TSW: "Lysenko believed in a simplistic form of Lamarckism ..."
BW: So did Spencer. It might have been useful at this point to explain why Lamarck's theory was simply false, instead of trying to establish a dialectic dualism. Instead, you jump into the political responses to his theory. It was insane to ban the study of genetics in the Soviet Union, simply because Lamarck, Spencer, or Lysenko didn't understand the scientific facts about the genetic evolutionary process or the critical characteristics of homo
sapiens.
TSW: "... leftists were forced to dredge up tired arguments against reduction per se and in favor of free will and the development of culture independent of evolution."
BW: Granted, they conflated evolution with Lamarckianism and racism, but simply characterizing their arguments as "tired" doesn't demonstrate why they're wrong. Leftists were simply stuck with a conflict between the dialectical materialism of "genetics" and the dialectical materialism of social evolution. For some reason, they imagined that free will didn't exist in the former, but did exist in the latter. I find it rather odd that "determinists" would resort to free will to defend the Marxist (r)evolution, which they considered inevitable.
TSW: "From the scientific point of view, neither the hereditarian nor the environmentalist can be correct. It is a false dichotomy."
BW: It may be a false dichotomy, but both nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) can be true. From a scientific view, you can accept genetics (not Lamarckianism) AND environment (culture) as significant factors in the development of any individual human being ... all of them to different degrees. No dualism is required or useful. There is no need to invoke the dualism of micro/macro as a criteria for deciding which emphasis is correct; even worse to invoke Baer's formula to demonstrate some universal "balance" of generic influences.
TSW: "Even Barash could see that no organism exists in the absence of an environment."
BW: Perhaps, but that blanket assertion doesn't answer the question of *which* influences dominate which human characteristics. For that, you need scientific evidence about particular causes and effects ... which may suggest human norms ... but averages say nothing about the influence of any of those factors on any particular individual.
TSW: "... ultraconservative biologist Garrett Hardin ..."
BW: Ultraconservative??!! He was a flaming leftist who should be a prime example of "overemphasizing the macrocosm". His question: ‘How do heredity and environment act together to produce the effect observed?’ may be a valid rejection of simplistic dualism, but it incorrectly assumes that all human effects are necessarily caused by both. That's practically Lamarckianism, assuming that nurture affects genetics, which is false. Nobody's skin color is affected by their cultural milieu; that's determined only by their parent's genes. Some effects are 99-1 "microcosmic" nature and some are 99-1 "macrocosmic" nurture. Finding the *cause* for distinct effects is what science is all about.
TSW: "If the heredity-environment muddle is so much a transgression of scientific method, as it certainly is ..."
BW: It will remain an unscientific muddle as long as philosophers pretend there is some "dichotomy", or that the causes of ALL effects are equally a result of both Nature AND Nurture. They aren't.
TSW: "Intelligence is a community project. If we spend our lives in a community that fosters intelligence, we become intelligent; if we spend our lives in a community that harbors ignorance, we remain ignorant."
BW: I agree with most of your commentary on intelligence, but I think this contradicts your proposition. In essence, it suggests that Nurture (culture) is 100% of intelligence and Nature (DNA) is zero. It also implies Lamarkianism, which claims that acquired traits are hereditary. As with other topics, your discussion falters on the lack of definitions for the terms you use.
1a(2): the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intelligence
In the first case, it is a human talent: the degree of ability to use reason. It isn't the degree of knowledge, nor the degree of physical ability, nor the degree of ability in any particular field of endeavor. In that sense, it is almost entirely genetic: a matter of brain functionality. Of course, all human beings have the ability (capacity) to use reason (abstract analysis), which is the "sapien" in Homo Sapien. However, I think it is well-established that it isn't equal in every individual. In the extreme, mental retardation and child prodigies are a consequence of physical characteristics in the brain, not purely qualities of their environment.
In the second case, it is an ability to apply knowledge, which is heavily influenced by environment, culture, and access to information. In this sense, it isn't just an inherent trait or talent, but the environmental opportunity to apply whatever knowledge (even meager) has been gained by instruction and investigation. That might be considered a "community project", but more often than not it's a "family project". Parents who value reason and knowledge will encourage it in their children.
However, the fundamental error in your characterization is contextual. For example, the most intelligent (by IQ tests) group of people in the world are Jewish Germans of the Ashkenazic region. That appears to be a consequence of both inherited diseases (DNA) and the peculiar economic situation of medieval Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
Whatever the initial causative factors, the "community project" wasn't entirely ethnic, it was also biologic: the most successful Ashkenazi had the most children. So, over many generations, the average intelligence in that population group exceeded worldwide norms (at least, that's the claim). That's fairly straightforward evolutionary selection. The most intelligent were the most successful and the most "prolific" (likely to produce offspring). So, it isn't purely a matter of culture, but a concurrent effect of both evolution and nurture.
I'm going to break this chapter into a third part, to deal with consciousness and sapience.
Next: The Mind-Brain Muddle
cotsw 049
GB and BW,but especially GB, this blog was incoherent. Especially for someone advocating the univironment.
ReplyDeleteThe total universe (an oscillating field)is cause and effect determined, and we all know that. So discussing heredity (genes) environment (culture, whatever) is immaterial, to add a pun to this comment.
George