. I can't find anything in the text that is remotely > contentious. All that authors such as Gould, Pinker and Dawkins > claim is that the degree to which human nature is influenced by > social or biological (including genetic) factors is an empirical > matter. None of them are advocates of genetic determinism. My "inappropriate analogy" is from Dawkins himself, as I am sure you know. It is Dawkins who claimed genes are like Chicago gangsters and that we are robots run by our DNA. The fact that Dawkins qualifies his "selfish gene" metaphor in the second edition does change the role of the rhetoric in context. Many sociobiologists (hereafter abbreviated as sob's for parsimony's sake) deny that they are morally advocated the phenomena they "describe" (or claim to describe), but use the nuances of their descriptions in a Monty Python "Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge, get my drift?" manner to indirectly communicate their approval. A good example of this is David Barash's claim "rape is common among the birds and bees" and "Ironically Mother Nature appears to be a sexist." in his works, even though Barash denies commiting the naturalistic fallacy or the is implies ought move criticized by Hume. Ehrenreich and McIntosh criticize those who dislike Dawkins (without, as I pointed out, describing their positivion vis a vis Dawkins) and cite Tiger and Fox as authorities. That is why I mentioned them. Pitchford goes on to gratuitously bash various post-modernist and social constructionist works (of which Fuller isn't one of the latter, by the way). In his lengthy bibliography the only thing he cites on this topic is Gross and Levitt's "Higher superstition" I might notes, relative to the "selfish gene" metaphor, that scientists critics, such as G&L dismiss the role of metaphor in science. Michael Ruse (a good pro-sociobiology philosopher) notes that Gross and Levitt seem unaware that the second word in their title "Higher" is itself a metaphor. Metaphors such as "selfish gene" play a role not only in popularization, but in guiding research and selection of data, ala Lakatos' positive heuristic (since Ian dismisses talk of research-guiding interests ala Habermas). Dawkins asks the reader to imaginatively take the role of the gene and think out what you would do to maximize your self-interested advantage. Even if this is dismissed as mere metaphor, it plays a role in the thinking out of hypothese to test. Pitchford, amazingly, says that there is nothing in Ehrenreich and McIntosh article that is contentious. But their title on the Nation cover, calling critics of the sob's the "New Creationists" is a dishonest rhetorical ploy that sob's used against their earlier evolutionist critics. Val Dusek ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 12:13:04 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." In-Reply-To: <199801150156.UAA13794@u1.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: > On the other hand, naive empiricist > realism is also wrong (and wrong-headed). Husserl was a mathematician, > and > Godel studied his works, e.g. _The Crisis of European Sciences and > Transcendental Phenomenology_ remains, IMO, a text which our society > has yet to absorb, or, a fortiori "advance beyond" (a pox on > the ilk of self-styled "philosophers" like > Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett...).... Husserl was NOT a mathematician, properly speaking, in that he created nothing of mathematical interest. He was, however, respected by Hermann Weyl, who was a hell of a mathmmatician. On the other hand, whether Weyl was a particularly good philosopher is open to question. Then again, Husserl was given the shaft by his prize pupil, Heidegger, whom the postmodern left perversely persists in revering as a great figure. This, among other things, is significant evidence that if you're worried about naivete, the place to start is postmodernists, than which no more naive tribe exists except for right-wing economists who believe in the gold standard. See, in this regard, Sokal & Bricmont "Impostures Intellectuelles." > It is *possible*, but highly unlikely that Euclidean geometry, > as a formal symbol transformation space, is > in any simplistic way "culture specific". Given that nobody has ever advanced meaningfuol evidence of culatural specificity, I should say this is a hypothesis we can ssafely discount. > *On the other hand*, the *teaching of Euclidean geometry, in > any particular here-and-now educational setting *is* political > (just like the teaching of postmodernism, Marxism, or anything -- or > having young people work instead of study, etc.). > What are the power relations between professor and student? What are > the rewards and punishments which accrue to a student, i.e., what are > the > efects on his or her prospects in life, of passing / failing / etc. > the course? This is true, but not very interesting; it merely reflects a certain construction of the word "political." The question, in practical terms, is whether one wants, as many left pedagogical theorists insist, to insert hortatory poliltical material into math classes, or instead to keep the classroom reasonably free of political sermonizing. I recommend the latter, for two reasons: 1) If you inflict political lessons on a math class, you will inevitably wind up wasting a lot of time on preaching that could be better spent teaching mathematics. 2) If you abandon what S. Harding reviles as "the neutrality ideal," you will shortly find that other people--e.g., Newt Gingrich--are a lot slicker at playing this game than you are. When you open a door, you damn well better understand what's going to come through it. > Why is Euclidean geometry being taught instead of, e.g., > industrial sociology (there is not time to teach all things to all > persons, so teaching them one thing means not teaching them lots of > other things)? Actually, believe it or not, the best reason for teaching Euclidean geometry, i.e., classical synthetic geometry, based on some version of Euclids axioms and postulates, is that it really does teach people to become aware of the logical structure of arguments. Plato was perfectly correct in this respect. > > Does the professor recognize the socioeconomic structure of his > situation? > Does the teacher grade students to see who can "make it" and who can't > (i.e., > act as God), No, as a math tprof. The two concepts are closely related, so your confusion is understandable.;-) > or does > the professor concern him or heself only with maximizing each student's > learning (act as "midwife" and servant of knowledge)? > The medium is the message. If grades are important then geometry > is unimportant; if geometry is important then grading should not > get in the way of learning. Tis is an example of what we in the trade call "bullshit." I wouldn't want to reduce human behavior to that amusing fiction "economic man"--but incentives, both positive and negative, do have some effect on human behavior, and naive advocacy of what one might call the "Summerhill" philosophy is a gross pedagogical mistake. Remember, it is better to be feared than loved, even for a math prof! ;-) Etc. > > Note that I am not claiming Euclidean geometry ought not to be > taught. I am urging that persons, whatever they are doing, reflect on > it, > become mutually self-accountable for it, and learn how to make our > shared world more humane as *an* aspect of whatever it is they > are doing Ah, but who gets to define what constitutes "humane" values? You or Ralph Reed? Always a problem, isn't it? Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 12:39:59 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Debates about biologism Part II In-Reply-To: <199801161538.KAA19364@u1.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Paul Gallagher wrote: > I think the article is misguided. As far as I know, the "anti-biologists" > don't deny that humans are biological beings; they clearly are. What they > object to is genetic determinism: the idea that genes "cause" differences > in behavior or are causes of human social structures, and that these > behaviors or structures should be studied as if they are adaptations, > usually the result of biological competition and dominance hierarchies. This is very confused and naive. The idea of "cause" does not automatically convey "unique cause." Obviously, there is no explicit blueprint for social institutions in the genome. So what? There are many incontestably biological aspects of the organism for which no genetic "Blueprint" exists, e.g., fingerprints, the exact pattern of blood vessels, and hundreds of other somatic details. The point is that these are conditioned by the interaction of certain broad patters laid down by the genotype with largely adventitious circumstances, starting in utero. So the question is not one of "determinism" sensu strictu, but whether the genotype (certainly not "genes" acting one at a time) creates certain biases and channels that influence cognitive and behavioral development, and whether the statistical patterns thereby ensuing--specifically in point of sexual dimorphism--tend to produce social arrangements that follow certain broad patterns. There is, of course, the further question of feedback from the social to the genetic: were certain social arrangements more conducive to group survival 80,000 or 300,000 or 1,500,000 years ago, and were the genetic constellations that are more likely to give rise to these social patterns therefore favored. Like everything else in human evolution, this is hard to investigate empirically, but it is not a naive question, or does it necessarily embody any political dogmatism. The opolitical dogmatism that arises, in this instance, is in the form of the insistence on the infinite plasticity of social arrangements and human behavioral propensities. There is some reasonably solid evidence for the "sociobiological" thesis, broadly speaking. There is next to none for the plasticity thesis. (Shall we call this "social constructivism") The sorrowful lesson that "progressives" have continually insisted on not learning is that politics is the art of dealling with "the crooked timber of humanity" (in Schller's (?? hope I got that right) phrase, made famous by Isaiah Berlin. Anyone who saw John Stoessel's show on ABC last night saw this perversity in action. Why is it that in point of psychological theory, the left is so reluctant to venture beyond John Locke? > > Similarly, a large increase in the rat population in Malaysia due to human > activity led to cascading effects in barn owls. They changed from being > generalist feeders that hunt over open areas to perch and wait predators. > They now lay more eggs, have two or three instead of one clutch per year, > defend less rigid territories, and form roosts of up to 40 owls. Aha! The question here is whether that "change" reflects and embodies a genetic change in the population in question. In other words, are we witnessing behavioral plasticity in a certain species, or good old Darwinian selection which is only visible on the macro level as behavioral propensity? I tend to suspect the latter (since Darwinian processes actually work with amazing swiftness) but at any rate it's a question that must be answered before the point of the example (which might turn out to be diametrically opposed to the point you think you're making) is clear Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 13:04:44 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism In-Reply-To: <199801171455.JAA12060@u3.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 17 Jan 1998, Val dusek wrote: > Ehrenreich and McIntosh's defense of biologism (perhaps nostalgically > returning to Ehrenreich's > Rockefeller Institute biochemist roots) use glib and slippery prose to gloss > over a number of issues. They > start with what they admit is the sort dubious of "political correctness" > anecdote the right loves, about someone who says "Do you believe in DNA?" But > if one > changed the apparently silly question "Do you believe in DNA?" to "Do you > believe that DNA is the > 'program,' the 'essence of life,' the 'master molecule,' or even 'a self- > reproducing molecule'?" biologically > knowledgeable thinkers such as Richard Lewontin and and Ruth Hubbard would > answer "No" with good reason. Most biologists (the large majority of whom find little to agree with in the posturings of Lewontin and Hubbard) would answer "No". So what Indeed most molecular biologists, when > pressed, deny that they believe the simplistic program or "essence" view of > DNA, though oddly many leaders such as Watson and Gilbert and Baltimore > propagate it in public statements. This is demonology, not analysis. Most of the simple-mindedness on these issues comes from the left--of which Lewontin is a particularly sad example, since the man once had some brains. > Yet is is > precisely that view of DNA that dominates popular discussion of heredity. A lot of silliness dominates a lot of popular discussion of a lot of things. Good lord, this is a country where tens of millions of people watch Jerry Springer and Jenny Jones! Again, so what? > Ehrenreich and McIntosh > ridicule the humanists for taking Richard Dawkins as their "devil." But what > do they think of Dawkins' > selfish genes and the theory behind them? They never say. Do they believe > that genes are like Chicago gangsters? Do they accept the view that we are > lumbering robots, duped by our DNA? Who, precisely, is supposed to believe this? > However, they do quote favorably another > sociobiologist, Robin Fox, who is almost as bad. With his sidekick Lionel > Tiger he uses dubious > reasoning to claim that since Kibbutz peers who are raised together don't > marry each other, innate incest > prohibition mechanisms are at work (neglecting other social factors). Fox and Tiger are cultural anthropoligists, just for the record. Are they right about the "kibbutz" example? I don't know, but it seems to me that they put forth a certain amount of evidence, and that ata the least it's an open question. Perhaps a hunt for other relevant anthropological examples will confirm, or disconfirm. But, at any rate, you seem to imply, on no evidence whatever, that it can't possibly be true. Or am I misreading you? Is it a viable HYPOTHESIS or not; if not, why not? Remember, concocting another hyopothetical explanation is NOT the same thing as refuting this one. > (Tiger > has also argued in The Wall > Street Journal, that because race is not biologically real, affirmative action > should be abolished. This > neglects that bias, even if based on something biologically insignificant, or > on misconceptions of biology, > can be socially very real.) The very title and subtitle of the article uses > the old trick of sociobiologists in identifying > humanist critics of biologism with creationists. The body of opinion you identify as "humanist critics of biology" on the whole resembles creationism in point of certain psychological propensities. That is simply the habit of excluding certain possibilities a priori because they are ideologically unpleasant. Thereupon, any kind of Rube Goldberg ingenuity is allowable in propounding "alternative": explanations, which are then, by a familiar, but utterly illogical, rhetorical device, declared to be the "valid" explanations. This is usually called "stacking the deck" or "special pleading" or (in Susan Hack's felicitous phrase) sham inquiry. For an interesting example of this kind of thing in action, see Longino's "Science as Social Knowledge" which in the later chapters contains a prime example of this kind of procrustean reasoning. The purpose in this instance is to squirm out of the plausible--and very well confirmed--hypothesis that fetal androgenization in girls TENDS (statistically) to produce (at an early age) more "boyish" social behavior. Academic feminists like Longino hate the conclusion! Therefore it hs to be false. Moreover, you can prove it's false by concocting a cockamamie "alternative" (involving, in this instance, a perfectly irrelevant appeal to Edelmann;s neuronal selection hypothisis). Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 14:28:11 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val dusek Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism X-cc: CHammer@aol.com Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-01-18 00:30:33 EST, Ian writes: > All that authors such as Gould, Pinker and Dawkins > claim is that the degree to which human nature is influenced by > social or biological (including genetic) factors is an empirical > matter. None of them are advocates of genetic determinism. There is of course a problem with this "factor" talk. It assumes that one can separate and compare the genetic and the social "factors." Of course, if the interaction is highly non-linear, one cannot separate these factors. Lewontin has rightly noted that the epigenetic process destroys the separability of nature and nurture (in a formulation reminiscent of Bohr's description of the quantum measurment process, i.e. a holism in the measurement situation). Wilson famously wrote of "!0%" genetic and "90%" envronmental, but it is not clear that this sort of statement is meaningful. > Also, as > Ehrenreich and McIntosh point out, those who claim that human nature > is everywhere socially constructed are in fact arguing for the > universality of human plasticity - an implicitly nomothetic > biological explanation presumably requiring elucidation in > evolutionary terms. I agree. Human universals and plasticity thereof are presuably evolutionarily influenced. Don't assume, like Ehrenreich, that anyone who criticizes present, biased formulations in sob and evolutionary psychology, denies any biological aspect of human nature. >This is probably one factor influencing those of > a Foucauldian, postmodern, post-structuralist, and social > constuctionist persuasion to jump off the deep end and claim that > everything is "particular and peculiar to our culture and our time" > (Parker et al, 1995: 1). Another factor seems to be the desire to > establish the hegemony of the ignorant. One good example of this is > the recently published _Science_ by Steve Fuller. It's an exemplar of > the self-serving obfuscation that passes for scholarship in this > field. Apparently social constructionists need not even study science > in order to determine its lack of validity: Although Ian criticizes me for illegitimately attributing biological determinism to the sob's, he rants and raves against miscellaneous postmodernists and alledged constructionists. That Fuller (as well as Collins and Pinch) have claimed that citizens can often make informed decisions about science and technology issues without total knowledge of the technical details is not a plea for or praise of ignorance. Often citizens make more accurate judgments of, i.e., cancer clusters near toxic waste dumps, than the corporate-financed scientist-apologists who have lots of technical knowledge but strong motives to rationalize corporate beneficence. Does Ian claim that institutional scientists are the only ones who should be permitted to make judgements about matters of life and death to citizens? Is he advocating a kind of Comtean technocracy of nuclear engineers and drug company scientists? I should hope not. > Chapter 4 _Science as Superstition: A lost Martian Chronicle_ in > which Fuller attempts a study of science from the viewpoint of a > Martian anthropologist is particularly hilarious, having sections on > 'mystery', 'soteriology', 'saintliness', 'magic causation' and > 'theodicy'. Apparently the very study of institutionalized science (as opposed to normative science) as a religion is somehow ridiculous to Ian. But one should distinguish between science in a Popperian-Mertonian normative sense (pursuit of truth, predictive accuracy, openness to criticism, sharing data, etc.), and science in an institutional-descriptive sense (which can include prestigious scientists, chairs, and research centers whose work is apologetic, or even, occasionally, fraudulent.) To study the latter as a religion-like institution (especially with respect to the "gee-whiz" journalistic popularization of speculative or bogus claims, whether in cosmology or evolutionary psychology, not to mention sob) is legitimate. I might mention David Noble's recent book "The Religion of Technology" Alfred Knopf, NY, 1997, which is full of religious-like quotations from the scientists and engineers themselves, not just from the Puritans, Hermeticists, etc., of the old days, but from contemporary nuclear scientists and space scientists. Of course these last two comments are appropriate to another thread on scientific authority in political controversies, but do overlap with the sob issue, insofar as Burt, and pop-sociobiology as Kitcher calls it, make all sorts of claims to tell us how to treat our family or behave toward the opposite sex, based on loose analogies with carefully selected species. > > Thankfully, recent works by anthropologists Dan Sperber, Donald > Brown, John Tooby, and psychologists Leda Cosmides, Simon > Baron-Cohen, Steven Pinker and by archaeologist Steven Mithen > does suggest, as Ehrenreich and McIntosh say, that 'a break may be > coming' . Perhaps now all of those interested in human nature > can consider evolutionary and other biological arguments without > recourse to deconstruction, analysis of metaphor, the resolution of > binary opposition or a study of supposed knowledge-constitutive > interests, ideas which, for all for all their self-procalimed > reflexivity and social awareness, social constructionists never seem > capable of applying to themselves. Again, in the case of evolutionary psychology, the field is so rife with bad metaphor used as explanation, that analysis of metaphor is particularly relevant, moreso, say than in particle physics and cosmology, where the metaphors certainly appear, but are relatively superficial in relation to the theory (free lunch, inflationary universe, WIMPS and MACHOs, etc.). But in evol. psych. and sob the metaphors are often the bases of models that guide theorizing and research. Talk about competition, enterpreneurship, rape, homosexuality, prostitution, etc. etc. in the animal (and plant) world are not merely for popularization (although they play that role) but often are the models used in the theory itself. Indeed, in the past, popularizations, in a few instances, fed back into the technical sob theory. Also, it may be noted, that Wilson, for instance, never disclaimed a mass media popularization of his work, no matter how crudely distorted in its sexism and racism. Bouchard has appeared on NBC TV's "Unsolved Mysteries" introducing a segment on parapsychological communication among twins, and saying the coincidences are "beyond science." I don't think that the shift from the Wilson-Barash sob of the 1970s to the evolutionary psychology of the 1990s has changed all that much about the deployment of metaphors for sexist and free market purposes. In fact, Science mag., I believe, quoted evolutionary psychologists who admitted that they changed the name of the field from sob to avoid the bad press that the latter had gotten from the likes of Gould and Lewontin. It is rather like the old communist parties of Eastern Europe changing their names but being basically the same organization. Steve Pinker, one of the "new" reformed, supposedly more scientific and less ideological, sobs mentioned, uses his clever, fluent style to irrelevantly bash "the academic left" and "academic feminists" (sounding like Camille Paglia). He makes use of highly dubious anecdotes about identical twins from Bouchard (see archive of SCIFRAUD for my posts on that and an evasive reply by Bouchard) and bashes defenders of the Whorf hypothesis as racists (apparently assuming that if one claimed Chinese were different from English, one would, ipso facto, be claiming it to be inferior.) The blatantly social motives of the evolutionary psychologists are still present in work such as that of Pinker and popularizations such as that of Morris (who are among the least politically awful of the popularizers but certainly push the usual sexist line.) Just last night an ad for a US ABC-TV show on sex differences was featured, suggesting that men are too violent to raise children and women too delicate for certain jobs. A recent book being remaindered called Stone Age Contemporary, or some such, claimed it would explain, among other things why men don't ask for directions. New magazines monthly produce popularizations of scientific "proofs" that women can't do math, etc. Evolutionary psychology merely put a new label and a few new twists on the old agenda. Val Dusek > > Regards > > Ian > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 12:37:54 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? In-Reply-To: <199801181713.RAA08822@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Why do arguments seem to take the "either or" positions? Is there ever a middle road? Or does the distance between them just get less and less? My history of science classs is beginning to discuss Thomas Kuhn. Why is that Kuhn is so controversial? I'm not sure if I like him, hate him, believe him, trust him, or laugh at him. I know that this is not like having Newt teach politically correct geometry, or is it? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 15:23:37 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: Norman Levitt MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Norman Levitt wrote: > > On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: > > On the other hand, naive empiricist > > realism is also wrong (and wrong-headed). Husserl was a mathematician, > > and > > Godel studied his works, e.g. _The Crisis of European Sciences and > > Transcendental Phenomenology_ remains, IMO, a text which our society > > has yet to absorb, or, a fortiori "advance beyond" (a pox on > > the ilk of self-styled "philosophers" like > > Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett...).... > > Husserl was NOT a mathematician, properly speaking, in that he created > nothing of mathematical interest. He was, however, respected by Hermann > Weyl, who was a hell of a mathmmatician. On the other hand, whether Weyl > was a particularly good philosopher is open to question. Then again, > Husserl was given the shaft by his prize pupil, Heidegger.... [snip] > Norm Levitt I try not to contribute to the quantity of mis-/dis-information in our world. I was under the impression that a person who earned a PhD in mathematics qualified as a mathematician. From http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/husserl.htm , I quote: At Leipzig Husserl studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy, and he was particularly intrigued with astronomy and optics. After two years he went to Berlin in 1878 for further studies in mathematics. He completed that work in Vienna, 1881-83, and received the doctorate with a dissertation on the theory of the calculus of variations. He was 24. Husserl briefly held an academic post in Berlin, then returned again to Vienna in 1884 and was able to attend Franz Brentano's lectures in philosophy. In 1886 he went to Halle, where he studied psychology and wrote his Habilitationsschrift on the concept of number. I will take some time to think over the conceptual points you made in your posting, but I think it is important to clarify the "facts". Was Husserl a mathematician or wasn't he? If not, are what I understand to be the facts wrong, or are the facts right but do not qualify a person to be designated as a mathematician? It is my ignorant hunch that there are many persons who earn their livings as "mathematicians" (e.g., as university professors), who have never created anything of mathematical interest. Indeed, it seems to me that persons who create something of [substantive] "interest" in any field are relatively rare, esp. if we understand by "interesting" (as I might propose:), not work which answers questions (however difficult or important), but work which transfigures the "space" in which there are answers whichever way, by changing the *questions* (see, e.g., Suzanne Langer, _Philosophy in a New Key_, or, of course, Kuhn and Hanson). But let us proceed slowly and in proper order. Was my claim (which, I grant you, was *also* meant to have a certain rhetorical punch ==> holding up Husserl as an example of a kind of life superior to that of a mere specialist) about Husserl, that he was a mathematician, *WRONG*? I await to learn if/how I was wrong, and apologize in advance if I have misled anyone. Respectfully. \brad mccormick -- Second question: By Heidegger "giving Husserl the shaft", are you referring to Heidegger's treatment of his mentor as a *person* during the 1930s? Or are you asserting that Heidegger somehow refuted(etc.) Husserl's *philosophy*? At a minimum, the latter is a question on which opinions vary. My teacher, John Wild, for one, found valuable ideas in Heidegger's writings, but was probably "closer" to Husserl's orientation to the problematic of the "Lifeworld" (Lebenswelt). I feel similarly. But what did *you* mean? -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 17:44:41 -0500 Reply-To: Norman Levitt Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." In-Reply-To: <34C264C9.6004@cloud9.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: > Norman Levitt wrote: > > Was Husserl a mathematician or wasn't he? If not, are what I > understand to be the facts wrong, or are the facts right but > do not qualify a person to be designated as a mathematician? > > It is my ignorant hunch that there are many persons who earn their > livings as "mathematicians" (e.g., as university > professors), who have never created anything of > mathematical interest. Indeed, it seems to me that > persons who create something of [substantive] > "interest" in any field are relatively rare, esp. if we understand > by "interesting" (as I might propose:), This is, of course, a definitional matter; but when I use the term "mathematician", I mean someone who has done some significant original work in mathematics. Perhaps Husserl's Ph.D. thesis meets that test (although there are plenty of people around with "terminal" Ph.D.'s) but if so, that would constitute the only piece of work he did, mathematically. In terms of the PHILOSOPHY of mathematics, as understood by current mathematicians, he does not seem like a significant figure. Contrast that with, say, Quine or Russell, who did interesting mathematics, or Godel, who did earth-shaking mathematics. To continue the terminological riff, let me point out theat research mathematicians do not use the terms "math professor" and "mathematician" interchangeably. Where you have "research" departments, most of the faculty do or at least have done significant mathematical work, and these people are usually called mathematicians. There are, by contrast, many university-level departments with thin research records and, snobbery or no, people at such places usually don't get the title. As I said, when speaking of historical figures, the standards are even higher. So, while I would call Ted Kaczynski a mathematician, despite his subsequent shift in interests, I'd be reluctant to use the term of Husserl, absent a showing that he did more than a minimal amount of reserch. > Second question: By Heidegger "giving Husserl the shaft", > are you referring to Heidegger's treatment of his mentor > as a *person* during the 1930s? Or are you asserting that > Heidegger somehow refuted(etc.) Husserl's *philosophy*? I was referring to Heidegger's despicable behavior as rector at his university, which included nasty treatment of Husserl, who was Jewish. The larger point is to note the irony that it is not hard to find screeds by postmodern "leftists" where someone or other of our contemporaries is denounced for a grave sin such as racism, sexism, or friendliness towards Alan Sokal on one page, and then, on the next, Heidegger is held up as a fount of wisdom. Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 17:53:47 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism X-To: Ian Pitchford In-Reply-To: <199801171922.OAA24790@u1.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Ian Pitchford wrote: > (1). Another factor seems to be the desire to > establish the hegemony of the ignorant. One good example of this is > the recently published _Science_ by Steve Fuller. It's an exemplar of > the self-serving obfuscation that passes for scholarship in this > field. Apparently social constructionists need not even study science > in order to determine its lack of validity: > > "..I believe that most of what non-scientists need to know in order > to make informed public judgements about science fall under the > rubric of history, philosophy, and sociology of science." (p.10) > > Chapter 4 _Science as Superstition: A lost Martian Chronicle_ in > which Fuller attempts a study of science from the viewpoint of a > Martian anthropologist is particularly hilarious, having sections on > 'mystery', 'soteriology', 'saintliness', 'magic causation' and > 'theodicy'. I note that those who have taken Fuller's advice to heart appear to have included the editors of "Social Text," viz., Andrew Ross and Stanley Aronowitz (BTW, Aronowitz, his disclaimers to the contrary notwithstanding, was among those so nailed). But the person most injured by taking Steve Fuller's dicta seriously appears to be Steve Fuller. In this regard, see the forthcoming "Metascience", where a number of reviews of "Flight from Science and Reason" will appear (Fuller, McKinney, Pinnick) followed by responses from the editors (Gross, Lewis, Levitt). Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:01:15 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE Digest - 16 Jan 1998 to 17 Jan 1998 In-Reply-To: <199801181420.JAA28892@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Val dusek wrote: > In his lengthy bibliography the only thing he cites on this topic is Gross and > Levitt's "Higher superstition" I might notes, relative to the "selfish gene" > metaphor, that scientists critics, such as G&L dismiss the role of metaphor in > science. Michael Ruse (a good pro-sociobiology philosopher) notes that Gross > and Levitt seem unaware that the second word in their title "Higher" is itself > a metaphor. Point of personal privilege: Metaphor, hell! A lot of these bozos have a secret lech for psychics, Tarot cards, and healing crystals. You can smell this in many of the contributions to Ross's "Science Wars" (though not that of the learned Dusek, to be sure). But just to give the background of the title of our book, it was originally devised to suggest the Thorstein Veblen classic, "The Higher Learning in America: A Study in Total Depravity." Subsequently, a correspondent informed me that the very words "higher superstition" appear in a piece of humorous verse by that eminent leftist and song lyricist (Wizard of Oz, Finian's Rainbow, and numerous standards with music by Harold Arlen), Yip Harburg. Harburg's poem, written for the daughter of friends as she was about to go off to college, uses the term to refer to the pedantic nonsense up with which she would surely have to put. Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:58:17 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: Debates about biologism Part II In-Reply-To: <199801181740.MAA08537@mail2.panix.com> from "Norman Levitt" at Jan 18, 98 12:39:59 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > > Aha! The question here is whether that "change" reflects and embodies a > genetic change in the population in question. In other words, are we > witnessing behavioral plasticity in a certain species, or good old > Darwinian selection which is only visible on the macro level as behavioral > propensity? I tend to suspect the latter (since Darwinian processes > actually work with amazing swiftness) but at any rate it's a question that > must be answered before the point of the example (which might turn out to > be diametrically opposed to the point you think you're making) is clear > > Norm Levitt > That's absurd. A complete transformation in several behavioral characters in 2 or 3 generations! Instead of posturing with bloated phrases, why not take an elementary biology course. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:58:15 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: Norman Levitt MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Norman Levitt wrote: > > On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: [snip] > > Second question: By Heidegger "giving Husserl the shaft", > > are you referring to Heidegger's treatment of his mentor > > as a *person* during the 1930s? Or are you asserting that > > Heidegger somehow refuted(etc.) Husserl's *philosophy*? > > I was referring to Heidegger's despicable behavior as rector at his > university, which included nasty treatment of Husserl, who was Jewish. The > larger point is to note the irony that it is not hard to find screeds by > postmodern "leftists" where someone or other of our contemporaries is > denounced for a grave sin such as racism, sexism, or friendliness towards > Alan Sokal on one page, and then, on the next, Heidegger is held up as a > fount of wisdom. I would agree with you here. "Heidegger" (the works and their author) is IMO a difficult existential (social) problem, because of (among other things, perhaps...): (1) His despicable behavior in the 1930s (which it is perhaps possible he was in part so naive as not to understand -- considering that he apparently thought Hitler needed to learn from him -- Heidegger -- what the essence of National Socialism *really* was, etc.) (2) The patent fact that he never apologized for #1 or admitted he might have been wrong (etc.) (3) His hypocrisy about the dangers of technology *and* then -- so I've heard -- enjoying flying in airplanes, etc. Combined with his affectation of German peasant lifestyle elements.... (4) His dubious personal probity even apart from National Socialism (5) The fact that his writings contain some (many?) original and penetrating insights (6) The fact that his writings contain some (a lot of?) obscurantist / mythical stuff.... Maybe it is interesting to compare and contrast Heidegger and Ted Kaczynski? IMO The Unabmober Manifesto is a fairly intelligent text. That does not address the issues of the harm TK has caused and/or his "mental condition". *Some*, at least, of Heidegger's writings are highly intelligent texts. That does not address the issues of the harm MH caused and/or *his* "mental condition" (was he a "borderline personality", e.g.?) However! I wouldn't wish to speculate about the future of Heidegger's idolization. As Parmenides said, most persons are "two headed, thinking what is is not and what is not is at the same time" (AKA going with the flow of whatever is the current fad) -- and the recent studies of Heidegger's Nazi involvement may make some of these people become anti-Heideggereans from the same place of lack of self-understanding as they previously were Heidegger enthusiasts. \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:12:00 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism In-Reply-To: <199801171922.OAA17585@mail2.panix.com> from "Ian Pitchford" at Jan 17, 98 07:18:40 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > claim is that the degree to which human nature is influenced by > social or biological (including genetic) factors is an empirical > matter. None of them are advocates of genetic determinism. For Since it is an empirical matter, all the sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists have to do is provide some hard evidence. They haven't. All they seem to do is provide invective and misunderstandings (or deceptions) concerning basic concepts, such as the gene, genetic determination, heritability, etc. The Dawkins quotation you provided isn't much help. He qualifies "genetic determination" in a vague, essentially meaningless way, with the phrase "statistical" - perhaps the usual tactic of confusing correlation, propensity, and causation. He has said, we're "lumbering robots" controlled and directed by our genes, but now seems to assert we humans have some kind of transcendental will that can rise above or transcend our biology: neither concept is very helpful. But simply show a protein coding sequence (I don't say gene, because the sociobiologists misdefine gene as any unit of inheritance) that is uniquely associated with any human behavior. This wouldn't be proof in itself (imagine a society where only women wear earrings, then earrings would be uniquely associated with two X chromosomes, but the X chromosome does not cause earrings), but it would be a start. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:31:53 -0500 Reply-To: Norman Levitt Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Debates about biologism Part II In-Reply-To: <199801182358.SAA17969@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Your original post did not say anything about "2 or 3 generations," so I would like to see that sourced. As recent observations concerning--what else?--Darwin's finches have shown, gross morphological change can take place within a decade, at least in an isolated sub-population; how isolated are the Malaysian owls for whom this observation was made? Note as well SJ Gould's recent article in "Natural History" concerning the rate of morphological change under in response to environmental chance. How that compares to change in genetically-conditioned behavioral repertoire, I simply don't know, but in the instances cited by Gould and others, behavioral change does accompany morphological change. Anyone who watched the recent debate between "Intelligent [sic] Design Theorists" and evolutionary scientists (including Ruse) on Buckley's firing line will be aware of the historical examples of speciation events for which the upper limit of the time span involved is on the order of 1000 years. (This involved butterfly species--two of them; the new species were specialized to feed on bananas, a human-introduced colonizer on the island were the new species are found.) Even granting that selection had nothing to do with the observed change in owl predation behavior (and this is not absolutely clear, even on the assumption that only 2 or 3 generations elapsed--we would need to know a lot more), this degree of plasticity hardly suffices to support any open-ended conclusion about the absolute maleability of human behavior; it merely tells you something about the lability of owl behavior in response to certain environmental cues. It's interesting if you happen to be an ornithologist, but can hardly be used to refute conclusions based on the observed limits in variability in human behavior, if indeed, such is observed. So, in any case, instead of cheap shots, let's have a more circumstantial account of those goddam owls. With sources. Norm Levitt On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Paul Gallagher wrote: > > > > > > Aha! The question here is whether that "change" reflects and embodies a > > genetic change in the population in question. In other words, are we > > witnessing behavioral plasticity in a certain species, or good old > > Darwinian selection which is only visible on the macro level as behavioral > > propensity? I tend to suspect the latter (since Darwinian processes > > actually work with amazing swiftness) but at any rate it's a question that > > must be answered before the point of the example (which might turn out to > > be diametrically opposed to the point you think you're making) is clear > > > > Norm Levitt > > > > That's absurd. A complete transformation in several behavioral characters > in 2 or 3 generations! Instead of posturing with bloated phrases, why not > take an elementary biology course. > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:43:51 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism In-Reply-To: <199801190012.TAA23237@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This is quite silly! Although there are a few monogenetic traits, no one should or does expect to find a "gene for" a specific behavioral pattern. First of all, we are talking about "traits" (and this is a complicated term needing explicaton) that almost certainly involve large constellations of interacting genes. Secondly, we are talking about a presumably complex causitive cascade which TENDS (statistically) to channel the neurological consequences of environmental interactions with the organism in question (us) in certain directions (differentially, perhaps, as regards the sexes). Secondly, you seem to think that "hard" evidence can only be in the form of a correlation coefficient of certain identified distributions of alleles with observed behaviors. Again, this is silly. Cross cultural evidence is real evidence, notwithstanding the methodological dificulties evolved. As to invective and misunderstandings--well, read your own prose. Anyone who thinks EO Wilson is methodologically naive is himself pretty naive. NL On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Paul Gallagher wrote: > > claim is that the degree to which human nature is influenced by > > social or biological (including genetic) factors is an empirical > > matter. None of them are advocates of genetic determinism. For > > Since it is an empirical matter, all the sociobiologists and evolutionary > psychologists have to do is provide some hard evidence. They haven't. > All they seem to do is provide invective and misunderstandings (or > deceptions) concerning basic concepts, such as the gene, genetic > determination, heritability, etc. > > The Dawkins quotation you provided isn't much help. He qualifies > "genetic determination" in a vague, essentially meaningless way, > with the phrase "statistical" - perhaps the usual tactic of confusing > correlation, propensity, and causation. He has said, we're "lumbering > robots" controlled and directed by our genes, but now seems to assert > we humans have some kind of transcendental will that can rise above or > transcend our biology: neither concept is very helpful. > But simply show a protein coding sequence (I don't say gene, because > the sociobiologists misdefine gene as any unit of inheritance) that is > uniquely associated with any human behavior. This wouldn't be proof > in itself (imagine a society where only women wear earrings, then > earrings would be uniquely associated with two X chromosomes, but the > X chromosome does not cause earrings), but it would be a start. > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:44:51 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism In-Reply-To: <199801182254.RAA09364@mail2.panix.com> from "Norman Levitt" at Jan 18, 98 05:53:47 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > My "inappropriate analogy" is from Dawkins himself, as I am sure you know. It > is Dawkins who claimed genes are like Chicago gangsters and that we are robots > run by our DNA. The fact that Dawkins qualifies his "selfish gene" metaphor > in the second edition does change the role of the rhetoric in context. Many In addition to selfish genes being an inappropiate metaphor, all the substantive claims Dawkins makes on behalf of selfish genes seem to me trivial or false. I'll attach some Usenet posts I made on the subject. In particular, take note of the actual equations to determine the selection coefficient of an individual gene. Subject: Re: The Selfish Gene From: pcg@panix.com (Paul Gallagher) Date: 1996/11/18 Message-ID: <56q6j2$6k3@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution [More Headers] In <19961116192500.OAA18675@ladder01.news.aol.com> tomandlu@aol.com writes: >I feel uncomfortable with Dawkin's idea of the gene being the main/only >benificiary of evolution, yet I recognise that many of my objections are >emotional rather than objective, and my practical objections (can one >really view genes and the individual carrier of them as 'separate') are >therefore suspect. >Has his view been generally accepted or rejected, and for what reasons? You might look in Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, edited by Elliott Sober. It has several essays on this subject, including one by Dawkins and several critiques, some mathematical, some more general. Sober has also written articles arguing against the idea that genes are the units of selection: for example, Philosophy of Science 61 (1994). Dawkins and Midgley carried on a debate about selfish genes in the journal, Philosophy. Midgley, M. (1979). Gene Juggling. Philosophy 54, 439-458. Dawkins, R. (1981). In Defense of Selfish Genes. Philosophy 56, 556-573. Midgley, M. (1983). Selfish Genes and Social Darwinism. Philosophy 58, 365-377. I don't have these articles in front of me, so I'll just give a brief, argument against selfish genes: Basically, the idea is that it's the individual that lives and dies and reproduces. If genes are going to be treated as competing individuals, they have to make some sort of discrete, distinct contribution to the individual organism. For individual genes to be exposed directly to selection, there has to be a one-to-one relationship between the gene and something that is exposed to selection. But genes can have multiple effects and interact in complicated ways. Only very rarely is there a one-to-one relationship of a gene to some aspect of the phenotype. For example, a simple example of a gene with multiple effects, or pleiotropy, is the gene that gives rise to sickle cell anemia. Homozygosity for the gene is often lethal, but heterozygosity confers some resistance to malaria. As a result, simply saying the "sickle cell" allele is present doesn't tell you about the fitness of the individual. It depends on what the allele paired with it is. You could work around this by saying the allele contributes to fitness in different ways in different genetic environments, but it's easier to think that selection acts at the locus, rather than at the individual allele. When you start dealing with the effects of more and more genes, the idea of specifying the fitness of an allele in every possible combination of genetic environments becomes very complicated. Selfish genes shouldn't be confused with selfish DNA. "Selfish DNA" is non-coding DNA. It proliferates only to the point it doesn't affect the fitness of the individual organism. Paul Subject: Re: The Selfish Gene From: pcg@panix.com (Paul Gallagher) Date: 1996/11/19 Message-ID: <56sogq$5ap@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution Just a follow-up: In <56q6j2$6k3@nntp1.u.washington.edu> pcg@panix.com (Paul Gallagher) writes: >Selfish genes shouldn't be confused with selfish DNA. "Selfish DNA" >is non-coding DNA. It proliferates only to the point it doesn't affect the >fitness of the individual organism. Selfish DNA can code for something, such as a transposase that allows it to cleave DNA. A kind of selfish DNA - a mariner transposon - recently was shown to affect the phenotype by causing unequal crossing over near the myelin gene on human chromosome 17, causing the individual to have three copies of several genes, which leads to Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, a disorder of the nerves, or, when it is inherited, HNPP (hereditary neuropathy that can lead to pressure palsies). Still, these pieces of DNA shouldn't be considered a model for the action of selection on the genotype, which usually involves not simply the ability of the gene to replicate but the differential reproductive success of organisms. One interesting argument I saw is in Sober and Lewontin's "Artifact, Cause, and Genic Selection," in Sober, ed., Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology. Once again consider heterozygote superiority. If you specify the selection coefficients of individual genes, their values will vary as the population changes in gene frequency. In contrast, the selection coefficients of individual genotypes remain constant. We therefore lose the ability to think of selection as a force, as the cause of differences of fitness. Models of selfish genes can produce the same results as models of selection acting at a higher level, but you lose the concept of selection as a force and as a cause of evolution, rather than just a measure of a propensity to change. As an illustration, let p be the frequency of dominant allele A and q be the frequency of recessive allele a, where p + q = 1. Let w1 be the fitness of AA, w2 the fitness of Aa, and w3 the fitness of aa. Before selection, the population will contain AA, Aa, and aa in the proportion, p^2:2pq:q^2. The average fitness of the population will be p^2w1 + 2pgw2 + q^2w3. The population will move toward a stable equilibrium frequency p' = (w3 - w2) / ( (w1 - w2) + (w3 - w2)). Now, let's try this with selfish genes. If we want to determine the fitness of the individual allele A, W.A, we calculate that W.A * frequency of A before selection = frequency of A after selection * average fitness. Frequency of a before selection is p, after selection it is w3p^2 + w2pq / W. Hence, W.A = w1p + w2q. Similarly, W of the recessive allele a = w3q + w2p. Hence, the fitness of single genes is the just the average of the fitness values of the genotype, weighted by the frequency of their occurrence in the genotype. The fitness of the each of the three genotypes, AA, Aa, and aa, are constants. They do not change as the population reaches equilibrium. But the fitness of individuals genes does change constantly as their frequency changes. Whereas the fitness of the genotypes has a real relationship to the viability of the organism, the fitness of the allele does not. You can calculate the fitness of alleles if you know the fitness of the genotype, but you cannot in general calculate the fitness of the genotype from the fitness values of the alleles. The selfish genes model leads to a lost of information. For example, assume the homozygotes are lethal. The equilibrium frequency of each allele will be 0.5. Before selection, the three genotypes will be in the proportion, 1/4, 1/2, 1/4. After selection, 0, 1, 0. When they reproduce, the population will return to 1/4, 1/2, 1/4, then selection will occur and return the population to 0, 1, 0. And so on and so on. But according to the selfish gene model, at equilibrium the fitness values of both genes are 1, and their selection coefficients are therefore 0. Therefore, the selfish gene model provides no means for explaining why the zig-zag is 0. According to the selfish gene model, selection is not happening at equilibrium. We have lost the concept of selection as something external to fitness. Selfish genes also provide no model of heterozygote superiority, since it measures only the fitness of individual alleles, and can't tell us that the diploid genotype is superior. Sober and Lewontin go on to provide examples of where selfish genes - genic selection - might occur: they mention that chromosomes in the house mouse that contain the t-allele have an increased chance of being represented in the sperm pool of heterozygous mice. The t-allele might be thought of as a selfish gene at this level. Also, dominant alleles that are always lethal, and phenotypic traits that are controlled by a single locus where the heterozygote is intermediate in fitness between the two homozygotes, could be modeled as selfish genes. Genes that have no effect on the phenotype, as with most selfish DNA, also could be modelled using genic selection. But whenever the fitness of a gene depends on what's present at some other locus, the selection coefficient of individual alleles will be the average over all genetic contexts, and - most importantly - they will change as the population evolves, and the idea of selection as the external cause of fitness differences is lost. Sober and Lewontin argue that genic selection will be rare, since the fitness of alleles often depends on the presence or absence of other alleles. They discuss chromosome inversions in the grass-hopper Moraba scura, and in general point out that many models of stabilizing selection depend on the fitness of individual loci being determined by the presence of other genes. Paul ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:48:30 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism In-Reply-To: <199801182254.RAA09364@mail2.panix.com> from "Norman Levitt" at Jan 18, 98 05:53:47 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit More on selfish genes Subject: Re: The Selfish Gene From: pcg@panix.com (Paul Gallagher) Date: 1996/11/25 Message-ID: <57ckh4$6i4@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution [More Headers] In perpcorn@dca.net (Timothy Perper/Ma rtha Cornog) writes: >So it boils down to data: what examples or cases require one to assume >that selfish genes exist? Since the idea of "selfish genes" arose from people, such as Hamilton, Williams, and Dawkins, who studied social behavior in animals, I suppose biological altruism played a large role in their thinking. Altruism contradicts what one would expect from selection acting on the individual. As a result, Hamilton proposed selfish genes that, so to speak, hurt the individual, so that the genes themselves will survive. However, Wade argued that when you add a little extra detail, such as the genetic context in which genes occur, and which genotypes mate with which, then a more realistic model of altruism arises in which the unit of selection is not the gene, but the mating pair. The rate of evolutionary change is then proportional to the between-family variance in fitness. (Michael Wade, "The evolution of social interactions by family selection." American Naturalist, 113: 399-417.) Now, Ernst Mayr back in 1963 argued that selection always act on the phenotype, not on the genes. In other words, genic selection can't occur. But Lewontin refers to the principle of transitivity of causes. He gives the example of a person killed by a gunshot. It makes as much sense to say that a person's death is caused by pulling the trigger as to say it was caused by the entry of the bullet. So, the question is, does the mere presence of a gene have a real causal effect on the fate of the population (not just the organism). Sober gives an example from Lewontin and Dunn's research on an example of meiotic drive. The t-allele in the house mouse is a segregator distorter. When a male is heterozygous for the t-allele, the chromosomes do not sort at random. Instead of 50 percent of the sperm cells containing one chromosome and 50 percent the other, 85 percent will contain the chromosome containing the t-allele. Sober and Lewontin consider this a real example of a selfish gene, or of chromosome selection. The t-allele's representation in the gamete pool is caused solely by its ability to replicate, not its contribution to the organism's fitness. But that's not the whole story. Males who are homozygous for the t-allele are always sterile. As a result, there is selection acting against the t-allele at the level of the individual organism. However, adding up the meiotic drive effects and the individual selection effects doesn't predict the actual frequency of the t-allele in house mouse population. This is caused by an additional level of selection, group selection. If there is a group of mice, all of whose males are homozygous for the t-allele, the females will be unable to reproduce, since the males are all sterile. No matter how good they are at being mice, their fitness will be 0. Since females in this group are more likely to possess the t-allele than those in other groups, group selection will act to reduce the frequency of the t-allele in the population. As a result, the most common-sense way to understand what's going on is to say that gene (or chromosome) selection, individual selection, and group selection are all acting on the population. The changes in the gene frequency in the population could be predicted by models using the fitness values of the t-allele, or of individuals, or of groups. They could even be modeled by the fitness values of individual nucleotides. One could argue that one should model the population in terms of individual nucleotides, because they are what actually replicates. One could argue that one should use individual fitness, since it's individuals that actually reproduce. One could argue that one should use group fitness, since it's only the fitness of the group that is context independent. But instead saying selection acts at different levels in different context, from the gene to the group, seems to best express what's actually having a real, material, causal effect on the evolution of the population. We measure the representation of the t-allele in the sperm pool, the frequency of homozygous male individuals in the group, and the frequency of groups with only sterile males. It's seems simplest to view selection acting at the level we are directly measuring. If we tried to model it any other level, we would have perform calculations on this data to figure out the selection coefficients at that level, and we would lose information, since we can't in general derive the values of a function's parameters from the result it produces. An analogy Lewontin gives is a pool ball on a pool table. One force pushes it toward the north, one force pushes it to the west. Dawkins would say the only force acting on it is the net force, in a northwest direction, but it seems simpler to say there are several forces acting on it: one acting toward the north, another to the west. The net force model leads to a loss of information, since we can't figure out the component forces from the net forces, but we can always figure out the net force from the component forces. But at least the net force acting on the pool ball has the same conceptual basis as the component forces. In contrast, the fitness of a "selfish gene" that is defined as a function of genotypic selection coefficients and gene frequencies is just a "hodgepodge" that does not reflect the real character of the population. However, when the fitness of an individual gene is context independent, then it is reasonable to speak of genic selection. Paul Subject: Re: The Selfish Gene From: pcg@panix.com (Paul Gallagher) Date: 1996/11/25 Message-ID: <57d948$ekh@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution [More Headers] In <199611242144.XAA00148@walrus.megabaud.fi> ailak@walrus.megabaud.fi writes: >What about such social traits which are more fit when they are rare >in the population, like aggressive behaviour? Or, say, tendencies to >breed in the first half or in the latter half of the season to avoid >crowding? Would't frequency then affect fitness at the genotype >level, if the behaviour is directly dependent on the genotype? An >early breeder-genotype would be more fit at low frequencies than >when most of the population breeded in the first half of the season. That's a good point. I didn't mean to suggest that genotypes will always show constant fitness. They probably won't. This leads to some interesting questions about the units of selection. Lewontin mentions frequency dependent selection and makes the comparison to genic selection (selfish genes). Both require that fitness and selection coefficients change depending on the frequency of genes in the population. But whereas the extra parameters added to genic fitness equations are just kludges needed to get the equations to work correctly, the frequency dependence of the examples you give have a real basis in the life of the organism. So what's the unit of selection here? Wimsat defines the unit of selection as "an entity for which there is heritable context-independent variance in fitness among entities at that level which does not appear as heritable context-independent variance in fitness (and thus, for which the variance in fitness is context-dependent) at any lower level of organization." That is, it's the lowest possible level at which fitness is context independent. But the examples you give cause a problem. Should we say group selection is occurring in these populations where fitness depends on the frequency of individuals in the population. Or should we say the environments the individuals face changes whenever the population changes? Sober gives an example of the Arrowhead and Chiricahua homozygotes in the fruit fly, Drosophila pseudoobscura. Under lab conditions, when the Arrowhead and Chiricahua homozygotes are put together, the Arrowhead is fitter than the Chiricahua. But when the two are put together with the Standard type, the Arrowhead is less fit than the Chiricahua. Hence, the fitness of the trait depends on what other organisms are in the population. If you had three cages and put Arrowhead and Standard in one, Chiricahua and Standard in the next, and all three in the last, then the fitness values measured in each cage would differ. The fitness is context-dependent, but it doesn't seem sensible to say that group selection is occurring in each cage. As a result, Sober says, group selection acts if, and only if, there is some property of the group which determines one component of the fitness of every member of the group. Since the examples of frequency dependent selection you give affect only some individuals in the population, not all of them, Sober would not call them examples of group selection. The cage example is also useful for selfish genes. Consider a cage full of individuals with a locus that shows heterozygote superiority. Calculate the fitness of each gene in the locus. Now, move another cage with more individuals next to it. The fitness values of the genes in the first cage will change. Even though the two groups in each cage do not interact at all, the fitness values that have parameters for gene frequency will change. This suggests their fitness values do not, in some sense, have real biological meaning. Paul ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 19:54:33 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Debates about Biologism In-Reply-To: <199801190048.TAA15184@u3.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > However, when the fitness of an individual gene is context independent, > then it is reasonable to speak of genic selection. Who the hell thinks that the "fitness" of an individual gene is context-independent, as a general rule. NL ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:51:05 +0000 Reply-To: Ian.Pitchford@Scientist.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Biologism again In-Reply-To: <199801190008.TAA26417@wilma.globecomm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Paul Gallagher wrote: The Dawkins quotation you provided isn't much help. He qualifies "genetic determination" in a vague, essentially meaningless way, with the phrase "statistical" - perhaps the usual tactic of confusing correlation, propensity, and causation. He has said, we're "lumbering robots" controlled and directed by our genes.... =============== REPLY: My long experience in contributing to forums like this one does indeed suggest that quoting people like Dawkins at length isn't remotely persuasive to critics who *just know* what he *really* means. Dawkins never talks about people being controlled by genes and his works always assert the supremacy of culture in human life. I could work through each of of his books and quote the relevant passages, but it just wouldn't work, would it? You really do need to identify the knowledge-constitutive interests here. The concept of 'genetic determinism' is a social constuction fabricated to serve the the professional interests of those who would seek to establish an artificial 'social science' independent of biological and evolutionary theory. The power and authority of social constructionists, who occupy so many highly-paid and prestigious professorships, would be deeply undermined by the requirement that they actually learn some science. Hence, rather than any attempt to consider the evidence, we have the authoritarian, anti-intellectual campaign to stigmatize individuals by constituting the labels 'sociobiologist', 'reductionist' and 'positivist' as terms of abuse. Regards Ian ******************************************************************************** Ian Pitchford - Email Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Ph.D. Student in Theoretical Psychopathology Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies University of Sheffield, 16 Claremont Crescent SHEFFIELD, S10 2TA, United Kingdom. Tel: 0114 222 2961 Fax: 0114 270 0619 ******************************************************************************** Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Online Dictionary of Mental Health http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/index.html Mental Health Metasearch http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/metasearch.html InterPsych: Mental Health Debate on the Internet http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/InterPsych/inter.html ******************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:51:06 +0000 Reply-To: Ian.Pitchford@Scientist.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ian Pitchford Subject: science and -isms MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Val Dusek writes: There is of course a problem with this "factor" talk. It assumes that one can separate and compare the genetic and the social "factors." Of course, if the interaction is highly non-linear, one cannot separate these factors. ==== REPLY: I agree. The probability that social and cultural developments constituted selective pressures over evolutionary times renders the nature/nurture debate largely redundant. See for example Derek Bickerton's (Carruthers, 1996) interesting hypothesis that the development of proto-language provided the selective pressure for the development of cognitive modules involved in the processing of universal grammar. ============================================ Dusek continues: I agree. Human universals and plasticity thereof are presuably evolutionarily influenced. Don't assume, like Ehrenreich, that anyone who criticizes present, biased formulations in sob and evolutionary psychology, denies any biological aspect of human nature. ======== REPLY: My observation that the universality of human plasticity is an implicitly biological theory requiring evolutionary elucidation was actually an attempt at Sokal-style irony. I think it is absurd to claim that 3.7 billion years of evolution have resulted in an organism with a total lack of preparedness for its physical, social, and psychological environment. I wont go into the arguments as they are too lengthy, but I would recommend Mithen's recent book (Mithen, 1996). ============================================== Dusek continues: That Fuller (as well as Collins and Pinch) have claimed that citizens can often make informed decisions about science and technology issues without total knowledge of the technical details is not a plea for or praise of ignorance. Often citizens make more accurate judgements of, i.e., cancer clusters near toxic waste dumps, than the corporate-financed scientist-apologists who have lots of technical knowledge but strong motives to rationalize corporate beneficence. Does Ian claim that institutional scientists are the only ones who should be permitted to make judgements about matters of life and death to citizens? Is he advocating a kind of Comtean technocracy of nuclear engineers and drug company scientists? I should hope not. ====== REPLY: I find it interesting that when challenged social constructionists and their apologists often retreat to a more easily defended position. Hence we have retractions by Harding, Haraway, Feyerabend, Fuller et al of their relativism (Fuller, 1996; Gross & Levitt, 1998), presumably because they have caught up with the fact that even the Ancient Greeks realised that such subjectivism is self-refuting (Nagel, 1997). Similarly, the claim that social constructionists should be the ultimate and final arbiters of the validity of the natural sciences reappears as the claim that they simply want us to be aware of the ethical implications and social context of scientific research. How glib! As Alan Sokal says "Sociology of science, at its best, has done much to clarify these issues. But sloppy sociology, like sloppy science, is useless or even counterproductive. " ======================= Dusek continues: Apparently the very study of institutionalized science (as opposed to normative science) as a religion is somehow ridiculous to Ian. ========= REPLY: I think that the best explanation of science is that it does reveal truths about the natural world, as it's predictive and explanatory power, and its capacity to generate sophisticated technologies suggests. As Paul Feyerband (1992) says: "How can an enterprise [science] depend on culture in so many ways, and yet produce such solid results? Most answers to this question are either incomplete or incoherent. Physicists take the facr for granted. Movements that view quantum mechanics as a turning-point in thought - and that include fly-by-night mystics, prophets of a New Age, and relativists of all sorts - get aroused by the cultural component and forget predictions and technology." On the other hand the best explanation of social constructionism, which yields little that is not either idiotic or glib, is that it is a social construction serving the interests of a particular group. =============================================== Dusek continues: Again, in the case of evolutionary psychology, the field is so rife with bad metaphor used as explanation, that analysis of metaphor is particularly relevant, moreso, say than in particle physics and cosmology, where the metaphors certainly appear, but are relatively superficial in relation to the theory (free lunch, inflationary universe, WIMPS and MACHOs, etc.). ======= REPLY: Absolutely. And what a boon it would be if sociologists of knowledge would turn their attention to these. From your previous comments though I assume that you would not argue that a consideration of metaphor, with a view to revealing that all knowledge is a production of white Western male hegemony, should be all that we should focus our attention on. ============================================ Dusek continues: But in evol. psych. and sob the metaphors are often the bases of models that guide theorizing and research. Talk about competition, enterpreneurship, rape, homosexuality, prostitution, etc. etc. in the animal (and plant) world are not merely for popularization (although they play that role) but often are the models used in the theory itself. ====== REPLY: This is the heart of the problem. Can we make an objective evaluation of the facts in order to verify the validity or otherwise of empirical work whatever the social, political or other ideological preferences and prejudices of those involved. If the answer is "yes" then we can have some interesting debates about the explanatory power of rival hypotheses. If the answer is "no" then the consequence is solipsism and the negation of any observation or hypothesis whether social constructionist or realist. =========================================== Dusek continues: Just last night an ad for a US ABC-TV show on sex differences was featured, suggesting that men are too violent to raise children and women too delicate for certain jobs. A recent book being remaindered called Stone Age Contemporary, or some such, claimed it would explain, among other things why men don't ask for directions. New magazines monthly produce popularizations of scientific "proofs" that women can't do math, etc. Evolutionary psychology merely put a new label and a few new twists on the old agenda. ======= REPLY: What really matters is the standard of evidence required to support such conclusions, and whether we allow empirical matters to dictate our ethical stance (to which the answer is obviously "no"). On the first point, the anecdotal level of evidence required by social constructionists to support their conclusions is wholly inadequate. Fuller, for example, dismisses the whole of modern cosmology and particle physics as social construction because "one physicist who deserted the fold for science journalism claims that there is a collusion between particle physicists and cosmologists, in that the former have tried to come up with mathematical formulations that satisy the theoretical expectations of the latter, all in the absence of any observational base or crucial experiment that could contest these mutually reinforcing speculations" (Fuller, 1997: 17). This conclusion re-emerges later in the book as a fact, one anecdote being sufficient to establish its validity. Overall, It is the general decrepitude and lack of reflexivity of social constructionism that is of more concern to me than the position of the natural sciences, whose practitioners have always debated the social and ethical implications of their work. My concern is particularly acute having just finished a course in the humanities during which I was told that there are four branches of research: theoretical, qualitative, quantitative, and *emancipatory*, that all perception is constrained by language (because Eskimo's have many words for snow and can see things that we can't), and that all facts are value-laden. At the end of one series of seminars, during which an eminent professor addressed a group of students in disability studies, the participants voted not to invite him back because as social constructionists they were offended by the suggestion that a medical practitioner could have anything valid to say about autism. Of course everyone *just knows* that autism is 'caused' by refrigerator mothers, don't they? Thinking back to the Sokal affair, which was discussed by forum members recently, what is perhaps most shocking the article's acceptance by _Social Text_ (Sokal, 1996) is the very low level of scientific and mathematical knowledge required to see through it. I think we have the right to expect more from our scholars. Regards Ian References: Carruthers, P. (1996). Language, Thought and Consciousness: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feyerabend, P. (1992). Atoms and Consciousness. Common Knowledge, 1(1), 28-32. Fuller, S. (1996). A Letter to the Editor. Times Literary Supplement, 20 December, 1996 (Available on the Internet: http://www.blarg.net/~jwalsh/sokal/articles/ful2bog_tls.html), 17. Fuller, S. (1997). Science. Buckingham: Open University Press. Gross, P.R., & Levitt, N. (1998). Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Mithen, S. (1996). The Prehistory of the Mind. London: Thames and Hudson. Nagel, T. (1997). The Last Word. Oxford: OUP. Sokal, A. (1996). Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. Social Text, 46/47, 217-252. ******************************************************************************** Ian Pitchford - Email Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Ph.D. Student in Theoretical Psychopathology Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies University of Sheffield, 16 Claremont Crescent SHEFFIELD, S10 2TA, United Kingdom. Tel: 0114 222 2961 Fax: 0114 270 0619 ******************************************************************************** Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Online Dictionary of Mental Health http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/index.html Mental Health Metasearch http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/metasearch.html InterPsych: Mental Health Debate on the Internet http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/InterPsych/inter.html ******************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 08:18:26 -0400 Reply-To: Jiri Wackermann Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jiri Wackermann Subject: MH, TJK, technology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit [I took the freedom to change the "subject" field, this has nothing to do with teaching algebra appropriately... jw] On Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:58:15 -0500, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: >Norman Levitt wrote: >> I was referring to Heidegger's despicable behavior as rector at his >> university, which included nasty treatment of Husserl, who was Jewish. The >> larger point is to note the irony that it is not hard to find screeds by >> postmodern "leftists" where someone or other of our contemporaries is >> denounced for a grave sin such as racism, sexism, or friendliness towards >> Alan Sokal on one page, and then, on the next, Heidegger is held up as a >> fount of wisdom. >I would agree with you here. "Heidegger" (the works and their >author) is IMO a difficult existential >(social) problem, because of (among other things, perhaps...): [snip] >(3) His hypocrisy about the dangers of technology *and* then -- >so I've heard -- enjoying flying in airplanes, etc. Combined >with his affectation of German peasant lifestyle elements.... [snip] >Maybe it is interesting to compare and contrast >Heidegger and Ted Kaczynski? IMO The Unabmober Manifesto is >a fairly intelligent text. That does not address the issues of the >harm TK has caused and/or his "mental condition". *Some*, at least, >of Heidegger's writings are highly intelligent texts. That does >not address the issues of the harm MH caused and/or *his* "mental >condition" (was he a "borderline personality", e.g.?) May I have few comments? [1] Referring to the prologue to this discussion (not quoted here), in my opinion Edmund Husserl definitely deserves the honorable title of a "mathematician", not merely for his formal training and achievement, but mainly for his ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science ("Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft"). This is what distinguishes the profound philosophical meaning of his work from that of some descendants who claimed to apply the phenomenological method in their writings (notably, early Heidegger). (And this is why I tried intensively penetrate into Husserl's thinking, while I never felt much interest in reading Heidegger's ( in particular, the late Heidegger, who produced rather "Dichtung" than clear thinking.) Btw, would you say about Wittgenstein he was a mathematician? According to my understanding of that word, he was; even if his notes on foundations of mathematics haven't influenced mathematics that much, as far as I know, and remain rather mysterious lecture for most of them (and, admittedly, for me too). [2] Back to Husserl: I appreciate the discussion where our notions of "being a mathematician" get clarified; not to find the "right" definition, of course. Rather, this process has a strong ressemblance to Husserl's own method of "eidetic variation". I didn't believe such a variation can be performed in a group (even if it surely was in EH's seminars), now I see it's possible. [3] During the process of elaborating an "eidos" of a mathematician, Ted Kaczynski was introduced to the scene. I wonder why this _extremely improtant_ affair haven't been discussed earlier on these pages. I agree that the Manifesto is "a fairly intelligent text", even more than that. But >Maybe it is interesting to compare and contrast >Heidegger and Ted Kaczynski? I'm not sure whether we should start at *psychological* peculiarities of those two personalities; it's the thinking what matters. It's true that Heidegger warned about the trasformation of the world into a technological "Gestell", and prophesized that the role of authentic thinking would be superseded by "cybernetics" (so said he in his famous "Spiegel" interview; quoted by my poor memory, but I'm pretty sure; I guess he would say "computer science" if he only knew that word---here you have a link to TJK, a very weak one!) Anyway, in the world of these days Heidegger seems to be rather irrelevant, in my opinion, compared to Kaczynksi's revolt. It seems to me that Heidegger's criticism of technology-commited civilization is rather superficial, based on vague feelings of "authenticity loss" and "Being having been forgotten", etc. (Sorry, my ad hoc translations may differ from official English edition). The problem of our world is not whether our thinking and being fullfills academic criteria of an elderly Freiburger scholar; rather, the problem is that the world is difficult to live in; and that's exactly where Kaczynski begins. I stop here; I will appreciate a serious discussion on the issue of technology, anyway, including the Unabomber's manifesto. Let the folks discuss legalistic details of Kaczynski's trial in other groups and let's go to the essence. (Btw, the German thinkers of 20-30's could be interesting in that context too; I've just finished reading Spengler's essay on "man and technology"; surely more interesting than Heidegger's artificial mysteria.) [4] I only hope the discussion wouldn't be too much political again, I mean, along the traditional prejudices and classifications. Let me document the dangers of these petrified thought schemes on two frappant cases: (i) Ross E. Getman in his essay "Code Unabom. The Freedom Club, the Nazis and the Leftists" (look at for full text, in two parts) attempts to bring evidence about relationship between Unabomber and neo-Nazi groups and movements, using arguments like "The Freedom Club bomber first explained his anti-technology motives in a letter sent on April 20, 1995 -- Hitler's birthday." Don't laugh too loud, the document is full of "facts" like that. I'm sure that the author of the Manifesto would read it as an amusing example of pretty leftist crap. (ii) On the "AntiDemocrats Political Page", Unabomber is qualified as an ultra-leftist terrorist (see ), inspite of his acid critique of leftism. Presumably, when one bombs an airline company, he's attacking the business and therefore is against free enterprise and initiative and whatever. You see, the fundamentalists of both wings incline to demonstrate their distance from Unabomber by shooting him like an highly explosive (bad joke? sorry) missile to the other end of the alleged left-right spectrum. It's even more funny, taking into account what he's written in the Manifesto about leftists, leftism, and political correctness :-)) Greetings to everybody, Jiri ------------------ Dr. Jiri Wackermann Neuroscience Technology Research s.r.o. 26 Zitna Street, Prague 2, CZ-120 00 (Czech Republic) phone/fax: (+420 2) 24915461 [NEW] e-mail: jwntr@terminal.cz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 08:18:53 -0400 Reply-To: Jiri Wackermann Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jiri Wackermann Subject: technology & hypocrisy X-To: "bradmcc@cloud9.net" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:58:15 -0500, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: [on Heidegger] >(3) His hypocrisy about the dangers of technology *and* then -- >so I've heard -- enjoying flying in airplanes, etc. Combined >with his affectation of German peasant lifestyle elements.... Dear Brad: I was really amused reading this. Here's why, briefly: (a) I personally am terribly skeptical about the business-devoted, technology-obsessed civilization. Worse enough, the "globalization" (welcome mainly by people loving air jets and selling craps over the Net) makes this impact inevitable on all of us. And often I'm really angry and I can understand too much well what the author of Manifesto had in mind; the last distinction is that I don't want to send a bomb to Microsoft headquarters, for example (well, not more frequently than once per week ;-). (b) I'm not an innocent victim. I'm dealing a lot with computers and programming and, frankly, some years ago I was excited by their possibilities. Then it was exactly this experience and, particularly, my being witness to the permanent shifts in technologies what initiated my re-thinking the issues. Anyway, I'm living in a world where I have to work for my and my family's living and so I'm doing what I can do, and that involves, alas, computational analysis of human brain's activity, partly for research, partly for medicine. I have nothing to do with control of human behavior, anything like that; nevertheless, looking at the name of my company, one could say this sounds like a potential candidate for Unabomber's next mail, doesn't it? (c) I like flying, to be honest. I hate the commercial rumor at the airports and all the footprints of international business, but I still love the sense of calm and peace you get in 30'000 fts, looking just at the sky and clouds from above. --- On the other hand, I think it's terribly destructive, of course; imagine the world where one needed to invest a substantial *physical* effort to get to the other country and perhaps see friends there and did that few times in one's life and such enterprises were important milestones in one's life; and compare to this world when one moves around the planet just to negotiate some details in a business contract (not my case, fortunately) and then has to ask, "hell, where was I the last Friday?" (I'm not speaking about combustion products and Earth health, to stay within personal evidence.) (c) Now, where's the hypocrisy? I feel an urgent wish to get rid of (most of) technology and I'm running on its road at the same time, perhaps even contributing to the mess. You may call this an "inconsistency", but why "hypocrisy"? Or, better, there's a *conflict* and *tension*; I accept these labels and think they are applicable to living and thinking of most of those who are not happy about what's going on and don't want to go to cabins in a wilderness and/or to mail bombs. Few conclusive notes: The analysis of the "power process" and "surrogate activities" in the Manifesto is surely interesting but it's not the whole story and is very plain anthropology. Doesn't explain the *tendency* to technology; there's more than fear of living uncomfortable without it! This applies to the modern consumer of technologies, but not the Faustian drive of originators. There's more than an adoration of "peasant" style in German thinking of the first half of this century; in fact, many technological revolutions were started in that strange spiritual atmosphere (and, later, under criminal Nazi government, sure). Just think about Konrad Zuse's first computers, or Olberth and von Braun and beginnings of rocket technology. There were not only strange visions of a tradition-rooted, land-bound ("Boden") life... There are clearly polar opposites and a tension between them. I'm not particularly fond of Martin Heidegger, but I think he can be successfully blamed for something more serious than this ridiculous "hypocrisy". I believe we should be aware of these inconsistencies in us when discussing the modern technology and its alternative. I think this is the starting point from where one could, later, go and tell, "ok, I'm ready to live without this or that". And always we should keep one eye on those disastrously naive attempts to solve problems by a bomb (doesn't matter whether detonators made of wood or uranium ;-). There's a clear message to the people involved in development and innovations of technologies. Unabomber found _them_ guilty. What a difference to old-fashioned enviromental moralists ("you shall not consume so much!") or to their more radical eco-terrorists ("hey, we blow the plant off"). Now, that Unabomber aimed at the scientists and technicians playing their innocent lab games. This _is_ the revolution, in my opinion; it's they (we) who should re-think their attitudes. I'm afraid this is too much personal to be exposed to a discussion group, but so it goes. Jiri PS Would you, please, send me a reference to where Heidegger's passion to flying was mentioned? ------------------ Dr. Jiri Wackermann Neuroscience Technology Research s.r.o. 26 Zitna Street, Prague 2, CZ-120 00 (Czech Republic) phone/fax: (+420 2) 24915461 [NEW] e-mail: jwntr@terminal.cz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 14:29:50 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: some comments on the strengths & limits of Darwinian explanation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" WHY DARWINISM IS IMPORTANT BUT NOT A UNIVERSAL EXPLANATION It is said that there have been a number of blows to human arrogance. The concept of the solar system dethroned the Earth from being regarded as the centre of the universe. Darwinism showed that humanity is not the specially created pinnacle of creation. Marxism showed that what humans do is fundamentally conditioned by economic and ideological forces. Freud showed that we do not even have access to the greater part of our motivations, which are unconscious. These explanations mitigate our conception of the human species and its planet as central to the universe and as characterised by rational intentionality and conscious control over our actions. If we look at Darwin's theory as one of the great ideas in the history of science, we can characterise it in two ways. Evolution ranks with gravity, the central concept in physics, and affinity, the key idea in chemistry, as one of the most basic concepts in the natural sciences. It can be argued, however, that evolution is the most important of the three as far as humanity is concerned and that in important ways it includes the other two, in that biological processes are mediated by chemical and physical ones. Beyond that, however, evolution by natural selection is an all-embracing theory in two senses. It is the law which binds all of life together and defines its long-term relations to the physical environment. And, of course, it binds humanity to the rest of life and nature. Evolution by natural selection is the process which accounts for the history of living nature, including human nature. All of the above is arguably common knowledge. However, there is a huge problem which is left unresolved by evolution. If we take it to be an all-embracing explanation of living, including human, phenomena, then it includes human psychology, society and culture within the causal nexus of deterministic scientific laws. If this is so, what is the basis for morality? Put another way, how should we think of the role of values and morality in human nature? At its most stark, evolution by natural selection proceeds by competition for resources, for mates to give birth to viableble offspring which live to reproduce. How can this conception of the interrelations between creatures be subtle enough to include processes which transcend competition - altruism, charity, generosity. How can it explain the diversity of customs and mores in different cultures? Providing such explanations is, I take it, a large part of the project of the new Darwinian sciences, in particular, Darwinian psychology. It seems to me to be approaching things the wrong way up to look for Darwinian explanations for the subtleties and complexities of human relations when literature, philosophy, analytical psychology and other cultural approaches evoke and explore them so well. Perhaps I should say, rather, that it seems wrong-headed to me to offer Darwinian explanations as superior to, or as replacements for, traditional explorations of such matters in the arts. It may be, of course, that evolution explains humanity and all its works, but we must still find a way of paying due respect to established forms of reflection on human nature and not run headlong into a single explanatory paradigm. This point becomes an urgent one when science gains access to the mechanisms for altering genetic processes and begins to allow us to reconstruct the genomes and achieve cloning of other species and ourselves. It is too easy to collapse the issues involved and to allow too much authority to scientists in the debates which it is appropriate and urgent for us to have about these matters. There is also a common elision which needs to be avoided. It is sometimes thought or implied that since evolution can, in principle, explain everything human, then evolutionists - by which I mean biological scientists - have special insights and authority across all of knowledge. I find this implied in the aggressive stances taken up by some (not all) of the public spokespersons of science. I have in mind, for example, Richard Dawkins and Louis Wolpert, both of whom strike me as delighting in putting down people whose disciplines they assert are made less important and even a waste of time by developments in evolutionary science, e.g., philosophy, history and philosophy of science, cultural studies. There was a similar arrogance associated with positivism in earlier decades. It was said that there was science on the one hand and confusion on the other; testable hypotheses on the one and muddle on the other, logic on the one and poetry on the other. A whole series of dichotomies was posited with one side reliable and the other markedly less so: fact-value science-ideology nature-culture science-arts primary qualities-secondary qualities mechanism-purpose outer-inner rational-emotional My experience of certain biologists, molecular biologists and scientists who appear on the media and speak in a militant way is that they reproduce a version of this celebration of science at the expense of the rest of knowledge. It is my impression that some do this in a boyish, naughty, iconoclastic way. Two examples come to mind. The eminent molecular biologist Sydney (latterly Sir Sydney) Brenner, co-discoverer of the genetic alphabet, was a Felolow of King's College, Cambridge when I was. I invited a distinguisheed philosopher of science, Mary Hesse, to a college feast, and the person arranging the seating thought it interesting to put them next to each other. When they were introduced and Brenner asked her and was told what her field was, he replied, 'Haven't they would that up yet [i.e., closed the field because it's barren]?' I told this story in a television debate with Louis Wolpert at a point when he was denigrating scholars whose disciplines involved reflecting on science. His commment was, 'Quite right!'. Aside from the discourtesy to a college guest, I found this insolence on Brenner's and Wolpert's part characteristic. I have a similar impression from some of the speculations of Richard Dawkins who discusses religion as analogous to a virus and in one article let slip that he regarded culture in the same light. The implied subtext was that scientists might help us root out these infections and leave us with pure scientific rationality. These people may be right to defend themselves against the charge of being reductionists. However, it is not at all as obvious to me that they are not philistines. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:34:35 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jesper Hoffmeyer Subject: Re: some comments on the strengths & limits of Darwinian explanation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As often before Bob Young hits into the core. >there is a >huge problem which is left unresolved by evolution. If we take it to be an >all-embracing explanation of living, including human, phenomena, then it >includes human psychology, society and culture within the causal nexus of >deterministic scientific laws. If this is so, what is the basis for >morality? Morality presupposes values. How could natural selection create values in the middle of a world which posses no such thing? In the everyday use of the word selection a selector or at least a guiding principle is always presupposed, e.g. Webster gives the following on the word select: 'to choose in preference to another or others; pick out'. The strange thing about natural selection in the neo-Darwinian understanding is that it works without any kind of preferences, i.e. it is a misnomer: natural selection is not really a selection at all. Isn't this problem somehow very closely connected to the Humean intuition of the impossibility of drawing inferences from is to ought? Are there any philosophers who would comment on this? Since my time is running out for now, let me just add this: I think we cannot as biologists escape the need for finding precursors of human intentionality, morality, etc. in the pre-human world. But such precursors cannot be found if we do not allow some kind of "1. person singularis" like property to exist there. My own choice has been to try to see animate (perhaps even inanimate) nature as inherently semiotic. If we accept that biosemiosis is real (not in the Saussurian but in the in the Peircean sense), we get a very different biology - a biology which can connect human existence to the rest of the world. Especially we get another kind of theory of evolution See http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/biosem/hoffmeyr.html On the ethical problem: http://www.molbio.ku.dk/MolBioPages/abk/PersonalPages/Jesper/Bioethics.html *************************************************************** Jesper Hoffmeyer Institute of Molecular Biology The Biosemiotics Group University of Copenhagen Solvgade 83 DK 1307 Copenhagen K Denmark Tel (45) 3532 2032 Fax (45) 3532 2040 E-mail: hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk http://www.molbio.ku.dk/MolBioPages/abk/PersonalPages/Jesper/Hoffmeyer.html *************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 08:51:25 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: science and -isms X-To: Ian Pitchford In-Reply-To: <199801191154.LAA25795@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII REPLY: This is the heart of the problem. Can we make an objective evaluation of the facts in order to verify the validity or otherwise of empirical work whatever the social, political or other ideological preferences and prejudices of those involved. If the answer is "yes" then we can have some interesting debates about the explanatory power of rival hypotheses. If the answer is "no" then the consequence is solipsism and the negation of any observation or hypothesis whether social constructionist or realist. =========================================== I've asked this question before. It may have been answered, but I didn't understand. Anyway... Why is it that most arguments only seem to have two polar "sides"? These dichotomies seem so rigid. I would think that there may be another alternative that incorporates aspects of both sides and maybe even others. It seems that certain positions are held because of bias as much as facts. But I suppose that even the facts are filtered. I wasn't sure that I had understood Thomas Kuhn when he said that society contributes to the scientific evolutionary process, but only into acceptable directions for the society. At least until a Newton or an Einstein comes along. Are scientist today looking for new discoveries or just new ways to support today's consensus of theories? That is purely a rhetorical musing, but I have teachers that are trying to carve their limitations into my imagination. At least in my school anomalies are treated as lepers, but in my school tenure is the golden apple. I've been following the bio-war discussion closely, not that I understand what is going on, but still I learn a lot. At least I can come to grips with my vast ignorance and still be comfortable. I hope that I don't start to think that I take a position prematurely, but I suppose that the day will come when I will be defending my own intellectual turf, but that day is not this day... Pat O'Brien ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:11:53 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: science and -isms X-To: Ian Pitchford In-Reply-To: <199801191154.GAA15579@u1.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Val Dusek writes: > Dusek continues: > > I agree. Human universals and plasticity thereof are presuably > evolutionarily influenced. Don't assume, like Ehrenreich, that anyone > who criticizes present, biased formulations in sob and evolutionary > psychology, denies any biological aspect of human nature. Ehrenreich assumes no such thing. What she confronted was a tribe of people who literally believe that anything that proceeds from science, especially when it embodies uncongenial conclusions, is nothing more than a fiction. Ehrenreich has done plenty of work on her own criticizing "biological" rationales for social inequities. But she was horrified to discover, among her presumed ideological allies, people who are literally pre-scientific in the way they look at the world. Presently, I shall post to this group a copy of a conference announcement fro U. California, Santa Cruz, inaugurating a campaign against "left conservativism" of which Ehrenreich, like Sokal, is presumed to be an exemplar. (I, personally, am presumed to be beyond the pale--I don't even rate as a left conservative). > ============================================== > That Fuller (as well as Collins and Pinch) have claimed that citizens > can often make informed decisions about science and technology issues > without total knowledge of the technical details is not a plea for or > praise of ignorance. Often citizens make more accurate judgements of, > i.e., cancer clusters near toxic waste dumps, than the > corporate-financed scientist-apologists who have lots of technical > knowledge but strong motives to rationalize corporate beneficence. I doubt this is so, at least to the point of questioning the word "often." What does happen often is that clusters--even very tiny ones--trigger an assumption that some environmental evil must be at work. In other words, popular opinion is ill-attuned to the pedestrian statistical fact that in a randomly-distributed phenomenon, "clusters" will always appear, without being connected to any local causitive factor. When opinion is aroused on the basis of clusters (or even rumors thereof) it's not only "corporate-funded scientist-apologists" who go unheeded, it's anyone however disinterested who criticises the notion that dirt work must be afoot. See, for instance, current controversies on low freq. EMF's microwave relays, cellular phones, etc. The tragic fact is that the susceptibility of the general public to the crudest kind of post hoc ergo propter hoc logic, and the most extravagant inferrrences from weak anecdotal evidence, sabotages the hope of a responsible and effective mobilization of political forces to deal with real dangers--people are too busy chasing phantoms, at any given moment. Presumably, this wouldn't disturb the Fuller/Collins/Pinch mafia, who think that scientific knowledge--including understanding of elementary statistics--is illusory. > > Apparently the very study of institutionalized science (as opposed to > normative science) as a religion is somehow ridiculous to Ian. The study of institutionalized "social theory" as a religion terrifies the apostles of that theory, as I can testify from ample personal experience. > > Again, in the case of evolutionary psychology, the field is so rife > with bad metaphor used as explanation, that analysis of metaphor is > particularly relevant, moreso, say than in particle physics and > cosmology, where the metaphors certainly appear, but are relatively > superficial in relation to the theory (free lunch, inflationary > universe, WIMPS and MACHOs, etc.). > ======= It's silly to confuse whimsicality with metaphor, as in the case of physics. Metaphor is pretty useless for mathematical science at that level of abstraction. Moreover, it should not be confused with analogy, something completely different. > > But in evol. psych. and sob the metaphors are often the bases of > models that guide theorizing and research. Talk about competition, > enterpreneurship, rape, homosexuality, prostitution, etc. etc. in the > animal (and plant) world are not merely for popularization (although > they play that role) but often are the models used in the theory > itself. I disagree and think this is a canard. Most people who work in these areas are quite capable of using terms with implicit ironic quote marks around them, and without letting the social resonances of terms (to the extent that they actually use such terms) influence their serious thinking about ethology. Moreover there is extensive awareness of the deep methodoolgical dangers of anthropomorphism, on the one hand, and the social dangers of extrapolating the behavioral patterns found in ants or aardvaarks to human society, on the other. The fact that its a human propensity to liven up professional jargon with colorful expressions is not evidence of deep cognitive or methodological defect. Nor is it evidence that metaphorical processes are at work. > > Just last night an ad for a US ABC-TV show on sex differences was > featured, suggesting that men are too violent to raise children and > women too delicate for certain jobs. Granted that network blurbsters spout nonsense in five-second promos, it has to be noted that the program in question was quite temperate and sensible on these issues, particularly in the final peroration of the producer/journalist, John Stoessel. If Dusek is alarmed by overwrought rhetoric, perhaps he ought to be a little more careful in deploying it himself. Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:30:34 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: MH, TJK, technology X-To: Jiri Wackermann In-Reply-To: <199801191318.IAA25589@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 19 Jan 1998, Jiri Wackermann wrote: > > [1] Referring to the prologue to this discussion (not quoted here), in my opinion > Edmund Husserl definitely deserves the honorable title of a "mathematician", > not merely for his formal training and achievement, but mainly for his ideal of > philosophy as a rigorous science ("Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft"). > Btw, would you say about Wittgenstein he was a mathematician? > According to my understanding of that word, he was; even if his notes > on foundations of mathematics haven't influenced mathematics that much, > as far as I know, and remain rather mysterious lecture for most of them (and, > admittedly, for me too). As mathematicians use the term, Husserl would not be considered a member of the tribe. Perhaps this reflects the fact that it is a "deformation professionelle" not to worry very much about philosophy, period. But to the extent that mathematics has a tradition of philosophical concern about foundations, the important figures would not include Husserl. A few specimen names: Poincare, Hilbert, Cantor, Dedekind, Frege,Russell & Whitehead, Fraenkel, Brouwere, Tarski, Turing, Bishop, Quine, Wang, Robinson. But by and large, as a formal branch of the subject, "foundations" has lost much of its philosophical passion, and is largely of technical interest, like topology, differential geometry, several comlex variables, commutative algebra, and all that other nonsense. In fact, I should say that the armamentarium of techniques once devoted to "foundational" questions is now being applied to stuff like complexity of computation and the P = NP problem. Many "logicians" have become, in effect, theoretical computer scientists. > > [3] During the process of elaborating an "eidos" of a mathematician, Ted > Kaczynski was introduced to the scene. I wonder why this _extremely > improtant_ affair haven't been discussed earlier on these pages. I agree > that the Manifesto is "a fairly intelligent text", even more than that. But > >Maybe it is interesting to compare and contrast > >Heidegger and Ted Kaczynski? Well, they both seem to be rather intelligent and thoroughly nasty men! As to whether Kaczynski's association has any bearing on his peculiar hobbies--I rather doubt it. You will find the same spectrum of human peculiarities among mathematicians as among any other large social group. The only thing they have in common, as a general rule, is interest and ability in mathematics. I note that I was at Harvard at the same time as Kaczynski. I knew most of the serious math majors, at least to say hello to, but never heard of him. I've met some people who lived down the hall from him at Eliott House, a Harvard undergrad residence; they didn't know anything about him either. Most interestingly, my Harvard roommate was a math post-doc at Michigan while Kaczynski was finishing up his thesis, and then an ass't prof at Berkeley exactly contemporaneiously with K. He didn't know anything at all about the man, either--he doesn't recall ever having met him. Pretty clearly K. was a very odd person and a recluse from the beginning of his adult life, at least. As to Wittgenstein's relation to mathematics--well hsi book on "Foundations," whatever its value, seems uninteresting to mathematicians, Presumably, W. had a serious mathematics background; he was initially trained as an engineer, and worked with Russell when Bertie was still highly concerned about the formalization of mathematics and the Hilbert program still seemed viable. However, recent biographers claim that later on, Wittgenstein didn't even understand the Godel result--somewhat odd for a man with a background in formal systems. Once you see the point, Godel's theorem is not terribly intimidating as technical mathematics. So it Wittgenstein really didn't understand--as opposed to being indifferent--it doesn't speak at all welll for his mathematical talent. Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 13:12:52 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Conference on "Left Conservaatism" (by "Left Scholastics") MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Left Conservatism A Workshop January 31, 1998 College 8, Room 240 1:00-5:30 Jonathan Arac, Paul Bov=E9, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Joseph Buttigieg A spectre is haunting U.S. intellectual life: the spectre of Left Conservatism. Within academia and without, in events such as the Sokal affair, in the anti-theory polemics in The Nation and the Socialist Review , in work by authors such as Katha Pollit, Alan Sokal, and Barbara Ehrenreich, there is evidence of a phenomenon that might properly be labeled Left Conservativism: that is, an attack by "real" leftists on those portrayed as theory-mongering, hyper-professional, obscurantist pseudo-leftists. Left Conservatism's hostility to the anti-foundationalist theoretical work of the 1980s and 1990s shares features with left opposition to the radical anti-rationalist politics of the 1960s. The current polemics bring to the fore long unresolved questions about how the left conceives the nature and stakes of critical work, over the past fifty years and into the future. There seems to be at present an attempt at consensus-building among Left Conservatives that is founded on notions of the real, and of the appropriate language with which to analyze it. We can see, in the work of some of the writers listed above and in other work, claims for a certain kind of empiricism, for common sense, for linguistic transparency. Post-structuralist thought, often lumped together in all its varieties, is in the Left Conservative view guilty not only of its own intellectual failings, but of taking a wrong turn for left analysis in general. Left Conservativism challenges post-structuralists' left credentials on a variety of fronts, but a recurrent position is the claim for the incompatibility between anti-foundationalism and a political agenda predicated on real claims for social justice. If everything-class, race, gender, poverty, alienation- is "constructed," what is the real basis for political activism? This attack on anti-foundationalism and what is perceived as a disabling relativism, however, often brings Left Conservativism toward an uneasy convergence with anti-relativists on the right. What does it mean, then, when Barbara Ehrenreich and Roger Kimball (author of Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Higher Education) make similar critiques? What does it mean when Alan Sokal, an avowed leftist, finds inspiration in Paul Gross and Norman Levitt's Higher Superstition : The Academic Left And Its Quarrels With Science, an openly anti-left polemic? A discussion of the stakes in this division is important and timely. U.S. university humanities departments are among the few locations in this country where critical analysis of society, culture, thought, and ideology takes place, and the attacks on critical theory are not without effect. Identifying Left Conservatism, and discussing its historical, political, ideological, and theoretical character, is the focus of this one-day workshop at UC Santa Cruz. The workshop is structured to encourage discussion and debate. There will be considerable time for discussion following the participants' presentations. Participants Jonathan Arac is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, and writes on problems in the historical and comparative study of culture, literature and criticism. He has edited or co-edited several books, including Postmodernism and Politics and Consequences of Theory. He is author of Critical Genealogies : Historical Situations for Postmodern Literary Studies and the recently published Huckleberry Finn as Idol and Target : The Functions of Criticism in Our Time. Paul A. Bov=E9 is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, and Editor of boundary 2, an international journal of literature and culture. The author of several books on culture, modernity, poetry, and the intellectual, including Destructive Poetics : Heidegger and Modern American Poetry; Intellectuals in Power : A Genealogy of Critical Humanism, and Mastering Discourse : The Politics of Intellectual Culture, Professor Bov= =E9 is now completing a book on Henry Adams as well as a collection of essays called The End of Thinking. Wendy Brown is Professor of Women's Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Visting Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and has published widely on feminist political theory, masculinity, identity politics, and power. Her publications include States Of Injury : Power And Freedom In Late Modernity and Manhood And Politics : A Feminist Reading In Political Theory. Judith Butler is Professor of Comparative Literature and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a theorist of power, gender, sexuality, and identity. Her books include Bodies That Matter : On The Discursive Limits Of "Sex"; Excitable Speech : A Politics Of The Performative; Gender Trouble : Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity , and The Psychic Life Of Power : Theories In Subjection. Joseph Buttigieg is Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, and writes on the intersections of culture and politics in Europe from the late nineteenth century to the present time. His books include A Portrait Of The Artist In Different Perspective, on James Joyce, and Criticism Without Boundaries : Directions And Crosscurrents In Postmodern Critical Theory. A prominent Gramsci scholar, he has edited and translated the first complete critical edition of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 18:46:46 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: biologism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >From: "Richard Hull" >Organization: Manchester University and UMIST >To: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE-request@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU >Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 12:42:44 GMT >Subject: biologism >Priority: normal >Ian - and others in this (now rather tedious and paranoid) debate - >can you spot the contradiction in the following extract from Ian's >posting? > > >The power and authority of social >> constructionists, who occupy so many highly-paid and prestigious >> professorships, would be deeply undermined by the requirement that >> they actually learn some science. Hence, rather than any attempt to >> consider the evidence, we have the authoritarian, anti-intellectual >> campaign to stigmatize individuals by constituting the labels >> 'sociobiologist', 'reductionist' and 'positivist' as terms of abuse. > >So, what is the difference between the labels of 'social >constructionist', and 'sociobiologist' or 'positivist'? >Regards, >Richard >____________________________________________________________________ >Richard Hull CRIC (ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation & >Competition) Tom Lupton Suite, University Precinct Centre University >of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9QH Tel: +44 (0)161 275 >7364 Fax: 7361 email: Richard.Hull@umist.ac.uk >http://les.man.ac.uk/cric/ >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >____________________________________________________________________ >Richard Hull >CRIC (ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation & Competition) >Tom Lupton Suite, University Precinct Centre >University of Manchester >Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9QH >Tel: +44 (0)161 275 7364 Fax: 7361 >email: Richard.Hull@umist.ac.uk >http://les.man.ac.uk/cric/ >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 14:20:17 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: science and -isms In-Reply-To: <199801191154.GAA05545@mail1.panix.com> from "Ian Pitchford" at Jan 19, 98 11:51:06 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > means. Dawkins never talks about people being controlled by genes and > his works always assert the supremacy of culture in human life. I ! > the professional interests of those who would seek to establish an > artificial 'social science' independent of biological and > evolutionary theory. The power and authority of social > constructionists, who occupy so many highly-paid and prestigious > professorships, would be deeply undermined by the requirement that > they actually learn some science. Hence, rather than any attempt to > consider the evidence, we have the authoritarian, anti-intellectual > campaign to stigmatize individuals by constituting the labels > 'sociobiologist', 'reductionist' and 'positivist' as terms of abuse. > > Regards > > Ian > I may be authoritarian, anti-intellectual, abusive, etc., but genetic determinism and genetic reductionism are apt descriptions of some people's thought. For example, E.O. Wilson wrote - I believe in Ruse and Wilson's essay "The Evolution of Ethics" - that if you raised children from infancy in complete isolation from all human contact they would independently recreate all the essentials of human society. In the same essay, they state that our ethical beliefs are not knowledge, but a "shared illusion" foisted on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. I'll point out that the idea that the human genome plays some role in human behavior, perhaps even in some way constrains human social forms, is not especially controversial. Perhaps a fear of spiders is genetic, for example. Or the deep structure of language. I don't see anyone arguing for "universal human plasticity" - to use a phrase that appeared here - although I could do it: after all, humans may someday have the ability to transform their own genome... What's at issue is whether our evolutionary psychologist friends have anything useful to tell us about the genetic basis of human behavior and society. In particular, genetics deals with differences, and it may well be that the differences among human cultures have no genetic basis, and what is held in common results from the common circumstances of human life or similarities in natural environments or technology or cultural diffusion, or it may be what is common to all cultures may be trivial or at uselessly high level of generality. Really, just discover something useful, provide some evidence, instead of complaining about how you're persecuted! You haven't even tried on this mailing list: just crib something from Evolutionary Psychology or the Mankind Quarterly and present it as one of sociobiology's concrete achievements. I probably wouldn't bother to check... By the way, someone oddly brought up fingerprints, blood vessel patterns, etc. They are examples of developmental noise. The differences among fingerprint patterns are the result of random events during development, and have no genetic basis. Where there is no inheritable genetic variation, natural selection cannot act; genetic evolution cannot occur. Also, that person spoke of thousand of genes acting together in complicated developmental pathways, with countless environmental cues, including but not limited to cultural interactions: that is essentially conceding defeat, since that is the position of the "environmentalists": determining the role of the genome is at present intractable. It is difficult enough to study the phenotypic effects of a single gene, or elucidate its evolutionary history. Try that first, before you start trying to explain the human brain. Comments about societies' inability to transform themselves hardly seems relevant. I could not change, say, ancient Babylonians into modern Trobriand Islanders, but the diversity of human cultures and societies is prima facie evidence that many different social arrangements and cultural forms are possible within the human species. I could go one endlessly, but I'll let the defenders of science and reason have the last word. There is no point to the discussion. Nothing I say will effect their beliefs, and this anti-intellectual authoritarian has nothing to learn from them. I will attach an article - not written by me - on one the more annoying effects of Dawkins' writings, introducing conceptual confusion about what is a gene. From: svetlov@oncology.wisc.edu (Vladimir Svetlov) Date: 1997/09/19 Message-ID: Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins In article , jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) wrote: > : books again... There is genetic definition of gene and frivolous ones, > : that's all. No ethological definition, no agricultural, no green-grocer > : definition of gene, nothing of that kind. Genes are defined genetically and > : have a molecular basis and a phenotypic expression. The rest is misuse of > : proper terminology affording such pearls as "gay gene", "obesity gene" etc. > > OK, then let's deconstruct Dawkins who defines: I know that Dawkins has his following and, being openly (and very vocally) atheistic, he became a sorta flagman of great many evolutionists, but for me he is about half way between Ayala and Martha Stewart... > "GENE -- A unit of heredity. May be defined in different ways for different > purposes. Molecular biologists usually employ it in the sense of a > cistron. Population biologists sometimes use it in a more abstract sense. > Following Williams, I sometimes use the term gene to mean 'that which > segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency', and as 'any > hereditary information for which there is a favorable or unfavorable > selection bias equal to or several or many times its rate of endogenous > change'." Cistron is not a molecular biological definition, from the term itself the origin in classical genetics is obvious. What molecular biologists/geneticists often do nowdays is to use knowledge of molecular basis of genes/cistrons to define the latter from sequence, rather than from function. Meaning, since material base of most segregatable traits appears to be protein coding sequences, designated as ORFs, every potential ORF becomes a potential gene. The second definition is clearly an abstraction, derived from pop. genetics, and not extremely applicable to the great variety of non-essential genes, pleiotropic genes and others, whose effects are not trivially discernable. > > : molecular genetics of the 90's. If I wanted to find two constrasting > : methodologies in contemporary genetics I'd recall genome-wide quantitative > : analysis of all expressed genes dependent on growth or signalling > : conditions and evolutionary developmental genetics of Hox and Pax genes, > : allowing to experimentally address > : appearance of complex structures and organs such as eyes in different > : phyla. > > What reading can you suggest regarding genome-wide quantitative analysis > of all expressed genes dependent on growth or signalling conditions? A representative of methodologies used and results obtained is the paper by Velculescu et al., "Characterization of the yeast transcriptome". Cell, 1997, 88(2):243-251. Another approach is illustrated in paper by Richard et al., titled "Complete transcriptional map of yeast chromosome XI in different life conditions", appearing in JMB, 1997, 268(2):303-321. Yet another can be found in the work by Smith et al., "Functional analysis of the genes of yeast chromosome V by genetic footprinting", Science, 1996, 274(5295):2069-2074. Finally, a completely hands-off/brains-on approach to genomic research is examplified by the work of Koonin and Mushegian, such as "A minimal gene set for cellular life derived by comparison of complete bacterial genomes" in PNAS, 1996, 93(19):10268-10273. Regards, V. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:16:14 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: science and -isms In-Reply-To: <199801191920.OAA29677@u3.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 19 Jan 1998, Paul Gallagher wrote: > > By the way, someone oddly brought up fingerprints, blood vessel > patterns, etc. They are examples of developmental noise. The differences > among fingerprint patterns are the result of random events during > development, and have no genetic basis. Where there is no inheritable > genetic variation, natural selection cannot act; genetic evolution cannot > occur. That was me. This kind of dichotomous reasoning is perfectly silly. The point is that the "noise" occurs within constraints that are hereditable! To put it oanother way, there are trillions of merely adventitious events determining the neuroanatomical development of the body--but identical twins wind up looking remarkably alike! > Also, that person spoke of thousand of genes acting together in > complicated developmental pathways, with countless environmental cues, > including but not limited to cultural interactions: that is essentially > conceding defeat, since that is the position of the "environmentalists": > determining the role of the genome is at present intractable. It is difficult > enough to study the phenotypic effects of a single gene, or elucidate its > evolutionary history. Try that first, before you start trying to explain the > human brain. Again, this is a perverse dichotomization. It suggests that, in order to prove hereditability of something, you must first reveal precisely how it is encoded in the genome, and then go on to elucidate, in detail, the casscade of morpholoigcal events that is set in train by the genetic configuration. This is trivially refutable. To show something is hereditable, one merely must show that it is hereditable--period. For instance, our ideas about the precise ways in which antomical morphogenesis is differentiated between males an females are, to put it bluntly, incomplete--but does anyone doubt that the differences are genetically determined? If I suggest that the children of almost all West African parents will have dark skins, I am making a (correct) prediction about inheritability of traits without having the foggiest idea of the developmental pathways that determine production of cutaneous melanin. To prove something is genetically "determined," or at least constrained within limits, requires absolutely NO knowledge of mechanisms at the level of nuclear DNA (as thousands of generations of plant and animal breeders demonstrate)! Sometimes, for some genes, phenotypical events can be traced, but this is quite exceptional for single genes, and is utterly irrelevant to the question. > > Comments about societies' inability to transform themselves hardly seems > relevant. I could not change, say, ancient Babylonians into modern Trobriand > Islanders, but the diversity of human cultures and societies is prima facie > evidence that many different social arrangements and cultural forms are > possible within the human species. Of course, which not even the most passionately determinsistic sociobiologist denies!! The other side of the coin is the existence of cross cultural universals--e.g., body language and gestures (shared, to a certain extent, by higher primates). The prima facie case here is for genetic determination. The question, then, is how many such cultural invariants there are. The evidence for them can be overwhelming without containing any account of "genes" or morphogenetic pathways or any account of how neuroanatomy corresponds to cognitive function. This doesn't mean that genetic and embryological questions are uninteresting--far from it. The point is that a sociobiologist need give no account of these to establish the sociobiological point. > I could go one endlessly, but I'll let the defenders of science and > reason have the last word. There is no point to the discussion. Nothing > I say will effect their beliefs, and this anti-intellectual > authoritarian has nothing to learn from them. The lack of efficacy of your rhetoric is duly noted, but it does not result from the causes you impute. NL ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 23:05:29 +0000 Reply-To: Ian.Pitchford@Scientist.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: science and -isms In-Reply-To: <199801191917.OAA00927@wilma.globecomm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ian Pitchford wrote: > the professional interests of those who would seek to establish an > artificial 'social science' independent of biological and > evolutionary theory. The power and authority of social > constructionists, who occupy so many highly-paid and prestigious > professorships, would be deeply undermined by the requirement that > they actually learn some science. Hence, rather than any attempt to > consider the evidence, we have the authoritarian, anti-intellectual > campaign to stigmatize individuals by constituting the labels > 'sociobiologist', 'reductionist' and 'positivist' as terms of abuse. =========== Ian continues: REPLY: I thought that this attempt to parody the social constructionist viewpoint would strike everyone as completely obvious, especially since I keep referring to the Sokal hoax, but apparently not, as Paul Gallagher proves: ===== I may be authoritarian, anti-intellectual, abusive, etc., but genetic determinism and genetic reductionism are apt descriptions of some people's thought. For example, E.O. Wilson wrote - I believe in Ruse and Wilson's essay "The Evolution of Ethics" - that if you raised children from infancy in complete isolation from all human contact they would independently recreate all the essentials of human society. In the same essay, they state that our ethical beliefs are not knowledge, but a "shared illusion" foisted on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. I'll point out that the idea that the human genome plays some role in human behavior, perhaps even in some way constrains human social forms, is not especially controversial. Perhaps a fear of spiders is genetic, for example. Or the deep structure of language. I don't see anyone arguing for "universal human plasticity" - to use a phrase that appeared here - although I could do it: after all, humans may someday have the ability to transform their own genome... What's at issue is whether our evolutionary psychologist friends have anything useful to tell us about the genetic basis of human behavior and society. In particular, genetics deals with differences, and it may well be that the differences among human cultures have no genetic basis, and what is held in common results from the common circumstances of human life or similarities in natural environments or technology or cultural diffusion, or it may be what is common to all cultures may be trivial or at uselessly high level of generality. Really, just discover something useful, provide some evidence, instead of complaining about how you're persecuted! You haven't even tried on this mailing list: just crib something from Evolutionary Psychology or the Mankind Quarterly and present it as one of sociobiology's concrete achievements. I probably wouldn't bother to check... By the way, someone oddly brought up fingerprints, blood vessel patterns, etc. They are examples of developmental noise. The differences among fingerprint patterns are the result of random events during development, and have no genetic basis. Where there is no inheritable genetic variation, natural selection cannot act; genetic evolution cannot occur. Also, that person spoke of thousand of genes acting together in complicated developmental pathways, with countless environmental cues, including but not limited to cultural interactions: that is essentially conceding defeat, since that is the position of the "environmentalists": determining the role of the genome is at present intractable. It is difficult enough to study the phenotypic effects of a single gene, or elucidate its evolutionary history. Try that first, before you start trying to explain the human brain. Comments about societies' inability to transform themselves hardly seems relevant. I could not change, say, ancient Babylonians into modern Trobriand Islanders, but the diversity of human cultures and societies is prima facie evidence that many different social arrangements and cultural forms are possible within the human species. I could go one endlessly, but I'll let the defenders of science and reason have the last word. There is no point to the discussion. Nothing I say will effect their beliefs, and this anti-intellectual authoritarian has nothing to learn from them. I will attach an article - not written by me - on one the more annoying effects of Dawkins' writings, introducing conceptual confusion about what is a gene. From: svetlov@oncology.wisc.edu (Vladimir Svetlov) Date: 1997/09/19 Message-ID: Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins In article , jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) wrote: > : books again... There is genetic definition of gene and frivolous ones, > : that's all. No ethological definition, no agricultural, no green-grocer > : definition of gene, nothing of that kind. Genes are defined genetically and > : have a molecular basis and a phenotypic expression. The rest is misuse of > : proper terminology affording such pearls as "gay gene", "obesity gene" etc. > > OK, then let's deconstruct Dawkins who defines: I know that Dawkins has his following and, being openly (and very vocally) atheistic, he became a sorta flagman of great many evolutionists, but for me he is about half way between Ayala and Martha Stewart... > "GENE -- A unit of heredity. May be defined in different ways for different > purposes. Molecular biologists usually employ it in the sense of a > cistron. Population biologists sometimes use it in a more abstract sense. > Following Williams, I sometimes use the term gene to mean 'that which > segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency', and as 'any > hereditary information for which there is a favorable or unfavorable > selection bias equal to or several or many times its rate of endogenous > change'." Cistron is not a molecular biological definition, from the term itself the origin in classical genetics is obvious. What molecular biologists/geneticists often do nowdays is to use knowledge of molecular basis of genes/cistrons to define the latter from sequence, rather than from function. Meaning, since material base of most segregatable traits appears to be protein coding sequences, designated as ORFs, every potential ORF becomes a potential gene. The second definition is clearly an abstraction, derived from pop. genetics, and not extremely applicable to the great variety of non-essential genes, pleiotropic genes and others, whose effects are not trivially discernable. > > : molecular genetics of the 90's. If I wanted to find two constrasting > : methodologies in contemporary genetics I'd recall genome-wide quantitative > : analysis of all expressed genes dependent on growth or signalling > : conditions and evolutionary developmental genetics of Hox and Pax genes, > : allowing to experimentally address > : appearance of complex structures and organs such as eyes in different > : phyla. > > What reading can you suggest regarding genome-wide quantitative analysis > of all expressed genes dependent on growth or signalling conditions? A representative of methodologies used and results obtained is the paper by Velculescu et al., "Characterization of the yeast transcriptome". Cell, 1997, 88(2):243-251. Another approach is illustrated in paper by Richard et al., titled "Complete transcriptional map of yeast chromosome XI in different life conditions", appearing in JMB, 1997, 268(2):303-321. Yet another can be found in the work by Smith et al., "Functional analysis of the genes of yeast chromosome V by genetic footprinting", Science, 1996, 274(5295):2069-2074. Finally, a completely hands-off/brains-on approach to genomic research is examplified by the work of Koonin and Mushegian, such as "A minimal gene set for cellular life derived by comparison of complete bacterial genomes" in PNAS, 1996, 93(19):10268-10273. Regards, V. ******************************************************************************** Ian Pitchford - Email Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Ph.D. Student in Theoretical Psychopathology Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies University of Sheffield, 16 Claremont Crescent SHEFFIELD, S10 2TA, United Kingdom. Tel: 0114 222 2961 Fax: 0114 270 0619 ******************************************************************************** Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Online Dictionary of Mental Health http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/index.html Mental Health Metasearch http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/metasearch.html InterPsych: Mental Health Debate on the Internet http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/InterPsych/inter.html ******************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 15:22:51 +-800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: 22 Subject: unsubscribe MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BD257B.1FFFB9E0" ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD257B.1FFFB9E0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit unsubscribe ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD257B.1FFFB9E0 Content-Type: application/ms-tnef Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 eJ8+IhIAAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAENgAQAAgAAAAIAAgABBJAG AGwBAAABAAAADAAAAAMAADADAAAACwAPDgAAAAACAf8PAQAAAGMAAAAAAAAAgSsfpL6jEBmdbgDd AQ9UAgAAAABTY2ktQ3VsdCAgU2NpZW5jZS1hcy1DdWx0dXJlAFNNVFAAU0NJRU5DRS1BUy1DVUxU VVJFQE1BRUxTVFJPTS5TVEpPSE5TLkVEVQAAHgACMAEAAAAFAAAAU01UUAAAAAAeAAMwAQAAACkA AABTQ0lFTkNFLUFTLUNVTFRVUkVATUFFTFNUUk9NLlNUSk9ITlMuRURVAAAAAAMAFQwBAAAAAwD+ DwYAAAAeAAEwAQAAAB8AAAAnU2NpLUN1bHQgIFNjaWVuY2UtYXMtQ3VsdHVyZScAAAIBCzABAAAA LgAAAFNNVFA6U0NJRU5DRS1BUy1DVUxUVVJFQE1BRUxTVFJPTS5TVEpPSE5TLkVEVQAAAAMAADkA AAAACwBAOgEAAAACAfYPAQAAAAQAAAAAAAADPkYBCIAHABgAAABJUE0uTWljcm9zb2Z0IE1haWwu Tm90ZQAxCAEEgAEADAAAAHVuc3Vic2NyaWJlAKUEAQWAAwAOAAAAzgcBABMADwAWADMAAQBCAQEg gAMADgAAAM4HAQATAA8AFQAwAAEAPgEBCYABACEAAAAxMEFENkNDMEQwOTBEMTExOURDQzAwMDBF ODBCNDk4QQAeBwEDkAYAqAEAABIAAAALACMAAAAAAAMAJgAAAAAACwApAAAAAAADADYAAAAAAEAA OQAgsFcNqyS9AR4AcAABAAAADAAAAHVuc3Vic2NyaWJlAAIBcQABAAAAFgAAAAG9JKsMjsBsrRGQ 0BHRncwAAOgLSYoAAB4AHgwBAAAABQAAAFNNVFAAAAAAHgAfDAEAAAAaAAAAd2p4aWFAeWt5LTIw LndyaXB0LmVkdS5jbgAAAAMABhAKE+hDAwAHEAsAAAAeAAgQAQAAAAwAAABVTlNVQlNDUklCRQAC AQkQAQAAAJEAAACNAAAADQEAAExaRnX8lohR/wAKAQ8CFQKoBesCgwBQAvIJAgBjaArAc2V0MjcG AAbDAoMyA8UCAHByQnER4nN0ZW0CgzN3AuQHEwKAfQqACM8J2TvxFg8yNTUCgAqBDbELYOBuZzEw MxRQCwoUUSUL8mMAQCB1AIB1YlkE8mJlGc0TUG8T0GMXBUAKhRUxAB3AAAAAAwAQEAAAAAADABEQ AAAAAEAABzDA3bnnqiS9AUAACDDA3bnnqiS9AR4APQABAAAAAQAAAAAAAADAWQ== ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD257B.1FFFB9E0-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 20:58:00 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: science and -isms In-Reply-To: <199801192118.QAA10755@mail1.panix.com> from "Norman Levitt" at Jan 19, 98 04:16:14 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Again, this is a perverse dichotomization. It suggests that, in order to > prove herreditability of something, you must first reveal precisely how it > is encoded in the genome, and then go on to elucidate, in detail, the > casscade of morpholoigcal events that is set in train by the genetic > configuration. This is trivialy refutable. To show something is > hereditable, one merely must show that it is hereditable--period. For I did say you could have the last word, but I want to make the (to me) rather obvious point that establishing the inheritance of human behavior isn't a trivial matter (made worse by misunderstandings about the differences among heritability, parent-child correlation, norm of reaction, etc.) - but apart from that, evolutionary psychologists attempt to provide adaptive scenarios for the evolution of these traits: that is why the topics I discussed, such as developmental noise and multigenic traits, were relevant. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of articles have appeared on this subject, as you must know. An obvious reference is Gould and Lewontin's Spandrels of San Marco paper, (which by the way refers to Huxley's mocking Wallace for his hypotheses about the adaptive significance of fingerprints), although any population genetics text will do. Another good source is Keywords in Evolutionary Biology, ed. by Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth A. Lloyd, for all of the issues discussed in this thread. By the way, are our sociobiologist friends familiar with the Quarterly Review of Biology article, "The Spaniels of St. Marx," and the works of Beverly Halstead? If you're looking for relentless denunciations of Gould, Lewontin, et al., Halstead's your man. Try him rather than the mealy-mouthed Dawkins! Since you're a math professor, perhaps you could try Kimura's Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution or some of Stuart Kaufmann's work. If verbal arguments don't persuade you, perhaps their mathematical equations will. Here are some other critiques of adaptationism. Perhaps you've heard of them already, since they are well-known in the popular press. Lenski, R. E. and M. Travisano. "Dynamics of adaptation and diversification: A 10,000-generation experiment with bacterial populations." PNAS (91): 6808-6814. Plus the related articles in the 1995 volume, Tempo and Mode in Evolution: Genetics and Paleontology 50 years after Simpson. The discovery is that genetically identical populations of E. coli in identical environments subject to identical selection regimens evolve into different phenotypes. This should give pause to those who try to provide adaptive explanations of more complex traits over more variable selection regimens over larger numbers of generations. I also recommend highly: Amundson, R. "Trials and tribulations of selectionist explanations." In "Issues in Evolutionary Epistemology," ed. by K. Hahlweg and C.A. Hooker. Hartl, D. 1988. "Causes of Evolution." Chapter 2 from Primer for Population Genetics. Sinnaur Associates, Inc., Sunderland, MA. pp. 69-92. Amundson, R. "Two concepts of constraint: adaptationism and the challenge from developmental biology." Philosophy of science 61: 556-578. There are several related articles in the same volume. In short, I think each of the assumptions necessary for any reasonably robust sociobiological explanation of human society are in doubt: some of them are the buzzwords, cultural functionalism, genetic reductionism, and adaptationism, which are all necessary so that variation in human social forms can be subject to natural selection. I'll remind Mr. L of elementary biology: evolution due to natural selection requires heritable variation that causes differences in fitness. Now these will be my last words to Mr. L and Mr. I, forever! Though I will sorely tempted to reply when Mr. L puts me in my place with his speedy refutation of everything I've written (the mail he's sent to me personally isn the written equivalent of screaming in my ear), I promise! Paul ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 23:13:52 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: science and -isms In-Reply-To: <199801200158.UAA06457@u2.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 19 Jan 1998, Paul Gallagher wrote: > > I did say you could have the last word, but I want to make the (to me) > rather obvious point that establishing the inheritance of human behavior > isn't a trivial matter (made worse by misunderstandings about the differences > among heritability, parent-child correlation, norm of reaction, etc.) - but > apart from that, evolutionary psychologists attempt to provide adaptive > scenarios for the evolution of these traits: that is why the topics I > discussed, such as developmental noise and multigenic traits, were relevant. > > Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of articles have appeared on this subject, as > you must know. An obvious reference is Gould and Lewontin's Spandrels of > San Marco paper, (which by the way refers to Huxley's mocking Wallace for > his hypotheses about the adaptive significance of fingerprints), although > any population genetics text will do. The famous "Spandrels" paper, as you well know is hardly received as the magisteriqal last word by the community of evolutionary biologists--including population geneticists, > Another good source is Keywords in > Evolutionary Biology, ed. by Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth A. Lloyd, for > all of the issues discussed in this thread. My goodness--what ideological diversity in your sourcing. First, Lewontin (though at least addressing a technical point) and now Fox Keller and Lloyd. Well, I've had my say in print about Fox Keller, and she about me (see ACADEME, Nov./Dec. '96). Lloyd is a nominal philosopher with a substantial investment in that curious anomaly, "feminist epistemology." In that regard, see P.R. Gross's piece on Lloyd in the forthcoming "A House Built on Sand" (ed. N. Koertge, Oxford). Gross of course, is a bit of a biologist, having been responsible for elucidating the role of maternal messenger RNA in embryological development. As well, he spent many years as director of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. > By the way, are > our sociobiologist friends familiar with the Quarterly Review of Biology > article, "The Spaniels of St. Marx," and the works of Beverly Halstead? If > you're looking for relentless denunciations of Gould, Lewontin, et al., > Halstead's your man. Try him rather than the mealy-mouthed Dawkins! Why is it (I ask) that no one in the habit of going bananas at the most casual mention of sociobiology never goes after Gould for his famous "Mickey Mouse" article, which is as much a, which is as much a sociobiological just-so story (and fully as adaptationist) as any of them. > Since you're a math professor, perhaps you could try Kimura's Neutral > Theory of Molecular Evolution or some of Stuart Kaufmann's work. If > verbal arguments don't persuade you, perhaps their mathematical equations > will. The question here is the role of random genetic drift in bringing about distinct geneotypes in segregated populations of initially identifcal (or at least conspecific) organisms. It's an interesting question, and for complex organisms a difficult one. It's bearing on sociobiology is minimal. Let's remember, as a matter of elementary logic, that there are two distinct questions here: (1) Whether a given trait (possibly behavioral) in a species (possibly human, is biologically determined (in a suitably sophisticated sense, taking individual variation into account, etc.). (2) Whether a given adaptationist explanation of a trait found in an organism is the preferred explanation (as opposed, at the other extreme, to an ad hoc just-so story). Doubtless, many evolutionary tales, especially those told of hominidss, are in the latter category. (3) No one at any point in the spectrum of serious debate--that includes Gould and Lewontin--denies that adapatation is the major driving force in speciation. Indeed, if one sees a morphological specialization in a successor species of an ancestral trait, and that specialization plays a clear role in the viability of the creature in question, it would be perversity of the highest order to deny that classical selective pressure is responsible for the trait. Think of--well, Darwin's finches. NO ONE DISPUTES THIS. The question which has people at each other's throats is the relative importance of adaptation, strictu sensu, compared to other mechanisms, e.g., sexual selection and genetic drift. But, to say it once more, this is a side issue in the sociobiology debate, not a central question. Noter please that the Kimura paper talks of NEUTRAL mutations and the resulting divergence produced by genetic drift. Preservation of adaptive mutations (or eleimination of dysfunctional ones) is another question. I trust Kimura (and all your other cited sources) would agree that the development of strains of bacteria resistant to antibiotics is an the result of selection pressure and an adaptive mutation. > Here are some other critiques of adaptationism. Perhaps you've heard of > them already, since they are well-known in the popular press. > An absurd dichotomy is at least suggested here, viz., that a "critique" of adaptation amounts to a denial that adaptation is a driving force in speciation and evolution. Again, that isn't the issue. > Lenski, R. E. and M. Travisano. "Dynamics of adaptation and > diversification: A 10,000-generation experiment with bacterial > populations." PNAS (91): 6808-6814. > > Plus the related articles in the 1995 volume, Tempo and Mode in Evolution: > Genetics and Paleontology 50 years after Simpson. The discovery is that > genetically identical populations of E. coli in identical environments > subject to identical selection regimens evolve into different phenotypes. > This should give pause to those who try to provide adaptive explanations of > more complex traits over more variable selection regimens over larger > numbers of generations. > > I also recommend highly: > > Amundson, R. "Trials and tribulations of selectionist explanations." In > "Issues in Evolutionary Epistemology," ed. by K. Hahlweg and C.A. Hooker. > > Hartl, D. 1988. "Causes of Evolution." Chapter 2 from Primer for > Population Genetics. Sinnaur Associates, Inc., Sunderland, MA. pp. > 69-92. > > Amundson, R. "Two concepts of constraint: adaptationism and the challenge > from developmental biology." Philosophy of science 61: 556-578. There > are several related articles in the same volume. > > In short, I think each of the assumptions necessary for any reasonably > robust sociobiological explanation of human society are in doubt: Again, there are three separate issues which you seem to have a hard time keeping apart. (1) Are there biological traits with behavioral consequences which, in turn, have consequences for social organization, leading, in the final analysis, to what may reasoonably termed cultural universals. It's a tough one to assemble evidence for in any given case, but not hopelessly so? (2) Is there an adaptive explanation for the trait in question which involves selective feedback from viability of modes of social organization to reproductive success of individuals? (3) Is Prof. X's proposed explanation the correct one? Now note: The answer to (1) may be yes, even of traits which are not adaptive in the sense mooted in (2); lokewise, the failure of a given adaptive explanation does not mean that no adaptive explanation is possible. So: One could be a sociobiologist without being a partisan of the idea that adaptation acccounts for everything. Further, one need not be a genetic reductionist in the extreme sense implied (as I take it) below. In fact, I've never met anyone over the age of 3 who is a reductionist in this sense, and that includes Stephen Goldberg (author of "The Inevitability of Patriarchy" and "Why Men Rule"), Derek Freeman, and E.O. Wilson. > some > of them are the buzzwords, cultural functionalism, genetic reductionism, > and adaptationism, which are all necessary so that variation in human > social forms can be subject to natural selection. I'll remind Mr. L > of elementary biology: evolution due to natural selection requires > heritable variation that causes differences in fitness. Hey, stop the presses! What an insight! > > Now these will be my last words to Mr. L and Mr. I, forever! Though I > will sorely tempted to reply when Mr. L puts me in my place with his speedy > refutation of everything I've written (the mail he's sent to me personally isn > the written equivalent of screaming in my ear), I promise! > > > Paul > Mine too. As has been said on other occasions, THIS CORRESPONDENCE SHALL NOW CEASE. For my part, I've got to work up a syllabus for a course I'm about to teach, viz., Mathematical Models in Biology, including elements of population dynamics (including everyone's favorite, chaos in the evolution of the attractor set of the discrete logistic dynamical system, as driven by a Feigenbaum cascade), genetics, and population genetics, including Markov chains and perhaps a bit of random walk theory (though perhaps I'd b etter let Alan Sokal handle that for me, since that's his specialty;-)) NL ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 09:23:24 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Antonio Rossin Subject: Re: science and -isms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Paul Gallagher wrote: > > In short, I think each of the assumptions necessary for any > reasonably robust sociobiological explanation of human society > are in doubt: some of them are the buzzwords, cultural > functionalism, genetic reductionism, and adaptationism, which > are all necessary so that variation in human social forms can > be subject to natural selection. I'll remind Mr. Lof elementary > biology: evolution due to natural selection requires heritable > variation that causes differences in fitness. > > Paul, I didn't follow this subject so well, because of my young English lang, and my cultural background that isnt genetic or biology. I am a man in the street, who once realized himself having to become responsible for his child's first formative education. Let me say, and correct me please if necessary, I thought of my child as a subject of natural selection in a given environment; and of myself, as the agent able to modify, or change, the environmental pressure to my child's formative adaptation. I don't know how to describe that scenario with proper scientific terms; but I had very clear that scenario in my mind. I had focused on a particular character, to be positively fixed. It was the attitude to gregariousness and psycho-dependence for one's believing and behaving procedures on a ideal leader's consent - in opposition of course to its reverse, that is, Critical Thinking, autonomy, creativity. Actually, I wanted to lead the formative adaptation of the mind framework and self-consciousness in my child towards the utmost Critical Thinking, autonomy and creativity. Simply, the reason of such a parental endeavour was the awareness that the characteristics I wanted to select were basical to the primary prevention of the youth's disturbance, drug addiction and mental diseases too. To provide the suitable environmental pressure, I searched for the parental language patternings with educative aims. I realized that the utmost agreement between one and the other parent (or the significant other), that is, the "No-Contradiction Principle", could have led towards the gregarious, conservative personality, following the joined parental authority. Vice versa, the utmost dialectics and comparison within parental dialogues could allow authonomous thinking and creativity in the child - as the latter would have no forecast authority to agree with, because the family authorities being in reciprocal comparison - so the child was trained to "think DIY". Paul, I stop here, because I already enlarged this matter at and, moreover, because I dont know whether I am out of subject here in this List now. My point is, I am furiously searching for where this topic could be *in* within today's science and culture rooms... Thanks for your attention, antonio ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:01:38 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: science and -isms In-Reply-To: <199801200822.DAA24913@mail2.panix.com> from "Antonio Rossin" at Jan 20, 98 09:23:24 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Paul, I stop here, because I already enlarged this matter at > > and, moreover, because I dont know whether I am out of subject here in this > List now. > My point is, I am furiously searching for where this topic could be *in* > within today's science and culture rooms... > > Thanks for your attention, > > antonio > Do you know about Usenet? It has several discussion groups you might be interested in. There are several groups devoted to psychology, such as sci.psychology.misc. sci.psychology.theory, etc. Usually the company that provides your internet service also provides a "Usenet news feed," where you can read these articles with news reading software. For example, if you have Netscape, you can open the Communicator menu, then click on Collabra Discussion Groups. You may have to add the name of your news server - my guess is it's something like news.mripermedia.com. If you have an Internet shell account - where you type commands on a screen, instead of using software like Netscape or Internet Explorer, just type rn or nn or tin - usually they will be available to read Usenet news. But a really quick way to read and post to Usenet is to go to http://www.dejanews.com Just type in a few words related subject you're interested in, and you'll probably find something interesting. You can retrieve all the articles in a discussion group by typing in the name of the group, such as sci.psychology.research, and maybe one or two words on what you're interested in. You can also get a free account at dejanews that allows you to send articles to these news groups. Good luck! Paul ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 08:31:01 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: biologism In-Reply-To: <199801191904.OAA22981@mail1.panix.com> from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Jan 19, 98 06:46:46 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >I've lived in the Rocky Mountain area since 1973. >When I first came out here the large blackbirds (crows?) were hunters, >but these days they just seem to wait around for roadkill. >Pat O'Brien I've heard crows have been moving in to urban areas over the past 25 years. Apparently, people aren't sure why this is happening, but it seems to be happening all over the US. Paul ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:23:32 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: ARCHIVE1 Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Graffiti(German) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ladies and gentlemen, For those being able to discuss matters of youth,poverty and graffiti you may join a discussion. In case of interest mailto: echo@paritaet.org and put into text: subscribe graffiti.Informations on general matters mailto: echo@paritaet.orh and put into text:HELP yours Axel Thiel(coordination) int.work-group on graffiti-research http.//users.aol.com/archive1 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 17:17:54 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: ARCHIVE1 Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: German group Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sorry, I forget the group graffiti@paritaet.org being in German Axel Thiel Germany ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 21:20:10 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: MH, TJK, technology X-To: Jiri Wackermann MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jiri Wackermann wrote: > > [I took the freedom to change the "subject" field, this has nothing > to do with teaching algebra appropriately... jw] [snip] > It seems to me that Heidegger's criticism of technology-commited > civilization is rather superficial, based on vague feelings of "authenticity loss" > and "Being having been forgotten", etc. (Sorry, my ad hoc translations may differ > from official English edition). The problem of our world is not whether our thinking > and being fullfills academic criteria of an elderly Freiburger scholar; rather, the > problem is that the world is difficult to live in; and that's exactly where Kaczynski > begins. [snip] I think the problem with Heidegger is his "heroic" nihilism. His notion that persons should sacrifice their Dasein (AKA lives) to "the destiny of Being", etc. Of course, *he didn't do this* but rather lived the safe life of a Professor who could get into Lederhosen(sp?) whenever that somewhat unusual form of transvestitism excited him. To my knowledge, Husserl never encouraged persons to work themselves up into suicidal, irrational frenzies to find "authenticity", but rather was, or at least wanted to be, a philosopher of (to borrow a phrase from Solshenytzin(sp?):) the everyday life we must lead so long as we live under a peaceful sun. Husserl even addressed precisely this issue of the philosopher's role in troubled times. See my submission of a quote from the _Crisis_, in the December 1996 entry at: http://www.mesa.colorado.edu/~bobsand/hus_qold.html Heidegger and his soul-mate Ernst Junger(sp?): the glorification of blood and soil and the storm of steel.... lemmings avant! Let us each get into his Kamikazi plane, lock down the capopy, and take off on our mission into the strongest black hole we can find! Ad nihil! No, I, like you, cast my lot with Husserl (or Alfred Schutz, or my teacher John Wild). To once again quote Brecht's Galileo: Student: Happy the land which breeds a hero. Galileo: No! Unhappy the land that needs a hero. But today's news proved ye again that "wonders will never cease": It now appears that the American "unknown soldier" from the Vietnam War was constructed by destroying his identity papers.... \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:14:52 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: ANTHRO-L MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The sociobiology thread has probably become tedious for most people, but for those who can't get enough: the archives of the ANTHRO-L mailing list have many articles on the subject, most of them from 1994 and 1995. The archives are found at http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html Several prominent sociobiologists/evol. psychologists/behavioral ecologists participated: Jerome Barkow, Lee Cronk, and the famous JP Rushton. I noted that the label, "creationists," for the anti-sociobiologists predates the Nation article. Daly and Wilson used it back in 1987. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 06:23:40 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: History of Health Sciences web page X-cc: pgallagher@health.nyam.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The History of the Health Sciences Section of the Medical Library Association is pleased to announce that its World Wide Web home page is now on line. The page contains information about the section and its activities, plus an up-to-date list of web links in the history of the health sciences. The page may be accessed either through the Medical Library Association home page at: http://www.mlanet.org/ or directly at: http://www2.mc.duke.edu/misc/MLA/HHSS/hhss.htm Stephen Greenberg Patricia Gallagher History of Medicine Division, Library, New York National Library of Medicine Academy of Medicine Patricia E. Gallagher, MLS, AHIP pgallagher@nyam.org New York Academy of Medicine 212-822-7324 1216 Fifth Avenue 212-423-0266 (Fax) New York, NY 10029 __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 01:54:28 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: ARCHIVE1 Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: graffiti news Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ladies and gentlemen, Two more articles on graffiti online: http://www.graffiti.org/axel/axel_5.html(writers unconscious motivation) ............................................_6.html(lexical article) A.Thiel Germany ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 06:31:45 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: Norman Levitt MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Norman Levitt wrote: > > On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: > > On the other hand, naive empiricist > > realism is also wrong (and wrong-headed). Husserl was a mathematician, > > and > > Godel studied his works, e.g. _The Crisis of European Sciences and > > Transcendental Phenomenology_ remains, IMO, a text which our society > > has yet to absorb, or, a fortiori "advance beyond" (a pox on > > the ilk of self-styled "philosophers" like > > Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett...).... > > Husserl was NOT a mathematician, properly speaking, in that he created > nothing of mathematical interest. [snip] > ...if you're worried about > naivete, the place to start is postmodernists, than which no more naive > tribe exists except for right-wing economists who believe in the gold > standard. See, in this regard, Sokal & Bricmont "Impostures > Intellectuelles." I see no reason why *all three* (1) postmodernists, (2) certain kinds of economists and (3) certain kinds of empiricists cannot be [philosophically] naive at the same time, albeit in different ways, just like the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream store can concurently contain several flavors of frozen dessert.... > > > It is *possible*, but highly unlikely that Euclidean geometry, > > as a formal symbol transformation space, is > > in any simplistic way "culture specific". > > Given that nobody has ever advanced meaningfuol evidence of culatural > specificity, I should say this is a hypothesis we can ssafely discount. I wouldn't be quite so sanguine about this. To borrow, with modifications, Norwood Hanson's model of the Copernican and Ptolemaic astronomers on a hilltop watching day begin, and the one *seeing* the sun come up while the other *sees* the earth going down --> in what ways would Euclid and a present-day mathematician *see* and *understand* the same thing in thinking about a right-angle triangle [probably if I knew more about mathematics I could find a more compelling example...], and in what ways would they see and understand different things? Etc. As Kant (and Suzanne Langer and others) have argued: What any thing ("entity", "noematic content"...) *is* for a person depends on the *questions* that person asks (the question space which constitutes the person's lifeworld). All seeing is seeing-as. Etc. > > > *On the other hand*, the *teaching of Euclidean geometry, in > > any particular here-and-now educational setting *is* political > > (just like the teaching of postmodernism, Marxism, or anything -- or > > having young people work instead of study, etc.). > > What are the power relations between professor and student? What are > > the rewards and punishments which accrue to a student, i.e., what are > > the > > efects on his or her prospects in life, of passing / failing / etc. > > the course? > > This is true, but not very interesting; Not interesting *from what perspective(s)*? *I*, for one, find it highly interesting, and I found it especially interesting when I was a *student*, and I saw that my life prospects were depended on the whims of certain sub-lunary deities.... > it merely reflects a certain > construction of the word "political." The question, in practical terms, > is whether one wants, as many left pedagogical theorists insist, to insert > hortatory poliltical material into math classes, If you are talking about he contemporary equivalents of Stalinist biology and Aryan physics, I would agree with you. But "Jack and Jill going up a hill to fetch a pail of water" strikes me as highly political, for middle-class children, in lulling then into unwitting acceptance of middle-class-ism, and, for the poor, in telling them who's in charge, etc. Paolo Freire's _The Pedagogy of the Oppressed_ (Continuum, 1983) is a classic text here. > or instead to keep the > classroom reasonably free of political sermonizing. The classroom *is* a political sermon. It is a key element of the "hidden curriculum", which teaches, not just facts and figures, but an ideology (Weltanschauung, etc.). *Schools* teach a certain model of human social existence, which is not the only possible one (and, IMO, is not a highly desirable one -- *my* [tor]mentors hurt me badly and wasted much of my "potential".... An alternative is for the child to learn in his or her own way, with the available assistance and protection of empathic adults whose agends is (so to speak) not to ask whether the kid can conform to the curriculum, but what the curriculum can do for the kids....) As for political sermons in the classroom, IMO they seem appropriate only in times of emergency, for, as Husserl wrote: "To the philosopher and to a generation of philosophers, acting responsibly in a human and cultural space, there accrue, also deriving from this cultural space, responsibilities and corresponding actions. It is the same here as it is generally for men in times of danger. For the sake of the life-task that has been taken up, in times of danger one must first let these very tasks alone and do what will make a normal life possible again in the future. The effect will generally be such that the total life-situation, and with it the original life-tasks, has been changed or in the end has become fully without an object. Thus reflection is required in every sense in order to right ourselves." Husserl, Edmund. "Appendix IX: Denial of Scientific Philosophy. Necessity of Reflection. The Reflection [Must Be] Historical. How is History Required. (1935)" The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Translated by David Carr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970, 392. [snip] > 2) If you abandon what S. Harding reviles as "the neutrality ideal," you > will shortly find that other people--e.g., Newt Gingrich--are a lot > slicker at playing this game than you are. When you open a door, you damn > well better understand what's going to come through it. I think this is an *excellent* point, with the one proviso that there is no such thing as neutrality (as Sartre said: to not decide is to make *a certain* decision). This is where I get annoyed with liberals get angry with fundamentalists for trying to stop them from implementing a curriculum which "just teaches the facts". "Just teaching the facts" is teaching the Enlightenment ideology (with which I happen to concur, but it's still *an* ideology), and liberals should admit that they have a social agenda. just like the fundamentalists (albeit each has a *different* agenda). > > > Why is Euclidean geometry being taught instead of, e.g., > > industrial sociology (there is not time to teach all things to all > > persons, so teaching them one thing means not teaching them lots of > > other things)? > > Actually, believe it or not, the best reason for teaching Euclidean > geometry, i.e., classical synthetic geometry, based on some version of > Euclids axioms and postulates, is that it really does teach people to > become aware of the logical structure of arguments. Plato was perfectly > correct in this respect. I would not disagree with you here. I would argue, however, that if *this* is the aim in teaching Euclidean geometry, then we would do well to *teach the geometry as thematized in this context of sharpening the faculty of reasoning (etc.)", rather than in the context of tests and grades ("The medium is the message"). In practice, howeve, I think most K-12 teaching of geometry is uninspired mediocriteaching, which mainly contributes to teaching kids that the world doesn't have much to offer for living. The contrast, of course, is the occasional "inspired" ("inspiring") teacher, who makes the material (even, mirabile visu!, e.g., statistics...) *come alive*. As Louis Kahn said: [The essence of a city does not lie in the packing density of its inhabitants, rather:] The city is the place of availabilities, where persons can develop their skills beyond the needs of daily life, and where a small boy, as he walks through it, looking at the work of one master craftsman after another, may find something he *wants* to do all his life. > > > > > Does the professor recognize the socioeconomic structure of his > > situation? > > Does the teacher grade students to see who can "make it" and who can't > > (i.e., > > act as God), > > No, as a math tprof. The two concepts are closely related, so your > confusion is understandable.;-) The social roles of mathematician and that of "grader of students" (like inspecting meat...) are surely separable. My idea would be to be able to put on my "business card" Independent Scholar (To reference Elias Canetti and Albert Camus, among others: may persons be neither leaders nor followers, neither victims nor executioners....) > > > or does > > the professor concern him or heself only with maximizing each student's > > learning (act as "midwife" and servant of knowledge)? > > The medium is the message. If grades are important then geometry > > is unimportant; if geometry is important then grading should not > > get in the way of learning. > > Tis is an example of what we in the trade call "bullshit." I wouldn't > want to reduce human behavior to that amusing fiction "economic man"--but > incentives, both positive and negative, do have some effect on human > behavior, and naive advocacy of what one might call the "Summerhill" > philosophy is a gross pedagogical mistake. Remember, it is better to be > feared than loved, even for a math prof! ;-) Yes, "incentives" do have an effect. In my case, I finally understood what that effece was (for me...) when, at age 32, I erad Kuhns _Structure..._, where he wrote that old scientific theories go away not because the persons who believe in them get converted to the new theories, but because they are unable to recruit students from the next generation to carry on their work and they eventually all die. I had the hopeful image that, one day, all my [tor]mentors would be *dead*, and their Weltanschauung (what I have come to call: Ab-Welt) with them. (You and I probably disagree. I would choose Matisse's _Joy of Life_ as a model for motivational strategies...) > > Etc. > > > > Note that I am not claiming Euclidean geometry ought not to be > > taught. I am urging that persons, whatever they are doing, reflect on > > it, > > become mutually self-accountable for it, and learn how to make our > > shared world more humane as *an* aspect of whatever it is they > > are doing > > Ah, but who gets to define what constitutes "humane" values? You or Ralph > Reed? Always a problem, isn't it? I would propose that Habermas's "discourse ethics" has a lot to say to this very important issue. > > Norm Levitt Sorry to have written so long ("Take what you like and leave the rest" --ACOA dictum) Yours in discourse.... \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 09:23:09 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." In-Reply-To: <34C5DCA1.1E52@cloud9.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Yes, "incentives" do have an effect. In my case, I finally understood > what that effece was (for me...) when, at age 32, I erad Kuhns > _Structure..._, > where he wrote that old scientific theories go away not because the > persons who believe in them get converted to the new theories, but > because they are unable to recruit students from the next generation to > carry on their > work and they eventually all die. I had the hopeful image that, one > day, all my [tor]mentors would be *dead*, and their Weltanschauung > (what I have come to call: Ab-Welt) with them. (You and I probably > disagree. I would choose Matisse's _Joy of Life_ as a model > for motivational strategies...) > > > A large container of salt should always be at hand when one is reading Kuhn. Actually, that's not the way these things happen, historically. See, for instance, Holton a`on the integration of relativity and quantum mechanics (i.e., the Bohr atom model) into the ccorpus of "generally accepted physics." Kuhn's remark maakes a good epigram, but not good history, Similar remarks might be made about the Newtonian revolution. NL ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:34:47 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Jerry Fodor on Psychooogical Darwinism Part I Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The following essay is so germane to our discussions of Darwinism and psychological Darwinism that I am posting it to the forum (with apologies to anyone not interested in this thread). It appeared in the _London Review of Books_ 22 January 1998, pp. 11-13. Subscription information, archive, etc. at http://www.lrb.co.uk/ 'The Trouble with Psychological Darwinism' by Jerry Fodor, who teaches philosophy at Rutgers and at the CUNY Graduate Center. His _Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong_ has just been published by Oxford. He is reviewing HOW THE MIND WORKS by Steven Pinker. Allen Lane, 660 pp., L25 (Briish Pounds sterling), 22 January, 0 7I3 99I30 5 and EVOLUTION IN MIND by Henry Plotkin. Allen Lane, 276 pp., L20, 30 October I997, 0 7I3 99I38 0 It belongs to the millennial mood to want to sum things up and see where we have got to and point in the direction in which further progress lies. Cognitive science has not been spared this impulse, and these two books purport to limn the state of the art. They differ a bit in their intended audience: Plotkin's is more or less a text, while Pinker hopes for a lay readership. Pinker covers much more ground but he takes an ungainly six hundred pages to do it, compared to Plotkin's svelte volume. Both are unusually good at exposition, Pinker exceptionally so from time to time. Their general sense of what's going on and of what comes next is remarkably similar, considering that they are writing about a field that is notoriously fractious. Taken severally or together, they present what is probably the best statement you can find in print of a very important contemporary view of mental structure and process. But how much of it is true? To begin with, Pinker and Plotkin are reporting a minority consensus. Most cognitive scientists still work in a tradition of empiricism and associationism whose main tenets haven't changed much since Locke and Hume. The human mind is a blank slate at birth. Experience writes on the slate, and association extracts and extrapolates whatever trends there are in the record that experience leaves. The structure of the mind is thus an image, made a posteriori, of the statistical regularities in the world in which it finds itself. I would guess that quite a substantial majority of cognitive scientists believe something of this sort: believe it so deeply that many hardly notice they do. Pinker and Plotkin, by contrast, epitomise a rationalist revival that started about forty years ago with Chomsky's work on the syntax of natural languages and is by now sufficiently robust to offer a serious alternative to the empiricist tradition. Like Pinker and Plotkin, I think the New Rationalism is the best story about the mind that science has so far found to tell. But I think their version of that story is tendentious, indeed importantly flawed. And I think the cheerful tone they tell it in is quite unwarranted by the amount of progress that has actually been made. Our best scientific story about the mind is better than empiricism; but, in all sorts of ways, it's still not very good. Pinker quotes Chomsky's remark that 'ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries' and continues: 'I wrote this book because dozens of mysteries of the mind, from mental images to romantic love, have recently been upgraded to problems (though there are still some mysteries too!).' Well, cheerfulness sells books, but Ecclesiastes got it right: 'the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.' Pinker elaborates his version of rationalism around four basic ideas: the mind is a computational system; the mind is massively modular; a lot of mental structure, including a lot of cognitive structure, is innate; a lot of mental structure, including a lot of cognitive structure, is an evolutionary adaptation - in particular, the function of a creature's nervous system is to abet the propagation of its genome (its selfish genes, as one says). Plotkin agrees with all four of these theses, though he puts less emphasis than Pinker does on the minds-are-computers part of the story. Both authors take for granted that psychology should be a part of biology and they are both emphatic about the need for more Darwinian thinking in cognitive science. (Plotkin quotes with approval Theodore Dobzhansky's dictum that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,' amending it, however, to read 'makes complete sense'.) It's their Darwinism, specifically their allegiance to a 'selfish gene' account of the phylogeny of mind, that most strikingly distinguishes Pinker and Plotkin from a number of their rationalist colleagues (and from Chomsky in particular). All this needs some looking into. I'll offer a sketch of how the four pieces of Pinker-Plotkin's version of rationalism are connected; and, by implication, of what an alternative rationalism might look like. I'm particularly interested in how much of the Pinker-Plotkin consensus turns on the stuff about selfish genes, of which I don't, in fact, believe a word. Computation. Beyond any doubt, the most important thing that has happened in cognitive science is Turing's invention of the notion of mechanical rationality. Here's a quick, very informal, introduction. It's a remarkable fact that you can tell, just by looking at it, that any sentence of the syntactic form P and Q ('John swims and Mary drinks,' as it might be) is true only if P and Q are both true. 'You can tell just by looking' means: to see that the entailments hold, you don't have to know any thing about what either P or Q means and you don't have to know anything about the non-linguistic world. This really is remarkable since, after all, it's what they mean, together with how the non-linguistic world is, that decide whether P and Q are themselves true. This line of thought is often summarised by saying that some inferences are rational in virtue of the syntax of the sentences that enter into them; metaphorically, in virtue of the 'shapes' of these sentences. Turing noted that, wherever an inference is formal in this sense, a machine can be made to execute the inference. This is be cause, although machines are awful at figuring out what things mean, and are not much better at figuring out what's going on in the world, you can make them so that they are quite good at detecting and responding to syntactic relations among sentences. Give it an argument that depends just on the syntax of the sentences that it is couched in and the machine will accept the argument if and only if it is valid. To that extent you can build a rational machine. Thus, in chrysalis, the computer and all its works. Thus, too, the idea that some, at least, of what makes minds rational is their ability to perform computations on thoughts - where thoughts, like sentences, are assumed to be syntactically structured and where 'computations' means formal operations in the manner of Turing. It's this theory that Pinker has in mind when he claims that 'thinking is a kind of computation.' It has proved to be a simply terrific idea. Like Truth, Beauty and Virtue, rationality is a normative notion; the computational theory of mind is the first instance in intellectual history that a science has been made out of one of those. If God were to stop the show now and ask us what we've discovered about how we think, Turing's theory of computation is far the best thing we could offer. But Turing's account of computation is, in a couple of senses, local. It doesn't look past the form of sentences to their meanings; and it assumes that the role of thoughts in a mental process is determined entirely by their internal (syntactic) structure. And there's reason to believe that at least some rational processes are not local in either of these respects. It may be that wherever either semantic or global features of mental processes begin to make their presence felt you reach the limits of what Turing's kind of computational rationality is able to explain. As things stand, what's beyond these limits is not a problem but a mystery. I think it's likely, for example, that a lot of rational belief formation turns on what philosophers call 'inferences to the best explanation'. You've got what perception presents to you as currently the fact and you've got what memory presents to you as the beliefs that you've formed till now, and your cognitive problem is to find and adopt whatever new beliefs are best confirmed on balance. 'Best confirmed on balance' means something like: the strongest and simplest relevant beliefs that are consistent with as many of one's prior epistemic commitments as possible. But as far as anybody knows, relevance, strength, simplicity, centrality and the like are properties, not of single sentences, but of whole belief systems; and there's no reason at all to suppose that such global properties of belief systems are syntactic. In my view, the cognitive science that we've got so far has hardly begun to face this issue. Most practitioners (Pinker and Plotkin included, as far as I can tell) hope that it will resolve itself into lots of small, local problems which will in turn succumb to Turing's kind of treatment. Well, maybe; it's certainly worth the effort of continuing to try. But I'm impressed by this consideration: our best cognitive science is the psychology of perception, and (see just below) it may well be that perceptual processes are largely modular, hence computationally local - whereas, plausibly, the globality of cognition shows up most clearly in the psychology of common sense. Uncoincidentally, as things now stand, we don't have a theory of the psychology of common sense that would survive serious scrutiny by an intelligent five year-old. Similarly, common sense is egregiously what the computers that we know how to build don't have. I think it's likely that we ate running into the limits of what can be explained with Turing's kind of computation; and I think we don't have any idea what to do about it. Suffice it to say, anyhow, that if your notion of computation is exclusively local, then your notion of mental architecture had best be massively modular. That brings us to the second tenet of the Pinker-Plotkin version of rationalism. Massive modularity. A module is a more or less autonomous, special-purpose, computational system. It's built to solve a very restricted class of problems, and the information it can use to solve them is proprietary. Most of the New Rationalists think that at least some human cognitive mechanisms are modular, aspects of perception being among the classic best candidates. For example, the computations that convert a two dimensional array of retinal stimulations into a stable image of a three-dimensional visual world are supposed to be largely autonomous with respect to the rest of one's cognition. That's why many visual illusions don't go away even if you know they are illusions. Massimo Piatelli, reviewing Plotkin's book in _Nature_, remarks that the modularity of cognitive processes 'is arguably... the single most important discovery of cognitive science'. At a minimum, it's what most distinguishes our current cognitive science from its immediate precursor, the 'New Look' psychology of the Fifties which emphasised the continuity of perception and cognition and hence the impact of what one believes on what one sees. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:35:31 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Jerry Fodor on Psychological Darwinism Part III Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A lot of the fun of Pinker's book is his at tempt to deduce human psychology from the assumption that our minds are adaptations for transmitting our genes. His last chapters are devoted to this and they range very broadly - including, so help me, one on the meaning of life. Pinker would like to convince us that the predictions that the selfish gene theory makes about how our minds must be organised are independently plausible. But this project doesn't fare well. Prima facie, the picture of the mind, indeed of human nature in general, that psychological Darwinism suggests is preposterous: a sort of jumped up, downmarket version of Original Sin. Psychological Darwinism is a kind of conspiracy theory: that is, it explains behaviour by imputing an interest (viz in the proliferation of the genome) that the agent the behaviour does not acknowledge. When literal conspiracies are alleged, duplicity is generally part of the charge: 'He wasn't making confetti; he was shredding the evidence. He did X in aid of Y, and then he lied about his motive.' But in the kind of conspiracy theories psychologists like best, the motive is supposed to be inaccessible eve to the agent, who is thus perfectly sincere in denying the imputation. In the extreme case, it's hardly even the agent to whom the motive is attributed. Freudian explanations provide a familiar example: what seemed to be merely Jones's slip of the tongue was the unconscious expression of a libidinous impulse, really; one that his Id had on his behalf. The same holds for the psychological Darwinist: what seemed to be your, after all, unsurprising interest in your child's well-being turns out to be your genes' conspiracy to propagate themselves. Not your conspiracy, notice, but theirs. HOW DO YOU MAKE THE CASE that Jones did X in aid of an interest in Y, when Y is an interest that Jones doesn't own to? The idea is perfectly familiar: you argue that X would have been the rational (reasonable, intelligible) thing for Jones to do if Y had been his motive. Such arguments can be very persuasive. The files Jones shredded were precisely the ones that would have incriminated him; and he shredded them in the middle of the night. What better explanation than that Jones conspired to destroy the evidence? Likewise when the conspiracy is unconscious. Suppose that an interest in the propagation of the genome would rationalise monogamous families in animals whose offspring mature slowly. Well, our offspring do mature slowly; and our species does, by and large, favour monogamous families. So that's evidence that we favour monogamous families because we have an interest in the propagation of our genes. Well, isn't it? Maybe yes, maybe no; this kind of inference needs to be handled with great care. For, often enough, where an interest in X would rationalise Y, so too would an interest in P, Q or R. It's reasonable of Jones to carry an umbrella if it's raining and he wants to keep dry. But, likewise, it's reasonable for Jones to carry an umbrella if he has in mind to return it to its owner. Since either motivation would rationalise the way Jones behaved, his having behaved that way is thus far compatible with either imputation. This is, in fact, overwhelmingly the general case: there are, most often, all sorts of interests which would rationalise the kinds of behaviour that a creature is observed to produce. What's needed to make it decisive that the creature is interested in Y is that it should produce a kind of behaviour that would be reasonable only given an interest in Y. But such cases are vanishingly rare since, if an interest in Y would rationalise doing X, so too would an interest in doing X. A concern to propagate one's genes would rationalise one's acting to promote one's children's welfare; but so too would an interest in one's children's welfare. Not all of one's motives could be instrumental, after all; there must be some things that one cares for just for their own sakes. Why, indeed, mightn't there be quite a few such things? Why shouldn't one's children be among them? The literature of psychological Darwinism is full of what appear to be fallacies of rationalisation: arguments where the evidence offered that an interest in Y is the motive for a creature's behaviour is primarily that an interest in Y is the motive for a creature's behaviour is primarily that an interest in Y would rationalise the behaviour if it were the creature's motive. Pinker's book provides so many examples that one hardly knows where to start. Here he is on friendship: Once you have made yourself valuable to someone, the person becomes valuable to you. You value him or her because if you were ever in trouble, they would have a stake - albeit a selfish stake - in getting you out But now that you value the person, they should value you even more... because of your stake in rescuing him or her from hard times... This runaway process is what we call friendship. And here he is on why we like to read fiction: 'Fictional narratives supply us with a mental catalogue of the fatal conundrums we might face someday and the outcomes of strategies we could deploy in them. What are the options if I were to suspect that my uncle killed my father, took his position, and married my mother?' Good question. Or what if it turns out that, having just used the ring that I got by kidnapping a dwarf to pay off the giants who built me my new castle, I should discover that it is the very ring that I need in order to continue to be immortal and rule the world? It's important to think out the options betimes, because a thing like that could happen to anyone and you can never have too much insurance. At one point Pinker quotes H. L. Mencken's wisecrack that 'the most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true.' Quite so. I suppose it could turn out that one's interest in having friends, or in reading fictions, or in Wagner's operas, is really at heart prudential. But the claim affronts a robust, and I should think salubrious, intuition that there are lots and lots of things that we care about simply for themselves. Reductionism about this plurality of goals, when not philistine or cheaply cynical, often sounds simply funny. Thus the joke about the lawyer who is offered sex by a beautiful girl: 'Well, I guess so,' he replies, 'but what's in it for me?' Does wanting to have a beautiful woman - or, for that matter, a good read - really require a further motive to explain it? Pinker duly supplies the explanation that you wouldn't have thought that you needed. 'Both sexes want a spouse who has developed normally and is free of infection... We haven't evolved stethoscopes or tongue-depressors, but an eye for beauty does some of the same things... Luxuriant hair is always pleasing, possibly because... long hair implies a long history of good health.' Much to his credit, Pinker does seem a bit embarrassed about some of these consequences of his adaptationism, and he does try to duck them. Many people think that the theory of the selfish gene says that 'animals try to spread their genes.' This misstates... the theory. Animals, including most people, know nothing about genetics and care even less. People love their children not because they want to spread their genes (consciously or unconsciously) but be cause they can't help it... What is selfish is not the real motives of the person but the metaphorical motives of the genes that built the person. Genes 'try' to spread themselves [sic] by wiring animals' brains so the animals love their kin... and then the[y] get out of the way. This version sounds a lot more plausible; strictly speaking, nobody has as a motive ('conscious or unconscious') the proliferation of genes after all. Not animals, and not genes either. The only real motives are the ones everybody knows about; of which love of novels, or women, or kin are presumably a few among many. But, pace Pinker, this reasonable view is not available to a psychological Darwinist. For to say that genes wire 'animals' brains so that animals love their kin' and to stop there is to say only that loving their kin is innate in these animals. That reduces psychological Darwinism to mere nativism; which, as I remarked above, is common ground to all of us rationalists. The difference between Darwinism and mere nativism is the claim that a creature's innate psychological traits are adaptations; viz that their role in the propagation of the genes is what they're for. Take the adaptationism away from a psychological Darwinist and he has nobody left to argue with except empiricists. It is, then, adaptationism that makes Pinker and Plotkin's kind of rationalism special. Does this argument among nativists matter? Nativism itself does: everybody cares about human nature. But I have fussed a lot about the difference between nativism and Darwinism, and you might want to know why anyone should care about that. For one thing, nativism says there has to be a human nature, but it's the adaptationism that implies the account of human nature that sociobiologists endorse. If, like me, you find that account grotesquely implausible, it's perhaps the adaptationism rather than the nativism that you ought to consider throwing overboard. Pinker remarks that 'people who study the mind would rather not have to think about how it evolved because it would make a hash of cherished theories... When advised that [their] claims are evolutionarily implausible, they attack the theory of evolution rather than rethinking the claim.' I think this is exactly right, though the formulation is a bit tendentious. We know - anyhow we think we do - a lot about ourselves that doesn't seem to square with the theory that our minds are adaptations for spreading our genes. The question may well come down to which theory we should give up. Well, as far as I can tell, if you take away the bad argument that turns on complexity, and the bad argument from reverse engineering, and the bad arguments that depend on committing the rationalisation fallacy, and the atrociously bad arguments that depend on pre-empting what's to count as the 'scientific' and/or the biological) world view, the direct evidence for psychological Darwinism is very slim indeed. In particular, it's arguably much worse than the indirect evidence for our intuitive, pluralistic theory of human nature. It is, after all, our intuitive pluralism that we use to get along with one another. And I have the impression that, by and large, it works pretty well. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:35:13 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Jerry Fodor on Psychological Darwinism Part II Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Both Pinker and Plotkin think the mind is mostly made of modules; that's the massive modularity thesis in a nutshell. I want to stress how well it fits with the idea that mental computation is local. By definition, modular problem-solving works with less than all the information that a creature possesses. It thereby minimises the global cognitive effects that are the bane of Turing's kind of computation. If the mind is massively modular, then maybe the notion of computation that Turing gave us is, after all, the only one that cognitive science needs. It would be nice to be able to believe that; Pinker and Plotkin certainly try very hard to do so. But, really, one can't. For, eventually, the mind has to integrate the results of all those modular computations and I don't see how there could be a module for doing that. The moon looks bigger when it's on the horizon; but I know perfectly well it's not. My visual perception module gets fooled, but I don't. The question is: who is this I? And by what presumably global - computational process does it use what I know about the astronomical facts to correct the misleading appearances that my visual perception module insists on computing? If, in short, there is a community of computers living in my head, there had also better be somebody who is in charge; and, by God, it had better be me. The Old Rationalists, like Kant, thought that the integration of information is a lot of what's required to turn it into knowledge. If that's right, then a cognitive science that hasn't faced the integration problem has barely got off the ground. Modular computation probably doesn't explain how minds are rational: it's just a sort of precursor. It's what you have to work through to get a view of how horribly hard our rationality is to understand. Innateness. Rationalists are nativists by definition; and nativism is where cognitive science touches the real world. As both Pinker and Plotkin rightly emphasise, the standard view in current social science - and in what's called 'literary theory' - takes a form of empiricism for granted: human nature is arbitrarily plastic and minds are social constructs. By contrast, the evidence from cognitive science is that a lot of what's in the modules seems to be there innately. Pinker and Plotkin both review a fair sample of this evidence, including some of the lovely experimental work on infant cognition that psychologists have done in the last couple of decades. There is also, as the linguists have been claiming for years, a lot of indirect evidence that points to much the same conclusion: all human languages appear to be structurally similar in profound and surprising ways. There may be an alternative to the nativist explanation that linguistic structure is genetically specified, but if there is, nobody has thus far had a glimpse of it. Cultural relativism is widely held to be politically correct. So, sooner or later, political correctness and cognitive science are going to collide. Many tears will be shed and many hands will be wrung in public. Be that as it may; if there is a human nature, and it is to some interesting extent genetically determined, it is folly for humanists to ignore it. We're animals whatever else we are; and what makes an animal well and happy and sane depends a lot on what kind of animal it is. Pinker and Plotkin are both very good on this; I commend them to you. But, for present purposes, I want to examine a different aspect of their rationalism. PSYCHOLOGICAL Darwinism. Pinker and Plotkin both believe that if nativism is the right story about cognition, it follows that much of our psychology must be, in the Darwinian sense, an evolutionary adaptation: that is, it must be intelligible in the light of the evolutionary selection pressures that shaped it. It's the nativism that makes cognitive science politically interesting. But it's the inference from nativism to Darwinism that is currently divisive within the New Rationalist community. Pinker and Plotkin are selling an evolutionary approach to psychology that a lot of cognitive scientists (myself included) aren't buying. There are two standard arguments, both of which Pinker and Plotkin endorse, that are supposed to underwrite the inference from nativism to psychological Darwinism. The first is empirical, the second methodological. Both, I suspect, are wrong-headed. The empirical argument is that, as a matter of fact, there is no way except evolutionary selection for Nature to build a complex, adaptive system. Plotkin says 'neo-Darwinian theory' is the 'central theorem of all biology, including behavioural biology'; 'if behaviour is adaptive, then it must be the product of evolution. Similarly Pinker: 'Natural selection is the only explanation we have of how complex life can evolve,' so ' natural selection is indispensable to understanding the human mind.' One reply to this argument is to say that there is, after all, an alternative to natural selection as the source of adaptive complexity; you could get some by a miracle. But I'm not a Creationist, nor are any of my New Rationalist friends, as far as I know. Nor do we have to be, since there's another way out of the complexity argument. This is a long story, but here's the gist: it's common ground that the evolution of our behaviour was mediated by the evolution of our brains. So, what matters with regard to the question of whether the mind is an adaptation is not how complex our behaviour is, but how much change you would have to make in an ape's brain to produce the cognitive structure of a human mind. And about this, exactly nothing is known. That's because nothing is known about the way the structure of our minds depends on the structure of our brains. Nobody even knows which brain structures our cognitive capacities depend on. Unlike our minds, our brains are, by any gross measure, very like those of apes. So it looks as though relatively small alterations of brain structure must have produced very large behavioural discontinuities in the transition from the ancestral apes to us. If that's right then you don't have to assume that cognitive complexity is shaped by the gradual action of Darwinian selection on pre-human behavioural phenotypes. Analogies to the evolution of organic structures, though they pervade the literature of psychological Darwinism, don't cut much ice here. Make the giraffe's neck just a little longer and you increase, by just a little, the animal's capacity to reach the fruit at the top of the tree. So, to that extent it's plausible that selection stretched giraffes' necks bit by bit. But make an ape's brain just a little bigger (or denser, or more folded, or, who knows, greyer) and it's anybody's guess what happens to the creature's behavioural repertoire. Maybe the ape turns into us. Adaptationists say about the phylogeny of cognition that it's a choice between Darwin and God and they like to parade as scientifically tough-minded about which one you should pick. But that misstates the alternatives. In fact, we don't know what the scientifically reasonable view of the phylogeny of behaviour is; nor will we until we begin to understand how behaviour is subserved by the brain. And to hell with tough-mindedness: what matters is what's true. Methodology is yet another thing that Pinker and Plotkin agree about. Both believe that the (anyhow, a) proper method of cognitive psychology is 'reverse engineering'. Reverse engineering is inferring how a device must work from, inter alia, a prior appreciation of its function. If you don't know what a can-opener is for, you are going to have trouble figuring out what its parts do. In the case of more complex machines, like for example people, your chance of getting the structure right is effectively nil if you don't know the function. Psychological Darwinism, so the argument goes, gives us the notion of function that the cognitive scientist's reverse engineering of the mind requires: to a first approximation, and with, to be sure, occasional exceptions, the function of a cognitive mechanism is whatever it is that evolution selected it for. Without this evolutionary slant on function, cognitive science is therefore simply in the dark. This, too, is a long story. But if evolution really does underwrite a notion of function, it is a historical notion; and it's far from clear that a historical notion of function is what reverse engineering actually needs. You might think, after all, that what matters in understanding the mind is what ours do now, not what our ancestors' did some millions of years ago. And, anyhow, the reverse engineering argument is over its head in anachronism. As a matter of fact, lots of physiology got worked out long before there was a theory of evolution. That's because you don't have to know how hands (or hearts, or eyes, or livers) evolved to make a pretty shrewd guess about what they are for. Maybe you also don't have to know how the mind evolved to make a pretty shrewd guess at what it's for; for example, that it's to think with. No doubt, arriving at a 'complete' explanation of the mind by reverse engineering might require an appreciation of its evolutionary history. But I don't think we should be worrying much about complete explanations at this stage. I'd settle for the merest glimpse of what is going on. One last point about the status of the inference from nativism to psychological Darwinism. If the mind is mostly a collection of innate modules, then pretty clearly it must have evolved gradually, under selection pressure. That's because, as I remarked above, modules contain lots of specialised information about the problem-domains that they compute in. And it really would be a miracle if all those details got into brains via a relatively small, fortuitous alteration of the neurology. To put it the other way round, if adaptationism isn't true in psychology, it must be that what makes our minds so clever is something pretty general; something about their global structure. The moral is that if you aren't into psychological Darwinism, you shouldn't be into massive modularity either. Everything connects. For the sake of the argument, however, let's suppose that the mind is an adaptation after all and see where that leads. It's a point of definition that adaptations have to be for something. Pinker and Plotkin both accept the 'selfish gene' story about what biological adaptations are for. Organic structure is (mostly) in aid of the propagation of the genes. And so is brain structure inter alia. And so is cognitive structure, since how the mind works depends on how the brain does. So there's a route from Darwinism to sociobiology; and Pinker, at least, is keen to take it. (Plotkin seems a bit less so. He's content to argue that some of the notorious problems for the selfish gene theory - the phylogeny of altruism, for instance - may be less decisive than one might at first suppose. I think settling for that is very wise of him.) __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 20:02:43 -0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Nuno Novas Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0030_01BD25DE.5FF1EE20" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0030_01BD25DE.5FF1EE20 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable UNSUBSCRIBE ------=_NextPart_000_0030_01BD25DE.5FF1EE20 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
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------=_NextPart_000_0030_01BD25DE.5FF1EE20-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:21:06 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: Appropriate math problems? X-To: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." In-Reply-To: <199801211132.LAA06197@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Etc. > > > > Note that I am not claiming Euclidean geometry ought not to be > > taught. I am urging that persons, whatever they are doing, reflect on > > it, > > become mutually self-accountable for it, and learn how to make our > > shared world more humane as *an* aspect of whatever it is they > > are doing > > Ah, but who gets to define what constitutes "humane" values? You or Ralph > Reed? Always a problem, isn't it? I would propose that Habermas's "discourse ethics" has a lot to say to this very important issue. ================================= And what is good, Phadrus, And what is not good-- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 23:44:30 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Papineau on Rose Book (NY Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII January 18, 1998 Don't Know Much Biology ______________________________________________________________ Steven Rose argues that neo-Darwinians fail to understand biochemical processes. By DAVID PAPINEAU ______________________________________________________________ LIFELINES Biology Beyond Determinism. By Steven Rose. Illustrated. 335 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $30. ______________________________________________________________ Does Darwinism explain everything, or is there more to life than natural selection? For some years now, evolutionary biologists have been drawing up battle lines on either side of this question. On the one hand we find the Darwinian purists, headed by the British theorist and popularizer Richard Dawkins. On the other side stand the biological pluralists, massed behind the celebrated essayist and professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, Stephen Jay Gould. Recently the battle has been heating up. Lieutenants from both sides have been weighing in with increasingly polemical books, and tempers have become decidedly frayed. This summer Gould himself catalogued the errors of his opponents across two issues of The New York Review of Books. Great fun for us spectators, if only we can figure out what they are all fighting about. Steven Rose, a professor of biology at the Open University in Britain, is definitely of the anti-Dawkins party, and his new book, ''Lifelines: Biology Beyond Determinism,'' is not designed to lower the argumentative temperature. The first paragraph associates his opponents with the ''tradition of eugenic thinking which . . . had been eclipsed and driven into intellectual and political disrepute in the aftermath of the war against Nazi Germany and its racially inspired Holocaust.'' Nor is he much kinder in the rest of the book. Unfortunately, the vigor of his polemic is not matched by the clarity of his analysis. Readers hoping to be tutored in the nuances of the debate are likely to go away disappointed. The Gould-Dawkins debate is best appreciated against the background of changes in modern Darwinian theory. Twentieth-century genetics has spawned a vision of natural selection far removed from Darwin's. Where Darwin analyzed competition between individual animals (''Nature, red in tooth and claw''), modern theory uses a more powerful microscope and examines competition between segments of chromosomal material (''selfish genes''). From the elegant mathematical perspective of population genetics, each biological species is conceived as an abstract ''gene pool.'' Genes of different kinds swim around in this pool, and those that are most successful at getting copies into the next generation will eventually squeeze out their competitors. This view of evolution renders whole organisms, like us human beings, almost incidental. Inhabiting a successful breeding organism is one way a gene can get itself into the next generation. But there are other ways, like assisting relatives who also house the gene or killing off nearby sperm that don't. It is this gene-centered vision that has inspired Dawkins and his associates. The switch of attention from organisms to genes has cast many problems of evolutionary theory in a new light. Traits that seemed illogical from a traditional perspective, like the peacock's tail or animal self-sacrifice, are easily accounted for in terms of selfish genes. Over the last 30 years neo-Darwinians have been applying their new theory to an expanding range of examples, from animal cuckoldry and sibling conflict to morning sickness and the existence of sex itself. It is not always clear what Dawkins's enemies have against him. Most allow there is some value in the gene-centered approach. But they feel the emphasis is wrong. Stephen Jay Gould complains that many other forces guide the course of evolution, apart from changes in gene frequencies. The competition for space within a gene pool can indeed fine-tune the characteristics of a given species. But, Gould insists, this tinkering works only within the constraints of unchanging body-plans laid down long ago. Moreover, the large-scale movements of evolution hinge on the survival of species themselves, rather than of genes, and this depends more on external happenstance, like the meteor that probably wiped out the dinosaurs, than on any fine-tuning of archaic designs. Steven Rose seems to have a rather different worry about neo-Darwinism. The main message discernible through his polemic is that thinkers like Dawkins fail to appreciate the complexity of biological processes. Rose, a biochemist who works on memory, describes some of the intricate chemical arrangements by which strings of DNA influence the development of adult organisms. In particular, he gives us an idea of the elaborate feedback mechanisms that allow our bodies to develop and maintain stable structures. Much of this is of interest in its own right, but it is hard to see why Rose thinks it amounts to an objection to neo-Darwinism. It is scarcely as if his opponents deny that genes work through complicated mechanisms. The reason they skip the chemical details is simply that they don't think they are crucial to our understanding of natural selection. You don't need to know about gasoline molecules to be a good car mechanic. Rose seems to be missing his target. It is one thing to argue, as Gould does, that neo-Darwinism fails in its ambitions. But Rose is pointing to ambitions his opponents never had. A rather different reason for caring about biochemical complexity emerges in his penultimate chapter, where Rose takes issue with public announcements that scientists have now identified the gene ''for'' criminality, or homosexuality, or alcoholism, or what you will. He is rightly outraged by the moronic political thinking that normally accompanies these declarations. He knows that the influence of DNA chemistry is far too fragile and environmentally mediated for any simple gene-character determinism. However, this point again misses his ostensible opponents. While there are too many vulgar sociobiologists ready to hold forth about ''criminal genes'' and so on, it is striking that no leading neo-Darwinian theorist is quoted by Rose as doing so. This is no accident. Dawkins and his associates are not genetic determinists, nor does their theory require that they be. But the fervor of Rose's political commitments makes him impatient with such nice distinctions. ''Genes bad, environment good'' seems to be the slogan, and anybody who thinks that genes matter to evolution is lumped together with Nazi eugenicists. Perhaps there is another reason for Rose's antipathy to the neo-Darwinians. Theoretical biologists sometimes seem to be divided by esthetic considerations as much as scientific ones. Where purists like Dawkins thrill to the cold logic of mathematical rigor, pluralists like Gould get their pleasures from the tangled bank of biological diversity. I suspect this is why the debate often seems so intangible. They aren't arguing about the facts, but about which is more fun -- the ingenious equations of population genetics or the curious contrivances of the flamingo's beak and the panda's thumb. Given this, it is not surprising that the two sides can't agree. Who is to say if there is more value in the lucidity of mathematics or in the variety of nature? Even though he earns his living as a hard scientist, Rose is clearly not someone who is inspired by mathematical lucidity. Halfway through the book he explains, in presumed sympathy with his readers, that he is among those who ''hate equations and find these algebraic representations hard to follow.'' A number of other comments confirm his aversion to mathematical science. High school students may well be puzzled by his claim that it has only recently become possible to model mathematically ''what might be happening when several variables alter at the same time,'' or by his assertion, three pages later, that ''today both heat and light are seen as forms of electromagnetic radiation.'' In the end it may be this impatience with mathematical abstraction, rather than his political commitments, that explains Rose's antagonism to the neo-Darwinians. He repeatedly starts off toward some technical issue, only to veer away as the crucial point looms near, as if it would be improper to allow mathematical niceties to cloud our judgment. Some readers may sympathize. But those who find pleasure in mathematical clarity as well as in biological oddity are likely to find this a frustrating book. If you want to find out about the logic of modern Darwinian theory, you will do better to look elsewhere. ______________________________________________________________ David Papineau is the Professor of the Philosophy of Science at King's College, London. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:09:26 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Paul Gallagher Subject: Re: biologism In-Reply-To: <199801201331.IAA16410@mail2.panix.com> from "Paul Gallagher" at Jan 20, 98 08:31:01 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > >I've lived in the Rocky Mountain area since 1973. > >When I first came out here the large blackbirds (crows?) were hunters, > >but these days they just seem to wait around for roadkill. > > >Pat O'Brien > > I've heard crows have been moving in to urban areas over the past 25 > years. Apparently, people aren't sure why this is happening, but it > seems to be happening all over the US. > > Paul > This reminds of something relevant to the science wars. When Sokal's hoax occurred. commentators, including the New York Times, mentioned his use of the phrase, "morphogenetic fields," and explained that it was an irrelevant reference to biology (Sokal made several irrelevant comparisons in his hoax, such as relating the black body problem to general relativity, to make the article seem silly to people with some knowledge of physics). However, my impression was that he wasn't referring to morphogenetic "field equations" sometimes used in developmental biology, but to a fringe science or mystical idea, similar to the old vitalist concept of entelechy, a non-physical force causing and regulating the development of the organism. These sorts of morphogenetic fields, or morphic fields, have been used to try to explain everything from crop-circles and homeopathy, and appear in the science fiction novels of Terry Pratchett, but I first heard about them, as a little kid, in an article about the famous macaques I mentioned in a previous post. The idea has been used to try to explain weird animal behavior, like those monkeys all over Japan suddenly learning to wash potatoes. I presume it could be used to try to explain crows' suddenly moving into the cities all over the US, by reference to some sort of "field" connecting them all. The crows are connected to each other - and to Sokal! "All things are interconnected and the bond is holy," as they say. Now, before people start yelling, I don't endorse this idea. I don't know anyone who does. By the way, there are some cool articles about the real "morphogenetic" equations: for example, Raup developed simple differential equations that describe shell coiling in mollusks and brachiopods; odd patterns in shells turn out to be the simple consequence of the requirement (except in some cephalopods and the like) that the shell grows by gradual accretion along its edge. Some people want to put these generative patterns at the forefront of evolutionary biology - there are some articles about this in "Beyond Neo-Darwinism" edited by Ho and Saunders, "Evolutionary Processes and Metaphors," edited by Ho and Fox, Brian Goodwin's "How the Leopard Changed its Spots," and Goodwin and Webster's "Form and Transformation." Since I have nothing better to do, I'll include my summary of one of my favorite articles: it's by David Raup, from 1972, and influenced by early Gould and Seilacher. I think it shows the origins of Stephen J. Gould's views well, prior to the sociobiology debate. They emerged in part as a reaction to the tradition of functional morphological analysis in paleontology. The interesting thing here, and the challenging thing, I think, for our adaptationist friends, is that Raup's ideas allow the assumption that all morphology may be adaptive, but demonstrate the limits of adaptationist explanation. One of the revolutionary characteristics of Darwin's theory of natural selection was that it allows for the explanation of biological traits and the historical processes that give rise to them on the basis of the purported purposes the traits serve without requiring knowledge of the mechanisms that give rise to them or how they actually work. The theory of natural selection excuses ignorance. But people abuse this privilege! A careful formulation of the process of adaptive hypothesis testing is needed. Back to Raup's article - you may remember him for his and Sepkoski's hypothesis that mass extinctions have occurred regularly in the earth's history due to an extraterrestrial cause. He also was the skeptical one on the Martian bacteria panel. Anyway, Raup argues for an analysis of morphology as the product of mechanical (structural or physical-chemical properties), genetic (historical-phylogenetic), ecologic (ecophenotypic), functional (immediately adaptive - as opposed to the legacies of past adaptations), and chance factors. He writes about how a great deal of research in invertebrate paleontology has been directed at interpreting morphological structures in terms of the functions they perform based on the view or assumption expressed by Rudwick that an observed structure should be close to "the structure that would be capable of fulfilling the function with maximal efficiency under the limitations imposed by the nature of the materials." Raup writes: if the actual structure is not a good approximation of the theoretical, optimal structure, it is often assumed that the investigator has incorrectly postulated the function. This general viewpoint is thus what might be called a "hyperselectionist" attitude toward the interpretation of morphology. One can accept the proposition that all morphology is adaptive and still largely reject the Rudwick approach. Raup advocates, in place of a near exclusive emphasis on adaptation, an understanding of: Historical-phylogenetic factors: "those aspects of morphology (or morphogenesis) that are not subject to significant genetic variability- either because mutation rates are low or because the structure is controlled by such a large gene complex that rapid modification is unlikely or because the gene complex is not subject to allelism." For example, growth in mollusks is almost solely by gradual accretion of the existing shell and the juvenile shell must be part of the adult shell. As a result, possible shell forms are highly constrained (Raup, Journal of Paleontology, 40 (5), 1178-1190). Functional factor - "those aspects of morphology which result directly and immediately from the process of adaptation through natural selection (not legacies of ancestral adaptations). For example, planispirally coiled ammonoids were shown by Chamberlain to be optimized for hydrodynamic efficiency. On the other hand, it is not the optimal morphology for a swimming organism, because it is limited by inherited morphogenetic systems such as growth by accretion. Structural factor - features (Seilacher calls them non-adaptational) "which are strongly influenced either by physical inevitability, by inherent limitations of materials, or by growth systems which, though necessary to the organism (and therefore adaptive), produce some structures as byproducts which are not necessary. Seilacher gives examples of divaricate sculpture or color patterns in bivalves and gastropods which he considers "almost inevitable by-products of skeletal morphogenesis and not necessarily adaptive" and in some cases seem to be functionally neutral. Gould gives examples in corals, diatoms, echinoderms, and bees' honeycombs of polygonal structures that result when structures that would otherwise be circular are constrained by neighbors of equal size. Although they serve a function, their common patterns result from the fact "they are easy to develop morphogenetically and call for a minimum of genetic instructions" in contrast to more "explicitly adaptive structures." Chance - Raup describes how Wright's adaptive peaks model shows how a lineage on a small adaptive peak will not evolve to a higher peak because it would require evolution toward a less well adapted form (the adaptive valley). Several adaptive solutions may exist to a problem. The one that evolves may be due to simple chance. Ecophenotypic effects - the environment influences the phenotypic expression of the genotype. For example, oysters vary greatly in morphology due to the effects of population density (crowding). The eccentric apical system of sand dollars develops, or not, in genetically identical individuals depending on environment. Gould and Lewontin point out how ecophenotypic effects can be functional. For example, genetically identical sponges and corals assume different shapes in response to the flow regimes in which they live. In short, regardless of relative importance of all these effects, all occur, and all are necessary for morphological (and presumably ethological) analysis. I also mentioned Amundson's article on the explanatory power of natural selection: he argues its explanatory power is limited to certain conditions. Amundson wrote, "the fact that selection has been involved somewhere in the etiology of a character is massively uninformative." (By the way, for our non-biologist readers, "character" is the term used for biological traits in systematics.) Amundson's conditions for a selectionist explanation are: 1. Richness of variation a. spontaneous b. persistent("heritable") c. abundant d. small and continuous in its effects 2. Nondirectedness of variation 3. Nonpurposive "sorting" mechanism.) Otherwise, the constraints on the path of the organism that is the target of selection are more important as explanations than is the action of selection. Still, another approach comes from molecular biology, which allows explicit mathematical formulations of the likelihood that competing adaptive as well as neutralist hypotheses may be correct. All these issues are so much clearer when dealing with molecules! In particular, neutral hypotheses can be formally and explicitly considered when dealing with questions of molecular population genetics and molecular evolution. And if fact studies of molecular sequence change and molecular sequence variation suggest that neutral or nearly neutral evolution predominates in the history of life (a neutral gene has |s| << 1/N, where N is the population size) Arlin Stolzfus made the important point, while commenting on Mayr's "How to Carry Out an Adaptationist Program," that some of the apparent successes of adaptationism in fact result not from establishing the likelihood of the hypothesis that a trait is an adaptation, or actually understanding its adaptive history, but rather because such studies elucidate the mechanisms that give rise to the trait. The successes of adaptationism are really not much more than the successes of materialism. Mayr argues that adaptationist studies of avian migration led to elucidating the mechanisms of avian navigation, but these studies never really considered how alternating hypotheses contributed to fitness - for example, how migration contributes to avoding winter kill or aids in foraging, but instead concentrated on the mechanisms of avian navigation. But any scientist would assume that some phsyical process underlies avain navigation! The concept of adaptation is superfluous to the research program. He writes: "The advances in knowledge are not usually attributable to applying the doctrine of adaptationism, but are properly attributable to applying the doctrine of mechanism as well as other heuristics." This is rather similar to the point made in the London Review article Dr. Young posted. Now, I know some people are out there thinking, "You goddam fucking moron, the neutral genes are not expressed." But look at studies of flux coefficients in metabolic pathways (Genetics 111:655, 1985), where large changes in enzyme activity do not result in increased metabolic flux through the pathway and are effectively neutral. But what about complex features or those that contribute operationally to fitness? See Osawa and Jukes' codon capture model for changes in the genetic code, and Osawa's book, "Evolution of the genetic code," and Covello and Gray's neutral model of RNA editing. Stolzfus also writes: The original question was whether neutral evolution explains some behavioral features and, by extension, some non-behavioral features as well. My response was "why not?". Another response was roughly 'no, we experts know it doesn't, the proof of which point is left as an exercise for the novice'. IMHO, the experts *don't* know this. The fact that clever people have achieved "insight" in biology while operating with the mind-set that they are studying adaptation is a weak heuristic argument for continuing this practical mode of inquiry (the weakness of the argument may be revealed by comparing it to the analogous defense of faith healing and other forms of alternative medicine that "succeed", yet probably do so for extraneous reasons). However, many of these successes are not actually attributable to adaptation properly conceived, and, more to the point, no one is advocating that we eradicate the concept of adaptation, but rather that we consider it critically as the 'onerous concept' (in the words of arch-adaptationist George Williams) that it is, and that we consider alternatives such as neutral evolution, a possibility that is clearly defined in terms of evolutionary genetics. The vaunted success of adaptionism is clearly *not* a valid logical reason for an exclusively adaptationist mode of inquiry. Why should the success of one approach mean that other approaches are invalid? It isn't as though biologists first tried out an evolutionarily savvy neutral approach, failed miserably, then opted for adaptationism. The neutral approach really has only been around since 1968. Where applied in the area of molecular evolution, it has been unarguably successful. Why not apply it more broadly, in anticipation of further successes? Indeed, if adaptationism is the only game in town, how can the generality of adaptation be 'tested', as was implied above? Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded. I don't want to explicitly endorse Stolzfus' ideas, but they are worth considering. I hope my amateur knowledge of biology doesn't obscure the important issues involved. Paul http://cs.nyu.edu/ms_students/m-pg0123/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:58:31 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Essays by Stephen J. Gould in _NY Rev. of Books_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm told that Stephen J. Gould wrote two essays in the _New York Review of Books_ on Darwinian fundamentalism. I have one of them - 12 June 1997 - and will put it on the forum when I have scanned it in and corrected it. Does anyone have the other? If so, could they scan it in or send me a photocopy so I can? Please write to me privately. Best, Bob Young __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:58:30 +0000 Reply-To: Ian.Pitchford@Scientist.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Pinker, Gould etc MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT A large collection of reviews, articles and debates on evolutionary psychology can be found at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/bookshop/pinker.htm There are contributions from S. J. Gould, Daniel Dennett, Mihaly Cziksentmihalyi, Steve Jones, Michael Ruse, Phillip Johnson-Laird and many others. The listing was compiled by Professor Steven Pinker. Regards Ian ******************************************************************************** Ian Pitchford - Email Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Ph.D. Student in Theoretical Psychopathology Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies University of Sheffield, 16 Claremont Crescent SHEFFIELD, S10 2TA, United Kingdom. Tel: 0114 222 2961 Fax: 0114 270 0619 ******************************************************************************** Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Online Dictionary of Mental Health http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/index.html Mental Health Metasearch http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/metasearch.html InterPsych: Mental Health Debate on the Internet http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/InterPsych/inter.html ******************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 08:56:07 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Re: biologism In-Reply-To: <199801220709.CAA19099@u1.farm.idt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII What Gallagher produces in his long and well-read piece is not a critique of adaptationism but merely of an extravagant version thereof, closely akin to "natural theology." The argument that adaptive processes must produce "optimal" design falls of its own weight almost as soon as it is stated. The idea that adaptation may settle on a suboptimal "local maximum" rather than on an absolute peak is a trivial and obvious one, from the mathematical point of view, and hardly counts as "anti-adaptationist". Likewise, the fact that geological or even astronomical caatastrophe may effectively veto hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary development is fascinating--but, again, not terribly relevant to the issue at hand, which is how speciation proceeds once the ruckus is over. Moreover, some of the argument is merely semantic. If one defines "environment" and "selective pressure" to include "internal" environment and its constraints, i.e., the genetic and structural aspects of the organism itself--as well as the "outside" world, then some of the "non-adaptative" phenomena miraculously turn into adaptive ones. One senses that terminological issues like this, rather than substantive points, are responsible for the sulfurous nature of much of the debate, e.g., Gould's tirade in the NY Review of Books. It should go without saying that little of this has very much to do with the core of the debate over sociobiology. To repeat it once more, this question is largely orthogonal to the question of the relative roles of adaptive and "neutral" genetic change in producing observed morphology (or ethology). To put it coarsely, "male supremacy" in humans might very well be "non-adaptive" and yet still be biologically encoded. For the record, the idea of "morphogenetic field"--or rather, the term itself, since under current usage it has been gelded of serious conceptual content--has a curious history. It goes back (I believe) to Darcy Thompson who used it to denote an unknown hypothetical physical mechanism for controlling morphogenesis in embryos, etc. It was then co-opted by Rene Thom in creating a proposed "mathematical model" for morphogenesis. In Thom's formulation, a "morphogenetic field" is a purely mathematicall entity, a "vector field" on an appropriate (infinite dimensional) space of functions (or cross sections of a bundle.) [Pardon the slippage into technical jabber.] The problem with Thon's work, from a practical point of view, is that it had no discernible material correlates; consequently, the interest of biologists rapidly faded. Afterwards, "morphogenetic field" was kidnapped by the egregious Rupert Sheldrake; under his influence, the term has found its destiny as yet another piece of meaningless New Age babble. It is under this description that Sokal made his giving reference to it. By the way, the tesselation patterns to be observed on the shells of many molusc species can apparently be neatly explained by the model of 2-state, 2-dimensional cellular automata. What relevance this has to the "adaptationist" squabble, I don't know. NL ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 14:53:40 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: More information about Darwinism & Darwinian psychology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Exchange between Steven Pinker and S. J. Gould: http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?1997100955E1 Lots of information, reviews, essays, etc., etc. re: Pinker's book on Darwinian psychology, _How the Mind Works_: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/bookshop/pinker.htm __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 15:21:23 +0000 Reply-To: Ian.Pitchford@Scientist.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Darwin and the validity of hermeneutics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable I am concerned that recent contributions to the forum have characterised evolutionary psychology as 'Darwinian fundamentalism" and "the new sociobiology". This seems likely to dissuade some from considering the explanatory power that may emerge from modular theories of the mind. Perhaps one of the most interesting writers in the field is the anthropologist Dan Sperber, who completely accepts the validity and necessity of hermeneutics in the human sciences and describes his concept of the epidemiology of representations as "A naturalistic aproach to culture [which] requires considering the distribution of a variety of mental and environmental phenomena" (Sperber, 1996: 20). He argues (as I would) that "Reduction [of the social to the natural] to me seems impossible (p.6). He characterises a naturalistic project in the social sciences as one that seeks to establish fundamental continuities between its domain and that of one or several neighbouring natural sciences and that "An epidemiology of representations would establish a relationship of mutual relevance between the cognitive and the social sciences, similar to that between pathology and epidemiology. This relationship would in no way be one of reduction of the social to the psychological. Social-cultural phenomena are, on this approach, ecological patterns of psychological phenomena. Sociological facts are defined in terms of psychological facts, but do not reduce to them" (p31). I have written on the historical background of modularity and on its potential usefulness as a non-reductionistic approach to the understanding of mental illness in a recent dissertation. It's not suitable for publication but can be found on the WWW at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/rp.html Reconstructing Psychopathology: Domain Specific Darwinian Algorithms and the Future of the Cncept of Mental Illness Introduction Chapter I=A0 The Historical Background Chapter II=A0 A Brief Overview of the Evidence for Modularity Chapter III The Evolution of the Mind Chapter IV Psychopathology and the Society of Mind Conclusion Bibliography I hope this will go some way to convincing you that evolutionary psychology *is not* "Darwinian fundamentalism" and *does not* undermine or devalue the role of hermeneutics. Regards Ian Ref: Sperber, D. (1996). Explaining Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. see also: Sperber, D. (1994). The modularity of thought and the epidemiology of representations. In L. A. Hirschfield & S. A. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. **************************************************************************= ****** Ian Pitchford - Email Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Ph.D. Student in Theoretical Psychopathology = Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies = University of Sheffield, 16 Claremont Crescent = SHEFFIELD, S10 2TA, United Kingdom. = Tel: 0114 222 2961 Fax: 0114 270 0619 = **************************************************************************= ****** Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies = http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ = Online Dictionary of Mental Health = http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/index.html = Mental Health Metasearch = http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psychotherapy/metasearch.html = InterPsych: Mental Health Debate on the Internet = http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/InterPsych/inter.html = **************************************************************************= ****** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 18:53:02 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: ANNOUNCE:History of Recent Science website Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From: Nathaniel Comfort The Center for History of Recent Science, George Washington University, has just published a website for the history and philosophy of science community. The site contains information about: # the Center and Center staff # research at the Center # postdoctoral research fellowships at the Center and how to apply (we offer 2/year and are accepting applications now # a history and philosophy of science calendar of events, including events in the local Washington/Baltimore area, as well as national and international events. Other information planned for the site includes other GW faculty involved in the history of science and a selective list of links relevant to the history of recent science. Note: We welcome submissions to the calendar. If you have a seminar series, special lecture or symposium, or other relevant event that you would like included in the calendar, please submit the following information: #speaker(s) #title #day, time #location [#brief description] [optional] #who to contact for more information (with phone, e-mail, URL, etc.) Calendar submissions should be e-mailed to: Nathaniel Comfort The URL for the Center of Recent Science website is: http://gwis.circ.gwu.ed/~recsci/ --Nathaniel Comfort Center for History of Recent Science Dept. of History George Washington University Washington, DC 20052 202.994.3957 mailto:comfort@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:27:06 -0500 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Papineau on Rose Book (NY Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Norman Levitt wrote: > > January 18, 1998 > > Don't Know Much Biology [snip] *I* certainly don't know much boilogy, but I seem to remember from philosophy grad school (where I lasted 2 semesters), Alfonso Lingis teaching Kurt Goldstein's _The Organism_. I also seem to remember that Maurice Merleau-Ponty was "into" a phenomenological approach to understanding our "corporeity". Have these thinkers been surpassed in the past 30 or so years, or do their studies still remain beyond the horizon of mainstream scientific academia? \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net (914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:51:26 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Patrick OBrien Subject: Re: biologism In-Reply-To: <199801220709.HAA09900@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Desperate, yet cautious I meet the great black birds one to one, out on the open highway--the sacred feeding grounds. I have many questions for the great black birds, but unfortunately, I will only accept answers that validate my beliefs. But I do not know what my beliefs really are until they are tested. Until my faith is put to the fire. But... The great black birds are praying to the gods of Standard Oil. The supplicants hope that the gods will continue to bring them wealth and prosperity, because, though the great black birds were once mighty hunters, they have forgotten those skills. Maybe, once long ago the prey of the great black birds prayed for respite, and a Rockefellar was borne of a virgin economic system. I have learned to forsake all my former beliefs, and, like the great black birds, I too, worship the gods of standard oil. Pat O'Brien ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:24:44 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Response to Ian Pitchford on Darwin and the validity of hermeneutics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ian Pitchford writes, >I am concerned that recent contributions to the forum have >characterised evolutionary psychology as 'Darwinian fundamentalism" >and "the new sociobiology". This seems likely to dissuade some from >considering the explanatory power that may emerge from modular >theories of the mind. snip and he concludes, >I hope this will go some way to convincing you that evolutionary >psychology *is not* "Darwinian fundamentalism" and *does not* >undermine or devalue the role of hermeneutics. I want to applaud this approach and add that it is possible to believe, as I do, that the theory of evolution is fundamental, in ways which are far from clear, to the understanding of human nature without feelng committed to the project of explaining various forms of behaviour and customs in terms of the 'selfish gene' approach of some Darwinian psychologists. Insisting on such explanations isleads to far-fetched speculations and leaves unasked many of the things we want to know about human emotions and behaviour. That is, Darwinian psychology need not be reduced to 'selfish gene' explanations. I took this to be an important point in Fodor's essay. Moreover, Darwinian psychology need not reduce ethics to sociobiological laws. How we relate moral, political and ideological issues to a fundamental acceptance of Darwinism seems to me a wide open question, one on which the future of humanity and the planet may well depend. Finally, as I understand it, the modular hypothesis (which I hope Ian Pitchford will define for us in a short posting for those who will not read his most interesting dissertation, which includes some sideswipes at social constructivism which are not, in my opinion, central to his advocacy of mudularity) does not depend on Dawinian psychology in its more 'selfish gene' forms. Once again, Fodor was a (if not the) pioneer of modularity in recent times (Franz Joseph Gall, the father of modern brain research and of phrenology, was its originator - see ch1 of my _Mind, Brain & Adaptation_), and Fodor is certainly sceptical about the territorial ambitions of some Darwinian psychologists and defends the domain of the liberal arts, which I take it Ian is also doing in leaving a place for Hermeneutics, for which I am glad. Best, Bob Young Here is a list of some writings relevant to this debate (thanks to Ian for some of these referencess): RECENT DEBATES ABOUT DARWINISM Some recent popular writings: Crooning, Helena (1991) The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today. Cambridge; reprinted Cambridge, 1993 Dawns, R. (1995). River Out of Eden. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Denote, Daniel C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. N. Y.: Simon & Schuster; London: Allen Lane - The Penguin Press; reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996. Eldridge, Niles (1995) Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory. Wiley. Gould, Stephen J. (1997) 'Darwinian Fundamentalism', New York Rev. of Books 12 June 1997, pp. 34-37. Lorenz, Konrad (1983) The Waning of Humaneness. trans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987; reprinted Unwin Hyman, 1988. Pinker, S. (1997). How the Mind Works. New York: W. W. Norton Plotkin, Henry (1997) Evolution in Mind. Allen Lane. Richards, R. J. (1987). Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago: Chicago. Ridley, Matt (1993) The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Viking; reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994. Sulloway, Frank (1996) Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives. N. Y.: Pantheon, London: Little, Brown Wright, Robert (1994) The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. N. Y.: Pantheon; London: Little, Brown, 1995; reprinted Abacus, 1996. Some other recent relevant writings in this broad debate across many academic disciplines Argyros, A. J. (1992). A Blessed Rage for Order: Deconstruction, Evolution and Chaos. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Atran, S. (1990). Cognitive Foundations of Natural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Atran, S. (1994). 'Core domains versus scientific theories: Evidence from systematics and Itza-Maya folkbiology'. In L. A. Hirschfield & S. A. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barkow, J. H., Cosimides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Brockman, J. (1995). The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster. Brown, D. E. (1991). Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill. Carruthers, P. (1992). Human Knowledge and Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carruthers, P., & Smith, P. K. (1996). Theories of Theories of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cosimides, L., & Tooby, J. (1994). Origins of domain specificity: The evolution of functional organization. In L. A. Hirschfield & S. A. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cziko, G. (1995). Without Miracles: Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dawkins, R. (1986). The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton. Dawkins, R. (1989). The Extended Phenotype. New York: Oxford University Press. Dawkins, R. (1989). The Selfish Gene (New ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Depew, D. J., & Weber, B. H. (1995). Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Diamond, J. (1997). Why is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Dunbar, R. (1995). The Trouble with Science. London: Faber and Faber. Gallo, E. (1991). Nature faking in the humanities. Skeptical Inquirer, 15(4), 371-75. Gazzaniga, M. (1992). Nature's Mind. New York: Basic Books. Goldsmith, E. (1990). Evolution, Neo-Darwinism, and the Paradigm of Science. The Ecologist, 20(2), 67-73. Gribbin, J., & Gribbin, M. (1993). Being Human. London: Orion Books. Gross, P. R., & Levitt, N. (1998). Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hirschfield, L. A, & Gelman, S. A. (1994). Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horgan, J. (1996). The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age. London: Little Brown. Jones, S. (1993). The Language of the Genes: Biology, History and the Evolutionary Future. London: HarperCollins. Jones, S. (1996). In the Blood: God, Genes and Destiny. London: HarperCollins. Jones, S., Martin, R., & Pilbeam, D. (1992). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nesse, R. M., & Williams, G. C. (1995). Evolution and Healing. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. O'Connell, S. (1997). Mindreading: An investigation into how we learn to Love and Lie. London: Heinemann. Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Ridley, M. (1993). Evolution. Boston: Blackwell. Rose, S., Lewontin, R. C, & Kamin, L. J. (1990). Not in Our Genes. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Sheerer, M. (1997). Why People Believe Weird Things. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. Sparer, D. (1996). Explaining Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Traverse, R. (1985). Social Evolution. Men Park, CA: Benjamin-Cummins. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:54:15 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: correction of url for centre for recent science Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My earlier post said: The URL for the Center of Recent Science website is: http://gwis.circ.gwu.ed/~recsci/ I have since been informed that he correct url is http://gwis.circ.gwu.edu/~recsci/ __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk, 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:57:18 EST Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Val dusek Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: Biol and Soc. Constructionism Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ian Pitchford writes: ============================================================= You really do need to identify the knowledge-constitutive interests here. The concept of 'genetic determinism' is a social constuction fabricated to serve the the professional interests of those who would seek to establish an artificial 'social science' independent of biological and evolutionary theory. The power and authority of social constructionists, who occupy so many highly-paid and prestigious professorships, would be deeply undermined by the requirement that they actually learn some science. Hence, rather than any attempt to consider the evidence, we have the authoritarian, anti-intellectual campaign to stigmatize individuals by constituting the labels 'sociobiologist', 'reductionist' and 'positivist' as terms of abuse. ============================================ One difficulty with this theory, even though satirizing social constructionists, is that the term "biological determinism" was coined in 1975 by the early Cambridge Sociobiology Study Group, most members of which (most famously Gould, Lewontin, and Levins, but including several physicists and chemists) were scienctists, not sociologists. Also Ian keeps complaining about the ignorance of science of the social constructionists (whom he seems to see as the only opponents of evolutionary psychology). However, a number of the British so-called or real social constructionists were trained in science in the first place. I note that one was assigned to do tests on the effect of LSD on DNA. His lab got negative results on this, so their results were not propagated the was sloppier results of other labs (which found major mutations causes by LSD taking) were, both in the profession and in the press, and started to think about social influences on science. Certainly Paul Forman and Norton Wise, historians who have been the whipping boys of the Science Wars (leading to lost jobs for the significant other of one and loss of a likely job prospect for the other) were trained in modern physics. David Edge, Andy Pickering, Collins and several others of the British science studies people study physical science in detail and have some background in it, whatever you think of their sociological conclusions. The ignorance of the literary Social Text editors doesn't represent the background of those in Social Studies of Science. And obviously, in the older sociobiology debate one can hardly claim Lewontin, Gould and Levins, et al know no evolutionary theory. ======== My observation that the universality of human plasticity is an implicitly biological theory requiring evolutionary elucidation was actually an attempt at Sokal-style irony. I think it is absurd to claim that 3.7 billion years of evolution have resulted in an organism with a total lack of preparedness for its physical, social, and psychological environment. I wont go into the arguments as they are too lengthy, but I would recommend Mithen's recent book (Mithen, 1996). ============================================== Val: One person's modus tollens is another's modus ponens, as Wesley Salmon says. (There's some terrible relativism coming from a person many of whose views are close to those of the logical empiricist Reichenbach.) Also plasticity need not fully equate with unpreparedness. Too much inflexibility might also be disadvantageous. ============================================================= Ian: I find it interesting that when challenged social constructionists and their apologists often retreat to a more easily defended position. Hence we have retractions by Harding, Haraway, Feyerabend, Fuller et al of their relativism (Fuller, 1996; Gross & Levitt, 1998), presumably because they have caught up with the fact that even the Ancient Greeks realised that such subjectivism is self- refuting (Nagel, 1997). Similarly, the claim that social constructionists should be the ultimate and final arbiters of the validity of the natural sciences reappears as the claim that they simply want us to be aware of the ethical implications and social context of scientific research. How glib! ======================= Val: I suspect that Harding, Feyerabend, and Fuller, having been well trained in analytical philosophy, were aware of the paradoxes of relativism. The false attribution of complete subjective relativism to opponents followed by rehearsing of the paradoxes is a common move of Christian fundamentalists in the political Culture Wars was well of science warriors in the Science Wars. However, the more subtle positions of a Putnam or a Goodman, which reject objectivism but are not simplistic relativism rarely are discussed. ============================================================ =========================================== Dusek continues: Just last night an ad for a US ABC-TV show on sex differences was featured, suggesting that men are too violent to raise children and women too delicate for certain jobs. [Follow up: Actually the show was even cruder than I thought it would be, counterposing "Scientists," who all agree that many social sex differences (including, apparently, female babies' preference for pink toys) are innate, were counterposed to "feminists" who wish to ban scientific results.] Val Dusek ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 15:44:32 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Asia Lerner Subject: Re: biologism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:56 AM 1/22/98 -0500, N. Levitt wrote: >The argument that adaptive processes must >produce "optimal" design falls of its own weight almost as soon as it is >stated. This argument, dubious as it is, underlies Dawkins' (and his followers') claims that they have solved a giant problem by explaining away altruism. Asia Lerner ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 14:40:12 +0000 Reply-To: Ian.Pitchford@Scientist.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Biol and Soc. Constructionism In-Reply-To: <199801231458.JAA06935@wilma.globecomm.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Val Dusek wrote: One difficulty with this theory, even though satirizing social constructionists, is that the term "biological determinism" was coined in 1975 by the early Cambridge Sociobiology Study Group, most members of which (most famously Gould, Lewontin, and Levins, but including several physicists and chemists) were scienctists, not sociologists. ===== REPLY: I am not so much concerned about credentials as I am about the viability of certain positions, whether in biology or in social studies of science. Just as I believe that the evolution of complete human psychological plasticity is a non-starter I also think that it is incredible to argue that genetic/biological determinism is a credible theory, and it doesn't form a component in modern biological thought. ================================== Also Ian keeps complaining about the ignorance of science of the social constructionists REPLY: I am opposed to ignorance period. I don't wish to extol its virtues as, for example, Steven Fuller does in _Science_. Equally, I am sure that I can make ethical choices without scientific knowledge. It seems to me that I would have no difficulty in opposing a plan to harvest organs from human clones created by genetic engineering without any knowledge of biology at all, for example. But if a social constructionist wants to tell me that quantum mechanics is a cultural product of the Weimar Republic, then I want to be impressed by his/her considerable knowledge of both. If there is scientifically literate work in this genre then please tell me and I'll read it. =================================== Val Dusek continues: One person's modus tollens is another's modus ponens, as Wesley Salmon says. (There's some terrible relativism coming from a person many of whose views are close to those of the logical empiricist Reichenbach.) Also plasticity need not fully equate with unpreparedness. Too much inflexibility might also be disadvantageous ============ REPLY: I do actually think this is completely right. Without some innate (probably modular) constraints on induction then it's probably impossible to learn anything. I also think that our knowledge of cultural diversity does show that a remarkable degree of plasticity is a feature of human psychology. However, it is important to remember that diversity can also be a function of univeral features of the human mind, hence the current interest in such universals. It's a complex matter requiring a refined multidisciplinary approach, not a matter of opinion or ethics. ================== Dusek continues I suspect that Harding, Feyerabend, and Fuller, having been well trained in analytical philosophy, were aware of the paradoxes of relativism. The false attribution of complete subjective relativism to opponents followed by rehearsing of the paradoxes is a common move of Christian fundamentalists ================= REPLY: If it really is the cas